Exponentially Older

It doesn't happen that often, but this birthday I actually felt my age coming. Last night I went to bed with a shoulder pain, so I put a heating pad on it. After a little while it was still uncomfortable, so I lifted my head up to adjust the heating pad, and the pain in my shoulder shot out in every direction kind of like when you're in a water balloon fight and you squeeze the balloon too hard and there's a flaw in the plastic and it explodes all over you and then the water balloon fight is no fun anymore, except in this case the water is pain and so it was never fun in the first place. Anyway, now I feel like a very old person because moving hurts and I walk hunched over. Even Denise Austin yoga couldn't solve it. However, it did make for a good beginning to my birthday since I decided to take this 15 year old VHS tape and finally dub it onto DVD (just in time for DVDs to go completely out of vogue... another sign I'm old), and it turns out that after the credits there is an advertisement for all the other Denise Austin workout tapes, in which she wears pastel unitards and steps rhythmically to some very late 80s / early 90s bowchickawahhh music. That was pretty awesome.

Also awesome were the scones and tea that Houseboy made for my birthday breakfast, which looked just like these, but with butterscotch chips in them! Happy birthday to me!

Do I use the word random too much?

So last night I was brushing my teeth with my right hand* because I had to try to pull my left leg over my head at the same time because multitasking is important if you're going to get everything done in a day and I realized that I was doing better than usual (with the toothbrushing, not the stretching) and I decided that it was because of my heavily quantitative program right now, which has activated that left side of my brain.

I also had another great dream last night, and in this one I broke out of prison and went to visit one of my best friends in DC and showed up on her doorstep at 2 o'clock in the morning and she was all "Um, I have to work in the morning. Selfish, much?"

Thirdly, today I was trying to reach into my bag for something while continuing to walk and also avoid making eye contact with my economics professor (who I think might have Asperger's because eye contact seems to make him very uncomfortable (like, even more than me)) and something in my bag shoved itself up in between my fingernail and my finger and now it's all bloody under there and I narrowly avoided using a loud expletive in the presence of someone who holds my life in his hands, so to speak.

And lastly I hate Jim Rome and I hate Jim Rome Is Burning, and that's not new, it's just particularly salient to me right now for some reason maybe having to do with my throbbing fingernail.

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* It might assist you in understanding this story to know that I'm left handed.

P.S., did anyone get the tag humor from yesterday? Because I was pretty proud of that until I realized none of you heathens read this on the actual page and so it went completely unnoticed...

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Spring has Sprung

I know, I know, all my two readers in the northern climates are saying right now, "Oh poor poor you, you're about to complain about how it's warm and sunny outside and there are buds on the trees and green grass even though actually the grass has been green all winter, even under that two inches of snow and please I'm still trapped under four feet of snow and very very angry at Punxsutawney Phil and MTV Spring Break programming who just live to taunt me..."

But to you I say, "Good lord, let me get a word in edgewise on my own blog already!"

And then I remind you that spring is like cake. If you've ever worked in an office for more than two months straight, particularly that kind that has lots of floors of lots of people working in cubicles all day who will take any excuse to get away from their desk and eat sugar so that then they can get all antsy in their pantsy and maybe flirt with the receptionist and go home feeling like Mad Men instead of like Cat People, then you know that cake is in the eye of the beholder. If you've been a good little bunny and eaten your brown rice and vegetables and if you're a carnivore, a bit of skinless chicken, and gone for miles and miles of runs and are very proud of your fantastic superiority as both a citizen and a human being, then a little sliver of chocolate cake with some nice butter cream frosting and maybe just a corner of one of those pinkish flowers that you can pretend taste different from the rest of the frosting is like heaven on earth and you thank God for having invented cake and taste buds and your coworkers and everything on earth that brought you to this point where you could have this moment.

On the other hand, if it's just after Christmas and you've been stuffing your face with doughnuts and candy and cookies and everybody's grandmother's recipe for the best whatever that was made this side of where ever for about two months, and then your cubicle neighbor comes by and says "Oh, hey, it's BlahBlah's birthday today, so we picked up an Entenmann's at the Walgreens down the street, come get it before it's gone," then you'll probably be like "Eh..." And even if BlahBlah is your bestest friend in the cubicle maze you'll just have a bite or two out of politeness and you won't even enjoy it.

Spring in Nashville is like the Entenmann's after Christmas. I haven't earned it, I'm not ready for it, and tasty and beautiful as it is promising to be, I'm going to remain a Grinch and complain about having to put away my coats when it hasn't even been six weeks since that damned rodent saw his shadow as he does every year.

Bah humbug.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

My foot hurts. Can I have the pass?

So, moving here was hard in the summer as I may have expressed because of all the heat and the sweaty and the sun and the heat and the fiery fiery devil from Hell and all that, but some time in the last few weeks it has actually cooled off at least moderately, and two weeks ago I had my longest running week in a long long time, and it was 30 miles, so those of you who don't run can gasp and say how awesome I am now and those of you who do run can keep your mouths shut because I'm enjoying my moment. Enjoying it more than I enjoyed last week, which was the week after that 30 mile week, when I came smack up against the fact that I am old and the park has paved paths and I'm out of shape and I'm old, so my foot hurted. Like this (I drew a picture!*):

But because I'm tough and awesome and stupid and all I kept running for awhile, just less and less and then I got in the shower and shivered because the water was cold and my foot hurt. Then I decided that people who are grownups and not elderly or disabled in any way shouldn't have feet that hurt when they shiver, so today I will not run. Which is totally fine and all, I'm just mad because I didn't run for weeks and months and years because I didn't feel like it, so it kind of sucks now to not run because my foot doesn't feel like it and I think maybe soon other body parts will start to rebel and maybe I won't be able to wear shirts because my torso doesn't feel like it or I won't be able to talk because my voicebox is on strike, or I won't be able to think because my brain... oh wait, that one already happened.


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* The red arrow is where the arrow hit me.

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Introversion, extroversion, shyness and falling asleep

So the beginning of this week was taken up by a whirlwind trip to the lovely island of Louisville, Kentucky to do data collection at Jefferson County Public Schools and also to examine the natural limits of my stress tolerance to see whether it actually is possible to pop all the tendons in your neck and have them come flying outward kind of like when a hot air balloon drops all those tethers tying it down and then floats off, only in this case I guess my head wouldn't float away, it would probably sort of roll off my shoulders and make a sick thumping noise when it hit the ground.

As I mentioned in a previous blogentry (by which I mean an entry in my blog, not the Blog Gentry, of which I am not a part because I kept showing up to functions spitting drunk), I was concerned initially not even about the work I would have to do on this trip, but really about the sharing of a hotel room, but I overcame that by dragging Houseboy along with me under the pretense of him getting a nice look at lovely Louisville, which he did when he went to the zoo and terrorized the warthogs.

So, it was nice to have Houseboy along, but we still had to drive three and a half hours up and back with my advisor in the back seat, and he's a bit introverted and I'm a bit introverted and what this means is that conversation the whole way meant each of us coming up with an obviously forced topic like "Where did you live before you moved to Nashville?" that led to about 0.48 minutes of conversation and then a dead period and then someone else would ask something scintillating like "How big is Louisville, anyway?" and the process would repeat itself. I was practicing a bit of meditation I made up in which I stare out the window and remind myself that I don't want to talk anyway and I'm not being graded on my ability to make conversation, so staring at the trees is just fine and if he really wants to talk he can think of something clever to say, it's not all my job just because I'm in the front seat and besides it's sexist to assume that the woman will have to make everyone feel comfortable and keep up the hostess thing while men are allowed to be strong and silent and whatever, when my advisor fell asleep. Like, head lolling to the side drool coming down the chin asleep.

Thank.

God.

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I'm tired and I wanna go home

Today is one of those days where I suddenly have the feeling that this whole "Nashville" experiment is just an extended and kind of boring vacation and I wish I could change my plane ticket to go back today, even if it costs me extra, because I'd rather go back to work than keep hanging out in this lame hotel room where the floor is uneven so I'm sleeping downhill and we just found a cockroach in the tub.

Turns out that sleeping with your head down and your feet up causes some kind of blood pooling in your neck or something, because I can barely turn my head and yesterday when Houseboy called me and I tried to cradle the cell phone between my shoulder and ear because I was trying to take my shirt off while talking* I got a charley horse in my neck, which I didn't even know was possible.

It also turns out that, even if they pay you to go to school around here, they don't pay for your books, and I'm in one of those programs where every class requires three giant hardback textbooks at $100 a pop, which is not nearly as fun as when I was an English major, and I bought used paperback novels for $5, which still sit on my shelves and make me look smart. No one is going to be impressed when they visit and pretend to go to the bathroom but actually check out all my stuff and see "Classics of Public Policy," which no one has ever bought outside a classroom, I'm sure.

Oh, and to cap it all off, I'm about to take a shower this morning when Houseboy cheerfully informs me that he spotted our first cockroach** in the bathtub, forcing me to contemplate whether peeing in the shower*** would discourage them coming back, or if that's something they're into, seeing as how they are the opposite of everything that's good and right in the world.

On the other hand, I do have leftover pizza in the fridge, and if I want to eat pizza at 10:30 in the morning I'm allowed because I'm a grown up and you can't stop me.



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* Because it was hot out.
** In THIS apartment. I've seen cockroaches before.
*** Not that I ordinarily pee in the shower, it's just something I thought might kill them.



http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Haven't you ever heard the word jinx?

Did I say "Worst Road Trip Ever?" Right before leaving for a road trip? Did I really do that? How stupid am I?

Let's start last Friday night. When, as I may have mentioned, there was a storm in Chicago that knocked down a tree, which landed on my car. Or, to be more accurate, landed on a light pole, which landed on a power line, all of which then landed on my car. The city of Chicago decided that a live wire warranted a traffic cone and a grumpy police officer, who, when we asked if we could go look at the damage said "Sure. If you want to die." So, about 24 hours later, they finally shut off the power and rolled up the live wire. 24 hours after that they cut up the tree and the light pole and got it off our car. We looked at it, and seeing as how it wasn't smashed into little bits we were like "Eh. Could be worse." We took it to a mechanic who said "Shit, dudes. This really sucks. Like, a lot." Anyway, we have to have two doors, a side panel, a roof panel and the windshield replaced. Guess we're not driving that car to Maine.

Luckily, the insurance pays for a rental, and it's unlimited mileage in the United States. Go us. So, we load all our shit into a rental, including the first load of stuff for our new apartment in Nashville, since last stop on this trip is to be picking up keys to the new apartment and setting up bookshelves and then leaving.

Anyway, we're all loaded up, only running about an hour behind schedule on Wednesday morning, when we get a call from the president of our condo board. They're doing work on our air conditioning. We need to be around to sign something saying that the work went all right. This will be between 7am and 10am on Tuesday morning. If we're not there, we need to get a friend or neighbor to do it. If we can't do that, here's a piece of paper to sign saying that the work went fine. That's right, the work they haven't done yet. All right, whatever. We need to leave right now because we have a 10 hour drive ahead of us and there is no way we're getting a hold of any friends or neighbors at this moment, so we just have to hope that this doesn't mondo screw us. Bye now.

Drive drive drivey drive. Some 8 hours later, we get a call from the woman checking in on our cats. "Hey," she says, "I checked in on the cats, and they seem good and all, but the electricity was off and the air conditioning seemed to be off. Any idea what's up with that?" Turns out, they blew our electricity while working on the air conditioning. So now, we have to drive this 20 hour drive to Maine, spend two days there for a wedding, and drive 20 hours back in order to be there at 7 am on Tuesday so that we won't have signed off on saying they didn't screw anything up. Oh, but they did fix the electicity, so the cats are not currently boiling in the 95 degree heat.

Ok, so we spent the night in a hotel somewhere random, and drive drive drivey drive the next day. Get a call from our soon-to-be landlord in Nashville. Before he can say anything, I have to tell him that we won't be out there to pick up the keys on July 1st after all, because the whole road trip has been cut short. To keep things simple I just tell him it's because a tree fell on my car. "Oh, well that's all right," he says, "Because there have been storms here too, and the electricity has been in and out, plus there was a flood and the pipes burst in your building, so we had to replace all the pipes, which were lead anyway." At this point, I'm not really even taking in new levels of information. I just kind of say "Uh huh. Well that's good."

But, literally, while I'm talking to him the tarp on the truck in front of us comes loose, flies up, and a load of rocks flies off of it and all over the front of our rental car. So, right after "That's good," I yell "OH MY GOD!!!" and he's saying something about fixing up the apartment and I have to say "Uh huh. Uh huh. Sounds good. I have to go because a bunch of gravel just fell on me. Bye now."

We pull over, check out the damage, and it's just scratches, but we are fucking glad we're the anal people who bought that rental insurance crap because I'm pretty sure that God hates me at this point. We're in Vermont, about 2 hours from our destination, and all I wanted to do was turn around and go home. So, I call my dad, tell him that we're arriving at the hotel early, but I will not be speaking to anyone.

Arrive at this rural Maine ski chalet, which has hot showers, down mattresses and a really nice creamy pasta thingy for dinner and this morning I felt like a human being again.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Sensing the Humors

So, you know how sometimes people say about someone else "He doesn't have a sense of humor!" and usually they mean "He doesn't find my fart jokes funny!"  Or sometimes they mean "He never makes any fart jokes of his own!"  

That's pretty much what I always thought not having a sense of humor meant, anyway.  Someone who was unable to sense how funny I am.

Turns out there's a whole other kind of person.  This person is lacking in the sense that there are things that are funny.  Incapable of recognizing a jovial atmosphere.  Given to discussing the brain chemistry behind laughter as a social exercise.  This person will laugh because he has found that it is best to participate and then let the laughter fade a bit before he begins a nonsequitor about the construct of race in this country and the historical implications of doughnuts, because otherwise we'd be able to completely ignore him pretending we didn't hear him over our glee.  This person will follow up your hilarious anecdote with the statement "That's interesting because..." and then say something that wouldn't even be moderately interesting if I were a comparative religions major and hated the universe.  

I'm not talking about anyone in particular here.

I'm just saying.

This person should be killed slowly and in some humorous way, like by drowning in pink frosting.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Pretentious Hipster

So, there's this new Facebook quiz that got circulated among my friends recently, and I made the mistake of taking it, despite everyone's universally disappointed comments on their results.  Those of you reading this on Facebook will probably know what I'm talking about.  It's the fantastically intuitive and eminently universal question of "Which Mac Stereotype Are You?"  Whoever wrote it got all clever pointing out how Macalester is all anti-establishment and hates labels and shit, which is actually why I took it, because I like labels and boxes and the establishment and all that.

Anyway, my result was "Pretentious Hipster," and they predicted that I currently work in a coffee shop and have ironic facial hair.  Well, they're right in that any facial hair I have is certainly ironic.  Other than that, this doesn't seem very accurate to me.  All right, so I moved to Uptown Minneapolis after graduation and worked in a record store and watched independent films at the Lagoon.  That was because I had no money.  And that was because I was an English major.  And that was because I didn't think about my future after college until I was exactly 22 1/2 and graduation had just ended and all my shit was in a Pontiac Sunbird and I had nowhere to go.  And that was because I had a really hot boyfriend who was a really good kisser and etcetera and we were going to move in together (somewhere) and probably get two phone lines so his very Catholic mother would not find out.

Ok, and yeah, I own a t-shirt or two that has some kind of incomprehensible photo/slogan combination and was bought at Metro Mart for ten cents along with a pair of oversized men's pants and a cross-stitched pillow that reads "Forty is Farty."  But someday I'll be forty andI'll sit on that and fart and then it won't be ironic anymore, so that takes care of that issue.

Anyway, what it all comes down to is that none of the questions on that quiz had answers like "because I never really thought about it" or "I spent most of my time drinking and studying" or "the red-assed baboons," so it really can't reflect my college OR post-college personality very accurately.  

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Swine Flu

So, I've been sick for about eleventy days now and it's getting really old.  I'm back at work today, since I'm once again able to breathe through my nose at least every 10th time or so, and people have stopped having "subtle" conversations nearby about the swine flu.  It's actually a good thing I got this disgusting cold that won't go away at this particular time in our nation's history, since the two times I tried to come in to work last week I got the nastiest looks, and even my boss basically told me to go home because the last thing they needed was my pig-loving ass to get everyone sick.  

I tried to tell him I don't eat meat and I hate Mexicans, but he wouldn't listen.

Anyway, as a tip to Way Back Tuesday, the last time I missed this much work due to illness is when I was 25 and had bronchitis and worked for a nonprofit full of old people who informed me that this was just the beginning of my gradual health decline.  They've been mostly right on that front, but they were definitely wrong about the prune juice.

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I am. Sofa King. We Todd Ed.

Just a few notes on the things I like and hate about Chicago as I enter my last few months here.  In the "like" column:

•  I rode on the bus yesterday woman with a woman reeking of booze at 7 o'clock in the morning, and she was wearing nurse's scrubs.  I hope she didn't kill anyone yesterday.
  
• Last night we tried to order Chinese food, but the gas was out at the restaurant, so we settled for Indian.  Where I grew up we didn't have pizza delivery until I was 12.
• Last weekend someone rang our buzzer and told me they wanted to tell me about a funeral, and I came downstairs in my workout clothes only to find out that it was a funeral for Jesus, being put on by the Mormons.  

In the hate column:

• I have to go to a work party this weekend at a coworker's house, and it is 20 miles from my house, and we both live in the city.  And I don't even live at the farthest South end.  Where I grew up, 20 miles got you to the big town that had a 4 screen movie theater and a Walmart.  That was more fun.
• It has not even gotten warm yet and already the air here is choking with tar stench.  Why does every roof in the city need to be re-tarred every spring and summer?  Can't they invent some kind of new tar that lasts more than a year?
• The White Sox.  And the Cubs.  And the Bears.  And the Bulls.  I hate them all, to differing degrees and in different ways.  The Blackhawks are wearing on me too.

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A Case of The Mondays

Why would you sit right next to me on the bus when for once there is no one else on it and there are tons of open seats?  I wish I could fart on command and make you regret it.

Let's put this to rest right now.  BMI has absolutely nothing to do with your percent body fat and it doesn't tell you anything more than a height/weight chart does.

I imagine running for the elevator was the most exercise you've gotten since you were 12 years old and had to take the Presidential Fitness Test, but if you're still panting when we get to the 11th floor, you should really go see a doctor.

I wish that pithy phrases and "words to live by" would actually help me, but last I checked "A lack of preparation on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part" is not the kind of thing you can say to the damn CEO.

Please, if I offer you a mint, take it.

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Open Letter to to the Jackholes

To the Jackholes that keep stealing my Netflix movies:
You have recently acquired such gems as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 3, Disc 3" and "Boxing Helena." I cannot imagine what possible benefit you are getting out of this. My movie taste is not going to improve, so you're not going to suddenly hit pay dirt. The only thing this is accomplishing is getting my Netflix account put on hold and seriously pissing me off. Stop it.

To the Jackholes that drive the #2 Bus:
I understand that your turnaround at Navy Pier must be terribly tempting. I get that all those kiosks and stores must just call to you... the DoDads-O-Rama and that store that sells the windup helicopters, not to mention the Chicago sweatshirts that I'm sure you can't get anywhere else. I also understand that socializing with other drivers of the #2 route must hold you up. Of course you're supposed to be spaced out by about 10 minutes, but we riders really don't blame you for getting distracted and making us wait in the cold for half an hour, and then finding out when we get off that there were three more buses behind the one we boarded. This is not a problem.

To the Jackholes who order food for free lunches in my office:
Vegetarians. They are people who do not eat meat. Yes, this includes turkey and chicken. Even though you think that those are "light" foods and you've covered all your bases, you have not. It makes us sad when we have to go downstairs and buy a granola bar from the 7-11 because we don't have enough time for lunch because we were told there would be food at the meeting. You don't want sad vegetarians in your office because that is double the sadness.

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Lamentations

Picture that sample at the beginning of that Lyrics Born song and you'll pretty much know how I feel about the fact that I can't find any of my Christmas socks.  I can't actually watch that video, because YouTube is blocked at work... something about how watching videos of jiggling titties doesn't help us educate the children.  They never listen when I tell them that I'm trying to watch videos on Hierarchical Linear Modeling.  

Anyway, more to the point: all my damn Christmas socks just walked off the planet.  This is a collection I've been building since I was 16, dude.  No, you're not getting it.  CHRISTMAS SOCKS!  I have one sock that somehow avoided being put away last year, and I'm wearing it right now.  That's correct.  Not one pair of socks.  One.  Sock.

Eff Christmas this year, blogees.  

Dressing your reality doesn't make it true

This weekend was one of those ones where I spent good portions of time out of the house, interacting with other people and pretending to be a contributing member of society and an adult and whatnot. I'm sleepy now.

On Saturday Houseboy was Workboy and I was Housegirl--I did laundry and dusted and cleaned things and even brushed the fat cat until he screamed and hissed at me and chased me around the house with his fangs out.

Sunday was the first day of youth formation and the start of a new curriculum called "Godly Play," so I got to sit in a circle on the floor with a bunch of highly-educated Hyde Park parents and pretend I know what I'm talking about while actually deferring to the kindergartner across from me who had had a similar program in her pre-K Sunday School class. "So, um... then we sort of do, like 'Wonderings'.... which is, like, where we think about the story. Right Tegan?" Tegan nods and then rolls her eyes at me.

After that, I braved the apocalyptic rainstorms to head to downtown with Houseboy, our friend the Hedgehog and her as-yet-to-be nicknamed soon-to-be-husband, where we got our first ever massages in our almost 30 years and then bought pants and v-necked sweaters at Old Navy and drank tea at Elephant and Castle.

I wore the pants (green) and sweater (yellow) and a collared shirt (also from Old Navy) this morning, thinking I'd extend my streak of being all growned-up-like, but as soon as I got into work I noticed that the white shirt was covered in Fat Cat's hair. Once I'd removed the hair, I started to make some tea, but as I was walking to the water cooler with my newly-filled tea ball in my cup, I looked down and noticed that the cup had a nice film of brown, moldy goo all over the bottom, which was now splishing prettily all over the fresh tea leaves. So, I washed out the tea cup and tea ball and got new leaves and new tea and got back to my desk and finally opened my e-mail and saw that I have two meetings this morning, both of which I'd forgotten all about.

Welcome back to the reality of who you are. I'll be taking a nap in the conference room.

All signs point to the end of the world

This morning, the ad on the side of my bus spontaneously fell off on the highway.

My fingertips are tingling, and my right elbow is slightly colder than my left.

The women's restroom smells like Froot Loops.

And, most importantly, a drawing of mitochondria has mysteriously appeared on my work notepad.

My nose itches

I've had my legs crossed the same way for too long and one of my feet is starting to fall asleep.

I accidentally put one black clip and one brown clip in my hair this morning.

It's a little too cold for iced tea but a little too hot for hot tea.

I have a hangnail and my glasses are a little loose.

My jaw hurts and I had a defective q-tip this morning.

My cubicle cartoon is no longer amusing me.

I feel like there's a loose piece of hair on my face, but I can't find it.

I forgot the day of my doctor's appointment, and anyway I have to call to cancel.

My Spongebob pencil-topper's hair stopped changing color.

And there are still 15 minutes left in the work day.