Seek & Ye Shall Find

roztotheoccasion.wordpress.com

This should be your attitude about my new blog.

Pleasure Reading

Wait, is it actually "leisure reading"? Which is idiomatic? One sec.

...Hmmm. A google search returns 405,00 hits for "pleasure reading" and 1,150,000 hits for "leisure reading." I could change the title of my post, but then I would have to delete these four lines of text and come up with a whole new introduction.

The point is that yesterday I bought Rosie by Anne Lamott for $0.99 from the Pegasus street sale, and it's super good. It would be hard to claim that Rosie by Anne Lamott is an important novel, but it was a good start to the morning at Cafe Trieste.

I don't love being at my house during the day because someone could come home at any time and ask me what I'm doing. So, I'm off to find a new place to read Rosie by Anne Lamott.

I really miss blogging.

Maybe I could do it in the mornings? I got some good news this week, which corresponds to the fact that I went nightswimming at Leah's neighborhood pool in The Nut last week and borrowed her beautiful mother's really chill tankini. The good news is, said beautiful mother passed on the tankini to Leah to give to me!

Every parent knows that my own parents are in Israel, so they all want to distract me from my plight (slash, dare I say, nurture and nourish me) by giving me new bathing suits and stuff like that. It's all in all not that bad of a situation, but I do wish the time difference were less extreme.

Lunes

I am close to finishing Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie's newest novel, Americanah. It's really wonderful. The protagonist writes a blog about the intersection of race and immigration status in the U.S. Sometimes the protagonist makes questionable decisions, but the fictional blog entries reproduced in the novel make claims that should not be questioned, at least not by me.

I know that this blog is not very brave and doesn't talk about race.
Thinking about this.

I Don't think The To-Do List looks THAT good

But, what, am I gonna, like, not see a movie with Bill Hader in it?

Tonight on the blog I'm sending some shout-outs to Patrick Beane and Josephine Hill. I wish I had a picture of the two of them together, but I don't. It's ok. People on this earth suffer from more significant lacks.

Plus, I have this kinda-action-shot of Soren and E that I really like. It's not all bad.

Work

was totally intense today! There were 131 requests by the time I left at 1:50. #ConsiderTheFactThat a typical day has, like, 31 requests! Good thing I love my job, you know?

I Can't Tell

...If having an OkCupid account is generally making my life infinitesimally better or a little bit worse. Like just now I came home in the best mood after a phone call with Tif and a hella long walk and then I checked OkCupid and was definitely in a worse mood, not a better mood. 

It's probably a better idea to audition for The Bachelor or to draw a bath and read my really good book. In other words, Go Big or Stay Home. More on this later.

The Thing Is

I do want to blog more but lately I have been obsessed with the idea of composing a sestina. I won't rest until I do it, except for right now because I'm going to sleep.

I feel like I learned some really surprising fact this weekend

But, I don't really remember what it is. I am trying to learn how to cook everything.

Ties That Bind

This week, when completing a filing project at work and utilizing four different sizes of binder clips, I remembered an altercation I'd had with Patrick when he and I were respectively serving as the managing editor and co-editor-chief of the Bloomington High School South Optimist newspaper. (DAMN that sentence has MAD information. Give yourselves a second. Continue.)

As Managing Editor, Patrick was always trying to change things up. As the Co-Editor-in-Chief, I was always trying to maintain our legacy of excellence. So when Patrick tried to restructure draft compilation by replacing our traditional paperclips with staples, I really had a cow. That was exactly the kind of thing that tended to get High School Rosalyn all worked up. That girl was always down to fight the good fight over office supplies. Gotta respect that.

Since this blog is technically a part of the Lee Heffernan Learning Challenge, I'd like to tell you that I learned not to sweat the small stuff on that fateful day in 2008. But really the learning didn't kick in until this week when, having run out of appropriately sized binder clips and switched to rusty, out-of-shape paperclips, I realized that staples really are better. After all this time, Patrick was right. It just goes to show you, listen to the winds of change.

Paul works on some coding, ensconced in two comforters and a Bloomington North sweatshirt on a couch in Indiana. Outside, it is 90 degrees. 

The Other Side

Though the above-evidenced cross country road trip clocks in at a close second, the best thing to happen to me since graduating a month ago is definitely my discovery of "Hit the Floor." This brand-new vH1 scripted series burrows into the political underbelly of fictional NBA cheerleading squad the Los Angeles Devil Girls and follows the virgin season of Ahsha (newcomer Taylor Paige). To quote the late great Bill Hader, this show has everything: overlong dance routines, an improbably supportive non-baller boyfriend who will clearly be outta the picture by episode 4, envelopes full of $50 bills, implied cunnilingus, and for heaven's sake, the guy who played Donna's dad on "That 70s Show!"

I can scarcely believe my luck at having stumbled upon this gem. As anyone reading this probably knows, the only series I've ever watched from pilot to finale is HBO's "Entourage," but I've been really hoping to hop aboard a new televised train and ride it into the sunset. As it were, to Hit the Floor running. I thought I would miss living in a mansion with my 12 best friends, but in retrospect, I dunno how I got by a single day before meeting the Devil Girls. Things are on the up-and-up, my dears. That's for damned sure.

#HoosierNation

You may think it's more fun to live in California than in Indiana but if you think that, you haven't been to Nick's English Pub to watch IU progress to the Sweet Sixteen. Promise!

Not the Kinda Girl You'll Be Seeing In The Morning

When I'm in my #CaliforniaHouse, I am in the top 90th percentile of early risers. That house is giant, sheltering 50 residents in little rooms far away from the kitchen. So I can pretty much go about my business, grinding hella ozs. of coffee and listening to mellow Drake songs without disturbing anyone's slumber.

Not so at #IndianaHouse. By all accounts, #According2Math, I should really be asleep right now. I ought to be jetlagged on Pacific Time, and I stayed up all last night waiting for my early flight. But I don't want to wake up the 2 permanent residents of this establishment so I can't make coffee OR play Drake on the stereo system. The point is, everyone should live in a giant house, or else everyone should wake up at the same time as me.

Roommate Time

Because I have the biggest bed in the house, fools are always posted up on it. Right now, Jenna is next to me tapping away at her brand new tumblr. That's right, folks. We're blogging simultaneously while sitting next to each other on the same bed.

Jenna seems like she might be blogging about Bark, her high school newspaper. This is a bit of a sticking point in our relationship- always with the celebration of Bark. Oy vey. Just because Jenna's high school newspaper has won several PaceMakers for excellence in high school journalism, doesn't mean two adult women have to blog about it simultaneously while sitting next to each other on a giant bed. You don't see me blogging about my charmingly titled high school newspaper, The Optimist.

In pursuit of my quest to itemize a maximum number of facts about Jenna,  I have just asked her to confirm that her former role on Bark was Photo Editor. (Her response? "I did a lot of things, Roz.") Fact-checking is a great journalistic practice I picked up while serving as the Managing Editor of the Optimist. Those were sort of my Glory Days, if you will. Just goes to show you. You can have the biggest bed in the house, but if you aren't the Managing Editor of anything, what's it all worth?

Hash Browns

Since my girl Shelz taught me how to make hash browns last week (same way you make latkes except it doesn't take as long and there aren't onions), I've made them for breakfast every morning.

Is this more or less healthy than what I used to eat every morning, which is scrambled eggs with a lot of cheese?

Probably a lateral move. Both are improvements upon my sophomore year of high school 2-Daily-Bowls-Of-Lucky-Charms phase.

Well. Actually I don't have any evidence to support that. All in all, it's probably best not to eat the same thing for breakfast every day, or to make your friends read about it. 

I'm making Mia a Mix CD

with only songs by Drake.

#Hoosiers2013

Let's face it, folks. 2013 is a great year to blog. We're coming right up on a new season of The Bachelor, I'm wrapping up a hella fun undergraduate career, and what's more I got a new camera for xmas so I don't have to illustrate posts with the same pictures of Eliya I've been burning through since freshman year.

In a few days I'm bound for Los Angeles to take new pictures of Eliya. I don't really know what else you do in Los Angeles, especially since Danielle says we can't take a double-decker bus tour of Santa Monica to hunt celebrities. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 The good news is that I am basically a celebrity now, having rung in the new year in the party hall above the downtown Bloomington Subway. I've been craning my neck towards the stylish attendees of Party-Hall-Above-Subway events since middle school, and through some keen career-girl networking I wrangled an invitation to last night's elegant fete. My friends, That Side of paradise did not disappoint. Here's hoping a bespectacled Bloomingtonian 12 year-old spotted me leaning out the window and knew that she, too, could afford to dream big. Cheers, my dears.

letter to you

 
PhotoCred: D. Menosky, "Sorrow"


Dorothy, a cloud is passing over the sun so I can look right at it right now. It's probably not a very good idea, but it's doable. We are so Midwestern; we don't expect this kind of mercy from September. Maybe you did at some point in your life. None of us can guess what you've been expecting.

I am remembering a blogged exchange with you about Celan, who was the subject of a seminar I eventually dropped. Nowadays, you said, you were more interested in lighter poetry. I also remember a letter you wrote me in Minneapolis, folded into a new young adult novel set in Detroit. A tweet decrying the blasphemy of "Waiting for Superman."

 Also, a few years ago, there was a surprise birthday party for you and you cried when your brother came out from hiding. I wasn't there but when my mom told me I thought, there's somebody who understands brothers.

It's killing me how comfortable I am right now, on the roof in Northern California, looking past tomatoes and cacti at the white bay. The end was not comfortable for you. I try to tell everyone about your 83 years of hella vitality and everyone tells me to remember them first but I'm not going to forget this summer, which sounded pretty fucking ghastly and scary and confusing. It was brave to not try chemo. I guess. You don't need me to tell you you're brave.

Let it not be said that you aged gracefully. You had better things to think about than grace. When I am caught up in the frantic vanity of 21, I try to think about you and my mom and an oxygen tank, an afternoon perfectly amusing. brilliant and hilarious women who know how to have fun and would rather be friends than babies.

You tore it the fuck up, Dorothy. I'll never love anyone more. Thinking on you, Super Woman.

A Crushing Defeat

I'm kind of sick of the baseball challenge, which is good because I'm pretty sure the season's started. Guess what? I was almost crushed today! Crushed like my 2001 pet mouse Nicki between two closed pages of The Beatles Anthology! #Karma. #Accidents.

Well. Most of the people who read my blog have already heard this story, and the rest are probably mad at me for dropping out of the baseball challenge. #Inevitables. #ThatBeingSaid, The Berkeley library has shelves on runners that you have to move back and forth by turning a big crank on the side. That way they can be stacked up next to each other, enabling the storage of more books. We aren't the only library to have this system, but we are the only library employing me, which is why I'm explaining this.

The nice thing about our library is that every shelf is clearly marked with the instructions: "Move only one shelf at a time. Always check for patrons between shelves." Now those are #Words2LiveBy! I would know! Today I was at work paging a book in the JQ700s when the two shelves around me began to close in! I yelled like this: "Stop. Stop! Stop!! STOP!!!" which felt transgressive because I take a lot of pride in the overall silence of our library. But folks, I was really getting crushed in there. And to make matters worse, the guy crushing me was not even apologetic about the fact that he

1) Almost Killed Me, and
2) Made me scream in a library! In fact, when I finally escaped and gave him my #IncredulousFace, he responded by vaguely gesticulating what could only be interpreted as "Good, so, you're finished now?" and then proceeded to browse the shelves! #WhatAJerk. #MalePrivilege. #Crushing.

P.S. Links correspond to individuals upon whom I have a crush.

Oakland Athletics

...Well, I was supposed to use this 90 minutes between work and my night class to edit an essay, but I guess I can use it to blog twice in a row instead.

I squandered most of my time already because when I got home I had an email saying that it's almost time for TELEBEARS!

Telebears is the best thing ever. Well, no. Actually, it's just the online program that Berkeley students use to sign up for classes. But it has the best name ever. In my head, I think about telebears as being the Giant Ass Gummy Bears in Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Next semester I have to write a thesis, so I'm thinking of padding my schedule with some Physical Education classes. The problem is, unlike Jason Giambi of Oakland Athletic fame, I am not too good at sports. I've blogged about it in the past, but the point is, exercise usually makes me literally throw up.

I'm therefor limiting my choices to the courses labeled "Elementary". It looks like my options include Swimming, Basketball, 3 different kinds of Dance, 2 different kinds of Yoga, Aerobic Conditioning and Resistance.

Hmm. I was going to end this post with a request for recommendations. But Resistance seems pretty darn apropos, given my prior position on all things sporty. What is it? Can anybody tell me what it is?