in which brenda becomes a french icequeen

just so you know, i'm probably not going to be writing in my blog for some time. i may just leave it where it is and stop updating all-together. some things are best kept to ones self, i've decided, and bundling them up and letting other people read them is just getting too... open.

i've decided to stop wearing my heart on my sleeve and become coy and aloof. it's a new concept i picked up from a book one of my best friends in the world gave me. from now on, if people want to know something about me, they'll just have to make an effort and actually contact me.

one last thing-- one of my favorite poems. it's by pablo neruda, and it's better in spanish, but here is a fairly good translation. pablo neruda is, of course, a man. i am, of course, a woman. thus, the gender cases do not apply directly to my line of experience, but the emotion is all too familiar and the language gorgeous.

SADDEST POEM
I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

hmph.

if i want to dye my hair, i can dye MY HAIR! it's MY HAIR, dammit!! and besides, it comes out in 8 to 10 washes anyway. so THBBBBBBBBBBBBBBPT to you, comrade! THBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBPT to you INDEED!!!

"brenda: the unemployed lobster of sloth" or "the quest to resurrect sparkles the wonder dog"

i am, once again, unemployed. i had a job-- sort of. i was hired at Harris Interactive, formerly Wirthlin Worldwide, to conduct telephone surveys. well i wasn't technically "hired." i was invited to participate in training, in which one doesn't actually get paid for the first two days. this two-day unpaid period is because, in the most technical of terms, this job blows. i came home from the first day of training practically homicidal, but i did show up for training the second day. during the second day of training, after being told by an irritated secretary what a waste of time i was for about the 15th time, i got up, called my mom, and left. yep. i walked out on a job. it was just that miserable.

that same day, i traversed all over the greater orvo area looking for a job. no one-- NO ONE-- is hiring. i turned in a few applications, which they will "put on file" (please. i worked in retail. "put on file" means "throw away.") or will "get back to me on." riiiight. in the mean time, i'm doing stuff around the house for my mother, who is paying me. i would look more actively for a job (workforce services, etc), but brittany, my friend from pennsylvania who i haven't seen in nearly six years, is coming to visit me for a week and hell if i'm going to say "well, britt, it's great to see you. why don't you hang out with my mom while i go to work?" so here i am-- unemployed and unmotivated. i am the lobster of sloth.

and speaking of sloth: i... am such... a dork. seriously. for those of you who regularly get/read the newspaper, the comic strip "Foxtrot" has been running a series in which jason, the terminally dweeby son, has been obsessively playing something called "World of Warquest." this is, in fact, a farce of two games-- "EverQuest II" and "World of Warcraft." i have fallen victim to the second of these two sirens. i am a WoWaholic. it's tragic. i actually stayed up until 4:30am questing to get my dwarven hunter up to a level 10 because at level 10 hunters can train beasts (boars, bears, leopards, wolves, etc) to be their pets. i had already gotten another hunter up to level 10 (i was only up until 3am that time) and had trained a wolf, which i named sparkles. however, the game decided to go retarded and take away my ability to feed sparkles, who then became upset and left me. i destroyed that character and made another, who i absolutely had to get up to a level 10 so that i could train another wolf and name him sparkles, because heaven knows i can't have a real pet in real life. so yes... YES, i stayed up until 4:30am, but it was for the love of a pet! a computer generated pet, but a pet all the same. and he's the best computer generated pet i've ever had and i don't regret a moment of it and don't judge me because love makes you do crazy things. CRAZY THINGS!!

now if you'll excuse me, sparkles and i have some troggs to kill.

"rewarding jerkfaceness" or "blenna bojangles's v-day chola tattoo"

okay, now that i've had a little bit of time to calm down about the "icing on the cake" as i last put it, i can talk about it without becoming completely enraged. Neal Johnson-- my high school drama teacher and arch nemisis-- has been named the best drama teacher in utah's 4A division. one must understand that this is the only man i have ever truly hated. my mother told me about his being awarded and i felt really nauseated the rest of the day. ugh. i still feel nauseated thinking about it. but i won't dwell on it. deeeep sooooothing breaths...

i hope you all had a lovely valentine's day. i spent last valentine's day with a bunch of my friends (one-legged chris, krystal, natalie, and nate), packing and moving my stuff out of The Apartment of Death. we also got kicked out of a sushi restauraunt and almost got kicked out of fazoli's. good times. this valentine's day was spent with a few of the same friends (chris and krystal), plus some new friends (mary, elijah, shalese, and the guy whose name i can never remember, no matter how hard i try) at some guy's house that i just met last night. (the guy. i didn't really "meet" the house, per se.) elijah ordered some pizza and while we were waiting, shalese decided she wanted chocolate covered strawberries and i wanted some dr. pepper. so we went on a field trip to Albertson's and purchased aforementioned strawberries and dr. pepper. on the way out, shalese and krystal each got one of those rub-on tattoos from the dispenser in the lobby area. krystal (who has decided my name should henceforth be "blenna bojangles") gave me hers, which was this porn star-esque woman with the lower body of a snake. on the back it said something about "high-quality latin tattoos," meaning that this was, as a matter of fact, a chola-snake. shalese dared me to put it on my... um... well... as we all know, i can't say no to a dare. so there it is. i have a mostly naked chola-snake on my chest and there's really not much i can do about it. but at least i wasn't sitting at home bored and alone!

alright, i'm off to go get ready for a job interview. heaven help me. maybe the interviewer likes chola-snakes.

"the return of the brenda" or "love in the time of consumption"

i'm baaaaack. that's right. utah can now breathe a sigh of relief. i have returned from BFE idaho.

i went up to idaho on december 27 so that i could lend my sister, heather, and her husband, david, a hand with the house and kids while heather had her baby. when i got there, heather was on strict bedrest and had to be down pretty much 24/7, so i was in charge of cooking, cleaning, and the like, while david got the kids off to school in the morning and put them to bed at night. there was much playing of pacman and pole position and a fairly good time was had by all. on january 6, heather had her baby, naomi marie anderson, and, for a day or two, i was THE ONLY parental figure in the house. this meant that i was in charge of getting the kids to school and doing homework and potty accidents and everything. a mother i am not, let me tell you. then, heather came home, and i became an occassional cook and cleaner. my job was mostly to keep heather amused and help out when i was needed.

and then... the plague struck. it started with david, then went to heather, then to my nephew benjamin, then my niece kristin, and finally... to me and naomi. (my nephew tyler is just starting to get it.) for me, it started with a stuffy head and a lot of sneezing, then turned into acute chest pains. the chest pains were relieved when the cough started. that was three weeks ago, and i still... STILL have a cough. i wasn't scheduled to come home until the 22nd of February or so, but heather and david decided (and i agreed) that the best thing for me would be to go home and see my own doctor and get better in my own bed. so i flew home and... dah dah dah DAAAAAAA!!... here i am.

i tried to tell everyone that i had consumption, as i find consumption to be terribly romantic and tragic, but the reality is somewhat less romantic. i went to the doctor today and found out that i have bronchitis, a sinus infection, and strep throat. woooo doggy. good times, let me tell you. so now i get to sit around and feel very cross indeed, and complain about the (expletive deleted) at borders who won't give me my job back. (expletive deleted repeated for emphasis).

but oh... OH... the icing on the cake is yet to come. in the interest of keeping these posts a reasonable length, i shall include it in a different post. oh... i am insensed, let me tell you....

to be continued...?

ciao!

just so you all know, i'm officially leaving for idaho in less than twelve hours. i'll miss you! if you want to get a hold of me, e-mail me at sixtwofourlillypad@hotmail.com. MWAH!

i'm haunted. no. seriously.

so some of you may be familiar with my stories of personal hauntings (the man in black, the guy trying on a hat, the lamp on the tv, the lightbulbs in the bathroom...). i've come to the conclusion that it's not so much that the HOUSES i live in being haunted... but more like MYSELF being haunted. things follow me.

yes... it's happened again. in possibly the creepiest fashion.

i was half-asleep this morning, just waking up, and someone sat on my bed. i felt the matress being pushed down a little (like someone was sitting) and i felt the blankets on top of me move a little. my sister and her kids are visiting with us this morning, so i thought it was my nephew coming to wake me up. so i opened my eyes and rolled over and got ready to tell him good morning... and no one was there. of course no one was there. because i'm HAUNTED. sigh.