Squeaky Wheel

The Summer Scholar's program informational session is tonight, and I'm feeling a little anxious about any chances I would have getting in. The brochure says it's for 'underrepresented minorities', and I really don't feel that I fit the bill, even though my father insists that women are in the minority.


I have had to resort to yanking the mouse wheel out of the bin for the last two nights in a row, since A. and Miss L. have been increasingly active and nocturnal. For the first horrific night, not only did I wake up a half dozen times to a squeaky wheel, but also to a 'twhump!' every time it got too close to the side. As a little experiment yesterday I put them both in the clear rolly ball at the same time to see if they would discover the joys of teamwork and cooperation. I don't think they're quite ready for that. They both would stand on their little hind legs on opposite sides of the ball, thus ensuring that they did not move anywhere.

In the groggy haze of the weekend the fact that I had to read the entirety of L'Avare slipped my mind completely. Of course we had a quiz on it. I did managed to answer a lot of non-Avare related questions in class so hopefully my participation grade is still decent.

Pinky Cat

Aha! Aha! Oh wow! My mother told me of this clip she had seen on TV about this insane cat and how she and my sister were crying, that's how maniacal it was. I found it! Oh god, Pet of the Week? They must have been hard-up on quality, sane animals.

Not that I'm searching for pity, but at 10:00 this morning I was up to 102 degrees. That's it, that's all I'm going to mention about being sick even though it's impacting my entire life and I can't do anything normal anymore.



Check it out, yo. Horny Rob, always trendy, sporting a checkered head. I totally dig it.








I had one of those awkward moments today when I had to run to the bathroom since I had to pee like a racehorse after all those damn fluids. I got in and dashed into a stall, and as soon as I got in there I realized that not only was there someone in the stall directly next to me (this was a large, multi-stalled bathroom), but the occupant was clearly waiting for me to leave so she could, um, finish up her business. Gross! How socially cumbersome. I hate feeling rushed.

Since I detest taking the bus to Wal-Mart, being that it only comes once an hour, I usually rely on a roommate to let me tag along. However, they must have freaking stockpiled since none of them have gone since, I don't know, two weeks ago. We have no milk. No one has milk. That doesn't seem to bother anyone else, but I'm going a little batty without my cereal.

Sorry

My apologies for the stubby little posting, but I am seconds away from being deathly ill. I'm sick enough that I don't even want to mention it, sympathy be damned. I did manage to slip out from work an hour early though, since I have to return tomorrow night.

Oh! There was this guy at the movies (probably going for Brokeback Mountain) that, when hearing of his ticket total, whipped out . . . a Louis Vuitton wallet. Is that acceptable? Can guys do that now? I snickered.

And then we had four English students, and they all said "cheers!" as a "thank you". I would pay to have a Briton lull me to sleep with his lilting tones. About a half-hour later, another group of excusively English students came in. I asked politely if that was for some club, and it turns out that there was some International Excursion this evening. So more and more dreamy folk wandered in throughout the night.

I'm done for the night. Here, I'll distract you with some pictures. These were all from a wonderful day at the Aviary with an occasional petting zoo.(click to enlarge)

Aww.

Love Under a Cloud

At the most recent Goodwill trip, Erin and I managed to get there ten minutes before closing, which meant that I had to go into super-bargain-hunting mode. Among the other treasures I found was a book called Facts of Life and Love for Teen-Agers. This is a very, very amusing book from 1956 that has tips for those in the awkward years. Here are a few favorites:

"In a poll of high-school boys, more than two-thirds said that they do not like to have girls call them on the telephone. They feel that this is a boy's privilege, and that a girl seems forward when she phones a boy."

"Girls often knit their boy friends socks or mittens or ties or scarves or even sweaters that express their devotion fittingly"

"People are often troubled by attachments to members of the same sex. A general feeling exists that there is something not quite right about a girl's crush on another girl, or a boy's attachment to another boy."

"A boy in the Midwest fixed up his garage as a gambling casino and had a crowd of boys and girls in for 'A Night of Sin', with quantities of stage money for stakes and a jug of cider for the liquid refreshment"

"You need not feel that you are a failure because you once pulled some boner in public"

Survey of teenage boys:

"I like a girl who acts like a girl and not a tomboy"

"I like a girl who doesn't hang around with a bunch of boys or tough girls"

"I would like her to be of average intelligence"

Oh, that book is amazingly insightful. I hate my girlfriends to be of any higher than average intelligence. It throws off my groove.


Here's a good picture (albeit a bit fuzzy) of one of the mice:

Links Galore

All day long I just wanted to sleep. That was it. But, obviously, that was not an option. Now it is an option since I'm home, but naggy naggerson in my brain tells me that I shouldn't since my sleep quality during the night will go down.

I asked for a toasted sub today at the Sub Shop and apparently the closest they could get was grilling the meat. It was really disappointing to hear that they could fulfill my request and then feel the bun and have it be cold. It was tasty, though, albeit much greasier than normal.

I think the mice are starting to warm to me. Actually, I think they find me tasty since they really love it when I stick my hand in the bin so that they can nibble on my fingertips. After awhile it starts to hurt but I put up with it for a time since they are usually really afraid of me.

More pictures of beautiful things:




Dandelion Pillow










"Too Young to Die" Ashtray










Shift Key Necklace











Girl Parts








What I would definitely not buy:




Record Bowl


You like it? I will make you one! No six dollar charge!

Links links links

Note of the Day had a link to a hilarious Google video that seemed kind of unfunny at first but got great after the first minute. Luckily I don't have this problem too often.

Since I'm feeling linky, here's one. Superdickery. This dude (I am assuming it's a dude) took some of the most ridiculous comic covers and commented. Oh, god, I hope that you have hours before you start looking at them since it can suck the time out of your life. I have lost days due to this site.

If I had twenty dollars to spend on a pin set, this is the one I would buy first. Check them all out. I feel like those should be able to be made using that ovenable clay. And a pin.

Felix Sit Dies Natalis!

Spanish Partner used the word anale in conversation once more today, this time in reference to the cafeteria workers in Findlay.

I wish there was some way to tell whether or not all the questions that I have in Rhetoric and the Law are helping the teacher out with the lesson or just starting to annoy her.

Oh, ha! Today in Spanish everyone was even more sluggish than usual, perhaps because the weather is so horrible. But no one was responding to anything. Profesora kept asking things and no one would even look. It was sort of sad, actually. She asked another question and yet again, no one answered. She turned around sadly to write the answer down on the projectionist and then apparently caught some movement out of the corner of her eye and said excitedly, "Did someone raise their hand?!" Depressingly enough, no one did, so she just drooped and turned around again. Oh, it was just so sad! And, horribly, I started laughing out loud at how quickly her expression changed from glee to despair. I felt really bad because of that.

Happy Birthday Laura! All of my teenage friends are slowly morphing into stately, mature twenty-year-olds. Laura, you tread the ridge between truth and insult with the skill of the mountain goat.

Tapper

Oooh, check it out! The Tapper. Why didn't someone invent this sooner? How many times have I needed this? Dozens! It doesn't work 100% of the time, but it's so cool the remaining percent that you can overlook that. I tried to trip them up and tap out the theme song of The Simpsons, and it still got it! I want to know the process behind putting this together.

I got my first unexpected paycheck last night, for a whopping $23.65. Oh, yeah! I am still in a bit of trepidation about my income taxes this year, since I have no idea what to do. I have a nagging feeling that Carmike should have sent me something already, or that I should have turned something in.

Film recommendation: Junebug. We saw that as part of the Graduate Student film series and it was everything that Roger Ebert said it would be. Very funny; very good acting.

I checked out another few books on, ironically enough, excellent books to read. So now, adding to my previous dilemma, I have an even longer list than before. Last night I began reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point. It's very similar in style to Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking in that Gladwell has a strong tedancy to repeat his previous examples again and again throughout the book. It seems as if he thinks that we've forgotten them already. The Tipping Point is about social or economic situations in which small things lead up very quickly to a 'contagious' epidemic of popularity. He discussed the return of Hush Puppies shoes, the decline of crime in a Brooklyn area, and the spread of syphillis around Boston. Fun to read, save for that repetition.

Comics

I've been sadly perusing through a lot of those neat-looking craft sites that sell things made by starry-eyed artistic individuals. I am all for supporting someone's creative pursuits, but why is it all so expensive?
If I were wealthy enough, which I'm not, I would go on a spree and these are the things that would likely get swept up in the purchasing:

Some 69'ing Goldfish, obviously

Inspired by March of the Penguins

Vintage Book Badge set (I actually am tempted to buy these, meager budget be damned!)

Atomic Bonzai Kit


This is just starting to depress me. Here's a picture of the nerdiness I encountered today just to score a free Penny Arcade comic:

Más, Más, Más!

A most unexpected person tapped me on the shoulder today at the bus stop. He was a friend from two summers ago, and it seemed as if he had dropped off the face of the earth. He's back! And he's living in my apartment complex, strangely enough.

In Spanish today we were overviewing the use of 'más' to mean 'more', as in 'the parade had more streakers than normal'. I asked why 'más' had an accent and she said that it was just to separate it from the more ordinary 'mas', meaning 'but'. She then went on to say that you don't really accent it as you speak, or else you would sound like 'MÁS MÁS MÁS!'. However, she said this in an almost orgasmic way, all the while saying 'MORE, MORE, MORE!' She blushed bright red and hurried on to the next section.

On a positive note, my French professor wrote me a glowing letter of recommendation even though a personal letter was not required. ☺

I performed the arduous task of cleaning out the mouse cage and realized that the funky smell was not entirely from the mice but from the water bottle which had been leaking onto the fibrous bits. I let A and Miss F roam around the bathroom for awhile and I think that after awhile, all of that adventure was too much for them so they stayed in one spot and excreted a lot.

Magazines

I was waiting forever at the bus stop freezing to death and finally the bus makes the turn. As soon as I swipe my card to get on, I am struck with the realization that I have a quiz tomorrow on the movie that I skipped yesterday. Oh, sugar! So I swipe my card still since there was a line behind me and grab a seat next to the door since the following stop was the library. I must have looked like the laziest ass on the planet. I got up to the Music and Media department and not only is La Regles du Jeu taken out, but the girl ahead of me wanted it as well. Luckily, the current viewer was almost done, so I wandered around the Humanities magazine section for awhile.

We have a boring magazine section. Most of the periodicals are foreign, some Russian, others Chinese, etc. So I was just browsing through all of the dull, uninteresting magazines when at the bottom a title caught my eye.

Playboy.

Noooo . . . it can't be. I grabbed one from out of the holder and sure enough, two sexy vixens were staring back. Oh yeah. I flipped through casually to see if they censored anything. Nope. The women are there in all of their busty glory. Hee hee. Maybe that's an incentive to get the boys into studying.

Sherlock

Yesterday I asked Spanish Partner about his weekend, and he said that he'd been really busy. "I was a workaholic the whole time," he said. "I drank lots of workohol." Oh, that's a knee-slapper.

I am tentatively using the names Angelina and Miss Lilly for the mice, out of Angelina Ballerina. Those were the only two white mice in the series not named 'Grandpa' or "Mother'.

New book in! The Chemical Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Excellent. They have been written by chemists in the Journal of Chemical Education, so I am a little wary about the quality of the prose, but any Sherlock is good Sherlock.

My Spanish teacher does little things sometimes that bother me. Like today, she misspelled 'helado' to 'helaldo'. I know it doesn't make a difference and I understood what she meant, but come on. She grew up in Texas and has been studying Spanish since the womb. It's ice cream. It's easy. And then, she wrote 'perizosa' rather than 'perezosa'. There were a couple of other ones like that but I shut them out of my memory. She does have an impressive accent, though.

Names

The mice are still doing well, as I am sure all are glad to hear. I am starting to be able to tell the difference between them. The more timid, reclusive mouse that I rarely see is noticably smaller, since the other daredevil mouse is the one who eats all the food. When she is sitting in the food bowl she almost looks pregnant, knock on wood. Neither of them have shown any interest in that tasty-looking Wood Chew Stick that I carefully placed in there. Not so much as a nibble on that guy. However, the big fat one does like a daily treat ball that looks like a Crunchberry. I still am drawing a blank as to names for them. I would like something really clever, like a good pun, but not so obscure that no one would get it. Plus, if you are overly witty, your mice will seem ridiculous. I was thinking perhaps some famous historical duo, but I got nothing. Would it matter if I gave them male names if they are girls? Would they grow up confused and repressed?

Today I have to go try and wheedle myself into a English 202 class that I hear is very stringently controlled as to class size. I'll save myself two hours and go see the professor at 12:30 rather than wait until class starts at 2:30. Plus, that's his lunch break so he'll be eager to get rid of me, and how much easier to do than to say 'yes', right?

I am wearing my funky pseudo-floral green print Goodwill dress today, and I must say that I am loving it. It flows well, it goes well with the shoes, and it looks cute as a skirt. At $9.99 it was a little pricier than I am used to, but I am a sucker for fashion.

Hee hee. This girl diagonally from me in the lab has totally been on Facebook for at least twenty minutes and is angling her monitor so that it's less obvious.

I think now I am just stalling so I don't have to be early to class and painfully converse with Spanish Partner. All right, I'll be strong.

Fancy Mice

Yesterday when we went back to Petco for the millionth time I thought, "hmm. You know, my last two pets were Fancy Mice. Why don't I go bolder?" So I swallowed my fear and asked the elusive employee to fish me out a . . . hamster. Oh yes. The bigger, badder version of a Fancy Mouse. The first unfortunate thing was that in transit to the Petco box, the hamster peed everywhere. Then it tried to bite its way out on the way home. Then, after I set it in the lovely new bin, it growled and tried to bite me. This was a very unhappy hamster. I cannot even begin to describe the horrible noises this thing made. I wanted to exorcise it. It was a screetchy, raspy, hamster bark. So two hours later we returned it for two female white Fancy Mice. I would have preferred black, since my mother doesn't like the white ones' red beady eyes, but I suppose they are out of season.

Let's check out my mad new photo skill:


I know this is only half of my new pet duo, but the other (identical) mouse is a bit reclusive. I am still unsure what to name them, as I cannot tell them apart. I bought them one of those clear rolly balls and I think they will have a good time with it.

Pets

Wandering into Petco 'just for a look' is a really, really bad idea. I went in to check out their fancy mice and perhaps a goldfish, and I ended up enthralled with a cat who liked belly rubs and a ferret who played dead as he slept. The fish section was less interesting. You can't really play with a fish. I would like just to get fifteen or so from that huge-ass tank of a million feeder goldfish, just in case some die, but I am always incredibly grossed out when I see some goldfish eating their deceased brothers and sisters at the bottom of the tank. Bleh!
I last picked out a fancy mouse about four years ago, and it was an amazing mouse. These are the rodents that you are expected to feed to snakes. Their life expectancy is not lengthy. But fancy mouse Barry seemed to love his little plastic house in the laundry room, and lived for an astounding three years. My mother 'buried' him in his house.
I brought up owning a rat to my mother yesterday, just testing the waters, and clearly this is not an option. So sad.
Oh! I started working yesterday! It was okay, besides the obvious ugly burgundy vest and strangulatory white tuxedo shirt that flatters no one. Apparently they don't like to hire girls since there's only about three on the entire employee list and one of them is only temporary.

Soy Milk

I stumbled into the kitchen this morning eagerly awaiting my routine Frosted Mini Spooner cereal when I opened the refrigerator door and saw that those bastards that I call my roommates drank all but a fraction of an inch of my milk. And they drank all of their milk as well so I couldn't steal it. So I poured on this pathetic amount of milk that barely covered the bottom of the bowl, when I remembered that I had bought soy milk the last trip at Big Lots. Granted, Big Lots is the last place that I would willingly purchase any dairy, but the soy milk had an expiration date of like, two years from now. I took my chances.

The soy milk was not the color I expected. It was, as accurately as I could describe it, the color and clarity of slightly milky tea. Should I have been worried? I've never seen soy milk look like that before. Was it normal? My love of cereal won and I took my chances. If I didn't look at it, the taste was fine. I finished the bowl.

A couple minutes later, my throat and mouth started feeling funny, like really itchy when you have allergies. I was like, 'oh no. I've had this feeling before when I eat apples. Digestive upset is to follow'. And true enough, it did. The upper part of my stomach hurt so badly I had to lay down. Thankfully though, I didn't consume enough soy to really throw me out of whack so I was up again in awhile.

Possible thoughts on the cause:
1: I am allergic (or at least have a very low tolerance) for soy.
2: There was something wrong with the new bag of cereal.
3: I shouldn't trust anything from Big Lots. (Both the cereal and the soy milk were from Big Lots, coincidentially enough).


So I was relating this anecdote to Spanish Partner and I asked him if he ever experienced anything like the itchiness I get when I don't tolerate things.
"Oh yeah!" he said. "But not in my mouth. On my abdomen. It itched like crazy. I had a big rash. My mom thought it was shingles. So we went to the doctor and she told me that it was actually a yeast infection."

Augh! Augh! Augh! Oh god, this is worse than his father's anus. He is a pretty sizable rotund guy, so I can see how there would be moist, dark crevasses that yeasty things like to grow in, but god! Would you tell anyone?

Binge

So, I was a total food-a-holic today. I don't know what happened. It wasn't that I was hungry as much as everything I thought of eating sounded really, really appetizing. I think it's because I didn't eat breakfast this morning, and I had a lot of time during the day to think about tasty things to have once a got home. I chose first a piece of lasagna, then I wanted a pop, then I decided that half a bag of popcorn would be perfect, then the rest of the bag, and then I napped. Cause you know, with all that digesting, the only thing I could do was nap.

I woke up and walked out to the living room when I was hit with an 'ooh . . . some kind of cereal would be great right now'. So I scoped out the cereal cabinet and Life cereal was the winner. Mmmm. So now I have had enough to last me for days. I'm even tempted now to go get a glass of Simply Orange but I think that my small intestine would leap out of my throat and strangle me.

Spanish Partner got his desk and chair all tangled up today while moving over to the wall and blurted out, "Oops! I pulled a you!". It happened to me one time. My chair and desk were momentarily attached. No composure was lost, my dignity was intact, and I didn't even remember it. However, in Spanish Partner's mind awkward moments involving chair+desk hijinks are considered 'pulling a me'. Wonderful.

In other news, my academic adviser has an eye which if not quite lazy, is certainly comfortable resting off to one side at an angle. Where do you look? Does she notice? Maybe that's the reason she doesn't like me. I always get this impression talking to her that I am wasting her time with foolish questions. It's not like I monopolize her time. I've been to her office a grand total of three times in a year.

I sent my mother an audio clip of the lastest segment of Family Guy that involves the Greased-Up Deaf Guy running around saying funny things. She was at first horrified that they were mocking hearing-impaired speech impediments, but the shock quickly turned to unstoppable laughter. In this gem of an episode G-uDG exclaims things such as:
"I didn't hurt anybody!"
"I know deep down I'm your friend!"
"Ahh! I'm touching on the candy!"

Now I have three other wacky sayings to add to "You're wasting your time!", "Never gonna catch me!", and "Go do something else!"

Spanish

So I'm back in Spanish and we're doing the exercises and Spanish Partner manages to slip in a 'Ciudad!' in there, thinking he is the cleverest boy ever known. He starts to guffaw and then quickly stops when he sees my pained expression. "Oh . . . is that so yesterday?" I had to laugh in spite of myself.

My happy expression vanished after we were partnered up to describe our parents. He went first, boringly talking about how his father is poco alto, antipatico, serio, etc., until he leans over and whispers:
"and a little bit anale!"

Ewww. The last thing I ever want to think about is Spanish Partner's dad's anus. That's not even the right Spanish word. I was grossed out for the rest of the class.

Restocked

In Spanish today I hybridized the words "cierto" and "verdad", meaning yes and truth, and instead responded to one of my partner's answers with "ciudad", which means city. Well, he must not have a lot of humor in his life since he thought this was the absolute funniest thing ever. Each answer afterwards that required an affirmative he would giggle madly and squeak out 'ciudad'! Yes, mixing up words is funny. But not that funny. And now I can foresee hearing that often in the months to come.
HR, during lunch today, suggested several books that are going to be added to the infinite list I have growing. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs was one. The other was Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides (author of The Virgin Suicides). This gigantic book list is exciting since I am a book junkie but it's starting to become a little overwhelming. I picked up a set of three DVDs and three books today that I had requested from the library:

The Once and Future King
The Encyclopedia of Sex (by Dr. Ruth Westheimer!),
and The Constant Gardener.

DVDs included:
A Christmas Story
Far From Heaven
Forbidden Games.

The aide at the pick-up desk was totally snarky. He kept making short quips about each thing I checked out, and deferentially giving me his opinion on whether it was going to be good or whether I should just return it straightaway and save myself the trouble.

I am anticipating Forbidden Games. It was recommended by Roger Ebert, who I place on a pedestal and worship. Apparently it's a pseudo-Pet Sematery, and very creepy. I hope the creepiness outweighs the inevitable French postwar boringness.

I . . . Don't Understand

Ahh . . . better. Though, that being said, nothing can replace the heartache deep within of my old blog vanishing into deep, deep cyberspace for eternity. But the past is gone and I must move on. With the least amount of tears possible.

As a diversion from "I am away from my computer", I found it much funnier to use absurd porn titles as my away messages. As I went deep into the imdb depths, I was astounded. Some of these actresses have done literally hundreds of movies. And most of them deal with, if not monstrous breasts, then cringe-inducing anal. Think about all the shots that aren't used. Think about all the prep time before hand. Their collective anuses have to be, well, loose at the very best. Does that create problems in real life? Perhaps I am wrong, and all of the exercise that their bottoms get really tightens them up. But I can't see that happening.

Here are some of my favorite titles:

1: Gia Has a Negro Problem 3.
A lot of the porn titles mention specific girls by name, but this one actually comes up with a bit of empathy for poor Gia. Now, does Gia have a problem with a Negro, or (this seems more likely), she has a problem in which she insatiably lusts after Negroes. GHaNP 1 and 2 were clearly not enough for Gia.

2: Coxxx and Soxxx 5.
What? All right, I get the whole 'triple x' thing, and I understand that there are coxxx, but soxxx? Was there really enough demand for four sequels?

3: No Man's Land 8: Eight Women Who Ate Women.
Actually, this one sent me into fits of giggles. That title, it just rolls off your tongue, to be crude and badly pun. I am thinking that the "8" in this one was shoved in there to give them title some sense, and that they are deceiving us into thinking there were previous episodes.

4: The Anal Diary of Misty Rain
When I think "Misty Rain", I think "poorly-written mild erotica". This whole title is a sleeper, if you ask me. I can only imagine it as a middle-aged housewife writes furtively in a beflowered journal with gems such as "Last night, as John and I were making love for the third time this month, his throbbing member slightly glanced against my welcome love hole. Oh, the ecstasy! Oh, the forbidden agony! But this exquisite pleasure I must keep hidden, for what would he think of me!"

There are so many more. So many.

Prima Posta

I went through all the trouble of setting up a blog name that wasn't taken and was somewhat clever and now I have nothing to say. Classic.