happy dancing, books, and fun with lists

I'm really enjoying my first homework-free Monday in what feels like FOREVER.

*does a little snoopy dance*

In truth, the quarter only lasted nine weeks, but I swear, those weeks were totally time-warped.

And now they're over.

*does another little snoopy dance*

And I have nothing to do for a whole week (except prepare for the following week, which I'm not going to think about now).

Over the weekend I completely bummed out. I slept in on Saturday until almost noon (!), which was a fantastic treat since I seriously can't remember the last time I slept past 8 a.m. I also didn't do any of the errands I had so heroically planned on doing, like getting the oil changed in my car, getting a hair cut, returning books to the library, laundry, shopping at Lane Bryant. All the things I haven't had time to do in the last couple of weeks, and couldn't be bothered to do once I did. Heh. I just sat on the couch and watched television (like the Mythbusters marathon). And it was glorrrrrrious. I did leave the house once this weekend, making a run to the supermarket for milk and cookies and chips and dip. (Priorities!)

This evening, I started my school-free-week-o-celebrating with a little bit of reading. Why do I want to read on my week off from school? I don't know. I just do. It's nice to read something silly and light and fluffy without having to worry about writing a ten-paper on it. Plus, the HB is in the middle of a grand battle with his sister via xbox live so the television is temporarily occupied.

For a while now I've had my eye on a book I picked up at a used bookstore back when I was in... oh, I don't know. Junior high? Or maybe even the sixth grade. Shit, I can't remember, it was so long ago. All I know is that I wasn't yet old enough to know exactly what a Harlequin book was about. Come to think of it, I have no idea why my mom bought it for me at the time. Wouldn't she have said, "Uh, you sure you want to read this?" Hmmm... maybe it just got lost amongst the stacks of books she was buying.

The cover (semi-noir-ish painting of dark-haired Nancy Drew like chick and a man with an eye patch), title (School For Spies (I love me the spies!)), back blurb ("...and in the fight to save her own life, she found that everyone had a motive and everyone was a suspect - including the man she loved." *gasp*!) caught my interest that day in the used bookstore and I've been meaning to read it ever since. Meaning's been all well and good, but it's still been low priority until now. I figured it'd be a quick read that I could finish in a day or two.

I'm already half way through it, not because its that good, but because it sucks that much. I've skimmed through most of it. Sigh. Looks like I'll have to find something else to do tomorrow. Like finally clean *shudder* the desk in the bedroom I've been meaning to clean for months.

Or maybe I'll pick another book from the stacks of dusty unread books in my To Be Read pile. Why can't Don't Look Down be out now? Or Definitely Dead? Or Proven Guilty? Or... eh, I think that's it for Upcoming Books I'm Dying To Read But Won't Be Able To For Months Because I'll Still Be Doing Homework But Will Buy Anyways Just As Soon As They're Published.

Anyways, I thought I'd take a break from the sucky book and update my book consumption list. Instead, I got caught up in the 43things section, adding 10 new things to my Things I Want To Do list.



I love adding to my list, even though I don't do it often (neither do I actually do anything on the To Do List, but that's another story). I also love seeing what other people want to do. Some are admirable, like quit smoking, be a better person, wake up when my alarm goes off, become a hippy... while others are, well...

568 people want to learn the Napoleon Dynamite dance

5 people want to be bitten by a shark.

490 people want to fly.

4 people want to meet david desrosiers and hang with him and the band and be friends for life and marry David and have 2 kids named Jacob and Cayce.

I get sucked into this site very easily and now they have a new feature I'm completely in love with. Emails from the past! I can set up reminder emails to my future self to remind my future self of all the things I, the current and soon to be past self, want my future self to be doing.

Hmmm... I wonder how frequently I need to remind myself to set up my underground lair.

Another Drive-By Listing

The last couple of days have been busier than the ones before. Hence another List. I don't know if the amount of crap I have to do has actually increased, or it just seems that way because my brain is overcrowded with To Do lists that multiply like horny little bunnies. So here it is, my list of:

Things I Would Have Written About Had I Not Been Busy Doing Things Interesting Enough To Write About

(Not that I have high standards about what I'll write about. I was consumed by snot a couple of posts ago so that's what I wrote about. The fascinating subject that is snot.)

Last weekend I drove up to my parent's house and visited with a kiwi cousin I haven't seen in about fifteen years. He's been touring the globe for the last couple of months and made California his last stop before heading home. It was fun to chat and hang out with him, which might not happen again for another fifteen years (maybe sooner if I can ever manage to pay off credit cards and student loans and stuff).

Another perk of visiting my parent's this weekend was attending an "Evening of Art and Wine" charity event hosted by the Zonta club my mom belongs to. I walked around for hours, sampling wine like I knew what I was doing, eating yummy hors d'oeuvres, getting chatted up by the featured who had to tell me all about the awards she's won, and meeting my mom's new friends.

My car developed another problem. One that made me miss another day of class. Grrrr. One that cost $300 bucks to fix. Double grrr.

I have two temps working for me at work for the next week or so. Very strange. Like I'm actually important enough at work to have underlings. I tell them what to do, but I don't feel like a boss. Maybe because I'm not mean enough.

This last Friday was the last day of classes of my first quarter back at a university after my many year hiatus. (I'm not counting the semester at the junior college last term; that was just a warm up compared to these big leagues.) Next week is finals week, then its spring break. And even with two finals to work on (take home projects) as soon as I left class Friday night I was sighing a huge sigh of relief. Ahhhhhhhhh.

One day last week, or maybe it was the week before, I was totally HOTT For Teacher. My English professor is smart and funny and charming, which are attractive qualities, but I never thought of him as dreamy until he walked into the room wearing black pants, black mini-turtle neck shirt, and a black blazer. It just screamed hottttttt. Then he took the black blazer off and the look changed and I realized I should probably close my mouth and wipe away the drool. I drooled again during the last day of class because he brought in Krispy Kreme donuts for everyone. What a dreamboat!

The instructor for my other class also brought in Krispy Kreme donuts for the last class meeting. This is an interesting tradition they have at this school.

I'm out of clean underwear! That would have been the title of Wednesday's post. And I didn't have time to do laundry until Friday. Holy underwear dilemma batman! But I managed, finding squirreled away butt floss and a pair of undies I should have thrown away five years ago.

The HB bought the new 360 xbox last week. And he's obsessed with it. Particularly with the new Final Fantasy game. Which is fine, until his obsession interferes with my tv obsession. Then we'll have to throw it down, see who gets control of the tv. So far I haven't watched much tv because of last minute homework assignments, but starting next week, or as soon as I finish my two finals, we'll have to work out a compromise. Just so long as get to watch my Veronica Mars and Surreal Life in timely manner.

I think there's a Murphy's Law that says when everyone who works in your department is either out sick or at another facility and you're the only one there to "man the fort", the only problem that you do not know how to handle (because it falls under everyone else's job description) will, of course, happen, and will need to be resolved with the utmost urgency. This will more than likely happen on the same day that a Big Scary Term Paper is due that isn't quite finished but is being worked on, during office hours, because your creative muse procrastinates and waits until the very last second to be in the mood to write. Sigh. I don't know how I'm going to break the muse of this habit. It was fine before, when I didn't have to work full time and my hours were more flexible.

Hey Brain, are you pondering what I'm pondering?

Why do fast food drive-thru window operators tell you to pull up to the "first" window when they only have one friggin window?

Is it habit from their old fast food gig? Or do they just not know where they work? Because they are the first window. They are the only window. Do they think that there's a series of windows after them?

I ask, because I care. I think the grease is getting to them.

And also, I hate it when they get my hopes up like that.

"First window?! You mean I get to talk to more than one of you fine McWorkers? Oh joy!"

But alas, after that first window there are no more windows. No more chances to see another surly face of someone who's been on their feet for 6 hours straight that I can say hi to, you're doing a great job, thanks for the wonderful food. I don't actually say all that out loud. I say it with a smile, with is just as precious to them, I'm sure.

Because Fish Have Problems Too

My fellow Business Improvement Super Users and I hadn't had our End-Of-The-World-As-We-Know-It meeting (fridays at 6:30 am - wheee!) in a couple of weeks. Which was nice, but it sort of lulled me into belief that everything was peachy warm and fuzzy. But our Super User Leader is back from a conference so the meetings are back on. And they're on with a vengeance.

Reality sure has a nasty slap in its repertoire.

Worst part of the meeting though was worrying about Imminent Snot Drippage. I'm over the worst part of my cold - the immense sinus pressure is gone (I can breathe out my nose again! yay!) and I'm only blowing my nose about half the time now - but there's still snot. And sometimes it creeps up on me when I least expect it.

I went into the meeting without a Kleenex - silly mistake, I know, I'm just full of them this week - but I'd just blown my nose and I felt like I could go awhile before the next evacuation. About fifteen minutes into the meeting I felt a little snot droplet slowly make its way down the inside of my nose until it was resting just at the mouth of the cave.

I thought about getting up in the middle of the meeting and running to the other end of the trailer to my Kleenex box, but I didn't want to be rude and interrupt. Plus, the Leader was talking about stuff I really needed to know so it was at a very inconvenient time. That, and I didn't want everyone watching me squeeze my fat ass between the chairs and the wall as I made my way to the door. Due to construction we're now having these meetings in the other half of this trailer I work in, and the conference room is just wide enough for a conference table, chairs, and a non-fat girl's ass.

So while I was paying attention to all the important info I was also praying to the Gods of Embarrassing Situations that the little snot droplet didn't drop on my shirt.

Gawd! My life is so exciting the only thing interesting I have to write about is snot!

Best part of the meeting though was the guy sitting next to me who kept cracking jokes. At one point, someone was talking about a guy who used to work at a "battered fish company" (a production plant where they put frozen battered fish into bags and the bags into boxes and the boxes onto trucks to be delivered to the frozen food aisle at your local grocery) and the guy next to me said, "Is that like a battered woman's shelter?" Trust me, it had everyone chuckling.

In fact, there's been lots of chuckling so far today. Everyone's in a good mood. Everyone's making fun of everyone else. It's all good all around. And thankfully, with the sinus headache gone, it no longer hurts to laugh.

Time to go now and attend a training session. New system. New training. New problems to deal with. Wheee!