Magic Mouthwash and bleh.

Glorious, isn't it?

You know, you'd think being sick for a long, long time would have a great number of benefits.  Lots of nice food.  Parents and boyfriend waiting on you obligingly.  Lying in bed and daydreaming that you're a consumptive poet whose greatness will only be realized after your tragically young death.

But there are a surprising number of cons.

1. People don't wait on you.  Nor are you allowed to stay in bed for long. Very selfishly, people forget that you're ill and give you homework  or make you contribute to the communal living experience and do things like clean up after yourself.

2. You're all weak and tired and then all your relatives and friends who aren't weak and tired go to the rock climbing gym all the time without you and get WAY better at climbing than you.  Which just makes you feel worse about yourself.

3. You wear the same pair of socks like five days in a row because you're sleep deprived and forget to change them. And then you loose friends (the definition of friends being people willing to come within a ten-foot radius of you).

But, quite seriously, I've been ill for over three months now with a tenacious and sometimes dreadful viral infection.  I shan't go into details, but let me just say that cold sores (or whatever they are) can do fantastically hideous things to you if they want to. Keep on their good side.

The only really enjoyable part of the whole ordeal so far was when during a visit my doctor said, "Okay, I'm going to prescribe you some magic mouthwash." I started to grin but realized he was perfectly serious.  And when I got the prescription? Printed on the side was:
MAGIC MOUTHWASH. GARGLE TWICE DAILY.

Dinnertime

I'm beginning to suspect that people ask me to cook solely for the entertainment value.  These:

were supposed to be pancakes.  And, quite honestly? They look better in the picture than they did in real life.

Painty clothes and bruised knees, essentially.

It's been too long.  I feel an agonizingly long-winded UPDATE ON MY LIFE twitching in my finger tips! Can't... can't!  Too laaaaate!

So.

Hello, my name is Kelsey.

I am 22 years old.  I go to college, which is fun about 57% of the time.  I think that's not a bad percentage, really. Lately I have been making things like suits made of dried-out sanitizing wipes and fake wooden moose heads (like the sort hunters mount on their walls after they've, uh, shot them.)
This is art, apparently.

(This shoe made of wire is art also, from what I understand.)

Recently I realized that I will never make good art if I try to force myself to be all serious and deep about it.  I like funny things. And if, by some chance, the stuff I make gives somebody else a laugh... well, I can't think of a reaction I'd enjoy more. 

One of the weirdest things that's kind of happened, and which I have not even mentioned here, is that basically I rock climb now. 

See? That's me a few months ago. Climbing (not particularly well, but climbing) at a fancy schmancy gym in St. Louis. 

I never would have imagined that someday I'd get into this sport. Heck, I didn't know it was a sport. 

But I think I can consider myself into it. I have shoes and a harness and a chalk bag and a carabiner from when my dad climbed in the 80's that makes a horrible "skree" sound every time you open and close it (and, as a result, is never actually used).  I'm getting better at it. I go at least three times a week when I can.  I rattle off jargon. It's bizarre. Mainly because I'm, quite honestly, a deeply lazy person.  

I think one of the key factors in the quite miraculous way I've stuck with climbing, besides that it's not competitive and doesn't require spandex, is that climbers are fantastic. And when I say "fantastic" I mean WEIRD.  Climbing is kind of a fringe sport, and so it seems to attract the oddest array of characters. At the local gym I climb at, we have a 16-year-old yoga instructor (who only began yoga because he broke his back playing serious football), a linguistics-anthropology major who talks like a moronic surfer, and a 40 year-old Frenchman named Jose.  Basically, it's marvelous.  I'm becoming intimately acquainted with the "lower leisure class" as my boyfriend calls them - people who work just enough to fund weekly trips to climbing areas and the purchasing of gear. They're a remarkably happy lot. 

And it seems to be doing me some good. Besides climbing with a fair amount of frequency and going vegan a few weeks ago, I've changed nothing, and I've lost 20-ish pounds.  Today I wore pants I haven't fitted into since I was 15. They were a little tight, but it was worth it. 

SO! That's where I've been lately. It's been very, very good. 

What about you, mate? 

No Nose-Picking

A little ways back, I was in an art rut.   I was whining.  I said I didn't think I could do it, blah blah blah. But! Jessica suggested a project to do that would make me feel better. And guess what?  I did it! And it did make me feel better.

This is a cruddy screen-shot of the completed poster, but if anyone desires, I would be more than happy to send a high-quality PDF whizzing through space to their inbox. It's your typical poster size - 18x24, if I recall correctly.

The lesson to learn from this:
I SHOULD WHINE ALL THE TIME!  Commenting makes people feel good (which means I should do it more often, because I often want to and don't) and can help them more than you'd think.

Seriously,

Thank you! I think!

So here's the deal:

I was born in (the most glorious of months) May, on the 31st, to be precise.  My boyfriend was born on June 2nd, a mere two days later.  If we get married we have decided to do it on the first so the collected weight of so many things to remember will make it impossible to forget.

But!  On my birthday, I realized that people were probably putting things on my facebook. While turning on my laptop (it makes the most wonderful grinding and moaning noise when I switch it on, as if it is upset that I want to use it) my sister came galloping into the room.  "Have you seen what Craig put on your page??" She asked, grinning manically.

"No" I said.

I went on my page.  This is what I found:



Yep! That's my baby! He's a scruffy drummer studying film who likes hiking, depressing music and cheese.

To explain the "ghost", It's actually a black Santa tree topper that I bought for him (back before we were an item, thank you!) when the Christmas stuff at my place of employment when into really deep sale mode.  We enjoyed that all the white Santas and angels had the traditional red outfits, but the black Santas and angels had these shiny leopard and cheetah print costumes.  Craig imagines that he will be able to sell it to some museum one day for millions of dollars, proving that blatant stereotyping still existed in large-scale chain retail shops in 2011.

But! I was, as you may imagine, touched and possibly a little disturbed by this gesture.  And, obviously, I knew I needed to reciprocate.  With only one evening to throw it all together, I set about making my own birthday tribute.
I knew I couldn't top that for creepy - no one could - so I decided to go a different route.



We're an odd pair.

Music Dept., this is Kelsey.

Guess where I am RIGHT NOW?

Before you guess some place that's actually cool, like Iceland or Colorado, I will tell you.
I am currently sitting behind a rather unattractive reception desk in the dinky, freezing office of the Music Department Division of Performance Studies at my beloved university.

Yes! I am one of those lucky, lucky students shamelessly availing themselves of fellow students' tuition money by doing almost NOTHING and calling it work-study.  I started last week and I can already say that this is, without a doubt, the smartest employment decision I have ever made.

The fact that I am writing a blog post while "working" is a pretty clear indicator of how dull and free this kind of job is.  I have spent a large majority of my time working here reading A Walk in the Woods for the millionth time and sketching band logo ideas. No joke.

Here's how a typical day might run down:

• Arrive, and sit reading for an hour, waiting for something to do.
• A small task, such as shredding a stack of paper, is given to me and I am happily occupied for about fifteen minutes. 
• I sit some more.  Maybe check facebook or sketch for a bit. 
• A phone rings.  I transfer a call.
• More sitting. 
• I go home. 

I'm not kidding! This is what it's like!  I can hardly believe my luck.  Once I got to deliver an inter-office memo envelope across campus.  What an adventure it was! 

Oo.  The boss just came in.  I might get to go get a paper from Purchasing! (What is Purchasing, anyways? I haven't the foggiest.)

I've got to go. Important business is afoot!  Papers must be carried! Things must be signed!  Sticky notes must be stuck!

I love this job.