Tuesday, November 27, 2012

procrastination, enchiladas, and tarantulas.

my carrel in the library, which by the way, isn't even my carrel, is currently procrastination station.

things emily needs to do.

1. write my gigantic beowulf paper that's due on friday that's kind of a big deal because i'm sending it into this awkward renaissance consortium.
2. work on my education unit plan.
3. write my nanowrimo novel because that's due on friday also and i'm about six thousand words behind.

things emily is GOING to do at the procastination station.

1. blog about thanksgiving.

HEREEE WE GOOOO!

so there's something about this semester that's been tremendously awful. and i've been weirdly homesick. which makes no sense, because usually i get back to indiana, i hug my parents, and about five minutes later i'm like, cool, let's go back to alma now. so all semester i've been calling my parents like, every other day and i've cried a lot and i've just generally wanted to go home all the time, so when it was time for thanksgiving break, i was like, THANK THE GOOD LORD THAT THIS HAS ARRIVED.

most of my friends peaced out early. i happen to be an RA. i peaced out at five.

my brother and i embarked on our three hour journey to the great state of indiana together with five weeks' worth of laundry, my new fish starship cruiser, and my brother's tarantula alexandria.

they became BFFs.
i wasn't really looking forward to driving home with a tarantula. i told my brother that if it escaped, i was going to pull over and set my car on fire.

appropriate response.

alexandria is actually pretty cute. for being a gigantic hairy spider.

we got home just in time for some pie, which was like, heck yes, welcome home and then i started in on my laundry, because i hadn't done it in five weeks. like, that's a really long time to go without doing laundry. i was on my last pair of underwear and i was seriously out of pants. so i came home wearing awkward tights, a dress, and a cardigan. i threw in a scarf and i actually looked like a put-together teacher.

i'm not gonna lie. thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday. as a strict vegetarian, there's not much i can eat. everybody is like, ERMAHGERD TERRRKERRRRR and i'm like, euw no. and always, without a doubt, my grandma will put bacon in the green bean casserole and i'm like, furrealz grandma?! and she's like, oh emily i just can't get used to you being a vegetarian, and i'm like, grandma, i've been a vegetarian for like, MY WHOLE LIFE.

so mostly for me it's like... rolls. and mashed potatoes. which is enough to make anybody cranky. and i just don't think it's that cool that we celebrate a day where we kind of like... took away land from innocent people and killed them with our european diseases.

so THIS thanksgiving we ventured to my dad's brother's new house. we spent thanksgiving with my aunt, my uncle, my grandpa, my two cousins, and my cousin-in-law, and of course, merlin, their excitable dog that my mom and i are highly allergic to. i haven't been exposed to fur in like, five months, so i haven't built up any type of immunity to it like i do when i visit my boyfriend for extended periods of time, so merlin combined with their imperial cat loki (oh yeah. like the avengers.) made me extremely asthmatic in an extremely short period of time. like, an hour into our visit i was like, yo, who's got an inhaler?! because i totally left mine at home.

smooth operating, emily.

my uncle, bless his soul, made me cheese enchiladas. so all of my friends were like, OH MY GOODNESS TURKEY and i was like, THIS IS THE BEST ENCHILADA EVER HOLY GOODNESS and there was much rejoicing.

hollenberg family tradition dictates that instead of watching football or doing something pointlessly american, we play a family game. this year we played "would you rather", which is exactly like it sounds.

real life question that we had to answer: would you rather bite off and ingest your own finger or break your mother's leg and never be able to tell her why?

obviously the second one.

the entertainment of the game was my parents doing a challenge in which they had to bend over and vigorously wave their butts in the air and my grandpa had to explain that he would rather have an itch in the middle of his back for all eternity because he would have a bunch of hotties scratch it for him.

somehow, every year, we end up embarrassing my grandpa. the other year he had to act out loony bin and he ran around my living room waving his arms and screaming.

we also got into a really big argument about driving. my oldest cousin, becky, was shouting about how she can't stand people that drive in the left lane all the time, to which my cousin-in-law eric responded by shouting, I TAKE WHAT IS MINE!

last year i lost my black friday virginity and my mom decided it was fun, so we were going to venture back out to the mall at midnight again. i wanted to go to target, but they were opening up at nine on thanksgiving night. my parents refused point blank to go to any store that opened that early because "we needed to take back thanksgiving". i feel like my parents would be good protestors if they actually paid attention to the news. 

so my mother and i set out to macy's to look for deals on teacher clothes and things to buy my brother for christmas because his entire list consisted of movies, which made my mother angsty. macy's had a DJ on a platform near the ceiling that was spinning one direction and i resisted the urge to vomit. we headed downstairs to avoid him and we spent a really long time looking at some oddly colored ties. when we had our purchases my mom was all excited by her coupons, but the macy's lady was like, lol nope none of these work and my mom was like, bitch please

no coupons for us.

we were back home within an hour and decidedly unhappy. we parked a quarter mile away and it was raining really hard when we left the store. it was a cold, wet, and quiet ride home.

on friday we put up our tree, which is like, a million feet tall (it's actually nine and a half or something) and always involves a ladder. my mom smashed a really pretty ancient ornament with her name on it and we said a prayer over it before vacuumed it up. we jammed to the head and the heart while decorating the tree, i almost fell off the ladder, and it was a pretty great time. 

we then got in the christmas spirit by watching batman begins. because nothing says it's holiday season like batman.

i might've had some unrestrained sexual tension towards cillian murphy. just sayin'.

on saturday i was like, DUDE. GONNA WRITE THAT BEOWULF PAPER. I'M ON TOP OF THIS. and then i was like, ooooh i have netflix so i watched an incredible amount of grey's anatomy and had feels about it. after dinner we watched captain america, who we call captain mrrca.

MRRCA.


again. superheroes. christmas. they go together.

now my parents are like, BRING HOME THE AVENGERS FOR CHRISTMAS BREAK so i'm excited about that. and i asked for spiderman for christmas. so it's just going to be a merry marvel christmas. besides batman. that's DC. i don't even know what DC stands for. does it actually stand for something?!

after we watched captain mrrca, we skyped with my grandparents, which was adorable. it took them a while to orient the camera correctly and they didn't really spend much time looking at us. there was also the part where i farted really really loudly and my grandpa was like, what on earth was that and my brother was like, no big deal, emily just ripped this giant nasty fart and i fell over because it smelled so bad.

i'm such a lady, i swear.

my grandparents also got to meet alexandria, which was fun. i expected my grandmother to be terrified by my brother's new tarantula, but i think she liked her. which was cool.

i actually was slightly productive over break. i wrote like, seven thousand words in my nanowrimo novel, but i'm still incredibly behind and i have to get that done by midnight on friday night. we'll see how that goes.

on sunday we went to church where a bunch of people were like, are you feeling better?! because of the whole "emily's still having convulsions" type deal, and we had a nice family meal together and then we packed up and headed back to alma, which, for the first time, was actually depressing for me. 

three weeks left, kids. two weeks of classes, one week of exams. and there's so much to look forward to.

until then, there's my paper and my nanowrimo novel. ya know.

i'm going to leave you with my christmas list because i'm very very proud of how it turned out.

Emily's truly wonderful and magical Christmas list.


  • Harry Potter books, the UK edition. I know it seems silly. But it’s very important to me to collect these slowly. Or all at once.
  • A Target gift card would be nice so I can buy all of their cute teacher clothes. And purple pants.
  •  A NEW WINTER COAT. This is very important. Because it’s forty degrees and my winter coat isn’t keeping me warm, it has a bum pocket, and I get the zipper stuck sometimes and I have to shimmy out of it.
  • A tortoise. I am not joking.
  • An iTunes gift card would be magical. All of the music!
  • SPIDER-MAN. Because I obviously didn’t buy it for myself. That took a lot of willpower. Like, a lot a lot.
  • A Union Jack flag to hang in my room!
  • I’d like to get my Iron and Wine poster framed. That would be neat.
  • Any John Green book. Preferably Paper Towns or The Fault In Our Stars.
  • Dr. Seuss books that we don’t already own. Jacob now has more than me and that’s shameful.
  • An iPod converter for the car because I will be darned if I have to keeping listening to the radio.
  • When in doubt, an Amazon gift card can work wonders.
  • Chuck season five because I’ve been waiting for that for a long, long time.
  • World peace.
  • Oh, and concert tickets.
 yeup. reeeal proud of that list.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

and then i started exercising again, and THIS is what happened.

i am a very stupid person.

this post is about my stupidity over the weekend.

no, i did not do what you think i did, i guarantee it.

so on thursday i decided that i was going to get my life together.

i was going to start exercising again. i haven't exercised in like... two years.

after my education class i went back to my room, put on some workout clothes and my boyfriend's hoodie that says HAMMER on the back (ya know, because his last name is hammer and it's hardcore) and i went to the rec center with my ipod and i jumped on an elliptical and i worked out.

it was torturous. it was terrible. but when i was done i felt really good. and i even went back to my room and did some abs, even though i don't really need to because every time i have a seizure i get an epic ab work out.

want good abs? have five hour long seizures.

so i decide to make this a regular thing. on friday i'm going to go work out, too! but first i have to go to walmart to buy some necessities for my gamma phi baby. and of course, it's friday, and we all know what that means.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN CAME OUT ON DVD.

i got an explicit email from my mother telling me that she gave jacob a blessing to do whatever he needed to do to keep me from buying it, besides i'm assuming, killing me or maiming me. she then talked about how i'm going to england for a month and i need to save my money for things like food while i'm there. which is smart.

but... the amazing spider-man.


here is andrew garfield doing the single ladies dance. with a beard that is nowhere near as wonderful as my boyfriend's. to prove my point.

at walmart jacob had to physically grab me and pull me away from the DVD display. it was pretty intense.

when i got back to my room i had an intense set of hiccups, so i called my dad and hiccupped at him for a while. then i went back to work out.

nobody was there! so i hopped on an elliptical and i was like, man. endorphins. they're a cool thing.

so i bumped the level up to ten and i put it on the hill setting and i rode that elliptical to the ground. and when i was done i was like, I AM SO AWESOME.

so that night i'm on duty. i've taken a nice hot shower and i've been on tumblr and i've hardcore cleaned my room for an hour and i'm on weekend duty with betsie! and we're going on rounds and i'm like, mmmm my hip kinda hurts a little bit, like on the inside.

what my anatomy friends would classify as "the groin".

groin is such an awkward word. like, seriously, it's just obnoxious and rather sexual sounding. i don't like it.

so i decide that it's time to teach betsie how to do the duty olympics in wright hall. wright hall, for those of you who are not almanians, is the three floored apartment style dorm with an elevator. 

in the duty olympics, you take the elevator to the second AND third floors. when you reach the second floor, one RA goes left, the other goes right, you race down the hall, up the stairs, and beat the elevator to the third floor, then ride it all the way back down.

it's real fun. especially at two in the morning.

so i teach betsie the duty olympics. sprint down the hall. up the stairs. back down the hall. meet the elevator, take it down, pant a lot, finish rounds in the other two buildings.

my groin really hurts.

barbara comes over and we decide to watch stick it and bake muffins. you can't watch stick it without having intense olympic feels and wanting the intense muscular body of haley graham. like, seriously, can i be that buff without having to exercise or be an elite gymnast?

short answer: no.

about halfway through the movie, bill comes over and he's like, HI EMILY I'M DRUNK and i'm like, good thing you're twenty-one because i'm on duty! and we decide it's a good idea to do cartwheels in the hall. which is technically sports in the hallway. shhhh.

after a few cartwheels and a roundoff, i'm in a considerable amount of pain. but it's worth it, because i have a kickass cartwheel. about an hour later, betsie and i are back on rounds and we decide to do the duty olympics one more time.

by the time i get to the elevator and ride it down to the first floor, i can hardly walk.

i finish rounds. barbara laments that i don't have ice to make it feel better. last round is terrible because stairs are suddenly like, the most insurmountable thing i have ever encountered in my life.

saturday rolls around. i hobble to saga. it hurts. a lot. i steal some crutches from dave.

barbara and i go to the swim meet and everybody is like, are you okay?! and i'm like, yo i pulled my groin and everybody does that little oooh that sucks and then we move on our with our lives. barbara and i then drive to mount pleasant. shifting from the acceleration pedal to the brake pedal is painful. but hey, so is dying because you didn't brake, so braking is a good thing.

on sunday i'm already sick of the crutches. they aren't the right size, so they're painful, and i can't adjust them because they're at their shortest because dave's crutches are for giant people. no crutches on sunday. 

that might've been a bad idea.

sunday night colin comes over after chapel and we watch the lion king together. the ice pack that barbara gave me is warm, so what's left to ice with?

frozen veggie burgers.

but here's the problem with my pulled groin muscle (that might be torn. we'll see). it's not that like, inner thigh groin tear. no, this is pretty much like... right on my vagina.

right on the vag.
i guess it's appropriate that i wore my GOT VAG? shirt last week to celebrate another four years of a president that isn't afraid to say the word vagina.

every time a guy is like, where'd you pull it and i point, they go, oh.

every time a girl is like, where'd you pull it and i point, they go, OH OUCH OMG I AM SO SORRY THAT SOUNDS SO TERRIBLE.

women. we know vagina pain.

yesterday i tried to spend most of the day on north campus. the trek from south campus to saga, especially with a winter coat and a heavy backpack, is pretty much like hiking the entire appalachian trail. i have armpit callouses already and my triceps feel like death. my left leg is also getting shin splints from being the only leg that's fully functional. 

you don't realize how hard it is to not use your hip flexors when suddenly you can't.

but the kicker was last night at our RA inservice. we had different stations about how to be better RAs and take care of ourselves and stuff. the fourth station that i went to was alcohol drink sniffing (i can never smell cranberry juice mixed with vodka) and then we had to put on beer goggles, walk a straight line, pick up a cup, transfer it to a chair, pick up a nerf gun, cock it back, and shoot at a target.

crutches and beer goggles are pretty much the best.

i couldn't find the line i was supposed to be crutching on, so i just crutched straight for the cup. i couldn't bend down and reach the cup, so katie handed it to me and i couldn't reach for it, i was about three feet off. i then made it to the other chair with the nerf gun and my hands were cramped from holding the crutches, so i couldn't cock it back properly. i shot squarely at the target on the window and ended shooting the nerf bullet so high that my boss, who's very tall, had problems getting it down.

it was a riot.

now it's tuesday and i'm hoping that today is my last day. i have plans to stay on north campus until after dinner, and then i have plans to stay on south campus and never return until tomorrow morning. 

so when people ask me, "what did you do?!" and i say, "oh man, i pulled my groin, i might've torn it, who knows" and they say, "HOW?!"

i get to say, "well i worked too hard on the elliptical, i won the duty olympics, and i did some cartwheels."

not what you think i did in my stupidity, hmm?

i leave you with a picture of captain tumblr. he's full of feels.


Tuesday, November 6, 2012

election day anxiety is the BEST anxiety.

it's election day.

i am full of anxiety.

there are a few reasons for this.

1. IT'S ELECTION DAYYYY
2. i don't have antidepressants right now. that sounds bad. like i'm addicted to them or something.
3. i have some. at the pharmacy. i haven't picked them up yet.
4. the pharmacy keeps calling me at weird times like, EMILY PICK UP YO PILLS GURRRL and i'm like, I DON'T EVEN HAVE TIME TO GO TO THE PHARMACY BECAUSE I'M TRYING TO WRITE A PAPER ABOUT HOW GRENDEL'S MOTHER'S LAIR IS ACTUALLY A WOMB.

so. much. anxiety.

like, on sunday i got really anxious about all of the stuff i have to do this week. and i was so anxious i couldn't actually do it, which made me even more anxious that i wasn't doing it, and the thought of actually being in contact with humans (particularly humans that have their stuff together) made me want to vomit so i sat alone in my room and my boyfriend brought me dinner so i didn't have to brave the cafeteria.

i'm anxious about election day. not quite like that.

i've actually had a very human filled day. i ate lunch with a bunch of awesome people. i met with two professors. i went to class. i had a study session.

that involves people. COOL PEOPLE.

so i went to talk to dr. aspinall about submitting stuff to the english honorary convention in portland. if my stuff gets picked, i get to dress up pretty, read what i submitted to a panel of people (with a podium! and a microphone!) and then be like, yo, this is what i was thinking when i wrote this.

then i'll probably have to answer questions like, "was this a feminist critique of something? what about psychoanalysis?"

the life of an english major.

so i sat in dr. aspinall's office and i was like, "okay i have five poems and i have a short story that i critiqued really really hard and i just don't know what to submit and i'm really really anxious!"

and he says, "relax, what do you want to submit?"

i don't know. that's why i'm in here talking to you.

there's a lot of face clutching. a lot of burying my face in my short story and my poetry. because i was cool and printed them off. dr. aspinall then grabbed my poem, read it, and said, "i've read this before."

my first thought is WHEN THE HELL DID YOU READ MY POEM WHAT ON EARTH.

and then he says, "this one the poetry contest, i was a judge."

oh. right.

then he's like, EMILY WHY ARE YOU SO ANXIOUS

and out of my mouth comes something like this.

IT'S ELECTION DAY AND I HAVE AN ANXIETY DISORDER AND I JUST NEVER KNOW IF I'M DOING ANYTHING RIGHT AND I HATE HAVING ANXIETY AND I GET ANXIOUS ABOUT HAVING ANXIETY AND I JUST NEED TO KNOW WHAT TO SUBMIT BECAUSE I HAVE ANXIETY ABOUT REJECTION AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MY LIFE.

we've come full circle. i think. maybe. probably. not.

IT'S ELECTION DAY AND I AM ANXIOUS AS ALL GET-OUT.

right now i'm sitting on my bed. i'm on RA duty and i'm sitting here with colin. he's burping a lot.

but the best part is that he brought over a loaf of bread and a gigantic bag of string cheese.

so i'm literally sitting here watching the election results and eating bread and cheese. 

YEUP. IT'S HAPPENING.

it took me a while to find CNN. like, i've never had cable before so i tweet something along the lines of "i don't know what channel CNN is!" and this weird twitter i've never seen before goes "oh emilyyxh, you don't know what channel CNN is?" and i'm like, "BRO CHILL OUT I'VE NEVER HAD CABLE DURING AN ELECTION BECAUSE CABLE IS FOR SUCKERS."

so colin and i are sitting here and tweeting. he's reading this over my shoulder and it's getting annoying. but here's what i've come up with so far.

indiana went republican. i am disappointed, but not surprised. there's been a lot of coverage about donnelly and mourdock because murdock kind of made the biggest douchebag mistake EVER and he didn't bother recanting it because he honestly believes what he says.

GO HOME, MOURDOCK, NOBODY LOVES YOU.

i feel like you guys know my political stances by now. if you don't, here's pretty much how it works.

HUFFLEPUFFS FOR OBAMA!

here's a cute picture of me with the political signs that i have over my bed.

i attempted to be cute. so i took most of my face out of the picture.
breaking news while i posted that picture: MOURDOCK LOST IN INDIANA.

this is a very happy thing for me, mostly because i live in indiana and he was a misogynist douchebag.

speaking of misogyny, the other day in my brit lit class, we were reading sir francis bacon and dr. aspinall was like, "francis bacon was a misogynist. does anybody know what that means?"

epic silence. then dr. aspinall was like, "WOMAN HATER!"

the other day we were discussing john donne and he seriously asked us, "can you get pregnant with a dildo instead of a penis? this is what john donne is asking us through his poetry."

moving back to election night.

about an hour ago, my boss texted me and this is how that conversation went.

my boss: OBAMA OBAMA OBAMA!
me: whaaat? if you know anything DON'T ruin it omg
my boss: no, that's just my battle cry!

ten minutes later.

my boss: i'm drinking woodchuck!
me: i'm on duty and i wanna drink, wahhh
my boss: dave took the duty phone. SO I'M DRINKING

i enjoy my job. and my boss.

but seriously, i want to be sitting here with a wine cooler (and colin and bread and cheese) but since i'm on duty, i can't drink.

i don't have class tomorrow night. 

guess who's going to the bar

CNN has been going through these states one at a time, going through estimates and stuff, and i cannot describe how anxious it's making me. this old guy is standing next to this board and saying things like, "we predict that romney will take this state, blah blah blah" and I CANNOT HANDLE IT.

colin just showed me the epic rap battle of history between romney and obama. the best part was abraham lincoln descending on an eagle and bitch slapping them both.

colin and i have now started a new game. it goes like this.

"IS THAT OHIO?"
"no, that's iowa."
"IS THAT OHIO?"
"every state is not ohio."
"I LIKE OHIO"

i do like ohio because it's a swing state that obama needs.

colin likes ohio because he's from ohio. legit.

AND THEN THIS JUST HAPPENED ON TWITTER.

he knows colin's secret.
twitter is now blown up with mourdock and akin being ousted. 

"looks like god didn't intend mourdock to win."

"akin officially got shut down."

LOLOLOL TWITTER.

time elapsed since i last typed in this post: approximately one hour. during that time, glenda ritz ousted tony bennett as state superintendent of indiana, AND I AM DANCING IN MY FLANNEL PANTS AND WAVING AROUND CHEESE STICKS.

but mike pence just became governor of indiana. less dancing. more unhappiness.

i have officially decided that i am going to stay up as long as it takes until i find out who is the next president of the united states. 

eight thirty class? ehhhhh. 

brit lit exam? ehhhhh.

staying up until four in the morning to see who wins this election? YEAHHHHH.

states are making up their minds. yellow states galore. obama is ahead. romney is close behind.

WHO WILL BE AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL?!

ACCORDING TO CNN TWO SECONDS AGO, THAT WOULD BE MR. BARACK OBAMA.




Friday, November 2, 2012

HOLY HOMEWORK AND COLLEGE LIFE, BATMAN!

i wish that my post titles could have a little description.

this one would be "in which emily discusses the month of november and how it hereby affects her life and finally culminates in the youtube sensation "aint' nobody got time for that.""

can you tell i've been reading a lot of sir francis bacon for my brit lit class?

fun fact: i've never had bacon before. can i count having bacon as reading francis bacon's verbose essays on humanity?

i've already digressed too much and this hasn't even gotten under way. right. november.

normally i think of october as that month where everything just kind of rushes at me and i'm like, HOLY HOMEWORK AND COLLEGE LIFE, BATMAN! and i have to run around and get everything done while being incredibly overly involved in other stuff, like chapel and my sorority and being an RA and being in active minds. which reminds me, i have posters to print off.

but this year november just kind of shoved october aside and was like, "october, chill bro, it's MY time to make emily's life incredibly busy and fantastical. you've had your run for two years."

yesterday was november first. also known as el dia de los muertos. also known as all saints day.

also known as "the day that emily found out what a terrible month november is going to be, and by terrible, she means awesomely insane."

let's take a quick gander at what lies ahead in my life in, gasp, A LIST. (i never have lists in my blog, guys. ever.)

1. while kayla is at conference, i'm kind of suddenly in charge of active minds. OOPS.
2. forgot about that history quiz. probably not gonna study for it.
3. i need to have a nice conversation with dr. aspinall about submitting some poetry and my really creepy short story to sigma tau delta, the english honorary i just joined. that's due on the twelfth and i haven't even edited my short story yet.
4. again, talk to dr. aspinall about my seven page paper about grendel's mother that i'll probably put into an awkward renaissance consortium. it'll look great on my resume.
5. speaking of resumes, my student teacher application is due on the fifteenth. HELLO, BIG KID LIFE, NOT HAPPY TO SEE YOU.
6. i'm taking a sorority little. SO HAPPY. SO POOR. SO NOT ENOUGH TIME.
7. gamma phi initiations! eep!
8. you know, i'm an RA. i do RA things. that means i have an interview next week to be a senior resident assistant. totally not ready for that to happen. i'm terrified out of my mind.
9. i need to make a unit plan for my lesson planning class. like, what does a high school english unit even look like? do i really get to spend four weeks on literary analysis? i don't even have a lesson plan for that.
10. brit lit exam. thou art a heartless bitch.
11. dr. wise will not stop pestering me about this position paper i have to write. i want to write about britain being douchebags and colonizing the entire world. but i can't really find a position in there. and i just don't care enough to think about the paper.

i swear to god there's more. just thinking about this is making me anxious. i need to pick up my new antidepressants at rite aid. i won't even get into my appointment with the neurologist and the fact that next month i'm going to be walking around campus with wires all over my head.

don't worry. i'll blog about it.

so this is like, my next three weeks. it's scary. i'm still finding time to blog and watch once upon a time. which is probably a really bad thing. i should be living in the library.

but here's the kicker.

yesterday i signed up for nanowrimo and now there is no going back.


agreed, sweet brown.
i should probably explain what nanowrimo is. don't weird yourself out with the pronunciation.

"nan. oh. ree. mo."

right. it's national november writing month. NaNoWriMo. get it?

cool beans. i'm an english major and a writing minor. i write anyway. i got this on lock.

wellllll nanowrimo has like, this awkward stipulation where you sign up to do it on their cool website (nanorwimo.org) and then they're like, GO WRITE A 50,000 WORD NOVEL IN A MONTH GO!

in the words of sweet brown, "ain't nobody got time for that!"

why did i sign up for this in november? when i have all of these futuristic life changing things happening, like applying to student teach and entering my writing in a huge conference in oregon and writing a paper for a weird renaissance consortium i didn't know existed? do i honestly have time to write a 50,000 word novel?

my first answer is yes. i open the novel i'm currently working on, check the word count. 107,069 words.

my first thought: pshhh that's like, over twice as much as i need for this nanowrimo gig.
my second thought: i've been writing that sucker for three years, not thirty days.
my third thought: i am so fucked right now.

nanowrimo.org is a very helpful place. you put in your author information, how old you are, where you're from. what's your novel about? does it have a picture you want to use as a cover? put in an excerpt for other users to read. keep up with your word count and you can see how far you have to go, what you need to average, where you'll finish if you keep up your current word count average per day, and there's even a handy dandy scale that lets you know how you're doing on the graph of writing. you can be buddies with other writers.

i put in my author info. 

hobbies: singing in the shower, reading harry potter, eating string cheese, blogging.
occupation: student, resident assistant, almost but not quite professional blogger.
novel title: alligator.
synopsis: great question.
cover: fuggetaboutit.
bio: the generic "hi i'm emily. i like serial killers, strawberries, and lemon cake. my life consists of awkward moment and cereal." because it does.

seemed like a good deal. then i was like, shit, i gotta write a novel in a month now.

so i feverishly opened a word document with a vague character in mind. i knew more about her obession with presidential dogs than about her, and i was like, it's debate time, why not have her take a political science class during the upcoming election and i'm not gonna finish this by election day, so i have instant dramatic irony, and she can be from florida and there'll be an alligator there somewhere and boom, i have a novel i can work with.

i ran into that sticky spot where i was like, ummm my main character's name starts with an m. what's her name?

google baby names. get on weird sites with weird ads. find weird names that shouldn't exist in nature. eventually come across the name "maggie" and run with it.

write write write write write write, look at the clock, realize it's almost midnight and boom, i have 5,013 words in one day. 

my first thought: BOOOM, BABY, I'M LIKE, FOUR THOUSAND WORDS OVER WHAT I NEED RIGHT NOW.
my second thought: dude. i totally don't have time for this every day and i don't even know where the alligator is going to come into play. my book is called alligator. um.

i've decided to give you a small excerpt of my novel, for shits and giggles. i believe it characterizes maggie and her family quite nice.


“John, Maggie said ‘pardon my ass’ earlier,” my mom said to my dad, talking over me.
“She needed to pardon it,” my dad said simply. “Mags, did you need to pardon your ass?”
“I want to pardon the world’s ass.”
“So it’s not a problem,” my father said plainly.
“How does one actually pardon an ass?” my mother wondered.
“Well, if you come across an ass, your pardon it,” my father replied smartly.

currently, maggie is standing next to an abstinence makes the heart grow fonder! poster. you've all seen them. the ugly eighties couple holding hands and urging you not to engage in sexual intercourse.

which brings me to my last point about november, besides all of the terrible things that i have to do this month and that i'm writing a strange novel about politics, dogs named after presidents, and alligators in thirty days.

november is, in fact, no shave november.

my boyfriend has been participating in no shave june, july, august, september, october, november, and forever, and he has the biggest beard on campus. yesterday we stuck froot loops in it. many of his PMA brothers and my close friends are participating in no shave november. colin, my psuedo PMA brother (they don't actually take sisters) is participating in no shave october AND november because he can't grow that much and he wants to be manly. colin, if you're reading this, you are manly. and you're a time lord.

but why can't women do no shave november? i mean, on the swim team, it's totally no shave september october november december (quick shave) january february. i don't have a problem with hairy legs. life of a swimmer.

so i'm doing no shave november. plus, the mccurdy house, the women's advocacy small house on campus, is having some sort of no shave november contest. i'm decently hairy. i have a shot at winning.... something. i should look more into the contest.

yesterday i threw away my razor. i'm pretty stoked about it. but throwing away my razor also means that i'm letting my armpit hair grow. EUW. YEP. IT'S PRETTY GROSS AND AWESOME.

there's been a lot of twitter coverage about ladies participating in no shave november. people are saying that it's just for men (like dr. pepper ten. i drink that stuff all the time.) and that it's disgusting for a woman to do it.

the new phrase is "if women do no shave november, there'll be a no d december."

LOOK! A WILD FEMINIST AND ABSTINENT EMILY APPEARED! (do you see what i did there?!)

to quote my book character, pardon my ass, but that's ridiculous.

1. who says we wanted your dick in the first place?
2. man, i didn't realize that sexual relationships were based on my body hair. i should've known.
3. if you don't want to have sex with me because i have body hair, i don't think i want to have sex with you, douchebag.
4. yes, i'm abstinent, and that means that i'm waiting for the right person. you obviously aren't the right person if you're gonna be like, 'oh sorry honey, i can't have sex with you, your leg hair is too long.'
5. look at your own leg hair, gentleman. we have sex with THAT all up on us. and don't even pretend like you shave your dicks to please us. so why should i shave my vagina to please you?

number five is for a twitter comment that went, "nobody likes a bush down there."

feminist twitter movement as of late: "no d december means no v forever."

i mean, i'm on the no vagina train because i'm abstinent and all that. and i feel comfortable growing out my body hair this month because i'm obviously not getting any. but even if i were getting some, i'd like to think that my boyfriend wouldn't deny me sexual intercourse because i have leg hair.

wow. this post went from "emily has so much to do!" to "emily is writing a novel in a month!" to "emily is a crazy feminist and growing out her armpit hair this month!"

welcome to my life.

so. i'm emily. i'm writing a novel in a month while simultaneously growing out my body hair. i'm going to write research papers and head up mental health organizations and talk to professors and kick literary and academic ass.

and you know, i'm going to try to blog somewhere in there.

and for your viewing pleasure, the wonderful video "ain't nobody got time for that."


sweet brown. my spirit animal.


oh. i also want to mention that last night, while exerting all of my literary effort into writing fourteen pages of my novel in an hour, i ate an entire cake. alone in my room. at midnight.

AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FO DAT.