I've scored a short internship for winter break at the Ventura County Reporter. Looks like my groveling, "please let me hang out with you guys, I'll even clean the toilets for free" email won their hearts and captivated their minds. The editor said she might even be able to "squeeze out a small stipend" for me. Woo! Next stop: world domination.

I'm sitting at my computer, listening to Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" skipping through Jose's CD player, and waiting for Burcu to come home from the Co-Op with wild rice and pecans. It's just the two of us today--well, accompanied by a 25 lb turkey, various side dishes, the ferrets, the bunny, and my cat.

My cat has an upper respiratory infection, which means that he's runny from every facial orifice, and he sounds like an asthmatic second-grader, and he's very, very depressed. He also can't sleep at night, so instead he crawls all over me, presumably to position himself in such a way so that he can sneeze directly into my face from every possible angle. I'm supposed to take him to the vet tomorrow, but I'm not sure caging him up for the two-hour El ride won't do more harm than good.

While I was sitting near the front of my Medicine and Culture class on Tuesday, I kept trying to stealthily glance at the clock, and I noticed that whenever I did, I'd automatically start to nod afterwards as if twisting my head to see the time was just the beginning of a vigorous display of agreement with my professor. I was doing this unconsciously, too. God, I'm manipulative.

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!

Think Hot or Not.Com is a piece of shit? Well, you obviously haven't seen THIS!

Need an antidote? Try this. Still queasy? This'll probably do the trick.

I rose from the couch last night after finishing the fourth chapter of In Search of Madness: Schizophrenia and Neuroscience, and went to the window because I heard laughter outside. I looked down and saw that all the cars were covered with powdered sugar and little white pinpricks were curlicuing around in the air. There were students outside walking along the sidewalk in their hats and scarves and mittens, talking and laughing loudly while the snowflakes swirlidanced around their heads. It was magical. Then I realized I was standing in front of the window in my underwear with the lights blazing and I bolted.

What I Was Going to Do Today:
Wake up early
Go to Russian
Go to work
Read some backlogged Medicine and Culture stuff
Finish Schizophrenia and Neuroscience for psychopathology
Do my laundry
Clean my room

What I Actually Did
Slept in
Cooked a huge lunch
Curled up on the couch and watched 10 Things I Hate About You.
Surfed the internet
Paced back and forth a lot

BUT THERE IS STILL TIME!

And Now....Nostalgic Oddities, Installment Two

To Review: Last month, in Installment One, we returned to our childhood heroes the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and with our recently-acquired late-teenage-critical-analysis-skills, deemed that they are, actually, you know, kind of strange.

So....This Month: Paula Abdul's "Rush, Rush" music video.

OK. My roommate Burcu is really into early 90's music. I'm really into early 90's music. And by that I don't mean Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or even the Smashing Pumpkins; I mean Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, "Freedom" by George Michael. And one song in particular that she plays over and over is, to my delight, "Rush" by Paula Abdul.

I used to ADORE that song when I was third-grade-ish. And I used to ADORE the music video, in which Keanu Reeves narrowly escapes driving over a cliff during a drag race and pontificates over love with the good ole Paula. Burcu and I were discussing this video earlier today, and how we both thought it was like the coolest thing ever, when a moment of genius occurred: "I know! Download it from Kazaa!" I cried. So we looked it up, and half an hour later, scrunched together in front of her monitor and excitedly pressed play.

Paula Abdul's "Rush, Rush" video is the most nonsensical piece of shit I've ever seen in my life. The "plot" makes no sense, and the whole thing is mainly just an excuse for Ms. Abdul to wave her black-leather-glove-clad arms all vogueishly and seductively and dance about in a red dress and wave a sheer red scarf around as if to say "Fuck me, Toro!"

It begins with Keanu Reeves lying on the ground and clapping at a little mechanical clapping Christmas bear, I think, with sirens shrieking in the background. Why the little Christmas bear is there, I don't know. The sirens, I assume, are for his rival who just drove off a cliff. Why someone would respond to his rival driving off a cliff by clapping at a little Christmas bear, I don't know. Why a little Christmas bear would be present at a 1950's drag race, I don't know. OK, moving on. Cut to the principal's office, where we alternate between Paula sobbing that "He's so mean to me! He just doesn't love me anymore! He hates me!" and Keanu throwing himself at the walls and saying, "I had to put him in the hospital. He called me a loser. I promised myself I would never end up like that" and the principal calmly playing the therapist and asking huskily, "You would never end up like what? A loser?" Don't worry Keanu. You're not a loser. You're in Paula Abdul's "Rush, Rush" video.

Cut to Paula walking with Keanu and obviously discussing something deep and meaningful like moo-cows and choo-choo trains. Paula’s all 1950’d out, while Keanu is after-prom-party chic. Paula chucks Keanu under the chin flirtatiously and saunters off to her greaser boyfriend and their cool pals. Greaser boyfriend is obviously jealous, because the car full of cool ones meet Keanu at a stoplight and apparently make friends to meet at sunset for a drag race, because that’s what you do in the 1950’s.

Keanu seems to be a bad boy because he harangues their teachers and hangs out all alone on balconies, but O no! He’s just misunderstood and martyred, and watches stoically as Greaser Boyfriend whips out a knife and slices up the tires of his 1950’s car. Oh dear. Those tires were new, and the big race is tonight, and besides that, it’s his dad’s car! Can he get them fixed in time? But Zack put all his money in a get-famous-quick scam at The Max and Screech accidentally let all the dogs loose that he was sitting for….oops, wrong episode of Saved by the Bell.

The video recognizes that we don’t care about Keanu’s fucking tires, and quietly assumes that he’s a big bad boy and was of course able to change the tires on his own. So, it’s the drag race. Paula’s in a white dress and she waves, go! And there are people cheering, and it’s all magical, until Keanu jumps out of his car only to watch it and Greaser Boyfriend drive off a cliff. Oh no! NOW how’s he gonna fix the car before dad gets home? Looks like he’ll have to institute a prostitute ring and get all his friends plus the Princeton admissions officer to come in and….oops, wrong Risky Business.

But the critical injury of Paula’s boyfriend offers the perfect opportunity for this profound little interlude to occur between her and Keanu, as she turns to him while overlooking the mangled remains of both cars and Greaser Boyfriend’s body:
Paula: Have you ever been in love before?
Keanu: If I was, I didn’t know it. And you?
Paula: No. Isn’t that terrible?
Keanu: (sincerely) Terrible? No! It just reminds you of how alone we are.
Why call an ambulance to cart away the remains of your boyfriend when you can ruminate on true love with Keanu Reeves?

Apparently, trauma causes the two philosophers to get really really horny, because they then go back to someone’s house and have candlelit sex. It’s all right that they do this while Paula’s boyfriend is in an oxygen tent, because she was never really in love with him at all. Then it ends.

After letting the magnificent artistry of this masterpiece sink into our psyches, Burcu and I downloaded and watched Bon Jovi’s “Always” video, which, though totally cheeseball, actually makes some narrative sense.

Note: In order to write this review, I had to view the “Rush, Rush” video several times for, you know, accuracy. In fact, I’m not sure I got it quite accurate enough. I think I might have to, um, go watch it again, and maybe a second time after that, just to make sure I got all the details right. Yeah.

My life is not particularly interesting. And though I've had many ideas for posts, I've never actually written any of them down. Maybe I'll make like my pal Lucas and start carrying a girly notebook around and scribble in it when my brain is tickled by a lightning bolt (more like a lightning loose-screw).

I wrote this two weeks ago, but blogger has been devouring it every time I've tried to post it. Hopefully, its tummy is full by now.

Extra! Extra!

Okay, so, it's been two weeks, and I should have lots to blog about.
First, I am now a copyeditor for The Chicago Maroon. That's right; once a week, I have the privilege of correcting grammar for four unpaid hours in the middle of the night. My first shift was yesterday, from 11 PM until 2 AM (we got out early). I LOVE it. I'm seriously not joking (as, um, opposed, I guess, to jokingly not joking.).

My first meeting as part of the team (I'm part of a team!) occurred two weeks ago. I was in a room with six others who discussed hyphen-versus-en-dash use for fifteen minutes straight, and sniggered loudly at the typo, "$4,000 dollars." Who had a heated argument over whether "awhile" is actually a word (and it is! I am triumphant, ha ha ha), and who spent half an hour editing the editing manual. I have met my soulmates.

In other news, because I am a spontaneous, individualistic young rebel, I dyed my hair mahogany. Unfortunately, it seems I forgot about the roots around my face, so I have a distinctive brown outline that contrasts with the dark red.
On Monday, when I arrived at the elementary school where I work, Daja said, "Oh, I just love your hair! It goes so well with your skin!" and later pranced up to me and asked with concern, "But how did anyone recognize you??"

I get a strange satisfaction out of cleaning my cat's ears with a Q-tip. He's wonderful, by the way. Strange, but wonderful. For one thing, he has a flickering eyelid (so we call him "Twitch" every now and then). He also loves to be cleaned with wet kleenex, and I've caught him eating:
Brown rice
Broccoli
Olive oil
Eggs
However, he refuses to eat tuna.
I have not once called him "Polly." Yee-haw!

I've really been going for the nerd thing lately. There's nothing so endearing as when the hem of a guy's pant-leg is tucked into the back of his shoe. Oh, I swoon, I swoon! Going to the University of Chicago is like one big festival of orgasm.