Head Bored

I’m bored. Being bored is not a good thing for me. Being bored means I don’t do the small amount of work that I actually have. It means I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep. Or watch tv. But instead I am being proactive (not really proactive, but at least mildly active) and writing a blog post instead.

So I had my first ever cavity filled. Yes, I proudly made it 25 years without a true cavity, only to be brought down by my “groovy teeth.” Seriously. That’s how one of my former dentists described them (he then looked a little annoyed when I laughed). I believe it was the same tooth that I had sealed several years ago, not because I had a cavity, but because it seemed probable that I’d get one. So my guess on the whole thing is that the filling fell out, allowing nasty bacteria and whatnot to creep inside and cause a wee cavity. I also totally blame my former coworker, who claimed the cheapest dental insurance we could get was one that would cost like $100 a month, and who, as it was discovered after I left, was completely wrong and off by two decimal points ($1.00 a month, not $100). So I didn’t get my teeth cleaned for a few years, and look what happened. It was, I’m assuming, one of the easiest, most painless cavity fillings ever, though, since I was literally out of there in under a half hour. Plus the dentist thanked me for being such a good patient. (I immediately thought “well-paying,” since he’s made lots of money off of me in the past month, but managed to keep my sarcastic mouth closed.) They are ridiculously nice there, which makes me feel less stupid for picking a dentist on the other end of town from my apartment.

I also started, or tried to start, a new knitting project last night. I cast on 3 (or maybe 4) times, and still got to the same point every time only to find that I somehow was one stitch short. I reread the pattern, thought there was an error, went online, was surprised no one else saw the error, reread the pattern again and realized that it somehow was just me. So the plan is to now not try to cast on a lace pattern while exhausted. Particularly not after drinking my sleepy tea, which contains valerian and has a warning against operating heavy machinery. Maybe they should have an expanded warning for knitters. After all, I could have gotten insanely frustrated and… I don’t know… collapsed in a ball on my bed, falling asleep on the knitting needles which then could somehow accidentally stab me, and the sleepy tea would keep me asleep while I slowly bled to death. Or not. Instead, I gave up, and moved back to my sweater, which will hopefully be done by the time it cools off enough to be able to wear it. It’s a cotton yarn, so that shouldn’t be TOO long away. I might try to finish it as a part of the knitting Olympics, but I might just be lazy and not do something. Or I could cast on another project I have in my mind and a timeline for…

Homelessness (or not)

So… yeah, it’s been a while. It’s not that I don’t love you, dear readers (all 5 of you…), it’s that most of the stuff I’ve been thinking about, I don’t particularly want to post about, for a wide variety of reasons ranging from I don’t want to hurt people’s feelings to putting all my insecurities on the internets for all to read makes me fell, well, insecure. Plus the other stuff, which would have been HIGHLY entertaining, let me tell you. Just takes too much energy to write.

BUT. The discovery of a Robin McKinley blog has reawakened me. I don’t know why. But it has. I adore Robin McKinley. Blue Sword=awesomeness. I was a tiny bit disappointed in Sunshine, but have high hopes for her new book. Plus her writing is entertaining AND we totally need to be bff’s and go horseback riding and everything. I’m adding her to my list of celebrities (to me) who are meant to be my soul mates and mentors and it shall happen!!! (Lauren Graham is the other. I wrote a post about that, but I’m too lazy to find the link. Deal.) I was abashed to discover that she wrote Beauty, her breakout novel, at 25. Which means I only have 8 months to write a book and get published in order to not feel inadequate. A GOOD book, unlike my other, craptastic and not worthy of ever seeing the light of day, NaNoWriMo book.

I also discovered one of my favorite people in my new knitting group has a blog, which seems highly entertaining. She somehow manages to write exactly how she talks. Even when I wasn’t sure it was her, I was pretty sure that it was her, just because of the writing style. I think she and Whitney would get along frighteningly well, mainly because of some of her comments on French men. They were wrong. Dirty and funny and wrong.

In more life news, I did sign on an apartment. As of yesterday, I officially will not be homeless for more than a day or so, depending on when the current people get out (I’m hoping to not be homeless at all, which probably will work out. Seriously, this whole having someone move out on the 31st when your lease ends on the 31st and therefore you can’t really wait to move in until the 1st? Messed up.). It’s a two-bedroom, pretty near work and campus and metro and a nice bike trail, and no longer up 1.5 miles (although I have gotten so I always make that hill. Not fast and not pretty, but I make it. ), and is not really sketchy, but five blocks away is sketchy, and it has a really random restaurant called Quarterdeck, which may or may not be affiliated with a Florida seafood chain. Now I only have to find a roommate, which shouldn’t be too hard given the location and whatnot, and the not that expensiveness of it, and move, which should be hard since SB is going out of country conveniently right about the time I’m moving (I think he planned it.). And then I can relax. If by relax, you mean plunge into school and thesis planning and whatnot. Because that totally is relaxing. Like a sauna or a massage… in hell!

Malaise-y

I am in a funk. A grey mood. A malaise if you will. (and you will.) Why? I don’t know. Everything is fine. And not the “I’m fine, but I’m really mad” type of fine, but the actually okay type of fine. But then…everything is fine. And that’s it. Nothing is great, nothing is stupendous. I feel trapped in a haze of mediocrity. Finding a new housing situation: going fine. Relationship with SB: going fine. Work: kind of boring, but going fine. Thesis planning: not really happening much, but what is is going fine.

(I did almost rethink my original concept yesterday when I saw that a girl last year wrote her thesis on Madeleine L’Engle and Philip Pullman. Genius. So then I was totally going to look at how post-colonialism came through in children’s literature, maybe focusing on the use of myths. Which still sounds interesting. I don’t know. But do I really want to spoil some of my favorite childhood novels by researching the crap out of them? I don’t want to be sick of them… that would just be sad. Plus I briefly glanced at research available and in the 20 seconds I looked, I didn’t see much. Which can be a good or a bad thing. It can be good in that you don’t have to struggle to find a spin no one else has before. Or it can be bad in that you have to write broader, because there isn’t the original research to allow you to go deeper. And I go through brief moments of excitement about either topic and then it pales.)

Knitting, well in knitting, I would bump fine up to well. I only have a few more inches on my sleeves of my sweater, and then I can start on the body. Which is good since my mom and I (my dad’s coming up too, but just for a few days) are having a relaxation retreat next week where much knitting shall be accomplished, and I need her help on getting started on the rest. It’s an interesting pattern. We shall see. Knitting may be my salvation.

With SB… I don’t know. He’s working all the time these days, which makes it hard to get things better. And what am I supposed to do about that one? I can’t tell him not to work. He doesn’t have much choice. About the only time he’ll get a break is when he is out of the country for work (working out of the country is still work, but it’s different), which doesn’t exactly help me or us any. I’d like for us to go do something fun somewhere, but he doesn’t have the time or the energy or, thanks to this glorious economy and his desire to buy a place, the money.

And, speaking of money, I have my first cavity. (It relates. You’ll see.) I don’t know if it’s a REAL cavity in that it doesn’t hurt any and therefore hasn’t really gone past the outer layer of my teeth (or so SB tells me), but it needs to be filled. I’m not afraid of having it filled; what I am afraid of is the bill. Getting X-rays and a cleaning was pretty much insane. Add to that a filling, in addition to car work I had to have done? I’m going to be broke. Or not really broke, since thanks to grad school I’m already in debt and how can you be broke when you are living on borrowed money, but more in debt, which still sucks.

Plus when I get stressed about all such things, I like to spend money. Which makes me more stressed, even if the amount I’m spending is tiny. (I don’t buy big ticket items. Ever.) Which makes me spend more. It is truly a viscous cycle.

And so it begins.

So the housing thing I was hoping would come through apparently has not come through. Which I’m rather okay with since the girl has not exactly been responsive and is that really something I want to deal with? I’m just annoyed because it would be easy and I’m lazy and moving was SUCH a pain last year. Or rather moving twice because I couldn’t find a place when I needed it was such a pain. Or the whole situation, which was just awful and even thinking about it makes me want to start hyperventilating.

But after I finish with the whole breathing into the paper bag routine… I’m in a better spot. I have more contacts, more people who can help me out. Plus I’m going about it differently. One of the girls I know gave me contact info for a realtor who gets paid by the apartment complexes (meaning she’s free to me) and I’ve contacted her. It’ll be so much easier to just find a place and then find a roommate. Preferably someone who knits. Or crochets. I know, it sounds ridiculous to want someone who knits or crochets, but in general, the type of people who are drawn to that pursuit are the type of people I think I’d get along with, particularly in a housing situation. Plus, if they are better than I am, they can show me stuff and inspire me to knit more. (Since the 1457234879 projects I have started are not going to finish themselves.) I know now what stuff is most important to me in a roommate, I know more about the system, and I hopefully am a bit better about working it. So we are crossing our fingers and hoping for an easier transition this time.

Stitching and Pitching

First of all, happy engagement to E!!

I’ve had the strangest getting sick experience this week. I was fine, FINE, until Sunday night. Sunday I did feel a bit tired, but more the “I stayed up too late, slept in too late” feeling than anything else. But all of a sudden, Sunday night, I was burning up with a fever. I was dizzy. I can’t remember the last time I was dizzy from a fever. SB felt my forehead, and was all like, “Have you been doing something? Cleaning or something?” Never mind that I had been sitting there quietly eating next to him for the past 20 minutes. He was trying hard to take care of me more, probably since I yelled at him recently for failing so miserably one summer during college. Seriously. I was really sick. He said later he thought I might have had appendicitis (my stomach REALLY hurt). But he still left and then didn’t call for nearly 24 hours. Whitney was on standby in case I actually decided to go to the hospital (which I was considering). One of his jerkier moments. But at least he is trying to be better.

Stitch ‘N’ Pitch was on Friday and was totally awesome. For those of you I don’t actually see in real life, and therefore couldn’t share my huge amounts of excitement, Stitch ‘N’ Pitch is a group that arranges fiber-related activities in combination with baseball watching. This past Friday was the one in DC, and my first time at both a Nationals game and the Nationals new stadium. It was surreal, sitting there watching the game and looking over and seeing people knitting or crocheting. I went with two friends in my program who also knit, one of whom I’m totally stealing an idea from. Misskateunderground is knitting an American blanket (not being from here), using a variation of red, white, and blue (her variation being no red-I think-, and the white being more gray) AND (here’s the part I’m totally stealing) doing each swatch in a different pattern. Which is a brilliant way to get familiar with lots of different stitches and whatnot, plus the small size of each swatch would give me the fast completion I don’t get from any other project. (Um… yeah... Totally took me 5 years to finish a scarf for SB. In my defense, I was knitting it on size 5 needles and it was ribbed and HUGE. But still. Although I never did see him wear it this winter… He’d better be careful, or no more knitting things for him.)

As for the game itself, it was a baseball game. Kind of slow. I missed the only homerun while in line for a helmet sundae that I walked really far for before realizing that there was a stand a few feet the opposite way than I walked. I finally saw a bobble head race, although the first time (that’s right. Apparently, if the game is 14 innings, they do TWO races), Teddy didn’t even show. He apparently was hitting on random girls at this beach-type place in the stadium. The fireworks were cancelled since the game lasted until 11:40 or so. We started yelling randomly at players. “Score! We want to go HOME!” and yelling with some girl who was trying to get someone else’s attention (Karen, I think?). All in all, a satisfying first Nats game (they did win, btw), with lovely company. I did completely fail to get the name of this girl who was sitting behind us and with whom I chatted quite a bit. I’m figuring I’ll run into her again eventually. DC is big, but knitting communities are relatively small. Plus I got SWAG, which I always enjoy, and pilfered some of my friends’ swag, as they didn’t want everything they got. What can I say, I’m a sucker for free stuff.

I also have begun my first crochet garment. I’m using cheap yarn, but the pattern calls for cheap yarn, and I already had it. I have a few inches done, but have discovered that casting on for crocheting sucks so much more than knitting. The book did warn me, though…

One is silver and the other gold

I’ve been thinking a lot about friends lately, probably due to the several catching up sessions I’ve had lately. This past weekend I went to visit A., who has been one of my best friends for 15 years now (she did the math, but it seems to work out), which was fun but always a little weird. Not weird because that connection is gone, but weird because it’s not. It seems like no matter how much time passes, we still manage to pick up at about the same relationship level we’ve always had. We joke that we are like family, but really, we kind of are. We mock, we get annoyed at each other. She knows things about me that I had forgotten. Like I apparently bruise like a peach. If you had asked me before this weekend if I bruised like a peach, I probably would have said no. But thinking about it, I do bruise rather easily. How did she know that and I didn’t?

At the same time, though, that we have all this history, we also have very different outlooks on life. We always have, really. She’s trying to get me to wear uncomfortable pointy shoes, because they are “hot.” I say they are uncomfortable and make me want to cry and I have to walk a fair amount, so no. She’s more concerned with her appearance than I have ever been. We’re both insanely stubborn, although I’m more argumentative. Yet despite our differences, despite our varying perspectives and any arguments, the relationship has stayed basically the same.

Then last night I talked to E.. Which had a different feel, and I'm not sure if it's because we have only been friends for 8 years (seriously?!?! 8 years since I was a freshman? That's nuts.) or because A. and I had learned how to stay close while not talking really while we were in different colleges or because growing up together automatically affects things. Not to say that I don't love E. and that talking to her wasn't a blast, because I do and it was. But the distance seems more obvious. It took us a good 15 minutes to get into the conversation. It's strange how little we know about each other's lives. Which is also true for A. but it doesn't feel as true and I don't know why. Of course I also haven't seen E. in real life in three years, which might play into it. Though we were talking a fair amount like a year ago, and there was none of this feeling. Which means it might just me overthinking things too much and feeling all emotional because bunches of friends are engaged or nearly engaged and I remember having the same conversations they are like four years ago which makes me sad.

Either way, I feel like there are so many awesome people who have been a part of my life that I don't get to stay in near enough touch with. Even CW, who lives in the same city as I do, and I don't get together or talk that much, mainly because we are both busy and live in different parts of the city. I wonder if this whole moving constantly and meeting new people is changing how we as a society manage relationships. How many friends can one actually stay close to, particularly when everyone is scattered across the country? How can you choose?

In less depressing news, though, my weaving project is going beautifully and is going to be STUNNING.

Epiphanies and whatnot

This past week has been a strange one for me. Full of ups and downs, aided by the spawn of a bad cold and allergies taking up residence in my nose/chest/head/body. Actually, this whole month has been weird. Started insanely stressed out, to the point that I could hardly think, breathe, rest, knit, or anything else. No panic attacks, though, or the return of the horrible stomach problems that give me a weird taste in my mouth that peppered stressful times at my last job, or the stomach stabbing pains from England. I think that deserves a pat on the back for me. Maybe, just maybe, I’m learning to deal with my stress. Starting to, anyhow.

Then I thought I would be happy to be done. I was relieved, but at the same time, didn’t know what to do with myself. I hadn’t had free time in SO long. And I don’t mean like hours free time, I mean any. Practically every minute had been planned, leaving me completely exhausted and mentally drained by eight or nine or so. (Later if I had to work on papers. Which I did. Constantly. In which case I was still mentally exhausted, but plodding onward.) When I did all of a sudden get minor free time, my mind had stopped working, I was still remnant stressed out, and I could hardly stand to move. And then, unsurprisingly, I got the aforementioned beast of an illness. And discovered I had not gotten the grades I felt I had earned. In either class.

Which has been good for me. I know, why would something like that be good for me? It’s a strange phenomenon. Except. Except school has always been easy for me. Toss off a paper the night before it’s due, get an a minus. Put a tiny bit more effort into, get an a. When I graduated from undergrad, SB told me I needed to figure out who I was outside of school. Which I did relatively well, although it was a somewhat traumatic experience. Now I’m figuring out how to base my self esteem on myself, rather than outside accolades I never had to really strive for. Why do I need a grade to tell me how smart I am? I know how smart I am. I live with it and its effects every day. I know I can never get my mind to shut up, that I’m constantly analyzing and writing and rewriting things in my head. I know my ideas, my papers were pretty damn good. Not perfect, no, but why should they be? Given more time to focus on them, more guidance, they might get that way, but not the way school is set up. Plus, I’ve also come to realize that different universities teach different writing styles. And it is HARD to change that basic part of your writing to fit another. I don’t mean styles in how the sentences are formed or how the paper is structured. All English majors do that for nearly every class they have. I mean style as as basic as how you go about writing a paper, the way you form your thesis, the items you focus on in that paper. The nucleus of the paper, not the protons or neutrons. And that is what grad school is trying to change.

Then all of a sudden this week, I was spontaneously happy. I don’t know why, except maybe I feel like I am finally clicking with people (mostly the people in my program who are leaving, but whatever…). That and the whole previously described epiphany. It’s been nice.

Except that every day, I realize more and more that I want to live by myself. Not a slight to my current roommates, with whom I have many things in common except for personalities, which has made sharing a very tiny house interesting. But all that analyzing and rewriting and stuff? The thing that nearly shuts it up is being alone. I like, no, love to be alone. Not all the time, but I need to feel like I can shut myself away for a while, no interruptions, no judging. The more stressed out I get, the more I need that. And right now, that need is what I’m focused on. It makes it very hard for me to care about anything in relation to the house, but getting out. I need a change. Since I can’t afford my own place, I at least need new people to avoid.

Let them eat... Cupcakes!

When trying to decide what to do with all my free time, now that my first year of grad school is over, CW suggested to update here. Well, her first suggestion was to drink, but I quickly decided both for my health and my wallet, that wasn’t quite a feasible way to eat up the time.

So here I am, talking about cupcake wars. Yes, cupcake wars. Those of you who frequent the Georgetown area may have come across a new, always busy locale called Georgetown Cupcakes. It has been featured in various write-ups, received rave reviews, and pretty much constantly had a line of some sort since it opened on Valentine’s Day. Now, previous to Georgetown Cupcakes, there was Baked and Wired, a place down M Street a bit. Baked and Wired has been around for while, and has also been known for their baked goods, particularly cupcakes.

Now people in Georgetown have too much disposable income or are students or students with too much disposable income (the most hated of the groups), all people who are willing to pay for an amazing sweet rush. The battle lines have been drawn, although I’m not sure Georgetown Cupcakes really is aware of Baked and Wired. I’m assuming when they did their market analysis, they noted B and W’s existence, but they have been completely overwhelmed by their success, and every time I’m in there, seem a bit frantic just trying to stay on top of things.

As that last statement might suggest, I’m in the GC camp. One, they are more convenient. Close to my work, not so far down M Street from campus, and close to one of the bus stops I hit. Two, their mocha cupcakes are to die for, in my opinion. With amazing frosting, the kind that is crunchy on the very outside and oozy when your teeth puncture that surface. Moist cake, a delicious little chocolate espresso bean on top… Makes me drool just thinking about it.

I will admit, I’ve only had one B and W cupcake, and I enjoyed it well enough. I wouldn’t go out of my way to get another, and probably won’t dream about it (as I have with GC’s), but it was delightful enough. The cake portion might actually have been a bit richer and moister than GC’s, but the frosting was too thick and too gooey. (Gooey loses to oozy in this case.) And the woman in front of me professed that their cupcakes were SO much better than GC’s. She’s not alone; I’ve heard other people say similar things (not as many as have raved about GC, but GC is new). You could tell, though, that they are quite aware of GC’s existence.

And really. This is the type of war where everybody wins (except maybe B and W’s bottom-line, assuming GC is cutting into it). Maybe we should fly over hundreds of each store’s to Iraq or Lebanon or some other war-torn country, and let them fight it out. At least it would change the terms of engagement for a while. And who can be THAT angry while enjoying delicious cupcakes?

Random Musings

I think I actually have a topic for one of my final papers. This is a quasi-exciting deal, as by this time last semester, I was burnt out and had nothing to say. Of course, I had Awful Professor, who seemed to want to crush us all, especially anyone who challenged her in any way. Jerk. (I’m not bitter still. Letting it go, letting it go…) And in my other class last semester, I picked a ridiculously complicated topic that I still can hardly wrap my head around. You try and define intelligence. Just do it. How do you? Do you include outside skills? Cognitive science? Should it be defined differently depending on circumstance? Can you be dumb and skilled? Yeah, try writing a 20 page paper with all those comments. It was slippery, very slippery. Of course, I am a bit worried, since this professor has been a hard grader and I’m not 100% sure I know exactly what he wants, but he also is ridiculously nice and will bend over backwards to help me figure it all out.

I am a bit bored at work, mainly because I apparently work too fast. I did have a HORRIBLE dream last night that I was volunteering at my old place of employment. Ugh. About half-way through the dream, I realized I didn’t have to volunteer. They weren’t paying me. And I could quit. Quitting again was rather nice. And CEO was of course being a snot, as always. I probably somewhat dreamed about it because I was trying to decide if I could go to Vegas with CW and her friends. Sadly, I don’t think I can. I want to, I really do. But I’m trying so hard to keep my debt not only under my original goal, but $15,000 under. Whee!! Which is so much more manageable. More like an expensive car-splurge than a “dear God, was it all worth it and can I pay it all back?” experience. Or basically, a little less than one year’s salary. Or considerably less, depending on what kind of job I get. [crosses fingers]. But anyways, spending a whole paycheck on a long weekend trip just seemed a bit exorbitant. I could probably swing it, but I’d spend the whole time feeling guilty and trying not to whine about money. And I didn’t want to hold them back from doing exciting things they could afford and I can’t.

I should be excited about Sunday, what with the whole Easter and being able to have sweets thing. But I didn’t miss sweets nearly as much this year. Of course, I did cheat, kind of. See, you’re supposed to be able to eat what you gave up on Sundays, which I didn’t. I did, however, take the number of Sundays and called them cheat days, which I then sprinkled in. But no desert on Valentine’s Day? That just seems sad. The other cheat days, I probably could have done without, but whatever. I think I may try and keep up this whole approach to sweets, though. I mean, if I haven’t missed having them more than a few times in several weeks, why not always eat like that? Though I did already by myself a Cadbury egg… SB is supposed to give me an Easter basket (I’m making him one, too), but we’ll see. I’d rather have at least back-up on that.

Pro-Hill: Or why I refuse to jump on the Barack Bandwagon

I have a confession to make. I [deep breath] am a twenty-something, educated person who is pro-Hillary. I know, I’m breaking with so many demographic studies in this admission, but I don’t care. I really like Hillary. I’m really uneasy about Barack.

Now, some might be wondering how I could possibly be uneasy about Barack. “He is such an amazing public speaker,” you say. “His message of change is SOOOoooo inspiring.” First of all, I don’t care. I don’t need a president to give me goose bumps, I need a president to give me real policies. Public speaking is a useful skill. I, as my mother so frequently reminds me (at least a couple of times a year), have been known to bring tears to my listeners’ eyes. Does that mean I should be president? I would think not. For one, that’s not even legal, due to my young age. Second, public speaking just means you can work a crowd. We have a president who can work a crowd and I don’t like him. He’s been awful.

As for the message of hope, here’s why it doesn’t work on me. The system is in place. It has been for 200 years. Yes, there are things about it that I’m not fond of. There are flaws. But a good portion of those flaws and things that annoy me (minus things this administration has done, which can’t be blamed on the system but only on their assedness) are flaws within the Congressional system. How is he going to change those? He’s in an entirely different system (executive versus legislative, for those of you who don’t remember social studies well). He can try, but I don’t think it’ll work, and really, his energy should be elsewhere.

Then there is the dearth of experience. Foreign experience is hugely important to me right now. The world hates us. I’d like to change that. Navigating the treacherous waters of foreign politics is hard and takes practice and knowledge. He listed living abroad as part of his foreign experience (I mean, seriously. Another reason I should be president. I too have lived abroad. Twice. TWICE.)

Add to all this that I genuinely like Hillary, and it’s not surprising I hope she overcomes the numerical odds and gets the nomination. She makes me feel safe. She’s experienced. She’s tough. She’s proven herself willing to take on challenges, willing to try hard even when failing is likely. And for the argument of how divisive she is and how Congress won’t work with her. She has managed to get a remarkable number of bills through for a junior senator. Conservatives in New York love her. And she has worked her butt off for her constituents. What more do we need? Change? Hah. Call me bitter, but you can’t change the system. We vote on a message of change and we will be disappointed.

Of course, according to the History Channel, the world is ending in 2012, so I guess it doesn’t hugely matter anyways.

Where are the weirdos?

Victoria’s Secret apparently is attempting to rebrand itself, as the CEO says they’ve gotten “too sexy,” and people have stopped shopping there. Which I think is somewhat true. I’m tired of commercials and ads screaming “IF ONLY YOU LOOKED LIKE US,” with the quiet, subliminal text “too bad you don’t.” I mean, it’s not like VS’s stuff is cheap. If I’m going to spend that much money on a flimsy piece of gauze, I want to do it in a place that makes me feel good about myself, not self-conscious and judged. Besides, three-fourths of the stuff is impractical. I don’t have money to waste on stuff I can’t wear on a regular basis. So my advice to VS is brand yourself to all women, not just tiny 17 year olds, stop with the sickeningly pink design scheme, practical it up, and try to make women feel better about themselves, not worse.

Not that I buy anything there anyways. Like I said, they are too rich for my blood. Plus nothing there fits me right. And I don’t like the cashiers.

Of course, that doesn’t seem unusual as I seem to be liking people less and less these days. Which I’d be okay with (after all, people in large clumps ARE insanely annoying, and teenage girls giggling loudly are a bit ear-piercing), except it all seems to be accompanied by a loss of my weirdness. Not that I’m not still strange, but I used to find the strangest things funny. I’d smirk walking around the streets, all by myself. Now… I just walk. And I’m not okay with this. I mean, you can say it’s just a part of growing older, but I don’t believe that. I think it’s just that the people who brought out that side of me are all spread out over the country. (You quirkies know who you are… J) I’m tired of talking about serious stuff, like politics and global warming and budgets and taxes. I want to be giddy, to say things and have people look at me oddly (I know that’s a strange thing to want, but that’s a part of my point). I want to hang out with a bunch of people and wind up making a hat out of a knife and a napkin again. Basically, I need to find the weird people here who can make me laugh and remind me about that part of myself. You’d think my program could do it, but no… we’re all shockingly normal, besides the whole being completely nerdy thing. (I mean, really. I would hate to come to our parties as an outsider. Three fourths of the conversation is literature or class related, and the other quarter leads back to classes or literature.) I wonder where they are all hiding….

And yet happiness abounds

I am seriously getting SO excited about this weekend. It really is all that is keeping me awake right now (lack of sleep? Just a bit.). I mean, I’m stupidly tired, as in couldn’t really figure out how to run the mail machine and had to ask our office manager person like 6 questions about it. It’s not like I’ve not used it before. Okay, maybe only once and that was several months ago. But still. And I used the meter at my old office a ton before we moved. I knew how to work that thing. Up until you had to put in codes or zones or something. But not today.

Plus having whined to several people in my program about how it’s “making me doubt myself” and all that other crap like that, I feel better. It helps that my boss used a draft I threw together for her in a couple of hours nearly word for word. The other draft I rewrote seems to have been made messy, but a good portion of my work is still there. I don’t entirely agree with the changes, since it’s made it all confused and not crisp, but not my decision. And I was told that I’m too fast of a worker (as in they can’t keep up with giving me assignments to do, not in that my work is shoddy) and my former supervisor now coworker keeps telling me that not having me as an intern and working with the others makes her realize again how wonderful an intern I was. Not that I want to be a superb intern my whole life; I’d much rather be a superb upper level, well-paid and trusted employee, but it’s a start. A salve, if you will, after crap last job.

Which I actually kind of find myself missing. Not the job itself and DEFINITELY not some of the people. But CW and J and occasionally T. CW and J and I spent a lot of time chatting, particularly about politics and whatnot. I can hear J’s responses to some of the things going on now. They’d be pretty entertaining. T I worked with less, and working with her could be difficult, but she’s still a good egg.

ALSO EXCITING. My brother’s sister-in-law just had her first baby!!! Who is healthy and cute and a girl. I’m so happy for the couple. She was a big baby, too. Eight pounds 13 or so ounces, 21 inches.

Help, I'm trapped in a malaise

I need next weekend to be here now. Seriously. Next weekend will be loads of fun, as I'm going to see Whitney. But I may explode before then.

See, here's the problem. I never expected grad school to be so hard. I knew it would be a lot of work, but I didn't know it would screw up your head. Maybe I should have. But every single professor wants you to write in a different style, with a different focus on a different type of criticism. Not only do you have to write in a different style, you have to excel at it nearly immediately. You don't get to find your own voice, because the base of what you're writing is constantly shifting.

And, even more fun, this is apparently effecting my work skills, since when I write stuff there, the whole style confusion comes through. It just is exhausting, mentally, physically, and emotionally. I'm tired of being told that I have the ideas, but the style or voice just isn't quite right. All the training I got in undergrad, all the writing skills I learned still just aren't up to snuff.

Plus SB seems to be having some sort of "I'm getting old" crisis, so he's all not helpful and creating other stresses. Add to that the fact that he hated grad school, so all my whining tends to get a very bitter response... And I just found out an old flirtation is engaged. I'm happy for him, but I really wish I hadn't found out now.

Renter's Rights? What renter's rights?

So yeah. My house has no heat. Which is just INSANE, especially since our landlord and his assistant have absolutely no interest in actually caring about us. The heat went out Tuesday afternoon, when the furnace nearly blew up. J, one housemate, immediately called our landlord, his assistant, and the furnace guy. She could get the furnace guy’s number because rather than our landlord actually DOING his job, he’s been trying to get us to organize switching furnaces. Which has led to T, another housemate, spending hours upon hours calling back and forth between the oil company to get them to drain the oil they stupidly put into the tank after we told them not to, our landlord to try and make sure this lack of heat didn’t happen, and the furnace guy when what our landlord said made no sense.

But yes. Furnace nearly blows up, heat gets shut off. Now by Virginia landlord tenant laws, the heat going out in the winter is an emergency situation and the landlord has to either fix the heat or provide some kind of amenable situation within 24 hours. Ha. See, the problem is that all the laws have been set up to protect the landlord. There is no kind of emergency, “my landlord is an ass” type service where you can call them and they will force him to do something. No. Instead what you get is a bunch of rigamoral, no grand collection of information, no list of “here’s what you can do if your heat goes out and your landlord doesn’t care.” Instead, after much research, you find out that you can go to court, file a complaint (at the charge of $50), and try to get something done. You can also terminate the lease, but who wants to move right now?

Our landlord is in California. His assistant cares mostly about only working part-time and covering her butt. Over the course of many phone calls over the past two days, we have been blamed for a. not scheduling the changing of the furnace (um. Not our job.) b. not calling her back when the one person she actually deigned to call didn’t have time to get back to her, c. being mean and cranky about the fact that WE. HAVE. NO. HEAT. And d. not informing landlord about my cat, when we did, he’s seen her, she’s on the application… We were also told, when we brought up that it was going to be pretty freaking cold, that we could a. leave on the lights all the time and b. buy ONE space heater for the whole house.

The thing that really sucks is that they are going to completely get away with this shoddy treatment of us. We’re all tempted to bring in our parents and let them yell at him, mainly for the satisfaction of him getting yelled at by someone he may actually respect, but beyond that? The system is stacked against us. It’s ridiculous that we can be treated so shoddily with no real recourse. This guy keeps on taking advantage of us and there isn’t a huge amount we can do. Big stinking jerk.

Culture Shock

It's kind of sad, but the one thing going home showed me is that I really want to move. It has very little do to with my housemates, who are perfectly fine, and more to do with the small space. Especially since I would rather be living by myself. There just is no where I can go to escape people in general. I can hear EVERYTHING, so even with my door closed, I might as well be a part of the conversation. It makes it very hard to get my work done when any one is home. It would be hard even if I got along splendidly with them and was like bff's or whatever. But I'm not, and while they are nice people, the lack of my own space makes me cranky and I don't like who I am in this house. Alas, I've signed a contract and am lazy, so it makes it unlikely that I'll move before August. I'm hoping that some of it is just culture shock and that I'll get used to it again.

Class has officially started and so far, I'm very pleased with one of my classes. The other I'll have to see about. I like the professor, who is hideously cheesy and entertaining, but it seems like an immense amount of work. He has no qualms about assigning 5 pages of writing per class, and doubling the assignment for this week because he messed up in writing his syllabus and assigned homework for the class last week when we didn't actually get the syllabus until the class itself. So we have both for this week. I wish I could tell more about how he was going to be as a professor. Luckily the reading isn't incredibly page heavy, since it's a poetry class. The class I got shut out of I'm actually thinking might have been too much reading.

I What?

So, my New Year's resolution is to write more outside of school. Since it has now Jan 3 and this is the longest thing I've written, and since I discovered one of my classes requires 3 7-page papers throughout the semester, ending with a 20-page paper, it might not happen. In my own defense, I do write lots of blog entries. The only problem is that they are all in my mind. When we can post directly from our mind, you'll get lots of entries, I promise.

I've been thinking a lot about people getting married/engaged. Not me. God knows, the last thing I need right now is a major change in my life. But the marriage of friends and people in general. Partly because I've decided that so many people around me are potentially setting themselves up for a failed marriage. Not that I really have a huge amount of right to say anything. But first of all. 18 year old? You don't know everything. You think you do. And I think that's a little sad and boring, and I hope you are wrong. I know many 18-year olds think they know everything (strangely, not a delusion I ever suffered from, aided probably by the fact that I haven't known what I want to do with my life since I was 9), which is in and of itself boring. Then one of my friends may or may not be expecting a proposal, which I disagree with for a number of reasons but which I won't go into here. Not because I can't nicely outline them, but because they didn't choose to put their life online, so I won't do that to them.

Also, I REALLY don't like people asking me when I'm going to get engaged. Yes, I know SB and I have been dating for forever, and most people do it because they care, but still. I am okay with the question from friends. Particularly good friends who are more asking about the status of my life. But adults with whom I have a fond, non-substantial relationship, not so much. I mean, what am I supposed to say? "Are you going to marry him?" If I say yes, then it's as if they are proposing for him and no one asks if someone loves someone else randomly and I just am not comfortable answering that personal of a question. I'm going to start asking married people if they are going to divorce their spouse.

I do have a theory about getting engaged. See, I think you can either get engaged before you enter the "we have issues and crap to work through" stage, or after you have worked through a good portion of said crap. And I don't want to be talked down to or pitied by those around me who are still in that obnoxious honeymoon stage of having dated for only a few months. Listen, we went through that, too, and you are going to have problems and you will have to deal with them, so stop acting like your relationship is better than mine because you don't know each other that well yet.

Take that, stupid hill!

As CW reminded me the other day, it has been forever since I've updated. What can I say? It's a lot more effort to update when I'm not being forced to sit at a computer for 37ish hours a week with very little real work to do. But, as today is a day of celebration, I figured I'd write.

And why is it a day of celebration? Well, for those of you who know me in real life, you know that my commute home is a bit difficult. I try and bike at least 3 of the 4 days a week I have to go in to DC (for either work or class). Going is a breeze. Under 15 minutes total biking time, all downhill except for the last tiny bit. Coming back, though... Coming back is over a mile of hillness. And not like intermittent hills where you go up for a while, and then you get a break going down. No. This is 1.2ish straight hill, where the only breaks you get are smaller inclines. There is like a 2 foot long incline, but really. That hardly counts. I have been unable to make it up this hill without at least 20 or so feet of walking. That is... until today. That's right. Today I made it from work all the way home without stopping (except for once at a stoplight, but since I'd rather not die getting hit by quickly moving cars, I hardly think that counts). I have conquered the hill. Next step, being one of the people who can ride all the way up relatively quickly, as opposed to my pathetic, here I am riding the bike at nearly walking pace and if I were going any slower, I'd fall. Of course, I can't guarantee that even making it all the way up the hill without stopping will be a regular thing for a while. But hey. You have to start somewhere.

As for the rest of things. Well school is insane. Mainly because I have paper proposals due soon, which means that on top of the usual crazy amounts of reading, I also have to do research for the proposals. I have one topic in mind, but the other... well I have the text picked out for the other and I know what I'd really like to write on, but I'm sure the prof won't go for it (Medieval myths as translated into modern culture, but I'm sure she wants us to focus on medieval myths in medieval times), so I must come up with something else.

Also, I am deeply upset. SB has gotten me watching Dr. Who, the new version. I enjoy the show. After all, it's a cute, nerdy British man leading a sci-fi life. BUT. SB recently informed me of something that is deeply disturbing. See, a whole premise of the show is that Dr. Who has helpers who travel with him, usually but not always female. They are human, they grow old, he does not. Therefore, he can't let himself fall in love with them. If he does, he has to let them go because he can't allow himself that emotional attachment. Very sad, I know. It's a part of his intrigue. But now SB informs me that he DID fall in love with one of his helpers. And was it the incredibly smart, well-educated black woman who is my favorite of all his helpers? Of course not. Is it the brunette with a penchant for technology? No. He freaking falls in love with the dumb blond. I mean, come on. If I see one more tv thing where the guys all fall for the dumb blond, I'll go nuts. I'd be fine with a smart blond, though I might still be a teensy bit bitter. It just makes me mad. Stupid tv writers. I'll go along with your raise when you stop making every love interest a Barbie doll. Oh! I thought of proof of me being okay with a smart blond. Chloe on Smallville. I adored Chloe and thought Clark was a moron for not being with her. Whereas Lana...not stupid, but not the brightest bulb either. So really. I think my problem is that I'm tired of being shown guys constantly falling for the dumb girls. I think weak men fall for dumb girls because they can't stand being challenged by a woman. Well, women writers, force them to be challenged! It's about time for the smart girls to step up and step out.

A mini tantrum

Well, I just sent my professor a "come to Jesus" email. Not really, but it feels like that. Basically, I sent her an email saying that I don't like my grades, but don't have any idea how to improve them. Which is completely true. I spend so much time and effort on that class, and it doesn't seem to matter. And I don't even know what she wants from me. I spend 12 hours on a stupid presentation, and my texts, based off the bibliography she gave us, were not related closely enough to the text and to women in general. My classmates thought the presentation was informative and helpful, yet somehow it yet again was not good enough for her. Yes, I could be a big girl and go in and talk to her, but I have NO desire to do this face-to-fact. Plus this way, I can do it now, stop thinking about it for the weekend, and hopefully escape from it all for a while. I am utterly disheartened about my ability to give her what she wants and I hate that the whole situation is making me doubt myself. The only saving grace is that it seems like all of my class feels this way. That and my whole program is lovely and some of my friends said some very nice things about me last week. I'll just hold on to those. Although one of the guys is not exactly my favorite person right now. It's not even that the grades matter that much to me, though. I mean, I'm not going on in the system, so I won't be applying to doctoral programs. The real world won't care. It's just what it represents. And I've had hard graders before. But they always showed you how to do better, and they made sure you knew that that was their goal. I'm just not going to think about it any more.

Instead I'll concentrate on the fact that two of my best friends from high school will be up here this weekend. They are so low key and fun and funny and great. They might just save my sanity.

Foodless

I am officially declaring Into the Wild to be the most depressing movie ever. Exceedingly well done. But it's been five days, and it still makes me shudder.

The first reason it is so sad and yet so good is that it completely plays into the societal and age-determined desire to just wander. To not have any kind of responsibilities, to just take off and experience life. It definitely has its appeal. Not that I in any way, shape, or form have the kind of personality that could deal well with being homeless, moneyless, and constantly dirty and hungry. But still. It's like On the Road. When we read that in my class in undergrad, everyone in the class wanted to take a road trip. Beyond that, I didn't particularly enjoy the book. But I wanted to hop on a train and eat nothing but apple pie for three months and sleeping on the floors of random people's apartments. Kind of. And there was something admirable in Alex Supertramp. He really didn't want to be materialistic. Or rather, he wasn't materialistic. He didn't want anything tying him down, and he managed to do some pretty cool stuff in the two years he was wandering around the country.

But then. There is apparently an ongoing debate on whether he was ill-prepared, wanted to die, what. No one really knows. But if he wanted to survive, and it seemed like he did at least from the portrayal in the movie, he was insanely unprepared. It seemed cocky. I mean, you don't go up into the wilds of Alaska with a small gun, a bag of rice, and a tent. I don't know much (although I think Survivor Man has definitely better equipped me for these kind of things.), but I'd have more than that. And he didn't think about the river rising, he didn't have a map, he didn't try and find another way out when the river blocked him off from the way he came. It's like he just gave up. Whether or not he wound up eating poisonous berries accidentally, he had time before that happened to try and get out. And why would you only take a single tiny book on vegetation when you are planning to live off the land? And you might want to do more than talk to a couple of people about hunting and how to skin and prepare animals. Because, as Survivorman has showed me, you can eat some pretty disgusting meat, as long as you have a fire to heat the crap out of it. Man Vs. Wild (who, as we know, is DEAD TO ME) has eaten maggots. It just frustrates me. It seems like such a waste for someone to die because of what? Because they were ill-prepared or cocky or... I don't know. There seem to be so many other things he could have done to save himself, pre-berry eating.

Also, the movie shows you him starving to death. It's pretty gruesome.

Which reminds me. I saw an even scarier "scary anorexic girl." She was awful. Her veins stuck out SO much. It was disgusting. And she was all sauntering when she walked, like she thought she looked so hot. I really wanted to stop her and be like, "PLEASE EAT SOMETHING. You don't look good so skinny." But I don't think that would work, since anorexia is horribly complicated. But still. Why would you want to do that to yourself?

Farewell, Oreo

So yesterday morning, my mom took my childhood cat, Oreo, to the vet's to be put to sleep. Oreo was old, and dying, and no longer enjoying any real quality of life, so no one get all defensive or anything. I am simultaneously more and less upset than I thought I would be. On the one hand, she was really old. When I went home last time, I pretty much knew she wasn't going to make it to Christmas. So it's not like a surprise or anything. And I've only seen her like once or twice a year anyways, so she hasn't really played a major role in my life for the past like 7 years.

On the other hand, she was a good cat. I remember going to pick her up. We were in our old Subaru and she ran under the seats. I remember trying to name her (it was between Oreo and Socks; yes, we weren't very creative.), and her playing with wrapping paper at Christmas and her sleeping on my bed or giving my brother fleas... It won't quite be the same going home and not seeing her. Not hearing her and Felix fight. I wonder if Felix will be lonely now? So Oreo, I hope you are in kitty heaven (I'm not Catholic, I can believe in pet heaven if I want to), with lots of tuna fish and comfy chairs.

A Course Description

So classes are going pretty well. I really like the Joyce/Woolf course; the professor is cool in a kind of nerdy way (afterall, he does teach Joyce). And he's such a great discussion leader. Encouraging everyone to say anything and allowing the discussion to flow well.

My other course... is a bit frustrating. The texts are somewhat hard, mainly because they are all from freaking forever ago (I mean, like 1350 and stuff) and we have a rather different point of view. The main problem, though, is the responses. We have to write a response every other week on the texts in relation to an analytical article. Which is not that big a deal. Most classes require a response. But she wants a casual, highly thoughtful, analytical, but relatively short and not that big a deal response. Not like a whole paper, she says. Don't worry about being that formal. But then she keeps marking me off for not citing correctly or not having a bibliography (for the REQUIRED TEXTS!) or being too colloquial. She's worse than Manav and at least I was writing an official paper for him. This is just a response! I've talked to some other people in the class, and we all agree it's a bit nuts. Even second years, so it's not a "OMG, I'm in grad school" type thing.

I finally have the time to write an entry (My parents were here last week, which was fun but involved lots of juggling/trying to squeeze homework into spare time and thus having no spare time), but I'm sick. And slightly incoherent. Which could be fun, since I have my Joyce class today and what can be more fun than being incoherent while talking about Ulysses? So this is all you get. Well, this and an internal yawp of excitement that my chocolate wine is finally in stock and that I get to see one of my best friends this weekend and go on roller coasters. Hopefully I will return with all my feet.

Paranoia

Okay, so I'm at work and I finished a writing piece. I go into my boss, and she's like, "wow. You're done? That's really fast..." Which now makes me wonder about the quality of the piece itself, except when I go back and look at it, I'm happy with it and I think it makes good sales sense. And I stole a fair amount from what the authors said, since their description was well-written... But I still feel all stressy about it. I seem to be able to finish things insanely fast here, or at least insanely fast compared to past interns, and I'm not quite sure why...

Worth more than a cookie.

Wow. So I guess it's been nearly two weeks since my last post. Oh well...

I was at a party this weekend for one of my friends. A chocolate party, I might add, which is such a great idea. While I was there, I was struck by how different my church group of friends is from everyone else I know. Well, not everyone else. But a good portion. They are just so responsible, so having everything together. Plus they are all older and definitely further ahead in their career. So they either are thinking of or have bought a place, many are married (although not the people I'm closer to) and have kids... I'm not sure why there don't really seem to be any people at my stage of life at church. Maybe it's that no one my age goes to church? But that can't be entirely true.

Whatever the reason, it kind of puts me in a strange position. On the one hand, I'm young. I'm clearly not settled in my career, anywhere near thinking about buying a place, and definitely not comfortably well-off. (And my loans still haven't come through to my checkbook... fun stuff...) But on the other hand, I feel older than I am. I have for a while. But I look at the people around me closest to my age and... I don't know. It's not that I don't kind of understand their lifestyles and whatnot, but they just don't appeal to me. I mean, parts of them do. But I'm never going to be a person who wants to go out all the time, staying up till all hours of the night. I like going out, I like hanging out even better. But staying out until 3 in the morning on Friday means that a good portion of Saturday is going to be wasted while I sleep. I would love to be able to buy something, I'd rather spend the evening in a quiet wine bar or a local pub or something than a loud club. Or a coffee shop. I really like coffee shops.

On the other hand, all this trying to organize school stuff, house stuff, and personal stuff all at once makes me completely exhausted.

Exhaustion

I would apologize for not updating, but I'm not sorry. I've been insanely busy in a "I have nothing really scheduled but 12987634987 things to do" sort of way. Add to that the fact that my house in currently internetless, and you get very few updates.

So, you might be asking yourself, what has been keeping her so busy, too busy to get online and keep us all informed? Well, this was my quasi-first week of classes. I say quasi because only Monday, Thursday, and Friday classes met this week. I began with orientation, where I got shut out of all classes I was vaguely interested in but one, which apparently very few people want to take and which cost me a fortune in books, due to having to buy 13. 13! I went to the Joyce class I'm waitlisted for and which I'm losing hope of getting into, as I still have not heard about getting in, although who knows. People might go to class on Tuesday and decide to switch, in which case I shall jump on it and get in that class.

I have also been trying to find stuff which will somehow allow me to squish as much stuff as possible into a small room and small house without forcing either me or my roommates to live on hte porch or in such squalor that we all get really cranky and kill each other. This process has involved several trips to Target, one trip to Ikea, and much time and energy. Add to this all the walking I've been doing, and you get a collapse of me. Plus I lost an expensive ball of yarn, which upsets me.

However, Cassie seems to have transitioned all right, I'm now sleeping through the night, albeit with strange dreams in which teachers chase me for finding out that not only are they not gay, they are dating their high school students (he kissed her in front of an auditorium! We then all began singing somethign about it all in a round. It was odd. I now must go on a mad search for the last book for my medieval class, in order to read it by Tuesday so I can write a commentary by early Wednesday... And then I shall refuse to move for a few hours, followed by a happy hour and two picnics.

A Dark Fairy Tale

Last night. my parents and I watched Pan's Labyrinth. I had strangely enough forgotten that it was in Spanish, and so didn't get the knitting done that I had planned. I seriously am so in love with my shawl that I'm making. It's silk, variegated purple, and has lace edging. It's going to be gorgeous.

Anyways, missing the knitting was probably a good thing. OMG. That movie. I can't stop thinking about it. It was so bizarre and beautiful and horrible. It played with the differences between true life and fantasy, the ending reminding me of the ending of my favorite story that I wrote, meaning that you weren't quite sure what had happened. The people were either amazing, or completely awful, more evil than you can usually imagine. Or at least more evil than I want to think about people being. I did enjoy that the strongest characters were women, for the most part. The imagery was dark and sensuous and reminiscent of The Brothers Grimm, but with more meaning and depth.

The only problem with this whole movie (besides the gruesome imagery. I mean, really. I don't actually need to see someone whose mouth has been cut opened.) was that it has put my laziness and my curiosity opposite each other. I want to find the myths that this was based on, I want to see what the history is really like, I can't for the life of me remember the other movie made by the other Spanish director that was up for an Oscar... But then I'd actually have to do research and whatnot. We're going to ignore the ramifications this laziness might have on my career as a grad student...

Bike-y Goodness

Whee!!! I got a new bike! My mom got the exact same one, but in different colors... Now we all match.

Me? Cranky? Why do you ask?

I'm feeling just a teensy-bit pissed off at the moment. Not at anyone at home, although you'd think my parents would have learned by now that I'm not a morning person. I don't want to talk to anyone for quite some time after I get up. It's not you, it's me and all that jazz. Just leave me alone for a bit and we can talk at lunch.

But that is just a minor irritant, something that happens when I'm at home and forced to interact with people in the morning. No, I'm instead upset about something else entirely, something I'd rather not get into too much on here. Let's just say that if you purport to care about someone, and they email you about feelings and insecurities and whatnot? Freaking at least acknowledge that they told you something. Don't just ignore it because you don't want to deal with it. In fact, I'm going to say that one of the best ways to deal with email? Ask yourself if they said the same things to you in person, would you feel like you should respond. If the answer is yes, you should respond in some shape or form. Dumbass. (It's okay, he doesn't read this. Though I'd be okay if he did, because its about time for him to have learned these things by now. Such as treating significant others with common courtesy.) So now I have the song from Chicago in my head, the one where the Six Murderesses describe what they did. Mainly the line from the first woman, about "feeling REALLY irritated... so I fired two warning shots. Into his head." Yes, I can occasionally be frightening. Why do you ask?

In another completely innocuous turn, Kinder Surprises are apparently illegal in this country. For those of you unfamiliar with these, they are little chocolate eggs with toys inside. The toys are carefully encapsulated inside a plastic egg and they usually have tiny parts that you must put together. Apparently, our government, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that these eggs are too dangerous and may encourage small children to eat parts of their toys. Not the toys from the eggs, but toys in general. Parents, if your kids are small enough that they might be confused about what is and is not edible, you probably shouldn't be giving them things with small parts anyways. If they are old enough to know not to eat toys, but still might be confused about whether plastic is edible... you might have some bigger problems on your hands than Kinder Surprises. Besides, we combine food and toys all the time. Cereal? Cracker Jacks? All food known to have toys inside. And what about the candy that you can play with? How is that not more confusing? Is it a sucker, or a light saber? It's both! Play with your sword, then eat it! But beware the dangerous Kinder Surprises...

I guess I really am all grown up now...

Apparently, this trip is going to be the trip where childhood dies. Okay, so that's a bit dramatic. But my childhood cat Oreo is dying. She's hanging in there, but just barely. Her kidneys are failing and she's not really eating and she was in the vet hospital for a while on iv's, so her little front legs are shaved and you can see how skinny she is. Which is just strange because before I graduated from college, she was overweight. Fat even. And now? So sad looking.

Also, they are getting close to tearing down my elementary, which I agree with in theory. I mean, the building is old and has been condemned and whatnot. So teaching there is probably not such a great idea. The local university wants the land, I'm sure, and leaving it up for sentimentality's sake is a bit strange. But still. It's hard to imagine that now all the schools I attended as a child have either been torn down or drastically changed. I'm not sure what happened to my preschool, but every other school... Even my middle school and high school have now morphed into one and I've been told that the inside is nothing like what it was when I was there.

My most recent haircut seems to have reminded my church that I have moved out. It was strange. The last Sunday I was there, I think only the people who were friends with my parents or parents of my friends said anything to me. This time, I think I was more popular than the preacher. Some people had me four years younger than I am (So... you're in your last year of college now? Um. No. I graduated three years ago.), but at least they knew I was no longer around. Why a haircut would accomplish this, I have no idea. But whatever.

Also, my friend Brian currently has a picture up. I can't decide how I feel about this picture. See, his wife is pregnant which makes me so happy(!!!!) because I know they will be great parents. But the picture is of him holding the test in his hands, reading the positive sign. So a part of me is all excited for them. The other part of me? Is going ew. I mean, she peed on that. I know urine is an antiseptic, but still.

A Not-so-fond Fairwell

My last posting from this desk. How shall I miss it, let me count the... or not.

So I'm on my way out. I'm quite excited about this. We all had a nice moment in the conference room that was horribly awkward. I'm really not good about being the center of attention at any point in time, much less in a room with 7 people, where one of the people has not said anything directly to me for a number of weeks (he still avoided it, for the most part) and where I harbor dislike for another. Still, I'll miss the other three (yes, 3+2+me only equals 6, but Pres' daughter is in today, so she makes 7. I'm rather neutral towards her.) I've cleaned my stuff up, filed everything I hadn't been filing for ages, and finished up the bits and pieces I had left. Now I'm just hanging out until I can leave. LEAVE!!! And then go home and take a few loads over to my new place. Ugh.

I shall also have to spend some time with Cassie. She's had a rough time lately. She ran into a glass door a few weeks ago, then ran into a wooden door, and then last night, she fell and bit her tongue. I think she bit it hard enough to make it bleed, which of course made me feel horrible even though there was little I could have done to prevent it.

And in another blast from the past, I myself friended the little sister of one of my old best friends. Her sister and I were always together for about 2 years solid. Our whole families were and somewhat are still friends. I feel bad because I tend to forget that there is another younger sister, who was too little for me to play with and who apparently made very little impression on my young mind. But the middle sister was frequently the third in our games. She got all the crap roles, though. And the blame for things that weren't her fault. We once blamed her for breaking a doll her sister was holding, because she tripped or distracted her or something. It was kind of funny, looking bad. She had to go apologize to my mom and was all in tears and she hadn't even done anything. Sigh. Good times. Of course, she's now threatening me with revealing pictures...

I'm not Bon Jovi.

Facebook is a strange beast. Today I had a guy friend me. This guy and I have a long and sordid history. We met online in 8th grade, back when that sort of thing wasn't done. He took me to my senior prom, we stayed in touch for a good portion of college. He kind of became friends with some of my other friends. Then we had a falling out. A pretty serious one, leading to me deciding that talking to him wasn't good for me and wasn't worth my time. Not to be mean about it, but he hurt my feelings and then not only didn't seem sorry about it, but twisted everything to try and make it my fault. Which is not cool with me. Hurt my feelings, yes, people can do that. I mean, you can't always know what's going to hurt someone. You might not agree that it is worth being hurt over. But to not want to apologize, to not feel bad for hurting someone? That I just don't get.

But maybe he's grown up some. Maybe he just wants more friends on Facebook. The whole thing is a little strange, though. Being tracked down by someone you had cut out of your life.

Strangeness Abounds

This week has been strange at work. It's my last week, a fact that excites me muchly (WHEE!!), but it has led to a strange office atmosphere. Or maybe it's not even that, but whatever it is, it means VP has not said one word to either me or CW. And actually, it's not even been just this week. I don't think he's said anything for the past few weeks. Not idle chat, not hello, not goodbye... I even got my hair cut again (it's not like three inches long), and not one word from either him or Pres. She at least has talked to me, mainly because she's in a good mood and because she wants me to do stuff before I leave. Though she also hasn't mentioned that it's my last week... And no one has told me exactly what they want to do before I leave. I mean, I've been doing the basic cleaning up, making sure everything that needs to be done is. But anything else? Who knows.

But Pres keeps acting funny anyways, laughing indulgently at strange things, like us only having a mechanical pencil sharpener because none of us ever use pencils. Or that our rubber bands are old and we haven't ordered new ones because she uses like 15 a year. I know. It's really not funny. "Haha, we tend not to waste money on office supplies we never use..."

A Trainwreck

I have reached the state of exhaustion where everything may or may not be funny and when the stupidest things make you giggle. Including awful yogurt pick-up lines on other blogs (Yoplait or mine? Seriously? Can't stop snickering at it.) I thought my falling asleep at 10 last night would help, but it has only dulled the edge.

I blame the commute. I think it may have killed my brain. See, yesterday it took me 2 hours to get from Foggy Bottom to Ballston. 2 hours! I could have walked in that time. Something I considered, but then realized it was freaking hot and my feet already hurt and my ankle is still not 100%... i also blame SB. The metro broke down yesterday. A train broke somewhere between me and where I was going and they claimed it was fixed, which was clearly a lie. There were no times on the sign. There was a man wandering the tracks at my station with a flashlight. I really don't think things were starting up. So I left. I was supposed to meet people at 6:15, it was now 6:25 and I thought I should call them. Plus I figured SB could come get me. Ha.

I called him and asked him to come get me. The lack of enthusiasm just dripped through the phone. He is so freaking unwilling to ever drive into the city. I don't know why. He comes in for meetings not that infrequently. It's really not that scary of a place. And I say that after getting lost nearly every time I've tried to go somewhere specific around here. (It's the traffic circles. Screw EVERYTHING up for me.) Since he was SO excited about coming in to get me, I offered up a bus possibility, not in seriousness, but more in a "I'm trying not to force you to do what I want, but really get your butt in here because there is no way taking a bus is not going to take forever" way. Yeah, guess what I wound up doing. Freaking waiting for a bus for 40 minutes, followed by a 40 minute bus ride. Because he "honestly thought it would be faster for me to take the bus." Liar. He honestly really didn't want to pick me up in DC. He wanted to pretend like it would take less time. But deep down, we both know that's not the reason.

I was too tired last night to be properly pissed off, but tonight... Plus, appropriately enough, Token Male CW yesterday was talking about his then-girlfriend, now wife, and how he once rode from Ballston to Van Ness at 10:30 at night in the rain, because she thought she heard a noise downstairs. That's what HE did...

Moving Forward

I am officially homeless. If SB wanted, he could kick me out and it would be me and my stuff on the street. Not likely, but still. It's strangely a little freeing. For at least this little bit, I don't have a place tying me down. I have no responsibility to pay rent or cable bills. My stuff is completely in a mess and I can't find anything. Last night was a success because I found a pair of shoes and my retainer. (Yes, I still wear my retainer. I didn't spend 2 and a half years in pain to watch my teeth slowly become crooked again.) And while not being able to find stuff is not the same as not having stuff, I still feel somewhat unencumbered. Just don't tell SB's housemates... They'd take one look at my massive amounts of clothing clogging up their storage room and laugh.

I also just got back from an interview for an internship. I think it went well. In fact, I might be a bit overqualified, not in that the position has nothing to offer me, but more in that I would be doing work comparable to what I do now. The difference would be that this internship would give me a chance to look at a part of an industry I think I'm interested in. I would be working for basically the whole department, which would give me a broad view. And they had an editing test, which I nailed. I mean, "manged" for "managed?" Just made me giggle.

Up and Down and Down Again

I am just about to collapse from exhaustion, mental and physical. This weekend... Up and down and up and down yet again.

Last Thursday, we went to look at a house. It was great. Perfect even. We both felt like it should be ours. Sadly, there was an application put in the day before. BUT there was a chance that if our application was better, we could still get it. Friday, we frantically put together the individual portions of our applications. The girl from Colorado got up early to get it in by noon EST. We sent it in with a check for credit checks and a check for a deposit, hoping that having our money in hand would also tilt things in our favor. Things were looking sunny by mid-Friday. Our realtor thought we had a pretty good chance.

Saturday, I started to move out. It took freaking forever. SB kept trying to convince me that I didn't need to move out all of my clothes, because potentially we would get the perfect house and I could move some straight there. We made several trips. I hurt my foot even more, to the point that Saturday night I had resorted to basically hopping, only lightly touching my right foot down for each step. Physically I was exhausted. I didn't eat enough. I hadn't slept enough. I didn't drink enough water. By the end of the day, I was nearing collapse. And it took all day to move. Not a few hours. Not even several. But all. And I still have those last pieces of clothing and about half the kitchen to move. And I have to clean everything. By tomorrow night. I also have no lights in my apartment outside of the kitchen and closet and bathroom.

I slept a bunch Saturday night. A bunch, but not well. SB's basement is noisy. I was worried about Cassie and how she was managing the transition. I was worried about whether or not we'd get the house. Woke up still exhausted in the early afternoon.

And Sunday evening I learned that my worry had been right. We didn't get the perfect house. There hasn't been a lease signed, so theoretically it could all fall through for the other person, but it doesn't look good. I was very sad, and immediately felt more exhausted.

Today... still tired. Still didn't sleep well last night. There have been a few brighter spots. I may have an interview for a paid internship. My mom sent me flowers to make me feel better. But I still have no place to live and I am thoroughly tired of looking.

Don't Work Out with a Sprained Ankle, or Why I Am a Moron

Those of you with someone longer-term memories may recall last week that I hurt my foot walking to see a place. I quickly, and by quickly mean over several days and with the opinions of others, decided that not only did I twist my ankle, I actually sprained it. The bruise got darker, the swelling got bigger, I bought a wrap and started wrapping it... It's only a minor sprain, so I can get around fine and just limp a bit.

HOWEVER. I am a moron. Or at least, not very good about taking care of myself if it is something that I can ignore. So Friday. Walked. A lot. Took waltzing lessons at the HP event. Walked some more. Barely could walk by the end of the night. Luckily, this didn't have a horribly adverse effect, although I'm sure it didn't help.

Then the bruise and swelling started to go down. I started limping less. Felt almost normal. I was considering stopping wrapping. Then my stupidity kicked in again. First, I forgot that I'd only been injured a week (I thought it had been two), and it takes over a week for an ankle to heal. Then I thought that I could just be careful when working out. HA! I should have known better. I started off on an elliptical machine. It hurt some, so I wisely got off and got on a reclining bike. Things were going okay. But I'm not used to a reclining bike. For one thing, it burns a heck of a lot fewer calories. Plus it's hard... Yes, that means it's probably good for me, forcing my muscles to do something else. But it also means... it's hard.

So I got off after 15 minutes and got... on an elliptical. The same machine that hurt earlier. My foot started swelling a bit. My toes went numb as the wrapping dug in tighter and tighter. By the end, I was a little afraid that I was trapping blood down there and might eventually pass out. And yes, I still finished my proscribed time (10 mins. with a 3 minute cool-down). In my defense, my foot didn't REALLY start going numb until the cool-down. And nothing REALLY hurt after a few minutes.

But today? Today I am back to limping. It hurts nearly as much as it did when I first hurt it, although it's not nearly as swollen. And I get to move in two days. It could be fun...

Betrayal

So my coworker pointed out this today. Apparently Bear Grylls and Man Vs. Wild is a big fraud. He stays in hotels. Consultants make his rafts and show him how, so they can get the precious shots of him building them. Channel 4, the channel in Britain airing the show, excused themselves, saying fans should know because " he often directly addresses the production team, including the cameraman, making it clear he is receiving an element of back-up." Which is a big fat lie, obviously spoken by someone who doesn't actually watch the show. The ONLY times I've ever seen Bear address the cameraman were when they were in danger and he was telling them to get back or get out of the water or some such warning. And Bear himself has said on the show that he's not allowed to interact with them. Hmph.

Now some of you might not think that this is such a big deal. After all, he's still showing you the survival techniques and he still, as Channel 4 put it, "does his own stunts." But it is. First of all, they lied. I'm tired of people lying, relying on trickery to get good ratings. Plus, while Bear is attractive, liars are not. So all this makes him less attractive. Second of all, I only marginally watch the show to learn how to survive if, by some strange chain of events, I wind up stranded in the arctic or something. A good portion of why I watch is to see how someone well-trained can manage to do these things that are beyond my capabilities. To learn that they are beyond his, too? Such a let-down. Next, they'll tell us that he wasn't actually climbing waterfalls in the wild, that it was all a set and they had those invisible wires holding him up.

That's it. My allegiance now goes to Survivor Man. Not only is his show more informative, because he can't do a huge amount that I can't, but it's more true. After all, he doesn't even have a cameraman with him. He carries all his own equipment.

Less-es approaching

I have decided that one of my new big pet peeves is people who don't email back in a timely manner. No, I'm probably not talking about you. But if I am... beware...

So the big move is approaching and I will officially have no where to live. Then, one and a half weeks after I become homeless, I shall become jobless, too. I will essentially be a bum, living off the government. Of course, in this case, I shall eventually have to pay the government back and will have a place to live at some point in time. But still. It's all so exhausting.

I would, of course, write about the final Harry Potter book, but I know several people who don't know what happens, and I don't want to ruin it for them. For some reason, though, that kindness doesn't want to extend to people on my commute. Every time I see someone reading it, I really just want to yell out, "So-and-so dies. DIES. Kaput. They are gone." I don't get it. Most of these people I feel rather neutral towards. One is one who does tend to annoy me by talking loudly and obnoxiously to her friend, but the rest are perfect strangers. I don't actually do it, but the temptation... always there. I did enjoy the last book, but now I have to go back and reread it. I read it in a speed-reading marathon of approximately 6.5 hours, meaning I averaged over 100 pages an hour. I'm rather proud of that. But now I need to go back and reread the 4th and 5th and then the 7th. I just reread the 6th like last week, so don't really need to. There are things I only vaguely remember. Like Sirius' mirror. Minor flashes of recollection, but for the most part? Only grayness... Appropriately enough.

Furthering my nerdom

I discovered something sad today. Apparently, there is a Buffy Musical sing-a-long this weekend. And I don't have tickets. And it's sold out. Though it'll be back in November, if I can remember and have the time to go.

Also, I have to force myself to stay away from the news. How dare they leak details about the last Harry Potter book?! Jerks.

And Arlington sucks. See, I went to see a place last night that was a forever long walk away from the metro. It involved crossing 50 where it intersects Washington Blvd. Both are 4 lanes. 50 is crazy and really can't be crossed without a light. There is a sidewalk on the side of Washington and you go under 50, so theoretically it should all work out. HOWEVER. Arlington had to redo the bridge. They are trying to make it more pedestrian-friendly, which I am all in favor of. To do this, they, in their infinite wisdom, decided to destroy both sides of the sidewalk and put confusing little "Sidewalk closed. Go this way." signs everywhere that wound up pointing to each other.

So I wind up perilously walking in construction trenches where the sidewalk should be, as cars going 45 whiz by three feet away. I was hot, I got dirt blown on me, and I'm still apartmentless. And my ankle starting twinging with pain last night. This morning, it hurts more and I have a funny bruise/swollen area. I blame the county. CW thinks I should sue.

Moving sucks, and other things

I am so ready for a vacation. Good thing that I bought my tickets home! Yay. And I'm leaving a day earlier, because that's when flights were cheapest and when I could overlap trips with my brother and sister-in-law. Now, if I can just get housing nailed down...

Speaking of which, I met with Most-Likely Roommate. She's pretty cool. Nerdy enough to like Eureka, which is always a good sign. CW decided I wasn't excited enough about the whole thing, but really. I'm just completely exhausted. This whole thing is just wearing me out to the point that I just want it to be over. Although I did discover a lovely coffee frappucino type-thing when I went to meet her. (The exhaustion plus the stress = me craving coffee and sweets, or better yet, sweet coffee.)

I also am making gradual process on my lists. Applied for health insurance, which hopefully will not take the 4-6 weeks they mention, as I am supposed to have it for grad school and that will barely get it going in time, as my old cuts of September 1. I also really need to go get my shots (I can't believe I still have to be vaccinated for school. As my mom puts it, "You're in GRAD school and you need to fill out health sheet?!) I've been decent on my packing plan, although Cassie hates it. She is enjoying one of the tubs, as she likes to sleep on it or just jump up there to better attack me. Her hating the changes, though, leads to her crying entirely too much. Some of that is because she found one of these little flower roses that she absolutely loves to chase around. She carries it around, though, and cries. Apparently, she associates crying and carrying. I'm not quite sure why.

Nothing funny or entertaining seems to be happening lately. I mean, there are the political fiascos still, the quotes from the Administration that make me want to run through the streets screaming, "STOP LYING TO US, WE AREN'T MORONS!" until I listen to quotes from the general public and am reminded that, yes, we are morons. My brain isn't working, so I'm not even having funny thoughts. Although I did feel like I had fallen inside a Zach Braff movie the other day, listening to a French cd on the metro. Something about the type of music and the movement of the metro. I also thought that it would be cool to shoot a scene that included the reflection of a person climbing the escalators in the metro, mainly because I saw the reflection of me climbing the stairs in the metro.

Oh, I am almost done with the scarf that would not die! That excites me. My goal is to finish it before I move. I think I can do it. I only need to knit a few more inches. And then I have to sew part of it together, because of a whole fiasco which is not that interesting but which led me to threaten to burn a row of the scarf for every minute the next time SB fell asleep.

Besides all that, I just desperately need a break, one which will hopefully occur after I quit. If I haven't moved, then I won't be so relaxed. But, we are keeping our fingers crossed....

A Harry Week

I am declaring this week to be (somewhat) the week of Harry Potter. First, of course, the movie came out last week. I, being the faithful fan that I am, went this weekend. It was thoroughly entertaining. Much better, I thought, than most of the previous. It felt more like a complete movie, able to hold its own separate from the book. I still walked out going, "well in the book, this happened and this was this way and..." but that was more for SB's edification and to prove that he really should just freaking read the books. He doesn't "want the books to ruin the movies for him." Hmph.

And of course, this weekend is... the last book of the series. I'm excited, but yet... It'll be the end. No more Harry Potter. No more getting excited to see what happens next. I'll know. Plus I'm worried for the characters. See, I get way too involved in my books. I mean, entirely caring too much. It's the reason I didn't really like The Lord of the Rings. I couldn't relax for them until I had finished the whole trilogy. Even at the end of one, you knew it was just a breather of safety. And it's not like they are quick reads. I mean, it took a couple of weeks to work through them all. That's a long time to be worried. But yes. And I KNOW that someone I care about is going to die in Harry Potter. It's kind of a given. I mean, I'm rereading the 6th in preparation and I'm having a hard time forcing myself to finish it because I know what happens. I know who dies. But not knowing who but knowing that it's coming and could be anyone? If she's killed off Hermione, I'm going to be pissed.

At least this time there will be no delivery fiasco such as last time, when a stupid company lost my book and I didn't get it for a week and by then was so pissed off, I'd gone to their competitor to buy it. And then, because by then everyone had already finished it, my friend accidentally told me the ending. Which I don't blame her for and which certainly didn't ruin the book or anything. But still. And I'd better have it done by the end of this weekend. Because I know one of my coworkers and he'd tell me the ending just for fun. And Amazon has promised that I will have it in my hands on Saturday, or I don't pay for it.

"Aid"

My dad is officially driving me insane. I think he and my mom are not on the same page about helping me out with school. Either that, or he keeps changing his mind and is feeling frugal. Whatever. All I need to know is a. if they are helping me out and b. if so, by how much. Right now he keeps calling my loans "aid" and acting as if they are like free money, while every once in a while throwing out a mention of them helping me. I've got too many other things up in the air right now; all I need is some freaking answers.

Luckily, I have my escapes. 1. I am totally going to see Harry Potter this weekend. Also, I really need to start rereading the last book so I'll be ready for this next one. Whee!! I was a bit disturbed to see Daniel Radcliffe turning into an almost attractive guy. Not that he's unattractive, but for a long time he was very nerdy and very obviously insanely young. Too young for me, though those of you obsessed with the boys from Newsies... You know who you are... But now he's getting all adult looking. 2. Eureka's new season started last night! I love that show. SB was totally making fun of me, though, because I was really excited about it and then proceeded to pack while it was on. But I was still listening and I watched most of it. I'd just had a bunch of sugar and I have a gradual pack plan. I shall pack a couple of boxes a day and that way I don't have to freak out right before I move. And moving boxes are freaking expensive. I was looking into getting some of the wardrobe boxes, but they are $10 a piece at least, and I'd need several of them. I may just go the tacky route of just putting a big plastic bag around them and taping the hangers together. 3. Watching Cassie, who remains highly strange and entertaining. She just has the best kitty facial expressions. The other night, I looked over and see her sitting on the air conditioner just staring at me with giant eyes. It actually could have been a little frightening, except I know she can't do anything.

The Countdown begins

Ugh. Back here at work again. I took last week off, thanks to some comp time I wanted to use before quitting (QUITTING!!!!) and went home. Home was nice. Not quite as relaxing as I might have hoped, given that I know the 180084782038472890 things I need to do, and don't want to bother with. And there were some mad knitting issues. See, I've been working on a scarf for SB since, well, practically since we started dating. It started out of frugality/I don't know if he's getting me a present for x and need a back-up. Nice plan. However, we are now 4.5 years into the scarf that will not die. I hate this scarf. I hate it with a passion. I threatened to rip it out or burn it or something. Sadly, he does not seem to think this is a great option. He also didn't go for the "it'd just be a really SHORT scarf..." approach. So I got out my how-to book, figured out after I had ripped out the cast-on row that I couldn't add on to the scarf that way, replanned the whole thing, and threw it and SB out the window. Okay, maybe not the last step. But whatever. It's what I wanted to do. I did, however, knit some on my lovely silk shawl while I was at home and remembered why it is so much fun to knit on. It's gorgeous and crazy soft. And I've already loosely planned out my next two projects, with my mom promising to help pay for the yarn for my first sweater...

Also lovely was seeing my grandparents, who are absolutely amazing and gave me enough money that I don't have to flip out for the next few months. Such a stress relief. I can just relax now, once I find a place to live. Which I think I'm close to. I've found a roommate (probably) at least, and we think we know of a place to apply to. I just have to go check it out, actually talk with her in real life, and then get ready to move. I am keeping an eye out for two-bedroom houses, though, since I'd really rather be in a house. I'd love something like this place I looked at in Old Town, which also came with a cool roommate with two cats for Cassie to play with, but a slightly too high price tag and a location not exactly where I wanted.

Not so lovely is the fact that my apartment's air conditioner sucks and currently the temperature hovers around a balmy 78, meaning that I can't really sleep well. Combine that with the hideous headache I had last night, and you get one very sleepy, not wanting to be here worker.

Farewell, Studio 60

I think last night may have been the last ever episode of Studio 60. Studio 60, I shall miss you. You were dramatic and intelligent and therefore had to die. I thought the last episode tied everything up a little too neatly. "She's dying, she's dead, he's dead, no, everyone is alive and happy and in love!!!" But I still enjoyed you muchly. And I nearly missed you entirely. Luckily, I was watching the So You Think You Can Dance? results show immediately before and remembered right as I was about to turn off the TV. (Sidenote: If my brother weren't white, he'd look like Dominic.)

I also think that there is only one other woman working on my floor today. Thanks to the sheer amount of water I usually drink and the tea and coffee I had in addition, I've spent a fair amount of time running back and forth to the bathroom. And there has only been one siting of anyone else and very little evidence that anyone besides us has used the restroom. I know, this is a weird thing to notice, but when you have to pee 8 times in 5 hours, you need something to occupy your mind.

The Hells of House Hunting

Or apartment hunting. Whatever. Technically, I'd like to live in a group house, so it's house hunting. Though if I could buy a place... [drools] I don't know WHY I want my own place so badly, but I do. Poor SB gets to hear a lot about it. Usually at dusk for some reason, when I'll look out the car window (it always happens while driving), and whine, "I want my own house..."

Anyways, I always forget how strange it can be to look for a place. It's like a job interview, a first date and a house sale all rolled in to one. You have to find someone that you'll get along with. Not just someone you'd get along with as friends, because there are some friends that if you lived with them, someone would not come out alive. But someone you can live with, hopefully have fun with, and only want to kill occasionally. This also has to be someone with a comparable level of responsibility, someone who fits you in levels of cleanliness and rent paying. You also have to like the room/place itself. And you are supposed to be able to tell all of this in a matter of minutes. If you are wrong... well, we all know how miserable it can be to be wrong in that kind of situation.

Cassie has been particularly cute lately. I think it is to make sure that I don't start resenting her for keeping me out of houses. Sigh. Stupid people and their biases against cats. Not the people who are allergic. Because I know you can't help that and it's no fun. But the people who think my cute little cat is secretly going to eat their apartment. Now, I know some cats don't behave. Some people don't behave, for that matter. But Cassie is a pretty clean little cat. Her only destructive tendencies are to destroy things that are for her (like her place mat. Completely ripped apart) and to knead select items of my clothing. That I don't really get, or like, but she only does it occasionally and I think she's trained out of it.

In other news... well, I don't have much. I'm going home next week for a much needed pampering. If I could only have a place by then... Pipe dreams, I know. I'm hugely cranky right now. Stupid tourists. Stupid work (and coworkers in general). Stupid heat. Stupid metro. I do have macaroni and cheese for dinner tonight. That, sadly enough, makes me somewhat happier. I also retrieved my poor AWOL iPod last night. I left it on Friday night in SB's car. Well, SB left for other climes on Saturday. He found it, called be obscenely early in the morning to let me know he'd found it, and put it in his mail cubby inside his house. Only problem with this scenario is that I don't have a way to get into his house. I went by Sunday. No one was there. I couldn't make it over there (it's like forever, and by forever I mean a 25 minute drive, away) until last night. I had to commute for TWO DAYS with no iPod. I felt my iq dropping, being forced to listen to the conversations of lost tourists and new interns. Those are iq points I can never get back, people. They are gone for good. So yesterday, I went back by and chased one of SB's roommates into the house. One I'd never met, by the way, which is actually a little frightening. I wonder what I could have stolen...

Befuddling Shoes

There is a man at my metro stop who intrigues me. I see him a couple of times a week, and I'd really like to stop and talk to him, except I'm afraid he might be crazy and, while I don't think he would or could hurt me (it's in the morning, there are lots of people around, he has shoe issues), I really don't want to get stuck in a crazy conversation. Particularly not if he turns out to be internally angry. After watching the crazy guy at Farragut West walk the streets and yell at people, I've realized such things can be a risk.

Anyways, there are lots of people around this town asking for money, but I've never seen anyone like this guy. First of all, he looks nearly normal. The only thing stopping him from completely fitting in to society is the fact that he is mutely asking for money. Well, that and the aforementioned shoe issues. See, the shoes are a big part of the mystery. He HAS shoes, but only some days. And the days when he has shoes, it's not a guarantee that he's wearing them. Some days, you see him standing there, no shoes on, but with a pair quietly sitting beside his feet. Other days, he's wearing them. Still other days, there are no shoes in evidence. What happened to the shoes? Did he walk to the corner without shoes? I've never seen him not at that corner, but maybe I have and didn't recognize him due to his ordinariness. I don't know that I would notice a random person walking with no shoes. I don't look at people's feet THAT often...

The other unique thing about this guy is how he asks for money. There is no sign, he doesn't plead. He just stands there, not looking at anyone, with his hand outstretched and cupped. Which makes me wonder if he really needs that money desperately, because there are very few people who will walk up to someone that closely and put their money directly in his hand. Though he did shave his head a couple of weeks ago and that made him seem more approachable.

It all makes me wonder if perhaps he's doing some kind of social experiment. Perhaps in a few years, I'll open up some magazine and read about the guy who want to see how people would react. Or, I guess I could just talk to him...