i didn't break the mantel. it's still in one piece. still functions as a sort of a tilted shelf. And i wouldn't put anything heavy on it. it just doesn't really fit the wall any more. and around the edges it's visible that the Previous Homeowner who, like a freaking genius,* painted the fireplace a pinkish pale mauve sort of color, didn't paint under the (hideous) mantel. And they have new ones at Lowes. But still, who paints the fireplace - the focal point of the living room - to blend in with the other walls? who does that? why would anyone think that was a good idea? who paints fucking brick? and why? and how many coats of paint did that take anyway? So now i have to get the expensive textured paint stuff to (a)make the fireplace brick-colored and (b)get back the pokey prickley rough-clay-bricky texture that painting over it removes. Bastards. i've hated the fireplace and the mantel for ages now. So off it goes. This weekend. Hold me to it.

*sarcasm

Labels: emptor

every time i apply for a job i apply or phone or interview (this time) or whatever, and afterwards, Ooh. I could totally do that. That would be so much fun. I'd LOVE that. That would totally fill my need to feel like i'm doing something socially responsible and environmentally aware. I could feed people in Africa (this time)! There would be careers branching out from that one job later. That would be The Perfect Job! every time.

and then every time i'm - well, not really devastated, but - disappointed. Sad. Crestfallen? Crestfallen might describe it exactly - that sort of free-fall thing from giddy "that went well" ness to Oh Those Stupid Motherfuckers Don't Know What They're Missing.

wish me luck.

and what am i doing with this The Perfect Job Every Time thing? am i waiting for a career to come along so i can trip over it? when - if - i get my next job, will that be it? will i be in love with it, whatever it is? even if it's absolute shit (which, for a biologist, can be the literal truth)? if it's shit, but it's globally responsible and famine-preventing shit? 'cuz wouldn't that be awesome? (no, that would be shit.)

And even if you win the rat race you're still a motherfucking rat. And who wants to run for that privilege?

Labels: work

i was watching television. i know. i had this massive headache. i'm all wrapped up in blankets. we've ordered hot and sour soup and fried rice. i'm grouchy. and there's nothing on television, there never is, and i can't watch CNN because they go over the same things every half hour that have been happening for the past three years and because i don't care if the celebrities are breaking up and because i don't care if this team is winning. And there's nothing on except law & order and law and order SVU. so it's on SVU. and it's perfectly typical and the pretty cop lady and the square-jawed white guy are following someone around, it's this episode - that's season 2, episode E1409, "Closure Part II." original airdate 11/03/2000. And Ice-T and the one that looks like a recovering alcoholic follow the serial rapist to philadelphia and they're talking to these random victims and ONE OF THEM IS MY COUSIN and i knew she had stuff on this show, being a random Rape Victim, 'cuz she's hot and being an actress and living in LA, but knowing that my cousin is on television and actually SEEING my cousin on television are very different. And i meant to watch it the first time it came on but then something else happened and i didn't have a VCR and oh, right, november 3rd was a friday in 2000 and i'm pretty sure i was ... um ... out doing something. Sophomore year of college. I bet i was ... um ... well. So i didn't get to watch it the first time.

and - and! how cool is this: she's listed on IMDB! and she had like five lines!!!! even if she's not listed in IMDB as having a walk-on in a knockoff TV show. and then suddenly something weird has got into my subconscious from all that flipping past CNN and standing in the aisle at the supermarket and i'm thinking, hey - my cousin could meet Brad Pitt if he's single now ...

Labels: family, media

twice a year, once of which was this morning and the other of which is sometime in December, my house becomes an astronomical measuring device. Everything lines up perfectly. The rooms are suffused with a warm glow. The sun's light, in a narrow beam, hits the flour cannister on the far side of the kitchen. Indiana Jones shows up with a ruby and a big stick. You get my drift.

The sun lines up with the peep hole in the front door. At dawn. Yeah. It's fucking blinding.

Labels: house

my teeth are not white. They vary visibly after tea and after brushing and after paprika-laden food and after Crest Whitestrips and after anything. I think they're extra porous, which makes me a little nervous. But if i skip coffee for a minute and brush once extra, i've gone brighter by several visible shades, which is really kind of nice to know.

my teeth are not white. i've been addressing this for about two years, now, on and off, since they came out with the various tooth-whiteney-kits. Really i've been addressing this since i was five and on the bus to kindergarden and a girl told me my teeth were yellow. So. there's the whitening toothpaste and the little strip things and the painted-on stuff. And there's large volumes of coffee and tea and if i ever had a choice between raspberries and perfect white teeth, well, i'd go for the raspberries. Obviously. So. There's a girl i see just this once who's a friend of a friend, and i think she's just had her teeth done, and they're actually whiter than the whites of her eyes. they're Actually White. and, she looks jaundiced. Which really i doubt she was going for. But these blue-white-shiny teeth really make her eyes look dull and orange-yellow. Not that i needed any less motivation, or was in any danger of Way Too White Toothdom. but. Buyer beware.

Labels: emptor, health, wedding

yay for quality of life! let that poor woman go already.

Labels: health

an alternator? the part where you try to turn on the car, and instead of going vroom, it goes ticky-ticky-tick? That part. And then all the men driving by in their big trucks stop and look at it and marvel at the lovely, perfect Veedub engine, and they try to jump it, and it goes ticky-ticky-tick. And they shove it over to the side of the road. And then you've called the Veedub roadside asst line and they said Sure the tow truck is coming and Of course we're paying for it and then the tow truck people don't get there for two and a half fucking hours. And you want to call for pizza delivery and say We'll give you $10 extra if you beat the tow truck man. And then the Veedub people don't rent you a car right away and when they do, finally, it's a cheap little red sporty thing with big old blind spots and soft pedals. And what you mean by soft pedals is - the Veedub pedals are like the expensive foamy pillow - you push on it and you know you're pushing on it, there's some resistance, something happens right away, but this idiotic Pontiac, it's fluffy and not hypoallergenic, you're pushing on the pedals, and nothing is fucking happening, and you seriously have to almost slam on the fucking brakes to get the thing to do any more than coast to a stop, and it doesn't start fast either. shouldn't sporty things start quickly? - whereas this, this i have to floor it to get to the corner. On top of which it's red and feels like everybody must be looking at me - who drives a red, sporty, noisy-enginned pile of crap?

And when you're stuck just down the road from some folks' houses and they come by with the beer and with the wine and there's the weird little rum-flavored cigarillos in the back seat and you drink all of the Flavored Malt Beverages in one friend's house, since, fuck, you're not going anywhere - where you goin? NO where - and why not? and if they've been there for months and his roommates aren't drinking them anyway. So you're sitting on the kerb waiting for the damn tow and you've got your port wine and cigarillos. And, sadly, no pizza.

Labels: emptor

lol. cool. i'm outlawed in scotland. heh heh.

Labels: politics

there exists a new Digital Camera. we're working on getting it installed to the computer and identifying appropriate pictures for posting. we've already used up one set of batteries.

Maybe this will be the day in which we revisit Best Buy and acquire rechargable batteries to go with the camera. In progress. I promise. But if everybody's coming to visit in March anyway ... which everybody's doing, right?

Labels: emptor

Ahhh, vodka.

Labels: emptor, food

Labels: food, tests

i have a new desk plant at work, a cute little ivy with white-edged leaves. (and here's how much of a nerd i am: i was looking at the green and light green and white pattern on the leaves and wondering what sort of genotype it had. I'm starved for real biochemistry.) I'm conscientiously keeping the soil moist and keeping my little halogen-type desk lamp on over it during the day. Because i'm pretty sure previous desk plants have died as a direct result of Not Having Any Freaking Light, Even Though I Have A Window. My window faces north. Yeah. All the cubicle and office windows in the building face north. But. Desk plant. Not dead yet and i've already left it for a week and a half over christmas, so i've had it for a total of possibly a month now. No conspicuously dead leaves, even. It's so cute. And small. And i really want it to live.

Labels: work

and it's not over yet.

Labels: work

Maybe not really. And we're certainly not his archnemesisses, we're not nearly of his caliber. But i'm sure you've seen him. You know who he is.

He's the guy that plays NWN bar trivia. In our bar. And he's number 11 in the country right now. Or was last night. And every time we go to the bar he's there. Sometimes we try playing against him. (or, well, obviously we have to, but we really want to come in first! just once!) And every time we lose. Sometimes he's in the top 10 in the country. But every time we go, he's there, and sometimes there's something we think, this is our category! we have this one down cold! turk is an english professor and some other guy, he can't possibly know our nerdy science stuff! Only he always does. And he knows the arts, and the world history, and the geography, and even the sports.

It's frustrating.

Labels: media

and here, we have final, incontrovertible proof that the speed limit on the access road is not the ridiculously low stated one of 40mph:

1. i was going 50 in the left lane (out of 2), preparing to get on the highway. This is entirely typical.
2. i saw a cop preparing to turn right. he was waiting for me to pass. (why are cops always "he"? am i a bad feminist?)
3. i slowed down and hit about 45 before passing the cop.
4. cop pulls out behind me, also into the left lane.
5. i hold my breath.
6. cop passes me on the right. i'm still going 45.
7. cop is going rather faster than i am, at least 50-55, but is not in enough of a hurry to have on his blinky lights.
8. cop gets onto the highway ahead of me. He's still speeding. Without his blinky lights on.

End of proof.

Labels: media

dammit. We've been Listerining. Turns out it's not as good as flossing any more. And my teeth are too close together to floss (thanks, inept fucking orthodontist). Now my hope is gone.

Labels: health

applying for random jobs at the uni is ... a lengthy procedure. And alternately hopeful and frustrating. There are multiple job-hunting websites for the university alone - four that i've found so far - and they each have their own long series of pages full of forms to fill out - and i think i've applied for everything i'm remotely qualified for. And, damn, some of the jobs have been open for simply ages. One since April of last year. So they might be really picky, in which case, i'm not remotely qualified. Wish me luck.

And you find this description and it's all I Can Totally Do That only then they want a masters in educational sciences and suddenly i can't. And there's one that i'm hands-down good for but pays half my current salary and that's just not going to work. And there's the one with the nepotism, but hey, i'll still take it if they offer, and it isn't really - not even a conflict of interest really. Not at all. And i'm not sure if i should say i'm related to M or not. Because technically i'm not. Yet. And i'm not sure if that's really a bad thing. And you're all hopeful because there's this one and that'd be cool, right, i could have a career in that, that's fucking booming, and we're going to be doing this for the next hundred years with world population skyrocketing and we're using GM stuff anyway, and fuck it's food, i can be passionate about food, right, only well, am i qualified? Fuck. And there's this one that i do every fucking day only i don't have a degree in journalism already, but i do that every fucking day. And there's ... and there's ... and i could do that - but i don't have the right letters. Or the right numbers. Or something. And the damn website won't let me apply for stuff i don't have the right letters for.

Labels: work

are what my car smells like. Being in a car for 17 hours with two needy dogs and only conservative talk radio (and asshole, cheap, boring conservative talk radio - they don't put on the entertaining guys at 3 a.m.) is one thing. Being in a car with stinky cheddar cheese combos under the driver seat and floor mats is something entirely different. I could invent a new diet based entirely on being grossed out all the time.

On the plus side, nobody wants to borrow it. It crossed my mind for a minute that i could leave the windows open one night and the little woodland creatures might come in and clean up the combos for me - but then they might not come out again, and that would be worse. Not much worse. But worse. Also not as effective in the diet arena because the combos smell just enough like food to be an utter failure at being appetizing. Instead of 'aaaugh, what a horrible stench,' which would happen with a dead little woodland creature, it's 'aaaaugh, i smell food, i never want to eat again,' like thanksgiving, only without the prior diet-killing eating.

I suppose i should be glad M's ucky dill pickle potato chips (they sell the strangest things in Missouri) didn't get spilled too. But i might never buy Combos again. Somebody needs to invent a non-crumbly, yet non-disgusting, gas station snacky food item.

And i'm trying to remember what the hell that funky - i think i had banana bread somewhere in Oklahoma. (It might have been banana bread. It might have been poundcake.) I think it was pretty damn good, if moderately crumbly and finger-oily-making. And i'm afraid i'm never going to see it again. Like that room full of chamber pots ...

Labels: food

and i know i sometimes do these extra-snarky, passive-agressive things. and i know why. and there's not really ... i mean, i could just not post them, yes. But it wants to be fucking said. If i don't mention something, it's deliberate. People overreact. If it was a big deal, it wouldn't be just in the blog. in the relationship i have with my family i have very deliberately not told them very specific things. And i'd like to keep it that way. Less drama. Fewer hurt feelings all around. Everybody's life is easier that way. Please, guys.

Labels: blogging

Do not assume that you know everything there is to know about a writer simply because you read their weblog on a regular basis.

Never contact the writer for more details on events or personal information than what they have already provided on the site. If you are close to the person they will eventually tell you privately, so questions and advice are not necessary. If you are meant to know, you will.

It is important that your presence at their weblog not impede their ability to express themselves. Remember this is their outlet.

Labels: blogging

*not very factual on motorcycles either

:anmut: :annika: :chin: :dooce: :ewok mama: :food: :little frog school: :lj: :longform: :low odysseys: :natalya: :rich: :salon: :slate: :this is how: :unique yn:



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