Have a Doug'nut, Copper!

   I mentioned high and low points in a previous post, as ingredients to a memorable day. Today started out not great, but then it got awesome, and now it's... well, I'm writing this right now instead of watching Zootopia for the third time today, so, go tell me about low points.

   I am currently trying- and failing- to make it through Lady Gaga's 2011 album Born This Way. I don't cuss, generally, but dang does this album make me almost cuss. Several times per song. Even the title track, which I remember vaguely as being actually pretty good, sucks. Lady Gaga is a parody of pop stars, I understand that. And her songs are parodies- travesties!- of anything resembling music. And her fans are all only pretending to like the music, because that's the amazing thing to do, because this stuff is so over-the-top bad that it's impossible to be taken seriously, but is presented so unironically that her fans must present themselves as being genuine. The more they claim to enjoy it, the more they claim that Lady Gaga's vocal style comes anywhere close to resembling singing or the disharmonic grinding smutstream comes anywhere close to resembling music or lyrics, the more hilarious the joke becomes. I understand all that too. Heck, I was myself going to play along with everyone, until I realized that my level of pride is at the exact mix of genuinely caring what people think and realizing I don't, actually, that, no, I don't think I'll play along, and I don't care how much it disrupts the world's greatest performance piece to call a spade a spade. It's this exact mixture level of caring about my face and realizing there's not much to lose, that provided today's low points, funnily enough.

   I don't speak up. Well, I do. I think. But when I try to talk to people they seem to ignore me, and it's only when I'm talking to myself that people say, "huh? you're going to need to speak up." I'm going to tie this into the idea that it has something to do with the combo platter aforementioned, because it makes a complex tangent-filled narrative almost insultingly convenient to swallow. I suppose that it does tie in, because half the time I vocalize my thoughts is in the vague hope that someone overhears my thought process and goes, man that is one cool dude. And if I'm talking to someone and they don't acknowledge my having spoken, it's like, well never mind you're clearly busy and I'm sorry to have bothered you.

   I woke up this morning with more than an hour to spare before needing to head off to typography class. I still have this thing that I need printed, or whatever, the business card project which was due, so I figured, maybe I could head out for that, find a printing place. Though first I'd need to format the card so it had margins and crop marks and, I just realized, this story has nothing to do with the rest of the day, and I didn't even make it to any print places anyway. I guess this part's important because heading off like that meant I had no time for breakfast at first?

In the Scroll a month ago, I drew on a photo that was beaming at me all pristine, perfect to practice the planes of a human face with. Until I realize, oh crap that's dead student face, sorry sorry sorry.

   The Scroll, college newspaper, sudoku contest in the back, all that, now is apparently also running this predictably medocrish comic on the back page. This week and the week before last. This week's strip was about the difference between normal bishops and YSA bishops- YSA bishops introduce the topic of the importance of going out on dates and getting married, into every subject, apparently. Dating was exactly what we talked about yesterday in my eternal families class, and it was really inspiring, and, exactly raw combo of face and having nothing to lose, I texted the girl I'd dated, again, then and there, random awkward time, wondering if we could maybe go out again sometime. Knowing that there's no calling back any bolts shot forth, I did this. She hasn't gotten back to me, and I'm admixtured of relieved and worried by this turn. Admixed, I guess?

   Why do we build up courage to talk to one another? We love our faces, but at a certain point we realize that we could lose everything if we don't go out on limbs.*

   The Scroll displays Instagram... Tweets, or however Instagram works... as selected by the editors for display, which had used the hashtag #byuiscroll. One of them this week, staring me in the mug on the page opposite the sudoku puzzle, really pissed me off, because I'm a bad person who did a bad thing, attempting to understand only after judging instead of doing it the other way 'round:

   What the heck is "gluten free problems?" Do you have some form of Celiac disease? If so, why not say that? Or do you just not eat gluten because you're a sheep and somehow think that it's bad for you? Hashtag sprinkles? That's the most hilariously inane thing I've heard in my life.

   Also, you misspelled doughnut.

   So yeah. It wasn't the best morning, in typography class. I was hungry. I was sweaty. I was fantasizing tracking down this Jessica Marie, and stabbing her in the throat and eye socket with a cheap plastic mechanical pencil. Because that's a rational sane emotional response for people who... food photography?, it's a photograph of food, they're not the same thing... And then there was that comic strip as well, above the sudoku, also staring me in the mug, reminding me that being reminded to date isn't a unique thing and that I'm not special in being told to go out with people. And when I tried to talk to anyone, they'd turn deaf ears.

   Finally I managed to point out the dougnut thing to someone. So... man, I guess the low point in the morning had anything to do with my apparent lack of speaking up?

   The day got better when we took a big chunk of time in the middle of class just to work on designing a type poster. Like, a big chunk. I could lie down in the middle of the elevator for no reason. Realize that I judged Jessica Marie Ceramics before attempting to understand. Realize that it should be the other way around. Realize that getting the order of that mixed up is just the human condition. Realize that Humans are just animals that invented elevators. And Wikipedia. I had time to get a drink. I had time to go home, bake fish filets in the oven for breakfast, lounge around at home while that cooked, eat with some nice plain Greek yogurt that sort of simulates sour cream. I had time to grab my laptop and head back to class. Then time to design. And time to go downstairs to print out. Not enough time to realize the problems the printer was having, though. That part kind of overstepped the time allotted.** But I did get my poster design printed out, and my weird anger issues ironed out, and the day was good again.

I actually have a photo of the printed poster, if you can believe that.

Ben Behunin book of all things here as well. I took this photo and the previous one in the library heading there after class this morning, snapping in order to disguise my really wrong-looking surreptitious snap of ...

this girl. All watchin' My Little Pony vids on YouTube. Doesn't she know that that's dangerous for small children to do? This one, for example, is apparently about Spike getting Rarity pregnant...?
Also, yeah, snapping pics of 7-year-old girls. Told you I had to disguise what I was doing.
Why am I even showing you these...?

   I could even sell my plasma again, for the first time in... a good half-month I'd say. People who sell their plasma and have the ability to do so weekly, but don't, these people are major jerks who should give me their money that they're not earning, because seriously, blood clotting problems and random drops in protein levels.

   I can now afford to purchase a ticket and go see Zootopia in cinemas, though it's out on DVD! Don't you judge me, it's cheap-ticket Tuesday.*** All the snacks I bought, though... that, that is slightly less easy to justify.****

   Also see Zootopia again, on DVD this time, at the Library!

What's that they say? Never, under any circumstance, pause a Disney film? This isn't a pause, technically, but... yes. yes.

   I'll tell you about those on my writing blog. When I get around to it. Two viewings today, two entries, one screening in the theater, one Zootopia party at the library. But, like I said, I missed the second Zootopia party. She was right there! Right there!

Right there!

   But I... I thought I spoke up. I had a project that needed to be printed*****, and by the time I was ready the DVD owner had left with all those who were also going. Which was like, one other person, because seriously it's the middle of the school week, nobody has time for non-homework things. But nobody left behind knew where they'd been headed, back to the apartment obviously but where is that I don't know, so...

   I don't know. It allowed me this time to work on my reading assignments for tomorrow. Or just completely shirk that and write a super long blog post nobody's going to read all of. Whichever.



* Not even tree limbs, I guess, but, cephalopod limbs, or, arthropod limbs, or just really anything.
** See, first, the keyboard was jacked up, as if the 9 key were being pressed continuously. The keyboard is what houses the i-card swipe so you can't detach the keyboard and attach another one, because you wouldn't be able to log in. We managed to figure out, detach the keyboard cord itself but leave the separate swipe cord plugged, and substitute the keyboard with that of a nearby computer. Log in successful. Problem 2 now manifests itself- the printer refuses to print, claiming a jam when there is none. Solution to this? Turns out that tray 3 had been overstocked, pressing against the bottom of the duplex unit which registered as a jam- take a stack of paper from the top of that tray, and the machine is once more well-oiled.
*** Taco Tuesday is apparently a real thing that exists, outside of the LEGO Movie?
**** I went into the movie without snacks, and nodded off a bunch throughout the first half. So I got snacks to keep me awake, and also I needed to replace the nutrients I'd lost in plasmapheresis, which they always tell you to do but I haven't actually been doing. Going out into the lobby to get snacks was easy, because, I'd already been missing significant chunks of the film as it was.
***** The printer's fine now, even the keyboard; it just took a while to save the Photoshop file as a PDF, and then apparently after even hitting "print" it took a while for that to show up on the printer queue account for some reason.