Skiing beastliness (to borrow the phrase)

I haven't blogged about skiing for a while, but I had my last lesson today so I'll tell about that. Last week was probably the low point of all 5 lessons. I hadn't been up for 2 weeks, and the substitute teacher we had didn't really push us - kept us on wedge christies rather than parallel. We were going down Holiday, which is super easy, and the left side of Gallery, which is a bit harder for like 4 turns, then the same as Holiday. My last run down Holiday felt really shaky and weird. Every time the terrain got even a bit steeper, I had difficulty. Although I've acquired the skills needed to ski perfectly fine, mentally I was being a wimp. After the lesson, the other girl in my class decided to go down the right side of Gallery, which is a blue square, but I chickened out. Looking at the top of a run when you only know wedge turns is tricky. You start out perpendicular to the slope , needing to push hard on your outside ski and basically ski against the mountain to propel yourself - everything about wedge turns is designed for caution, defensive skiing, slowing yourself down, traversing for long periods before making a turn against the slope with little momentum - in short, everything that makes a nervous-minded person (me) already nervous. So I went down the left side of Gallery, freezing before every new turn. This week I swore to myself that I would go down a blue square run today.

Thankfully, this story has a happy - one might say triumphant - ending, because today was the high point of the lessons. Now, I can parallel ski, like they do in the Olympics. I may not LOOK like they do in the Olympics - all swizz woosh fzz body swaying in perfect timing, "dynamic" parallel turns as they're called - but I can do "edging." Which means that you dig your inside edges into the snow to turn yourself around as you're facing downslope - boring stuff, but it made all the difference for me! Suddenly, the world made sense and skiing was laid out before me as a dazzling array of opportunities, except it wasn't like being stoned (or what I imagine that's like, anyway)- more like... confidence. Here's a hill which you ski DOWN. You don't traverse it and lose all momentum and courage - what good is that for a nervous beginner? You just go DOWN it!

My Holiday revelation was soon to be tested. We needed harder terrain, but Gallery was closed (I forgot to mention it was raining heavily- the Pineapple Express you know). So our teacher took us to Central Express, the high speed 4-person lift. It was a completely different kind of chairlift, for one thing - very fast, a safety bar, music playing, rests for your skis, etc. Much more comfortable. By this time, the rain had almost completely stopped.

When we got to the top we were at the top of the "mountain," and there was a sign with all the runs laid out with directions: lots of black diamonds and one blue square, Alpine. Of course, we went down Alpine. At first, I felt my usual jitters acting up. But I told myself: don't worry about turning, just point your skis and ski DOWN. And I did! The first third was quite steep. The second and third thirds felt much steeper than anything I'd done before - not because they were that much worse than the top of Gallery, but because they went on for so long. There was no time or gentle enough surfact to stop and start turns, so I just did that weird rocking parallel motion and went, went, went. My teacher was shouting things ("stand tall Emma!" but I thought she was saying "fall Emma!" and was confused), but I knew instinctively that if I stopped, I wouldn't start again. So as I passed her I yelled, "I'm not stopping!" And just skied to the bottom. Once there, I was exceedingly proud of myself looking up at what I'd done, and took some phone pictures. It's not as though the terrain was any more challenging than any standard intermediate cruiser, as they're called, and it's not as if I'm a good skier by any stretch of the imagination. But for the first time I felt that I WAS skiing, rather than just making turns, and that was awesome. Unfotrunately, my classmate had some bad luck with her skis, they both fell off at different times, and she fell down several times, so I was waiting at the bottom for a while. But no way could I have stayed and helped - I would have been useless.

After that, we went back down Holiday, and even through the terrain park, where I skied up to a jump, didn't get enough momentum, tried to turn away, and fell on my ass... Nonetheless, although I'm still nervous and sloppy, I know that next time I go skiing I'll have at least something to build on - which is a start!

Alia Shawkat's twin?

Instead of writing my paper, I was searching for random shit on Flickr. First, I looked at pics of other people skiing at Snoqualmie, and Ioved this one, which encapsulates the Snoqualmie beginner's experience (but note it's the snowboarders that are down):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunnydotdot/100738944/

Many searches and a couple sentences of my paper later, I arrived at Alia Shawkat (Maeby), who I've always thought looks a bit like me. The search produced a few candid pictures of her at a Weezer concert, plus this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/knichols/100499333/

Excuse me? Is that ME? Because it looks exactly like me about two years ago, when I had better hair. It looks a hell of a lot more like me than it does Maeby, at any rate, and I used to wear my hair exactly like that - all poufy - back when it was... better.

Creepy.

Greg is a dork

Don't tell him!

AM I A PR BEAST OR AM I JUST AWESOME?

I was devastated - truly devastated - at the lack of comments answering the question I posed at the end of my last missive. I can only assume that my asking this question was interpreted to be some sort of rhetorical device, a method of closing the entry on a positive note - perhaps even an attempt to inject some self-loving humor into what was a relatively straightfoward piece. Let me assure you - you plural - BOTH OF YOU - that that was not the case. (I hate the way "that that" looks on the page). It was instead a heartfelt search for approbation from a young woman with little self-esteem but a big talent for writing press releases. So imagine, then, that I am asking you this question as though for the first time. And please leave comments. And when reading them, I will - if I can - try to forget that (if indeed they are there at all) they resulted from a humiliating plea on my part, and think instead that they are outpourings of love from a world that loves me, and my self-esteem, and my press releases. I think I just moved myself to tears. One moment please... ok, I'm back now. I have run out of steam for this blog entry at the present time. I am going to go now. I will leave you with the thought that you should watch Thank You For Smoking, because it is quite an amusing movie.

Lost on a Safari

I've lost web access on my laptop. I can still get email through apple mail, but Safari isn't working. So I haven't been able to blog for some time. However, this is what is going on in my seafaring life:

1. The Play: was surprisingly fun. Small cast, heavy drama, boring part - yes, yes, yes. But Risa rose to the occasion, as did Lindsey, and everyone was really a lot of fun to hang out with over the duration. The only things that detracted were (1) I still felt my rapproachment with Krogstad was stilted; we didn't rehearse it much, and I wasn't sure how to make it better, given my character is stiff and I wasn't supposed to hug him or anything, and (2) Anthony blaring the tarantella on Sunday night about a minute after I said "GO NOW! The tarantella!" So embarrassing, the audience noticed, and it was really a mistake worthy of a high school production. All in all, I think the actual production was OK. It was a tough play to choose and everyone involved did a good job, especially Lindsey and Pax who had incredibly difficult roles involving lots of stamina. But the experience was a laugh and definitely worth doing. OH! And I got us into the Seattle Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, AND the Seattle Weekly and probably the Stranger! Am I a public relations beast or am I just awesome? Suggestions in the comments please.

I have to go now. More later on this topic and others.

Things

Things That Make Me Happy:
-I don't have anything else I HAVE to do tonight, although I there's plenty of things I should do
-Rewatching the Scrubs musical is AWESOME - that music is totally crack
-The OFfice is at 8.30
-SKIING!!!! And then potluck! on sunday! Sunday will be awesome
-I'm going home tomorrow: the agenda: delicious food and lying on the couch watching movies with my parents

Things that make me squicky:
-My mom is having an important medical test tomorrow (MRA - not I, A)
-I have a feeling what I turned into my adviser today didn't make much sense
-I'm scared that things aren't coming together for the play - and who's doing the poster?
-I have sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much laundry to do. I'm taking most of it home, if I can possibly drag it onto the bus. I'll do it myself, I just want to do it at home.
-Where should I live next quarter?

Things That Make Me Go "That's Kinda Weird":
-My mom the other day: "What's 'American Idol'?" Now, it doesn't match up to the truly surreal stuff that comes out of Liz's mother, but it's fairly obtuse, given she's been relatively alive over the past five years (though admittedly buried in work).
-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes out July 21st - one week after Movie No. 5 and attending festivities. Given it sounds like the book is recently finished, does that mean we are rushing into another overlong and unprofessionally-edited Order of the Phoenix? And won't the advertising and premiere blitz for the movie somewhat overshadow what could be a huge promotional campaign for the last book? I'll await it eagerly, but still - Odd, I say. Odd. (Also, what's with the lack of cutesy games and diary entries accompaning Mzz. Rowling's latest pronouncement?)

Aaaaaaaaaaand...........

things that make me go FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK:
-Arthur A. Levine Books' Website: "Yes! We have decided to have a year-round internship proram." Arthur A. Levine Assistant Editor to me in an email: "Currently, we don't have any internship positions available." I'm still going to send them my cover letter and resume just in case but why get me HUGELY excited by a posting on the website itself only to contradict it in an email? poooooooooh I say, pooooooooh! Poo! Poo! Poo!

...Excuse me.

Terror on the Slopes

The high seas are nothing compared to life on the treacherous slopes of Snoqualmie Summit. I know - I'm a maritime lawyer, and I've done both. -obligatory preliminary comment by my alter ego

Yesterday, I was preempted from watching my beloved figure skating by a rehearsal and a line-memorizing 'party' at Nathan's eclectically-decorated house, which was fine as I watched the skating on youtube later. I don't think I've got a handle on Mrs. Linde. It's frustrating. As you may have divined from Chareth, I did indeed have my first skiing lesson today. But it wasn't terror-filled or treacherous. I got up at 5 this morning - because I set my alarm wrong - made my way to Seattle University, and met the people I will be carpooling for the next six weeks (five, actually - I'll have to miss the week of the Play). There's Sandy, who drove today, a responsible-yet-daredevil Asian (Chinese) girl, Bernadette, a less-responsible and certainly less-daredevil Asian (Filipino) girl, and Brian, a white snowboarder, the strong-and-silent type. (He answers the phone with "heh-ehh." Not like the laugh, but a kind of grunt). (By the way, "Asian" means "Asian-American" here; they didn't have accents or anything, but I figure fully 50 percent of my readership might be interested).

Sandy is very capable, but gives me faint whiffs of my mother. "Make sure you guys go to the bathroom before we leave," she instructed. "Girl, you need to go home and study," was her response to Bernadette's rusty Italian. She's certainly not shy of professing judgment. Nonetheless, she is friendly, and is providing me with transportation.

I hadn't skied since I was ten, when I took lessons at Summit West. In my mind, Pacific Crest and the other lifts I used to use had been reduced by my memory to gentle beginner-level slopes. These Husky Winter Sports lessons are at Summit Central, but I got a glimpse of West as we drove past it on our way out, and they did not look gentle, they looked long and steep.

We stayed on the easiest green-circle run today (green circle = beginner, blue square = intermediate, black diamond = advanced, double black diamond = obvious), and parts of it felt quite steep to me. I did well, if I say so myself, which I believe I just did. But as I looked up at "Parachute," the ominously-named black diamond run, I marvelled at the way my ten-year-old self had actually traversed down those very same slopes. (I remember saying to my mom, "We went from West to Central in a trail among the trees and then went down Parachute! PARACHUTE!" "That's nice, love," she replied, or something equally nonplussed). I will not be doing any parachuting soon. My stomach clenches at the thought.

I had chosen the "I have skied a few times and know how to get off a chair lift" level on the online form, but Bernadette, who had also skied before (2 years ago), chose the "I am an absolute beginner" one, and I decided to stick with a familiar face. Better to be safe than sorry, after all. We started out on the rope-tow and did one run on the chairlift. It turned out that Bernadette was having difficulty turning and fell into me twice, the second time knocking one of my skis off. That was scary. Falling on your ass in skis on an incline is an awkward position. Afterwards I glanced over my shoulder nervously, trying to keep my distance.

The lesson ended at one, and Bernadette decided she was uncomfortable skiing without the instructor. I decided to go it alone, because I'd paid $40 for my lift ticket, and I was not about to get shortchanged. The scariest part of it all, for me, is the chairlift. Riding up in the chairlift alone was freaky. Never mind the little kids in their mini-skis who swing blithely on the chairs that are suspended, guard-rail-less, in the middle of the air, from a hook onto a little cord, far above the packed snow. 18-year-old quasi-adult or not, I do not like heights, and I am not fond of chair lifts. I mean, you are sitting in a completely non-enclosed chair - like a dining room chair to the untrained eye - in the middle of the air! And every 20 seconds it stops and just HANGS there, nothing pushing you forwards, because someone is having difficulty getting on! My strategy was to close my eyes, pretend the gentle rocking motion was that of a waterbed, and try not to let thoughts of death, or "Why the hell did I CHOOSE to do this?!?" enter my head. After the chair lift, everything seems a little easier. So I was quite proud that I managed to get myself down. I know 50 percent of my readership likes how tos, so here are the tricks to wedge turns: (1) look in the direction you're turning. Do not look down, (2) start the wedge before the turn, (3) lean hard on the outside leg and let the inside leg come along for the ride, and (4) try to get in a rhythm of turns, letting your body do the work, rather than over-thinking it.

Well, it was a successful day. If I made a complete fool of myself in front of a bunch of fearless 10-year-olds (ah, to be 10 - although I personally was NEVER fearless), so be it. Although I don't think I did - they were pretty self-absorbed, and I don't think they were watching anyone else.

PEE ESS. Alissa Czisny, not Kimmie Meissner, should be the new US national figure skating champion.

You can all relax and stop sending me sympathy notes and chicken soup. My advisor (ser?) and I have found each other. We took a brief moment this morning to... reconnect. He is still nice, and was impressed with my lit review, which was gratifying, because the honors committee wasn't. My brain tells me that I should trust a cabal of three wizened and wise scholars over a first-year professor who didn't answer his email for over a month. But my gut tells me to relax and enjoy the ride. My gut is also very hungry...

Actually, my gut isn't hungry at all. Before work today, on the fifth day - I might add - of my self-started Eat Healthy! challenge, I had a small veggie Quiznos sandwich for lunch while waiting for the bus downtown. Finding myself with 17 minutes to kill, I took a stroll through Pike Place Market, and bought doughnuts. Doughnuts! On an Eat Healthy! di... er... challenge! And after lunch!

I have decided to start a Bridget Jones-style food and exercise diary, though. Here is today's. Feel free to skip it.
Breakfast: Trader Joe's high fiber all bran cereal, milk, a banana. I realize how impressive this sounds (well, doesn't it? Doesn't it?) but it was an accident, alas; we were out of sugary stuff.
Lunch: Small Quiznos veggie sandwich, Baked Lay's, Lemonade
Degenerate Extravagance: 4 (rather small) Pike Place donuts
Dinner: Have not yet had, do to noticeable presence of donuts in stomach.

Alcohol units: none
Exercise: none
Cigarettes: none

My! Aren't I doing well?

I'm struggling right now with whether to watch Heroes or 24 tonight. My mother always tells me that all problems can be solved if you evaluate the pros and cons and make the best determination for yourself and your future. So that is what I shall do.

HEROES:
It has Greg Grunberg, my lovable actor pal*
It has an impressive ratio of "meaningful dialogue" versus "things getting blown up and shot at" and "antiterrorist agents making eyes at each other as they ask subordinates to set up parameters."
Although I don't remember the plot from before the break, or why one must save the cheerleader to save the world, I do remember that it was interesting
President Wayne Palmer from 24 is annoying and wimpy. His sister isn't annoying enough to be interesting. Whereas President David Palmer from season 1 was awesome, and his wife Sherry was a full Lady Macbeth-style horror, which was entertaining.

24:
The last episode ended with Los Angeles - SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - being blown up by a nuclear bomb, which is quite the set-up.
Kiefer Sutherland is a total hott tea, and admittedly slightly more attractive than my Hollywood buddy** Mr. Grunberg. From a little background reading on Greg (TV star not Capitol Hill mole), it seems that his major claim to fame is being the best friend of the creator of a show called LOST. Which brings me to my final point...
Heroes is a TINY BIT like lost. In the "sneaky" placement of clues, and web of weird, broody people. Better, of course, but still... 24 is nothing like lost and everything like an hour of Kiefer and friends blowing shit up.

Hrm. It's a toughie. But don't worry, I'll let you know what I decide.

*random guy who shares my name
**possibly incestuous crush

OK. Now I shall cease this post to do some homework (ha, ha). Just as Jews open the door for the prophet Elijah each Passover in the hope that one year he might come in and collect his reserved glass of wine, so shall ye continue to check this blog, believing that in time I shall post something interesting.

Rather sexist

"If Americans want to vote for a female candidate for the presidency, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York sought to oblige them this weekend" -International Herald Tribune.

Gosh. Just in case anyone wants to vote for a female candidate, odd as that inclination would be.

my aunt cursella is coming to sit on the roof

I have such strange dreams at "that time of the month." (Maritime lawyers sometimes exhibit female characteristics. It's no cause for concern). During that first night of the curse, my sleep is almost feverish. In fact I suspect my temperature might rise during that time. My mind can't settle on one thought. My dreams are restless and outlandish. Instead of sinking into deep, relaxing slumber and having one dream about something reasonably coherent, it's like falling into a whirlwind of pent-up nervous energy. I can't remember what I dreamed about this time. I forgot almost as soon as I woke up.

Last night, though, I had my yearly "I'm on stage and have forgotten my lines" dream. It's weird, because during the day the play is the last thing I'm worried about, and stage fright hasn't set in yet, but apparently my subconscious has other ideas. I kept on getting on stage with only a vague idea what the scene was supposed to be about, and improvising terribly. It was embarassing. I also think bagels were involved.


So Hillary and Obama are running! An exciting time on the Hill, I presume?

Tacoma

is bathed in snow. I stayed in Seattle on Sunday, but at work on Monday, my mom came and picked me up from Tukwila. Some more snow, I thought, wouldn't be such a big deal - we de-iced the driveway, and the express buses always run, even if they're late. But we can't see the ground at all here. The trees have that mystical quality where they're frosted with white, making the green parts prettier. I feel like given we can't get to the mountain, the mountain came to me. Actually, we can't get anywhere - I got my mom to try to take me to the bus stop, but she lost traction and we slid down the steep driveway. Thankfully the emergency brake kicked in before we tumbled down the stairs into the backyard.

I wish I had stayed in Seattle, although one of my classes is cancelled, because there's a test review in Hebrew, the test is tomorrow, and I'm behind. But I've never known Tacoma to get more snow than the rest of the Sound, and I haven't seen my home like this since 1996. It's so beautiful, I love it so much! It should have come over break - Christmas, even - but late is better than never, I'd say.

Oh, I was also going to get my hair cut today. Oops. Guess it'll stay a disaster until whenever the cut is rescheduled to. Risa can breathe a sigh of relief.

Blades of Glory

Trailer here. This movie has figure skating, GOB Bluth on skates, Amy Poehler (Blamey) on skates as his partner, Sasha Cohen as herself, and Will Ferrell and Jon Heder as the sport's first male team. Unfortunately, it may suck monkey balls, but I'll be seeing it anyway!

complaints

When I left home this morning (after being sick for three days), my neighborhood was a winter wonderland of what looked like an inch of snow at least. Now I'm in Seattle and there is NO SNOW. This makes me MAD. And there's something dusty about my room here that makes me sneeze and I don't want to get sick again, dammit!

Scary

I just got an email from Mark Emmert, el presidente, about a guy shot dead in the neighborhood north of 45th. Which is apparently violence ridden. Which I am moving to in approximately 3 weeks. Should I tell my parents about this or not? Hmm.

Au Feure

I just had the most awesome mac'n'cheese. The recipe was a combination of one in the Pasta book, and my grandmother's. (I get the feeling my grandmother is ubiquitous in these entries. It's not planned - she just is that sort of personality. She towers over everyone in my family, except my mother, who is not a Grunberg by blood anyway. Lucky me!) Being - well, speaking - French, she calls it Macaroni Au Feure, or however you spell it. I don't know why it's not Macaroni Au Fromage, but there you go. I don't even know what Feure (sp??) is. Anyway, I should make it more often. Because I really need the calories. Although, we used half and half instead of heavy cream. I feel like there was this macaroni and cheese sized hole inside of me that has just been filled with comfort and warmth and creamy and ooooooooooze. God, this blog is so deep. I mean SHALLOW. Who would be interested in mac and cheese? Um hi Reader... we should do something for Sinclaire.
I was looking through my old papers trying to find something (I didn't find it), and it's amazing how good some of them were, considering how old I was (or even not considering that). They were pretty much uniformly excellent. Is it possible to go DOWNhill? To get less smart? Damnit!!! I feel like on the continuum of "intelligence" and "age," I started out as a near verbal genius, if I can say that without sounding like a true unmitigated asshole (which I probably can't) - reading at two, and all - progressed to a precocious writer and analyzer, and have now gloriously arrived at my current point of "above average... hopefully?" At this rate, in a mere 5 years, I will have lost the ability to comphrehend books with more words than pictures. Go me.
Um yeah. I chose my monologue for drama class. It's the one I delighted the crowd with at my first Drama Day as a pre-TSer. Ah, memories. Everyone was like "We want YOU! for EEP Drama Society" and I was like "I have found my spiritual home!" I also enjoyed the company of Sinclaire and Mattia. Then they proceeded to shut me out for the next two years of auditions and I was like *tear* Alas.
One day this past week I was thinking of what I should do between now and law school/The Rest of My Life, and I alighted on Boot Camp. Army! Army had half-a-day!! I went to Army's website (www.goarmy.com or gov or org or something like that) and watched all the videos of their week-by-week explanation of Boot Camp. On the one hand, admittedly the most important - the right, if you will, or the dominant one - it sounds like pure hell. On the other hand, which is more like a stump, it makes you get fit, and conquer your fears, and builds your self-respect, and gives you something real you can be proud of, as well as a seal for marksmanship and a gorilla for sand-racing. Also, you learn how to bludgeon a dummy with a bayonet. My Israeli cousins will have to serve in Army, but a different one, not Usarmy. It's like the Israeli equivalent of college, but more intense - you get this bond, apparently, with your fellow soldiers. Your "hevre," as it's called. But also, a lot of people hate it. It's like a love hate thing. I'm only expanding upon this paragraph because I like saying Army.
If I do go to law school, I want to be a summer associate at Preston Gates Ellis in Seattle. They seem like a combination of effective and almost-possibly-compassionate, which is cool. Also, you get $2,000 a week, which is cool too. I wrote about Jim Ellis for the magazine (the first one) and he was awesome. He basically cleaned out LAke Washington singlehandedly. But not literally.
this is long enough.

The Whim of a Hat

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."

"Free societies are hopeful societies. And free societies will be allies against these hateful few who have no conscience, who kill at the whim of a hat."

"If they pre-decease or die early, there's an asset base to be able to pass on to a loved one."

-GW Bush

"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."

"Things will not be necessarily continuous. The fact that they are something other htan perfectly continuous ought not to be characterized as a pause. There will be some things that people will see. There will be some things that people won't see. And life goes on."

-Rumsfeld

It's about time.

Well, at least I gave my blog a new name. It's a bit of a legal theme, considering my LSAT preparations and other such prelaw nightmares. Thankfully I got rid of the practice book that was riddled with mistakes. At least I was able to spot the mistakes. I guess.

Since writing last, I have been to England. Whilst there, I labored in libraries, and said "hello" and "yes, it's me again" to the assembled family members. I wandered the streets of Covent Garden, pretending I was an independent spirit, and peered into the deep depths of the Egyptian cholera epidemic of 1883, surfacing with nothing especially interesting. I witnessed an arrested on the rocky shores of Brighton Beach, and the cringe-worthy attempts of my gossipy (but nice) Aunt sidling up to the police officers and just standing there, hoping to hear something exciting. For three minutes, I sat across from Minnie Driver at the Bar Italia, who was not-eating with her flamboyant, slightly ridiculous ex-model mother. I heard my Nonna comment inappropriately about my cousin's ass, visited a pair of bereaved parents, and even swung by Birmingham. I went to Rosh Hashana services at the Golders Green Synagogue and observed the ladies in their fancy hats. The notice on the back of the synagogue newsletter said, "You may carry this newsletter home on Shabbat if you live within the eruv." Jews can't do work on Shabbat - that includes carrying outside the home, even a newsletter - and an "eruv" is an officially-designated extention of "home." used in neighborhoods with a high density of Jews, and marked by little flags. Golders Green is one such neighborhood.

Since getting home, I have missed three Friday-night events I wanted to attend because of lack of transportation home, and I know I need to move to Seattle, but I feel this horrible sense of inertia. I get up and go to class, yes, but I can't make decisions anymore, or get things done. I miss deadlines, even fail to reply to emails, and feel completely passive. Signs of depression, I know, but I don't feel depressed. I probably need help, but I can't find the energy to change anything or to confront what I haven't done. I'm in a bit of a pickle. Because I'm not doing what I should be doing, not only can I not concentrate, I have a pervasive feeling of guilt, tickling at my brain, even painfully squeezing at my consciousness when I remember a particularly notable failure to act. Acting class is still fun, but it's also not demanding. Well, maybe it's demanding in the sense of "reconnect with your body and control your actions," but not demanding in the way I've become accustomed to. I need some way to be able to concentrate again, to rewire my brain somehow.

grunbergs

I was correct about my Hollywood buddy Greg Grunberg, a cuddly teddy-bear-like chubby guy who once starred in a sitcom opposite Jason Bateman SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, being in Heroes. He plays Matt Parkman, a low-ranking, dyslexic cop whose marriage has fallen apart, but he hears voices dun dun dun. Yay? I will give it a try, though it has a Lost feel about it. I was watching some Eddie Izzard and BBC The Office online. They were good... not great but pretty funny. Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat is hilarious though. Guiltily so. It's not witty humor or anything, but the first few YouTube videos I saw, I couldn't stop laughing. "I had the sex, last night." HAHAHAHAHA. Yes I know, reader, it sounds stupid... and yet. Project Runway is another guilty pleasure lately. It's on tonight but I can't watch it, boo.
TV shows I want to catch up on:
NewsRadio (yes, a Greg favorite)
Seinfeld (I never watched Seinfeld, and always thought it was kinda dumb without giving it a chance. But a lot of smart people think it is brilliant. So I want to watch it)
Scrubs (I've only seen the first season)
Battlestar Galactica (why not?)
There were more but I forgot what they were. I don't know why I'm so spacey and uninteresting when I write in this blog. Sorry reader. I'll keep it as a travel/research journal and perhaps try to continue last year's grand Let's Pick Up British Boys Near Terrorist Memorials Project (I cringe even writing it). Although perhaps we can save that for when Reader, Me, and Mutual Friend of Me and Reader go to Europe, whether it be next year or in ten.

Crap. Maybe I should write my last will and testament.

I don't understand why anyone would be scared of snakes. If you put me in bare-legged in a South American meadow with knee-length grass and told me there were snakes about, then yes, I'd be terrified. And I would certainly scream if I found a snake in the house. Their stealthy, undulating way of sneaking up to you unnoticed... so snakes are scary. But I don't understand why anyone would have a phobia about snakes, because I have a phobia of spiders, and spiders are so much more scary. You don't often see snakes in the urban Northwest, but spiders are everywhere. The Internet says you are never more than 3, 5, or 7 feet away from a spider, depending on the site, and either way I think that's DISGUSTING. Right now there are spiders all around me. And at least once a day, my thoughts stray to what Christina wrote on the blackboard during TS: "The average person digests 7 spiders a year during sleep." That is the stuff of nightmares. I mean you can't digest a snake during sleep. But spiders are different; they're small, and they don't seem to move - they are just there, as if they come with the furniture, making the whole room seem still and "watched." And then all of a sudden something spooks them and they move faster than you'd expect and it's startling and you can't breathe and your arms start twitching and every single brush of dust or carpet against your feet or swoosh of hair against your neck makes your muscles clench in fear and then you run out of the room before you've had a chance to think rationally. It's worst during the night. Whenever I enter my bedroom or bathroom, I scan the line where the wall meets the ceiling for the critters, because that's where they like to hang out. In my shower, near my bed. All those eyes, watching me. All those legs - too many legs - too long in comparison to the body - because a spider seems to think with its legs. You can't see a brain there, but unlike a clam, it's very skilled at getting around... Being in places where it shouldn't. Where you can just relax, sink back into the folds of the couch or the mess of blankets on the bed when something scuttles. Then, you lie rigid, thinking each little tickle or pinprick of air against your skin is really the footprints of eight legs scurrying over you with that mechanical motion, advancing toward your sleeping, open mouth, ready to delicately climb over your lip and into your mouth and throat, while you are sleeping and only feel a little pattering inside and perhaps a hint of eight-legged fear in your dreams. When you're awake at least you aren't helpless, you scan the room and when you find a spider, you keep watching his movements so you aren't caught unawares, so you know where it is, so you have the control in this relationship. Or you can refuse to enter the room until you get someone else to come and kill the spider. Or you can go sleep on the couch.

"One thing that people love to tell arachnophobics is that the spider is actually more afraid of you then you are of it. But the fact is this is just not true. Does the spider's heart begin to race, does its skin crawl, and does it get sweaty palms? No, I didn't think so. "

Exactly! Exactly! Hallelujah! And the further fact is these symptoms are triggered by spider habitats, not just the actual sight of the animals. It's the Potential Spider, the possibility that when you dodge that lurking web in the basement, shift the can of paint, move the old box of books in the shed or take off the garbage can lid you'll be met with eyes and legs. I should inform the reader that I felt a little prickle on my cheek while writing that last sentence, my heart stopped for a splitsecond, and my hand slapped that side of my face before I quite registered what was going on. God, spiders are REPULSIVE.