I'm wearing all black and gold shoes and a large gold, pearl and black bead necklace. I wish I weren't broke. This outfit clamourously demands chainsmoking.

I just looked down at what I'm wearing in preparation for going to the gym, and it's Exeter shorts and a Harvard hoodie. I am preppiness incarnate at this moment.

Mummy dearest

Mother: So he's short?
Alex: Yeah.
M: So... does he have a napoleon complex?
A: He's not THAT short!
M: I'll bet he does. All those short men find themselves big ol' hunking girls and then strut about with their insecurities.

Thanks, mom.

It's Inna Time Again

I: I found out his room number... now I know where to find you!
A: Or you could call me!
I: No... it doesn't have his phone number listed.
A: ...on my cell phone.
I: Ohhhh.

Today I evidenced a shameful desire to own a pair of tapered pants. The black jeans. From Diesel. So bloody cute!!!

Oh. My. God.

I just walked in to the bathroom off the dining hall and stepped into one of the stalls, intending to pee. It smelled kind of funny, but hell, it always smells kind of funny in there. I heard a sniffling sound, and turned slightly to note a female leg in a short grey skirt and green stilettos sticking underneath the partition. She had her coat still on and she was sitting in a puddle of her own puke, which was seeping under the partition into my stall, almost onto my shoes. I recognised the coat-- it's the stupid girl who thinks she's hot shit and is always trashed. I decided to have nothing to do with this and stepped out.

I suppose I should've helped her or something, but I'm sorry, but I can't deal with stupid drunk puking girls on a Monday night when I'm having to delay a date to do homework. Clean up your act or learn how to hold your liquor. Or at least hit the fucking bowl. Puking your brains out in a dorm bathroom doesn't really add to the whole "beautifully debauched" thing. Ugh.

She is, after all, the first person I dial when I'm trashed

The amusing scene for today was found during my trip to Brown, where I had gone to visit my cousin Joanna and my aunt, who was down for Parents' Weekend. I went down on the 9:40 train with Scarlett, Jo's best friend, who goes to Northeastern. She had a hangover the size of a small African nation and was operating on three hours of sleep post a night of talking to a cute boy from the New England Conservatory. I was not hungover, but had slept for two hours, and was dying for a smoke.

We got to Providence and staggered over to my cousin's room, where we found her emerging from the shower. As she went down to the bathroom to continue poking at her face in an attempt to extract a semblance of vitality from her alcohol-sodden features, Scarlett and I flopped on her bed and attempted to chat, while trying to think up ways to obtain masses of coffee. I was also halfheartedly writing an article for the Crimson, so my attention was not fully engaged. Scarlett, however, was cassting about for things to stare at disconsolately, and thus happened upon the condom wrapper on the floor.

All a normal course of events in a normal college student's life, with hasty removal of the evidence before the arrival of the mother (who otherwise would have discoursed at length about birth control.) Unfortunately, though, this was a bit of a shocking event for me, as my cousin had neglected to tell me of this happening for the first time a couple of years ago. I was roused by a mild feeling of surprise and happiness, then sad to be just that far behind the times.

Moral of the story: She met this guy at a frat party, he was ok hot, and we saved her ass before her mother came in. I then finished writing the article, and we staggered off to brunch, chugging coffee all the way. I got the vague story of The Big Event, late though it was. Pah.

Superficially yours

So... the thought for the day is... how much of a height difference between a guy and a girl is acceptable? In the other way than this ordinarily comes about. And the added question there is, under which circumstances would shortness on a male's part become acceptable?

I feel so white trash right now

I am online while wearing a wifebeater and undies. My Italian side coming out in a bad bad way?

Turkish Coffee!

Today, I learned how to make Turkish coffee, going through it step by step while Inna directed me. She's out of town for the weekend, and I was seized with panic at the thought of no thick mocha-y coffee goodness. I probably should have been all nice and let her pack. But no. Turkish coffee is more important than peace.

Directions for Hot-plate Ghetto Dorm Room Turkish Coffee:

1- Grind (in your electric coffee grinder) lots of beans until they're REALLY fine. In our case, it's about 30 seconds after the grinder starts smelling like burnt plastic. One of these days it's going to explode in our faces.

2- Put three heaping spoonfuls of coffee and three flat spoonfuls of sugar (hopefully coming from a cute little sugar dish like we have) into your coffee pot.

3- Preheat your illegal hot plate. Our setting is somewhere between "Warm" and "Low"

4- Put water in your illegal electric kettle. Don't use the already boiled water in there, that RUINS THE WHOLE POINT. Dump the boiled water into a Nalgene and then drag your butt over to the sink and fill it up again. Just a little bit will do it.

5- Get the water to just below a boil, where it makes teeny bubbles.

6- Put the water into the coffee pot. Put the coffee pot on the hotplate. Watch the top of the pot intently, with a sense of impending doom.

7- The coffee will begin to rise. Ever. So. Slooooowly. And then it will attack! And surge towards the top of the pot! Catch it just before it overflows, and you will have foamy goodness.

8- Procure two or three of your stolen dining hall mugs. Pour. Enjoy with cookies.

Mmmmm.... caffeine.

Inna-ism of the day

Inna: So... Silly putty really makes your hands dry.

(Alex dissolves into laughter)

Inna: Why are you laughing? It's not random! I peeled it off the wall!

Alex: And now... Blogger.com

Inna: I'm glad I've adapted to provide you amusement.

Oh, those Russkis

Inna: You know, the festival? Where all the Russians go into the woods?

Another reason to love the US this fine morning...

It's far too early for me to get annoyed. Ach.

My name is Alexandra...

And I am officially a knitaholic. It's rather bad. Winter's starting early this year, with my learning how to follow patterns AND how to do yarn-overs, etc well enough to consider tackling lacework. Sweet jesus. Went to bed at 4:30 last night, was up at 8, and have a ton of work to do tonight, but somehow the siren song of the monkey I'm making my roommate keeps breaking through. I'm using two shades of Blue Sky Alpaca on #3 needles, and it's the softest thing I've ever knitted (though the tiny stitches make me want to shoot myself).

I also bought a couple skeins of some beautiful Manos del Uruguay wool, self-striping in shades of red and orange and green. It's very gorgeous, and is turning out to be a scarf, knit on 8s. I think it just might be the first thing I ever make myself. Photos to come. And I won't turn this into a knitting blog, I swear. Just too tired to think of anything else.

RAH!!!!

action shot,
originally uploaded by Alex2552xelA.

I am bowler, hear me roar!!!!

Booty shot

booty shot,
originally uploaded by Alex2552xelA.

Picture taken when I went out bowling with Cindy, Julia, Ned, McG and his friends a couple weeks ago. I proved my utter failure at all things of the candlepin variety, but compensated by wearing these stylin' red shoes. The picture is actually supposed to be of them, not my rear, cute though it may be. Much fun was had, in an odd way. These were all people I had gone to high school with but had not had very much contact with after the fact, so it was interesting being reunited, though a little awkward when the question of why Ned and I don't hang out, being as we both go to Harvard, arose. Pah. Went to Anna's afterwards for semi-decent burritos. Mmm.

Movie time

Yesterday was a movie day. I somehow ended up going to see both Broken Flowers, directed by Jim Jarmusch, starring Bill Murray and an array of good actresses, and then A History of Violence, directed by David Cronenberg, starring Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello. Both were decently ok, but I wouldn't pay movie theatre prices to go see either again. I have much better uses for twenty bucks.

Broken Flowers was actually quite viewable, featuring Bill Murray's new signature deadpan reaction to anything out of the ordinary. His girlfriend leaves him-- he falls asleep on the couch. His ex girlfriend's daughter Lolita prances into a room clad in nothing better than the cell phone pressed to her ear, he looks on and then calmly exits the house. I've somehow managed to forget the days when he actually had facial expressions. Not that I mind at all. He does manage to pull this thing off-- I simply start to worry what will happen when young actors decide to adopt this as their Brand New Inspired Acting Style because they are DEEP, dammit, and Hollywood becomes besieged by this trend.

Ahem.

But yes, it was an interesting story, though there was little to back it up. What there was was quite well executed. The lighting was magnificent and the soundtrack is vaguely stuck in my head. Unfortunately though, I can't remember very much of it other than a few shots, and I don't really think it's because of my crappy memory. Do go see it, but don't expect overmuch.

I was really excited to see A History of Violence, because of all the amazing press and the breaking news-- Viggo Mortensen can act? The movie itself is a critic's wet dream-- Beautiful beautiful beautiful camera-work, shots that make me want to read the comic book to see how all this was inspired, an overall average of pretty good acting, and enough unnecessary sex and violence to make it evident that this film is Cutting Edge and Taking Risks. Cunnilingus, coming to you, on movie screens nationwide! Viggo Mortensen's butt hanging out of his pants as he fucks Maria Bello on the stairs! What a man looks like with part of his face blown off! (In a shot that was a little too long.) I'm all for taking risks and Showing It Like It Is, but this was a little too much. Maybe my inner genetic Puritan is finally coming out of the deep dark little hiding place in which it has been dwelling, but there were a fair amount of times when you just didn't need to see that for the movie. The shots verge on masturbatory. Unfortunately, I haven't seen any of Cronenberg's other movies, so I may just be missing out on an essential part of his cinematic style, but I still didn't think there was any need for this. Leave the nastiness to John Waters. At least he'll camp it up and make Divine eat dog poo.

Camerawork aside, there were some other noticeable parts to the movie. Viggo Mortensen has more lines than in any of his other films combined (not that it was really necessary in his earliest works, where he invariably played Hunky Guy with the Cleft Chin and Long Hair) and it is discovered that he can actually speak! More than monosyllablically! And he even switches accents as he Switches Personas, proving that he Truly Does Understand the Value of Switching It Up. I mock, but it did work. What did not work, however, were his crazy ninja moves-- a little too jarring to be found outside of a Schwartzenegger movie. Maria Bello played a good horny housewife, and Ashton Hutcher was pretty good, though he may want to rethink some of his showing emotion faces.

So I'm digging for something to actively critique, obviously. The movie was overall pretty good, but somehow it didn't jibe together. I don't know what it was. Something lacking, and I could cast about vaguely trying to fit words to the deflated feeling that I and the other three people I went to see this with had, but... I don't know. It's definitely worth watching. It will probably get nominated for some awards or other. But whether it's actually a truly good movie, I'm not sure.

Not funny for those of you who don't know what I'm referring to

Inna: So this sheet can be used for the futon.
Alex: You mean for you-and-Clay fest 2005?
Inna: Well, I missed Clay All Night last Friday night. I'm hardly going to miss out on it this weekend!

A song by the Shins stuck in my head....

What direction, precisely, is "parallel to the sky"?