FRASIER IS MY HOMEDOG.

The apartment was given a puppy.
He is officially Michael's; that means he's mine, too.
His name is Frasier. And I could not be happier.

I WISH IT WERE NAP TIME.

There is nothing but genuine insanity that can depict the goings-on of this past week. I've had little time to rest, more time to drive myself crazy, and even more of the ambition to just sleep my way through the end of time. I've been running relatively non-stop (as I'm sure just about everyone else has done, as well), and I'm more than ready to just collapse and take a few moments at my own discretion. I would love to take a nap, I would kill for a teensy bit of slack when it comes to my college workload, and I would love for Brigadoon to disappear off the map for another hundred years.
Fun.

BECAUSE I TEND TO FOLLOW THE LEADER.

The Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up.

It simply involves selecting 5 or 6 adjectives to describe yourself/others you know to create a personality map of sorts that is organized according to what you think of yourself and what others think of you.

Pick adjectives to describe me and add to my map here:
http://kevan.org/johari?name=Kellereno

Build your own here so I can visit it and pick adjectives for you:
http://kevan.org/johari

BWAHHAHAHA.

So, monologues are fun!
Please, O Higher Being, let the hurting stop.
How cliche', but thank goodness it's Friday, or else I'd cut someone.
You heard me- physical violence abounds.

A LOOK BACK AT SHEER VALENTINE'S DAY GREATNESS.

What could Valentine's Day possibly be to me without recalling the sheer brilliance of two crazy bag ladies? What, I ask?
Nothing. That's correct.
Revel in it, and wish you were as goddamn cool as as Jen and I continue to be.
I love my Jen-Gerh.

Written (ever so eloquently) by the Great Jennifer Gerhardt and the Not-So-Great Kelley Smith.

So, it's Valentine's Day. Hallmark sells out of those cutesy kissing teddy bears, Godiva swims in chocolate-induced profits, and local jewelry stores revel in how culpable most boyfriends are to the popular media. The world seems in order. Valentine's Day appears, as usual, a sappy and sentimental affair.
Not to burst the proverbial bubble, but this cannot be true: Valentine's Day is ridden with venomous evil unseen to the naive and relationship-inclined. How vast is this evil, you ask? Evil as vast as the distance between the ground and the balcony that Michael Jackson nearly dropped his baby off of, as vast as the crocodile that came within inches of consuming Steve Irwin's infant son- combined. It is the spawn of Satan and some seriously demented executive who thought no one would actually take the time to research the Pagan history of this little holiday.
Well, Satan and Mr. Demented Executive Man, we're onto you and your twisted games. We're taking a stand!
No longer will we tolerate those cheesy pictures we take with our significant others. What, we ask, is the point? Two weeks from now we'll have either chopped them into tiny bits, have superimposed the faces onto voodoo dolls, or have burned them; the future looks that promising.
The future looks so promising, in fact, that we have decided to send our coupled friends gifts to show our "appreciation" and genuine astonishment at their devotion- and what better a way than by sending either a Condolence Basket or Wreath for Sympathy, easily ordered off of Coast To Coast Florist. The Standing Rose Cross or Spirit of Love Angel also prove perfect for any occasion, even for funerals.
Not that we'd dare compare a funeral to a holiday faction centered around love, joy, simplicity, and happiness (or disgrace, in the case of the "personal ad" fad); after all, death is God's way of saying, "Take some time off from the Love-fest. Meditate on total isolation, utter and complete loneliness, things like that. Builds good character."
Chocolate builds things up as well: your serotonin, your cholesterol, your cocoa addiction, all in one fell swoop. Chocolate motivates; chocolate inspires; chocolate infuses Valentine's Day with enough sugar to send anyone into a diabetic coma. It is, quite possibly, the world's most supportive and nutritionally indecent food; therefore, it is the perfect significant other. Although those fake helpings of coconut and cherries, with their regurgitated and shriveled appearances, don't deserve to be coupled with such perfection, we are willing to make a few vital sacrifices- "In the name of love," as Bono and U2 once sang. Fork over that heart-shaped box, complete with Cupid image, now.
While on the subject of hearts, hold a mock drama of saying The Pledge and place your hand over your heart. Feel that familiar "lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub" and think of what Bill Nye once taught you. A heart, in fact, never has nor never will be shaped as the type of hearts manufactured in conjunction with Valentine's Day; it would be interesting to see a heart of such fine symmetric shape, we think, but wholy detrimental to the human body. However, for the sake of amusement, we wonder: would sales surge in Valentine's Day propaganda were its icon an asymmetrical valve-ridden blood-pumper? With the anatomically correct form of a heart promoted, would cannibalism reach an all-time high? How would people react to shop windows with functional models of everyone's favorite blood circulation device? The answer: repulsion, re-gifts, and rejection. Oh, and profit plummet.
Valentine's Day has gradually deteriorated, rotted, and dwindled away to nothing more than a holiday of false hopes, false advertising, and false encouragement; yet, we continue to cherish and celebrate the "spirit of love" that it brings. Honesty remains underrated: we cast it aside with disturbing nonchalance. We opt to dupe ourselves into a devastating series of fabrications that ultimately leave us bitter, cynical, and alarming to small children- look to the authors of this column for living proof.
A few fleeting words of advice to actually make Valentine's Day mean something: try and retain the content of this holiday, ditch some of the excessive optimism, and definitely, be practical (we, of course, speak monetarially). This day is by no means the only day to celebrate the ones you love; why pour all of your effort into it? Inconsistency makes you appear haphazard.

AND NOW, FOR ANOTHER NEW FAVORITE...

Sean McCourt is officially one of my new favorite Broadway men. After watching him in the Wicked bootleg, I think I might just consider taking him from the Gershwin stage door and having his bald-headed children.
Hot.

[Editor's Note: As a side-bar, I just finished the bootleg, and as unimpressed as I am with certain leads *coughIDINAcough*, Norbert can have my sweet, sweet candy. That's right. You heard me. CANDY.]

LOVE IT.

How much do I love it?
A lot.
A hell of a lot.
Finally, I can smile.

AM I ALLOWED TO VENT NOW?

Life has gotten to the point where I think I could be easily content giving up some of the people around me.
That should be depressing, right? It should sting, tear, mean something beyond an ounce of freedom from the utter stupidity, or so I'd like to think.
Things are so genuinely frivolous, I'm coming to find.
I had a nice non-house-meeting talk this evening with my fellow non-housemate, and I couldn't express how much I appreciated it. I've only found a few relatively composed, responsible individuals in the department, and he happens to be one of them. It's nice to spend time with someone I trust who seems to enjoy stepping away from the crap that is consistently thrown out from all sides of life, leaving all involved parties defenseless (and not to mention covered in crap). We reveled in certain levels of stupidity, relative bullshit, and found solace in the fact that not all things are under our control. I definitely owe him for that.
Other people around me have become infinitely frustrating. I feel like I am, once again, a tool to be used at the disposal of those around me, regardless of my needs or desires at times. Not always, mind you, but it's starting to compound. I know that said individuals have concern for my well being, but sometimes mere concern cannot feed my proverbial (and literal) soul. I need to surround myself with something or someone entirely new, I fear.
Have I ever mentioned how much I adore coming back to my dorm to find food-related-trash scattered about my living space, my laptop still partially unlatched, and best of all, crumbs on my bed?
How I love being stable and devoid of reactionary emotion...

BLAH.

This week needs to end.
Now.

[INSERT CLEVER TITLE HERE]!

Oh, the haunts of censorship and my inability to write honestly about anything!
Here's my attempt at an entirely ambiguous journal entry.

On [A DAY OF THE WEEK], I [AN ACTION OF SOME SORT] while I was hanging out with [NAME OF ANOTHER HUMAN BEING], who was making me feel [AN EMOTION OF SOME SORT].
How [ADJECTIVE OF SOME SORT]!

Ahh. It's good to get that off my chest.

In total and complete honesty, however, I think that's the clearest linear thought I've had in quite some time. My mind is still reeling over the past few weeks of events (Hell, over the past few DAYS of events...), and I can't be sure exactly when the spinning might find it in its little rotational heart to stop.
Please, make the spinning stop.
I wish I could speak candidly about life in general, but so many things prohibit my utterances, the least of which being my exhaustion. No, I could type into the wee hours of...now...without much hesitation, but I have classes. Gross. I must attend said classes and participate and attempt to prove that I have nothing on my mind except said classes.
Fun.

WHY THE HELL NOT?

Why shouldn't I post crappy pictures, huh?
Exactly.

EDITOR'S NOTE:

Apparently, the previous entry has gotten me in more trouble than should be humanly worth it. I resist the urge to censor, and it bites me in the ass. Oh well. Some people are overly sensitive, and others I love dearly enough that I would never mean to hurt. Michael, namely. I love him, and he knows that, and there's no one in the universe I'd rather spend my time with.
Which means the crazy people need to take a step back. Seriously. Before I tazer them.

LAND OF THE LIVING DEAD?

Mother of God, I am still alive.
I have no idea how I've managed to remain alive and breathing, but somehow, by some illegitimate notion of reality, I sit here, typing and functioning to as normal a degree as can be humanly expected.
The last few weeks are finally behind me, and I could not be happier. I simply cannot express how genuinely peaceful I feel knowing that Indulgences is behind me. It's done. Finished. Over. DEAD.
Classes will continue to supply a perpetual workload, so I have no worries as to how my time will be spent. However, it will be nice to have one or two evenings at my disposal before Brigadoon wraps me in its Scottish talons and squeezes whatever life remains out of me. And then, of course, come Conservatory and Directing show work. As excited as I am to do one, I am only slightly excited to do the other. Can you guess? I'll give you a hint- I'm lying. No, not really: Love Talker seems like it's going to be a genuinely interesting experience, whereas After might prove to be nothing more productive than a chance to have some fun with Manring. I would just like to get them finished. Done with. Gone.
I would like to justify my life outlook based on one sole factor, but I can't seem to garner one that would clarify all my problems in one foul swoop. Well, I've not been able to hold down a single meal this week- I feel as though my system is simply bent on the blatant and outright rejection of food, no matter what the sort. That certainly hasn't been a major factor of facilitation in my well being. Yet, we digress.
I'm having difficulty allowing myself to categorize just how I'm feeling about Michael. Yes, he's self-centered. I know. I'm dealing with it. Yes, he's absorbed. I know- I'm trying to pretend it doesn't affect me, but it does. I find myself hurting so often when I'm around him, merely for the fact that he doesn't know how to multi-task: he can't grasp the concept of splitting his focus and allowing for more than one factor to dominate his mind-frame. It kills me. It does. But it's not something I can change. Not to mention the fact that I'd crush him if he knew. I feel like I keep so much of myself from him, if only for the fact that he seems fragile enough to not be able to take a lot of what I have to say. I've seen him recoil from my sharpness. I can only imagine what he'd feel under my scrutiny.
Ugh. Enough of this loathed talking. I have a monologue to learn for tomorrow morning, and I'll be damned if I don't manage to have it perfectly memorized.
Damned, I tell you.