Foom.
7-1-02, 10:13 (HA!) PM
The Vimes and Sybil song goes well. It’s sweet, but it doesn’t make me want to bash my head in with a red-hot poker. Therfore, it stays. Hurrah. And it’s upbeat. Go me.
7-3-02, 6:12 PM
Heeey, no entries yesterday! What’s up with that? I suppose I had better answer for myself and tell you what I was doing, eh? Improving in art, certainly. Looking at the scribble sketches I drew today, I was impressed at the direction I’m going. It’s not really reflecting in my cartoony fanart drawings yet, but hopefully it will by the end of the term. I’ve been compiling a list of scenes/characters/etc I want to draw.
In addition to the standard 6 hours of class per day, yesterday I went with some of my fellow Marltonites (that sounds wrong…) on the Staten Island Ferry, where we got a nice sunset view of Manhattan. There was a lunatic woman on the boat that kept yelling at an older woman (with a walking stick) for (mistakenly) stealing her seat. She was yelling for about 15 minutes straight, mainly along the lines of “act your age, or give me one of your babies”. My friends and I were really amused.
Friends? Yes! Friends! These come in the form of Eddie, a guy from San Antonio, who is also in my Drawing and Painting class; Ryan, a guy from Norway; Christa, one of the R.A.s; Kelley, a guy I met at the Ice Cream party; and a wide cast of great people whose names I’ve forgotten. Wow, my memory is awful. Not on the Ferry Ride were Ian, Eddie’s roommate, and Erica, an Invader Zim fan I often run into before and after classes.
Meanwhile, I’m wishing that I had tried out for “Kiss Me, Kate”, as knowing the lyrics to “Too Darn Hot” would be really convenient. Yes, I’m from Texas. I know heat, but New York heat is different from Dallas heat. In Dallas, we have air conditioning, and we drive everywhere in air conditioned cars. In New York, I have no air conditioning in my room (God bless my fan! I put it together last night, finally), and we either walk everywhere in the blazing sun or ride in the baking subways. Gravy. I’m going to have to do laundry tomorrow, as I find myself needing to change my shirt when I get back from afternoon classes. Yuck.
As I’m meeting Eddie for dinner in seven minutes, I’d like to quickly say that Tanja, I’m incredibly sorry, but the anniversary card is going to be late. I don’t have much time to CG, and I still have quite a ways to go. Alicey and Mon can tell you how nifty it’s going to be. Until then, many hearts and schnoogles! The same goes for PDM Britt and Brenna. As I have no scanner access, your birthday presents will come after I get home. Quite possibly I’ll have a song for you, Brenna! Or more! Hurrah!
7-1-02 (Daddy’s Birthday!), 9:27 AM
Good gravy. When attempting large construction feats during the night, does it *have* to be right across from my window? I was seranaded by the sound of giant trucks and revving engines and hammering nails and all that sort of noise one can easily and comfortably drift to sleep to. I couldn’t close the window, because if I did, the room would heat up and fry me. I couldn’t try to make earplugs, because I wouldn’t be able to hear my alarm clocks (I have three). Bah. Stupid construction.
Anyway, I’m going to see if I can’t connect to the internet later this evening. The RA showed us a library (on the opposite side of the park half a block from our dorm) that has free internet access, so hopefully I can hook Jimmy up there, rather than using one of the computers they’ll undoubtedly provide. Anyway, go me. Hurrah for weblog entries of substance!
7-1-02, 8:11 PM
What vast moment of idiocy made me think it was a good idea to use my cookie in a still life for a half-hour drawing assignment? The hunger… All I’ve had today has been a bagel sandwich and a Tazoberry slush. I need to find a real dinner. Bah to finding meals for myself. I’m so useless.
In other news, I’m considering giving Vimes and Sybil a song. Yay. It would give them both some more screentime and give Vimes something nice to reprise when he’s getting all drunk and depressed mid-novel. ::idly waves “hurrah” flag:: I still need to find a screwdriver… I’m boiling. ::kicks fan pieces::
6-30-02, 9:22 PM
Wow. Good gravy. I shall now recount to thee the tale of an epic struggle of such Herculean proportions that Women’s suffrage pales in comparison. Shortly after I finished my last weblog entry, I went out to meet my sister for lunch and shopping, as the list of things missing from my room was growing faster than an especially enthusiastic jackrabbit population, running the gamut from trashbins to a fan to toilet paper. After completely failing to catch a cab (standing in the blazing sunlight for about 15 minutes), my sister called me again and said that she’d come to me, rather than the previous plan of me coming to her. We ate at a pocket-sized eatery on 6th Avenue, where I consumed a delicious Caesar salad with the most amazing chicken I’ve ever tasted, then we were off.
We walked three blocks to a subway station, bought month-long Metro passes, realized we were in the wrong station, exited, saw a Duane Reade (pharmacy-ish thing), bought lots of junk, found the correct subway station, and came up at 22nd Street. We walked down to 18th Street, where Melissa was told we could find a “Bed Bath and Beyond”. Good stuff.
Although I only really went for a fan, a blanket, and a pillow, We ended up spending about three hours there, where my sister’s fashion-addicted personality leapt at every accessorizing opportunity. As we approached the final stretch, I was ready to collapse into my pillow-infested shopping cart. Finally, I was able to pry my sister away from another of thousands of miscellaneous displays and warn her that, although I wasn’t sure, I was afraid I had to be somewhere around 6:30. It was then just past 6:00. We managed to check out and hail a cab without much fuss, despite the fact that our cab driver was Satan incarnate. He acted as though the traffic disturbance over the Pride Parade was our fault, as I had to be dropped off at 5th and 8th, which was frankly impossible, from his point of view. Meh. Anyway, we dropped my sister off first, as her dorm was closer, and we managed to hop out and separate our bags before–as our driver warned–an officer could give him a ticket. My turn.
Of course, as luck would have it, because of the Pride Parade, the closest he could take me to my dorm was the corner of 6th and 9th, which is actually about three blocks from my building. Goody. I was left at the side of an incredibly busy street in the blazing hot sun with four gargantuan bags, together weighing as much as the Sears Tower. Blazing hot sun, you ask? Let’s put it this way. I’m from Texas, and I say the sun was blazing. Ye gods. I had the express priviledge of towing these four bags three city blocks, shady-looking teenagers and sniggering shop clerks in my wake. One such boy, leering at my futile struggle, grimaced at me and said, “I can help you with that for ten dollars.” I said no thank you. He grinned evilly and said “Twenty Dollars?”
Fat chance.
I finally arrived at Marlton, radiating relief and sweat from every pore. I must have looked like hell. I could feel my left shin bruising prettily, as the metal trash bin had slammed into my leg at every step. My left arm, which had been carrying the box with the fan, was shaking. I noticed that neither of my roommates had arrived yet, so I got to work, feebly putting things away, then eventually starting to work on the fan in hopes of cooling off my boiling room. Despite my shaking arms and lack of any physical strength whatsoever, the body went together fairly well. Until, of course, I got to the actual fan itself. I was supposed to take the face apart and reassemble the interior, which required a screwdriver. A screwdriver? Where was I supposed to find a screwdriver? Downstairs, probably, but that would require actually going downstairs (from the 8th floor), and I had difficulty crossing the room. Joy. Hurrah, hurrah for dehydration. The fan could wait. I took a shower.
And so ends my story. Life as a melodrama is so much more exciting. I got to meet some of the people on the floors below me, one of which looks exactly like a male version of former carpoolmate Paulette Abbas. We were led up and down 5th and 6th Avenue, our RA pointing out drugstores and eateries, all the while discussing aspects of life in New York. Good stuff.
And now, I’m going to get some ice cream.
6-30-02, 1:20PM
Probably my most guilty pleasure is seeing harried people being forced to wait for something. Ashley will remember my giddy happiness at seeing cars wait twenty minutes in the drive through at Chick-Fil-A when someone inside ordered five entire hundred-twenty-five-piece chicken nugget platters, resulting in a grave nugget shortage and the forced procurement of many new batches of such nuggets, resulting in unfathomable drive-thru waits. Even though I had to wait as well, I couldn’t help feeling amused at the other customers’ discomfort. I wouldn’t really call it a sadistic pleasure — far from that. Perhaps it’s the recognition that they’re getting enraged about something they have no control over. Getting angry won’t help.
And now, again, I find myself in a similar situation. On the cab ride to my dorm, I noticed a bunch of banners advertising a Pride Parade. I found this rather cool, as I’ve never witnessed one. As luck would have it, the parade was to be today. Of course, this was pushed out of my mind as I settled into my dorm, but it quickly returned to my forebrain when I heard the shouts. The sounds of cheering crouds, cab horns, and revving motorcycle engines returned me to the present. I looked out my 7th story window to the intersection of 5th Avenue and 8th Street in time to see the first rang of horsemen, followed by a phalanx of motorcyclists, rainbow-banners flapping exhuberantly in their wake. However, the city failed to block off 8th Street, resulting in an unending line of cars honking furiously at the unmoving vehicles before them. Every so often, passengers would storm over to the police line, demanding to be let through. Eventually, they had to pause the parade in order to allow the disgruntled motorists passage.
It may not seem funny to you, but to someone as easily amused as I, it was absolutely hilarious. How often in Dallas would I see an enraged queue of cabs, glinting angry yellow in the sunlight, honking furiously at a cheering throng of homosexual cyclists? All to the blaring soundtrack of “It’s Raining Men”? If that’s not a reason to smile, I don’t know what is. Fuzzy bunnies pale in comparison.
Yay! Hurrah, hurrah for cybercafes! This one is just about a block down from where I take my classes, making it significantly further away from the NYU Library I’ve used previously, but it’s worth it. Zip access. Muah. And you never know how much you love rightclicking until it’s taken away. For some unfathomable reason, it’s deactivated at the NYU Library. And here, the monitor is big and shiny and happy, at a really really high resolution. Priscellie is in love. Of course, the realization that I have to pay to be with the computer I love draws worrying parallels to places of ill repute, so we’re not even going to go there.
Anyway, as I may have said previously, I’ve been diligently writing weblog entries in a text file on Jimmy, with the hope of eventually saving them to a zip disk and uploading them to CoL when I found a computer a Zip drive. Here are the entries! Hurrah! Now here we goooooooo….. Posted in reverse order, as to mesh happily with the standard blogger style.
6-30-02, 10:46AM
Woo! I’m in New York! *dances* Unfortunately, I have no internet connection. Grr. I think I’ll type my weblog entries in a text file for the time being, then find a Cybercafe and upload them every so often. You won’t be hearing from me much, but at least we’ll have some means of communication.
My sister and I came up yesterday, arrived around 7, and walked about Times Square, looking for a movie theatre to pass the evening. My sister hadn’t seen Episode II, so I took her there. In the previews, we saw the trailer for the Dear-God-NO!-inducing “Country Bears”. I told my sister “See? This is what you’ll get if you don’t support Lilo and Stitch. She assured me she’d force her friends to see it. Good girl. Episode II was a nice choice, as we had watched Moulin Rouge on Jimmy on the plane, so we had quite the Ewan!fest. Nice Ewan. We heart Ewan. Yay. It was amazing how much detail I noticed in the movie [Moulin Rouge, of course] that I hadn’t seen before. Because my laptop has a dinky sound system and we could barely hear the dialogue and music over the sound of the plane (of course, we practically have the movie memorized, so it didn’t matter much), we put a lot more focus into the images Baz gave us. Absolutely unbelieveably gorgeous. All of you have to go out and see this movie again. Gravy, I heart Moulin Rouge.
And now, this morning, I’m all checked in and ready to roll. I was overjoyed during my taxi ride over as I spotted the Barnes & Noble and Fye (a CD and movie store) less than a block away [edit: actually, it’s one crosstown block away, which is like two or three normal blocks. Bah]. Priscellie is spoiled. Of course, I already have ten thousand books on my “To Read During the Summer” list, so I’ll hardly need to stop at a Barnes and Noble any time soon. Maybe I’ll stock up on Gaiman to prepare myself for the 11th. I still haven’t read Sandman, which is shameful, considering how many online friends have grabbed me by the virtual collar and screamed in my face “YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK!”. Indeed.
I need to find a listing of the stuff showing in New York so that I can decide what to see. Urinetown, Chicago, Into The Woods, and others come highly regarded. I shall investigate. In the meantime, I’m also compiling a list of really silly musicals I see advertised. The winner so far is The Prince and the Pauper, while my last trip’s winner was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I look forward to the day when people like me will laugh and sneer at a marquee advertising Men at Arms. Muah.
My dorm has no air conditioning and all but one of the windows are painted shut. Percy help us.
Hurrah! Renata got “Guards! Guards!” and Alicey got the Pizza Box of Doom. Now we just have to wait until Jia-Ling gets her package, and for July 17th when Alicey gets to open hers! Hurrah! And there was something I was supposed to do for Renata, but I can’t remember… XD
I really feel like I’m supposed to be doing something right now, but I can’t for the life of me think of what it is. Hmm. I’m attempting to catch up on my LJ Friends list, but is there something more important on my to-do list? My homework isn’t due until Monday, thanks to the superhuge July 4th weekend, I’ve already had dinner, and curfew isn’t until 11. Hmm.
Until I remember, here’s a nice Important Notice for you. Let it be known that all snails should be directed to:
Priscilla Spencer
5 West 8th Street, #817
New York, NY 10011
Snails are my friends.
Meanwhile, I’ve become dangerously addicted to Snapple.