How to survive a break up

Buy a jar of Nutella. Eat the shit out of it. Put Nutella on everything. Bread, rice cakes, fruit, a fork, everything. There is nothing that Nutella doesn't enhance. You are dead wrong if you think otherwise. Nutella is ambrosia.

Talk to your bffles. A lot. Complain about (insert sex of choice). Have an online drinking date. Be nostalgic. Do not under any circumstances drink to the point of vomitting.

Listen to Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black". Listen to Nina Simone. Listen to Slayer. Listen to music that makes you feel the whole spectrum of pain. Listen to LOTS of Dio. Country music (real country, not this I got drunk and key'd my ex's car radio bullshit) is solid pain music, as well.

Watch 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' as many times as you can. You get dumped in a particularly brutal fashion? Were you naked during it? Yeah, this movie can one up you. Once you feel better, watch 'Annie Hall'.

Allow yourself to have moments of manic behavior but don't get caught up in it. That Dr. Horrible DVD is totally justified but bidding on Joss Whedon's soul is not.

Last but not least, get over it. Bitches come and go. You can always make somebody else like you.

HAH

Films everyone should see

One: Let the Right One In


Swedish vampire movie. It looks fantastic.

Two: Milk


The trailer made me cry.

Happy Day of Giving Thanks

I am thankful for my neurotic family.
I am thankful for my friends.
I am thankful for my health, my job, and my life.

Most of all, I am thankful that in the past year my life has been at the highest I've ever known and the lowest and ultimately I've learned that NOTHING is the end of the world. Shit happens. You move on.

Now, I am going to get out of my food coma, drink some champagne with my Mom, and talk about BOYYYYYYYYYYS. I've decided for Christmas I'm going to ask for DAVID TENNANT, of which I am ALSO thankful for. Even if the rat-bastard is leaving the Tardis.

Love

Who doesn't do whack ass shit in the name of trying to find'the one'? Eh. I tried. It was just really nice for once to have a really attractive guy find me really attractive.

Well, such is life. I'm an adult. I deal.


THAT BEING SAID HOLY FUCKING SHIT TOMORROW IS EAT TURKEY AND GET FAT DAY! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Holy fracking mackerel.

History just happened.

Brain dump

I don't like thinking about
-Taking the MAT's/GRE's.
-Really getting on top of my eating habits. I did so well this summer and then well, got back into my crappy relationship. Eugh. Damn it.
-What I'm going to do with my life. Yes, I have a plan, but oddly enough, plans never really work.

Regardless, in the next few months I have a ton of work I need to do. My volunteering needs to be kicked up, I need to read more, write more, study more, make more friends, etc.

MAT's need to be taken in January. Early January. Letters of recommendation, the same. I need to get in touch with the Emergency Director for the Red Cross, like tomorrow. I need to stop fucking around, lying to myself, doubting my abilities or my intelligence. The only times I feel slightly less intelligent than I know I am is when I'm around people who are gifted in areas that I'm not familiar with/know nothing about. Ok, big deal, you learn.

Looking back on my behavior my senior year of high school and even when I was applying to Millersville, how I did all of it without breaking a sweat is beyond me. I got into every school I applied to (some sort of karmic joke, I guess), I got into MU without a problem, got into my backup school (Temple) without a problem, etc. Now, I know I have to worry. I know my weaknesses. At this point, I'm making up for lost time.

Last but not least, I should stop beating myself up. On that note, walk more, work hard, play harder, enjoy.

Pornography

I met a young lady who works in porn. WOMEN FRIENDLY PORN, AT THAT! How exciting, especially since I'm the last girl, ever, to watch porn.

Yep. For all of my raging perversions (of which I am finding out now ain't shit!) I've never watched porn.

Here is her website. There is zombie porn listed as one of her recent reviews (J.D. Bauchery). Again, HOW NEAT!

On that note, I'm going to go find pants, pay my late rent, and then find some very strong coffee.

Halloween or just a good excuse to dress like a slut

Thus far my 'good' ideas for Halloween were, Sarah Palin (which would be crazy easy), Clementine, a zombie (lawl, easy), or Velma from Scooby Doo (which I've been for the past two years).

For shits and giggles, I may try to be Amanda Palmer. Nobody will get it but it will give me an excuse to wear black and white striped thigh highs (now I have to find a skirt to go with it) and run around with my hair a giant curly mess, white face paint, and the brightest whore red lipstick I can find.

This is a terrible idea. Clementine would be so much easier.

Stupid parties and what not.

Happiness abounds

So, part of my whole personal growth project (my therapist rocks!) is learning how to be an advocate for myself. For those of you who've never had a problem in your life, it comes normally.

After years of abusive relationships, it's really difficult for me to stick up for myself. I dated a dude for a hot second who controlled my life, in every aspect. I ended it in a fit of my subconcious revolting against what we going on. Months later, we're still fighting. One of us says something to pull the other back in, we fight, rinse, wash, repeat.

So, I've decided to make more of an effort to cut people out of my life who don't appreciate me. Who don't value my quirky (and impulsive) nature along with other numerous positive (and negative) qualities. I am, what I am. I'm a work in progress. You never had faith in me. In my ideas, my beliefs, my intelligence, nothing. You're not good enough to be in my life, since you can't respect who I am.

On a happier note, I found season two of Buffy for twenty five bucks yesterday. Then I proceeded to make a lot of amazing food, drink heavily, and sleep in till noon today.

Life is pretty fantastic.




EDIT:

Keith Olbermann, I love you. That and you're a stone cold fox through the ages.

My Mom thinks I'm a terrorist.

I'm a bad kid. I keep traumatizing my Mom. My Mom knew of 'The Facebook' from seeing me on it at home but she had no idea what it was. One of her friends asked her if I was on it and then found me (I blame myself for having my profile open to search for a day or two).

My name on Facebook is, Brooke Hussein Tomlinson. The Hussein is there after reading an article in the New York Times on the Internet generation showing solidarity for Barack Hussein Obama and trying to educate people on the fact that his middle name, Hussein, does not have to have terroristic connotations. Article found here. Unfortunately, people are still ignorant. The cunt of a daughter of the man who friended me, turned down my friend request (Facebook politics can suck it. I added her out of obligation since she ate dinner with my family and it was suggested I try to befriend her since she has no friends) because she, "didn't want to be affiliated with anyone who associated with terrorists."

So, my Mom thinks that someday down the road people are going to remember the fact that 'Hussein' was up as part of my name on Facebook and I will be denied job oppurtunities. Bear in mind my name has been Brooke Panda Tomlinson, Saffron Reynolds, Brooke Panda-Reynolds, Panda Tomlinson, Brooke, Brooke Trouble Tomlinson, etc. OH WELL!

Moral of this story, rofl, Internet, rofl.

What being a nerd has done for me

So, after last month (cancer, being let go from my job, breaking up with my boyfriend, etc.) I've spent a lot of time reflecting on my life and the positive things in it. Today I was thinking about how odd it would be if I wasn't a nerd. One of my co-workers was giving me a hard time about my "million dollar vocabulary" (I used the word clandestine to describe why I kept my Facebook profile private) and I just stopped to think.

When I was eight or nine, I fell in love with Star Trek/Star Wars. I would watch The Next Generation on syndication every night, attended a convention where I got to meet the late, great, James Doohan. Every argument I was in, in elementary school, stemmed from the fact that I was an out and proud Trekkie. Eventually, I caved in to the peer pressure and stopped watching Star Trek. Comic books became my next obsession, followed by Star Wars role-playing. In high school, I fixated on C.S. Lewis and 'subversive' literature (so, Sylvia Plath isn't too subversive).

Now, here I am. I'm twenty-five and I've come flying out of the nerd closet, again, after keeping my nerdyness contained to THE INTERNET.

Yes, I love Star Trek. I love nerdy books. Science Fiction is to me what drugs and alcohol are to other people; a means of escaping from an often times brutal reality. Being a nerd has given me the best friend I could ever ask for in the entire world. Being a nerd has given me the two loves of my life. Being a nerd has helped me make some of the best friends, ever. Being a nerd has taught me that shit is never that bad, you could be de-evolving into a spider and have a de-evolved Klingon chasing you about your own ship. Being a nerd has helped me land a job. Being a nerd means it is ALWAYS acceptable to have a crush on Wil Wheaton. Last but not least, being a nerd means that you can write a blog about being a nerd and Greg Park will comment with something nerdier than what you've written.

I did not kill Amanda Palmer

The album, "Who Killed Amanda Palmer" came out and it is amazing. Oh, the best part? The book that accompanies the album features Neil Gaiman and local Philly photographer, Kyle Cassidy.

Seeing Neil the other day was one of those, "I am delusional fan-girl but this is lovely." moments. There is nothing I can say at this point to adequately describe how wonderful it was, so here is a link to his site, where you can view the videos of him reading from his new book, which is lovely, to say the least. It's on my nightstand right now, on top of poor Salman Rushdie's "The Satantic Verses" and Watchmen. Big pile of nerdery. I'm getting as much "not work" reading in as possible these days. There will be another blog, soon, about the impending disaster that is my work + internship + grad school applying (MAT/GRE studyin', then takin'). The equation will remain incomplete for the time being.

Fin. Time to finish my laundry, get dinner, and then EXHUMED! Tonight I get the pleasure of seeing Halloween 2 and Eaten Alive, ON TEH BIG SCREEN.

Halloween: Covert Style

I think I may be Sarah Palin for Halloween this year. I do have the hair and the glasses to pull it off. All I need is a moose beanie baby (which I have) and the outfit is complete, hahahahaha.

So glad this month is almost over

Oh, fuck it. I'm gonna have a party. New job starts on Oct 6th (first rule about blogging is you don't blog about work, right? No.). It's a young-ish office and I work with a woman I've known from livejournal (NERD!) for years. We're both huge Trekkies. She loves James T. Kirk and I love TNG. Should be interesting, to say the least. I feel like this is going to become UTI (Universal Technical Institute, not urinary tract infection) part II. Have an indifferent attitude towards work but love my coworkers and become emotionally destroyed when I leave. Or not so much destroyed but I'm a big fan of dramatics (what? Don't judge me.).

With this new job, comes a new salary, new friends, new work environment, etc. I'm one step closer to gentrifying into a "sell out". Whatever, it's buying in, not selling out.

That being said, I am so excited for this week. Wednesday is Neil Gaiman Day! Hooray! Which means that somewhere around that celebration, I'll get to meet the fantastical Kyle Cassidy (who encouraged me to wear my Watchmen shirt to the book signing). B.Tom gains 25 nerd points!


Now to exit these destructive relationships and stand on my own. Insults will be traded, feelings will be hurt, but ultimately, I know this isn't where I belong. I have no idea where I belong but I think I'll take some time to figure it out.

Californication AKA my inability to fixate on a "real" male

I'm behind on the "hip" TV shows. Weeds lost my attention this season (Nancy Botwin, you are a mess) and as much as I love Belle De Jour's blog (and Billie Piper's ass for that matter) I'm not interested in the second season. Last season of Dexter was too awesome and I refuse to watch it anymore since nothing else will make me go, "WHAT?! WHAAAAT!" more than the last season's final episode.

That being said, I've blown through the first season of the X-Files in my post-surgery "not allowed to do anything fun" fest. My nerdy mind has exploded. I decided to watch Duchovney's new show, Californication... little did I know some writer somewhere had loved Bukowski's "Women" (which reminds me, I lent out my copy of it... now to whom...) as much as I did. This writer presumably went out and consumed as much cheap wine/whiskey as humanly possible then wrote a whole series about it.

First off, the main character's name is Hank. Second, he's a sex addict. Third, he's in love with a woman whose the love of his life but he can never have back (due to their emotional fuck ups). He's a mysogonist, acerbic, sardonic, charismatic, drinks Jameson straight, and is going through a writing funk. My god.

Since my infuatation with Fox Mulder (it's easier to like people who aren't real, they never disapoint, make you cry, never not call, etc.) knows no bounds, I think it's perfectly rational to say that I'll be watching the rest of Season 1 tonight, while doing my internship reading.

It's easier for me to drown myself in fiction (science, non, anything) than to deal with the "what if's" of reality right now.

Updating for the sake of Karen

There is nothing really relevant that I can say at this point.

Mogwai was pretty awesome, my ears are still ringing. The night was made even better by utterly ridiculous texts from one V. Spicer.

The quest for employment is going.

How does one handle this, politely?

So, many of my Mom's friends have kids my age who are all getting engaged or getting hitched. Which is fine, I mean whatever floats your boat. Unfortunately, these kind hearted souls keep asking my Mom, "When is Brooke going to get engaged?"

My Mom handles it with grace and tact, "She's not seeing anyone special." or "I don't know, whenever she's ready."

Thankfully I have neither grace, nor tact. To put it mildly, it's annoying when people who are blissfully wed (in a day and age when 50% of people get divorced) try to make me feel bad for not being part of their club. I'm not engaged, nor do I want to be anytime in the immediate future. I'm queer so I have a 50% chance of not even being able to marry my hypothetical partner (unless we go to Vermont, California, etc.). Regardless, I'm 25. Why should I be engaged? What happened to being twenty something and care-free? I'm mature enough to admit that I am selfish. I like not having to report to someone, to have a financial responsibility like a marriage (or a child), to do my own damn thing.

A small part of this may be embitterment that I haven't met "the love of my life". That small part is choked to death and swallowed whole (anaconda style) by the common sense part of my brain that says the notion of having one love of my life is out-dated.

Thank God(s) for rationality. WOOOO!

Guten tag

Karen, I am updating.

At this juncture, my life is being consumed with the (se)X-Files, Black Books, Battles, and learning everything humanly possible about Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Martin Starr, and Judd Apatow. Sadly, none of these fandoms overlap.


Oh and a friend of a friend directed this so, yay!

After watching, After Hours, this morning I am officially convinced that Martin Scorsese did some really good drugs in the 80's. Also, he has no problem with uni-brows. The whole movie I kept thinking that Griffin Dunne (also known as THE DEAD GUY in An American Werewolf in London) was going to turn into a Maine Coon, what with the 'M' across his face. EEESH!

The things that DARE never taught you (brought to you by Cracked.com)

The 5 Greatest Things Ever Accomplished While High

#5 Francis Crick Discovers DNA Thanks to LSD

#4 Freud and Cocaine Invent Psychoanalysis

#3 A Coke Addict Makes a Coke-Flavored Cola and Calls it Coke

#2 Dock Ellis Trips His Way to a No-Hitter

#1 Moses Takes 'Shrooms, Shits Out Ten Commandments

Now, kiddies, hows about we discuss how all of this is glazed over (besides the Moses thing) in elementary school/middle school/high (rofl) school. Not to mention the correlation to early religion and drug use (it's common knowledge that people hopped up on goofballs back in the dark ages often saw "halos" aka light screwing with their pupils and walla! deity!).

That being said, I need to start delving into Dr. H.S. Thompson's work. Where do I start (besides Fear and Loathing)?

I love Upper Uwchalan Township

Asian massage parlor busted for prostitution... the location of the parlor was within a mile of the Upper Uwchlan Township Police station


Rofl. Oh, home. With your exotic massage parlors and silly police force.

For everyone who thinks I'm mean, acerbic, or even a bitch

This is my favorite thing in the entire world, a (polite!) panda bear with allergies. LOOK AT THEIR EARS!!!

Muppet Belz

Thanks, Best Week Ever.

Being a big damn Browncoat

Two words; Doctor Horrible.

My 'Beatle Mania' over all things Joss Whedon has taken on a whole new level. I've transcended into some higher plane of existence.

What is Dr. Horrible? Well, from the Facebook page it is, " The story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to."

It stars Doogie Howser (uh Neil Patrik Harris) as Dr. Horrible and Nathan Fillion (aka my Captain) as The Hammer. Oh and it's a "Sing-A-Long Blog".

This all started thanks to the WGA Strike. Here's Joss's answer (from the Dr. Horrible site) as to how it came to pass; "Once upon a time, all the writers in the forest got very mad with the Forest Kings and declared a work-stoppage. The forest creatures were all sad; the mushrooms did not dance, the elderberries gave no juice for the festival wines, and the Teamsters were kinda pissed. (They were very polite about it, though.) During this work-stoppage, many writers tried to form partnerships for outside funding to create new work that circumvented the Forest King system.

Frustrated with the lack of movement on that front, I finally decided to do something very ambitious, very exciting, very mid-life-crisisy. Aided only by everyone I had worked with, was related to or had ever met, I single-handedly created this unique little epic. A supervillain musical, of which, as we all know, there are far too few.

The idea was to make it on the fly, on the cheap – but to make it. To turn out a really thrilling, professionalish piece of entertainment specifically for the internet. To show how much could be done with very little. To show the world there is another way. To give the public (and in particular you guys) something for all your support and patience. And to make a lot of silly jokes. Actually, that sentence probably should have come first. "

It's been two years...

...Since I went to Michigan. My first real vacation and I spent 89% of it under the influence. Which isn't saying that Michigan is so unbearable that I had to drink but rather, it was so easy to roll out of bed at noon, have a drink with lunch, and just wander around Grand Rapids (which is probably one of the cutest, cleanest, friendliest cities, ever).

In the past two years my dear friend Loren has gone from living in his Dad's house in Lansing, to Grand Rapids, to Chicago, to Bowling Green, to Nashville, down to Florida, then New Orleans. He's in LA now, recording his second album and I couldn't be more proud of him.

Loren's pretentious website

Old meme, I don't care

In celebration of it being almost Friday

Jermaine Jackson & DEVO

Source: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/09/video-devo-and-jerma.html

Finally, an excuse to yell "GORRAMIT!" in public

How English Is Evolving Into a Language We May Not Even Understand

The targeted offenses: if you are stolen, call the police at once. please omnivorously put the waste in garbage can. deformed man lavatory. For the past 18 months, teams of language police have been scouring Beijing on a mission to wipe out all such traces of bad English signage before the Olympics come to town in August. They're the type of goofy transgressions that we in the English homelands love to poke fun at, devoting entire Web sites to so-called Chinglish. (By the way, that last phrase means "handicapped bathroom.")

But what if these sentences aren't really bad English? What if they are evidence that the English language is happily leading an alternative lifestyle without us?

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-07/st_essay

The key(s) to my heart; bacon & The Doctor

I'm going to attempt to make a balsamic-bacon vinaigrette sauce for green beans tonight. The best part is it's not even for a person I'm trying to impress. Just a fellow bacon enthusiast.

To balance out my meat consumption, last night for dinner I had Morning Star "hot wings". Doing my best to avoid eating the meat products located in the heart of West Philadelphia. Take that however you want.

So, Doctor Who made me cry (added bonus, I was on a train, so I was crying in public on public transportation). How British Sci-Fi can make me weepy eye'd but not The Notebook (any person who enjoyed that movie deserves to be punched in or about the throat), is beyond me. Oh, right, I'm the Anti-Girl.

Is it so wrong that something like metaphysics (because, essentially trans-dimensional time-travel and paradoxes is metaphysics) gets an emotional response out of me, rather than forced romantic bullshit? No. It'd be nice to have a culture where intellectual stimuli was considered socially acceptable and not some phoney-bologna "love story". That being said, I love Nine but I'd follow Ten until the ends of the universe. Something about a lanky Scot with goofy hair really does it for me.

More the goofy hair than the Scot.

I honestly never thought that it would be like this

A vast majority of last night was spent engaging in mental exercise. Which is kind of sad since I was at a 4th of July shindig, but on the other hand, it's the sort of thing that I live for.

To quote Henry Rollins, "I want a woman who can sit me down, shut me up, and tell me five things I don't know." While that is something I look for romantically, it also helps in making new friends. In the past two weeks I've met so many new interesting people. None of them are romantic prospects but it's really refreshing to be around people who give my brain a whole new work out.

For example, last week I had a long talk about organizational dynamics and the politics of the department. Thursday, I learned how vowels are plotted. Last night, learned about how social workers work (or not so much apparently) with genetic counselors and how the human gastrointestinal (if thats wrong, I apologize) is adapting to proteins, dairy, and so on and so forth.

Business cards were exchanged. Good times.

Hi Yoshie

Oh, and the next time you play GTA 4, light a hooker on fire. My friend Rosie's voice is what you will hear. :D

The woes of when people won't let you mico-manage them

I listened to the ladies who lunch talk about reality TV at lunch. I wanted to stick a chop-stick through my temple.

The joys of owning a vehicle and Daniel Day Lewis

Having just Kelly Blue Book'ed my car, I want to throw myself from my roof. In the year of owning the car, I've paid almost the value of the car in repairs, up-keep, inspections, so on and so forth. This is incredibly depressing to me, as well, thats money that could have put a size-able dent in my students loans, gone to my savings account, or allowed me to travel around this lovely world. Don't get me started on what I paid for insurance

Rah rah rah, the car has GOT to go. Burn fat, not oil! Oh god, may I never become one of THOSE kids.

Point of interest, Gangs of New York has been following me around for the past 72 hours. I was going to watch it Friday, it was on TV on Saturday, and well, I'm watching it now. The soundtrack is filled with some pretty awesome music, like Afrocelt, and street-beats. Also, most of the music from the film was recorded live. I say most because obviously the Devil's track (Bono) is NOT live. Although, I wish that Bono would have been out in the middle of the brawl's, singing, and getting mowed down by Daniel Day Lewis. That leads me to my next point...

Daniel Day Lewis and his "Whoopse Dayse" dialogue in Gangs of New York will never not make me laugh. That and the "I drink your milkshake", which is completely unrelated to Gangs of New York, but, it's Daniel Day Lewis.

Oh and it's nice to remember John C. Reily before he turned into Will Farrell's bitch.

I love food

I'm consuming, right at this very second, the best salad to ever exist.

Mixed greens (more spinach next time), red beans, onions, tuna, avocado, dried cranberries, sesame seeds, and feta cheese.

Omg, it's amazing.

This is very exciting so I'm blogging about it!

For the first time in nearly... three and a half years... I am not FAT! I'm borderline chubby, but damnit, I'm womanly now.

I attribute my success to the Ballerina and to my love of urban exploration.

Here goes nothing

Adjusting to Philadelphia is still a work in progress. I've been here four months and I still have NO IDEA how I did this.

Now I'm going to start this and see what I can make of it.


Now I get to give my friends creepy e-nicknames! HOORAY!