what? WHAT???

AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH

More on this later
(that means we need a coffee date, Diana)

the Germans capitalize all their nouns

Punctuation and capitalization heavily influences my writing style (including my poetry), and I thought it might be nice to explain my how I use capitalization. Though this may be something commonly deciphered. Oh well.

Here are two examples:

you - referring to the other, more intimate than the use of "they." Can be either singular or plural. I like clarifying the singular and plural in my poetry, specifically.
You - pretty much always God, the ultimate other being.

love - an emotion that is inexplicable but often expresses an attachment to someone/something
Love - the ultimate love that encompasses emotion and action into the best of anything and everyone that exists in the universe. This love is the love I constantly yearn for, sometimes feeling it physically at the core of my being.

Is this silly? Maybe. But there something symbolic to me about capitalizing a word.

David Tennant

Definitely my new actor crush.

Doctor Who is on Netflix instant.
Hamlet (RSC!) is available online through PBS.
It's been a while since I've seen someone who looks that good in a suit.

Currently watching all three hours of the adaptation of Hamlet, but I must say that all I can think of is Sassy Gay Friend. Which then prompts me to laugh in the middle of his "to be or not to be" speech. Epic fail.

wrestling on the beach is fun

My arm hurts.

fin

Mid-residency review today. Let's hope Ellen doesn't dash all my hopes and dreams and crush my spirit. I doubt she will, but there's always that tiny sliver of negativity that likes to sneak in there.
I'm just so excited that this year is over and done with. Now I just need a job.

SANTA BARBARA TODAY!!

Di, are you still living there? We should hang out if you are. I'm bringing a couple of new found friends from CalArts with me and I'm going to show them the town. Wheee!!

without these, I would've just died alone, poor, and starving in a ditch

I have new glasses. Do you like them? I think they make me look like a 1950's nerd, which is certainly more awesome than my old black ones.
Praise God that someone a long time ago invented eyeglasses (and contacts!) because I would be helpless without them.

usness

This was my verification word for posting a comment on Diana's blog. "usness"

What is "usness?" Is it the sense of you and I are us and here we are as us? Can we say "we have usness" or...? Perhaps there should be an "e" -- as "e" is often forgotten (mostly with my name) -- but insert this neglected "e" near the middle until this usness is useless.

Is usness useless? But if we contemplate utility in the matter of usness, we most certainly will miss the point of usness.

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. Merry Christmas, prepare to die.

I've been noticing lately that I'm not posting all that often. So I've decided that this blog will now be the official place where I post the random shit I find on the internet. With the occasional existential poetry. Yes, this is a good plan.

And even though New Year's is still a week a way, people are already finding ways to say goodbye to the decade. One of which includes 40 Things That Were Popular at the Beginning of the Decade That Aren't Popular Anymore. It's quite funny. Go check it out. I think my favorite part is that things people were afraid of, like Anthrax and SARS, are on the list. Who even remembers if anything ever came of it? These two potential "epidemics" were sort of the reason why I didn't get a swine flu shot or a regular flu shot this year. I choose to defy mass hysteria.

And to comment on the title of this post, this is a new fun joke for Darren and I. Take the infamous phrase from the movie, replace "you killed my father" with another happier statement and voila. The best way to confuse friends. Or at least get a laugh. Or maybe just a one shoulder shake chuckle.

Merry Christmas everyone!

I think too much.


Okay, maybe only just sometimes.



Because other times,







I don't think at all.

flowing, showing, long as I can grow it

I'm tired of being blonde. I want to be a brunette again. But I also really like her hair:


I will probably do some streaks of color next. And then let it grow.

hermernermer

I want to go to Disneyland. It's been a while. And by "a while" I mean that I haven't been since May, which is a long time to an annual passholder.

I watched the first two episodes of How I Met Your Mother today. I also felt very unproductive

Wishes.

Ingrid. I wish I had a voice as beautiful as hers.
I wish that I could move to Santa Clarita now rather than later.
I wish that I had enough money to not be in a huge amount of debt by the time I leave CalArts.
I wish I had someone to chat with right now, but instead I blog to stretch out, hoping to connect with the world.
I wish that you were here with me.


Because that's all I ever really want, is to be with the people I love.

Love love love
Love me cancerously...well you know how that one goes.
----------------
Now playing: Ingrid Michaelson - Highway
via FoxyTunes

oink oink

Remember a few weeks ago when I was sick from tonsillitis? Basically, what happened is that I went to the doctor and got the antibiotics. A couple days on that and I felt loads better. And I thought that I was completely better except for the fact that my left tonsil still had a big white spot on it that wasn't going away.

:dramatic voice over: Until now...

I checked today and the white spot is gone. It has left a big gapping hole. So I'm thinking, "huh?" Why the big gapping hole? I really had no idea that something like that could happen to a tonsil. What does this mean?

It means that we are all going to die of swine flu.
Because the media told us so.

crazy beautiful -- or maybe just crazy

Tonight at good ol' B&N there was this man in his 50's who walked in the store and set off the "omg someone is stealing a book!!" alarm. I approached him, as we are trained to do, and asked him if he wanted to put what he was carrying on our scanner so they wouldn't go off went he left. He was on his cell phone and he joked with the person on the other end that the pink policewoman caught him (I was wearing a hot pink shirt). As I dealarminized his books, he said to his friend:

"Yes, she's beautiful. And what's more she's wearing a cross, which makes her even more beautiful."

I think that's one of the best compliments I've gotten in a long time. But, he was old enough to be my dad. If he hadn't said the thing about the cross, I might've thought he was a creeper.

Woot. Woot.

I did something today that I've been meaning to do for some time.

I put my Westmont alum license plate frame on my car.

Bought a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies after work.
I also did my laundry (incl. bed sheets!)
Ran errands for two hours
Rented two movies
Spent at least an hour browsing CalArts' theatre website
Bought lots of fruit and veggies for a yummy dinner
Sang along to a lovely jazz playlist I put together about a year and a half ago but rarely listen to

And I felt happy...

It seems to be a rarer emotion for me nowadays. I did things today. I didn't just sit around staring at the air (or random fb pages).

Did I mention that I have the house to myself this weekend? My mom and sister went to Colorado for the weekend (they are thinking about moving to Colorado -- crazy!), where they were promptly met by a blizzard. I think I feel happier because as much as I love my mom, I don't like living here. Because she still likes me to check in with her when it comes to my whereabouts. And in general I feel guilty for forgetting to take out the trash. I just need a little independence.

I like this song. It makes me want to fall in love. Or go to Paris. However, considering past experiences -- it's probably better that I go to Paris.

I'm tired. Goodnight.

hmmmm

Now that we have a president in office who is more technologically literate there are interesting things happening, like a blog, YouTube vids, etc. One that has recently captured my attention is this Open For Questions business. My first reaction is that this is a really cool idea! You can ask the President questions and also vote on which questions you want to hear answers about and he'll actually answer them. Wow. Impressive, right?

Except for one thing. You have to create an account (as if I wasn't already signed up for a hundred other things that I didn't really want). Call me paranoid, but I feel like this is one more way that the government is able to keep tabs on us. A username, password, email address, zip code and IP address. Hmmm. Standard for pretty much every site.

I understand that signing up for an account with Open For Questions helps moderate the site and keeps spammers away. That's a very legit reason. And why is it that I feel a little uncertain about signing up with just my zip code and email when a couple handfuls of websites have my home address and PayPal, Amazon, eBay, Kiva and a number of other sites all have my credit card numbers? Do I even need to go into the whole debacle of the ridiculous copyright rules of posting photos on facebook or the fact that almost every college student in America probably lists their cell phone number too?

We, Americans, protect our privacy almost religiously, yet we give our information quite freely to the internet. Compare us to other countries, say the UK, where billions of pounds are spent every year on CCTV, and it doesn't seem quite as odd. The average person in the UK may be caught on camera 300 times a day.

And then we blog. Letting some of the most private thoughts out in the open, hoping that one person will comment and say "I agree with you!" as if that really justifies our existence in the world.

Strange we become when given this medium of global communication.

pedochlophobia

I'm not sure if that is an actual word, but I'm starting it right now.

Pedophobia: fear of children
Ochlophobia: fear of large crowds

Therefore, pedochlophobia would be a fear of large crowds of children, which might be what I have been suffering from for the past year and probably still do.

It was last year that I worked at Cold Spring School day care whilst babysitting rich Montecito children wherever I could find them just to pay my rent before I went to Israel. And it was then that I began a sort of disgust for children in general. I know that sounds harsh, but if you had to deal with the crap that I dealt with from these kids...ay, Dios mio.

Recently, I've come around. This past year, I've spent plenty of time questioning whether or not I even wanted to have children if I ever got married. But now I'm thinking that I do. I know that I can't handle having any kids any time soon, because I'm not willing to make that kind of life sacrifice yet. I'm going to grad school and I'd like a few years of theatre experience under my belt before I'd make that kind of commitment to teach another human being how to live and grow. It's the teaching soul within me that wants to instill some ideology in a young brain. Just not a classroom of young brains. I'd shoot myself in the foot before I'd attempt that. And in all likelihood, any ideology I'd instill in a young brain would eventually be rejected in favor of the newer ideas that he/she discovered while in college. At least that's what happened to me, well, mostly. But this is a multi-faceted issue. There's also a fear of completely screwing up the child. There's the fear that my possible husband would screw up my child and I would be powerless to do anything about it. There's a fear of having a child who enjoys disobedience.

But a fear of large crowds of children. That is still there. I will never willingly step foot onto an elementary school campus for many many years. I like kids when there's just one or two of them because they are cute that way. But anything more than that and I want to run away. Maybe like a fear of responsibility?

In other news: Kelly Clarkson's new album is FANTASTIC. Ryan Tedder co-wrote a couple songs with her (like my favorite "Already Gone") and produced a good chunk of the album. I am in love with Ryan Tedder's music, so it makes me very very happy. Katy Perry also wrote two of the songs on the album. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but they are pretty catchy tunes, like most of her stuff.

that which we call red by any other name

I often like to ask people what their favorite alcoholic drinks are. I think it says something about the person. I don't know what it says, but it's more like an intuitive knowledge about a person.

I have two favorites: Pinot Noir and Sour Apple Martinis.

I like Appletinis because they taste so good and they are so sweet. And there's an emotional tie because it was the first drink my sister bought for me as a 21 year old.

I like Pinot Noir because...because it's smooth. It's not overly tangy like some reds. It has more fruit flavors to savor, especially in comparison to Cabernet. The good Pinots are simply fantastic beyond comprehension.

What's your favorite?

I want to dance

Shake It Up Dance Studio offers the best prices here in town.

$65/hr for private lessons

Truth be told, I need private lessons. I went to a couple of weeks of a group lesson a few months ago. It was Intermediate Lindy and I was so incredibly bored. I knew basically everything they taught. They don't teach advanced group classes. The nice thing about the group lessons is that they are $50/6 week class.

I want to dance. I want to improve upon my Lindy and East Coast. I want to learn West Coast. AND I want to tango. I really want to learn to how to tango. Like everything there is to know about the tango. I think that would be just about the coolest thing ever. I've got the Waltz and Foxtrot down, so the ballroom basics give me a great starting place.

four men

Today certainly ended up being an interesting day in Lynne-land.

I was woken up at 7:30 this morning and one of my managers at B&N wanted to know if I wanted to come in at 10am to do an 8-hour shift. Mind you, I hadn't gone to bed til 2:30 that night. In my foggy non-morning oriented mind, I agreed, which I was regretting an hour later when my alarm went off to tell me to get ready to go. I really shouldn't be trusted to make decisions in the morning.

In this 8-hour shift that I magically got myself through, some interesting things happened:

1) A guy from Austria bought a book about Film Festivals. When I asked for his ID for a credit card purchase, the woman he was with had translate what I said. He seemed to know English well enough to say "I am from Austria. This is my traveller's license." He then pulled out this slip of pink cardstock that looked all official and stuff. On the inside was all the identification I need including a picture that looked like he cut it out of one of his family albums. I love it when foreigners come to the store. It's so fascinating and just makes me want to go visit their native country.

2) Another man that I rung up simply defied the conventional standard for Redlands. He was probably in his mid to late eighties, he walked with a cane, and adorably donned a fedora that looked like it came straight from the 40's. I was a little shocked by his selection: a book on gay culture in art, a book about contemporary gay culture, and two books of gay erotica that unapologetically had men with big guns and six packs displayed on the covers. It was fascinating, because this man didn't look anything like the two most prominent gay stereotypes of bear or flamboyant. I couldn't help but smile.

3) The third man of the evening that purchased books from me was a sight to see. He caught my eye immediately because he was an exact replica of Matt Kletzing, if Matt were 45 years old, 2 inches shorter, and 50 pounds heavier. The hair was EXACTLY THE SAME. And his face shape and facial bone structure were eerily similar. It was weird.

4) I had this conversation with my coworker, Drew, as I was clocking out.
"Are you leaving?" he asks.
"Yup."
"But, but...I need you. To survive."
"I don't think anyone has ever said that to me before"
He laughs, "What? You think I'm - "
"Completely full of BS. Yeah."
"Well, I'm full of a lot of other things too."
I cringe, "You know, I could take that as quite innocent or as really really sketchy."
"Oh definitely sketchy."
"Well, I usually do."
"Good."
I start to walk away.
"See you later," he says.
"I hope you survive."