Not now but now

2007-08-13T22:51:00.000+01:00

Wouldn't you love

2007-07-10T00:36:00.000+01:00

to punch Toby Keith in his throat?

Remember that creepy song pooped from the speakers of your local gas station, assaulting your sense of wellbeing and your peace with the world? You just wanted some cheese puffs, 10 bucks of gas, maybe some good convo with the cute scamp behind the counter who would always wink as you were leaving, that tomcat. But you couldn't get good convo because you were too busy swallowing a little vomit when you heard these lines:

How do you like me now?
I couldn't make you love me,
But I always dreamed about living in your radio.
AHOW DO YA LIKE ME NOW?!

You know, if I did like you that would be the question, wouldn't it Toby? HOW? How do I like you now that you've written that braggy piece of truck scented crap? Good thing I don't like you. In fact, I repeat, I would love to punch you in your throat. I wish I never heard that you named your new albutt "Big Dog Daddy". Because now I have to go through the effort of placing you even deeper into the bowels of my hatred, deeper than any other singer who ever was; you're a chore, Toby Keith.

The big two five.

2007-07-05T19:52:00.001+01:00

I celebrated with friends; we ate fancy pizzas topped with boar, another with pancetta and scallops, a thai prawn and a fajita one thrown in and we drank and drank wine and spooned at free ice cream with gooseberries.

And that was enough; I was happy and laughing, but I got this too. I'm spoiled as 25-year-old milk.

My birthday lake.

One of many birthday G&T's.

My birthday yard.

My birthday slugs in my birthday yard.

My birthday love.

And finally, my birthday swan lake. I didn't know the camera recorded with sound. If you don't want your ears to melt off your head, I would turn your sound off.

You know what I am?

2007-06-24T21:46:00.000+01:00

I am on episode 21. Of season 1. Of the OC.

You know what I am not?

Proud. Efficient. Outside.

But seriously. I love Seth and Summer. I love Ryan's corner-eye glances and the way Sandy eat bagels all day. I love Tate Donovan's forehead wrinkles. I love Misha Barton's acting skills and the way she says, "whaaat's wrong?" like English is her 9th language. Why why why am I so late?

And P.S. Sean's on episode 15. My love thrives, affirmed and healthy! And I know he's only pretending to hate that I sing the theme song at the top of my lungs when? Not only at the beginning of the show, but also when we are cooking breakfast in the mornings, walking to the store, playing frisbee or when he's saying sweet things to me. I also know that Sean got jealous when I praised Seth's wit; he said, "Really though? I mean, sure, the writers give him funny things to say, but it's not like he's THAT hilarious or quick...I mean other people, like, if you wanted to use me as an example, for instance, are quick and witty without writers, right?" Oh it's just like the episode where Seth is jealous of Summer's new boyfriend and how she thinks he's so funny.

ah da na na na na da na na na na da na na na na na na California here we come right back we started from...
CALIFORNIAAAAAA, CALIFORNIAAAA, HERE WE COOOOOME.

The lost Bloomsday pictures

2007-06-24T21:34:00.000+01:00

Some more deferred pleasure. Only for me and like 3 other people, though.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, B!

2007-06-21T15:10:00.000+01:00

This funny, awesome lady was born 18 years ago today.

Unless you're a guy checking out her school picture on my bulletin board, in which case she is still a mature-looking 12.

Bloomsday

2007-06-21T02:13:00.000+01:00

Ulysses is all about deferred pleasure, so it makes sense that this post is 5 days late, right? Actually, the soundness of this rationalization rests on the assumption that pictures of nerds romping around in celebration of Ulysses will please you. It may not and you may give up and x out of the page as this is a long post. Unduly long. A journey, one might say. Of great mental strength. I'm just saying, there are comparisons...

Our Ithacan day:

Should we celebrate this man?

All the time. Every day. By making up new words and thinking revolutionarily, making people laugh and feeling sensitive towards underdogs.

If Jess and Gid were at the door of 7 Eccles street, what would they do?

Pose, show each other their underwear, drink, joke about poop and stick their fingers in the mail slot imagining letters.

What is Jessica's philosophy on picture taking?

That following every posed shot of faces smiling to a camera should come another blatantly posed shot of faces looking into the distance.

Are Sean and Alicia deep thinkers?

Obviously.

Does John envy me my main squeeze?

Who doesn't?
Nobody.

Did Senator David Norris hug me and call me wild and Irish?

You bet your fancy ass he did.

Did Alicia say that the Molly's from last year were better, or at least that they didn't look like they were actually around on June 16, 1904?

She did, that funny lady.

Does Alicia like Ulysses?

Sure looks like it.

Does Marilyn Monroe?

Of course. Sexy things belong together.

How could one describe this Bloom's body language?

Theatrical.

Perfect.

Amusing, enviable.

Is Jess the subject of this picture?

Oh no, no, no; rather, it is the man in the background with the corncob pipe.

If Jess could give Joyce a gift to thank him for all he's done, one that would move him, one that would show him she's for real, in love, limitless, what would it be?

It's true.

Moriah.

2007-06-19T23:14:00.000+01:00

We walked the Wicklow Way and mused philosophical musings, for example, how much does your knee hurt? And also, my toenail is coming off as we speak. Then the things we saw and imagined behind the fog (Mo's suggestion) took our minds off the pain.

We drank beer and celebrated Irish writers until Mo passed out on the rug of the Writers' Museum.

Aaand we waited for buses,

visited castles,

got embarrassed,

took a moment from talking our quadrillion words for a picture.

And now I miss her again like I always do.

This is my hundred and one.

2007-06-10T13:26:00.001+01:00

This blog is about 10 days away from being a year old and I just passed my 100 post mark. I'd like to commemorate with a favorites list.

Favorites list June 3-10, 2007
1. Sean and me playing each other our favorite songs circa age 6- his, "Born in the USA" and "Johnny 99" by Springsteen, mine, "The Nights the Lights Went out in Georgia" by Vicki Lawrence and "Roll on" by Alabama.
2. Leslie Mann's performance in Knocked Up. She is my living Madeleine Khan.
3. Mangetout and hummus.
4. James is gone. No more grunting/ yelling/ howling/ singing/ tin whistles.
5. Frisbee
6. 2 euro white sunglasses from an old hardware store
7. My paper. It's almost finished!
8. My paper-writing softest fleece. Ridiculous, yes, but also inspirational.
9. The Dettol that's kept me from getting Sean's sickness. Also, it says right on the back that it kills Rhinovirus...so in case I wake up from a coma (a la 28 weeks) and everyone has turned into a rhino, this shit is my savior.
10. The picture Sean took of the last 4 favorites from this list.

Back to work.

Wha?

2007-06-09T20:40:00.000+01:00

Have you guys thought recently about how weird kangaroos are? We all know they carry their joeys in a skin pouch, but I couldn't really remember anything else from the 4th grade lessons plans. Nothing like writing page 16 of a paper at 8:39 PM to send you off typing "kangaroo life cycle" into Google.

It all happened as I read through my last page and realized I'd written "joey" instead of "lost". The quote reads, "...as though he were the man lying warm in bed listening and the joey creature down below howling his woes against the elements." I've been looking at my keyboard trying to figure out how I did that and all I can think is that my center was moved a little to the left for that brief moment. So because I'm crazy I thought of kangaroos and because my brain is on a delving paper-writing overdrive and I love procrastinating I became wildly, insanely! curious to learn about joeys and this is what I found.

Kangaroos sometimes have three joeys at different stages of development--one developing inside their body, one chillaxin inside their pouch and one hopping around outside but still sticking its face in the mother's pouch for some milk from time to time like this dude.

In severe conditions, the mother may not have enough energy to feed the older young, so it's left to its own devices. If conditions deteriorate, the mother will remove the pouch young (AH!). This means that the embryo in the body develops and soon occupies the vacant pouch.

Kangaroos are marsupials, which doesn't just mean "carries a baby in a pouch," but that they give birth to undeveloped young. Wallabies, wallaroos, wombats, possums and koala bears are all marsupials.

Now, when the joey enters the pouch it's is a weird looking pink thing,

only 2 cm long and less that one gram. It actually knows (not nothing at all because it has no brain, as you would assume from the picture) that it will be warm and fed if it crawls up the mother's body to her pouch. AMAZING FACT!: Uniquely, the kangaroo embryo has the ability to stop and restart its development, almost entering a state of dormancy. Scientists are studying what "turns these signals in the embryo off and on from the point of view of manipulating embryos during in vitro fertilization and for contraception." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3604045.stm)

Over the weeks, the joey starts looking more like a kangaroo

and eventually gets the hair and and the cute, as we can see here.

It becomes more active and gradually spends most of its time outside the pouch, still popping in if it's tired or scared.

The joey then leaves the pouch completely between 7 and 10 months of age. My guess is this guy's 10 months and a day.

As Sean would say, "Wouldn't you agree that kangaroos are both interesting and amazing?"

We would, Sean, we would.

That is totally an A paper. For a 9-year-old assigned to write on kangaroos instead of a 24-year-old supposed to be writing on gender in Irish writing. Back to work.

It's Sean, Ms. Bigley if you're nasty.

2007-06-08T17:10:00.001+01:00

Some days nothing makes me laugh harder than man bangs.

This is sometimes what it's like to talk to my mom on Skype.

2007-06-05T19:40:00.000+01:00

Karen Farris 6/5/07 7:32 PM
triple half caf nonfat
Karen Farris 6/5/07 7:32 PM
regular iced coffee in chicago has miclk and sugar and is disgusting
Karen Farris 6/5/07 7:33 PM
the mind wanders
Karen Farris 6/5/07 7:33 PM
anyway
Jessica Farris 6/5/07 7:33 PM
anyway
Karen Farris 6/5/07 7:34 PM
i saw a truck with this on it
Karen Farris 6/5/07 7:34 PM
1 800 888-POOP

So you know, we were talking about a friend who didn't invite us to his wedding presumably because his wife hates us. We were not talking about coffee or Chicago or poop.

Sunshine

2007-06-05T00:01:00.000+01:00

Yes, my dwindling time here paints Ireland in bright, happy hues. Now that I'm leaving soon I want to eat this island whole and lick up any crumbs. I already feel the missing of it sometimes when I wake up at 11:30 after reading in bed until 3; I think, I should have savored this Irish morning! gone to bed sooner and read outside at 8. I'm starting to touch my Ireland friends more, although I guess I've always touched them an above-average amount of times--that's a problem of mine. I'm space invasive and I love your perfume and probably your soft shirt too!

HOWEVER

Despite missing here already, there are times lately when, if I could, I would fly home immediately or better yet, take a time machine back a few weeks even because I'm missing so much there, namely, my sister, B. Entire proms and boyfriends are passing me by! I know that handsome kid's name down there, but I've never heard his voice or tested his seemliness for B in a series of timed physical fitness maneuvers or a bad joke to see if he'll laugh anyway.

Summer will pass without a sisters' weekend away.

College will come without me to help pack for it; I never thought it would be like that.

It all makes me feel so whiny.

But I do look at Lindsay's dress and feel a bit sunnier. You know? She's a ball of it. Sunshine I mean. Which I'm not there to see. And now I feel whiny again.

But that yellow! It's so happy!

But it's so far away.

But look how happy that other dude is! Yeah other dude! Yeah!

But who the f is that guy?

This is a vicious cycle.

Photo journal...with words included.

2007-06-02T19:21:00.000+01:00

LISTENING TO SEAN!: Once, in Girona, Sean said, "Let's walk over there" and we stumbled onto an ancient Roman wall where we danced around and posed and made another couple take a picture of us. So now when he says, "Let's walk over there" I listen...except when I really want to go somewhere else in which case he can eat it.

Today, we walked over there to Dublin Castle and we didn't dance around because we are older and more mature now, but we did sit, pose and take a cute picture of our feet. Here is photographic evidence.

SWAN BABIES AND KICKING HAPPY PEOPLE!: We rode the bus back to UCD and I took Sean to see the swan babies at the lake. On Thursday, I called Sean to ask if he wanted to lay on the grass with me and ogle the 6 ugly ducklings but he was too busy making money. Couples smooched all around the lake that day and, after calling Sean, I was annoyed to walk around them, wanting (a little) to kick them all like mushrooms or small dogs. However, if I was on the warm grass with Sean and someone sighed at me while I was smattering affection all over his face I would have told her to stop being a frigid wench...with my mind, because I don't like to ruin things with confrontation. Hypocritical frustration is as obvious a part of me as my freckles; I can admit it. I hate loud girls but when I'm laughing LOUDLY I think, "Oh, everyone on this street must love my joy!" Some days in NYC I would wear heels and stroll on the streets, gazing at skyscrapers, smiling at hotdog men, but when other women wore heels and strolled on days I wore flats, I blew past them, haughty and fast in my practical kicks, shaking my head at the idiots. What I take from this introspection: I'm less annoying at doing annoying things than others.

PRINCES AND PUNCHING!: Last stop-the never peopled flower garden. I love this place. It's surrounded by a secret gardeny stone wall and no one is ever there and it smells like someone glued rose petals under your nose because there are so many of these.

Sometimes when I come here I think of Drew Barrymore in Ever After and how much I loved the prince and then I punch Sean to get some fervor out of my system.

Seriously, going to a crappy place with Sean is more fun than going to an awesome place without him so imagine my luck that I get to go awesome places with him all the time.

P.S. Doesn't Sean's hair make him look like a Republican?

Finals.

2007-05-17T08:31:00.000+01:00

Finals are here. No...more pervasive. Finals are Eeeverywhere.

I'm chill though.

Despite a night in the hospital (not serious) things have been dandy. I'm breathing and doing tai-chi and drinking herbal tea...but sometimes I just want to achieve my chill through quick and artificial means. We all know, however, that this right here is not relaxing. Hilarious, but not relaxing.

As a sweet ass break, I'll get to see The Jen on a visit from Pareee. She, I would roll up and smoke. Man do I miss her. The cheese and fruit in my fridge are dying to be had and my throat's already itching with all the things I want to talk about.

This makes me laugh.

2007-05-13T23:51:00.000+01:00

Happy mother's day.

9:03 UCD

2007-05-02T21:14:00.000+01:00

Can you believe how light it still is?!

Attend the tale.

2007-05-01T21:50:00.000+01:00

Sean and I saw Sweeney Todd on Saturday and now I sing its songs at the top of my lungs when I go for my walks. Anyway. The fact that so many songs are marching through my brain like armies into battle makes it hard for me to be in the library for extended periods of time. Even breathing loudly in the UCD library is akin to screaming naked in a regular library, tearing pages from books and pouring Coca Cola on the study desks. I've been reprimanded more in the UCD library than I have over my entire quarter century of life. Today I hummed three bars between the 820.09 stacks and in thirty seconds three libro-cops had me handcuffed and made me read my rights to myself silently in my head, and those rights were, "You have none. We would rather you die than make noise. Get out of our library, American." So lately, I'm studying outside.

Besides those of Sweeney Todd, these are the other songs that made me a wanted woman in the UCD library:

Leslie first and foremost. I have such a crush on her.

The line, "Take this sinking boat and point it home, we still have time" is particularly sticky.

I think it's a coping mechanism, really. I'm thinking of finals, next year, the thesis, Sean, so many things and then SWOOP! here comes Leslie pushing everything out with her secret heart. These songs are so calming. If anyone but my mom reads this anymore, I'd love to know the songs you're obsessed with lately. Mom, that doesn't mean you can't tell me, too.

Ireland

2007-04-27T15:46:00.000+01:00

No one knows when our exams are, just that they will not be before May 14th or after June 2nd. No one knows where they will be. How do I hand in these essays if the office is closed? No one knows when the thesis is even due. Is it the end of July or the middle of August? Websites disagree with professors disagree with administration disagrees with basic logic.

I've had an epiphany, and I've written it out Rosie-style in honor of her departure from The View.

So i bought toaster waffles
because id been craving them 4 a while
and the picture on the box, it looked really good
i bring em home stick em in the toaster
make some homemade syrup from brown sugar and a little butter
take em out all golden brown
dip a bite in my syrup
and GAG
why?
because they r POTATO WAFFLES

And it strikes me this is an apt analogy for my time here in Ireland. The toaster waffle called life sucks when I create a vision of what should happen, but when I free my brain of expectation and my entitlement to, you know, ever know what's going on here, I get a giant waffle-shaped french fry. And it's pretty finger-lickin'.

A mother's wisdom

2007-04-26T23:42:00.001+01:00

On manboy:

Karen Farris 4/26/07 11:39 PM
i don't think he would murder anyone
4/26/07 11:39 PM
i think he might ask to see their boobs
Jessica Farris 4/26/07 11:39 PM
well
Karen Farris 4/26/07 11:39 PM
but not murder

Peace reads.

2007-04-26T11:39:00.001+01:00

I love

all four books

from these lovebirds

so much that I re-read them even when I have a million books in waiting on my required/desired list and it's 4 AM.

Room number 4, or The Black Curtain of Glenomena.

2007-04-25T15:57:00.000+01:00

Today is Glenomena check-up day, which means a man comes around to all the rooms in the building and checks that you haven't trashed yours Van Halen-style. Welllll, when the dude checked on funky manboy's room next door he asked that my flatmate David and I stand guard whilst he finish the check because he was quaking with fright. Why?

1. The stench.
2. The long, handmade, black curtain behind the door.
3. The bed with no duvet, sheets or pillow. Simple mattress. Deadly simple.
4. and most quake-worthy, Fun.Man. has a postcard menagerie of porn meticuously lining the entire room. His room is seriously an OCD shrine to all things smutty and stereotypically psychopathic.

I was okay when he lined up 6 pair of hamburger buns with one sheet of lettuce, and one squirt of ketchup for his 6 SIX! hamburgers. I was okay when he microvaved a bowl containing three cans of tuna and five baby potatoes. I almost threw up but I was was still okay. Now I am not okay, though, when I think of where all that caloric energy is going. Perhaps into the sheets that are NOT on his bed. I used to think he was maybe R rated crazy-- grunting, pounding on the wall, and then giggling and screaming profanities, but now these annoyances seem so much more. And "much more" = the X-rated results of what must be constant and rampant manboy onanism.

I want to tear my brain out and soak it in Clorox.

I also want to move.

I forgot I had a blog.

2007-04-24T16:26:00.000+01:00

So. It's been a while. Here are some things I've done while not updating.

I've prepared an Easter dinner. Do you see those two loaves of bread back there? I made them. Hells yeah. One is coconut and dried fruit and the other is jalepeno and cheddar cheese. Sean and I also made meatballs in wine sauce, green bean casserole, stuffing, sweet potato mash, etc. I made that tub of butter from the milk of an Irish cow, and also whipped up that Mac computer. Domesticity!

I've read my fancy ass off. I think there are only three books I haven't read and those are the ones just sent to the publisher this minute. Other than those three, I've read every book ever written and am now in the process of writing essays on/ being tested on/ writing a thesis on them. I love it, except that I hate it.

I've stared at the gay mallards that sleep right outside my building's door, Fergus and Ron McGimpsey.

I've beaten a path into the ground on my way to the market.

I've written a note to my 39-year-old manboy of a flatmate who grunts, pounds on the wall, screams "motherfu--er!" and then giggles like a Victorian lady. E v e r y s i n g l e n i g h t n o w. He never answers his door and doesn't respond to knocks on the wall because I guess he loves getting letters. I wrote this after a hanging picture fell on my face.

I've received bullshit answers to my letters.

I've gone to 80's parties where the only shot of Sean cuts out his kickin' lime green sweatband.

I've stepped out and explored. I have no idea, seriously none, why they say the weather here is bad. The trees are blooming, the palms are swaying, the breeze blows cool from the ocean and the sun is freckling everyone's noses.

Hard to believe it's almost over.

Hey sunshine.

2007-03-25T23:02:00.000+01:00

No "hey sunshine" when I wake up anymore.

My mom and I made a 6 city tour around Ireland, making stops at the Giant's Causeway, Sligo, Galway, Adare, Dingle and the Wicklow Mountains, and we rocked it like the rockstars we are. We drank wine every night. We were followed by crazy men. We smoked Camels and trashed castle rooms.

No but seriously.

My mom should hire herself out as a travel buddy because exploring with her is to exploring alone what Murphy's dark chocolate ice cream is to actual poop.

I've posted some pics here...

Rockstars I tell you.

I love spring coming.

2007-03-04T13:47:00.000Z

The bluest sky and an Irish songbird. How do I know the bird is Irish? Because when I took this picture it told me to "feck off."