Today I: can't get anything done to save my life.

And by anything I mean cleaning, cooking, laundrying, homeworking, or anything.

Fantastic: Lily Allen, and her pop/reggae/The Streets-type rapping & British accent.
Fantastically devlish: The combination of a Mocha Frappucino and Double Chocolate muffin for lunch. Oh!

Oh, also, my senior history thesis/life/desktop is dedicated to this image:
Dennis Hopper's portrait of a studly Ed Ruscha in the 1960s.

i will dress your eyelids

I haven't written in a long time and I think maybe that's a big problem. I've been writing in online journals since 1999 and I think this is the longest spell I've gone without writing in anything. This past month and a half back at school has been a little disconcerting. It's not exactly how I thought it would be: 'displaced' is the word I have been using the most. It's not that I'm sad. It's not that I'm not happy to be here. I'm just not quite all here yet. Something is upsetting me.

One of those things, I discovered a couple nights ago, is the thing that is boredom. I get really stressed out when I'm bored/wasting time/not being productive. Although I have several fantastic classes, it's what I do when I'm not doing those classes that upsets me. Usually this involves sitting around, going on the internet, or sleeping.

So, adendum 1: do stuff that makes me feel good(creative).

I am in Chinese I. I get to make all these jokes about getting in touch with my roots and crap like that. I get to talk to my dad in Mandarin on the phone and repeat everything I say ('What is your honorable family surname?' 'Same as yours.' 'No, Dad, answer the question in a sentence. What is your honorable family surname?' 'Fong.' 'FIINE.') five times. Then he says something back which has nothing to do with what I've learned (introducing myself, talking about my family, the date and time, and general hobbies) and asks if I know what he said and I say of course not and get flustered and say 'XAI JIAN!' which is 'goodbye' but ANGRY. Also I am angry because Chinese I got really hard in the third week and I'm not one of the people he calls on anymore because I'm reliable.

I am also in painting, which is pretty great, because I feel fairly competent, much more so thatn I did in the drawing class. Painting is more interpreative; you can say you are going for a style, superflat, like the Fauves, maybe, when you can't get perspective quite right.

Then there is the Norm Rosenberg class. I sit in the front row with the boys and watch old film clips. Then there is the senior history seminar in which I have to write a big fat paper that I'm constantly doing half-assed research although a first draft is due at the end of the month.

That is my life. Also, I need a foam thingy for my bed and yesterday Dashiell sat on my lap for 45 minutes while I played on the computer.

So, you were right. Thinking the world is full of evil and violence and nothing else - and talking about it seriously and fiercely - it's depressing. I find that, growing up with no politics in the house at all, my opinions in these areas are far from well-informed, more like a child's conception of what it's like to be a grown-up. So more frustrating than my inability to be able to argue anything effectively or have the energy to try to argue anything effectively, is having to listen to my mother, her voice suddenly hard and bitter with frightening conviction, tell me that she has no need for the real world, a world filled with unending hate and violence. This bitterness is scary, it's unlike her, and more than anything I feel that she is unjustified, since she never talked to me about politics and the World, in General, and doesn't seem to know any more than me about the World, in General, than what pops up on her welcome screen when she checks her email, to argue so strongly on the subject.

I find myself frantically scrambling for rebuttals to her statements and I find, pleasantly, that they come easily. But there is so much good, I say. There is so much bad, but so much good. And the real world for you, mother, is full of good. And for me, it's full of good. And for the last couple years, it is filled to the brim with so much good that I really can't believe that I can say, fiercely, much like you, that I would rather be nobody else and that I am content, relaxed, willing to pursue this little life I'm living. So much of life is so good - so many things add up to made a life 'good' - why not just concentrate on those?

What do they call us? The kids who were born in the mid-80s, but who were a bit too young to say we were part of the 80s culture but distinctly remember the shows and toys of the early 90s? Television, no matter how adamant you are about how it is ruining society, children, the world, blah blah blah, is here to stay and it is a major, if not one of the biggest, measuring utensils of pop culture. It creates instant conversation. Because everybody is happy to talk about their childhood. Everybody lights up when you mention a TV show they used to watch. TRY IT. I'm pretty sure even the laaamest looking people will feel something. Unless, for instance, the kids who missed out on TV when they were little who feel nothing when I type (and, to be clear, it's not their fault: I'm sure they have maaaaany other things to talk about..): Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Inspector Gadget, TaleSpin, Dinosaurs, Tiny Toons, Rocko's Modern Life, Chip 'N Dale Rescue Rangers, Alex Mack, Hey Dude!, Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, Pete & Pete, Clarissa Explains it All, G.U.T.S., and my personal favorite kiddy gameshow: Legends of the Hidden Temple.

My brother and I recently discovered we were finally getting Nickolodeon GaS (Games and Sports) on our digital cable and with that came days of nothing but G.U.T.S., Legends, Double Dare, and a couple other really lame game shows that we never watched. When I last watched these shows, really watched them, I think I was still fantasizing about what path I'd take in the temple and debating with my brother whether I'd want to go into the temple first (and risk getting scared twice by those facepainted temple guards, especially if they were hiding in the tree and wrapped their branch-arms around you) or second. I think I thought that the Agro Crag was still pretty impressive and that I'd have a hard time getting up the "LIVING BREATHING MOUNTAIN" (today my brother and I searched for 'agro crag' on Ebay. No kids are selling it....YET.) It's a little like Disneyland, when you start to see the ceilings and you realize that the rain in the Tiki Room is made of mylar string and effective strobe lights. Except Disneyland is expertly made, and these are crappy TV shows.

If you want me to demonstrate how crappy and low-budget these shows are, take one of today's episodes of 'Legends.' The show (if you were one of those deprived early 90s children), starts off with six teams and after the first challenge (crossing the MOAT) only four teams are left. Today, the two teams that were out first received a few of these as their consolation prize:
CANS OF TUNA. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS. 'WE GOT SPONSORSHIP FROM CHICKEN OF THE SEA!!' YES, GREAT, CONSOLATION PRIZES!! 'BUT DOUBLE DARE IS GIVING OUT COMPUTER GAMES!' 'NO, WE TRIED THAT ALREADY. WE GOT THE TUNA THAT'S GOOD ENOUGH.'

This is really the entire punch line of this post - the entire reason for it to exist. But, as I thought about the tuna (and the look on the kids faces as they returned to their parents in the audience with their hands full of cans of tuna), I thought about how deliriously happy I am to watch these old episodes of the over-dramatic G.U.T.S. and recycled challenges of 'Legends' (including knocking down a lot of cardboard cutouts), and not much brings back the unbridled joy of childhood nostalgia like these do. What makes this really special, however, is the fact that I can share it with my little brother, who, six years younger than me, would never have come across them on his own, but because I was there watching them, he gets just as giddy as me. I remember several times when we created our own temple in our empty living room...with chairs, boxes, whatever we could find, and for five inspired minutes, I want to do it all over again. Get the cardboard and we can make ancient Inca warrior cardboard cutouts and we can hang you in a potato sack over that stair railing and I can push you and make you knock over those Inca warriors. But then I realize it's noon and I'm still in fleece pants and my hair is dirty and really, I don't want to crawl through things anymore. But we came *that* close.

My brother scored two goals today in his soccer tournament. I beat four Zoo Tycoon scenarios. My mom took me shopping for new bras and new shoes, also scrapbook materials, and I don't 'do' scrapbooks. Summer has morphed into something completely separate from what it used to be. Summer used to be either more fun, more ice skating, or more work. This time, and in a sense, last time, summer is now more waiting. Lots of people I know haven't spent more than a coupel weeks at their 'hometown' houses for a few years now. This still feels like home when I get here - probably because my little brother is keeping it in tact. And I will never be here, at my desk, waiting to get tired at 12:38am, waiting to hit the road to go back to school, ever again.

My life: Super Donkey Kong, on Super Nintendo Famicom.

I suppose I also did a little travelling, lots of highway driving all around SoCal, a jaunt down to San Diego and Tijuana, and a few days at Disneyland, but right now all I can concentrate on is beating Super Donkey Kong.

More than I love the fact that I have been deaf in my left ear for the last five days, more than I love my new European dresses, more than I love the fabulous weekend I just spent in Utah with my old girl-friends, is my little brother who left four ridiculous notes in places around my room while I was gone.

"Sheep man was here" tacked onto my window (referring to 'The Twilight Zone' episode with William "There's a man out there!" Shatner).

"'Next up Peter Griffin and Brain.' Well, we're off to a great start" referring to a recent episode of 'Family Guy' and my brother Brian's frighteningly common problem tacked onto the back of one of my dresses in my closet.

"Talk about MY big poops. Speak for yourself" on my sheets when I pulled back my covers.

"You aren't here to read a note under your pillow" under my pillow.

This all stems from some Disney Channel segment we saw several years ago where the stars of the Disney Channel talk about their feelings and other important things like how much they like to read and all the issues that the 12-year old stars have with romance. In this particular segment, one of them was speaking about her sister and how if either of them had anything serious they needed to talk about they would stick notes under each others pillows. Often Brian and I would refer to sticking notes under each others pillows, but this marks the first summer we actually left them there.

Being deaf in my left ear makes me feel strangely imcompetent in all other areas of life. Not only can I not hear and I think I've uttered 'What?' more than I did all of last year (and that is not a small number), I also have problems registering my surroundings when I look around, spelling, forming complete sentences, and ordering food at counters.

If you ever want to be overrun by bandits,
To hand over all your things and start over new,
While we were out hunting for food, our house being robbed,
I caught an apple and she caught a fox,
Then I caught a rabbit but she caught an ox.
So we turned and found everything gone,
Which for us wasn't a loss
We started over with a rabbit and an ox.
- Midlake

My life, post-London, begins with eating out a lot because my mom is too lazy to cook and now that I don't have to, I am too. It begins with cleaning out closet space, cleaning out space, realizing that this is the last summer I'll be home for any lengthy amount of time, and even this summer, it totals only a month. California begins finally with a short road trip with my little brother, him playing gameboy while I'm exclaiming, Oh look Brian, look how pretty the sun is over there, look at how gorgeous those mountains are, because I've got to say these things out loud to remember, or to discover, that I am happy to be here, in a car, in the middle of nowhere, instead of over there, on my feet, in the middle of a living, breathing, always moving, city of the world.