“For the past 20 years of my life- and I’m only 21, so that’s most of my life- I had eaten at McDonald’s maybe four times. I used to think that it was bland and boring and too greasy and I hated it. But then I saw the light during the beginning of this summer. I had lunch with a co-worker who drove, so I had no choice in the matter of where we ate. He chose McDonald’s. I thought, ‘Ah, sure. What difference does it make since it’s so cheap?’ So I ordered the number two meal, and at his coaching supersized it. It was so good! And you can’t beat the value of it, especially since you get a ridiculous amount of fries and more soda than you can drink! Since that faithful day, I’ve been eating at McDonald’s maybe three or even four times a week.”

“That’s DISGUSTING! Think of your arteries, Man! Think of your arteries!” the other girl in our four-person discussion group screamed in terror.

“Well, I have no problem if people decide to eat at fast food restaurants,” I said, jumping to his defense. “Sometimes I eat at Kid Valley. I love their milkshakes.”

“I’m a vegetarian, so I have political motives,” she returned. I was surprised as I thought she would be the last person who was a vegetarian. Her dark hair was cut shorter than most boys and she possessed a short, masculine body that screamed “I eat meat!” I stared her in the eye, thinking; “Well I’m vegetarian, too. I just eat the Gardenburgers.” It was one of those odd moments where the cliché western showdown music would be fitting if it suddenly rose into the air from the depths of nothingness.

“Have you ever read Fast Food Nation?” I suddenly asked her.

“No, I don’t read boring crap like that.”

“Have you ever read Fast Food Nation?” I asked again, turning to the McDonald’s Posterboy.

“Actually, I read it this summer.”

“Well, I guess that means you have a right to eat there without having judgment passed on you.”

“Yeah, I guess it does.”

The above story isn’t entirely true. However, the lesbian person was a total, unfounded bitch about the dude eating at McDonald’s.

Perhaps I’m a bit hyper-sensitive, but it really irks me when people sling the words “modernism” and “post-modernism” around without understanding the meanings of each literary period. Sorry to break it to you, but Virginia Woolf and James Joyce belong to the modernist period. In fact, they helped shape the modernist period. Thus, when you tell me that they belong to the post-modernist period, my left eye will start to twitch and I will suddenly lunge at your throat.

For your reference, other writers who belong to the modernist period are as follows: D.H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, T.S. Elliot, H.D., William Butler Yeats, Gertrude Stein, Joseph Conrad, W.H. Auden, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Djuna Barnes, and so on.

Post-modern writers include, but are not limited to: Donald Barthelme, Paul Beatty, William Burroughs, All Beat Poets, Raymond Carver, Ursula K. LeGuin, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, and so on.

In the future, please make sure that you know what you’re talking about when you refer to someone as a modernist or post-modernist writer. Not only does it make you look really stupid when you refer to Joyce or Woolf (or any other modernist) as post-modernist, but it also incurs my wrath.

I’m tired, grouchy, uninspired and I blame all of my problems on the towering crates of beanie babies shoved next to my desk. The sad thing is that I’ve already sold and mailed half of them. This beanie baby experience has made me vow that I will never collect something as excessive as my mother had done- never. Books I will make an exception for, but that’s because I’m a junkie. I like to justify my habit by telling myself that an English major should collect books and that I only keep those I like enough to reread or that are useful as references. However, any time you have to make a justification, you’re just lying to yourself.

I would now like to close this post with the following words:

Damn you Ebay!

I have a really strange post brewing in my mind for tomorrow. Yeah! Creativity returns!

Two Fridays ago, Tyler and I were given keys to our new apartment. Since then, my life has been a confused blur of boxes, beanie babies, hard to navigate spaces, fevers, more beanie babies, violent coughs and exasperating ebayers. I handed in the keys of The Apartment From Hell to my infuriating Landlord From Hell yesterday who then began ranting about how he’ll bill us if the place isn’t spotless. Sorry you jerk, that’s what the damage deposit and non-refundable cleaning deposit you didn’t bother with is for. Though don’t get me wrong, we did a general cleaning before we left- a cleaning that made the rundown place look beautiful compared to the day we moved in.

My life isn’t completely organized and put away yet; I still have a large amount of beanie babies to auction off. However, I expect I will have more time to actually update this blog from now on. That is assuming, of course, that my German class which has now started doesn’t kill me.

See? Here’s Tyler cleaning!

My friends and I went through a phase where we adored this remix video. We even drunkenly wrote “all your base” in chalk all over campus one chill Mardi Gras night.

Update 10/11/2004: you will pay if you hotlink this image.

A month ago, when I first decided to turn the webpage I had been working on for months into a blog, I had apprehensions. The point of this blog was to be my writer’s journal as I could never get myself to write in an actual journal, but what if my writing went stale? What if I had a lot of readers who expected the same thing and I delivered that same thing over and over again instead of challenging myself as a writer? What if I let people comment on my writing and instead of leaving constructive criticism or a positive note, they all told me I suck and should die?

I’m still a bit apprehensive about this blog thing, but at least I know that it’s getting the most important thing done- it does, in fact, help me with my writing. Through this blog, I feel like I’ve challenged myself on a regular basis and I’ve learned what my strong and weak points are when it comes to writing and my outlook on life. On the days where I don’t want to write at all, I force myself to write. Often, I even post what I wrote despite any misgivings I might have about the piece. If you knew me, as in lived with me and really knew me, then you�d think: “My God, what a miracle! She’s actually writing!”

After working with fellow writers my age, I’ve learned that it’s not uncommon for people who want to identify themselves as writers to actually be scared of writing. I suffered from that fear and became lazy about how much and what I wrote in an effort to keep the image of being a writer in my mind alive. If I actually wrote, then I would be forced to examine the words in front of me and maybe even discover that they’re horribly put together and I need to be shot for creating such drivel. If I didn’t write, then I didn’t have to confront my ability as a writer.

This blog has not only made me confront my ability as a writer, but now that I’m constantly posting comments and stories, it has also allowed my writer’s mind to awaken. These days, I always have ideas floating around in my head that I’d like to capture in words. On the days that I don’t post anything, I find that the reason I didn’t post is not because I don’t have ideas, but that my body either feels like shit or I’m exhausted from a long and busy day. In the recent past, I would never write anything due to being afraid of myself and thus shutting down any potential ideas that I could write about. Now, I at least have those ideas, even if they end up being boring.

Another good thing that has come from this blog is that Tyler is now writing. He probably started his blog due to the fact that he reads blogs all day long, but I’d like to think that I inspired him at least a bit. It’s so refreshing to see him actually create something instead of sit on the internet and read rants about this and that all day. Of course, he still reads those rants all day long, but at least something creative has come from them. Now if I can just get him to dive into that box of junk of his and put together one of those wonderful sculptures he used to have hanging on his walls in the dorms…

A month ago, I said my goodbyes to Twyla outside the Thaiger Room and crossed to the other side of the Ave. While walking north to my apartment, I saw a small elderly man with a brownish green duffle bag larger than his brittle torso stumble under its weight. He fell to the ground, a mass of pamphlets and postcards scattering about the sidewalk in a swirl of hysteria. The man huddled into the duffle bag strapped across his back for a moment, hiding his thinly round face deep in the crook of an arm. All around him, college students and middle-aged adults passed in a hurry, agitated with how he was in the middle of the sidewalk and thus in their way. I was soon in front of the man and crouched down to the cool sidewalk and gathered up his pamphlets. Wondering why he collected so many different advertisements and stuffed them in his duffle bag, I asked him whether or not he was hurt. He answered my question in a quiet and sharply squeaky voice that I couldn�t understand. I handed him a stack of his pamphlets which he then hurriedly stuffed in the top of his brownish green duffel bag. Standing up, I offered him my hand. His was rough and weathered when he clasped mine, but the movements his body made in order to stand were delicate and feeble. Squeaking something I understood to be a �thank you�, he clutched his duffle bag close to the front of his body and scuttled off. I watched him rush down the street, realizing that his entire life was in that duffle bag- a life of pamphlets and postcard advertisements.

This afternoon, I said my goodbyes to Twyla outside the Thaiger Room and crossed the Ave. When walking north to my apartment, my eyes squinted against the onslaught of rain, I saw the same squeaky voiced man. He was standing with his back against a wall near the Russian bakery with it�s sandwich board sign jutting into the sidewalk, boasting the best piroshki. The man held out his hand to me. I did not take it, nor place anything in it, but nodded at him with a smile. Did he remember me?

The very minute I had entered the Conservatory Plant Sale with Jane and Jeff, I split from my friends and made a bee-line towards the bromeliad table. After straining my neck and walking briskly around the outside of the horse-shoe table, I finally found what I had come to Capitol Hill for. And better yet, I had seven different pineapple plants to choose from. I took my time examining each one and selected one with the least damaged leaves, although it also contained the smallest and greenest fruit that might not ripen with the upcoming fall skies. Carefully carrying my coveted prize, I weaved in and out of the booths, trying my best not to stab strangers with sharp leaves that jutted out in all directions. If I was ever to become a comic book hero, I realized that this should be my weapon of choice. “Prickly Pineapple, the Piercinating! She’ll stab out your eyes and finish you off with her castration boots!”

After browsing through the booths over and over again, randomly running into my friends who were experiencing the same overwhelming feeling of “plant overload”, I finally managed to tear myself away from the drainage of money and make my way towards the exit and pay booth. As I crossed the small taped off section of lawn, fellow plant lovers who had previously expressed annoyance at being stabbed by my weapon suddenly turned into admirers of the small fruit proudly protruding from an otherwise unremarkable plant. What soon followed was the chaos otherwise known as the “gotta have it” phenomena compulsive buyers suffer from.

“Oh wow! A pineapple! Where’d you get that?”

“A pineapple! Where are they?!?”

“Where did you get that pineapple plant?”

“The bromeliads,” I said, no longer feeling overwhelmed by the selection of plants but rather by the demanding voices that came from all directions.

“Excuse me, miss. Can I have your price tags?” a volunteer, who had seemingly appeared from the air besides me, asked politely. Confused from the immediate flood of attention, I looked blankly at the short brown-haired man who was already trying to pull the plants out of my hand and grab their price tags.

“Hey, how much is that pineapple and where’d you get it?”

“What?”

“Can I have your price tags?”

“Oh sure, here…. The pineapples are over with the bromeliads.”

“That’ll be $27,” a small elderly woman told me after I gave her a slip of paper the other volunteer had handed me. Glancing down at the paper for the first time, I saw it had the total of my purchase scrawled out in abrasive letters. I handed my money to the smiling woman, gazing at the fluffy white hair she had piled on her head.

After she handed me my change and I was about ready to exit, I realized that a commotion at the back corner of the bromeliad table had erupted. It was where the pineapples were tucked away. A mass of people had gathered around the corner, most coveting their bruised, battered and rather ugly plants while they watched a pair of women argue bitterly over who had seen the last available plant first. “You racist bitch! Just ’cause I’m black doesn’t mean you can steal what belongs to me!” one of the women cried. In the next instant, the white middle-aged woman was tugging on one end of the pot while the black-middle aged woman tugged back on the other end, both screaming at each other.

“Wow, Min! You really bring out the worst in people,” Jane observed as she handed a wad of cash to another elderly lady who also sat at the cashier booth.

“I don’t know why everyone wants these plants all of a sudden,” I wondered aloud.

“Because you’re a hip trendsetter,” Jane responded jokingly. With that, we exited the plant sale and made our way to the parked car where Jeff was already waiting. We walked along the peaceful and sunny sidewalk, admiring the park waterfalls and sculptures while discussing a possible future visit to the Conservatory. As we walked, I could hear the argument fade behind me. It reminded me of my Senior year of High School and the horrid middle-aged beanie baby customers who pettily bickered over anything and everything. No matter what unimportant reason started the bickering, they often found excuses to verbally attack the staff at Hallmark. As I usually hadn’t worked the beanie hell shift, I had never been attacked. Others were less fortunate, such as my friend Kim who had been brought to tears at least three times and suffered countless other ferocious attacks. At these memories, a shiver tumbled down my spine. Fortunately, it was forgotten the instant we saw Jeff’s purple monstrosity of a plant perched atop our deep green car, making it look as if the car had a stylish cascade of hair.

First there was my random assortment of plastic necklaces from the 80’s that I had adored before I was in school. I would never wear any of these necklaces, and haven’t since Kindergarten, but they brought back memories of shopping with my mother at the Bon Marche and coming home with a bag of work clothes for her and one plastic pastel necklace for me. After much indecision, the necklaces went into my “To Ebay or Throw Away” pile on the bed.

I like to call the transition from my current apartment to my future apartment The Great Move. I’ve given it this name not because it’s the first move I’ve ever made, nor because it’s the last, but because it’s the first move where I have to downsize all of my possessions. Most of my friends haven’t had to experience this yet as they are on good terms with their parents and can keep their unneeded but wanted belongings in their old rooms. I, however, am not on good terms with my father and accordingly was forced to either move every last possession of mine or suffer having him throw them away. I choose to take everything that I owned when I first moved into my current apartment, including the 13+ giant tubs of beanie babies that consist of my inheritance. Now that Tyler and I have found the most perfect of perfect apartments to live in, which so happens to be only 505 square feet (our current place is about 700), I am forced to analyze the volume of all my possessions and try to decide what to keep and what not to keep.

Then there were the micro machines and die cast cars. These brought memories of pushing them on the kitchen floor in an attempt to see how fast and far they could go before our terrier (or terror) mutt attacked them. Since they were small and wouldn’t consume much space, I placed the mirco machines and my first ever die cast car (a silver DeLorean with doors that can be opened or closed) into my new and much smaller memory box. The remaining cars went into a paper box full of small toys that I am going to try and give away to trick-or-treaters this upcoming Halloween.

Because of the 13+ giant tubs of beanie babies, downsizing all of my possessions is a ghastly task. I did what I would in most circumstances- I tried to prep myself for the work by starting with the simplest task first. The simplest thing to downsize just so happened to be what I call my memory box. I used one of those plastic under the bed containers and filled it with random bits of junk from my childhood on through my last days of high school. It also ended up containing a couple of items from my mother that I inherited when she died. Most of the contents wouldn’t be bought on Ebay, which in my mind means they’re completely useless junk. However, when I opened up the contents of the box and dumped them onto the bed, I soon remembered the reason why each item had made its way into my memory box in the first place.

Items that might be considered important- such as my high school diploma- went into the new memory box next, with the cars filling in the wasted space of plastic groves beneath. A bag of marbles I had loved, tapes from past orchestra concerts and collectable coins given as gifts took up the rest of the space, leaving a little left for the odd assortment of pig and westie figurines I had bought my mother for one gift-giving occasion or another. My mother’s old glasses, random key chains, and other junk that had indifferent memories attached went into the “To Ebay or Throw Away” pile.

After I had sorted all the contents of the former memory box into their various destinations, I carefully examined the contents of my new memory box and found myself satisfied. I then decided to throw out the items that didn’t make it into the box or find another useful purpose. While collecting the random trinkets and junk into an old grocery bag, I found myself wondering how it was possible to attach so many memories to inanimate objects. Because each item I had kept, no matter how small and useless, had a pleasant memory attached to it, I soon realized that the contents of my box were not junk but physical memories.

A memory, whether physical or mental, is a hard thing to throw away.

Does listening to home brewed slippery jazz funk while eating falafel or cheesecake at a café sound appealing to you also?

Message Machine will be performing at Mr. Spot’s Chai House in Ballard tomorrow, Friday, September 12th from 8-11 PM. Click here for more details.

If you’re into the Indie scene in Seattle, don’t miss this chance to see them.