Personal Day, I has it.

Well, not officially. And I did miss four lectures. Don't care. Was feeling ill. And tired. And had lots of stuff to do. None of which I actually did, but I did watch Brothers and Sisters from last night (I collapsed at eight thirty. Shut up. That's totally normal.) and read half of Wicked.


Not quite as responsible as studying the fifty images that are all Greek to me (HA! They are all Greek!!!) for art history or trying to decipher the First Intermediate Period, which is actually massively confusing and not easy to understand like the Second Intermediate, which consists basically of "Hyksos. Chariots. Take over. Bad." That? I can do.


Nomarchs? Not so much.




Had a lovely day, though. Slept till quarter to nine, which feels like noon when you've been up at six for two months straight, and then did actually study for awhile at the doctor. But mostly with the Wicked reading.

It was about 60 degrees, too, absolutely beautiful. I took it as a sign of God yelling at me to get my ass in gear and take the damn pictures for the damn ocean project already and if you had done it in September when it was assigned you wouldn't be on the freaking beach in NOVEMBER MORON trying to press down the damn shutter with frozen hands.

Well, except God used significantly fewer obscenities.

So Colleen and I did go to the beach, and took my pictures, which are lovely and already uploaded to Flickr and shown on the sidebar, feel free to admire. Unless you're in Geo Sci 150, in which case HANDS OFF THEY'RE COPYRIGHTED ASSHOLE!!! *ahem*

Then we went to Starbucks. I had been outside for like forty whole minutes and was beginning to feel slightly natural. Had to nip that in the bud. And a gingerbread latte did that quite well.

Oooh- I have something else scientific to talk about!!! Well, kind of. About as scientific as I get. But still.

Anyway, I was watching something on TV the other day, and there was a female scientist talking about something, and it struck me how awesome it would be to be like that.

Because (and this is going to sound mean, but read the rest, I promise it's really not), most female scientists (and I've seen a lot of really smart women in the science fields- I was home schooled) look alike in that they obviously don't spend a whole lot of time on appearance. No makeup, glasses, sensible clothes and shoes, and usually long hair pulled back in a ponytail.

As someone who gets up and spends the first hour of her day in an insanely self-involved attempt to acquire some self-worth through full makeup, defrizzed hair, moisturized skin, perfumed pulse points, curled eyelashes, dewy lips, shirts that accentuate my *ahem* assets but don't look whorish, and heels that are permanently screwing up my back, MY GOD it would be nice to be able to be secure without that.

So bravo, women who are smart enough to know that none of that matters, especially when you're freaking brilliant, saving the world, and probably much, MUCH happier than I am at the end of the struggle with my hair cream. I'm sending you any daughters I may have, because you will probably do a far better job raising them than I ever could.

Want to finish today with a quick book wrap-up, even though probably no one cares. But I do, and it's my blog. *stamps foot*

I finished Mr. Jefferson's Women on Friday, and it kind of sucked. I am no fan of Mr. Jefferson, as everyone who has ever talked to me will know, but this book portrayed him as an insipid, undeveloped, adolescent misogynist. And I really don't think that is correct. Almost all men were not quite as accepting of women at that time, but there's no way he could have been around women like Abigail Adams and Dolly Madison and think that women were merely objects to be (according to the author) awkwardly adored stalker-like from afar, and then ditched after what was apparently an 18th century one night stand. Ugh.

Then moved on to Rhett Butler's People, the authorized retelling of Gone with the Wind. Which was amazing. Don't get me wrong. Loved it. Loved Rhett, and I don't think they screwed Scarlett up like some of the reviews said, because she wasn't in it enough. Loved everything about it.

But it wasn't Gone with the Wind. The stories were parallel, and occasionally major events from Gone with the Wind would show up in this narrative, and I found myself going "NO! I want more! Bring back Scarlett!!!", and obviously they couldn't because it wasn't Gone with the Wind.

But that's okay. Because nothing will ever be like that, and I guess I wouldn't want it to be.

But the ending? It was good. Really good. :)

Why Jack Keruoac, Joel Osteen, and Marvel Comics can take all their books and shove them up their road-tripping, stupidly grinning, zombie asses.

AND LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE.

*ahem*

I worked yesterday. Supposedly in the cafe, and supposedly with people all day long, thus freeing me to drink free iced tea, play my cell phone, and debate the various shortcomings of UWM's Foreign Language Department. (And there are many, let me tell you. In one afternoon, Kim and I came up with like seventeen.)

But Pam was in a tasking mood, and instead I was pulled from the cafe and was shown to a display, handed a piece of paper with a bunch of titles on it, and told to redo it. Sounds easy, except there was no room on any shelves for the eighteen thousand titles currently on the display. Resolving that issue involved about an hour of me perched on top of a ladder up at the overstock shelves trying to alphabetize Jodi Picoult's thirty-second title (I swear to God, that woman is the most prolific not-that-great-author of our generation. Shelves and shelves have been devoted to her drivel.) while bemoaning the fact that Nicholas Sparks is allowed to live and write in our world.

Because Nicholas Sparks is evil.

He is everything that is wrong with women in general today. He is sappy, and mopey, and love-sick, but not in a good way, just in a way that makes me want to retch.

And I'm convinced he is a woman.

(Halfway through my hour-long internal tirade against Mr. Sparks, a sweet little girl who was probably about eleven or twelve came up and asked me where The Notebook was. I showed her the cheapest copy I could find, and tried desperately to find a way to let the clueless father accompanying her that this was a VERY adult book, with actual not just and-then-they-kissed sex scenes, and that perhaps a little girl dulled by the Ryan Gosling/Rachel McAdams cutsiness shouldn't be reading it, but there is no way to say that without sounding like a creep. So he's just going to have to deal with the questions later on...)

Finally, I got all the crap back on the shelves, and went off to find the new books that would fill the display instead of Nicholas an his ovaries.

This posed a problem. Because they were all graphic novels.

I don't read graphic novels.

When someone asks for one, I either pawn it off on somebody else or just point vaguely at the corner of the store that houses slim books whose names are in Japanese. I think that's where they are

Except now I was being asked to find twenty different, very specific titles in that scary section. And I almost cried.

And our graphic novels are not organized in a normal, alpha by author thing that I may conceivably have a chance of figuring out. No. They're organized by character. Character? You can't always tell the character by the title. Like something called Marvel Zombies. Not under Marvel. Or Zombies.

Two hours later, when I finished the damn thing, my tubes had tied themselves for fear that they would one day give life to something with a penis who liked to read graphic novels.

Task #2 was a 50th Anniversary of On the Road endcap. By Kerouac, whose last name none of us ignorant fools staffing the bookstore could pronounce.

Except we were out of all the books that were supposed to go on it.

Leaving me to come up with titles that go with it to fill the numerous empty spots.

Oh. Lord. No.

American lit is NOT my thing. French, Russian, British, sign me up. I can even tell you who liked whose writing and who thought who was a crock. But anything written by an American I probably haven't read and if I have I probably hated it.

So do you know what's on my Jack Kerouac endcap??? The two solitary copies of On the Road that we did actually have, travel journals, and Kurt Vonnegut, who has nothing to do with anything except he's also weird and dead.

When I go in on Tuesday, I really hope someone has taken it down.

In the last twenty minutes before I got to leave, I had to do a teensy tiny Joel Osteen display. Which wasn't too taxing, except that I really, really hate Joel Osteen and his smileyness and his hot wife. Although with the number of his crappy books I've sold I think I know why he has a hot wife. There's a lot of money in faux spiritualism, apparently.

Just one link today, because I'm sitting outside (yay for notebooks!!!) and it's starting to get windy. Also, my tirade against the publishing world has taken up about half of my battery power.

Holy Christmas on an ocean liner, Josh sings Ave Maria on Noel. *is dead now*

ETA: My quest for correct grammar may be going too far. Our neighbor is teaching his son-in-law to use the dirt bike (don't ask) and just said "You're doing very good." And I had the almost uncontrollable urge to yell across the lawn, "WELL!!! HE'S DOING WELL!!!" *sigh* As though we aren't unpopular enough.

Adventures in Staff-Picking

So I walked into work this morning. I was on time, which is about five to ten minutes earlier than I prefer to be when I open, because there is precisely nothing required to open a bookstore. (This could be why our morning meetings are like half an hour long, and today included "Yeah, this is the new book by this woman, she used to do Navy SEALS," "She did Navy SEALS? Really?" and "I'd like to go to storytime..." as well as I think maybe some sales numbers, but they were lost in the shuffle.)

I usually kill the first half hour hiding in the history section salivating over all the Alison!Weir!Goodness! or organizing the stuffed animals in the kids section by character. God knows what would happen if Big Bird and Elmo weren't in the same bin, across from Dora the Explorer, completely separate from Spongebob!

Le anyhoodles, today I am assaulted practically at the door by Pam, in a tizzy because they need to redo the staff picks selections.

Otherwise known as, The Corner With All of Kathleen's Books. Perhaps because I'm disarmingly sweet, or I read a lot, or I'm really good at bullshit (Debutante Divorcee? Sucked majorly, but you wouldn't know it!!!), Pam recruits me for staff picks pretty much every day I work. I don't really mind, but this led to the inevitable "Hmm. What shall I review today???"

I read such a variety of stuff, from chick lit fluff to Russian tomes, and I always struggle to choose.

See, part of me wants to pick a popular book and just be all annoyingly mainstream.

But another part of me wants to be all "No, you will read Bleak House and you will like it, dammit!!! Don't make me pull out my Tolstoy! You want fun? I've got 1300 pages of French Revolution for you courtesy of Mr. Hugo! How's that for summer reading!" *ahem*

I compromised and picked The Kitchen Boy, Girl Sleuth, and The Other Boleyn Girl. Kind of a mix.

So if you're in the neighborhood, please stop by and check them out. Of course, you'd have to know my entire name, because we have to use different names on each one to make it look like more employees are participating.

Good thing I have two middle names.

Insert Something Witty Here

I'm too tired to think of a title. My day yesterday-

1:06 a.m.- Answer phone that rings. It's the Empress. I don't know why.
1:08 a.m.- Yay Sleeps tiem!!!
1:10 a.m.- Shit. Can't fall asleep.
4:00 a.m.- Chuck Norris really should do more than advertise exercise equipment.
7:00 a.m.- Awake to squire the Empress to work.
8:05 a.m.- Big-ass McDonald's coffee awaits. Sweet.
9:00-1:50- Clean house/do laundry/stalk various celebrities online
1:50 p.m.- Arrive at the Empress' place of indentured servitude, early, as per her imperial request.
2:15 p.m.- Hmmm. Wonder where she is.
3:00 p.m.- *hums Jeopardy theme*
3:45 p.m.- Am told to return home by Mother Dearest, because it appears that the Empress will just be living at work from now on.
4:00 p.m.- Arrive at home.
4:02 p.m.- Another phone call from the Empress. Apparently someone has finally arrived to relieve her. I get back in the car and go back to Cedarburg.
8:30 p.m.- Culvers. Custardcinos are amazing.
9:15 p.m.- Arrive home and realize with some sense of self-loathing that I have listened to the soundtrack from Hairspray like eighteen times in the car today.

I was in no mood.


Having major eye issues, y'all.

Other than the color (No, the blue is not a contact lens! STOP ASKING ME THAT!!! It's the one part of my drivers license I *didn't* lie on. If I ever go missing, they'll be looking for a blond chick who's five five and weighs 120 lbs. I'll be so dead.), I really hate my eyes. My vision sucks majorly, like I can't even read without a prescription. Which is why I was forced to wear unattractive glasses from the second grade until I turned fourteen and realized that there was no way in hell this was going to continue.

Le anyhoodles, they are also very dry, sensitive eyes. Eyes that probably should not be subjected to contact lenses for upwards of sixteen hours a day.

Unfortunately, alone with my dry, sensitive eyes, God also saw fit to bestow me with an inflated ego, major sense of vanity, and the complete and utter inability to see past like, this week to any major implications (i.e., blindness) that anything I may be doing will cause. So I wear contact lenses all day long.

About a year and a half ago, my eyes got so red an scratchy that I had to wear glasses for two weeks and go through this whole long thing that involved steroid eye drops and two different eye doctors and blah blah blah. You don't need to know that. Suffice to say, I found a prescription and a lens solution that worked, and life was all peachy.

Until Memorial Day weekend, when they discovered that my brilliant solution was causing minor issues like infection and blindness. Now, I may be in denial, but I'm not stupid, and I switched to another sensitive, dry eye formula that I assumed would work as well.

Turns out, the gods of Complete own my soul, and they were not pleased with my defection, because I can barely blink now my eyes are so aggravated. Ugh. And now I have to go back to using the "Um, no, we totally retooled the formula and I promise (but am not legally bound) that you won't go blind" Complete (yes, that's what I'm calling it now), if I want to continue wearing contacts.

*sigh*

But hey, the brilliant optometrist at Stein Optical said it's okay, so it must be, right? I mean, they don't give those "degrees" out to anybody.

Now, I know you really don't care about the books I read, because Mickey refuses to read, well, anything that Walt Disney didn't deign to sign, Imladris is so distracted that she had trouble getting through a page of a kids book, and Rockford's poor drug-addled mind doesn't seem very focused on reading, but I promise I'll just talk about this one.

While sitting in front of the Diner Where Colleen Works Whose Name Has Been Changed To Protect Her Privacy, I finished Bitter is the New Black, by Jen Lancaster (her blog- hilarious- can be found here), and Oh My Lord it's like my life if I entered the business world and got laid off (am I the only one with a filthy mind who thinks that's a funny term???).

Well, you know, except I'm apathetic about most things concerning work, and I was never that thin, but other than that.

She even talks about playing the Sims!!! I play the Sims!!!

It was so funny. Everyone should buy.

You may have noticed that all the iconage today is Snape. Or maybe you didn't, because most iconage most days is Snape, because I'm a teensy bit weird, but whatever.

I'm a little bit excited for the release of the last book. After further review of the craziness fan stuff out there, I kind of totally ship Lily/Severus, if only because it would explain the whole hating-Harry thing much much better than "OMG, your dad was mean to me once and it screwed me up for life." which just seems trite and stupid to me. Maybe if the rest of the later books were trite and stupid like most children's literature, but they're not. There are incredibly mature themes of good and evil in the later ones, and again, the teasing thing? It just doesn't do it for me.

It would also explain why Dumbledore was so convinced that he would never actually hurt Harry. If the woman you loved died protecting her baby, and then you got the chance fifteen years later to protect that baby, wouldn't you? I think so. I mean, you might be really bitter that it's not *your* baby (and hell, if Lily ever saw An Awfully Big Adventure, she might be kind of bitter, too) thus giving the illusion of hate, but you wouldn't kill it.

Anyway, that concludes my rambling for day. Almost. It's exciting *because* of the excitement. YES I agree completely.

Okay. That one just makes me laugh.

As you may have heard from the screams of woe coming from my house, Mandy Patankin is leaving Criminal Minds. In a huff like a big dumb girl, apparently. That's not important. What's important is that IT'S GOING TO SUCK NOW!!! Gah. I loved that show. Also, it's not a completely sad story if only for the numerous pop culture references that it's given us.

Where would we be without the Princess Bride and Mandy lyrics??? Where indeed?

I'm sorry, I can't help it.

This post has been far too long, and it is over now.

Maybe he'll grow up to be a felon, like his godfather.

I haven't worked in a couple of days, and frankly I've just barely had time to decompress. It was not a good work two days week, my friends. Not at all.

After the marathon awakeness that constituted Tuesday/Wednesday, I was no mood to deal with customers all day Wednesday. Apparently, it had been busy on Tuesday (frankly, I think it was less that than the managers just really wanted to leave and go to Harry Potter), so there were huge stacks of books to be reshelved, and I really did not feel like doing it.

I was so tired I got very emotional when the book being read during toddler time was about this squid that gets eaten because he's conceited. Why must all children's books be cruel???
*tear*

And I was even in less of a mood to deal with a guy who asked me if Crohn's disease and irritable bowel syndrome were the same things, and then asked if I thought this cookbook, specified for those dealing with IBS, was any good. I'm sorry. What part of "I'm a nineteen-year-old who doesn't care what's going on in her body" did you not get??? New IPT Guy who wa shelving in the corner and smirking politely at my embarrassing predicament was enjoying himself, though.

So Thursday, I'm thinking I'm golden. I'm all alone, the cafe is dead on Thursdays, and I can play my cell phone. But no. The god of free drink coupons have it in for me, and it ws hugely busy all freaking night long. I had like ten minutes to breath, and I know I didn't get everything finished on the closing list. I really, really did not care.

They felt so badly for me that they let me make myself a drink for free. Yay.

I'm not conceited enough (like that poor little squid...) to think that you all really care about what I've been reading, but it is my blog, so I'm just going to run down some of the latest.

Most importantly, Green Darkness, by Anya Seton, which teaches us the valuable literary lesson that you should never ever have guilty sex with a priest because in five hundred years when you are reborn you're still going to be paying for it.

The Secret of Lost Things was very good, as was The Starter Wife (chick lit), and Forgive Me, in that forgettable way.

Some links (mostly stolen), that I feel compelled to comment upon.

All right, these kids are just adorable. My favorite part was the "What do the little letters at the end mean? Those are the states. Oh, I'm impressed. I don't know what "wi" means..."

Teehee. Orlando Bloom laughing like a girl. Eat shit Jennifer, it's carrots!!! Seriously ROFLMAO. And I don't do that often.

Okay, so this doesn't look like it's going to suck as much as I originally assumed. I'll be there on September 21.

Not as there as I will be for Invasion, though. The creepy saint-love will not die, my friends, it will not die.

My Lolcat of the day-Hay be nice, Emokitteh is sensitive. omgsofunny.

We have muffins. I go in search of them.

Vaguely Sentimental, But More a Testament to My Nerdiness.

Entertainment Weekly came today (Transformers on the cover...boring), and Stephen King's column, which I tend to avoid because Stephen King is generally a boring person with a bloated ego who knows far too much about creepiness for my taste. Although I do own a copy of Secret Window. Obviously. But this week, it was about the end of Harry Potter, and how emotional it was going to be for the millions of people who have read them.

And I promise that this is not to discuss Harry, although as the last two weeks of entries will attest, Hi, my name is Kathleen and I'm a fangirl. I did not grow up with Harry Potter. It did not define my childhood. I promise I'm not going to cry when I read the last one, because omg this last month has been so important! (Well, I might, but only because I'm going to have to work that ENTIRE WEEKEND BASTARDS. *ahem*)

But it made me think about how I felt about the books that I really did love. I did cry at the end of Betsy's Wedding. I cried at the end of the last Nancy Drew book (I didn't read them in order, but I actually did read the last one last- I don't know why.), because I couldn't imagine that Nancy didn't have anything else to do. When I read Gone with the Wind I burst into tears and then started reading it immediately again because I couldn't bear to be without it. And Christy---I was all about Christy. Christy was where it was at.

And in more recent years (I don't cry so much anymore, really), I felt the same way about The Historian, Bridget Jones' Diary, Rebecca, Push Not the River, Bleak House, and North and South.
I totally think that characters have their own lives, too.

Yes, I am a dork.

Thus concludes this evening's vaguely sentimental portion of the blog.

Larry is still here.

I have not hit Larry.

I am pleased with myself.

I should clarify- I am not opposed to Larry. I'm very pleased that we are able to assist Mickey with her moving business by having Larry in the driveway. I am convinced, however, that I will hit Larry with one of the cars that don't belong to me, which would be...oh, all of them, because I am Teh Poor. Because I am not so good with the backing up. Actually, really bad with the backing up. And the parking. I've been driving for four years and I still need spaces on either side.

I have such a filthy mind...

*ahem*

Okay, this is going to seem really random, but it's my new favorite website.

Do you want to laugh? Really hard? At a cat? Then I have the website. My personal favorite? Im in yur gardn. Luvn ur bunniez. HAHAHAHA. *ahem*

BLASPHEME!!! YOU DO NOT DENIGRATE THE MEMORY OF MR. ROGERS!!! He clearly did NOT make us all narcissists. MTV did that.

Oooh. I smell sandwiches. I go in search of them.

Randomness During My First Weekend Off In Long, Long Time

Good moring, all. It's nine-thirty on Sunday morning, when I'm usually asleep, at Mass, or at work. But I had to get up to drive Colleen to work, I went to Mass last night so I could drive Colleen to work, and frankly they don't want to pay me any more after the full-time week I put in last week.

I don't know what to do on Sunday mornings. I'm all alone here, and there's nothing to do. I could clean. My house is filthy because of the full-time week put in last week, and there's some serious laundryage up the chute. Or I could blog. Yep. Definitely blog.

Today will be rather random, mostly because I'm working on about five hours of sleep and a venti iced latte from Starbucks. *Suspend disbelief here for a moment, because I do, after all, work at a coffee shop. A subsidiary of Starbucks, even* Seriously. $4.07 for a coffee??? It's two shots of espresso and milk. Gah.

But I was feeling entitled after driving to and back from Cedarburg twice, once with an apron. Hey, I'm just happy I didn't get a ticket, because I'm almost positive that I parked in a non-parking zone. Whatever. The hair was working and wearing a boob shirt. I could have gotten out of it.

Random Section #1- Music. I know, right? I don't like music. But I have like three things I want to hit on. Well, not "hit on" in the "How you doin'?" sense, but rather discuss.

First, mostly directed at those who share my computor, who downloaded Hey There Delilah? Because I seriously need to talk to them about how much I love Plain White T's. Have you heard All That We Needed??? You should. It's amazing.

Also downloaded Umbrella, the unofficial song of summer '07. And if I could find the live sans Jay-Z version I think I'd like it much more. Thankfully it's just the first thirty seconds. I flippin' love Rihanna. She's about as close to something other than white-bread pop that I enjoy.

And Kelly Clarkson's new I'm Angry At My Management See Look At My Angry Dark Cover Pose? album comes out on Tuesday, which I think I'll buy because I'm such a dork I like everything she sings. No, really. Behind Your Hazel Eyes was the ONLY song I listened to the ENTIRE way to Ohio two summers ago.



Speaking of Ohio, apparently we have vacation plans there for this summer or fall. I don't know anything more that that, though, because my father got all weird and refused to tell me anything else about it. This was our conversation.

Me: Well, I need to know about Galena because I have to ask off.
Dad: I know, but we were also going to go to Ohio.
Me: What? Why? Where? Why Ohio?
Dad: Your mother wants to go.
Me: Why? There's nothing in Ohio! What did she say?
Dad: I don't know! I don't owe you and explanation!
Colleen: Um, yeah, when you're asking us to take off of work and leave the state with you, you kind of do!
Dad: I haven't asked you guys!
Colleen: What!?!? I'm a child! You have to take me.
Me: No. Really. Why Ohio? The clinic? Fond memories?
Dad: Go talk to your mother.

See??? He gets really weird.

Also, I kind of completely forgot that we have a relative in Ohio. *shame*



Finished the freakishly long training week on Friday-whee! And got free food! I only had to buy lunch on day last week. And my sensitive gastointestinal system has calmed down after basically being hooked up to a caffeine drip for the past week. I can sleep and not throw up again! Yay!!!

Have to work at the actual cafe on Monday, though, which should be massive amounts of scariness, because it's me and Music Guy, who have like a negative idea of what to do. Except he's cute and I'm good at sucking up. So customer service should be handled well.

Being at work all week last week really cut into my preferred method of passing summer, though: sitting alone and reading. I did finish Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult's latest. It was really good, and really disturbing, but not in poor taste because it was published three weeks before the whole Virginia Tech thing. Still. And I haven't read any of her other stuff, so I didn't see the apparently trademarked twist at the end, and was pleasantly surprised. So very good.

And got a Harry Potter in there, too. They're actually kind of good. And at least I can picture Alan doing all the Snape parts, because God knows the producers don't give him enough to do in the movies.

Although he was featured in Entertainment Weekly's 100 issue! YAY!!! Colleen had plenty of snarky comments about that. *sniff*

Some stolen stories that I must comment on:

Jane Austen Book Club movie stills. I'm really looking forward to this movie, because I ADORED! the book, but they screwed up the ages. Who the hell is Hugh Dancy playing?? Oh, Grigg. Wasn't he way older. *sigh*

KATE AND LEO!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!! PLEASE GET MARRIED AND ONLY ACT WITH EACH OTHER!!!!!!!!!! I'm sorry, was my Titanic-fangirl showing?

God, this is going to suck SO MUCH. But you know I'll be there opening weekend, with all the other losers.

YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE, BITCH!!! HANDS OFF!!! What the hell am I going to do with my useless background in history if she marries him!?!?!?

Aww, crap. I was really hoping they'd find her alive, even if the whole "Mommy's in rug" thing wasn't too hopeful. This sounds horrible, especially now that she's dead, but what was she doing with that guy? She was beautiful, and had a lovely house, had a mother who must have been kind of in her life because she was the one who made the 911 call, and she was sleeping with a married unattractive guy who clearly killed her. *sigh*

Meanwhile, I've decided that having children is much too risky, because chances are the dad will kill you. And I'm so paranoid, I'll think my husband is trying to get me. I swear, he's going to wake up one morning and I'll be doing the "I'm on you" eyes. Yeah. We're gonna be happy. :D

Would you like to hear today's specials? Not if you'd like to keep your spleen.

So I haul myself into the back room this morning at some ungodly hour after being up ALL FREAKING NIGHT (to be discussed), all decked out in my regulation tight blackness (not sexy tight blackness, but rather utilitarian-food-service-is-my-life tight blackness). And Aaron goes, "Look in your mailbox. I got you a present." I finally focused my eyes, and saw, in all it's uncut glory, a DVD of American Psycho. "I got you almost-naked Christian Bale!!!"

And my day got So. Much. Better.

I'm pretty sure that violated some sexual harassment law. I don't care. Especially since there rest of the day included such comments by various people (not me), such as "Why do only the women remember to bleed (the steamer wand)???" and "Come on, slap it like...oh wait, I can't finish that," (It was about a drink. I swear.), made in completely non-offensive ways.

The reason I was not my normal bright-eyed, cheerful self this morning (*heh*)? Yesterday was tasting day. We made all the amazingly good cold coffee drinks, and all the sandwiches, and then ate and drank them all. Except that the full-fat espresso beverages outweighed the solid food about six to one.

I was so unbelievably sick by the time I got home. I tried eating some potatoes or something starchy, but it totally did not help.

And with all the caffeine and nausea, sleep was simply not going to happen. It was really hot. So I opened the windows and turned on the fan. Which did nothing. I thrashed about in the heat for about three hours, until I finally tore all the covers off at about one. By this time, the fact that there was hot air coursing through the upper levels of my bedroom without any of it actually hitting me had scared up a ton of dust and allergens and I could barely breath I was sneezing so much. After an hour, that was starting to bug me, so I got up and remade the bed. And thrashed for another two hours. Still sneezing. And then gave up and read until four thirty, when I finally fell asleep only to be reawakened rudely by my alarm scarcely two hours later. Still sick. And sneezing. So I took Benadryl. Oh God bad idea when you have to go to work.

Today I was much smarter. I refused to sample anything and ate a normal lunch. I still feel sick to my stomach, but at least I'm not bouncing off the walls.

Meanwhile, Nineteen Minutes, the book I was reading in the pre-dawn hours, was excellent.

Not as good as Love Walked In, the book I just finished reading. Absolutely brilliant. Everyone should go read it. It referenced The Philadelphia Story and Rebecca. Very hard to do. It is my squishy.

Next up are the Harry Potter books, which I've been told by six different people at work that OMG YOU MUST READ!!! So I'm reading. Ten years late, but what the hell.

So that's what he's doing after he finishes training us.

Oh boo hoo. You're Catherine Zeta-Freakin'-Jones. You don't get to be insecure. My heart bleeds for her.

Still enjoying your medication, I see.

Ugh.

Not feeling well. Got massively ill at about twelve-thirty. I think it was a migraine, but it came complete with a fever. It's gotten slightly better- the fever's gone and I can walk without feeling faint, but I'm still really nauseated, noises seem really, really loud, and my head hurts like a mother.

And I had to call in sick, which makes me feel horrible because I have this major guilt complex thing where I think I'm being a bad employee. Completely unfounded, by the way; I work for a lovely company that doesn't mind if you call in sick because they are not communists. And I've worked there a year and only had to leave once. Still. The guilt.

But as I was supposed to be there forty-five minutes ago and I currently am contemplating whether or not I have the energy to cross the room to the sofa, I'm thinking I would have had to leave anyway.

If it was not a biological impossibility, I'd swear I was pregnant. I'm always late, I'm exhausted even after ten hours of sleep, I get nauseated every day for no reason, I'm really irritable, some days I just feel like crying, and my boobs have gotten huge. I shudder to think how much money I'd be funneling into pregnancy tests every month if I slept around.

Not much has been going on lately. Went to Mickey's slightly-decimated-as-they-are-moving house on Thursday for birthday celebrations. And listened to Mickey wail and gnash her teeth about having to move to The New Mequon. Which only got slightly insulting (as I've lived in The New Mequon for eight years) after the third straight hour.

It was rather strange to see the pictures that haven't been moved since before I was born off the wall, thought.

Also? Adding coconut rum to green drinks makes them SO MUCH BETTER!!! I'd like to request that Mickey bring the fun rum and juice (because we always forget to buy some) to Fathers Day, if it is at all possible.

In book news, I finally read The Road, or Hailed As The Best Book Ever OMG. And holy no chapters, Batman, I HATED IT.

Oh. My. God. How. Depressing. Dead kids, dead dads, post-apocalyptic-ness.

So boring. SO BORING. I love most books, but this one. Damn. And it won the freaking Pulitzer Prize??? I read tons and tons of better books that came out last year. The Thirteenth Tale was amazing. The Whole World Over. Even The Emperor's Children had some redeeming value. And chapters. The no chapters really bugged me.

Oprah needs to step it up with her next book club pick. Oh, wait, I guess I mean the one after this one. Because she picked this book Middlesex, about a guy going through gender reassignment. Eww. I haven't sold a single one. Even Oprah can't push that baby.

My head's going to explode. I'm going to go lie down so at least it will explode onto a pillow.

He is a bit of a lumox, isn't he?

I am not pleased with the State Department right now.

And not just because they waste space with useless travel warnings. I'm sorry. But if you think traveling to the West Bank is a good idea right now, you deserve to die.

No, right now it's because they screwed up my passport, even though my middle name is CLEARLY two words, and CLEARLY outlined on the PROVIDED birth certificate and HOW STUPID ARE YOU PEOPLE!?!?!

*ahem*

And now I have to wait for weeks to get a new one. You know, with everyone else in the country because all of a sudden Canada is a big security risk.

Pssh. Government.

I'm feeling remarkably benevolent towards my government right now, though, as I finished A Thousand Splendid Suns last night while the rest of the family was watching The Magnificent Seven (umm...horses...and guns...and a pretty girl...I don't know), and while I may whine frequently about what to do with my degree, at least I have the opportunity to get one. And no one has tried to stone me for being a whore. I mean, I'm not a whore, but if I was, I still wouldn't be stoned.

I never thought I'd come down on the side of the communists, but damn, the 1970s was a good time to be a woman in Afghanistan.

Am feeling very in contrrol. All of the laundry is finished, things are dusted and vacuumed, and my hair is curling nicely. *feels pleased with self*

Wow. I am a control freak.

Hey Mom, why can't Buster pretend to be your escort? That's the way he's got it in all his cartoons.

My relationship with summer has hit that peaceful plateau that you get after about twenty years of marriage. We've gone through the rough first years (What? It so horrible that I want to have my own life??? I don't think so!!!), weathered the seven-year- itch (Maybe I want to go outside. Did you ever think about that?), and have gotten to the point where it's just comfortable and it doesn't matter so much if he beats me because divorce and finding something better would just take too much effort.

I did not mean for that to sound like I was condoning spousal abuse. Even though it totally did.

Been reading a lot lately, like hundreds of pages a day. Some random book by the women who wrote The Nanny Diaries, one of my favorite books ever. Eh. Not their best effort. Not that you would know it by reading the glowing staff pick I was guilted into doing by Manager Who Shall Remain Nameless, a woman who is obsessed with the staff picks and will accost employees who so much as look at a book, regardless of whether they read and/or enjoyed the book.

One I really did enjoy was Whistling in the Dark. I wasn't really expecting too, and only read it because, well, I can, and the author is doing a signing/talking thingy later this month that probably three people will show up for. I felt like I should know what was going on. It was very engrossing, and very sweet. I loved the two little girls. Kind of like To Kill a Mockingbird crossed with The Lovely Bones. Everyone should read immediately.

Now on to A Thousand Splendid Suns. Wow. I'm very pleased that I'm a little white girl from the North Shore and not an illegitimate baby girl in Afghanistan. Because that clearly sucks.

The greatest social injustice in my childhood was that the Murphy's had a computer before I did.

Being stoned sucks WAY more.

Massive amounts of fun this morning with the Empress and Mommy Dearest. Went out for coffee at Smith Bros. Officially my Favorite Coffee Place Maybe Except For Cedarburg Roastery (which has the inestimable advantage of hot guys working there).

I'm still personally wounded that it took away pretty much the only restaurant north of Mequon that doesn't have arches or a taco out front, though.

Oh. Wait. We had Ferrantes, too. Until they closed for no reason other than that their bathrooms were haunted. No, really, they were.

But I digress.

Mom and Colleen tried their darndest to convince me that I would get into grad school, I would not still be working the same job ("Receipt in the bag all right???") in ten years, and my life would have meaning and NO FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY YOU WILL NOT STILL BE MAKING COFFEE!!! I think they were a little bit sick of me by the end.

I don't care. As the only resident of Chez Morena without neuroses, magical pills that make everything okay, or plastic sheeting, I reserve the right to go a little bit crazy about my future.

Oh, and Colleen made Mom promise not to shop at Costco. You know, like we weren't going to shop at Target, Best Buy, or Borders. Umm...

After coffee we went to see a model home. The same model home, indeed, that Person Who Shall Remain Nameless is building his/her house after.

(I honestly cannot keep straight what I am and am not supposed to know at this point. I swear to God, my family is like the mafia. But we're pasty, Irish, and poor. And without guns. So basically we just have a bunch of bordering-on-unethical secrets University of Minnesota calls, everybody graduated!!!. Hmmm. Mafia actually sounds better.)

And I'd just like to tell Person Who Shall Remain Nameless that I adore the model home, but I think the TV and the piano in the living room might make things a tad claustrophobic, and that he/she should reconsider his/her negative take on the whole kitchen/family room/morning room, because it is absolutely adorable and if I was going to be jealous of one thing in the house, it would be that part.

Also, good call on the bay window.

But oh my God the flashbacks. Not until today did I realize that spending so much of my childhood in model homes must have done some serious damage.

My last shred of dignity is gone.

I actually sat and watched Fox News this afternoon as Paris was ordered to return to prison. And now I actually feel kind of badly for her, what with the whole calling out for her mom thing.

Also in court news (which garnered barely and "Oh, yeah, remember that crazy who shot her husband???" from the announcer), Mary Winkler gets like five minutes. Roughly.

Wait. Just one more. Frankly, I've had McEnough (not mine, got it from ew.com). It's official. I'm never watching Grey's Anatomy again. Here's my suggestion---Bailey goes and joins Addison and the crazy whiny bitches and McDreamy, who is one estrogen shot away from being a crazy whiny bitch himself (Let me go, Meredith...oh what the hell???), just go and lose the ratings war to CSI. *sniff*

My life not nearly as interesting. I watched three hourse of The Starter Wife on USA today, and wow summer TV is not what it should be. Creepy Hot Homeless guy may have killed Guy Who Co-Hosts the Memorial Day Thing On Channel 10 With Gary Sinise Every Year. (Yes. That is is name.)

Eh. I don't have anything better to do. I'll watch again.

Been reading a crapload recently, especially since I discovered that I can actually take books from work as long as I tell a manager about it. Oh, and bring them back. I can now read all the crappy new releases I know I'm going to hate but want to say I've read anyway (read: A Thousand Splendid Suns. I'm the only person in the world who thought the Kite Runner was boring.). Whee!!!

Or I could ride my horse. *chokes on the laughter*

Or watch bad summer TV. And we have a winner.

News you can use: The Jolie-Pitts had cereal for breakfast.

Disclaimer: The title is not mine, I got it from Entertainment Weekly.

Okay, so Golden Globes were two days ago, and I was still in a Red Carpet and Baileys-induced celebrity hangover yesterday so I didn't update.

But the craziness has had sufficient time to sink in now, and clearly there is just too much to say. It was a fantastic night right from Angelina's silent put-down to Ryan Seacrest and- I think- anyone else who dared look her directly in the eyes during the evening. Seriously. Girl scared me. She was having none of that.


Meanwhile, I've realized that while I love all things award shows, including the insipid pre-show interviews, I really, really, really hate the interviewers and want them all to go die in a corner. They are all really, really stupid. They obviously have a set of questions that they ask anyone no matter what gender/history/spouse/project they are affiliated with/hideous dress they happend to be/wearing. So when you ask America Ferrera how she felt about everyone who didn't want her to play the part, and I'm pretty sure no one ever said anything like that, this poses a problem. They only talk to annoying boring people, like I really, really don't need to hear what That Guy Who's On a Show I've Never Heard Of has to say.

And then, if they manage to land someone funny, like Steve Carrell or Rainn Wilson, they aren't smart enough to let them be funny. They don't get the jokes and ask stupid questions, like I'm sure Rainn Wilson has never ever been asked what's up with his name before.


But then, the major event of the pre-show cringe-worthiness was when Seacrest landed Brangelina, and somehow managed to get his entire head up Brad Pitt's ass while receiving a wordless bitch slap from Angelina and ask some stupid questions about Africa all in about a minute and a half before The Brangelina deigned to grace someone else with their presence.


So the actual awards went quite well. Hugh Laurie was funny, as usual, and I was very pleased with almost all the winners. Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren both won---yay!!! Totally didn't see Forest Whitaker taking best actor, but whatever.


Also, Babel and Dreamgirls? What??? Not fun at all. Sheesh.


Speaking of which, went and bought books yesterday. About half of what last semester was, which was fantastic, probably due to the fact that I didn't have two worthless languages with fun little packages of CDs that I'm never going to use. *sigh* Logic looks---well, I'm not sure exactly how it looks because I don't understand it. But that's okay. *deep breaths*

Maybe someone will still love me if I fail out of school and end up living in a dumpster. Or maybe not.

Oooh, the Will and Grace episode with Matt Damon. So funny. Love him. Inadvertantly stalking him, actually, as he has had an amazingly prolific career for being like thirty. He shows up in everything!!! Going to go watch that. Ciao!!!

A thoroughly dry and uninteresting update as my creative muse seems to have taken a New Year's vacation...damn her.

Or, I swear on unborn Baby Ada that I'll update three days later.

I'm on vacation. I've had a lot of nothing to do...what do you want from me?

Sooo...2007 (which, btw, is way prettier in writing than 2006, n'est pas?) is going well. Spent most of Monday watching The Matrix, Into the West, and more Matrix, and have decided that TNT= Teh Loveliness, and Keanu Reeves dodging bullets= Teh Coolness. And then went and ate lots and lots of lasagna and such at Mickey's, and finished the night with some Baileys. Lovely times, really.

Yesterday I sat at home, which can be lovely in it's own way, and I had to work at night, which was very much of the suck but slightly necessary as I have a write a seizure-inducing check to UWM tomorrow and have decided that if Mary and I want to got to the U.K. and Paris next January I'll need to have $3,800 saved as well as money to pay for the trip. This appears to be, if one works a slightly-higher-than-minimum-wage job, an insurmountable task. Hmmm. We'll have to see. I will not be deterred from drinking in a pub in Stratf0rd-Upon-Avon (drinking age is 18 and I'm too young to rent a car---cheers!!!) or walking slowly down the aisle of Westminster Abbey while pretending to look at the architecture but actually pretending I'm marrying Prince William and returning the realm to it's Roman roots...*ahem*

So yeah. Money. Boo.

Today I spent a lovely leisurely morning at home and then went to lunch with Mary. Good times were had by all, until I discovered inadvertantly and through absolutely no fault of my own (and yes, the police report will back that up) that REAL detectives do not, sadly, resemble those on ANY of the CSI's, not even the supposedly "unattractive" ones...*sigh* Will there ever be any wonder left in the world?

Hot Pockets are good...until you realize that you're wasting four hundred calories on fake food that will fill you up for about twenty minutes. Then you mostly feel sad.

Working my way through Jane Eyre movies, trying to find the definitive version. I'm pretty sure it's the 1983 one with James Bond, who is way too pretty but still manages to pull of Rochester.

Just to give you a little glimpse into my twisted psyche, in the book Jane herself actually bugs me a lot (Seriously. Stop being such a wuss. And do something with your damn hair.), but I am very protective of Rochester, as I am weirdly and ridiculously attracted to him. Even when I read it for the first time at twelve I was like, "Okay...I want him. Now."

Sidebar: I have a tendency to fall in love with male characters in books, and hate the women. Hating the women might be strange- and probably only is so because I have met, ooh, about five women in my entire life that I can stand to be around, but I can't belive I'm alone in the guy thing, because no way in hell could Pride and Prejudice have had two hundred years of loyal followers and spawned and entire genre of films without generations of women falling in love with Mr. Darcy. It's good, but as Imladris and I have agreed, it's kind of 19th century chick lit. And yet, it's managed to become quite possibly the most beloved book of all time. After the Bible. Maybe. I know a ton of women who could quote you from our beloved Jane here, but couldn't finish "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and...?" This may actually be a bigger commentary on our society than the enduring power of getting the rich hot guy in the end, but that is another sidebar for another day.

It's also one of those parts I tend to cast in my mind, like Heathcliff and Max DeWinter. I have yet to find a suitable guy for any of these, though, and it bothers me almost as much as my literary baby name crisis. As much as it pains me to say this, Alan would be a PERFECT Rochester, but he's *gags* too old. *tear* Heathcliff---well, Heathcliff is tough. They came close in '94 with Ralph Fiennes, but at the end of the day good ol' Ralph is still a refined British dude that we all love but don't really take seriously as a monster. And Max is easier to get, I guess. You just need rich and hot. Except I wouldn't want anyone to screw with the 1940 version too much, because it is My Favorite Movie Of All Time I Think Maybe If You Take Johnny Depp Out of The Question.

Alas, no one wants my casting ideas. Woe.

Le anyhoodles, to wrap up that incredibly long digression, I'm halfway through the William Hurt/Charlotte Gainsbough, which is good but goes way too fast. Ten minutes in and she was leaving Lowood. It's a travesty.

Continuing with today's theme of Kathleen is a Dork, allow me to share with you, in all their glory my books, courtesy of LibraryThing. com, a lovely website that now has my undying devotion because it allowed me to do what countless notebooks and weekends sitting in my bedroom with Erin Shanley couldn't---catalog my books. All of them, in one place. Well, just the adult ones. I thought the two hundred Nancy Drew and countless Thoroughbred/Saddle Club/Pony Club/Other Outlets For My Childhood Obsessions were slightly unneccessry.

Except that Betsy-Tacy got an honorary spot, as well as Christy, which made me want to be a missionary for about twelve minutes just so I could marry a hot preacher guy, until I realized that I a.) don't like not having a bathroom, b.) don't like people, and c.) am Catholic and if I married a hot preacher of my own religion I'd burn in Hell for all eternity. Sadly, C was not, at thirteen, the most pressing deterrent. I think it was the bathroom. That bathroom was a biggie.

It is now permanently linked on the sidebar as well, in case you need are reading this one day and are struck with the sudden and intense need to know what is overcrowding my shelf.

So. I'm going to go watch Without A Trace with the Empress. Somebody abandoned her baby. Oooh.