What's the Matter With Kids Today?

Jason talks about the new crackdowns on E, and I agree with him.

I personally think that they're just cracking down on ecstacy because it's what the kids are into nowadays. I went to an Other Ones (they're the remains of the Grateful Dead) concert a while ago, and was not searched at all, whereas whenever I go to a rave I get all but cavity searched, and if you think that there's less drug use at the Other Ones, you're wrong. Raves are just getting cracked down on because they're getting big and they're full of kids, and as we all know, kids are scary and bad.

You guys know that studies show that DARE kids are approximately 5% more likely to use drugs, right? (I'm a DARE graduate myself.) I think it's because in DARE they teach you that all drugs are bad, that alcohol = pot = ecstacy = acid = heroin = aspirin = cigarettes. So then kids smoke some weed or whatever and realize that drugs aren't all bad, but they still have the weed = heroin model in their heads, so they think all drugs are okay. The only reason marijuana is a "gateway drug" is because it's illegal - once you've started breaking the law, why stop? We need to teach people the truth about each drug, and stop lumping them altogether into one vague forbidden category.

We also need to make them all legal. Because this country has shown that prohibition doesn't work. Right now, it's easier for high school kids to get pot than to get alcohol. Which is probably a good thing, because I think they're less likely to get into trouble with weed. But half of what makes drugs dangerous is that you buy them from drug dealers, who are not the most trustworthy people, usually. So make them legal, tax the shit out of them, and make them as safe as possible.

I Got Hit On While Waiting For the Bus Today

I was standing on the corner, minding my own business, when some guy in a car pulled up next to me. He said he liked my hair, that I was beautiful, and that he wanted to be my friend. He also offered me a ride to work, but I declined, because my mommy taught me not to take rides from strangers. I inherently distrust men who tell me I am beautiful when they don't really know me.

I Want My MTV

I saw the best show ever on MTV last night, y'all. It's called Becoming, and the premise is that they pick random people and make them over into rockstars. Last night it was Christina Aguilera and Rickie Martin. For some bizarre reason the guy becoming Rickie Martin was straight, but they made up for that by having the Christina girl be a big ol' ho. She and the Rickie guy were totally flirting and she was all "My boyfriend's going to kill me!" and MTV was all "Coming up - more chemistry."

I want to be on this show. Unfortunately, apparently to audition you have to send them a tape with you performing one of the songs of the artist you want to become, and I have no discernable musical talent. But how cool would it be to become, say, Courtney Love? I want to become old school trashy Courtney.

I Love Me Some Broken Toys

Last night I went to Blockbuster, and they had a bin of toys that were on sale. It was great. I got a beat up PowerPuff Girls activity book for $2 (original value: $7.99). And it has stickers in it! Shiny stickers! So exciting! Also, I got this little stuffed toy of this magical dude who's on the CardCaptors cartoon. I've only seen the cartoon once, but I was immediately struck by the cuteness of this creature, so I was over joyed to save a stuffed likeness of him from the bin of remaindered toys.

Happiness

Sometimes I think I'm the only happy person I know. Once I was in love with a boy, a miserable, terribly fucked up boy, and he trained me not to say when I was upset. He taught me that his feelings were the only things that mattered, because he was the sad one, and I was the one who took care of the sad one. I left that boy, but it was too late, he had changed me, I had learned not to say things that would upset people, not to say anything until I had kept it in so long that I couldn't hold it in anymore and it exploded out, and after it exploded to wish that I hadn't let it. After him, I kept dating sad boys, not terrible boys like him, but sad boys just the same, and even though these boys cared about me, and wanted to know if I was sad, they didn't know what to do when I was sad, and so I didn't tell them, because I didn't want to make them sadder. Because with sad boys, the times they are happy are like a gift, they are times you don't want to fuck with, they are a relief, and I wanted to make them last as long as possible. I am happy, mostly, but I can't be happy when people around me are sad. So I cheer them up, and I listen to their problems, and I tell them that they are wonderful people, because they are. But it is all very exhausting, and now, just thinking about it, I can feel the weight in my spine, the weight of having to cheer up the sad people. I don't want to post this. I want to just be a happy, funny, clever little girl. But sometimes it sucks to be the happy one.

A Very Un-Vegan Weekend

I didn't do so well on the vegan front this weekend. Friday night I went to a restaurant and ordered a falafel sandwich with no feta, but they fuct up and gave me feta, so I ate it anyway. (Not being an asshole, or a cheap excuse to eat cheese? Discuss.) Then Saturday I wandered home around two, stoned out of my mind, and made pasta with parmesan cheese all over it, because somehow in my stoned head it wasn't really cheese or something. I think in CynthiaWorld, being vegan really means not actually gnawing directly on the block of swiss cheese. Anyway, I did pretty good Sunday, I didn't eat any actual meals with cheese in them, but I did buy ice cream from an ice cream truck, because well, it was an ice cream truck, and I was just walking around, and walking around on a summer day eating a dollar ice cream cone from an ice cream truck was irresistable. It tasted as though it might have actually been vegan, anyway. Today I got a lentil salad thing with no cheese, like a good little vegan girl. I have like, no food in my house, which may or may not help this whole wacky thing.

Heh. Goths. Heh.

Went to a punk/goth club with Potter on Friday. My experience can only be described by the following two riddles:

Q: What's funnier than a bunch of goths?
A: A bunch of goths dancing.

Q: What's the opposite of goth?
A: Cyn.

Despite standing out like a big freaky freak mcfreak, I had a really good time. Got drunk enough to dance my little butt off, which is always fun. Also, I had a really good time watching the goths. I'm sure that at some point in time some goth with read this and be all "Hey! That's not funny! My lipstick is as black as my soul, goddammit!" And to that hypothetical goth of the future, I would just like to say this: I really respect and admire the time and energy you put into looking like a dark creature of the night. I myself have frequently had goth envy, and wished that I had the time, money, and make up skills to be one of you gorgeous creatures. However, I do not, and so to make myself feel better, I choose to silently giggle at the way you very seriously move your black-clad limbs about to the music whilst all but making out with your own reflection. You are a far more mysterious and beautiful person than I, hypothetical goth of the future, and so I to you I say: "Mad props, future goth. Mad Props to you."

Lipstick-Red Seconals

I feel like Edward Norton in the beginning of Fight Club - I haven't gotten enough sleep in so long that the world is beginning to feel distinctly unreal. Only I'm not an insomniac, I just do things like smoke a lot of weed and watch Dazed and Confused until three in the morning instead of sleeping, even though I know I have to work the next day. And instead of lipstick-red Seconals, I want powder-blue Adderalls and wedding-white Ritalins and grass-green Ephradras.

But I still want you to hit me as hard as you can.

(Note: Yay for Dictionary.com, because it actually has the word Seconal in it, so I could figure out how to spell it. Dictionary.com rocks my shitty spelling world.)

VeganWatch 2001

I was vegan all of yesterday, mainly because all I ate all day was some clear noodles and tofu. Today I actually ate breakfast (hummus on rye bread) while walking to my bus stop. I ate lunch, too, because I needed to go to the ATM and then get change so I could ride the bus back home. I had this fried tofu and tomato and french fry sandwich with possible unvegan garlic sauce. I think lunch is good, it gives me a nice break in my day, and also keeps me from being cranky around five when I start to get hungry. Perhaps this is why people eat more than one meal a day.

I Am Wearing Kitty Pants!

I'm wearing kitty pants. They have fur on the sides, and a kitty face, and a tail. You can see a picture I made of them here if you have Flash. It is a paperdoll program of myself I made last December, mainly as an excuse to draw all of my shoes. In fact, if you put me in my pokemon shirt and my kitty pants, and click on my hair so it's in pigtails, you will have exactly what I'm wearing today. Except that I'm wearing flipflops, not any of the shoes that are pictured. So you can just leave me barefoot. And you will have your own little cartoon Cyn to play with! Aren't you lucky?

Guess What I Did Yesterday!

I slept! And it was great. Crystl and I ended up not going to a club, because the people we were supposed to go with never called, so I went over to her house and we had Girly Time, and then at around midnight I was like "Man, I'm tired. Oh, wait. I can go home and sleep! Sweet!" And I did.

Did I Tell You I Have a Tarantula In My Office?

Well, I do. It lives in an terrarium and people come in and look at it and feed it crickets. There used to be a lot of crickets in here, too, but they are gone now, and I am glad because they creeped me out. Sometimes the tarantula hides, and I get worried that it has escaped or died, and they will blame on me, because I am the Bad Girl Who Does No Work and Killed the Tarantula.

Do You Think It's Okay

if I'm wearing a shirt with weird little lint fuzzies all over it? What if it's a super-cool shirt, possibly My Very Favorite Shirt, the one that's light blue and has a rad seventies decal with a seagull and the words "If you love something, set it free. If it returns, it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was."? What if I got it for just 99 cents at a thrift store, and it happens to fit really well, not all big and baggy but not all slutty-chubby tight either? On the other hand, what if the lint fuzzies are mainly all over my titties, because apparently lint fuzzies, much like boys, gravitate towards my boobies? And what if they're dark blue, even though I don't think I even own dark blue clothing, like maybe my shirt is going out and rubbing up against the clothing of strangers when I'm not looking?

Um. Just wondering.

My Hands Are Cold

This is really not surprising, since my hands are pretty much always cold, or at least cold a good percentage of the time, i.e. times when they are exposed to cold or coldish weather, or in this case air conditioning. However, this is vaguely annoying, because cold hands are not really things most people enjoy coming into contact with, and people are not shy about expressing their displeasure with cold hand contact. Also, they are attached to me, which means I frequently have to come into contact with my unpleasantly cold hands.

The Vegan Thing

I'm doing pretty well, so far. Yesterday I had a sandwich with tofu and hummus, and eggplant and rice at an indian restuarant. Then I got stoned with Potter and ended up eating these pretzel things with parmesan cheese on them. I'm not beating myself up about it, though, because this whole thing is really weird. I've spent much of my life mocking vegans, especially the crazy militant ones.

I'm a very chill vegetarian - I'm not grossed out by people eating meat, and I really don't care what other people eat, as long as they don't bother me about what I eat. In fact, preachy vegetarians really bother me. Sometimes people get really defensive when I tell them I'm a veggie, and I think it's sad. I'm not judging meat eaters, it's just that I personally choose not to eat meat. I think that preachy veggies just make things worse for everyone. Especially PETA.

I've realized that there's a lot of peer pressure to eat cheese. People who are fine with me being veg are all like "Oh, god, you're going vegan? What's up with that?" Hell, I used to be one of those people. Last week someone asked if I was vegan, and I was all "No, those people are crazy."

The thing is that I just really don't feel like eating cheese anymore. I feel a lot healthier not eating it. I don't know. I mean, taking acid is really not a very valid reason for a lifestyle change of this caliber, so I'm not going to feel bad if I stop this crazy attempt at veganism. In fact, I've decided that it's okay if I occasionally eat milk products when I'm at a restaurant or at other people's houses or whatever, because I think it's kind of an asshole thing to do to make people cater to eating habits that are as strict as veganism. I'm not even sure whether I'm going to eat eggs or honey or all that stuff. I'll see how it goes, I guess.

Arrrrggggh

I can't take work today. I'm trying to figure out the earliest possible time I can leave and still pretend I worked 8 hours. I think it might be now.

Life

I hung out with Potter last night. (He called me, I did a little happy dance, and then headed over to his house.) We got stoned and managed to convince his housemates to make us spinach and couscous. That boy rocks my fucking world.

Places That Are Less Hot, Humid, and Completely Fucking Disgusting Than Buffalo

• Los Angeles.
• San Francisco.
• Any Place In the World That Is Not Buffalo.
• Hell.

Question

Does anyone know how to run dotComments from a different server from the one your page is hosted on? I know there are instructions out there somewhere, but damned if I can find them. ReBlogger appears to be taking approximately five billion years to post comments. Anyway, help would be appreciated.

This Is What I Work With

I came into work this morning to find the guy I work with (who is kind of my boss) slumped over his keyboard, asleep. I think he's sleeping in the lounge downstairs now. Honestly, there is no call for this sort of thing. Sleep in your homes, people! Sleep in your homes.

Link

I am secretly in love with Monty. Read his journal, and you can lust after him from afar, much as I do.

Life Is Nothing More Than a Series of Coincidences

I spent two whole days in a row, Saturday and Sunday, sober this week. In my life at this point in time, this is actually an accomplishment. (I've been averaging about a day a week sober.) So, last night, I decided to do what any responsible person would do. I took acid.

It all started when I got off the bus a stop early because I needed to go to the store. I was walking there when someone yelled my name. It was one of my friends, attempting to borrow ten bucks. I told him he could, but I didn't have it on me, so he'd have to walk to the store with me. On the way there, he asked if I knew anyone interested in hydro or sugar cubes. I said I was interested in the latter, but didn't want to trip alone. He said a bunch of his friends were tripping that night, and a bad idea was immediately born.

If there is one thing that I find completely irresistible, it's bad ideas. Rolling the day before reading period, when I've got two huge papers, a portfolio, and an exam all due within the next four days? I'm there. Breaking into abandoned insane asylums? Count me in! Taking acid with a bunch of people I don't know when I have to work the next day? Perfect! If I shouldn't be doing it for reasons apparent to your average five-year-old, I'm all over it.

So we spent the next two hours hunting down the acid, and then my friend dropped me off at the house full of tripping people. There were four people I knew there, including a girl who hates me because one of my friends is dating her boyfriend, and who kept giving me the Evil Eye of Death, and a guy who's currently ignoring me for various reasons, mainly because he's a moron. Sketch factor: 10.

But this is this summer, so of course I had a great time. The acid wasn't that strong - I almost always get visuals on acid, and I didn't get any. That was kind of disappointing, but it was still a fun trip. It was a really happy trip - usually acid has a definite edginess to it for me, and again, it didn't this time.

I spent almost all night talking to this guy I'd met once before, but very briefly, Potter. (I met him when we were breaking into the abandoned insane asylum. Yeah, I wasn't lying about that.) We talked about politics and books and being queer and liberal and Buffalo and Fight Club and just everything I never get to talk about because people here don't get it. It was awesome. He is totally the cutest little queer activist boy in the world. I have the hugest plush on him.

(Note: A plush, or platonic crush, is when you meet someone, and instead of wanting to have like, 87,000 of their babies, you want to be their best friend and chill with them all the time.)

At some point in the night, I came to the conclusion that life was nothing more than a series of coincidences. I know, because I have it written on my arm. It was very, very important that I write it on my arm, to avoid forgetting it.

I wandered home at three-thirty or so in the morning, and showered and collapsed into bed. It was hot and humid and disgusting, as usual.

I woke up feeling better than I have in weeks. Usually my entire body aches and all my muscles hate me when I wake up, but not today. I wasn't even sleepy, despite having not gotten more than six hours of sleep any time in the last four days. I actually seriously thought I had overslept, because I couldn't believe I wasn't tired. Also, I wasn't hungry, despite not having eaten anything the day before. So I got up and went to work, feeling oddly chipper.

I do, however, have a weird urge to go vegan. This is very strange, because I love cheese more than just about anything in this world. My roommate Rachel says she's going to make me a house made out of cheese for a graduation present. That is how much I love cheese.

Today at around noon, I decided to walk down to this little local restuarant and get a lentil sandwich. (Mmmm, lentils!) As I was walking down there, who should I run into but Potter! So we stood around and chatted for a while, and then I ran on my merry way. This is weird, because never ever ever before now have I run into anyone at UB. I just don't. Which just goes to show you, life is nothing more than a series of coincidences.

I Am the Biggest Dork in the World

I burnt (well, froze, really) the shit out of my mouth doing whip-its last night. I have a huge blister type thing on the inside of my lip, and spots I can't feel on my tongue. This is my life, people. I burn myself doing whip-its (I gave myself a scar on my pinky doing them last summer, but it eventually went away), I get weird rashes from coke, I pull muscles masturbating. People are constantly telling me I smoke weird, and I've developed a hacking cough and have to spit all the time, which is just lovely. I'm constantly singeing the ends of my hair. I really should quit smoking, not because it's bad for me, but because I am both fucking disgusting, and, when given fire, a danger to myself and others.

More Adventures on Public Transit

In keeping with Melinda's subway adventures . . .

This morning, a boy on the subway with me loudly sang "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" from when he boarded the car until when he got off. This was not a small boy. This was a high school age boy. I buried myself deeper into my book (Witch Baby, by Francesca Lia Block, who rocks my fucking world), and ignored it.

I miss BART. For those of you not in the know, BART is the subway system that goes in between Berkeley and San Francisco, and other places in the BAY area besides. For example, it goes to Daly City (pronunced Daily City), which always sounded to me like a place a super hero of some sort would live. I took BART to and from work every day when I was in San Francisco last summer, and I loved it. It was always full of businesspeople reading the New Yorker and cute punkers and art students and there were always plenty of cute boys and girls for me to lust after if I didn't feel like reading. The cars were always really crowded, but I got on and off at pretty early/late stops, so I almost always got a seat. The cars were really nice and cushy, but they broke down sometimes. Once the driver or someone walked through to my car and pulled a panel off the walls and messed around with some wires and buttons and things to get the train moving again, which I found kind of disturbing. Anyway, I loved BART, and I even liked MUNI, since it was much cheaper and also full of interesting people, although super ghetto. The bus system here is really nice, I haven't seen a train break down yet, although one of the buses I take is always late. But the only people (besides me) who ride the bus appear to be drunks and crazies, and I know enough of them already. I want cute punks to crush on, dammit!

Comments!

Look, y'all! Comments! Thanks, ReBlogger!

(Note: Please imagine "Thanks, ReBlogger!" being said in a kind of fifties housewife, cleaning product commercial type of a way, because that is how it sounded in my head.)

Witnessing Major Life Events

As I was waiting for the bus Friday morning, a funeral procession drove by the corner I where I was standing. Police escort, little flags on top of the cars, everything. You don't see funeral processions much, I didn't think that they happened that often. Then Saturday, I was walking down to Elmwood to go to the bookstore, and I saw a wedding party emerging from the church of Lafayette. I was kind of hoping that I'd see someone giving birth while walking around Sunday, just so I could have the complete set of major life events, but I didn't. It's just as well, I think, because then I would have had to take it as some sort of sign or portent, and also I might have gotten afterbirth on myself or something.

I Made You a Present!

Look! It's a favorites icon! Just for you! Okay, those of you who use IE or Konquerer. Also, it's really just the icon from my other page. I had a new top graphic for you, and it was all cute and everything, but I left it at home. I'm sorry. I'll bring it tomorrow.

It's Bunk Science Time!

It's a website that tests for personality disorders. Apparently, I'm histrionic. Is that even a real word?

The Two Best Quotes of the Weekend

"Shut up, you drunken Buddhist."

"It's like I'm sleeping with Yoda."

(Note: These quotes were said by two different people, about two different people, which I suppose says something about my weekend.)

Luv to Melinda!

The lovely lovely Melinda just linked to me! She gets like, a billions hits a day, which is kind of frightening because people might actually click on the link and see my poor little still pathetically under construction page. Anyway, Melinda rocks and is practically the reason I started this blog, so if you're not coming from her page, go check her out. I will talk more about how much Melinda rocks my world at some later date, but right now I've got a bus to catch! Later, gators.

Geek

Before I got to Buffalo, my goals for this summer were:

1. Learn C++
   
2. Learn About Networks
   
3. Perfect Linux Skillz
   
4. Make Lots and Lots of Money
   

Then I got here, and they became

1. Don't Get Arrested
   
2. Don't Have Stomach Pumped
   
3. Try Not To Spend All Money on Cigarettes
   
4. Try To Avoid Heart Attack Brought On By Eating Nothing But Cheese Fried in Olive Oil
   

Then this weekend I bought a shitty computer with the soul intention of making it a linux box. On Wednesday, I installed linux on it. Yes, that's right, I, all by myself if you don't count when I called my ex-boyfriend to ask his advice, installed linux. I am a Geek God.

Then this morning, I installed the gIMP on my work computer so I could make the graphic on this page. (Yeah, it's a shitty graphic. That's because it's kind of a shitty picture. But I'm really picky about pictures, and it was the best one available. I'm going to try to make a better one later, kay.) I installed the gIMP, yo! I used the gIMP to make a graphic! I used the smudge tool!

Then I started working on Life in the Pink, and I realized just how sad my HTML skillz have gotten. I used to have mad HTML game, y'all. Now I'm just sad and pathetic, all looking up how to do tables on the internet and shit. But I still feel like a stud.

New goals for the summer:

1. Become a Rocking Linux Queen
   
2. Make Better Graphic For Top of Page
   
3. Don't Get Arrested or Have Stomach Pumped
   
4. Become universally worshipped.
   

Hair

I was waiting for the bus this morning, as I do on all mornings when I want to go to work, and the man sitting next to me turned to me and asked, "What's with the pink hair? Are you making some sort of a statement?" I replied with something incoherent and faintly pissy, since I thought the making a statement question was vaguelly rude.

The truth is, I am a huge huge freak here. I've never been a bigger freak than I am in Buffalo. I've had pink hair for over a year now, in which time I've lived in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Oberlin. I've never had this sort of reaction to my hair. People ask me about it constantly. People shout out of car windows at me. A lot. And if there's one mode of communication that is completely abused, it's shouting out of car windows. It's just hair, people. I'm not that big a freak in other respects. I dress mainly in jeans and t-shirts. I have a labret piercing, but half the people I know here do. I have a tattoo, but it's small and usually covered, since it's on my back. Please stop yelling at me. It's annoying.

I dyed my hair pink originally because one of my friends left half a container of pink dye in my room, and I felt like dying my hair. I had spent a lot of time trying to find a decent hair color. I'm naturally blonde, but I never really felt like a blonde. I tried dying my hair both blue and green, but neither of those worked out. (In both cases, the dye didn't take.) I dyed my hair brown for a while, but that was pretty boring, and The Mommy was always going "You've got blonde roots! Most people dye their hair blonde and have brown roots!" When I dyed my hair pink, it just felt like me. It looks good on me, for one thing. It's goofy and girly and fun, and as since I tend not to be very girly at all, I enjoy having a girly hair color. It's crazy girly, not scary skinny girl girly. And it's fun. I feel fun is very important in life. I guess that's the statement I'm trying to make. It's just pink hair. Lighten the fuck up and enjoy it.

Setting

I'm originally from Los Angeles, specifically San Pedro, the LA Harbor. (If you're at all familiar with Los Angeles, it's the city at the end of the 110.) When I'm there, which is pretty rarely at this point in time, I live in a pretty house with a very pretty view, where I reside with The Mommy, The Daddy, The Brother, and The Doggy.

I go to college in Oberlin, Ohio, a sort of liberal oasis. I'm going to have a house there next semester with my girls, which is kind of exciting, but also kind of scary, because we have to figure out our own internet access and that sort of thing, and also because no one wants to clean vomit out of their own bathroom.

I currently reside in Buffalo, New York. I got an internship at UB, all random-like, and then found a place to live and moved in for the summer. My house here is gorgeous, one of those three-story wooden ginger-bready houses that are all over Buffalo. It used to belong to a gay cokehead dentist, which leads to all sorts of interesting architectural details, like a lack of corners where the wall meets the ceiling, a mural of naked angels on the ceiling of the foyer, and an atrium with an egyption theme. I share this crazy place of residence with four people, two girls who live on the third floor, and twin boys with whom I share the second and first floors.

Characterization

I'm going to pretend that people I'm not intimately acquainted with may read this thing, and establish some background information about myself. I'm a young lass of 21, although people tend to be unwilling to believe that I'm not actually 18. (I'm not. I just look young. And yes, that is my real driver's license.) I attend Oberlin college, where I'm double majoring in Creative Writing and Computer Science, just to be difficult. I'm bisexual, vegetarian, incredibly liberal, and other things of that ilk.

Blog-a-go-go

So, I've decided to do this whole blog thing. God knows how long it will last, since I'm notoriously bad at these things. (My personal website hasn't been updated in months, but that's partly because compuserve sucks my dick.) But maybe this time things will be different, and you will be struck with the incredible wisdom of my words, and together we will bring about a Utopia of frolicking happy bunnies. Let's see how it goes, shall we?

Hello. It's a pleasure to meet you.

I suppose I should introduce myself. My name is Cyn, which is short for Cynthia, pronounced Sin, and causes no end of confusion whenever I introduce myself. You may call me either Cynthia or Cyn, but if you call me Cindy I will rip all of your fingernails off.