delightfully mediocre

I want to ride my bicycle.

2011-08-01T22:30:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I rode my bike to the Brewers game. They won (bonus), I got free parking (double bonus) and an awesome sunburn (negative bonus).

In other news, I still really love Dune. Book Dune, that is. The spice must flow. If you haven't read it, and have any interest in fantastic science fiction and/or environmental statements in literature, you should read it. It's great. I am taking it on a very long plane ride soon, and adding it to my "List of Books I've Read This Year."

I didn't realize it until a couple days ago, but I've read 37 books this year already. I have a slight advantage here - being a Young Adult librarian gives me a great excuse to read Children's and Young Adult books without being judged too harshly for it, and thus I'm able to read things pretty quickly (I read all 5 Percy Jackson books in a couple weeks, only on breaks at work). However, my favorite book I've read so far this year is The Art of Racing in the Rain. The narrator is a dog. And that sounds ridiculous, but I was crying within ten pages, which is a good, good sign. If you have a dog, or had a dog at some point, or if the second word you said in your entire life was "dog" and despite this your parents never let you get one (AHEM MOM AND DAD), you should read this book. It is well written and moving, and deeper than anything I've read in a long time.

Of course, I've been reading things like Percy Jackson and Jane, an overly-sexy updated version of Jane Eyre (not kidding, I was reading it at work, and I'm pretty sure my face turned so red it was purple at one point. Because of the sex), so it's not difficult to get deeper than that.

Biking, books/comics, being really pale. Someday I'll get a dog. That's basically what I'm about.

SAUSAGE RACE!

2011-07-30T16:22:00.003-05:00

If you are not from Wisconsin, or if you have never been to a Brewers game, you probably are not familiar with the "World Famous" Racing Sausages. Every home Brewers game between the 6th and 7th innings, people dressed as enormous sausages (Chorizo, Polish, Italian, Hot Dog, and my personal favorite - the Bratwurst) race around the infield dirt and everyone goes nuts. It is delightfully silly and very Wisconsin.

For the last 13 years, there has been an event at Miller Park that I have failed to attend, a 5K called the Miller Park Sausage Race 5K. This year was the magic year that I made it in before it sold out. It was great. Granted, it was very hot (and consequently, I ran by far my slowest ever chip-timed 5k. Ugh). Running on black asphalt in July without shade is bound to be hot. However, during the Sausage Race 5K, you get to run IN THE STADIUM. I did not know this would happen, and then all of a sudden, I was INSIDE MILLER PARK! While the training montage from Rocky I played on the jumbotron. It is super dorky. It is also really, really, really neat and awesome.

One thing I did not realize about the Sausage Race 5K is that all 5 racing sausages run the whole race in costume. That, my friends, is hardcore. And that is only one reason of many the racing sausages are better than that copycat thing in Washington DC, the racing presidents of Mount Rushmore. Sausages are where it's at.

It was slightly unfortunate that my body was not processing water properly or quickly enough today (I'm out of running shape due to some knee issues from half-marathon training last year, and consequently I haven't been running as much as I'd like this year), because with your registration you not only get a ticket voucher for a Brewers game, but you also get free hot dogs and beer. Sadly, I am a vegetarian and I could not drink the beer, because I was feeling nauseous after a measly little 5k because the water I drank on the course didn't actually get absorbed by my body and was sloshing around in my tummy instead. Bad place for it. And I was really looking forward to the beer. Next year.

In short, there is a three-mile race run by 3000 people and 5 sausages, through a Major League Baseball stadium, I ran it, and it is great. And there is free beer at the end.

I love being from Wisconsin.

Go Bratwurst!

Sad, neglected blog.

2011-07-29T18:11:00.004-05:00

It seems that perhaps I should start posting things to my blog again. We'll see - rather, YOU'LL see, that I am still an incredibly exciting person who can post about dreaming about cats in Iraq and my sleepwalking sister.

Or maybe I'll just tell you about the time I microwaved my marching band music.

OR! I could tell you about what I'm doing now.

Now, my kitchen table is covered with travel supplies in preparation for a grand adventure. I am six months into a new job and I still haven't decided how good I am at it. I am growing basil in my apartment for fear that The Smoking Man downstairs will taint it with his constant smoking if I were to keep it on my balcony (and draw aliens to abduct me, but that's for another time). I watch television programs of questionable cultural value (Forever Knight?), and read comic books of immense cultural value.

Hopefully future entries will be more interesting... there have been several events lately that have made me think that I should resume blogging, but of course, none of them happened today. I'll keep you updated.

Sleepwalking

2009-09-30T20:35:00.002-05:00

Two blogs I read today had posts about sleepwalking incidents. Here is my sleepwalking story. Names have been changed to protect myself from these people getting really mad at me.

I was babysitting a little girl named Lily when I was in middle school. Lily was very cute and liked nothing more than playing with her Bert doll (from Sesame Street), and me reading The Monster at the End of This Book (starring Lovable, Furry Old Grover) in funny voices. Including the shouting.

In retrospect, it is not the best idea to get a five-year-old all riled up by yelling and laughing right before she goes to sleep, but I was twelve and dumb. And Lily did fall asleep. Once she stopped getting out of bed to ask for things ("Can I have a glass of water?" "Can Bert have a glass of water?" "Will you play hide and seek with me?" "Do you want a glass of water?"), I sat down to watch their copy of Jurassic Park (I was a little obsessed with Jurassic Park in middle school. I bought a pair of hiking boots because I was convinced I was going to become a paleontologist, and there was at least a month of Study Hall when I read nothing but Jurassic Park, going back to the beginning of the book as soon as I reached the end).

The movie was just about to the part when the guy gets eaten by the T-Rex on the toilet when I heard Lily get out of bed again. I expected her to come in and ask for a glass of water, or a Fruit-Roll-Up, or a puppy, but instead she went into the hallway linen closet.

"Um, Lily?" I asked her, going over to the closet. She did not reply, so I asked, "What are you doing in there?"

"Towels," she said, sitting down on the floor. "I have to go."

"What?" I was confused. "Go where?"

"I have to GO," she said, adjusting her seat.

"Go wh- OH!" I said, waving my hands around in distress. "How about you GO over here, in the bathroom?"

"Okay," she said, standing up rather unsteadily and following me into the bathroom. She got herself all set up and did her thing while I waited in the hallway.

"Are you okay?" I asked, peeking into the bathroom after a long moment. I was just in time to see Lily throw her toilet paper... right... into... the bathtub. I would have thought this entirely gross, but I was laughing and Lily was making her way back to bed, zombie-like.

Awesome.

Another time, I was at a hotel with my family. My sister and I were sharing a bed (which, sidenote, is not the easiest thing when the person your sister sleeps on all the pillows at the same time). In the middle of the night, my sister sat up in bed.

"What a great idea!" she said.

"Huh?" said my mom.

My sister went to the door of the hotel room and opened it. "Great idea!"

"Not a great idea!" said my mom, and caught her before she went out into the hallway.

I'm almost sure I have never walked in my sleep. The closest I've probably ever come was in high school, when I woke up in my bed at my parents' house and saw that the last two numbers on my digital clock read :42. My school bus came at 5:44! I was going to miss it!

I leaped out of bed, threw on some shoes, grabbed my backpack, ran down the stairs and out down the street.

It's 5:42! I'm going to miss the bus! It's 5:42! I'm going to miss the bus! It's 5:42! I'm going to miss the bus! It's 12:42! I'm going to miss the bus! It's 12:42! I'm going to miss the bus! It's 12:42! I'm going to... wait. It's... crap.

And I turned around, walked back to the house, and went to bed. Because it was 12:42 AM, and I, inexplicably, thought that was the same as 5:42 AM.

Weird.

(Also weird, this post is dated yesterday. I'm from the fuuuuuuture, everyone! Tomorrow people will post on their blogs about sleepwalking! You'll see!)

National Parks are the Shizz.

2009-09-28T21:16:00.005-05:00

I am a fan of Ken Burns. I'm not sure if that is square, or stupidly conformist, or neither, but I am a fan of Ken Burns. I love the Ken Burns effect (if you don't know what that is, you obviously don't have a Mac or don't use iMovie). I love the music. I love the to-the-point yet always entertaining narration.

My first introduction to Ken Burns was in my American Military History class in college (which, by way of anecdote, was taught by a foul-mouthed dead ringer for Ulysses S. Grant... best ~~casting~~ career choice ever), where we watched portions of his Civil War documentary. We watched more of it in my Civil War History class (taught my the same professor), and thanks, Ken Burns, I got As in both.

I haven't seen Baseball, but I'd like to. It's the only one of his documentaries we don't own at the library, which is incredibly annoying. The West is enjoyable, Jazz I have to enjoy because I was in a jazz band once upon a time, and he was apparently in Gettysburg. NERD!

I'm currently watching The National Parks on PBS, which after one and a half episodes, is fantastic. I thought before it started that it might go through the history of a handful of individual parks, which was silly because that isn't really the way Ken Burns does things. Instead, it's taking us through the history of the formation of the National Parks and the National Park Service, which is brilliant. I have re-fallen in love with John Muir (sure, he had a semi-gross beard, but he's John Muir). It has also given me a major case of the wanderlust, which is decidedly inconvenient.

If I don't see Yosemite and climb Half Dome before I die, I shall be very put out. If I can't put a finger on a giant sequoia at some point in my life, then that's just stupid. I pay federal taxes and thus own things like the Grand Canyon General Sherman, and would like to go visit them. Say hi. Probably cry a little. It'll be great.

I haven't been to many National Parks. I camped in Rocky Mountain National Park this summer, and wish I could thank everyone involved in the park's creation so that we can enjoy it today. I have been to Gettysburg, but I was a wee child and didn't realize where I was when I was there (stupid kid!). I have, however, been to many National Forests, which are sort of similar in that they are natural areas that our ancestors decided to set aside for all of us to enjoy (thanks, ancestors). One of my favorite places on the planet is a National Forest. Going there changed my life. Does everyone have a place that changed them? Whether everyone does or not, I feel lucky that I was able to visit such a place.

The thing you can't understand from this photo is how peaceful it is. How the islands feel under your feet, and what they smell like. How tired your arms are and how sunburned you are after paddling all day to get there. The sense that getting to this place is its own reward. So really, you can't get the most important things about the Boundary Waters from looking at this photo, so you can stop looking at it now.

Does anyone else geek out when they realize that celebrities they like are friends with each other? Like when you find out that Wil Wheaton is having lunch with Neil Gaiman? On second thought, that may be too nerdy. It would be like Felicia Day having lunch with Brian K. Vaughn. No? Um... what if Bono and Barack Obama were BFFs? That's how I feel when I hear about Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir spending a weekend together talking about nature. It blows my mind, man!

Also, they shot Return of the Jedi in Redwood National Park, so clearly if I don't go there dressed in a Princess Leia cammo outfit with my Wicket puppet, I am a terrible, terrible geek.

Magical sporting moments and Almanzo Wilder

2009-09-23T20:56:00.003-05:00

There's a magical moment that happens in close team sporting events when there is a ball, flying in the air. For this particular kind of moment, the ball must be in the air at a pivotal moment in the game, because the game itself hangs in the air, with that ball. Everyone stands up, breathless, waiting. Time seems to stand still, because that moment is full of hope - for that seemingly endless moment that the ball is in the air, anything can happen. The game may be over, depending on what happens with that ball. But for the short time that ball is in the air, it is flying through endless possibility.

Of course, hopes are dashed or met when the ball is caught, or blocked, or dropped, or hits the back of the net. But while the ball is in the air, everything is amazing. This moment is of course best when your team is down by one point, and that ball would just nudge them over the edge toward winning.

I love that moment. I don't care if it's baseball or American football or soccer or cricket or squash or hockey (in that case, it's a puck. Obviously). It is a magic moment, and I less-than-three it.

In unrelated news, I had a dream last night that I was Laura Ingalls, and Jude Law was playing the part of Almanzo Wilder. It was one of those dreams you wake from and try very hard to recapture by falling asleep immediately after hitting the snooze alarm. Oh, Almanzo (not sure why my brain felt the need to substitute Jude Law when real Almanzo looked like that, but I'll take it).

That's all. How are you?

I hate this place, and I hate this cat!

2009-09-11T22:09:00.004-05:00

Nobody enjoys hearing about other people's dreams, right? That is, of course, unless they're funny, or involve you in some way.

Did I tell you about the one I had in which I had somehow been roped into joining the army and was deployed to Iraq? I acquired some sort of stray desert cat as a pet while there, and the most vivid part of the dream was me screaming at the top of my lungs, "I hate this place! I hate these tents! I hate this sand! I hate this place, I hate this place, I hate this place, and I HATE THIS CAT!"

What about the one in which I was carjacked outside a mini-golf course? I woke myself up when I screamed to Oprah (who was playing mini-golf), "HELP ME, OPRAH!! CARJACKING!!" I'll never know what Oprah would have done, as I awoke screaming, "Carjacking!!"

Last night my dream was not nearly as pleasant as these. Suffice to say it was the most terrifying and awful nightmare I've had in years. I managed to startle myself awake at about 3:00 this morning to find myself confused and tentatively relieved that no, the country had not been destroyed by h-bombs, the population of the country had not been reduced to melting Dali-esque mutants (all of whom were desperate for my help... I didn't know what to do, re-mold them into more peopley-type shapes?), and my right eye had not melted and fallen out.

Put that way, it doesn't sound terrifying as much as it sounds gross. One thing I learned from this dream, though - DO NOT TRANSPORT NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN SEMI TRUCKS.

I always trust the advice I get from my dreams. You don't see any cats in my apartment, do you? Nosiree.

It's a whatnow?

2009-09-10T19:31:00.001-05:00

Microsoft is playing dirty, giving us commercials with adorable children in them! The commercial with the little girl making the slideshow about Windows 7 reminds me of an exchange I had with a small child when I worked at Linens N Things. She was putting things from her mom's shopping basket on the counter for me to scan:

Girl (handing me napkin holder): This is a napkin holder.
Me: Oh, thank you.
Girl (handing me lettuce knife): This is a lettuce knife.
Me: Thanks.
Girl (handing me a lotion bottle): This is a lotion.
Me: Sure is.
Girl (handing me a washcloth): This is a towel.
Me: Close enough.
Girl (handing me a garlic press): This is a schwigglefrishiggle.
Me: ...you bet it is.

Adorable children or no, I will not go to the Windows side. Oh no.

I'm watching The Vampire Diaries right now, because I enjoy watching television shows that make me feel stupider. It's the same reason I watch Gossip Girl. I'm not sure why a show called The Vampire Diaries has spent the first half-hour of the show assuming the audience has no idea that one of the characters is a vampire. Are we stupid (I think I already answered my question, there)? I wonder if the vampire could be the guy who has all the antique pictures in his house who acted weird when the main character fell down and cut herself! How totally out there and unexpected. Insert eyeroll here. (And yet, I have not turned it off. This suggests very bad things about me.) Remember when vampires were bad (with the exception, of course, of Louis and Lestat), and Buffy killed them? Boy, those were the days.

Sheesh, is the football game going to start soon?

See you in September

2009-09-08T21:43:00.005-05:00

Ah, September. The time when a young man's fancy turns to - wait, no. What? Who are you?

Now, I know some of you are nerds (it's okay, you can admit it) and you should be watching The Guild. I won't link to it, because if you're a nerd you already know where it is, or you are net-savvy enough to type it into Google. While you're doing that, can you figure out a way to make me be Felicia Day?

School is back in session. The students are back on campus. My insane amounts of down time at work are now at an end and have left me with far too much to do. I'm not sure how that happens - it's like there are twenty minutes in which my free time and all the stuff I have to do coexist, and then the twenty minutes are gone and I'm left with... a huge to-do list. Whoever decided time would work this way is fired.

The end of summer did provide some good times, however. I went to a baseball game with some of my favorite people on the planet (this planet, that is - you wouldn't believe how awesome people are on Neptune... sorry, Earthlings), attended more than one bonfire, caught something which may or may not have been Swine Flu, and acquired several Jane Austen BBC miniseries adaptations from the library.

Like I told the class in the library this evening, I'm a librarian. I get excited about things like having a new copier.

...and finding imitation designer shoes at Target. I am a woman of simple pleasures.

In other news, who is going to start a collaborative video project with me, hmm?

Do do do, de do do do. GO-PACK-GO!

2009-08-21T19:53:00.012-05:00

I've been meaning to go to training camp for a couple weeks, but yesterday was the first evening that the planets aligned in such a way that it was not storming, that I was not working, that I didn't have dinner plans with coworkers and there was an evening practice. Thanks, planets! It was absolutely worth the $0.00 ticket and I will be going again.

In what I believe to be one of the coolest traditions in professional sports, local chill'uns wait outside the locker room exit at Lambeau Field with their bikes. Players then either walk across the street to practice, or borrow the bikes to ride across the street to the practice field, with the kids running along carrying helmets.

Wow, these look awful shrunk down all small-like. They're better actual size, should anyone out there be interested - just click. Or they're on my Flickr.

The local paper reported (yes, this is news up here) that this was the first time in two years that Aaron Rodgers rode a bike to practice. Lucky kid! (Also reported by the local paper - this kid is Aaron Rodgers's Facebook friend. This is the weirdest town in which I have ever lived.)

Then, if they have time, many of them sign autographs. And I do not know why all the players except Donald wear their pads to practice. Also - check out Donald's legs. They're prettier than mine... and probably yours. Unless you're Donald Driver. In which case, hi Donald! Nice legs.

Not only is it cool for the kids, it warms my heart to see huge men riding tiny bikes - some of which are pink.

Pink bikes and extremely small bikes are the best. This kid was sprinting the whole way in an attempt to keep up and it was adorable.

A complete pass to Al Harris!

I was sitting next to a father with his daughter (who was about seven). She had lots (and lots) of questions. My favorite was during this kickoff drill when several players had red bandana-things on their helmets: "Are they wearing those to keep their helmets warm?"

I told her they were. Was that wrong of me?

Lots of people had the same idea I did yesterday. It actually feels like football season - 50s with a chilly breeze. Football weather is my favorite kind of weather. Time to dig out the sweaters.

Then at the end of practice, there's a big ol' team huddle. Awwww.

Some of them come over to the stands and sign more autographs!

They're a TEAM.

Then they ride bikes back to the locker room. Way too cool. Next time I go to practice, I'm borrowing a small child with a bike to bring with me.

(In related news, I'm watching preseason football in the flavor of the Cowboys v. the Titans right now. The new Cowboys' stadium is very cool and impressive, I'll give them that - but I'd rather have Lambeau Field, one of the most revered venues in all professional sports. Tradition, homes. I don't think there's any need for a $40 million TV that blocks punts. How do you build a billion-dollar stadium and put the scoreboard too low?)

...coming home to a place he'd never been before.

2009-08-04T17:17:00.007-05:00

I was backpacking through the mountains last week! It was really beautiful and wonderful. It made me wish I took more vacations in general, and it made me wish I took more vacations with friends (do YOU want to go on vacation? I'm a pretty good traveler, promise). I took 524 photos (oops), over 200 of which were on one day (I climbed my first 14,000' mountain, give me a break), and 10% of which were of The Boyfriend's backside (can I help it if he doesn't like being in pictures from the front?).

Here is the advice I have to impart from my experiences on this trip:

1) If you would like to climb a fourteener, you should definitely do so as it is well worth the time.
2) If you are from a place with an elevation of approximately 500' above sea level and you plan on climbing a fourteener, give yourself two days to adjust to the altitude by sleeping and taking shorter hikes at above 8,000.'
3) If you forget this advice and give yourself only one day to adjust to the altitude and get altitude sickness after climbing said mountain, find a no-frills motel a couple thousand feet lower and wait to stop throwing up. This shouldn't take long.
4) If, in the tiny middle-of-nowhere town you find a bar themed around your (very far away) NFL team of choice, buy a pitcher of High Life and marvel at how weird the world is.
5) Take with you someone who will be very understanding about your altitude sickness, just in case.
6) Remember that when you wake up before dawn to climb said mountain, that the sun will eventually rise and you will wish you had your sunscreen with you. Mountains are closer to the sun than your home and thus it is easy to be sunburned upon them (*cough*madeupscience*cough*).
7) Have multiple plans. Having only one plan is a not the greatest idea, as you may be disappointed when this plan is thwarted by thunderstorms and below-freezing temperatures.
8) Go to a well-known college town and ask where "the street with the restaurants and bars" is. While there, find the best bar and chat with the bartender without being creepy. Your tab, which by most estimations would be around $50.00 anywhere else, could be as low as $4.00.
9) Find the local microbrewery and ask the servers questions about the beer. They are usually very excited to talk about the beer and may even bring you secret free beer that isn't on the menu. Four times. And free stickers. And free bottle openers. And free brewery lip-balm.
10) If you are road-tripping, bring with you all seven Harry Potter books in audiobook form. Nebraska won't even take half of book six.
11) Take lots of pictures. The odds are better you will get something good if you take more pictures.
12) Do not run from a bull moose. Do not approach a moose calf. In fact, it is best to avoid moose altogether. If you happen to accidentally run across one on the trail, ensure her you aren't there to bother her and go about your business. She will find you boring and yawn.
13) If it rains for two hours during the 4-mile hike to your campsite and everything you have is soaked, pray (or if you're not the praying kind, hope) really hard the sun comes out long enough to dry your sleeping bag.
14) If you must sleep in a wet sleeping bag and the temperature drops below freezing... ugh, just... don't ever sleep in a wet sleeping bag.
15) If you come home with a sprained ankle, put your foot up on your coffee table with ice all around it while you read a slightly trashy galley about teenage fallen angels that randomly came in the mail while you were gone. Two days of this should have you back up and about.

Also, while you were gone, your neighbor may have formed a Hootie and the Blowfish tribute band. I have no idea what to do about this, but it is definitely a serious problem.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

2009-06-24T15:37:00.005-05:00

Um, Americans?

OUR MEN'S SOCCER TEAM JUST BEAT EFFING SPAIN.

(Photo of US national soccer team not from today.) It is hard to explain exactly how inconceivable and unbelievable and unlikely this is if you do not follow international soccer. There is no way the US should have won this game. Spain is the #1 ranked national soccer team in the world. Sometimes rankings don't mean very much, but really - THEY ARE THE BEST TEAM IN THE WHOLE WORLD. And your national team (ranked #14 by FIFA at the beginning of this game) scored - twice. Spain scored zero times.

I'm not sure how it happened (I watched the whole thing, and I still don't know - to be honest, I was half-expecting Spain to score six goals in the last five minutes and go, "Gotcha! Just kidding, guys! We had this under control the whole time, that's how good we are."), but this has made my already super day off completely stellar. Does this legitimize US soccer? Will people actually sing our national anthem at the beginning of games now? Will anyone care? I don't know - they did lose to Costa Rica a few weeks ago. Ouch.

SOCCER!

I promise that there will be no more soccer squeeage from me unless the US wins the Confederations Cup final on Sunday (and really, the Confederations Cup means nothing, except that the US beat Spain).

In other news, there are hornets building nests all over the outside of my apartment (I counted two in the front, and there are about ten hornets hovering around my balcony door so I imagine there is one out there too - how will I water my plants?). I think they sense my great fear.

Chivalry is not dead, it has its own dictionary.

2009-06-19T19:05:00.020-05:00

When you are a librarian, occasionally you need to do what is known as "weeding the collection." This just means going through all the books and taking out anything that is outdated, superseded by a better edition, doesn't make any sense, etc.

The other day while weeding, I came across a book called A Dictionary of Chivalry. Unfortunately, this otherwise delightful book has very little to do with anything in our curriculum, is not really scholarly at all, and we have lots of other books that cover the same subject much more thoroughly in case someone ever did need to know about medieval table manners. Sadly, out it went. On a whim and as a small experiment yesterday, I put a note on the book before I sent it to my coworkers who would take it and the rest of a cart full of books out of our catalog. This was the note:

I was sitting in my office this afternoon, minding my own business, when one of them came downstairs and gave it to me for free. Greatest note ever!

A Dictionary of Chivalry is mostly delightful for the completely sweet and oh-so-1960's illustrations. Here is a sampling of my favorites (of which there are far too many to post. I just found the Robert (the Bruce) entry and those are great).

This is the illustration for "Outlaws." It doesn't make any sense except that this is supposed to be Robin Hood and Maid Marian. I think I would've gone with something else for outlaws, but it's sort of sweet.

This one is supposed to illustrate courtesy.

I have no idea what's going on except some sort of three-man dinner party. I think the guy on the left is telling the middle gentleman, "Now, wait just a moment, I'm going to say something courteous before I knock you with this ladle. I suggest thinking twice before scratching your fleas at the table, if you please." The man on the right, on the other hand, looks as though he's very annoyed and is going to applaud his dinner companion sarcastically. "Gee, Lancelot. You've got roast pig grease on your face again. I know I always scratch my head while eating a medieval Twinkie, great job, champ."

This is the infant John FitzThomas, Earl of Kildare, being rescued by a gorilla as an infant. I promise that is what the caption says and I did not make it up. I will scan it for you if you like. A gorilla. Rescuing baby Earl FitzThomas of Kildare. From a burning castle.

Why were the Middle Ages so much cooler than the 1980s? I was never rescued by a gorilla from a burning castle. So lame.

This is baby King Henry VI. Isn't he cute?

I do not know why there is a helmet in this picture, nor why said helmet has a bird growing out of the top of it. "Fashion" would be my guess. It's fierce.

This is meant to be Sir Bedevere, of Round Table fame. This image fits almost perfectly with the mental image I have of Sir Bedevere, developed largely through repeat viewings of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

"And that, my liege, is how we know the world to be banana-shaped."
"Hmm, oh yes. I see."

If you were or are an English major, you will probably have read The Song of Roland. If you are thinking of becoming an English major, you will probably have to read The Song of Roland. You might have read it in high school - you will need to read it again. This is a visual representation of... some part of Roland's song. Evidently the part when he broke into his song upon his cross-eyed steed.

The steed seems to be auditioning for a part in "A Chorus Line."

I feel this one (Blue Garter, Order of the) requires more explanation than I can provide on my own, and frankly, the illustration is much funnier than the actual description, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

This book was 100% worth every penny.

OLE OLE OLE OLE!

2009-06-16T19:06:00.003-05:00

Most of the time, I am very happy with American football. However.

Then comes World Cup time. Oh dear, around World Cup time I do wish I lived somewhere that cared about soccer at all. World Cup time is the time a large portion of the rest of the world works itself into a frenzy of national pride and comes together, mostly in the spirit of good sportsmanship, to celebrate the world's game. The world except America's game, that is.

We went to a USA v. Honduras World Cup qualifying match the other weekend, and it was great. At most American sporting events, nobody sings the national anthem. At a soccer match, you must sing the national anthem. The game isn't the same without singing the national anthem very loudly.

Whee!

Portraits of running in my neighborhood

2009-05-19T20:10:00.004-05:00

Things I saw on my run today:

- Cherry blossoms! We are more than a month behind Washington DC (a place I adore, home to one of my favorite people on the planet!), but I think this means Spring is here.

- A middle-aged man in the building next to mine driving to put his trash in the dumpster for tomorrow. The dumpster is about 15 yards away, if that. He was blasting Evanescence with all his windows down. It was hilarious.

- A dog running to bark at, bite, or lick me and another dog intercepting that dog to hump it enthusiastically.

All in all, a good run.

A Thursday List!

2009-05-07T20:38:00.006-05:00

Are we already a week into May? Shocking! I do not know how this happened. Thus, a list!

1) I am so glad Brett Favre (for the moment) won't be playing for the Vikings. I had a very long and irate post about the fact that Brett Favre is even less awesome than I thought last season, but I am not going to post it, because some naive part of my brain really, really wants to believe that Brett is a decent human being who doesn't hate the people of Wisconsin. I won't actually believe it until sometime midway through September, and I know he doesn't care what I think, but still. Brett is okay. For now. Dun dun DUN!

2) The Star Trek movie! I have not seen it, and am going tomorrow. I am very excite! I think it will be good! To be honest, I never really watched The Original Series (ToS as it is known amongst Trekkies) and was more a Next Generation and Deep Space Nine fan. It's entirely possible that this makes me a nerd, and it's also entirely possible that I do not care.

3) Sometimes I over-identify with Liz Lemon. Especially when she awkwardly recites rap lyrics and references The Sims. Oh dear. Do the kids still play The Sims?

4) I ran 2.5 miles yesterday, and again today whee! This is more impressive when you consider that at least half of both those runs were uphill (I live at the top of a hill, as I have mentioned).

5) I love love. I love being in love! (Thank you, The Format.)

6) We haven't been below freezing in over a week. I officially declare it pre-summer! In parts of the world other than the upper Midwest, this might be known as Spring.

7) It's possible that with recent state budget cuts and an announcement from our governor today, I will lose my job. I am a state employee and we are at the mercy of taxes, which have been down with so many unemployed in the last year. If you're the praying kind, I wouldn't object if you spared one for me and my friends at the library.

8) To further the pre-summer signs, my electric heated mattress pad has not been turned on for three whole days. Pre-summer! (Shut up, I have a heated mattress pad because I live in Wisconsin and I don't like being cold.)

9) I have been watching Survivor only because a person I used to know is on it. It's a weird show and evidently lots of people watch it. Are you one of them?

10) Do you ever wonder if you're weird-looking? It has just occurred to me recently, watching America's Next Top Model (from the three episodes I've seen, I'm rooting for creepy-chan) that maybe I'm weird-looking, but not in a good way. Just in a way that is sort of irritating to people I am around until they get used to my appearance. Clearly, I am used to my own appearance so I have no idea if my eyes are, in fact, "too close together." Though who decides what is "too close" I do not know. Am I the only person who wastes time thinking about these things when she's trying to fall asleep? Probably.

11) I finally made it to a Brewer game last weekend (first this season - sausage race shown above... as previously stated, I am a fish-only vegetarian - a pesco-vegetarian, if you will, I can not give up sushi - except while camping and at Wisconsin sporting events, when brats are a full-on go. Oh, Secret Stadium Sauce! Don't ever change), which was fantastic. They won, which was more fantastic. The Bratwurst won the sausage race, which was even more fantastic, and Trevor Hoffman got his wish for louder walk-out music, which was ridiculous on top of fantastic. Hooray for baseball! Hooray for the Brewers being over .500! Boo for the Brewers losing tonight, but hooray otherwise! I read an article once that described Brewer fans as over-enthusiastic little league parents who applaud their team just for trying. This is accurate.

That is all I have for today. I've had a great week (aside from the layoff possibility, which is not great, but the weather has been beautiful and they figured out what is wrong with my car, yay!), and I hope you have too. It's a little strange, not feeling pressured to come up with something to blog about every day. It's nice.

And then of course, when I come back what do I do? Post a list of random stuff. Alas. Habits! I do like my lists.

It would seem that I can't win.

2009-04-30T19:28:00.010-05:00

Happy May, everyone!

No, we're going to make a list of good things first:

1) I am wearing leggings for pants right now. This is a good thing as they are very comfortable, but I feel a little like Lindsay Lohan. I think I'll be okay as long as I don't go outside in them and pretend they are actual pants.
2) I had pickles and cheese for dinner. Nutritious? No. Delicious? Yes.
3) Bram Stoker's Dracula is on sale at Target for $5 right now! I got it yesterday before I realized my car is actually still broken. It's a very silly movie, but I like it. It's got the Oldman factor, which goes a long way and in fact completely overrides the Keanu Reeves factor. And then there is the Tom Waits factor - sprinkles on a cupcake, Tom Waits is. One thing you may not know about me is that I went through a pretty ridiculous vampire phase in middle school during which I read little other than Anne Rice and anything else I could find with vampires in it. I think everybody has a literary phase they're not tremendously proud of - that was mine.
4) Speaking of vampires, this sparkly lotion makes me feel like Alice Cullen! More sparkles!
5) My car is very clean. I finally took all the stuff out of it (this was a lot of stuff - a LOT of stuff) yesterday and while it doesn't work, it looks nice.
6) Tomorrow is Friday and I get to leave work at noon due to working last Saturday. Hooray! If I don't drive to see The Boyfriend I will take the car to a fix-it place and then take a nap on my couch.
7) The Office and 30 Rock were new today. Yay!
8) I do not know anyone who has the swine flu. Back, Captain Trips, back! I'm not worried until I see Randall Flagg. It is, however, fun to blame problems on the swine flu. I think my car may have it, as did the networked printers at work this morning.

The book, naturally, about eight thousand times better. Stu Redman was one of my first literary crushes. SHUT UP STU IS THE MAN.

9) Keanu just leaned out the side of the carriage and asked, "I say, is the Castle Aarrrrrrgh?"

Oh no, I rewound it and he actually asked if the castle is far. Bummer. "Perhaps he was dictating!"

That's a little better. It's hard to be too upset when the legendary Black Beast of Argh is in the picture.

80's nostalgia, again.

2009-04-29T20:54:00.005-05:00

The other day I mentioned my favorite childhood television shows. Today, I would like to talk about my favorite childhood movies.

My first and most favorite childhood movie was the Disney version of Robin Hood. When I was five, I thought this was just about the most romantic movie of all time, ever. Yes, two foxes gazing into each other's eyes amidst the fireflies and the pretty-good animation is just about the most romantic thing in the world. Yes, ever.

I just checked - I still know all the words to this song. (Ooh, he's going to steal Prince John's underwear! Tee hee!)

Today, I don't really get it. For some reason, this was the Disney movie I latched onto as a child - not The Little Mermaid (which is terrifying and horrible), not Sleeping Beauty, not something a normal child would be obsessed with, no. I had to insist on Robin Hood, the red-headed stepchild of Disney films. My theory is that (as you will see below) I rarely liked movies with people in them. Robin Hood has no people, only foxes and bears and bunny rabbits.

I won't lie, I do have Robin Hood and The Lion King on DVD. These are the only Disney movies I own and I still love them both. As I said, I was really into animals as a kid, which brings me to the next movie...

Benji! I don't remember a single thing about Benji, except that he was a dog and that when I was five he was in a movie called Benji: The Hunted. Seriously. I remember liking that one too, because Benji was lost in the wilderness, and maybe had to fight a bear? In For the Love of Benji, he has to outwit some Grecian spies... or something. He's a dog. I don't know.

This is what I watched as a child. It may explain some things about me, particularly the soft-focus on Benji and his lover-dog. Then again, I don't understand it, so maybe not.

Another movie about dogs that I was way too into was The Incredible Journey. This is not to be confused with Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, which is the remake my sister was totally obsessed with when she was a kid. No, this was the original 1963 version, in which the animals did not talk and instead there was an obnoxious voiceover. Also, there's a Bull Terrier in it, which is pretty sweet.

Though I'm pretty sure that if I watch the end (SHOWN ABOVE SPOILER ALERT!!), I will probably get choked up. Because I am a sap. They all live happily ever after, even the stupid cat.

My question is this: Why did my parents let me watch so many movies about dogs and yet, not let me have a puppy? Cruel, that's what it was. That is why it is a life goal of mine to one day own a dog. I'm really aiming high, here.

I was also very into the Muppets.

Really, who can argue with that? The Muppets are still awesome.

My favorite Star Wars film until I grew some taste was Return of the Jedi (it is now Empire, like any self-respecting nerd's would be). Because the Ewoks were cool, and so were the big big trees. Oh dear. I still say that if someone gave me $500 on the condition that I spend it on something completely frivolous and non-functional, I would buy a Revenge of the Jedi poster. Oh yes.

Then, of course, is my favorite movie of them all to this day, The Princess Bride. This is notable because there are only three dogs in this movie, for about five minutes (when Humperdink is talking to Yellin about the Thieves' Forest... there are some Irish Wolfhounds there), but I liked it anyway. I know people who do not like this movie, and I know people who think it is dumb, but the sad fact is that those people are wrong, or perhaps crazy. The Princess Bride is a genius combination of romance, action, comedy, and rodents, and as long as you are in favor of those things and don't care at all about subtext or themes or other Important Movie Terminology like "deepness" it is a nearly perfect film. It is the fault of this movie that I have insanely unrealistic expectations of the opposite sex.

I lose it when he calls her "Pwincess Buttah-kwap." I used to recite this movie to myself in bed as I waited to fall asleep, because I knew every word. I haven't watched it in a few years, because I don't want it to get stale. It is a movie I wish I could watch again for the first time. The major problem with this movie is, of course, that Buttercup is kind of lame. I realize that it is a parody of traditional fairy-tales and that she is simply filling the damsel in distress role, but she doesn't even do anything when Westley is wrestling the Rodent of Unusual Size in the Fire Swamp, AGHHHH! While this is my favorite movie of all time and I love almost everything about it, Buttercup is not my favorite leading lady, perfect breasts aside. She always sort of annoyed me. Buuuuut... it's hilarious and wonderful, and it is still my favorite movie.

"Probably he means no harm."
"He's very very short on... charm?"

Watching these things for most of my childhood and assuming everyone else watched similar films until they were fourteen, is it any wonder that I was 25 by the time I knew that Mary Jane meant marijuana? It's not that I'm dumb, just incredibly sheltered. It's not like the Benji is lighting up.

And for some reason, we all watched this (though I liked She-Ra better... why did she defend a different castle than He-Man, I wonder?):

...including me. He-Man? Why not Boy-Guy? Or Man-Dude? Him-Gent? Manlymanlymanlymanlyman?

Oh right, because he wasn't, really.

Oh, young self.

2009-04-28T19:58:00.002-05:00

I was thinking the other day about why blogging every day this month was something I felt like doing. I've had a blog for the last eight years, though the first incarnations were before the word "blog" and before blogging sites and sadly have been lost. However, most of them are still around. For example, here is what I wrote on April 30th, 2004:

I had to be very fancy yesterday because I've needed to do laundry for the last week or so, and the only clothes I have left are really very cute skirts and things, but they're skirts, and it's cold, and I feel like I have to wear far too much makeup with them.

Yesterday I figured I'd make it worth my while and go run all my errands while being all cute and hope that Prince AlmostCharming spied me from afar and accidentally hit me with his bike. This would prompt him to apologize profusely and take me inside to the nearest cheese shop, where he would say something like, "You eat these skeezy cheeses that I can't describe," and I would say something like, "Will I look good when I've gotten old? When I get so old and wrinkly that I look like David Brinkley? Oh, and by the way, your eyes are beady," and he'd say, "This is my verse, hel-LO!" then we'd know we were meant to be. He'd give me a glow in the dark band-aid because I hurt myself when he ran me over with his bike, oops. Then we'd have to go outside to find my shoe which had flown off when he hit me with the bike, where he'd find it in a little flower patch and while he retrieved my shoe he'd pick me a bunch of gerber daisies. He would of course give me a ride home on his bike, which would have a little basket in the back with a french baguette and some wine in it, and we'd sit on my couch to drink the wine and eat the baguette and the cheese while he gave me a massage because he felt so bad about hitting me with his bike. (But... really he did it on purpose, except for the running me over part, and he would say so, only funnier, because he'd be very funny, did I mention that?) He would know sonnet 116 and think it's was hilariously wonderfully coincidental that I have that on my door next to a big long Tolkien quote. I'd mention I was getting hungry, and he'd make me dinner using only the things he had in his bike basket and the stuff in my cupboards because he'd have wonderful creative culinary skills. It might taste a little bad because a lot of the stuff in my kitchen is probably stale, but it would be mostly good because he made it. We'd eat this dinner out on the balcony and listen to the pteradactyl in the marsh trying to attract a mate, and then we'd realize after some witty banter that I needed some lovin because I was still a little sore after he ran over me with his bike, and after that I can't tell you what would happen, because this is a PG journal.

Anyway, that didn't happen.

I returned a shirt to Shop-Ko and found stupid little errands to run all over the city in the hopes that someone would appreciate the trouble I went to to be cute because really, it's a pain not to have any clean clothes, but I don't think anybody noticed.

I'll have to try again next week. I can go a few more days without washing my jeans.

This was during my extra-fun senior year of college, and shortly after this I got a job at a really terrible place. It was the kind of place that sucks the joy from everything, not unlike Mordor. I've always used my blog as a sort of escape, and back before I took the job in Mordor it was a rare thing for me to miss a day posting. I didn't post nearly as much while I had that job, because it was very hard for me to find good things to say about it. After two years (I still can't believe I lasted two years in Mordor) the job in Mordor, I went to grad school, and research papers on [insert topic you'd be very impressed to hear I've written a research paper about here] come before blogging in grad school. Since then, I've been out of the habit.

I suppose I was just curious about whether or not I could actually make myself post every day for a month. I've obviously been having trouble coming up with stuff to say, but I haven't missed a day yet. Maybe what I can learn from April 30th, 2004 is that it isn't necessary to have anything to say at all. What did I really say up there? That I didn't feel like doing my laundry, which seemed to be enough.

It seems fitting that this is my 200th post on this blog. How exciting!

Stinging things are bad.

2009-04-27T18:52:00.009-05:00

I'm not afraid of many things. There are things I worry about, but I'm not afraid of many things. In fact, there are quite a few things I'm decidedly not afraid of. Spiders, okay. Snakes, cool. Clowns, provided they aren't the kind wielding a deadly weapon, are also all right.

However, when I get up in the morning and there's a hornet flying around the living room... nfsdopi A&(S_ df7 S(*DF 09S D& f9s* U DF)(SD&F)(SDfsd 9p8f7ds9* S&FFS(*S)PF()S8ds 90f 7ds(*&F ()SD*fs!!

Being the kind of person who likes to take care of things like that right away, I got the heaviest notebook I could find in my room (after firmly slamming the door behind me so the evil demon thing couldn't follow me into my zen oasis... I do have a miniature tree in my room) and went back outside to the living room, only to find that the stupid hornet had moved to the sliding door by the balcony. Right. If I were going to open the door to the balcony, that would involve me getting far too close to the hornet, but I did anyway. It was on the screen, so I opened the screen and slammed the glass door, so it had nowhere to go but out. Smart, self. Very good.

His Evilness didn't move! I was all, "You're free! Go! You have been given a second chance at life, little friend!" and it still wouldn't move. Rage! I had to open the screen door all the way and brush it outside with the big heavy notebook. This was the most terrifying thing I did all day.

I can't believe I survived.

I really hate things that fly and buzz and sting and especially things that have the hangly dangly legs. Oh, hangly dangly legs. It's not like I've never been stung before, I've been stung like, two dozen times and I don't even think it hurts all that much. I HAVE A PROBLEM. For some reason, the hangly dangly things make them all the more terrifying. If there's one in the classroom where I'm supposed to be learning, forget it. I'll just watch it the entire class, making sure I always know where it is so I'm not unpleasantly surprised by evil dropping down the back of my shirt.

I played tennis in high school, and I think the courts where we played were poured on some kind of hideous ancient wasp breeding ground, perhaps some sacred place where thousands of stinging insects were wronged and now haunt it and encourage their descendants in horrible deeds of vengeance against the human race. I earned myself the title of Bee Slayer because I perfected the skill of killing bees and wasps and the hangly-danglylike with my racquet. I was good.

Too good.

I think they're out for my blood.

Now, if hornets and wasps and stuff were huge, say, the size of cars, their scary factor would cease to be so paralyzing because you could see them coming from miles away and their stealth sneaking in under the door skillz would no longer be on their side.

However, I guess if you got stung you'd definitely die, and it'd probably hurt a lot more.

You get your ups and downs either way, I guess.

In the middle of the earth, in the land of the Shire...

2009-04-26T16:48:00.002-05:00

People have been posting music to their blogs lately. Here is some music I like.

This is Gillian Welch and David Rawlings with Old Crow Medicine Show playing "Wrecking Ball."

It has quite a bit of chatting at the beginning, but this is probably my favorite Gillian Welch song and one of my favorite songs in general. Both Gillian and David Rawlings are incredibly talented musicians and songwriters, but I think what I like best about them is how obvious it is that they love what they're doing. This might not be the best video to use as an example, but Rawlings makes the best faces when he's playing, sometimes you can tell that he's thinking ahead in a song and he's come up with something really awesome to play next, because he starts grinning like crazy, clearly digging what he's doing. I find it very refreshing to watch talented people who pretty clearly do what they do first because they love it, and second because they can make money doing it.

Also, it is a not-so-secret ambition of mine to one day become a proficient bluegrass banjo player. About five years ago in a fit of impulse I bought a banjo on e-bay for $89, and have yet to learn to play it. I was under the mistaken impression that since I already know how to read music, it wouldn't be that hard to learn to play a string instrument when I'm coming from a clarinet/saxophone background, with which you don't really need to think much about complicated stuff like chord construction/progression. Slightly naive, self.

It sure photographs nice though, doesn't it?

I was going to put here some songs that I would play on a nice spring day with all the windows of my car rolled down... if I had a car... but the only decent-quality video I could find of Butch Walker's "Hot Girls in Good Moods" was full of Avril Levine pictures, and I didn't want to subject you to that. And then the only version I could find of "Gin House Blues" was not Nina Simone, but all slowed-down Eric Clapton. Alas.

Well. That did not go nearly as well as I had hoped. Because of that, you may have "The Mariner's Revenge Song:"

And "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins."

You can thank me later.

We named the dog Indiana!

2009-04-25T20:40:00.001-05:00

Almost every time I sign in to Facebook these days, another one of my friends is engaged. Let's forget for the moment the fact that some of these "friends" are actually more like acquaintances from high school I freely admit I only friended because I was curious about what they are up to, but everyone is getting engaged. There were two new wedding photo albums on my news feed this week. This week! For a time I was taking some small comfort in the fact that there were a handful of my Facebook friends who were not engaged, I was not alone. This is no longer the case.

The un-engaged, un-married club is becoming much more exclusive, you see. There are not many of us left. We're a dying breed, the reasonably attractive, fairly intelligent, single twenty-somethings who don't have a significant other (here being a fiancee or spouse) with whom to share things like food, student loan debt, an apartment, and a name. This club is awesome to the max. We have to change the secret handshake every couple weeks because people keep getting engaged and leaving the club.

The other scary thing when you get to be my age is that your friends start having babies. Now, I have no problem with babies. They're small and cute and make funny noises and do funny things and make people happy. The thing is that I personally am so far from ready to have a baby that babies are not even on my radar right now. The fact that people my age and younger are having them at a somewhat alarming rate is making me feel left behind. I thought it was scary when my friends were just getting engaged, but now that there are kids in the mix (everywhere) it's as if I'm now two steps behind everyone else.

Two steps behind?! That's like being the one of your friends who has only seen A New Hope when everyone else is finished with Return of the Jedi! You wouldn't know about Yoda, or that Darth Vader is Luke's father! (Spoiler alert.)

Don't misunderstand. I'm very happy where I am. I have a great job, a supportive family, the most amazing boyfriend on the planet and though I'm in my late twenties, I don't feel like I need to get married and start a family right now. A few years ago after I graduated from college I was feeling the pressure to get married and "start my life," but that's (thankfully) passed and these days I'm just happy being happy with what I have - which is a pretty sweet deal. The only things I could ask for is that The Boyfriend and I live in the same city, and for a big, big dog. The irritating thing is a tiny voice in my head occasionally wondering if I should be feeling like a failure due to my single and childless status, based on the information I'm getting from my Facebook peers.

< sarcasm > And we should definitely compare ourselves to our friends,
right? < /sarcasm >

With that in mind, I continue to be two steps perhaps not behind but in another direction, and continue to be content with that. It's not like it's a race.

Perhaps I should invest in a bike.

2009-04-24T19:41:00.010-05:00

Oh, today. Today was a weird day, it was all over the place. Mood-swingy.

It all started with last weekend. The Boyfriend decided he wanted to go to the plant nursery near the state park where we camped the morning we left. At this nursery, I found a miniature tree.

Now, this was no ordinary miniature tree. This was a miniature tree that needed me. This was a miniature tree that was less than $10. It was meant to be. Our love is pure.

I brought the miniature tree home (it's a juniper tree). Like all things you find at a nursery, it came in a cheapo, temporary pot, and needed to be replanted. I put this off all week, because I am cheap. Today after work, I decided I would get some soil, a couple pots, some seeds, and re-pot my juniper tree while I planted flowers for the summer. I went to the store and picked everything out. I got the biggest bag of potting soil I could find and three giant pots, as well as a nice assortment of seeds (I'm going to make peas this year!). I bought these things and got in my car. My car started (victory!) and I drove toward my apartment. Everything was going fine, until I got on the interstate exit ramp.

My car stalled. Again. It did not re-start, because my car doesn't do that.

If you have known me for more than two months, you are aware that my car is a continual source of... problem. Particularly since I moved up here and took this job. With this latest incident, I have now exhausted my AAA roadside service, if that gives you any indication of how many times I have been stranded so far in 2009. (If it doesn't - that's a lot. A lot of being stranded time.)

This time, my car stalled blocking traffic at a major intersection on my side of town. AAA informed me that a tow truck would be along in about an hour and a half. An hour. And. A half.

Luckily, Officer Larsen of the GBPD stopped by to see what the hubub was, and Made Things Happen. I've always wanted to be the kind of person who Makes Things Happen. I seem to be the kind of person who Stuff Happens To, instead. Stuff like stopping traffic, not by being hot and naked like Madonna, but instead being sweaty and frustrated and in a non-functional car in the middle of the street. Hooray for Officer Larsen (who was not only able to get a tow truck to me in ten minutes, but was also very chatty and personable, very helpful when one is confronted with Pathetic Citizen)!

After being towed to a service station approximately two miles from my apartment (a service station closed until Monday morning, sadface), I sat in my car and had a good think. I had potting soil in my car, and pots. I also had seeds, some beer from camping last weekend, and a juniper tree at home that needed my love. I couldn't let them down, not all weekend long while I left these things in my car at a closed service station! Heavens no.

So I put my pots, my beer, my fleece, and my seeds into the ridiculously huge bag I was given at the store. I put my purse on my arm and hefted the potting soil on my shoulder. Thus, I set out for my apartment.

It looked something like this.

I may have mentioned in a blog about running that I live at the top of a hill. This is as problematic when walking carrying a huge bag of potting soil and an assortment of garden supplies as it is when running. I must have looked incredibly pathetic, because when I got about halfway to my apartment, a completely awesome woman named Sue ran out of her apartment and informed me that she was going to carry my potting soil the rest of the way.

This was the first time I had met Sue in my life. If I hadn't been holding the potting soil I would have hugged her. That potting soil is insanely heavy. I thanked her but told her that she didn't have to do that, because it was a beautiful day and not only was I enjoying the walk (and I was, except for the fact that the potting soil was roughly the weight of a pregnant manatee) I wouldn't want her to walk a whole mile to my apartment carrying my stupid potting soil. So she gave me a ride.

Sue is awesome. I run into really, really great people when my car dies. That is the bright side to every breakdown I have - I met Officer Larsen and Sue. I am glad I live in the same city as the two of them.

Then I got home and checked my mail, in which was included an invitation to join the library science students national honor society, because I apparently rock. Or something. And that was really, really nice.

So I re-potted my juniper tree, and now I am having pickles and wine for dinner. You can do that when you're a grown-up and your car is broken. You're allowed to have whatever you want for dinner.

Ladybugs' picnic - in my pants.

2009-04-23T21:57:00.004-05:00

Because it's so late and I had a very busy day, I will now tell you the grossest thing that happened to me today and call it a blog post. Are you ready?

This morning I found a dead ladybug.

In my nylons.

After I put them on.

Thus, my message to you is this: If your apartment has the midwestern abundance-of-ladybugs problem, be sure to check your undergarments for dead ladybugs before you put them on. Otherwise, you will feel yucky. Yucky here being the technical term for how I felt for the rest of the day.

At least it wasn't alive. And at least it wasn't one of these, alive or dead (tip: do not click on that link).

*shudder*

2009-04-22T17:24:00.005-05:00

Before I get into more RETRO-AWESOMENESS, I wanted to mention that I think most of you are aware that I am a librarian (if you were not, now you are! Hooray, libraries!). A librarian is not a babysitter or a replacement caregiver. It concerns me when people think that the library is responsible for what their children read. That's called parenting and isn't something I'd be very good at.

The university where I received my master's degree has recently come under fire for supporting local librarians in their fight against the removal of some materials from the young adult section of the library. The amount of hate in the world makes me sad.

Thus, RETRO-AWESOMENESS!

First of all, in the spirit of libraries and reading, I present... old-skool Reading Rainbow theme song!

The Boyfriend and I were talking today about particularly excellent episodes of Reading Rainbow. I like the one with the book about the farmer in Mexico who was plowing and then... plowed up a volcano! Oh noes! I think it's called Hill of Fire. That was a good one. I also geeked out over the episode on the starship Enterprise. It might've blown my mind a little bit that Lt. LaForge was also LeVar. HOLY COW!

Reading Rainbow was so cool.

Another program I adored as a kid was Dot and the Bunny. Dot and the [thing of the week] was an Australian TV show that I didn't actually realize was a series until thirty seconds ago. My parents had a free trial of HBO at some point during my early childhood and taped Dot and the Bunny for some reason. I have seen this about 23,875 times and until this evening thought I'd dreamed the whole thing up because nobody else I've spoken to has ever heard of it.

In this particular episode, Dot wanders into the wilderness in search of a joey after a mother kangaroo asks for her help. It's a weird combination of live-action and animation, and is the reason I know the song "Waltzing Matilda." Dot sings a lot of songs and makes animals cry (she might also cry herself, there's a lot of crying in this one), before living happily ever after. I thought it was the greatest movie ever.

I also really dug Square One. Square One was all about math. Apparently watching television shows about math does not make one good at it, because I am math-stupid.

Most of the reason I liked Square One was because of...

MATHNET! One time, Kate Monday broke her leg! Remember? Remember? I felt so bad for her! I think Mathnet was its own show, and they only showed little five-minute recaps at the end of Square One. The first time I saw Dragnet, I thought they were ripping off Mathnet. Oh, silly child.

Then there is 3-2-1 Contact. I remember singing the theme song on my swingset. It was probably really annoying for my neighbors. I'm pretty sure I didn't watch the rest of the show, but this was on after Square One and I really liked the song.

Catchy!

Clearly, I was only allowed to watch PBS as a child. That's probably good. I spent a lot of time outside. On the swingset, playing Mathnet.

I have a dream... a song to sing.

2009-04-21T18:37:00.004-05:00

I have insane dreams. So does everyone. Nobody likes to hear about other people's insane dreams.

Too bad. We're nine days from the end of the month and unless you want to hear about the lint I found on my office chair this morning (it was purple), we're going to talk about this.

A few months ago I had a dream, the entirety of which was a cooking show hosted by Barack Obama and Derek Jeter. They made burritos.

Another recent dream involved ordering pizza at The Boyfriend's house. When the pizza arrived I answered the door and discovered that instead of bringing us pizza, the pizza boy was actually robbing us! I had to let The Boyfriend know this in a subtle yet effective way. Luckily I had a giant bag of message candy hearts with me, and while being led down the stairs at gunpoint I dug around in the bag and found one that said "Mystery pizza boy robbery" on it. I threw this to The Boyfriend across the room so he would know we were being robbed.

I'm not sure why he didn't get it from the fact that the pizza boy had a gun instead of a pizza.

Friday morning, between hits of the snooze button, I had a dream that I was sitting in Dumbledore's office for a very important and impressive magical reason. At one point in our conversation, Dumbledore said to me, "I'm sure you're wondering about the sheepdog Ferrari incident."

And then my alarm went off.

Noooo! I absolutely am wondering about the sheepdog Ferrari incident! What was it? WILL I NEVER KNOW?

I could never come up with this stuff when I am awake.

Pictures are good when you're out of words.

2009-04-20T20:39:00.012-05:00

Vintage picture day! This is me, dressed as a "Ghostbuster." I had a very special imagination.

~~Clark Kent~~ My dad and I. My dad looks so awkward in this picture, it's amazing. I just look fussy.

Fun fact that I learned last weekend at our family gathering: I threw up a lot as a baby (one of the delights of hanging out with people who have known you for your entire life is learning these fun facts about yourself). Isn't that nice? It's HOT, is what it is. I grew out of it.

Best rain ensemble ever! Notice Snoopy. I dug Snoopy.

At the state fair! My favorite parts of this picture are my Snoopy glasses (I also had these in red), my alligator drink, and the clothes of the people in the background. Yikes, 1984.

These two dapper gentlemen are my grandfathers. My grandfather on the right was ginger, though you can't tell from the picture. There is also a grandfather missing, because I had three of them. What I really want to do is get a bunch of my grandmothers' old pictures and scan those, because old pictures are awesome. The oldest pictures I have seem to be from the early '80s.

I still like the swings.

Swimming with my mom! I was a very gifted swimmer as a baby. Probably because my swimming suit was sweet.

I like old pictures. Looking through them, I've learned that an abnormally large percentage of my clothing growing up was from Oshkosh B'Gosh. My fashion sense is largely the same (that is to say I don't have any - my mom did when I was a kid, but now that I'm on my own... oh dear), except I don't wear quite as many overalls as I did when I was a kid. It's less charming on someone in her twenties.

The capital of New Hampshire is not "That One Place, Oh Shoot."

2009-04-19T15:54:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I went camping. Today I am le tired. This is mostly due to the fact that the temperature dropped about 45 degrees in the night and I spent a good amount of time while I should have been sleeping instead having completely insane dreams which woke me up (thanks to the mini-brats, perhaps... but my my, they were delicious), then realizing that my face was cold, and attempting to re-adjust my sleeping bag in the dark to remedy this problem without sliding off my Thermarest. It probably didn't help that I forgot my coat (and socks) at home. Genius.

I have discovered the new greatest thing to do while car-camping! Find the local thrift store and peruse the game bin. Not only will you find something which may or may not have all the pieces, it will probably cost you about $2.04 and provide hours of entertainment. We played the Discover America game and learned that we are woefully bad at naming state capitals. I knew them all in fifth grade, I wonder what happened.

I also brought The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide just in case we needed to identify a mystery primate. I thought I saw one at one point, but it was just a small dog. Another sighting turned out to be an elderly woman in a furry coat. Alas.

All in all, a successful camping excursion despite the lack of mystery primates and the fact that I couldn't remember Lansing, Michigan. Thus I declare camping season open!

Mountains, see you in a few months!

Let me hear that, get me near that crunchy granola suite!

2009-04-18T00:11:00.004-05:00

This photo from last summer represents what it looks like outside right now, in that it is dark, not that I have a kayak tree, and also the fact that I am going camping tomorrow. Er, this afternoon. If only this camping involved kayaking. Oh goodness, tomorrow would be an amazing day.

I'm not sure if this is cheating or not since I just made a post an hour ago, but it is technically the 18th and knowing me, I will wake up late tomorrow and will not get to my campsite by the time I said I would. And... well, really nothing too bad will happen, but I'll feel bad about making The Boyfriend wait for me to set up the tent. But should that happen, Blog Every Day April will certainly go by the wayside. Thus, I am posting now.

Here are some reasons I love camping:

- Nature is extremely cool.
- When you get home from camping, your bed is the most amazing thing ever.
- Similarly, your shower is the most amazing thing ever.
- Campfires smell really, really good.
- The only time I eat meat is if it is a brat and it is grilled (or at a sporting event in the state of Wisconsin). I call this being a pseudo-vegetarian. For dinner we are cooking brats over a campfire. I may completely freak out. The last time I had a brat was before the Brewers made the playoffs. Oh goodness. I love brats.
- I enjoy sleeping outside on the ground and getting dirty.
- Sleeping after being outside in the fresh air all day is different than sleeping after working in a library all day. Different and better.
- Usually I go camping with The Boyfriend. Any time spent with The Boyfriend is automatically pretty awesome.
- The birds where we are going are the loudest alarm clock in the world.
- There is some kind of satisfaction to be gained from knowing you can survive a night outside.
- It's much quieter than my apartment.
- It is the only time I feel remotely comfortable accepting that I am, or that a part of me is, sort of, a little bit, a hippie.
- Occasionally I desperately need a break from my apartment, my street, my job, my refrigerator, and my car.
- Really, if you've been camping and don't like it, I can't convince you of its awesomeness. I'd be even less successful attempting to convince you of the awesomeness of backpacking - people who get it, get it, and if you don't... that's okay. We just know you're missing out.

Now is the time when I play Neil Diamond far too loudly for the hour and actually pack for said camping. Holly Holy, now.

Going to the chapel and we're... gonna get loooooost...

2009-04-17T21:52:00.011-05:00

Today I went on a quest. You see, in the faculty and staff newsletter a couple weeks ago, the author mentioned a chapel in the arboretum on campus. This is a secret chapel. Naturally, being a fan of both hiking and secret things, I needed to find it. Today was the perfect opportunity because today was the first day that was nice enough for hiking in the campus arboretum. I was extremely pleased. And motivated.

First, I got some directions from my coworkers. These directions boiled down to, "Go to the soccer fields, cross the street to find the trail and go right as much as possible."

So I did that.

And walked.

And met some deer while I walked. I work at a university and we have deer all over campus, because of awesome. HIPPIE U!

And I walked some more.

Eventually (about three miles later) all my "going right" brought me back to the trailhead where I'd started. I had not found the chapel. I was slightly annoyed. I was sweatier than I had expected, you see.

Then I realized that in my excitement of being an intrepid voyager, I had crossed the wrong street after the soccer fields. Oops. This is not terribly surprising, given my horrible sense of direction. Sometime we'll go hiking and I will demonstrate for you why you never, ever want to give me the map.

However, once I realized my error, I easily found the chapel!

The chapel is really neat, and definitely worth a four-or-so mile hike to find. Even though for normal, sane people, with a normal, sane person's sense of direction it would have been about a mile. It was built in the 1920s, and apparently it's a secret. There's an "urban" legend (I say "urban" because if you knew where this campus was... you'd laugh at the use of "urban") amongst the students that there was a serial killer back in the 1940s who killed three or four people back in the arboretum, and then washed the blood off his hands with the holy water in the chapel.

This is not true. Take it from me - there is a serial killer stalking the campus where I went to college, so I know about these things (okay, I admit that I do not believe the serial killer theory at my alma mater and in fact think it is totally ridiculous).

If I can get anything up on this blog tomorrow it will be amazing. Alas. I am going camping (this is not alas, and is, in fact, HUZZAH!) and leaving in the morning, so if I have time I will post, but if I don't... I'm going camping.

Tonight I had a long conversation with one of my best friends. We found great amusement in the fact that he is watching The Phantom Menace against his will while I'm delighting in The Empire Strikes Back. I'm pretty sure I win this round.

Sasquatch, we know your legend's real!

2009-04-16T18:36:00.007-05:00

Oh boy, have I got a treat for you today. You will in no way regret spending the next five minutes of your life reading this, I promise.

Today at work a thought popped into my head. This happens often, because as Lucas says in Empire Records, "Who knows where thoughts come from? They just appear." Incredible. The thought that popped into my head today was about the lobizon. Now, allow me to tell you before you click on that link that it seems to be incredibly difficult to find information about the lobizon on the Internet. Here follows the description of the lobizon I was given by a friend: "It's like a wolf, only instead of paws it has human baby feet." Knowing him, this is probably completely inaccurate, but we're going to go with it - like a wolf, but with baby feet.

I'll let you think about that for a second. Okay.

Can you imagine anything less horrifying than a wolf with baby feet? I'm sure it ate the babies to get their feet or something, but the description of "a wolf with baby feet" is completely ridiculous. Below is an actual picture I took of the lobizon on a recent trip to South America:¹

See, that just looks clumsy.

This got me thinking about other terrifying creatures. The Loch Ness monster, bigfoot, the chupacabra... and this thinking led me to the library. What I found there was... The Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti, and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide!

Here is what I have learned so far from the Field Guide:

- There are many unidentified primates in the world, and lumping them all together under the moniker of "bigfoot" or "sasquatch" is a huge mistake. Don't go there.
- The sasquatch has a pointed head. So if you see a large, ape-like-man-thing-creature and it does not have a pointed head, it is not the sasquatch. Sorry.
- If the creature has a beer-belly, it is probably the Pennsylvania Creature, first observed by Professor Jan Klement in the 1970s.
- In central Arkansas, you might run across a creature known as "Booger." From the illustration, this one looks more like an escaped chimpanzee than a bigfoot. Er, sasquatch.
- If it is eating a goat and has spiky gray fur, it's the chupacabra. I'm not sure why the chupacabra is in a book about apes, but I didn't write it.
- In Siberia, there is a man-ape who wears clothes. Can you blame him, living in Siberia?
- If you encounter a mystery primate, you should immediately take a plaster cast of its footprint. Or kill it. It's up to you.

The lobizon, though. Terrifying.

¹ To my dismay, I have never been to South America.

I have never smelled napalm in the morning. Or the afternoon, for that matter.

2009-04-15T20:06:00.003-05:00

There are a few things which trigger feelings or memories for me. One is smell, another is music, another is books.

Whenever I read The Witches I am instantly ten years old again, and scared out of my mind. I think the first time I read that book I got close to cardiac arrest. It's so good. When I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone I am a junior in high school and completely enthralled. Neverwhere reminds me of a time before I'd heard of Neil Gaiman. (That was a dark time indeed.)

The scent of wet asphalt on a hot day after a brief rainstorm smells a lot like my childhood (as does grass). This happens to be one of my favorite smells, which some people find gross. To me, it smells like summer and playing on the swings. You know, the swings.

Evergreen trees and campfire and lake water smell like the Boundary Waters, one of two places I consider to be the best place in the world. I developed an appreciation for the outdoors and camping there, I learned to canoe there, and I met wonderful people there. I unpacked my tent a few weeks ago when the weather was nice, and it still smells like Boundary Waters from last summer. Favorite smell!

Scotch (particularly scotch with an especially strong peaty smell) smells like Ireland. Ireland is the other best place in the world. It smells like peat, bread (thank you, Guinness brewery), and grass/mud. If I could bottle "Ireland" as a scent, I'd probably bathe in it every day. Peat might be my other very favorite smell. People would probably think I smelled gross.

The smell of lobster reminds me of my grandparents' house. The musty used-bookstore smell reminds me of high school, when I first discovered second-hand bookstores. A certain flavor of deodorant gives me visions of the high school band trip to San Antonio, where one of my friends with whom I shared a hotel room used it. The smell of latex gloves make me think of dissecting cats in biology, and then smelling like dead cat for the rest of the day. Stinky feet make me think of gymnastics - all gymnastics gyms smell like sweat, feet, and chalk.

I like smells. I'm a very smell-oriented person. I smell things before I eat or drink them. Depending how well I know the person I occasionally smell things before other people eat or drink them. I'm pretty sure this makes me weird. People will ask if I want to try some of their [insert appropriate food/drink/marker here] and I'll say, "Well, sort of. Could I smell it?"

I HAVE A COMPULSIVE SMELLING PROBLEM.

And that is what I have to say about smells.

Music will have to wait for another time.

Things I discovered the other day on the Internet.

2009-04-14T20:06:00.003-05:00

I would like, if I may, to tell you about the neatest thing I discovered at work today.

As you may be aware, The Boyfriend was contemplating going to graduate school in a place far away. In an effort to figure out how this was going to work for us, I did some good old Internet investigating and discovered...

GeoMidpoint!! So cool!

What city is in the middle of Cheyenne, Wyoming and Miami, Florida? Gillett, Arkansas. Dublin, Ireland and Volgograd, Russia? Olsztyn, Poland. Halifax, Nova Scotia and Anchorage, Alaska? Middle of nowhere, Nunavut! Isn't that wonderful?

The other thing that I discovered while researching what would make The Boyfriend living far away more awesome is Cost to Drive!

Also so cool!!

You put in two cities, your car's year, make, and model and it figures out where you'll need to stop for gas, as well as how much it will cost based on current prices! You're driving from your home at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave to Eureka, California in your 2003 Jeep Wranger with four-wheel drive? That will cost you $346.97 and your carbon footprint will be 4207.9 lbs. Also, it would cost you $350 to fly, so you might as well save those $4.00 and buy yourself some McNuggets on your way, Mr. President!

So many cool things!

Aaaaaand... 2009 Packers Schedule! Who wants to go to the Vikings game on November 1st? Come on...

Not to mention the avian flu.

2009-04-13T20:21:00.003-05:00

Quite often, I find myself awake at a time no human being should be. As How I Met Your Mother taught us, nothing good happens after 2 AM. Except goat adventures. Unfortunately, usually when I am awake after 2 AM it is not because I am having farm adventures and hijinks, it is because I am worried about something. Occasionally my mind is too restless to sleep, so it wanders around from topic to topic until it finds something that distresses me enough to dwell on it rather than sleeping.

This is extremely annoying.

In an effort to avoid this, I have decided to make a list of things that are not acceptable things to worry about instead of sleeping. I present here, that list for your review. If you worry about any of these things, you are probably insane. Also, you should stop worrying about them.

1) North Korea - Though the world would be a much better place if I could, I'm afraid there is absolutely nothing I can do about how much the leadership of North Korea hates the population of the United States. Not only am I a lowly librarian, I also do not speak a single word of Korean. Not worth worrying about.

2) Cavities - There is something I can do about cavities. I tend to get a lot of cavities because I have "groovy" teeth. Groovy in the sense that they have a lot of grooves, not in the sense that they're totally groovy, dude. Of course, the things I can do about this are things I will have done before going to bed, and thus do not warrant worrying.

3) AT&T - There was a longer explanation here, but just typing it up stressed me out and I wouldn't want to subject you to that. Suffice to say I have done absolutely everything I can in this situation, including calling and e-mailing the CEO of AT&T (his name is Randall). I will now consider him my close friend. This warrants no more worry.

4) Zombies and rapists breaking into my apartment - This is simply a silly thing to worry about. I keep a hammer beside my bed for this exact occurrence. Next!

5) Who will win the battle for the cowl? I'm kind of pulling for Dick Grayson. But this is also another thing that does not warrant my worry. Not just because it is imaginary. But mostly.

6) Ebola and Necrotizing Fasciitis - Ebola is probably the scariest disease I can think of and flesh-eating bacteria is just gross. However, there is nothing I can do about either, and I live in a place where it is unlikely I will contract one of them. I used ebola as an excuse once to explain why my homework was not finished. It didn't work. "I had a light touch of ebola," is not such a believable excuse. I'd go with Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.

7) Money - I'm going to be paying off my student loan for the next nine-and-a-half years. However, for now I can actually afford it, and worrying about an imaginary time in the future when I will not be able to does not help at all. I'd rather think about Where's George if I'm going to think about money.

8) Bear attacks - It is well known that bears eat people basically all the time. Luckily this is generally not in apartment buildings.

9) Sleep - The fact that I can not sleep. This should be obvious, but when I can't sleep I get worried about how tired I'm going to be in the morning and how incapable of functioning I'll be and the fact that I might sleep through my alarm clocks (I have more than one alarm clock because I have an amazing talent to incorporate the sound of my alarm clock into whatever dream I'm having... my alarm radio is set to NPR so current events and the president show up a lot in them). This is an especially dumb thing to worry about.

There are far too many things to be not worried about. I have wonderful and interesting friends, a supportive family, and no bad debt. I have a good job and a nicer camera (and more awesome boyfriend) than I deserve. I have four limbs and am not allergic to peanuts. I live in a country where a woman can receive the same education as a man. I am very lucky, and those are the things I should think about when I can't sleep instead of things like the fact that the bonobos are disappearing or whether I will ever be able to retire. Or afford that yacht. On the moon.

Chicks and flowers.

2009-04-12T21:25:00.002-05:00

I spent the weekend with family, which was delightful. I have lots of cousins, and despite the number of us I don't get to see most of them often so when we do get together it's an occasion. Usually an occasion with lots of chocolate. I have not yet recovered.

The Boyfriend's parents got me these flowers for Easter. They are quite possibly the most adorable flowers ever. Allow me to argue this further:

I think you see my point. Quite clearly the most adorable flowers ever.

So jokes!

2009-04-11T09:49:00.003-05:00

Two pies are sitting in an oven. The first pie looks at the second pie and says, "Man... it's really getting hot in here, isn't it?"

The second pie says, "OH MY GOD A TALKING PIE!"

That is my favorite joke. Because I have the same sense of humor as a five year-old.

Here's another incredibly sophisticated joke:

Knock knock!
Who's there?
Spaghetti.
Spaghetti wh-
AAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!

And I'm out.

DRIVE-BY!

2009-04-10T16:14:00.004-05:00

I'm going home for the weekend where Internet access is shared and limited, so I think blogging every day in April will probably end after today. Alas.

Drive-by posting before I leave! Happy Easter to those who celebrate it, happy Brewers' home opener to those who are Brewers fans, and everyone else have a great weekend!

To-Do Lists

2009-04-09T18:54:00.004-05:00

I make a lot of to-do lists. Mostly this does not help me remember to-do things, but is helpful when I'm trying to fall asleep and stuff on my mind is refusing to let me do so. Quite often I make and forget them at work. The next day I get to work and realize I haven't done any of the things I was supposed to. It is not unusual for me to put things on the to-do list that I would undoubtedly do anyway, like "watch The Office" and "eat dinner," just so I can be sure I have something to cross off the list.

I'm not sure why "weekeng?" is an item to-do, but it could probably also be crossed off.

Sometimes I find these lists in my bag weeks later. Usually I have no idea what they mean. "Jane Austen & zombies, yes" refers to the fact that I wanted to remember to pre-order Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. I did.

Apparently I didn't actually do that last one. This was the back of another to-do list, so it was quite lengthy.

Sometimes I also write my future self notes in an effort to remember to do things. (I still haven't found the iron.)

Recently I have decided that this is a major waste of resources. Not only does it take my increasingly valuable time to write these useless lists, but it also takes paper that I almost always forget at work or in my bag (thus rendering the list completely useless). This makes me think that I should probably start e-mailing my to-do lists to myself, which would prevent me from forgetting them at work, AND save a tree. Maybe the next step is to start making sense.

... honestly, I hope not.

I realize it has been for a week, but how is it already April? Huh?

2009-04-08T10:41:00.006-05:00

Photo unrelated to the rest of the post! I just hadn't looked at this one in a while, and remembered that I like it. Maybe someone else out there will like it, too. I miss the Milwaukee Art Museum, it's so photogenic.

I went running for the first time since October today. It didn't go well. In fact, it went so astoundingly not well that I may find excuses not to do it again for quite a while. I do this every year, and it's obviously the exact opposite reaction I should have to running but... it's going to be thirty degrees tomorrow! It's hard to breathe when you run in below-freezing temperatures. Perhaps next week?

I have to start sometime. There was talk of climbing a mountain this summer and since I have no small mountains (or mountains of any size, for that matter) on which to practice, running will have to do. And I will have to do it. But maybe not tomorrow.

Story! This is the story of my very first embarrassment.

When I was six, my parents informed me that my peaceful only-child existence of bliss would soon be forever disturbed by the presence of a sibling. I honestly don't remember being particularly happy or sad about this, just interested.

I must have done something to suggest that I was concerned about the attention It would be taking away from me when It arrived, because my parents enrolled me in something called Sibling Class. I used to believe this was something every child had to do when a baby was entering his or her life, but since talking to other people, I have learned that this is not the case and is, in fact, completely weird.

In Sibling Class, children are taught not to hate or be jealous of their new baby brother or sister. They are also taught about where babies come from, presumably to save parents from explaining it themselves. I was by far the oldest child in my sibling class and old enough by that time to be sort of self-conscious about it. I wasn't a big fan of Sibling Class.

At the end of our last Sibling Class, we were instructed to go give our mommies a hug. You may be aware that six year-olds are not very tall. Usually they are very short. I was the kind of six year-old who learned to distinguish people from one another by looking at them from their waist down.

I think you can see where this is going.

I was feeling particularly gung-ho that day (possibly because it was the last day of Sibling Class, or maybe I'd just had too much sugar) and I ran to my mother and gave her my best, biggest hug ever. I then looked up at my mother, only to find a large and very surprised African-American woman wearing the same shirt as my mother, trying not to laugh at the situation. I may have received a pat on the back.

"Oh!" Six-year-old me said. The last time I checked my mother was not a large African-American woman and I was probably as surprised as her to find that we were hugging.

I'm pretty sure my face turned purple. It is the first time I can ever remember being embarrassed. Mortified, even. Isn't becoming aware of how you are perceived by others awful? I suppose it's necessary and makes life easier for all of us in the end, but it might be interesting to meet someone who never realized or cared about what other people thought of what they did. I'd had the audacity to hug a stranger. Heavens. What cheek!

Luckily since then I have done far more cheeky, embarrassing things and this is but a fond memory of learning not to hate my unborn sister and getting a hug from a stranger in return. Which, really, was a pretty sweet deal. And I eventually got a really awesome sister, which I can't complain about.

Happy late birthday, Sister! (Her birthday was last week, but she's getting her present this weekend, see, since I didn't get to see her on her real birthday.) I hugged a stranger at Sibling Class and don't resent you for it - you're that awesome.

This is my boom-stick.

2009-04-07T10:12:00.008-05:00

Is this a pigeon or a mourning dove? I honestly do not know. I consider myself a wilderness-and-nature-savvy young woman in that I can survive a week in the wilderness on my own, but apparently I don't know birds very well. This one frequents my balcony. I think I'll call him (yes, of course it's a him! I'm a nature girl, remember?) Steve.

Occasionally, I find that I have accidentally allowed myself to become surrounded by people who do not build me up. You know the type - I don't think they can help it, but being around certain personality types, generally overly-negative, critical people is very draining and brings me down. I prefer to surround myself with positive people, people who allow me to laugh at my mistakes (and can laugh at their own), and people who can appreciate a randomly-placed Army of Darkness reference (that last one is not mandatory, but a big plus).

But what to do when you find yourself unable to escape the presence of someone or someones who are terrible for your mood and self-esteem? It is difficult and not always possible to remove yourself from family members and co-workers who adversely effect your internal (and occasional external) sense of joy. Thus, I have decided that I need to come up with a list of things to try when I find myself feeling like a useless screw-up.

1) First, one must immediately find a way to take maximum advantage of the time one is away from these people. Otherwise the negativity will build on itself like Tetris blocks when you accidentally leave a great big hole somewhere, and then the music will get really fast and you'll get really stressed out and you won't get your rocketship or your running ostriches. And that will be a drag.

2) Keep a list of people who are good for you and interact with them as soon as possible. This evening, I called The Phoenix Friend. The Phoenix Friend is always good for a laugh. Unfortunately, she lives in Phoenix and I live in Wisconsin. This is a problem. Enter Alexander Graham Bell and his remarkable telephone invention! Yesterday The Phoenix Friend and I had a somewhat exasperating-yet-hilarious discussion about who the other would be if we were characters in Twilight. I say she would be Rosalie, and she says I would be Alice. At least neither of us is Bella. I have a feeling tonight will be Harry Potter. She likes to insist that I am Hermione and that she is Narcissa Malfoy. I may tell her I think she is Tonks, just to see what happens.

3) If you have a journal, go back through what you've written to find the stuff that proves how awesome you are. It's there, trust me! Remember that dream you had about the cooking show starring Barack Obama and Derek Jeter? That was awesome.

4) Cook something while listening to whatever kind of music makes you dance. Currently for me, shamefully, this includes Beggin by Madcon and that Hot and Cold song by Katy Perry. Don't judge me. Seriously though - cooking and dancing? It's great. Just make sure you've rinsed off the spoon before you start drumming with it, or you'll get mushroom alfredo sauce all over the kitchen.

5) Take some online quizzes. You will learn so much about yourself! Today I learned that my inner pop princess is Kelly Clarkson, my inner celebrity is Tina Fey, if I were a character in Lord of the Rings I would be Eowyn, if I were a fantasy/sci-fi character I would be someone called Delenn (who?), I have a North Central accent, I'd be a Temaki Hand Roll if I were a sushi roll, if I were a classic Nintendo game I would be The Legend of Zelda (yes, I do enjoy collecting triangles!), I'd be Lord of the Rings if I were a literature classic, if I were a Star Wars character I'd be Lando (what?! "Lando System?"), and if I were a superhero I'd be Superman or Robin. I had no idea I had so many personalities.

6) Break bread (or accidentally drop your caterpillar roll in your soy sauce and splatter the table) with friends. Eating brings people together in a very specific way I've never really been able to define. It is different than playing a game or talking on the phone. Different and better. Sometimes, depending on how busy your friends are, this might take some time to accomplish. It will be worth it.

7) Take a bubble bath. If you do not have a bathtub, take a shower with some fancy-smelling soap. You can find it cheap at Target.

8) Have a solo dance party. Maybe it's just me, but dance parties of any kind (cooking, solo, brushing-your-teeth...) make everything better.

9) Start a conversation with a fun-looking stranger at the library/pharmacy/toll booth/next place you go. I don't usually come away from this with new friends, but I find talking to strangers about random stuff (usually stuff like, "Oho - The Killing Joke is nuts. You should get it.") is fun.

10) Give an animal a people name. Like Steve. Animals are much funnier when they have people names.

11) Make a list of things that make you happy. My lists usually end with puppies.

Anybody else have things to do when The Man gets you down?

Link! He came to town... he came to SAVE! The Princess Zelda!

2009-04-06T20:09:00.006-05:00

I have UNC to win the NCAA tournament on my bracket, but I'd really like Michigan State to take it. Go upper Midwest! And (grudgingly) Big Ten! Rep-r-sent! Also, Ford Field is a ridiculously cavernous place to play a basketball game.

Speaking of the upper Midwest and where I live, this place is a geographical oddity. It takes one hour to get anywhere (even Lambeau Field, as previously discussed. Which I can get to in about five minutes except on game day, when it's about an hour). The Boyfriend and I have discovered this multiple times as we attempt to do things in the area and are unable, unless we're in the mood to sit in the car for two hours round-trip to get there and back. This weekend we went to the above, a lovely state park on Lake Michigan.

I noticed when I lived in view of the lake in Milwaukee, but Lake Michigan has moods. Yesterday it was in a teal kind of mood. You know, tealish. Like it was sort of in the mood to watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

And poor The Boyfriend. I asked him to stop by my parents' house before he drove up here this weekend and pick up a bag they had for me. He had no idea that the contents of this bag would shape our weekend together. What was in this bag?

Oh yes. It took about three-dozen tries, but we now have The Legend of Zelda.

I think Link was better at this game when I was a kid.

A haiku.

2009-04-05T19:55:00.003-05:00

Drive-by posting so I don't miss a day!

A haiku:

Bloody, bloody blood
Rub-a-dub-dub in a tub
Decapitation

Alas, I didn't write it. A Physics teacher at my high school wrote it and it went around like wild-fire for about a week. Feel free to pass it on.

18 Things I Did Today... Sort of.

2009-04-04T17:52:00.025-05:00

Today's shoes are red and sassy (I was judging some local high school students' National History Day projects - they were so much better than anything I could have done!). And that's my bathroom.

Here is a list of 18 things to do that Maureen Johnson posted (it is her fault you're getting so many posts from me).

1. Blog every day in April - Well, this one I am still working on.

2. Make some soup

Check.

Wait, does opening a can and heating it up constitute "making" soup? And wait again, I don't eat bacon, so I won't be doing this anyway. Who put bacon in my potato soup? Bummer.

3. Get a hat

Okay.

4. Read a book

I enjoy reading! What should I read?

OH NO.

Aha! Much more delight!

5. Make a friend

This is my friend, Michael Jackson. He is called Michael Jackson because he is baaaaaaaaad. Get it?

6. Say something nice to someone

You look especially nice today, has anyone told you that? Also, you are funny. Not in a you're-not-trying-to-be way, but you're legitimately funny. It's true.

7. Work on your moves

My moves could use some work.

8. Speak for an entire day in a fake accent

Today I shall be Northern Irish.

WORLD CUP, BABY!

9. Cultivate a completely imaginary relationship with someone famous

This one could be tough. I mean, not that I can't imagine a relationship with someone famous, just tough to illustrate with a photo.

I didn't know what to do.

Then my good friend Daniel Craig called and told me everything would be okay. As usual, Daniel was right. Oh, Daniel. You always know just what to say!

10. Do something completely sekrit

Obviously, I can't show you this one.

11. Go into a store and pretend not to know how something works

What the heck?

They go on your nose? I don't get it.

Michael Jackson was able to help.

12. Spend one week completely offline

Um.

13. Plan to go somewhere

I do have this passport.

Whoops, it's an American passport and as we have discussed, I am from Northern Ireland. Why else would I be wearing this Northern Ireland National Team soccer jersey?

Luckily I'm already planning on going to Rock Island, which doesn't involve a passport at all. Nobody will know.

14. Hit the shiny red button

I will have to find it first.

15. Write to me Maureen Johnson

I'll use this creepy pen my grandmother sent me in a box of cookies!

Yikes.

16. Learn to sew on a button

Well, I can do that, but what are these for?

17. Admit it

Fine. FINE. I do have them.

18. Try again tomorrow

I try to be my best.

Well, not always. I could have Photoshopped all the Photo Booth pictures to be the right way, but I am busy picking the bacon out of this soup.

I'm fired?

2009-04-03T20:29:00.008-05:00

Get on your boots! These are my favorite boots. They are ultra-seventies and remind me of the ones Ms. Fields wore with seemingly just a trench coat in Quantum of Solace.

I have another story today (I don't think I've mentioned, but I'm attempting to post a blog entry every day of April. It's Maureen Johnson's fault. Please help me think of things to blog about, because I will eventually run out of embarrassing stories).

Once upon a time, I was in a marching band (several times, actually). This marching band marched in rain or snow, in all manner of foul weather, because not only did we enjoy what we were doing, but for some reason other people did too and only crappy people let others down on purpose.

One day, the marching band was playing at the yearly homecoming game (RAH!). This particular homecoming was so completely rainy that the athletic department decided the marching band would do too much damage to the football field during the halftime show that we had to stand on the track around the field to play our show.¹ But the show went on. Because we were cool like that. Also total geeks.

We played the entire game and went back to our dorm rooms or, for people who were cooler, apartments. Of course, since it had been pouring during all the playing, there was not only approximately one standard-size Nalgene of water in my saxophone bell, but my music was wet almost to the point of disintegration.

Now, I have mentioned before that I am a naturally curious person. We have already discussed the fact that this curiosity often leads me to do stupid things. This especially rainy day was no exception.

On previous occasions when the marching band had played in the rain, my good friend Slugger² mentioned putting his damp marching band music in the microwave to dry it out. Being an innocent and ridiculously naive person, I believed this was a reasonable option.

Of course, my chance to try this trick for myself happened that fateful homecoming.

I got back to my dorm room, and after changing out of my soaking wet uniform I decided to try Slugger's microwave trick.³ I very carefully took my disintegrating music from my folder and put it on a fishy-dishy towel (it was a dish towel with fish on it. Fishy-dishy was too good not to use) in our very small microwave. I put the timer on one minute.⁴

I festooned my bed's loft with my wet marching band uniform while the microwave dried my music. This was brilliant! What a great idea Slugger had! After about thirty seconds I glanced back at the microwave, which seemed fine. Full of smoke, everything fine. I continued hanging my marching band uniform, throwing the pants by the window so they'd catch the breeze and spread the pleasant wet-wool odor as far as poss-

Wait, smoke?!

My marching band music was on fire in the microwave. I believe I screamed in an embarrassingly girly manner (not that I'm not a girl, but I don't like screaming like one just because some marching band music is on fire in the microwave).

"Agh!" I said, dashing to the microwave. I pulled the music and the fishy-dishy towel out of the microwave. "AGH!" I said again, for emphasis.

My room was rapidly filling with smoke. This was not good, as all dorm rooms at my university were equipped with smoke detectors and sprinklers for, presumably, this very situation. "AAAAGGGHHHH!!" I said.

Rather than standing there and screaming (which was not helping as much as it should have, honestly), I grabbed my shower towel and started fanning the smoke out the window. I should emphasize that at this point, my dorm room was so full of smoke that I could not see the window toward which I was fanning the smoke, praying that I did not set off the fire alarm.

For the next four hours, everyone walking in our hallway commented on the fact that some unfortunate student in our cube (our dorms were arranged in cubes instead of wings) had burned her Ramen Noodles. Bummer.

Here is a final thing to note: Fire alarms in dorm rooms do not work very well. Do not start a real, actual fire in a dorm room because your fire alarm will probably not go off and people will be very angry at you for burning your Ramen Noodles and stinking up the entire floor, when in actuality you've just burned your fishy-dishy towel and your miniature copy of "On Wisconsin."

Also? Don't believe people named Slugger.

¹ Don't ask me how the marching band could possibly do more damage to a wet football field than, say, a football team, but this is the way college athletic departments think. SPORTS GOOD. ARTS... SORT OF OKAY.

² Slugger is not his actual name. Awww, slugger! In this same vein, my band name of Bambi is not my actual name. For about a year I was known throughout the marching band as Bambi the G-rated stripper. I showed my bare ankles and nothing more - scandal. This is fairly accurate. I'll be the first to admit I'm a prude and proud.

³ Have you ever roomed with a band geek who has to hang her wet wool uniform all over the room to dry? I had very tolerant roommates, because wet wool smells like poop and unwashed Robert Pattinson.

⁴ I'm beginning to think that a lot of my problems in life have to do with setting the microwave timer for way too long.

Also, pineapple does not make good deodorant.

2009-04-02T00:05:00.011-05:00

What did I tell you about trail shoes? Hearts to trail shoes. Unofficial casual day at work today - everyone was instructed to wear their favorite t-shirts. While the other librarians tried to stay in the sassy library t-shirt family (She blinded me with library science, anyone?) I instead went the Threadless and completely library-not-related route.

And now, a story.

When one is in college, one does many stupid things. It's all part of the "college experience." A lot of people blame their stupid actions on alcohol and other substances, but as previously discussed, I am far too uptight for underage drinking and other substances at any age, I don't have the luxury of blaming anything but my own special, completely sober brain for the following.

I have always been a curious person, the type of person who will try something that might not make a whole lot of sense. My rationale is... well, someone had to try turning mold into medicine. I bet that didn't make a great deal of sense in the beginning either, and look how well that turned out! This is how great things are discovered!

One day, I was sitting in my dorm room, waiting for Greatness. The window of my dorm room was rather inconveniently situated directly perpendicular to the back door of the dorm. This resulted in many late-night awakenings from peaceful slumber by noisy night-owl students, as well as people looking into our room by accident while unlocking the back door during the day. Awkward.

My roommate was at class, and I was doing something productive (probably changing the message on our answering machine. Everyone knows it is very funny to change the message on your dorm room answering machine without telling your roommate). I took a productivity break to gaze out the window at our lovely view of the back door and the university dining hall. I believe I sighed happily.

It was then that I noticed a student crossing the buses-only street from the dining hall, coming toward the back door of the dorm. His arms were full of something I could not quite make out. I considered leaving the room to open the door for him, but we weren't supposed to open the door for strangers, so I waited and watched from my room. Not at all like Someone From a Horror Film. It soon became clear that the student was carrying an armload of bananas and imitation Kraft singles. I emphasize: He was very definitely not carrying anything else.

This got me thinking... what on earth would someone be making with a nearly industrial-sized armload of bananas and cheese?

Quite obviously, he was going to melt the cheese over the bananas and eat it.

If you are not from Wisconsin (and possibly even if you are, if you're from a more sophisticated part of our fine state than I am), this might seem like a weird idea. However, where I'm from, it's not unusual to put cheese on things like steak or vegetables or anything else that might be just a little disturbingly healthy without a good slather of cheddar. It's not unusual to take plain cheese and exponentially increase it's bad-for-you factor by beer-battering it and throwing it in a deep fryer. Wisconsin - Eat like you mean it.

So let me ask you now, if you were raised in this environment, would it be out of the question to take perfectly good, potassium-rich fruit and melt some processed cheese product on it?

Well... yes. It might be out of the question. However, I think you have realized by this point that for me, it was not only a reasonable thing to do, but it was absolutely 100% in the question to take perfectly good potassium-rich fruit and melt some processed cheese on it. I knew I would not be able to sleep that night if I did not find out what this delicacy tasted like. Maybe it would be the next chocolate-covered strawberry! I'd have bananas and a big vat of nacho cheese outside Boston Store at the mall every other Saturday! I'd make millions!

Luckily, I had some processed cheese in our mini-fridge, and my roommate had foolishly left a bunch of bananas on top of the mini-fridge, and I took my easy access to these things as a sign that what I was doing was indeed righteous and good.

I took a nice big chunk of peeled banana and put it in my Powerpuff Girls heart-shaped bowl with a slice of processed cheese product perched on top of it just so. This masterpiece I placed in the microwave for forty-five seconds. If I had been listening, I might have heard the Powerpuff Girls screaming for me to stop, but I was far too excited about my future millions to pay any attention.

The first sign that something about this was not right was that when I pulled the concoction out of the microwave, I noticed that the banana was sort of disintegrated. However, millions in mind, I took a great big bite.

The closest thing I can compare the taste to is blenderized throw-up with a slice of plastic. The disintegrated banana did nothing for this texture. Unfortunately, thinking about what my wonderful new recipe tasted like almost made me actually throw-up. It was very disappointing. Realizing in a split second that I was not going to make millions out in front of Boston Store selling my nacho bananas, I spit the banana into the hallway garbage. I was not about to have bananacheesebarfmush in the room with me any longer than necessary, because I realized after I bit into it that it also smelled just like you'd think something called bananacheesebarfmush should.

I have no idea who mystery student was feeding his bananas and cheese to, but I'm pretty sure they were people he hated. A lot. One of them was probably his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend and the other was probably Hitler.

When my roommate got back from class, she said, "Why is the window open? It's so cold today. And what's that smell? Were you trying to cook again? I think someone put food in the hall garbage again."

It's before I do these things that I need someone to remind me that eating moldy bread crusts is not the same as taking penicillin.

Puddle jumping shoes, they are.

2009-04-01T20:11:00.005-05:00

Today is my sister's rainy day birthday! People suggested when she was a kid that we pretend to forget it was her birthday all day long, but we never did that. Because my sister is far too awesome to be subjected to cheap April Fool's jokes (except the one time I told her we ordered her from Egypt and she came to our house in a box). Truly! Happy Birthday to her! She is the best sister I could ever ask for.

Speaking of rainy days and people who enjoy them, if you have access to a Twilight DVD, you should watch it with the commentary on. An already stellar film is made eight thousand times better by Robert Pattinson's delightfully awkward commentary about his own eyebrows. Stellar! Did you read the GQ interview with him in which he mentioned never having a microwave before a month ago? And when he got one, he looked around for stuff to microwave and settled on... a carrot? I think if I were a tween, I'd find that endearing.

It does make me want to find out what happens when one sticks a carrot in the microwave and lets 'er rip. Maybe tomorrow I'll have some exploded produce pictures to share.

(Note about the above photo: I take a lot of pictures of my shoes. My explanation is that though most people find my taste in footwear supremely dorky, I really like all my shoes. For a girl who is not all that typically girly, I have a ton of them. I donated about half of them when I moved up here, and there are still so many that I have to step on them to get into my closet. Music or movies, Pringles, and shoes - it is hard for me to make a trip to Target for toilet paper and leave without one of these things. I have a major weakness for flip flops and trail running shoes. Thus, I have decided that my April photo project will be shoes. Probably mine, because how creepy would it be if I were the girl with the camera who wanted to photograph your feet? Today it was rainy and about three degrees warmer than freezing, so I decided it was time to break out the Keens. I probably should have gone with shoes that don't have holes in them.)

I am the last of the famous international playboys...

2009-03-26T08:35:00.002-05:00

When I'm feeling a certain mood I still listen to Morrissey and David Bowie. It's hard to put a name to this mood, because honestly, what sort of mood do you have to be in to want to listen to those two in the same sitting?

Perhaps sparkly and misunderstood.

Do not mock the broom handle, Ms. Parker.

2009-03-19T11:19:00.012-05:00

It's... Stupid Storyday!

This is a true story. I am a superhero. Don't tell anybody.

I remembered this particular stupid story (in this instance the "stupid" refers to the actions in the story, not the story itself) while taking a walk last night through my beautiful residential neighborhood. Ah, the birds. The lack of interesting restaurants. The large piles of dirty snow. As I returned to my apartment complex and looked at the balconies on the outside of all the buildings, I fondly recalled this story of stupidity.

Once upon a time, when I was in college, I lived in an apartment in Smallcollegetown, Wisconsin.¹ The apartment I lived in was a fairly old apartment with some rockin' industrial-style carpet - the kind you normally find on cubicle walls. The apartment building was technically two stories, but there were also apartments in the basement of the building which provided each building with three floors of apartments. I lived on the top floor, roughly two-and-a-half stories above the ground (due to fire codes requiring the basement apartments to include windows).

One evening about this time of year, I was lounging in my apartment debating whether to put up the giant wooden butterflies I'd found at the craft store for $.25 on the wall without asking my roommate's opinion. While hanging one butterfly near the balcony window, I realized that the evening was particularly fine indeed. I decided to go outside on the balcony and enjoy the sunset and ambient sounds of nature (we lived next to a swamp, though I preferred to call it the quagmire, home to several million operatic frogs and a pterodactyl).

I went out on the balcony and pretended I was somewhere tremendously exotic and exciting that just happened to be full of frogs. I think I attempted to say something in French, like, "Oui! Vive le France! Le moulin!"

After enjoying this for several minutes, I decided that I would hang the garish wooden butterflies across from my roommate's door so she could enjoy them as soon as she awoke in the morning and headed back inside. I hung up the garish wooden butterflies, had a very sophisticated bottle of Jones Soda, and waited for my roommate to come home and be surprised and delighted with my decorating ideas.

Oh, wait. No. That is not at all what happened.

I have mentioned that the apartment was not new. This meant that some of its entrances lacked sophisticated security devices, like locks. The sliding balcony door was one of these. In lieu of an actual lock, the landlord had provided us with a broom handle to place in the tracking on the floor, which would stop the door when a would-be burglar tried to slide it open. Brilliant! I laughed at this security device heartily when I moved in, knowing that any moron could get around a simple broom handle. It was just a matter of ingenuity, and most burglars have this. Strangely, it did not deter myself or my roommate from moving in and living in this apartment, the threat of ingenious burglars hanging over our heads.

What actually happened that evening was this: When I slid the balcony door closed behind me, I had accidentally nudged the broom handle into its place in the tracking on the floor. I realized this when I tried to open the sliding glass door and it moved two inches before abruptly stopping... having hit the broom handle.

"How about that, whaddaya know," I said, scratching my head. "Guess I'll need to use some good old fashioned ingenuity to get out of this pickle!"

What was my ingenious solution to this problem? I tried to open the door again, harder.

Shockingly, this was not successful. "Huh, I was pretty sure that was going to work," I said, mildly concerned. "Gee whiz."

My next ingenious solution was to use my cellular phone to call my roommate, who was at work, for help.² So I took my cellular phone out of my pocket and called my roommate, who came to let me out of the apartment within fifteen minutes. She loved the butterflies.

Except this is not what happened either.

In those days, cellular phones were much bigger than they are today. They did not easily fit into pockets. My cellular phone was sitting on the couch next to some butterflies, unfortunately on the other side of the balcony door.

My next plan was to wait for my roommate to come home and let me out. I decided that this was not a good plan after pressing my face to the door so I could see what time it was on the VCR clock (in those days everyone had VCRs and large cell phones), and realized she would not be off work for at least four more hours.

The next plan was to try to open the door so quickly and forcefully that the broom handle jumped out of the track and onto the carpet, thus allowing me back into the apartment to finish the decorating. Predictably, this did not work at all, being essentially the same thing I had already tried five previous times.

"Well," I said to myself, "What to do, what to do... I wonder what my many fictional heroes would do in this situation."

"Alohamora," suggested Ginny Weasley.

"Unfortunately, I seem to have left my wand next to my cell phone," I explained.

"The chip in my arm would have alerted MI-6 to my predicament at least fifteen minutes ago," said James Bond.

"And my arm-chip seems to be malfunctioning," I said, cross. "Miss Bennett?"

"I'm with Mr. Bond," Elizabeth Bennett said, matter-of-fact.

"What?" I said.

"Why don't you just use your grapple?" asked Batman.

"Because, Bruce," I said, "These are pyjama pants. They do not require a utility belt, and thus I don't have my grappling gun."³

"Bruce? Bruce who?" said Batman, very loudly, before grappling himself away.

"Lame," I said. It was.

"I'd fly, probably," said Superman, "Or just jump."

"Neither of which is really an option for me," said I, "But thank you for your input."

"I'm sure I wouldn't have gotten myself in such a situation in the first place," said Scarlett O'Hara, "Being outside, it's savage."

"Why are you here? I never even liked you very much." Clearly this was not shaping up to be the solution I was hoping it would.

"I would just move the broom with my mind," said Matilda. I sighed loudly. "Well, you asked."

"You forgot your towel, didn't you?" said Ford Prefect, shaking his head. "Shame, that."

"Yes, I forgot my towel. Why aren't any of you normal people?" I was becoming agitated.

"Hey," said Elizabeth Bennett.

"So... you don't want to use the Force, then," said Han Solo, "That's cool, hokey religions... just kick in the door."

"No. That is a stupid idea," I said. "None of you are being very helpful. I'm starting to wonder why I waste my time with you people."

"[I wouldn't mind being stuck on the balcony,]" said Amelie, only in French, "[It's a nice evening.]"

"I didn't understand a word of that," I said, growing very cross. "This is America, Amelie."

"I'd make something out of rope," said Laura Ingalls Wilder, "And I'm not imaginary."

"Neither am I," said John Muir, "Though I suggest you just stay out here and endeavour to better understand the wilderness. That marsh over there, that is."

"AAAGGGHHHHH," I explained. There was no rope on the balcony.

"Why don't you just jump down?" said Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a shrug.

"No!" I exclaimed, "Look, it's very far! It's two-and-a-half stories! And the ground looks particularly hard from up here!"

"So?" said Eowyn, "You'll be fine."

"I. Am. Not. Jumping," I said, with what I believed was an air of finality.

"Think not of what others would do," said Yoda, "Think instead of what you would do."

"Apparently, this is what I would do," I said, "I would try to think of what my many fictional heroes would do in this situation."

"And when this fails?" asked Yoda, all mystical-like.

"You are astoundingly annoying in person," I said. However, I did start thinking about what I would do in this situation when all my fictional heroes failed me. I figured I'd probably do something dumb. I might pretend to be Mrs. Spider-man and swing down to the balcony below mine.

This started to seem like an increasingly great idea. Let's leave aside for a moment that out on the balcony it seemed perfectly logical that being married to Peter Parker would result in Spider-man powers for both of us, and move directly onto this as the new plan. I would Spider-man down my balcony, swing onto the balcony below mine, and then jump the remaining half-story to the ground.

I put a leg over the railing of my balcony and realized that two-and-a-half stories half-over a balcony railing looks quite a bit higher than two-and-a-half stories with both feet on the balcony. However, Mrs. Spider-man would not be daunted by such things, and I swung the other leg over the balcony. From there, I sort of squatted down and inched my hands down the railing's bars until they were as low as I could get them without letting go and falling to my death. Or at least to my extreme discomfort.

Then I swung onto my downstairs neighbors' balcony, like Mrs. Spider-man! I was elated! I was not dead! I was standing on my neighbors' balcony, and they were watching me from inside their living-room! I had interrupted their peaceful Survivor party by Mrs. Spider-man-ing onto their balcony!

"Um." I said, and jumped over the railing onto the ground. "Until next time, true believers!"

I did not realize until I got up the stairs and outside my own apartment door that I had not considered whether my front door was locked or not. But that is a stupid story for another day.

¹ I think everyone should have the opportunity to go to college in a small college town, as Smallcollegetown was, because quite a bit of the town goings-on really do revolve around said college. This fosters a sense of pride and school spirit. This is very exciting when you come from a large enough town to have four high schools about which the town cares little. Unfortunately, the small town I live in now can not be considered a college town despite the college, due to the presence of a monstrous professional football team around which everything, including much of the college goings-on, revolves. But I digress.

² You might be asking why I simply did not shout for one of my neighbors to let me out. There were a few reasons for this. 1) I did not know any of my neighbors on this side of the building, 2) No one seemed to be coming or going on this particularly fine evening as it was Spring Break and most normal people were in Cabo showing their boobies, 3) I was at this time in my life, single, and very self-conscious around boys. Had I called for help and been rescued by a boy, I would have been mortified and we all know that there is absolutely nothing worse than being very embarrassed.

³ Oh yes, did I mention that I was wearing my Curious George pyjama pants? I was.

What's the craic?

2009-03-17T13:01:00.011-05:00

You know that I adore St. Patrick's Day. I studied in Ireland, I have an Irish last name, I like Irish music, I like fish and chips, and I like Guinness. Hooray for Saint Patrick's Day! Today I am wearing my most garish green argyle sweater and Irish national soccer team jersey, participating in the ritual "Giving Out of the Shamrock Stickers."

That said, I would like to clear up some of the misconceptions about Saint Patrick's Day/Ireland I noticed today.

1) Only people who think someone in their family several hundred years ago was from Ireland can participate. FALSE. People who like St. Patrick's Day do not have to be any sort of hyphenated Irish at all. They like to have fun and if they are worth having fun with, do not care if your last name is O'Reilly or Gonzales. If you feel weird about it or left out anyway - make up some Irish ancestors. Your great-great-great uncle Seamus? That guy was a trip. (I promise no one will know.)

2) One must be completely, smashingly drunk to enjoy Saint Patrick's Day. FALSE. Did I mention the ritual "Giving Out of the Shamrock Stickers?" I think I did. While drinking is an activity heavily associated with March 17th, it is not necessary for celebrating or enjoying the day. I am not drunk, and had a pretty fantastic day. Have some tea and Digestive biscuits. Watch a stereotypical Irish movie (Waking Ned Devine is a good one). Look at pretty pictures of one of the most beautiful islands on the planet. Wear some awful green socks. Eat some soda bread and blood pudding - heck, throw a piece of ham on your plate and call it bacon. All of these things are sufficient Saint Patrick's Day celebratory things, drinking not necessary.

3) Irish people in Ireland hate Saint Patrick's Day, don't wear green or go to the pub, this is a ridiculous and stupid American tradition that should be stopped. HALF FALSE. I admit I was guilty of this one before experiencing an Ireland Saint Patrick's Day myself. While real Irish people (that is, born and raised in Ireland) generally do not wear green or shirts with shamrocks on them today (or... ever), they do spend the entire day at the pub. I know, because I was there, and there were more Irish people in the pubs in Cork than Americans. Don't try to tell me Saint Patrick's Day in Ireland is more like our Thanksgiving - it's not. Unless your Thanksgiving includes going to mass in the morning then booking it to the pub to have some craic, food, and spirits with friends for the rest of the day. (In which case - invite me next time.)

4) The IRA is cool/it's okay to hate on the English if you're "Irish-American" FALSE. While I think it ought to go without saying, the things I hear every year at Milwaukee's IrishFest compel me to inform the small portion of Internet that reads my blog: Not cool. The majority of people in Ireland don't think the IRA is cool. Americans who put "26 + 6 = 1" stickers on their cars and say things like, "Get the British out of Ireland, the Irish have made it clear they don't want the British there," (seen in the New York Times blog comments on Friday) don't know what they're talking about and should remember that people in other countries really hate it when we get involved in their political disputes without understanding the issues (and sometimes when we do understand them). I'm certainly not an expert on Northern Ireland politics by any stretch of the imagination, but I did live there and would like very much for people to do some research before they open their mouths, especially today.

End of soapbox!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! What's the craic?

Pants pants pants stuff pants drinking pants.

2009-03-15T20:43:00.004-05:00

I did laundry today. I took my favorite pair of jeans out of the dryer (yes, I dry my jeans... usually this is not a problem) and discovered that I had shrunk them to a ridiculous size. They looked like a 3rd grader's pants. I was very disappointed and things might have been thrown. I tend to get very attached to my pants.

You may be aware of the fact that I am very stupid in the morning and do things that don't make much sense when I am very tired. This morning, in a stupor of tiredness, I put on my shrunken pants.

Some part of my brain is still stuck in the land where I weigh 50 pounds heavier, because my pants fit (I have lost zero pounds since washing these pants). They just don't look like pants that I think would fit me. You'd think I'd have gotten over that by now... nope. My mental image of myself is still me at age 22. This is poor. I am delighted that my pants fit, though. Hooray for pants!

New topic: Underage drinking! You all know that I am very uptight about underage drinking. I do not judge people who drink before they are 21 (seriously, I don't - I did drink in Ireland when I was 20 because the drinking age there is 18... and now I get to say that my first alcoholic beverage was a Guinness down the street from the brewery at a 200 year old pub, which is awesome - but when I got back I abstained until my 21st birthday, which wasn't particularly hard). It was a completely weird and bizarre notion to me that anyone would - it's illegal! I considered it something other people did that I didn't do because I was too uptight. There has been much debate in the United States recently over changing the drinking age to 18 and whether that would make the 18-20 year old age group safer. I'm not sure how I feel about the subject.

Experts agree that binge drinking is rampant and a huge problem on college campuses. They agree that drunk driving in the 18-20 year old age range is a problem. Something none of the articles mention is that a college student (particularly in the upper Midwest, in Wisconsin, where drinking is particularly celebrated) choosing not to drink before she is 21 is generally social suicide. A teetotaler on a college campus has very limited options when it comes to social engagements (despite what many parents may think, going to parties without drinking is not a reasonable or fun option). Where does one make friends in college? Not in class, but at social engagements. I just think it's something worth mentioning, because I felt like I was at a major social disadvantage not drinking in college. It took a long time to find fantastic like-minded friends, and that was a real drag.

One thing that struck me while reading one of the articles I read today on the subject was a police chief in Boulder, Colorado who kept calling the students he ticketed for underage drinking "kids." Is that part of the problem? Do we still think that people aged 18-20 are kids? Kids that who can vote, get married, buy guns, have babies, go to war, and apply for a mortgage? Or did this particular officer just see them that way because he is older than they are?

I'm not sure if we should lower the drinking age or not. I lean toward thinking that a drinking age of 18 would encourage more people to call for help if their underage friends drink too much, instead of letting them pass out in their own puke. Maybe it would not be as exciting if it weren't illegal. What I'm not sure about is whether this would just make the problems start earlier - like at age 13. Do YOU have an opinion on the drinking age debate?

I'm easy!

2009-03-10T19:08:00.002-05:00

I am going to tell you a secret.

Are you ready?

I'm a huge pushover.

I wish I wasn't, but I am a giant pushover. It's a thing I've recently figured out about myself, in reference to something I will not mention on teh interwebz. Here is a tip: If you ever get the sense that I am unhappy with you (though I try to let people know when I'm unhappy, because passive aggressive? Lame. But still), if you want to get back on my good side, all you need do is something small and nice. Seriously. I will melt and all will be forgotten.

It's so easy! I'm easy! (But not like that!) It might not be a good thing, but it makes me happy enough.

Changing subjects! U2 tour: If you want to go, do let me know. I will be attempting to purchase tickets soon and I am super excited! Soldier Field, Saturday September 12th. Be there or be square! Um, this is not a guarantee of tickets. Just a good chance. :) Crossing your fingers wouldn't hurt.

Changing subjects again! The Biggest Loser: Does anyone else watch The Biggest Loser? While the only other reality show I actually enjoy watching is The Amazing Race (as previously discussed, Phil is the best!), I catch The Biggest Loser occasionally and I kind of really adore Bob. Oh, Bob! This week Bob is wearing a very silly skinny tie with polka-dots, and it makes me want to hug him.

Books that make you go, "Hmm."

2009-03-05T22:57:00.004-06:00

U2, Ryan Braun, and Jon Stewart all on the same episode of David Letterman? That's what I call neat.

Have you ever started reading a book you're not crazy about, find that you are committed enough to the book to see it through - but you hate it? And you don't actually want to finish it? I'm having trouble with a book I'm reading. Because I really kind of hate it.

The main character is completely unlikable. It's not even that she's unlikable, but that she's unlikable and so littered with flaws that she's not even sympathetic and I am completely unable to relate to her or care about her at all. She doesn't learn from her mistakes, she doesn't care for anyone but herself, and she's just a horrible person. Horrible person! I wish I liked her, I really do, but I do not. I keep thinking she'll get better and do something worthwhile or interesting or redeem herself in some way so I can get on with the book, but I'm 2/3 of the way through this, and she's as not awesome as she was in the beginning.

If you were in my situation, what would you do? Do I have to finish the book? I kind of feel like I have to finish it. I think I might read every other page so it takes less time.

I did read a really fantastic young adult book called Jellicoe Road, though. That main character was not always likable, but I at least cared about what happened to her. It made me cry, and the only books before that one that had done that were the seventh Harry Potter book and certain Jane Austen novels when I was feeling especially girly.

Get on your boots. It snowed again.

2009-03-02T22:59:00.003-06:00

Wow. I'd never seen The Bachelor before tonight, and I think it's safe to say I'll never, ever watch it again. What an awful, disgusting, terrible show! Yuck. My reality show of choice is still The Amazing Race. It's a race! It's amazing! It has a guy named Phil!

U2 is on Letterman all week, the only reason I am still awake. I adore them, but I have to say - U2 is way too big to be confined to David Letterman's stage.

Reading a lot of comics lately! It's helping with the winter blues. I'm very tired of winter. I think I say this every year, but it seems like I go along okay with winter until after the holidays, and then the toughest part of winter starts. I think, "I can handle this, it's only a few more weeks," and then I get to the point where I can't handle it anymore and slowly start going insane. Then I go past the insanity point, it gets even colder, even more snow falls, I drive absolutely everyone in my life completely up the wall, and when they can't take anymore - it means there's only a month to go. We're probably at the five-weeks-left point, so watch out friends and family - the calls from me will start coming soon. Just do your best to talk me down, it'll be fine. If you're not up for it, do feel free to tell me to shut up and go watch some animated Batman.

Please come soon, spring!

Also, Budweiser still tastes like water.

2009-02-28T13:19:00.006-06:00

Things I have learned so far this weekend:

1) Minor league hockey is a riot! Not literally a riot, more like an actual hockey game. But it is fun!
2) U2 will be playing stadiums later this year! You want to go. One of us, one of us...
3) Books rarely make me cry, but when one does it's like being hit by a train in a good way.
4) The Humane Society has way too many dog-walking volunteers on Saturday mornings. It is best to find another day to volunteer, as you will be useless on Saturday morning and go away unfulfilled.
5) It is much more fun to think of Infrequently Asked Questions to put on the library website rather than to update the real Frequently Asked Questions, like you boss asked you to (Q: "Does the library have a disaster plan in place in the event of a hostile alien invasion?"). What questions do you infrequently ask about the library?
6) It is physically possible for me to go into Target and spend less than $20. Unlikely, but possible.

So much learning! And half of the weekend is yet to come. This time tomorrow, what will we know?

In case anyone out there is interested, I have a Twitter account. I don't really understand what it's all about, but sometimes it amuses. Last week Michael Ian Black declared Twitter war on LeVar Burton (yes, LeVar Burton. But don't take my word for it!) because... he felt like it? Not sure exactly where it's going or entirely what it's for, but apparently librarians do these things so I put things on it sometimes and if you have one, you should let me know.

The wind is playing tricks on me.

2009-02-26T22:50:00.005-06:00

I've just discovered an interesting thing about my apartment. When the wind is really howling around the building and I'm in my bedroom thinking about going to sleep, it sounds like there are children fighting with each other in the rest of my apartment. Or coyotes. Or zombies coming up the stairs.

You wouldn't think those things would sound anything like each other, but I'm not lying when I say I'm sleeping with my bedroom door locked tonight.

Once this snowpocalypse is over (I think this is the first time I've actually witnessed March coming in like a lion), I'm looking forward to a weekend full of sleep, puppy-walking, and one injury-free hockey game. Did you know that Yellowstone National Park's 137th birthday is on Sunday? I think I'll make a cake.

You canNOT be serious!

2009-02-26T14:09:00.006-06:00

I should really be more annoyed about all this.

To add to the absolutely ridiculous luck I'm having so far in 2009 (if you want to know, ask - there are many stories), Facebook has now decided that I am not who I say I am, and has deactivated my account. I've emailed them about this, but they have yet to respond to me and I'm so completely irritated with absolutely everything Internet-related that I might just leave my account deactivated. I'm about ready to be done trying to do things - I'm doing a lot of failing lately, and failing is surprisingly exhausting. You name it, I've failed at it sometime in the last two months, it's probably some sort of record! I should look into that. Maybe this is some kind of test, or karma (sheesh, I must've been an incredible annoyance to somebody), or God having a really funny joke with my relatives in Heaven to see how insane they can make me act before my head explodes. I seriously don't know what's going on, because all this stuff happening now can't possibly be a coincidence.

Of course I'm not actually going to stop trying to do anything. That wouldn't make sense and might not even be possible. I'm going to try to take a shower in the morning, and I made an incredibly successful and delicious avocado sandwich for dinner tonight. I'm just saying that I'm frustrated. The thing is that frustrations never end and there will always be things in your way, and the trick is how you handle it. I think the way I'm going to handle it is to become less dependent on the Internet entirely and instead do things like write people postcards. And take pictures (I still haven't missed a day this year!) of neat things. I should've taken the picture of my tow truck drivers, they were both sort of awesome. Next time I'm stranded, I'll be sure it's with my camera.

I'm going to a hockey game tomorrow night. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get hit in the head with a puck, because the people I'm going with said they'd have to pretend not to know me if I wore a helmet.

How are you?

Also, I was under the impression that today was Tuesday.

2009-02-25T17:34:00.002-06:00

I am having problems with my motor skills today. It probably has to do with lack of sleep, but I prefer to assume alien interference. Somehow, I managed to drip soup all down my sleeve (twice) during lunch, and I just stuck a bunch of potato salad in my eye, not realizing it was on my finger.

Potato salad in your eye is not as bad as shampoo in your eye, but it's not something I recommend trying.

In which I am slightly gross, but this is nothing new.

2009-02-18T17:05:00.006-06:00

Oh my gosh, guys!

I've been having a really rough couple weeks (what with my car continually trying to kill itself, someone hacking into my PayPal and Gmail accounts to steal what little money I have, and other things I won't mention on the Internet), and it's been frustrating. However, sometime in the night, a miracle happened.

I will now tell you about this miracle.

If you see me fairly regularly and look at my face a lot, you may have noticed that about two years ago I developed a mysterious bump underneath my left eye (or you may not have noticed, don't feel bad). It looked sort of like a pimple, but slightly less gross. Just this weird little hard white bump half an inch below my lower eyelid that hurt a bit when I washed my face. It showed up one morning out of the blue, and I thought it was a pimple, so I left it alone. However, after two weeks, I was beginning to become suspicious.

I poked it with things (ow). I put hot compresses on it (also ow). I tried different kinds of soap and new acne remedies from the extensive collection at the Target pharmacy. Nothing worked. After about a month I accepted that I now had a weird white bump on my face, in the dark circle part of under-my-eye. Because apparently my dark circles needed help looking grosser. Unable to figure out what it was through an extensive search of various docterin' websites (ah, the plight of the uninsured), I decided to call it a bumple.

Lately, I had become rather concerned about the bumple. Throughout the last two years it has varied in size and soreness level. Lately it had gotten bigger than usual and been especially irritated. What if it was a tumah? What if the bumple was actually under-the-eye cancer? What if it got bigger and bigger and started to obstruct my vision?! OH NO I'M GOING TO LOSE MY EYE!!

This morning I blearily went into the bathroom and washed my face as usual. I was putting in my contacts when I realized - The bumple had vanished in the night. There's a tiny little dry-ish area where it was, but the bump part is gone and it is no longer irritating.

I realize this is too much information and you don't care but I am really very excited about it. It was there when I went to bed, and when I woke up... it was gone.

Awesome.

In celebration, please virtually share these cookies I made.

DOGDOGDOGDOGDOG!

2009-02-10T23:15:00.010-06:00

Know what makes a bad day better?

A dog show.

As I have mentioned before, the second word baby Delightfully Mediocre ever said was "Dog." I used to point at dogs whenever I saw one and say (apparently sort of loudly) "DOGDOGDOG!! DOGDOGDOGDOGDOG!!" I still do this on occasion. Never actually got a dog.

When we lived in Virginia (from 3rd-6th grade) there was a cocker spaniel named Sweet Pea who lived next door to us. Sweet Pea spent most of her time before I moved there in a half-open garage attached to an empty house with owners who were never home, so when I got there and gave her attention it must have blown her mind because she never left me alone. People in the neighborhood thought Sweet Pea was my dog. She was over at our house all the time. My mom did not feed her (understandably) but she followed me everywhere (the dog, not my mom). Eventually Sweet Pea went blind, but she could always tell when I was walking home from school and would come out to meet me and we'd hang out. Sweet Pea was the sassiest, bitchenest cocker spaniel ever. That was the closest I ever got to having a dog, and frankly, it was a pretty great arrangement. I got all the benefits of having a dog with none of the expense or cleanup.

I still want a dog. I really, really want a dog. Unfortunately at the moment my foggy future (and current apartment living situation) is not friendly to getting one, particularly the kind of dog I want. My favorite dog show groups are the Hound Group and the Working Group. This is mostly because all my favorite kinds of dogs are in these groups. Also because I just really like big dogs. The Herding Group is also good, since I wouldn't mind having a dog to help motivate me to go running and I hear hearding dogs like to run. It is my goal to one day own a dog that will be taller than the children I may or may not ever have for the first six years of their lives.

Example:

HOW COOL ARE IRISH WOLFHOUNDS? SO COOL.

Every year at IrishFest in Milwaukee there is a dog parade. This parade is predictably full of Irish Setters and Wolfhounds. Imagine dozens, perhaps hundreds of 100+ pound dogs wandering around amidst thousands of people! It should be chaos, but it is not, because Irish Wolfhounds are the mellowest, sweetest, most awesome dogs I have ever met. (They were bred to hunt wolves! That's nuts! There was some breed in the hound group in the Westminster Kennel Club show that was bred to hunt bears. I was like, "Come again? Bear-hunting dog? That. Is. Sweet." You may also recall that I have a mild and only slightly irrational fear of being eaten by a bear while camping. Or picking plums in Manitoba.) I like to volunteer at IrishFest when I can and one year I was in a booth run by a woman who had a six month old Wolfhound puppy named Bailey. Bailey weighed more than I did. Bailey could easily walk up to the counter of the booth, about the height of a kitchen counter, and had to stoop slightly to rest her head on it. Bailey was just hanging out. Eventually Bailey decided to take a nap in the middle of our very small booth, and didn't mind in the slightest when someone accidentally stepped on her foot. Or that we were continually jumping over the napping dog to get to the stuff in the back of the booth. I want one. A pox on apartment rules regarding dog size (15 lbs?! The Former Roommate had a cat that was 19 lbs once! That's not a dog)!

Someday, I will have a big dog. It doesn't have to be anything specific, it doesn't even need to be a puppy. It could be a mutt. A great big mutt. It doesn't even have to be that big, just big-ish. My big or big-ish dog and I will go riding in my magically non-gas-guzzling Jeep to our favorite hiking spot where we will frolic around in the woods. Then we will camp in my tent, though I will have to purchase a bigger one to accommodate myself and a dog that weighs more than I do, and I will chuckle to myself and say, "This is a one-dog night!" And then the dog will groan at my terrible classic rock joke, we'll play some cribbage before bed, go hiking in the morning before going canoeing and then driving off in the magical Jeep, listening to Gillian Welch and the Kinks, back to my dog-friendly apartment complex. Those will be the days. Of course, I might have to live somewhere warmer because I refuse to be one of those people who puts booties on her dog so it doesn't freeze its feet.

It's almost Valentine's Day. I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be daydreaming about my future dog.

All puppies are cute, but I believe Mastiff puppies are the cutest puppies. Look at its giant feet! Its floppy ears! Its wrinkly forehead!! AGH. It wants me to hug it.

It's all right, it's all right, it's! All right!

2009-02-05T22:10:00.009-06:00

I am a huge U2 fan. I am well aware that U2 is overexposed, overpopular, and not intellectual or deep enough (I defy anyone who says they take themselves too seriously, though. Watch PopMart Mexico City. Or ZooTV Sydney). They have been my favorite band since pre-Achtung days and unless something incredibly bizarre happens, they will remain my favorite band for a long time. If you are reading this, you already know that. What you may not know is that from time to time I forget how much I enjoy U2. One of my favorite things is reminding myself of that.

I've been having a sort of crappy few weeks. Things have just been going wrong and piling on themselves and each other, which is really incredibly frustrating. Yesterday things came to a peak of bad and I had something of a meltdown, involving calling my mother sobbing while in a freezing, non-functional car. When I eventually got home (thanks, strange old guy with no teeth smelling faintly of marijuana!), I futzed around for a while, made myself a fruit salad and sat on the floor in front of my DVDs.

Me: What should I watch? What will help improve my mood?
DVD shelf: How about this?
Me: No Country for Old Men? You are not serious.
DVD shelf: Mmmkay, what about this?
Me: Apocalypse Now? You really don't understand what I'm looking for right now, do you?
DVD shelf: What am I, a mind reader? You always laugh your ass off at the part when Willard and Lance steal the surfboard.
Me: I do love the part when Cap'n Willard steals the surfboard.
DVD shelf: Try this.
Me: I can't watch anything in Japanese. I've been crying and can't read the subtitles.
DVD shelf: Well, Shogun Assassin doesn't have subtitles, it has a terrible voiceover by a horribly frightening child.
Me: Tempting, but no.
DVD shelf: This?
Me: That's better but...
DVD shelf: Come on, it's Flight of the Conchords!
Me: Yeah, but I'm not in a silly enough mood to watch something funny.
DVD shelf: Pan's Labyrinth.
Me: No! Nothing with scary monsters with eyes in their hands.
DVD shelf: Kung Fu Panda.
Me: Ooh, Kung Fu Panda! Except Wired said Kung Fu Panda was for dorks who can't think in their Coraline review, so maybe not today.
DVD shelf: But it's Jack Black!
Me: DVD shelf...
DVD shelf: Ugh. Why don't you just watch Friday's Battlestar Galactica on Hulu?
Me: Are you giving up on me? I'm depending on you, here.
DVD shelf: The Bourne Identity. This is good.
Me: That's not a bad idea, actually... No, Jason Bourne would've figured out a way to start my car despite the fact that it seems to have given up on life.
DVD shelf: The Natural?
Me: That will remind me of baseball season coming up and I don't have money to buy tickets since my CAR IS BROKEN! *sobs*
DVD shelf: Okay, okay, calm down. Sheesh... hmm... Aha! Firefly! You can't possibly object to Firefly.
Me: ...the menus don't have a "play all" option, though...
DVD shelf: I WASH MY HANDS OF YOU.
Me: FINE! I'll do it myself. Wh... what's this on the bottom shelf? Between Top Gun and The Untouchables? It's... it's... OMG U2 DVDs! Yes!

First I put in the Slane Castle DVD, which is amazing. Then I put in the Vertigo in Chicago DVD, which is awesome because I went to that show. Then I put in Elevation 2001 Boston DVD, which would be my favorite U2 tour if not for ZooTV, which trumps pretty much any tour by any band ever. But Elevation was especially good.

This inspired me to dig out the bootleg of the 5.12.01 concert. I put said bootleg into my stereo, thoughtfully put on my giant headphones and turned it most of the way up. You're welcome, neighbors.

Let me tell you about the May 12, 2001 concert. This was the first U2 concert I ever attended. I sobbed for days when I couldn't go to PopMart in Madison (apparently 15 is too young to convince your parents to take you to a concert which you will be attending alone because they certainly won't be going). When ZooTV came around I was eleven and was only vaguely aware of the existence of concerts and certainly had no interest in going to any - even if my favorite band was playing.

Stupid, ten year old self.

So this May 12, 2001 concert came at the culmination of years of longing to see a favorite band and I was particularly excited. It was one of those deals where I truly did not believe I was going to see U2 until they came on stage - I didn't believe it. It's possible MoPo was annoyed with me for a large portion of it and I don't blame her at all, since I'm certain I was fairly obnoxious (particularly for someone on the upper deck of the United Center), but what do you expect from a nineteen year old girl who is seeing her favorite band for the first time ever? Who has just realized that she and Bono are in the same building? And will soon be in the same room?! It's too much! (Sidenote: Until the September 25th, 2005 concert I had convinced myself that I was the kind of person who could be three yards away from Bono and remain perfectly composed, clapping and cheering but not freaking out like a crazy person. I was embarrassed to find that this was not true.)

Last night I listened to the May 12, 2001 Chicago U2 show. Not only was the tour fantastic, this show was completely fantastic. During Stay, Faraway (So Close!) the band brought a guy from the audience named Jonathan onto the stage to play the piano. Bono informed him that "if you're crap, you're off." He was hard to hear during the first verse because he was playing along with The Edge, but he changed things up in the second to go a bit more with the studio version of the song and everyone went nuts because it was perfection. It was a really amazing moment and I'm glad I was there for it. Whenever I listen to other bootlegs from that tour or watch the Boston DVD I feel like something is missing from that show's version of Stay, and then I realize that there is something missing, and it's the piano.

That song started what was the most amazing 30 or so minutes of my concert-going life. Maybe it's because it was my first U2 show or because they sounded so good that night (seriously, the balance on that tour was incredible), but nothing since has matched it or even come close. Those five songs flowed into one another without a pause between them. After Stay they played Bad (which you may be aware is my favorite song of all time ever) - and on the bootleg, you can hear me shriek with joy after half a second of the first sustained chord. Everyone else caught on with what song it was after about ten seconds when The Edge came in, but I had it right then (there may have been a few tears). This went into "40" - which I knew was coming but was incredible because listening to "40" on Under a Blood Red Sky I always wished I'd been along on the Joshua Tree Tour to sing along... and then I was. After that was Where the Streets Have No Name, which is a required favorite for any U2 fan and it's sort of... magic. Streets turned into With or Without You and it was then my brain exploded because I couldn't fit any more awesome into it.

I had to e-mail a dozen different people until I found someone who would send me the boot of that show free of charge (U2 doesn't have a problem with taping as long as people don't charge for the recordings, but it happens), but I'm glad I found it because it made a crappy string of days infinitely better.

(U2 is going on tour in 2009. The rumormill has it starting at Camp Nou in Barcelona which is neat on a number of levels. You can come if you want, but I'll probably still act like a spaz.)

So there you go. If you're having a bad day, listen to a particularly awesome concert with the volume up to 11. It will help.

In which the picture has nothing to do with the content.

2009-02-04T14:29:00.006-06:00

I occasionally check my spam folder to make sure nothing interesting is in there. Today I found a piece of mail with nothing but a link, the text of which was "Crisis! And you does feel badly? It is not needed to take a recipe. Come to us!"

Um, no. But thank you.

A List.

2009-01-27T08:32:00.011-06:00

More than one person "tagged" me to do this on Facebook, so here you go: 25 Random Things About Me:

1) I've kept a blog since 2001. Through various key slips, computer crashes, and location changes, a large portion of it is lost to the inky depths of the Interwebs.

2) The second word I ever said was "dog," so I have literally been asking for a dog since I could speak, and consequently have more potential dog names in mind (about 235) than potential baby names (0).

3) When I was in second or third grade, I decided to write a big, thick, impressive book like the ones my dad liked to read, which had names like "CARNEGIE" and "[IMPORTANT HISTORICAL EVENT]." My book was called "THE CIVIL WAR" and I spent a lot of time making an incredibly impressive title page in my neatest handwriting. The entire text of "THE CIVIL WAR" is reproduced here for your enjoyment - "The Civil War was." Shockingly, it did not make the best-seller lists.

4) The first time I ever drank tea was while studying abroad in Ireland. The people I worked with in Ireland took at least five tea breaks a day so it became a nice habit and chance to sit back and be social (it was more like we took "work breaks" during an 8 hour tea). One day at my internship I sneaked a bag of Earl Grey from the stash of someone in another department, and as I poured my hot water into my cup I chuckled at my caper and said (aloud, seriously), "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." Then I tried a sip and let me tell you, after months of thinking that all tea tasted like Irish or English Breakfast Tea, that cup of Earl Grey blew my mind. I think I made some sort of inappropriate animal-type noise when I smelled it. I don't drink Earl Grey often because I keep trying to try to surprise myself with its flavor again and occasionally it works, but nothing will ever compare to the mind-blowing holy crap where has this been all my life-ness of that first cup. It was only later I learned that Earl Grey is considered poncy amongst many tea connoisseurs. I say poncy or not, if it's good enough for Picard, it's good enough for me.

5) When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a Muppeteer. I still think it would be just about the coolest job in the world.

6) I went to my undergraduate institution intending to major in Archaeology. I settled for an unofficial Arc minor, thinking English and History would be more marketable. Oh, young and foolish self!

7) I did a dance when I found out my favorite author in the world won the Newbery Award.

8) If given the choice between argyle and any other pattern, I will choose argyle 95% of the time. If the other pattern is paisley or tartan, we'll have a pattern rumble.

9) I watched Top Gun at least once a week during 8th grade (I had it on Beta!). Tom Cruise was so dreamy before we all found out he's totally insane.

10) An insanely high percentage of my clothes are from Target because I'm cheap and too lazy to find another inexpensive clothing store where one can also buy hot chocolate and bookshelves.

11) My laptop is named Lamont Cranston, after one of The Shadow's alter-egos.

12) The reason I taught myself to knit was because I wanted to have my own Gryffindor scarf.

13) I can't get into an unmade bed and consequently make my bed every single morning with varying degrees of neatness.

14) Two years ago I won a kayak (first prize, even!) in a photography contest for the picture below:

This was the first thing I had ever won. No, seriously. The first thing. I'd ever won. Ever. Including those stupid awards like, "Best At Staying Inside the Lines" they give to everyone in kindergarten.

15) About three and a half years ago I lost around 50 pounds. I might be prouder of that than of any of my degrees. Grad school is hard, but losing weight is really hard - I mean, you have to eat. Like Vincent Vega says, bacon tastes good. A lot of people don't think they can lose weight, and neither did I. I always knew I could get a master's degree.

16) I like Wisconsin, yet I keep trying to go west, young woman. I'm having trouble leaving the things about Wisconsin I like - mostly the people.

17) I think I need to learn to drive a manual transmission just in case one day there is a zombie apocalypse, and there's nobody left un-zombified who knows how to drive stick and that's all there is available. Or if I'm in Europe at the time of said zombie apocalypse.

18) Even though it's generally cheesy and over the top, I wish people still made film noir.

19) When I'm having a really bad day, Peggy Bunny (who was pink when I got her at age three) still sleeps with me.

20) For a long time I thought Johnny Rivers was singing "Secret Asian Man," not "Secret Agent Man." The actual words make a lot more sense.

21) I have never seen a single episode of Saved By the Bell, nor have I ever owned a Barbie. These are cultural phenomenons I will never understand.

22) When I was in elementary school I made a window hanging for a friend as a birthday gift. Her father made fun of it and since then I have never given something homemade as a gift - which is lame, especially since homemade gifts are my favorite kind to get.

23) I am hoping to take a picture every day of 2009. So far I have missed zero days. Here is today's picture:

Ah yes, the trophy from the Packers' only Superbowl win during my lifetime. Spring had better get here soon - I've just about exhausted the things you can do and see inside ~~the stadium~~ in Green Bay when it's this cold.

24) My all-time favorite album is The Joshua Tree by U2, my favorite food is the green olive, my favorite domestic microbrew is Capital Brewery's Island Wheat (admittedly, mostly because the wheat comes from one of my favorite places in the state), and my favorite song is Fairytale of New York by The Pogues.

25) This is where the funniest story about Kindergarten Jessie would go, if I didn't think it would totally gross you out. Unsurprisingly, it involves barf and underpants.

I miss my friends. :(

Maybe if I worked for Pixar...

2009-01-22T17:24:00.006-06:00

I've realized something lately, and it wasn't in relation to any particular event or conversation, just something that has gradually been brought to my attention by a hundred small things said or done by many different people in many different places.

People are mean and petty everywhere. Everywhere! Every workplace has hard-to-follow politics, every group of friends has gossips, and everybody has at least one person they don't like very much for an insanely stupid reason. If I was waiting for a magical workplace or city where everyone got along and didn't talk behind one another's backs and everywhere was sunshine and rainbows and happy collaboration between colleagues all the time - I should probably stop waiting for that (and I was waiting for that - that was silly of me).

I'm a little slow with these things.

I've had several different jobs since leaving college and some were better than others. However, there's always a period (however short - this period at the insurance company was about six minutes, literally) when everyone seems really nice and is on their best behavior before it happens. Someone says something uncouth in a meeting and people make fun of them later. Person A does something that annoys Person B and Person B proceeds to bitch about it to Persons C, D, E, and F, thus making Persons C, D, E, and F feel weird because they like both Person A and Person B. And at that point, the honeymoon is over. The real world has intruded on what was a previously harmonious workplace (or other place!) for New Girl.

So I have decided that because I can't control what the people around me do, I'm just going to have to be awesome enough to make up for it. Yes, we all have moments, but the next time I feel one coming on I think I'm just going to ignore it and think about awesome things like dirty martinis and mastiff puppies and the noise R2-D2 makes when he feels bad about something. I'll be the one who tries not to complain about Person A to Persons H, J, and K. I'll let you know how it goes.

Maybe it's because I'm a bit removed from things up here in the frozen north, or maybe I've just been a bad friend, but lately I'm feeling a lot like everyone I know is standing ten yards away from me outside in a blizzard (in what Pa Ingalls would call a "daisy" of a blizzard... that means it's particularly bad, I don't know why, I think daisies are quite pleasant) and even though I yell and shout at the top of my lungs and jump up and down and wave my arms around, nobody hears anything I'm saying because the wind is too loud, and they just don't notice me in the same way people usually don't notice dead people in movies about that sort of thing.

Maybe that means it's just time to go back inside to make some tea, curl up with an afghan and a book, and wait for Spring.

Please hurry up, Spring.

I'M lost.

2009-01-21T21:04:00.002-06:00

Cool Thing - Knitting

Hooray for knitting! This is a scarf for my grandmother for Christmas. It took me a little longer than I anticipated.

Also, apparently the season premiere of Lost is on right now. I've been watching it and I've seen every episode of this show and, as usual, I have no idea what's going on. As a friend said, "Does anyone else want Scott Bakula to leap into Locke's body and teach us all a blatantly obvious moral lesson?"

Yes. I do want that.

Oh, winter.

2009-01-18T17:54:00.007-06:00

As if it wasn't bad enough that I was getting The Wanderlust the other day already, yesterday I spent five hours (count 'em - five hours) of a perfectly good Saturday stuck in my car in a ditch with no cell phone waiting for a tow truck. More than once there was swearing and cursing the state of Wisconsin and snow in general. Why do I live here?

(Note: The above picture does not illustrate where I was stuck. Where I was stuck was more... how do you say? Ah yes - in the middle of nowhere.)

My suggestion to you - do not, under any circumstances, attempt to Y-turn on a country road in the snow if you are not absolutely certain where the shoulder ends. Chances are the road is quite a lot narrower than you suppose and your car with the ridiculously wide turning radius won't be able to make it around without getting stuck in the snow and leave you feeling like an idiot who hasn't lived here her entire life. Here endeth the suggestion.

Snowing yet again. I recently purchased a digital converter box (more on that later) and now have some extra channels. The channel that shows nothing but local weather tells me that there are 17" of snow on the ground already. Enough already, winter! Seriously!

Now, about this digital converter box business. Aside from the obvious awesome things (the picture is better, I get a channel that seems to show nothing but reruns of The A-Team and Little House on the Prairie, and the box looks kind of like a cylon when on standby), I don't think I like it. I have yet another remote and depending on if I'm watching TV or a DVD I have to use a different one to change the volume. Despite being told otherwise by the "expert" at Best Buy, I can not hook up both a DVD player and a VCR to my older TV which requires an RF modulator - I do not like being lied to. It still cost $20 after my friendly government coupon. Most irritating of all - the box "converts" all shows with a normal, full-screen aspect ratio to tiny boxes in the middle of the screen with black borders on every side, thus shrinking the picture to about half the size it should be. I have to sit about two feet away from the TV to see anything. Yes, I eventually figured out how to change it, but I don't want to hit the "zoom" button multiple times every time I change a channel to figure out whether I have the picture at the right size. This is a pain in the place one sits.

This smells, to me, like The Government trying to stimulate the economy by getting everyone with a perfectly good older television and no cable to buy a fancy new television. NO, GOVERNMENT. I will deal with your stupid crap because I can't afford a new television. I can't even afford cable - why would I buy a new TV?

Oh, the rage.

In order to hold off the rage, here is a list of awesome things:

1) The Steelers (my AFC team of choice - sorry? No, I'm not.)
2) Neil Patrick Harris on Saturday Night Live
3) I'm re-reading all my "Little House" books. Not only do they go remarkably quickly, I still like them.
4) Getting out of the ditch
5) Batman socks in the $1 section at Target - made for children, fit geeky grown women.
6) Audrey Hepburn
7) Battlestar Galactica on Hulu... though the content of the show is not always exactly as I would like.
8) I'm attempting to take a picture everyday of 2009, showing here.
9) The A-Team
10) The converter box on standby.

Pretty awesome.

Oh, I'm just a guy with a girlfriend who lives in Wis-KAHN-sin...

2009-01-15T08:48:00.002-06:00

Update: The actual temperature right now is -17 F and the wind chill is -40 F. Um, what would you do if your car was frozen to the parking lot?

...just wondering.

Things I didn't know that you probably did.

2009-01-13T18:51:00.000-06:00

One reason I like being a librarian is that you learn something every day. Here is a sampling of the things I have learned recently.

- Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill are not the same person. Contemporaries and friends... but different people ("Well, of course they're different people," you might say, "They have different names!" Some of us ignore little details like that, friend).
- High school students are obsessed with murders (For example: seven people were murdered in Frank Lloyd Wright's house in Spring Green, including his mistress. Frank was in Chicago at the time. This is the least disgusting thing I learned helping with this subject).
- Philo Taylor Farnsworth invented the television as we know it when he was fourteen.
- Alice Walker believes that being a mother is a weak option for weak women, and (unsurprisingly) is estranged from her daughter.
- Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher, burned all her diaries when she got married because she was afraid of what her husband would think.
- Oskar Schindler is the only member of the Nazi party to be buried in Jerusalem.
- Nellie Bly helped invent undercover journalism by pretending to be insane and getting herself committed to an asylum to do an expose. Once inside she acted normally and they treated her like crap.
- People in the old west had much cooler names than we do today. Calamity Jane? Sundance Kid? Doc Holliday? Valentine McGillycuddy? California Joe? Brilliant. Makes me want to watch Tombstone. And Deadwood.
- John Dillinger wore Hanes underpants with blue stripes. And red sock garters.
- Joseph Pschorr "invented" brewing underground in cellars, thus allowing Germans to drink year-round as the beer was kept cool in the summer. Thanks, Herr Pschorr!

In unrelated news, I'm sick. In further unrelated news, the ol' wanderlust seems to have returned. Please remind me why I like living in Wisconsin? I mean, other than the fact that parts of it are insanely beautiful and awesome and it is near just about everyone I love. Find me a mountain in Wisconsin!

I want to see mountains again. Mountains, Gandalf!

All I wanna do is a... and take your money.

2009-01-04T15:21:00.006-06:00

One of the major problems with moving to a new city is that for quite a while after you get there, you don't know where anything is. For example, where to buy cheap stuff. In an attempt to remedy this situation, I decided to find Goodwill today.

I recently read an article in CNN.com which suggested that more people are shopping at thrift stores because the economy is in such a horrible state. It then quoted a woman in New York who had just purchased a designer bag from last season for $950 at a thrift store.

$950?! At a thrift store?! Forget you, New York thrift stores. You are clearly doing it wrong.

Unrelated - Right now, this very moment... is the first time I've been in my apartment with the sun shining!! Eeee! It looks so nice! There is hope! Here, look:

My neighbors probably think I'm some sort of creepy photo-taking stalker person. They just very pointedly closed all the blinds in their apartment. Whoops.

As I was saying: To me, cheap can be anywhere from $0-$20, depending on exactly what you find. I enjoy thrift stores very much, because they generally sell things that are my definition of cheap. The lamp purchase yesterday with the bonus dangly things made me realize that perhaps one of the problems with my new place, while roomy as the Metrodome, is that it seems to be trying to be classier than I am. I am not classy, I decorate with thrift store purchases. I buy stuff like silly lamps with bonus dangly things, put up posters of Yoda on my walls, and I light rooms using Christmas lights. This is the way I am.

So today, in an effort to both figure out where things are in town and significantly enrich my life by going back to my thrift store decorating roots, I set out for Goodwill. Um, also I burned the lampshade of my other lamp with some Christmas candles several weeks ago and broke the harp while trying to take the shade off, so I needed yet another new lamp. I win.

One thing to know about Green Bay is that Everything is near the stadium. Everything. The issue is that when the Packers are playing at home, you can't do anything because it is impossible to get to Everything (literally. They change the direction of the streets). Since the Packers really sucked it up this year, I was finally able to venture out today to find cheap stuff. After my morning pot of tea, I wrote down the street Goodwill is on, and set out. I got over to the stadium part of town and realized I should have written down more than the name of the street, because I don't know where anything is. Unfortunate. After turning around several times, I turned onto the street I'd written down, and found... Target.

This was neither surprising nor helpful, since I seem to be hardwired to find every Target within a ten-mile radius at a particular time. However, because I have this uncanny ability, I had already found the Target much closer to my house, and was instead frustrated that I had found a Target instead of a Goodwill. I drove up and down the street several times, hoping Goodwill was on the same street (it was not), with a growing need to use a restroom.

So I went back to my apartment. On my way back to the apartment, I thought to myself how helpful it would have been in that situation to have one of those fancy cell phones with the Internet so I could look up the correct address of Goodwill. Of course, the phone wouldn't have helped my bladder.

After writing down the correct address and directions and using my bathroom (which is unfortunately probably not as clean as one I could have used in a gas station if I had one of those fancy Internet phones), I set out for Goodwill again.

Luckily I found it (an hour and a half after initially setting out on this adventure) and found lots of wonderful things. I spent a grand total of $16.34. I then found a going-out-of-business Steve and Barry's where I got some completely adorable pants, two shirts, and some shoes all for $5.16. Thanks, going-out-of-business Steve and Barry's!

However, my favorite purchase of the day is what I set out to find in the first place:

An awesomely ridiculous lamp. I'm going to call it a plamp (get it? Get it? Plant + Lamp = Plamp!) or maybe a lampent (get it? Lamp + Ent = Lampent? Fine, maybe you're not a geek). My favorite thing about the purchase of this lamp (apart from the fact that the original tag said $56 and I got it for $6) was that the Goodwill tag said "One-of-a-Kind" on it, with another, identical lamp sitting next to it on the clearance shelf. Um. Two of a kind is the new one of a kind?

Totally worth a two-hour quest.

Talking about things (like a walk in the park)...

2009-01-03T20:37:00.007-06:00

A few things for today:

1) Observe:

I like these socks for several reasons. First of all, they are green. Second, they are wool. Third and most importantly, the middle parts give your feet a hug. (Fourth, and a minor reason to like them, is that my sister hates them. HA.)

2) I bought this lamp today. When I unwrapped the shade I discovered that there were bonus dangly things!

I should probably return it because it is completely ridiculous, but it's a bonus!

3) And then:

Lambeau Field tour!

4) Did people really use phrases like "hotter than Vulcan's [thingy]" as often and have as much sex in ancient Rome as Rome suggests? Sheesh.

5) Today is my parents' anniversary. Thanks for gettin' hitched, you two crazy kids!

You're older than you've ever been and now you're even older.

2009-01-02T20:34:00.005-06:00

I'm slowly coming to the realization that things get more difficult as we get older.

It is harder to see. It is harder to hear. It's harder to keep in touch with the friends you have. It's harder to make new friends when you move to a new place. It's harder to find something decent on television or the radio (kids these days...). It's harder to afford the things you want. It's harder to remember things.

Of course, it might not be that I'm getting old. I might just need a new prescription for my contacts and my television might be farther away in this apartment than the last one. I might need to clean my ears. Perhaps everyone is just a lot busier than they used to be, and I'm farther away. It could also be that television and music just aren't as good as they used to be. Maybe the things I want now are just more expensive than Star Wars action figures and Legos. And it could be that I've always been this forgetful.

Eh, I can't remember.

What was I talking about?

There is no charge for awesomeness. Or attractiveness.

2009-01-01T19:56:00.008-06:00

Cool Thing #8 - Millennium Park

One of many reasons I was trying to move to Chicago (it hasn't gone well so far, but I'm working on it) is that there are a multitude of cool things there. One of those things is The Bean (not the technical name).

I almost went blind from overexposure to pure awesomeness!

Also, happy new year - I hope you were able to celebrate with family or friends or however you wanted to. May 2009 bring us all awesome things.

I really can't stay... oh, but it's cold outside!

2008-12-22T19:25:00.006-06:00

Sometimes I do stuff that isn't too awesome.

About two hours ago I was getting back from work, having gone to the post office to pick up a package on my way back to the apartment. The plan was to drop off the package at the apartment, grab my mail, and head out to do some Christmas shopping. When I got back I would read for a while, dance around naked, and then go to bed.

It was a truly wonderful plan.

However, what actually happened was not that.

I got back to the apartment and dropped off the package (so far, so good). I then unlocked my car with the remote opener (this will be important in a minute), got back into my car and drove it approximately fifteen yards to the mailbox room (usually I walk, as it is fifteen yards, but I was on my way out anyway). I got out of my car, making sure my remote opener was in my pocket just in case I'd accidentally locked the car door, and got my mail (a Christmas card from my aunt - still good). I got back to my car and discovered that the door was locked. No problem, I've got my remote opener! Superhero!

The remote opener does not remotely unlock the door. I press the button again. Still nothing. (This is where the plan goes awry.) "Oh dear," I say as I push the button really hard - alas, the door remains locked.

Did I mention the car is still running?

I am now locked out of my car, in -3 degree weather. My car is partially blocking someone's garage. It is running and the lights are on. I go back in my apartment and call AAA, who are very busy, because it is -3 degrees right now. During the half hour I am on hold, I pry apart the remote opener with a butter knife and fiddle the weird-looking batteries around a bit. I warm it up and say nice things to it. I offer it tea. I then take it back outside and attempt to use it to unlock the door again.

No dice.

I go back inside. I change my pants. I change my socks. I change my shirt. I put on my swanky new coat (thanks, mom! :D) and go back outside to the car. I try talking to it. It talks back in the slightly muffled voice of WPR, saying something that sounds like, "I'm not sure what you expect me to do about it, sweet cheeks."

I go back inside again. I take apart every small electronic device in the apartment looking for batteries that resemble those in the remote opener. None of them do.

Crystal at AAA picks up! She is very sympathetic with my plight and apologizes for the wait. I'm all, "Heeeey, that's cool. You didn't lock me out of my car, ha ha." Crystal does not catch my not-funny joke, but I forgive her because she is very busy tonight.

So now I'm waiting for someone to come unlock the car. Hopefully they'll get here by 8:30 so I can go buy my Christmas presents (The Boyfriend doesn't read this, but the way tonight is going he probably will so - your extra-classy girlfriend was going to get you some scotch for Christmas, poopsiekins), but they're very busy given the cold. I may just say "screw it" and have a beer instead.

There are some good things we can take from this, however. My phone was not locked in the car (I do not have a land line). I have half a tank of gas, which will hopefully be enough to last until the person comes to unlock the car. I'm out of the wind in my cozy apartment with food and warm socks and I can blog and watch a Gossip Girl rerun.

I say to you: Do not trust your remote opener. I never, ever leave my car running while I "run in to [do something]" for two seconds, and the one time I do, it stops working. Thirty seconds after it unlocked my car with no problems. Further - do not go see Twilight unless you want to be a little embarrassed.

Here endeth my advice.

2008-12-19T14:52:00.004-06:00

I think I need to educate some of the media on the geography of the United States.

This morning, I turned on the television before work, where I found The Today Show. The Today Show was talking about the snow that was going to hit New York. One of them (I don't watch the show, I don't know his name) was outside in not-snowy New York, talking about the not-delays at La Guardia (because it wasn't snowing), and this exchange took place:

Meredith: Are they expecting flight delays today and this evening?
Guy: Possibly. Right now, we're watching for choke-point airports. We're seeing delays and canceled flights out of Milwaukee and other east-coast airports like O'Hare. O'Hare is a real choke-point.
Me: What?

Oh silly Today Show, Milwaukee and Chicago are not on the east coast. Thank goodness. Also, I wish someone would tell that guy to stop saying "choke-point." Sounds like something illegal.

This afternoon I was looking at CNN.com (Blagojevich is a real *#$&ing winner, isn't he? And people in Illinois want to build a fence to keep us out...) where there was an image of a person in a raincoat in the snow outside the MGM Grand, with the title, "Winter storm rips into Midwest, Northeast."

Last I checked, the MGM Grand was in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is nowhere near the Midwest or the Northeast.

It is awesome, however, that it is around 20 degrees here now. I want to go outside in my swimming suit, it's so warm.

Boo.

2008-12-18T18:06:00.000-06:00

Oh. I get it.

What's! The weather for the weekend gonna be? Will it be hot? Cold? Rain? Snow?

2008-12-18T12:05:00.011-06:00

I no longer believe in weather.

That's it! I don't believe in weather. Similar to the fact that I no longer believe in money - weather is dead to me.

Our high temperature since Sunday has been 6 degrees. Six! It is currently a full twenty degrees warmer in Milwaukee than it is here. I fail to understand how this is possible, and refuse to believe it. When I left for work this morning, it was -15. Without the windchill. This weather, in which I do not believe, is not working very well with my wardrobe of skirts and boots.

Now the weather is telling me it will snow several inches between midnight tonight and 6 PM tomorrow. First off, this is not convenient timing for me, so I refuse to believe it. Secondly, this is the weather now:

How does this equal a foot or so of snow in Wisconsin in twelve hours? I do not believe it. Yes, there's that sliver of snow over South Dakota that looks like it might get here about then, but it's clearly going to dissipate somewhere over Iowa and besides - that can't be a foot of snow. It's so little and the snow we're supposed to get is supposed to spread over the whole state. And it's not even the dark blue, it's the pleasant teal-type blue. Not believing it.

Therefore, I will proceed with my plan to drive home at noon, and trust that I will have no problems whatsoever.

Because I don't believe in weather. No, I do not. Ergo, it can not muck up my plans.

Girls don't like boys, girls like master's degrees and jobs with benefits.

2008-12-17T10:40:00.004-06:00

Riddle me this: Currently, there is quite a bit of talk about stimulus packages. Who do I call at The Government to tell them that if they want us to spend money, they should just take a magic eraser and erase all student loan debt? Not in ten years after working at a library and making outlandish monthly payments on my loan, but now. If you need me to spend money now-now-now (like you said you do) - retroactively make my education free. I'll even let you keep the payments I've already made on my loan. The ten-year loan forgiveness for public servants thing is great... but there aren't any jobs right now. How can I work in public service for the next ten years if I can't get a permanent position?

I will tell you, The Government - forgive student loans. We'll spend more money. Heck, I'll buy a car if you forgive my student loan! I might even consider buying a house one day!

Until that happens... I'm not going to be spending much money on anything but loan repayment. Maybe you can buy stock in that!

Who is the person in The Government who needs to hear this? Someone in Education? The Treasury? The President-Elect? I have these great plans, I just don't know who needs to be convinced of their greatness.

(Let's just forget for a minute that banks need student loan money right now. Money is all imaginary, anyway.)

This is a great plan! Don't you think I have great plans? (Shut up about the banks!)

That is all.

2008-12-14T21:20:00.010-06:00

Cool Thing #7 - Small-market Professional Sports Teams

The Green Bay Packers are my favorite football team. Not only is this because they belong in my home state (or because they have won twelve league championships and the Superbowl trophy is named after Vince Lombardi, though those are nice things), but also because no city in Wisconsin has any business with an NFL team. The whole population of Wisconsin is less than that of Chicago and its metro area. The Target I go to in Green Bay is right next to a dairy farm. Lambeau Field is on the edge of a residential neighborhood. The Packers are unique within the NFL as a small-town team with (if you ask me) unparalleled fan loyalty - every home game has been sold out for more than forty years. Even when they suck. Like they do now.

The Packers are the only non-profit NFL team owned by a bazillion stockholders, and for that reason, they will never leave Green Bay. And that is awesome.

When you're bored in Green Bay on a Sunday afternoon (not an unusual occurrence when it's winter and you've just moved here, and you only know your coworkers), you can pop on by the stadium to watch the (away) game and eat a brat. And in case anyone is curious, the Packer Pro Shop still has all the Favre merchandise you'd expect to find before he un-retired and went to a much lamer team.

It's a nice stadium. I hadn't been there since they added the atrium, but it's very swanky. On a day it isn't snowing, I'll take the tour.

There is no way Vince Lombardi was this tall in real life. Epic, yes. One of the most quotable people ever? Probably. A giant? No. But it's much more impressive this way. And it's really too bad that winning is the only thing, since they aren't doing it much these days.

The Packers are a cool thing.

What it do?

2008-12-12T19:18:00.002-06:00

This is just an excuse to post pictures of my new apartment, and to say that I believe the best movie Madonna is in to be A League of Their Own.

Why yes, my Christmas tree does match my kitchen, thank you for noticing. And no, that is not really an accident. I find red is very easy to match when you have lots of slightly different-colored red things in your apartment.

It should surprise no one that this is my favorite part of the apartment. My books, my turntable, and my positively giant universal remote from Walgreen's I bought for $9 because MoPo and KP couldn't find the remote control to the TV they very generously let me take from their apartment. It never gets lost, and I bet you can't say that about your remote. Unless it too is the size of the seventh Harry Potter book.

My bedroom with Pedro Panda, a gift from my sister. He is from China!

I may have mentioned that I really like my kitchen and its little window into the living room. The majority of my apartment-time is spent in these two rooms, so it's good that I like them.

Woo apartment woo!

Yeah, you look about like the kind of angel I'd get.

2008-12-10T22:48:00.007-06:00

Cool Thing #6 - Christmas

In general I don't have much time these days, but Christmas is really super.

Who doesn't like Christmas?

Okay, to be fair, I know at least two people who claim not to like Christmas. Some people are not Christians, and this is a valid reason to not like Christmas (though I have have several atheist, Jewish, Muslim, agnostic, Hindu, and [other belief system to which a friend subscribes I've undoubtedly forgotten] friends who are perfectly fine with Christmas. In fact, one of my favorite non-Christian couples is having a Christmas party next weekend, hooray). Some people do not like Christmas because it is overcommercialized and the true meaning has been pushed aside. Some people do not like Christmas because really, December 25th was Mithras's birthday and they assigned it to Jesus after Emperor Constantine became Christian, and they don't think that's fair.

However, I like Christmas. I'm not a big fan of Santa Claus and I don't care much for Miracle on 34th Street (if we're going with black-and-white Christmas movies, It's a Wonderful Life is far superior in my book), but I am a Christian and I love that Christmas is a day for family, friends, and celebration. It's also a plus that everything in December smells like cinnamon and pine trees. Last year my family did not exchange presents, and it was great. The day was not about getting things, it was about being together.

Plus, I really like getting out my Christmas decorations, particularly when we've got two feet of snow on the ground. Mmm, Christmas.

It may be worth noting that a Christmas tree is not a Wisconsin tree unless it has a sports-related ornament hanging on it. It seems I am set in this regard, though if you see a baseball ornament with the Brewers logo... I'd pay you back (evidently people in Green Bay do not watch the Brewers and consequently do not have Brewers ornaments for sale at Target. They do love the Badgers though, to which I loudly say boo). Some people will tell you that a true upper-midwestern Christmas tree requires a pickle ornament, but I dispute this as I am not German and thus have no reason to put a pickle on my tree. Though it is kind of silly and I approve of that. I gave my grandfather a banana ornament one year, and he never stopped finding it funny.

I have a Packers ornament, a Quiddich-playing Harry Potter ornament (with accompanying Snitch somewhere on the tree. Sidenote - how great is The Tales of Beedle the Bard? Ol' Dumbleface's accompanying notes are a hoot and a half), a grande skim peppermint mocha from Starbucks ornament, and some bells featuring characters from the claymation version of Rudolph.

This is my tree. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Christmas is cool, and I hope you get to spend it with people you love.

An October Picture

2008-12-02T00:53:00.004-06:00

I was going to post about a thing that is not cool (namely Moving Away From Your Family And Friends and the Most Awesome Neighborhood in Wisconsin) but instead I will post about a thing that is cool:

Cool Thing #5: Free Internet From Your New Landlord.

I think this is fairly self-explanatory.

Let me hear that, get me near that crunchy granola suite!

2008-11-24T23:37:00.010-06:00

Cool Thing #4: Neil Diamond

Really. We've now moved to Neil Diamond. Sorry, blog. If you ever had any shred of class or awesome, it has run away to the land of Cooler Blogs.

Please enjoy "I Am, I Said," a Neil Diamond song I genuinely like (how can you not like a song with a line like, "No one heard at all, not even the chair," come on!). I wanted "Crunchy Granola Suite" from Hot August Night because not only does it rock super hard (well, it Neil Diamond rocks - DIG!), but also because my mom didn't know that one, but sadly no audio from Hot August Night is on YouTube anywhere (I don't think a video exists, but I promise it would be hilarious).

I went to see Neil Diamond tonight and it was a freaking hoot and a half. It was fantastic! It really was. It was fantastic for a number of reasons. Not only was it hilarious because I was watching Neil Diamond, but it was actually really super! Super and hilarious? Oh yes, my friends! He's old, but he still sounds pretty great, he's got completely insane hilarious smarmy moves, and he still really knows how to put on a show. Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show, even.

And sparkles. Did I mention the sparkles? There were sparkles like this was Twilight (which is not a cool thing, despite what my inner thirteen-year-old says about it).

Granted, if you ever go to see Neil Diamond in concert, you have to take it for what it is. It's a Neil Diamond show. I was expecting old people watching an old guy sit on a stool, singing songs that used to be fast... really slowly. Maybe with an occasional unintentionally humorous sentence thrown in here and there. I was pleasantly surprised. It's not a U2 show (but then, what is, hmm?), but it's really entertaining and unless you've been living under a rock since the '70s, you'll know a lot of the songs. And Neil will do some rocking, which is not only commendable and, shockingly, successful, it is kind of funny. I mean... you're watching Neil Diamond. It's over-the-top and I can't imagine he takes himself very seriously.

You say to me that you do not like Neil Diamond because his music is cheesy and silly and not really that good. And I say to you that yes, I understand all of that, but I bet you can sing the chorus to at least ten Neil Diamond songs because not only are many of them actually good songs, but they are catchy and fun and everywhere. Neil Diamond permeates the very fabric of American society.

"Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon?" "Red, Red Wine?" "I'm a Believer?" All Neil Diamond. And you know you know "Sweet Caroline" and "Forever in Blue Jeans" and "Thank the Lord for the Nighttime" and "Cracklin' Rosie" and "Coming to America" and "Song Sung Blue" and "Kentucky Woman" and "Cherry Cherry" and "Shilo." Yes, my friends. Some part of you likes Neil Diamond, maybe you just don't realize it yet. It's the same part of you that likes cheap wine and scotch 'n tapwater and the idea of satin sheets. If you do not believe me, you should borrow Hot August Night from the library. Enjoy the Neil-definitely-on-something extravaganza. The part when he starts talking to the tree people is particularly great.

Neil Diamond. Yup.

Keep walking.

2008-11-22T16:01:00.003-06:00

No time for a real update, but rather than posting about Comic books or International travel (neither of which I have the time to do justice right now), I will instead share this Johnnie Walker commercial, just because I like it.

I tend to really appreciate certain commercials. Generally I'm not sure why (this one I like because it's pretty, and we played this song in my college band, and it's neat to hear a semi-obscure contemporary composer I actually know about featured in an ad like this). The "Boom-De-Yada" Discovery Channel commercial is particularly great, as was the Derek Redmond Visa ad during the Olympics. These commercials do not make me more likely to watch the Discovery Channel, use my Visa card, or drink Johnnie Walker (though we know it's quite good - thanks, KP!) but I do like it when they come on.

Back to packing!

2008-11-15T18:53:00.002-06:00

I should've known I wouldn't make it through the week!

Rather than posting Cool Thing #4 (which will be either comic books or international travel), I will say this - I need to go to ComicCon next year. It looks like I'll be unemployed by the beginning of July, so provided I can save the money to get there, I'll certainly have the time. I'm thinking of jetting up to northern California post-con for a camping extravaganza in Redwoods National Park, so if anyone else I know is a fellow combination outdoorsy nature geek and geek in the traditional pop-culture sense...

July 23-27th! San Diego! Be there or be square (and not just because I don't want to go alone, though that's part of it - I'll wear my Kaylee costume if you bring your lightsaber)!

More cool things to come later. I know you're on the edge of your seat!

I think I died of cute.

2008-11-12T22:13:00.003-06:00

Free Videos by Ustream.TV
Cool Thing #3 - Puppies

I've wanted a dog for my entire life. I've been asking for one since I could speak, literally (the second word I ever said was "dog" - not sure if it was mama or dada who missed out on that one). Now that I'm getting to be an old-type person, I should probably start thinking about getting one.

In the meantime, someone very nice has put their puppies on the Internet. Now, this afternoon, the puppies were replaced for about half an hour by Liverpool versus Tottenham (yeah, Peter Crouch!), but they're usually there. And seriously, puppies and Champions League soccer? Two cool things.

Tiny, fat, roly-poly puppies are cool.

Veterans Day

2008-11-11T19:09:00.012-06:00

Cool Thing #2 - America

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that sometimes things happen in this country that make me really angry. Sometimes decisions are made by the people in charge of this country that I do not agree with. That said, this is a pretty awesome place.

We can say whatever we want when the people in charge do things we don't like. We get to vote on those people and if we don't like them this time, maybe next time we will. We can get a fair trial when something goes wrong. We can worship Aphrodite or vampires or bananas or whatever we want and sing to the sky about it. We're going through a bit of a rough patch, but generally I think Americans are a good bunch. We help each other out.

Plus, most of my friends and all of this stuff is in it.

So thanks.

Cool Things

2008-11-10T22:25:00.005-06:00

In an attempt to post more often, I have decided to post one cool thing every day until the end of the month (if I even make it to the end of the week, it will be a miracle).

(From Flickr user Fred of Brazil: photo page)

Cool Thing #1 - Little Big Planet

Little Big Planet is a game for Playstation 3. It is cool enough that I want to buy it, and then buy a Playstation 3 so I can play it. I'm not a game-reviewer, but it's the most Mario-like game I've ever seen for PS3 (because I'm such an expert on video games and have played every single one), but more awesome. Plus, there is a song in it by The Go! Team that gets stuck in my head whenever I even think about sack people.

(From Flickr user mediamolecule: photo page)

Yes. Sack people.

Basically, you make your own little sack person and then they complete all sorts of little missions in levels all over Little Big Planet, all while being adorable. You can also build your own levels and then put them on the PS3 network for other people to play. The music is cool, the graphics are amazing, sack people are hilarious and if you're connected to the network, you'll never run out of things to do in the game because people add crap all the time.

It's a cool thing.

Better living with plants

2008-11-10T14:01:00.004-06:00

You might think it a waste of time to go to a botanic garden this time of year - not so! I appreciate places with successful plants because I myself am incredibly unsuccessful when it comes to gardening. This summer I managed to make a cucumber but managed to kill anything more difficult to grow than that.

But gardens in autumn!

Not only is it probably cheaper to go this time of year (the above, the Boerner Botanical Gardens in Milwaukee - was free! This may have been because we couldn't actually find the place we were supposed to pay, but still FREE), but it's still pretty! I visited both the Boerner Botanical Gardens and the Chicago Botanic Garden in the last month (the two closest botanical-type gardens to me, neither of which I had ever visited despite living here for... my entire life), and both were well worth the trip. Granted, it was probably nicer a few days ago when it was 70 degrees, but it's still nice if you want to go outside.

Someday I'll go to these places in the summer, when normal people go look at gardens.

Somehow I doubt normal people appreciate the sign for the Millennium Falcon Iris and the Starship Enterprise Iris. Maybe, but normal people probably like the flowers themselves better than the names.

Totem Spirit Housecat!

2008-11-07T01:13:00.004-06:00

While typing the previous entry I had PBS on mute, thinking some charming British mystery show might come on.

From what I can tell, PBS is currently showing a documentary on housecats with a sub-topic of "finding pictures of celebrities and putting pictures of cats next to them." They keep showing a picture of Russell Crowe (a picture from Gladiator, which makes it even funnier) with a picture of a cat next to him (this has been shown twice). They are now showing a picture of Candace Bergen with a picture of a cat next to her.

The pictures of celebrities are interspersed with clips of people playing with cats, and a cat in this one guy's kitchen. If I had the sound on I might know more about what the heck is going on and what, if anything, we are supposed to learn from this program, but I'm honestly really enjoying having no idea.

One of three things needs to happen here: 1) I need to go to bed earlier, 2) Turn off PBS before 11:00 PM, or 3) start watching late-night talkshows.

Oh look, a picture of Catherine Zeta Jones next to a picture of a cat. And now a cat on a kitchen table. Aw, this guy makes his own cat toys. And now we have a picture of Jake Gyllenhaal next to a picture of a cat. Now we are watching cats watching television.

PBS... I get the sense you do not want sponsorship dollars this year.

Voting Machines Elect One Of Their Own As President

2008-11-06T23:42:00.000-06:00

The next time I see this house, someone else will be living there. It's a nice house, but the job that goes with it just seems really, really stressful.

Half-related note - about a half-hour after I took this picture, George W. Bush landed somewhere in the vicinity in his fancy helicopter. Apparently the only helicopter allowed to fly that close to the White House post-September 11th is one with the president in it, so we can use our reasoning skills to deduce that it was him. It was pretty neat.

Did anyone else vote on a paper ballot? Is my city completely behind the times? I like voting, I like coloring - finish-the-arrow paper ballots are where it's at - and there's no danger of them becoming sentient and taking over the planet (a major concern with electronic voting machines)!

It occurred to me when I got to the pub on Tuesday night to watch election coverage (on cable!) and play the pub quiz with friends, that I'd forgotten to hit "record" on my VCR to tape the election returns (yes, I still have a VCR, and no I do not have cable). Because either way it ended up, this election was a huge deal and I like to have things like that to view later.

A few seconds later it occurred to me, still in the pub, that every minute of the presidential election returns of 2008 is probably available somewhere on the Internet. For free. Kids will probably watch the concession and acceptance speeches in school generations from now (maybe they'll beam holograms of Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper into their classrooms to tell them all about this exciting moment in our country's history!). Can we say that about any other election in American history? How cool!

Seriously though, the holograms? Really very silly. This was the election... OF THE FUTURE!

I should to try to find CNN's return coverage, because from where I was sitting, this is what happened (the following took place over approximately seventeen seconds):

Anderson Cooper: Do be do be do, hey! Looks like the polls in California are closing soon. We'll have the results from those western states as soon as we receive them.
Me: Oh, wow - California's such a big state, I suppose it will take them a little while to count thos-
CNN: BARACK OBAMA ELECTED PRESIDENT
Me and everyone else in pub: *several seconds of stunned silence*
Me: Wait, what? How... what just happened? Is that true?
Entire country: *freaks out*

Now, I'm sure that isn't quite what happened... but that's how I'm to remember it unless I re-watch it. I wonder what people did back in the days before insta-coverage. This is an incredibly interesting time to be alive.

Don't forget to be awesome!

2008-11-04T16:09:00.004-06:00

Captain America for President - He's the people's choice!

Supposedly this sticker will get me all sorts of free things today. Not sure if that's legal, but I'm off to test it.

Libraries I Wish Were in My Home

2008-10-31T15:55:00.006-05:00

I saw this some time ago, but it occurs to me that some people who read this are nerds and might appreciate it: Internet Mad Scientist Has Best Personal Library in the World.

Try not to weep over the fact that not only will you never be allowed to set foot in that room, but you will also never be able to assemble a collection of things half that awesome.

Ah, libraries.

(Courtesy of Flickr user Chotda - http://flickr.com/photos/santos/27538777/)

Just in case you haven't seen this either: Red Hot Library Smut (this page is required reading for most Library Science students - seriously, it was mentioned in at least three of my classes). Um, hot?

2008-10-31T13:41:00.005-05:00

Happy Halloween! Hooray!

(No idea what happened to that picture. Not supposed to be so big.)

I adore Halloween. Not only do I like candy (CANDY!), but I also like this time of year, and I like wearing stupid clothes. For whatever reason, I always seem to be the person at my place of work who either dresses up when nobody else does, or is the only person who doesn't dress up on Halloween.

Here is a list of things I have gone to work (or school) dressed as when nobody else got the memo that it was Halloween:

- Batgirl
- Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz
- Mrs. Mia Wallace
- Flashdance (just... the entire movie, I dressed as the entire movie)
- Death from The Sandman ("What are you, goth?" "NO, I'm DEATH! I'm anthropomorphic and genius! GAH!")

Here is a list of things I didn't go to work (or school) dressed as when other people did wear costumes:

- Kaylee from Firefly (this was probably good, as nobody would have gotten that anyway)
- Hermoine Granger
- Belle ala Beauty and the Beast
- 80's prom queen
- Glenda the Good Witch of the North

I believe I may have finally learned how to do this properly. Today I wore the "normal clothes" part of my costume to work and packed the "costume" part of my costume in my bag. That way, when I got to work and saw that everyone else was wearing costumes, I could put the rest of mine on. Or when I got to work and saw that nobody was wearing a costume, I didn't look like a ten-year-old.

Nobody here is dressed up. I'm glad I have a party to go to later or this Halloween would get an F.

अरबिक टुडे, ब्लॉगर?

2008-10-23T15:52:00.004-05:00

Blogger is transposing everything I write in the Title box into something that looks a bit like Arabic. Maybe Hindi (is Hindi the name of the script, or the language? Man, I'm dumb today). Neat, but I'm not sure why.

John McCain licks you!

2008-10-16T23:33:00.006-05:00

This picture is too funny not to share with the world. Or with the three people who read this.

An update on my student loan repayment living progress is forthcoming. I'm trying to find some pictures to put with it, but taking pictures of "cheap" doesn't turn out quite as awesome as it should.

(From http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/16/strange-mccain-post-debat_n_135325.html)

Student loan repayment living: Fun for all ages!

2008-10-14T09:55:00.003-05:00

I have decided the evil Student Loan Empire of Money is not going to defeat me. I will pay them, oh yes, but not only will I write snarky notes on all my checks to them, I will tell you all about how I am affording it.

Here be the plan:
1) Make my lunch every day before work.
2) Do not buy overpriced things from the coffee shop downstairs.
3) Take a certain amount of money from the ATM at the beginning of week and spend no more than that on parking at work (walk when possible) and recreational activities such as movies and eating out.
4) Don't buy anything unnecessary (ie: clothing, music or movies, bottled water, etc).
5) Find fun, free things to do in Milwaukee (this will probably be the most challenging).
6) If I have any money left, save it for extra payments on my loan (this is not going to be possible with my current budget, it is a consideration for later or during weeks when I have a wealthy benefactor ala Great Expectations).

This is going to suck.

A note about the picture above... I worked at a movie theater during college. This movie theater was about 85 years old and was a former vaudeville theater. It was very cool, but quite run-down. One evening after we closed, a coworker and I went down to the (super-extra-creepy-I-swear-it's-haunted) basement, where we found hundreds of tins of survival rations from the 1960s and a bomb shelter we imagine was from World War II. This is a tin of "survival biscuits," which were basically bits of cardboard cut to look like crackers. We ate some. Predictably, they were really gross.

I'm still not sure if anyone else knows that stuff is down there, or if someone is preparing for World War III.

Maybe I could become a hobbit... how well does that pay?

2008-10-12T13:17:00.003-05:00

I feel like this ladybug... as soon as he reached the top of the hill, he rolled right down to the bottom and got all tangled up in his wings, with little pieces of sand up under his shell, which couldn't have been very comfortable.

It's a long story, but suffice to say my student loan repayment schedule was shortened considerably. Meaning my payments are about three times higher than I was anticipating.

2008 is a very bad time to graduate with student loan debt (let me say - this is my only debt. I can't even imagine what I would do if I had a car payment or credit card debt... I can't imagine what I'm going to do as it is), attempting to enter a thankless, notoriously low-paying field over-saturated with recent graduates, on the cusp of Depression 2.0 when most libraries seem to be replacing full-time staff who leave with three part-time employees. I'm having a hard time marching down to Washington D. C., demanding to know where my bailout is.

Stephen Colbert has a solution to the recession!

But enough doom and gloom. I went to the beach yesterday (nice, cheap entertainment... methinks the only entertainment any of us are going to be able to afford for a while).

We also made a giant sand map of Middle-Earth. Because we are not nerds, I will not show you a picture of this map, but suffice to say it was awesome. If you like that sort of thing.

D'oh.

2008-10-07T11:55:00.002-05:00

I just left what was quite possibly the most awkward message in the history of the world on the answering machine of a potential employer.

Supreme Chancellor gets more awesome by the day. I don't know how I do it.

Ah, living alone.

2008-10-06T18:07:00.003-05:00

A couple years ago I told a friend that one of my favorite things about living alone and having my own washer and dryer is putting my pyjamas or sweatshirts or whatevers into the dryer for about fifteen minutes and then putting them on while they're still warm. Her response was, "You're such a baby!"

That may be true, but I bet she went home and put her socks in the dryer. And I bet it made her a believer.

I like autumn.

Goodbye, wildcard Octoberfest.

2008-10-05T17:00:00.002-05:00

So the playoffs didn't turn out quite as well as we all hoped (unless "we" in this case is you, and you are a Phillies fan, in which case - BOO). Alas. At least they weren't swept and the one game they won was incredibly satisfying. I'm already looking forward to next Spring. Seriously. Milwaukee doesn't have much to get excited about, sports-wise (Marquette doesn't count), so here's to next year.

Thanks for a great season, Brewers!

(By the way, the above photo illustrates how I was "watching" the playoffs. I do not have cable. For me, watching was listening to Bob Uecker on the AM radio and watching the ticker on my computer. It worked surprisingly well - and I did get to watch the game they won on an actual television. Newfangled!)

Who has time to apply for jobs when there's so much excitement? Luckily, I can multitask.

2008-09-30T19:12:00.005-05:00

Last weekend I went camping at Rock Island State Park. Rock Island is a teeny little island which is entirely a state park, off Washington Island, which is a teeny little island off Door County. It's probably my favorite Wisconsin State Park. There are no cars or bikes allowed on the island, so it's very quiet, and our site was about a mile from the ferry landing so all we heard most of the time were the waves on the lake.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't nearly as nice as our site (which was awesome), but we did get this rainbow before we got on the ferry.

(Sidenote: I'm watching The Biggest Loser right now, and they're "camping" in the Grand Canyon. And complaining about the camping. Newsflash, television: sleeping at the Grand Canyon on cots with pillows in a tent big enough to hold my bedroom? That is not camping. That is a one-star hotel. Also, something most people never get to experience. Enjoy it!)

This is from the ferry landing at Washington Island looking toward Rock Island. Full rainbow!

From the tower at Peninsula State Park. I'd hoped the trees would've turned a little more, but it was still pretty.

Perhaps most importantly, while we were gone, the Brewers made the playoffs. We got back to the car just in time to hear the final three pitches of the Mets game and... it was super exciting. I hit the roof of the car, literally.

I said I'd be happy if they just made the playoffs, and I am. I'll be thrilled if they aren't knocked out by the Phillies, but this is the first time since I was a couple months old that this has happened, so this is pretty damn awesome. A very cool thing about Wisconsin is that we are far too small a state to have any business with a professional baseball or professional football team, but we have both because the people here want and support them. I wish the Brewers luck this week! They have already made Milwaukee proud!

Woo Brewers woo!!