A Brief Update

I think we can all agree that sometimes it can be difficult to stay motivated in the summer. Personally, all I want to do is sit on the beach and drink a rum and Pina Colada flavored seltzer (the new WICKED Skinnie Girl cocktail. I know that's not how it's spelled but it's also trademarked the other way) Instead of doing that, however, I've been doing all sorts of things- like manning the phone at the Internships and Career Placement Office, dissecting mackerels in the Marine Biology lab that I'm retaking, and choosing to write about seeing the Decemberists for my Music Appreciation class, instead of an actual classical music ensemble like I was supposed to. There's a roommate switcheroo in the works, and I seem to find myself helping multiple friends mend their broken summer hearts (by singing Careless Whisper lyrics until I'm told to stop.) Yes, this summer is/will be decidedly more tame than the last few thanks to classroom obligations and more weddings than I expected. I'm happy for you all, really.

In other news, a recent meeting with my academic adviser sent my head spinning. I'm doing an internship this fall, I guess. At this moment, choosing an internship seems a little bit like deciding what the next five years of my life is going to be (or not be.) Do I choose an internship with a likely career path to follow? Or do I choose an internship that I'll more likely enjoy and have a less solid, um, path? The thought of going out and hitting the pavement, looking for a job is sounds totally crippling in lieu of the Bayside Bowl incident. But doing a job I don't love doesn't sound that appealing either.

Anyway, I thought I might do a quick roundup of some things that have been keeping me just distracted enough to get by.

I just went to the premiere of TV Show episodes 2 & 3. They don't seem to be online yet, but here's episode number one:


TV SHOW Episode 1 from Shoot Media on Vimeo.



Alec Baldwin's Twitter (@alecbaldwin). Here's an example from a few days ago. Read it from the bottom up:

Hello Giggles is a website partially founded by Zooey Deschanel. It's a bunch of awesome ladies writing about all kinds of awesome stuff, neatly organized by category. This post about nail polish got me hooked.

Occasionally looking at people's 'sets' and answering Style questions on Polyvore.com.

Dispatch Magazine has been pumping out information about music and film in Maine so fast I can barely read it.

The new season of Weeds just started, and the season of Treme is just ending.

Sending this recipe for a homemade Arnold Palmer to other awesome bloggers: Make one cup (8oz) of tea with two black tea bags and one tablespoon of honey. (I use honey from Urban Farm Fermentory, because I hear that local honey helps with allergies.) Let it cool while you brush your teeth/pack your lunch/get dressed/whatever. Add a cup of lemonade from the Santa Cruz/Newman's Own/premade or frozen lemonade already in your refrigerator. Then eight or so ice cubes, however many you need to cool this thing and fill your container.

Look at this great website: Creative Portland.

What've you been up to? What am I missing?

Best Furniture Ever

Cleveland went abroad a little while ago, and this is a conversation we had when he first arrived (more or less):

Cleve: The hotel I'm staying at is "sustainable." The power comes from windmills and solar panels, and everything is set up to create less waste. What the website didn't mention is there are all these little signs all over the room and hotel that address you like the furniture is talking to you. For example the little table that I am typing on says this: "I am strong, smooth, and delicious: I'm made from recycled coffee cups. Which means I'm both kind to the planet and caffeinated. But please don't lick me. I'm already in a relationship with the chair."

We had a pretty good laugh, but I got worried when he repeated this one, the bathroom soap, which is in dispenser- like a public bathroom: "I last longer and love you better. Maybe you've flirted with those little bottles of hotel soap and shampoo? They soon run out on you. It is time that you had some personal care from a big reliable source. Baby, I can keep dispensing all through your stay and beyond."

Between being mistaken multiple times for a genuine European and his hotel room putting more effort into seducing him than I do, it was easy to wonder if he might never come back.

Rest assured, though reader- eventually he came home, and our reunion was full of smiles and hugs. I'll have to remember to get him one of these so he sticks out more:

So long, Facebook suckers.

It's been a long couple of days.

You know how I mentioned something about a wedding I'm going to be in? Well, it's looking like 2011 is actually going to be the year of four weddings and a funeral. In the midst of everything, I decided to do something I'd been thinking of doing for a few months now... No, I didn't get another tattoo, go off birth control or dye my hair pink.

I deactivated my Facebook account. Many of my friends have done it, some temporary, some not. I told one such friend who'd left and come back and she said that it's something people do when they go through a breakup. For me, it was a different kind of ending which helped me put things into perspective. It's been about a week. Here are some things I miss:

• Using Facebook like a community message board, i.e. who can help with this, who has this, what do I do about this, etc. It was pretty efficient.
• Stalking people I don't know. I'll admit, I look up people all the time. People who write things, people who tweet things, friends of friends. Figuring out who knows who. 
• Immediate access to all of my pictures. I downloaded a gigantic file which supposedly contains all of my pictures and messages and stuff, but it's still sitting on my desktop, waiting to be organized. 
• Event invites. Not all of them, just the ones I actually sort of maybe wanted to go to.
• And the jokes. Sometimes my friends can be really funny. 
• Oh, and the traffic, here to this blog. It wasn't totally huge, but people actually clicked on the links I posted... makes me feel loved.

Here's what I don't miss:

• Random chats from people I didn't want to talk to/had nothing to say and were just bored.
• Being constantly irritated. Someone complaining about mother's day, or having no one to go out with. I've always tried to be mindful of what I posted. Same with Twitter and this stupid thing- I want my posts to have some relevance, either help or humor or awesomeness... like, look at this awesome recipe I made! You should try it! I know that not everyone cares about the shoes I just bought or where I'm going or what I'm doing, but at least it's better than complaining. Actually, I guess I'm complaining right now, but I'm complaining about people complaining. At my old job, we used to talk about the negativity monster, and now a negative attitude can be contagious. It got so bad we even named him Negator.
• All of the time I wasted reading people's comments, looking at their vacation photos, etc. Now that I'm on Twitter, a lot of people post the same things on their FB and their Twitter, so I was even getting a double dose. Turns out, I can live without hearing what my bartender is doing about her flat tire and that a friend in high school just got a pedicure. I'm now way ahead in the online classes I'm taking, and there's a lot more internet time for Funny or Die, Huffington Post- I've even started reading a handful of new blogs and I think I'm going to be starting a new, companion blog to Misadventures soon. 
• Relationship drama. Not that I had it, but it's like this. 
• Worrying about people tagging drunk/unflattering photos of me. 

I can't say that this is a brief hiatus or a forever departure, but so far I'm sort of enjoying it. If I was still on FB, last night I would've posted about how smart I felt for figuring out I could get kitty litter shipped to my house for FREE by Amazon.comm, and that sleeping on clean sheets feels awesome.

See? Unnecessary.