ambiguity

"There’s only a certain amount of control that you can have over a situation. I’m interested in working in that area in which the mind can no longer hold on to things. The point at which all ideas fall apart."

— Fred Sandback

objectivity

Olivia Bee

narrativity

Stephanie Davidson

what I want to do after december 2012, because it's never too early to plan

1. Complete my wall of Penguin book covers (because my dad bought the postcard box set some time back and now it's sitting around looking very fashionable but also forlorn.)
2. Paint a wall saffron
3. Make a batch of macarons (sea salt and caramel). All my culinary hopes and dreams are banking on this.
4. Run some marathon without getting caught on camera and then having to untag photos on Facebook because a very small and select group of humans look good when running and I don't belong to this small and select group.
5. Book a flight to NYC; couchsurf + make friends with someone of non-Asiatic ethnicity who can make amazing fish tacos and have secret 30 Rock in-jokes with + "lose myself" + "find myself again"
6. Finish reading Infinite Jest — it is not a portable read.
7. Canoeing expedition
8. Kayaking expedition
9. Mountaineering expedition
10. Skiing expedition
11. Super-secret-spying expedition
12. Prison Break expedition
13. Grow a herb
14. Hang out with friends in the spirit of spontaneity and all that is cavalier + avoid annoying them
15. "Fight crime" (this is subject to interpretation)
16. Buy an iPhone and then disparage it for being too mainstream
17. Learn how to drive
18. Feel sad about not getting a car
19. Become bitter about not having a car but then reconciling bitterness with renewed sense of eco-friendliness + entitlement to self-righteousness at the EZ-link top up station
20. Frost cupcakes in unconventional ways: "Surprise! That wasn't chocolate!" cupcakes, "Orientalism" curried potato cupcakes to celebrate the life of Edward Said, organic gluten-free vegan "Nouveau Upper Middle Class" celeriac, marjoram and agave nectar cupcakes, poverty cupcakes (brushing of demerara symbolizing dust, grit of hard labour), "politicized masses" oatmeal raisin cupcakes, Post-Cupcakes, Post-Post-Cupcakes, "She felt something move in the attic" detective night cupcakes in celebration of Agatha Christie's birthday, "Cupcakes Against Interpretation" "cupcakes" in celebration of Susan Sontag's birthday, etc. etc. etc.
21. Throw a hissy fit on my 21st birthday.

Fun! Fun! Fun!

Your Catfish Friend

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, "It's beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,"
I'd love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, "I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them."

— Richard Brautigan

yknow

I am very afraid because I have a colleague who talks like he's in a Dilbert cartoon and another who frowns like Charlyne Yi, and another who reminds me of Michael Cera, and I wake up in the mornings to dew-covered cobwebs frosting the huge field in the backyard of my new home and badly-made orange cake. I am afraid, because I might wake up and find myself back in BMT, waiting for my turn to throw the damn grenade. I DON'T WANNA WAKE UP. I WANT TO STAY IN MY AWESOME AIR-CONDITIONED ROOM (THAT I WILL CLEAN UP TILL THE PAPER CLIPS SHINE OR AT LEAST ARE RUST-FREE) AND RUN AROUND IMPORTANTLY IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WHEN SOMEONE SEMICONSCIOUS ARRIVES WITH MUCH FANFARE AND PERIODICALLY POP BY THE TREATMENT ROOM TO DRAW SOMEONE'S BLOOD, ALL THAT TILL DECEMBER 2012, AND IT'S OK IF THE WORLD ENDS BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE I HAVE GOTTEN WHAT I WANTED AND I AM CONTENT. I'm not shouting; I just couldn't find a good place in that paragraph to switch back to normal caps. 

Anyway I'm going to haul my SAT practice book to my office and hopefully I will get like a million billion marks and immediate acceptance letters from Havard and Yale (oh, and maybe some smaller colleges like Vassar and Swarthmore, and their letters will be like "Please come to our school cuz we're small and select blah blah blah small liberal arts college blah blah blah tiny, tiny cohort blah blah blah amazing staff to student ratio cuz we're that small! come on! we're a little liberal arts college on a prairie blah blah our education is cute blah blah blah hipsters worship our alumni") and I'll be like, OH NO, EVERYONE WANTS ME BUT I HAVE NO $$$$$ :( :( :( :( :( and they'll be like, OH — SNORT — DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT, WE'LL PAY YOU TO SIT IN OUR CLASSES, and then I'll snap out of my daydream by some whiny patient who has been waiting for 6 hours like it's all our fault. 

Oh, life is so hard. I am going out to buy a popsicle but it's not going to change anything.

wikipedia articles I have recently read (reprise)

wikipedia articles I have recently read

Joan Didion (born December 5, 1934) is an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism... A sense of anxiety or dread permeates much of her work

The Resistin Radicatz, a radical cheerleading group, do a cheer in front of AFL-CIO headquarters in Washington before joining the Million Worker March at the Lincoln Memorial.

A Escrava Isaura ("Isaura the Slave"), a 2004 Brazilian telenovela based on an 1875 abolitionist romance novel.

reading

After reading Super Sad True Love Story and The Handmaid's Tale (finally), I am struck by the many similarities in the authors' convergent visions of the future: literacy is either obsolete or oppressed, public spaces have become so sexualized that radical movements have risen to spur a dramatic return to a chastity and purity, and religion (in particular Christianity) creates agency for the politicization of erstwhile primarily social concerns.

I think it's a scary combination, and I will instead read something frivolous like Julie & Julia because I don't intend to contemplate the future right now. I meant that in an ironically flippant way. 

I'm falling ill. I am supposed to be watching HP7 later. I am supposed to be watching it with smuggled curry fries and a large milk tea, but now all I want is a crisp head of lettuce to munch on, like a fluffy bunny. Not that I am comparing myself to aforementioned fluffy bunny. I hate cinemas and their monopoly on crappy food. I want to grab handfuls of popcorn and throw it at the manager, saying Your food sucks egg (I mean, have you seen how much they charge for those tepid cheesy hotdogs? It's downright disrespectful.) I want to fling the popcorn passive-aggressively around the movie theatre. I want to make a German Expressionist film in stop-motion using popcorn. I want to graphically and violently destroy the popcorn in time to mournful bassoon music. The very action of contemplating cinema food makes me so angry. I am also angry because of my cold. 

This post sucks.

Here is a picture to make it better.

chinese restaurant syndrome

My mind: completely blown.