I typically wake up and watch the news as I eat my cereal, to make sure nothing important is happening and to watch the weather people continue to lie ("Today it's in the 90's with enough humidity to peel paint, but after that: 70's, dry and sunny! We promise!").
It was way, way too early in the morning to flick on the tv and see creepy, rapidly aging female pop artists try to ride the recent wave of homosexuality being hip.
Since when is tongue on network TV?
I'm getting too old for this.
Bus tickets to visit Dan? Check.
Email writing to The Man involving overcharging (Yahoo Travel sucks), credit card wierdness (my debit card sucks)? check.
Arguing for 5 minutes with the bus pass people that I really am signed up for classes so maybe they can let me ride on the bus this semester before I put a cap in they asses? Check.
Overly-drawn out doctor's appointment to pay 3 fewer dollars for Claritin? Check.
Professorless group meeting that resulted in people (besides the profs) actually TALKING about research? Check.
Pawning off of all aloe children ready to live on their own to unsuspecting grad students at aforementioned meeting? Check.
Running around trying to find someone whose office isn't where they said, and someone else who left early, to get them to do research-related favors for each other and I don't know why I'm involved in this interpersonal coordination? Check.
Lots of oddball things today, as you can see, not mentally taxing but soaking up time. I haven't even read my usual stash of blogs.
What's left?
--Going to tae kwon do with Jeremy with the accompaning grocery shopping.
--Going to a knitting group for the first time, hoping my current relatively simple project won't be too embarrassing.
We slept in our closet last night. It's actually pretty roomy, and contains the only normal (aka you can put an air conditioner in it) window in the house. The temp and humidity last night were roughly comparable to that of an incubator, so we sealed ourselves in, hit the AC, and relaxed measurably.
I added a Contact page to the site, instead of the mailto command, which I usually find immeasurably annoying anyhow. Includes email and IM, although I'm only on occasionally.
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My wasp sting is getting bigger and bigger. Right now there's a thing in the middle that looks like a mosquito bite only 4 times the size, and around that is a 3 inch diameter red swollen circle. I look like a leper. I hope this frightens away the bazillion freshman now getting on my bus every morning. Rrrf.
Finding a lot of things to talk about today. For example, Japanese knitting blogs are the cutest.
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Screw you, MSN.
I don't spend a lot of time getting particularly angry about gender stuff--I've made pink flowered baby blankets, even though I felt guilty sending them to some unsuspecting female newborn. If I can engage in gender stereotyping with all my issues, I can't get too mad at other folks for saying the occasional oddball thing. I'll just be one example of glorious happy masculine womanhood for everyone, and maybe folks acting under stupid gender assumptions will have the opportunity to lead the life they want.
But then there's the combination idea that whoever wrote that quiz seems to be actively trying to convince the world of:
A: No way could a woman want a feminine-acting man.
B: No way could a feminine acting man want a woman.
Which turns everyone that isn't a Real Manly Man (tm) or Real Womanly Woman (tm) into freaks. I don't appreciate that.
Grr.
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I got a search hit today from someone looking for a "calf length zippered sweater". In case they come back, I feel I should give them some advice.
That would be terribly ugly. Don't do it.
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I had a good time with the Vet School group yesterday--we had a group day off. Rented a boat, rode around on one of the lakes, floated over to a nice park, grilled food, floated around some more. I got a hefty sunburn for maybe the third time in my life--it was one of those "bright but cloudy" types of days, so I wasn't even paying attention. And I got stung by a wasp, which was a new experience. But despite that, 'twas a good, workless day.
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Oh, and everyone should wish Dan a happy birthday, and a simultaneous happy first day of school after being lazy for the last two years. Yay!
Lately, and in part because of some things that Dougie wrote about recently, I've been thinking about the whole process of keeping in touch with people that you've been close with in the past (or letting them go), just how it fits in with the whole process of the evolution of someone's definition of self. I don't have it together in my mind well enough to write it through clearly yet, as evidenced by the last sentence--I mean, yeesh, could I get any denser and not quite sense-making? That's the problem with taking a big muddle of thought and trying to use it as the introduction to something else.
Plus, my brain just imploded with this thing I'm trying to talk about, and so I'm not really surprized that I'm not figuring out a good way of getting through the complicated and unorganized brain-web that's going on right now.
So let's start over--I'll oversimplify, and then if I get all that other stuff organized someday I'll share.
...
I've been getting philosophical about my past a lot lately. When I left elementary school and later, after leaving high school, I pretty much left those folks behind for good. The people I thought of as my best friends, honestly, weren't, and as a few months went by we all, quite naturally, grew apart.
This doesn't mean I don't think about them, or don't wonder what they're up to. I still have AOL screen names of 5-10 people I went to high school with, and I get a kick out of seeing them signed on from time to time. In fact, at almost the same time as this recent bout of nostalgia has settled in, the screenname of someone I hadn't seen signed on in years suddenly popped up, and seems to be doing pretty well. This pleases me--she was someone I would only hope the best for.
I had a dream a few nights ago about running into a few people I went to 1-8 grade Catholic school with, and realized during the dream that I haven't seen any of them (save one that took the SAT's at my high school) in 10 years.
The result of this thinking? I decided to Google around for the names of a few people that A: I thought could've end up as interesting human beings and B: didn't have names that were too common, so I wouldn't be sloshing through hundreds of Jessica Smiths.
(Side note: Is this wierd behavior? I'm not emailing them or anything. It doesn't seem much different from reading someone's profile on Classmates. I'm hoping no one gets creeped out by this.)
I found a few people: two in particular seem to have gotten involved with being webmasters/ heavy-duty computer people, so they were pretty easy to find. Most folks appear to have no online presence whatsoever. So I wonder, but I don't worry too much.
And then I found someone in a way I kinda wish I hadn't.
G. was a friend of mine in high school--we didn't go to the same school, but were buddies all the same. Kept in touch better than I have with a lot of other people--an email or two once every six months or so through college, although I don't think I've talked to him since I've been in grad school. He's high up on the list of "smartest people I know in a non-professional way". He came up with some absolutely brilliant math/science stuff--this is a person that was deep into the chaos theory literature in HIGH SCHOOL.
Believe me when I say the words: a supremely smart, unique human being. One the only people I know that comes to mind when people say things like "I knew he was special, I knew he would do something amazing in this life."
And today I found his conspiracy theory driven, paranoid schitzophrenic-sounding website.
I can't even link to it here, the fact of it is worming its way around my lungs and squeezing.
I feel like distant friends of John Nash must've felt in the 60's.
An absolute waste of incredible potential.
I feel like someone's died.
In a way, someone has.
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I didn't plan this or anything, yet everything I watched on TV last night had some kind of queer theme. It did my little haggy heart good. Let's see:
I got to see the way hot gay married couple win The Amazing Race.
Then I watched Will and Grace for awhile.
Then I watched some of the Red Green Show, and they were cross-dressing for some complicated reason.
More Will and Grace.
And then, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy was on network TV! I thought I'd never get to see it. Unfortunately, the show is nowhere to be found on the NBC website (only about the guys getting interviewed on other shows), so maybe it was just a one-time thing. Too bad--I got a huge kick out of it.
Email is grumpy again (there's no reason for signing in to take a half hour. Really). I assume it's either the new worm going around, techs trying to reboot servers after the power outage, Microsoft sucking, the university's system sucking (now that the undergrads are back), or a combination of the above. So if you're trying to get in touch, the phone is good.
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I go back and forth between writing a lot, and not writing very much at all. Right now is one of those less-so times.
Aren't you at least thankful that I'm giving something to one of your senses? Here are more pictures, as promised.
This tub holds all of my yarn and cloth that I'm not working with (that goes into my knitting bag). When mom first sent it, it was STUFFED with yarn. Now there's room for my minimal cloth collection, at least. Anyway, there's no good place in the apartment for this bigass thing to live invisibly. So it was promoted to pseudo-coffeetable status, as you can partially see in this picture:
It's that thing between the fan and the chair. Note that it was covered in a sheet in a pathetic attempt to make it not look like Dorm Room Chic. It was ugly, and I wanted to be able to have it sit in the middle of the room without being embarassed by it. So:
Ta-Da! I made a slipcover for the tub over the weekend, and I'm so proud of myself. It looks like a real piece of furniture! And I can still access the stuff inside without any trouble. Storage and niceness all in one!
I'm so impressed when things I sew turn out the way they should. I think that all those terribly ugly things I made on Gramma's sewing machine throughout my childhood actually did me some good.
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I hate allergies. I never had any problems growing up, but there's some evil Midwestern plant that just started up this weekend. I can tell you now what a typical day for me will be like, for the next month:
Wake up.
Sneeze.
Eat breakfast while sneezing: a difficult task.
Sneeze while having a morning pee.
Sneeze in the shower, while getting dressed, on the bus to work.
Only sneeze once or twice all day while at work, since the building is hermetically sealed for my protection.
Sneeze all the way home.
Eat dinner, knit, watch tv: sneeze, sneeze, sneeze.
Get mad because my nose and throat hurt, and I just bit my tongue.
Sneeze anyway.
Go to bed with head tilted at an odd angle so I don't wake up covered in booger.
Then, in mid-September, either all the sneezing weakens my immune system, or the Plant of Death has a big party, and I feel feverish and cloggy for a few days. Then everything magically goes away.
I'm going to make an appointment for the doc's this week, and get some drugs.
Does anyone even know what kind of allergen releases at the end of August?
Yesterday, I promised pictures. Today: pictures, and, I promise more tomorrow! Wowo!
That mango chutney that J made, the canning fiend.
Since our bedroom window doesn't have a screen to prevent the bats, and since we were kind of jumpy after having to deal with two in a row, this was our solution. Duct tape is awesome.
Christmas ornaments I made this weekend. The white and green one was my first attempt at any kind of sock (it says "Noel '03"). The blue one is much nicer--I'm going to keep that one. I adapted the pattern from this toe-up sock pattern. Bigger needles, thicker yarn, fewer cast-on stitches. Once I'd worked out all the kinks on the white sock, I finished the second one in the time it took to watch "Ocean's 11" one and a half times. Perfect hot-weather knitting.
We had another bat in the house on Friday evening. At least we were awake this time. Plus I discovered that J's a little pussy boy when bats fly towards him--he seems to think that they don't know he's there. So long as we moved slowly we were okay.
On Saturday night I awoke to some loud swearing, and felt my foot get stepped all over.
"bat bat Bat Bat BAT ON THE BED!!!" J yelled. Then a pause. "Oh, wait, that was your foot. Sorry, go back to sleep."
I think it's time to clip my toenails.
Many pictures will be coming tomorrow--I left the disk at home by accident.
We now interrupt... well, we don't interrupt anything, but I have messages for both family and people living in the area. Listen up.
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Local people: Is everyone reading this SURE that they don't want an aloe plant? My aloe babies are starting to have babies, which means in another month I'm going to have about a dozen aloe plants with the ability to live independently. I just don't have the window space.
They're pretty, need little attention, and are useful if you burn yourself. And if you have friends that live around here, you'll have several housewarming presents ready-made! Email is over on the side, and also listed in the next paragraph.
.....and speaking of email.....
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Family: Just so you know, my hotmail email hasn't been working all day (don't know if it's related to the blackout or what). If you need to get in touch, use my excite email (listed on the left hand side, the screenname is tjane1216 if you can't get it).
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For the second time in a week, my mom has experienced a news story first-hand and had no idea until I told her.
I called her last night to see if anything exciting was happening.
"Hi, mom, I was just calling to check and see if you had power and if everything was all right there."
"Well, I just got home about a half hour ago, and the power just came on a few minutes ago.... how did you know my power was out?"
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I'm kind of disturbed that anyone talking about this can't go for two sentences without saying "but it's not a terrorist thing." How can they say that if they have no idea what it is? Do they think folks are going to start running into walls if there's even the remotest possibility that someone with a grudge snipped an important wire?
Everyone, wish my honey a happy birthday, and that he never gets too far behind in life:
Ugh. I'm going to go kick myself in the head now for saying that.
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I LOVE not-moving. This is the longest time I've gone without moving since high school. It's lovely. Especially when you're watching all the stressed out people loading up the U-Hauls. Ahh.
Tell my mom how hot she is:
I'm going to smack her the next time I hear her complain about her weight/hair/flab/etc.
Oh, the young man next to her is the son of a friend. He's looking pretty spiffy too.
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This time of year, it seems that everyone is in transit. The de facto citywide moving days here occur between tomorrow and the 16th, so piles of garbage and terrible furniture are lined up along the sides of all roads, waiting for garbagemen, patient artists, or completely broke students to claim them: whoever gets there first.
It seems like a lot of my friends have also been living the nomadic life. Dan should be in the midwest by now, finally free of Ithaca's death grip. Doug, little Karyn, her boyfriend, and Will are all on their respective ways to grad school. Some of my friends from my first year are headed for greener pastures soon.
But me? I'm done with moving, at least for now. I have my wonderful apartment, school things are stable, I know my way around town, and I finally know enough people around that I don't feel like a complete social outcast.
In other words, at the moment, I seem to be a little ahead of my peers. It seems like an interesting side note, since I can never quite seem to keep pace--in EITHER direction.
--
When I was a baby (according to my family), I didn't talk for what seemed like a rather long time. At around 2 1/2, I didn't offer up a whole lot, and even they were just one or two word phrases. I guess I just listened a lot, but apparently the family was getting kind of nervous about my quietness.
Then, without much warning I suddenly talked in long, complete sentences--my mom claims that in less than a month I jumped forward about a year in what the books called normal. Not long after that I was reading books. Zip!-- I was way ahead.
In first grade I spent the first few weeks having no idea what was going on, since I hadn't been to kindergarten and didn't know how the school world worked. As a result I was put in the group with the "slow kids". After I got the hang of it and had independently began to ran what could only be called a first grade TA session, my teacher decided to actually figure out what I did and didn't understand. Zip!--off I went into the top group.
Physically, I was a VERY LATE BLOOMER. As a result I was boyfriendless for what seemed like forever--but had plenty of guy friends who thought I was just like their sister. Yuck. Then I meet a nice, adorable, funny guy. Zip!--I'm the first person of all my friends to be married.
Not too long ago, I felt like I was totally unprepared for this whole grad school thing. Everyone else knew what they were doing with the rest of their life! Everyone else had done all the homework! Read all the research papers! Asked questions I never could have thought of!
Sorry. Did I just hear a zippy sound?
My hands are dis-GUSTING right now. I tore them to shreds climbing last night. Strangely enough, I consider this a good sign--my muscles are feeling pretty good right now, which means that my hands are simply the next-weakest thing, bound to give way after two hours of clumsy scampering.
Typing will be tender and somewhat limited today as a result. Apologies if emails are curt or nonexistent.
Last week, J sent me this story under the heading of "Traumedy", one of his favorite made-up words. I thought it was amusing, and half-planned on sharing it here, but then I saw it in other places, and I had other stuff going on, so I didn't bother.
This weekend, I called my mom, and we talked about her trip into NYC last week to see The Producers with some friends.
"We had the afternoon free, and so we went to this little park where you could read. And then we heard this woman screaming! And we saw this huge bird! And there was this tiny, tiny dog, shaking all over, that had gotten cut by the bird!"
Yes, indeedy, my mom saw the whole thing. Not only that, but she didn't know that anyone had picked up the story at all. She just figured it was one of those crazy New York Things that happens, and thought it was a pretty good story to tell about the trip.
I'm forwarding her the URL now. She'll be dissapointed with the lack of pictures.
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Last night was Kickass Indian Dinner Night. Jeremy, always experimenting, made some really nice mango chutney. Since I wanted to try it right away, I made a tofu-potato-summer squash-carrot curry to go with it. It was only White People spicy, but still flavorful, and seemed especially accurate with the rice and yogurt. I almost made dhal too, but it was just too warm in the kitchen without a pot of beans cooking too.
Considering the whole meal was an experiment, we were pretty proud of ourselves. Must make Indian more often--I like it better than stirfry, which I often plan on making but is just so blah at this point that I tend to put it off until the veggies are gross.
What's better than free food?
Unexpected free food.
J and I went over to the Co-Op last night with the plan of buying groceries and a lazy dinner of random vegan deli takeout, although there's always one container of stuff that tastes much worse than it looked and sits uneaten in the fridge for way too long, as if mold will suddenly make it tasty.
Instead, the grocery store was closed because it was "Member appreciation night", so we sat on the sidewalk with our free veggie burger, listened to a few fake-traditional Irish songs, and watched several dozen parents all perform the EXACT SAME DANCE with their babes-in-arms--seriously. You know that dance.
Driving home sans groceries, I turned to J and said, "I looked around at the crowd tonight, and you know what I thought? 'I am the most conservative person here.' Here, I'm wearing my P-town t-shirt, my handknit hair thing, eating communal vegetarian food, and riding home in our small, fuel efficient vehicle, and all I want is for the world to be one big happy family, but I'm The Man compared to the rest of the folks there. I just can't keep up."
J's response: "I'm more conservative than you, does that make you feel better?"
From our vantage point, we're hopelessly sqare. But since our vantage point sits smack dab in the middle of Roundsville, I somehow don't feel so bad about it.
One gets used to being not-quite-like-the-others.
Look! Quick! My site is apparently at the top of the list for that oh-so-important search term, loooooo.
I'm filled with pride. Oy.
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The Crafty section is as complete as it can be at the moment--there are a few Christmas items I can't show for obvious reasons, and everything else is currently just a twinkle in my eye.
Conclusion after taking all these pictures last night--yeesh, I've made a lot of stuff lately. I think once I get rid of some more of this yarn (I'm about 1/5 through my gramma's stash), it'll be time for a more intensive, long-term project. I have a beautiful Aran sweater from a book I got out of the library in mind. I'll let you know when/if I start working on it.
Revived, re-overhauled, re-linked work in progress: Crafty Junk. Doesn't have much more than it did previously, but I've given up on the notion of actually writing instructions for everything. This is less ambitious, more doable, and therefore, more likely to be completed in my lifetime. Plus, it's more streamlined in a way I hope will be both more enjoyable to the non-crafty who can just look at the pretty pictures and tell me what they want for Christmas, and more useful to the crafty, with a few details of my thought process that can give them ideas for projects of their own.
A link to the left has been added accordingly (although, not consistently throughout the site--best start here for now). Check it out if you feel the urge.
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I realized today, when looking at my site stats, that some bored young mathmetician could probably keep busy for a day or two working up the fractal patterns that seem to be encoded into site statistics.
For an example, go look at Instapundit's stats, and click on the buttons that say day, week, month, and year under "visits". My stats are too sad to display for public consumption, and the slope of some of the peaks is a bit different, but the same trends apply.
Fractals. I'm sorry I'm such a nerd.
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Some Monday night after climbing I should really take a picture of my shredded hands to show y'all. Or my bruisey knees. It's pretty amazing--climbing around on a big piece of plastic, you wouldn't think you could injure yourself as thoroughly as I do.
On the other hand, it was my third week of climbing, and for the first time I felt like I was getting the hang of it. I got to the top of something without cheating (finally), and a few things that I definitely couldn't do last week, I figured out, including a few things that look really neat--swinging out and arm and leg all the way around a corner to land on a tiny foothold and other such nonsense.
J claims I'm already getting more muscley. I'm not sure about this, but I don't mind. I know my fingers are way stronger, which is a start.
Rarrr!!!
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Now that I have the attention of the locals via the webring--does anyone need or want an aloe plant? We have a monster aloe that keeps giving us babies (you can see it in the picture of the window in the apartment tour), and at the moment we have The Monster, three good-sized offspring in independent pots, ready to go find their own fortune, and a few smaller babies.
Not that I mind having a lot of aloe around, being as clumsy as I am, but I'm ready to pass a few along. So if you want a houseplant that's both useful and easy to care for, and you live near enough that I can just drop it on your doorstep, send me a note: tjane1216, and that would be at excite.com. (foiling spambots by explaining emails instead of just typing them is fun!)
I'll even give you some instructions, for the black-thumbed among you. Aloe is hard to kill, so you should be fine.
Mars is neat.
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Just like the doctors in the world that are always answering medical questions from family, friends, and total strangers on their days off, I sometimes get chemistry or engineering questions from folks. Often it's family members I rarely see, and the conversation goes something like: "What are you doing? Science stuff? Really? Well if you're so smart, how come [insert random unanswerable question]?"
My personal favorite is questions from my grandfather. He's crazy smart, and did engineering stuff for Pratt & Whitney for years and years--probably has the equivalent of a master's or higher in a few fields. However, since he mostly picked things up as he went along, he has very random (but specific) holes in his knowledge. Once when I was headed up to visit the family, he emailed me: "I want you to explain the periodic table to me--get ready, and bring some books."
So I explained the periodic table to a guy who understands quantum mechanics way better than I do, which was a blast.
There's the third category.
The angrifying category.
"I read a third-hand account of an unpublished study in a forwarded email--is it true?"
I understand the situation the folks are in--at the very least, I have access to a whole lot of journal services through the university. And I read the news, I know how much the news people enjoy making things sound scary --the recent ice cream hoohah, for example. And that's what gets me mad. Instead of actually teaching folks a little bit about the field they're describing, they just say "ooh! Scary!" No follow-up, no listing of authors or references, no disproving paper that comes out two months later (which actually happens pretty frequently).
So I fiddle around, and send folks what articles I can find, and give them my "Real Grownup Scientific Opinion", which is, invariably: there is some risk in everything in life. We don't know about it all. Compared to the risk in driving to work, moving a heavy piece of furniture, or dancing at a smoky bar, [fill in scary scenario here] isn't going to be too problematic.
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Doing the Batty-Bat: Let's start at the beginning, here.
Our bedroom doesn't have a screen on the window. As a result, we have a few more spiders and tiny winged non-stingy bugs than we may have had normally, but no big deal. The spiders get rid of the other bugs, we get rid of the spiders, it all works out in the end. Also, it's the kind of window that rolls out, not the kind that slides up and down. So on a warm night, there's a several square foot area that's completely open to the elements.
Saturday night, 4:30 am. We're sleeping, like most diurnal folks are at that time.
Somewhere from the deepest reaches of unconsciousness, I feel... something. Something with small claws. Something with small claws walking across my face.
SOMETHING WITH SMALL CLAWS WALKING ACROSS MY FACE?!?!?
Just as I start to rip my brain awake, I hear a scuttling noise above my head: Something with small claws just walked across my face, and there's other ones above me.
"Mice! Mice everywhere! Mice are coming out of the ceiling and falling all over you!!" screams my brain.
Words to that effect come out of my mouth, along with some ruder phrases, and I jump up and turn on the light. J, who was sleeping peacefully until I started swearing like a sailor and screaming about mice, jumps up too, and we blink in the light for a second until we realize the cause of all this commotion.
Not many mice.
Just one bat.
Just one very confused, frightened bat, that's now flapping wildly around the room, and has no idea how he got here.
J does the first thing he can think of and throws his blanket over it.
It gives a tiny squeak of protest.
Unfortunately, the spot that the blanketed bat is laying is not so convienient to getting it out. There's a door leading out to the fire escape, but the blanket's right behind, so it's too tight of a squeeze.
So, J lets it go, and it decides to be helpful by hopping up and flying directly into the laundry basket, then holding still long enough to throw the blanket onto him again.
I open the doors, J drags the laundry out onto the fire escape, and carefully lifts the blanket again.
This time the bat's flight went as planned, into the night to catch more bugs.
----
It's strange, helping wild animals in a way that involves running and jumping around, swearing, adrenaline pumping. There isn't any denouement--the animal just sprints into the night.
Suddenly the room was very quiet, and very bright. The confused energy and focus had evaporated.
There were no thank you cards.
A little shakily, we put the laundry basket in its proper place, closed the door to the fire escape. Closed the window. Sat together on the bed for a few minutes, sipping water.
Not having anything to say, we turned off the lights again and laid quietly in the dark, eyes open, listening to nothing.
I finished the apartment tour. Now the family needn't worry that we're living in a terrible place and just keeping a brave attitude.
Although I should say, J's response to the pictures was: "Our apartment looks a lot nicer in the pictures". True. I didn't show you the scratchy hardwood floors or the slow-draining tub or the wierd thing that I think used to be a light fixture above our kitchen sink, but all in all, the place is nice, and well-kept, and they're attentive to our needs.
Speaking of which: we've heard a fluttery noise a couple of times recently right before bedtime. I thought it was squirrels climbing the fire escape or some new firework the neighbors discovered to let off at midnight while whooping and hollering. It wasn't quite happening frequently enough to figure it out. I'd stand up and poke my head out the window, and it would stop.
This morning, we figured it out.
Critters in the walls!
Dun-dun DUNNNNN!!!!!
We do have the attic apartment so I suppose it shouldn't be too surprizing to hear the pitter-patter of little hairy feet on the slopey ceiling-walls (whatever you want to call them), but it's still creepy. Plus the movement was near a space stuffed with insulation, which means they could probably get into the house without too much trouble.
The landlord's getting called this afternoon.