2009 out out out but with melancholy

Puppy died.

Part of the family, you know? And he was my make-out buddy for 14 years. Great kisser. And no strings attached. Open relationship, you see.

He was also kind of the weirdest dog ever. But I guess you can't really expect anything less from a member of this family.

Ay. Sad sad sad.

Lots of loss this year. Lots, indeed.

In any case, though, it is time for '09 to be done and over.

New year, new times.

Cheers to 2010.

Happy New Year, all.

Dum tempus habemus, operemur bonum
(let us do good while we have the time)

It's just a little crush...

The love of my life was just on The Jay Leno Show.

I swear. I am so in love with Matt Damon it's becoming a problem.

The man is funny and charming and intelligent and nice and freaking gorgeous and for being a rich celebrity he just strikes me as wonderfully level-headed and humble guy and like a very kind person and I never see any crap about him in tabloids and he is also very sturdy-looking. Like he's huggable. I would like to hug him. Actually, I would like to do a whole lot more than just hug him, but we'll keep it PG here, for the children.

I don't even care that he's like, 40. He's so damn yummy. Mmm.

And he JUGGLES. Whilst reciting the Declaration of Independence.

A man of limitless talents.

Do yourself a favor and watch him and his amazingness right here.

Also, I'm normally not like this. But I will always make an exception for him.

School is out and my eyes still hurt from last quarter's work and so reading has ceased and television has since filled the void

I have added yet another show to my growing list of favorite sources of totally crass/vapid/pretty-damn-amazing-and-brilliant entertainment.

I'm not sure why it has taken me so long to let Keeping Up With the Kardashians into my heart, but damn, I have been missing out. These girls make my life.

A dramatic portrayal of the classic American family: mom, dad, six kids, and dogs. It's like this generation's The Donna Reed Show. Only, instead of fighting about who gets the first slice of fresh-out-of-the-oven-pie, they argue about how their basketball-player husband (who they only knew for a month before marrying) won't let them buy a 6 million dollar Beverly Hills mansion.

Boy is life rough sometimes.

I actually blame my mother for all of this. She was the one who started watching it first and has since hooked me on it as well, and since it is a child's natural duty to blame the parental figures for all that goes wrong in their life, I am putting the weight of all of this upon her.

I haven't seen many episodes, but what I have seen is not enough. Especially now that this season of Toddlers & Tiaras is over, I've really been desperate for a fat slab of juicy meaty crap television flank steak. And hot damn this is even better than that. This is like the filet mignon of the television entertainment world.

Take, for example, when the entire Kardashian klan is hauling off Khloe to jail (though, with perfect hair and makeup, as she got it done before she left) and her sister Kim is sitting in the seat next to her taking a whole memory card worth of the classic Slutty-Social-Networking-Website-of-Choice-Profile-Pics of herself. It was great. A truly heartwarming display of sisterly concern.

God I love entertainment sometimes.

Actually, I love entertainment pretty much all the time. Pop culture is just about the greatest thing ever. It will never overtake literature, but you know, sometimes after a day of learning real crap you just want to sit down and slather up that big plate of drama with some A1 steak sauce and allow the brain a little bit of respite while you immerse yourself in the oh-so-treacherously difficult lives of filthy rich celebutantes. This designer bag or that one? Ohmahgod this wedding veil makes me look like a bee catcher. Does this shade of red make me look like a whore?

It's great stuff. And sure, I can then go read some poetry or Latin or some kind of other literary bullshit and feel slightly better about my life, but if I am being truly honest with myself chances are I am actually more interested in the fact that Paris Hilton just shelled out $4000 for this pig.

And in the end, I feel like I should really just stop even trying to resist this stuff at all. I love it. Love it. I eat up this crap like it's candy and it's just so, so delicious. Mmmmmm!

Also, Celebrity Rehab 3 is set to start in January, which might just about make my life finally complete. And I am super stoked about this season because Kari Ann Peniche will be back on, even though she got kicked out of Sex Rehab. She was great for all kinds of funsies.

Really though, she has a pretty horrendously awful story and she actually kind of breaks my heart a little bit with all the crap she's been through, but she sure was great for entertainment. But such is the case with so many of these people and I guess you just have to look at them and in order to justify the fact that they are completely exploiting themselves you have to think that hey, they volunteer to do this and also hey, at the end when they graduate and they have actually reassumed some qualities of human beings and not media automatons, you can sort of allow yourself to admire that there might just be some real component of resiliency to the human soul.

Though I am not sure any warm fuzzies or grand recognitions of the humanity in one another will ever top Gary Busey.

So anyway... *cough cough* I think I'll just go read a big thick book or something. That's right. Yeah. Literature.

I feel a bit like some kind of uber-macho man who just admitted he enjoys chick flicks. Except I've known about this love of inanity for quite a long time.

Righty-o. So I'm off to LA now, land of heaping pollution and home of the studios that produce this crap I love so much. May we all feel the same familial love this season that the Kardashians so exemplify.

Also, the fact that three of them were on Tyra is one of those moments of particular amazingness because, shit, I friggin' love Tyra. So much love in one place. Good times.



Happy holidays, all.

And remember: drinking eggnog is also drinking the distinct possibility of salmonella.

Seattle! Seattle!

Finals are done. DONE.

Seattle is amazing. Or, was amazing, I guess.

Unfortunately, it is over and in the wise and wondrous words of Soul II Soul, it's now back to life, back to reality.

Blech. I want to go back. Forget all this practical, real life crap. Just let me return to the land of infinite coffee flowing and rain and sea and ships and good air and good water and a general sort of awesomeness that you do not encounter in California.

This is where I think one typically allows a histrionic sigh to escape from the throat. So:

SSSSSIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Anyway...here's just some of the highlights in pictorial form because I am too full of woe at having to leave to actually compose a coherent prose narrative of the trip:


Ahh, yes...Nordstrom...one of the great bastions of American consumerism. I almost took a picture of a $900 pair of vinyl purple high heels, but then I figured it is probably mockery enough for the person who pays that just to encase their feet in such monstrosities...



Space Needle view, day time:

Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum


Quincy Jones' trumpet!


Hand-written Kurt Cobain lyrics. Pretty much the coolest thing ever.

Jimi!




My hero. A purveyor of light to the minds of mankind:

Beep-boop-beep-de-booooooop (that's may the Force be with you, in robot)!


!!!!!!!

Yoda again, because he IS just that badass.


I'm pretty sure this sign implies that men are robots. Which is not so far from the truth...


Space Needle, night view:

An original design for the Space Needle:



Hee! Talk about holiday spirit...

I was majorly bummed because this is called "Hammering Man," but the arm with the hammer was taken for repairs.

Some kind of sporting venues where sporty-type things occur:




The first ever Starbucks. And the conception of what some consider to be the decline of American society. Or American coffee, in any case. Also, Seattle supposedly has 490 Starbucks. Fun fact.


The original Starbucks logo. The guy telling us about it described her as "showing quite a bit more tail" than the current green logo.











Hippo butt!




Aw....kitty kitty kitty!

Alas. Departure. Agh.


In short, trip was amazing, I want to go back, and it hurts my soul a little bit that winter quarter starts in just about two weeks. I think I need about five more weeks just to recover from the fall.

But as always, we march on.

Farewell, WA and vacations in general.

Until we meet again.