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?

Tacos from a truck.... but not

So, every time I complain about the Mexican food around here, someone goes: "You should try the Taco Truck!" and I go: "I'm not into drugs."

But really, I have no problem with foods served out of trucks and/or trailers, it's just that this one actually uses its wheels and drives around town. Which means that no one can tell me where it is right now, they can only tell me where it was that one time or where they've heard it goes often, and to me that sounds like one of those cool kid parties I heard about on Veronica Mars where you have to know the code and even if I happened upon it they'd recognize me as an undesirable and I wouldn't get any tacos.

Lo and behold, however, the "taco truck" of Nashville also has a permanent, brick-and-mortar location and is actually called "Mas Tacos" (that link is to their Twitter account, by the way, which was almost a deal breaker for me, as I prefer not to Twit in any way). So, Houseboy and I braved the Saturday traffic through downtown and over the river and picked up some tacos:

My selection: fried Tilapia with a dill sauce, red cabbage, cilantro and some other stuff.

YUM!! The picture of Houseboy's didn't turn out as well, but he got the breakfast taco with chorizo, and seconded my "YUM!"

So, I have joined the chorus. If you're in the Nashville area, and you have any idea what Mexican food is supposed to taste like, I suggest you head to the taco truck (or its more convenient building analog), bypassing all other tempting options that will most likely feature Queso Sauce.

Volunteer Fail

So, in honor of my birthday I volunteered to go help build cots for homeless dogs at a shelter in Madison, Tennessee because that seemed like a safe way to help without accidentally bringing home 12 dogs and thus beginning my inevitable decline into animal hoarding. I woke up this morning and there were about four snowflakes in the air, and so Houseboy and I joked about how maybe they would cancel. You know where this is going, of course. We drive out there and stand around for about 5 minutes trying to figure out where to go before finally the barking dogs roused a man in sweatpants and Crocs* who informs me that they cancelled due to the weather, seeing as how it is so cold. From that I gathered that they intended to do this work outdoors, which brought up the question: which was more of a Southern moment, that they planned a four hour outdoor project in January**, or that they cancelled it when the temperatures dropped below 40 degrees?

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* Totally not judging, if you run a dog shelter you should wear what's comfortable, I'm just fleshing out the story, you know.

** Not that us Northerners won't do the same:

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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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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Like a good neighbor...

Today I was nearly bested in battle by a Diet Dr. Pepper bottle, but in case you're getting worried I can assure you that the story ends happily, so don't freak out or anything. So, to accompany my lunch, I bought a bottle of pop from the pop machine, and yes I'm going to keep saying "pop" no matter how many people look at me funny, because as I discussed yesterday, I'm used to people looking at me funny. And I got the bottle back to my office, which I ordinarily share with about 73 other people, but was lucky enough to have to myself this afternoon, or at least I THOUGHT I was lucky until I tried to open the pop and it wouldn't budge. Ok, so I might have the grip of an arthritic 80 year old, and so I tried to loosen it using my fork, and I accomplished separating the top from that plastic ring part, but it still wouldn't turn, not even a little bit. So then I came at it with both stapler and hole puncher and possible tried throwing it at the wall and/or feeding it to alligators, and really wishing my sometimes annoying and always plentiful office mates were around so that I would know I wasn't crazy.

But then I brought the bottle to class and passed it around to many burly PhD students, none of whom could make any headway and I felt less crazy, but also a little more crazy because they were like "Did you CHEW on it?" because of the hole punching marks and I had to be like "Um, no, did you?" And then I brought it home and stalwart Houseboy had no luck, so I took it outside and hit it with a hammer until the top flew off and rocketed across the yard, along with half the pop, and I laughed and then realized that one of the nurses who works at the clinic next door was having a smoke break and staring at me wielding a hammer and a half-full bottle of pop and wearing my pajamas, and when I told Houseboy, he said "She didn't know they were your pajamas," and I said, "So, she thinks this is how I dress. That's better."

And all in all, it was Klassy with a Kapital K, and I'm happy to report that I'm now drinking some semi-flat diet Dr. Pepper and reading articles about teachers' practices in tracked classrooms as compared to heterogeneous grouping and feeling very very proud of myself and only a little damp.

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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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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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A moment of silence

Let's all bow our heads and pray to whatever gods it is computers worship, probably ones somehow related to the Matrix, for the safe passage and final rest of my Very First Brand New Desktop Computer, which got upset when I tried to download new software and went to sleep never to wake up again. Turns out that six years is more than the average lifespan for a computer these days, so the people at Best Buy will condescend to you if you even ask about whether it can be fixed and just hand you a piece of paper to write down where you think you left your iTunes. Though, to be fair to the Geek Squad, apparently they are a little distracted what with Black Friday coming up and also looking for auditions for operas in Nashville, which apparently is a cut-throat town in all music areas, and finally learning German and Italian, and yes this is how long it took to fill out the paperwork, that I know the entire back story of my Geek. I'm surprised we didn't talk about his sixth birthday and how it was ruined because there was no clown.

Ok, that's all I've got for you today, except also for the Scalpicin commercials, in which ladies ask their lady friend to stop scratching her head at the table, and don't even mention how it's disgusting and they're not going to be friends with her anymore if she doesn't learn basic manners. More commercials should go there.

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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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Is it November already?

For all you living in normal climates with "seasons" and everything, this may come as no surprise, but it seems as though fall/winter has snuck up on me, probably owing to the fact that it's still 70 degrees outside and I think I saw tulips on my way in this morning, but we went ahead and ended Daylight Savings Time anyway, so on the first of November we can wear shorts and t-shirts as we sit out on the back porch in the dark at 5 o'clock.

Not that either the warmth or the darkness affected me much this weekend, since I had my first multi-day migraine in a while, so I was mostly hiding out under the covers with a heating pad, which is also warm and dark I guess so come to think of it there's a theme here of some kind. The theme is actually that just because you think the migraine is gone and you're so very proud of your drug regimen and all doesn't mean you can sit around eating Snickers for dinner because it turns out that WILL catch up with you. This time last year I was in the middle of that elimination diet to find any food triggers and had to track down candy without high fructose corn syrup or dairy or nuts or wheat, which I assure you was delicious in a really boring fruit-flavored kind of way.

Anyway, what that means is that I'm now in that post-migraine fugue state where I sometimes can't remember my fingers and if you are harsh with me I might burst into tears or just stare at you with that dead-eyed Paris Hilton look until you question the very foundation of reality.

Paris Hilton is still the hot gossip right?

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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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I'm entertaining

So, we're back from Chicago, though in fact we were back Friday, but there was pizza to eat and homework to do and television to catch up on and the weekend just got away from me, but anyway the trip went fine; it was seven and a half hours of driving and a quick goodbye to the apartment and retrieval of the beer bottle cap coffee table and then a trip up to downtown to sit on chairs in a cubicle while other people signed papers for an hour and then all just walked away and we were like "So, did we sell it? Oh, neat."

But we also got to see Hedgehog and Partner and I discovered the secret to a good night's sleep is a hard mattress, an electric blanket and a down comforter because I slept like I was cocooned inside, like a cocoon or something, only less sticky. And on Friday we got to take Hedgehog out to lunch in our old neighborhood because as soon as we moved away she decided it was safe to take her dream job like a mile away from where we used to live and we could have been having lunch every day that I called in sick or drinks every Friday after work, but she wanted to avoid that so worked at a job she hated until the coast was clear. But when we drive all the way up from The South she can't avoid us because she's just nice like that.

The drive back was also seven and a half hours and it got dark and all because of something about the earth rotating that Houseboy explained but I didn't understand and mostly I think it actually had to do leaving the Midwest where everything is always light and beautiful, yes even in the winter. But because it was darkish and we had long to go we had to come up with interesting topics of conversation, like "Hey that cloud looks like a tiny duck wearing a giant beret!" or "If you faked your death, what would your funeral be like?" or "What if twelve?" I'm really a great road trip partner.

But so we're "home" now and since we turned over the keys and I closed my bank account we are officially Nashvillains, and did you notice how I spelled that because it's not an accident, it's Nash-villains, get it? Don't you want to drive cross country with me?


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Weight problems

Yesterday in my practicum we discussed our potential weight problems and how to use a jack knife to fix them, then on the way home I almost got hit by a car because a woman talking on her cell phone stopped at the stop sign and then started going again as soon as I walked in front of her car and then the project manager of a project I'm on called me and said that she thought that now was a good time to talk about how things are going with my duties, since she was "just driving" and also I had a stats test and does anyone know if there are 172 equally spaced observations in a sample, spaced at a distance of K apart, what is the standard deviation of the sample? It's not K squared, don't be stupid.

On the other hand, we got an offer on the Chicago condo, so it's a-traipsing up North we go, which is like a little mini vacation for me because I get to do all my reading and writing and arithmetic in the car instead of on the couch. But really though, I get to go visit with Hedgehog and maybe eat at one or ten of my favorite restaurants in Hyde Park and maybe go for a run at Washington Park where they have dirt paths and Jamaicans instead of paved paths and EMTs on break.

So, anyway, wish me luck as I go cut the very last cord and try flying in Nashville without a net. Or some kind of metaphor that makes more sense.


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Gobble gobble glurk

So I'm actually on my way between stats class and transcribing interviews and when I told the project manager that my class is scheduled to end at 12:15 and usually goes a little late so there was no way I was making a noon interview, but I'd transcribe the 1pm, 2pm and 3pm ones, she was all "oh, ok so you'll be there around 12:20 or so?" And I go "Not unless you want angry Antelope who will eat your arm off, because I also woke up late this morning and so went for a run but had no breakfast, so that P,B and J and banana and granola bar are the only things standing between me and a total freak out" and I think she understood, so I'm here in my office wolfing that down and preparing to type like a furious bunny for the next three hours.

Preparing by typing nonsense here about how really and truly and amazingly awesome last night was, what with the Twins taking a tie game into the 12th inning, resulting in double high fives and chest bumps in public, at least between Houseboy and me, but also resulting in a playoff game against the Yankees on less than 20 hours rest and also my laptop bag reeking of cigarette smoke because we don't have cable and Nashville doesn't have a smoking ban. And all of this awesomeness persists despite the most ragingly sexist person I've ever sat next to in a bar, who first asked who we were rooting for and then asked when the Twins were last in the playoffs and when they were last in a World Series, all of which I answered despite the fact that he directed the questions at Houseboy behind me and then went off about Chili Davis, which raise your hand if you're not a baseball fan and have ever heard of Chili Davis, but I have because yes I DID watch every game of the 1991 season that was on tv and remember a thing or two about even the less well-known players, but anyway, I was all ready to reminisce about Chili Davis and Greg Gagne and whoever, but he kept starting sentences and then trying to lean around me to talk to Houseboy and even insisted at one point that I get Houseboy's attention so that he could ask about the Jack Morris shutout in Game 7 as if I couldn't possibly relate to that level of in depth analysis which was that it was "awesome."

But I'm not bitter. Because my team is in the playoffs. And he's still a Cubs fan.

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Just real quick

This weekend I learned that:

• In STATA, "replace all" is not a good thing, "undo" doesn't undo anything and that I should save my work more often.
  
• Following the references from one article to another will eventually take you in a circle, but not until it's been 8 to 10 hours and you forgot what you were looking for in the first place.
• It doesn't matter if the first place team is playing against the second place team in the last few weeks of baseball season and there are five televisions available, all five of them will be tuned to football because people have money on this, dude.
• Around here, when a guy who looks homeless says "I like your style," he is actually hitting on you, and quite possibly not homeless, and I can't begin to name the things I find ironic in that.
• There is a ten year old child in my neighborhood who is going to be the next Michael Winslow, but meanwhile he's going to terrorize the neighborhood with uncannily accurate renditions of sirens and crows, to his family's dismay.

Now I'm off to enjoy my Monday.

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McMinnville? REALLY??

It's possible I have mentioned before how I grew up in a Small Town. One thing growing up in a Small Town does for you is make you completely aware of your insignificance, particularly in the scope of the local, regional and National news, and growing up in a Small Town in Minnesota helps this issue, because your small town probably doesn't have a per capita income of a million and a half dollars like some New England "small towns" and probably doesn't have lots of pro football players come out of it, like small towns in Texas or have a really pretty beach like small towns in California. So, unless you live in International Falls, Minnesota, where you make the news once a year for "Being Really Cold Right Now," you get used to the idea that things that happen around you are really more gossip than news, and weather and war and other Big News might hit you, but they'll tell you about how it's going to hit "This area about-ish" and then reassure their Real Public that it's not heading for any "populated areas" and be a little sorry when the robot changes direction and takes out a suburban mall full of teenagers.

That apparently isn't how it works here. Here, they interrupt the end of Friends and the first half of an episode of How I Met Your Mother that I haven't even seen yet to give me a half an hour of a red and orange blotchy map of a part of the state that I'm not even currently in, and when I google it, it turns out to be the county seat of Warren county and have 12,749 people in it and be the Nursery Capital of the World and not even meaning babies, but meaning flowers. Where I come from that place is called Northfield, and they have rich college students and they don't even get to be on the news for a tornado that hasn't happened yet and isn't heading toward the cities. I mean, if it turns their pretty town square into rubble, sure...

Not that I want that to happen.

Unless, you know, they don't get back to my program soon.


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That one time I almost died

Yesterday I was eating lunch between classes and this dinosaur attacked me:

It went really slowly, but it was determined. It was probably because it knew I made this awesome salad the other day with fruit and cheese and stuff, without even any help from Houseboy and in fact a lot of him standing around me going "Really? Whole slices? You don't want to cube them?" And "You know what really works for that? Try a peeler." And "You are an inadequate cook, maybe I should just take over here and you should go back to working full time and get out of my kitchen." But then it turned out like this:

And like this:

And then Houseboy didn't even say, "Oh how delicious, my wife!" He just ate it and made grunting noises, and I told him I was going to blog about it and he said "I'll comment then and make you regret it," and I said "You don't know how to work the internet," and then he hit me with a brick.

Ok, the last part isn't true. But the part about the killer bug definitely is.


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Technology is making my life harder

So, I just figured out how to configure my Outlook 2007 with my Vanderbilt e-mail, which is Captain Awesome, but also makes me realize that now I have to put all my important meetings and orientation mixers and to dos and to don'ts and everything from my Google calendar and mail into my Outlook. And probably I have to keep them in both places maybe because if I don't then my Real Husband, Mr. Googles, will get in a strop with me* or I'll forget which things I put in what and show up to meetings instead of picnics and squirt gun fights instead of classes. All in all it reminds me a little too much of the job I had at Religious Non-Profit where I had to help the Executive Director sync his Treo (which he pronounced Tray-oh) with his Outlook at least once a week and then at every staff meeting he just had me print out the calendars anyway and I'd get yelled at from everyone there because things were missing on the printout and THEY SYNCED THEIR CALENDARS DAMNIT, and now I'm finally getting why maybe that is just a big old stupid pain in the ass, but I still kind of want a Blackberry because I think it will make me look smart in class.

I was going to try to look smart in class by hauling my laptop around with me, but then I found out that walking the one and a half miles to my school in the 1500% humidity and 90 degree heat is enough to have me sweating through my clothes even without my 20 pound laptop, and also yesterday I went to do work on my desktop and it said "I'm sorry Antelope, but I heard you were starting school and it scared me that I might have to do work again after like 5 years, so F. you, I'm dead now." And then it turned back off. And then I turned it on again and it said exactly the same thing, like it was a recorded message and maybe the computer really wasn't there at all and was in fact dead. I turned it off and on about 70 millionty more times with no luck and unplugged it and plugged it back in and shook it and hit it like a pinata, all to no avail, so I think that I am now proud owner of a box full of wires rather than a computer. Which means that I can't just take off with the laptop whenever it pleases me to get a shoulder workout, because that leaves Houseboy at home with no internets or typing machine for his Big Important Book about Francisco de Osuna, which I'm sure you are all looking very forward to reading someday.

So what I mean to say by all this is that I have too many programs and not enough computers to run them on, which is a lot like what my brain feels like right now as I look at my bag filled with articles and logic models and forms and charts and kleenex and pretty rocks and shiny things for my nest.

Oh, and p.s., today I got my first e-mail where somebody spelled out the world "ya'll." It's a liminal moment and we should all bow our heads in memory of my former life as someone who never had to hear that word without laughing out loud.



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* That's a Britishism. Yes it is. British readers, shut your traps, I heard it on "Bend It Like Beckham", so it must be real.


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