When I visited my friend yesterday evening she practically punched me with her smile. And the fact that she was doing the dishes, which is never. I knew something was up. Apparently she had this AMAZING conversation with this guy — call him Clark. Clark Kent. Anyway, Clarky is a guy in her English class who is “smart, funny, I mean we even like the same MUSIC, cute– you know, everything.” Clarky boy walked my friend– let’s call her Lois, Lois Lane– to her next class.

After Lois’s class she went to the nearest media outlet and blogged, a usual activity I guess. Her new post was titled “To the Cute Boy In My English Class” and followed the lines of Why do cute boys always talk to me and then nothing happens and doesn’t he know my Harry Potter references are adorable and I can’t add him on Facebook because I don’t know his last name, wah wah.

So little does Louis know, Clark is creeping on her Facebook profile, sees the link to her Tumblr, sees her blog post, adds her on Facebook, sends her a message that yes, he did think her HP quotes were adorable and was she free this weekend?

Louis = ecstatic
me= creeped out

No, seriously, I’m happy for her. I actually know Clark from another English class and I approve. But WOW. It makes me wonder who is creeping on what, and what is creeping on me. I mean, I could have stalkers and not even know it.

HEY. YOU. YEAH, I’M TALKING TO YOU, STALKER. HOW DARE YOU READ MY BLOG THAT I POST FOR THE WORLD TO LOOK AT. HOW DARE YOU SCROLL THROUGH MY COLORADO PICTURES I UPLOADED SO PEOPLE COULD SEE HOW ADVENTUROUS AND FUN-LOVING I AM. I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU TAKE THE LIBERTY TO FRIEND ME JUST SO YOU CAN SEE MY RELATIONSHIP STATUS. The nerve.

Lie. I smell it from a mile away. LIES! My dad says this to me every year. And every year he pouts on Christmas when I get him what he “wanted.” Not only does he expect something, but he expects something good. I learned that the hard way when I got him golf balls and a pocket screwdriver. That is not good enough for him. Lesson learned. But my dad is the least of my worries. This year I have a moody 18 year-old brother with no direction in life, no obligation to society, and no hobbies that he will commit to. We’re talking about the boy who speared a porcupine by combing the river bottoms in sock layers (ONLY) in the middle of January last year. God I love telling that story. The same boy who was into fashion for like a month last year, then went very frugal and refused to let my parents go out to eat– even on their anniversary. Ok yes. You see this is a problem. I know he likes incense and coffee. Guess what I got him for his birthday? Incense and coffee. (P.S. Did he get anything for me on my birthday? NO.)

Ai me! My troubles increase! My friends wanted to do a secret santa. You know the type– draw a name out of a hat and spend the least amount of money possible on a gift you’re pretty sure they’ll hate, all in the spirit of friendship. Yep, that happened. I drew a name. Some God-awful gift out there has my name on its price tag. I will buy it. I will regret it. My secret santa will barf at my meager, halfhearted efforts. Oh ’tis the season.

And finally. The big kahuna. (I always say that for the finale. I’m not sure why. It means wise man or something. That doesn’t really work here). My significant other, so-called boyfriend, friend that’s a boy-esque type individual. Believe me, I exhausted myself trying to come up with an original idea for his birthday in October (Dan Brown’s new book. So unoriginal it hurts my head to think how much time I spent agonizing over it). When I asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he said “I don’t want anything.” Which really means “WORK FOR IT, WOMAN. I’M NOT GIVING FREEBIES.” I offered to give him my own Christmas list (compass, sleeping bag detergent- special kind, doncha know?, “Color Index” and “Layout Index” by Jim Krause) in return for his. Did he go for it? Of course not. It’s not like the whole Christmas market isn’t geared towards women or anything. It’s not like he can’t walk into any store in the mall and come out with the perfect gift. I don’t know how my mom’s done it all these 27 years (plus five dating ones…geez my parents are old). I’m sure I’ve had enough of this already.

And in case you haven’t figured out I’m a genius (HA!), scroll down for gift ideas for boys that are friends to you.

Well, my fear partially came true. I still see people, but my homework…well, it doesn’t see me as often as it should. For example, I’ve been at work for 45 minutes and I just now forced myself to log off Facebook and do something with my three free hours of working the desk shift/homeworking (because no one is around this early in the a.m.).

So why is Facebook so compelling? Why do we feel the urge to click through everyone’s lives and compare them to our own? And further, why in the world do people like to take so many pictures of themselves? It’s the same pose over and over. Grab a friend, smile seductively, hold the camera out in front of you, and *click*! Now grab another random friend and repeat. I love how the smile is always the same every time, and yet people–especially girls– insist on taking like 500 pictures of themselves next to the closest person within grabbing distance.

And Facebook is just a way to post these pictures and say to the world “hey, look at me and my sexy smile and my not-as-sexy-but-still-beautiful friend and his/her smile. Be jealous. I am more successful than you, more happy, and things are so going my way right now.” Wow, we have such a competitive desire to shine brighter than the next profile.

Just consider it, readers. Think of posting one of those pictures instead of all 500. Believe me, one picture can get the message out. 500 pictures of the same scenario comes across as desperate. But hey, that’s fine with me. Look needy. Because I am working the system and blinding you with my single pictures of complete perfection.

So in conclusion, look above to witness what Facebook has made of me and look below for an example of the mind-blowing single pictures I was talking about.

Dad: “Listen. I want you to get good grades. If you do I’ll get you something.”
Brother: “What?”
Dad: “Tickets to the Father-Son banquet.”

Yeah, that’s cool I guess. But my dad also wears false teeth in public and makes old ladies scream by smiling at them. Or trips you in public. Or calls you fat and laughs. Anyway, the point is that I am Not Funny.
This blog is funny. I aspire to be this blog. apocalypstick.com

But alas, I can’t make funnies about Taylor Swift because I hate her music. And I can’t talk about how boys are such jerks because I like my man, and he likes me. I mean, we have the same laundry bag. And he agrees with me that my hair is brown and not sandy blonde. What IS that?? (Not the true-love part, the sandy blonde). Sandy blonde- pah. I’ve never called sand blonde. Ever. I digress-I cannot be a funny blog because I can’t talk about the sleek Venice bars where I party. I’m in Omaha for God’s sake. (Though I did go to the shoe-shaped country once. I missed the sleek.) And I am under 21 so that means no no for drinking.

Anyway, at least I can admit it. At least I can look you in the face–through my blog– and say Yeah, I try too hard. Don’t even pretend that tiny smile, Angie. I know you’re the only one who reads my blog. I’m doing this for you. For a grade. Just kidding, I’m doing this for you. Believe me.

Oh yeah. Design. Um… Next time?

Today I listened to S. L. Wisenberg (author of “Cancer Bitch”) talk about her experiences. I realized that her situation was going to be my situation if I don’t quit putting an obnoxious amount of toxic, harmful, and fake chemicals into my body. I turned to my friend Shannon in the middle of Wisenberg’s dialogue on the loss of her breast and said I’m going cold turkey. She new what I meant.

This will be hard. Painful. I might cave. But Shannon is making me a “for the gum bitch” support ribbon. Maybe my friends will wear them. Hold me accountable. I hope so. I feel like my beautiful teeth are rotting out. I have no self control when it comes to gum. Piece after piece after piece. That’s why I will never smoke– because I will smoke like I chew gum.

And just to tie my dilemma into Mass Communication and Technology, I will say that the container for Orbit is very appealing. They have a nice, clean logo but the COLORS are the most attractive element. Makes me want to eat it up. Chew it up. Whatever.

Also, how good is this song by Sea Wolf?

The video is “meh,” but the song is excellent. So this post is supposed to be about something related to design or communications, so what better way to incorporate these subjects by showing you what program I really want?

Maybe for Christmas. Adobe Photoshop would be nice too. Does anyone have an opinion about which one I should get first? I am a Graphic design major and I feel that if I master these programs I will be that much further ahead in the game.

In want of some really bad photoshop? Say… a DISASTER of photoshop? Well here you go: for the real(ish) deal skip right along to the Photoshop Disasters Web site.

farmhousecafe.com

http://www.dizzler.com/music/The_Airborne_Toxic_Event

mom and dad

http://omahalitfest.com/index.html

http://joselyn.org

As of three weeks ago I had an awesome laborless weekend ahead of me. But then my Grandpa decided to be born on September 7th and basically screwed my Labor Day tubing trip 80 years in advance. That crafty, sly man. But that’s ok in the end, because a flood of cousins are migrating to Omaha and we are making the trip to V-town in the wee hours of morning in the belly of Tim Simmons, my parents’ Yukon. Ah Tim Simmons, the biggest mother smurfer I know. Last summer I took a trip to Zion Nat. Park with 6 of my cousins and my wildman of a brother. Tim Simmons broke down over 30 times and finally died on a lonesome country road in the middle of nowhere Utah smack dab in the center of a 2 day rainstorm at 11 o’clock at night. We were stranded for a week in a youth hostel while Tim Simmons had his guts removed and watched the Olympics with some Germans.

I digress. (spelling??) The point of this blog is downfall of technology. Technically, Tim Simmons is technology. Tech tech tech. Wow that sounds weird when you say it in your mind a lot. My mac worked fine this morning so I don’t have any full blown rants against Apple like the other half of the class.

See me next week. Our (me and my mac’s) nice flirty, fun September fling might end abruptly when I discover he/it has a thing with Joel, or maybe secretly writes love letters to one of those Creightonian kids in the newsroom. NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

For real though, I’m supposed to make this interactive. So I’m experimenting. *Gasp! I changed the layout. *double gasp! And now I am going to attempt a link, and maybe– God willing– a picture.

linkage: Art Renewal International

Testing…
Red, Wine, Success! I have a link. Now here’ s a picture. If you’re lucky.

ah no she di’nt! So above is me cursing my lot and demanding answers from a dead Tim Simmons.

So blogs aren’t my thing.  I know, what a great way to start the first post.  Such negativity, such doubt.  But I thought a warning was due.   When I say something “isn’t my thing,” it usually means I’m trying something new.  I said the same thing when I went rock climbing, my first day of Astronomy lab, and when I tried to kayak down the Minnechaduza.  Maybe blogging will latch on after a time (unlike the last three), but I guess it’s enough to admit that I agonized over my blog’s name.  Heck, I don’t know the norm, the lingo, the cult.  I got very intimidated when wordpress denied my email twice.  Had this not been for a class, I would have given up.  (Don’t judge me.)

Follow me down the rabbit hole, swallow the red pill, or enter the wardrobe, take your pick.  Fact of the matter is that I have to tell you a Website I like, and one I don’t.

Like:   www.artrenewal.org

If I knew how to post a link, I totally would.  I’m going to have to call upon my worldly friends to help me navigate the seas of blogdom.  I like this Website because I like looking at (and contemplating buying…when I win the lottery) awesome art.  The Art Renewal Center shows a lot of new pieces of different mediums from different global competitions.  You could say I like this site for the content, because the Web page could use some work.  I mean, they are ART PEOPLE showing ART WORK.  A sprinkle of creativity could do no harm.  I’m just sayin.

Dislike:  http://www.robinhobb.com/books-main.html

Robin Hobbs’ Farseer Trilogy is one of my all time favorite book series, but her Website is sorely lacking.  Not only is it boring (blah text on an ugly color), but she has this feature when you can explore her home.  I guess this is supposed to be cool, but I didn’t even know it was there until I accidently clicked on her name.  Then it shows you pictures of her bookshelves and bathroom.  I would have rather not known, to be honest.

I’m out,

Katie

P.S.  Do you leave a signature on these things?