I first heard The National in The Cellar, my undergrad university’s on-campus bar. I was having a beer there with my friend Heaps, and this song came on. She has some fancy phone where you can play music to the phone, and it can tell you what the song is. (And this was BEFORE the iPhone could do that, I’ll have you know.) The song was “Apartment Story,” and I clearly went home and listened to it on repeat. Be sure to note John Lennon on the drums:
I’ve been listening to some more of The National’s stuff, and I really like all of it. I think it’s because I adore Matt Berninger’s voice. It’s so deliciously deep. Makes me feel like he has a beard, although I’ll settle for the scruff he’s rocking in the video. I’m guessing he could sing some rando song from High School Musical and I’d still be all “ooh, Matt, so scruffy and baritone.”
Here’s the whole band, just having a cocktail or two at their on-campus bar:
Are you SEEING all that beard-age?
I love music in a way that makes me wish I could express myself through it in some legitimate way. I tried to learn to play the guitar once, but got about as far as “Redemption Song” and then gave up. Maybe I need to try again, or maybe I need to settle for what I have. Which is a great backup singer voice, as long as the music is so loud that you can’t hear me.
Today is one of those days where it’s just too cold to be out in public. I was not dressed for the weather and nearly froze to death when I stepped outside to walk home, and that made the decision for me that I will not be going out tonight. I think.
See, the problem is that I don’t really have anything to do if I stay home. My roommate isn’t here and I’m not all that into the book I’m reading and I’m one of those people who gets bored really, really quickly. And when I’m left alone and bored for too many hours, I start to get all emo and watch weird depressing music videos on iTunes and email my best friend asking her if she’ll marry me if I’m still alone at 30. Which is all well and good, except too much emo music makes me go a little nuts and I don’t particularly want to marry a girl.
Spending time in the real world tends to cure my emo-ness, and thank goodness I was forced out into that real world to work today. (I know! I worked! Like a real grownup!) For a large chunk of the day, I was uploading things to my program’s website, and I got this weird sense of power. Like, I could RUIN LIVES by posting embarrassing things. And then I remembered that I already have my own website, and that I tend to prefer embarrassing myself.
Besides getting out of your own head or maybe reading about people who have actual problems, this video is a pretty good cure for being a hot emo mess:
I’m sorry, I know. But that video is hilarious. I’m a little bit in love with Andy Samberg:
He wears nerdy glasses, too!
Hmm. In my situation, Andy Samberg would probably go out.
Here’s the thing. I feel like I am drunk, but really, I have just been writing papers for too many hours and days and days and hours. I got so wacky that I almost wrote “peace is not a side dish” in my paper before realizing that it was not even a remotely academic thing to say. Now I’m done writing for tonight, but I have to wait for my friend Jill because I don’t want to walk home alone in the cold.
So how about I tell you some random shit?
First, this is a weird video that Kathleen nerded over from South America:
I find it both cute and really, really sad. I hate when the hamster is left on his back like that!
Junior year of college, my friends Katie and Annie got two gerbils, and named them Stella and Jager. We played fun games like Blackout Gerbil Out and Gerbilvision, but that got old after like two weeks. Now Katie’s little sister takes care of the herby gerbs.
Speaking of animals, did you hear about the woman who “hid a sedated monkey under her blouse on a flight from Thailand“? This crazy lady, whose name is obviously Gypsy, tried to hide the monkey under a loose-fitting blouse, and now she’s in big trouble for smuggling. Apparently it just looked like she was pregnant. I mean, I wear a lot of loose-fitting blouses, but usually it’s to hide a belly full of Smartfood and breakfast sandwiches, not a monkey.
Speaking of monkeys, I LOVE Pandora. Like a lot. It is so great. Another thing that I love is video chat. I love that video chat turns quasi-adults into four-year-olds making funny faces in the mirror. It’s hysterical. My friend Jill and I video-chatted our friend Tamar today, and we essentially spent the whole time seeing who could make the ugliest face. Mature? No. Entertaining? YES.
Aaand continuing with the stream-of-consciousness, have you guys tried the fancy new things on Gmail? There are SO many cool new things, which I obviously spent way too long playing with today. You can make task lists on your Gmail (hellooo, Type A); take “breaks” where your Gmail basically forces you to not be glued to your computer for 15 minutes (hellooo, lack of self control); and you can customize your label colors (hellooo, NERD). The best one, though, is the attachment reminder. If you write in your email that you are attaching something and then you forget to attach it, Gmail will REMIND YOU TO ATTACH IT.
This is all awesome, but it also freaks me out a little. I mean, Gmail has been around for a few years and it is already basically thinking for us. I can’t even fathom what they’ll come up with next. If it’s a feature that blow dries my hair and makes me breakfast while I check my morning email, though, I’ll be okay with it.
Final Bonus Confession: I get both Economist updates and Self Fit Move of the Week updates emailed to me, and I always delete them before I even open them. But I won’t unsubscribe, because that would prove that I’m un-intellectual and lazy. Logical, right?
It’s called “Want To Hear Something Embarrassing About Me?” and if you’re my friend, you get to play it with me every day (and sometimes witness said embarrassing moments). Today’s answer is…
I have eaten the same dish from the same Thai restaurant for dinner three days in a row.
Three cheers for variety!
(Although, in the grand scheme of my life, or even this semester, it’s just a blip. Just ask the two people I had dinner with tonight.)
I’ve been on campus for an hour, and haven’t done any work yet. Why, you ask? Because of the Top Five Favorite Foods Game. I’m not sure if I have talked about this game on the blog yet, but today I played with my “bosses.” The rules vary from game to game, but for the purposes of this game, categories (i.e. Mexican food) and drinks were forbidden. So here’s a peek into my life (or just my Gmail):
Subject: i want to play!
————————
From: Jen
Date: Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 10:36 AM
To: Mallory, Go
Are these foods discretionary? i.e. Are all of my nutritional needs already met? If so, then my list is as follows:
5. Broccoli is tied with Soy Sauce
4. Macaroni and Cheese
3. Garlic
2. Bacon
1. Krispy Kreme donuts
———- From: Jen
Date: Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 10:38 AM
To: Mallory, Go
Crap. I forgot coffee, beer, and mayonnaise.
———- From: Mallory
Date: Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 10:38 AM
To: Jen, Go
Yes, totally discretionary. There is a different game about which foods you would eat if you could only eat five for the rest of your life. Go and I think you cheated because you can’t have a tie. Other than that, good choices.
———- From: Go
Date: Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 10:40 AM
To: Mallory, Jen
HAHAHAHAHAHA, broccoli and soy sauce?!? Ok, just to update you, these are Mallory and my top five favorite foods as of this morning:
Mallory
#5 Stuffing
#4 Goat cheese
#3 Pizza
#2 Salsa
#1 Breakfast sandwiches (e.g., sausage, egg and cheese on toast, bagel or English muffin)
The harassment continued today in a group email, this one sent by SWTCTW operative “Fannie”:
p.p.s. Forget “grad school” and “finals” don’t you think Mal should get back with the program and start updating her blog with the frequency we who troll the internet have come to expect?!?!
Sigh. The public shaming worked. I only have three more days of papering (hooray!), but in that time I will try to maintain my blogging duties. Just to prove to you all how exciting my life has been the past few days, here is a random list of what I did today:
1. Woke up, ate a bowl of cereal and a peanut butter ball for breakfast, and danced around in my underwear to “All I Want for Christmas is You.”
2. Ate 14 cookies. (I’m serious. We have a thing called “Cookie Fest” going on this week. Be jealous.)
3. Listened to this song, um, a LOT:
4. Tried to figure out what that song means. Consensus from the Internets is that it’s about love lost/broken hearts/an ending relationship/etc. etc.
5. Read a lot about youth and peacebuilding.
6. Was loud in the quiet study room.
7. Ate 14 more cookies.
8. Cried while watching a NYTimes video analysis of It’s a Wonderful Life.
MY LIFE IS BORING AND MY SNARK IS GONE. I blame the cookies. The cookies have stolen my snark.
On a scale of one to Vampire Weekend, I love(d) Selena. How great is this song?
And just FYI, when you are looking to buy Selena stuff on iTunes, Genius also recommends that you purchase “Lean Like a Cholo.” I realize that they are both, um, Latino, but I just don’t think that’s the same genre. Way to be culturally insensitive, iTunes.
The other day my friend told me he had an extra ticket to see a band called Vampire Weekend, and did I want to go. I realized that I knew some of their stuff, and after not very long I realized that I LOVE THESE GUYS. They’re the kind of band I feel like I should have already known, and it’s weird to me that a few days ago I hadn’t even heard of them. Let’s call this fate, or something. Here they are:
They are all little babies. They just formed the band in 2006, after they graduated from Columbia, and they’ve already received a ton of critical praise.
Apparently everyone else already knew about them. Wikipedia tells me that Christian Lander (of Stuff White People Like) named them the whitest band, so I guess I’ve been a pretty bad white person.
That dude is the lead singer, Ezra Koenig. I think he’s adorable. I love that the band calls their music “African Preppy,” or “Upper West Side Soweto.” Also, how could you not like a band that works the following lyrics into one of their songs: “First the window, then it’s to the wall/Lil’ Jon, he always tells the truth”?
The concert was baller fantastic, and I can’t wait to see them again. I love the whole album, but I think my favorite song is M79. I mean, hellooo Paul Simon:
Yum yum. Now early to bed, so that I can get up and be intellectual.
six words to change the world. 