Finals Week PSA: Encountering "Zombicen"

Unfortunately for everyone who is in school/has to interact with me, this week was finals week. Now I think we've all got those two weird friends who are super studious, and find themselves very relaxed and prepared during this time, but for the rest  of us schlubs its a frenzied time of all-nighters, pre-exam cram sessions, and hastily prepared Christmas gifts shoved at neglected friends across a table full of empty ramen cups.

I know that it was particularly worse for anyone who had the misfortune of my presence forced upon them this week, for finals- like any other stressful, sleepless times- tends to create whats known as "AlicenZombie." This horrifying creature was forged in wasted printer ink and crumpled syllabi deep within the depths of my disastrous backpack is a terror to behold. Every semester during finals she emerges during an all nighter- patiently gnawing on my soul until finally I BECOME her for at least five days. Like I said, finals is nearly over for us, but "Zombicen" could appear at any time filled with  much stress and little sleep. Just in case any of you come into contact with this creature, I've outlined some warning signs and how to respond to them:


Creature shows heightened interest in conversation, yet continues to make unintelligent/irrelevant responses
You have caught the beast in it's early stages. What dregs of humanity are left struggle to show you respect and hold interest in the conversation, but it is not enough to keep the mindless creature invested in anything the human Alicen would have taken interest in. Try not to take offense as the eyes wander and the creature responds to "What classes are you taking next semester?" with "Yeah, me too." It will take hours, maybe days for the zombified brain to catch up to even trivial conversations


Creature develops strange eating patterns
It is normal for Zombicen to become so wrapped up in work and finals and friends that she forgets to eat for hours on end. This lack of nourishment for extended periods of time leads the creature to feast on strange delicacies such as gas station cheese-burgers, blue shark gummies, spagetti-o's, and fried chicken all at once. Typically this feast occurs at about 9:30 in the evening. WARNING: should you encounter the beast just before this feast is consumed, it is likely you will find the creature to be excessively irritating if not downright aggressive in it's behavior.


Creature slips into doodle-trance
If you happen upon Zombicen after it has lost itself in a page of intricate free-form doodling,  approach with caution. Doodle-trances can last anywhere from one minute to a full day, and it is likely that the creature will not know who or where it is upon awakening.


Creature has fallen asleep in public setting
This characteristic is found both in Alicen and in Zombicen. The most important factor in this situation is to determine whether or not you value the well-being of  the creature over your own safety. If this is the case, attempt to wake the creature and ensure that it isn't unintentionally sleeping through an exam. However, experts suggest simply leaving the creature where  it lie in order to not risk incurring its uninhibited, drowsy wrath.


For further information on the identification and handling of the AlicenZombie creature, feel free to contact the author of this blog.

~Ali


Finals are almost
Done but I am still trying
To learn all this junk'

Scenes from Life: Act 1 Scenes 3&4: "Rich People Don't Know They're Rich"

[Father and Daugher are in a car together. Daughter drives and Father holds a 40 in his lap]
 Father: Yeah, SURE they aint got money for it.
 Daughter: I mean, I'm sure they have money troubles, too. Even rich people have money trouble. 
Father: Mhmm, They aint got enough money to go on the trip with us, but oh, they have tons of money for all of these OTHER fancy expensive things.
 Daughter: Rich people don't KNOW they're rich. To lotsa people, we're rich.
 Father: Okay, but the difference is when I tell you 'we aint got no money' I mean 'we aint got NO money'
 Daughter: I know [Cut to the living room. In front of the bay window, a small porcelain Christmas tree is chipped and a bit crooked, sitting on a folding table covered by a treeskirt.]
 Daughter: What's this? Are we not putting up the tree this year?
 Father: Is a tree really the spirit of Christmas? Daughtter: Why arent you putting up the tree? Father: What is CHRISTMAS, really?
 Daughter: Stop BS-ing me, what did you do to the tree?
 Father: It broke. Threw it out when the basement flooded.
 Daughter: So shouldn't we get a new one?
 Father: Not if you want your Christmas present. You can either have real pine tree that you and Mom are allergic to, or that one.
 Daughter: Oh, Okay.
 Father: [looks to the small porcelain decoration with a hint of sadness] We might find one on clearance or something if we go look on Christmas Eve... You should check Craigslist, too.
 Daughter: Sure, I'll check. [moves to put hand on decoration. She runs her fingers over the aging paint and smiles] But it's not like Christmas is going to be ruined just because we don't hang ornaments this year. I think this tree's great.
 ~A

 Christmas bells do ring
But all I hear are the keys
Of this computer

How to Escape The Impending Whatever-Season (And Another Meta-Haiku)

Man, has it really been this  long since we've procrastinated together, interwebs? I missed you!
Well, in case you didn't notice, Thanksgiving was a couple days ago. I am happy to report that all my white middleclass friends survived Black Friday more or less unharmed.
Christmas is rapidly approaching though, which I report with mixed feelings. -Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of person who hates all things red-green-and-snowflakey. I love looking at Christmas lights, and decorating trees, and singing carols, and even picking out and wrapping presents! But with all the talk of gathering your loved ones and the like, December never fails to leave me feeling a little sad as well. Whether I'm stuck thinking about the beloved family and friends who simply couldn't be there to celebrate that year, or for those who never will be again, The Christmas Season starts to feel a little lonely. That, coupled with the wrapping up of the school semester, has left a relentless uneasy knot in the pit of my stomach.

What we find ourselves in now, though, is the throes of the "Holiday Season" which to me also means "Finals Season" and "All Your Friends Are About To Leave You And Go Abroad Season"... Obviously this IS an exciting time, but also horrifyingly stressful. So if you're anything like me, and you'd rather just pretend it's July and you have no looming responsibilities/obligations to others, here are some helpful hints on how to ignore the Whatever-Season:


Tell Everyone You Have A Dentist Appointment
Undoubtedly, far too many people are going to want to see you all at once. Your best shot at avoiding them all is to use the "Dentist Appointment" excuse. It's superior to "Doctor's Appt" excuse because none of your nosy friends will ask "Well what's the appointment for??" and if they DO you just say "TOOTHY STUFF" and then spit blood at them. Also, there is such a thing as a 24hour dentist. So, provided your friends 'believe in' the 24hour dentist (mine apparently don't. I swear they are real.) you're covered even at night!
Or, if you run out of dentist appointments...

Convert
Find a religion that forbids celebrating anything from pagan origin (Jehovah's Witness is a good example) and BAM! No more holidays for you! Also, if people ask you to hang out outside a party, just ask them if they've heard the good news, and they'll awkwardly try not to make eye contact with you ever again.

Subscribe To Netflix
If you're looking for a way to allow a few weeks of your life slip by in a bleary, Nutella and Bryan Cranston-fueled haze, get yourself a Netflix subscription, and simply allow yourself to succumb to the siren song of reams of mystery-dramas, recently cancelled sitcoms, and B-list 90's movies. Today, you'll turn on your computer, and then late January you'll step away, cross eyed and a little bewildered, having sustained yourself on nothing but various Star Treks, Orange Is The New Black, and a plethora of Adam Sandler movies. As you stumble back into reality, you'll probably liken the experience to the first time you dropped acid, but with more colors and less smiling.

Become A House Cat
House cats are so chill I have to wear sweaters around them. EVERY season passes through their mischievous gaze with little more than a slow, deliberate wink to acknowledge it's passing. I haven't quite worked out the details on HOW one would become a house cat but I've dedicated years of intensive kitten field study, as well as a significant amount of time just following my cat around and imitating her every move, in order to resolve the issue.


~Alicen

This is why I should
Not write my posts all at once
Or at 1 AM

A Smattering of Philosophy, and The Dilemma Posed by Defense-Vomit

I've heard it said that you can't let your past decide your present. That no matter where you've come from, or how you got to where you are, you gotta live each moment for it's own sake, not as the logical conclusion to a series of events. That every second of your present is what it is because you make it that way, in that instant, and that you get to decide whether it is positive or negative.

I like this philosophy. Quite a lot. I try to live by it, actually... but I've found that there are instances in which the real-life applications of it aren't quite as helpful and poetic.
     Because as with all things bright and beautiful on earth, humans have an incredible capacity for messing this up (myself included of course) For example: forgiveness is awesome. Sometimes when you're struggling to forgive somebody it's super cool to reflect on this philosophy, then look yourself in the mirror and decide whether you are going to cling to mistakes made in the past, and drag that pain into your present forever, or whether you are willing to bravely choose to behave lovingly, let go of that past reality, and in this new moment to begin to heal instead.
-Well, when it's laid out all neat and pretty like that, the preferable choice seems obvious, and that's just peachy. But exactly how much of the past should we leave in the past? What about that horribly annoying couple who are getting back together AGAIN, or the victim of violence who keeps returning to their abusive spouse, or the repeat offender who keeps getting out on parole? You could excuse all of them with "forgiveness" but is there a limit to how much we should forgive? Should we perhaps forgive but not forget? What does that entail? How much are we allowed to learn from past experiences before they begin to dictate our present?
     Overall, I do my best to stick by that philosophy of taking every moment for what it's worth, and making what you will of your present. Realistically, though, I do realize that in between the little misunderstandings and the minor setbacks, there are moments in our life that shape who we are. These occurrences or situations or events (or even people) from our past and how we responded to them make up bits and pieces of the people we are now, whether or not our past and present selves are the same person.


For me, one such self-defining past occurrence was my first ever kiss. Well, not my first ever kiss; that was a quick, nervous ordeal preceded by a sitcom-y nose-bump and followed by terrified giggling which took place on the boy's couch in a dark basement- but I mean my first kiss kiss like with tongues and teeth and hormones. That one took place 2 years later, and with a different boy- but also on the couch in his dark basement, which seems necessary to point out.

Anyway, I can't help but aknowledge that first kiss kiss as a piece of the past that affects my present reality, and I say that, because I puked in his mouth. 
Now, take a second to think about that. There was some hot, smelly, human vomit. It came from my nasty gurgling stomach,  exited my mouth, and then entered the mouth (and possibly throat, stomach, nose, etc) of a DIFFERENT PERSON... This is the stuff of nightmares.

Now before you get all riled up and upset with me for forcing my vomit into another human being, allow me to explain how this was NOT AT ALL my fault: First of all, I'm pretty sure this kid (Let's call him "Adam" because it's ironic, even though I probably won't even need to say his name again) was offspring of Gene Simmons and a feral cat, and I say that because his tongue had to be AT LEAST as long as my forearm- just obscenely long, and not JUST long, but dry, and scratchy, and AGGRESSIVE! A solid case could be made in favor of my gastrointestinal system stating that the vomit was sent up as a defense mechanism to keep that monster tongue from strangling me,Strangling me from the inside-out, that is. Second of all, not only did this boy have a dry, aggressive tongue the length of New Hampshire,  he also [somehow simultaneously] had some serious drooling issues. And I'm not talking about normal human saliva, but like gross, sloppy SPIT that got all over my mouth and tasted like the hot dogs with relish (I DESPISE hot dogs with relish) that I'd watched him eat earlier.

I think perhaps the heart of the issue here, was that I was drowning in his spit, so instinctively I tried to preserve my life by swallowing, which only only led to choking on his mutant giraffe tongue, which of course resulted in the defense-puke... which was entirely not my fault.

Now, as anyone who's puked inside another person will tell you, there's a certain moment that happens just before the vomit rises, when you become profoundly aware of what is about to happen. It's the kind of moment that changes a person. In these precious final seconds before the full eruption occurs, you are afforded the opportunity to remember your life as you once knew it, and to accept that the moment this other person has tasted your upchuck, you can never go back. Your mouth, your diet, your outlook on teenage dating, and most of all your dignity are forever altered.

Truly, the consequences of throwing up into the mouth of a romantic interest reach far beyond the initial horrified choking, ruined upholstery, and the car ride home awkward enough to cause physical pain... No, from the bottom of my heart, I believe that blowing chunks into that boy's esophagus has made me the woman I am today... and by that I mean the awkward, nervous, bread-eating, basement-couch avoiding romantic disaster that I am today. Ah well.

And just in case you wanted some KICKASS visuals for that story: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izp7g5CJekY#t=110
(for those of you that aren't going to watch the video, the clip is from the movie "Kickass 2"...get it? "kickass visuals"...)

~Alicen

Two blog posts in a
Single day means double the
Haikus. Elephant.

Scenes from Life Act2 Scene 1: ...But It Seemed Kinda Stupid

[Scene: A Sits at Library Information Desk, working. B and C enter together.]

B: Hey, good to see you, A! What are you working on?

A: Oh this is procrastinating, I'm just writing some stuff for my blog

B: You have a blog?

C: Oh yeah! I saw on facebook you had a blog. I looked at it. I read like the first sentence, but...

A: [unsure if C intends to continue] ...oh. Yeah.

B: Well. [Vaguely senses the awkward atmosphere. Is confused by it] We-We gotta go. I'll see ya.

A: Okay, see you guys later

~Ali

Rainy day, and cold
My tummy hurts and I
Just want to punch stuff

How to Be the Most Annoying Patron at Pius Library

I love working at the library, but as a student worker who works all 3 help desks, I am well versed in obnoxious library-patron behavior. Here's a helpful how-to guide on how to be the absolute worst person to walk through the doors.

Don't Set Foot In the Library Until Your Senior Year
This will ensure that you are completely helpless in regards to effectively utilizing the wide array of library resources which have been available to you for the past three years, yet no longer feel the need to be polite in asking for assistance.

Break Things
If the computer or printer is running too slowly for your taste, it probably just needs a good hard shake, or an angry kick. Same goes for the ancient vending machines. Don't forget to fill the keyboards with food crumbs and spilt drinks as well.
Is a plastic trash can, or aluminum chair blocking your path? Give it a good solid kick or shove just to show it who's boss.
As the library is a relatively calm and peaceful place to work, the staff is always looking for some excitement. You can help them out by being rough and disrespectful with the furniture, particularly the small desk lamps, plastic whiteboard mounts, and old wooden tables. Try to spice things up a bit by using the scanners, paper cutters, and industrial staplers in unconventional ways- or even on each other!
Once you have succeeded in destroying library property make sure to not tell anyone. Librarians love surprises. Better yet, make a half-assed attempt to hide what you've done in the hopes that some unsuspecting student worker may soon rearrange the heavy stock furniture only to end up with a piece of shattered light bulb in their foot.

Avoid a Normal Speaking Voice
When interacting with library staff, disregard the social cue they extend by speaking normally, and restrict yourself to a subdued whisper. Mumbling incoherently and angrily using a language the desk worker doesn't speak are also strongly encouraged.
When in the relative privacy of a study room, however, be sure to shout as loudly and consistently as possible, as if the rooms were sound-proof. This will ensure that your fellow library patrons will complain to the socially awkward desk workers, who will in turn be forced to come knock on the door and nervously ask you to quiet down.

Explain Why the Rules Should Not Apply to You
Over the years the library has formed a specific list of rules and codes of behavior that allow the staff to maintain a safe, efficient, and study-friendly environment. Following these rules however, may sometimes prove to be a minor inconvenience to you, however, and that simply will not do. There are many ways that you can express this, but the most popular ones include:
When a desk worker asks to see your ID, wave your hand dismissively and grunt "I go here, okay?"
When all the study rooms are taken, plant yourself at the desk and insist that you "really REALLY need  one right now, though"
When a book ordered from a library in another state is set to arrive in a week "No no no, I need this by tomorrow"
If you aren't getting your way, try bullying library staff into bending the rules for you by threatening to become even more of a nuisance.
Pretend to be ignorant
Also, when you forget to save work done on the public use computers to an external source, be sure to explain to the desk worker exactly how much blood sweat and tears you've poured into whatever wasn't important enough to email to yourself, and INSIST that they have the magical ability to bring it all back after you've logged yourself out. -The obvious explanation is that aren't helping because they simultaneously hate you and desperately want you to spend MORE time there with them.

Demand Instant Gratification
The library provides hundreds of opportunities to show the world just how greatly your self-importance outweighs your intelligence. First, only ever ask for help with a paper or project when it is due in less than twenty four hours. This will inflate your sense of urgency and allow you feel you have a free pass to bark orders at Library Staff. Only spend about thirty seconds attempting to research the project on your own, then storm over to the help desk claiming that you have scoured the millions (literally there are over a million physical research materials here) of materials available and not one of them is what you're looking for. Be sure to present your dilemma to a student worker, not to the research librarian/full time staff member on duty. When you are inevitably referred to someone who specializes in the type of research you are embarking on, grunt, sigh, and drum your fingers on the desk until they arrive to assist you. It might be helpful to have your heart set on a book or journal article that is checked out by another patron or an another library, and demand it be made available to you immediately.


Disregard Signs When Entering/Exiting
The library is full of helpful signs which try to guide patrons into appropriate library behavior. When you enter the Library, one of the very first things you see will be a sign asking you to pull out your student ID and show it to the desk worker. Instead, go ahead and just walk past the desk really quickly with your head down so that they can't make eye contact. Then, when the desk worker asks to see your ID, you can either act like you didn't hear to see if they'll shout at/chase you, or you can pretend like you are the only person who has ever been asked to show identifacation. Make sure to have an angry expression and include loud put-upon sighs before aggressively shoving your ID in the desk worker's face.
You'll notice that both entrances to the library have two sets of doors. These doors are covered in large colorful signs asking you to enter and exit on the left side. Entering on the wrong side will be fun because your backpack will probably smack the sensor which sets off the alarm, and the desk workers will have to crane their necks to watch you walk past. The best, though, is exiting on the wrong side. Be sure to pause for a moment and stare directly at the large red sign which says "Do Not Exit" so that the desk worker assumes they don't have to embarrass you by asking you to use the other door. Then, proceed through those doors anyway, disregarding any protestant "Excuse me!!"s which may come from the desk.
Library protocol states that to prevent theft, desk workers are required to chase down patrons who exit through the wrong door and force them to walk through the door with the sensor, so this is sure to make you stand out as a horribly inconsiderate person.

Scenes from Life: Act 1 Scene 3: Suburban Nomad

A and F are sitting on the floor of F's apartment working on a project, and a third pile of books/laptop rests beside them. It is dark outside.
S enters with a bottle of wine and three cups

S: Alright, y'all time to get the creative juices flowing! [Sets the cups down and begins to pour the wine out]

A: Aw man, I'm sorry, I can't. I've gotta drive home and stuff. Actually, I should probably head out soon...

F: Are you serious?

S: Dude, just sleep here!

A: I can't, I don't have any clothes

S: You can wear mine!

A: I wish I could, but I haven't been home in four days; I gotta grab some stuff for class. Plus, my parents think I'm dead. I promised them I'd be home tonight.

F: Guuh, I wish you didn't live so far away!!

S: Seriously, You gotta move out of your parent's house. Are you gonna sub-lease from K next semester?

A: I wanted to, but I worked it all out, and I can't afford it.

F: It's only 275 a month!

S: Yeah! That's SO cheap!

A: That's almost 100% of what I make in a month.

F:... I heard almost

~A

Motivation is
Like a new Lamborghini
I do not have it

Scenes from Life: Act 2 Scene 2 "You Have the Soul of a Poet"

M and W are laying in bed. The lights are off. A laptop rests beside them. 

M: "I don't really do that, do I?"

W: Well no- what I wrote wasn't so much about you, specifically, as it was about the idea of you.

M: "I don't understand... Why would you put it in your blog if it wasn't true? [ pause] Why wouldn't you just put facts, and your thoughts about those facts?"

W: I didn't need it to be factual. I just wrote that because it was funny.

M: "I don't get it. I guess I just don't understand your humor"

W: Well I guess you don't have to. [ pause. W switches gears. ] Maybe you need to broaden your definition of "true"

M: "Yeah, right."

~A

NaNoWriMo is
A time to remember that
I have Writer's block

Basic Templates For Interations With Non-Theatre People

NTP= Non-Theatre Person; Me= myself

NTP: Oh, so you're a student here! What do you study?
Me: I'm a Theatre and English Major
NTP: Oh. That's... fun.

NTP: So you wanna be a teacher.
Me: Actually I was considering pursuing a career in acting or screenwriting; really there are-
NTP: Right. A teacher.

NTP: Oh. You're one of those.

NTP: OH! Can you, like, act for us?? Sing? Dance? Talk in an accent? Stand on your head? Do you juggle??!? DANCE MONKEY, DANCE!

NTP: What do you study?
Me: English and Theatre
NTP: Oh really? What does your family think?
Do they try to get you to switch majors? Do they tell you that you're wasting your life and your education?

NTP: Sooo do you do, like, plays and stuff?
Me: ...

NTP: Can you cry on command?? CRY FOR US!

Me: I study English and Theatre
NTP: HA!! Well good luck finding a JOB that way!!
Me: Actually, the employment rate for people with a degree in Theatre is at a record high, and-
NTP: Ohhhh sure it is, sweetheart. You just keep telling yourself that.

NTP: You're a Theatre Major? HAVE YOU SEEN LES MIS?!

NTP: Oooh, you're at SLU, huh? What are you studying?
Me: English and Theatre!
NTP: ... Are you SURE that's what you wanna do?

NTP: She's a Theatre Major, how do we know she's not just acting right now?... Is this really you, or are you acting?

Me: I study Theatre and Eng-
NTP: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAHAAA

NTP: I bet you guys have WILD parties... will you take me?

Me: I'm a sophomore studying English and Theatre
NTP: Yeah, we'll see how long that lasts

NTP: All of your dreams are going to be crushed and you will be left with nothing.

Me: I'm an English and Theatre major
NTP: Well that's unfortunate. *leaves*

~Ali

My cat has stolen
All of my meatloaf, I wish
She'd saved some for me

The Importance of the B-word, and Ways I am Dating My Dog

I'll start this one out by making it clear that I'm not big on labels. As a self centered "Liberal Arts" Major, I like to operate under the romantic idea that I am somehow unique enough to not be accurately encompassed by the titles and adjectives we slap onto each other every day. Labels like "Private school girl" or "Only Child" or "Underclassman" or "Democrat/Republican" or "Heterosexual" or even "Team Captain" Make me a little uneasy. Being labeled in this way is being pigeonholed; like the person using it has chosen a single lens through which they can view me only as a 2-dimensional caricature of myself.

The label that gets to me the most, though is "Girlfriend." I'm sure that part of the reason for this is because my overly friendly nature seems to say to every creep/guy/male friend I've ever encountered: "Hello! I'd like to have sex with you! Lets start dating! Love me forever! Also, don't ever stop asking me out no matter how I respond!" (When what I'm going for is more along the lines of "Hello! I respect you as a person! Let's be friends who partake in intelligent discourse and/or fart jokes!")

I suppose another source of my aversion to the B/G-words is some commitment issues, but seeing as most of the people who read this will  know me personally, I'll just let you rant about that in your own heads and move on.

Truly though, I think what bothers me most is the idea of being presented as something less than yourself. When someone is introduced to you not as themselves, but as so-and-so's significant other, it automatically changes your perception of them. You may not (consciously) think of them as "belonging" to that person, but suddenly everything they do and say and are is forced into a different perspective because of their relation to that other.
 (Arguably this forced perspective occurs with EVERY person we meet in some way, no matter how we meet them, but if you want to talk about that you can go make your own dang blog, ya hear?)

Now, unfortunately for those who find themselves dating me, anytime I am called upon in society to use the b-word ("This is my boyfriend, __; I can't go out with you, I have a boyfriend; I'm meeting my boyfriend for lunch later." etcetera) these three factors swirl around in my awkward teenage belly and churn up all sorts of discomfort. As well as some mildly concerning choking sounds.

With my very first boyfriend I got pretty lucky on this front (to be fair, I was lucky on most fronts. I was just too immature, and too wrapped up in a stupid yet attractive friend to appreciate him). His name was Brendan, which starts with a B just like the B-word, so anytime I STARTED to say "boyfriend" and then chickened out halfway through, it would just sound like "This is my Boyyyy-rendan".... Then I would chuckle and try to play that off like it wasn't weird- and to anyone who could deal with the social pariah I was in high school, "boyyyrendan" was hardly a blip on their radar of strangeness. Which says a lot more about my social skills in high school than I intended.
As the relationship went on though, and I made the decision to provide exactly zero explanation for my actions, the poor boy got so confused he started to think "My Boy, Rendan" Was some sort of quirky nickname I made up for him, and then I had to play along with that idea, and then things just got really weird really quick.

The poor sucker I'm dating now, though, does NOT have a B name, which posed a bit of a problem at first... It got me to thinking quite a bit about the B-word... and eventually I thought "why not swap one b-word for the other?" Now, instead of "My boyfriend" he's "my bitch"
I kinda like it.

Now to be clear, Liberal Arts major that I am, I am plenty feminist and the like, so when I say the phrase "my bitch" you can rest assured I am not referring to any women; not even in the endearing sort of way that girls use it to describe each other. Nope, when I'm talking abut "My bitch" I'm talking about one of two things: 1My female dog, 2My boyfriend.


You're probably expecting a lot of goofy-sounding posts in the future now, where I talk about "my bitch" and through context clues, you realize that it's not my dog I'm referring to, it's my boyfriend, or vice versa. In reality, though, most of the things I can say about one bitch, I could just as easily say about the other. Take these, for example:

• My bitch doesn't know how to do laundry
• My bitch has big blue puppy eyes
• My bitch likes to steal my food when I'm not looking
• I take my bitch on long walks
• My bitch has soft brown hair
• My bitch likes to be the little spoon
• My bitch has ticklish belly spots
• I am responsible for my bitch's training and grooming
• My bitch gets excited easily
• When my bitch gets TOO excited, my bitch make a funny panting sound
• My bitch has dog breath
• My bitch doesn't like to share me with the other bitches
• My bitch likes to lick me all over

See? They're practically the same bitch!!... Wait, is that weird? That's weird, isn't it?

~Alicen

I think Haikus are
An excellent way to rule
Out the Plebians

The Maiden Voyage

Before I start my soul-crushing history outline, I'm going to start this blogpost. That's the excuse I'm using for procrastinating. Is it naptime yet?

I started this blog because had a website similar to this in high school (If you are morbidly curious about the annoying little twerp I was in high school, you can find that blog at ShinyLittlePenny.webs.com -It's mostly musings of what my life would be like if everyone but me had super powers... Which, in retrospect, says a lot about my self-esteem back then.) and I really enjoyed blogging as a creative outlet as well as an outlet for frustration which is arguably healthier than my usual tactic of beating the ever-loving tar out of my friends... Less cardio, though.

Anyway, perhaps since we are just getting to know each other I should tell you a few things about myself:
1) My name is Alicen, it's pronounced like "Allison," but it's just Alice with an 'n'... It makes way more sense this way. Alice. N. Alicen. As opposed to "Allison" Which should really be pronounced "All-Is-On" which is a vaguely ominous 3-word sentence. -And yes. "Alicen" is what's actually on my birth certificate. (I'm not "One of THOSE")
2) I'm majoring in English and Theatre, at SLU so take that how you will. (Maybe I am "One of THOSE"...)
3) I remain employed by my school's library mainly out of sympathy. And because I'm bros with my boss, as well as his boss' boss. I have made this Library my... home. (It took a lot of self control not to end that sentence with "bitch" but "home" was simply more accurate. I am in the library now. I will probably sleep here tonight. I am Library.)
4) I have 2 animal babies: A cat named Sadie, and a dog names Shawna. I probably love them more than I will ever love you, but if you understood how much I love them, you would be thankful for that.
5) You are my best friend. Wanna braid my hair? Let's play MarioKart.
6) I think this list is a terrible representation of my life
7) Pineapple