Another Ice Day!

School has been cancelled again! I guess calling it a Snow Day is something of a misnomer, since it's really all ice/sleet. I can't leave my house, but that's the price you pay. W0oT!!11!!

ZOMG!!111!eleventy!!

Snow Day! I haven't checked outside yet, but last week we had 8 inches of solid ice which had finally melted away in the last couple of days. I actually prepared for this one! I now own a snow shovel for the first time in my life (yuck, that this is a necessity). I only have a bit of rock salt left, but there is absolutely none to be found in this town, so there wasn't much I could do about that. It's even gotten to the point where rumors are going around about what stores are getting in shipments at what time.

The real reason this is great is because I had to facilitate the discussion in my Historiography class which is a night class and I felt like there was no way in hell I could last that long. I am so tired, I feel insane.

I'm going back to bed, y'all! Woo-Hoo!

My Hair

So, I'm trying to grow out my hair. Short was fun, but dull. I need a little length. I hate the patience it's going to take. Basically, to get to my weight and hair goals, it will take 6-12 months. Sigh.

I just can't wait for this Chad Michael Murray hair phase to be over. Should take another month or so.

Oh, another one of those damn survey posts

Ganked from Le Monk Seal, by way of Le Sticky. by way of AJ.


1. Spell your name without an E,R,S,H,K,I,M,L,C,A,Y,N.
Can't be done.

2. Are you single? No.

3. What is your favorite number?
I'm not doing the 1-10 thing, so it's 222, because that number keeps recurring throughout my life.

4. What is your favorite color? Depends on what we're talking about. Clothes: earthtones....Actually, I guess I prefer earthtones all the way around.

5. Least favorite color? I'll gank AJ's and say hot pink and add peach and baby blue to the mix as well.

6. What are you listening to?
Um, does "That Smell" by Lynyrd Skynyrd playing in my head count?

7. Are you happy with your life right now? I guess, I'm busy (yes, despite the fact that I'm wasting time while I enjoy the beginnings of a migraine) but I am doing something I want to do. I just wish it were less stressful.

8. Are you involved with anyone? Yes.

9. What is your favorite subject in school? I'd have to say Theatre History, since that is my area of focus.

10.Do you shop at Abercrombie?No, but I appreciate the half-naked models in their stores. *I'll keep AJ's response intact since I share the same sentiment.

11. Do you have money?Heh. No. *Ha! Yet another area where AJ and I are of two minds.

12. Would you take an ex back:? No, not because of animosity or anything. It's just that grunge was in the last time I was with anyone besides Jeff.

13. Are you outgoing? Depends on the situation.

14. Are you gay? Only when I'm drunk. Kidding. No.

15. Where do you wish you were right now? Haleiwa

16. What should you be doing right now? Grading, reading, research, writing.

Can you blow a bubble? Why are only some of these questions numbered? *Yeah, what AJ said. Yes, I can blow a bubble.

Can you do a cart wheel? No, and it is the bane of my existence.

Can you touch your toes? Yes.

Can you wiggle your ears? No, and I wouldn't want to.

Can you touch your tongue to your nose? Yes.

THE DIDS:

Did you ever want to be a doctor? Nope.

Did you ever want to be a fire fighter? Nope.

Did you ever want to be a teacher? Yes I did and I am.

Did you vote for Bush? Aw, Hell to the Naw!

THE DOs:

Do you like rollercoasters? Love them. Hate the lines.

Do you own a bike? Can't remember the last time I owned a bike. Junior High?

Do you play the lotto? Once in awhile. Gotta get that dream home in Haleiwa somehow.

Do you like football? It's too complicated for me to understand.

Do you have a shopping addiction?I can't afford one, but I dream of the day when I will. *I'm ganking AJ's here too.

THE DOES:
Does your family have family picnics? No.

Does your wallet have any pics in it? My student ID.

Does your job bring you satisfaction?Sometimes.
Does a soft answer turn away wrath? I wish.
Does sex mean love? 'cha riiight.

THE LASTS:
Last person you hung out with? Saturday night Jeff and I went to PK's and The Cellar.

Last car ride? My friend/officemate David gave me a ride home since I can't drive my car until the rear windshield gets fixed.

Last text message? Sticky and JaLinda both wished me a Happy Valentine's Day at the same time!

Last baby you held? I honestly can't remember, and even though I don't want any of my own, I love love love holding babies. They're sooo kewt! No really! Stop looking at me that way!

Last time you shaved? Sunday
LAST THING.
What was the last thing you bought? I ordered a spinach, garlic, and pepperoncini pizza from Pagliai's. Mmmm.



last thing you had to drink? Orange Juice.

What was the last thing you watched? Celebrity Rehab.

Last thing you read? A book on the Salem Witch Trials for my Historiography class.


What was the last thing you hand wrote? a paper for my historiography class.


THE WHOS: who was the last person you talked to? Jeff

Who was the last person you took a picture of? Jeff


Who was the last person to leave you a comment? Stix


CURRENTLY:
What color shirt are you wearing? Maroon. Go Salukis!

any tattoos? No.

Have you any piercings? Navel and ears


Straight hair or curly? I have a short, Bed-headish kind of 'do.

Where are you? On my couch waiting for the Nyquil to kick in.


HAVE YOU EVER:

Failed a class?No.

Professed your love and been turned down?No. Thank God.

Accomplished a life goal? For reals, I have to say the same as AJ here, because I grew up in about the most backwoods, country bumpkin place there could be---you know it's backwards if it doesn't have a Wal-Mart, a stoplight, or a McDonald's---a town of less than 1000 with the nearest big city 3 hours away. I think just getting out of there is an accomplishment.



Sang in front of a crowd? Hell no. They don't make liquor that strong.

SEVEN THINGS YOU WILL FIND IN YOUR ROOM:
1. Candles
2. Shoes
3. Jewelry
4. Flannel PJ pants
5. SIU/Saluki paraphenalia
6. make-up
7. Hair products

THREE RELATIONSHIP QUESTIONS:
1. In a relationship? Yes

2. Want a relationship? Yes.

3. Wanna get married? Been living in sin for a dozen years now, but I don't rule anything out. I don't really care one way or the other.

Four things on your mind:

1. When will the goddammned ice melt? It won't because what little melted today is supposed to come back tomorrow.


2. Can I ever get back to my old weight?

3. Can I just have a week that doesn't have a mile-long to-do list?

4. How will my 24 hour review go? (where all the members of my dissertation committee get together, while I sit there being interrogated by 5 people to scare the crap out of me.)

My Back Windshield Exploded

...it just completely disintegrated.
...and no, I didn't pour hot water on it.

Good Luck Jen!

Jen deserves her own entry since she is birthing a baby as I type this! She's a surrogate for a gay couple. She's truly an awesome human being and I just wish her the very best. I'm sending her all the hugs I possibly can.

Snow Day!

That's right, an actual honest to god Snow Day! Supposedly, this school has only shut down twice since the "Days of May" student riots over the Kent State shootings. Today is one of them. Yesterday could've qualified as a quasi-snow day, because they cancelled night classes and I had one, but I was already there to work at the box office. The timing couldn't have been any better as I'm really sick and needed to stay home anyway.

I guess you know you've grown up when your Snow Day euphoria is tainted by the worry that the power will go out. Judging from the looks of the power lines it isn't out of the realm of possibility. My portable heater is in Chicago.

I can't open my front door and I don't own a shovel. But it's a Snow Day!

Update: I am stuck in my house, as in literally stuck. The front door won't open more than a few inches. I tried the hot water trick but it's going to take someone on the other side of the door to break the ice with a heavy duty shovel.

Random Fact About Me

A few years ago I emailed a video request to VH1Classic and, not only did they play my video during the request hour, they said my name three times! Once was for admonishing me for not telling them what cable station I watched them on. I figured I paid Time Warner enough every month without pimping them for free so I purposely left that info out of my email.

They emailed me back to let me know what day it would play. It's also kind of funny because there are people on the VH1Classic message board that post every single day about how mad they are that their requests never go through. Seriously, there are people that keep spreadsheets of everything they play and you can ask them, "what was the playlist on January 31st 1998?" Or, how many times have they played "Puttin' on the Ritz" by Taco? "Have they ever played the German version of 99Luftballoons?" And they would have the answer. These are not VH1 employees. Now, to be fair, I must admit wouldn't have such a great 80's video collection (20 hours worth) if weren't for them posting the playlist everyday (every show is repeated at 12 hour intervals, so after it plays the first time it's posted and then I'd know what to look out for later that day). Oh, and did you know they've never played Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" video? There's some problem over it, but yep, that's the word on the board.

So, getting back to the request: I knew there was an art to it. It couldn't be too obscure, and of course, what's the sense in requesting something like Madonna gets a lot of airtime? I requested Paul Young's "Come Back and Stay" c. 1983. I'd only seen the video once, but I had the album back in the day (yes, as in vinyl) and hadn't heard the song since grade school. I knew they'd play it, it fit the "obscure enough without being too obscure category they sometimes try to fulfill. Two weeks later, I got an email from them! How cool is that? Then I thought of those poor schmucks on the message board who faithfully email requests every week and have for years, only to be turned down each and every week. They didn't like it much when I posted my good news.

Anyway, I just had my mp3 on shuffle and it came up, thus prompting this post. Aren't you glad you read this entire post?

Ramblings

So...finally the benefit of Jeff having taken this new job (although Chicago suburbs and "barf" still belong in the same sentence) has materialized because he was just here for a few days and was able to work from his laptop. There have been 2 break-ins at my trailer court (1 was right across me, mere feet away) and 2 more on my street. In addition to his company of course, it was nice to have him and his F-150 with Texas plates in my driveway while I was at school Friday.

Nothing about this move over the Xmas break was easy. Moving is never easy or fun of course, but everything that could go wrong did. The movers turned out to be scam artists, but we eventually got our stuff back. They basically couldn't/wouldn't tell us where our stuff was for over a month. Which really sucked because we'd already rented a place, so it was just sitting empty and yet we were paying. Jeff and I spent the break either in a hotel room or staying with his parents who live 2 hrs from where he works, so he was traveling 4 hours round trip during this whole saga. When they finally called and said they had our stuff, they said they needed $(Insert Insane Amount of Money Here) to deliver. And it had to be in cash. Had to be. No Cashier's Check accepted. Hmmm...wonder why that was? Probably because there would be a paper trail that we could use to turn around and sue them.

Then every other detail that could go wrong or be a horribly long and drawn out process has been, (banks, mail utilities, etc.). I've known Jeff for going on 13 years and I've never heard him say he missed a place or wanted to move back somewhere and he has lived a lot of places, but he is really missing Texas and wants to move back when I'm done with school. I feel bad for him, so I'm hoping he can start to adjust and with us getting to spend more time together, that it'll finally start to get better, because right now that's the only advantage Chicago offers as far as he/we are concerned.

Anyway, the weekend was nice. We went out and ran into people we knew from back in the day. Sometimes it's really weird seeing people you used to party with all the time ten years later. I'm sure they're thinking "I can't believe they're stiiilll together." Carbondale is a weird place sometimes. It's this vortex that keeps pulling people (like me) back in, yet there's still room for relative anonymity.

Oh yeah...so my roof is leaking like crazy. I'm calling the landlord on Monday. He's always very good about fixing things and is always here right away. I usually see him around the premesis just about every day, so that's good. One weird thing I'm worried about is that one of the leaks is right above a light fixture, a globe looking thingy. Well, a lot of water has collected inside that globe thingy. I'm thinking it's probably not a good idea to turn that light on right? Sometimes I lack common sense on stuff like this, so I'm just gonna take the safe route and not use that light.

So, I'm out of random crap to spew right now. I guess I'll stop here now.

Celebrity Rehab, Random

Okay, who's as addicted to this show as I am? I tuned in because of Dr. Drew (I have a crush on him) but was afraid it might be exploitive and I couldn't imagine (or didn't want to) Dr. Drew being involved in something like that.

I know I'm an oldie, because I had no idea who Seth was. I've heard snippets of the Butterfly song, but couldn't have identified it by name or singer until now. I had to look up who he even was and youtube the song. I'd heard it plenty, but that was about it. Oh, and since I'm the only American I know that doesn't watch AI, I had no idea who Jessica Sierra was.

I'm not spoiling myself because I want to watch it without the prior knowledge of how they turn out. I'm really interested in seeing how they all turn out, especially the women. Daniel Baldwin, I could care less about, for some reason.

I'm also addicted to Scott Baio's 46 and pregnant. He might have some jerkish tendancies, but ultimately, I think all the kvetching he does is probably a good thing, or at least comes from the right place. At least it shows how seriously he takes it. Oh, and how great is the music? Pretty fecking great, seeing as I have most of the songs on my mp3.

As for school, my 101 class isn't very responsive, which makes me a sucky teacher (I have to have something to bounce off of; I can't just talk to the air) and makes it a chore to go there. It's odd too, because they seem to have the ability to think abstractly moreso than any other class I've had, but their verbal engagement vs their written engagement is really a stark contrast. My class isn't all about lecture, because it requires the student to actively participate, but they seem to want me to do all the work while they sit there and listen (or not).

I'd take it personally, but other classes have been far more interactive and, if I may say, really dug me. This bunch just sits there like bumps on a log. It's that "too cool for school" attitude---which should automatically disqualify you from college; let someone else in who really wants to be there and appreciates the opportunity. As for my homework, I have 800 pages (okay, really it was 799 to be exact) of reading this week. We won't talk about all the other crap, because reading is just one facet of the very long to-do homework list.

So there, I updated you and now you'll know why I don't mention school more than I do. Either I'd bitch or bore you.