Pictures I'm not showing you

Yesterday Houseboy and I went to the DMV and got our new driver's licenses, officially becoming... ugh... Tennesseans (no offense). On the way over there we engaged in what he called "urban anthropology," as we drove through downtown. Have you ever noticed that it's the same people who work in every downtown in America? There are about 100 times as many of them in Chicago as in Nashville, and the proportion of heavy-set black ladies with too many bags to young white men in suits and mirrored sunglasses seems to be smaller in DC and larger in the south, but overall you can always pick out the types.

Anyway, I would totally show you my driver's license picture, because it's actually not half bad (particularly when compared to Houseboy's, which makes him look like a serial killer), but I don't feel like scanning it in or whatever it is the kids are doing these days. Likewise, I actually did day 1 of this challenge, and drew a morbidly obese superhero bear, but I already mailed it off to a friend, so you don't get to see that either.

So... thanks for reading a bunch of words with no pictures, I guess?

Spazz-aholic

So, two things: first, the apocalypse has descended upon Nashville in the form of red-eyed minions of Satan:

About which I was totally being cool, even enjoying their weirdness and laughing at everyone else's disgust. But then they went from a couple hundred to a couple thousand to hundreds of thousands to the point where you can't walk down the street without ending up with one in your mouth and you can't drive with your windows down and you can't walk on the grass, and they make this horrible screaming sound when you try to politely discourage them from sitting on the sandwich you are currently eating. Basically they're proliferous assholes, and also very creepy, as they crawl around on the ground among the carcasses of their friends and family.

Second thing: I went from working about 80 hours a week on project work and homework and data collection and studying for and taking PhD comprehensive exams to having only about 20 hours a week of work, and I think something broke inside, because I made two shirts and a skirt and a pie and crab salad and I cleaned the house and committed the perfect murder, all except the last one (probably). Here are some pictures of what I cooked:

Yay!

Would you call me bubbly?

So, as of today I am totally done with finals and project work for the next TWO WEEKS, which is an awesome feeling, especially when combined with a warm, happy and healthy dog cuddled up next to me in her camouflage fleece sweater, now at least mostly recovered from scary deadly illness. I learned something new about how I am perceived by people outside of my head during this time, which is that I am normally "bubbly." I had no less than two people comment on the fact that I was not my "normal bubbly self" and ask what was up, and if I had been my normal bubbly self I might have asked if they were being sarcastic, but instead I just kind of stared at them.

Which is also what I did to our cat sitter, who is a nurse at the vet's where we brought Olive, when she was telling me about something and said "Well, you know, you're a nurse." That probably would have been a good opportunity to right what is apparently a long-running misunderstanding, which explains why all summer she kept asking me for recommendations for allergy medications and I kept explaining to her that I don't have allergies, so I have no idea. It unfortunately came up again when she came by for the keys since she's looking after the cats over Christmas, as she took the opportunity to explain the medication that Olive is on, and turned to me and said "You've heard of it of course," and I kind of stared at her and was like "Um, no..." and she was like "Oh, well they use it in humans too," and Houseboy pointed out afterwards that I haven't gotten any closer to making it clear that I'm not a medical professional, but now she just thinks I'm a shitty nurse. I suck at my imaginary profession, so that's good.

Anyway, we also went out last night in celebration and saw the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, which really was Spectacular when it came to the parts with the Rockettes, especially the part where they were dressed like nutcrackers and did this:

[Click for source]

But was pretty unspectacular when it came to the parts with Santa and Mrs. Claus, and also had an unexpected, long and poorly conceived Nativity Story at the end, which actually kind of offended me, even though you all KNOW I love me some Jesus, just because the rest of it was pretty obviously designed to never mention God or even use any of the Christmas carols that reference the Christian part of the holiday, so it seemed very divorced and preachy, rather than entertaining. Though there were live camels and sheep, so I spent the whole time hoping one of them would poop and then wondering how they guarantee they won't poop and whether those poor sheep were really hungry because they haven't been fed in days to ensure the lack of poop. It's possible I have a recent obsession with animal poop.

Dogs > Clothes

So, finals week plus a dog in the hospital = same dirty sweats and slippers for three days, which I would totally take a picture of for you except no I wouldn't because no one in the universe looks good in sweatpants.

But, look at this sweetie:

And send your happy thoughts your way, because she's super sick and not liking it.

Jesus wants me to fail

There is a tiny bug inside my laptop computer screen.

Not like a computer bug.

Like a wiggly, squirmy, one of All God's Creatures bug.

He's just roaming around in there being like "Hey, I think your answer to number seven is wrong!" and "Stop studying for your exam, you'll just fail anyway because I'll change all your answers to 'Bug bug buggy bug bugface.'"

And "Your blog is boring and stupid, get back to work on building me my lair!"

There he is again.

Jerk.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Thoughts from my day so far

First, I should not be allowed to own or wear anything black. Apparently having mostly black cats doesn't keep me from showing up to work / class with gobs of fur on my butt, which I only notice when I go to the bathroom and have been walking around for hours like that, and almost makes me want to get one of these:

Until I remember that they scare the crap out of me because they look like babies and old men at the same time.

Second, about three weeks ago everything in the universe went into bloom around here and then all their petals fell off and there were like snowdrifts of pink and blue and white everywhere and it was beautiful and I was going to take a picture but then it got hot and they got all... whatever the opposite of freeze dried is, which I guess is sun dried, but not like the tasty tomatoes in oil in a jar, like the ones you scoop out of bins at your health food store and they look like Teddy Roosevelt's ear.

And third, Houseboy has developed an awesome new tradition that he calls "Martini Fridays" where he makes martinis and we sit outside and enjoy them and don't even care when the neighbors walk by and are all "Oh, well aren't WE having a nice time!" with that special emphasis that just lets you know they think you're some kind of rich socialite who is just made of time and martini olives

And fourth, I have to go to a meeting now and hopefully it will not be like the dream I had last night, where everyone talked............................................ like.................................. this............................. and I just sat there seething and plotting their deaths.

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Why we don't have neighbors

So, recently our next door neighbors moved out and an annex to the clinic next door moved in, which is good for us because sometimes I have loud "night time activities," and get your mind out of the gutter, because you know I mean yelling about spiders invading my brain. Obviously, I've mentioned before that sometimes giant spiders of various leg-to-body ratios come crawling down our walls or through our windows or out from under my pillow, and sometimes I have to inform Houseboy about this in the calmest of voices and then usually I have to take care of it myself because he doesn't believe me and so he has this whole thing where he claims I'm dreaming and then I have to logically explain about how I'm not dreaming this time, even though I know that last time I was dreaming, but this time it's for real I promise, get the emergency kit.

Anyway, apparently I really do talk very calmly and without emotion during this time, which made last night where I started yelling "DO YOU SEE THAT?? HOUSEBOY!!! DO YOU SEE IT??" maybe even more disturbing, because really if tarantulas the size of Marmaduke don't make me scream, then what will? And I can tell you that I don't remember what caused it, but what was happening is that there was a big metal hook hanging from the ceiling and a string was stretched from the ceiling to the floor, and there was a viscous liquid dripping down the string, and this was upsetting because I didn't remember setting that up before bed, and also when Houseboy wouldn't tell me for sure if he saw it or not, I realized that what he wanted was for me to touch it, and I was pretty sure it was on fire, and everyone knows that grabbing a string that is on fire is just not a good idea, so I thought that he was being more than a little unreasonable. Nonetheless, I am nothing if not brave and willing to put my life on the line so that other people won't have to totally wake up at 3 a.m. and deal with the fact that David Lynch now lives with us and has an odd sense of humor, so I reached out to touch it and it kept getting farther away until I was in the bathroom and realized I had to pee, so I did and then went back to bed and we shall never speak of it again.

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Like, totally

OMG, hello everyone! I realized how long it had been since I'd written when I had a dream last night that I crafted the most awesome post ever around the "@" symbol and something having to do with Twitter. There was some deep stuff in there about how on the internet we all communicate by talking @ each other now, not TO each other. Isn't that hilarious and insightful?

In other news, in the last month I have been in Maryland, Kentucky, Minnesota and Tennessee for about a week each, and relatedly my cats are very very mad at me and I have to sleep with one eye open at least partly because the neurotic one has taken to sleeping on my face. Wait, that doesn't make sense because if I slept with my eye open and the cat sat on my face... well, anyway they are alternating between hissing at me when I walk by and trying to climb inside my mouth while I pet them so you get the picture.

The third most important thing that happened in the last month is that we decided to get cable because the digital antenna thingy kept kacking out during How I Met Your Mother and that was just unacceptable, so now we watch MTV and Sports Center in the morning instead of The Today Show, and I remember at least one reason that The Today Show is better and that is that they don't mention Bret Favre and how sad he is and how old he is and how special he is every three seconds. They also don't have Lady Gaga though, and she just makes me have faith again... faith in the idea that the alien invasion will continue almost unnoticed.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

If it's not one thing, it's fleas

Look, I promise we don't live in squalor or anything, but some of you might remember that time that we got the fleas? Yeah, well, somewhere in between writing 90 pages of papers and breaking the toilet, we also managed to contract the dread blood suckers again, though this time we seem to have caught it before they infested my hair and embarrassed me at work. Nonetheless I'm washing all our bedding and spraying down the couches and soaking the walls in bleach just in case.

Also, the Neurotic Cat has developed this kind of OCD where he sits on my dresser and knocks things down until we lock him in the cat carrier. It started as a punishment, but now he goes running FOR the carrier every time. What does it mean when a cat can't handle the freedom of a one bedroom apartment?

So, anybody in the market for a couple insane flea-ridden beasts? I'll cut you a deal.

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P.S. - Yesterday I went to the drug store and had to ask the bagger to repeat himself eight times because he kept asking if I "kirred if the paper was binned." I decided the answer was "Uh huh."

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Rain in December

Al on the Today Show informs me that it may snow 9 to 12 inches in Minneapolis today and 1 to 3 inches in Chicago, and meanwhile in Nashville it's drizzling outside and I've only gotten to wear my nice blue coat twice this year. In class yesterday I wore a short-sleeved sweater (which is neat since I don't think there are more than four hours together in Minnesota when a short-sleeved sweater makes sense) and my classmates wore jackets and scarves. Indoors.

All of this reminds me also that our first year in Chicago Houseboy and I lived in a crappy apartment with giant roaches, a broken shower drain and, as we discovered in the winter, heat that was spotty at best. For about three weeks in December it shut off altogether and we survived by wearing several pairs of sweatpants at once, drinking a lot of coffee and cuddling under four quilts with the Neurotic Cat, while it dropped to about 35 degrees inside as measured on the Jack Daniels wall thermometer. I developed a nasty cough that lasted about six weeks, but the landlord ensured us that the problem was "being addressed."

Meanwhile, we only turned the heat on here yesterday because three fourths of our windows are cracked or stuck open and the temperature got down to about 57 degrees, which makes the cats chase each other around and around and around the apartment, knocking things over and interfering with the digital antenna on the teevee. 57 degrees, though. In December. With no insulation and a gentle breeze coursing under the front door.

At least down here I'll probably never get the pig flu.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Earwigs are the final straw, people

This morning, I went to the bathroom (I know, right? Fascinating) and saw a little squirmy bug on the floor. So I came out and did what anyone would do, I told my husband I saw an unidentified crawling object in the corner, and he asked me what I did about it, and I told him I left it there because it was crawling around in circles in the corner and didn't come near me. So, he went into the bathroom, rustled around for a little bit, came back out and informed me that it was an earwig, and we kill earwigs because if they want to harm us, it's self defense, so man up next time. I promised to do so, since just the word "earwig" makes me itch deep down into my brain.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

But what this reminds me is that the south SUCKS because there should not be any cold-blooded animals still wandering about looking for ears to live in at this point, and for crying out loud WHEN CAN I UNPACK MY SWEATERS? And also, pop is not any stupider a word than soda or certainly than calling everything, no matter it's brand or flavor "Coke," and also, what's so funny about referring to the East coast as "out East"? And finally, I do not talk too fast, you need to listen faster, people*.

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* Copyright 2009, Hedgehog

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References to 80's dramas that I was too young to watch at the time

So, on my walk home from school there's this building, which of course is there on my walk to school also, it's not like some kind of Brigadoon outpost or something, but the point is that there's this little statue of a black owl on the top of it in the corner and the first time I saw it I thought it was a cat and I was like "Oh no little kitty! Don't jump!" And it looked at me in disdain and did not jump and I looked closer and realized it was a statue and not even a cat, but it was cat-sized. And now every time I pass it I think it's a real bird, some kind of bird of prey or scavenger or something because it's large, and then I remember that it's an owl and I think "The owls are not what they seem"* and I giggle a little to myself. So, the point is that everyone should have a confusing, misleading and a little disturbing owl statue on their walk to and from wherever it is they go to and from every day, because a good giggle can totally fix anything.

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* Yes, this is a Twin Peaks reference.

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I don't have any pictures of this one

So, once upon a time I was a Hamster Person. (Ever since I accidentally had two cats that find rodents delicious, the hamster thing has kind of gone by the wayside). But anyway, I got my first hamster when I was in first grade, and what I remember about him is that I named him Brian after my two boyfriends and that I stuck my finger in the little holes in the cardboard box on the way home and he bit me and I bled a lot, but I didn't want to tell my mom because I was afraid she'd take him back. As I recall, I was watching the blood drip down to my elbow when my mom was like "Um... what's up with that?" and I was like "Um.... I don't know...." After that I had a hamster named Sarah, named after my best friend, and this hamster was an Escape Artist. She lived to be about 1,058 in hamster years, which is to say more than three years, and she figured out how to take the top off her plastic cage and used to go galavanting around the house eating crackers out of the pantry cupboard and forcing us to un-trapify all the mousetraps for a few weeks until she'd suddenly decide she missed pooping in cedar chips and then she'd just come back. By the time she passed away, she was missing clumps of hair and one of her eyes had exploded. I also had a hamster I shared with my college roommate, who we named Xena and let run around in her ball up and down the dorm hallways until one time we kind of forgot to pay attention to her and she went bumping down the stairs and when we reached her she looked all dazed and accusatory. She was also probably responsible for the mouse that lived in our couch and chewed a hole in Xena's food bag and then one day just up and died inside something which led to a week of sleeping in the common room because our college's response to that was to just spray some air freshener and let him rot. Which also reminds me of another hamster I had during my Greek mythology phase, who I named Hercules, which was sadly inappropriate as he escaped just like Sarah, but got trapped in the air ducts in our house somewhere and never made it back, and we found him or at least where he was mostly by the smell. Speaking of the ways things die, I had a dwarf hamster that my dog stepped on, and she felt real bad about it, but she didn't know how to do spinal surgery and neither did I and thus we both learned a life lesson about letting dogs and hamsters play together. I also had two other hamsters, named Alf and Taffy, and they both lived regular hamster lives and died regular hamster deaths and then I had another one named Nicholas who had some kind of baby hamster disease so I guess that's a regular hamster death too.

Aren't you glad I cheered up your day with this story? Maybe this will help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfqNXADl3kU&feature=player_embedded#

Now do you see why they're worth it in the end?

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Totally Normal Wednesday

Sometimes when I am sad I do this kind of meditation I made up myself where I Google images of giant dogs and pretend that I'm them and they're me instead, and so this guy has to do the coding of principal summary forms and I get to be all shaggy and smell like wet metal:

Doesn't everyone?

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I need a companion monkey

Very soon I'm going to run out of embarrassing stories that I'm actually willing to tell to the internets, but until then, enjoy. And go to LiLu's blog and read all the ones that are better than mine. Assuming you haven't eaten lunch yet, that is.

So, this little story also takes place a few years back when we lived in Chicago and I had a real job and a condo and a dog and a car and a kid (where did I leave that kid? Oops...) and before the market went all crashy and people were buying up condos in rehabbed buildings all over Hyde Park and then walking their dogs around and talking to one another about how awesome it was being homeowners and how the renters were bringing our resale prices down and they didn't know that they were going to really hope those renters were around in a couple of years and wanted to pay way too much for a place because it has marble countertops, because it's a well-known fact that renters care about marble.

Anyway, we had these neighbors who lived in the building next door and turned condo right after ours and they had these little matching pugs that they walked around and they wanted to talk to us all the time about things like how awesome gentrification is because they were unpleasant and it was made worse because their fat little dogs were unpleasant too, and they liked to dig their noses really deeply inside my dog's butt, and she was a dog and all so she got the whole sniffing thing, but even she thought these dogs were a little touchy feely, and it turns out she was right because they gave her the fleas.

Now, maybe you don't have pets, but the fleas are the worst. The tiny little dog with kind of matted hair is one thing. You throw her in a tub with medicated shampoo and she shivers and looks pathetic and maybe eats some of the lather so you have to make up a song called "Don't eat the soap" that you sing to her every time you bathe her which will be about 10 more times over the next week, because the other thing is that the bugs lay eggs in your carpet and then hatch and then jump onto your cats, and the Neurotic Cat who was declawed before you got him is just sad and pathetic when all wet, but the Fat Cat who is still very very sharp causes infected wounds all over as he tries to claw his way up your face to safety.

And then you buy that spray for your carpet and wash everything you own, and coat yourself in Neosporin and head to work because all that stuff costs money and the pets still aren't contributing in any way besides bitchery, and you get to work and take off your coat and sit down in your cubicle and maybe reach up to scratch the back of your neck and find a flea in your hair.

And this might have been back when I had long luxurious hippie hair, not the sweet punk rock look I'm sporting now. So I might have had to send an e-mail to my boss claiming to not feel well because I had to go home and soak myself and everything I owned in bleach.

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Yet another way that I am crazy

I think I've made it fairly clear throughout my various stories here that I'm not what you'd call a "normal" person, and so maybe one more example of that doesn't really count as TMI for you all, but nonetheless, here it is. I talk to animals. And sometimes (often) they talk back to me.

I was a big fan of Dr. Doolittle when I was a kid, so this isn't new or anything:

That's me with my dog Inky in about 1985, and obviously I'm explaining something very important and complicated, hence the hand gestures.

Throughout high school and college and into adulthood, I did what I imagine many if not most pet owners do, which is say things like "Oh, you like that? Yeah, you really like when I scratch you right there! Mushgtyegithey!!" and "I'm just going to the kitchen, I'll be right back, you just stay sleeping right there like you are, boogieghtieiebum!" That's all fine and good.

Then, this happened:

I mean the dog there, not the kitten. Though it's worth noting that the kitten is now three times the size that dog ever was.

Anyway, that dog was special. She had expressive eyes. You'd talk to her, and damned if she didn't basically talk back. I'd be like "What's up, frog monkey?" And she'd be like "Get me some delicious chicken! Please and thank you." And, yes, maybe she'd say that in a voice that sounded a lot like my own voice, but really really high pitched. And maybe sometimes she said it in a really really high pitched version of Houseboy's voice. And maybe sometimes these conversations would go on for, oh say, awhile. And maybe the cats decided they were being left out and they also made us channel them and then even there were conversations between the pets that we weren't involved in.

Which really is all fine and good and a private matter, which no one needs to know about except that sometimes I forget that I'm crazy and that the things I do aren't normal, and so I start talking about them at the lunch table at work while Hedgehog is there and she thinks I'm funny and so when our boss's boss walks by she's all "Hey! Department Head Lady! Antelope has a funny story for you! Antelope, do the voice! Do the voice!" And so I have to do the high pitched voice my dog talks in for a person who has regular meetings with the guy who plays basketball with Obama.

So, yes. I still worked there for a couple more years, but then AFTER that I totally resigned in embarrassment.


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Everyone loves a good poop story

So, here we go, my second ever attempt at grossing you out with Too Much Information, and it's inspired by our very fast approaching trip to Chicago. See, the thing is that we have cats. And the thing about our cats is that they were raised by dog lovers, who don't know about how to just ignore the cats and occasionally see if they want food or whatever, and instead gave them all kinds of overbearing attention and as a result gave them cat schizophrenia and made them more needy than most dogs.

And speaking of dogs, we used to have the absolute most amazing scruffy trash dog that ever lived and deserved all of our overbearing attention because she was 10 years old when we found her on the street covered in feces and skunk and with mats that extended over her eyes and down to the ground and when we got her shaved all she wanted in the world was to lie on my lap and NOT get antiseptic in her wounds.

Anyway, needless to say she was loved by all, including the cats. And when after four years of toothless happiness she passed away at the approximate age of 703, the cats were not happy. Of course, I didn't notice or care too much because I was not happy, and that's what matters. At least that's what mattered until a few weeks later I went to clean out the running closet and found every single pair of running shoes filled with urine and poop. Since the dog had not been the most well house trained adorable mutt ever, I started to cry because I thought I was cleaning up the last remaining evidence and I kind of wanted to put the poop in a scrapbook or something.

Until then a few months after that I went to move the ottoman in front of the chair we never use, and found that that was ALSO soaked in urine and covered in poop. Which, let me tell you, does great things for your wood floor. That's when we realized that our schizophrenic cats had decided to take out their grief on any dark corner of the apartment they could find, and ever since then if we leave them alone for more than two days, they find some new and awesome place to hide poop, like in a blanket on the couch so that when I lay down to watch tv I pull up over me an entire covering of cat turds.

So, here's hoping they've adjusted to Nashville and spend this weekend watching the neighbor cat out the back window and not pooping in some closet we forgot we had.

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