only when i stop to think about it, i hate everything about you

i have a love-hate relationship with contacts. except that there is very little love and a whole lot of hate. so, really, i guess you could say that i hate contacts. i really, really, really hate contacts. have you ever had to wear a contact with a tear in it for hours because you are at school and are blind without it and have no other choice? no? well let me just tell you that it is the most irritating thing ever. ev-er. that little kid who is constantly coughing in the airplane seat behind you and has taken it upon himself to break the world record for the number of times one can kick the seat in front of him on a thirteen hour flight? he doesn't even come close. contacts also have this thing they like to do where they will dry out exactly six seconds after you put them in your eye. they think it's funny, but it's not. not at all. and then sometimes, they like to mess with your head. you'll look at the contact sitting there on the tip of your finger and it will be perfectly fine, but somehow on the short trip from fingertip to eyeball, it flips inside out and throws on an eyelash coat. and then you're sitting there blinking like crazy trying to figure out what went wrong. sometimes it burns. and then there are the times where it decides to fold in half while it is still in your effing eye and you're not exactly sure what's happened, but one second you can see and then suddenly you can't. and it just sits there tucked away under your eyelid laughing at you. let's not even get into the times it just jumps out of your eye for no good reason. they really are obnoxious.

oh, and they also give me killer headaches. the jerks. and yes, i do realize the sheer amazingness that comes from the ability to correct my horrific eyesight with a tiny piece of plastic. no, that does not make me less inclined to hate them. 

"quit complaining and just stop wearing them," you may say. if only it were that simple. see, without contacts, i have two choices: glasses or surgery. glasses are my corrective measure of choice in the house, but unless it is one of those very rare days where both the weather and my hair are exactly perfect, i can tolerate them even less than contacts outside. aside from rain on glasses lenses and them steaming up so fast after stepping out of an air conditioned car into the heat that you are pretty much blind, they are just so annoying to wear when you're also covering your hair. cold weather leads to staticky hair and staticky scarves that are like bratty little kids who will not just sit next to each other in the car and shut up already. the hair is constantly trying to escape and the scarf is doing some weird stuff, and the glasses just make fixing everything every three seconds that much worse. (similar situations arise from different weather conditions.) now, even if i wasn't pretty terrified of eye correcting surgery, my eye doctor has told me on several occasions that, because of my terrible eyesight and its insistence on getting regularly worse, i'll probably still end up wearing glasses or contacts after any laser fixing magic. and i am not going to go through everything just so i can be in the exact same situation i am in right now, thank you very much. 

so i stick with the contacts, and hate them desperately. i really do hate them. so much. 

*I Hate Everything About You - Three Days Grace

and i won't forget you. at least, i'll try

so yesterday my family (or part of it) and i went out to the national harbor for my husband's last graduation of the season. (i tell you, graduation season drags on forever for us.) it was nice, and i wish i had actually written this blog post last night like i meant to because it already feels like years ago and parts of it are fuzzy. lesson learned: my memory sucks and/or i suck at blogging and/or i was drugged. since i didn't eat or drink anything there, though, the last one is a little far-fetched.

i did see a friend from school that i haven't seen in years, and i mean years and years. not any high school friend that i graduated with but someone from the years when my cheeks were still super chubby and i was too shy to talk to anyone. it always surprises me when people recognize me slash remember me. i know that sounds really self-deprecating, but like the narrator of the princess bride, i rate high on forgetability. i just don't feel like i make a lasting impression on people, and the fact that most people who do "recognize" me are mistaking me for my younger sister just goes to prove my point. i'm mostly completely okay with it. when someone remembers me from the days where i was making it my personal goal to be the most wallflowerish wallflower in history... well, i find it both shocking and kind of amazingly awesome. 

there was also a point in the ceremony, when they were drawing names for free airplane tickets, where we were all very suddenly evacuated from the building. since that very morning i had been making comments about how the people staying at the hotel must have been freaking out because it was so overrun with saudis, my mind immediately went to either a) someone threatened the room's safety somehow (a history of bomb threats being made to my grade school led to this one) or b) something happened to the hotel and we were all going to be blamed because why wouldn't they blame the congregation of saudis? did you not watch what happened with the boston bombing? anyway, it wasn't long before we were let back in, but i never did find out exactly what happened. some people were speculating that the fire alarm went off again (there was an incident that morning where someone was stupidly smoking in the hotel and set off the fire alarm), but no one could confirm it. i'm a very curious person and would still like to know. 

events like this always fill me with a love/hate thing for saudis (and arabs in general). i mean, on the one hand, i really do think it's great that they can hold on to their culture (while still experiencing the new culture and assimilating without giving up their identity) and everyone seems so genuinely proud of their country and achievements that it's infectious. on the other hand, there are some extremely judgey and stuck up people (like the woman i had never seen before who very openly pointed me out to her friend while whispering something before they proceeded to laugh at me. i mean, who does that?) that make me remember why i never really feel like i fit in with them in the first place. ah, the joys of having a foot in two cultures and never really being fully in either one. 

anyway, it was a fun day overall and now i am off to read. (i have a list of books i'm trying to get through before my family leaves the country, because once they're gone i'm planning on taking a few book-free weeks to really get my novel edited. i doubt i'll get through them all, but here's to hoping.)

*Everything Will Be Alright - The Killers

you're losing your touch

[one] my faith in the publishing world has begun to fade a bit. are inconsistencies the new thing? do editors actively try to leave in as many of them as possible to make sure the reader is paying attention and/or to annoy the reader to death? does the author add them in at the end, a finishing touch like the chef's parsley on a plate? to be honest, i think i prefer those scenarios to the more likely truth that they are just not getting the editing attention that they need or the editors/authors are not giving each book their all. it bugs me a bit to think that i'm supposed to invest my time and money (most of the time) in something that they didn't care enough about to fix. and then there is the possibility that i have just become the pickiest of all readers lately. i'm starting to think that i may be more suited for the role of editor than the role of author.

[two] a couple of years ago, my youngest brother got very into dragons. (sidenote: while reading over this i somehow read that he got very into drugs and had a "wait! what?" moment) an interest i fully supported, having had my own obsession with them during my childhood and still liking them quite a bit. the interest has only grown, and the other day my grandma bought him an encyclopedia of dragons. it had information on different breeds and their locations, why some of them died out, how long it takes an egg to hatch, the skeletal/digestive/circulatory systems of dragons, etc. as he was excitedly going through the book, making excited comments like "did you know that a dragon can spot treasure from 60,000 feet away? wow!" my sister and i started making whispered comments to each other like, "wait... does he think dragons are real?" later, my grandmother told us that she was wondering the same thing. i mean, the way he talks about them, it really seems like he believes in them, and none of us want to ask him because if he does, well, we're a family that doesn't like to squash the imagination. maybe he thinks that they're like the dinosaurs, real but extinct. either way, you can't prove a negative so for all we know, they might be. 

[three] i was listening to the radio yesterday and some guy was talking about mosquitoes and said that mosquitoes are attracted to dirty socks. basically, the dirtier your socks are, the more likely you are going to be bitten. i'm not sure how much i believe that, but instead of double-checking and getting my facts straight, i'm just going to share it as a piece of interesting and disgusting news. 

*The Diver - Stellastar*

and nothing ever happens 'round here

i have several issues with cassandra clare and her writing, but after finally finishing the fifth book (and last one that's out) of the mortal instruments, i am a little sad that i will be saying goodbye to her poorly developed characters and inconsistent descriptions, at least for a while. and i understand why her books are number one new york times' bestsellers. (i would like to point out that just because i understand something does not mean that i necessarily agree with it. it also doesn't mean that i put any stock in the idea that a bestseller is a good book. case in point: i understand why 50 shades is a bestseller, but the fact still makes me want to pull my hair out and stick a spork in my eye. the fact that it became the most sold paperback ever in no way makes me think that it is a good book.) i mean, i'm not running out to buy the fanfiction that she's published of her work and passing off as original series and short stories, but you know, i think i'm going to miss them.

before i start her actual fanfiction, i won an advanced reader copy of chose the wrong guy, gave him the wrong finger that i need to read and review. and do you not think that that title is awesome? i am the absolute worst at thinking up titles, and these witty title makers make me jealous. but in a good way.

i have no idea what i have actually posted these past few days and what i have drafted as a work in progress, but a basic review of my life since semester ended: well, the semester ended. i got my grades, and no rants are necessary. my grandmother came down from connecticut. we all went to my husband's graduation which was much smaller and way more personal than mason graduations. it was also the first graduation that wasn't mine since my younger sister graduated high school in oh-eight. there has been a lot of family time sitting around doing nothing, family book shopping, and family lunches out. there has been a lot of me carrying around books but not actually reading them for days at a time, and then there was me staying up way too late last night to finish the city of lost souls. aaaand that's about it. i obviously live a very thrilling life that everyone is extremely jealous of, i know.

*Nothing Ever Happens Around Here - Chris de Burgh

well, i'm ready

i spent all day yesterday holed up in a campus library study group with a study partner (at times we were a trio), a bag of krispy kreme crullers, and my beauty and the beast lunchbox thermos filled with black tea with mint. and by all day i mean from ten in the morning to eight:thirty when we had to call it a night because our brains were so exhausted that they could barely remember how to walk to our cars. don't even ask how i drove home because my body went on auto-pilot and i do not remember. if i do not get the highest of all a's in tonight's final, well... let's just say that you should probably prepare yourself for some angry grade ranting. (which you may get anyway for the final i had on wednesday that i got an 82 on. an 82! and my grade may or may not have dropped to a b because of it. the last time i got a b was my second year of undergrad. if this is not some kind of mistake (i got hundreds on all four assignments and an a on the midterm. so not fair) then i will be here ranting about what i just told you.) admittedly, the last time i studied really hard for anything (remember the security qualifying exam that i swore never to speak of again? yeah, that.), i ended up having to leave three fifths of the test completely blank because i did not even know enough to bs some answers. that was fun. yes, i passed it, but still. not the best experience of my life.

but back to this test. i was really not planning to study this much for it, but then one thing led to another and now i have far too much invested in a final. i will no longer be content with any a for this grade. if there is a minus someone will die. if there is no plus, someone will have to deal with an hour long rant. things just got serious.

on a different note, more jane austen goodies came in the mail last night from my grandma. (it's always fun when packages come from someone who is now fifteen minutes away from you.) there is a jane austen quote necklacce thing which is pretty, and the jane austen handbook: proper life skills for regency england. i am excited for when i actually have time to read through this. there are sections on how to ride sidesaddle and what to wear for morning dress, evening dress, and undergarments. i will also learn how to pay a morning call and how to avoid dancing with an undesirable partner at a ball. i'll let you know what i learn.

*So Much - The Spill Canvas

let's waste time

finals week. and i do not want to study. so obviously it becomes imperative to find time to blog because blogging is super important and neglecting my blog is just awful. blogging is so important, in fact, that it is my number one priority. really. who cares if i pass another batch of classes if my poor blog goes unupdated? (let's pretend that once a week updates has not become the norm here. let's pretend that these are the days when i would update daily. or better yet, the days that i would post multiple times a day.)

so my grandma is in town again, and that is always fun. of course, it would be more fun if it was not finals week, but that's what next week is for. familial gathering and enjoyment of the schoollessness of summer. (except that i have to figure out a bunch of school related stuff this summer and get my act together, but that can wait until the week after next week.) my grandma is awesome, and we share some sort of telepathic connection, i swear. for example, remember way back when when i said i wanted those novel posters that reproduced the text of a work into some design? well, the delivery man just delivered the pride and prejudice one to my house. it was a gift from my grandma, and i never even told her that i wanted it. this isn't the first time that she's done this, either. one of the teapots she got me when i got married was one that i was drooling over online for months.

i am still reading cassandra clare, and she and her editor should be stoned. there is not much that i can not tolerate in writing, but inconsistencies make me suddenly want to do strange things like drive my fist through a wall and egg people's houses. i'm not talking about those inconsistencies like when your super clumsy protagonist suddenly moves with all the grace of a ballerina when the need arises. i'm talking about when you make a big deal about a character's bright yellow pajamas and then somehow forget that he's wearing yellow pajamas and describe him as wearing striped pajamas in the next scene. or when you spend a paragraph talking about how a character was not wearing makeup and how she looked younger and her eyes looked bigger and blah blah blah, but somehow in the process of her moving from the window to the bed, her eyes become smudged with mascara making her look like a french model slash actress. things like that distract me. they pull me out of the story and ruin any momentum that you were building. i don't like it, and someone should catch them before the book becomes a best-seller. there are other things that have started to annoy me about clare, but if i started with those i would never stop typing. and i do eventually need to get to a final exam. maybe even study for it.

also, reading all the stuff about the harry potter fandom has made me really want to read fanfiction, and i am adding hours of fanfiction reading to my summer to-do list. another thing, netflix kind of really sucks. a bunch of the titles that i was planning on watching over summer were suddenly taken down in their recent "let's lose 1800 titles" thing. i mean, i know that it is less netflix's fault and more the fault of the stupid copyright holders who want to start their own streaming services and charge us directly to watch their titles so that eventually we'll be paying for twelve different streaming services or watching everything illegally, but it's easier to blame netflix. so netflix sucks.

*Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

what did you do today? i did nothing

so my to-do list for today included things like "finally clean the freaking apartment because it's getting gross" and "finish the stupid schoolwork that i've been putting off" and "start washing the mountain of laundry in the bedroom because i need clean clothes." but my sister called and invited me to lunch with a friend at eleven and then we hung out pretty much all day because, well, sister or cleaning? not a difficult decision. i did take a shower, though, and finally got around to checking out the library by my apartment (which i fell in love with) so i mean, i'm writing it off as a pretty productive afternoon.

now that i am on my own again, the responsible thing for me to do would be to finish the last project i have for this semester and then at least do some preliminary cleaning so that tomorrow i can study for my quiz without feeling like the mess is going to attack me, but i finally have the fifth book of the mortal instruments series and i think i should finish it because commitment and stuff. also, however many years ago 1998 was today, the Battle of Hogwarts happened and Voldemort was killed and not in some deserted area but in the middle of the Great Hall and he didn't turn into ash and fly away because that was just awkward and stupid and people getting too excited with their CGI nonsense when someone should have told them to stop it already, and the end of evil should definitely be celebrated by blog posts and run-on sentences because why not? we should also be sad that remus died because he was pretty awesome. also, he was a werewolf, and i've kind of always had a thing for werewolves. and in this story that my friend and i wrote in high school, i ended up married to remus so we're pretty much family and you should mourn the death of family.

also, i really do not want to do any schoolwork. i am ready for this semester to be over. this semester should be over. can we just call it summer break  already?

*Never Miss a Beat - Keiser Cheifs