So, this is the last post on this blog.

Please head here for the new blog.

Last night I blew up the blog. It is unlikely you noticed this, unless you were Nick, Claire, or Jamie, who all listened to me talk to the MySQL database for hours last night.

So right, obvs the blog is better, basically, although I think it is only half-upgraded, and umm, that’s kind of interesting/odd.

But this is all happening because we’re in the process of moving to Goodbye Waffles, so I can rid myself of this terribly emo domain name. Life is tough.

So, as some of you know, I have no pants.

By that, I don’t mean that I am literally pantsless–over the summer, I invested in two lovely pairs of brown pants, and I still have a pair of corduroy pants and some offensively bright red ones. What I actually lack is a pair of jeans that fits me–I have one pair that is too big, one pair that is too small, and one pair with a butterfly applique.

My project for this afternoon, then, was to go to the Gap and get some jeans. (I have gift cards for Old Navy and Gap, which makes them my only choices because I have no money, and the jeans at Old Navy never, ever fit, which is why I have jeans that are too big.)

Soooo I go to the Gap. Once there, I determine that there are in fact no jeans in the entire store that are a size 8 Regular, except the Long and Lean ones, which are a) too long and b) too big in the waist. I spent probably an hour trying on surrounding sizes in every single fit in the store, and ended up with
1) a pair of curvy jeans (the only jeans that have ever actually fit me in the history of my life) in a 10, and
2) a pair of “essential” jeans in a 6.

The issue, of course, is that neither fits me perfectly. There was a pair of 8s in the essential jeans, but they’re huuuuge, and the 6 is only slightly too small, and they’re pretty stretchy. The curvy jeans are too big, but are mostly not cotton, so hopefully won’t stretch.

I am going to leave the tags on them for the next few days and wear them around my room. If the curvy jeans stretch, they’re going back and I’m keeping the other ones. If they don’t…well, then that stupid store just made $60 off of me.

But the point is, I went to the Gap in search of one pair of pants that fit, and left with two pairs that don’t, which leaves me in essentially the same position I was before, except now I’m out $20.

The jeans are pretty cute, though.

The past few days have been generally nice.

On Thursday after choir, I went to the Press with Megan, Darby, Lianne, Leo, Noah, and Marc, which was a lot of fun. We then ventured over to the new Village to see “Across the Universe,” which I enjoyed a lot more than I should’ve, probably. I mean, I knew going in that it was a musical in which people were going to burst into Beatles songs, and knowing that, I really liked it. I was happy while I was watching it and I was happy afterwards, and not enough movies accomplish that. And while a lot of the covers are pretty uninspired, there are a few that are really lovely–I’m thinking particularly of “Something,” which I might say I liked more than the original, if I weren’t aware of the punishment for that degree of blasphemy.

Plus Jim Sturgess is really pretty.

On Friday I watched “The Blair Witch Project,” which has not gotten any less funny over the past eight years, and last night, Emily, Nick, and I went to Pasadena for dinner and gelato. Today I read The Day of the Locust, which may in all seriousness be the worst book I have ever read, and went to Starbucks with Megan.

And all in all it was a good weekend, full of the sorts of things that life probably ought to be full of. And I feel like balance is a good and probably achievable life goal.

It’s past my bedtime.

I hate it when I’m hungry, but I’m not hungry enough to eat, say, a bowl of macaroni and cheese, but that’s really the only thing there is to eat except for chocolate covered espresso beans, which are tasty, but are a) not very filling and b) sweet, and I (as usual) want something salty.

Hmmm, what to do…

The Salton Sea on PostSecret!

Awesome.

I guess that probably I should update this layout, since I’m tragically no longer in Cork.

Sometimes when I wake up I still think that I am, though.

1. So I stepped out of the bathroom and looked out my window, and what do you know–there were many clumps of people scattered across the lawn, and some guy with a megaphone.

Interesting. I suppose that’s the emergency drill.

I could go outside, but a) I don’t think it applies to me, and b) I actually don’t think it applies to me, because usually it’s just people in class–although that doesn’t explain the people on Walker Beach.

2. Yesterday for lunch, Frary served sushi, macaroni and cheese, and Build-Your-Own Pizza. (Also quiche, which I understand is considered of similar quality by those who are inclined towards quiche.)

Here’s what I don’t understand. Roughly 80% of the time I go to Frary, I end up eating either cottage cheese and raw spinach or a sandwich, because the food at Frary is usually bad. And yet yesterday’s lunch proved beyond a doubt that Frary is capable of good food–so why don’t they spread it out?? If they’d had sushi yesterday, mac and cheese today, and pizza tomorrow, that would’ve been three days of edible lunch. Instead I’ve reverted to cottage cheese and spinach, already, and that’s just sad.

The answer (which you may already be thinking) is that I should just stop eating at Frary. But here’s the problem–even though I’m closer to Scripps and Collins than last year, I’m even less inclined to go there, because I’m footsteps from Frary. I mean, literally, I can see the entrance to Frary from my window. It’s right there. And so working up the motivation to walk the 50 feet to Collins is…embarrassingly hard, really.

Oh well.

3. I finally decided to register my car today, so I drove down to Campus Safety and parked in front. Like a good little car registerer, I brought all my car stuff in with me, filled out the forms, and was handed a new sticker.

I walked outside 10 minutes later and, unbelievably, even though I’d miraculously avoided getting one for the past week or so that they’ve been ticketing, I’d received a ticket for Failure to Register. While I was registering, and man, that’s a $50 ticket.

So I walked back inside and showed it to the guy, who started laughing. “You just got this now?”

“Yes,” I said, not laughing. At all. “Can you please get rid of it?”

So he chuckled some more and wrote some stuff and said, “Of course, sweetheart.”

All is well.

So, I’m a media whore. You all know this. So I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that I watched Paris Hilton’s Larry King interview in its entirety and laughed hysterically at that poem.

This makes it even funnier.

Apparently my thinking is supposed to be developing.

Eeeek.

SERIOUSLY.

Dear The N,

You are the best channel in the world.

Loves
Amanda

What do you do after graduation if you don’t want to go to grad school and you don’t want to sell out to corporate America?

Today is my birthday, which is good.

Also, Madeleine L’Engle died, which is not good.

“Why does anybody tell a story?” Ms. L’Engle once asked, even though she knew the answer.

“It does indeed have something to do with faith,” she said, “faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

Seriously, HAAAAATE.

Tomorrow (or I guess later today–in nine hours) I’m leaving for Pennsylvania. It’ll take me two days to get there, which is a long time to be in a car by yourself.

I’ve been pretty happy lately, which may explain my absence here, at least somewhat. Because I hope to work there again in the future, I haven’t said much about my job, but this should suffice: It was incredibly instructive, both in the ways it was intended to be and in others as well, and it was a generally positive–if frustrating and stressful–experience, mostly thanks to some of the best and smartest teenagers I’ve ever met. Living in Chicago was great, on those occasions when I had time to wander around–and maybe even more so on the nights I got back from work at 10 p.m. and only had to walk a block from the apartment to buy dinner, or when there was a Cubs game and I was exhausted and angry, and every bus driver, policeman, and drunk was friendly and happy because their team was winning–and that kind of happiness is contagious, really. I got to hang out with Jordan and go swimming and to see the Decemberists, I got to spend more time with my sister, and Nick came to visit, and the students in my class were so awesome that every problem I had was worth sticking out.

So it’s been a good summer.

Tonight I went out with Kathryn and Steph and we drove out to Freedom and sat on the car, and it’s nice to feel like there are people you’re growing with instead of away from.

Tomorrow I’ll go to the dentist, and then talk to some doctor somewhere who’s been looking at pictures of my insides to verify that it’s okay for me to head out, that there’s nothing that needs to be dealt with in the next week. Even if there were I might go anyway. I’m a little angry with my body at the moment–angry because I’ve treated it well, I’ve fed it good food, I’ve taken it to the doctor, I’ve exercised it–I’ve done all the right things and it’s still going wrong, and that doesn’t seem fair. Which is not to say that anyone deserves medical problems–just that it’s frustrating that doing the right things isn’t enough. No wonder so many people don’t bother.

And it annoys me that this all took so long to get dealt with–that for a year I’ve been telling people that this isn’t right, that I shouldn’t feel like this, and they’ve been telling me it’s all in my head, or that it isn’t a problem, or a few things a lot more offensive than that, and, well. I’ve been unusually proactive about getting second–and third, and fourth, and fifth–opinions, so what happens to people who trust their doctors, or whose insurance doesn’t cover fifth opinions?

I don’t know. It all seems like a mess.

But whatever. Even in the worst-case scenario I’ll be approximately fine–minus a few parts and potential futures, but that is the absolute worst case. And hopefully the lovely new drugs I’ve been given will work some kind of chemical mojo and we’ll all live happily ever after, hooray.

Really.

Brought to you by my very favorite blog, we have this fabulous post, which is the most awesomely funny thing I have seen in a really long time. Some of the passive-aggressive notes featured on this site are lame (especially because people have been sending in notes they wrote themselves, possibly for the sole purpose of getting on this blog), but this makes up for every less interesting post (and then some). Awesome. Epic.

Next, brought to you by that guy who won Jeopardy a lot (and pointed out to me by Nick), some hella creepy Garfield comic strips from Halloween 1989, in which the eponymous feline has an existential crisis that led the internets to believe that every other Garfield strip was a starvation dream. Also awesome, and epic in the sense that it’ll make you re-evaluate this generally uninteresting comic.

Finally, and perhaps most obnoxiously, we have this “trailer” for PostSecret. I have long suspected this website’s decline into sheer moneymakery, but this is some bullshit. It verges on masturbatory, really, with all those shots of Frank gleefully rifling through mostly made-up bizarre (fetus hidden under the frozen peas?) secrets as little dollar signs flash above his head in a cartoon bubble.

…okay, maybe that wasn’t finally. I’d also like to share with you the latest pictures from Exploding Dog, all of which make me happy and are surprisingly relevant to my actual life, in ways both pleasant and…distinctly less so. In any case:
I need to call you right now and tell you that I love you
Today the world has beautiful colors
I’m broke

Okay, boys, time to stop using laptops.

I’m feeling antsy today. I’m crawling out of my skin and I can’t shake it, and there’s nowhere to go and I’ve got work to do but sitting here is making me insane.

I hate feeling like this.

Two ex-boyfriends for the price of one!

On Yahoo News, no less.

Thanks, eBay…

Item description:This dress attracts your eyes but ite simple design. Plunging Halter design gives you great sex appealing . The flower pattern on the dress shoes our delicate hand making. And the Floor length outfit your magic figure.

Please be careful when you choose the size.It’s your own responsibility if you choose wrong size.Thanks for your understanding!

Ridiculous.