Since 5 pm today

Decided that I, once again, adore the musicologist on my committee.  I want him to be my uncle.  I want him to come for Thanksgiving dinner.

I almost cut off my finger but not on purpose.  Darn you Tillamook extra sharp cheddar.

Sadly, the next disc of The Wire has not yet arrived.

Agreed to go out for a drink with an ex-boyfriend's mother (Hi Matt! I plan on getting Sharon pants-shitting drunk).

I made a tower out of index cards and the new hair bands I bought today.  Three inches high before it toppled!

Oooh, look!  A piece of banana bread just for me!

Just took Pony le peu out for her late night walk to her usual patch of grass across the street and some guy was standing there peeing on the sidewalk.  She won't go anywhere else, especially late at night, so we had to just stand in the driveway and wait for him to finish.  It wasn't so much awkward as strange.  

Reminds me that I need to learn how to pee standing up.

How about instead of seating Michigan and Florida...

Take the poll!  Take the poll!

(sorry Diesel, I'm a wimp.  Eric the first year planted the seed of doubt.  But we'll let the voters decide.  Representative democracy.  That's how the shit gets done in Atwater eh Eric?)

A conversation I had with my advisor today

Me: "Hey, so Ted said that the two of you are meeting tomorrow to discuss my final dissertation draft.  When do you want to meet all together to go over it?"

Money Wise: "Well Ted and I want to go over what changes you need to make in order to finish."

[my translation of this: "I need to finish reading the stupid thing and Ted finished it three weeks ago and has a lot of problems with it."]

Me: "Right.  So when are you free to meet?"

Money Wise: "We'll email you tomorrow about a time on Wednesday."

[my translation of this: "We'll email you tomorrow about a time on Wednesday."]

Me: "Okay.  I'm going to finish right?"

Money Wise: "Hmm... well, I'm sure you'll finish."

[my translation of this: "Hm, how can I give the most noncommittal answer to a yes or no question so that you'll be properly scared?"]

Me: "Oh jeez, you're scaring me you know."

Money Wise: "Hmph.  No reason to be scared..."

[my translation of this: "You have every reason to be scared."]

Money Wise again: "You will have to make some changes in order to finish."

[my translation of this: "I think you should turn this into a comparative project.  How is your Romanian?"]

Me: "Um.  Okay, now I'm terrified."

Money Wise: "..."

[my translation of this: "I'm going to be completely silent now so as to actually here the soft pop sound of your spirit breaking."]

And that's when I ran away.   

GAAAHHHH!

This is why I'm so high strung.  It didn't come naturally.  It took seven years of very careful cultivation.  I'm like a hothouse orchid.  Super-specialized, far too fragile to survive in the real world.

Feared of all pious men: I am the Flying Dutchman

So, I recommend reading Nietzsche's discussion of Wagner but I would say don't try and read it right before bed.  Frightening dreams.

My roomie came back last night!  She's been off on a road trip with her mediocre boyfriend for the last two weeks.  Its been nice to have the whole apartment to myself but I do miss her when she's gone.  I guess I'll have to stop pooping in her bathroom now.  Oooh!  I wonder if she brought me a present.  She always brings me something back from her trips which is awesome.  My Dad stopped doing the same for me when I was five and I think I loved him a little less after that.  Ting knows the way to my heart is through trinkets.  Last time she brought me alpaca yarn and a miniature alpaca.  He's all fuzzy and has a big goofy grin embroidered on his face.  I call him Ned.  And sometimes I set him on my keyboard before I go to bed so that I'll have something to laugh at when I get up in the morning.

Today begins with a grad student lunch with our colloquium speaker.  I'm always torn about attending such gatherings because, while, as a grad student, I shamelessly seek out as much free food as possible (I once survived for two days entirely on those mini muffins they set out at conferences), I also don't want to risk embarrassing myself in front of one of the mandarins of our discipline.  I don't have much in terms of intelligent things to say about this person's work (oooh, mental note to self to be sure to not talk with my mouth full).  In some ways grad school is just like those reality game shows where they see how much pain and humiliation you'll endure for large sums of money in the end.  Except without the large sums of money in the end.

The other main project for today is to sort out this condom dispenser in YRL women's bathroom thing.  I made an interesting discovery in the bathroom the other day (you know this has to be a good story).  What for years I have just assumed was a tampon dispenser on the wall of the first floor bathroom of YRL, because if anything is going to be attached to the wall in a women's bathroom, it would be a tampon dispenser.  Or a paper towel dispenser too I suppose.  Anyway, after using this bathroom for years I just last week noticed that it is in fact a condom dispenser.  Now, according to some knowledgeable males I have asked, there aren't any condom dispensers in any of the men's bathroom.  So this is very curious.  Dave, my friend Tony's roommate, said that when he used to give tours for UCLA, that the tour guides were instructed to say that Powell had back in the 70s been listed as one of the top ten places to have sex in public.  Now that's Powell and I'm not so surprised.  Its really pretty and seems to genuinely be a gathering place for undergrads.  But YRL?  It has about as much charm as linoleum.  Its just full of angsty academics in training.  You can feel the desperation dripping down the walls.  Terrible energy.  One time I was up in the Q section (of course) and upon not finding my book on the shelf, started to cry.  Granted, I was fragile at the time for a variety of reasons, I'm just trying to say that the stacks at the research library seem like just about the last place a random hookup would occur.  And why the women's bathroom and not the men's? Weird and sexist!  Anyway, I'm going to figure all this out.  I think the first step is to get a condom from the dispenser and check the expiration date.  I'm a proper gumshoe!

And with that, I think I need to go take a shower and get started on my day.  Bah its going to be hot.  And smoky.  The wall of flame racing down the mountain towards Pasadena is not helping my cold.

Have wonderful mondays.

If only I had more scotch tape dammit!

first post (finally!)

Yes, my darling sea monkeys, I have finally gotten around to posting.

I've started once or twice but, awash in waves of self-consciousness, have found other things to do.  I figure if I get in the routine now I will hit my stride right about the time I move to Mississippi which, if any of you were along for the ride when I was in Berlin, will likely provide endless fodder for my heartless ramblings.

What I'm going to need from all of you is feedback.  I think that blogs die their sad, whimpering deaths because nobody ever comments and the poster feels like she's shouting into a vacuum and gives up.  I mean, I find myself pretty entertaining, but, well who doesn't appreciate a little positive reinforcement?  In fact, I'll happily admit that I lose interest in activities pretty quickly without some sort of reward.  This is why I refuse to play Boggle.  I get nothing out of it.  Is a pony with a bow too much to ask for?

yup.

Oh, hey, so I bought some new conditioner today.  Now my hair smells like a tea tree apparently.  And is shiny and soft like a tea tree too.  It's started a snowball of personal hygiene in the sense that I was then motivated to brush my hair for the first time in maybe three weeks.  Maybe I'll just go crazy and floss today too.  No, that's not true.  I already floss everyday.  YOU SHOULD FLOSS EVERYDAY.

And with that, I pause for now.