april steele is for real

'cause he got a mercedes

2008-09-19T14:23:00.007-06:00

Take a picture of yourself right now
Don’t change your clothes, don't fix your hair
Just take the picture
Post the picture with no editing

i've just woken up, no makeup because i took a shower before bed last night. there's that awful pain behind my forehead, pressing down on my eyes, from drinking too much. i've got some ice water in a mason jar but i should eat something to ease my stomach. as you can see, it's just started to rain. a second ago, there was a thundercrack so close and so loud that it made the walls shake. i jumped a little, and my cat went and hid behind the stove.

it's too easy

2008-09-19T14:23:00.006-06:00

in my endless quest to find the least productive way to spend my days off, i've been spending the past few fridays using chris' wacom tablet to color things on the computer. these are some of the resulting fruits of my labor.

batgirl (i've forgotten the artist. i'd like to credit her though, because she's awesome)

apprehensive chris haley, drawn by himself, also an awesome artist

friday girl (again, artist has been forgotten)

2008-08-28T12:31:00.002-06:00

On this day 45 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech during the historic March on Washington. Today Barack Obama, the first African-American to be nominated for the presidency by either major party, is scheduled to deliver his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Today's Pictures at Slate.com

2008-08-14T19:12:00.002-06:00

while we're at it, let's restrict women's rights to breastfeed, excercise, and consume caffeine:
a tongue-in-cheek letter in support of pro-life legislation

2008-08-07T17:53:00.003-06:00

I've created another blog (of sorts) on tumblr.com

Wise Blood

it's a neat idea. great for people who, like me, have no attention span.

2008-07-25T17:24:00.003-06:00

sorry for the lack of real content, but if anyone still stops by this ol' blog, here's a video to make you cry. i cried, anyway. like a big baby.

new from pizza max

2008-07-18T11:54:00.001-06:00

2008-06-12T16:39:00.002-06:00

New York was exhausting.

More pictures and NY stories to come...

2008-06-03T15:32:00.001-06:00

please let this dude be our next president.

2008-05-27T11:54:00.001-06:00

Who are you?

Where were you born?

Where do you live now?

Where would you rather be?

What does your room look like?

Who are you in love with?

What is your favorite band/singer?
(current)

(always)

What is your favorite movie?

What makes you happy?

What is your favorite sport?

What is your favorite drink?

What do you believe in?

What is your favorite smell?

What is your favorite fruit?

What are your plans for the future?

What is the last movie you watched?

What is your favorite food?

What was your favorite show growing up?

2008-05-19T15:28:00.004-06:00

5/18

too much whiskey, too much whiskey. it just kept coming! chris came out to have fun and his company was very much enjoyed. i sang two joan jett songs. our table was stolen by a bunch of white ball caps and green sequins. someone bought me a shot of whiskey with a pickle juice chaser. i secretly like pickle juice, which i guess is no longer a secret.

at vanessa's request

2008-05-18T13:18:00.002-06:00

i am updating my long-neglected blog! funny, i initially typed "long-legged." hm.

vanessa had not realized that the last few entries were actually links to my other (more frequently updated) livejournal, and said that it was a neat format for blog posting. so i think i'll run with that idea and perhaps it'll make it easier to update more often.

5/15

karaoke at the vault. it was the KJ's birthday, and so there were a ton of balloons which were eventually turned into boobs, pregnant bellies, and projectile weapons. drunkenly sang "walkin' on sunshine" and pretty well rocked it.

5/16

hung out with mom and brother, the latter of which is 13 and "rotten to the core," as my grandmother would say. tried in vain to tell him that barack obama is not, in fact, a terrorist like his SOCIAL STUDIES TEACHER told him. seriously. at night i went to southaven to visit good friends and my favorite 3-year-old. i became a monster and ate his brains. also ate some damn-good guacamole. even later, i drank beer and watched buffy.

5/17

ate at cafe eclectic for the first time. i thoroughly enjoyed a mushroom sandwich, even though i hate mushrooms. chris had a BLT&A without the A. typical. (i'm not even sure what that joke is supposed to mean). can you have a whole sentence in parenthesis? probably not. that's why i'm a sociology major. lazy lay-around afternoon with netflix. dinner of curry pasta with chickpeas and cauliflower. dessert of avocado mousse. late night pbr at the cove.

email me at april.steele@gmail.com for either of the awesome recipes above, both of which are vegan and courtesy of the omnivorous lauren.

hope they're serving that ham

2007-12-30T16:11:00.000-06:00

no new content, just old news:

11/18
ancient clay penis, hopefully for decorative purposes only.

11/19
i become frustrated with an impulse to create art, and my lack of ability to do so. nothing new here, i suppose.

11/21
happy depressing thanksgiving.

again and again and again

2007-12-19T19:23:00.000-06:00

more updates from the journal de vie:

11/15
man, i'm really obsessed with that damn spider. i did something really stupid in nashville. and one of my favorite hobbies is complaining about my lack of productivity.

11/18
i wear my sunglasses at night. i do the robot. i get drunk and tell all my friends how much i love them. also, adhering to sean's expectations of my feminine rants, i talk a little about menstruation. or rather, the effects thereof.

goin' back in time

2007-12-13T11:52:00.000-06:00

well, well. it seems i've been neglecting this ol' blog. i have, however, been updating my livejournal fairly regularly. someone who shall remain unnamed has been hassling me to post those entries here. so i'm going to take a cue from joel and link to those posts.

I'll put up a couple of them a day until i'm caught up. From old to new:

9/30
here, i procrastinate on schoolwork, relate my experience at gonerfest, and muse about my new spider-friend who moved in outside my back door. incidentally (i use this word a lot), she's still there on days when it's not too cold or too wet.

10/1
new information about my arachnid roommate, and a lovely little lesson in alliteration. i also ask the question, what's your favorite word?

this isn't the time or the place

2007-09-21T08:25:00.001-06:00

the idiots in my lit class found a way to somehow incorporate poop into our discussion of a flannery o'connor story. no kidding. and colonel sanders was wearing huge gold cuff-links resembling the heads of lions. i don't know much about mens' fashion, especially the relationship between size and appropriateness of cuff-links, but i think it would've seemed entirely out of place on anyone else.

work has been strange. we moved desks so that i'm right underneath the air conditioner. i still have a view of the window, but now sit directly in front of my supervisors, which just makes me more nervous than i already was. sitting under fluorescent lights and having everything you say monitored--it's a bit like being paid to be interrogated. as soon as i walked in the door yesterday i wanted to cry. i can't explain why.

i called in sick on sunday and monday, even though i wasn't (it was chris' birthday) and going back took all the strength i had...i just kept hitting the snooze button, even though it was 10 o'clock, getting back in bed and thinking of what would happen if i quit that day. 'i'd still get my commission check at the end of the month. i could go back and work at otherlands. i could take out a bunch of student loans. i could lay in bed until october. or next spring. yes. that sounds delightful.'

i just will never understand what we're supposed to do with ourselves. i feel like i should be climbing a mountain or meditating on a rock or some shit, you know? traveling and discovering things. but yesterday i read a little comic strip about a ghost who goes to paris and it taught me a lesson that swimming in a fountain in paris is a lot like swimming in a fountain in the raleigh springs mall. it's probably sort of fun and sort of boring (and maybe even scary, in the case of the latter). and it made me think 'ok, maybe that little ghost is onto something. would i really be that much happier filling my brain with postcards of northern lights and towers and paintings and great walls?'

'yes, self, actually you would be.'
'but how would you get the money to go all those places?'
'i don't know. sell flowers or teach english or something? who cares. that totally isn't the point.'
'yes, but why spend time wishing for things you can't afford? isn't that kind of materialistic?'
'look, jerk. all i said is that i want to travel. we shouldn't be slaves to money. we should go where our heart tells us to. marvel at all the diversity and wonder of the planet.'
'do you know how bees build a honeycomb? or how a leaf forms? have you seen a fucking walking-stick? that shit is amazing! the stars look the same everywhere you go, self.'
'fuck you.'

every so often this happens. things start to get those wavy heat-lines and i can't pay attention to one thing or another. i just swing back and forth, trying to grab hold of something that makes a little sense. like a shop-class birdhouse in an earthquake, the little nails being jostled out of their hinges.

maybe this is just what being twenty-something is like. maybe all the pieces will fit together someday. who knows? do you think you know? do you know you know? will you come have coffee with me and explain it to me? i'll make us some toast and some hard-boiled eggs.

debatable

2007-09-16T14:00:00.000-06:00

last night at around 1 am, thank jesus i was up late, i saw one of those huge flying cockroaches (they're called "american cockroaches" for anyone wondering. i can only suppose it's because they're so huge) on the wall above our bed. we spent the next 45 minutes trying to find it and suck it up with a vacuum because neither of us could bring ourselves to smash it. i think it may've been the biggest one i've seen since the time when robin and i lived on madison and spent an hour jumping across the furniture like we were playing the hot-lava game waiting for it to get off my goddamned record player (proof that what chris said last night--about them knowing what your most prized posession is and getting on it because they know you won't kill them there--is true) until we could douse it with aqua-net. and it occurred to me that i probably don't know a single person with whom i can't share a similar experience. it'll reduce a grown man to a child, i tell you what. last time this happened chris said "we're going to be somebody's parents someday..."

2007-09-10T23:31:00.001-06:00

i'm really starting to hate this literature class, man. i mean, really. i like the stories we read. love them, actually...i'm dreading moving on to poetry (there is very little poetry i like). the short story is a nice medium. lots of southern writers we're studying. so yes, it's not the material or even colonel sanders i don't like. it's these people in class, you see. the ones who laugh at fictional characters in a story. characters i relate to. i guess laughing at something that is entirely fictional has to indicate some severe insecurity, but isn't sympathizing with the same character sort of the same (in that opposite way, like love vs. hate)? if we were the story, i would be riabovitch and those guys behind me would be the other officers in the camp who think they're so great because they get all the ladies.

i'm actually ahead in something for once in my life. these journals aren't due until friday and guess when i did them. go on. did you guess "yesterday"?. can you believe it? i guess having a boring job will make an over-acheiver out of me yet.

for anyone wondering, it's probably not a good idea to drunkenly snatch the phone from a friend who happens to be talking to your ex-whoever and say "lemmie talk to 'em". because you know what? they're going to sound different than how you remember, and there's probably not going to be enough to talk about to warrant your interrupting the real conversation anyway. you will probably feel like a fool, and saying goodbye will be painfully awkward. i mean, it's not a terrible idea. it'll just leave you feeling as though you'd just taken a big gulp of perrier when you thought it was going to be sweet tea.

also it's not a good idea to start talking about sex and marraige at bed time. you will think it's a good idea. it might even be one of those great times where you really have a heart-to-heart with your current-whoever, the kind that is unexpected and doesn't turn sour like it so easily could given the subject matter. but i promise, regarless of when you decide to end the conversation, you will wake up on less than four hours' sleep. you should probably just jot down some notes and discuss it over dinner tomorrow.

2007-08-31T07:14:00.000-06:00

oh blahg, why i have forsaken thee?
(i've posted this on my other thing but chris said i should post it here, too)

i finally, after years of talking about it, started back to school this week. i'm only taking two classes in an attempt to ease myself back into the whole process and they're two classes i've already taken but it's still surprisingly exciting to be back. for all my complaining about responsibilities i still rather like to learn new things. or discuss things i already know in an open forum, and pay quite a lot of money for it.

my lit teacher reminds me of a gay colonel sanders. like maybe colonel sanders before his hair went gray and he started frying all that chicken. maybe colonel sanders just talks like that and he isn't really gay at all.

i love my sociology of gender professor. he's a squat italian man who wears white socks with black shoes and had on a pair of those giant black glasses that cover your whole face like a visor and look like some 80's fashion statement. maybe his eyes had been dilated. quite unattractive but charming as hell, and so smart that you can't help but agree with everything he says.

you know, i really despise literature classes. i really don't care what the motivation is for so-and-so's killing that other guy, or what the story is trying to say about racism, or precisely where the climax begins. and i certainly do not want to fill up a whole page of that stuff for every damn story i read. it's a bunch of malarkey is what it is.
maybe i just hate it because the class starts at 6:50 am. to give you some indication of how sleepy i was sitting there listening to colonel sanders talk about dues ex machina: i was taking notes and wrote down the word "device" but spelled it "defice". i thought after writing it 'no, that doesn't look right' and crossed it out and wrote "defise," satisfied with myself for correcting my mistake.

i'm now going to search the campus for some coffee and possibly a banana. if you've got one, meet me at the quad.

2007-06-24T17:28:00.000-06:00

it's a little bit strange being away from the internet for extended periods of time and then trying to decide what of that time i should share with the world via this internet. much like phoning an old friend and saying "so much has happened, i don't know where to start." cliche, yes, but for a reason.

chris and i moved in to the new place and most everything since has sort of centered around this fact. curt said something the other day about it being a "big step" and i'd not really considered it as such until he put it into perspective. "not much different than taking turns staying with eachother every night," i said, or something along those lines. "yeah, but what would happen if, when the lease is up, he says he's decided he wants to move in with me or something? wouldn't you consider that a step back? wouldn't you be sort of hurt?" thanks, curt. thanks for adding terrifying weight to this otherwise pleasant experience.

in other words, we're now committed to living together until we break up or one of us dies. how's that for perspective?

all joking aside, it's been really nice so far. we do chores together or at least at the same time. he pretends to like my cat. we go on walks through the neighborhood. he buys cereal and milk. i buy hummus and tomatoes. we watch animaniacs and mst3k and old horror movies until we fall asleep. who knew a domestic partership could be so fulfilling?

i woke up yesterday morning awfully hung over (used to be i could drink all i wanted without the threat of a hangover. now if i have so much as a couple beers i wake up feeling like i've been hit by a truck) but determined nonetheless to go to the farmer's market. it was just as i expected it to be--one of those things that makes you feel deliciously superior to the rest of the world. look at me, world. i'm awake at a decent hour on a saturday buying locally-grown produce at a fraction of what i'd spend at schnucks. if you haven't been to the farmer's market, i recommend it highly. i got this bouquet for just 5 bucks.

the girl who arranged it for me was from the same city i'm from in arkansas and had that tough southern-girl thing going on, her hair thrown back without a thought, going from bucket to bucket confidently choosing whichever flower was to accompany the rest, going on all the while in that thick drawl about the woman playing music across the way. sometimes she'd put a stem back in favor of another one, as though the arrangement was just making itself. i want to be her someday, really. have a farm in arkansas somewhere. what a life.

i came home and made lunch of squash and zucchini, black beans and spanish rice. liz came over and ate with us before she had to leave for work. chris and i cleaned up and took an afternoon nap, after which we walked around outside a bit. it was such a nice day. perfect, really, in that very mundane way...one of those days you'd want to come back to if you died and were granted the ability to re-live one. know what i mean?

tattoo mania!

2007-06-03T12:36:00.000-06:00

so i finally got my first tattoo. i've been sort of overly excited about the prospect of getting one for a while now, but the closer it got to go-time the more apprehensive i became. honestly, it hurt about as bad as i expected it to which is to say it hurt quite a bit. i was sort of a baby about the whole ordeal but it was definitely worth the pain.

it's a mike mignola-inspired drawing by my friend vanessa at underground art.

it's hard to tell exactly what's going on because it's minus the shading at this point. that'll mainly be done in black and will have to wait a few weeks due to the healing process. i don't have an awful rash like chris gets so on that front i'd say it seems to be doing pretty well. though it has only been a day.

thank you, dc

2007-05-30T12:44:00.000-06:00

anyone wanna guess what these are?

"is it a late entry in the draw-supergirl meme?"

nope. these are bona-fide character designs from renato guedes, who will be working with tony bedard on the supergirl title starting in august. there's a really great interview with tony bedard that i suggest you read immediately.

anyone wanna guess how excited i am about this? if you guessed "more than a kid in a candy shop" you would be correct. seeing these gave me goosebumps. seriously.

i'd really like to think that this was a decision made in part by the huge response there was to things like the draw supergirl meme, and project: rooftop. regardless, i think it's safe to say that people hated supergirl. i can't imagine that anyone was buying it. whether or not they decided to do this because people were talking about it on the internet or because they simply weren't making money isn't really the point.

the point is that this is a HUGE step in the right direction. this is what characters are supposed to be. i don't care if the higher-ups say "we did this to appease the female readers." i'd actually rather this be less a decision made to pander to a certain demographic, and more because they simply want to have multi-dimensional, relatable (female) superheroes.

i mean, look at her! she's adorable...even a little sexy. but she's got attitude. she's got a teenagers' body. she's even a little awkward (i mean, who's clothes didn't fit a little funny when they were 16?)....and why shouldn't she be? she is, after all, a teenaged alien.

i hope this is every bit as great as i'm expecting it to be, and i hope it sells like crazy hotcakes.

chronicles of a southern vegetarian: vol 2

2007-05-24T14:37:00.000-06:00

let me preface this entry by saying that i fully understand that my dietary decisions forfeit my right to have a smooth transaction or a correct food order at any fast food establishment. these stories are merely entertainment and not in any way an attempt at complaining about service. i am fully aware that in these situaions I am the one with unreasonable demands.

i have made a recent attempt at not eating as much fast food lately but unfortunately i am only given 30 minutes as a lunch break and almost never shop for groceries. subway is my only non-fast-food option if i want more than 5 minutes to actually eat, and it is the furthest away. which means that should ANYTHING AT ALL interfere with my precious time (like, say, having to pee. or forgetting that i parked a mile away in the front of the building as opposed to the back) it is no longer an option.

which brings me, today, to taco bell. this is a pretty good example of just about every drive-thru (which, yes, is my first mistake) experience i've had in the past 4 years of not eating meat:

"welcome to taco bell. order when you're ready"
"yes, i would like a zesty chicken bowl, but with no chicken. and a large pepsi"
"a zesty bowl with what?"
"no CHICKEN"
"NO chicken??"
"correct."
"ok, hold on (i think at this point they're checking with their manager to make sure this isn't breaking any rules)......ok. anything else?"
"yes. a large pepsi, please." apparently the lack of chicken threw her for such a loop that my drink was easily forgotten.

now, (maybe this is just a little paranoia) i am convinced that fast food employees loathe my vegetarianism. they think "now why the hell would you order a zesty CHICKEN bowl without the CHICKEN? it's right there in the name!" so to spite me, they hastily prepare my food order, leaving out key ingredients such as lettuce, or salsa, or the "good" beans, until i am left with what is essentially a bowl of rice with some cheese and crunchy red things on top and a dollop of what appears to be three-day-old dried out refried beans buried somewhere in the middle.

thank you, taco bell. thank you for reaffirming my decision to not eat fast-food. and for giving me something to write about in my blog.

2007-05-23T17:52:00.000-06:00

i would also like to take this time to acquaint you with my new favorite blog, the hater, which (per their advertisement on theonion.com) "is like punching jessica simpson in the face, but with words."

silly vegetarian

2007-05-23T15:20:00.000-06:00

chris told me i should post this story as a blog entry.

i went to subway on my lunch break and ordered, as always, a "veggie delight" which i guess is an attempt at making a sandwich with no meat sound as appetizing as a sanwich with no meat can sound.

while making my chip selection, the woman who'd been in line in front of me and was now sitting at one of the booths said "veggie delight? what's that? it ain't got no meat on it?"
to which i replied "no, i don't eat meat. seafood occasionally, but that's it."
"oh. that's why you so small. how long you been a vegetarian?"
"i don't know, 4 years or so."
and with a look of utter bewilderment she exclaimed "WHAT?!"

i don't think it's that funny of a story, except for how genuinely baffled she was at my dietary habits. it was as though she honestly had never heard of such a thing, and could not imagine what would possess someone to make such a decision.

for anyone wondering, my veggie delight was delicious. also, for any other vegetarians out there, bbq baked lays have chicken fat in them. who knew?

are you a voyeur? do you like reading blogs and looking at pictures of people you don't know? i do, that's for sure. i don't even know what the appeal is but once i start i can't stop. yesterday i was blog-hopping (via the "next blog" button at the top of a page) and wowza...people out there are nuts! i wish i had kept the links to some of these blogs.

i found one person who had posted the password to her online wedding photo album. i went through almost every damn photo of these soon-to-be-happily-married strangers. i saw their moms, their grandmothers, the little pre-wedding shenanigans, their friends, and their friends' hideously teal bridesmaids' dresses.

i also stumbled upon a serious goth woman. i say "serious" because she was for-real...body mods and hair extensions and gory photos and all of that. every entry was a sort of run-on-sentence poem about satan and darkness and pain and murder. amongst all the weird blood and gore photography there was also a picture of a newborn baby. which leads me to believe she's a mother. which is frightening, to say the least.

onto other things. things i am afraid of. i am terrified that i will be sucked into the addictive abyss of scrapbooking. my love for interesting paper and cutting things up leads me to believe that at the first sign of domestic boredom i will not be able to fight the urge to start creatively documenting even the most minor of events. any otherwise enjoyable outing will be marred by my obsession over what color foam i will use to letter "a day at the park". god help me if i ever have a baby.