Also, LEARN RADIO!

Haha! Unhappy Hipsters [At right: You can come out when you can properly explain the differences between Modern architecture and postmodern ornamentation] is a collection of photos from the pages of Dwell magazine, with the discontented captions they appear to have been waiting their whole lives for. [Link from Ouno Design.]

On my brain's to do list: dream of spring [and specifically, how to eliminate all the grass from my front yard], buy a netbook, change around my interfaces [rendering them temporarily more confusing but, hopefully, permanently more efficient], compile a home emergency kit, find old ads from Popular Science magazine on google books and use them as my desktop wallpaper [at left: LEARN RADIO!], collect those all-consuming frost badges, read the entire blog archives of YA author Maureen Johnson, make something. Toward this end, at lunchtime I went and bought some nice new fine-tip Sharpies. Sometimes all I need to see the world in a new way is some new pens.

Finally, one note from Avatar that did not warrant its own entry.
1. unobtainium? really? You guys know you didn't make that up, right? I felt like they meant to substitute a different word in the script before they actually shot that scene, but then they couldn't think of anything.

It's Monday, but I am still alive

and believe me I am still alive
I'm doing science and I'm still alive
I feel fantastic and I'm still alive
while you're dying I'll be still alive
and when you're dead I will be still alive
still alive
still alive...

Daylight Savings Time is killing me, dudes. I woke up this morning and it was dark and I wanted to die. I had T-Ho's but it was like a tiny drop of water (the coffee) in a giant ocean of despair (my exhaustion). That was a metaphor with handy references!

There are no links today, no jokes, no the internet. Only darkness. And bottles of headache-combating water. Oh, and I started watching the first season of Big Love last night and it is pretty good. So I've got that. (Why are all HBO shows approximately 35-40% better than normal TV?)

I hope I never find out who broke your heart...

Not to go into too much self-pitying detail, but I had one of those weekends where you sleep on a camping mattress on the floor and lose (brutally) at Scattergories and wake up Monday morning with a cold.

The DVD-pickins are a little slim around here, but I'm thinking of watching The Departed tonight, maybe the rest of Fraggle Rock season 1, ordeirng pizza, and crying. It's a scooters kind of day, for sure.

----------------
Currently listening to: Tegan and Sara - Living Room
via FoxyTunes

And complain no one ever calls you

I am not having a very good day. I'm stressed out about my presentation tomorrow morning, and my job interview tomorrow afternoon. I feel suddenly, painfully inadequate. Plus I just found out that one of the people who will be job-intervieweing me is also coming to my presentation, "so you can consider that part of your interview." PLUS I am having dumb, printer-driver-installation tasks delegated to me. The only thing that would make me feel better is ordering a bunch of clothes on the internet, and I can't even do that because I don't have any money (see job interview, above). Plus my boyfriend is gone to San Jose, so if you've been waiting to make a move on me, now's your chance, but no one will--see woefully inadequate, above.

Not even saying "Chimo" is going to make me feel better. I'm going to sit at my desk and sulk.

My aspirations, such as they are.

I arrived at the university this morning, and from my position in the Tim Horton's line I could see the lush green of Quad, nearly empty, and dramatic charcoal-gray skies overhead, and I realized I wanted nothing more than to walk out into quad, lie on the grass in my dumb work outfit, and wait for it to rain on me. Then I would take off my shoes, walk home across the high-level bridge, shivering and wet, and curl up on my couch and watch the last three discs of Season 1 of Lost, all in a row. It's not like my dreams are unachievable--usually they're so small.

Instead I got my coffee and bagel and came to work and sat down in front of my computer. And in a moment I shall load Outlook Mail, and then the day will fall into place in front of me.

you may or may not consider personal

So, it's a little late for Easter-themed blog updates, but this is too good to pass up: marshmallow peeps in various humorous situations. And with a surprising amount of pathos--or is that just me?

My Facebook status says "Jocelyn is discontented," and I think that pretty much sums it up. Although I did just get a copyright permission in my inbox, so that is something.

I'm going to watch Friends with Money, a movie that helps me to articulate all my disorientation.

Sure-fire signs that I am having a bad day

1. I cut my hair on a whim. I had a dream last night that I cut my hair, and I woke up, and I was like, I should cut my hair! And then I DID. That's what passes for inspiration these days, folks.


2. I got said hair cut at West Edmonton Mall, and it cost $18, and when I paid for it, the woman told me, "You need your eyebrows waxed," and offered to wax them for a few dollars extra. Like I am some kind of body-hair pity case. What happened to the customer always being right? When I told her that I didn't want my eyebrows waxed, she sort of scrutinized me, as if she were trying to figure out of I was ignorant, miserly, or just retarded.


3. With said hair cut I now look exactly, and I do mean EXACTLY, the way I did in fifth grade. Except in fifth grade I was not allowed to have my nose pierced, and to tell you the truth, I don't think the thought would have even occurred to me at the time.


4. I accidentally wrote a whole paper on the wrong topic. I am not kidding.


5. I went to this information session about job interviews today, and I realized, as if it was a message from God (*Zoolander talking into his tiny phone* "God?") that I am never going to get a job. My pre-workshop idealism and ignorance were far preferable to the state of career-related misery in whcih I now find myself.


6. On the way to West Edmonton Mall, on the bus, enroute (unbeknownst to me) to be verbally abused my a Chinese woman with bouffant blonde hair, there was a very old man. He was a thousand years old. He wanted to get off downtown, but the bus was an SuperExpress bus, and they never stop. He had to go all the way to the west end because he could not get off the bus. (a)I felt sorry for him, and this made me depressed. (b) Then I realized that the ancient man who cannot get the bus to stop is like a metaphor for my entire life. (c) Then I felt sorry for myself, and also like I was being sort of melodramatic and Mariah-Carey-ish.


7. I am watching Mysterious Skin, and it's good except it's very upsetting. And for the past three days I have been walking around feeling sort of dirty and sad, thinking about sexual abuse, in this kind of sexual-abuse-funk. If you have never had that feeling, let me tell you: it is not a good one.

Making this list relieved 12% of my self-pity but only 4% of my inner turmoil.

everybody knows that you've been faithful, give or take a night or two

And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when youve done a line or two...
-everybody knows, leonard cohen

I am having one of those days, the days that are traditionally referred to in my family (copyright violation aside) as terrible, horrible, no-good very bad days. They delivered the wrong pizza, and the wrong armed services editions! I am writing an unwriteable paper. I posed for graduation pictures this morning in my Veronica Mars "Go Pirates!" shirt, and politely declined the offer of fake roses. (I went for the cheezy bookshelf backdrop though. When in Rome.) Tomorrow is Valentine's day, a holiday that always gets me into a maudlin weltzschmerz funk. (Did I just write that sentence? Oh yes. I think I did! Now that, people, is gloom. Take note.)

I am tired of all 1121 songs on iTunes.

The only thing that would startle me out of my funk is a warehouse of Lego. But let's calculate those odds, shall we?

Disillusionment with the state of Western civilization; also, snack food.

I am not exactly a morning person, but I can usually muster enthusiasm to get out of bed with relative timeliness, locate and put on clothes, and even eat breakfast in the morning. I tend to wake up in my usual mood of apprehensive, cautious optimism, seasoned with amusing irony. But today I had one of those mornings when I would have given anything, almost, with the exception of my classic GameBoy and my firstborn, to just stay in bed. This led me to a depressive line of reasoning where I thought about what a great improvement it would be if our society had a little more tolerance for this kind of sloth. I am not talking about lazy, ne'er-do-wells here; I am talking about well-intentioned, contributing members of society who sometimes deserve to take a day off for no reason, Ferris-style. Can you imagine? Jocelyn's not coming to class today; she felt incredibly tired and depressed this morning for no reason. Achmed, can you take notes for her and then email them to her after class? Great. You know? Wouldn't that be something? I may sound like I'm being glib, but this is a serious question. If Western civilization is so great, then why do so many of its members spend pretty much every day doing things they don't really enjoy for no reason? Hmm?

It's definitely a "scooters" kind of day. I had cookies for breakfast because I could not summon the werewithal to thaw, toast, or cook anything. Then at 10 I had to go buy Coke, just to avoid falling asleep in my class. I don't know if caffeine really helps that much, but at least it makes me feel like I am being pro-active.

On this note I present to you: Why Work? This is a serious site whose ambition is to examine the titular question. (Ahem. Lifetime to do list item: Use the phrase "titular question" in a sentence. Check.)

A slightly less significant, but still puzzling, question is this: why do we (and by "we" I refer to myself and not, as in the previous paragraphs, to the West) have three partially eaten packages of pita bread in the freezer, plus one in the fridge? There is a cluster of neurons on my brain-- the "buy pita bread" neurons-- who persistently misfire every time I am in the grocery store. "Jocelyn!" these neurons tell me. "Buy pita bread! And maybe some hummous! Oooh, chocolate bars! I don't feel like getting out of bed tomorrow, do you?"

The Way Things Work

So... James sent me this link to an article about someone who quit World of Warcraft after basically having their life ruined by it. This comes at an opportune time because just yesterday I had a really frustrating WOW-day and found myself grouchily flying around on gryphons, grumbling as if it was my job. (Now granted, I was really close to leveling up, but still.) Compulsion to engage in leisure activities even when you are not enjoying them? That's addiction. I'm taking a break.

During said break I will be reading Alberto Manguel's wonderful The Library at Night, catching up on school-reading, and cooking. (I bought a new cookbook which comes highly recommended to me: Donna Hay's Modern Classics. If anyone wants to come over, I will cook you something from it. Well, not anyone.) Trying to learn how to use my new sewing machine. And maybe watching Farscape, which is bizarrely appealing. When watching this show, I periodically think how dumb the things that happen are, and yet I keep trundling through Season 1. Something must be going on there. Pheromones.

Other notes on my mental state: I have been having these kind of social-commentary nightmares. Two nights ago I had a dream about a drugged-up woman dropping her baby on its head on the hard granite floor of Edmonton Centre. Last night I had a dream about capital punishment. Oh, and I was the one being executed. I would take a break from sleeping, too, if I could.

Today I became a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I have had them on my links page for awhile. They do advocacy and information work in protecting internet users' rights. And now, they are doing it with my money, but I think that's probably a good thing, because what was I doing with my money? Yeah. Nothing.

I woke up this morning feeling strangely aware and sort of gloomy. Joining advocacy organizations sometimes can help to shake me out of this funk. If this fails, it will be more Etsy art for me. I feel tired, Universe. Just doing the things I always do seems to take more energy than usual. It is not a "scooters" kind of day.

the third bar

I talked to Courtney on the phone, and she convinced me that buying things is the cure to many a bad day. All the stores except Mac's are closed, so I bought some robot/lasergun art from Etsy:

The one on the left is from John W. Golden. The one on the right is from Jimbot's Junkyard. I highly recommend buying art from Etsy. It's relatively cheap, and you get the nice feeling of supporting a living, breathing, part-time-job-having artist (probably). Plus you avoid joining the legions of people with Klimt or Munch posters. Enough with the Munch posters! Modernity makes you feel alienated and opressed, we get it! You know what would probably make you feel better? A LASERGUN!

OK, I cannot for the life of me centre those correctly. My apologies. Blogger and I are still in the early stages of our relationship-- afraid to hurt each other's feelings, afraid to correct our mistakes about each other's natures. Blogger is too nice to tell me to mind my own business. I am too polite to try to tinker with Blogger's HTML. I am going to bed soon, but first, Blogger and I will kiss each other awkwardly on the cheek.

When you compose in the Blogger post window, at the bottom it has a space for entry tags (which at this moment says "art, shopping, meta-blog"), but the examples they give are "scooters, vacation, fall." I really, really want to tag things with those tags. I mean, you know the person who is taggings things "scooters, vacation, fall" has everything in their life that I want: perfect happiness, meaningful jobs with 12 weeks of paid vacation a year, fun lifestyle-enhancing products, a digital camera with which they capture every perfect fulfiling thing that happens to them. I hate those scooter people. Because I want a little piece of that perfect happiness, I shall be tagging random future entries "scooters." At the same time, for me, "scooters" is bittersweet: it represents a sense of weltschmerz, the realization and reluctant acceptance of the fact that my life will never, ever, be accurately decribed by the tag "scooters." "Scooters" is ironic. It represents all that is not-scooters.

Or maybe they are referring to Scooter, the Muppet. But then I suppose it would be capitalized.