I think I finally get it.

I never thought I’d find myself feeling the need, however legitimate, to get myself a DSLR camera. I’ve got a great SLR and a great little digital camera, both Canon, and they both have served me very well for their respective purposes. I took a few photography classes in high school, and they were the best way to get a class credit for a term I ever could have imagined. I learned a lot and had a great time and I have a portfolio I’m pretty proud of from those days. My digital camera works like a dream for my non-artistic photography endeavors – gatherings, concerts, snapshots, whatever.

It never occurred to me that a mix of the two would make my life better until I took them both out shooting yesterday. It was a beautiful Saturday evening and I went to the park near my apartment to play with the light. I shot SLR until I was out of film and then I switched to digital and felt the difference instantly. I missed being able to tweak my focus and my depth of field, but I was loving being able to see my photos immediately and switch instantly back and forth between B&W and color. The combination would be the best of both worlds!

Eventually I found myself taking digital photos and making a mental note to come back to the park at the same time of day once I’ve got more film and have gotten my SLR’s battery changed. I want to do up some of these shots for real-style.

somebody intervene. please.

My name is Abby, and I have a problem: I’m going broke on books I don’t have time to read.

The main problem is the fact that there are two bookstores and a library between my apartment and my school. If it were just a library, there wouldn’t be a problem – libraries are free, after all, and my library card is perfectly good. The thing is, though, that the library is across the street from three great restaurants, and my walk home from school hovers right around lunchtime every day. So instead of going broke on lunch in restaurants every day, I alter my route and therefore walk by Borders or Barnes & Noble (or both, if I’m blessed/cursed by fate). I have to say it is taking every iota of willpower I can muster to keep me from going in there more than once a week, and I buy books every time.

Here’s the thing. I’d pack myself a bag lunch and just go to the library, but that’s not how I read. I’m a college student. I rarely get all of my required reading done, unless I’m “speed reading” (a mostly-useless endeavor which for me consists of idly turning pages while on the phone), in which case there is little to no comprehension of the material involved. Needless to say, I don’t exactly do a lot of reading for pleasure unless I’m on a break from school, and given my penchant for taking summer classes those times are rare these days.

So if I stopped at the library on my way home, it’d be pretty disastrous. I’d check out book after book, bring them home, set them on my counter and ignore them for weeks. A year or so ago this wouldn’t have been a problem, since I had a convenient family member who could theoretically have made fines disappear (why did I never take advantage of that?!). Fortunately for her and unfortunately for me, she managed to find herself an awesome new job, leaving me high and dry in library-land. So, if I chose that route home, I would be going broke on fillo wrapped brie parcels and library fines, as opposed to just tasty lunchtime treats.

you are my brother, brothers forever

For starters, I just saw the best American Idol segment ever. I can’t even describe it, but I laughed for four straight minutes. “You are my glory. Simon.”

What I was originally getting at, though, involves the fact that I walk by a Pier 1 every morning on my way to school. Every morning, I see this awesome display of stemless wine glasses, and every morning it catches my eye. I’d drink everything out of those glasses. I’d drink my morning coffee out of those glasses. With a straw, so I wouldn’t have to touch the ridiculous hot glass. But still! I’d eat cereal out of these things. I love them. See them here, at Crate & Barrel because Pier 1 has the most misguided website in the history of the world (part 1).

I figured I’d write this entry to get myself warmed up and psyched to write in my “blog” for one of my English classes. I have to write about my homegirl the Wife of Bath, from the Canterbury Tales. Instead, I’m zeroing out my Google Reader checker counter thingy and watching Sanford & Son at Jill & Clare’s.

Productive.

Super duper productive.

-@

more than a feelin’

I have approximately three (3) buttloads of reading to do for tomorrow. I haven’t looked at my assignments yet, actually, so I can’t be sure, but I do know that I have my most reading-intensive classes back-to-back-to-back tomorrow morning and that gives me the vaguest of senses that I should maybe be doing something.

So I ate a very long dinner while watching nine episodes of Scrubs, and now I’m updating this blog instead of getting started. There are a few reasons for that. One is the fact that I thought up another thing to put on my wishlist: a nice new bike. A street bike with a ladies’ frame. I like the seating position of street bikes, and I like the handlebars, and my current bike is a) too small for me, b) a piece of crap that cost $45 new at Target, and c) rusting into oblivion because I leave it outside all the time.

Cool.

I also am developing a new plan for this blog, maybe? Instead of publishing eighteen thousand little entries in the same day, I’m going to hit “Save” instead of “Publish” each time and just publish the one no more often than once per day.

We’ll see how that goes.

For the record, I actually am enjoying my classes this quarter very much. I have crushes on both my English professors, friends to sit with for Hebrew Bible, and Statistics is early and boring but easy. That being said, I still don’t want to get started on the reading but since I’m basically out of things to write about here I suppose I must.

Oh, except I thought of some more things I wanted to say! Not only am I using this little Internet space of mine to keep track of my miscellaneous wishes for miscellaneous things, but I am also going to use it to keep track of miscellaneous recipes that I have for miscellaneous things so I don’t have to worry about losing little bits of paper! Here’s what I’ve got so far, just so the “recipes” category isn’t so lonely…

wish list imports

I’m just about the worst person in the world at informing the world what I want for various birthdays and holidays at the drop of a hat. There’s always stuff I want that I come up with at random times throughout the year, but when you put me on the spot it just flies out of my head. I’ve tried to keep wish lists going but I always lose them.

But even I can’t misplace the entire Internet, right?

Let’s hope:

• This one’s pretty simple: an iPhone. Probably never going to happen, but I never said this list was realistic.
• A new drill. 7.2 volts just aren’t cutting it for much. This one would do nicely.
• This watch. I have gone through three watches in as many years: a broken band whose replacement is extremely hard to find, a crappy HRC timepiece whose face is impossible to read, and the watch my sister gave me that I actually really like. But I still want the one I linked above, mostly because I used to have a Swiss Army watch and I don’t know what happened to it, but I miss it.
• This backpack. I like it.
• A cookbook stand.

Got spare cash? Buy me this stuff!

-@