Apparently most people have never had the experience of walking along, going through their daily day, then stopping in the sudden panic that you might have FORGOTTEN TO WEAR PANTS. Your heart races and your hands fly down to your legs, slapping your quads to feel if there's fabtic, to make sure that you did, in fact, put on pants that morning. I casually mentioned this to a friend once, "you know when you suddenly get freaked out you might have forgotten to wear pants?" and they stopped, stared at me incredulously, and said "No. No, Kaley, I have never, ever done that in my life. Ever." After a pause, they added, "What the HELL? Do you seriously sometimes not remember if you put on pants or not??" Yes, yes i do.
So anyway for the next few weeks i made a point to ask my friends if they'd ever done this, and every single one of them had that "what the hell is wrong with you, you freak" response. Until I asked my sister. "Hey Kara, you know when you sometimes panic that you're not wearing pants?" and she went "OH MY GOD YEAH i did that the other day."
So hooray for that.

BOOKS I FELT OBLIGATED TO READ:
I didn't think Catch-22 was that good. Actually i can't really say that because i haven't FINISHED it yet because it's so boring. i mean, it's OKAY, i just feel like it's a chore to read it, it's very long and nothing really happens. there are some funny sentences, such as when catch-22 is explained, but i don't get what all the fuss is. Catcher in the Rye was okay, pretty fun to read given the lingo of the time period and the slang that the kid uses, plus he had that awesome like "Liberate yourself from my viselike grip!" but nothing All That Special. I liked 1984 the best of those 3 books i bought because i felt i should read them in order to be allowed to be an american. excuse me, south america, a united statesian.

ah, i remember in south america when the girls and i would lament the lack of immediately available, abundant supply of Oreos, or, more frequently, wish we had toilet paper, toilet seats, flushing toilets, or a toilet at all. anyway, we'd go "i miss american toilets..." and our teachers would look at us sternly and say "you're IN america." and we'd correct ourselves with "sorry, i miss NORTH american toilets" but it was interesting to see how we all felt strongly, despite not being especially patriotic or anything, that We were from America.
AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!

So where the hell did April go? How is it possible that today is the last day of school? Last year, well, not LAST year, because a year ago at this time i came back from South America mid-may...but anyway, high school gets out for summer about a month after CU, by which time i will be finished with my linguistics maymester class. I've been spending several hours a day studying and/or working on my lingustics final project, which was an analysis of Captain Jack Sparrow's speech (pronuncation, word formations, sentence structure, vocabulary, word choice, etc). It was actually a really fun paper, but by 11:00 last night when i was finished, not just done with the paper but FINISHED, you know? and steve offered to read it over and i almost declined because i didn't want to do anything more on that paper. i always get to a point, on tests or big projects, where i really don't give a fuck if something is wrong, i'm too goddamn sick of whatever it is to check it over. oh no my battery is running out oh dear.
note to self: post pics from 4/20 on norlin.

a million little bitches

I'm currently reading A Million Little Pieces for the second time, despite all its shitty press about being "a million little lies" (picture me quoting that with the utmost bitter mockosity).
I just don't get what the big deal is. Yes, James Frey exaggerated some things, like how long he spent in jail, and changed some others, such as the way his to-be-girlfriend commited suicide (to protect her identity, i might add). I just think Oprah was a little (read: "way") too sensitive and emotional and uptight about it. The point of the book, as i see it anyway, wasn't how many days he stayed in jail or whether his confrontations with the rehab counselors lasted five or fifteen seconds. It was about an intelligent, fucked-up addict saying "fuck you" to AA and finding a better way (specefically, the Tao Te Ching). It was about taking responsibility for your actions and not just 'letting go and letting god' because you feel like there's nothing you can do about your own life.
Here's a quote i really like from the book:

"I have been to AA Meetings and they have left me cold. I find the philosophy to be one of replacement. Replacement of one addiction with another addiction. Replacement of a chemical for a God and a Meeting. The Meetings themselves made me sick. Too much whining, too much complaining, too much blaming. Too much bullshit about Higher Powers. There is no Higher Power or any God who is responsible for what I do and what I have done and for who I am."

Also, i think it's pretty much fucking ridiculous (refuckingdiculous if you're into infixes) for thousands of dumbasses who bought the book to demand a fucking refund in a court of law because the poor babies were soooo insulted that they were under the impression that they had bought a memoir when they had, in fact, bought a fucking memoir. Frey's publisher said this to Oprah (i read the transcript of the show where she was all whiny to them) and i agree: That Frey's book is a memoir, not an autobiography. He took a lot of it from hundereds of pages of his journals, and the rest from his memory--hence, memoir. The human memory intrinsically faulty, and when you read a memoir, just as when you hear a story, only fucking idiots don't understand that parts are GOING to be exaggerated and changed, and that's a fact.
The book's message and inspiration don't change just because details have.

Here is a funny quote from the book i like a lot, from when James is about to have a lot of dental work, including a double-root-canal, with no novacain or painkillers.
"The Babar the Elephand book is sitting in front of me. I pick it up and start reading it. I remember reading it as a small Boy and enjoying it and imagining that I was friends with Babar, his constant Companion during all of his adventures. He went to the Moon, I went with him. He fought Tomb Raiders in Egypt, I fought alongside him. He rescued his elephant girfriend from Ivory Hunters on the Savanna, I coordinated the getaway. I loved that goddamn Elephant and I loved being his friend. In a childhood full of unhappiness and rage, Babar is one of the few pleasant memories I have. Me and Babar, kicking some motherfucking ass."

This book made me curious about the Tao Te Ching, which is the most amazing book I have ever read. Everyone should read it, period. "amazing' seems like such a lameass way to describe it.

Fun etymology fact of the day: 'decimate' originally meant "the removal or destruction of one-tenth" from when Romans would line up the citizens of a rebellious city and kill every tenth person...as one can guess from the 'deci', but it has come to mean TOTAL DESTRUCTION. (Thank you Steve and the Online Etymology Dictionary.) Anyway, the Romans are badasses. That reminds me (yeah i know they were spartans not romans but it reminded me anyway, HOKAY?)
300 ROCKED MY FUCKING WORLD.

you, sir, are made entirely of dryer lint.

So steve and i are writing a book about the whole lance thing...it's pretty fun sitting down every so often and bustin' out a chapter about some specific event, like when lance and i met, started dating, when i found out he was missing, my last night with him...
I think i'm going to try and self-publish it, and i think the marketing will do itself....the cover will be my tattoo, which'll be sweet.
i guess i wonder where he is sometimes, but it's not like not seeing/hearing from him was ever an uncommon thing, so i got over missing him pretty fast. plus, it's easy to stop missing someone when you realize...well, i'll save that for the book.

Speaking of tattoos, i still want to get the little spaghetti man from that painting in Pasta Jay's tattooed on my calf or something. Whenever i tell people ideas like that however, they don't typically don't think it's funny or cool, they just go "what if you get sick of it? what if you want to dress up or hide it?" Steve pointed out that my current tattoo can be very elegant, say with a sleek black dress and heels, but a tattoo of a little man in baggy red clothes and a mask, tipping a gigantic spoon twirled with spaghetti noodles into his mouth just wouldn't be as classy. but that's why i LIKE it---it's so unorthodox that it reminds me of me, and i'd LIKE that i wouldn't be able to "cover it up should the occasion call for it" because even when i'm wearing a dress and heels, i'm still my goofy, burping, un-elegant self and i don't want to pretend. i want a neck tattoo also...unlike the majority, it seems, whose priority for tattoos is their hideability, i love the idea of having a highly visible tattoo. hello world, here is me. i think a sweet tattoo for the side of my neck would be my old necklace that i wore every day for several years before i gave it to lance.

Apparently most people don't think in words. Like, i have to know how a word is spelled in order to be able to remember it and to have it make sense in my head. For instance, the names Kate and Cait are very different in my mind....i guess that's why i like languages and linguistics.
Speaking of linguistics, i think it's fucking awesome that a language can be created in one generation...when 2 cultures speaking different languages have to communicate with one another using crude language like "you hammer hit"--the kind of thing that americans do when trying to order food in a foreign country (when not only speaking LOUDER and SLOWWWWWERRRR)--anyway...when the kids of this generation grow up hearing this impoverished, improv language, they actually unconsciously create a grammar and a make their own full-fledged language, with themselves as its only/first native speakers.

i was walking up the Hill to the coffee shop the other day after class, and the sun was low in the sky and was in my eyes (one of my biggest fucking pet peeves in the fucking world) and i was walking fast and kinda squinting, i guess. anyway, one of the homeless dudes that sits all day on the benches watching college girls yelled at me as i went past "HEY!" And i ignored him and kept walking because no, i'm not going to engage in conversation with some guy who smells like Savers and gets hard-ons watching college girls walk by. and he yelled it again and finally made his point: "YOU'RE TOO YOUNG TO BE SO ANGRY!" and my reaction time for shit like that is slow, because basically all i can think in situations like that is "what the fuck, asshole?" Maybe i should've pulled a "I HATE MY LIFE!" and made slashing motions at my arms like i did to the chicks in the bathroom at fairview back in the day....Basically i think it's funny when people think i'm angry, because whenever i stare off into space someone asks me if i'm alright. maybe i just have a FUCKING ANGRY FACE, YOU GOT A FUCKING PROBLEM? but then i'd burst out laughing because i'm just silly. i mean angry. so very angry.

but i NEED tacos! i need them or i will explode. that happens to me sometimes.

It's Tuesday o'clock. Do you know where YOUR children are?

penny arcade ftw. anyway, yeah i know it's wednesday, and valentine's day, but "tuesday o'clock" sounds wittily like "two o'clock" so i fudged the truth. speaking of Fudge, Harry Potter rocks my fucking world--

"Ah HA! so you HAVE been plotting against me!" hollered Fudge.
"That's right!" said Dumbledore cheerfully.
i, uh, may or may not have totally, for reasons that may or may not be my fault, fucked up my polyphasic experiment....which makes me sad, because requiring 8 hours of sleep instead of 2 to feel rested is just silliness. When i first started the uberman schedule, people asked me, "Isn't it inconvenient to have to take naps every few hours?" and i'd just stare at them and say "Isn't it inconvenient to be unconscious for eight hours every single day just to not feel like shit?"

in my intro to linguistics class (alex would be so proud), the prof was talking about prefixes and suffixes, and how some languages have infixes, but that English has only one, and asked if anyone knew what it was. it was quiet until i yelled from the back corner "unfuckingbeleivable."

WHERE THE HELL IS MY ANGER MANAGEMENT BOOK?!

Well i have class pretty soon, but i haven't written since my first post so i'd figure i'd update real quick.
I've been reading up on the possible scientific reasons for why we have deep-sleep (which the polyphasic/uberman schedule forgoes entirely) and i'm a little worried that those deeper phases of sleep that i'm currently missing are critical to repair neurons in the brain (particularly memory), rest the immune system and repair muscles. and i'm a pretty big fan of my body and mind being at least somewhat of a well-oiled machine, so i have started to do "core sleep" in the early early mornings for 1 1/2-3 hours. i don't wake up as tired from these as from oversleeps (stfu, that's a noun), but still not quite as rested and alert as the 20-minute naps. but i'm looking forward to having fewer naps during the day, and thus a more flexible schedule.

one really interesting effect of this experiment is my ability to function on virtually any amount of sleep, from one to six hours (though as i said, it's so much harder to wake up the longer i sleep). but because of this, i tend to pay less strict attention to naps because i see them as less important. i wonder if i'm simply adapting my body to get used to less sleep, in whatever form i can get it, at whatever time. it's fucking fantastic to never worry that I Have To Get To Bed because it's just as easy to stay awake, and plus, the longer i stay awake, the easier it'll be to fall asleep the next time i try. and if i can't, no big deal--only boring people get bored.

Day Zero...Again.

A couple of months ago i randomly discovered (thank you, StumbleUpon!) Steve Pavlina's interesting site, and, subsequently, a post on polyphasic sleeping.
For those of you who are panicked and screaming MY GOD WOMAN DON'T USE BIG WORDS, AND ALSO I LACK THE ABILITY TO CLICK ON LINKS, i'll go ahead and tell you just what the fuck polyphasic sleeping is.
Poly-many
phasic-phases. duh.
sleeping-......
Basically polyphasic sleeping (more specifically, the Uberman schedule) is when Truly Badass People sleep in 20-minute chunks (consisting, after the initial adjustment period of a week or so, of pure REM) six times a day, four hours apart. Besides the obvious benefit of 22-hour days in which to do whatever the fuck you want, other advantages reported by the few people who managed to survive the first week include more energy, more vivid dreams, even more lucid dreams. To avoid being redundant, i suggest checking out Steve's Pavlina's successful polyphasic experiment, as well as this guy's and Uberman's Sleep Schedule on Everything2.com. They have tons of information and i just don't feel the need to re-post all of it.
I actually began my own polyphasic sleep experiment exactly one week ago, with mixed results. The first few days i was lucky if i could catch even one nap a day--i've always had a hard time falling asleep. But despite an amount of sleep that most people would consider "Not Nearly Enough," i found i had plenty of energy--except, funnily enough, when i overslept. I overslept every other day, from one hour, to three hours, to six hours, and last night...thirteen hours. Even when i did oversleep, i kept my nap schedule, napping at 2AM, 6AM, 10AM, 2PM, 6PM, and 10PM, even if all i did was lay quietly in the dark. Even today, when i woke up around 3 or 4 PM, i took my regular 6pm "nap" (obviously not sleeping) and will restart my experiment without a break in my nap schedule.
Instead of being upset, sad, disappointed or frustrated about my oversleepings, I've found that every slip-up has made me more determined to do this right. One factor involved in the oversleepings was the loss of my cell phone (and it's trusty, trusty alarm) and my watch (and it's trusty, trusty alarm), when i had to start relying on my really-not-so-trustworthy alarm clock and ipod alarm. So, tomorrow morning before classes, i plan to head down to the T-Mobile store and get a new SIM card for the extra cell phone my sister gave me, and buy a new watch.
During the first successful days of last week's attempt, i found i had more energy than ever (which was somewhat intense for those around me sometimes). I began eating smaller, more frequent meals of healthier foods, and found I was far more willing to fulfill un-fun obligations because i knew i had more than enough time to do those along with everything else i could possibly want to do.
I love this schedule because i'm able to begin/return to activities i'd gotten too lazy to make time for, such as: reading the news and keeping up on current events, going to early-morning yoga classes, doing sudoku, reading non-fiction, reading novels (i read 2 last week alone) and writing in my journal.
In this cycle, i get to be a night-owl as well as a morning-person, and i love being awake those times of day while the rest of the world is asleep. I started to see time differently--as flowing continuously rather than ending at night and beginning in the morning. And, as i've always had a difficult time falling asleep or even being tired (i'd often find myself glancing at the clock at 2-4 in the morning and thinking "oh,i should probably go to bed now." ...and then being unable to fall asleep), the polyphasic schedule is perfect for remedying this--i began, before my last, big slip-up, to start falling asleep within five minutes, and i never, EVER woke up tired--i'd always leap out of bed, so awake that i was actually unsure of whether or not i'd even slept!
I'm curious if this week's Re-Adjustment period will be easier or more difficult than last week's attempt. In a sense, i can see it being easier because my body is already mostly accustomed to the naps. But, it also got used to sleeping-in, and for longer and longer periods.
So my birthday present to myself has been to this experiment--I'm always looking for ways to be better in every way, and the polyphasic sleep schedule is undeniably conducive to that.