mood: daring
music: babasonicos - puesto

so this begins my week off for semana santa [holy week]. technically we have class next tuesday and wednesday, but the chances of me going are slim to none at this juncture. i mean, the banks are closed all next week. if federal financial institutions see no reason to recognize their obligations for the week then neither do i.

most of the people in the program have gone off traveling. but for the handful of us that are still around, the week is sure to be packed full of misadventures, immortalized in countless pictures which will end up on the facebook.

fuzzy photos. fuzzy memories. this should be good...


y´know...i´ve never been a huge fan of catholicism, given that one horrifying experience i had at as a guest at mass when i was 8. but i have to say, the fairly strict observance of religious holidays both here [98% of the population identifies as roman catholic, 5% are actually practicing catholics] and back at loyola has bestowed all sorts of days off from school upon me. and for that, i am always grateful.

so thanks catholicism.

it would be probably be the tiniest bit blasphemous to say that i´ll be drinking in your honor for the next week...so let´s just call it liberal consumption of communion wine...

mood: time to observe the siesta
music: alex ubago - sigo buscando


argentineans say funny things to me sometimes:


¨what?! you went to münchi´s instead of freddo? i don´t think we are talking ANY more...¨ -- matty, my host sister´s boyfriend (münchi´s and freddo are competing ice cream chains)


¨if you do not use the tupperware, if you put the whole pot in the refrigerator, you will go to the hell. immediately¨-- copete, my host father, on the subject of opitmal conditions for storing the leftover rice


(as she searches in her purse to find her ringing cell phone)
¨if your cell phones ring in class, i will kill you. literally.¨ --elina, my spanish teacher


¨take joe, for example. every day he sleeps for 10-15 minutes during class. and he thinks i don´t know...¨--sylvia, my other spanish teacher, on the subject of strange mannerisms of american students

¨there are always some problems with the ies students having an argentinean boyfriend or girlfriend. in four months you will have to go back to the united states. june and july are always terribly dramatic months with people dying and crying all the time...¨--sylvia


¨if you are still not feeling well, you must be quiet with the manteca...¨ --eugenia, my host mother (manteca=butter...i was making toast)


¨oh i love the BAFICI! i like to go after midnight...they have the CRAZIEST stuff...like, left-wing communist porn! i LOVE it...!!¨--ariel, my anthro prof (BAFICI=upcoming indie film festival)

mood: i should SO be studying right now
music: raconteurs - steady as she goes


so i´m sick. real sick.
with something that is determined to take me down.

it started with a cold. no sweat. i spent a couple days doped up on dayquil/nyquil and mucinex. i was even starting to feel a little better.

but no. friday i was attacked by these awful awful stomach pains and several other gastro-intestinal maladies that you really don´t want me to go into detail about. i haven´t been outside in 2 days. i spend most of my time in transit between my bed and the bathroom. when i´m not running to vomit bile one can find me laying down, rubbing my belly and willing myself to feel better. this sucks. it makes me nostalgic for the days when mommy was around to take care of everything [including the rubbing of the tummy] while i concentrated on watching tv and eating jell-o all day. those were good days.

apparently this virus has been going around. in fact, my host sister just got over it a couple of days ago, so i know where i got it from. on the upside, she was able to tell me just what to do in order to get better faster. i´m hoping to be 100% in the next couple of days.


in other news...

week three is complete. god, i can´t believe i´ve already been here for 3 weeks.

classes are bueno. spanish is coming along nicely and my anthro class looks like it´s going to be totally clutch once we get going. i´m pretty much in love with my prof. he´s simply amazing - hilarious, chill, and always seems to be slightly intoxicated...but in the good way. and he´s best friends with the lead singer of babasonicos, which is an incredibly popular and long-standing indie/rock pop group based out of bs-as. he´s going to get some of us in the class vip passes to a concert or a private party or something later on in the semester. he does´t know this yet. but we´re confident that he´ll figure it out.

thursday night a bunch of us decided to hit the town [interjection/digression: at this point, i have to note that before i went out, i was talking with my host family about the similarities and differences between the partying schedules of americans and argentineans. i ended up explaining to them what ¨thirsty thursday¨ is and my host father fell in love with the concept because of the alliteration in the title...these people are so funny] . anyway, we heard about a club that played hip-hop music (called lost, or club2424 depending on who you consult), and in an effort to escape the omnipresent techno, trance, and house stuff the majority of the places play, decided to investigate. we hit up our usual shamrock for some pregaming. they have sweet deals for happy hour, and the atmosphere is pretty good for getting the night started. i tried to play it pretty cool (telling the guys who approached me that i spoke neither english or spanish) while diem and tara chatted up a few guys, and wasted britney insisted on blowing my cover time and time again. at one point, there were literally 7 guys standing around in a circle, trying to chat with us. she thought it was hilarious. i was slightly disgruntled and resented the 36 year-old who kept talking to brit and felt it was appropriate to perch on my leg while he did so. after a while, when i finally figured out why it was that i couldn´t feel my calf any more, joe came to our rescue and declared that it was time to get moving to the next location.

after turning down a couple of offers from drunk argentines to drive us to lost, we hopped in a cab. the scene was pretty interesting. seriously diverse crowd. after cashing in our round of free drinks we settled in on the balcony with some other folks from the program. on the main level there were some amazing break dancers. i mean like straight 80´s, hardcore, breakin 2: electric bugaloo type dancing. two guys and a girl, and the girl was phenomenal...seriously, she was the shit! eventually, the real music kicked in and everybody packed into the main dance floor. it was more or less just like going to the club back in the states, so it wasn´t anything life-altering. but it was nice to have just a little taste of something familiar. i think it´ll probably end up being our regular thursday spot.

on friday, i dragged my ass out of bed for my 9AM conversation class, which is basically a session where 3 of us sit around and talk to a teacher in spanish. all the second hand smoke i inhaled thursday night left me sounding like an 85 year old lifetime smoker. but hey, at least i was there. joe didn´t even make it at all. i ran into him later when we were completing step 876 of 2356542879 in the longest and most complicated student visa process ever created and he looked like death. so we decided to go get some lunch. he took me to a place that he´d supposedly been to before where one could get an amazing steak for 8 pesos. when we got there, it turned out that he had actually never been there before, but had seen it. and his info about the steak had been received from probably the most unreliable girl in the entire ies program (it actually cost 20 pesos). to top it all off, right before we got our food, a tiny little cockroach crawled across our table. now if you know me at all, you know how well i get along with insects, so i´m sure you can conjure up an image of how i handled that. i love joe dearly, more dearly than any of the other guys in the program. but i am never ever letting him take me anywhere. ever. again.

friday night my lovely ladies krystle, shanell, and i went to the alejandro sanz concert (he did the song ¨la tortura¨ with shakira a couple of years ago). not gonna lie, it was pretty stellar. shanell has been a die-hard fan for over a decade so she was pretty much in heaven. krystle enjoys random adventures, so she was pacified. and as for me, i didn´t really understand the majority of what he was singing, but the music was pretty. and since shanell took it upon herself to teach me the words to his most recent hit ¨te lo agradezco, pero no¨ (also with shakira) i was singing my little heart out during that one song. all in all, i´d say it was a success.


yesterday and today i have been quarantined. i really really should have spent more time studying, but it´s hard to keep one´s face in a book when one´s face is in the toilet...ah well...


besos,
t

mood: i´ve spent too much time inside today
music: james morrison - the letter


allow me to introduce you to james morrison.

if you do not listen to his music, you will die unhappy and alone.

just kidding.
you were going to die unhappy and alone anyway...



seriously, though. check him out. youtube him. myspace. his website.

--undiscovered
--you give me something
--wonderful world
--this boy
--the letter

let me know what you think.

besos,
t

mood: level-headed
music: tegan and sara - i know, i know, i know


so classes started this week. so far i´m taking 9 credit hours of spanish, an anthro class, and at least 2 types of dance (modern, flamenco, and perhaps tango). however the dance classes do not commence for another 3 weeks since they are actually taken at a legit argentine university. for now, i have only 2 classes a week.

i´ll give you a moment to let you overcome your jealousy.

spanish class is fantastic. in the spirit of truly learning through immersion, the the sessions are conducted entirely in spanish. this is fine for me, since i can generally understand everything that´s going on. it does not, however, work for everyone else. this fact, however, worked doubly well for me today, as it was amusing when our prof stopped the class to ask one of the students if he was actually on the verge of tears. i say this not out of a mean spirit (well, perhaps slightly mean), but because he´s a jerk. if he´s stuffering in class, it´s merely his comeuppence.

as for the anthro class, during our introductory period we discussed the power dynamics of the male gaze, use of the words punta (bitch/whore) and puntita (¨dearest whore¨), the ironic identity crisis of the gauchos, old-school eurocentrism among porteños (middle class people born and raised in bs as), and some of the parallels between the roots of tango and 50 cent.

the best part of it was that all of this discussion occured within 20 minutes. after that, we were dismissed for the day.

i like the man´s style.


all in all, i´d say things are looking up. i´m getting used the city, to the people, to the lifestyle. sometimes i even begin to feel a porteño-esque...that is, until i have to have any sort of human contact with someone who is actually a porteño. but for the most part, i´m doing alright. i´ve now managed to take the bus TWICE without serious incident. i consider this a victory. half of the locals cannot figure out the bus system here, so every time that i do, i celebrate...with a little dance. don´t judge me.

in addition, i´ve become the resident expert in two areas:

1) amongst my friends, i am the official navigator. my good sense of direction and handiness with maps has assured me a temporarily excellent social standing (many thanks are due to my mother, who forced me to learn to read a map against my very stubborn 8-year-old will). this is more crucial than you might think, given that this program is like one giant repetition of high school where you risk being ¨dropped¨ at a moment´s notice. it´s not that i´m desperate to have the most friends, it´s just that they speak more spanish than i do. and it helps to have them around to assist me when i accidentally order 62 cups of coffee. you might say that i´m using these people. i call it taking advantage of my resources.

2) my host family has discovered the joys of humus. they are in awe of the chick-pea and all of its health benefits. they also find it to be quite a cute little vegetable. since i explained to them that i eat humus all the time in the states, they have designated me as the pseudo humus ambassador. they ask for different suggestions for flavorings, and whenever my host father finds a combination of seasonings that he finds suitable, the final concoction must past my standards in order to be served to the rest of the family. it´s fairly hilarious. the only problem is that there is now always a tiny bowl of humus floating around somewhere in the loft. and the fam seems to think that i will partake of it all the time. every day. don´t get me wrong, i love humus. just not on a never-ending-supply basis.



well, yet again i leave feeling as though there are significant parts of my experience that i´d like to relay to you, but you see, i´m a little bit lazy. and in the battle between my blog and my bed...the bed ALWAYS wins.

so...

besos
t

music: alejandro sanz - te lo agradezco, pero no
mood: adventurous

just finished up week two of orientation. on the whole, i´d say this has been one incredible waste of my time in terms of learning anything new. all of the exploring and learning of language happens on my own time, so all the other stuff is pretty much pointless. but i guess it has its good points as well.

on friday they took us out to an estancia, which is basically a psuedo-farm/country estate. i should have known the experience would be less than what i had hoped for. first of all, it was cold. not cold in the sense that i needed my winter coat and gloves, but cold in the sense that in any other situation, my ass would have stayed inside. second of all, we were supposed to leave at 8:45 in the morning, but didn´t end up going until somewhere around 10:30 - though i have to say such an occurrence is fairly typical with ies down here. then, while we were on the interstate, there was suddenly a moment when i was rudely awakened from my slumber by the screaming of idiot girls. turns out we had run over a very cute and cuddly dog. (is it wrong that i was mostly just annoyed that they had woken me up?)

all of these things should have been signs. though i must say, i really enjoyed it for the first hour. i mean, getting swarmed by mosquitos and mauled by low-hanging tree branches during the carriage ride was just peachy. things did pick up a little bit when we had lunch. i must have eaten 8 different types of meat. i had no idea what they were, but damn if they weren´t tasty. the desserts were pretty amazing as well. needless to say this was my favorite portion of the day.

during the afternoon, most everyone went off to ride bikes, go for walks, play soccer, and/or pretend that it was actually warm enough to go swimming, which it wasn´t. my girls and i decided to be lazy bums, so we pulled some lawn chairs into the half-assed sunlight and partook in the siesta. eventually, susana and i gave in to our alcoholic tendencies and split a bottle of chardonnay. oh yes, we´re ballers. i thought you knew...

so yes, while it was somewhat enjoyable, it reminded me of how much i don´t care for the countryside. apparently everyone else could tell as well. at least 4 different people told me that they were surprised that i went, considering how much of i city girl i obviously am. i don´t know if that´s a good thing or a bad thing.

ok, i´ve got so much more to talk about, including the night life, st patty´s day, and my adventures with learning how to tango. but it´s such a beautiful day outside, and i feel like i need to go do something with my life that doesn´t involve staring at a computer screen...

besos
t

mood: settled!
music: regina spektor - hotel song


prego! (yeah, i know, that´s italian, not spanish)

ok. there´s just so much to talk about - so many things to address and explain. i´m gonna do my best to break it down for you. here´s the list so far:

my home and family
food
daily life
tv and music
people
weather
language
fashion
odds & ends

we´ll see how many of these i can get through before i get caught in a wave of apathy and give up...

home and fam--

i´m just in love with my fmail - they´re so very nice. i live with my father, copete, an events planner and my mother, eugenia, who is a high school lit teacher. her daughter, sofi, also lives with us. she´s 23 and a psych student at the universidad de buenos aires. she´s pretty much the greatest. i fully intend on enlisting her as one of my partners in crime - as well as her boyfriend, matty, who´s pretty much a fixture here at the apartment. he´s 23, also a student, though i forget in what. he´s a good guy. terribly gorgeous. good sense of humor. and we bonded over liking a lot of the same music.

both copete and eugnia have 2 sons and 2 daughters each from previous marriages. copete´s daughter cecile is actually housing another one of the IES students. his other daughter, loli, was just in town (she actually lives in the southern part of the country - patagonia) for her brother´s (copete´s youngest son) wedding. she´s a total badass. i´m hoping to go down and visit her some weekend. sofi is eugenia´s daughter, but there is also her sister paz, who lives a few blocks from us with her beautiful husband, santiago (a lawyer who enjoys playing rugby in his free time), and their adorable children, flori, and alejandro. i haven´t met either of eugenia´s sons, but they look like wonderful people in the family photos.

then there is grace, our maid. she´s pretty much hilarious. everyone in the family speaks at least decent english. not so for grace. or so she says. i´m pretty sure she understands a very little bit. but she refuses to speak it with me. she insists that i practice with her. it´s very sink or swim. i love it. she´s just a great presence to have around. she has a way of organizing things that just boggles my mind. i keep my room very neat so as not seem rude, but every time she cleans it, it turns out looking at least 100 times more tidy...oh, she´s good.

food--

beef, beef, and more beef is the name of the game here. i kind of feel like i´m back in texas, only with superior steaks. i´m telling you, they´re out of this world. i don´t know what it is about the way they cook them - i think they must put crack in them or something. on the whole, the foods that they eat are not terribly different from things we have in the states...they just taste better here because they´re foreign. (the only odd thing is that nothing is really spicy at all, if you want something cooked picante, you have to specify.) some standard foods are empanadas (just like the ones in the states) with beef, ham & cheese, just cheese, or corn; milanesa, which is basically a very very very thin pork chop or chicken fried steak; dulce de leche (the real and so much better form of caramel); mate, a very potent herbal tea; and lots and lots and lots of very cheap, very delicious vino...oh yes, they´re winos. i fit in quite well.

breakfast is typically something small - cereal OR toast OR fruit, never all of it at the same time. no eggs whatsoever with breakfast. ever. in fact, they think our practice is strange, and the smell of fried eggs in the morning makes most argentines feel ill. lunch and dinner are pretty much the same type of dishes we have back home, only with eggs from time to time. they´re very into desserts and dessert coffees and typically have one after every single lunch and dinner. i do not fight it. so far the best thing i´ve had has been part of the wedding cake, which was basically a torte with dulce de leche layers and a confectioner´s sugar merengue for icing. yeah, i pretty much died a little inside when i ate that.

daily life--

really, it´s your basic big metropolitan area. living in rogers park was a total preparation for this. you´ve got overcrowded buses and trains which everyone takes to get everywhere, people all around, you have to watch your back for pick-pockets - especially once they hear you speaking english, buenos aires even has it´s own version of the granvillian. i feel right at home. i´d say the pace is a bit slower, especially when it rains. and the times they keep here are quite an adjustment. up at 8 or 9 for breakfast, lunch at 12 or 1, tea at 5 or 6, dinner at 9 or 10, pregaming at midnight, out to the bars/clubds at 1 or 2, home at 6 or 7. and repeat. as someone who requires between 8 and 9 hours of sleep to avoid killing innocent bystanders, i can´t quite keep up with them yet. but soon. very soon. i will master it. i haven´t hit the night life at all yet. but this weekend we´ve all already made plans to get quite rowdy...

tv and music--

yeah, they pretty much have a lot of the shows and channels we do. so far i´ve found: animal planet, vh1, mtv, cnn, bbc world, cartoon network, a&e, the discovery channel, my wife and kids, will and grace, next, south park, seinfeld, what about brian, law and order svu, csi, smallville, psych, monk, sex and the city, desperate houswives, heroes, everybody hates chris, mythbusters, dog the bounty hunter, that 70´s show, the queen, stranger than fiction, notes on a scandal -- and the best part of all ... scrubs and grey´s anatomy!! i´m in heaven.

i know, you´re asking why i would waste my time watching tv, esp american shows. it´s actually quite helpful. the spanish subtitles have helped me to recognize certain words and phrases. and in the mornings i watch the local news in spanish. so it´s not an entirely futile practice.

as for music, they listen to a lot of stuff from the states and england. british pop/rock is actually matty´s favorite genre. a lot of the stuff from the us is 80´s and 90´s, which i love, but they have newer stuff as well. the other night we listened to nora jone´s first cd during dinner. last night was shakira - whom matty and sofi have beef with. they think she was much better when she was singing in spanish. after hearing it, i have to agree.

i haven´t heard too much spanish pop music, but i really like it so far. i can´t wait for the day when i understand what it is i´m listening to. at the end of the month i´m going to an alejandro sanz (la tortura with shakira) concert. should be a rockin good time.

people --

most people are overwhelmingly beautiful here. all the of the women are very very small. it´s mind boggling, considering how much they eat. apparently, there is a problem with the emulation of models and eating disorders, but i know the women in my family can put away some serious amounts of food and none of them could possibly weigh over 130-140 lbs. it´s just not fair.

as for the guys, the majority of them are at least decently good looking. but there is an unusually large percentage of devastatingly beautiful men. it´s so terribly distracting. for example, the sidewalks here are often more pothole than walkway and i tripped in one and almost totally KO´d the other day because i was distracted by this guy that was passing. it was mortifying at best.

people are generally very nice. i try to throw some broken spanish at them once in a while and they seem to find it more charming than obnoxious. they even humor me from time to time and pretend to understand what i´m saying. they do tend to stare a lot and catcalls are not exactly rare. we all know why that is. they´re very intrigued by the whole black girl thing. everyone thinks i´m brazillian and a few people have seen my passing as an excellent òpportunity to practice their portugese. they are quickly disappointed.

weather--

well, it´s a far cry from chicago. it´s been in the 80´s since i got here. lots and lots of sun. the humidity takes no prisoners. it´s crazy, but not quite as crazy as new orleans. i´ll take it. however, yesterday and today were a change of pace as yesterday evening we very suddenly entered monsoon season. i knew it was the rainy season coming into this, but everyone neglected to mention that there is no such thing as a ¨shower¨ here. only torrential downpours. super torrential downpours. and not quite torrential downpours. i got caught without my umbrella yesterday while i was walking home from shopping with my amigas...it was awful. i didn´t so much mind being completely soaked, seeing as how it was warm rain. it was just that i was unwittingly forced into a wet t-shirt contest by virtue of the fact that my polo was completely drenched and drawing lots and lots of unnecessary attention to my chest. also, i was wearing a very light colored, very thin skirt. yeah, the local men took notice. they were harmless, but it was just quite an experience to have after being here for 4 days.

the good thing about the rain is that it cools things down quite a bit. fall is on the way, so i look forward to this as a continuing trend. people keep telling me that it gets cold here and they hope i brought winter clothing. cold is a high in the 50´s or 60´s with a low in the 40´s. mostly i laugh and explain how it was snowing when i got on the plane in chicago and for a 2 week span in feb it never got about 10 degrees and was frequently 1 or 2 degrees for the high. they look at me as if to ask, ¨how can one live in such a godless tundra?¨

language--

i´m picking it up quickly. all of my years of french are very helpful, although it is hard to rewire my automatic pronunciation tendencies sometimes. we have these orientation classes that are supposed to teach us basic survival terms, but since it´s not technically a spanish class, we´re not learning verbs and the like. so i´m building up vocabulary without any clue as to how to use it. awesome. orientation is quite the waste of time and most of us have started skipping our sessions...i doubt anyone will be going to anything by the end of next week...

the thing about argentinian spanish is that it is catezano, which means that some of the sounds they use are very very different from most of the rest of the spanish-speaking world. for example, the ¨ll¨ is usually pronounced as the american ¨y¨ but here, is pronounced ¨zsch¨ so when i get back, everyone will wonder what the devil i´m saying and immediately know that i learned to speak spanish in argentina. yes, i will have a superiority complex.

fashion--

not too much to report here. they are very very ecclectic. pretty much no matter what you wear, you´ll fit in. just no sweats. they find those to be tacky. and i haven´t seen too many women wearing heels, since they walk so much. they make all of the flats very cute and versatile. this is exciting, considering i brought like 8 pairs of heel and am terrified of wearing them out. there´s no way my feet would survive. yes, i knew this coming in. yes i am an idiot for packing them and will be sending them home in a couple of weeks.

odds and ends--

i went to the supermarket for the first time the other day. that was quite interesting. the one by my loft is two-stories, so there´s a moving ramp to go between levels. it´s nice and easy if the wheels on your cart catch the right mechanism that holds it in place while you´re in motion. unfortunately, mine did not. in retrospect, i´m sure i looked very funny. they also have no problem making you wait long periods of time to check out. about 3/4 of the checkout lines were open and there were at least 6 people with full carts waiting in each of them at any given time. i was in a particularly good humor at the time, and so didn´t mind too much. but most americans would have had a complete temper tantrum.

also, argentine children are terribly exhausting. at the market they were literally running around everywhere as their poor mothers tried desperately to keep an eye on them while trying to decide between coke zero or 7-up free. in the checkout line there was a lady with a little boy and little girl. the little girl only took marginal interest in me and instead invested herself in trying to pull down every cookie and chip display she could. the little boy, however, found my groceries to be terribly fascinating, and spent a total of at least 10-15 just holding onto the end of my cart, assessing it´s contents and judging the quality of my selections. i have no idea whether he approved or not, but i know he gave it a great deal of consideration. i was more or less too tired and sweaty to be annoyed with him. in fact, he was kind of adorable...


so that´s about it for now. i´m getting along very well. i´m just trying to keep a sense of humor about everything. it makes it so much easier. at first i didn´t think i could pull off four months of this, but now...i´m thinking i could get used to it...

besos.

mood: holy shit
music: john mayer - clarity




seriously...there just aren´t adequate words to describe it.



seriously.

mood: so ready...
music: chantal kreviazuk - leaving on a jet plane


this is so unreal.

time to fly...


what's new, buenos aires?
i'm new
i wanna say i'm just a little stuck on you
you'll be on me, too

i get out here, bueno aires
stand back,
you oughta know whatcha gonna get in me
just a little touch of star quality

fill me up with your heat, with your noise
with your dirt, overdo me
let me dance to your beat, make it loud
let it hurt, run it through me
don't hold back, you are certain to impress
tell the driver this is where i'm staying

hello, buenos aires
get this
just look at me dressed up, somewhere to go
we'll put on a show

take me in at your flood, give me speed
give me lights, set me humming
shoot me up with your blood, wine me up
with your nights, watching me coming
all i want is a whole lot of excess
tell the singer this is where i'm playing

stand back, buenos aires
because you oughta know whatcha gonna get in me
just a little touch of star quality

and if i ever go too far
it's because of the things you are
beautiful town, i love you
and if i need a moment's rest
give your lover the very best
real eiderdown and silence

you're a tramp, you're a treat
you will shine to the death
you are shoddy, but you're flesh, you are meat
you shall have every breath in my body
put me down for a lifetime of success
give me credit, i'll find ways of paying

rio de la plata
florida, corrientes, nueve de julio
all i want to know

stand back, buenos aires
because you oughta know watcha gonna get in me
just a little touch of
just a little touch of
just a little touch of star quality...

1. i am secretly a lot of things no one expects me to be.
2. i've recently developed this 'thing' for argyle and polka dots [though i adamantly believe the two should never be paired]. i cannot explain it. i have no idea where it came from.
3. i enjoy abbrev. words and phrases to the point where very few people can decipher what i am saying. when this is not possible, i just make words up.
4. the rumor is true. when i reach a certain point of drunkitude [see above], my texas drawl does resurface.
5. i am a terribly curious person. i want to know everything.
6. i will say i don't like or need surprises, but i actually do. a lot.
7. i narrate my life in my head. just like on tv. scrubs?
8. i have a strange obsession with orange and/or apple juice. if left unchaperoned with yours for any period of time, i will compulsively drink it all. but i will be terribly apologetic and even somewhat remorseful afterwards.
9. my interests are abstract and wide-ranging. don't try to figure out the correlation between them. there isn't one. they just...are.
10. i am a notoriously difficult person to shop for.
11. i tend to gravitate towards bands and artists who are more or less obscure so that when they gain notoriety i can say 'whatever. i liked them before they were famous...'
12. i like lists. and ending them arbitrarily.
13. modern and post modern art and art forms are a serious turn-on. "guys that'll get to date you are lucky. all they have to do is take you to a museum and i bet you'll put out. and, hell, all the museums in chicago have at least one free admission day..."
14. i have a filthy and caustically sarcastic sense of humor.
15. my lexicon is indeed scopious. somtimes obnoxiously so.
16. metaphysically speaking, i exist as a series of interrelated paradoxes and non-sequitors which add up to make perfect sense and no sense whatsoever at the same time.
17. i have been told that getting to know me is like peeling an onion. there are an infinite number of layers, and sometimes you'll cry.
18. i am a little crazy. just go with it.