Dear Jimmy

Something very important recently came to my attention. Aubrey Graham, who once played Jimmy Brooks on the TV show Degrassi: The Next Generation is now a famous rapper.

Um.

Excuse me? How did nobody tell me this until last night? Here he is, featured in Rihanna’s new video:

What's My Name feat. Drake

This is him on Degrassi:

Jimmy's the one in the blue sweatshirt. The picture came from here.

I loved you, Jimmy. You were one of my favorite characters. In a show full of bitchy teenagers, you were one of the few genuinely nice guys who always tried to do the right thing. When you got shot in season four, I cried. When you were shown walking on crutches after having stem cell surgery, I cried. When I realized you left the show forever, I cried. And now I find out you’ve gone off and had a successful career as a rapper, under the name Drake??? You could have rapped on Degrassi, Jimmy. In fact, I’m pretty sure you did.

Jimmy, you might think it’s cool to have a Real Career where you get to do music videos with people like Rihanna. But you know what else is cool? Showing teens how to deal with the Tough Stuff. That’s what you did on Degrassi. You brought hope to a whole generation of troubled teens. And now? Now you’re singing about what Rihanna’s name is. That is not cool, Jimmy.

You have disappointed me, Jimmy. No longer are you a wheelchair-ridden basketball star. Now you shave your hair into stupid patterns and look like you think you’re cooler than the rest of us. Well, Jimmy, I’ve got news for you. You don’t.

Why would you do this to me, Jimmy? Was it the money? The fame? I’m sure you made money on Degrassi, even if it’s not the bajillions rappers make. And you were famous where it really mattered—in my heart.

Goodbye, Jimmy. I hope you have fun in your new life, but never forget those of us you left behind.

p.s. Somerset has returned to some sense of normality. The two couches on the walls are still there, but the chairs have become more spread out, and there are only boring chairs along the wall of windows. There is now a group of furniture in every place where there should be. But hey, at least my couch is still here!

I Have Super Powers

I have Super Powers. My mom gave them to me. I can fit any amount of anything into my backpack. I am not joking. It is kind of ridiculous. I realized this today when I realized just how many things I needed with me in Somerset. This is what my backpack looked like after I packed it:

In the first pouch, in the very front, I keep my Black Parade confetti. I got it when I saw My Chemical Romance’s first show on their Black Parade tour. They had confetti cannons, and exploded confetti into the crowd. I put some in my pockets, and then decided to keep it in my backpack, so I would never lose it and always have it on me.

This is not all of it, just a small sample.

This is the second pouch. Mostly I only keep food there, but sometimes I put other small things in it so they don’t get lost in the hugeness of the bigger pouches. Currently, I have three tins of Study Mints (anise seed mints from William Sonoma that are my incentive to study—I only let myself eat them if I’m actually getting work done), a ball of yarn, a bag of sour gummy worms, mac & cheese from Panera, hand cream, a pencil sharpener, two tampons, a house key, a bar of Hershey’s chocolate, an old receipt, three tubes of Smarties, an eraser, two pencils (one of them is a Pokémon pencil that I’ve had since third or fourth grade), a Sharpie, a PrismaColor pen, and two bags of tea I stole from the café.

The third pouch isn’t super useful; it’s thin and narrow and not quite tall or wide enough for papers. I’ve been keeping my colored pencils and markers in it.

There are two open pouches on the sides, useful for tall things, like Saltines, a water bottle and an umbrella.

There are two other pouches right next to those that are the most useless things ever. I went through them for the purpose of this investigation and found a comb, two things of tinfoil and a pair of contacts. I have not used contacts in five years. It was kind of gross.

This is where I get really skilled. The biggest pouch is very, very big and I am very good at squishing things. There was a season of Twin Peaks, my wallet, the Stephen King book I’m currently reading, my headphones, my current knitting project, my computer’s charger, a knitting needle, a piece of pasta, my stuffed lion Pace and a full-sized blanket. It is full-sized. I promise.

There is a top pouch where you’re supposed to keep your iPod and stuff, but I don’t bother to bring it when I know I’ll be on my computer the whole time. This is another good place to keep small things, and also sharp things. There are four knitting needles, a pair of scissors, an iPod connector, two double A batteries, a pencil and two more rolls of Smarties.

Then there is the computer pouch. I keep my computer in it, along with papers I don’t want to get bent. The folded up one is an old essay I forgot was in there, then two edited copies of the same paper that’s different from the first paper, a stack of blank papers for drawing pictures for my blog, the reading I was supposed to do this weekend but didn’t, and then a homework assignment.

This is everything that was in my backpack.

Going To Bed Should Not Be This Difficult

Going to bed is one of those things that is one hundred percent harder than it should be. It would be awesome if, when I looked at the clock and saw that it was six past midnight, that generated the following train of events:

1.    “Oh, look. It’s past midnight. I should go to sleep, so when I have to get up for class on Monday, I’ll be alive.”

2.     I pack my things together, leave Somerset and walk to my dorm without any interruptions.

3.    Go into my room quietly, change into my pjs, get into bed.

4.    Go straight to sleep.

However, this is generally what ends up happening instead:

1.    “Oh, look. It’s past midnight. I should go to sleep, so when I have to get up for class on Monday, I’ll be alive.”

2.    Then I check my email.

3.    Then Facebook.

4.    Then my blog to see if anyone commented or is following me.

5.    And then I stay up for another long period of time doing stupid internet things, or maybe watching Twin Peaks and/or knitting.

6.    Eventually I am too exhausted to be alive and the mere thought of being awake is enough to make me cry.

7.    Pack my things, leave Somerset, walk past the coffee shop and get depressed because I’m out of culinary cash and there are a whole eleven more days until the end of term.

8.    Walk to my dorm without any interruptions.

9.    Go into my room quietly, change into my pjs, get into bed.

10.  Play backgammon on my phone for an hour. Possibly also cribbage and Sudoku, maybe even Rush Hour, though usually I’m too tired to think that clearly.

11.  Put my phone away and spend another 30 to infinity minutes not falling asleep because I’m incapable of falling asleep.

You can start to see why this is a problem even within those lists. I am actually tired, tired enough to not remember how to use tenses. This is related to another problem with staying up late—I can do homework if I woke up before noon, but I can’t think much beyond YAY INTERNET!!! past, say, eleven-thirty. Then the following events occur:

1.    Wake up at quarter of one in the afternoon.

2. Throw on whatever clothes are closest and sprint down to the café before it closes for lunch

3.    Forget to bring study supplies.

4. Need to walk back to dorm after lunch and return to the same building to study.

5.    Look at the clock.

6. Get panicky because it’s quarter of two and I haven’t gotten any work done yet.

7.    Do stupid internet things to calm down.

8.    Realize it’s quarter of three.

9.    Get panicky.

10.  Finally get some work done, but continually get distracted by IMs and the Internet and the most recent episode of Grey’s Anatomy and knitting and Twin Peaks and looking at pictures of Montana.

By the way, friends, Montana is the most beautiful place in the world. If I didn’t love my college so very, very much, I would transfer there so I could live in the mountains and breathe the fresh, mountain air and go skiing all the time. There is not a lot of skiing in the Midwest. It is very flat. Plus, about the air: my campus sometimes, for no reason whatsoever, smells like cow poop. This could be because the entirety of the downtown area is built on a landfill. Or maybe because there’s a paper factory across the river. I don’t know. But it’s gross.

I have cleverly blacked out the name of the paper mill so you can't find me and won't kill me in my sleep.

I am concerned that, since the town is built on a landfill, there is secretly a Trash Monster that comes out at night to kill people who don't live by the CC&Rs like in that X-Files episode.

Picture taken from: http://xfphotos.fredfarm.com/index.htm. If you never need X-Files pictures, that is the place to go.

I did not take this picture because I have never been to Montana. I will, though. One day.

Picture from:  http://www.montanadeathrecord.com/montana.jpg.

Another consequence of not sleeping enough is that I get crabby and the little things, like everything smelling like cow poop, start to get to me. If I could go to bed at midnight like a normal person, I bet when I woke up and walked outside and smelled the cow poop, I would be like, “Wow! Cow poop! What a beautiful day!” But no. Instead, I go outside, and I’m like, “Grrrrrr cow poop you make my life miserable. I hate you, cow poop.”

This is now sitting face down on the coffee table in front of me so people don't see it and think I'm crazy.

Okay. The CD I was listening to just ended, and I am going to take this as a sign that it is time for bed, even though I have not drawn pictures of cow poop yet. I can do that tomorrow, and it will make no difference whatsoever because I don’t want to post two posts in one day because:

1.    I don’t want to overwhelm my readers.

2.    I don’t want to use up all of my post ideas right away.

3.    I don’t have the materials for drawing on hand, and my roommate is asleep and I don’t want to wake her up to get them. Plus it’s cold out, and I don’t want to either:

                             a. Walk to my room and back.

                             b. Pack up, go to my room, get my things, sit outside my room and unpack again.

4. I can’t take a picture of the paper factory because it’s dark out.

5. I don’t have a picture of the building with the crack in the floor because the whole town is sinking, or even remember what building it is, which means I will have to ask my professor, who looks like John Stamos.

Also, there’s a really loud band playing somewhere and it’s driving me absolutely crazy. Good night, friends.

p.s. I did not go to sleep. Instead I stayed up late to write blog posts. I did, however, move away from the obnoxious loud band. I also changed into my pjs in the dark, then decided I wanted to stay up. This involved grabbing a bra at random because I couldn’t see, and also a shirt at random, because I couldn’t see. So now I am wearing a skintight Lifeguard Hampton Beach shirt that I got as a joke and my super push up bra. A mistake has been made.

You do not get to see the skintight shirt or the super push up bra because I look like a skank and that is not the image I want to project onto my internet readers.

p. p. s. The Somerset situation has gotten more intense.

People have started moving the comfy couches and chairs to the tables lining the windows. This is one example, but the same is true up and down the room. My roommate walked in, looked at the situation, then looked at me and gave me an "Oh god, you weren't exaggerating" look. I was vindicated.

Also, no stalking!!

I Am A Trend Setter

There is a room in the campus center at my college I like to study in. It is called Somerset and it is beautiful. It's very big and has really tall ceilings and there's a whole wall of just windows looking out over the river. Along this wall of windows are tables and chairs and Outlets.

The wall of windows. If you look closely, you can see the outlets.

There are also groups of comfy couches and chairs with coffee table-type tables and end tables and such. I like to sit on these, because they are comfy. But! There are no outlets anywhere near this comfiness. In order to plug in my computer, which has a pathetically short battery life and cannot be used without being plugged in, I need to bring my extension cord, my roommate's extension cord, and sit in a particular spot on a particular couch. It is not super fun.

No matter how closely you look, you cannot see any outlets.

I devised a Plan to fix this. I moved one of the couches from where it was supposed to be to against the wall, next to an outlet. This was the perfect solution--I am comfy, on a couch, in a corner (I like corners) and next to an outlet. I had some idea that this was okay because someone had already moved a comfy chair next to an outlet. This is what my couch looks like:

Comfy couch, end table and outlet. The perfect place to study!!

I wasn't sure if the couch would stay there or not. I had disrupted the little group of furniture it was in, plus even though there was some precedent for this, I wans't sure how allowed it was. But the next day it was still there, and the next, and the next. It started to become popular, and sometimes when I'd come in to study, somebody would be sitting there already! I found this more upsetting than I should, because I like my Spots, and I get upset if someone takes them, no matter how accidental. But I acted like a grownup, and merely sat on the chair next to the outlet.

A few days later, I walked into Somerset, and I was greeted by with this:

My couch made friends! Somebody had moved two chairs over, plus a coffee table. This was a welcome addition; now I had somewhere to rest my feet! I felt somewhat proud, like I had started something wonderful. Little did I know. Over the next few days, the following pieces of furniture have migrated to the walls, near outlets:

This is right next to my couch, in the actual corner, rather than just  next to it.

A third chair was added to my couch.

The chair on the right is the original Wall Chair. First the other chair was added, and then today a couch appear. This is where I'm sitting now, because someone is in My Couch.

I once moved a couch here, but got evicted by people stealing furniture from Somerset to bring it next door, into the Pusey room. It has remained there.

It was the addition of the second couch that made me realize that I am a Trend Setter. I, a lowly freshman, have influenced the way people use this room. When I walked into Somerset and saw the second couch, a sense of pride washed over me. I had made a difference, even if it was something as insignificant as the layout of the furniture.

There is, however, a downside to this trend. Remember that first picture, of how the room is supposed to look? This is what's starting to happen, now that the furniture is migrating:

Pictured: emptiness.

The center of the room is starting to empty. It renders my corner not as corner-y because suddenly it opens up onto the whole room, rather than having more furniture right in front of it. It also makes me think that someone Official is going to walk in, be like, "What the hell?", and move the furniture back where it's supposed to be. This would be very upsetting, and result in the immediate return of My Couch to the corner where is so rightly belongs.