Who can resist Cinnamon Bun?

Tattoos are usually really cliche and boring. One I can't get out of my head was the "dancing nancy", from Dave Matthews' Stand Up album cover on the small of a fan's back a couple years ago. The figure itself is lovely and it was an identical image, but at the end of the day, you have a picture from an album tattooed on your back. Come on.

Now I love Dave as much as the next Jane, but when you reach a certain level of pothead-fame, it's like having a koala bear with a jester's hat tattooed on your arm (or whatever the hell the Dead's logo is). But there was one I'll never forget, maybe because the adorning artwork was so delicate. There were two vividly colored coy swimming around the words ....we're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl.... And somehow, I have no idea how she managed it, but it was not tacky in the least. Probably because there are few lyrics as true as those.

Thus I arrive at my latest goal; to pay some sort of homage to all of the "Art" that inspires me without sounding like a toolbag of doucheyness(i say it in quotes because I am so wary of scenesters at this point that I'm afraid to even say the a-word)--which is what this girl managed to do in an awesomely unjaded fashion. It was almost like the words themselves proclaimed how aware she was that we're all just losers wandering aimlessly and if anyone thinks they're remotely cooler than anyone else, they deserve a slap in the mouth--and therefore, she was allowed to have such a tattoo. Like "hey guys, I'm with you...I just thought it would look cool tattooed with some really groovy looking fish". Hooray for irony that doesn't suck

I haven't written in a while because I'm still sort of stuck in the whole why-would-anyone-blog-instead-of-write-in-a-diary-i.e.-no-one-gives-a-shit-about-what-you-think-anyway frame of mind, but I'm starting to see that that's not the way it has to be. If you have a contribution, it's nice to share. And continuing from my last post, with that picture from London, I am PRAYING that I get into The London School of Economics. For some reason, one of the most prestigious schools in the UK costs TONS less than Boston University and also offers the coolest joint program I've come across so far. (Oh damn, I have to live in London for a year and earn my Master of Science, and then jet on over to LA for the second year to earn my Master of Arts from USC. I guess I can make an adjustment... COME ON). I'm almost certain I won't get in but that's just being realistic. However, if I do, you'll probably hear me whoop for joy from here in joisey.

Anyhow, so long as I don't fall off the wagon and let the UK's ridiculous lack of self-control and morality taint me too much, I suppose it will be, for lack of a better phrase, the time of my life. Granted, if my recent adventures are to be of evidence, I better join AA now, but I figure I'm just getting all the silliness out of my system before it's time to buckle down, and stop considering Starbucks a real job. I mean yes I pulled an "oh shit I definitely left my credit card at library" but when the bartenders make you a literal mind eraser (not those pansy shots the state school kids do thinking they're badass--what are they like sprite and schnapps?), but a Library-after-hours-$6 pint of black hole induction, you're lucky that the only evidence left of your debauchery is a forgotten credit card and a polaroid of you eating "the crazy roommates"' ice cream like a friggin' deer in the headlights. But then again, you know it's time to move on when PICTURES of you doing things are getting you into trouble WHILE YOU'RE STILL DOING THEM. I'd like to thank Chuck for bringing back the Polaroid.

And on that note, here's hoping.

Did you get your autograph?

Writing a song is damn near impossible on the first shot. Usually it comes to me while I'm like humming something else on the subway and since I'm apparently living in the 80s and refuse to get an iPhone, I have no way of recording the little diddle. Actually, come to think of it, my ramshackle phone does have a recorder, but I've never been one to sing on the train.

I bring that up because that's how I felt lying (lay, lie, lain, whatever) in bed last night, thinking of what to name this cockamamey thing and debated getting OUT of bed to write the idea on a postit. Milkorwhiskey may someday make a reappearance, but for now, I'm thinking of my grandpa, and so a spinoff of Landslide lyrics wins out. Point is, it's also damn near impossible to be original anymore. I mean totally original.

My taste has never screamed original though, and I don't say that in a "I'm so hip, I set trends by rolling out of bed" way, I just mean for someone who laughs at practically everything, I don't laugh at what everyone else laughs at. The most poignant part of Slumdog Millionaire (saw it last night) was not the kiss at the end, or even the reunion with the singing boy (though that was a close second). It was the flashback at the end to the autograph. If we could all be so brave and

guileless

as Jamal. How many of us would jump through human waste to greet our idol? How many would risk seeming totally insane to try to get what we want?

Our waitress at the diner last night (remember, still in NJ) had to be in her 70s and she asked me if I was "the sister or the mommy" (good lord), but after a bit, she said "When we were kids it took FOREVER for Christmas to come around the next year! Now Christmas was last month." You never stop being young, it just so happens your body does.

Speaking of young, this is one of my favorite pictures from London, where we studied abroad. I'll never forget this night. I don't talk to the subjects much anymore, but I can still feel my heart racing, running to take this picture.