Ruminations as of late.

hello all!

I know I haven't been too good at updating this recently, and I think that stems from that fact that I feel like I have nothing important to say. This happens to me frequently, the pressure to sound smart comes mainly from within I suppose but yeah I hold myself to kind of a standard and only lower it for special circumstances (like when I bought the space shoes.)
I figure I'll make this a kind of regular update? If such an animal exists?

Well, I came back to Tucson just over a week ago. It's been unreal. I was happy and am happy to be here, although I still feel mixed because I am not at home. I think three years ago I would have felt a lot more guilty about leaving than I do today, which is a great sign of personal growth I think. Not much has changed in Tucson. It remains basically the same to me, although I can now access the cool bar scene due to my recently completed 21 year old status.
I also had to buy a new computer and finally uploaded some pictures from this summer, which I feel I should share.

One of the things that came to my attention sometime last week is that July 14 is Bastille Day. In honor of Emma, "Paris, tu me manques." The fact that I was in this beautiful city just two months ago coupled with the fact that I could finally upload the small amount of pictures I took that third trip back to the city made me super nostalgic. Here are some highlights.

Team Crepe forever.

Monmarte at night. This was far and away my favorite area, and coming back the second time to hang out as more a student than a tourist yielded a really nice experience here. For a more extensive idea about why I liked Paris so much and more pictures, see the post in my travelblog, tusewrlhr.blogspot.com.

In other, perhaps bigger or more global news, Harry Potter came out on Wednesday! I saw it Tuesday at midnight and felt so strange about the whole thing. I have been having a hard time dealing with the fact that I am indeed getting older and older, thus closer and closer to the "real world." I hardly remembered the events of the sixth book, but a quick jaunt via sparknotes helped me out. I thought the movie was really good in that it stayed true to the book and provided a good sense of character development. Perhaps I liked it more too because I was in London for so long and throughout much of the movie thought "Ah, I have been there!" This is a photoshopped picture my friend Mariel made after she visited Kelly and I in London in May. Too fitting not to include.

Hogwarts Express, here we come.

Another thing I have been thinking about recently is gender. It is because my thesis is on the Southern American Gothic and French Feminism, and as scary as that sounds it's actually quite interesting and I am super excited to write it. I am basically analyzing selected short stories from my girl Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers and Eudora Welty through the feminist theory of Simone de Beavoir and the like. This could also be an added reason for the recent francophilia I have been experiencing. Anyways, it came to my attention that I really do like a lot more females than I thought I did- I mean that the best way possible; I usually have favorite male authors only, many of my favorite musicians are men, etc. But this past summer I saw two great female-led shows. Metric in NYC on June 16th with Kelly, which blew my mind because it was amazing. Kelly got me the tickets as a present for my birthday because we missed the Metric show in London, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because this NY show was bomb.

Metric, so happy. I <3>

A second female-led show I saw was just last Saturday in Phoenix with my roommates. I saw Jenny Lewis, who I have always had a soft spot for since Kelly introduced me to her music a few years ago, and again I was blown away at the musicianship that went into producing this show. Her band was undeniably awesome and I thought without them it would have been vastly different, but seeing this show live made me like Acid Tongue a lot more than when I just listened to it on CD. Over the years I have realized that that's usually what happens after a good concert, but this one was indeed exceptional. She played everything I wanted to hear and had these two female musicians named Danielle and Barbara who each rocked the guitar and drums so well that the last song was a sort of explosive medley between them and was completely amazing despite the fact that Jenny was not really involved.

Jenny and her band.

Okay. That's really all I have to say. I want to get some pictures of the desert to somehow provide reason as to why I had to come back here, but we'll see how that goes. Currently I am just trying to find a job here, continue to get settled and attempt to re-regularize my Arizona life. It's been weird; I miss NJ a bit more than expected but I think that's always how it goes, I seem to be constantly coming and going in a sort of nostalgic haze although usually I can't wait to leave.. Yeah. That's all I have to say on this night I think. I'll write again soon, promise.