Life and Other Stuff

As most of you know, I have a new address along with a new roommate, Heidi, and new furniture by IKEA. I'm not really going to miss my old place even though it was nice (except for the upstairs neighbors who liked to turn their apartment into a discotheque on the weekends). I will, however, miss having HBO. I now live in Lake City which is a neighborhood in north Seattle. I'm not really sure which lake the "Lake" part refers to--probably Lake Washington. I live really close to a QFC grocery store, Bartell Drugs, Dick's Drive-In (this will be dangerous), the post office, the public library, and a fire station (which is loud). All in all, it's a pretty nice neighborhood.

I moved in a couple of weeks before Heidi, who was still in Minnesota for the summer. Her futon stayed in Seattle though and was my makeshift bed for a while--surrounded by boxes and boxes and even more boxes. Moving was traumatic enough; I had no energy to unpack anything. Especially without furniture. Moving from a furnished apartment to an unfurnished apartment is so not fun. So I went to IKEA for the very first time to get some cheap furniture. This is the part where I grew up and learned that furniture is incredibly expensive--even the cheap stuff costs a pretty penny. There was a lot to see and Swedish meatballs to eat. I ended up getting a coffee table, chair, book case, dresser, and mattress but no bed. Funny story--I helped my former roommate's ex-boyfriend move across town and he left me his old wooden bed frame which he told me was full sized. So I bought a full size mattress. Turns out the frame is actually a queen, so that didn't really pan out. I had also wanted to get a box spring mattress for extra height since IKEA bed frames are like 15 inches off the ground. Not good. But IKEA was sold out of box spring mattresses. So earlier this week, I finally ordered their tallest bed frame and bed slats (instead of a box spring) online but they won't come till Monday. Which is fine because it was just today that I finally screwed my dresser into the wall. Yes, you read that right, because apparently if it's not mounted securely to the wall, the weight of the dresser will cause it to fall forward. This is high quality stuff. And my bedroom remains a work in progress.

But Heidi finally showed up and we moved all her stuff in and then unpacked and organized almost everything, and suddenly our apartment looked a lot more like a home. We also got Internet which meant I stopped playing Jewel Quest for hours and hours on end. Heidi also decided to commit to lacto vegetarianism after flirting with it for a while. This will mean some interesting cooking adventures (I still remain an omnivore). Heidi also does the dishes almost every day which means our kitchen stays very clean!

I thought about buying a new TV because I have an old, analog CRT TV (which I love! I'm such a neo-Luddite), but since I don't have cable, or a converter box, I need a digital TV. and a tuner. and an antenna. So I have decided to keep my TV to watch DVDs on and I'll watch my television shows on my laptop. Hello Hulu! Also, buying a bed wiped me out--who knew beds were so expensive, even compared to other furniture?--so there are not a lot of funds for TV.

Earlier this week I went to Northgate Mall and got a fresh supply of Burberry London--reunited and it smells so good! Plus, they were having some kind of sale, so I got it for $30 off. Booya! Then I went and saw Easy A which was pretty funny. Basic summary/tease of the film: "I always thought that pretending to lose my virginity would be a little more special. Judy Blume should have prepared me for that." And I have "Pocketful of Sunshine" stuck in my head from watching this clip.

I still laugh every time. It's not the greatest high school/teen film ever, but it's thoroughly entertaining. Also, Emma Stone may be our chance for a non-trainwreck-y Lindsey Lohan.

I start school in a week. Boo. So here's what happened with my summer reading. I won't even remind you of my sweet sixteen list because that basically didn't happen. I read Lowcountry Summer which is possibly the worst book I've ever read in my entire life. I read The Absolute Sandman Vol. 3 which I bought for myself for finishing the school year. It was pretty good. (I also reread Vol. 1.) I read most of The Omnivore's Dilemma before it was seriously overdue at the library, but Heidi owns it, so I can finish it. I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and was seriously unimpressed. Why is it an international phenomenon? I read The Magicians and it was better. I read Winter's Bone, and I was glad I didn't grow up in the Ozarks. And I made it 2/3 of the way through The Iliad and really my only goal was to finish that book before school started. I suppose there's still time, but only a week. Dammit!

I tried reading The Big Sleep for my genre fiction class this fall, but it's not nearly as good as The Long Goodbye. I think I'm going to just watch the movie and read a different mystery instead. This last week I read Batman: Year One and Persepolis which are on the graphic novels list. I'm also reading Rebecca which is romance, and then I plan on watching the Hitchcock movie afterward. And I just picked up Shane and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford which are Westerns. I've noticed that most of the books we can choose from are also movies. I'm thinking maybe I should do film advisory instead of readers' advisory.

With October just a week away, I've already chosen the scary movies I'm going to watch this year. Now I prefer to watch psychological thrillers and ghost stories to slasher/splatter/torture porn films as I prefer terror to horror. I generally don't like satanic horror films either because invoking the dark prince has always made me rather uncomfortable. Anyway, get me some pumpkin beer and let's go: I just saw Gaslight last night--the 1944 version with Ingrid Bergman and Angela Lansbury in her debut! Not really a scary movie at all--it's mostly atmospheric and suspenseful. Next is Cat People which I had never heard of before. But I've read that it's scary and a classic. Following that is Alien and it's probably time I see this monster movie. Then we have What Lies Beneath a Hitchcockian supernatural thriller with the lovely Michelle Pfeiffer. Then we come to Rosemary's Baby which I know is a bit demonic (it was this or The Exorcist). I read Ira Levin's novel my freshman year of college and it was terrifying. Scream is next--my one concession to slashers--and though I should probably watch A Nightmare on Elm Street and/or Halloween before Scream, I don't think I'm ready for those films. Then we top it off with The Silence of the Lambs. I've never seen the film, but I'm already terrified of it. I've rented it before but chickened out. But I think this is the year.

So yeah. I know I haven't posted much lately, but that's just a little bit of what's been going on.