a couple of things.

i am a little bit hung over today, but not too bad. i am suddenly ravenously hungry for a cheeseburger.

shannon comes home tomorrow and i am very excited. last night i got home from my carousing and walking home in the mist and, as usual, my thighs and butt were very cold. (this is a recurring body quirk, that runs in the family. my mom gets a cold butt too.) anyway, i got home, put on my pjs, and there was no one in bed to snuggle up to to warm up my freezing butt.

i slept in a little bit today, since i got home so late, and when i woke up i went outside to check on the tulips. there is one that is just about to bloom and i have been checking it each day to make sure it hasn't bloomed yet. i don't want shannon to miss it. the air is very moist and warm today. it reminds me on corsica. the air was a bit like that there, only warmer.

i want the cheeseburger, but, here's the big question: am i too lazy to get dressed and walk to it? quite possibly.


Current mood: mellow
Currently reading: A Dame to Kill For (Sin City, Book 2: Second Edition) By Frank Miller

lucero.

holy crap. i love them.

Current mood: lazy
Currently reading : Weaveworld By Clive Barker

sweet.

today is the greatest day i have ever known.
seriously.
the weather is perfect, i had *TWO* iced chais, i am dropping my hard classes because i just don't give a crap anymore, got to chat with two people who i really like, i walked around on the cool grass barefoot while standing in the sun and the air smells like flowers and freshness.
i want to marry my life right now.
i was freaking out yesterday about school, but i have figured out what i need to do, it's all going to be fine and...yeah.
everything is awesome.

Current mood: ecstatic

ack!

my free studying day is slipping through my fingers and i can't make myself to any goddamned homework! i have a big, scary genetics/heredity test tomorrow morning at 9am that i am totally unprepared for. i know that i am unprepared for it. i have time to prepare. but i'm not. i'm not really doing anything. i did some handwashing. that's good. i called my dad. that's good, too. called tabitha. then a lot of just laying around and staring at the ceiling!
I AM TOTALLY BLOWING IT, AND I KNOW IT, AND I CAN'T STOP!!!

Current mood: guilty
Currently listening : Hail To The Thief By Radiohead

resolution.

it's always a nice feeling when something has been completely plagueing you and driving you insane with worry, and then a solution presents itself that feels like the entire Universe clicking into place; like everything around you heaving a huge sigh of relief.

i've been totally losing my shit about life. everything has felt really fucked up and suffocating, not enough time in the day, too much dumb, obligatory bullshit to wade through, too much guilt... basically, i have community college senioritis and i just don't care at all about any of my classes this semester. having to keep my grades up is complete torture, because i just don't have my usual interest. then, i got laid off from one of my office jobs, but it got replaced by freelance writing, which seems neat, and will be cool to add to my resume, but means i have to spend part of my already-limited free time working on this writing project. there have been a whole bunch of really important things going on in student/college government and that has taken more time than usual. time is running out on the projects i want to get done and leave as my legacy and i barely have time to sleep, much less write proposal letters or position papers. i need to be working (job-wise) a bit more, to make money for the move to LA (which i insist on assuming is going to happen despite no acceptance yet from UCLA), and i am just sick and tired of my days being so jammed packed with stuff i don't give a crap about! i can't even read a goddamn book because i have so much school reading to do! you know me, i HAVE to read, and i just don't have the time for it. oh, and i should be spending at least an hour a day working on scholarship applications, which i obviously haven't been doing. so, life has just been feeling like it's tightening slowly around my throat.

but i think i've figured it out.

i'm going to drop one of the classes that i am taking for fun. it looks not-so-good to have that on my transcripts so close to my transfer, but it's drop the class or drop out of school entirely, so i'll do what i have to. it's my only class on tuesday, which will free up that whole day. then i can either work that day, or spend it on homework and scholarships. i'm sad, because i really like the teacher, but the class isn't turning out as awesome as it would need to in order to make the cut. sorry, myth, symbol and the arts class. you're out.

i have been a complete asshole all week because of this stress and the dilemma, and figuring out a solution that is acceptable is a HUGE weight off my mind. now i might be able to actually accomplish something, instead of lying on my bed, curled in the fetal position, whimpering about my misery.

(i know, i know. my misery is nothing compared to all the true misery in the world. but my misery is the only misery i really know, so it's all i really have to work with. i could lie in a ball and whimper about the world's misery, also, but i just don't have the time right now. it's coming though. i am reading some testimonies from kids who got kidnapped and forced to be soldiers in the civil war in uganda, and it's enough to set me off. all i really ever need to put my issues in perspective is to think about africa. dude. that's some miserable fucking misery.)

some miscellaneous notes:
-i am only just now resuming the quest for my license. sticking with driving, despite the failing of the driving test, has been quite possibly the hardest thing i have ever done, for me. i know that i have issues with doing new things, for fear of being bad at them, and that that handicaps me on a lot of levels. learning to drive is the most dramatic example, but there are a jillion more. everything in me screams to stop driving, because i did my best on the driving test and it wasn't good enough, so i suck and i should just give up. NOT giving up goes against everything i have ever taught myself. it's very difficult, but pretty amazing. if i can learn to drive and get my license, which most people do but i have had as a huge, insurmountable obstacle, then i can do anything. so, i am baby-stepping. baby-steps back behind the wheel. baby-steps to set up driver's training lessons. baby-steps to schedule my next test. (that's the biggie. i feel ill just thinking about taking that goddamn test again.) i'm not moving fast, but i'm moving, and that's what counts.

-i decided not to do homework for most of today. the rationale is: a) i have a study session at 3pm today, so i can afford to slack until then; b) i have put off doing housework (changing the bed, cleaning my filthy bathroom) for weeks because of homework, but it's got to get done; c) today is so glorious (xoxowhitney), i can not possibly be expected to get my homework done, so i won't even try. and, not doing my homework was perfection. cleaned the hizzy, chatted for a really long time with ariana, which has also been long overdo, aired out the down comforters in the sun, re-folded my sweater stacks, which had gotten pretty teetery.... everything EXCEPT homework. it was delicious and i loved it. it made having to go into broken drum for my study session less painful.

-i need a massage and a chiropractic adjustment worse than ever before.

-spring time is awesome! all the flowers are blooming! my orchids are both blooming (first time ever!), the jasmine we planted is teetering on the brink of becoming a tasty-smelling tornado of deliciousness, my tulips are finally coming up (i'd despaired that i'd screwed them up, but they are just on a different time line than the the paperwhites, i guess), the cyclamen is STILL blooming and has been for a couple of months, and even the peacelily inside is throwing off some loveliness. i have finally come into my green-thumb genes and it's pretty exciting. my mom is really proud.

-i am pondering submitting to my consumer impulses and buying a fantastic, very expensive purse. it's my first status purse and i am nervous about it, but i am pretty sure that i'm going to go for it.

-i just noticed how i switch back and forth between using contractions and the full words. that's weird. i wonder why i do that.

-i have my first solid, not-stupid, idea for a short story floating around in my brain, but i have yet to do anything about it. my parents got my chart done when my mom was pregnant with me and the astrologer said i was going to be an author, and my mom always pushes that, like it's my destiny. now shannon has started in, too. so, maybe i am getting ready to submit to my destiny. we'll see.

-me me me. i i i. sometimes i rant about world events, but today it's the kira show. forgive the narcisissm. who cares, anyway? it's my fucking blog. i'll write about whatever i want, and sometimes i just want to bitch about how hard my life is.

-to sum up.... friends are cool, school is getting old, the sun is glorious, growing things is very satisfying, learning to drive and getting my license are both more difficult than just learning the mechanics, and maybe i am an author in the making.

okay, back to the homework mines, after dinner with my sugar booger at the tasty puerto rican restaurant downtown. yumyum.

Current mood: relieved
Currently listening : The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou By Various Artists

pet peeves, pt. 2

if there is any one thing that shakes my faith in humanity on a day to day basis (versus things like the holocaust, which i can avoid thinking about usually), it is leaf blowers.

what jack ass decided that blowing the leaves from their own yard into the gutters, or into their neighbors' yards was an okay idea? who the fuck do they think is going to clean up the leaves? obviously the leaves are going to become a nuisance for someone else, like clogging the gutters and causing flooding, so why not get off your fat ass and just sweep them up? what the hell was wrong with brooms, anyway? it's not like leaf blowers don't still require you to move around. was raking and sweeping that much more labor intensive than hauling that huge blower around? plus, they stink up the entire neighborhood and are loud.

that kind of human ingenuity is why we might just be destined to die the pretty-much-inevitible backlash of outstripping the carrying capacity of the land. it's like littering, this whole mentality of 'yeah, it's my mess, but i don't want to deal with it, so i'll leave it for an innocent stranger.'

me and shannon take his dog to the park all the time and more times than not there is fucking garbage and leftover food from some hispanic family's picnic that they just LEFT AT THE PARK. (racial stereotyping not intended, but if all that's left is pacifico bottles, taco bell hot sauce packets, kentucky fried chicken buckets, empty coke cans, etc. and one sees many families eating the same afore-mentioned dietary garbage, the dots aren't hard to connect.) sometimes they leave used diapers or napkins and stuff. what the fuck is wrong with people?! i saw some dumb looking teenagers eating cookies and doritos, smoking basic cigarettes and being dolts, and they would just wad up their wrappers and toss them on the sidewalk. seriously, who the fuck made this behavior acceptable?

i can't believe everyone isn't livid about this! i can't believe that we aren't reading about litter and leaf blower-related assults every day in the newspaper!

ATTENTION, EVERYONE! Pick up your fucking garbage. if you smoke, i will not scold you, but pick up your goddamned cigarette butts. where do you think they go after they're left on the sidewalk? they get stuck to the bottom of my shoe with some asshole's old gum. that's where.

Current mood: creative
Currently listening : Our Endless Numbered Days By Iron & Wine

slasher!

whoa! i just had a little episode from a teen horror film!
i was taking a shower, singing wham! at the top of my lungs, because no one is home, and i hear this weird thudding noise. so, i cut off my singing and am straining to hear outside. there's what sounds like footsteps in the hallway and what i think is the sliding door to the bathroom opening. i ask, in a quavering voice, "he-hello?" silence. there is, over the next 30ish seconds, a whole bunch of mysterious noises (scrabbling, thudding, swishing... you know. mysterious and onomatopoetic...) i start thinking, "um... what if i didn't close the front door securely? anyone could just push the door open. i am crazy vulnerable, naked in the shower and such... holy crap..." but nothing happens. so, to fortify myself, i move along to the next song on the wham! album, and re-double my singing.

i'm dressed now, so, obviously no one was in the house to kill me, because what kind of a psycho killer would wait til i was dressed to kill me, right? everyone knows that much.

it was still pretty weird, though.

Current mood: refreshed
Currently listening: Make It Big By Wham!

chorus.

everyone was much nicer to me at chorus today. i feel heartened. the music is hard, but it already sounds sweet and we're just fumbling around. it's gonna sound BAD. ASS.

don't worry. i'll let you know the performance dates.

Current mood: mellow
Currently listening: Mozart: Mass in C minor, K417a By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

student government. why?

i think i just do it because i like to argue. it's really getting me nowhere. it's a microcosm of government in general, in the sense that it's totally dysfunctional and everywhere you look there is serious detail work that needs to be done to fix things. so, just like with government in general, where do you start? what do you do when everything is falling apart and every single thing needs your full attention?

no seriously, i'm asking, because i honestly can't figure it out. my method so far, working half-assedly on a million different things, hasn't been especially fruitful, so this semester i am going to attempt to focus on three main goals/projects, and let everything else slide. shit, i already applied for colleges, so it's not like anything this semester can help me get in, right? as long as i have one concrete thing to show for my hours of time, i'll feel fulfilled.

the academic senate (the teachers' decision-making body) are being a bunch of horse's asses and i want to kick them around the campus ten times each. it is totally contrary to my nature to be distrustful and it hurts me in my heart when people prove my worst suspicions correct. it's really discouraging.

______________________________________________________________

on a totally different note, today was so beautiful and sunny, and i just felt full of joy. i never realize how much i miss the sun until it comes back and i feel like a flower opening up or something. yet another reason why going to ucla would be sweet: sun all the time. i might miss the rain at some point, but not as much as i'll be stoked to wear flip-flops and skirts every day if i want. i accidentally stoked myself with a late starting class on mondays, so i don't have to be to school until noon, which is already turning out to be a blessing. being able to take my time this morning was heaven. taking a leisurely shower; changing clothes as many times as i needed to in order to be wearing clothes i felt comfortable in, without having to rush out in an outfit that wasn't working right; leaving a smidgen early and getting an iced chai; moseying to the bus stop listening to interpol (i know! i didn't listen to my book-on-cd!); even getting about 30 mins of loafing on a sunny bench before class... heaven. then my student senate made me full of rage and i wanted smash and it kinda killed my buzz.

regardless, today was heaven before student senate, and i hope it's sunny again tomorrow. i know it'll get cloudy and rainy again at least once before spring starts, but a smidgen more sunny weather before hand would be really appreciated.

oh well.


Current mood: busy

kira the grouch.

i have a lot of homework, already. i am obviously not doing it, because i am writing this instead, but it is important to note that, one week in, i have homework in all of my academic classes. and i guess, to be honest, i ought to practice the songs we're working on in chorus, though i can't read sheet music so i don't know what more i can do.
here is a brief run-down on what my classes had in-store for me this week:

statistics: "zany" ponytail guy teacher. he's nice, just trying to hard to be the cool teacher. statistics is boring enough to put a hummingbird into a coma. seriously. algebra was way cooler than this. my friend, mike, from my astronomy class (last year), is in it, too. he's a total dick but very entertaining. it'll be fine. boring, but fine.

astronomy lab: whatever. my teacher is like a teeny hobbit woman, all rosy cheeked and round. she's really nice. the rich bitch persian mafia princesses from my astronomy class (last year) are in there, too. i can't stop staring at them. i have the dueling impulses to condemn and join them. story of my life, man.

myth, symbol and the arts: different teacher than i expected, but the guy seems pretty rad. he usually teaches at another jc, so i think the class will be pretty hard. (com is like college for babies, more so than other community colleges.) the class is jam-packed. there are some real dolts in there. wowie. a christian vietnamese guy that i know from student government is in there. it'll be mildly interesting to see how he responds to the ideas put forth. he was sure to comment that science, itself, is really just a set of myths and such, like a religion. they never rest, that god squad, always shaking their pom-poms and cheering for god. my other friend named mike, from my anthropology class (3ish years ago) is in there, which is sweet. he's a peach. the class, at least on the first day, was very discussion-y, which is a pet peeve of mine. i am not paying to here the assholes in my class pontificate on a subject, i am paying to learn about it from someone who knows some actual facts about it. but i'm a grouch that way. i still haven't decided if i'll take it for a letter grade or c/nc.

evolution and heredity: radical. love the teacher, nice small class, only 3 tests and that's it...perfect. except for... that fucking nimrod who sits to my left won't shut his fucking pie hole and let the teacher talk. he likes to complete her sentences incorrectly. for example, imagine this sample of dialogue:
"okay, let's talk a bit about phenotypes. phenotypes are-"
"oh, is that the stuff that genes are made of? like, the stuff that makes up the genes?"
"um..no."
dude, if you'd stop talking, perhaps she'd be able to tell you what a phenotype is. i am a chronic hand-raiser, but i am careful not to overdo it or be that guy. that guy is an indiscriminate hand-raiser, in the sense that he raises his hand regardless of whether or not he has anything of value to contribute. or to ask questions that actively steer us off the topic at hand, for no reason. i hate him with a venom i have seldom experienced. i fear that i'll blurt something really rude at him, out of desperation. i think i was already muttering and groaning too loud. i just got so fucking fed up with hearing his voice. again, i am not paying to listen to your flap your gums, you pinhead. i'm here to hear the teacher, who actually DOES know something about this topic. he's the worst. he is hell. he is ruining my perfect class.

community chorus: i had to audition to get in. it was easy, aside from the sight-reading test, which i knew i'd botch. i'm an alto, but i impressed the teacher with my vocal range and he encouraged me to keep singing because i could easily slide up to being a soprano with some practice. woowoo. i am the youngest person in the chorus by at least 15 years. the majority of the people have been in the chorus for years, so it was really scary. i was kinda desperate for someone to talk to me. we're doing an entirely mozart show this year. um... wish i could sight-read, 'cause that shit is hard. i was tempted to quit, but i am going to stick it out. those chorus folks take that shit super seriously, though. whoa.

in other news, i have scheduled my driver's test. it is feb 17th. part of me wants to keep it a secret, so that if i fail i won't have to tell everyone because they won't know, but the other part of me feels like i need to just accept that i might fail the first time and get over it. so, yeah. the 17th.

i am also officially insured now. let's go out and drive into stuff!

okay, fine. i'll do homework now. sheesh.

p.s. what the fuck does exanimate mean? i just chose that as my emotion to see what the bouncing cat looked like.

p.p.s my package of clothes from nordstroms.com came and my new diesel watch is the time-keeping equivalent of dark chocolate (in a good way.) it is fucking tasty. i look like a tough bitch in it. grr.

Current mood: exanimate
Currently listening: Edward Scissorhands: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack By Danny Elfman