Regards from the Rat Race

V-day 2010

2010-02-12T06:23:00.003-06:00

I've been working on the boyfriends "valentine" for like 2 weeks now! It's taken me FOREVER! On the bright side, it looks groovy. My favorite part is totally Yoruichi lurking up the corner!

I originally had planned to draw her (human form) but Farmboy hasn't seen that far in the series yet and I didn't want to ruin the surprise.

Then I was going to put her down by Orihime, but she just didn't fit right, so I took her out.

Then on a whim stuck her up in the corner and left her there.

I'm pretty pissed about the slant to the logo. I didn't even NOTICE it until after I'd started coloring, but now it's like glaringly obvious and it's really bothering me. Damn damn damn.

And in retrospect, I should have done different colored background, I went red because it's for Valentines Day, but I should have done blue or green or something, ANY color but red (or black) would have been a good choice. Orihime's hair and Chad's shirt are both getting lost in it... And Uruhara's hat is messed up...

Maybe I'm really NOT terribly happy with this piece... staring at it now there's a lot of icky mistakes... but I don't have time to redo it...

I DO like the 3D-ish look to the logo though. That came out neat... (cept for that damn slant). And at least the characters themselves came out decently. That's always a pleasant surprise.

Ah well... I haven't slept in over 36 hours, time for a snooze.

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race

-keep running

Dead Week

2009-12-07T13:46:00.003-06:00

Been forever and a day since my last post, not that any of you were paying attention anyway, but what the hell.
Today's going... slowly... I should be working on a paper, obviously this is not constructive, but really, I need a break.
The semester hasn't been completely unkind so far;
My sister/flatmate managed to set our tea kettle on fire (that takes talent, let me tell you) and it took nearly three days to get the smell out of our apartment.

Finals start next week, not looking forward to that, at all. Grammar (sad as it is) is kicking my ass, I mean really, who needs to diagram a sentence? In what sadistically crack-pot world are you EVER going to use that!? It's a useless skill really, and one I'm not very good at (part of that may be my lack of motivation).
I don't really give a damn whether that phrase is a nominal, or whether the verb is transitive or not. Does the sentence make sense? Is the context appropriate? Does the verb tense agree with itself?
-Yes.
Good then. Enough said, lets move on.

I spent Thanksgiving break watching TORCHWOOD, brilliant show. I wasn't super crazy about Season 1, but Season 2 was amazing (for a fantastically corny sci-fi show with crap special effects that you just can't help but LOVE - but then it's a Doctor Who spin-off, so what did you expect) and Season 3 well, lets just say Day 4 left me depressed for DAYS.

And then a few days ago I attended an ex-boyfriends wedding.
Mildly awkward that.

Not between me and him, we were pretty groovy, although, he was admittedly a little too "grateful" that I'd shown up, and that made things a bit awkward. Especially between me and his blushing bride, who did less blushing and more sniffing than anything else. I can understand crying at your wedding, lots of people do, and hell, I've even been moved to tears by one (not my own obviously as I am still graciously single), but if you're going to cry through the WHOLE THING, accept the damn kleenex when you're offered because 40 minutes of listening to you sucking snot up your nose is damn annoying.

She looked fantastic though. I didn't like her dress (who wears beige as a wedding gown?) but the style looked AMAZING on her, and her hair looked just gorgeous. She was quite lovely.

He looked the same as he always has, slightly chubby in an endearing I'm-a-computer-genius-desk-man sort of way. I don't like white tuxedo's, but he's a bit too fair in complexion to pull off a black one, so it was better when he ditched the jacket at the reception.
You really do need a little bit of pigment to be able to grab the sexy James Bond look, if you're too pale you just end up looking like a butler. (I don't know why I think butlers are pale)

But anyway,
The ceremony (EXTREMLY Christian - to the point where it's more cult-ish and creepy than religious) lasted about 45 minutes (which is about 30 minutes too long for my taste -I'd be tired of standing by that point) then they bride and groom marched out, then marched back in to dismiss us (that was a new one - what were the Ushers for?) Very awkward that, being dismissed by them.
She said
"It was YOUR track meet we met at, you know."
I said
"You're welcome."
He said "I'm really, REALLY glad you came. Really glad."
I said
"Aw, I wouldn't have missed it."
Then he gave me a hug, that lingered a few beats too long for mine, (OR his brides) taste. so he could say "really glad" again. I didn't hug back, I just sort of stood there, like a board (or an idiot), and tried not to shove him off, which was a little weird as 7 years ago I'd have sold a kidney for a hug like that.

Funny how our perspectives change.

Then there was the reception...
My carpool (myself, my boyfriend, D and Tater) formed a "kids table" with a few other friends our age (there were an eerie amount of insanely OLD people at this wedding) and proceeded to create small mischief. Like, when the dance floor opened for the first "couples dance" (just to get all the guests on their feet) they DJ said
"Find a cute girl and bring her up here"
I immediately yelled "I call D!" and grabbed her hand.
Tater started laughing "Good!"
So, for the first couples dance, D and I danced together, and our respective boyfriends danced with one another, and as we were the first four to join the bride and groom on the dance floor, EVERYONE noticed.
The groom thought it was funny, but it earned us a very VERY dirty look from a rather ancient old woman. I don't believe she appreciated our homosexual shenanigans. (did I mention it was a REALLY Christian wedding?)
It was hilarious!

Dancing continues, we eventually switch partners and I'm back in the arms of my very own Apollo, but still flirting with D of course. Meanwhile, old woman is still glaring. (I really wanted to tell her "It's a wedding reception for crying out loud, Live a little!" but then, considering how old she looked, that may have been in poor taste, so I held my tongue.)

Dollar Dance - I was a little concerned about that one, being one of like 10 young females, I was sort of obligated to go up and dance with the groom, but it was something I'd stressed about a bit. We'd dated for roughly 3 years back in middle school (and fresh/part of soph years of high school), and as wifey had already made the track-meet jab, I wasn't sure how welcome I was dancing with her man?
That and, it hadn't been a good break-up. We'd mended it over time sure, after all, we had all the same friends, but it'd always been strained, and there'd always been that "not-quite-100%-over-you" tension, even though we'd both moved on to other people.
But it was actually very cool. You know how you worry that maybe you'll be jealous, or that maybe those feelings you think are gone, are really just buried, (well maybe you do, maybe you don't, I certainly did) But I wasn't. I was very Zen... or maybe it was the Sex-on-the-beach I'd been drinking, but either way, I was really super happy for him!
We just chatted while we danced, how's life been, where're you honey-mooning, how come you got the geriatric ward here (okay, I didn't say that, but God how I wanted to!) Why were you dancing with D instead of your boyfriend,
Silence... oh good, there's his devil-incarnate mother... lets see if she can pull off lighting my head on fire with her glare this time. No? Too bad, better luck the next time I run into you at the grocery store.

More dancing, not so great food, AMAZING CAKE!! and then we all migrated away from the speakers a bit, I got caught up talking with the groom, my b/f and three of our best mutual friends in high-school. It was great actually, not awkward like it had been in the church. We probably talked for a good 20 minutes before my carpool decided we were calling it a night.
'Course, when I went to tell the bride 'Congrats' before I left, she dumped half her drink down my arm...
she said "Oh, Oops!"
I said
"Cheers. I was hot from dancing anyway."

All in all, it wasn't a bad time. And I do love to dance.
And it was enlightening, I feel so grown up and mature now, I shouldn't have worried about buried feelings, because they aren't there.
Dancing with him it was just, dancing with an old friend. It was nice, it was comfortable, but it wasn't emotionally charged. And the whole night made me realize I shouldn't have worried, we walk completely different circles.
He's this straight-laced, crazy-devout Christian, with a plan and a path he's trying to stick to,
and I'm this tattooed, omni-sexual, agnostic with no plan and just a general direction I'm meandering in.
He's got his plan, I've got my flow, and everybody's happy.
Well, I'm happy at least.
Happier than I thought I'd be.

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Back into the Grind

2009-08-31T14:21:00.002-05:00

Hello, hello!
To the two people on the internet who actually take the time to read this rambling of mine. Today is the start of the second week of classes and I have cheerfully fallen back into the daily grind of my studies.
I'm taking both a TaeKwonDo and a Dancing class this semester to help me stay active and to (hopefully) remove the extra ten or so pounds I seem to have accumulated over the past couple years. TKD is amusing, becuase... as a black-belt, I technically outrank the TA (a brown belt), but I have not practiced in several years and so... three mornings a week, don my delightful white pajama's and white belt and run through the basics with as much patience as I might muster on a Monday morning.
In "social dancing 101" I mostly look uncoordinated, but I'm enjoying it, so fuck off.
My "Intro to Queer Studies" class is taught by a fascinating little Jewish man from Boston, who is... shock-of-a-lifetime... Gay. And probably the most playfully entertaining professor I've ever had.
My Grammar Studies professor is from Leeds (Leads?) England, and has the most fantastic accent! It's like listening to Eddie Izzard's stand-up, only he's talking about grammar instead of Pavlov's Cats and Star Trek.
My Rhetorical Analysis teacher used to work for the Federal Government and seems to have brought with him a preoccupation on 'safety' that borders on obbsessive. I mean really, when was the last time one of YOUR college professors made you practice a fire drill? It's like being in junior high all over again... too funny.
My Creative Writing teacher, is a novelist by the name of Dean Bakopolous, and after I stopped in during his office hours, gave me a free copy of his book. As I love writing and hope someday to become a novelist myself, I'm SOOOOOOOOO EXCITED TO BE IN HIS CLASS!!!!
It seems I must scoot to Queer Studies now.

My Regards to Everyone else out there in the Rat Race,
-Keep running

Birthday Card

2009-04-09T01:25:00.003-05:00

I had so much fun making Farmboy's V-day card, that I went ahead and made a homemade birthday card for him too. His birthday's easy to remember 'cause it's exactly one week after mine!

And for anyone who's interested, it's exceptionally difficult to make a "real life" scene into a Chibi. Everything's so deformed!!! I realize that's the point, but I think clarification on the "Polaroid's" is necessary.

The farthest left (lower) is a reference to our Final Fantasy Cosplay a couple years ago. Farmboy went as Squall and two of his best friends were Auron and Cid.

Farthest left (upper) - Farmboy and I started dating in January, and for our first Valentines day I gave him a red scarf ('cause he didn't have one).

Left (middle) - We frequently spend time in Mikey's (spazzing red-head) basement, playing guitar hero, or rock band. Mikey (as I just mentioned) is a spaz, and Vic goes out of his way (regardless of the game) to make him flip out.

Middle (upper left) - We have a friend who, whenever he makes the drive out to our little hick town, stops at the local bar and picks up a box of fried chicken... EVERY TIME...

Middle (left-ish) - There are two holidays our closest group of friends celebrate together, The 4th of July, and New Years. I know I've mentioned both in my posts before. It wouldn't have felt right to leave them out. Even though I suck at drawing fireworks... (I had no idea what I was doing) but at least you get the gist of it.

Middle (right-ish) - New Years... We bring in the new year with Welch's sparkling grape juice!

Middle (upper right) - Farmboy found a cat in my driveway several years back, and because it was all black, mistook it for my cat Binky. So he brought it in the house and fed it... Then it wouldn't leave. It's been something like 4 years now... We finally gave up on trying to get rid of him. He's WAY cute, but the little bastard bites... hard... hence the picture.

Middle (lower right) - Every time farmboy gets near an ocean (not very often) he writes "beach bum" in the sand with a stick and has his picture taken... *tourist*

Top Right - Farmboy's family raises corn, soybeans, (apparently cats) and Sheep.

Middle Right - Farmboy's current Facebook-profile picture is a hilarious shot of him and Mikey standing directly in front of the "I Love You, Man" sign, which, for anyone who hasn't seen the movie, is HYSTERICAL!

Bottom Right - Farmboy and his brothers. The annoyed looking (light haired) one on the bottom is the oldest, and the one on the top (other light haired one) is the youngest. On the right (with the maniacal grin - darker haired) is Jake, and on the left (darker haired) is Farmboy.

The "captions" on the 5 outer "Polaroid's" (far left & far right)

Our live are made
In these small hours
These little wonders
These twists and turns of fate
Time falls away
But these small hours
still remain

Taken from "Little Wonders" by Rob Thomas (Meet the Robinson's Soundtrack - another very good movie)

And the Big Chibi in the middle is of course Farmboy and his puppy. Who is just BEYOND cute! And really sweet, (to the point where she's almost OVERLY affectionate). But what can you do?

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Forgetting my Gram's Birthday

2009-04-01T10:23:00.004-05:00

Yesterday was Gram's birthday... and I totally forgot!!
I don't even have a reasonable excuse for forgetting! I had ALL DAY to call her and didn't! I feel like such an ass! AUGHHHHH!!!
She'll forgive me of course, because that's what Grandmother's do, they forgive you being an inconsiderate jerk-off, but that's hardly comforting...
Baka! Baka! Baka!
*Sigh*
Nothing for it now but to call an apologize...
I suppose I'll get on that.

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Cat...

2009-03-14T04:27:00.004-05:00

My boyfriend joined my family for supper tonight as we all celebrated the start of Spring Break. Everything was great. Mom fixed an AMAZING surf'n'turf (Alaskan King Crab & Beef Tenderloin + Asparagus) and then we watched a movie. Farmboy stayed a bit longer and we talked and made plans to grab a coffee at Barnsy's (aka:Barnes&Nobles) later this week.
Then I took him home, but my car was low on gas, so instead of pushing my luck and trying to make it to his place and back, we detoured to the closest 24-hour-pump in Point (town near my parents house) and from there instead of back-tracking, decided to take the C-City-blacktop to his place, but as we were heading out of Point we noticed this cat sitting on a side road and their was something... off... about it.
I glanced at my boyfriend and said
"Did that cat seem alright to you?"
He shook his head, "No, there was something weird about it's mouth."
So I pulled over and flipped on my blinkers and Farmboy got out and went to check out the cat. He came back pretty quickly
"That cats bleeding pretty badly. And there's blood splattered on the road, I think he bailed from under somebody's car."
I got out and followed him back to the cat.
My knees almost buckled when I got a good look at it.

The cat's lower jaw wasn't... attached... anymore. It was just hanging there... dripping blood... There was blood running out of the cats left ear down the side of it's face and it's left eye was just this.. blurry red orb...

The cat wasn't moving a whole lot, just breathing really hard, really raspy, and it just kept bleeding. Every time it exhaled, another drop of blood would fall. I wanted to cry.

"Can you touch it?" I asked
Farmboy tried but the cat freaked. It somersaulted and growled and spazzed all over for a minute, but it was directionless.
"I don't think it's gonna let me pick it up."
"Don't get scratched!"
"We can't just leave it here. It'll die."
I didn't have any blankets or towels in my car to wrap the cat in, Farmboy was willing to wrap it in his jacket, but the cat wouldn't let him touch it. It just freaked out every time he got a finger on it. We were afraid of hurting it more so decided to go back to my house to get the Pet-carrier and a towel, and gloves. Farmboy wanted to stay with the cat, but I didn't like the idea of just leaving my boyfriend out on a country road at 2 in the morning. Especially when it's a whole 20 degrees out, so I made him come back with me. We got gloves and the carrier and an old towel and went back to Point to see if the cat was still there.
It was.

We didn't really know what to do.
We were so afraid of causing further harm to the cat, but we were also pretty sure the cat had gone blind when it bailed, or was hit, or whatever had happened to it. The way the cat just lashed out in all directions whenever something touched it, and the fact that no matter what Farmboy did with his hands, even waving them right in front of it's face and all around it's head got NO reaction. None.

We couldn't pick it up, or catch it with the towel, so finally had to catch it in something of a pincer movement, I head the carrier behind the cat, and Farmboy came from it's front and managed to direct the cats spazzing into it. But the cat kept freaking even in the carrier, but we didn't know what else to do.

Farmboy got a few scratches on his wrists where the gloves were too short, so we hurried back to his place so he could get them washed up quickly.
We got online to look up all the local vets/humane society etc. The earliest to open is the vet in Farmboy's hometown at 8 tomorrow morning. Until then, there's nothing more we can do for the cat except let it spend the night in a cat-carrier in a warm house instead of out on the roadside where we found it.
With it's jaw like that, we can't even give it food or water. Left alone the cat'll be dead in 3 or 4 days of dehydration.
We don't really have a lot of hope that a vet will be able to do anything for this cat except perhaps a painless way to die. But at the same time, we couldn't just leave it like that.
We had to try to do something.

Farmboy's taking the cat in as soon as the vet's office opens in the morning. We'll see what happens from there. It's all we can do.

This was not how I wanted to start my spring break.

CAT CONTINUED:

We weren't sure the cat would survive the night.
It did.
So Farmboy took the cat into the vet first thing in the morning, but they wanted to charge him for a visit.
(Which is ridiculous! Who charges a couple college students for trying to a help a roadkill cat!? Stupid asshole of a vet!)
So, because the humane society didn't open for another 2 hours, Farmboy brought the cat to my place.
The cat was 'put to sleep' and we went out into the back ditch, just beyond the tree line and buried it at the top of the slope. Then built a little cairn for it, and... then we both cried a little.

Which, sounds a little pathetic... I guess... two 20-somethings crying because they found a dead cat on the side of the road.
But at the same time, I think I'd rather be able to say that I can still cry because something died, even if I didn't know it.
I mean, it was just a cat,
but it was still a life,
and the loss of ANY life is sad.
I don't ever want to become hardened to that.

Besides,
even if I was just a stray cat,
I'd like to think that someone might still cry for me.

My regards to the rest of you out there in the rat race
-keep running

Testing... Testing...

2009-03-04T14:06:00.002-06:00

Testing testing testing testing
I have three exams back to back this week, and I am NOT happy about it.
Lit (British), other Lit(Western), and Horticulture.
BAH!
The Horticulture is not so bad, it's completely different from Literature.
But two Lit exams?
I've been force-feeding myself Sappho and Shakespeare for so long I think I might actually start vomiting lesbian-themed sonnets.
But what can you do?
Ah well,
this was my (very short) rant
I have to get back to my poetry.

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Let's Converse...

2009-02-21T10:54:00.004-06:00

I've always wanted to paint a pair of a Converses, and I think the very name "Converse" almost DEMANDS that they be personalized, to 'converse' after all, is to engage in conversation, soo...

On that note, I present my very own Chuck's, done up DMC style!

The tongues were done by sketching and then cutting out the DMC3, DMC4 logo's and pinning them to the tongues and then just brushing over the edges. I really LOVE how they came out!

The Dante,Nero chibi's were sketches I drew on index cards, and then cut out and used the card to paint a white "silhouette" on the shoes. After that, it was all free hand. I smoothed out the outline and did the detail work with a black weather-proof pen, but everything else is in acrylic paint.

I didn't like Dante and Nero just standing around in a black "void" *laugh*. It was too boring and empty. But I didn't want to spend a whole ton of time on a "background" either. At first I was considering, having either Rebellion/Red Queen in the background, or Ebony & Ivory/Blue Rose crossed behind their respective users, but that would take forever and I was worried it'd be TOO busy, and take away from the chibi's I worked so hard on.

But I love the name of Nero's double-barreled revolver "Blue Rose", and when I thought about it, Dante has a red rose in his mouth salsa-style after he picks up the weapon Lucifer in DMC4. So I decided to do a "rose motif" for the background. I have to say I'm really happy with it.
The green is dark enough to be subtle and not to draw attention away from the characters themselves, but at the same time, they aren't drowning in the abyss anymore either.

I was originally going to put Rebellion and Red Queen where the names are, but after painting a rough sketch of the sword, I didn't like it. it wasn't enough space to do it justice and I really wanted something BRIGHTER back there. So I repainted the black and then just grafittied on the names and loved it!

I haven't yet decided how to do the "inside" edge of the shoe, I hate to paint over the "Converse All Star" logo, but haven't quite figured out how to incorporate it into a DMC theme either. But I'll be sure to post when I DO get around to finishing these completely.

until then,
My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Completed!

2009-02-05T00:22:00.002-06:00

All finished!
This thing took FOREVER!!!
But in the end, I'm not horrified at how it turned out, so it's all good!

Smashingly Cheap Valentine!

2009-02-04T19:08:00.003-06:00

Hello again!
In my absolute brilliantosity, (and the fact that I have no money), for Valentines day I decided to go with a "homemade" approach on a V-day card for my boyfriend. (that's right, I am TOO CHEAP to spend a $1.99 on a card)
but I didn't want to do something mushy and whatnot, and almost every time we hang out, we spend an hour or so beating the hell out of each other on Smash Brothers. So I thought, PERFECT!
Nothing says "I love you" like a game that has BRAWL right there in the title!
So here you have it, the "lineart" of my V-day card! It's taken me the better part of 2 weeks to get this much done. But now I get to color it! (I LOVE COLORING!!!) Admitedly, my artistic ability is sadly lacking, but I'm confident that he'll overlook that in appreciation of the humor and absolute cheapness that it's dedicated with.
At first I was going to leave it just black and white, but it just didn't feel right having Mario front and center without his bright red hat. Plus part of the appeal of the "nintendo world" is the super-saturated colors. So I decided it definetly needed to be colored.

I'll post the finished product when I'm done with it.

First day of classes...

2009-01-12T18:11:00.003-06:00

It's the first day of classes...
My first class of the new semester is a British literature class focusing on (british liturature) from Beowulf through the Renaisscance.
The professor who teaches this class, I might add, is BEYOND insane. I think I'm very much going to like her.
Our first assignment was a little "in class" activity, where we got into small groups and had to solve the Exeter Riddle 25.

Exeter Riddle 25 goes as follows
I'm a wonderful thing, women I please,
to neighbours I'm useful, none do I hurt
who abide in my village, but for my slayer.
I grow to great stature, stand in my bed,
under me is hair. Until the time
Some comely lass, a carl's daughter
and haughty maid, holds onto me,
grips my redness, robs me of my head,
siezes me firmly. Feeling at once
what meeting me means in mutual space,
that woman with wound hair. Wet is her eye.

Well, I was in a group with Henry-who-barely-speaks-english, and I-don't-eat-yellow-food-Chris.
We read through the riddle, and I nodded thoughtfully and said,
"It's a penis."
At first Chris looked relieved and said "I'm really glad I'm not the only one who took it that way."
Henry was still musing on my left and then he said
"Is it a plant?"
"Is a penis a plant!?" I was suddenly afraid I was going to have to explain his anatomy to him.
"This." Henry pointed to the riddle
"Oh!" I read it again, "It could be... like an onion maybe."

Well, turns out I was right on both counts, Exeter Riddle 25 is about both an onion AND a penis.
Of course, I'm in a class full of frickin' pansies, so while everyone was happy to chime in with the onion answer, the one who got fed up with 35 college students pussy-footing around and finally blurted out,
"OH FOR CHRISTS SAKES! IT'S A PENIS!"
was me.
go figure right?

So anyway, the charming twat behind me has given it to me as a nickname now. I can only hope it doesn't stick, as I'd truly hate to go through this semester as "penis-girl". But if all else fails I suppose I'll just kill him and dump his body in the lake for the swans to eat.

I-don't-eat-yellow-food-Chris however, announced as we were leaving that he's "definetely going to have to sit by me from now on." So at the very least, my 'entertainment value' has earned me a study-buddy for the semester.

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Moving Back... My Cat is Pissed...

2009-01-10T23:25:00.005-06:00

My cat is super pissed at me.
That's funny to some people, (my parents mostly...)
but it's really not.

This cat is BEYOND angry.
She's not only "not speaking" to me right now, she woouldn't even LOOK at me.
Which sounds, ridiculous, because I'm talking about a cat, but this isn't just any cat, this is the Queen of Sheeba in a tabby coat.
I spent the other night packing up my clothes and what-not so I could come back to school, but I wasn't paying attention to the fact that Sabe` (my cat) was in the room.
She gets mad at me every time I leave for school and now that she's seen me packing she's giving me her ultimate "cold shoulder".

First she'd sit in the middle of the living room and look anywhere in the room but at me.
If I tried to move into her line of sight, she'd turn her head.
If I turned my back on her, she'd look at me, but as soon as I turned back around, she'd quick turn her head to stare at the wall again.
My mom couldn't stop laughing.

A little while later I tried to bribe her into forgiving me with a Cheeze-it.
She took the Cheez-it from the palm of my hand, then promptly turned around so her back was to me and ate it.
So I tried again, but this time I held onto the Cheeze-it so she'd have to face me to nibble on it.
She bit me.
Hard...
Then she took the Cheeze-it and turned her back to me again and ate it.
So I left the third Cheeze-it in the palm of my hand like the first one.
This time she bit me just for the hell of it, took the Cheeze-it, ate it, and then walked off.
My dad cried he was laughing so hard.

She still wants to sleep on my bed, but she won't let me touch her. Normally she sleeps pressed up against my legs or shoulder, but last night she slept on the corner,
and if I tried to pet her,
she growled at me.

This morning when I started loading up my car so I could head back to school, she sat on top of the Tote I packed all my clothes in and hissed and swatted at anyone who tried to come near it.
I finally had to put on two sweatshirts and a pair of leather gloves to get her off it. And she still made all attempts to leave me with a few parting lacerations, just to make sure I knew how deeply displeased she is with me right now.

It's very sad the way I am bossed around by this cat. She weighs a whole 6 pounds, but that 6 pounds has 5 pointy ends...
6pounds with 5 pointy ends and a really mean temper...

...

...

It is really sad to leave her though, I spend most of my time at home with this cat draped over my shoulder like a doily. She sleeps on my bed, "stands gaurd" while I work in my garden. When I'm not home she cries at my door until my parents let her in, and then she pokes about in all the corners like she's looking for me, and when I call home, if my parents put the call on speaker phone she sits on it and then growls at anyone who tries to move her or take the phone away.

Of course, whenever I go home after being away, she gives me the cold shoulder, and usually makes me crawl under the dining room table with some kind of treat before she forgives me and goes back to riding around the house on my shoulder.
She's like, 1/2 cat, 1/2 parrot...

A really really angry parrot...

Or a very small, spoiled child...

ah well,

Cat people will understand this post. The rest of you will simply assume that I'm a lunatic, but I suppose it can't be helped.

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

The Current Temperature is -17 F...

2008-12-15T08:52:00.002-06:00

As my title states...
it's seriously cold.
it's BEYOND cold...
So far beyond cold that even the icicles are out there going "God damn, is this absolutely necessary?"

Yesterday, I did not give a shit what the weather was like. I spent the entire day hiding out in my building studying for my Finals... Except for the part where I went to the boyfriends to cook Spaghetti (I may have mentioned this before, but our campus has this completely unfounded assumption that students do not eat supper on Sundays... I have no idea why they think this... but regardless, the dining centers all close at like 2 in the afternoon on Sunday. So we are left to our own devices - on that note, I suspect the local pizza parlors may have something to do with it as they all make a literal killing on Sunday nights.) But that was yesterday...

Today...

Today I am forced to emerge from my fortress of cozy blankets...

To venture out across the icy wasteland that is this campus...

To face the arctic blast that is this lashing down upon me...

And to crumple into a shivering, sniveling lump before it...

a sniffling lump by the way, who spent her entire trek to the bus stop cursing like a sailor and trying to IGNORE the rationalization that 'Yes it would kill her grade to skip her Psychology final... But is it really worth sacrificing her toes for?'
And the conclusion this whining warrior came to...
It wasn't.

But she went anyway...

7:30 in the morning...
-17 degrees out...
Wind blowing like a sorority girl...

Now I'm hiding out in the library, it's pretty damn cold in here too actually, but it'll warm as the day progresses and it slowly fills with thousands of undernourished, sleep-deprived, and seriously STRESSED OUT college students...

Alas, my bagel with it's decadent topping of strawberry cream cheese is now nothing more than a pleasant memory, and my 16oz peppermint mocha is 1/2 done and I suppose that is probably my cue to hit the books again...

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race,
-keep running

A letter to my Grandmother

2008-12-09T22:39:00.004-06:00

Every year for Christmas, I send a letter to my Gram who, like me, has a terribly twisted sense of humor.
Unfortunetly, she lives half-way across the country and despite our mutual intrest in picking fun at the population in general, we are rarely permitted to visit. Myself by financial contraints and the obligations of being a college student, and she by health constraints and the obligations of being a nanny to my much younger cousins.
And so, our contact is limited to occasional phone calls, and my yearly letter, which I am told, she has begun collecting in an album, so that she may pull them out and appall her more 'sensitive' friends with them. I realize as you read this the tought may cross your mind "I can't believe she is saying this her grandmother!" But keep in mind, this is the woman who taught me the phrase "I'm gonna ram my boot so far up his ass he'll shit out his eye-balls!" at the tender age of 11.
and so the letter...

Season’s Greetings Gram!

I feel a little silly including a T-shirt you paid for in your gift, but it seemed as good a way as any to save a bit on postage. I hope the T-shirt fits and is to your liking, and have included in my lengthy and rambling letter here, the utterly fascinating story of its purchase!
So let us begin…
You know how Walmarts anymore have banks, and nail salons, and Cost-Cutters in them? Well here the Super-Walmart has a little “store in the wall” that sells our University’s paraphernalia. I perused this hole-in-the-wall-Walmart-store, and found nothing of interest, except perhaps the crotchety old man who seemed convinced that I was up to no good.
I’m not sure if he thought I was trying to steal something, or if he was just simply annoyed by my very presence in his hole-in-the-wall? I mean, I suppose it COULD have been some misdirected territorial reflex. Or perhaps he was perturbed by the audacity of my question,
“Excuse me, but do you carry anything smaller than an XL?”
In any case, he continuously cleared his throat, and shot me suspicious glances, and kept moving to keep me in his line of sight. It got to be a bit of a game really, going through T-shirts and then suddenly ducking behind a rack of sweatpants just to spin him up a little.
I really shouldn’t be allowed out without supervision sometimes, especially if I’m going to get my kicks harassing elderly sales clerks with nothing better to do than be spiteful of all the young people wandering about. But who can blame them? I mean, “Damn it all! what are all these 20-somethings doing in a college town anyway!” I was only in there about ten minutes, but by the end, even if I had found something that would fit someone smaller than a circus tent, I’m not sure he would have sold it to me.
So I resorted to the campus book store, because quite frankly, it’s too cold to do a lot of walking around outdoors when I don’t have to. Most of the T-shirts have, unfortunately, switched to the “New Vintage” logo.
It’s absolutely fascinating to see the oxymoron’s the athletic department comes up with, though I dearly wish they’d spare me their ridiculous ad-campaign. Regardless of the amount stupidity that is pumped into it, it doesn’t change the fact that all the students HATE the new logo, and that it looks identical to our in-state-rival’s logo. Isn’t it bad enough that we lost to them in football without having to rip-off their iconography?
But I digress…
With a little digging, I found a few T-shirts with the old logo on them, one of which was a fantastically obnoxious shade of hot-pink. I briefly considered buying that, if only for the mental image of dressing you in that color. I dismissed the idea however, having already harassed the hole-in-the-wall-store-clerk today, I thought it best not to pick on my grandmother as well, lest I tempt some avenging spirit on the prowl for impertinent granddaughters. That left me with a gray and a navy blue shirt.
You said you wanted to use the shirt for gardening, so I went for the gray one, only to discover that once again, we truly love to cater to the excessively large. I went through every shirt. 2X, 3X, 4X, 5X,
“5X!” I thought “Are you kidding me? Are we trying to dress the Campanile!? Perhaps one of the Campus Buses is to wear this!? I didn’t even know they MADE 5X!?”
Hence, you got a blue shirt. I’d have gone with a medium, but there weren’t any. Although there WAS an extra-small, and I almost bought that just for the sheer novelty of purchasing a garment made for someone who wasn’t large enough to warrant their own zip code.
I mentioned this to Adam, he says I am mean. Well, that may be true, but I maintain that any mischief I cause is small, relatively harmless, and for the vast majority of the time, takes place entirely in my head. And so I argue, that I am NOT “mean” I merely, “think mean thoughts”. An affliction I blame entirely on my immediate surroundings’ inability to create the level the over-stimulation necessary to keep me from noticing the obvious.
It’s rather depressing really, all anyone wants to talk about here is the weather. Which, sadly, from about mid-October through late April can summed up in three words:
COLD AND WINDY.
Certainly there are many variations of said summary,
“Really cold and hella windy”
“Damn cold and obscenely windy”
“Bitterly cold, but not quite so windy as yesterday”
And my personal favorite (an astoundingly insightful exclamation I, and most of the other students dining in the cafeteria, heard about two days ago)
“Holy shit! Can you believe how cold and windy it is out there!”
“Yes, my very astute friend” I thought to myself, “yes I CAN believe it.” (This is the point where I started chuckling to myself, and everyone in my vicinity shied away from the “crazy person”.)
But regardless of the number of adjectives added, the weather remains the same. Which has led me to the discovery that Meteorologists in the upper Midwest are actually quite superfluous, and we merely keep them around as a sort of idiosyncratic scapegoat to blame said weather on.
Today’s weather is cold and windy, just as yesterday’s weather was cold and windy and WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT!? Tomorrow will be cold and windy as well.
This rant of course is brought on by the fact that while standing in line for my coffee, a tumbleweed in a John Deer ball-cap, blew in the library door, stomped up behind me and said, to no one in particular, though in hindsight he may have been addressing me (I was the closest one to him).
“Brrr! Sure is cold and windy today!”
I’m quite proud to say I resisted the urge to strangle him with his scarf for being the 4th person to utter that phrase to me this morning. But it very much drove home the fact that I create small mischief and find pleasure in exploiting the quirks of human kind, not because I am “mean”, but as desperate attempt to preserve my own psychological well-being.

Another strange phenomena exhibited by college students is what I have termed “Cold Weather Denial Syndrome”. While most students stomp across campus as brightly colored scarves wearing hats and backpacks, a select few choose to deal with the cold by pretending it doesn’t exist. Those afflicted with CWDS are easily spotted because they’re wearing Bermuda shorts and flip-flops despite the fact that the wind chill is a balmy -15 degrees Fahrenheit. Their wind-burned shins and calves take on a spectacular Cherry-red color, while their toes turn a rather alarming shade of purple.
I personally, am fond of all ten of my toes, I’m quite attached to the lower half of my legs as well. But what do I know really? Perhaps there IS something to the theory that the cold doesn’t exist if you simply ignore it. But that purple-toe affliction would suggest otherwise. It’s a tad worrisome really. I have to wonder if these people (almost all male, I might add) are just victims of some twisted sense of bravado, or if they’re truly laboring under some severe mental deficiency.
To that end, I conducted a “short interview” with an apparent victim of CWDS, the “interview” lasted all of 30 seconds and basically involved me expressing my concern (again, in line for coffee) to the guy in front of me that it was quite chilly out and his exposed toes were a rather vibrant shade of purple, and that, perhaps, socks might not be such a bad investment if he hoped to greet next spring with all his extremities intact. He gave me a very blank look. I sighed and tried again, making all attempts possible not to use any words comprised of more than two syllables,
“Your toes are gonna fall off if you don’t put some real shoes on.”
He looked at me, and my full length parka, and my knitted scarf and hat and smiled sweetly and said, “wimp”.
I looked at him, in his lightweight jacket, shorts, and flip flops, and smiled sweetly and said “masochist.”
But I’m quite certain that he was as unfamiliar with the term “masochist” as he seemed to be with “extremities” because he seemed to think I was flirting with him, and proceeded in trying to engage in small talk, which, go figure, turned immediately to the weather.

Idiots aside, school is going well, and while not always “stimulating” it remains at least mildly amusing. I’ve joined a group that plays “Rubber Band Wars” which is basically Capture the Flag, only instead of being a tag game, we shoot one another with rubber bands. It’s mildly painful, and a good number of us tend to come away with great red welts on our arms and necks, but still great fun. And it annoys Campus Security, which is an added bonus.
On a completely different track, I’m a bit ostracized in my English Literature class, and I must admit a perverse, yet very definitive sense of satisfaction in being a pariah. Adam says this is most definitely a sign that I have been alone in my head for too long, but quite frankly I’m having the time of my life in here. And honestly, if all anyone is going to talk about is the bloody weather I’m better off just having a running monologue with myself. At least the vocabulary is somewhat expansive and the subject matter is varied.
My Lit teacher tries to refrain from calling on me if she can help it, but no one in that class likes to talk except for me, so more often than not she is forced to let me passionately iterate why “fairy-tale endings” might be morally uplifting, but bear little substantial weight and are painfully under-stimulating.
I argue that “and they lived happily after” leaves you with the thought “oh, that’s nice.” And that’s it. That’s all the thinking involved. That’s all the further the story goes. While something like… Edgar Allen Poe, or Neil Gaiman, or even the irreverent ramblings of Terry Pratchett or Bill Bryson at least convey a subtle depth. Some barely grasped meaning that sits around in your head writhing and crawling, and forcing you to take a closer look at just what the words on that page are saying. Even when the books is closed you are still haunted, and THAT is weight, THAT is literature. Literature is the story that makes you think.

Sadly, even on a college campus thinking may be a dying art. We’re so well trained to regurgitate useless information that we’ve barely any real cognitive function left. It’s infinitely pathetic, and more than slightly disheartening to look around and know you’re surrounded by little more than fleshy robots periodically vomiting up force-fed data on tests so that they can lumber back to their rooms at the end of the day and plug into Youtube for a recharge on the pointlessly irrelevant.

Also, despite the lovely weather we’re all so obsessed with around here, there seems to be a growing number of strange old men, garbed in long woolen coats and stocking caps, handing out little green Gideon Bibles. I’m not sure if they are trying to inspire us to pray for an early spring, or if they are merely trying to get themselves run over by our exceptionally efficient bus system.
Either way, I’ve discovered that there is just NO polite way to try and explain to an old man who isn’t listening to you anyway, that even if he forces his little plastic-bound book upon you, it’s not going to save you from your chosen life of sin and will almost certainly be relegated to an existence as a drink coaster. One old man gave me a dirty look for the drink coaster bit, the other pointedly ignored anything I said until a break in the traffic allowed me to go hurtling across the intersection to evade him.
It’s a sad day for the world indeed when young women have to throw themselves into traffic to escape old men with bibles.

But despite the efforts of pushy bible peddling old men and a literature class that has absolutely NO appreciation for the finer power implications of cannibalism, I am very much enjoying myself. Living on campus provides me with ample opportunity to observe my fellow students. And what a fascinating bunch they are!
For example, someone- for reasons unknown to me- has taken it upon themselves to rip out a sizable section of the flooring in the elevator, and jam it behind the handrail. I’ll give you that our elevators are exceptionally slow, (Sarah and I have experimented with it, and it’s actually FASTER to take the stairs.) But that aside…
What in the hell could possess a person to rip out the flooring!? At what point during a ride on the elevator does one decide, “You know, I do believe that THAT particular section of linoleum would look better jammed behind the handrail.” It’s very odd, and our notoriously grouchy janitor is having the fits over it.
While I can understand her frustration at the “unruly behavior” of my fellow occupants, I am currently enjoying the added entertainment of listening to her gripe about it to anyone and everyone she can corner. Most especially our other janitor lady, who is not quite as grouchy as the one who cleans my floor, but instead has a very unnerving habit of staring at one point without blinking for long periods of time. (This is not to stay that she stands there doing nothing, it is just that she mops without looking at what she’s mopping.) So while staring lady mops the main floor and nods occasionally, out of politeness I suppose, angry lady works herself into a frenzy “Do you know what those little bastards did this time!?” grumble… grumble… grumble…
They could truly be their own little sitcom.
But I think most of this campus could. Perhaps someday I’ll write a book about it, I think I shall title it, “So How About This Weather”.

Ah well, I suppose I have tired your eyes with my ramblings long enough…

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Freedom From Religion...

2008-11-03T21:43:00.004-06:00

As the current election makes unavoidably prevalent - we have "Freedom of Religion" here in the grand ol' US of A. You are free to be Catholic, Non-Denominational Christian, Evangelical, Baptist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Mormon, WHATEVER... (I exclude the Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Shinto, Buddhist, and Wiccan/New Age communities in this list because quite frankly, no one's ever tried to hand me a Koran, or a Book of Shadows on the street corner.)

You probably think someone else is "wrong" because you of course are "right", but as long as they've got SOME KIND OF BELIEF in "God" you probably won't press the issue.

But what about those of us who fall into the Atheist/Agnostic category? "God forbid" we should believe in NOTHING.

Well I've got THIS to say to all the Bible-pushing, public-preaching, self-righteous zealots out there who won't leave me the fuck alone...

YOU are free to believe whatever the hell you WANT to believe! And I am free NOT to! Just as you are given Freedom OF Religion, it is MY Right NOT to be subjugated to your "soul saving". It it MY Right NOT to be forced to choke down your cardboard wafers, and drink your communal wine. It is MY Right NOT to be force-fed your beliefs through the discriminatory straw of your closed-minded system. It is My Right to be a "Heathen" if I fucking choose.

I do not approach you on the corner and try to hand you a book to lecture you on what you should and should not do with your life.
I do not stand on a soap box and condemn you for what you choose to believe or not believe in.
I do not persecute You for your sexual orientation.
I do not persecute You for not following MY self-imposed regulations.
I do not persecute You for choosing to follow your OWN path instead of a path laid out by a church.

I was recently harassed by a man with a little green Gideon Bible, after explaining to him that I was "Not a believer" he began to shout at me. Telling me I was "damned to hell" and that "my soul" needed "the light of God to show me the path to salvation".

"My soul" first of all, is none of your damn business. And Second,

Don't feed me your "you need God to see" bullshit because "Faith is blind" my friends, and that in itself is a contradictory statement.

Celebrate your "freedom of Religion"
It's a fantastic thing that people in this country are able to believe and worship HOWEVER THEY CHOOSE.
But keep in mind that SOME OF US choose to exercise that right by NOT believing or worshiping and that's OUR RIGHT.

So Get off my back
Stay off my case
and give me my Freedom From Religion

WINDY....

2008-10-27T16:51:00.002-05:00

It was cold and super windy and crappy today.
EVEN though the sun was out it was NOT warm...
I hate the cold.
I love the snow. Hate the cold.
But today was cold and there was no snow, so it HAS NO EXCUSE!!!
Bah!
Even in my room I'm cold, so crappy. I can't feel my feet!!!
Too bad my dorm room doesn't have a bathtub. there's some instances where a shower just can't cut it.
*bah...
Whatever, I'm going to go make hot chocolate.

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

We've got two sizes...

2008-08-11T22:14:00.005-05:00

Hey totally random post but what the hell!

I haven't posted in FOREVER, but it's been a crazy summer!

Anyway, about that header...

I worked flood recovery earlier this summer, (after that work died down a little I went to work for the local seed company as a pollinator- totally different story)

where was I? Oh right.

The flood recovery was dirty, stinky work, so all the workers were required to wear these charming, totally flattering Tyvex suits that you see my sister and I modeling in this picture. The lady who was handing them out the morning this picture was taken looked at the two of us (both under 5'3") and said

"We've got two sizes, 2x, 3x, and 4x"

My sister and I looked at each other, "two sizes?"
"2x, 3x, and 4x" the woman repeated

In the end we each got a 2x.

In this picture however, we're Sharing a 2x.

They were Ginormous!

But what can you do, they had only had " 'two sizes' "

My regards to everyone else out there in the Rat Race

-keep running

PS: I move back into my dorm on Sunday!!!! SOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!

Peeps...

2008-06-17T15:27:00.003-05:00

We just got in our chickens today! My family and I are NOT farmers... but we like to pretend we are.

We conducted an experiment last year, we got 25 "broilers" (chickens for eating) and raised them over a period of 6 weeks. No growth hormones, no tiny dirty cages, just 25 chickens wandering around the paddock. It was a very successful experiment and 24 out of 25 chickens made it the full 6 weeks (which I'm told, by people who ARE farmers, is a Very good turn-out)

I learned a lot about chickens, mostly that... they STINK like you wouldn't believe, they are-for the most part- completely retarded, and that they will eat literally ANYTHING. And they're really aggressive about it. I happened to be watering them when an unfortunet grasshopper made the mistake of landing where they could reach him...

think Pirana's only with feathers instead of fins.

That grasshopped was ripped in 3 pieces (by 3 chickens who pounced on it) and gone in about .5 seconds... very aggressive eaters those chickens...

So this year we decided to raise 50 chickens. But they actually gave us 52 becuase it's expected that a couple will die. (I'm not sure why?)

But anyway, this'll prolly be the only picture I post of the little bastards, becuase after a week or so when their "adult feathers" start coming in they get Real ugly and scraggly looking, and then they just get Fat. And smelly.

But as little peeps they're SOO cute! and not as smelly.

*cheep cheep!

-keep running

Sand Baggin'...

2008-06-11T23:43:00.002-05:00

As many of you are probably aware, the southeastern united states is in one hellavu drought... here in the midwest however, we have the opposite problem.
a little background...
In 1993 we had what was called "the hundred year flood", I was only 6 years old at the time and I still remember it. My little sister was 4 and SHE still remembers it. It was something that was only supposed to happen ONCE IN A LIFETIME...
Here it is, a mere 15 years later, and they're calling it "the 5 hundred years flood" a flood you're only supposed to see Once every five hundred years, and it's only been 15.
The river is currently flowing at 4 times the volume it was back in 93. And the flooding is... Incredible.
That's really the only word for it. Entire towns are being put under madatory evacuation. It's insane.

But on to my story...
I got a phone call from the infamous boyfriend and his infamous brother today. Went as follows.
"Hey, we're gonna go help sandbag, you wanna come?"
"Yeah! Definetly!"
"Great, can you be ready in ten?"
"Yup!"
"See you when we get there."
"cool."
"Oh yeah, wear a K-wood T-shirt, we're going with them."
"Okay."

So I throw on a K-wood shirt, get picked up and we head down to Kirkwood (local community college) to meet up with some friends / students. There were 14 of us, in 4 cars who went to downtown CR to one of the local construction companies. (It's called KING'S, they supply sand and paving stones and rocks etc.)
It was wicked cool!
The National Gaurd was all over the place with dump trucks full of sand, and forklifts, and pallets. We spent about an hour and a half filling sandbags. I've got the blister to prove it. But it was just SOO cool!
There were SO many volunteers! A junior high softball team from one of the local schools came out, and there were old ladies and kids and everything in between. a dump-truck would dump a pile of sand, and some of us would shovel it into an up-side-down traffic cone (aka Funnel), into a sandbag, 2-3 scoops, then the person holding the bag would move it and someone else would tie it, then someone else would stack it on a pallet.
Meanwhile, other people ran around with things like cookies and gatorade and WATER, to keep all the volunteers hydrated and on their feet.
There were SO many of us. It was just SO inspiring to see ALL those people coming together to try and help the city. It was also pretty kick-ass to get to work side by side with the National Gaurd.

They also had about 4 buses running down to where the river was starting to flood peoples houses. (Earlier this week they built a sandbag wall, but the river broke through/over it today). A National Gaurdsman came in to help recruit people to go on buses to help sandbag at the water. Jacob went with the first group, and Adam, Samuel, and I all followed a little later. Once again it was wicked cool!
Our two busloads of people (the buses ran in pairs) went as a huge group of like 50+ people and we just formed two lines from where the forklift dropped the pallet to the house, and then it was just hand over hand to move the sandbags along. It was a BLAST! We were laughing and joking and standing knee deep in really gross water just passing sandbags from one person to the next building walls and surrounding basements to try and fight the flooding. And when one house was done, we just moved to the next. And there were groups just like ours all up and down the streets. It was the coolest thing!

I know it's probably terrible to call a flood like this "cool" especially when I'm one of the people who DOESN'T have to evacuate their house and isn't losing anything to all this rain except time spent in my garden.
But what IS really incredibly cool is seeing your entire community coming together and helping each other out. We don't KNOW the owners of those houses we were sandbagging, and probably never will, but we still worked our asses off to try and save them. We gave our time, and our sweat, and our friendship to everyone around us. I don't care what ANYONE says, Midwesterner's are AMAZING people, I've lived on both coasts, but NOTHING beats the midwest.
We're standing there watching as the river swallows our city, and yet, Everyone was smiling.

We were smiling,
We were telling jokes,
And laughing,
We were making friends with the strangers next to us...
It's funny to say that a crisis was one of the best experiences of my life, but it was.

I met and worked alongside some truly incredible people today, and the sheer NUMBERS of those incredible people just blows my mind. But there they were.

It's the kind of thing that renews your faith in the human race,
makes you step back and swell with pride and say "yeah, maybe there's hope for us after all."

It can rain all it wants, but some spirits just Won't be drowned. And I'm damn proud to say that hundreds of those steadfast spirits are members of my community.

So no matter What your neck of the woods happens to be facing right now,
-keep running

and if you get the chance to be a volunteer and help out your community, DO IT.
You might have blisters, and your arms and back might be sore, but I promise you won't regret a second of it.

Sidebar...

2008-06-06T00:48:00.002-05:00

I've re-done the sidebar a bit, taken down all the pictures of anime and manga that I'm a fan of (I still have anime and manga in my other blogs - see profile...), and replaced them with pictures from my gardens!

Any plant experts out there who happen to read my captions will probably shake their heads and go "what an idiot" and they're probably right. But what the hell, I might BE an idiot, but you can't knock my enthusiasm! I'm having SO MUCH FUN landscaping around my parents' house! It's hard, hot work and totally worth it!

I'll keep putting up pictures as more of my flowers come into bloom (or re-bloom, as is the case with MOST of my roses, who I didn't get pictures of the first time).

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Rain Rain... Go Away...

2008-06-05T00:55:00.003-05:00

It WON'T STOP RAINING....

I want to work in my garden and the weather REFUSES to give me more than a day or two break in the constant barrage of storms we've had going. And there's NO END IN SIGHT... The 10 day forcast has Sun on Sunday and next Thrusday, but everything else is blinking rain and Thunderstorms!!!

BAH!!!

I have got 15 BEAUTIFUL ROSES planted along the south side of my house, roses who DO NOT LIKE WET ROOTS... (so angry at the weather).

And thanks to all the rain we've had, I've got STINKHORNS popping up next to one of my older rose bushes!

Stinkhorns, for anyone not familiar with Midwestern Fungus, are these nasty, disgusting STINKY mushrooms. They start out underground as these white-egg-shaped-golf-ball-sized-things, and shoot up a bright orange-fading-to-red-stalk and a truly disgusting cap covered in brown slime (it's actually the spores) and true to their name, the damn things REEK to high heaven. The smell attracts flies which land on the slime and get covered in spores and then go off to spread the damn Stinkhorns across your yard.
Stinkhorns are listed as "unedible" but I can't see anyone wanting to eat them anyway, their stench alone is pretty stomach-turning, and then there's the slime-cap to get past. They aren't however, supposed to hurt anything, gardens, pets, etc. Their mostly just an oddity, and in my case, a nuiscanse.

I planted roses so my garden would smell nice! Now I'm being plagued by stinky mushrooms!

But admittedly, I have set up the perfect place for them, the mulch around my older roses is several years old and has started to break down and rot, and with all the rain (stinkhorns are known for popping almost instantly after heavy rains) the stinkhorns are thriving while my poor roses are in danger of overwatering.

To try and conteract the stinkhorns I've cleared away all the old mulch and deposited it in my compost pile (which smells anway, so let them grow THERE).

Hopefully that helps... I avoid using any kind of chemicals in my garden becuase I have cats and I don't want them walking through it and then licking their feet and getting sick.
Plus weeding and "stinky mushroom removal" is just another excuse for me to be outside spending time with my plants.

My darling little sister maintains that only a crazy person would greet her garden with "Good Morning!" But people and animals all respond well to being treated like friends and putting forth cheerful disposition so I don't see why plants should be any different. And so yes, I DO talk to my plants, and I DO sing while I'm gardening, and I might just BE a crazy person, but crazy or not, I've got a good looking garden.

And in case I didn't mention it in my last post, The peonies are blooming! They're absolutely gorgeous! All huge and pink and fluffy! I love them! And they smell Fantastic!

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Summer YAY!

2008-06-01T22:27:00.002-05:00

It's summer break! *Woot!*

Actually, it's been summer break, since May 8th, but whatever, I haven't been on to write in literally a month! (my bad).

Not to much to report right now, except that I've recently discovered a love for landscaping, and planting stuff. Recently is a stretch, I've always loved stuff that's green and growing and fresh and pretty and perky etc. etc. etc. And I've been planting trees with my dad for Years and years, in our backyard alone we've planted- (over) 300 R-brr-vI-Tee (I don't know how to spell it, so there's the phonetic version, you work it out. Anyway, it's a type of evergreen), 6 Ash, 1 English Oak, 2 Japanese Maples, 2 Pear trees, 3 Apple trees, 5 Cherry trees, a red maple, and a "dwarf" lilac that is actually a bush but is now bigger than some of the trees.

But because our yard is so enormously huge and there's all kinds of porches and whatnot sticking off the house and no one at my house likes to use the push mower because it's super hot, sticky work and it takes over 2 hours to cut the "bulk grass" on the riding mower anyway, (total run-on sentence, good luck with that :P ) Anyway, Dad decided we needed to do some landscaping and planting of a garden that surrounds the entire house to cut out all the trim work and make it so everything could be done with the big mower. So I volunteered.

and after 3 weeks I'm almost done tearing up sod around the house and have planted so far, 10 roses (all different colors), 11 Mums, 3 hydrangeas, 1 peony, 7 bellflowers, 7 azaleas, 2 pink poppets, 3 butterfly bushes, 2 bleeding hearts, 6 begoneas, 3 rodedendrons, 2 wind chimes and a garden gnome that sits under a solar powered glow in the dark mushroom.

I will eventually post pictures, when I get around to it. But tonight I am tired and am going to bed.

To everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Dona Nobis Pachem...

2008-04-28T21:50:00.003-05:00

Dona Nobis Pachem...
is a 68 page long, 40 minute piece for a full choir + orchestra...
It was also the piece we performed for our "Masterworks Concert" this past Sunday.
It's actually an uber cool piece and I Really Really liked it, however with a full orchestra and all 4 of our universities choirs combined into one (like 300 singers), plus the lights and lack of air flow it gets REALLY REALLY HOT up on that stage.

So anyway, Saturday we had a 2 hour rehersal, (we only get ONE rehersal with the orchestra before the show, but we're just that good and the concert ROCKED!).
But anyway,
2 hour rehersal on Saturday, about 55 minutes or so into it, I passed out.
Just like that.
Standing one minute BANG! In the ground the next.

It was super freaky.

I was in the second row, so thankfully I was on the floor instead of the risers or my " ' injuries' " could have been a lot worse. But I did manage to HIT the risers on my way down, the proof is in the gorgeous purple bruises that currently stretch across my lower back. They are quite painful...

Fainting is a new experience for me, and I'm a "I'll try anything once" kind of person, but I really wish now that my faint had been recorded becuase I don't remember a DAMN THING! So I've really got NO Idea what happened.

One minute I was standing there, and the next I was waking up cradled in the girl behind me's lap, and she went,
"Oh my god, you just DROPPED. I think you hit your head, there was a really loud crack. Does your head hurt?"

I was really sleepy when I came to, and her lap was very comfy, and I was so totally disoriented that I almost just shut my eyes and went back to sleep on her.
With the exception of the few girls standing directly around me, the rest of the choir was still singing, so somewhere in my uber-confused mind a voice was yelling
"Hey you twit! Get off your butt you've got a rehersal to finish!"

The girl on the right of me gave me a drink of her water, and then a few of the girls surrounding me picked me up and carried me off the stage out into the auditorium where it was cooler so I could sit for a bit.

Which was very sweet of them, but I really felt fine, and I kept saying that, but they were pretty insistent I sit for a bit.

So I sat out about 15 minutes, (7 of which were a break), and then I hopped back up on stage to finish rehersal. My legs felt sort of funny, sort of... heavy... and, droopy...
but after rehersal was over and I got outside again, I felt totally fine.

And Sunday I am proud to say went off without a hitch!

No more uber-lame fainting from me! Yay!

And now Tater (who is also in choir) keeps laughing at me and saying
"Hey, did you see! After you got taken off they brought on two more Asian girls to replace you!"

And my boyfriend (ALSO in choir) thinks it's funny that my butt is so bruised.

I have such sympathetic friends... those bastards... ha ha!

Anyway,

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running!

The Forbidden Kingdom!!!

2008-04-28T20:50:00.002-05:00

Hello All!
It's been forever since I last posted... bad me...
oh well,
Anyway...
News from the tiny self-centered world I dwell in...
I saw The Forbidden Kingdom on the day it came out, and then again that Sunday.

That movie made me SOO HAPPY!!!!!

It's true, by the end of the movie my face hurt becuase I'd been smiling like an idiot through the ENTIRE thing.
I grew up on Jackie Chan movies, and then when he slowed down a little and Jet Li came onto the scene I made it a point to go watch all his movies too, (My mom and I are kung-fu movie junkies) and I'd always say to her,
"Wouldn't it be just the COOLEST thing EVER if Jackie Chan and Jet Li would make a movie together!?"

Forbidden Kingdom was a dream come true.
Even Bruce Lee makes an appearance! (in the form of old movie posters in the opening credits)

Plus, as a huge Saiyuki and DragonBall fan, Forbidden Kingdom rocked even more becuase the background story is the Legend of the Monkey King aka: story of Son Goku!

And the whole movie's got sort of a "karate kid" overtone to it.

Admittedly the plot moves along really fast (maybe a little TOO fast), and the emphasis is most definetly on "Hey Look! It's Jackie Chan and Jet Li starring in a movie together!"
But DUH! That's the best part!!!!
IT'S JACKIE CHAN AND JET LI STARRING IN A MOVIE TOGETHER!!!!

to any kung-fu fans out there, Go see this! It's fantastic!

All You Can Eat Pancakes...@ 1 AM...

2008-04-14T15:17:00.002-05:00

The uber-creative title of this particular entry pretty much says it all...
This Saturday/Sunday to celebrate VEISHEA me, and the boyfriend, and Tater and D all bundled up in our hoodies and braved the snowstorm to go get...
PANCAKES!!!!
*YAY*YAY*PANCAKE MAN RULES!!!
From midnight to 3 am on central campus they had a huge red and white striped tent set up where (mostly inebriated) students could go and stuff their faces with pancakes for a buck.
IT WAS FANTASTIC!
(it has been brought to my attention that most of the entries I get super-excited about involve food... and my response to that is this... I LIKE TO EAT!!!)
Anyway, while standing in line, my boyfriend, who is sort of like a magnet for randomness, (well, not really sort-of, he IS a magnet for randomness) anyway...
he somehow attracted a freezing Grad-Student from Egypt (who had just transferred up from Texas) who was totally and completely baffled that it could be snowing in April, especially since it had been 68F the week before.
(And apparently Egypt does not suffer from mid-april snowstorms.)
Anyway, our new Egyptian friend joined us for our midnight snack, though it was about 1/4 to 1 by the time we got in there.

The tent was SOO toasty! And the scent of pancakes was EVERYWHERE! It was so yummy! Plus, the snow had worked itself into a small-scale blizzard outside, so we were all quite content to just sit around on our bums, screaming across the table at one another (it was Super loud in the tent) and eating loads of pancakes and orange juice.

Way fun!
and Uber Yummy!

anyway,

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Smashed and Smash Bros...

2008-04-09T12:08:00.003-05:00

This week is VEISHA, which basically just an excuse for the students on my campus to be drunk in public and riot. But what the hell. For us, it's even bigger than homecoming. (Central Campus looks like a fair ground), there's SOOO many tents! And lots of food! *Yay!*
Also, VEISHA is "drinking season", which my boyfriends neighbors (and floormates from last year) celebrated by buying 6 (30 count) cases of beer.
I hate the smell of beer.
However, we went to the neighbor's (we call him Ballou, like the bear from the Jungle Book)
Where it was announced that when the date rolled over at midnight, it would be April 9th, and MY 21st birthday. *Yay!*
Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii had become a drinking game (every time you got knocked off you had to take a drink) about 3 hours before we got there, but those guys were having a blast.
And as soon as the clock hit 12, a controller got dropped into my lap.
(I had never used a Wii remote before. But I kick ass on a game-cube!)
Like I said before, I don't like the smell of beer, However, My buddy Tater was MORE than willing to share his Rum & Coke with me.
Fortunetly, I'm a pretty avid gamer and I caught on pretty quick. The Wii's not as hard to adjust to as I thought it would be. I won a lot of "Sudden Death" matches. (I never won just all out match though...?)
The game wound down about 1:30 when Ballou's roommate decided he wanted to go to bed. And my super-tiny sips were starting to get called on.
(I had a presentation to give this morning, and as entertaining as it might have been to get me shit-faced, I really like that professor and would have felt REALLY bad standing up there with a hangover.)
So in the end, I was only slightly groggy this morning, and a cup of coffee was enough to shake that off for my presentation. (thank goodness)

And tonight, My dear imoto (little sister) is treating me to dinner at Little TaiPei (chinese resturant in Campustown.) *Woo-hoo!*

and oh yeah, Funny "Word of the Day" from Urban Dictionary.com (from March 28th)

SLACKTIVISM
The act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem.

Signing an email petition to stop rampant crime is slacktivism. Want to really make your community safer? Get off your ass and start a neighborhood watch!

Happy VEISHA to all my fellow Cyclones
and to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

My Economics Notes

2008-03-26T22:10:00.003-05:00

And this kiddies is why I am probably not going to get an A in Econ...

Still...

GO GO GODZILLA!!!!

You know what though, I don't think that Helicoptor is 1/2 bad considering my practically non-existant drawing abilities... WOOT! Go me!

I really have nothing meaningful to say today, or if I did, I said it somewhere else.

But! On a totally random note... Today's "Word of the Day" from Urban Dictionary.com is "Lawyer Ball". Don't know the meaning? (I sure as hell didn't), check it out at http://www.urbandictionary.com/daily.php

Plus, the site's way fun. And MILDY educational for anyone else out there who, like me, is frequently confused by people who are apparently speaking English but in a dialect I am unfamiliar with (NOT refering to a Texan accent -as I have simply given up on trying to make sense of Dubyuh).

Anyway, my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race

-keep running

Where did you get that banana?

2008-03-19T01:36:00.003-05:00

Exciting news from the home-front!

One of my very good buddies, who is origionally from California, and then moved out here for a couple years and became uber-good-pals with me and my friends and then moved BACK to California for about 2 years and is now BACK TO STAY!!!

Yay!

We are all so very very happy that he's here!

Unfortunetly, he could not be flown into our local airport, in fact, he didn't even fly into an airport in our STATE, he flew into Moline, IL.... which is several hours from here. And his aunt, who was GOING to go pick him up, couldn't get out of her shift, so Adam (the infamous boyfriend), Jacob (his infamous brother) and me....

went ROADTRIPPING!!!

Because isn't that what spring break is all about!

SO yeah, it went like this, 9-ish this morning I get a phone call, (it wakes me up)

"Hey you wanna go with me to pick up Vick?"

"Sure."

"K, Jake'll pick you up around 4:15, I'll meet you guys in town after I get off work."

"Cool."

hang up phone, go back to sleep.

la-dee-da-dee-da day progresses,

4:15, Jake swings by, we meet Adam, and we're off!

like 2+ hours later we finally get there, take the exit mapquest told us to, and there's the airport!

We can see it!

we can see it...

but we can't get to it...

what the hell??

Jake (from the back seat)

"Uh... guys? How come we can't get to the airport."

Me: "I think we're on the wrong road..."

Adam: "What about that?"

Me: "It says Frieght? I don't think that's what we want?"

long story short.

We circled the ENTIRE airport, did an hours worth of backtracking and re-driving, and going in circles, and guess what.... Adam was right, that was the entrance.... Stupid @$*%&# airport!

AND THEN!

His flights delayed, by like 2 hours.

Adam: "What should we do, we're already in the parking lot?"

Me: "Who cares? The first 1/2 hour's free, just keep driving through"

Jake: "Yeah, lets go find that Steak N' Shake!"

so we took the ticket, drove Through the parking lot, handed it to the little toll-collector person, and went and got lost searching for a Steak N' Shake. We did however, find a Walmart.

But only after about 20 MILES of driving. We got onto a highway... and then couldn't get off again... There were NO EXITS, Till the Walmart Exit of course. So we got food there, and then went about re-finding the airport.

Flights delayed again...

Bah! fuck it. We're just gonna sit around in this tiny little airport with NOTHING to do. Except eat cookies... cookies from walmart... a walmart like 20 miles down the road... yeah...

So anyway the aiports got this cute little "art gallery" with all these paintings of flowers on black backgrounds. Very cute, very pretty, and then there's this weird, 'sculpture' in the corner, it's kind of a peach-ish / orange-ish color... At first glance I thought "oh, weird skinny mushroom thing." you know keeping with the 'plant' Theme.
Not Jake, he starts laughing,
"hey guys"
"What?"
"That thing in the corner looks like a penis."
Now Adam and Jake are Both laughing, the old lady a few chairs down is looking REALLY REALLY MAD.

"Would you two GROW UP! I can't take you anywhere!"
"It does though! I mean... Look at it!"
"That's not the point!"
"See! See it does!"
"yes but."

Then we were all laughing, I couldn't really help it, those two are super contagious.

The old lady "hrumphfd" at us and moved down several more chairs.

Not our fault the airport was boring. And if they're going to put around sculptures that can be considered even REMOTELY phallic looking, some idiot's going to come along and start snickering. Or in this case, 3 idiots. But whatever.

But anyway, our friends plane lands, we hug, hellos all around, grab his luggage and head to Denny's to get some grub.

We're at the stop light, and just randomly he goes:
Green means go
Red means stop
yellow means 'hey! slow down man!'
Unless it's a banana
and then green means slow down!
and yellow means go ahead dude
and red...
red means 'where the fuck did you get that banana!?'

We laughed a very long time.

I missed him and his randomness!
I'm so glad he's back!

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Kin yoo hear dis column...

2008-03-12T22:01:00.005-05:00

On a happy note, the weather was FANTASTIC today,

on an odd note, "Can you hear me with these columns" was a question my economics TA asked me today.

Normally, my amazingly-incredibly-so-exciting-you-might-as-well-be-watching-paint-dry economics class is taught by a curt little woman from India.
Alas,
Today, the Prof. was MIA and we got the treat of having our TA, Caesar, with his uber-thick-accent-of-unknown-origin teach us.

So we did a bunch of problems from a work packet the Prof. handed out on Monday, and had Caesar to "guide" us.

Basically, we filled out charts with amazingly-incredibly-so-exciting-you-might-as-well-be-watching-paint-dry-economics-type-crap in them like, Fixed Cost and Variable Cost and Average Fixed Cost, and Marginal Cost, and you get the point.

Anyway, beginning of class went as follows.

"Hello. I would like yoo plez to fill out dis chart. It ees eh... probulem noomber et."

Now, I have yet to figure out where the extra syllable in "problem" comes in, but at least I halfway understand what he's saying, right?

k, fine. filling out my chart, wishing I hadn't forgotten my calculator, aww damn, what IS 14.90 divided by 5? Crap... division... I hate division... division sucks... of all the days to forget my calculator... 2.98! I still remember how to do division! Division rocks! I rock! Go me!

Caesar: "Hello yis, yoo. yis. Kin yoo hear me wit dis column?"

Me: "Me?"

Caesar: "yis. yis. dis column. Kin you hear dis column?"

Me (in my head):What the hell is he talking about? Can I hear the column? Is it falling down? No I can't hear it? Am I supposed to? I must have skipped that lecture. Crap! How come I always get called on first in this class?

meanwhile
Caesar: "Kin you hear dis column? Dis column. Kin you hear me wit dis column? Yoo know yis. On your pepper...dis column."

back in my head: Crap! Now there's SPICES on the noisily silent column!? What in the hell is he talking about!? Why isn't my column making any noise!? Am I doing it wrong!? Where is the pepper!?

Me (out loud, very sheepishly): "I'm sorry. I don't know what you're talking about..."

Caesar: *exhasperated sigh* "dis column. de noomber in dis column."

Me: "oh...Oh! The number! Right! Sorry. It's uh... 2.98."

Caesar: "Veery good. Now yoo, kin yoo hear me wit dis column?"

Meanwhile, my useless-not-at-all-helpful-dorkbutt-boyfriend, is crying and practically wetting himself while biting on his fist trying to laugh quietly.

Me: (as we were walking out) "Fat lot of help YOU were in there."
him: "I'm sorry, your face was priceless."
Me: "Yeah, well... Who puts condiments on columns anyway! Can I hear the column. NO actually, I CAN'T HEAR the damn column! Do columns TALK in HIS home country? I've certainly never heard one. Can I hear the columns... *mutter*mutter*mutter*..."

good grief

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

randomness...

2008-03-10T18:33:00.004-05:00

Greetings again from... my dorm room...

But that's okay,

I'm super hyper-exicited right now! Know why? It's supposed to be 50 degrees out tomorrow! That's right folks! 50 degrees! That's SHORTS WEATHER!!!! Woo-hoo! And it's supposed to be sunny! And it gets even better, it's supposed to be 50 and sunny on Wednesday too!

Rock-on!Rock-on!Rock-on!

Yay! I love the weather!

I'm sure there are plenty of people who will (or would, if they read this blog) roll their eyes and shake their heads and wonder "Just how simple does a person have to be to get this excited about weather?"

VERY SIMPLE INDEED

But!

What's simple is true!

And, in my geographical region, we'll take anything above 40 that we can get prior to May. AFTER May, we'll take anything below 90, sometimes anything below 100, and if it's been a REALLY bad week, in say, July, we'll take anything with a heat index that's less 120. But that's for me to bitch about LATER.

for now I'll just say

50 and SUNNY!!!

lalalalalalalalalalala!

I'm SO happy!

anyway,

We had another fire alarm last night, (my dorm-mates are apparently in love with them as someone keeps setting them off.) If they had a contest to see which building could evacuate in their sleep, we would totally win.

As I believe I've mentioned before, our building has had SO many false alarms that the Fire Department has actually issued a complaint about us.

I'M ready to issue a complaint against us. I'm so SICK of having to leave my nice comfy bed just to walk outside, freeze for 20 minutes, and then walk back up the stairs to try and get back to sleep again. Plus, our fire alarm is not only annoying, it's CREEPY.

First it goes

*WEEE-OOOOH WEEE-OOOOH* and then this creepy robotic MAN comes over the speaker and says *ATTENTION. ATTENTION. AN EMERGENCY HAS BEEN DECLARED. PLEASE MOVE TO THE NEAREST EMERGENCY EXIT. DO NOT USE THE ELEVATOR. ATTENTION. ATTENTION. AN EMERGENCY HAS BEEN DECLARED. PLEASE MOVE TO THE NEAREST EMERGENCY EXIT. DO NOT USE THE ELEVATOR.* *WEEE-OOOOH WEEE-OOOOH* and then the whole thing starts over again.

Bloody hell...

Who on EARTH sat down and went "You know what would REALLY improve safety in dorm buildings... A Talking fire-alarm."

And WHY, for the love of all that is good and green in this world, does the Voice of said talking-fire-alarm, have to sound like someone who sits directly under the stairs and looks up young girls dresses?

creepy fire alarms aside, today was... A Monday, but not a bad one. I don't have choir for the rest of the week 'cause the directors gonna be out of state, which KICKS ASS becuase NOT having choir on Friday means that I can go home at 12 instead of 3! Only 1 class and then SPRING BREAK!!!! *Snaps to that!

Of course, I still have 2 papers to write before that. Bah...

Speaking of that, I should really get working on those.
*sigh
Bah...

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Spring Forward...

2008-03-10T00:22:00.004-05:00

I hate daylight savings time...

Anything that causes me to LOSE an hour of SLEEP is on my list of "things that ought not to exist". But whatever...

Anyway, I've got 2 papers due by the end of this week, and then SPRING BREAK!!!

Woo-hoo!

Of course, my plans for spring break include job-hunting and cleaning, but what the hell, no classes, I'll take it!

Also, I'm looking forward to an entire week of just hanging around at home. I miss my cats...

I suppose that's it for now... What a boring little post... cut me a break it's too early in the morning for this.

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Lyrica...

2008-03-01T10:18:00.002-06:00

Today we have a concert at 3... I don't actually want to go...
Not that I don't like singing, if it were like that I prolly wouldn't have auditioned for choir in the first place...
I just don't particularly feel like standing on risers in heels for an hour...
BAH!
Not only that, but we've got a recording session beforehand, a TWO and a HALF HOUR recording session...
3 1/2 hours of standing on risers... I don't get enough sleep for this kind of thing.

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race,
-keep running

Door Banger...

2008-02-29T12:12:00.003-06:00

Add another fun anecdote on my long list of things that have scarred me for life.

Some of us go to college to get an education...
Some of us go to college to get smashed and make jack-asses of ourselves...

My drunken visitor at 1 am this morning was of the latter persuasion.

I woke up to becuase someone was banging on my door... glance at the clock... 1 fucking 12 in the fucking morning...

Somebody's going to DIE for this...

Of course, little did I know that someone banging on my door might actually amount to someone Banging my door.

So I throw it open...
the words "What the hell do you want!?" on my lips just waiting to be shouted
I only got as far ass
"What the..."
*SLAM*
*Click*

Hello, it's 1 fucking 12 in the fucking morning and some pantless freak is humping my fucking door.

My mind was filled with screaming questions at this point

Why does he not have pants!?

Why is he humping my door!?

If I kick his ass, will he go away?
That's a pantless ass, I don't want my foot anywhere NEAR those tighty-whities!

Why does this shit happen to me!?

Fuck this, since when am I afraid of underwear. That drunken bastards gotta go, and he's gotta go NOW!

Put on boots.
Open door again,

Oh perfect now theres two of them...

Drunk #2: "Dude, like... you forgot your pants." (he's holding a pair of pants.)
Door Banger: "I know..."
Drunk #2: "You're... kinda hanging out man."

I'm gonna be sick. I'm gonna be sick. I'm gonna be sick.

"Give him his goddamn pants and get the hell away from my door!"

*SLAM*

Never again. Never again. Never again.

voices from outside

"You know that wasn't Jessica's door right..."
"I thought her roommate looked different..."
"You're on the wrong floor dude."

Somebody's going to DIE for this...

and this "Jessica" person owes me BIG TIME...

And apparently my inebriated door-molester is ALSO an illiterate.

My NAME is ON the damn door you plastered pervert!!!!
And it ISN'T "Jessica"!!!

This morning will haunt for the rest of my life.

I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!

Rain and Slush...

2008-02-25T20:24:00.003-06:00

Back at school again...
Still a little bummed, but it'll pass. For now, I've got things to distract myself with like, Studying for my upcoming economics test...
Bah!

And the weather.
Which was a royal pain today.

I went into choir, it was raining, not hard, but raining.
Okay fine, Rain is cool, because rain means spring, and man am I ready for Spring!

I come out of choir (50 minutes later) and it's snowing.
STUPID WEATHER!!
And it's not snowing normal snowflakes either. No, there's these HUGE WOPPING SLUSH-FLAKES pouring out of the sky. Probably the biggest, wettest damn snow flakes I have EVER seen.

I put my hood up, and I could FEEL these snowflakes hitting my head and arms, and obviously I felt the ones smacking me in the face. I got soaked waiting for the bus. My back-pack was soaked, my coat was soaked, my jeans were soaked.

Bah!
The weather here is so crappy.

Who ever heard of snow-flakes with an inch and a half diameter!?!?
And WET snowflakes at that!

I didn't even bother stomping over to the library to get a coffee...
Now I wish I had.

Bah!

Plus...
Chilly, overcast skies always make me just a little bit sad.
I don't mind the rain when it's warm outside, but somehow it's always so much more depressing when it's cold like this.

Well I hope everyone else is enjoying more agreeable weather

-keep running

COLD....

2008-02-21T11:53:00.002-06:00

WHO DECIDED IT WAS ALLOWED TO GET THIS COLD!?!?!?!
I'm very seriously considering staying in bed until the wind chill migrates to something resonable. Say, +40 degrees Farenheit.
But on no, it's like 20 BELOW out today and I'm SOO SICK OF THE COLD!
I dont mind when it's chilly out, I think 40->50 degrees is a NICE temperature, you wear a scarf and hat and long sleeves. But you're not in danger of losing your FACE to FROSTBITE Walking across campus!
I HATE THE WEATHER!!!

In the spirit of that, I'm posting a "We're Cold Cheer" written by me and a friend during Cross Country/Marching Band season back in high school.

Brr! Its cold out here!

I've lost all feeling from toes to my ears!

My nose to my rear!

You know why?

Well I'll tell you,

It's damn cold out here!

repeat repeat repeat until your coach either yells at you to quit'cher'bitchin', or lets you go back inside.

We were never allowed to go back inside, but frequently told to "suck it up".

Still screaming midly moronic chants while mocking cheerleaders DOES actually warm you up somewhat. And you learn very good breath support screaming out a cheer while running a two mile block or going through a marching drill.

A caramel machiatto, from bookends of course, does wonders to warm the fingers and the body from the inside out. But only so long as I stay in the Library. The minute I step outside, my warm drink crystallizes and becomes a damn coffee flavored slushie! Don't get me wrong, I'm a HUGE fan of Caramel Frappachino's, but NOT in the middle of FEBRUARY!!!

I need to start migrating to a warmer climate from October to March like all the old people, or "snowbirds" as they refer to themselves. Which strikes me as funny, but I can't figure out why...

Whatever.

I hope the rest of you out there are staying warm.

-keep running

Super Mario Brothers + Toad

2008-02-17T10:27:00.005-06:00

This is us!

In the middle is me, of course, dressed as Mario.

On my left is Farmboy, dressed as Luigi from Luigi's Mansion. Complete with the Poltergeist 3000! and Yes, that IS a flashlight in the end of his vaccuum hose, just like the game!

I put a lot of work into making the P3000, Basically it's a shoe box, well, Boot box at least. I traced a hole in the top to stick the hose through. (It's a hose from my dad's old shop-vac, the he doesnj't use anymore) Most of the hose is actually coiled inside the box. Then I used a pair of round tupper-ware containers for the wheels, cutting holes in the sides of the box and jamming them in etc. After that it was a lot of duct-tape to reinforce joints and to make sure nothing fell off. Then I sealed up the box (more duct-tape) and made the rounded top. The rounded top was the cardboard liner from inside the box (it's really thin card-board, almost identical to poster-board) Lining up where I wanted the hose to go was a little tricky, but I got it. I reinforced the bit around the hose with duct tape so that the top wouldn't rip when the hose was moved around. Then I made the straps. The straps are just two long strips of duct tape, sticky-sides together and they wrap ALL the way around the P3000 (over the rounded top and everything). Then it was just a matter of wrapping the P3000 in red wrapping paper and reinforcing any areas that might see some strain (around the straps and the hose) with packaging tape so that the paper wouldn't rip. then I jammed a small flashlight into the end of the hose and wa-la! A homemade Poltergeist 3000!

On my right is Jake (as Toad for those of you who are less familiar with the Mario games' side characters).

Luigi is actually my favorite "Super Mario" character (becuase of the live-action movie, John Leguissimo [spelling?] was SOO FUNNY) And Farmboy's fav. is Mario, so we didn't get to be our own favorites, but we got to be each others.

The "Super Hero" party we went to involved a Cat-Woman (a little skimpy and chilly looking for my taste, but whatever), a Librarian, Waldo (like the "Where's Waldo" books that during the 90's could be found in the waiting area of every dentists office) Mr. Incredible, a pimp, G.I. Joe, Winter Warmth (she wore mittens and a blanket and carried around a box of hot chocolate), Mr. ICBM, or "Infinite Capacity Bowel Man" the idea being that if he never had to go, he had THAT much more time to spend fighting crime, and he'd be able to out-wait anyone. however the acronym changed meaning multiple times throughout the night, "I Caught Bat-Man" was a favorite, so was "Inter-Continental Ballistic Missil" which later developed into a mini-story telling session where we teamed him up with G.I. Joe. Of course, that rapidly degraded into a debate about George Dub-yuh's war on terriorism and what a stupid amount of money we're pouring into a war that the Federal Reserve doesn't actually want to end becuase they're making a literal killing off of it. But I could rant on that for forever, so I'll save it for another post.

All in all it was a fun time, although we didn't get to stay for very long becuase the weather started to go bad.

Now I'm snowed in at my house and can't get back to school!

Hopefully the roads will be cleared tomorrow.

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race

-keep running

Two blogs found at 2 am...

2008-02-15T12:15:00.005-06:00

Couldn't sleep last night,
my "muse was upon me" (as my mother puts it). And so I spent a good deal of time writing furiously a story strain that came upon me while I was brushing my teeth. And then after that I was so excited that I'd actually finished the story that I couldn't get to sleep and started randomly going through reading blogs.

There's so many interesting people out there! It's fantastic!
I mean, each of us bustles around living our own little lives, just doing our day to day. But each life is so unique and the way people look at things and handle things is just amazing! (My love and fascination with anthropology is obviously shining through here.)

Two blogs I found that I particularly fell in love with were "clickclickclick" by Bobby Lin, who posts interesting (and incredibly beautiful) photography http://clickflickr.blogspot.com/ and then goes on to write about what it is that drew HIS eye to the picture. He's just fantastic! and I hope he doesn't mind my mentioning him here.

The second was a blog called "Kitosoma" http://kitosoma.blogspot.com/ written by a young gay man from Florida, the first entry I read, (his latest as of 2am) was an incredibly bittersweet short story that literally made me cry. His writing is poignant and beautifully crafted, the imagery he uses and his attention to detail (even in such a short piece), paint an incredibly vivid picture and do a fantastic job bringing a reader into his story. Already in love with his writing, I went back to read a few of his earlier entries where he wrote about a bad breakup with his boyfriend, a fact that only served to heighten the emotions his story had stirred, and left me with even more questions pertaining to it's conclusion.
A shameless fan of yaoi (defined at Wikipedia as: a publishing genre which focuses on male/male relationships and is marketed at females) his story was ALSO eye-catching for the nature of the relationship portrayed within. I admire his openness with his emotions, as well (as I mentioned before) the exceptional skill with which he writes and look forward to more posts. Once again, I hope he doesn't mind my mentioning him in here.

Interesting blogs aside, I've spent much of my morning thinking about people in general, the philosophies with which we dictate our lives and so on. But mostly on my own, becuase I am young, self-centered, and for the most part generally inexperienced in the nature of the world. The only things I know for certain, are the things I myself experience, my own handling of life's adversities, my own discourse and views on issues.

I started by asking myself, what is it I believe? Do I have a mantra to which I adhere? Is there a certain discourse that dictates my actions and guides my steps? When I die, what is it I will have lived for?

For the last question, I have yet to find an answer. When I die, I don't know that there is any one thing I will have lived for. But I have lived. And perhaps that is enough. If I have served no greater purpose than to simply have Been, I'm okay with that.
I'm here. I'm alive. My footprints will fade, my presence will eventually be forgotten, but for now I am here.
I breathe.
I laugh.
I cry.
I am alive.
When you get right down to it, that's all that really matters.

I believe that the "Y" chromosome may be the most aptly named piece of scientific data out there, as most of my daily encounterings with my boyfriend or any of his friends involve me yelling, "WHY!?"

I believe you make own luck.

I believe the world is what you make of it. Good or Evil are only matters of perspective and actually play NO part in the true scheme of things. There is no good or bad, no black and white, no right or wrong. Things simply Are. So just roll with the punches.

I believe underwire bra's were invented by someone who didn't like women.

I believe if you've got it, flaunt it. And if you don't, please refrain from wearing that thong to the beach. I'm trying to ENJOY my snow cone here!

I believe music is a universal language. Even if you can't understand the lyrics, a good beat is a good beat. End of story.

I believe the most contagious thing out there, is a yawn. (you can spread them over the phone and everything! There's people who will read this, and yawn, just because I'm TALKING about yawning. Not kidding. Try it sometime).

I have class now and will have to end my ramblings...

until I write again,

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

My Hippo...

2008-02-14T22:14:00.003-06:00

Here it is! My hippo!

It's SO CUTE!

and yes, that IS an Inu Yasha fleece throw he's sitting on. Sesshomaru and Roy Mustang are at home.

I like collecting cute and exotic stuffed animals (my room back home is a black and white, Bengal Tiger theme) my windows and couch and headboard are COVERED in stuffed animals. And even my car has a stuffed frog in the window.

Farmboy surprised me by showing up with this little guy on his way to the Ag-college Career Fair to go internship hunting. So he couldn't stay long... Plus he's got an interveiw AND a test tomorrow morning, hence, why our V-day plans are having to wait until Saturday. But that's okay, gotta make do, right! Me and my hippo will just hang out here in my dorm doing Economics homework and listening to up-beat love songs, Like Happy Together by The Turtles.

Happy Valentines Day

2008-02-14T12:15:00.002-06:00

Happy V-day!
to the whole 2 people who read this blog.
I love you both!

Valentines Day... it's one of those things I refer to as a "Hallmark Holiday".
Like Christmas and Easter much of the actual significance of the holiday has been lost thanks to commercialism and the general lack of interest in history that the population of this country is just exemplary at exhibiting.
BUT
When you figure out what makes martyrdom romantic, let me know.
And we're not just talking about 1 guy here, we're talking about like 10 (I think, if I'm wrong on that number feel free to correct me).
10 guys
all named Valentine
all lived at different periods and places throughout history
and in the true spirit of martyrdom
ALL QUITE DEAD...

Just makes your mouth water for chocolate right!

"Dead guy, hanged and quarted... hey sweetheart, pass me that bon-bon would you?"

good grief
there's something terribly wrong with our society...
...can't quite put my finger on it.

Dead dudes aside, my own Valentine's plans don't actually involve Valentines day...
They involve breakfast at IHOP on Saturday.

Plus, nothing says "Whoo-hoo! Holiday!" like falling asleep in the middle of your Anthropology class.

"Let's talk about sociobiology and the theory of Biological Determinism."

zzzzzzzzzzzz.........

I actually love Anthropology, it's my favorite subject but I was SOO tired...
Stayed up too late talking to my mom last night.
It happens

But, BECAUSE I'm not celebrating Valentines Day with my "valentine" ON V-day. I have taken this opportunity to treat myself to a large frosted heart shaped Sugar Cookie
WITH SPRINKLES!
And of course
a 20 oz Caramel Machiatto!

I LOVE BOOKENDS!!!

I know I've said this before, but whoever decided to put a coffee shop, that serves STARBUCKS inside a LIBRARY is a frickin' genius! Bless you! Bless you unknown engineer of masterful designs!

Books and Coffee!

Coffee and Books!

Not quite as fantastic as a Barnsy's (that's Barnes & Nobles to anyone who doesn't speak "Me-ic") But they take Dining Dollars, so I can deal.

But anyway, as I sit here eating my cookie and drinking my fantastically delicious Caramel Machiatto, also known, as "the nectar of life". Feeling refreshed and revitalized as the sugar and caffine kicks in, I'm going to shift BACK to my rantings about holidays...

Personally, my favorite holidays are New Years, and the 4th of July.
The 4th of July, which of course, means nothing to anyone outside the United States, but here, it's Independence Day and there's FIREWORKS! I also love Barbeque, another wide-spread 4th of July tradition. So woo-hoo!

Actually, I think what I REALLY love, are messy finger foods speckled with carcinogens, colorful explosions and things that go BOOM!

I mean, if you blew up a paint can, I'd probably love that too.

But MY 4th of July holidays always include, a barbeque with my family and then Off to the golf-course with 16+ friends to grab a spot for fireworks. At which point, we pair up and sit in a long train going down a hill with someone as the "head-car" at the front and we play the loud, obnoxious game known as "roller-coaster".
For those of you who are unfamiliar with "Roller-Coaster" allow me to enlighten you, so that you, and large roving packs of your friends, make go out and make a public nusciance of yourselves. Note also, that "roller-coaster" does not HAVE to played in a train formation, you can sit in a row, benches and sofas are good.
First, as aforementioned, you need a group, anywhere from about 4 or 5 to 200 should do it.
Second, you need a "head-car", this is a person with an exemplary set of lungs who,preferably, has some concept of what a roller coaster is.
Third, line everybody up! Sit together on the couch, or make a train down a golf-course hill, choice is yours
Forth, pretend your on a roller coaster. Your "head-car" gets to make the roller-coaster noises (the clicking going up the first hill and the rumbling down it etc.) They also shout out WHAT part of the track you're on like, "CURVE!" and "LOOP!" The rest of you, all follow the "lead-cars" example in what direction to lean and all, and scream "AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!" at the top of your lungs as you ride the "roller-coaster". Easy!
If you're loud enough, you'll get trains of kids to form up beside you, and many, many dirty looks you from old people. You'd think they'd never seen college students setting a bad example before.

good times... good times...

And then of course, there's New Years.
Something on my list of "Things to do before I die" is to go to China and celebrate their new year. I'd also like to bring in OUR new year in Times Square someday, but if I can't get around to both China's my first pick.

But, until I get money to go do that, I'll continue to content myself by ringing in the new year with 16+ friends in a basement,
in a town that's literally 8 blocks long,
surrounded by cornfields in all directions,
that no one has ever heard of,
and can't find on a map,
Eating Chips and Salsa, Peanut butter balls, pizza and doritos,
Drinking bubbly (aka sparkling grape juice) and Dr. Pepper
and playing a double-mat game of "Twister" and
round after round of "Apples to Apples Charades"
("apples to apples charades" is just charades, but we use the Red apples cards [minus people] to pick what we're going to act out, it's hilarious. Watch someone trying to act out "Rice and Beans" sometime and you'll know what I mean.)

And so...

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
Happy V-day!
and of course
-keep running

My Anthropological Demon Paper...

2008-02-13T21:32:00.003-06:00

Alrighty, so for anyone who has the misfortune of being in personal contact with me this week, you're already painfully aware of the paper I have to turn in for Anthropology tomorrow morning.

My problem, is not necessarily the paper...

I love to write.

It's a hobby.

It's why I have a blog.

It's why I'm an English Major.

I believe my mastery of the english language (as non-sensical as that language may be), is on par or superior to a vast majority of my peers. I'm PROUD of my abilities to express and expound upon my experiences through the written word and I firmly believe that a well-rounded vocabulary and at least SOME semblence of grammitical understanding is a MUST if you intend to procure a decent position in any respectable establishment these days.

I don't care if you ARE a genius, if you speak in ebonics and are incapable of forming a proper sentence, you're probably not going to get hired.

And secondly an argument is MEANT to be expounded upon. It's MEANT to be backed up by examples it is NOT MEANT TO HAVE A 550 MAXIMUM WORD COUNT!

DO NOT ASK ME FOR MY OPINION AND THEN PUT A WORD COUNT ON IT!!!

My anthro teacher is a bastard. A nice and kinda cute bastard. But still a bastard...

It took me all damn week to write that blinkin paper, and when I finally got it written do you know how many words it was...

948

948!!

Try shrinking 948 words down to 550! It can't be done! The ridiculous amount of contractions you end up with, by even making the attempt, just DEMOLISHES any and all sentence variety or rythym your paragraphs had! It's criminal!

I ended up having to rewrite that whole thing from scratch...

But before that, I sat and stared at the word count, and tried not to cry.
I kid you not.
4 days I've been working on this paper. And now I had 400 words to cut out. I kept clicking on the tools bit to have it pop up the word count again. You know, just in case Microsoft Word was wrong. Maybe they didn't tally the votes right or something...
but no...
If nothing else, Microsoft Word has at least out-done Florida...
It can count...

It took me 1/2 a Caramel Machiatto to get over it.

I really did want to cry...
I was so frustrated...
I was like
"there's no way... this can't be happening to me... there's just no way"

*slurp*

"I mean... how could this happen... why didn't it warn me..."

*slurp*

"WHAT KIND OF BASTARD ASKS FOR MY OPINION AND THEN GIVES ME A WORD COUNT! HE DOESN'T WANT MY OPINION! HE WANTS TO MESS WITH MY HEAD!!!"

*slurp*

"550 words... he asked my opinion... my OPINION!"

*slurp*

*slurp*

*slurp*

"this can't be happening... life has lost all meaning..."

*slurp*

"I HATE THIS @$&@#$&@ PAPER!!!"

*slurp*

"..."

*slurp*

"..."

*slurp*

*sigh

"Round two... GO!"

but now it's done...
I am still angry... my prof is still a heartless bastard... but I have survived... And... I even got to include

While Don Kulick's entomology of the travestis of Sao Francisco Street is empathetically pleasing, his overwhelmingly sympathetic discourse towards them does occasionally take away from objectivity of his work.

So all is not lost :) That is an opinion. BUT it's NOT a good or well founded argument becuase I didn't have enough "words" to present my evidence or site any examples from the book!

I came to college to learn...
and all the creative writing I have accumulated and perfected through my years of exploring my native language were smothered by the constipated constrictions of a miniscule WORD COUNT!!

bah!

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Super Hero Party...

2008-02-12T12:02:00.001-06:00

Hey all!
I'm just found out I'm going home this weekend (yay!)
The farmboy and I are going to a "Super Hero Party" with his brother Jake at a friends house. (friend of theirs, I don't know her.) But still, it should be fun.
Plus everyone loves an excuse to dress up right!

I thought long and hard about what I should go as.
The conclusion I finally came to was that female super-hero's don't do their super-heroing in the midwest in winter. Becuase they'd freeze to death. So scratch being a Wonder-Woman. It's cross-dressing time!

Also, I'm only going to have access to my sewing machine Friday night and Saturday morning, so I needed something SIMPLE that wouldn't take a ton of time, or cost a lot of money becuase we're poor college students.

So we're going as the Super Mario Brothers!

Which is great, becuase we both own Bib-overalls (Yay Mid-West!) We both own boots, We both own work gloves, and solid Green and Red T's. So all that's left is the hats! And I found directions on how to make those on a blog where a woman made them as party favors for a Mario themed birthday party for one of her kids. (Yay for cool mom's!)

I'm not sure what Jake's going as.

Farmboy's taller than me, (obviously, I'm a whole 5'2" Bah!) so he's going as Luigi, which means I'm Mario! It'll be lots of fun I think. I'm pretty excited.

Anyway, I should get to writing that paper...
Bah!

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Bah...

2008-02-11T13:02:00.001-06:00

Bah... Just about sums it up
The weather sucks...
It's snowing again... but not a good proper snow, with big flakes and barely any wind. Those tiny, nasty, little freezing cold flakes, that the wind blows directly into your face no matter WHAT direction you're walking in. And with the wind chill it's like 30 below. I hate the cold.
And it's a Monday.
Things don't get much worse.
Oh wait, yes they do.
I have an exam on Wednesday (that I have yet to start studying for) and a paper due on Thursday (that I have yet to start writing) and yeah...
BAH!!!
I suppose I should get to it...
Bah...
Stupid weather....

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Tuesday...

2008-02-05T22:16:00.000-06:00

Hello all!
It snowed again! Go figure...
I love snow, but...
I'm kinda ready for spring to get here.
Puxatony Phil (sp?) however, made it a point to crush my hopes on the 2nd.
Stupid furball...
Who decided he could predict the weather anyway?

That aside, it was a pretty good day, got up, went to class, had a peanut butter sandwhich for lunch, went to another class, came back, had another peanut butter sandwhich for a snack, went to the boyfriends, and then to the rec center. (Yay!)
My RAGBRAI training officially starts TODAY! (For anyone who's not from around here, RAGBRAI stands for Registers (as in, the Des Moines Register, it's a newspaper and the sponser, anyway) Registers Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.
500 miles of sun and sweat! From the Missouri River to the Mississippi!
And anyone out there who tells you Iowa's flat has never been here.
Kansas is flat. Iowa is bumpy.
Today was ALSO the start of my GYBISFBS-RINAAS training (Get Your Butt In Shape For Bikini Season - Round Is Not An Acceptable Shape)
Exciting right?
It was for me.
Plus, I really like biking, and it felt good to cut loose and run around a track again.
I raced the farmboy, and I was doing really well against him! But then Barbi and Ibrab decided to move into the inside lane "jogging" at like 1/2 a mile an hour ( I exhagerate, but only slightly as on my cool down laps, which I WALKED, I ended up lapping them. sad...) So yeah, in the end, Farmboy kicked my butt... He prolly would have won anyway, but not by as much.
He was being lazy tonight, I had to DRAG him to Rec center.
But it felt SO GOOD to be DOING something.
Feel the burn!
Love the burn!
Bwa-ha-ha-ha!
I wanted to spar, but I'm not sure it's allowed anywhere except a dojo. Even though the wrestling room would be a REALLY GREAT PLACE for it.
'cause the mats are soft and all,
we could do take-downs and throws and stuff.
He's trying to teach me to wrestle, which is hard, becuase I learned Ground-Fighting. So everything I want to do is illegal! (Ground-Fighting LOOKS a lot like wrestling, but instead of trying to Pin your opponents shoulders to the ground, you're trying to make them "tap-out" [say uncle] and you can do basically whatever you want [short of ripping their arm off and beating them with it] to get that. Choke holds, joint-twisting, pressure points, whatever. It's a bit more dangerous, 'cause it's less controlled, and your exploiting the weaknesses found in the construction of the human body to make your oponent tap-out. So you don't have to be as strong, just aggressive.)
oh well...
fun day!
Yay snow!

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Day...whatever

2008-01-30T20:52:00.000-06:00

Yeah, so... I didn't actually post anything about my day... whatever... you didn't really care anyway... so BAH!

Anyway,
I'm all caught up on my reading for the week! I actually UNDERSTAND Econ and...
BOOKENDS HAS SESAME BAGELS AND STRAWBERRY CREAM CHEESE!!

and... I have a friend who's taking WALKING for A CREDIT this semester. That's right folks, at this fantastic institution I call my University, you can take WALKING and get 1 CREDIT for it...
but... he may have broken his toe...
on a door...
Ah ha ha ha ha ha!
I'll never stop laughing if he fails WALKING.
ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

STRAWBERRY CREAM CHEESE!!!
CARMEL MACHIATTO!

My boyfriend says it's abnormal for a person to get this excited over "food". Especially coffee, becuase he, of course, being a dorkster who doesn't DRINK coffee because "your brain can become dependent on the caffine to function" cite: this medical journal, this report, this CNN creep, my dad, etc. And, he thinks "it tastes bad".
Which is CRAP, 'cause we're talking about a guy who EATS like a dirt devil. He literally INHALES his food, I'm not even sure it ever touches his tongue?! So how would he know if it "tastes bad"
Which it doesn't of course. But whatever...
So anyway, I'm jumpin for joy (in line naturally) and having this conversation with the guy taking my order. "Short Man In Red Shirt" I call him becuase,
a: he doesn't wear a nametag, so I don't know his name, and I'm shy, so I've never asked
and
b: he's the shortest person back there (still taller than me, which is sad...)
c: calling him that helps me remember who I'm talking about

So anyway
SMIRS says
"What can I get'cha?"
and I said
"um... a bagel with cream cheese and... a 16 oz. caramel machiatto"
SMIRS: "What kinda cream cheese?"
ME: "What kind ya' got?"
SMIRS: "regular, regular light, veggie, strawberry..."
ME: "FOR REAL!? YOU HAVE STRAWBERRY!? STRAWBERRY CREAM CHEESE!!"
SMIRS: "Yup."
ME: "okay... I'll have that."
SMIRS: "skim milk or whole milk?"
ME: "skim."
SMIRS: "$6.45"
Me: "Thank you."

I'm a dork...

my regards to the rest of you out there in the rat race
-keep running

Puppet Master

2008-01-29T17:00:00.000-06:00

The puppet master set the stage
And called the players
The people of this world kept in the dark
6 billion played for fools
Not knowing all the rules
While there amidst the guppies swam the shark

What they told you on the news
You didn’t question
Just took it for the value of its face
And we were all distracted
Not knowing we had acted
To snap all the Masters pieces into place

He hides behind his smiles
And careful cunning
We praise him as our leader good and just
Our heads spinning in confusion
We can’t see though his illusion
For if we could his puppet strings would turn to dust

Open your mind and see the world
Laid bare before you
Remove the veil he’s placed over your eyes
Welcome in the light of reason
To oust this man of treason
The Puppet Master’s just a man in God’s disguise

-R.G. <--that's me...

just another MANIC MONDAY....

2008-01-28T20:44:00.000-06:00

Does anyone else listen to that song? Reliant K I think? Spelling on that?
Well, the up and up of this report is...
MY "K" KEY SEEMS TO HAVE FIXED ITSELF!!!
YAY!!!
It was exciting news for me...
Anyway, today was... a Monday...
But whatever.
I'm in a good mood,
I just got off the phone with Mumsy, we were talking about "Lab classes" I don't have any this semester. (YAY) I HATE LABS, Mom was all
"Oh I loved Lab classes, you got to DO stuff in them."
and I was all
"Yeah... I'd rather just memorize useless information, regurgitate it on a test, and forget it after finals. I don't like being forced to actually APPLY my knowledge."
"You're so lazy"
"Do you remember that Radish Lab in 4th grade!?"
"Oh, honey, that was so cute!"
"It was not CUTE!"

(4th grade Radish Lab went as follows)
Radish seed in wet paper towel, every day we'd open up the towel and measure how much it had grown.

Day 1, radish = 0mm
Day 2, radish = 1mm
Day 3, radish = 2mm
Day 4, radish = MIA

That's right. I lost it! I don't know how, but I lost the stupid Radish!
The paper towel was still there, but the seedling wasn't.
'How the hell do you loose a plant?' one might ask
The answer continues to allude me.
And my 4th grade teacher, who all was all like...
"Does anyone know what happened to Radish #4? Anyone? Did someone take it by mistake?"
*sigh*
No one ELSE lost their bloody Radish!

BAH!

Anyway, after that we got off lab classes, and then I boogied in my room for a little bit listening to "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from the Mulan soundtrack, and "How Far We've Come" by Matchbox Twenty, and "Dani California" by Red Hot Chili Peppers. very fun, then I had to go to Econ. Bah!
But now I'm done... Yay!

Oh yeah, the Hockey Score Friday,
WE KICKED ASS!!!
Final Score 9 -2
GO STATE!!!
ha ha ha ha ha!
We've successfully beaten our in-state rivals in football, basketball, AND Hockey now!
ha ha ha ha ha ha!

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Superman VS Goku

2008-01-28T16:48:00.000-06:00

Who would win?

TGIF!!....

2008-01-25T16:42:00.000-06:00

Hey all!
Finally Friday!
Woo-hoo!
Anyway, I think I'm coming down with a cold, my throat hurts, and oh yeah! I feel like I've been hit by a bus.
But... on the bright side!
I've got enough medication pumped into me right now that I could prolly be hit by a bus and not know about it!
Woo-hoo for Ibuprofin and cough syrup!
does anyone else think cough syrup tastes like puke?
anyway...
Hockey game tonight! GO STATE!!!
My sister is curently mad her boyfriend (Again)
as far as I can tell, he has chronic PMS,
but I don't think on much 'cause... he's her problem, not mine.

So la-dee-da.

ooh! I like this song
Standing on the rooftops
wait until the bomb drops
this is all we got now
scream until your heart stops
never gonna regret
watching every sunset
We'll listen to your heartbeat
all the love that we found
everybody
scream your heart out....

anyway...
who doesn't like that song?

bah, bored now...

my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Day...whatever...

2008-01-24T19:11:00.000-06:00

I'm tired of counting days, which is sad 'cause it's only the 2nd week of classes, but whatever.
Today was... boring...
Yup that just about sums it up! B...O...R...I...N...G...
*sigh* so sad...
Anyway, went to Anthropology Recitation, went to Philosophy, (may have to stop referring to that teacher as "the bra-less wonder" she's 2-2 right now.) Too bad, it was such a cute nick-name too?
Anyway,
Hockey game tomorrow night! GO STATE!
my "K" key is still on the fritz. BAH!
You heard me, BAH! for whatever reason, my favorite explicitive is that of an angry sheep. please don't ask, I know I need therapy. I just can't afford any right now. I thinks it's called "poor-college-student-screw-you-overpriced-bookstore-syndrome"
Anyhow!
Venting, venting!
still depressed about Heath Ledger,
Think happy now girl, happy thoughts, happy thoughts!

Ever sat around in your boyfriends apartment, admiring his cute butt and THEN realizing he's doing something... odd, and wondering to yourself
"What the hell is he doing?" (Girlfriends who double as full-time babysitters for their boyfriends even know the proper TONE that this question is aksed in.)
Yeah, having one of those moments right now.
He likes Coke, (not the drug, the pop. Coca-Cola), and collects "coke crap" plates, lights, decks of cards, interesting bottles, the bears, etc.
So yeah, at Wally-World the other day (That's Walmart for those of you who don't speak Mid-western) and found this exciting 6-pack of Coke bottles with our college on them! Cool right? Right! So we bought them, drank them, and he washed them out and now he's standing in the doorway flicking them.
It went a bit like this,

*FLICK
*FLICK
*FLICK

"Sweetie?"

*FLICK

"Yeah?"

*FLICK

"What are you Doing?"

*FLICK

"I want to make sure all the waters out of them." [the bottles]

*FLICK

"Isn't that what you wanted to borrow my blow-dryer for?"

*FLICK

"You forgot to bring it over"
(okay, fair enough)

*FLICK

"Is it working?"

*FLICK

"I don't think there's a lot of water in these anymore"

*FLICK

"Then what are you worried about?"

*FLICK

"I just want to make sure."

*FLICK

"What, in case they mold?"

*FLICK

"No, I just don't want them to knock over on my desk?"

*FLICK

"baby stop flicking those for a minute you're driving me crazy"
"Sorry?"
"Look, if you can't get any water out of them by flicking them like that, how're they gonna spill on your desk?"
"Oh..." (looks at bottle in hand)
"You just want to flick the bottles don't you?"
-shrug-
"Forget I said anything."
*FLICK
*FLICK
*FLICK

Oh good Ballou's here (I've known him almost 2 years, and still don't now his real name)
They're chucking hacky-sacks at each other now.
*sigh
Welcome to my life,
exciting right?

The level of intelligence in this particular blog is quite rapidly sinking into moronic levels.

Whatever
Happy Thirsty Thursday... to all of you who drink

and my regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Shock and Sorrow...

2008-01-23T11:01:00.000-06:00

Heath Ledger is dead...
I just found out literally 5 minutes ago from my sister, but apparently he died yesterday in his apartment, but nobody knows why. OD on sleeping pills seems to be the best guess.

I could just cry!
I forget if it was 8th grade or freshman year that I had his picture from "A Knight's Tale" pinned up in my locker, right next to Ewan McGreggor as Obi-Wan-Kenobi (ep. 1) and Orlando Bloom as Legolas...
A whole group of me and my friends went to the theater to see "A Knight's Tale" together...
I couldn't wait to see him as the Joker in the new Batman movie...
And now what?
He's just dead...
It's not right. I wasn't a huge fangirl, but I still liked the guy's movies.
28 year old's aren't supposed to just keel over for no reason!

My first reaction was to go
"Nu-uh."
and she went,
"He died yesterday, they found him his in his apartment."
"Nu-uh, he's so young, and he hasn't been on any of the tabloids for drugs or partying that I've seen."
"You don't even read tabloids?"
"I look at the covers when I'm standing in line."
"Whatever, they think he might have OD'd on sleeping pills."
"You're lying, there's no way Heath Ledger's dead."
"I'm not lying, it was all over the news this morning" (My sister/roommate sleeps at her boyfriends most night, hence why she hears news in the mornings that I don't.)

So I looked it up on CNN.com, and sure enough, first article posted, 'Heath Ledgers Dead'

It doesn't seem real...
This sucks...

I could cry...

Day 6...

2008-01-22T15:53:00.000-06:00

Yeah so anyway, boring day, spent most of it playing around on my computer, putting up an uber amount of pictures of all my favorite manga's and anime's and writing little captions about each. I AM A DORK. But it's okay, cause SOMEBODY'S gotta do it! So anyway, I didn't have my morning class, which of course I went and forgot.

You think you'd remember the days you DIDN'T have to go, but oh no, I'm an idiot, so yeah. Anyway, so I stomped myself across this COLD COLD campus (in all that fresh snow!), just to remember that oh yeah, no class. STOMP STOMP STOMP back to my room. where I sat around doing NOTHING productive until 2, at which point I had to stomp halfway back across campus to go to Philosophy, and for anyone keeping track, the bra-less wonder... Was wearing a bra today! So the word is out, she DOES OWN ONE. Maybe she'd just slow to do her laundry. I don't know, but whatever the case, the twins were restrained from pointing at us all through lecture. Which was boring, and I think I may have dozed off at one point. (Oops). This early in the semester that's NEVER a good sign. But she didn't seem to notice, she was too busy breaking chalk.

In a world of laptops and projector's I have to admit it's a wonder to me that professors still bother with messy things like Chalk. I wouldn't. I hate chalk. Unless I'm doodling on the sidewalk with it. In which case, I LOVE CHALK!

I made big rainbow's all up and down our driveway last summer (because I found a bucket of sidewalk chalk in the closet) it took me ALL morning, and I was all excited 'cause it looked so pretty and there were very few blank spots, and then it went and rained! Damn weather!

I forget how I got off on this....

Anyway, I'm having issues typing because my "K" key only works like 1/2 the time. It's REALLY irritating. I'll be typing away and suddenly realize that spell-checker's having a bloody fit becuase 3 out the last 4 "K's" that I typed aren't there! I'm not sure what's up with that. It's not like it doesn't work, becuase it does, I just have to push it like 4 times. It didn't USED to be tempermental, it just suddenly decided to.

So yeah, anyway

"Today's blogging is brought to you by the letter K, who incidentally, Doesn't actually want to be here. Also by the number 6, and Link: The Hero of Time."

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Back on Campus...

2008-01-21T21:58:00.000-06:00

Greetings once again from...
my dorm room...
I greatly enjoyed the long weekend spent with (my parents, cats, dog, boyfriend and... three stupid horses). My sister is a butt and did not come home with me, but we're roommates so I see too much of her anyway. That aside...
TERRY PRATCHETT IS A LITERARY GOD!!!
I LOVE books, (not textbooks, becuase those are boring. But, I'm not gonna lie, the Thesaurus was a fantastic invention, and I get a kick out of how it's spelling makes it seem like a dinosaur. I'm the only one who thinks like that aren't I?)
But anyway, back to my Terry Pratchet ravings, His "discworld" novels are addictive, I'm working on collecting all of them, but my most recent addition is "Jingo" which, I bought on Friday and just finished reading today. 437 pages of pure satarical bliss! He writes fantastically funny things like...

"He looked awkward, as if the bunched underwear of the past was tangling itself in the crotch of recollection."

AND

"The intelligence of that creature known as the Crowd, is the square root of the number of people in it."

SOO funny!!!

Speaking of funny, Our Nazi mail lady has struck again!

I'm not sure how old this woman is, but is it possible to start the mummification process pre-mortem?

And, she's the craziest, most ANAL old bat I've EVER met. (She both amuses and terrifies me).

But, becuase most of you out there are unfamiliar with my postal problems, let me take you back to my first encounter with the dark lord... I mean the mail lady.

There I was, innocent, good-natured child in the 6th grade. Just moved from a small town in Iowa, to a new school and out into the country so my mother could finally fulfill her life-long dream of owning horses. (As dear as my Mum is to me, anyone who's life-long dream includes horses, has probably been kicked one to many times in the head by one.)

In Iowa, everyone seems to wave to each other, I mean, if you've passed each other more than twice in the same week, chances are good that your probably neighbors anyway, you just can't see their driveway 'cause the corns too tall, so you may as well be friendly about it.

So anyway, there I was mowing the grass along the fenceline when lucifer... I mean the mail lady, pulls up and slams in the post and starts to pull away, being friendly, I smiled and waved at her and then went back to my mowing, next thing I know she's half-backed into my driveway and has her window rolled down and is glowering at me and yells

"Whadda You Want!?"

I kinda looked at her like perhaps she'd contracted Mad Cow Disease (although I was already starting to suspect that perhaps she hadn't Contracted it so much as Cultivated it).

"Nothing... ma'am."

"Then you shouldn't go waving at people like that! You'll distract their driving!"

At this point, the oddity of being scolded by my mail carrier over a friendly wave had gone from the truly obscure, to the dangerously amusing, I nodded severly

"I will certainly try to curtail any further gestures of friendliness Ma'am!" I said gravely, I snapped to attention and gave her my very best 'heil' as she pulled out, but I think she may have missed it. However, I'm inclined to believe that she intentionally misdelivered our mail for about 2 weeks after that. Because we got to know all our neighbors really well re-delivering post to one another.

And as time went on we discovered that IF our mail box was not properly plowed (Properly plowed means a 30 ft, approach and exit shaped like a crescent moon in front of the mail box) she would leave nasty notices and handy-dandy little diagrams in our mailbox to Inform us of our negligence in failing to provide her with a clear and easily accessible route to mailbox so she could bring us Farmer Bill's mail and take OUR mail down the street to the Minature Horse People. She did the same thing the time the garbage can blew across the driveway and ended up "too close" to the mailbox. A nasty notice and diagram to show us "The Proper Placement" of the garbage cans in reference to the position of the mailbox. (It was too funny).

And now, the plot thickens.

This weekend, as I mentioned, my boyfriend and I went home to see my parents, my dad had ordered a drill bit (or something). Anyway, we all went out to lunch and when we came home we found the package jammed into the mailbox, with the most peculiar TIRE TRACKS on it. The SAME tire tracks in fact, that led to and away, and did this funny, reverse-pull-forward-again pattern in front of the mailbox. All we can figure is that the package was just barely too big to fit into the box, and so she backed over it and then jammed it in there.

I cried I was lauging so hard, and fortunetly, Dad's drill bits were undamaged. That woman KILLS me. I can't even begin to imagine the thoughts that must run through her head.

Hooray for the post.

And for anyone who watched the New York / Greenbay game on Sunday

HOW ABOUT THEM GIANTS!

Way to play New York! I actually have nothing against the Packers (except that I don't know what their mascot actually is... cheese?)

I just make it a rule to always root for the underdog.

well, that about sums up the weekend report, classes begin again tomorrow, and so of course, will my daily ramblings. Until then...

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race...

-keep running

TGIF!!!!

2008-01-18T12:45:00.000-06:00

BOO-YAH!!
It's FRIDAY!!!
And the uber fantastic things about Friday's is that.... I only have 1 class! (plus Choir, but that hardly counts, 'cause there's no homework, and I get to sing.)
On another note, IT'S DAMN COLD! with the wind chill it's a balmy
- 11 degrees outside!
SCREW YOU JACK FROST.... When my toes fall off and I'm crippled for the rest of my life I'm going to take up a job knitting scarves and socks and handing them out to potential hypothermia victims JUST TO SPITE YOU!!!!
Anyway, I'm super-hyper right now becuase I'm going Home for the weekend! I miss my cats, and my dog, and my parents, but not the horses (funny how that works)... Anyway, on top of that, it's a 3 day weekend! NO CLASSES MONDAY!
BLESS YOU MARTIN LUTHER KING JR!

And so, in the spirit in which this great and wonderful man lived Let us all take a moment and reflect on the words his big heart left us:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal."

and becuase my meager ramblings can never hope to even compare to a man so brilliant a speaker as Mr. King
Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day everyone (on Monday)
Enjoy the long weekend!

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Day Four...

2008-01-17T13:14:00.000-06:00

It's cold!
And when I say cold, I don't just mean cold, I mean the bitter, biting cold that keeps everyone but Minnestotians and eskimos indoors and under the covers.
Well, all sensible everyone's anyway. As I mentioned in Day Three, we would have to get 7 feet of snow before they cancelled classes, BAH! So of course, we're all out tramping around in it. The buses are insanely crowded. It's so cold people are hopping on just to ride a block. There is however an upside, the more people you cram onto a bus, the warmer it gets. Not always a pleasant smelling warm of course, sometimes, it's a really UNPLEASANT smelling warmth, and in your mind you're going "If that fat-ass in front of me farts ONE MORE TIME! I'm gonna seriously lose it." Which is of course a completely pointless thing to think as you can't move. Sometimes though, you get lucky, and the guy who's literally standing on your feet is wearing a really nice smelling aftershave. Gotta take what you can get, right?
Anyway, I had my recitation class for Anthropology this morning, my TA's really sweet. I liked her a lot, she's a got a thing for Chimpanzee's but hey, that's cool. It's a Cultural Anthropology class, so our first book is an enthnography on transgendered prostitutes in Brazil. IT'S SOO SAD! This people live in the most horrid conditions! And their country thinks they're all freaks, and their victims of police brutality and it's just aweful! I feel so bad for them! You'd have to be so brave to face that every day and still be proud of who you are and what you chose to be! When I think of it that way, it's very inspirational. But still, that'd be such a hard life. It seems so ridiculous to think of ourselves as a "civilized" species when we treat other lives with such apathy and barbarity. At least the jungle has laws...
Now I'm getting down, happy thoughts happy thoughts! Oh right, I still haven't been to Philosophy yet today, we'll see if the braless wonder rears her pointy head(s) at us again or if she decided to dress for the weather today.

My regards to everyone else out there in the rat race
-keep running

Day Three...

2008-01-16T12:37:00.001-06:00

It's snowing!!!

And not that pathetic little speckle stuff either, Proper snow, with great big flakes. Perfect day for a cup of coffee from Bookends (Every day is a perfect day for a cup of coffee from Bookends) but chilly snowy days are inarguably the best. Ah Snow! Snow and Coffee! Coffee and Snow! Blessed is this frigid campus!
Anyway... my rejoicing of snow and coffee aside, this day is dragging on forever... I'm so bored. I forgot how slow the semester was to get rolling, and so of course, all my classes are scheduled in these lovely 2 hour block increments, with 2 to 3 hours between blocks. THE PERFECT SETUP FOR FREQUENT LIBRARY VISITS TO GET MY HOMEWORK AND READING DONE. Except that I don't have any. I shouldn't complain, because later in the semester I'll inevitably be screaming "HOW AM I GOING TO GET ALL THIS CRAP DONE?!?" but for right now I'm bored out of my little mind.

Still...

It's SNOWING!!!!!!! the weather channel guesses we could get 3-7 inches throughout the course of the day/night. How fantastic is that! Of course, we'd have to get 3-7 feet before they'd cancel classes, but la-dee-da! It's snowing! And I say guesses becuase it is my un-professional opinion, judging by the accuracy of my local meteorologist, that when "predicting" what the weather is going to do, they put on a blindfold and throw darts at a board with various conditions and temperatures strewn about it. something like

*SHHLUNK!* the low today is 28 degrees F

*SHHLUNK!* the high is -7 degrees F

*SHHLUNK!* Sunny

*SHHLUNK!* Winds from the Southwest to Northeast

*SHHLUNK!* Chance of precipitation 90%

Fantastic!

Moving on... I've just finished reading the first half of "Aristotle's Poetry", which despite the name, is NOT a collection of Poetry, it's more a collection of lecture notes... And despite the back of the books claim that "reader's can now enjoy the seminal insights of the greatest minds in human history", I have to argue that not all of his "insights" are all that insightful, and for the most part not terribly enjoyable either. For instance did I really need "A beginning, an End, and a Middle" defined for me? Did the Greeks?!
Apparently so, Because he spends half a page prattling on about how " ' a Beginning is a thing that has nothing before it, but stuff after it, and an End is a thing with nothing after it, but stuff before it, and a Middle is the bit that has stuff before AND after it. ' "
THANK YOU ARISTOTLE! I may have been terrible befuddled were it not for your astounding revelation! good grief... I wonder how many of his students played hookie on lecture after that? I should hope all that would have been self evident, but considering how infuriatingly circular his "poetics" are, I suspect he may have just gotten his kicks beating dead horses. Whatever floats your boat I guess.

Well I suppose I'm done for the afternoon, perhaps if I feel like it I'll go ahead and post a Day Three... part two... but don't hold your breath.

My regards to the rest of you in the Rat Race
-keep running

Day Two

2008-01-16T00:29:00.000-06:00

Snaps to only having two classes on Tuesdays! And for being done by 3:30. Not much to say on the class number one. Class number two however, good grief. Ever had a professor who pointed at you the whole hour and half lecture? And NOT with her fingers? Most people call it a bra, most women wear one, especially when it's cold out! And of course the bookstore didn't bother to have our particular section listed as a class so 30 of us our bookless, ONE of us is braless, and talking herself in circles. Welcome to philosphy! hoorah... anyway it's late I'm going to bed.

My Regards to the rest of you in the Rat Race
-Keep running

Day One... Monday...

2008-01-15T00:01:00.000-06:00

Class is back in session, but of course Econ 101 finds itself sitting on top of dinner time. Honestly who wants to go to a class, and ECONOMY of all subjects at 6 o'clock at night!? And then to sit there for an hour and a half while your stomach slowly goes about digesting itself. I should really just save myself the trouble and eat the teacher. Cannabalism aside, Anthropology of course is enjoyable, and the Prof's laid back. Snaps to that. Aside from the smelly man who sits next to me it ought to be fun. Although you'd imagine that by this point he'd have discovered DEODERANT. Classic Studies is... Greek. Go figure.
On a bright note, being back at school reunites me with my beloved Bookends. (Anyone who's never had the pleasure of being a coffee-addict should definetly pick up the habit.) I recommend the Caramel Macchiato, 3.60USD for 12 ounces of pure caramel-coffee bliss! HOORAH! I'm going to end up owing my soul to Starbucks but I will have a life on a caffine high to trade for it.
And I'm not sure who set up the salad bar for lunch, but I suspect those cucumbers may have been sitting there since before we went on break. The Jello smelled a little funky too. I miss home cooking already. How do you mess up Chicken!?! It tastes like whatever you cook it with!? "Will wonders never cease?" The answer is No, as students will never cease just what it is they're eating, which naturally leads to other wonderings. What exactly was this mysterious substance scrapped off of? Will I regret eating this 20 minutes from now? I wonder if it'll kill me? Do you suppose that dark spot in the Mac n' Cheese is a mushroom, a burnt weenie, or a cockroach? Hmm... so many things to wonder.
I miss Mom's home cooking. *sigh*
Still, Bookends has bagels! With cream cheese! HOORAH!

My regards to the rest of you jumping back into the rat race for the spring semester
-Keep running