Swedes are the perfect backdrop for solitary silliness. My iPod and I have gone skating everyday this week on the waterfront, zipping past old men and their dogs and determined runners. Whenever I hit a patch where I am out of eyesight my iPod and I begin a choreographed dance- backwards, sideways, turn, jump- and invariably it is when my bladed feet touch concrete that I notice someone is watching me, turn bright red, and skate away as quickly as possible.

Come skating with me. We can dance together.

The Best Feeling in the World: Stepping off the Subway escalator just as your train pulls up.

The Worst Feeling in the World: Running up to your train just as the doors snap shut and it starts to pull away.

Funny how the best feeling and the worst feeling are separated by a measly 30 seconds.

I spend a lot of time walking to the Seattle Public Library from campus and back, so I've been able to watch the evolution of this corner on Roosevelt and 50th.

Tubs WAS a creepy spa that was (or so I was told) shut down for being a front for a prostitution ring. Now that the hookers and VD is gone, the building had been slowly crumbling to pieces before it was condemned, and taken over by these guys.

There were a bunch of bearded people having a powwow in front of the building complete with crumpled Rainier cans at their feet, so I felt a little self conscious taking pictures. The most impressive graffiti, the stuff that is more art than braggadocio is on the front of the building. In a more talented life I would be right up there with them.

I've been falling down in public a lot lately. A couple of weeks ago, I toppled over walking up a staircase in the art building and a random person behind me told me not to worry, that these are m.c. escher stairs, and then just walked away.

I have had perpetually scabby knees since I started to walk. Someday I will grow out of it, though I am starting to fear that it will be when i am a septegenarian and bedridden.

So now I am sporting one broken toe, two skinned knees, and a very bruised ego. Anyone who loves me can buy me a new pair of grey tights cause I ripped them.

Books I've Read in 2008

1. The Unbearable Lightness of Being... again.... twice
   
2. Icelander- Dustin Long
   
3. The Glass Castle- Jeanette Walls
   
4. The Mysterious Affair at Styles, and another Agatha Christie that I can't remember the title of
   
5. Little Women
6. Austenfest (Emma, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion)
7. Atonement
8. Never Let Me Go- Kazuo Ishiguro
9. Asimov's Foundation trilogy
10. The Road- Cormac McCarthy
11. The Winter of Our Discontent- Steinbeck
12. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
13. Shop Girl- Steve Martin (!)
14. Daughter of Fortune- Isabel allende
15. House of Leaves, though I don't know if it counts as reading it because I didn't really comprehend it
16. Ex Libris- Anne Fadiman
17. The Princess Bride- William Goldman (a perennial favorite)
18. Persepolis I and II, as well as Embroideries- Marjane Satrapi
19. Smilla's Sense of Snow- Peter Høeg

That's pretty good for a year, right?

Things I learned today

Teeth, yes. Zits, yes. Tack holes in the walls of my dorm room, yes.

Eyes, however, are places that toothpaste is not intended to go.

How to amuse yourself watching the presidential debates...

...with out actually hearing what they're saying.

Drink when:

- anyone uses the phrase "we are winning in iraq"

-there is any mention of 9/11

-any mention of George W.

-usage of "fundamental"

-when Obama steeples his fingers

-any mention of the vice presidential candidates

-McCain mentions being a POW

-when they name someone we have never heard of

-when they talk over each other for 3+ seconds

-pointless anecdotes

-laughing in tandem

-obvious stalling (drink until they come up with an answer)

Tequila shots if...

-either candidate or moderator swears on air

-McCain or Obama burps on camera

-MaCain calls Obama "Senator Osama"

-either use the word "bracelet".

aaaaaand begin