I dislike describing music immensely. Rather than painfully watching me stumble over words AIM, my friend Johnny decided to Google my newest musical obsession, Cat Power. The search yielded an interesting Urban Dictionary response… with an ad for that new online Star Trek movie on the side.

I will say this much about Cat Power. Her music doesn’t reference any paritcularly talented felines, and in fact it has nothing to do with cats at all. She (being Chan Marshall, a completely human and talented singer) never erupts into choruses of meows or anything. But it’s still fun to shout “CAT POWER!” as if advocating feline rights…

Although we all know I’m still very much a dog person.

So… Star Trek… What happened here? The trailer made me giggle. Okay, I’m way too exhausted to giggle. It made me snicker. The shirts-flying-off, stuff-blowing-up attempt to make Star Trek edgy… well, they failed. At least on me. I possessed no interest whatsoever in Star Trek ten minutes ago, and still have no interest in it. As of now, I’m just scared. I know this particular incarnation is independent and blah-blah-blah, but… I don’t know. It’s like trying to make Barney appealing to teenagers. There are some things you just don’t attempt.

On to new business. I absolutely love Google Maps… I’ve wasted many a valuable study hour mapping out trips I probably won’t take for ten years. I also like to go back and map out trips I’ve taken…This, for example, is the mammoth Discovery trip I took with the entire Teaching Fellows Entering Class of 2007 (498 of us roamed the Old North State in dress clothes for a week…)

View Larger Map

Also, any North Carolinian who just can’t quite take the Old Crow Medicine Show… But still has some attachment to this place… Check out Against Me!’s cover of “Wagon Wheel.” YouTube it yourself. I’m sleepy.

Yeah, I know, no updates for… months? I don’t even know. I’ve been extremely occupied being freezing cold and absolutely exhausted up here in the mountains. We’ve had highs in the low thirties all week… And a good chance of a nice snow tonight! I here y’all might get some, too. Strange weather, so… wintry.

And that’s the bulk of my news.

p.s. The Culbertson family is up to 8 dogs now. Spike, the American Bulldog/Boxer/Something Big mix, Leo the Toy Poodle, Max and Angel the Shih tzus, Muffy the Mutt, Snowflakey the Cocker Spaniel, Jesse the Wheaten Terrier, and Scruffy the Schnaunzer-Something who lives at my Grandma’s.

I really can’t wait to tell my grandneices-and-nephews about this as they cruise around in their solar-powered jet planes. I really cant.

A measly five gallons of gas (if that, my fuel gauge’s faulty) lies dormant in my tank.

Every morning for the past few days, Western North Carolinians have woke up early to wait in mile-long lines for a wee bit of gas, enough to get them to work for a few days.

The police must supervise — and fights still erupt.

I’ve yet to skip class to fill up. Forgoing trips to the grocery and pharmacy, carpooling to work, I sit. And I wait.

This reminds me a lot of the tomato crisis this summer. I never really cared for tomatoes before the salmonella thing… And suddenly, they became my favorite vegeta…, er, fruit.

And now there’s not a drop of gas to be found for 2 and a half hours, I suddenly want to drive all over the place.

To buy tomatoes.

I’ve definitely neglected WordPress lately. I’m going to try to bring it back. Maybe theme it around college life.

Like the way I’m sitting on the floor, shoving forkfuls of  Stovetop-stuffing-from-the-microwave out of a sketchy-looking plastic container between yawns.

Updating my Facebook status before I tackle studying.

Contemplating a midnight coffee… but not trusting my half-and-half.

Maybe I’ll wash my hair instead. It’s been a while.

Where did summer vacation go?!?!

I adore instant messaging. Before social networking and blogging, that back-and-forth, instant, quick conversation was all we had, really — and I kind of miss that. It’s a weird, awkward generational thing. Most people I know now considering IM pretty old school (with the exception of Facebook’s built in messaging). If you want to instantly relay information to somebody, you just text them. Forget actually conversing! Hah.

But I still IM compulsively…

friend: i was in a pretty weird good charlotte mood earlier this afternoon
me: i love me some old school good charlotte. are you familiar with their first album, pre-young and the hopeless?
friend:only with its existence
not the songs
me: it has some really good songs. but i dont know if i think they;re good because they ARE good, or because i have loved them since i was a freshman
friend: lol
me: their lyrics are very high school oriented. one of my favorite lines:
“so come and talk to me on my computer screen, the best years of our lives aren’t as easy as they seem”
friend: i like that. yeah, it’s adolescent, but it’s true, haha
me: yeah, i usually wouldnt recommend that album to people now, just because it’s so young
but it always reminds me of the good old days on aim, when dial up and old school computers really changed the way things went
like we werent on myspace, facebook, youtube, and god knows what else
our connections could only really support being on aim… so that was it… lol
and there was none of that stuff anyway
friend: lol, oh yes. not necessarily the best the internet had to offer, but we made do with what we had…and it’s a bit nostalgic
me: yeah. idk. you know, back in those good old days of aim version 2.3 or whatever. haha
friend: with the screen completely littered with multiple aim windows!! hahaha
me: way before tabbed browsing and ims
god, how did we live before tabs??? lol
friend: lol, no idea…
it’s…so strange
me: i think this is gonna be on my wordpress, tee hee. sigh. the days of old school aim

Oh my goodness. There was a life before tabbed browsing and instant messaging. How did we do it? I remember obsessivelly arranging and resizing forty seven thousand little windows on my computer screen, back in the ninth grade. How weird!!!!!! No handy keyboard shortcut could help me toggle among conversations…

My brain hurts just thinking of all this, hah.

I think I’m the only UNC Asheville student not voting for Barack Obama. That said, I’m not really thrilled with McCain.

The discrimination I face for disliking Obama is a bit surreal. I’m one of two or three girls on my hall who doesn’t have Obama posters plastered to her doors and windows, and who didn’t pop popcorn and bust out a two-liter of diet cola for the Democratic National Convention. People kind of goggle at me whenever I politely-as-possible say “No, I do not like Obama.” Gaping and sputtering, they turn away, whispering amongst themselves.

It’s a lot like elementary school, when I said I didn’t like the Spice Girls. It’s the most ridiculous phenomenon I’ve ever witnessed in my life.

Anyway, I ran across this video on YouTube and it just made me laugh… out loud, even. The expressions on the reporter’s face crack me up, mostly becaues I get them often enough.

I was blogging via more private means when I rediscovered a word.

“I’m flummoxed.”

The sentence hit me outta nowhere.

And I am so thrilled!

I’ve a repuation for being quite the insomniac. Why sleep… When I could simply put it off? I procrastinate thoroughly and thrive on the gut-wrenching urgency of deadlines. The deadline-high is probably the reason I like working for a newspaper so much. If something doesn’t need to get done this particular instant, well, why even bother?

My boss at the lovely Highsmith University Union suckered me into taking a 9 hour, 6 PM til 3 AM shift at the info desk yesterday/this morning. Okay, it really didn’t require any verb as devious as “suckering.” The prospect of cash is a stimulant almost equal to that of a deadline. I happily agreed to 3 more hours of mindlessly occupying the spinny chair situated at the building’s main entrance.

Block Party — one of UNCA’s annual school year kick-off traditions — commenced tonight in the Union parking lot. The cover band’s rather mellow nineties tunes kept me awake for a good chunk of time. By 1 AM, however, I was becoming unhinged. A lady kindly offered me a bottle of bubbles, a souvineer from the little shin-dig. Cheap, blueberry scented bubbles. They kept me entertained for the rest of the night, simply because it took about 15 tries to produce a bubble willing to part with the wand.

Being on such public display for 9 hours straight forces me to come back to my room and unwind before finally retiring. By unwind, I mean, sit on my floor with a laptop and perform inane Google searches, you know, like my own name.

Thanks to this blog, I’m linked to on Wikipedia now. Isn’t that fabulous? Whoever did that — Thanks for making me feel like a star!

I remember the days back in high school when Googling my name in quotation marks yieled just about nothing relative. It was depressing, let me tell you.

So anyway, happy 4:41. I am going to go to sleep, I promise.

Ah! Ipod touch update. This is quite annoying… Learning to text with t9 word was easier.

The next time I answer the landline, that’s what I’m saying.

Details, later.

Current pet to people ratio in the Culbertson household…

5:6

… plus the possibility of puppies.

I like a quiet life. Really, I do.

My ideal Friday night? Curled up with a book, incredibly long movie, or fabulous playlist. A new case of Diet Mountian Dew, maybe some pizza, nachos preferred. My dogs, my favorite Ramones shirt… Etc.

I don’t remember the last Friday night I spent at home. I’ve been dragging myself up and down the east coast for the past few weeks. Though I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the travels… I’m exhausted.

This is probably the last Friday of summer vacation I’ll have to my own devices. I’m planning another beach excursion… And after that?

Move-in weekend.

… Cringe.

Within the next couple weeks, college students nationwide will be cramming dorm rooms full of “essentials.”

My must haves? A vintage armchair, Persian rug, six-month’s supply of Clorox wipes, and possibly a fish.

… I’m shaky thinking about move-in day. So I think I owe myself a low-key Friday night.