First I’d like to say: Sorry.

But.

I am just so incredibly glad I was forced to take Introduction to Typing the summer before my freshman year of high school. I cannot imagine having to look down at my fingers in the middle of every word, even though during the actual course, I remember thinking “This is too hard, why don’t I just fake it and then continue to have to look down at my fingers in the middle of every word? It can’t take that long. It won’t be that much of a hindrance in the long run. Meanwhile, I can continue scoping out all these losers in my class who already think they’re cooler than me, even though they have no idea, and by the way one of those girls is wearing Keds.”

No, it definitely would have taken that long. SO LONG. Get this: I am such a fast typist! I just typed that entire paragraph without even a thought! I am writing without thinking! What could be better?! (Anything.)

Honestly, have you ever really considered the connection, if there is one, between knowing how to type very well and actually… writing? Very well, or even writing at all? If I couldn’t type, could I really write? Would everything come out the same? Would it come out better, since I’d have more time to stare at it and then decide that it sucked, and then delete it quickly before hitting… PUBLISH?

SERIOUSLY I SOMETIMES CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I K-N-O-W H-O-W TO DO THIS!

I don’t care what you say. Typing is seriously impressive. It’s become instinctive, expected, taken for granted. People don’t realize how talented they are. Do you realize that if an extra-terrestrial, or a child, or a person from the 1800s sidled up to you while you were typing, you would blow their minds? They’d think you were awesome. And you are awesome. Let’s all give ourselves a pat on the back for knowing how to type.

Clearly I’m a little drunk. Hello, family vacation! “Fresh margs?”

P.S. What is with that photo? All I did was image-search “keyboard.” At first I was going to put up a pic of a piano-style board, just to be a little cryptic and also insinuate that typing/writing was not all that different than playing the keyboard — you know, creating music, man — but then I came across this gross board with weeds, or maybe weed, growing out of it, so I obviously had to use that. Thanks, other people’s images.

MY DVR/LIFE PARTNER DID NOT TAPE TOP MODEL.
I fear we may have to break up.

Fittingly (who says that?), I took this glamour-shot self-portrait of me looking forlorn in the NYU library, attempting to work on my thesis. Looking good, Annie! It was probably right around 8 pm. Maybe I was subconsciously sensing my life partner’s severely depressing malfunction. We’re pretty close like that.

I’m so much sadder now than I was in the library. And look how sad I was there! There wasn’t even water in that bottle, and all my snacks were gone. Don’t you just want to feed me iceberg lettuce and discounted Reese’s eggs?

For some reason, “sadder” is striking me as possibly not a word. But that’s crazy talk. I’m going to leave it. Of course it’s a word. My perception of what a word is is effed-up right now anyway. If I have to read over-inflated academic words like “metastable” and “disequilibrium ” all night, I’m sure as hell going to say “sadder.” Also “funner.”

So instead of the Top Model Ten, I’ll leave you with a prime example of those pesky Grad School Sentences Annie Pretends She Totally Gets:

“Immanentist, de-individuating, posthumanist ontologies might be said to enact their own paralyzing rhetoric of addiction: deterritorializing responsibility, they ensure the transnational consumption of compulsion.”

Exactly. I coudln’t have said it any better myself. (Because I don’t know what thirty percent of the words mean. Right. Supersmart!)

First of all, tell me if these earrings are as cool as I think they are right this second. That feathery turquoise thing is… a feather. Knowing me, I will wake up tomorrow and change my mind about them. How’s about you do that for me, or tell me they’re really cute. I don’t care either way. Honesty is encouraged. For your benefit, I did not look at the camera and instead took my own photo while glued to a horribly mediocre episode of Survivor. Only the best for our readers.

Also in Weird Things I Wear news, you can tell I haven’t done laundry in about three months when I end up wearing magenta socks with flowers on them that Dee sent me in a box, likely as a cute “aren’t these funny?” joke. Unless it was an unfunny “aren’t these cute” plea and she was serious. Either way, I find these socks rather humorous and kept laughing at them whilst writing my paper on the schizophrenic nature of Instant Messenger. Some people have requested to read this paper, so I put it online. Do not click unless you are interested. It’s not for everyone. But if you’re addicted to IM or once were, go for it.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you that reading the entire thing will be 20 to 90 minutes you will never, ever get back. Also, “bleeckerbimbo” and “parannieoia” are names I created for the paper. Do not put them on your buddy list. They will never be used again.

One of my paper-writing tactics relates to food. Actually, most of them do, but I thought I’d share one of my favorites. The PB&J-per-page is a very effective technique to use between the hours of 3-8 a.m. The way it works is: I write a page, I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (Sure you got that? It’s one of my more complicated techniques, so read that last sentence over if you need to.) To save time, I make at least four sandwiches at once, like so. Now, even if you never eat PB&J, admit that is a tantalizing photo. Or maybe it’s just me. It usually is.

Pay attention. You will be tested.

The kind of organ which the telephone duplicates, replaces, or protects may itself be subject to multiple displacements (psychoanalysis has argued convincingly for the symbolic exchangeability of anus and ear, for instance).

When we are seeking the essence of “tree,” we have to beome aware that That which pervades every tree, as tree, is not itself a tree that can be encountered among all the other trees.

Ooh, wait, this one’s a doozy:

We ordinarily take “that which is” to be whatever is in being. For the “is” is asserted of what is in being. But now everything has turned about. Insight does not name any discerning examination [Einsicht] into what is in being that we conduct for ourselves; insight [Einblick] as in-flashing [Einblitz] is the disclosing coming-to-pass of the constellation of the turning within the coming to presence of Being itself, and that within the epoch of Enframing. That which is, is in no way that which is in being. For the “it is” and the “is” are accorded to what is in being only inasmuch as what is in being is appealed to in respect to its Being. In the “is,” “Being” is uttered: that which “is,” in the sense that it constitutes the Being of what is in being, is Being.

I don’t have time to go into it right now but sometime soon I’m going to write something good about grad school. The above doesn’t even slice the surface of the giant duality that is the simultaneous awe/appreciation and digust/rejection involved in approaching theoretical writing like this. Occasionally, I’ll read something and feel exalted, like I’ve just arrived at the precise point of what someone was trying to say. (The certainty floats away by my next regularly scheduled snack.) Other times I sit there, reading a sentence for the fifth time and trying not to count the number of times words like “epistemological,” “hermeneutical,” and “synecdoche” appear on a page. Then I wonder why it has to be that way when everyone knows there are easier ways to say things. Then I wonder if anyone I go to school with can tell that I still have no clue what hermeneutics are. It’s too late to ask! I’m too far gone.

Here’s a picture of a list James wrote out last year for some more loathsome examples of the “quota words” — things that people in class sprinkle into their comments as if they need to meet a I’m A Total Academic Bastard quota. With a lot of these clowns I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t know what the words meant, either. At least I don’t say mine out loud. If you’re wondering, yes, that does say “Judith Butler,” and we never gave James enough credit for the hilarity of that.

If you look really hard and can read his loopy printing, you’ll also notice “hermeneutical” on there as well. It was so embarrassing — we were sitting around shouting out words to be included on the Do Not Say list (we’re really cool) and I had to just fake like I knew what it meant. You should have seen me. I probably did the overcompensatory “Oh, yeah, of course, hermeneutical…” face that just does not work on me at all. They all totally knew.

You’re still here? You should have realized you were being Punk’d like 500 words ago.

Tried out my new Lisa Frank notebook at school today. It’s my only class, so I’m really going for it with the SS. Check out an excerpt:

I held it up for my friend James and he was like, “That’s awesome!” and I was like, “Uh, I know.” Hello! Weirdo.

I am currently studying for my “Poetic Structure and Genre” exam. Grad students aren’t supposed to take exams. We’re supposed to write 20-page-long nightmares that not even our professors will read (and we won’t even read twice). I feel like a college sophomore cramming for my bio quiz the next day. Incidentally, I almost failed college biology.

Oh wait.