What the hell is this?
A work in progress, that will only be up temporarily because of the insane number of pictures. But, the family gets what it wants.
There is much back-and-forth emailing occuring amongst my in-laws right now, regarding the picture of J's butt (scroll down to the 28th).
All I have to say is: It's official.
Every ass-related pun that has ever been thought up, has been used by J or his family in the last 2 hours.
I made the mistake of not checking my email for an hour: 10 emails! All puns! All terrible!
They're completely insane.
I love them dearly.
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A friend of mine (that's now an Official Highfalutin' Writer for Science Magazine), was writing some article about a local quilt museum, and was offered a free copy of a crafty magazine. She kindly passed it along to me, knowing what a sucker I am for the old-school (even though it's mostly embroidery and cross stitch, which I haven't done in years).
Like all very specialized magazines, the advertisements are always more entertaining than the articles. I got giggling over the invitation to join a smocking convention. The words "You'll have a smockin' good time!", despite being located nowhere in the text of the ad, rolled around in my head, tickling me.
The ads also make me wonder about the magazine's audience. Clearly there's someone out there for whom antique tatting supplies are of critical importance--do I know this person? I suppose it's no different from someone that's really into a particular sports team, or a certain type of music. It's just the combination of ye olde-tymeyness and true intensity of some of these folks that gets me thinking. I mean, I like looking at the old-fasioned embroidery, but these people pay tons of money for frayed cloth, work tirelessly to revive old crafts, and are just generally way more passionate about a completely obscure art form than I'll ever be about ANYTHING.
I dunno, maybe that's a bad thing.
Confidential to J, Erin (at least, recently), and whoever it is that goes to UConn that likes to read me: I know things get slow in the summer. I know you're bored. I also appreciate that I amuse you all so much that you're willing to check the website 2,3, or 10 times a day to see if I've come up with something to say.
On the other hand, you three alone compose the source of about 20% of my day-to-day hits, and more than half for the last few days. It's not like I'm Insty or anything--I don't write THAT often. And I'm not saying to go away--like I said, I'm honored that I can fill up your day a bit.
It's just kind of sad, sometimes, to realize that I'm having a party that only a handful of people are inviting themselves to.
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On an unrelated note, John has a rather lovely entry on something I've thought about before.
In particular, I'm reminded of a long "discussion" ("discussion" = "passionately disagreeing yet loving and friendly argument") between J and I one laundrydoing afternoon, which started because J quoted an article in which the author made a comment that basically linked gay park sex to tax rebates for married couples. J thought the whole comparison was just plain silly. I didn't think it was silly at all, and tried to put selective tax cuts into a larger societal picture of oppression for gay and lesbian couples, and how that could lead to a devaluing of monogamy. But I'm a terrible social science talker, while Jeremy's verbiage is honed to a fine Ivy Leagued point. In the end, it turned into a "discussion" about self-determination, blaming society for what one does in a perfectly conscious manner, whether the whole paradigm that Social Work sits under is a crock, and whether boys just plain like the sexy feelings more and if the heterosexual ones just get reeled in by their cold-fish mates. After an hour or two of this, that part of my brain threw its hands up into the air, and I gave J a kiss, told him he was wrong but smarter than me, and we talked about our favorite kinds of dessert for the rest of the night.
Anyway, John managed to say exactly what I had in my mind that night but couldn't quite manage. Good job.
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Jeremy informs me that the recipe I wrote yesterday for "Fake Israeli Salad" is cause for debate--basically, the particular vegetable medley I was thinking of can also be called "Palestinian Salad" and that the simple naming of food is symbolic of a larger struggle, etc, etc, blah blah blah.
So, allow me to air my bias: I worked in the Kosher Kitchen section of the IC Dining Hall for two years, despite the fact that I'm a total goy. But I could work as many hours as I wanted, and I was a quick study, so there you go. That's where I learned to make the dang salad, and so, unaware of any larger political implications, I tend to call a mixture of fresh diced vegetables in a vinegarey marinade "Israeli Salad". And I'll keep calling it that. I also make no distinction between "combs" and "brushes". Also, "skirt" and "dress". Or "cup" and "mug". It has nothing to do with any political opinion. (ps: I willfully choose to have no opinion about Israel, anyway. People take it too personally, so arguing only hurts everyone involved). It has everything to do with my tendency for linguistic sloppiness.
Adam would be so disappointed.
Ok, I'm done kissing up to the local bloggers that I adore. Time to go home.
Today is "Pictures, Food, and Homophobia" day. Enjoy.
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Look how much J likes his new shorts!
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It's too hot to cook, and cukes are finally coming in at the Farmer's Market:
Nice pita-stuffing marinated vegetables (aka Fake Israeli Salad)
1 cucumber
1 sweet pepper
1 big or 3-4 small or 2 medium carrots
2-3 green onions (little less than 1/4 cup)
1/4 cup rice vinegar (sooo tasty, go buy some)
1 tablesp. olive oil, with a couple of drops of sesame oil
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/4 to 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (depending on your spice tolerance--I use about halfway between the two)
1 tsp. brown sugar
Chop the vegetables up to bite-sized pieces, small enough to not poke holes in pita.
Mix everything up until the veggies are all coated with dressing and spices. Let it sit for awhile in the fridge. Eat it, either by itself, or with pita and hummus.
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I'm changing the plan for my craft page--it's just going to be pictures and descriptions if I feel ambitious, but without instructions. If you want some, just get in touch and I'll do it on an individual basis.
That still won't be for awhile though. Here's some pictures to keep you entertained in the meantime:
The first baby blanket I did for TLC. Haven't sent it yet. It didn't turn out so hot--the two yarns together were a royal pain, it's kind of ugly, and the fabric came out pretty stiff. Oh, well, it's a first try, and it'll keep a baby warm. Also note the booties. They turned out a lot better.
The second blanket came out nicer. The yarn (just some baby stuff from Red Heart) was nice and soft. It's perfectly sturdy, although I fear the mother will think that since it's so soft, it isn't.
J's sweater. I haven't blocked it so there's some wobbliness, also I have a hard time knitting perfectly evenly, but he seems pleased with the result, which he proves by doing Tae Kwon Do moves:
And to show my mom that all my stuffed animals (and J's) are okay, here's a cutesy shot. Also, the sweater that Vanilla is modeling is also going to TLC. It was a pain, but I figured out how to do two color knitting so it wasn't a total loss.
I managed to finish two small half-done projects this weekend. Christmas gifts will take way less time than I thought.
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Ok.... pictures.... food... more pictures.... oh, yeah. Homophobia.
J and I went for a walk yesterday evening around sunset, enjoying the lake breeze, since our attic apartment hadn't quite cooled off all the way yet. We're sick of the busyness of State St. and the loud, constructionful streets near our house. So we took a quieter, more meandering stroll around the neighborhood, staying close to the lake, imagining what the big old houses looked like before the students took over, talking about nothing in particular, holding hands. Dusk slowly fell around our t-shirted, shorts-ed, and flip-flopped selves.
What a lovely Sunday evening.
"DUDE, I LIKE ANAL TOO!! WHOO! HAHAHA!!!" yelled a guy and his buddy riding by on their mopeds.
I didn't even catch what they'd said--J had to point it out to me, as well as the fact that they were referring to US, not making some random proclamation to the quiet houses.
I'm always of two minds when someone says homophobic things to me in a way that implies that they think I'm gay. On one hand, I'm a victim because some outside entity is inspecting my body language, voice, choice of clothes and haircut, etc. and interpreting it as abnormal. Considering I'm not wearing a t-shirt that says "Clap if you believe in Fairies", a leather-daddy getup, or drag queen regalia, clearly these people have a pretty narrow view of gender, which I KNOW I don't fit into and never will. I want to go find that kid, smack him around a little bit, and maybe leave a copy of Transgender Warriors or a PFLAG pamphlet behind, just in case he actually decided to think about his actions someday. I want to say "Look at me and my husband! Boobs! No boobs! What's your problem?"
Which leads me to the other side of my internal argument. When I was in the gay-straight alliance group at Ithaca and regularly shared my story of becoming a straight ally with large groups of people I'd never met, I was encouraged to not talk about myself as the victim of homophobia.
"Come on, you're STRAIGHT. You can just say it's not true, and walk away, and act more straight, and then never get hassled again."
Apparently when they said that homophobia hurt everyone, they didn't REALLY mean that it hurt straight people, it was just, "um, like, if your brother is gay, and he kills himself? And then you'll be, like, sad, or something. Whatever, let's go get coffee."
And when they implied that I wouldn't get in trouble if I only wore dresses, scrunched in my broad shoulders, and talked about male movie stars constantly, that was COMPLETELY different from their complaints about their parents kindly asking them to act more straight when the distant relatives came for Thanksgiving.
I made this second part, about my suspicion in calling what just happened homophobia, to J last night. He promptly refuted it. "If he'd called us faggots, would it be homophobia then? How about if he had a bottle in his hand and threw it at your head, or if he shot at us? Just because he's doubly wrong doesn't mean you can't be angry."
Still, I go back and forth.
And I can't quite get the sound of a retreating moped out of my head.
It'd be nice if I could've gotten through a day this week without crying in front of my advisor. Not that he's trying to make me cry, mind you--the opposite, if anything. I'm just being really dumb, and getting mad at myself, and not understanding things as well as I should ALWAYS makes me cry.
Especially if I have to answer questions.
I should explain this to him at some point when I'm calmer--I can't say it when I'm trying not to cry, and I fear that he fears I'm mad at him, when I'm only mad at myself.
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The inside of my head, dinos and all.
(via Nonexistent Sparky via comments on Blarg)
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J and I bought our tickets to Rome today: we'll be gone for the week of and after Thanksgiving. Something about the fact that we're now over 1000 bucks poorer makes the whole thing seem real.
It's time to take that Italian class.
The next question: any reccomendations? Our extremely general itinerary involves staying in Rome for awhile and going to Abruzzi, which is right across the boot from Rome and is where my dad's mother's side of the family is from. We're leaning against going to Venice and the other northern cities--we'll be there for a little under two weeks and don't want to spend the whole time in transit. Same goes for Sicily, even though that's where my dad's other half of the family is from.
So that's the general idea, but if you've been in that area and have any reccomendations, feel free to share. General "Traveling in Europe" tips would be helpful, too, since I've never been ANYWHERE, and Jeremy only seems to remember the nude Norwegian water park he visited when he was 14, and a few funny stories from his toddlerhood when he saw all the sights of Northern Italy from a backpack.
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Reminder to self: You think you like sticky rice, and you think you like custard.
You're wrong on both counts. I know they sound fabulous, and I know you love desserts, but please.
So stop going to the Thai place and saying "oooh, sticky rice!", ok? Go home and eat a mango instead, so you won't be dissapointed.
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I was walking over to the vet school yesterday afternoon, and saw a half-dozen sparrows in a puddle formed by a leaky air-conditioner, cleaning themselves off, drinking, and frolicking around. They always seem to be there, like nearly-pubescent girls at the mall, twittering, clumsily flapping around.
Hey, boyds. There are no less than 5 lakes within 10 miles of this spot you seem to like so much. Beautiful, clean expanses of water. People willing to break the law to feed you. Plenty of shallow spots. Lots of tasty bugs.
Why do you like that one crusty puddle so much? Why play in the spray of a fire hydrant when the ocean is two blocks away?
Last night I got home, talked to J about events of the day for about 5 minutes. Almost at the same time, we paused, looked at each other, and said:
"Thai?"
So we went and got Thai. The place we usually go to is yummyummyummy, but has been having a particularly hard time with their service lately. It was the second time in a row that they put something in front of us that was NOT what we ordered.
The thing they gave us last night appeared to be chicken feet coming out of a murky broth. Considering J had ordered a spicy tofu stirfry, this was very strange.
Eventually it all worked itself out, but I'm getting less and less happy with that place.
Grarf. The computer just randomly and completely shut down Explorer--I don't think I was even doing anything wierd, just typing. Dangit. I was in the middle of a long post.
So let's try that again.
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What types of songs get stuck in your head? I recently realized that for the past 7ish years, if you saw me humming as I walked down the street and guessed I was thinking of Fuzzy and Blue, you'd be right. My sisters had a Sesame Street Songs video, and this song has simply never gone away.
But why? What is it about that song? At least it's not one of the more irritating child songs--if you haven't heard it before, it's kind of a cheerful softshoe rag. And now it's been floating around for so long that it's become the soundtrack to my life, disturbing as that may be.
There are a few other songs that are here to stay. Among them:
* The MTA Song, which Jeremy heard at a Dropkick Murphys concert when he was in NYC. He remembered it from his own Boston childhood, and sang it to me. It's there forever now.
* Have a Homo Christmas by Pansy Division. This one, I have to be careful to not sing out loud in public. I think the Tourette's Syndrome-inducing nature of the song is what contributes to its mental longevity.
* Cookie Day by Shonen Knife. I played the album this song was on CONSTANTLY the summer after my sophmore year. That was a good summer.
* You Don't Own Me, a popular one on the Oldies stations. No clue why.
* Just about any Beatles songs, because hey, I know all the words.
So, what about you?
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On a totally unrelated note? This is just about the coolest thing ever. Click to put down a stationary object, hold down and "flick" to start the satellite off with some velocity.
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Starting a few new knitting projects, but they're all going to be for Christmas. So it's time for me to be quiet.
All of the baby junk to donate is done for now, though. Mostly because I'm sick of making baby blankets, and the sweater was a pain in the tuchus. I still have about 2/3rds of the yarn my gramma gave me, though, so I'll be churning out more baby things in the future.
Also,
Cells! Ok, so this picture is totally meaningless to you (which is kind of the point, since I don't plan on describing my research in enough detail to get scooped), but green=alive, so I didn't kill the cells.
This is a good start.
Not only are they alive, but they seem to be happy. This makes me happy.
Kind of strange, how research elicits the same good feelings as knitting does. I think I'd have a hard time doing a non-concrete type of job--office work makes me want to cry, unlike my mom, who grew up playing "games" that involved shuffling papers and separating them into different piles. Even the work J does--I know he's helping people, and I really respect how intricate some of the things he works on are, when he tries to describe legal cases to me, and the possible defenses, and the counter-arguments, and on and on, I get all slubby feeling.
My preference for the concrete is somewhat unfortunate, considering I have really good managerial skills, but I'm clumsy and sometimes sloppy in the lab.
Further proof that what you love and what you're good at don't always line up perfectly.
Ow. And Yay!
I went climbing last night (not outside, there's a gym in town) with some folks I know. Lots of fun--I'm definitely going to go back.
However, ow.
Another yay: I finally had a chance to play with cells yesterday.
My research is tangentially cell biology related, but so far, I hadn't actually touched a 24-well plate, because I've been making things for other people, who then get to play with cells. But finally it was my turn yesterday (and today).
Hey, it's a start. And I feel good about getting SOMETHING done, spending so much time on my Euphemistic Thesis got me frustrated because I just want to do research finally, you know? I mean, that's what I've been working towards for the last two years. So, it's time for some accomplishment.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go explore Knitty. :p
My conference last week ended with a mostly pleasant afternoon in Boston, exploring for a few hours before I took the subway back to Logan. Long ghetto- and fear-filled story short, I got J a pair of shorts with "Southie" across the butt. He had once mentioned his fondness for the term, having grown up south of Boston, which is VERY different from SOUTH BOSTON, as I learned. But I digress.
He loves the shorts, put them on as soon as we got home. The only problem--his scrawny little rear makes for easy wedgification. He walks by and I see SOIE, if it's particularly bad. Seeing the French word for silk is somehow even funnier than seeing Southie.
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This story is too strange to enrage me... yet. However, I do think it would be entertaining if it was a more typical paintball setup, but everyone was naked. At least everyone would have a fair shot that way. (link via J)
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So, I'm officially on the webring now. If that's how you found me, then howdy and welcome, I think everything here is pretty self-explanatory. If not, you should really go check the rest of them out. Some of them have been on my links list for awhile, anyhoo.
J has another Tae Kwon Do belt test this weekend, he's trying for his yellow belt (the 2nd level out of...6? I think). I hung out during his class yesterday while knitting a dissapointing swatch out of some yarn I got for Christmas a few years back. Note to self--when requesting yarn as a gift, be absolutely specific. Not that the yarn isn't poor quality, it just looks kind of blah once you actually knit it up into something. I was going to use it to make presents for other folks, but I don't think I'd be happy recieving a sweater full of the stuff, so chances are it'll sit in the big Tuppermaid tub for awhile longer until I come up with a better idea for it. Maybe it would be a nice blanket. Hrm.
The baby junk I've been making has been turning out nicely though. 3 pairs of booties, two blankets, and the very beginning of a sweater. I'll send it off once the sweater's done, but then I'll probably take some time off from it. I try to only have one project going at a time, so it's a testament to how boring making a baby blanket is that I've been doing other quick projects in between to keep me from insanity.
Knitting really is turning me all boring. Hopefully when I go climbing on Monday, I'll fall down a lot and come back with funny stories.
Yes, you heard me right. I HOPE I fall down. The climbing gym has some kind of absorbent foam under all the rocks, so if you're bouldering (that's climbing not very high, but without a harness), and fall down, it's actually pretty fun. Whee! Falling WITH a harness is pretty fun too. Usually I hate anything height-y that's manmade, but something about having my butt all constricted by the harness instills some confidence.
Time to turn into the little monkey everyone always knew I was. ooooh oohhhh Oooh AHHH AHHH!!! AHHH!!! AHHH!!!
Life is much more enjoyable when you don't have deadlines hanging over your head. I find that when I start a day neither behind or ahead, 95% of the time the small good things win over the small bad things. But if I wake up a little bit stressed, I can almost guarantee that things will just go downhill from there.
Here are some small good things keeping me buoyed up:
* A friend of mine from undergrad (another chem nerd), is coming here in the fall--plus, he'll only be living a block away! Hijinks will ensue. For now I will dub him FW, which are not his real initals but is related to a chem joke about his name, a joke so ingrained into his personality that it's his EMAIL address. You know, I was going to make a joke about that but then realized that the online world knows me as TChem, so I really can't talk. Expect a who is entry soon.
* By the end of the week, I'll actually have gotten some research done, (almost) all by myself. It'll also be the first time I play with cells. I get to see if they die! Hey, it's a start.
* There were free cookies in the grad student lounge today.
* A girl in my department that I hung out with a lot at the conference is in a local women's climbing group. I've only been climbing once, but had a blast, so I'm joining up--hooray for muscleyness and having an excuse to do something active.
* East Side nekkitness. (the link is safe for work, but links from the link are more obviously not.) I haven't really done the webring thing before this, but I like the local folks, so I think I'm gonna join.
* I found a big pile of knitting books in the library that I was drooling over at Border's. I picked up a nice book about Aran sweaters that makes the whole process look less intimidating than I originally thought. I've been trying out some of the elements of the patterns, and I like them a lot. Conclusion? Someone may be getting an Aran sweater for Christmas.
* My boy is lovely. We both haven't been conking off to sleep quite as quickly as we usually do for the last few days, so there's been an element of slumber party in our household lately as we make foolish jokes, giggling together in the dark. A nice way to end a day.
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I realized yesterday that I've written quite a bit about elementary school, and tons about college, and plenty about my everyday grad school life, but high school is pretty much off the map. Why?
So I thought about it a bit, and realized: you know, high school didn't really make much of an impression on me. I don't talk to ANYONE I went to high school with. There are a handful of folks I'd be curious to hear about, but even then, I don't particularly want to be their best friends. The things I was really into then--theater, band, creative writing, throwing a discus around, teaching first graders--are things I pretty much stopped doing the day I graduated. About half of the data teachers wanted to put into me was already there, so I got bored and rarely bothered with homework. I wasn't popular, but wasn't hated, and didn't get into enough trouble to get detentions. I just was. I changed very little over the course of the 4 years-- I was already well on my little metacognitive way when I started at Upper Middle Class High, and so they didn't have much to give me.
A few years of being mentally rootbound really isn't so bad.
Made risotto last night, with the few vegetables we had in the fridge (onion, sundried tomato, and garlic). We didn't have any Parmesean, though--there were little green fuzzy balls in it a few weeks ago--so I went with cheddar.
In other words, I unintentionally made really pricey mac&cheese. Oh, well, it was tasty, at least.
On an only tangentially-related note: does anyone have a good way of getting garlic/onion smell off of your hands? I don't know if I have some extra-absorbent finger skin, or what, but every time I chop up onions or garlic (or both, like last night), I end up stinky for about two days. One time at the Kosher Kitchen, when I chopped half a bag of onions during my shift and was dumb enough to not put gloves on, it lasted for almost a week. I've tried excessive soap and water, bleach, baking soda, whatever random cleaning products I have under my sink, etc. Nothing seems to help. I end up having dreams about being chased by hummus, then wake up to find my hand is right next to my face.
I'm stopping by the doctor's on my way home tonight to pick up my sunglasses! I'm so excited. They're one step above clipons--they're actually designed for my glasses, and have little magnetic things on the corners. Really, I haven't worn sunglasses for more than a few afternoons since I even GOT glasses in fourth grade, and even then, they were terrible clipons that were twice the size of the glasses I was wearing.
Mild reduction in nerdiness, here I come!
A few unrelated events (in particular, reading Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood--reccomended so far, but read Alias Grace first) have recently conspired to make me think a lot about someone I used to think a lot about. I just thought I'd share.
K. started at Ithaca a year before I did. Fairly early into my freshman year, she moved into one of the painfully small single dorm rooms, one floor above a few of those friends you have freshman year--you ate every meal together, went out every Saturday night with them, studied, watched tv, cried, laughed, and played together for an entire year. It's only after a summer of being away do you realize that killing time together isn't the same as friendship. These almost-friends met K in the laundry, and got invited up to watch tv that night. They invited a few friends, she invited a few friends, and 7 of us ended up piled onto her bed, semi-unpacked boxes still sitting in her closet.
That first night, I think we all talked until 1am.
The next night, we talked until 4.
And that's how it started. Talking. Nonstop. Absolutely intense. K grew up more poor than me, which in an upper-middle class private liberal-arts college, was saying something. She was more confident than any of us--more talkative, more opinionated, more friendly, more everything. She was just More.
She got us talking about spirituality, religion, past lives, the creepy coincidences that happen when you're 11, that you never tell anyone but never forget. Her room was the safest and most dangerous place on campus for any of us.
I barely made it to my 8am class; we'd started watching "It" the night before at midnight, and I didn't get back to my room until it was streetlamps had gone back off.
She read my Tarot cards. I hadn't thought of this for two years, then last night discovered I could almost recite the reading word for word.
It continues to be insanely accurate.
She talked about our group's past life together, herding animals together in ancient Greece.
We all held each other's secrets carefully, so as not to break them. But we microscopically examined them, and talked about them. Looking back it seems like all we did was talk.
Of course it couldn't last.
A lot of small splits occured--one girl had a boyfriend and spent less and less time with us, Dan and I formed a sub-clique, another friend had a theater thing that kept him busy and started going to bed before 2.
For a few years, we were all mad at K for the manner in which the breakdown occured. All of the splits were more-or-less precipitated by things she said or did. I know the girl that lived with her my sophmore year will never speak to her again. I, for one, spent less and less time in her apartment, as her truly hard life turned into mere complaining, as her priorities got screwy (new CDs and weed before laundry quarters and kitty litter). I just got so tired in her presence--I didn't have the energy anymore.
I didn't like being old at 19, so I found a quieter crowd where I felt comparitively young. A group where I didn't need to think so hard all the time.
A group, to be honest, that was a little less fun.
Looking back on it now, I'm not mad at her anymore. Without really trying, she's a galaxy center of a human being--we all whirled around her, or were flung away. Either way we gladly gave her all our mental and spiritual energy until we had nothing left.
What could we do? She's a force of NATURE.
Born in Germany, she would have become Hitler.
Born in India, she would have become Ghandi.
Born in upstate New York, she only had us.
I've consumed more caffeine this week than I probably had in the last 6 months.
I don't drink coffee.
I don't like soda.
I'm not a big fan of hot drinks in general, so tea is a rarity.
An occasional chocolate chip cookie is about it, during a normal week.
You heard me right. All this hyperactivity is NATURAL. Merciful heavens.
But this week, the coffee has flowed like milk and honey in the Promised Land. Iced tea demanded to be consumed. Nine a.m. research talks weren't going to listen to themselves.
Boy, oh, boy, am I high right now. Plus, there's a big party thing tonight, and I haven't been sleeping much this week anyhow, which means it's time for more! more! more!
Pity poor Jeremy--who knows what I'll be like by the time I get home tomorrow night.
I presented my poster this afternoon. Lots of interest, lots of "wow, that's really exciting work".
Yay!
Holy Camoley, I'm learning a lot.
This conference is really neat. Tons of interesting people, cool talks, actual social ability (compared to the average engineer at least), and nice scenery.
Volleyball is calling me, I must go.
Well, you may have guessed from that last message that the Euphemistic Thesis Defense didn't go too well. I was stupid, and unprepared for what kinds of questions get asked at these things, and misinterpreted every question that I could have answered correctly. Bleah.
Let us never speak of it again.
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Now I'm at the conference, and I'm having a good time.
Flying into Logan is my new favorite thing. You get a wonderful view of the ocean. As we were making the final approach, I saw a dinged-up fishing boat slowly trawling its way across the Harbor, followed by a large flock of greedy seagulls.
Such a cliche of New England life! So trite! It was everything I try to tell Midwesterners that a typical day in the northeast is NOT.
So why did my heart give a joyful leap at the sight?
I'm going to be out of town for the next week.
At the moment, I don't feel like ever coming back.
Well, we had an exciting morning.
I got woken up at about 6am by a Jeremy with his face and shirt covered in blood. Once in awhile he wakes up with a nosebleed, but he usually can get it to stop after 5 minutes or so.
By the time he'd woken me up, he'd been bleeding for 45 minutes.
So, we called the insurance place, we talked to a doc, we decided not to go the emergency room, he laid on the floor and pinched his nose while I washed the blood out of the sheets and bathroom rug. It stopped, it started, it stopped and started again. I called my mom and freaked her out--no one ever calls for happy reasons at 7am, even though this wasn't too major, just bothersome.
Finally, J figured out the problem--the open spot was right at the bottom of one nostril, so every time he dabbed at it, it got opened up again. He left it completely alone for 10 minutes. Magic!
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"Three people die in Verona Murder".
I can't stop thinking of this as a probable newspaper headline in Romeo and Juliet. Granted, it's three men, but still.
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Last, and most important: keep me in mind at 4pm tomorrow, when I'll be giving my Euphemistic Thesis Talk. Keep me even more in mind at 5 when I'll be getting grilled on the details of my research by my committee. And keep me yet more in mind around 6, when they'll shoo me out of the room and make their decision.
Merciful heavens, I'm gonna fry.