hither and yon

Vague, incomplete thoughts: We're middle class now but when I was little we weren't well off. Both my parents were in school at the time, and, though I didn't know it then, my dad had a gambling problem so eurrhh that wasn't great. We had a LOT of help from my grandmother on my mom's side. I didn't know we weren't well off until kids at school told me though, lol. My mom was and still is very good at being thrifty and saving money, and it's not like we ever went hungry, but if you grow up without much money, I think that will stay with you for a long time. There's an ingrained sense for me of "oh god that costs too much," and like an instinctive evaluation to not spend money if I don't have to (like, 'if I can live without it, I don't need to buy it').

When we moved to this house and started being financially secure I was super amazed by grocery shopping, because before when my sister or I wanted something like a cereal that wasn't on sale or gum, my mom would usually say no, but now all of that was up for consideration. It felt like huge generosity then. But now I really realize how difficult and sad it must have been for my mom to say no all those times. Julian had his taekwondo belt promotion today and he did everything well except for the board breaking. (Actually I'm kind of pissed at the instructors because when he went to his lesson yesterday and showed him the kick he was going to use and they were like you're fine. And today he did it the exact same way but they kept correcting him and anyway he ended up having to use a different kick and it took him a long time to break the board.) He was a little down about it so I took him to his favorite frozen yogurt place (he doesn't like ice cream lol just frozen yogurt). It made me think about how frustrating it must be to not be able to cheer up your kids, or to celebrate with them, in just a simple way, to not be able to afford both the time and money to drive somewhere and buy them a treat they like. I mean, it's not materialism; people want to do right for the ones they love. Parents and other caretakers want to be able to give their kids nice things, to do good things for them and give them the joy they deserve, feed them good food, buy them things they really enjoy, help them share in the collective culture of the other kids their age, give them experiences they'll remember and things that will help them grow. It's a privilege to be able to do so though.

I know that I'm privileged, especially ~in this economy~, and I try to recognize that and appreciate what that means relative to people who, like, don't have the luxury to um sit around and think about obvious things lol. idk, I always need to spell out this stuff really explicitly for myself.

This is a post about how I missed yesterday's post because I fell asleep at 10 PM.

I've been listening to Jimmy Eat World a lot lately. They are great to sing in the car. Futures and Clarity, both the albums and the eponymous title songs, are really good.

I had a shit morning, but the rest of the day was much better. Except I think the lawyer I'm "graphic designing" for (it's a brochure and I just move text boxes around lol) winked at me and it weirded me out. It wasn't flirtatious, it was, like, ~cute?? But still. NO WINKING!!!

Apropos nothing, a couple of weeks ago I found out that my DISASTROUS blind date from last summer is gay. I know this shouldn't make me feel better, but it does, because it is nice to have even the broadest of explanations for why that date was as godawful as it was. Like, seriously. The two people who set us up came with us and I didn't even know either of them well in the first place, let alone the dude ("Kyle" who studied accounting in Paris and now worked for someone called the Helicopter Plumber), and we sat in Starbucks for legit two hours until it closed and they talked about stocks and bonds and real estate and how to make money and they were all Republicans and the dude COMPLETELY ignored me and it was so boring. I found it funny after a little bit because I stopped being nervous; it was like "wow this is legitimately a TERRIBLE FUCKING DATE. and none of this is my fault! enjoy the free pastries, self." (The Starbucks people gave us their extra pastries because it was closing time lol. Most of them were dry and tasteless, but free food is free food.) Was the date done after Starbucks? NO, because there was still a CIGAR LOUNGE to go to. A CIGAR LOUNGE!!!!! What even is that thing?!!? Let me tell you: it's basically a room full of armchairs and white dudes smoking cigars. That's it! So we went and I was like o m g what is happening in my life. And one of the dudes showed me where ~Arnold Schwarzenegger~ himself kept his cigars for when he visited that particular establishment. And I sat there drinking water and looking fifteen years old while they drank beer and talked to this random weird guy who worked on a bunch of different oil rigs and I think the bartender lady took pity on me because when a customer came in with this tiny little dog she came over to us and let me hold it lol. And when it was time to go the people who set us up made the dude walk me to the car and we had an awkward side hug. THEN I DROVE HOME THINKING "I CAN'T BELIEVE I SPENT THE PAST THREE HOURS OF MY LIFE THAT WAY." Also it was kinda weird because all three of the people I was with were super tall, older looking white guys and I was NONE of those things, AT ALL.  

PS, I seriously don't think "Kyle" spoke more than three sentences to me that entire date. This dude is still a complete mystery to me, I didn't learn shit about him. Why did he go to Paris? Paris, France even, not fakey Paris, Texas or whatever. He was such a bro, he looked like he sold cell phones at the mall. Why was he working with the Helicopter Plumber if he was studying to be an accountant? Why did he agree to go on a blind date? Why did he let that happen to us????

awwwwrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhh I did not adequately factor in how fucking tired I would be this month :c

OH ALSO this is my new icon! Icon full of Corgis!!

This took fucking forever. Life has been draining me of life!! I'm so tired all the time, idk. It's hard to get the momentum going for these nothing posts when I could just as well spam twitter but~ I really want to get back into the groove of things.

I don't even remember how to do this! I open this page and I just talk?? What about? What did I do before? I have no memory of anything. wtf did I even have thoughts in the past? Was I even alive??

Okay I'll just free-associate or something. LOL because otherwise I'm so orderly~

( vintage whine aged in the finest crystal decanter )

( ceci n'est pas un pipe: scattered half-assed meta attempt for Jonghyun )
 
note: under constant neverending edit (NOT EXAGGERATING)
note @ 110723: wow I think I may actually be able to leave this alone now. it's as complete as it's gonna get, beside some ~supplemental source posts I've decided to lose my mind over :d

Glorious things I'm going to do once I'm done with this hellspawn demon paper (fuck I can't believe how full of papers my life has been this year):
- spend seven hours on the bus/train going back hoammmm
- work on jongyu in Japan/jongho ambiguous/jongyu where they actually get together and/or is happy or smth idk
- work on Sunny post
- Jonghyun singing/voice spam (= write endless paragraphs of ;~;s)
- ORGANIZE MY PICTURES FOLDER (I love doing this <3__<3)

Killing time/squiggling away from paper-writing:

( this fandom is doing strange things to me )

edit @ 11:01 pm: Wow this entry is dumb. Oh my brains, what will become of them.

HOW DARE THEY NOT GIVE JJONG A CARDIGAN TOO HOW DARE THEY

Ugh I want EVERYONE to be touching and loving him ALL THE TIME. This is why I have to ship him with everything, there can never be enough love for him for my liking. EVERYONE LOVE HIM ALL THE TIME OMG. Plus, his body is as always too good to be true. That tiny waist omg. PLUS, TAEMIN TOUCHING HIM. (LOL the captions say "Taemin, thank you so much" when he pulls back Jonghyun's shirt.) Has Taemin been more touchy lately? I can't really tell because I don't pay that much attention to him but it seems like there's been a bit more casual Taemin-initated contact? Question mark? PLUS, THIS FUCKING PAPER UGH GOD I HATE MY LIFE

... other vids I've been watching
Jonghyun and Minho hug out of nowhere during the first concerts. I love that Jonghyun got OVERWHELMED with all his feelings during the concert and Minho picked up on that and hugged it out to ground him. And Minho yells "Jonghyunnie-hyung is/it's fine!" at the end of it (or some approximation of that). It reminds me of Key's shout-out to him during A-Yo, which in turns reminds me of the way the both them traded off yelling out Jonghyun's name over and over when they won for RDD when Jonghyun was out with the swine flu. Goddamnit someone write that 1000000 word Hello Baby outtake dynamic fic!! Ah god the way Jonghyun closes his eyes and just is ~in the hug~. It was a hard year for him and I think the concerts gave him (and ~the fans~) a lot of closure. And of course ever since the concerts it's been non-stop flirting between these two on-stage. LOL it's just their thing now I guess. BEST OTP 
Jonghyun cut at Immortal Song 2 press conference. I want this job. I could totally watch boring footage of idols and narrate dumb captions over it. Jonghyun provides a lot of good material because he's almost always DOING something. Is there anything going on in his head when he makes those random faces? (I know there's nothing going on in mine when I do it lol.) I'm obviously biased but I'm always amazed at how much SHINee members stand out amongst uh non-SHINee people. Their stupid little faces are pretty extraordinary. I also approve of Shin Dongyup patting his ass because uhmmm I don't need to explain myself to you!!11 No, I do think it's cute when people cop a feel show affection off-handedly like that, especially to someone like Jonghyun who thrives on approval and love. IU and Jonghyun are maddeningly cute together. Just two tiny adorable creatures being tiny and adorable together! Also him helping her with her chair, ugh frondly little gentleman. The way they edited and captioned the bit where they're all waiting for their turn in the photo call is very soash of gendery. Or something. The ease with which the guys dominate the conversation vs. how the girls just stand there, especially Hyorin who's been pretty much blocked out of the ~circle anyway. idk it's not hard to imagine this as representative of (idol) interactions in the general. Society is society. I think the way idols are networked is really interesting. In closing, lmao his giant cuffs.

Why do unfunny people try to be funny? The unfortunate part of internet memes is that it's really easy to pick up the structure without understanding what actually makes them funny. Macros are a perfect example. Relatedly, just because something is meant to be funny does not mean that it is actually funny. I hope people are just going along with the expected call-and-response sequence (ex: "[macro]" "LOL IRL WIN!!!11") because I refuse to believe so many people think all the dumb contrived banality in omona comments is actually amusing. Are we human or are we dancer?

I have no idea what I'm arguing anymore. Crying tears of blood. I wish I could just type up the required 5-6 pages in blog form and hand it in.

I swear to god if they put Jonghyun in another fucking vest...!!

LOL I don't know to whom this would be relevant, or who would even see this, but: if anyone who's not on my friends' list has tried to leave me a comment in the past few months, I'm really sorry! I switched my journal settings a few months ago in a fit of paranoia and I completely forgot to switch it back. LOL someone even reminded me of it and I went "omg yes I should change it" and then promptly forgot about it. So for whomever this message is relevant, I'm sorry!! It's switched back now too! 

I don't really understand what the term "memetic isomorphism" means but I like throwing it around in my head anyway. Ex: seeing two squirrels chasing each other, "oic it's like a memetic isomorphism." PSEUDOINTELLECTUALISM FOR LIIIIIFE

[excised the rest of this entry lol idk I'm fucking fussy for no reason]

Wow I actually felt okay about that final! AND I checked my stats grade again; it says I officially have an A. ?!!?!?!?!?!?! WELL OKAY. I'M NOT GOING TO COMPLAIN EVEN THOUGH THAT MAKES NO SENSE. Please god do not let that be a mistake, pls pls plsssss.

Also I got all dressed up today because I'm only on campus a few hours. I feel cute as hell even though I know my eyes are all dead from my glorious two hours of sleep. Mrowwwr.

Celebr8ion!!! Don't give a shit, gonna post this gif+picspam I've had ready!!!
( longcat is long )