Man... last night was one of those nights where I was so active in my dreams that I don't even feel like I slept...

I hate that.

Saw New Moon last night. Kelsey hated it, but after hearing her analysis of why she hated it afterward I've come to the conclusion that she just hates that book. 'Cause all I know is that I felt horribly awkward the entire time I watched the first one (which she proclaims to be "better"), and I know whose fault it was: RPats and whatsherface for having no chemistry whatsoever. General lack of acting ability from both parties as well...
In any case, I liked it much better than the first piece of crap, and yes Beth, I'd be totally down to see it again over break. Because what's money for, anyway?
Thing is, I hate Jacob. I never understood the whole "Team Jacob" nonsense because he's an arrogant fuck. More so in the third one than in the second one, but it's enough knowing that he's a total douchebag in the third one...
I only bring it up 'cause Kelsey loves Jacob, so this surfaced in our discussion last night.

In any case, my general evaluation rests at: it has improved by leaps and bounds over the first one.

O no, no I never go to work- O no, no I never go to work- O no, no I never go to work- O no, no I never go to work
On Monday I never to work
On Tuesday I stay at home
On Wednesday I'm never feelin' fine- work is the last thing on my mind
On Thursday- it's a holiday!
And Fridays I detest
Oh it's much too late on a Saturday
And Sunday's the day of rest.


That said... I have to go to work now...

yes. i've read twilight. i believe most of you know this.
and yes, i am morbidly curious about the movie. and my housemate is stoked on it. but i refuse to touch movie theaters this weekend because i won't be able to function from all the preteens and their screams.
so i think kelsey and I are going on Monday at some point.
Except... she got off work at 6 and now i'm feeling pretty suspicious that she totally bailed and found someone else to go with.
I have no one else in this city who I would ask to go see that abomination with me. And it's not the kind of movie I'd really want to see alone either...
So while I was discussing this with Eliot (who is right along with the rest of you, hating everything about twilight), he said, "if she went without you then i'll see it with you."

that is why he has my embarrassed little heart, and that is why he is amazing.

Oh- also I'm writing a paper on Burning Man for one of my classes, and it only just occurred to me that videos of the burns are available on youtube.

So here's one of the Temple Burn: HERE

And here's one of the Man Burn: HERE.

So I applied for the study abroad program in Paris I wanted to do last summer. I was the 161st person to apply for it this year, and I won't know anything most likely for at least 2 weeks...
I haven't wanted to do something this badly since... Burning Man, I guess...
I was so disappointed last year when the program filled up before I even got a chance to apply, so even getting this far makes me feel kind of optimistic.
If I do get in I'll be spending a month in Paris starting the day after my birthday.


Now I just need to start saving up airfare, book money, and spending money, while simultaneously just trying not to think about it until after Thanksgiving Break.

::EDIT:: Ummmmm I guess I misunderstood something because I found out this evening when I got home from yoga that I did get accepted annnd am going to Paris this summer.
Which I don't think has sunk in yet...

They Might be Giants were so amazing last night! All of last night was pretty amazing actually. Kels and I went to yoga before leaving for the concert, so I was really calm and happy for the entire drive, and we got Saturn food to go, so I had an excellent FLT (fakin' bacon, lettuce, and tomato) and a lemonade.
I forgot how much I love driving in San Francisco. I kind of get a kick out of it. All the one way streets- it's like a bizarre puzzle just trying to get where you need to go. Parking was slightly less fun, but Kelsey and I kept the faith the entire time and eventually ended up in the last vacant spot in a garage on Eddy.
Eliot was really fun at the show. He loves TMBG so he had this huge smile on his face the whole time and was singing along with every song- and so was Kelsey, which wasn't super surprising, but I just haven't really heard her listen to or sing TMBG that much. They played a lot of the songs I love (including "Birdhouse in Your Soul" which is my favorite), which was great 'cause Eliot was a little concerned about me not knowing most of their stuff. It just seems that the songs I do know are the ones they play live.

They were so happy and energetic and they're such NERDS! They did a sock puppet show at one point. There was a camera mounted on one of the drums that was originally pointed at the audience, which they eventually turned around to face behind the drum where they were crouched with sock puppets. So the puppets performed a couple of songs including their song about shooting stars which I droned incessantly while I was trying to park, so Kelsey burst out laughing when the Flans puppet started singing it. The entire band was great, and their drummer looks exactly like Nathan Petrelli from Heroes, which I just consider an added bonus 'cause he was just as goofy as the rest of them.

They did 2 encores, which I've never seen before, but loved. They're so clever... it's uncanny. Not... because they did two encores, but for other reasons...

The only thing I'm bummed about is that Kelsey got one of the last free posters and Eli and I did not and Eliot got a shirt, which I really wanted to do but the line was too much of a clusterfuck at the end... so I didn't. :( Eli's looks great on him though, so there's a plus I guess. He suggested that I just order one online, but that kind of feels like cheating to me...

i kind of want to scream... or something...
somehow i found it incredibly difficult to listen to my housemate tell me about how drunk my boyfriend got at a party of friday night, and then hear in great detail about the cuddle party that ensued on a very small bed in which all of the saturn people (including Eliot) were "all over each other" and "kissing and biting" each other...

Annnd he's at work right now so I can't talk to him about it...

Alright. Talked to Eliot. He set the record straight and then called Hannah and yelled at her (not what I would have recommended, but I couldn't talk him out of it) and she denied saying half the things I heard her say, so at this point I'm just done with it.

Eli accused me of being depressed last night.
It caught me completely off guard. Yeah, I've had a shitty week and haven't really wanted to go anywhere, but I was just attributing it to being tired all the goddamn time (sleep has not been making as much of an appearance this week as it should have been). And I'm still not convinced he's right about my being depressed, but I have definitely been down on the world, when it's possible it hasn't been constantly necessary.

Here's the thing: Santa Cruz has been increasingly violent this month. (Eli disagrees with that assessment, but he truly is full of crap in this issue). There was a stabbing on Laurel St last week, there have been half a dozen sexual assaults in the past month and a half (a majority of them on the street many of my girlfriends live on), and then two nights ago two people were shot in the Saturn Cafe parking lot. Granted, the stabbing and the shooting were both gang/drug related, but this place is fucking scummy. Which sucks, because on an aesthetic level, it's kind of beautiful (what with the bay and the redwoods), but a lot of the people are shady and creepy.

So I've been a bit preoccupied with that, though I talked about it for a while yesterday and am feeling better about it. Eliot was working during the shooting, so I just got this phone call at 10pm (30 mins before I was s'posed to go pick him up) saying that there had been a shooting and that he wasn't allowed to leave the building without a police escort, and basically to stand by waiting for more info... sooo in my defense, I don't think my reaction was out of line...

I'm also still technically in the middle of midterms, so there's a constant reminder flashing in my head that I should be studying for those instead of doing whatever else I'm doing.
Everyone around me has some kind of heinous cold or the flu (including that guy I kiss and hug everyday and sleep next to), so I'm trying super hard to avoid catching it, so at the moment my world consists of hand sanitizer, vitamins, and tea. And something in me refuses to get a flu shot, so I can't tell if that's actively working against me or not.

The world seems really hectic right now. But I am going home next weekend, and I can't believe how much I'm looking forward to it. I'm staying for about 3 1/2 days, and am looking forward to being super low key, and not feeling like school is constantly bearing down on my back (midterms will be over at that point). It's kind of amazing to be able to see that light at the end of the tunnel.
That, and yesterday, after about a month straight of prodding him about it, Eliot finally consented to go to Disneyland with me the week between Thanksgiving and Winter breaks which should be AMAZING!

And on that happy note, I shall sign off.

Um. So iiiiii just walked into my living room on my way to the kitchen to get a muffin and heard this soft "Hey Laurel..." from the nest...
I turn and look and Brando is sitting in the nest. Has been here for an hour and I had no idea.
Is staying till Monday.

I want to carve pumpkins so badly right now

Someone took a bunch of scientists talking about the universe and space and made it into a really beautiful song: We Are All Connected

And then there's this one too: A Glorious Dawn

Got coffee with Kimmy this morning. Beautiful.
Surprised Eliot's parents at the airport. Totally rewarding and full of happiness all around.
Got bitched out over the phone by Eliot for no reason. Pissed. Confused. Hurt.
And am exhausted and freezing.

One of the best parts of the drive back home from Burning Man was the trip we took the Denny's. Hot food- whatever we wanted- for the first time in a week.
We pulled off the highway in Sparks, after driving with all the windows down for about three hours with nothing on either side of the car but desert, and parked in the beautiful Denny's parking lot.
"Burners Welcome!" I ended up squealing over and over again, delighted. Kelsey, Moriah and Meg all looked at me in irritable, tired confusion- "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Look at the door!" I shot back. "Look! They've painted the Man on it and written 'Burners Welcome'!"
It was the sweetest thing to see, you guys. And of course we got inside and scattered at all the tables were sleepy looking people coated in whiteness with happy smiles on their faces as they ate their burgers and what-have-you. So we sat down and joined them, coated in our own dust with our own dark circles behind our eyes, fueling up before the actual drive home.
I can't believe how much I love that Denny's in Sparks, NV.


Anyway. This is obviously someone else's Burners Welcome photo- and we did actually get a picture of the Dennys sign, but we haven't finished up that disposable yet, so here's the Wendy's version.

Weird! Weird ass weather in Santa Cruz today. I opened up one of our curtains today and saw that it was cloudy and super windy, and cringed inwardly in anticipation of going out in it later.
Then I discovered a Netflix envelope that was totally ready for departure and decided to run out and stick it in the mailbox, while totally bracing myself for the awful cold weather that undoubtedly awaited me.
No.
Fucking Florida style weather out there!
Not cold, despite horrible huge wind and clouds!
From the second I opened the front door all I could do was just mutter, "Weeeeeird... weeeeeird weeeeeird weather, man..." to myself on the way to the mailbox and back.

And I can't even say anything about it to Eliot 'cause whenever I marvel at the sometimes tropical weather we get, he responds, "Well this is a tropical climate isn't it"
No, Eliot. No. It's not. It's central California. Inherently not tropical.
Anyway.
Yes I just made a livejournal post about the weather.

You know it's going to be a good day when you get up to campus and the fire danger reads as "EXTREME".

There was an enomorous slide at Burning Man!
What was the slide made out of, you ask? (Because a metal slide in the desert would be completely idiotic)
Astro Turf.
I ran into my friend Ian on the second day, and he told me his campmate had ridden his bike out into the open playa and had found a 50-ft tall slide out there.
It was the beginning of an obsession.
Every day after that I would turn to Kelsey after waking up and say, "Can we go play on the slide today? Pleeeeaaaaase?"
And every day, we'd inevitably get distracted and then suddenly it would be bedtime. :(
But Thursday evening- at dusk- the opportunity presented itself.
Kelsey and I wandered on over to the enormous slide, the cause of so many rug burns, and began the ascent to the top.
There were large pieces of fabric provided so as to attempt to prevent horrible rug burns (though as mentioned before, they were scattered throughout the playa, covering a wide array of locations on various people's bodies). Kelsey and I finally made it to the top and perched over the edge.
Shockingly she was totally nervous. Kelsey, who loves nothing more than to climb enormous trees and large metal sculptures of butterflies. After a moment, though, we both pushed ourselves over, and duuuude it was the greatest slide ever made!!! The fabric on the astro turf worked amazingly 'cause there was no friction at all.
At the bottom of this incredible invention which will no doubt soon grace every playground across the globe, there were large padded squares to bring the sliders to a sudden, yet painless stop.
Genius.
That SLIDE was easily one of the highlights of the entire week.

There were several water trucks that would slowly make their way through the streets of Black Rock City a couple times a day, every day. My understanding is that they sprayed the streets with water in the hopes of keeping too much dust from rising... though I'm still skeptical in regards to how effective this actually was since the streets would dry in literally 5 mins and would look as if the water truck had never come through at all.

The water trucks actually served a very different function to the temporary residents of BRC. To give you a visual they looked almost like cement trucks, but with a wide, thick, constant spray of water issuing from the back.
By the second day a sort of understanding had formed between everyone- we either learned through narrative or from a visual example, and I don't really remember which it was for me, but I just remember standing in the kitchen area of our camp, feeling cranky from lack of sleep and lack of food, when suddenly one of the guys from our camp came running from one end of the camp yelling, "WATER TRUUUUUUUUUCK!" before disappearing out the other end.
And I remember looking over at Kelsey who had stopped whatever she was doing, and there was a split second of understanding before she dropped everything she was holding while I tore off my shoes, and we both took off in the direction our guy had run.
Guys, I don't think I've ever run that fast in my life. Kelsey and I were cracking up as we chased it down, following the crowd of dusty, half naked people, before finally catching up to the queue that had formed behind the truck and diving through the spray head first as many times as humanly possible, while trying not to laugh at or immitate one of the guys in the group who had lost his footing and ended up face-planting in the fresh puddle of mud.
I swear, you guys, a water truck passing through could seriously turn my mood 180 degrees out there. I can think of at least two occassions where I had been a total crank who had to have been so unpleasent to be around before the water truck came. And inevitably I would chase it down, and come out of there as if I had a full stomach and a full night's sleep (which hardly ever happened in reality...)
A-mazing.

All Burning Man entries that have been made thus far now have pictures to accompany them so as to better provide visual aid.

So here's how I think these posts are gonna work: they're gonna just have to be in the form of many short individual blurb posts because one long entry would be just stupid- no one would read it, I'd get bored writing it, it'd be dumb. So each highlight will get its own post, I think. I'll do my best not to spam your f-lists, since it would totally suck to not care at all about Burning Man and suddenly have your friends page flooded with posts about it.


I was just standing in the driveway watching the cars drive by, and though I definitely appreciate the volume difference, I think I do miss the Art Cars already.
On the playa the only cars allowed are Art Cars (unless you're driving into your camp or leaving BRC). They can pretty much only travel 5 mph, but they go all over the playa and there are hundreds of them.
People work on them all year, and it shows. This year's BM theme was evolution so there were a lot of metal T-Rex Art Cars (sorry Beth), there were quite a few fish, I saw one giant neon bee that lit up at night... there was a life-size steamboat art car, as well as this really big steampunk-looking covered wagon that I really only noticed at the burns. There was a golden gate bridge art car, several cats- one that actually meowed, a gigantic rooster that lit up at night... it was almost like the electric light parade at Disneyland...

My favorite art car, though, left me laughing for at least ten minutes after it drove away. It was a large office desk, and it formed a kind of board meeting. At the head of the table two guys were standing in front of a white board, showing plummeting profit margins. There were about a dozen people seated around the table all dressed in proper work attire (the guys in suits and ties, the women in pencil skirts and respectable tops- while the dust swirled around the desk as they moved), and as the car rolled through the streets the people yelled at everyone they passed: "Get out of the way- time is money you filthy hippies!" "That attire is not appropriate for work, I'm gonna' have to ask you to go home and change and then GET BACK TO YOUR CUBICLE!" etc etc.
On the back as it drove away there was another white board that had the same graph as before, and written underneath it were the words "Driven by profit" with the Burning Man symbol turned into the components of a dollar sign.
I ended up seeing it again two days later, and I got really excited about it, but then as it got closer I realized that the people had devolved. All of them were dressed the same, but were wearing ape masks and no longer speaking coherently.

Kelsey calls it culture jamming, but I don't really care what it's called. It was the only art car to leave me with a huge smile on my face after it had wandered away.

( Driven by profit )