I wish I had a dollar for every time I memorized the sanskrit names to yoga poses instead of studying probability.

When do you wish for a dollar?

gaf, gaf.

The other day I was eating a cheese stick when the door knocked. I mean, someone knocked on it. Immediately I was suspicious. I commanded the cats to battle stations (apparently someone rewrote the code during the holiday and battle stations are in the closet and under the bed now) and opened the door. To my surprise, it was a special delivery of the graphic novel Laika, about the first mammal in space (I'm assuming microbes were on Sputnik). The delivery guy had an amused look on his face, possibly because my utter bafflement was accentuated by the way I was clutching tightly to my string cheese and juggling the package and the electronic signer with my left hand.

I've only read the first chapter, but just the mere fact of its existence, and that someone I only met once almost two years ago was thoughtful enough to send it to me, makes me smile every time I see the cover.

Also something which makes me smile, laugh out loud in fact, is this 'article' on the 9 most badass bible verses. I usually don't read those things past the jump, but I was really glad I did. I think #4 was my favorite entry, but it's a tough call.

At yoga last night, for any of the postures when I was low to the floor, I was able to see what looked liked flingsalt--large crystals of salt. Since we'd stay in the poses for several seconds, I would have time to look at the salt, and wonder about it. I wondered what it really was. I wondered where it had come from. I wondered if it was always there at the end of the day. I wondered if it would hurt me if it got in my eye. All kinds of things. But by the end of the class, my mind was pretty still, and I just accepted that I was one with whatever that salt was on the floor, and it was totally cool.

But then as I was packing up to go, curiosity got the best of me, and I cautiously reached out my pinky and touched a grain. IT WAS NOT SALT! It was gummy and cold. Suddenly, my mind's stillness was flooded with far more wonderings than before. It was stuck to the bottom of my yoga mat, too, so my wonderings were also filled with alarm.

Anyway, I wish I could end this story by saying "Well, the lab assured me it was just a silicate that commonly forms when yoga mats touch floors" or some such, but I really have no idea what it was. My yoga mat is taking a bath right now. I had been meaning to wash it anyway so it smelled less chemical, and more yogic. I'm going to spray it down with lavender honey milk, and its bath right now is the leftovers from my own mineral spirits one. But despite no clear explanation, at least things didn't end like a Star Trek episode (i.e. the entire crew of my ship didn't succumb to an alien disease that causes irratic and funny behavior).

self-pity: destroyer of class presentations

Well, I have this big presentation tomorrow, plus I'm trying to leave for New Orleans right after class (which involves some cat preparation, packing, loading up with audiobooks). So, what am I doing? Feeling all sorry for myself. But then I found a way to make myself feel better. Unfortunately, it's not by throwing myself headlong into all the work I have to do. It's by making myself the Perfect Breakup Mix. I'm still working out the songlist and order, but here's a first draft. You have to know some of the songs for them to make sense in their order, but this is one of the few mixes I've done that has more to do with the lyrics in the songs going together, rather than the general mood of the song. Some of them are chosen primarily for their title, though. Also, it was interesting that at my first instinct, the PJ Harvey, Radiohead, and Beatles songs were naturally clustered. I guess I have my favorites for certain parts of the mourning process. This list is separate from the list called "Breakup Songs -- Too Sad." This is the "up" list. I think this is several dying/breaking up relationships all in one. There are multiple speakers in this tracklist-conversation.

• You're So Great - Blur
• For No One - Beatles
  and in her eyes, you see nothing, no sign of love behind the tears cried for no one; a love that should have lasted years.
• Is That All There Is? - PJ Harvey and John Parish
  Then one day, he went away, and I thought I'd die. But I didn't. And when I didn't, I said to myself "Is that all there is to love?"
• This Mess We're In - PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke
  I don't think we will meet again; and you must leave now, before the sun rises over skyscrapers
• Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
  When routine bites hard and ambitions are low, and the resentment rides high, but emotions won't grow.
• You're Going to Make Me Lonesome When You Go - Madeline Peyroux (Dylan)
  Situations have ended sad, relationships have all been bad. Mine've been like Verlaine and Rimbaud. But there's no way I can compare all those scenes to this affair.
• Seeing Other People - Belle and Sebastian
  (at least that's what we say we are doing)
• We Can Work It Out - Beatles
  Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting
• Dear Boy - Paul McCartney
  I hope you never know how much you missed, dear boy. And even when you fall in love, dear boy, it won't be half as good as this.
• Creep - Radiohead
• Metal Heart - Cat Power
  Metal heart, you're not worth a thing to me.
• How to Fight the Lonliness - Wilco
• Wise Up - Aimee Mann
  You got what you want, now you can hardly stand it. You're sure there's a cure, and you have finally found it.
• Breathe Me - Sia
  I have been here many times before. Hurt myself again, and the worse part is there's no one else to blame.
• Only A Broken Heart - Tom Petty
  I know your weakness, you've seen my dark side; the end of the rainbow is always a long ride.
• Everybody Hurts - REM
• Let Down - Radiohead
  Don't get sentimental. It always ends up drivel...you know where you are with floor collapsing, falling, bouncing back.
• Song For the Dumped - Ben Folds Five
  So you wanted to take a break, slow it down some and have some space; well, fuck you, too.
• We'll Meet Along the Way - Hem
  Go easy now....later on the road is going to break your world in two.
• Fidelity - Regina Spector
  Suppose I never ever met you. Suppose we never fell in love.
• If I Needed Someone - Beatles
  If I had some more time to spend, then I guess I'd be with you, my friend.
• I'm Looking Through You - Beatles
  Why tell me why did you not treat me right? Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight.*
• Red Rubber Ball - The Cyrkle
  Now I know you're not the only starfish in the sea. If I never heard your name again, it's all the same to me.
• All Things Must Pass - George Harrison
  Now the darkness only stay the nighttime. In the morning it will fade away. Daylight is good at arriving at the right time. It's not always going to be this grey.**
• True Love Will Find You - Daniel Johnston
  Don't be sad, I know you will. But don't give up until true love will find you in the end.
• Time Has Told Me - Nick Drake
  So I'll leave the ways that are making me be what I really don't want to be. I'll leave the ways that are making me love what I really don't want to love.
• Cast Of Thousands - Darren Hanlon
  We broke up about a year ago--we split amicably, of course. Then I heard about your accident. You fell off a horse. Ha, ha, ha.*** You had a cast of thousands (of signatures). And charts recording fluctuating temperatures. You handed me a pen and pointed just below the knee. It's nice to know there's part of you reserved for me.

*Sometimes I wonder at the gall of the Beatles lyrics. Because you know they had about 5 years of their lives total that a lady might have possibly not treated them 'right' before they went on the road and slept in mattresses made of groupies. But goodness, they did lay claim to all those wonderfully simple love-song pop rhymes.

**This whole album, All Things Must Pass, is wonderfully soothing. I guess some would argue that it's the kirtan meditation influence...

***In the version he did live.

It turns out that my new camera does work, but it will under no circumstances talk to my computer and tell it what it's seen.

Therefore, I went out and bought a $500 phone* with a 2.0 megapixel camera on it. Problem solved. Except for the problem of how will I pay for food for the rest of the semester? I've written out a budget. It seems that my cats' food costs almost as much as mine (not counting coffee shops and the weekend breakfasts at the Omelettry; they don't go with me there)!

*not an iPhone, and I did get a substantial discount for contract renewal.

Anyway, I've been checking my mailbox almost hourly for the phone (it's being shipped). I feel like I'm reliving that Calvin and Hobbes story arc where he checked every day for his mail-order beanie. I'm going to as disappointed as Calvin if when my phone arrives, it doesn't make me fly.





I'm lucky Xander has such a nice personality. I couldn't take living with Hobbes's constant snark and judgement. Xander does have similar appreciation for a good cardboard box, though.

well, i don't see what the big deal about sunday was. all that happened was that i ate a lot of potatoes and did exactly nothing that i was supposed to.

himALya, they say

And also, I just want to get this out there because it's true, and I will forget later. But in the last few months, things keep coming up that make me think that the Himalayas are going to be important to me personally. It's just a feeling, brought on by a combination of the stupid Conde Naste subscription, a marathon of geography quizzes, and a scene from The Amber Spyglass. Anyway, every time I placed a country near the Himalayas during the quizzes, I would imagine them, all beautiful and spiritual. And scenes from movies, including The Golden Child, Into Thin Air, Seven Years in Tibet.

Hmmm...that gives me an idea. What other movies are set or at least have scenes in the Himalayas?*

*(my idea is that I'm going to watch movies that are set or at least have scenes in the Himalayas.)

part of the process

Remember when I discovered that listening to the Hives's "Supply and Demand" on repeat didn't get my economics exam studied for? And remember when I discovered that watching the entire third season of Arrested Development didn't get my social psychology paper written? Well, getting Morcheeba songs stuck in my head is not helping me remember terminology and who theorized what in international policy. But it is making everything seem a little more chill.

Angry faces, cursing loud,
Changing places, falling proud
Behind the bomb, no one cares,
Time is money
Were taught to tear
How can we show, how to feel
Situation aint so real
Chopping wood wont stop the rage
We need targets on war we wage
Its all part of the process
We all love looking down
All we want is some success
But the chance is never around

In fact, this makes just as much sense as a theory for international relations as, well, anything else I am reading. Holy. Crap. I. Am. Effed!

the case of the bum rap!

OK, I got a camera that works! Now I will be able to upload tons of pictures of my cats. Speaking of which, this is what I woke up to (both as an emailed link, and as a representation of how my cat woke me up):



Once in high school, I said something was a "bum rap" and K said "A 'bum rap'? What are you, Encyclopedia Brown?" And even though I read lots of Encyclopedia Brown books (and very, very rarely guessed the ending), now all I can do is picture him going around with an accusatory finger extended, saying "It's a bum rap!" I do remember he had a butch girlfriend, which was cool. And I think his enemy wore a crown, like Jughead from Archie. Was that a style ever? Or are heads just easier to draw with crowns on them? Bugs Meany; that was his name. So that's what those spare brain cells have been remembering all these years!


Apparently, the fashion of the time also involved postage stamps on the crown.

ADDENDUM: I have found this, regarding the crown/hat. And also, there is Encyclopedia Brown fan-fiction. This doesn't exactly surprise me, but it does amuse me! (in idea--I haven't actually read it)

fishing

Thank you, everyone, for sympathy regarding Sphinx. I have appreciated it, and passed it onto my brother. I mentioned that Sphinx was his daemon in the last update, but only today listened to lecture and discovered the concept of daemon's is from Plato's Phaedo, not from Philip Pullman's trilogy. Doy...

This is one of those things I should wait a few days to update because I'll probably realize it's not as funny as I think it is, or at least that it's not going to translate well into a story, but here I go anyway because I haven't updated on this blog for a long time.

This is from my international policy class. We were talking about whether a country should stop trade or sanction a country if its industry is harming the environment. We talked about the scenarios of the country harming its own environment (say, an island's water supply) vs. a country harming the global environment (arguments that there is no truly isolated part of "the environment" aside). We got to the example of what if a country kills a lot of dolphins as it catches tuna. It was a heated debate! Then, E--, who has limited-but-pointed contributions to the class, and has a deep voice with a lovely accent (he's from Uganda) said after a reprieve in the debate during which several people were actively trying to not hate several other people:

What is so great about dolphins?

And the professor (kind of nerd-gone-cute, somewhat frenetic, high-voiced) quickly said:

That's a good question! Does anybody know?

And after giving only a moment's silence, before anyone could collect their thoughts on the topic, he answered his own question (in a Boston accent that was a reference to something no one knew):

Because they're wicked smaht! E-- here might be okay with eating a dolphin sandwhich, but most people are just as likely to eat tuna that was caught along with live humans!

I think most of this debate on global public goods got lost in the debate on morals. The one person that was staunchly in the camp of under no circumsances do you meddle in another country's workings lost credibility when she reveals she didn't believe greenhouse gases caused climate change. I think you have to believe there really is an issue that a country can contribute to globally before you can decide what policy choices would be "right" in dealing with it! We probably should have changed the topics from dolphins and global warming, and in fact we did: to fishing rights, and it became much, much more boring.

ataxia

First, the sad news: Sphinx, my little brother's cat, died unexpectedly on Monday. We are all very sad. He was my brother's daemon, and we thought they'd be together for years to come. We still think of him as "little cat," the kitten that could fit in the palm of your hand and had a desperate love for cookies 'n' cream ice cream. Maybe he had a stroke, maybe he got poisoned somehow--it's not worth an autopsy. He just faded away Monday night after a few days of dizziness and no clear diagnosis.

Second, I am updating because my first midterm is tomorrow, and I have grown weary of this week's Bizarre Procrastination Technique I developed: reading the plots to every slasher movie I can find. Besides, I only get nervous about the exam when I start studying (because I realize, 'Oh, I don't exactly remember how to do all the so-and-so problems'), but feel confident and nonchalant while not studying. So, by not studying, I'm saving myself a lot of worry. It's open book anyway. What could go wrong?

bumper stickers

Let's vote on which blatant presidential lie is more horrifying:

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman"
or
"This government does not torture"

Sadly, though I like powerful bumper stickers (Who would Jesus bomb being my favorite), I don't like the one that sums up the above question (No one died when Clinton lied), I think just because it rhymes (la-ame! Like if Mother Goose were leading a protest rally).

When you get an MRI, before they put you in the tube, they give you headphones and a panic button.

The panic button is for if you suddenly freak out or get claustrophobic. There's not much to think about in that tube. I tried meditating, but of course when I do that, I think of the one thing I am trying not to think about. In this case, for a good portion of the hour in the tube, I was thinking "Don't get claustrophobic." I'm never claustrophobic, but I did have a few moments of thinking I might suddenly be. Then for a while, when the machine was making really loud noises, my brain happened to think to (and about) itself "Skull, give up your secrets!" So for a while, all I could think was this phrase. It was an appropriate thing to be willing to happen, I guess, I just wish my brain had hit upon a less silly phrasing.

The headphones are for listening to music since the machine is so loud. I should have been more specific about what station to put it on, but I figured I'd be fine with the mix station she said it was already tuned to, so I said OK. The closest I actually came to hitting the panic button was when "My Heart Will Go On" came on the radio. I don't think I was actually panicked, I just wanted to get her attention to change the channel, but I didn't want to be stuck in that tube any longer than necessary (since I was developing claustrophobia), so I didn't squeeze the button.

I will try to remember to update results, since I know I sometimes leave readers of my blog hanging (BC has never turned up; the thing in my cupboard was mice--I still have it taped up and empty. Every once in a while, I untape it, spray it down with about a gallon of bleach, and tape it up again; the bamboo flooring looks lovely; the cats have ringworm; but the cats really love each other and area always cleaning each others heads, so they bring me sorrow and joy in equal measure, but giving pills to cats is my least favorite thing to do ever). But I'm not worried about the MRI results. My headaches have all but vanished since I started school. I'm taking it reeeal easy! I'm thinking of 1) taking 5 classes next semester and 2) adding on a second masters degree in order to get 2 in 3 years!

JOB ALERT: Those of you in Austin, if you know someone who is a good typer and moderately smart, the place I do medical transcriptions needs some help because the full-time person quit, and, as I said, I'm taking it easy and don't want to add on a full-time job to my schedule right now. Contact me for details!

С днём рождения

Happy Birthday Katya and Alexis! (I think I got this right--sorry it's so late in the day, though).

I have nothing to offer you but links. Everyone has crushes on Maria Bamford, and perhaps you will, too, after watching her show on SuperDeluxe:

It's the Maria Bamford show!

Quote from the guy installing my bamboo flooring:

"Do you know what a baby panda smells like?

This wood--when you cut it. It's somewhat exotic...but in a way, it's not."


I don't know him well enough to know his intentions behind this statement, but this is the funniest thing I've heard all day.


While I'm quoting, here are two quotes from moms on Britney's VMA performance:

J's mom [paraphrased]: "She was either really, really drunk, or she was just so nervous that... she got really, really drunk to calm her nerves."

my mom: "She's just really lost her confidence! And, well, that was all she ever had!"

more ads that don't make sense

If I had my camera phone, I would just show you this simple billboard ad rather than the over-explanation I'm about to go into. But, in the frat district of UT, there is a billboard for Natural Light beer that I pass every day on the way to school. It is of a man's hand reaching out of a shower for his Natty Light, and there are just the words "Been There" underneath. It's pretty straightforward. Except for the question: is this an ad for beer? Or for AA? Because honestly, and I know I'm not in the frat demographic they are targeting, I don't think I have ever "been there." And if I had "been" where I was drinking my cheap-ass alcohol from inside the shower because I couldn't go 6 minutes without, I don't think I'd want a whimsical reminder of it to try to sell me some more failure.

one more character

One more person from my summer statistics course was the kid that sat right in front of me every day. The only thing I ever heard him say was the last day, when he said, to no one, "Dude's funny," about Crackers, the class clown. One odd thing about this kid was that he wore the exact same shirt, every day we had class. It's very possible he got a bunch of them for free or something, so I won't make fun of that fact (maybe he's very poor! Or doesn't value fashion! I have respect for those things really!). But I will make fun of the shirt itself which said:

If you can read this
You must be wearing Focus contact lenses.

Since I had every single classtime to contemplate the inanity of the statement, I of course now have to share it with all of you. It took me a while to stop expecting "thank a teacher" to be the second line, so the first indignity is the implication that being able to see the letters is the hard part of reading. Hey! Learning to read was hard and it sometimes is still hard! If I have dyslexia, Focus contact lenses are not helping! But your blue font does make it difficult to focus on the text, so thanks for that! Also! I am NOT wearing Focus contact lenses, and I would imagine the vast majority of people are able to read that are also NOT wearing Focus contact lenses, so you lose all credibility with your "must." After a summer of getting unreasonably angry about this, I'm pretty determined not to ever, ever get Focus contact lenses.

happy birthday, dad, who doesn't read this!

I am now officially a student. I had a class yesterday, so.... student. However, I am also on book 7 of Harry Potter--subsequent to a re-reading of the entire series. So right now I am torn between reading a lot of stuff for my upcoming classes (letting Hermione be my guide), or reading The Deathy Hallows, which I actually read less than a month ago. It shouldn't be that hard a decision. Also, sleep should be in the mix somewhere, but for some reason it's not.

Anyway, I'm vascillating between being so anxious I cry about school, and between blithely planning the next series of children's books I will re-read. To calm myself down at one point, I watched The Saint. As per usual, the first 30 minutes just made me either more anxious, or laugh hysterically. I almost turned it off because I thought it wasn't doing any good, but I did watch all of it, and then I felt perfectly at peace. And honestly, everything has gone better since then. So, mental note, watch The Saint when worried about anything. It has Elisabeth Shue, Val Kilmer, Oxford, and Russia. And finely crafted dialogue. In fact, maybe instead of reading The Golden Compass again, I will begin my screenplay: The Saint 2: Back in the Habit. Or maybe "Back in the Halo" would be more appropriate.

I haven't updated. Everything that has happened that I think "Oh, haha, that was funny, I should blog about that" completely escapes me when I sit down to type. Possibly now that I finally (after a year) got my router to work, I can blog from bed, when important thoughts occur to me.

Other things that I did: went to New Orleans, had two houseguests (hi Mia! hi Leigh!), hosted a Shadowrun game (and blew up one helicopter with another helicopter! With my brain!), washed my phone (no pictures for a while), got my SNES cleaned (goes without saying I've been playing a lot of Tetris Attack), and oh yes, got a kitten.

The new kitten's name is Ladybird. Xander mostly thinks she's the greatest toy I have ever brought home for him. But sometimes he is annoyed that she reacts to violently to his stepping on her face. She's getting used to him. He's at least 5 times as big as her, and the size differential shows signs of only slight decrease in the future.

I don't know if I blogged about this, but from the start, my condo's shower has been boiling hot. It starts off cold, but as soon as it warms up, it's boiling hot, and you can't control the temperature and pressure separately, so I avoided long showers, and took baths pretty often. A friend tried to fix it, but it only resulted in boiling hot water shooting from the wall at firehouse strength, and as it was midnight, and it took a while for the emergency plumber to arrive, the whole two bedroom apartment was a steambath, even though luckily my friend was able to deflect most of the actual water into the tub. So anyway, two results to follow with: I might at long last actually be getting it fixed tomorrow, and mom will be coming in September and we'll repaint some parts of the apartment.

So, at this point, as I have googled Elisabeth Shue twice since starting this entry 8 minutes ago, I think it's safe to say that I like to google Elisabeth Shue. But I'm always disappointed by it. I think I secretly hope it will make me her friend if I do it enough.

Now I've googled Tetris Attack Tournament (more on that later... one day), so I've branchced out.

But now, really, really, really I will read this article on foreign policy. Even though I have four days with no classes.

trapper keeper

I'm all in school and everything! Yesterday I graphed a third degree polynomial function! Then I all up and took the partial derivative of a three-variable function!

Then last night, at second work, I started hyperventilating about all the math I will be expected to know come September.

I'm trying to work out what was different when I was a good, orderly student (i.e. 3rd grade), and I have determined the crucial variable is that was the last year I had a Lisa Frank unicorn Trapper Keeper (R) . Therefore, I plan to make an old fashioned back-to-school purchase of notebook paper and a Trapper Keeper (the new Fall line is out), and maybe some mechanical pencils. And a pencil box. And lady-bug safety scissors.

So, I'm trying to read something public-affairsy, readying for school. I don't think this really counts, but I read this.

But I really feel comfortable summarizing it with the David Cross quip making fun of simplified explanations for terrorism. So not only do I not read the original MIT paper the article came from, I dumb down the article, YouTube style. That's how I roll:

Just as much as meets the eye

Today, I went against every natural instinct I have to Wal-Mart*, in search of a product-placed*, movie-as-giant-toy-commercial* toy tie-in, all-American, gas-guzzling* Honda Civic** Si Decepticon.

They didn't have it in the Transformer Aisle* (perhaps it's not released yet), but they DID have a Mr. Potato Head Transformer**.

Optimash-Prime

Transformers was good! I'm second-guessing a lot of stuff afterward, but I definitely enjoyed it as I watched it. It kind of makes you*** want to drive a Camaro real fast. And then your ragtag convoy saves the world!

*These things bother me.

**These things delight me.

***(me)

I have between 1 and 2 tests tomorrow

Total study time: 10 minutes.

I have, however, done all my laundry and put it away, gone through all my mail, washed the dishes, meditated (then fell asleep sitting up), went down to the gym (which was locked), drawn a bath (it takes a few hours to get to a non-scalding temperature, so I have the actual bath to look forward to still), vaccuumed, and restacked my boxes of bamboo flooring.

I also found this video which claims to show how that egg toast breakfast was made on V for Vendetta. Well, it doesn't make that specific claim. Probably because the end result looks more like my own messy attempts at it rather than the movie version. Their version allows a lot more wasted toast (the chewy center part, too).

Two things about me:

• I eat only the center of pancakes, unless I'm very, very hungry.
• I read magazines backwards.

sample space

In my statistics class, I've been forced to find entertainment in my fellow classmates. At first I thought the young man with his arms and neck choked with tattoos would be most interesting--he got irrationally angry when the teacher was not explaining things to him, and would testily say "thank you" and stare pointedly at his hands after each interchange. I also was forced to find humor in the kiss-up girl in the first row so that she didn't annoy me (I later found out she wasn't on-the-ball because she's a statistics expert, but because she's already taken and failed the course once). But for the last few classes, my hero has been the Eating Boy. EB has great timing that makes everything he says unintentionally funny. His timing is because before he says ANYTHING, he stuffs about 5 animal crackers in his mouth, and continues to put them in his mouth as he talks.

The teacher often has to get a tall person to help her do things. EB is pretty tall, and usually obliging, but once she asked him to stand on his desk to turn on the projector on the ceiling, and he calmly put a cracker in his mouth and said "I don't do desks." She had to stare at him a few moments to realize he really wasn't going to budge. The teacher was, for about the fourth time, wanting to show us a slide she has of mammoth and elephant tusks, and how at the extremes, their normal curves intersect, and that you wouldn't be certain what kind of tusk you were looking at if it was in this intersection. This time, she began talking about a museum in Lincoln, Nebraska that has six full mammoth skeletons, and how astoundingly huge they are. For someone so stressed about the accelerated nature of this course that she rarely answers students' questions to their satisfaction, she can get off on a tangent. And with all the interesting examples that are used in the textbook problems, it's easy for all of us to get off on a tangent. Anyway, after a full discussion about mammoth bones and current digs in Nebraska, there was a silence as she sidled back up to the board to segue back into the actually math of the problem. Crackers (I like this name better than EB) finished chewing his mouthful and said "You are crazy about mammoths, lady." The next problem was finding the human threshhold to detect sulfur in wine. Tangent: "There are people who's whole job is to smell things! Like wine! And... perfume! And.... lots of things." Her tangent wasn't especially interesting in this case. And I don't know how many other things people get paid big money to smell. Anyway, Crackers said with uncharacteristic enthusiasm "Have you guys heard that thing about asparagus?" (no response from class) "Some people can actually smell asparagus" (no response) "In PEE." Another girl responds "Yes, it's one of those genetic things--you either can or you can't." I don't know what the teacher was doing at this point. After the class had no further response, Crackers stuffed his mouth, nodded sagely and said to himself smugly "I can. I can smell it."

Furthering occurrences that don't translate well into stories: at a bar the other night, a man came back looking for his wallet by our table, and found it! He was so overjoyed, he wanted to buy us all a beer. He left and came back several times, repeatedly expressing interest in buying us a beer. He said "Thank you! Thank you so much for guarding my wallet! Or... for not stealing my wallet!" (slight awkward silence on our part) "Or, for not having the wherewithal to turn around and look behind you!" He ended up buying us a pitcher of beer at about 1:58am. This was why we hadn't wanted a free beer--closing time. But we were glad to share in the man's overwhelming joy.

And here is something my boyfriend said the other night, about Juliet from Lost. "I would probably watch a porn with her in it." (I glare). "What? I would!" And just for the verisimilitude, picture Cliff from Veronica Mars saying this.

i've had some feta cheese in my fridge for a week, and I haven't done anything with it. I realized that I wasn't sure what feta tasted like. I knew I'd had it before, but I kept imagining cottage cheese, which I knew was cottage cheese. So I took an enormous bite (because that's how much came off in the fork). You might be thinking "oh, one time I, too, had an enormous bite of feta like that." But let me stop you right there because I'm pretty sure I have taken the biggest bite of feta cheese ever in the history of cheese. And I'm also pretty sure it had gone bad. You know what, I don't even want to talk about this anymore.

I am going to go ahead and have a serving of this peach cobbler which is green and black in parts (and was last night when I took it out of the oven), but I'm not even going to question that. My taste buds' sense of horror threshhold has ballooned ridiculously in the last 10 minutes.

And now I'm going to watch House, which shockingly features a brain tumor according to the summary.

IT'S STILL ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, this, from my phone uploads:

In illustrating the 68-95-99.7 rule in statistics, my notes came out looking like an elderly gentleman in a pith helmet.

don't try to cheat the future

I've been working all week, and I'm tired, and I still somehow feel like I haven't worked enough. And then, when I came home at night, I'd remember how there was something nasty in the cabinetry.

It sounded as though a bird was trapped in my pantry, but that didn't make sense. It seemed to be knocking to get out, which was a little bit terrifying. So rather than find out what in the world could be fluttering and kicking with such strength, I just taped the door shut. True story. I'll post a picture so you believe me. Anyway, days passed, the thing was still alive and kicking (and punching). Xander and I (BC still MIA) huddled in terror and curiousity. At some point, I imagined it a hulking exoskeleton-ous crablike monster, as featured in the Buffy episode Bad Eggs, and sort of like in Aliens, also. The idea of opening the cabinet terrified me because this!

could happen to me or Xander!

Speaking of Xander, he's driving me crazy! I had no idea how much BC had to put up with, but that cat wants to play ALL THE TIME. And now he's taken to sprinting out out my front door whenever I open it.

In the end, I put some diatomaceous earth in a crack of the door, and after a prolonged and mighty struggle, I think whatever's in there is dead. But I'm going to wait till I get back to town on Monday to actually check and see. Expect an autopsy report then, if the acid blood doesn't kill me.

I'm so exhausted. I like my sleep, and that's one thing I haven't gotten this week. I can't wait for my 1.5 hour (direct!) plane ride tomorrow. Naps! Then Saturday: exoskeletons! (will become clear later)

emails

I've written 85 emails since 10AM today. 63 of them for work. Which I am now leaving. (to go to Other Work).

Battle Cat has located his proper domain for doing battle: under the deck of the sports court in my condo buildings. That's where he lives now. With centipedes and possums, which I assume double as both roommates and meals.

Xander likes being an only cat again. But things can't last this way.

I was locked out of Blogger for a few days and couldn't fix the seemingly unavoidable grammer and spelling mistakes that I sometimes notice if I bother to read my own updates. Gosh, the only thing that happened to me though is that I watched 5 minutes of a show called "Growing Up Tiger" on Animal Planet, and one shot of a tiger cub getting a bath has sustained me through a somewhat trying week. I'm not sure why I was so anxious to update the last week. Probably just because I couldn't.

Last night my cords for the Super Nintendo came, but I couldn't get it to work. So I worked on my iTunes library for a while and tried not to cry about it. But today I might take it to Gamefellas, a shop right by my house that I always wondered about, and it turns out they specialize in classic video game consoles.

And lastly, Thursday is my first attempt at a role-playing game, and I have barely sketched out my character! I love doing this kind of thing (hence my participation in several imaginary comic books throughout my life), but I haven't had time and I want to do it right. But I'm running out of time. So, if you'd like to be a dear, just post some random traits/background my character might have, just to give me some ideas to start with. I'm thinking I'll try to work Russian into it because another player there speaks some Russian, too, plus there's a Siberian corporation in the game's universe. I can't be magic, but otherwise, the sky's the limit.

I saw Spider-Man 3 last week, a movie dripping with big fat man-tears. I probably wouldn't have thought much about it, except I saw it with someone who's been accused of being emotionless. You hear phrases like "emotionally unavailable," but they don't really sink in until you experience them. Anyway, maybe I'm contracting a slight lack of empathy myself because I totally agreed with a friend who said, regarding MJ's mopiness in the movie "Get over it! You're dating a superhero--you're following him. He's not going to relocate for your crappy acting career!" Of course, it was more subtle than that in the movie, but really MJ, you're going to have to toughen up if you want to keep dating Spiderman. Spiderman and all his friends will probably also have to stop welling up at the drop of a hat.

Anyway, with a real-life person lacking a wide range of emotion, it helps to re-define emotions to include such things as nausea, headache, and dizziness. True, these may sound more like "symptoms" than "emotions," but whatever it takes to get my friend to be more emotional.

A big rope of ants discovered something under my bookcase! I have no idea what they could be doing under there. I'm surprised they can even fit, or that they made it all the way to the third story of my building. I'm constantly covered with phantom ant bites now. I don't think they're really the biting kind, though. I'm just being very emotional. Itching is also an emotion.

Hi! Remember me? I blog sometimes.

While I would rather travel all the way to Virginia to share all the YouTube videos with everyone, as I did last month, perhaps it's more efficient just to post them here.

Okay, maybe it's because the first time I saw this it was 4am, but I can't stop laughing after 2:14 of the Intermission in the Third Dimension:




Special thanks to Dr. Hoss.

But tonight I am going to the Alamo to see the "controversial" documentary about The Smiths, for $1, which makes it awesome already. Unless it's not awesome, like the Small Faces documentary.

Um... other news about my life. I didn't realize that picture from Taos was up here! Yep, me and Willie went skiing in Taos, for super cheap! And it was so much fun! We had a personal guide: Cabel, skiier extraordinaire (but also patient with those of us terrified of the bunny slopes at first). And I won big at poker, and Leigh got me addicted to Sex and the City. I'm almost caught up. Hmph. Twitterpated. So, that was New Mexico.

Before that was Michigan, where I got to see Katya! Hurray! But I lost my camera. Sad! But I visited the school and it was amazing and I liked lots of people there! Hurray! But I decided not to go. Sad! But I got my Super Nintendo! Hurray! But it's missing the cord. Sad! But the cords are cheap on Ebay! Hurray!

Now I've been in Austin three weekends in a row, and I feel like I'm getting so much stuff done, it's amazing! I have three jobs now, but at the same time I'm finally getting to all the home improvement projects I've had half-done, or half-conceived for the past few months. Its also helps that I'm only sleeping six hours a night lately for some reason. Last weekend I went to a goat farm out in the country and won a game of pool! But not at the goat farm that would be weird! Also, Saturday, I had a Pepsi and a Miller Lite (but not together that would be weird). Both come in a blue can, and neither were as good as I'd remembered.

And I asked someone: "Are the Cowboys and the Spurs the same team?" and they couldn't answer me. Apparently, this question is funny, even though cowboys own and use spurs.

Hi from new mexico

"we have a lot in common... like babies. you know, two babies next to each other are like: hey, i used to live in a lady, too! weird!"

MOLTAR! get out here and heat up my brain.

There she is, Bob! Brains.

Fracking Windows Vista won't let me upload a picture of my brain to complete that quote appropriately. But anyway, the MRI was normal.

In switching over my hard drive, I find this rather timely MS Paint rendering of the Easter Story:

Liam

In getting the pictures for this post, I found out the animated boy for the Yahoo Beta is named Liam.

I am writing to say I'm glad the new loading picture of him is this:

Because before that it was this:

And he is just fuggling the sh!t out of that thing!

I was up all night with my new computer! So pretty! But mostly, I was obsessively transferring information on a 256Mb jump drive (how frustrating that my 2 gig jump drive decides to stop working now), and then organizing the information with excrutiating detail.

Today I'm tired, but somehow have found meaningless phrases soothing and amusing. And I don't mean meaningless in a "Time heals all wounds" or some other tired palliatives I don't feel like thinking of examples of. I mean meaningless like: "Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I catch a glimpse of the brainfuggler, just fuggling the sh!t out of everything!"

You may or may not have noticed I stopped updating. There are all kinds of reasons for this. But maybe they will all be overcome by my new computer.

I got a new computer partly because I will be matriculating this Fall into a graduate school, as yet undecided which.

The only link I can find with my Brainfuggler reference (though the line above is not an exact quote) is here. NeelyComics seems to have removed itself from YouTube, or maybe it's because I'm not signed in. Anyway, the creator of the Washington, Washington video, and also Wizard People Dear Reader has several other cartoons now, and some of them are really growing on me (though I have to say, nothing can ever top Washington, Washington; these others are more like Wizard People Dear Reader, which I think of as needing a different mindset), and they are apparently at SuperDeluxe.com. Thank you, SXSW film shorts, and Cartoon Network! Another favorite is the Professor Brothers--Office Hours.

i went to new orleans (while there, i couldn't decide whether to bring "our bodies, our selves" or "a pictorial history of boxing" back with me; they were about the same size, and i linked them in my head. in the end, i chose neither)
i went to seattle (it rained. the city has much water, and much good food. i watched babel. i toured the underground part of the city. i went to the butterfly garden. i listened to my sikh chanting on the plane rides.)
i am going to virginia (while there, i will accrue negative 2 days of vacation balance, and i don't even care. try to make me care, just try, and see what happens).

small things fill me with terror! but not the big ones. i have applied to a few grad schools. this should be terrifying, both the thought of getting in and the thought of not getting in. but what i fear most right now is going to the peacock lounge on thursday with people i haven't seen in years.

---

Girl: You went to the Wal-Mart protest? Aww! I'm so... I'm so proud of you!
[long awkward silence]
Girl: You went to make fun of the protesters, didn't you?
Boy: They were... singing.

america, this is you

a few nights ago, hanging out with people i've been trying to impress by being cool, i not only selected America's Funniest Videos when given the remote, i laughed uncontrollably at the most egregious trauma-to-the-groin clips. oh no! made all the funnier by taking place at a wedding. so much for being cool


in my apartment complex, there are a few model-condos set up in my building to show to prospective buyers. all throughout the building, there are signs directing people "Models-->" or "<--Models" until you finally get to the right apartment number, which is labeled "Models." When Katy visited she asked "Umm... do models live there?" I don't know if it's funnier to think of the signs as the work of shamelessly self-promoting models, or as a crudely laid trap for models. Either way, the signs always amuse me as I'm walking home.

Last night I got my soccer jersey!! It is so soft and smooth, and guess what! My number is #1! I believe I will grow into that role.

My jeans smell like something I can't quite place. They're brand new, so they probably smell like the factory, but the closest I can come to placing the smell is: Baby Crackers. I don't even know what that is, but my brain keeps telling me that. Are they like Animal Crackers, for fans of A Modest Proposal? Perhaps I mean the crackers that babies do eat.... they they keep inside their mouths.... underneath their lips. Anyway, can't wait to wash these jeans so it stops bugging me so much.

Carrie invetigates! Quiet! Invetigation in progress!

Normally, I like mysterious glitches in a computer code because there often is a logical reason behind it. Even if it's nitpicky typos I have to tease out, it satisfying. But sometimes, there is no rhyme or reason to the problem. And sometimes, there are 5 different completely unrelated problems and all 5 departments are freaking out. This is when I do not like investigating problems with databases. At all. Today is such a day. And I am already so tired.

----
anyway, i wrote all that days and days ago! now it's just about wednesday, and i've been iced in at a friend's house! it snowed! over my car, is a car-shaped ice shell!

spell

I wish I could write about more interesting things. But nothing funny or entertaining has happened in my life. I did attend a fine soiree at K and M's new house this weekend, but talking about that kind of thing will just make my readers sad that they don't have such cultured cocktail parties to attend.

I saw Children of Men, which I thought was a well done movie.

They closed downtown Austin because of dead birds! Perhaps you've heard. Wish our office were downtown, and I didn't have to go to work. Poor dead birds.

I am going to be in an article in Communities Magazine! FAME! I'm gonna live forever.

I cannot for the life of me get the following out of my head:
I'm not sorry I met you
I'm not sorry it's over
I'm not sorry there's nothing to say.

I got a dozen eggs. And 8 of them were broken.