Psst!

Hi internet! I've missed you, kind of. I guess working full time just makes a person not want to do anything else afterwards. Which is sad.

What is NOT sad, though, is that I bought a dress today. A dress! Not a shirt and skirt, but a dress! A cute one! One that is brown and ivory and was not expensive at all and it was the only one in the store and it was my size and I feel good in it!

And I will wear it to church on Sunday, and to my friend's wedding next week, and probably a lot of other places too, because I like it that much. But first I need to buy shoes that go with it. My shoe options unfortunately range from snow boots to old navy $2.50 thongs to crocs, to some black pseudo-heels, but alas, not brown heels. Which is what I think is what this dress requires.

Thus completing my transformation to "working girl." I guess my definition of working girl includes having a job and having brown high heels.

A Few Things I Cannot Stop Thinking About

There's this Catholic high school near where I live, and whenever I drive by it at night, the red digital scoreboard is lit up. No other lights are on, and it glows eerily by itself. I kind of feel like Satan is having an invisible football game out there.

I have thought so much about the Titanic recently, more than ever before in my life. When I come home from work, I'm all hot and out of breath from riding my bike against the wind, so I go straight for the freezer and pick some solitary ice cubes out of the tray. They stick pretty good, so I get a long time to think about how the Titanic sank because too many ice cube tray-like compartments got ripped open. I think about this every single time I see an ice cube tray. So basically I get a nice two-minute-long Titanic reverie every day after work.

I watched Persepolis tonight, and now I feel guilty about feeling vaguely aimless in my life since I didn't have to flee my war-torn country with no parents to guide me. I have no excuse!

Pools of Sorrow, Waves of Joy

Alright, creepy guys in Missouri parks aside, I don't think I was meant to eat that catfish on Thursday.

I awoke this morning to terrible nausea and an overall sense of Not Wanting to Move. Each step I took, even each shift in weight, made it clearer and clearer to me that I should not be standing, or even awake, for that matter. I promptly called in to work and returned to bed, entering an uncomfortable, as well as guilt-inducing, repose from which I would not stir for another four hours.

As much as I profess not to like the whole idea of Working, the unpleasant fact that you are expected to be there, day in, day out, whether it's a nice day out or not, sick days are far, far worse. You not only feel bad because your body is revolting against you somehow, but you also feel bad because you are in a way throwing a wrench into your office's plans for the day. Even if you improve as the day goes on, you still have the soul-crushing guilt weighing on you, making it impossible to enjoy the free time you have unintentionally gained.

By three o'clock, I felt lively enough, and once dinner-time came, I was persuaded to a birthday dinner for a friend at the local Krishna place and vegetarian restaurant. We sat in the courtyard, eating buffet food and listening to the guitar man alternating between the Beatles (late-ish ones, Across the Universe and Mother Nature's Son, etc) and James Taylor. The evening could not have been more perfect.

Except that my coworker was there for the party and certainly must think now that I was faking sick to elongate my weekend.

Friday, Friday

I'm not really sure what goes on in my office when I'm home for the evening. It must be pretty exciting, though. My chair is always really staticky, and shocks me every single time I sit down or stand up or shift my weight. The janitors have rolly-chair races, maybe? And there was a footprint on my desk next to the keyboard this morning. I don't even know what that means.

On an unrelated note, why oh why did I order catfish? Really? Catfish, at a restaurant where I could have eaten a nice big salad, or a delicious steak, or even a hamburger? Who orders catfish, anyway? I've now realized my folly, and I see that the only way to eat catfish is when there is no menu to choose from.

I watched a movie tonight! And I started reading a book the night before! They both were (are) amazing! I'm glad to have taken the recommendation of both August Rush and Life of Pi. Although the part about the weak and starving guinea pigs was a little bit sad.

I'm Not Sure How I Feel About This

Alright, so first, I follow this link from Dooce. It is very thought-provoking and a little sad and makes me feel weepy and wanting to love my life more.

Immediately afterward I get Rick Rolled. By the Muppets. All that emotion that had welled up inside me, suddenly transformed into something else. Something that I can't quite explain or understand.

Huh.

I love to cheer and sing in the theatre

There's just something about going to see a cult classic in a theatre that makes the funny come out in everyone.

Tonight we saw Labyrinth, that famously bad movie from the eighties with goblin puppets, David Bowie and a baby. Here's a few of my cherished memories from the evening:

-that part where 15-year-old Jennifer Connelly is about to eat the peach given to her by the dwarf and someone warns her, "wash it first!" in a way that makes me wonder if he has OCD.

-my friend says, in a rather Ralph Wiggum-esque way, "a Muppet just swore!"

-the entire audience, every time David Bowie's be-stretch-pantsed lower half comes in view, lets out shouts of horror and pain. Every single time.

Maybe if I was Fabulously Rich, I Could Go Naked and No One Would Care

I went to the mall this past weekend, because I'm stupid, and had somehow forgotten that not only do I hate the mall in general, but I hate it extra hard on weekends.

The mall on Saturday is the place where large families with many unruly children go. The mall on Saturday is where old people go to walk slowly in front of you. The mall on Saturday is where teenagers in love go to make out in public and accidentally link their tongue rings together.

Although I found the overall experience unpleasant and time-consuming, the trip did yield some good things. One good thing is that I now remember how much I despise the mall, and will not go there again for a good 6-9 months, hooray! The other good thing was that I actually found some clothes, which is why I went in the first place, to buy clothes for work.

Someday, when I am fabulously rich, I will have no need for shopping for clothes; I will hire a personal tailor who will design and create clothes just for me, so that I will always be well dressed and happy. And for now, well, I have two new shirts, so I don't need to go shopping again for a while.

This is What I Do on Saturday Nights

Seeing as how I turn on the TV once every three months or so, I couldn't say if this channel is always like this, or if it's just some show, but I found the coolest thing today! It's some sort of Arts channel, and it shows music videos! Instead of rock, pop or hip hop, though, it shows clips of opera, ballet, silent films, classical music with visuals of paintings.

What caught my eye was the Bolshoi Ballet performing Romeo and Juliet sometime during the 1950's. Pretty good, and easier to swallow as they breezed through the thing in maybe 15 minutes, showing brief clips of the most important parts.

Right now they're playing a piece of a 1926 German version of Faust, the scene in which Faust signs the pact, and let me tell you: Mephisto got some wicked glowing eyes. I may just have nightmares tonight. Augh, I think they just actually jabbed the quill into the actor's wrist so he could sign in blood.

Wow

Garfield Minus Garfield is kind of poignant.

Spring Is Here, Spring Is Here

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Spring smells amazing.

For the past few weeks I've been noticing a lovely flowers smell on my ride home from work, through the hip and jealousy-inducing neighborhood just east of campus. I also take as many opportunities as I can to spend my lunch break under that happy grapefruit tree, sometimes partaking of its bounty and sometimes just watching the woodpecker punch holes in the fruit.

I only wish I had more time to enjoy it.

At Least I'm Saving Money

I think I'm having some sort of Elijah and the cake episode in my shower- I keep using my shampoo, but it somehow never runs out. I've been working on this one bottle for... let me count, eight months now, and there still seems to be plenty left. Same goes for the laundry detergent that's probably a year old by now. It's not like I bathe and do laundry infrequently or with small portions of these cleaners. I don't know where it's all coming from.

My educated guesses thus far include product pixies and/or wormholes that lead to entire dimensions of shampoo and detergent.

My Five Favorite Senses

See: a black poodle and a white poodle growl and writhe as they play tug of war with a knotted rope in the early morning.

Smell: each street has a distinct smell as I ride home- one smells of burnt marshmallows, one smells of a thousand flowers, another smells of grape Kool-Aid.

Hear: my friends play Tchaikovsky, Debussy and Glinka, and they sound amazing.

Touch: I bought some delicious woollen yarn to make into a scarf and purse, and maybe a hat.

Taste: one of my prouder baking moments, a chocolate and orange birthday cake turned out better than expected.

Omen

The foam on my hot chocolate tonight briefly formed a rabbit in full flight.

This either means that I will get a raise shortly or I will lose all of my belongings in a house fire. Perhaps it simply means, "tomorrow you will go out for lunch and get some delicious tacos."

I'm pretty sure it's that last one.

I Finally Watched It.

How is it that I never heard about the one redeeming virtue of the Pirates of the Caribbean 3, that Keith Richards is Johnny Depp's brother?

I'm kind of disappointed that 3 was even more terrible than 2. Really, how can that be? My time is valuable, people! Don't make three movies badly when you can simply make one well!

As the ninja says, just as there is no honor among pirates, there is apparently no honor among filmmakers.

There's also this really patriotic song about 9/11

So I'm sitting there at work. I'm cut-and-pasting stuff from excel tables into a giant database. I've been doing this for four days straight, and the end is almost in sight. I'm tired.

And my officemate has the radio on.

During the past month I've become intimately acquainted with country music, or rather, COUNTRY'S BIGGEST HITS! From what I've observed, country has about 15 hits, which they play through every two hours or so, with some non-hits mixed in for flavor. After that, they repeat the process. I've counted, and on some days I have heard the same song four times.

The point of this post is not to bash country music, because all in all, it's not that bad. There are catchy songs, and even the bad ones are somehow better than the bad songs on rock or alternative stations. Bad rock is just bad, you want to turn it off. Bad country is kind of entertaining, like MST3K- somehow, it's so bad that it's good.

The point of this post is that, I've thought about this for pretty much all day today, so I think I'm right about this, 90% of "daddy-daughter wedding dance" songs are country. Think about it, recall the various wedding receptions you've been to, and you will see that I am right. In fact, the only non-country ones I can think of would be "Sunrise, Sunset" (which would be harder for most people to do, since it's a waltz) and "Father & Daughter" by Paul Simon (which isn't really easy to dance to, either).

Here is one kind of awful one that fits the genre. This one was probably written with the express intent of it being a wedding song. They are both, from what I can gather, COUNTRY'S BIGGEST HITS!

And this is a song that is not country at all, but is fantastic, just in case you need to get the country taste out of your mouth after that. Cleanse your palate, if you will.

Not Sure if This Was a Dream or a Nightmare

After waking from a nearly 20-year coma, I find that my parents have cleaned my room, a homeless man is stalking me, and my true love leaps out of the woodwork with a bouquet made of toilet paper. Oh yeah, and my grandma takes me out for a chocolate shake. Sweet!

Life vs. Meta-life

I have some friends that are very self-aware. They know what's going on in their lives, they analyze themselves and their relationships with others, they contemplate things.

Is there something I'm not getting? Is this a personality difference? I never think about things! Is this a characteristic that everyone needs to develop for themselves, or is it just something that some people naturally do and others don't and that's ok?

I feel like I'm a good person, like I try to do the right things for the right reasons, but I don't know that I have some overarching plan or understanding I have for my life. What if I wake up one morning to find that I'm 40 and I still don't know what I'm doing with myself? I have this vague fear that this will happen and I will not even notice because I don't think about that kind of thing. Because really, on a day to day basis, all I really think about is what to eat, going to work, coming home and what I'll do with my evening.

Any ideas on how to begin thinking about oneself?

Also No Portals to Parallel Dimensions

There's this great website that has equipment information and pictures of every classroom on campus. On the info page there are various choices of things you might want in a room: stage, computer connectivity, wheelchair access, one way mirror. One way mirror? I excitedly click through the entire database, one room at a time. There are no classrooms on campus with a one way mirror.

Novel Concept

You know the interesting thing about frost? Frost is beautiful, when you ride your bike in the morning and see the grass all sparkly and white, the palm fronds all sparkly and white, windows all sparkly and white. But you know what else is sparkly and white? The crappy bus stop bench is beautiful. The decaying banana that's been on the side of the road for two weeks is all white. And the mysterious wing of some bird, all gory and mangled, has a little sparkle to it. I can't really reconcile simultaneous attraction and revulsion that these objects inspire: rather than cancel each other out, the beauty and nastiness seem to simply make each other more pronounced.

The Honeymoon Isn't Quite Over Yet

I seem to have neglected the internet of late, both in reading and writing, for which I am more sorry than I can say. I have been rather busy of late, trying to figure out this life that grown-ups have, where you get up at six and go to work at eight and then come back home after five. It's pretty tiring, huh?

While I do not miss having homework and stress and exams to worry about, I kind of miss the student life, where if you really don't want to go to class, that's cool, it's your choice and no one notices. This new stress is different: it's the stress of knowing that no matter how much sleep you got the night before, no matter how messy your apartment is, no matter how much you just want to stay home and have a mental health day, you're expected to be at work. There is work to do, and if you don't do it, there will be double the work the next day.

All complaining about the situation aside, I really do like my job. It's detail oriented and consistent, which are things that I like, and the people are friendly and fairly laid-back, which helps when I don't know everything I need to know yet. A non-student, full-time paycheck sweetens the deal, and although I'm told that what I'm making isn't very much at all, it's still about three to four times what I'm used to living on. This "small" paycheck should be able to stretch a long way, as long as I don't start acting like I'm making more money. I should be able to build up a pretty sizable (for me) savings, and maybe take a vacation (with Vacation Days!) in a year or two.