Overheard in the ATL

"I HATE angst! If it has angst in it, I abhor it."

-- Pink-haired girl in Woodruff Park

How much is too much to pay for a really nice pair of boots? For real. How much? 'Cause I heart these.

Procrastination Station

This is the best paragraph ever written. It describes an Irish breakfast.

"You sat at the window above the hum and the buzz of the street below. At first you gulped and chewed and then decelerated as you realised that your hunger would be perfectly assuaged. Then you could eat contemplatively, picking bits and choosing bits you thought would make an interesting ensemble. You craned your neck occasionally, like some astronomer, gazing downwards at the Milky Way of interweaving passing heads. The chinking noise of cutlery and crockery cut through the muted traffic noise. You pronged the last inch of Hafner's sausage on to a tiny toast triangle that you'd custom-cut, and married it to the last remaining quarter of an egg yolk. You ate these morsels in one forkful. Then a gulp of tea. You settled back contentedly. An enormous cut-glass ashtray came from nowhere. Plates vanished, and you put your elbows on the table and lit up. The bill came in its own good time, unhurriedly. You looked with some amazement at the spiky old-fashioned pencil-writing, quoting prices current in the Fifties. You paid the carbon-slip. Then you descended to the mundane busy street. Absorbed into the crowd, you let yourself be taken by its flow, and became another corpuscle in the bloodstream.

We would spread the word about this last word of an eating-house. No one ever found it, nor could we again when we determined that we would, because the universe is often stumbled on by accident, or visualised in dreams."


How great is that? I love it. It's from Last Night's Fun by Ciaran Carson.

But maybe I'm biased because of the diet I'm on right now. :)

I Know My Blog's Been Boring Lately...

Sorry. Eventually, it'll be a little more interesting. I hope. But I'm not promising anything.

In the meantime, here's what's on my mind:

-- Finals/Papers. I'm not quite overwhelmed yet. I think I'll be okay this semester. Doesn't look like it's going to be too tough.

-- NYC. Can't wait to visit. December 14-19. I don't think I've been this excited about a vacation since I was a kid.

-- The weather. I wish it was a little cooler so it would actually feel like fall/winter. But it's nice. And it's supposed to get cooler over the next day or two.

-- A diet. That's right. I started a 6-week diet on Monday. It's tough, but I have to wear two fabulous bridesmaid dresses next summer and I want to do the dresses (and myself) justice.

-- Creative Writing. I have a critique next Thursday, and I'm not feeling too great about what I turned in to be critiqued. Oh well. What can ya do, eh?

-- Grad School. Okay, I won't graduate until Spring of 2008. But I've been looking at different Creative Writing programs (lucrative, I know). Looks like the best ones (that I would want to go to. Sorry, Iowa.) are all in NYC. (The New School is at the top of my list.) It makes me really excited to think about the courses they offer. How will I afford it? Who knows?

-- Sufjan. (I know, don't roll your eyes.) He just released his Christmas stuff (officially), and it's really nice. Which brings me to...

-- Christmas! I love the classic Christmas stuff -- white lights (not blinking), old Christmas hymns/Handel's Messiah, cold weather, the smell of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, tacky Christmas sweaters (just kidding about that last one). But really -- what I like the very best is the way people interact with each other around the holidays. Everyone seems just a little more considerate and friendly. Call me an idealist or an optimist. (Wow. Have I ever been accused of that?) But I think it's true, for the most part.

-- The people around me. I am really thankful for even the smallest acquaintance because other people are what makes life most interesting to me. Not the stuff in my head. Although that's pretty fun, too.