A girl walks into a bar...

asking for directions and befriends a UCL philosophy student, Charlotte, a Scotsman, Thomas, and about 6 other people. Turns out I was a block away from my destination, my house, Goldsmid. Same zipcode as Her Majesty. Uhh...

Prince of Wales, the pub, was cozy and everyone seemed to live there like one happy drunken family.

Everyone is finishing their finals and freaking out!! in the Computer Cluster in the library. Two dudes were ON MY NUTS behind me because there aren't enough computers for this volume of freaking out people. I'm glad that Hell was over in December. What a kick in the groin to have to do finals the first day you're back from break.

Gotta go meet with my affliate tutor. I already love SSEES. Everyone has been profusely helpful, cheerful, and kind.

We discuseed "fuck your mom" in my Russian class in the most thoroughly polite terms. Brits.

Lovers and friends

I have arrived! I came to the UCL main site after trying to get wireless at 2 coffee shops in my borough of South Kensington, which I cannot afford! Somehow I found my way here from my flat with my woman's instinct. Of course I left my phone top up card in the flat so I am going to get on the payphone to Lydia and see if she wants to get "tea". I am clueless but confident, the best way to roll. British airways was amazing, especially the food and wine. Speaking of wine, I could and can since the legal age is SIXTEEN!!! go for a glass right about yesterday. Having trouble telling who's gay, as expected. Cheerio!

Pissborg

It’s important that I write this, so that I can look at it and try to decipher it.

As Michael Bluth says, “You certainly have a type."

While Pittsburgh seems to shrink, the job market corrodes and academia seems to expand and swallow me. Thus, I hole myself into this triangle, where the going is good, the sun never shines, and life is comfortably…comfortable.

I get why some people never leave Pittsburgh: because they can get away with being dirty losers (type 1) or, as a local entrepreneur told me, “big fish in a small sea”.

But the Steel City is hardly a sea, more a tributary, and the fish are more like shrimp. I learned this from my first college boyfriend and the company he kept. While at first I was entranced by his hipster entourage, the more I saw those people, the sooner I realized that most of them didn’t even have vocations. A lot of them were crusty and lame, and only in their little 412 micro chasm were they important people—to themselves. And while I’ve since learned to respect the music his band makes, I’ve also learned that it’s really easy to be a star amongst idle and inert hangers-on.

The factors that allow a young person to sustain himself in Pittsburgh are simple: low cost of living, ease of alternative transportation, and prevalence of college-aged fellow travelers. You can buy a house for less than $10,000 and fix it up, ride your bike everywhere most months of the year, and buddy up with kids you went to elementary school with—and never ever leave. For some, this is a respectable living, for others, this is a choice of immense economic reward, and for me, I’m really conflicted as to when to say “When”.

Two roads diverge in this yellow wood—attend graduate school at Carnegie Mellon and get a Master’s in Professional Writing. Then, make thousands more dollars when I enter a job market that, hopefully, will not be as dismal. This is option 1. Option 2 is, move to Hollywood and write for TV, the bravest and possibly most suicidal thing I could do. But this is something I know I could do. I love TV; TV raised me. What’s more, I write well, I’m damn creative, and I’m funny. And right now, if anything, people need to laugh. They need their faith in good television restored, by renegades like Tina Fey, and equally ambitious young bloods like me.

But at the end of the day, you gotta chase that paper. And at the end of the night, you’ve got to be happy. So somewhere around cocktail hour, you must strike a balance between profit and joy. Alas, Pittsburgh.

I certainly have a type.

Hell on Earth

That title best describes the process of obtaining a Visa to enter the UK. After numerous phone calls, faxes, e-mails, and fruitless correspondence, I am to receive my passport tomorrow.

I was supposed to leave yesterday.

So I'm going to the airport on Saturday to beg British Airways to let me on a flight. If that doesn't work out, then I'm not going to arrive in London until the 17th, after the first week of classes. Luckily UCL people have been unconditionally nice to me.

I'm all packed and ready to get the hell out of here. I live near Buckingham Palace but I'm going to switch to housing closer to UCL in Central London. No complaints either way.

But first, a recap of 2008:
-roll 6 deep
-"THAT'S THE LIFE!!!" *honk* Lauren the suburban tourbus driver
-The suburbs are not blc-friendly
-"RANCH, PLEASE!" -Meghan @ Steak and Shake, I cried.
-Rachel's "list of the best things ever"
-future MILFs at Lauren's
-KSmith devirginized my mind with her pornographic prose

How fun is my life?

Levitating Lightbulb!

Once upon a time, Zack and I went to see Murdercola at Remedy this summer, and we ended up on the flyer for their last show ever, which we missed. But it's legina, here it is:
From the website, bea.st:

Jeff Lieberman is an inventor! The last inventor I heard about was the dad from Beauty and the Beast.  This guy:

(Maurice)

I made a song called "Parade Outta Pittsburgh" to commemorate my homeward voyage, if my home were in Brazil and I were journeying with a chain gang, and spoons. I need to cozy up to Comcast OnDemand and sleep for 20 hours a day. Stick a fork in me, I'm done!

Hellaween, the year's almost over!

One week to go and I might get all A's!! I REALLY don't know how this happened, but it did. And I had fun. And I'm going to London for spring 2008, to study at the School of Slavonic & Eastern European Studies @ UCL. Holla. I love London! I can't wait. But, really, where did the time go?

RJD2 and Flosstradamus came to play at our gym. Flosstradamus blew up the spot!!

Netta and Koko came for Halloween and that was the most fun ever. No one really had a costume.











A Latvian Halloween...we threw a party and every single person I hoped would come showed up. And it was warm and lovely retarded. And now I'm submitting the final version of my fiction story. This semester really did happen somehow.

Back to Cool

In the space of 90 minutes I slipped back into myself. Hilary Masters is teaching me Survey of Forms: Fiction.

Again, Hilary Masters, son of Edgar Lee Masters who wrote Spoon River Anthology, is teaching ME the art of fiction. By the passage of knowledge I will reap the genius of several highly regarded authors, as channeled through a highly regarded author whose dad was my required reading in high school.

I think badass may run in the family. He regaled us with tales of phone calls from Eleanor Roosevelt, checking in on Hyde Park's local news. He loves Weeds, especially Nancy Botwin. He was stranded in Oklahoma on Route 66 alongside his 1940 convertible.

I'm reunited with my first love, a creation borne from stealing, lying, and antagonizing. From wrong, right. I'd giggle if I weren't in a computer cluster.

I'm seeing Ratatat on Friday at Diesel, a real-life Pittsburgh nightspot. In the words of Buster Bluth, I feel alive!



And I want this^. I wonder if it's vegan (since it's Stella McCartney)...

Remember Proenza Schouler? Those two guys who are kinda dating, maybe brothers? Well this is what they've tossed onto the table, and if I were a rich man I'd be in it. And that wordplay would have increased proximity too.
<-- Well of course Miuccia Prada "thought using a little bit here and there is tacky, so we've had all Switzerland working on couture lace. They're in shock."

Yes, hospitalised for shock after a year of 16-hour workdays spent frilling up lace to pay for some horrendous[ly expensive] efficiency. Oddly, les élites du monde d'haute couture seem poised to continue praising this lacy bullshit until someone comes forward with some criticism that diverges from the homoerectile Oedipal compulsion party line. Of course this person will be a freelance fashion reporter, or some Rachel-Zoe-with-glasses publicity whore whom no one will take seriously. Hence, more praise, more money, and all I get is a pair of glasses. (They're great glasses!)

Leg-er! Hemlines hike up in Leger's scooping catsuit-style minidresses. Slinky materials wrap the hips and midsection, and cleavage takes a backseat to buns and thighs. My favorite piece is the open-chested dress that forms a heart! Adorable.

Diane Von Furstenberg's Fall 2008 collection is sensual, creamy, and reminiscent of the 1940s manned-down silhouette of sex appeal. This last outfit is the most vibrant and gorgeously composed ensemble I've seen for fall and maybe even forever. Diane's still got it.

Notes to self:

-FenderBender

-pregnancy and young couples (Making parentheses around her stomach with his hands, he pronounced in shrill, precise tones, "This. Will not become. That.")

-Ginger's coffee that tastes like burnt azz.

Back to school, back to cool. Stay trill, yinz.