Happy New Year!

So, it finally occurred to me that perhaps the "Fancy Pants" project is not exactly in line with what my "loyal" "readers" might have come to expect from my infrequent and illogical blogging, and so I went ahead and started a whole new blog for that stuff: http://notastylist.blogspot.com/

I wanted to use http://fancypants.blogspot.com/, but of course that was taken, and even more of course, it was taken by someone who is afraid and threatened by the internet and was only using Blogger to stave off the inevitable advance of the machines, and luckily she clamped down on the "Fancy Pants" corner of the internet before they could use it against her, as you can tell by the fact that she has four blogs, all variations on "Fancy Pants," and only one of which has any content. Oh, also, the last time she posted was 10 years ago.

Ten years ago. How incredibly frightening is that... some part of my brain doesn't really acknowledge that the internet has been around that long, and suggests that I head into one of those tirades about how old I am and how quickly time moves and the two roads that diverged in the woods and how I should have taken the one that headed to Disney World, because I've never been there.

Anyway, as a result of starting that new blog and also continuing the folly that is a PhD program, you might not hear from me much at this spot, but I'll do my best to keep you updated on my inevitable descent into madness and how it is being staved off with macaroni and cheese...

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.

How long does it take to fix a water treatment plant anyway?

See, if it were me, I'd just be down there with some duct tape and maybe the leftover tube of caulk that a handyman left in our apartment in Chicago and somehow made the move to Nashville with us, and it would be all jerry-rigged in no time. Hey, is jerry-rigged racist? It sounds like it's about the Germans, and they just got a shout-out in my last blog, so I'm going to call it even.

Anyway, we're still supposed to be conserving water by trying to use half our normal amount, which is difficult when you already take 5 minute showers, don't water your plants and haven't washed your car in the five years you've owned it. This weekend it involved not showering for three days, grilling out and eating on paper plates, which was kind of like camping so that was okay. On the other hand, we already had dirty dishes in our sink when we heard about the shortage, so now we have an ant problem that I've been solving by obsessively wiping down the counters with paper towels and putting everything edible in ziploc bags, so between that and the paper plates and plastic silverware, we've really just replaced a small amount of water with a very large amount of paper, so all of you out there who are "learning lessons" from this water shortage and thinking about carrying your new practices on into life after the flood, goody for you, but I'm looking forward to not having to take the trash out three times a week.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Things to Do in Denver When You're Only Half Dead

So, as a reward for all my hard work and also the insect genocide whose carnage is still visible in my laptop screen, I got to go to Denver and hear people almost as pretentious as myself talk about things that should be interesting to me, like achievement gaps and tracking and forecast modeling and whatnot, and I imagined someone other than myself sitting in that airport shuttle listening to the people all around her droning on about their local school context and the vagaries of job-hunting with a PhD and feeling very energized, but instead I felt tired and wondered whether I had passed my econ final, which I turned in in outline form, rather than essays, because I ran out of time, and I know what you're thinking, which is "She writes outlines? That implies she organizes her thoughts!" But you should realize that blogs are different than PhDs, or at least I hope they are, because otherwise all this nonsense isn't really worth it, since I already have a blog.

Anyway, all I got to see of Denver was downtown, with the exception of the shuttle ride to and from downtown, during which I decided that the rest of Denver looks a lot like the town I grew up in, which is to say short, quaint to outsiders, and covered in dust from the feed mill and canning factory. Downtown, on the other hand, was boring, as downtowns usually are, and mostly populated with other conference-goers, wearing their badges around like it would get them a better table at the TGI Fridays. Houseboy and I are walking folk, so we walked about 17 miles and saw most angles of downtown, I think, the very best of which was this place called Cafe Berlin, which is the best German food I've had since living in Minnesota, where even the Hispanics are German. They apologized profusely for making us wait for 5 minutes at the bar for a table, but at the bar they had this:

Which is a LITER of beer, and they recommend you pair with a Schnapps, so we did, and then ordered mushroom cutlets and dumplings and something meat for Houseboy and some spatzle and then the resident German Mother-type yelled at us for not finishing our spatzle and offered us more beer to help with the problem, which it did.

So, all in all Denver is all right if you avoid the people with PhDs and hang with the Germans, which is just a good rule of thumb in life as well.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com