leah leah leah

update?

2009-09-29T01:45:27Z

Hi! It would take way too long to tell you all what's going on with me, although I guess there's not much to say other than that I'm a waitress with a college degree at a place that calls me a 'biscuiteer'. But really I just wanted to write so that I could show you a picture of my cat.

This is Miley/The Littlest Raptor/Broccoli/Billy Ray/Little Cheese Curd/Everything Bagel (Extra Toasted)!

She's turned me into a cat person, for better or for worse.

I hope you all are doing well!!

for the dry version: www.leahinguat.livejournal.com

2009-06-11T04:59:23Z

I am overwhelmed by this experience, I had an amoeba that left behind an intestinal infection and I missed the last boat back to my town across the lake and now am alone in the program's office thinking about too much and wanting for there to be people online because I have wireless for this one night.

I've been talking to people about how their husbands and sons were tortured and massacred one day in 1981 about a half a mile from the house where I live, my aim is to investigate the efficacy of the Guatemalan civil war reparations program in my town and so far I've gotten enough information to fill a book but none of it to flesh out the neatly divided sections I need for the deadline 4 weeks from now.

Here in Panajachel I can hear fireworks going off like gunshots every 10 minutes, I know it's practice for next week's Corpus Christi parade but I can't stop thinking about the fact that away from this tourist town in the place where I've been living there were guerrillas in the hills one morning firing real guns instead of fireworks. About how the army mistook sons and husbands for insurgents and set about burning the bottoms of their feet, cutting out their organs one by one with the farmers' own machetes and leaving behind a legacy that our own country helped create with its operatives and lofty economic goals for what could only have been seen as another potentially prosperous banana republic.

After a civil war of 30 years that killed more than 200,000 people, the government in Guatemala is still embattled and the families of the civil war victims have only the tenuous Programa Nacional de Resarcimiento (reparations) to look to for any acknowledgment or apology for the army's actions against their husbands, sons and lives. In my town, some of the victims have gotten their 24,000Q. Most of them had to report to Guatemala City and present their testimony before the truth commissions to even be considered, and many of them haven't received a penny or a hope regardless of the insurmountable evidence speaking to their losses. This inefficacy is offset by the presence of a sort of reparations middle-woman who takes fraudulent reparations claims to the government and sleeps with officials to get the money sent back to families who didn't lose anyone in the war at all. In a town like Santiago where everyone knows each other and most people have lived there their entire lives, I am only beginning to see the ongoing and divisive attitudes many people have about the way the civil war echoes in their lives and the government's continuing and pervasive corruption.

I've been talking with this human rights assessor from a nearby town that was affected by the massacres, he keeps telling me he's happy I chose my topic and honestly it's making it harder and harder to push forward without seizing up and wondering what in the world I'm doing.

My interviews are wearing me out, I feel completely honored and 10x more unqualified to do this project every time I hear someone else's story and I really just hope I can pull it off. I just want desperately to be able to make this the best it could be, and I'm not sure at all how to do that.

guatemala lj!

2009-05-30T22:54:14Z

http://leahinguat.livejournal.com

om nom nom nom

2009-05-15T23:32:35Z

sadgasdfasdhgoaergdxawdfsoh1!!

boss__tweed @ 2009-05-11T11:36:00

2009-05-11T15:37:10Z

I graduated from NC State on Saturday. I still don't feel like it actually happened.

I leave for Guatemala in a week and a half, which also seems surreal.

daaaang life changes!

fortuna's wheel, etc.

2009-03-27T18:09:40Z

It seems like everything that's happening this week falls clearly and evenly into 2 neatly distinct piles. In the good pile, there is the fact that I'm continuing to go on dates with someone I like who is awesome! I also have done laundry, grocery shopping, lots of homework and have mercifully received a little money from my dad so my bank account balance isn't flashing red and evil anymore. In the bad pile, I didn't get ANY of the 8 scholarships I applied for to use in Guatemala this summer. I am majorly bummed, and now have to find a way to raise over $600 in the next month and a half. Handjobs, anyone? Also, work has been totally awful. A million tables and chairs need to be picked up and moved and set up and re-moved every day, and while I guess the extra money I'm getting from staying late every day really could fit in the good pile, the racists and the bullshit and the exhaustion really aren't worth it.

I'm going to interview at a restaurant that's opening up downtown called the Busy Bee, I have no idea what it'll be like but I hope they like me and want to give me a job!

green, green, green

2009-03-23T04:59:11Z

"That made me jumpy, Bruno, that they felt sure of themselves. Sure of what...you only had to concentrate a little, feel a little, be quiet for a little bit, to find the holes. In the door, in the bed: holes. In the hand, in the newspaper, in time, in the air: everything full of holes, everything spongy, like a colander straining itself... But they were American science, Bruno, dig? White coats were protecting them from the holes; didn’t see anything, they accepted what had been seen by others, they imagined that they were living. And naturally they couldn’t see the holes."

sometimes I hate people

2009-03-18T22:18:08Z

It's very hard for me to remain calm in 3/4 of my classes this semester. Even when I remember to tell myself I go to an incredibly conservative university, the things people say and the opinions the majority of my classmates put forth are so brutally and staunchly ignorant that I want to stab their parents, them, and myself in the eyeballs to be done with it once and for all. What do you say in a Sociology class when someone uses the idea of sociological imagination to put forth the statement that black people don't like to swim because they're poor? Or, more recently, when 90% of your senior level history class maintained over an hour and a half that nuclear weapons were the greatest invention of the 20th century or fume at the very notion of America using their international weight to economically subjugate 3rd world countries in the name of 'progress'? There are only so many times I can raise my hand and try to explain how these ideas are wrong, and only so many times I can be shut down with idiotic gloss-overs about the US' might and benevolence and about how saying something 'true' isn't racist. When that kid in Sociology said the swimming remark, not one of the other kids in my class (including the black ones) or my professor said a WORD and my indignation was quickly traded in for a new subject of discussion. I can't be the only one who thinks this shit is stupid, seriously. I'm exasperated.

I'm just going to keep spouting off about proxy wars and loan-based neocolonial economic slavery, even though not one of these COLLEGE SENIORS WILL PROBABLY EVER FACE UP TO THE UGLY PARTS OF OUR COUNTRY OR THE WORLD

guhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

drunken photobooth FTW

2009-03-10T05:13:24Z

boss__tweed @ 2009-03-07T03:21:00

2009-03-07T08:22:48Z

she was only a whisky maker, but he loved her still

waaahhhh spring break is effectively over :[

boss__tweed @ 2009-02-22T23:51:00

2009-02-23T04:53:02Z

GOD DAMN IT!

I'm frustrated. Are the people you love the most ever also the people you find hardest to deal with?

i can't sleep! SO...

2009-02-17T07:15:28Z

Here are some long overdue pictures of Christmas break, hangouts, snow day and my visit to Toronto to see Genavieve!

hangouts at the honey hole

francesca's swanky

my new room at my family's house

raleigh snow day! unfortunately the camera didn't capture the full scope of the shenanigans that day (which included snow penises, lots of whiskey and the south's biggest snowball fight)

home sweet honey hole!

I went to Canada to see Gena and her lovely tiny apartment and photogenic cat.

see?! Bowie's a model

hey look, Toronto has a winter

the skrip club

Toronto's Times Square at Bloor and Yonge

they had a Budweiser airplane, which really is a horrible idea if you think about it

beautiful churchy looking building in downtown Toronto

coordinated people and the government UFO

Gena goes to bomb-ass makeup school for people who work on movies like Dawn of the Dead

She did my face like an 18th century broad! whoa

there were some boobs at a bar we went to

most macabre job ever. THAT'S A REAL EYEBALL

Kensington Market, best thrift stores in the universe. I could have stayed on this street/with Gena forever up there, Canada is so nice and friendly and bizarre!

WE FOUND PATRIOT GUITARS:

CANADA

'MURCA

La noche boca arriba

2009-02-17T04:21:56Z

"Salió de un brinco a la noche del hospital, al alto cielo raso dulce, a la sombra blanda que lo rodeaba. Pensó que debía haber gritado, pero sus vecinos dormían callados. En la mesa de noche, la botella de agua tenía algo de burbuja, de imagen traslúcida contra la sombra azulada de los ventanales. Jadeó buscando el alivio de los pulmones, el olvido de esas imágenes que seguían pegados a sus párpados. Cada vez que cerraba los ojos las veía formarse instantáneamente, y se enderezaba aterrado pero gozando a la vez del saber que ahora estaba despierto, que la vigilia lo protegía, que pronto iba a amanecer, con el buen sueño profundo que se tiene a esa hora, sin imágenes, sin nada... Le costaba mantener los ojos abiertos, la modorra era más fuerte que él. Hizo un último esfuerzo, con la mano sana esbozó un gesto hacia la botella de agua; no llegó a tomarla, sus dedos se cerraron en un vacío otra vez negro, y el pasadizo seguía interminable, roca tras roca, con súbitas fulguraciones rojizas, y él boca arriba gimió apagadamente porque el techo iba a acabarse, subía, abriéndose como una boca de sombra, y los acólitos se enderezaban y de la altura una luna menguante le cayó en la cara donde los ojos no querían verla, desesperadamente se cerraban y abrían buscando pasar al otro lado, descubrir de nuevo el cielo raso protector de la sala. Y cada vez que se abrían era la noche y la luna mientras lo subían por la escalinata, ahora con la cabeza colgando hacia abajo, y en lo alto estaban las hogueras, las rojas columnas de rojo perfumado, y de golpe vio la piedra roja, brillante de sangre que chorreaba, y el vaivén de los pies del sacrificado, que arrastraban para tirarlo rodando por las escalinatas del norte. Con una última esperanza apretó los párpados, gimiendo por despertar. Durante un segundo creyó que lo lograría, porque estaba otra vez inmóvil en al cama, a salvo del balanceo cabeza abajo. Pero olía a muerte y cuando abrió los ojos vio la figura ensangrentada del sacrificador que venía hacia él con el cuchillo de piedra en la mano. Alcanzó a cerrar otra vez los párpados, aunque ahora sabía que no iba a despertarse, que estaba despierto, que el sueño maravilloso había sido el otro, absurdo como todos los sueños; un sueño en el que había andado por extrañas avenidas de una ciudad asombrosa, con luces verdes y rojas que ardían sin llama ni humo, con un enorme insecto de metal que zumbaba bajo sus piernas. En la mentira infinita de ese sueño también lo habían alzado del suelo, también alguien se le había acercado con un cuchillo en la mano, a él tendido boca arriba, a él boca arriba con los ojos cerrados entre las hogueras."

No one writes about a motorcycle accident like this. Dream states!! asdgadfsksjdgawg

Sorry for the obnoxiousness, if any of you know Spanish you should definitely read Julio Cortázar.

boss__tweed @ 2009-02-05T14:53:00

2009-02-05T19:52:14Z

Almost, but not quite!

WHO LIKES XBOX AND ISN'T POOR?

2009-01-17T19:56:35Z

Cross-posted to Raleigh Craigslist and also Myspace and Facebook, sorry if you see it five billion times.

Hello. I am terrible at video games, and inherited an XBox and 31 games for Christmas which I will never use. I am keeping the Xbox itself to play DVDS, but have no use for the games. They are all in very good (working) condition, some superficial scratches but nothing worse. This is an amazing deal, I am also willing to sell the controllers that I have (2 with cords, 1 wireless). Price is negotiable, I am also willing to talk about partial sales if you don't want all 31 games. Email if you're even SLIGHTLY interested, I am being affected by the Global Economic Crisis.

Thank you for your time.

LIST OF GAMES:
1.) The Hobbit (Sierra Entertainment)-OFFICIAL GAME
2.)The Lord of The Rings-The Fellowship of the Ring-OFFICIAL GAME
3.)The Lord of The Rings-The Two Towers-OFFICIAL GAME
4.)The Lord of The Rings-The Return of the King-OFFICIAL GAME
5.)The Lord of the Rings-The Third Age
6.)Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
7.)Star Wars Republic Commando
8.)Star Wars Episode III-Revenge of the Sith-OFFICIAL GAME
9.)Harry Potter Quidditch World Cup
10.) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban-OFFICIAL GAME
11.) Secret Weapons Over Normandy
12.)Call of Duty-Finest Hour
13.) Call of Duty 2-Big Red One
14.) EA Sports Nascar Chase for the Cup 2005
15.) Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30
16.)Peter Jackson's King Kong-OFFICIAL GAME
17.)Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
18.)Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
19.)Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge
20.) The Spongebob Squarepants Movie-OFFICIAL GAME
21.)Pitfall-The Lost Expedition
22.)Halo
23.)Halo II
24.)Grabbed By the Ghoulies
25.) Star Wars: The Clone Wars/Tetris Worlds
26.)X-Men Legends
27.)Scooby-Doo! Mystery Mayhem
28.)Sonic Heroes
29.) Batman Begins
30.)Namco Museum Collection (Pac-man, Pole Position, Dig Dug, Galaga)
31.)Pirates of the Carribean-OFFICIAL GAME

boss__tweed @ 2009-01-11T13:27:00

2009-01-11T18:27:41Z

So this version of my eljay is exactly 3 years old today, happy birthday eljay.

?!!

2009-01-11T00:50:36Z

this is what i'm wearing on my blind date tonight (HA), i'm bored and i'm going to show you.

boss__tweed @ 2009-01-01T20:25:00

2009-01-02T01:26:36Z

Happy New Year!

It would be awesome to have the gumption to get some answers out of people right now.

pilgrymages

2008-12-26T01:04:23Z

Lila told me about this pilgrimage from France to Spain where you walk from one country to the other, you only spend the equivalent of $7 a day and you sleep in churches every night which sounds AWESOME and thrifty and I hope we can do it! We feel it will be the maximum usage of our collective language skillz

Is there anywhere open to go get a beer on Christmas? Does anyone know?

happy holidays from the upstairs hallway

2008-12-25T03:23:51Z

Merry Christmas from Emma, Liz, my boobs and me!

boss__tweed @ 2008-12-18T09:18:00

2008-12-18T14:21:22Z

I HAVE EXPELLED MY EMOTIONS!

thanks beer and friends

totally over it

2008-12-17T22:31:26Z

I am incredibly tired, and my spirit is very nearly broken.

I will not tolerate anyone else telling me all about what's wrong with me, I am a pretty okay person I think. I'm not trying to make myself sound like a victim, but I've finally gotten to the point where I feel justified in defending myself and my actions so if you want to get wasted and tell me how I fail you all the time, get ready to be talked back to. I do really well in school, I do alright at my job, I'm kind to most people and I never stop working on the issues that I do have so if you can't see that and appreciate me despite my flaws I do not want you around. Especially if I've put myself on the line for you a million times and all you see is your high expectations and how I can't measure up to them, then wait 2 years for everything to build up to a head and then let it fly on me. Grow up please, I'm certainly trying to.

I passed math :]

Also I'm in Charlotte, I'm emotionally and physically exhausted but I think after a good night's sleep I'll be more than ready to hang out if anybody wants to!

mine's boring

2008-12-12T23:52:42Z

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
Learned Mayan, went non-blonde, took a trip on a whim even though I was 100% broke, lived with a dude, dated a good friend, found my life mission, got my chocha waxed completely bald and scary

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I think my resolution was to be saner and healthier, both of which I am confidently still working on and will keep working on next year. Especially the exercise part.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
My cousin Thea, Robin's sister

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My aunt Nell

5. What countries did you visit?
Mexico, The Bahamas

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
A college diploma, a cigarette-free life, a manfriend, a new city

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
This is tough, probably the day I found out about Mexico and finally felt like I was going the right way with this whole college business.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Mexico/Mayan things, getting a grant for next summer, being all in all more grown-up of a lady about things. Also I made some new friends.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Drinking too much, spending too much money, hurting those close to me

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
My ovary capitulated, I thought I had mono once and most likely hurt my ankle although i can't remember clearly

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Apples to Apples, plane tickets

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
All my friends who graduated and who are remaining positive although also jobless, My mother for keepin' on keepin' on. Erin for breaking out of her shell and going halfway around the world.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
I really can't think of anyone, most people have been alright this past year. Dudes for irrational reasons, but that's about it.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Alcohol, therapy shopping, bills

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
School and the prospect of it being over soon, going home every time I did, going to Mexico, going to Guatemala, knowing my mom's going on a different kind of treatment

16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
Whole Wide World by Reckless Eric

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier, I feel more self-sufficient and a lot calmer
ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter, but am working on it
iii. richer or poorer? I think a little richer

18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Meeting new people, exercising, schoolwork, being home in Charlotte, traveling

19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Using the credit card, slacking off, being cranky

20. How will you be spending Christmas?
QC with the literal and figurative families

21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
Naw, unless you count with myself

22. What was your favorite TV program?
GOSSIP GIRL

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I still hate Bono

24. What was the best book you read?
The Rules of Attraction (finally), Confederacy of Dunces again, The Villagers

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Nuggets: Official Artyfacts of the First Psychedelic Era hahaha

26. What did you want and get?
good grades, new friends, closure on some stuff

27. What did you want and not get?
some people back in my life

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
probably Batman

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I went out with a small group of people on my real birthday, then we had a huge crazy cross-dressing birthday party (I was not in charge of the theme) the next weekend. I was 22.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More good lovin'

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Disheveled and sometimes alluring grandmother

32. What kept you sane?
Mom, friends, especially Erin, Lila and Amos

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
this is boring but probably Obama

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
Name any NAFTA bs or anything having to do with Venezuela

35. Who did you miss?
brotat posse, ERIN, Lila, JD

36. Who was the best new person you met?
My friend Francesca, a few others

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
It's not a good idea to tell people everything you're thinking most of the time.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"I feel it all"

boss__tweed @ 2008-12-12T10:27:00

2008-12-12T15:32:45Z

In 2 hours, I will be done with math classes forever. This is quite possibly the best thing I've ever thought about before.

I <3 Battlestar Galactica, P.S.

it's finally cursive weather again!

2008-12-11T19:14:09Z

For everyone who has ever worked at a coffee shop: Does it make you uncomfortable when someone orders a 'steamer'?

I am rooted at cup studying for my math exam (i.e. looking out at the rain/dicking around on the internet), which is probably hopeless and I'll most likely end up going out tonight with the hope that I'll get the opportunity to exhibit extreme and exemplary self-control and responsibility in regards to my young lady power continuum. In other words:

-be considerate
-not flirt with people just because I know they'll pay me attention

I am the absolute worst about that last item, it makes me feel sick. I've been doing some hard thinking recently, mostly facilitated by a handful of intense conversations and call-outs regarding self improvement and all in all I'm feeling a lot more solid in terms of Who I Am and how to maintain integrity. Eventually I'd really like to forget how shitty a person I was to myself and others in the year since I turned 21, and to look back and see whatever whirlwinds of intense stupidity I've caused as a willful, misguided, liquor-fueled extended temper tantrum. Never again.

I might have to stay in Raleigh until next December now because of this grant, I have to be an undergrad to get it and while I'll be done in May I'm not sure if I can convince NC State to let me walk and just unofficially be a 'student' in the fall or if I'm going to have to take some bullshit distance ed course and graduate in December. Honestly the thought of staying here even 4 months longer than I had planned makes me horribly depressed, even though when I really think about it it's not SO bad here. i just itch so badly to move on, I feel like moving will be the best way to crystallize all these half-baked 'do better-isms' that I keep attacking when I'm not actively making horrible decisions that mess them up. At any rate, it's better to have a free $1000 and be working towards grad school than to ship over to Chapel Hill or Charlotte or wherever I'm moving to in May having given up an amazing opportunity.

Speaking of moving, can I get some opinions? I've been hearing god-awful critiques of Chapel Hill/Carrboro, and I know all about what I'd be getting into in Charlotte but I can't decide. Here are some pros/cons:

Chapel Hill-I want to go to grad school there, I feel like being there just living and working a shit job would be a good opportunity to see if I really want to be there for 4-8 years but I'm starting to get the feeling it's a more inbred Raleigh in terms of social relationships and that sounds terrible.

Charlotte-it's home, I've got people (the best ones), I also have the extreme propensity to drift sideways there instead of making progress on what I want to do. There's going to be bullshit everywhere, but at least I know the nature of it and how to deal with it back home. Plus I love it there.

Philadelphia-EXTREMELY drastic/unlikely I'll get into UPenn (I would shit myself if I did), out of state tuition, cold weird different. They have a $3 special citywide that consists of a shot of Jameson and a PBR, that's the only good thing I've heard. Does anyone know anything about Philly?

I am also open to other suggestions, shit whoa future. What is someone supposed to do?