Usually called the doctor. Or the caretaker.

The text of this post has changed so much that I just wiped it to start over. :) This journal is a combination of locked and unlocked. Enjoy what's visible, stranger, or speak, friend, and I will decide on entry.

I am very, very busy. Work is great, and absorbs a lot of my energy and time and processor cycles. I am spending a lot of my free time with my boyfriend, and we had a raft of out of town visitors for a while--first his friend Alex, then his other little brother, and then my bff. Three weeks of visitors! Which was great but also very exhausting. Last weekend we went to Denver to hang out with some friends of his that I hadn't met, and that was fun.

My new roommate Meg and I are pretty sure we've found an apartment. It's farther away from Eric than I wanted to be but a pretty great place and a decent price. So hopefully we'll get in. :)

Well, I'm really tired and need to do some serious napping, so I should sign off.

The Toast gives a list of 79 books which, allegedly, all white men own. Bold those you own. Italicize those you have read. Strikeout those you've never heard of would have to be paid to read. Bonus points if you're not a white male.


1. Shogun, James Clavell
2. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
3. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
4. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
5. A collection of John Lennon’s drawings.
6. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
7. The first two volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin
8. God Is Not Great, Christopher Hitchens
9. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
10. I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, Tucker Max
11. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
12. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat, Oliver Sacks
13. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
14. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
15. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
16. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
17. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
18. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
19. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
20. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
21. The Stand, Stephen King
22. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson
23. The Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer
24. Tuesdays With Morrie, Mitch Albom
25. It’s Not About the Bike, Lance Armstrong
26. Who Moved My Cheese?, Spencer Johnson
27. Portnoy’s Complaint, Philip Roth
28. Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand
29. John Adams, David McCullough
30. Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow
31. Lucky Jim, Kingsley Amis
32. America: The Book, Jon Stewart
33. The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman
34. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell
35. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
36. Exodus, Leon Uris (if Jewish)
37. Trinity, Leon Uris (if Irish-American)
38. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
39. Marley & Me, John Grogan
40. Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt
41. The Rainmaker, John Grisham
42. Patriot Games, Tom Clancy
43. Dragon, Clive Cussler
44. Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond
45. The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone
46. The 9/11 Commission Report
47. The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, John le Carre
48. Rising Sun, Michael Crichton
49. A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
50. Airport, Arthur Hailey
51. Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki
52. Burr, Gore Vidal
53. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt
54. The Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan
55. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
56. Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer
57. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
58. Godel, Escher, Bach, Douglas Hofstadter
59. The World According to Garp, John Irving
60. A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
61. The Tin Drum, Gunter Grass
62. On the Road, Jack Kerouac
63. Lord of the Flies, William Golding
64. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
65. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe
66. Beowulf, the Seamus Heaney translation
67. Rabbit, Run, John Updike
68. The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
69. The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
70. The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
71. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey
72. A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess
73. House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski
74. The Call of the Wild, Jack London
75. Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
76. I, Claudius, Robert Graves
77. The Civil War: A Narrative, Shelby Foote
78. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
79. Life, Keith Richards

Reading h_d and naturalliving really makes me think that most humans alive in North America are not suited for actual life on a planet. We need to colonize the Moon so these people can go live somewhere without actual life outside their hermetically sealed domes.

Got back from Europe last week, promptly got sick. Conference went well, London was great, Paris was amazing, Amboise was really lovely.

In Paris on Thursday, I scattered Ranj's ashes in a flowerbed on the Champs-Élyseés. It was good. It's the first flowerbed on the right side as you walk away from the Place de la Concorde, just off the Allée-Marcel-Proust, in case you're ever in Paris and want to visit him. I thought it was a nice spot because it's just at the turn when the Tour comes back into Paris.

Finished my alien sunset painting. Next involved project I'm calling "the bee painting". Been painting some bugs and stuff in between of course. Had to get a straight edge and a protractor for it. Almost got a t-square but I managed to do it without.

Gonna paint some flowers maybe. I got some little square canvases.

Can't believe I leave on Saturday.

1. You can ONLY answer 'Yes' or 'No'

2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone messages or comments you and asks — and, believe me, the temptation to explain some of these will be overwhelming. Nothing is exactly as it seems.

Kissed any one of your LiveJournal friends? — Yes
Been arrested? — No
Kissed someone you didn't like? — Yes
Slept in until 5 PM? — Yes
Fallen asleep at work/school? — Yes
Held a snake? — Yes
Ran a red light? — Yes
Been suspended from school? — No
Experienced love at first sight? — No
Totalled your car in an accident? — No
Been fired from a job? — Yes
Fired somebody? — No
Sung karaoke? — No
Pointed a gun at someone? — No
Did something you told yourself you wouldn't? — Yes
Laughed until something you were drinking came out your eyes? — No
Caught a snowflake on your tongue? — Yes
Kissed in the rain? — Yes
Had a close brush with death (your own)? — Yes
Saw someone die? — No
Played Spin-the-Bottle? — No
Smoked a cigar? — No
Sat on a rooftop? — Yes
Smuggled something into another country? — Yes
Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? — No
Broken a bone? — Yes
Skipped school? — Yes
Eaten a bug? — Yes
Sleepwalked? — Yes
Walked on a moonlit beach? — Yes
Ridden a motorcycle? — Yes
Dumped someone? — Yes
Forgotten your anniversary? — No
Lied to avoid a ticket? — Yes
Ridden in a helicopter? — Yes
Shaved your head? — No
Blacked out from drinking? — No
Played a prank on someone? — No
Hit a home run? — No
Felt like killing someone? — Yes
Cross-dressed? — No
Been falling-down drunk? — Yes
Made your girlfriend/boyfriend cry? — Yes
Eaten snake? — No
Marched/protested? — Yes
Had Mexican jumping beans for pets? — No
Puked on an amusement ride? — No
Seriously & intentionally boycotted something? — Yes
Been in a band? - No
Knitted? — Yes
Been on TV? — Yes
Shot a gun? — Yes
Skinny-dipped? — Yes
Given someone stitches? — No
Eaten a whole habanero pepper? — Yes
Ridden a surfboard? — No
Drunk straight from a liquor bottle? — Yes
Had surgery? — No
Streaked? — No
Been taken by ambulance to a hospital? — No
Tripped on mushrooms? — No
Passed out when NOT drinking? — Yes
Peed on a bush? — Yes
Donated blood? — Yes
Grabbed electric fence? - Yes
Eaten alligator meat? - No
Eaten cheesecake? — Yes
Eaten your kids' Halloween candy? — No
Killed an animal when NOT hunting? — Yes
Peed your pants in public? — Yes
Snuck into a movie without paying? — No
Written graffiti? — Yes
Still love someone you shouldn't? — No
Think about the future? — Yes
Been in handcuffs? — Yes
Believe in love? — Yes
Sleep on a certain side of the bed? — Yes

I can't believe we leave in a week for London. ANGST. Also it would be really nice if my freaking cheque would come so I can deposit it and start waiting out the hold. NEEDS TEH MONIES.

I panned an aggressively mediocre (to passively bad) Regency romance novel on Amazon and now the author and her mum are mad at me.