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The 60th Post

To be honest, I really didn't think the blog would last this long.

New Brunswick was beautiful today. You would have loved it. I picked an especially gnarly tree to sit under and got a lot of reading done. It was lovely.

I have a ton of work to do for the next million years, but I am making time to ride bicycles tomorrow no matter what.

Inventory at seven tomorrow morning. That is something I bet you do not miss.

-Lauren

how uncouth

KillTheseDreams
yeah well I went home to jerk off thinking of you in that wet dress
Lauren
so
Lauren
standard Friday night, then?

I love helping AJ piece together his nights.

aj: so apparently i went back to that party?
Lauren: you did? how did you do that? you sounded wasted
aj: maybe i didn't?
Lauren: when I talked to you I was trying to get you to go to the ale n wich, but you were really drunk and it sounded like you were going to pass out
aj: well i think i did then. ian said you said that i took you to the party on my tandem
Lauren: hhahahahaha, yes. oh man. I didn't realize mthat you would forget that part. yeah, okay. here is what happened: I showed up and you were on the porch and I gave you red bull and vodka and ran inside and spilled my drink all over me and then Scott and I went outside to smoke a cigarette cause Ian was getting dressed and you were talking to Leah and then you and I rode the bicycle built for two to the party.
aj: that much i recall, not that though.
Lauren: hahahaha, I was terrified
aj: did i go back into the party?
Lauren: no
aj: good
Lauren: you went to make a deal, and you were going to come back
aj: oh
Lauren: but you must have passed out
aj: haha sounds about right. k as long as i didn't go inside and embarass myself
Lauren: no, you're good. someone took our picture on the bike
aj: haha nice

Summary

I went out last night for the first time in ages (despite my promise to boycott the world). I am a walking disaster. I sat down in Ian's room and promptly spilled my very large nalgene-esque container of Red Bull and vodka down the front of my dress. Then we went to this art show. Drunk AJ and I rode a bicycle built for two there, which was as fun as it was terrifying. We arrived at the show in style and AJ mysteriously disappeared. I would later find out that he had gone home and passed out on his couch because he was too drunk to function. Luckily, I could only suspect this on the way over. Ian, Kat, and Jenn had gone on a liquor run but got back around the time I arrived (and my dress dried). I saw your friend Jim, who remembered my "disturbing" drawings. I think I went bright red when he said this, but I am nearly positive that nobody saw due to the decidedly "college" lighting. I stayed at that party long enough to see Kat and Jenn's pieces, get a bit drunk and listen to two bands. After that, I walked over to the Wich and had a Mississippi Mud with Ian, which put me in a lovely state. Maybe too lovely because I accidentally broke a glass and felt absolutely awful about it. I can't remember what else I broke, but there are definitely other things.

You would have had a wonderful time. I know Russia is awesome, but you better hurry back, pronto, because spring is coming and everything is looking up in New Brunswick.

Now I have to run to work and then bury myself in books for the rest of the weekend.

-Lauren

While I'm at it...

...here are some more poems I like.

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

-Philip Larkin


Errata

Where it says snow
read teeth-marks of a virgin
Where it says knife read
you passed through my bones
like a police-whistle
Where it says table read horse
Where it says horse read my migrant's bundle
Apples are to remain apples
Each time a hat appears
think of Isaac Newton
reading the Old Testament
Remove all periods
They are scars made by words
I couldn't bring myself to say
Put a finger over each sunrise
it will blind you otherwise
That damn ant is still stirring
Will there be time left to list
all errors to replace
all hands guns owls plates
all cigars ponds woods and reach
that beer-bottle my greatest mistake
the word I allowed to be written
when I should have shouted
her name

-Charles Simic


The Funeral

It felt like the zero in brook ice.
She was my youngest aunt; the summer before
We had stood naked
While she stiffened and giggled, letting the minnows
Nibble at her toes. I was almost four—
That evening she took me
To the springhouse where on the scoured planks
There were rows of butter in small bricks, a mold
Like ermine on the cheese,
And cut onions to rinse the air
Of the black, sickly-sweet meats of rotting pecans.

She said butter was colored with marigolds
Plucked down by the marsh
With its tall grass and miner’s-candles.
We once carried the offal’s pail beyond the barn
To where the fox could be caught in meditation.
Her bed linen smelled of camphor. We went

In late March for her burial. I heard the men talk.
I saw the minnows nibble at her toe.
And Uncle Peter, in a low voice, said
The cancer ate her like horse piss eats deep snow.

-Normal Dubie

Matthew Arnold

I stayed up until 3 am (even though I was opening the store this morning) thinking:

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

That's where my head's been lately, I guess.

-Lauren

Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?

I just watched 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time ever. Boy, do they mean it when they say "Odyssey." It was so long.

If it ended with the HAL "Dave, I'm afraid" thing, it would have been my favorite movie of all time. As it is, the ending made me laugh out loud in the middle of my American Directors class. I tried disguising my laughter as a cough, but I could tell that all the snobby film majors were scoffing and already muttering under their breath about the girl two rows back laughing hysterically.

There are about forty kids in that class. Thirty showed up. There were nine of us at the end of the film.

The end is a twenty minute sequence that strongly resembles my fifth grade trapper keeper, and then everything stops making sense. Throw a fetus in there and FIN.

I really liked everything up to that point, though. Loved, even.

Stay fly,
Lauren

Edit: Alright, so I guess the ending was awesome, too. I guess the whole thing was awesome. I just didn't expect experimental film at the end is all.

lovely. loveliest.

Literal Version

-Lauren

Virginia

My spring break was very un-spring break-y. I guess because it started with me taking the GRE's and running back to New Brunswick where we all packed into AJ's car and drove for nine hours.

Once we got to Virginia we just kind of fell asleep. We are getting old.

The next morning I woke up before everyone else, so I sat wrapped in a blanket on the porch reading until they got up.

Then it got more spring break-y, I guess. We drank most of the day and sat around talking and laughing. We walked around and went to a winery at some point, too, but it was all pretty tame.

I am making it sound like it wasn't any fun. It was. I really enjoyed it. I think we all enjoyed it for different reasons than, say, the Cabo set enjoyed theirs. We all kind of had something we wanted to get away from, and we all just wanted to relax. We definitely did that; we usually went until 2:00 every day without knowing the time. It was quite nice, and I think it was a break that we all needed.

Anyway, I've already talked way too much. Here is what it looked like:











-Lauren

Dance Fail (s)

-Lauren

Hey Girl...

There is this blog called Fuck Yeah! Ryan Gosling that has been making me laugh all morning. Basically, it lets you explore what your life would be like if you were dating Ryan Gosling and he said "Hey Girl" all the time.

Also, I have created a Twitter account (despite being totally anti-twitter) solely to follow Christopher Walken.



This blog has basically become an account of my favorite stories from Jezebel.

-Lauren

lolbook.nu

So there is this place where hipsters go when they want to indulge their uncontrollable narcissism. It is called Lookbook. It's the most obnoxious thing ever and DON'T THE HIPSTERS JUST LOVE IT. They take pictures like this:

Well, someone awesome created lolbook.nu and it makes me laugh on the reg.

It's always delightful to see hipsters taken down a peg.

-Lauren

details

I know this isn't particularly interesting, but I haven't posted in a while so I am going to tell you anyway. I just got the text message "Finish this phrase: Car, car, c-a-r..."

It's "stick your head in a jelly jar," no?

-Lauren

Happy Thursday!

...and the top ten naked people on google earth.

Lovelovelove,
Lauren

ps-

You don't have a name and I don't either. Not one name.

Man, I haven't posted here in a while. Here is what I have been doing and such:

01. Watching too much Last Tango in Paris (see title).

02. Watching too much Harry Hill.

03. Becoming the owner of the best necklace ever.

04. Wearing heinous tights.

05. Playing with General Sterling Price, who has recently given up mauling my hand whenever I touch him.

06. Studying like crazy.
07. Gift buying and card making for Ian's birthday (which was lots of fun, by the way). Imagine all these facing the right way.



I got him a Texas shaped clock, a photo of an old guy with a guitar from a Russian church that had closed, a lamp (chandelier, really) that looks like a basketball in a hoop (with net!), and the soundtrack to Beaches (on tape). Basically, I give the best gifts ever.

Anyways, stay cool (get it, cause it's cold in Russia? Ha! Get it?),
Lauren