As a concept, Go Fug Yourself is completely catty and banal way of making money: harping on celebrities for the terrible outfits they put together.  But they don’t doodle on anyone’s face and say “har har, that dress makes you look fat, ya dumb whore.”  Instead, they provide me with the biggest laughs from any blog.  Those two girls are sharp and witty without being pretentious or mean.  And I have been giggling here for a while about a Marie Claire cover featuring Beyonce with slightly raised eyebrows that most people would probably look right over, but the Fug Girls interpret it otherwise:

Her face looks like she’s ten seconds away from stalking up to a dude in a bar and blabbering, “Hey baby, I think you’re really cute, and I think we should go back to your place and I’ll make you my mother’s special omelet recipe tomorrow morning and then we can go to the park and pet some dogs but I’m allergic to dogs so we can’t go out and buy a dog together which is FINE because we SHOULDN’T do that anyway until you’ve met my mother BUT SHE’S GOING TO LOVE YOU, AND THIS BAR DOESN’T SELL ESPRESSO AND OH MY GOD I’M GOING TO NEED ONE SO IF YOU DON’T HAVE AN ESPRESSO MACHINE THEN WE’LL HAVE TO REGISTER FOR ONE WHEN WE GET MARRIED, AND I DON’T BELIEVE IN GETTING HITCHED DURING FOOTBALL SEASON BUT APRIL WOULD  BE A GREAT TIME SO LET’S CHECK OUR CALENDARS TONIGHT AND PICK A DATE AND WE’RE ALSO THROWING OUT ALL YOUR SHIRTS BECAUSE THEY’RE UGLY AND NO MORE NINTENDO AND COULD YOU PLEASE JUST ORDER ME A GODDAMN DIET COKE OR A CAPPUCCINO OR SOMETHING BECAUSE I WANT TO BE REEEEEEEEEEEEEALLY AWAKE TONIGHT WHEN WE CONSUMMATE OUR ENGAGEMENT!!!!!”

Class.

I don’t really get jewelry.

By this I’m implying that I get most other things.  I get why an outfit is fashionable and how to make one similar.  I get why mixing old and new is the ‘it’ thing in interior design and why it’s okay to mash up patterns.  I get which song elements seem to rouse everyone who hears it, even if I couldn’t compose it myself.  Hell, I get why some event posters around campus are more effective than others (FONTS, people).

Maybe it’s because those things have been explained to me in one way or another.  Simon Cowell and Martha Stewart and Heidi Klum all make sure I get it, and that everyone who watches gets it, and now that’s why we all throw out words like “pitchy” and “fierce” and “neck elongation” and “make it work”.  (Although I don’t know where I learned so much about the personalities of fonts.)

It took me a while to get shoes, because I couldn’t understand who in this world would bother looking at other people’s feet.  Somewhere along the line, I realized I couldn’t STOP staring at feet, and that is when I knew I got shoes.  I get scarves and gloves.  Belts I’ve never worn, so I should admit that I don’t know much about belts.

But the item of vanity I know the least about is jewelry.  I don’t get it. The only jewelry I wear is a glass drop bead necklace I got from Silpada and a silver claddagh ring, both of which my mom gave me ages ago.  I put them on everyday without a second thought. That’s because they were gifts, and they mean something, and I love things that mean things.  But that stuff you’ve got to pick for yourself to show off some personality?  When I am in a shop and end up in front of the accessories rack, I have no idea what to think.  My eye is never drawn to any one thing.  I don’t know what looks cheap and what doesn’t, and whether at my age it’s okay for something to look cheap.  I don’t know what’s garish and what’s not.  I always end up panicking and foregoing any of it.

Something tells me I am not ever going to get a jewelry-making reality show tentatively titled Accessories Smackdown, and if it ever did come on TV I would absolutely not watch it because wow, BORING.  Instead, I am just going to have to figure it out for myself: sit down with it in all its pieces and put it together until I like it, until I get it.  As I determined for myself long ago, I need something to do with my hands to keep me happy, or at least sane, to steady my hands when neuroses get out of control.  Last summer I did jigsaw puzzles and counted change.  During the year before that I crocheted an afghan blanket.  I played instruments in the many years before that, and basketball.  These past few weeks I’ve been cranky, realizing that I didn’t yet have any new craft that really grabbed my interest, and I thought, terrific, now I’ll just be an irritably spazzy-handed nutjob with too much time and no money.

But then today I went to look at a room to rent that I really loved; it was gigantic, part of a nice Georgian house in a quiet and conveniently located area.  A large bed, a large wardrobe, plenty of shelf space, and in the corner I suddenly pictured myself crouched over the table with a string of wire and box of beads, watching Buffy after a long day at the internship and waiting for my boyfriend to come over so we can make dinner.  I realized that’s exactly the summer I want this time around, and that is the activity I want to keep me occupied.

And then if anyone asks me why I’m wasting so much time and energy on vanity, I’ll say what are you talking about, I thought I told you: I don’t get jewelry.  I’m selling this shit on Etsy to those suckers who do.  Get me a few bob.

Well I went on maybe the best, most relaxing holiday to Gran Canaria two weeks ago, where it was sunny and comfortable the whole time, and everything was cheap, and it was a whole lot of smiles and lazing about and then getting up and doing something fun.  When we came back, the two weeks of previous rain had still not let up, and aside from a brief window of what I may call “sun” and you may call “cloud cover” today, it still has not stopped.  It has literally been raining for a month straight.  I can’t even comprehend blue skies anymore.

Promptly upon returning from my trip, I needed to begin studying for the literary theory exam, which I took today and am sure I passed.

So if you have been waiting these past few weeks for something more substantial, I’m afraid that’s about it.

I could possibly imply that there was a dramatic exchange with my parents, having accumulated for months, over their apparent inability to express good will towards me.  Not that they felt ill will towards me, but life went topsy-turvy and suddenly Bizarro Ma & Pa could not muster a single “good luck” from under all that “you’re poor” and “do you seriously not have a job yet” and “what the hell are you doing over there anyway.”  There were some lengthy emails being sent, some sobby phone calls being made, and some big fat sorries on both sides, but that too is now resolved (at least until they realize again that I still don’t have a job).

Summer is usually marked by school letting out, or the café job, or moving back home, or, you know, HEAT, but none of that is here.  I feel I could easily just drift through the next few months the way I passed through the last few–waiting for the next day, eating horrible food, lazing about while I type type type, planning my day around huge events like shaving my legs–but I’ve become pretty frigging amazing at making my summers times of progress, times when I get little things done that add up and up.  So even though I already have one? two? lists already going that I don’t plan on analyzing until the start of next year, I’m going to add another, more immediate one to the fray.

• Enjoy reading again. Because I kind of hate it right now.  BC makes me read about five books per week, which keeps me in the habit, whereas Trinity practically discourages reading as something those UCD kids would do.  I was all excited to go to the bookstore before holidays, and then I got there and went, “…I don’t want ANYTHING.”  I ended up getting this cat book, which I could have read in about 4th grade.  I’m attempting to get through John Grisham, but I find him too boring a writer.  I don’t want anything too heavy, I’d like to have some laughs and some excitement.  Quite honestly, I wish I’d brought Harry Potter here, but I didn’t so I’ll just have to make due with reading some other stuff.  Stuff like,
  * The Complete Novels, Flann O’Brien
  * The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri
  * The Lost World, Michael Chrichton
  * Any other suggestions?
• Make significant headway on my thesis. This will require reading Flann O’Brien first.
• Walk for an extended period of time everyday. I walk so much more than I used to because that’s how you get around in Dublin, but now that class is over and most days I have no reason to leave my flat, I just don’t.  The weather doesn’t help, but I need to get out more, and as cranky as I get when I hear the suggestion, I know it.
• Make as many weekend getaways as possible. They are my favorite parts of the week, just the two of us, and I want to see at least one more country before leaving.
• Organize my computer. Files, folders, favorites, passwords, pictures, buddy list.  Defrag, declutter.  Also, if I can manage it, take off the back and clean out all the dust and dog hair so that my fan stops trying to fly us to space.
• Write something new. The old story just isn’t going to make it, I think.  I want to write something, maybe something short, that I can be proud of, which moves me and others.
• Go for a swim with some frequency. Aqua jogging is good for my knees.  And I think I still get to use the Trinity pool over summer.
• Do stomach crunches before bed. Seriously, I don’t care how many skinny comments I get, ya’ll do not know the sort of gut I’m sporting these days.  I eat frozen pizza with alarming regularity.
• Learn to cook more meals. My man likes a woman in the kitchen.  Unless it’s his kitchen because I’m probably going to break or burn something.  Any good meal-for-two ideas?

Maybe that’s all I need for right now.  Maybe I’ll update it again at some point.  After all, the only thing that’s really on my immediate to-do list is

• NAP.