los angeles has notorious air quality. this is probably due in part to the number of cars that drive past my window every day, and also due in part to the fact that it never rains, so particles that would usually be brought down to the earth in the rain remain in the air. i am worried that the air quality (or lack thereof) around here is the cause of the tightness that i’ve been feeling in my throat for about a week now. or maybe i’m just dying young.

i realized today that i don’t usually get to stop and just breathe, much. (i mean, who would want to, around here?) but this city lives at a pace faster than what i’m used to. i’m used to taking time… time like this, to write. to express myself. maybe i’m just still a small-town kid at heart.

on saturday night, when i was manically trying to work, we had a fire in our building. i’d just gotten concentrated on my code, when there was a loud siren sound. lena and i looked at each other as we heard “there has been a fire reported in the building.” we rolled our eyes, threw on sweatshirts, and went to the hall. we could smell smoke in the staircase, but it got better as we descended. some drama unfolded as a pair of fire trucks arrived and didn’t really do anything. then a guy from the department of public safety came and began to lecture us: “this is a prime example of why -” everyone was expecting something about smoking in the rooms, or leaving the toaster that we’re not really supposed to have plugged in in the first place “- you should not park your bikes in the fire lane.” ohh, right. i’m sure you, readership, are dying of curiosity as to the cause of the aforementioned fire. apparently, some kid on the fourth floor had the bright idea to attempt to make cookies in his room. he ended up lighting them on fire. no, i’m not joking. yes, it is hilarious.

you know what else i find really funny? pro-choice vegans. they don’t eat eggs because it’s “unethical” to kill potential baby chickens, but yet they say it’s okay to kill potential baby humans. hello, irony. nice to have you here today.

i like irony. irony is when a vice-presidential candidate has to advocate abstinence-only sex ed in schools and then turn around and hold a shotgun wedding for her daughter. abstinence-only is a great idea, in theory. if teenagers would just abstain from sex, then they wouldn’t get pregnant and they wouldn’t get std’s. it’s not that difficult! i’ve been doing so since puberty! but apparently, since self-restraint is too much to ask of many of my peers, they should at least be educated as to some ways of mitigating the effects of their bad choices. (of course, the fact that my resident assistants handed out condoms at the beginning of the semester is going too far. that just encourages people, which is absolutely unnecessary.)

or maybe i’m just weird. i’m probably going to get flamed again for this one, because people are too busy tending to their own opinions, and therefore telling others that they’re wrong, to remember the first amendment: it’s a free country, and i can say whatever i darn well please.

(or at least that’s what the founding fathers inteded the country to be. this would be a bad time to mention the patriot act.)

i feel rather homesick. i should play guitar.