Eat your heart out, Billy Idol.

There's nothing better than having dance parties with yourself in your apartment.

Don't worry, all my windows and doors are open.

Don't worry, I dance facing a heavily-trafficked street from which many people can see inside my house.

I don't mind.

Yes, you can has cheezburger.

Alina and I were on a dusky stroll one Tuesday, when we encountered an adorable kitten. It immediately ran up to us, its little collar jangling insistently as it told us in kitty language why we should fall in love with it based solely on its cute kittenous nature. We gave it some love. I put on my best shrill talking-to-kitty voice and cooed lovingly. Wanting to know its name, we inspected the jangly collar. She was called Zhooey, with an "h." But the best part was this inscription on one of the tags:

"O hai! If I iz lost, plz take me hoem k thx!"

If the preceding jibberish looks like jibberish to you, that's because you are not familiar with LOLcats, the insanely popular time-wasting website devoted entirely to kitties and their bad punctuation and spelling.

Upon seeing that inscription, I felt like I was supposed to say some grumpy grandpa thing like, "What is this world coming to. That stupid website is infiltrating our precious vernacular, making us talk to our pets in some inane language, threatening any lingering hint of intelligence we might have as a society. What if that cat was really lost? It would probably die because I can't read the damn inscription on its collar."

Instead, I will say this:
I like LOLcats. I really do. And it really does make me LOL. There, I said it.


kthxbai.

Ants in awkward places.

I woke up to find a tiny ant biting me in an inappropriate place. "Get away from me, you perv," I said. No wonder I was itchy and couldn't get to sleep. No thanks, ants = no thants.

-Unrelated-

I really love when sneezes come in pairs. It seems to provide some kind of closure. As if you thought the first one was a fluke, the second one sets in and gives you a whole new level of satisfaction, as if to legitimize your entire existence as a sneezer. I'm always jealous of those people who sneeze more than three times in a row. What euphoria. The funny thing is, I am not kidding at all.

Is it true that your eyes will pop out if you don't close them while sneezing? I will try my hardest to keep my eyes open next time I sneeze to find out.* Does the same thing happen if you open your eyes while kissing someone?** What if you kiss while sneezing? These are the important matters I concern myself with daily.



*If you see me without eyes, you'll know what I've been up to. But say hi because I won't be able to see you.

**Chances are, I won't be kissing anyone any time soon to find this out. Contact me in 40 years, and hopefully I'll have found out by then.

With your pen and notebook, you've blown me away.

If you care to read...

I was rifling through my old Opinion Writing class notebook and it made me laugh. (A shout-out goes to Nancy W.)

Things I secretly like.

I secretly like the smell of cigarette smoke in the winter. In the bitter cold, while walking through campus or a Salt Lake street. I don't like anything about smoking at all. I think it's a pretty nasty habit, and usually the smell makes me gag. But there's a certain brand of cigarette, when mixed with icy weather, that lends itself to a sense of comfort in my mind. I have no idea why. Maybe it's because of the record store. At one point, probably half the staff there smoked and I remember when Garrett would go outside and light up. I thought he might freeze and snap in half because he was so skinny. I would have kissed him right then and there in the snow and tasted his smoker mouth. I wish I would have. I wish I would have done a lot of things.

I also secretly enjoy the smell of the fumes in printmaking class. The ink being stretched thin over the plates. The rosin kept safe in the box, only to burst out through the seams when someone blasts compressed air through a little hole. The spray paint and propane torch. Oh, and the hard-ground being lushly painted over gleaming copper surfaces, like black molasses. And the less pungent soft-ground melting softly in the heat. And the mineral spirits used to clean off the ink from the plates-- I think this one is my favorite. It's also probably not very good for me to smell-- it's basically paint thinner. I love opening the bins of used, soiled rags and getting a whiff of the ink that has been carefully lifted up by oil and mineral spirits. It's the smell of hard work, passion, and a little insanity. I wonder what goes on those bins when no one's looking.