well, I don't like your tie.

I'm kind of insane for the Beatles right now. (If an imaginary reader gets the reference in the title, they win a prize! So! I offer lots of non-existant prizes to non-existant readers, don't I?)
Recently, I've found myself listening to them more and more.  And playing them pitifully on my dear ukulele.  (By the way, in a recent issue of Time, they had an article about how a big ukulele renaissance is taking place right now.  People are buying them in droves because it makes them feel good when they play. Also, it makes them super cool.  I am so ahead of the times! Har har! Bad pun!)
I'm reading this massive biography of the group by Bob Spitz. I feel like I'm going to get into one of my obsessive reading cycles.  A year or two ago I read every Audrey Hepburn biography in the San Diego County Library system.  Every one.  It was the same story every time, but I still read them all.  For a while, I also read books exclusively on parakeets.  My gosh, I'm insane or something.
But, anyways.
The Beatles are fantastic.  It's just weird.  How are they that great.  How?  I just don't get it.  Magic. What would today's music be like if we hadn't had them?
Sigh, sigh.  I'm wandering all over the place, and should probably delete all this.  Oh well.

In other news, mom went out and measured the thickness of the snow outside.  Six inches.  This is our third batch of snow.  I'm beginning to feel suspicious of all the people who told us it snowed only one day here -"Barely enough to whiten the ground! Ha-ha!"  Those people also said the summers only got into the 90's.  I'm probably exaggerating, but I think we had a month of days over 100 degrees.  I'm not complaining (hey, I got three days of work and school this week - I'm not complaining AT ALL), just pointing out the discrepancies here.

So, how did I spend this snow day?  Not going outside, that's for sure!
No, I spent the day becoming painfully aware of how unmusical I am.  I decided, all fired up from this Beatlemania thing I'm going through, to write a song.   Here's how the day panned out:

Writing easy, almost asinine lyrics ("you" rhymed with "do" at least twice, etc.): 1 hour
Figuring out chords: 4 hours (no joke.)
Recording: 2 hours
Total: 7 hours, for one idiotic song.

I don't think I'm going to be the next Lennon-McCartney.
But, hey, I enjoyed myself.  And I've got a pathetic little song to show for the day.

That's all that's going on with me at the moment.  I'm doing good.

Goodnight, dear void.

Gee whiz

I love E. H. Shepard's illustrations.

Okay! Excitement! I get to do some boasting!

So, I just went for a run.  Look how casual and oh-I-exercise-all-the-time that sentence was, what? I can feel my abs hardening as I type.  Actually, it was three two minutes running, ten skipping to music, and eighteen walking with my hands over my face.  I had to cover my face to keep it from falling off.  My hands are still so numb that sentences - for example, "So, I just went for a run" - keep coming out like, "So, I jist went fo r a ru." As Lemony Snicket would put it, my hands are so cold I can barely type these worfs.
I have not willingly gone outside for about three months - and here I am suggesting outings! And outings (outsings, it keeps coming out) where exercise was involved! I'm so proud.

Anyways, it was freezing.  It hurt to breathe.  Our

Well.  That cut off "our" was not a typing error.  About twenty seconds ago, just as I was about to move into a stirring description of the beautiful trail and the river and the icicles, I made a discovery that significantly lessened my enjoyment of this brief foray into the world of physical exercise.  If you guessed dog poo on my shoe, you're right!

So.

The obvious conclusion:  I am clearly not meant to exercise.  At most, I'm supposed to trifle with it every once in a long while.  Maybe toss a frisbee at picnics. Move furniture.  Things like that.

Ah, well. We can't all be exercise people.  I mean, if we want to maintain the percentages which "statistic has laid down for our guidance", some of us have to be sedentary.  It's just the way things are.
(Melancholy, and obviously fake sigh, as if I am sorry to see a life of physical fitness jogging away from me.)

P.S.  That is the lake behind our bestie family's house.  It isn't green like that right now, but I put it on here to give you an idea what sort of post this could have been if it hadn't been for some fat dog.  I mean, I can just hear the poetic words of the could-have-been post in my head.  What a pity.

electricity

Okay.  I have a couple of things that I have to talk about or I will never get to sleep.

To begin with, I just watched Billy Elliot like an hour ago for the first time. My gosh.  What a movie.  I'm actually shrieking about it in my head (and hopping up and down a great deal) but I'll spare you, my dear blog.  But what a movie.  Gosh. 

Also, it is still ice land here.  I didn't go to work or school today.  There aren't any snowplows here - it snows so infrequently that it isn't worth it - so there doesn't seem to be much hope for tomorrow either.  I love this snow-plow-less town.  The joy of staying home was almost too much for me.  I nearly died. This is thrilling in different way than Billy Elliot was, but extremely pleasing nonetheless. 

I am enjoying life right now.  The dog is snoozing at the foot of the bed.  I'm tired and know now I'll sleep well.  I'm reading two books about idling. Good cheer abounds. The alarm clock is off.  I have to take a bath tomorrow.  The world is wonderful. 

cheers to cheery

Oh, gosh.  This time last year I was in bed with a swollen face.  I'm glad wisdom teeth only come out once.

This morning I read in the paper that the editor of the Croatian newspaper Sata believes there is too much bad news in the world and decided to print a thursday issue (I don't know if it was last thursday or will be next thursday) made up only of good news.
Cheers to that, eh?

Five hours ago I read a post on one of my favorite blogs about how the author writes about the things she does well - she wants to give people good, inspiring things to read.  Nice idea, isn't it?

I've never been a fan of new year's resolutions - mainly, I think, because so many cartoonists do horrible, horrible jokes about them in the paper - but this year I think I am going to sort of make one.  Try to turn over a new leaf.

This year, I'd like to:
Be less negative
Enjoy idling again
Give myself a break.  When I've done my best, leave it at that.
And be a happier, more cheerful person in general.

I hope your new year is happy too.

ow my brain is escaping out my ear

When I was reading along in Descartes and came to the bit about how he can't really tell if he's awake or asleep and immediately thought "Inception!" I knew it was time to take a break.

What a nasty school semester it has been. Truly, truly unpleasant.  The only thing I felt even a teensy bit of satisfaction with was the title to one of my many, many essays.   He Loved Big Brother: W.H. Auden's "The Unknown Citizen".  I didn't actually talk about 1984, but I thought the teacher would get it.  But how pathetic is that?  That right there was the only thing I felt even remotely okay with.  Out of all the work I did.  Ugh.

I've got two more finals - horrid, horrid French and philosophy (hence Descartes).   At least I'm being forced to read important things for philosophy - it isn't just textbook.  The downside of this is that we are reading, like, Thomas Aquinas.  Which, just so you know, is murder.  It's not unintelligible - but it's so hard to plow through.   I really have to focus - my mind starts wandering and I find that I'm reading along and thinking about how I will furnish dream house.  Not retaining a thing.

 Anyways, I'm trying to cheer myself up now.  So, here are some happy things.

Oh!  Oh! If you're a Narnia fan you should know that you can get every single book, unabridged, read by magnificent people like Jeremy Northam, on itunes for - wait for it, wait for it - NINE DOLLARS.  It's fantastic.  You can bet that has cheered me.  The Narnia books were my absolute favorite books ever when I was younger.  Heck, they're some of my favorite books now.  They're a mix of all the things I love.  Harry Potter is like that too.  Magic and crazy boarding school and super close best friends and Christmas holidays at the Burrow.  It's perfect too - but less perfect than the Narnia books.  To me, at least.

Please pretend these look like the originals. Please.

I know I blather about them all the time, but those Pomplamoose people really are great.  Funny and cheerful.  Listening to cheery music is helping me right now.  Lady Danville and Buddy Holly are very cheering too. Cheery.  How many times can I say cheery?

I think this: 

Actually looks more like her, especially the hair and eyebrows. Chin is too long. But I can't get her entire head right at all.  I didn't even try with Jack Conte's head.  I can't help being a bit depressed that my drawing skills are about on a level with the average four year old's.

But back to happy things.

I'm getting used to this new laptop - whenever I try to mess with the old one, I scroll with two fingers and the page goes shooting off into nowhere, look for the close x in the left hand corner of the frame, and press alt when I mean to press command. Translation: I'm too cool for you, PC.

Hot chocolate.  We bought baby marshmallows the other day, and I put five in my cup and grin. 

Blog people.  I love the blogs I follow.  I almost never go on facebook anymore, but check my dashboard every day without fail.  Whenever I used to hear about blogs I never imagined they could be so interesting and fun to read.  I know - what a silly little idiot, right?

If I had a twitter account, or didn't want to further alienate the few friends I have on facebook, I would scream I HATE FRENCH CLASS I HATE FRENCH CLASS I HATE FRENCH CLASS on it.  Right now.  Like that.  Because I hate it.  Or at least supremely dislike it.  That's two rotten French classes now.  I think I will have to give up on this language because the people who teach it in my world are morons or something.  And the sad thing is I actually do want to learn French.

Ugh.   I had to get that out.  Now that I've cried and screamed and got it all out of me I will either go take a bath or try to find Swiss Family Robinson (I have no idea why a sudden desire to watch that movie popped into my head) and then give up searching for it and watch Bend it Like Beckham instead.  I'm in an odd mood.  Feeling an urge to paint my nails and watch teen movies.  Or very bad action movies.

By the way, I finally bought another copy of The Elements of Style and read the darn thing.  I am a bad writer.  But, anyways, it's a marvelous book.  Like Mere Christianity - it conveys so much so compactly.

Whoo.  I am calm now.  Thanks for listening, my dear blog.  Goodbye.