I haven't gotten much chance to write anything because I've been messing with the design of the site a lot lately. I'm still not happy with it, not that I'm unhappy with it, just that I'm following this piggy theme and it's a dumb theme. I know it is. I'm getting sick of pinkness. Ideally I wouldn't have a site that had pigs as its major visual scheme. But ultimately, it doesn't matter. It's just a web site. And eventually, I'll rename it and make it look how I want it to.

In the next few days I'm going to try to move all the old journals into the new feelings area. So stay tuned. Organization will occur.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

I'm in the process of transferring stuff from Netscape to my Pitt account. Why? So the Netscape banner doesn't appear at the top of every page, so I can do a framey thing if I ever learn how, so I can have overall more web freedom. It's annoying, because I don't know HTML extremely well, so I have to mess with everything to make it look right. And that takes awhile.

The weekend was nice. I finally exchanged the Tom Petty record that my brother had given me for my birthday. I know no one cares, but I bought the first Psychedelic Furs album, Blondie's Parallel Lines (a record I'd been thinking I should get for awhile, especially since mysterious scratches appeared on Blondie's Greatest Hits), a Mamas and Papas record, AND the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. I kept thinking about how I guess the broken rabbit's foot keychain must not have meant bad luck, because I've been looking for Pet Sounds since the summer. I thought I would have to end up paying twenty bucks for it on ebay. But now that I said that thing about luck, bad things will start happening. That's just always how it goes.

I'm experiencing some Halloween costume stress. I'll talk about it next time I write. Right now, I'm going to get ready to split this work joint. Cross your fingers for me that my new shoes have arrived.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

My joints ache. Bad sign. Sign of flu. Don't want the flu. Have exam tomorrow. Must study tonight. Have wedding to go to tomorrow. Must not have flu for wedding.

I don't even do anything, you can't get ill from doing nothing. Maybe I picked it up on the bus. Maybe I picked it up from the filthy couch Nancy got from her psychologist friend on the 16th floor. Nancy's office is on the 12th floor. Nancy didn't know the couch (and chair) would be so dirty. These new furniture items (including two clunky end tables) really don't go well with the pink walls. I really wouldn't have painted the walls pink. But I like Nancy a lot.

Poopy. That's what my template looks like. It looks like poop.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 10:01 AM

Oh, busy week. But not a bad week. I could do without the Frank Lloyd Wright test tomorrow, but I'll survive. Unless I'm sick. I was getting better, I thought, but my body decided to decline an invitation to health.

My main keychain is a purple rabbit's foot. (My only other keychain is a grocery store discount card.) It used to be a red rabbit's foot, but that wore down to the bone and people started to comment on its high grossness factor, so I undertook a search for a new one. I had wanted a new red one or maybe a blue one, but the best one I could find (they have to be a certain shape, very straight like the original, to meet my approval) was in purple. It's grown on me.

I like rabbit's foot keychains because they make me think of grade school, and I have a slight retro/nostalgia disorder that may never be cured. Rabbit's feet are kind of inhumane, I suppose. I wonder if the stuffed bunny rabbit in my car (easter present from Greg) looks at it and shakes his head with disapproval when I drive. I don't usually notice him moving around, though.

But the point is (have I mentioned I'm feeling a little feverish? Hence poorly constructed entry. Ugh.), yesterday, a piece of the keychain broke off. One of the toes. This morning, I started wondering if it was a sign. Like if the broken rabbit's foot (a supposed good luck charm) signaled a break in my own good luck. I don't really think of the RF [rabbit's foot, I'm tired of writing it out] as a good luck charm. I might think maybe it will help me out in bad driving situations, but only because I look at it and think of my deceased grandfather, Pop, and how my mom said that she's prayed to him and asked him to watch over her children whenever they're driving or in a car. And I really believe he does watch over me. I've done some stupid things in my car.

I also think of the little stuffed bunny as a good luck charm. The bunny = Greg, the best driver I know. (Though Greg did something EXTREMELY stupid when we went camping last weekend and almost hit a woman, and I was upset for awhile but now I'm over it.) So when I have the bunny with me, which is always in the Volvo, I feel that Greg's superior driving ability will transplant itself into my hands if necessary.

I also have lucky socks, which I may have mentioned in another entry. Usually when I wear them I forget I have them on, though.

I guess the only way to see whether broken RF = bad luck is to wait. After the weekend, which has disastrous potential if my health is subpar, I'll update you with any new theories. You can't wait, can you. I know.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

Currently letting dye (color: natural light auburn) soak into hair. Bought Mom presents + card. Am in not so good mood, at least partly because am short on money. Knowing I will have little money for next month and a half makes me sad, as I need completely new wardrobe. Also, Xmas is coming. Am going to start selling old clothes on ebay.

I should be in a good mood, because I didn't have to intern today. But, as has been noted, I'm not. I've been complaining about how I have no time to get things done, saying that all I need is a free day or two and I can accomplish so much, but now that I have a free day, I just want to lounge around, drink Dr. Pepper and read women's magazines. There is nothing wrong with wanting those things. But the pressure to accomplish something causes turmoil within and negates the pleasure of self-indulgence.

I should donate eggs or become a stripper. Then I won't have to worry about money. I'll have to worry only about unknown beths traipsing around and about being stalked. Not too bad a tradeoff, I don't think.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 03:46 PM

I shopped today. I bought my mom a birthday present, and I also bought myself a skirt. It was on sale. It wasn't the color I wanted, but it was a last-chance sort of deal, so I couldn't pass it up, because it would haunt me if I did. The haunting factor is the best way of knowing whether you need something. When you see something you like, don't buy it right away. Only buy it if, a week later when you're trying to fall asleep, you're putting together what you might wear the next day and thinking, "If only I had the leopard print pants I saw at the Fashion Bug last week, I would look awesome tomorrow!"

Of course, the haunting rule has its exceptions, namely that of the thrift store purchase. Things at thrift stores are usually cheap enough that you don't have to brood over whether to indulge yourself. It's been awhile since I've been to any thrift stores. I'd really like to do a tour of this area's shops. Buying three (or any number) items at a thrift store for under ten dollars is a nice fix, because even if the items aren't so great (which isn't to say that they won't be great), you have three more things than you did before, and you didn't spend much at all. Sometimes it's an empty feeling, coming home and thinking about how you just bought three new things that you didn't need. But sometimes it's what makes an uneventful day turn into satisfaction city.

Yeah, I'm being kind of cheesy, maybe it's the fumes from the hair dye that has been soaking into my hair for like the past half hour. Maybe it's getting into my skull, maybe it burst through my blood brain barrier! I'm going to rinse now.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

bethy to do list

· buy Mom b-day present

· get haircut

· dye hair

· paint toenails

· get new driver's license picture taken

· put pictures up

· work on p-shop self-portrait

· call scanning place and ask why scanner works sporadically

· buy groceries

· get oil changed in car

· study for experimental cinema

· figure out what to be for Halloween

· acquire Halloween costume

· figure out what to do on Halloween

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 09:25 AM

I have to get a new picture taken for my driver's license. This new picture will be with me until 2003. I'll be twenty-four then. Well, I'll have just turned twenty-five when I'll have to get the next one. I'll be getting old.

So I have to look good for this picture. Actually, I don't care all that much how it turns out. I've survived pretty well with the ghoulish picture from when I was seventeen on my current license. In it, my nose (under which there is a blemish) looks large, my neck is long and scary, my skin is literally as white as the background, and my hair somehow seems black. If I had a scanner at work, I'd put it up and show you.

I usually end up looking scary in all my ID photos, so I don't expect this one to be different. But I am going to attempt to make this picture turn out fairly normal. I might even wear makeup (to put some color in me). But then I might look clownish, because I don't wear makeup, and thus am not very skilled at applying it. I wouldn't wear blue eyeshadow, at least. Maybe blush? I don't know. Lipstick would be a bad idea, though, it always makes my lips look funny. I don't know, maybe I won't wear makeup. I wonder if I'll be wearing makeup when I'm twenty-four.

When I took ballet classes as a little girl, I would always want to miss it one week, because if you missed a class, you got to take a make-up class. I thought, of course, that a make-up class meant that you got to wear makeup for the class.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

I really like eating in restaurants. I love restaurant food, I love being out and having food appear in front of me. I like the atmosphere of restaurants, except when I have a bad experience in one (see first overdramatic journal entry) [note: no longer online]. Maybe I should be a restaurant critic. But then I might get sick of eating in restaurants. Though it's very possible that I wouldn't. I think I'd be very happy if I went out to eat six days out of the week. Maybe five. I wonder if restaurant critics work that often. I really know nothing of this profession. Except that don't they prepare the meal specifically for you when they know that you, restaurant critic, are going to eat there? Do most restaurant critics go undercover? I have to find this out.

I also have to find out how a girl gets to be a restaurant critic. Perhaps I should be a restaurant critic for the Pitt News, and then climb up the restaurant critic ladder.

I'm really hungry right now. I get to leave work in twenty minutes. Then I'll go home and make myself a grilled cheese sandwich. I probably won't eat dinner in a restaurant tonight. More likely, Greg and I will make raviolis. Raviolis are yummy.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

It's been a week since I've updated, I know. I'm sorry. I never did go to digital class last week. My scanner broke while I was playing with it, and everything I tried to scan came out black. So Greg and I spent about three hours trying to fix it before giving up and going to dinner. The scanner still isn't right, it works and does not work in an unpredictable manner. I hope the digital instructor doesn't yell at me for not being up to speed; he seems to get pissed off easily. I emailed him and asked if there were any handouts or assignments not on the syllabus, and he didn't email me back. So hey, at least I made the effort.

But look at how uninteresting I'm being. I never wrote about my experience at what would have been The Upstage. Aab bought me my first legal drink, a rum and coke. And I danced a good portion of the night away. I wrote a little bit about it at diaryland, actually.

Yesterday at internship (link-o-rama), I got to be in the room during the audition, which was cool at first, but then got boring, because people were auditioning to be in an industrial video, and the dialogue was just lame, and they kept doing the same stuff over and over. But when there were no more women to read the woman part, Nancy asked us interns who wanted to read with the actors, and I said (possibly a little over-eagerly) that I would. I really like to read out loud. Some people who know me know about my history of reading things out loud. In grade school, I was always the girl who read the readings at Mass when the students did Masses. And I was one of the Stations of the Cross readers in sixth grade. That was fun, I got to read a lot then. (Though, that was the year I tried out to be Mary and they gave it to Renee, the leader of the cool girls who was going out with Brendan Murphy, who was playing Jesus and who I had a crush on at the time because everyone else did. I started crying when I heard Renee would be Mary, and someone asked me if I was crying, and I said I had allergies.) In high school, there were some darker reading aloud moments in Fr. Grimace's class, where I would volunteer to read the lame religious story and then collapse into laughter a few paragraphs into it.

Nancy complimented me on how I read with the actors, but I think she would have whether I was good or not. I feel kind of awkward at casting sometimes. Like I'm not as sociable as the other interns. I don't think Nancy knows what to think of me.

Sometimes I wonder how I got to be so quiet and why I'm not more open with people, why I'm not more normal. I'll leave those theories for another time, though. What frustrates me is that I know what acting sociably looks and sounds like, I know what 'normal' is, but I can't make myself do it. Is that bad?

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM

Yes, I would like to add an entry.

I went out dancing last night, it was pretty rad, it was '80s night at a club called the Upstage, but the Upstage closed suddenly and permanently, so they moved '80s night to the Beehive/Pollinator, a place I never liked because all the underground cool kids used to hang out there and scrutinize passers by. But they were so cool and I wished that I could be just like them, I really really did.

Aab got the DJ to play the Clash for me, so I got to hop around. And I danced with an old man to Come on Eileen. He was at least mid-30s and bald. I just thought it would be funny to dance with an old man. It gave me a weird feeling inside, though, like an "I'm dancing with an old man" feeling.

This entry = lame, but isn't everyone's?

On the streets today, some guy said to me, "Cheer up, it's Friday." He didn't know how tired I was. I smiled for him.

Also on the streets, a bum with a puppy asked me to buy him a cup of coffee. I said, "Sorry, I have no money," which was true, but I didn't realize it was true until after the reflex to deny bums favors had kicked in. If I had had money, I would have bought him one.

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 12:45 AM

Yesterday was the big two-one for Beth. As in, now I'm 21. I don't really feel like talking about being 21 and how now I have all this freedom. I have all this freedom, I can go out dancing. I have a scanner now. And a zip drive. And a polaroid camera where you have to pull the picture out and it's a tiny picture. You know, often I write poorly on purpose and I don't know that anyone realizes that I know it.

I'm at work, and I should be entering some stuff into a database, but I'm going to read about Kenneth Anger films for my film class instead.

Maybe I should make a list of stuff I got for my birthday. I want to be entertaining right now, but I can't. I think I'll make the new stuff list in that other place. But not until I'm done reading the Anger article.

Kenneth Anger was able to do what I always wanted to do in my own films: just make something he liked and not worry about whether it was lame or not. Maybe he did care whether it was lame, but his movies seem very unencumbered by self-consciousness. I want to know how much time other people put into thinking about how their artistry will be interpreted. I started growing out of my preoccupation with trying to make something 'good' and unlame and smart, I think, but right now I want little to do with filmmaking. It's a bitch.

But I wrote all this stuff earlier so I'm going to let it stick around. If I had let myself have fun last year, I would now have a movie of beerbot taking a shower, rather than one of Greg sitting around our apartment. Greg is hot and everything, but beerbot was destined for superstardom before he started falling over (and as a result, falling apart) in the middle of the night as he tried to reach for the Tiki in the guys' apartment across the alley. The Tiki was his only love, his only hope for salvation.

R.I.P. BEERBOT 1998-1998

File under DIARYLAND. Posted at 11:38 AM

It's the aftermath of my birthday. It was a happy birthday. The weekend was more hectic than I would have liked, and I spent more money on non-clothing items than I would have liked, and I spent a large portion of yesterday putting together a piece of furniture from Ikea while Greg tried (successfully, yay) to make my computer work after its odd rejection of scanning software and subsquent refusal to open all programs on Saturday. But I'm still enjoying the post-birthday afterglow (read:post-stuff extravaganza afterglow).

Now I'll bore you with a list of the goods:

From Mom: George Foreman Grill. Everyone should have a G. Foreman. Now I do. Mom also bought me a skirt and top from the gap on Saturday. I'm wearing them now. I can never save my new clothes for later, like my freshman roommate Kate used to do. Anyway, thank you, Mom.

From Dad: A scanner. Stay tuned for pictures of stuff on my site. Thank you, Dad, even though you've never been to my page, and so will not see my thanks.

From Greg:
• colored lightbulbs for the overhead lighting fixture in my room
• a good hammer, something I needed
• a water filter for the kitchen sink
• a little stuffed Pikachu, the yellow thing from Pokemon. We want a huge 3-foot tall one but have not been able to find them except at carnival-type places.
• a rad lamp from Ikea
• a Polaroid camera
• a fuzzy bear-shaped throw rug, also from Ikea
• I feel like I'm missing something. Greg also got me a calendar with puppies on it which is cute but which doesn't fit with the decor of my room. I was thinking of bringing it into work but then people would see it and think I was all into puppies and start asking me questions about puppies, but since they don't know anything about me I guess it doesn't matter anyway. But it's a year 2000 calendar, I keep forgetting. Anyway, thank you, Greg, for everything you bought for me. And thank you for spending my birthday with me.

From myself: a zip drive, a CD-rom drive, and a chest of drawers on which to place my scanner. These were more necessities than presents. Usually I do get myself a birthday present, and normally I wouldn't count any of those things as presents because I wasn't feeling indulgent when I bought them. Maybe the new shoes are my birthday present to self. Or maybe I'll buy the sneaks from girlshop that I want. My older lovely sneaks are really starting to age.

File under DAILY. Posted at 12:00 AM