happy boo-thday!

for halloween i think i shall dress up as jessica tandy in driving miss daisy. or perhaps i will dress up as morgan freeman portraying miss daisy's driver. but i will NOT dress up as dan aykroyd.

why did the vampire subscribe to the new york times?
because he heard it had great circulation! and he also really likes maureen dowd.

orem meg, gone insane

this past january i hung out a little too long with sailor jerry, which resulted in these myspace bulletins that i don't quite remember writing...


Date: Jan 11, 2008 7:04 PM
Subject: that's david matthews to you.
Body: if anyone is interested, i have a great dave matthews song on my profile right now. and by "great" i mean "terrible". BUT do not think for one second that i am not completely enamored by mr. matthews. he is like a god in my damn eyes. well, not a god i would ever pray to or sacrifice 10% of my income for, but a god nonetheless. and why? two words- TWO STEP. two more words- HEMP NECKLACE. three more words and an exclamation point- CRASH INTO ME! four words, seven syllables, and a pat on the back- WELL DONE, DAVE. oh wait- i guess that's three words, three syllables, and more like a slap in the face. i joke about the "slap in the face" part. i don't even know why i said that! it's like i'm on some crazy pills right now or something. you know, kRaZzY piLLz!
until we become more than just myspace acquaintances,
meg


Date: Jan 12, 2008 1:19 AM
Subject: okay, SOMEONE else besides me HAS to be on crazy pills.
Body: anyone want a leg spreader? super delicious! but seriously, i am probably cooler than you think. ask me anything about anything and i can give you a witty, impulsive, fashion forward answer. does that make sense? i don't know. i don't know if that means... never mind. but it totally makes sense. the placebo affect won't occur. effect. rabbits are a lot smarter than people think. "you guys are both gay."
love,
meg


Date: Jan 12, 2008 11:06 PM
Subject: put that up on monster.com, spencer
Body: it would be so cool if i went to jail tonight. i bet i would make so many friends. "dude, jail is not a cool place." no, they are perfect for me. the people in jail, that is. "i don't think it will fit you." no, it will fit perfectly. jail, that is.
i will definitely keep my eyes peeled for ways to get into jail if you promise to do the same,
meg aka "coal umbrella"


Date: Jan 22, 2008 5:58 PM
Subject: order in the court! i order you to answer these questions!
Body: guilty!

what/who is more indie?...

sego or elizabeth smart?

nuclear holocaust or coal umbrella?

dance parties or conjunctivitis?

genocide or the bird flu?

the weak men or EFY?

cloverfield or a mormon in the white house?

not hot 4 teacher

i don't want to teach. at least not right now. the program i am in makes me want to cry every single day. or scream. or both. i just don't care about it and everyone is so different from me and i don't feel challenged at all and i think i am finally realizing that the reason why i wanted to go into teaching in the first place was to go back to my childhood and be somewhere comfortable and safe. i liked the idea of teaching.

i am seriously considering being a buddhist monk at chris's future retreat.

or a professor.

or the apple of your eye.

hot 4 fred

i have a crush on fred armisen from saturday night live.

too bad he is already dating jack black's wife's sister.

bob blog

i am starting to not really like the title of my blog. it just seems a little too abstract and dramatic. but it's from my favorite line in bob dylan's "just like a woman". "with her fog, her amphetamine and her pearls." so i guess my blog title is okay.

man. i have become so boring. nothing interesting to say. oh, except for a rapist told me i could live with him for free. sold!

(oh, and i found this picture on google images by simply/magically/scientifically typing "bob dylan just like a woman". do you understand the picture??? you see, she has PEARLS on her wrist, AMPHETAMINE in her hand, and apparently a NOSE RING in her nose. art.)

underwear

okay, this isn't really about underwear. well, it is and it isn't. a phrase that keeps going through my head lately is one that my mom told me awhile ago- "put on your big girl panties." yes, odd. but basically it means just do what you have to do. rip off the band aid. get it over with. hitch up your panties and don't get your panties in a knot. or something like that. as tired and as stressed as i am, i am surprised that i am actually getting things accomplished. i guess i keep telling myself that i just need to hang in there for a few more months. hang in there, baby.

okay, so maybe i don't really accomplish as much as i say i do. for example, right now i am supposed to be painting walls at work. i have been here for an hour and i have yet to get started. but they always criticize the way i paint them, so i have very little (if any) motivation to screw up another wall (that almost sounded a bit dirty, no?). but i DO enjoy listening to buddhist podcasts while painting walls, so... i guess it's time to put on a pair of granny panties and paint the walls brown. that DEFINITELY sounded dirty.

jake might like this

my dad snail mailed me a bunch of information on INFPs today (a myers-briggs type- Introvert, iNtuitive, Feeling, Perceiving) because i recently took the myers-briggs test and it told me i was an INFP (duh/no duh). my dad was really excited because he too is an INFP. like father, like daughter, like helen keller (who was ALSO an INFP!!! also, no duh).

INFPs are... full of enthusiasms and loyalties, but seldom talk of those until they know you well. care about learning, ideas, language, and independent projects of their own. tend to undertake too much, then somehow get it done. friendly, but often too absorbed in what they are doing to be sociable. little concerned with possessions or physical surroundings.

the number one most popular occupation for INFPs is fine artist. number fifty (on a list of fifty most popular) is roman catholic priest, which, let's be honest, should be number one.

oh yes, and drinking three cups of coffee a day will make your breasts smaller.

fool me once

i saw this on sunday. and i cried. well, almost. i think i will write more about the movie later, but for now i have to have an out of body experience.

pumpkin patch

for some reason, the background in the first picture gives the illusion that i am on top of the empire state building or something.

carrots and sticks and richard gere

last night i was lying in bed agonizing over a big decision that i have to make in the near future. it was tearing me up inside and i didn't know what to do. i decided to get my mind off of it, so i picked up a book of short stories/articles and randomly opened up to an article titled "the futile pursuit of happiness" by jon gertner. i think this article must have been a sign from buddha or richard gere (the modern day buddha). it didn't necessarily distract my mind from my "problem". in fact, it dealt directly with the problem. i was agonizing over which decision would make me the happiest and this article pretty much told me that whatever i decide doesn't really matter. let me explain.

three psychologists and an economist walk into a bar and then asked "how do we predict what will make us happy or unhappy- and then how do we feel after the actual experience?" for example, how will we feel if we win or lose a game? how will we feel a few days after winning/losing the game? how do we predict we will feel after purchasing a cool iphone or a pair of cool vintage jeans or other cool shit? and then how do we react to the outcome? according to these four men, the decision to purchase cool shit, get married, move to olympia, etc. are based on predictions of what the emotional consequences will be.

the researchers claim that we as humans tend to "overestimate the intensity and duration of our emotional reactions- our 'affect'- to future events". so in other words, we might think that moving to olympia or starting a vintage clothing shop called "coal umbrella" will make life great. but it will be less exciting than we predicted and the initial excitement won't last very long. basically, both good and bad events are less intense and more transient than we may predict.

while these ideas don't seem very surprising or new to me, it was still reassuring to read about them last night. the ideas actually seem to be very congruent with buddhism's idea of impermanence. the ordinary understanding of impermanence can be seen everyday- people are born, get older, die, the weather is cold, warm, hot, then cold again. things change constantly. i find that buddhist practice helps to open one up to the less obvious perception of impermanence. by practicing mindfulness, one can see everything as constantly in flux, even things that seem to always be persistent.

i think i am getting a little off track. but basically my point was that this article that richard gere personally wrote for me (under the pen name "jon gertner") really brought peace to my troubled noggin last night (of course, i realized this peace would not last... but neither would future distress). it reassured me that whatever decisions i end up making, i will adapt. one choice won't make me blissfully happy, just like another choice won't make me feel like a dried up turd. even if it DOES make me a happy/turd/happy turd, it won't always be that way. some may find this bleak, but i find it reassuring. at the end of the article, one of the psychologists said, "...maybe our caricatures of the future- these overinflated assessments of how good or bad things will be- maybe it's these illusory assessments that keep us moving in one direction over the other. maybe we don't want a society of people who shrug and say, 'it won't really make a difference.' maybe it's important for there to be carrots and sticks in the world, even if they are illusions. they keep us moving towards carrots and away from sticks."

one year ago...

take a stroll with me down memory lane, also known as october 2007 boulevard:







wow.

git-r-done

sooo... in my technology in the classroom class, we have to make a movie on the computer. my partner and i have to do a movie on how wonderful terrific boot in the ass awesome the pledge of allegiance is. needless to say, this assignment is going to kill me (if george above doesn't kill me first). my partner found that picture above- you know, the one of georgie pie patriotically pledging his allegiance to his christian flag waving proud n' free in the background while tanks n' guns n' jets n' stuff kill n' blow up n' slaughter n' junk lots o' peoplez. git-r-done, w. git-r-done. and of course my partner LOVED it. and then my teacher saw the picture and of course she LOVED it. she thought it was "way cool". weird, because although i usually see blind patriotism as "way cool", for some reason this picture just doesn't sit well with me... hmmm. maybe i need to listen to lee greenwood's "god bless the usa" on repeat while hunting wolves from a helicopter in order to get back into the spirit of all things patriotic.

maybe at the end of the movie i can have a majestic bald eagle crash through the screen. you know, kind of like jumping out of a birthday cake. and what is that birthday cake made out of? red, white, and wolf meat. naturally.

i feel funny inside.

luna

lately i have been getting up at sex (WHOA! honest mistake! x rated mistake!)- i mean SIX in the morning to go to the gym. gross. but cool, too. i like being up early when the moon is setting and the sun is rising. there is something almost secretive about that time of day.

but for hell's sake i'm tired. i am sleeping in tomorrow.

olymigger

i might move here.

is this a good idea or a bad idea?

explain.

sinful

sometimes at night i fantasize about eating all sorts of "sinful" foods.

i have deep dark secrets that are pretty dark, but not too deep and not too secret. chris pretty much knows all of my secrets. every last one of them. almost.

i am elusive. or so i've been told. i think i am just more of a homebody. and i just don't really care to make much of an effort to be social. and then there's the anxiety part. and the "i have to stick to my routine" part.

i have recurring dreams of amusement parks. the parks are always closed, i am inside, there are huge, terrifying rides, and i ride them all.

i am scared of losing myself again.

cobbler

someday i'm going to run into a cobbler and he's going to say, "i can fix that hole in your shoe." and i'm going to say, "hey man, that's not what you're supposed to say."

i

how powerful is our mind? i don't know. am i able to make myself anxious or calm or happy or disheartened by solely my thoughts? how much of an effect (both short and long term) do certain chemicals have on my mind? what would "i" be like today if i had never ever ingested any chemicals (both legal and illegal)?

but there isn't really a solid "i". "i" is such a tricky subject. there is no self! and i know i sound like i am trying too hard to be buddhist or abstract or something, but "i" really mean it- or at least "i" sort of get it right now. it makes sense.

but what is this "it" that makes sense? i am not making much sense, but at the same time i am. i am both not making sense and making sense and neither of those- yet both of those.

good grief. i need a drink or a shrink.

wishes

i wish i would have been a better friend. i wish i would have been more open. i wish i hadn't been so caught up in myself. i wish i would have participated more. i wish i would have made more girlfriends. i wish i would have been more selective with the people i dated. i wish i would have gone to therapy earlier. i wish i had been less afraid.

steve jobs is coming out with the iwish and it is going to solve all of my problems.

but in the meantime, a buddha once said, "it is precisely because our present life is so inseparably linked with desire that we must make use of desire's tremendous energy if we wish to transform our life into something transcendental."