frozen tundra

I'm headed out for a few days in Michigan. I'll be taking my nephew out trick-or-treating and trying to stay warm. I realized while packing last night that my cold weather clothes have dwindled significantly over the past four years. I also noticed that it's been a long time since I bought any fun new t-shirts. Must rectify!

It's tough to get any online time because my brother-in-law hogs the computer playing games. Therefore you might not hear anything from me until later next week.

feeling more love

Today's horrorscope says, "Today you might feel a very strong romantic attraction to someone who is younger than you."

And today is also the day I had two classes full of cutie international students. I heart my job.

feeling the love

Blogger was not feeling the love yesterday, when I tried to post about something an instructor said to me. I'd just finished the fourth class for her students and she remarked, "You provide a very valuable service."

I hope so. Some days it doesn't feel like anyone else thinks what I do is valuable, but if I didn't, I wouldn't be doing it. If they could see the students' faces when they master the catalog or when they're able to figure out the Library of Congress classification system (no mean feat) or when they send their first full-text article to the printer...well, they'd understand.

breakfast

We're having candidates by to see about some jobs here at H-town U. I begged and pleaded to get to partake in a meal, so this morning I had breakfast with today's candidate. I was so looking forward to it. I love breakfast. I love drinking endless cups of coffee while I shove food in my mouth and pretend to listen to what everyone is talking about. Today, though, I made a crucial mistake: I ordered an omelette instead of French toast. I didn't like my omelette very much so I ate my potatoes, toast and my colleague's croissant. Shortly thereafter I got the dozies. Here's the candidate, giving a presentation and answering questions and here's me, yawning. Sorry, nice lady. It wasn't you, it was the carbs.

some downs and ups

Have you ever made a decision that you knew might hurt someone but was necessary for you? I had to do that a few months ago and there have been moments where I questioned what I had done, but no more. The correctness of my decision was brought to me in technicolor on Saturday.

After all that went down (and really, it's not much to relate so I won't bore you here) I curled up at home and watched Transamerica. Wow. I have loved Felicity Huffman since Sports Night days and now I'm even more impressed with her. There was a part where she's done what she can and has to sit back and let her son figure himself out. That part hit a little close to home, I guess, because it made me weep for a bit. It was good to release all of those feelings of failure and to realize that I did not fail anyone but myself.

Okay, enough ennui. I also bought some new corduroy jackets and a new pair of jeans and a new pair of running shoes. Who ever said that shopping therapy doesn't work?

why i am a pathetic loser

I related this story to a friend yesterday.

I was playing with my cat and I said to her, "Okay, when I say "mrrow", you say "rrow." Ready?

I say: Mrrow!
She says: **silence**

I say: MRROW!
She says: RROW!

My friend said, that's either very funny or very sad.

love hate

I have been having a secret love affair for some time now. Yes, you guessed it--I am in love with Pandora.com. They recently released a new feature, the "quick mix", where you can pick as many of your stations as you like and **bling** Pandora becomes a radio station that plays only music you like.

Right now Jeff Buckley is singing a live version of "Unforgiven".

Why hate? I hate it when Pandora goes down and I can't listen to it, or when it plays songs I love so much that I get sad (like right now). I'm not quite dependent, but only because my headphones are old and they hurt my ears after a while.

broken sleep

I am disturbed by many things during the night. I think I hear someone outside. The neighbor's dog begins to bark. I wake from a bad dream.

Last night, all three of these happened.

I walk around and check my windows and doors. I wish the neighbor will let the dog back inside. I figure out why I had the dream.

I go back to sleep.

cleaning the office

I often describe my office as looking like a clown car exploded. It really does. I've moved a few things out and am in the process of cleaning and pruning. I washed ALL of my dirty mugs (there were about 11) and took most of them home. I am going to take down some of the decos and papers clogging the windows and walls and I cleared off my desk. I haven't gotten through the resulting stack of papers, but I will.

flooding and desert

What an odd day. It rained yesterday, last night and into the morning, flooding much of H-town. As the waters receded, two women were found drowned in their truck, which they had driven straight into ten feet of water.

It is incredibly muggy and hot but I still have hopes for cooler weather on the horizon. At the very least I will get it in Michigan at the end of the month.

Saturday I watched a film called The King is Alive. The premise is that a group of tourists are on a bus being driven through the desert in Africa. The driver depends on a broken compass and they become stranded. One of the tourists is an actor. He writes out King Lear and the rest spend many days learning lines and acting out the play. What makes it interesting, besides the cinematography and the desert, which I always find fascinating, is the interplay between the stranded tourists. As their masks of sanity are worn down by the constantly blowing sand, they begin to discover themselves.

So, lighthearted romp? No. Dark and twisted and as claustrophobic as the wide open sands of Namibia can be? Absolutely.

pblehh

I'm sitting here wondering what I have to say today. Everything I can think of is whiny (boring) or worky (boring).

Please won't someone entertain me, and perhaps clean my office while you're at it?

purty

I was trying to hard to take a good picture of the sunset last night. The horrible particulate matter in the air sure makes for spectacular sunsets. My friend and I tried all sorts of settings but could never get it quite right. Still, I was so glad to be outside, not sweating for once, right at the right time to lie on the grass and absorb the pretty.

duh huh

Okay, so in some drunken haze, I managed to enable comment moderation but the email notifications were going nowhere. If you tried to comment in the past few weeks, I'm sorry but I don't know what happened to your comments. Everything should be hunky dory now.

meaning well

To my left: a container full of fresh veggies, lovingly chopped this morning. In front of me: a mostly devoured everything bagel surrounding a giant block of egg & cheese.

Score
Good intentions: Zero
Insatiable Craving for Junk Food: about 300 calories, if I'm lucky.

gas-powered tools

Oh, how I hate them. I have a push mower, no leaf blower, and I hate driving. However, I couldn't resist getting one of those trimmers when my friend offered it free o'charge. I tried it out this morning and it was loud, stinky and kept dying if I moved the choke from "get 'er started" to "run, baby, run". Hmm. Also, I realized that I need eye protection, ear plugs and long pants to do any serious trimming. It is kind of fun though. Fun to see little grassies go flying into the air. Fun to see all of the annoying fence-grass go *poof* just like that.

In other earth news, I finished turning over my garden bed and am ready to prep it for my fall garden. I know, I'm a bit behind but it's just now getting past the stinking hot stage so I'm not worried.

grr argh

It's probably a good thing I'm not anybody's boss, at least today. The neighbor's new dog (?) kept me up late and then woke me up this morning and continued to stress bark until I left for work. I assume it's still barking. A constantly barking dog is one of the easiest ways to send me around the bend. That and being stuck on a bus with Chinese pop music blaring so loud I can hear it clearly through my ear plugs.

puzzle

From my horrorscope:

"If you find yourself waking up on the wrong side of the bed more days than not, it's probably got something to do with an unconscious desire that has gone unmet for too long."

Hmm, I wonder what unconscious desire this could be referring to (twists hair)...

librarian hugger?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MPn4IWf3w2k

Did anyone else notice that this guy looks suspiciously like Michael Stephens?

Hehe.

the shore

People come in and out of my life like waves washing up on shore and then receding into the ocean.

Walking into work this morning I realized that I have really separated from the GE. I'm okay with that now, although it was so so hard for a long time.

Logging into myspace, I found an email and friend request from my best pal from college & grad school, an amazing person who moved away and I lost for years.

Wave comes in...wave goes out.

back in the yard

I experienced a lot of lawnmower happiness this weekend, mixed in with lawn unhappiness. My backyard's grass has grown so high that it's lying down and impossible to cut. Not all of it, mind you, but a lot of it. The front yard is mowed and ready to be trimmed but the rest...I also turned over part of my garden bed and pulled the grass/weeds back from around it. Eventually I want to put in more strips of garden separated by paving stones, like this:

**********
**********
OOOOOOOOO
**********
**********
OOOOOOOOO
**********
**********

With the O's being the pavers. Since I do all of this by hand, it may be some long time down the road before this becomes a reality, especially if it doesn't cool down anytime soon.