Despite what follows, I am fairly intelligent.

I'm not a music person. I like music. It's lovely and it is necessary to pass the time whilst walking or running or something, but I'm not a music geek who has thousands of songs that I absolutely love. When I got my iPod, I figured 500 songs? Probably like three hundred too many. Imagine my dismay when I was greeted with a scary graphic the last time I hooked my iPod up to my laptop that told me I only had a fraction of a percentage left of available space. What will I do? What happens if Katy Perry releases another nauseatingly catchy single? WHAT THEN WORLD???

So I had to do a little pruning. I sat down with a box of Kleenex and prepared to get very emotional at sending some of my favorite songs ever off to the unseen depths of my iTunes library, never to be heard from again. Until I realized that wow, I have a lot of crap on there, and yeah, most of these I've never actually listened to.

Here are some of the tracks that ended up being pulled-

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony- I really can't stand like fifty-seven of the fifty-nine minutes of it, and that is wasting a valuable hour of real estate here. We have important Britney Spears songs that could be utilizing this space.

Daughters, John Mayer- I hate John Mayer, and I have a lovely relationship with my father. This entire song is thus unnecessary. Gone.

Don't Stop Believin', Journey- Excellent song, but who needs Journey when you have the Glee cast? I certainly don't.

Have a Nice Day, Bon Jovi- Is it just me or does Bon Jovi really only sing one song? I have It's My Life and Living on a Prayer- I think I'll be okay without this one.

Human, The Killers- Meh. I'm over the alt-rock. And it reminds me of painting cabinets. *shivers*

Kiss From a Rose, Seal- I loved this song when it was the backing track for a Phantom of the Opera fan video. On it's own? Notsomuch. Although now that I have safely passed through puberty, I'm not sure I'd be so fond of the POTO fan vid anymore, either.

Numb/Encore, Linkin Park w/Jay-Z- I'm a little white girl. Why do I bother?

O Fillii et Fillae- It's not Easter anymore, and this is a freaking long song.

Over my Head (Cable Car), The Fray- What the frick is the Fray still doing on my iPod? It is NOT 2006 anymore.

Romeo and Juliet, The Killers- Um. Yeah. We have Taylor Swift's Love Story now? I have no need for your 2007 musical retelling.

Impossible, Kelly Clarkson- I am generally in favor of the new Kelly CD (as I am in favor of most things Kelly does, including putting on a few lately, if only because it makes me feel better), but this song kind of drags. Dumped.

Whew. Right? I know what you're thinking. That was tough. But the songs that are left must form an amazing, 400 song-long playlist of AMAZING music, right? RIGHT? Well. Here are some of the songs left on my iPod-

Stacy's Mom, Fountains of Wayne- I freaking love this song. I've always wanted to name my first little girl Anastacia, and then I'd be Stacy's mom. That makes me SOOO happy.

Leave (Get Out), JoJo- Shut up and stop judging me.

Don't Stop Believin', Glee Cast- BEST SONG EVER OMG.

Godspell Soundtrack- Because what if I want to listen to it the whole way through?

TWO versions of Your Song- Sometimes I'm feeling classic and sometimes I just really want Ewan McGregor (to sing to me.)

Enough Cher songs to make a drag queen weep- But I love them! ALL of them!

Hooked on a Feeling- Because I was raised by a guy who frequently laments that NO music will EVER be as good as the AMAZING tunes of the '70s. I maintain that that is okay, because our hair is better.

I Wanna Be Bad, Willa Ford- I am quite possibly the least bad person you have ever met.

Lacrymosa, Evanescence- See? See what they did there? They made it "Lacrymosa" instead of "Lacrimosa". Because I am secretly an emo child.

My Heart Will Go On, Celine Dion- Because I'm still not over being forbidden from seeing Titanic in theaters.

Truly, Madly, Deeply (UK Radio Edit), Cascada- Oh, you know what? I give up. I suck.

Curses, J.J. Abrams.

I saw Star Trek with the fam yesterday, and my father was deeply disturbed by it. Apparently the whole time travel thing seriously messed with his head and now his entire universe is over and nothing makes sense anymore and how will we know which horizon the sun will rise on tomorrow?

He's a little overly dramatic.

I had a lovely time. I'm not going to front, it took me like two viewings until I realized that there was any time travel and whatever dude, everyone is ridiculously more attractive, so why are you whining?

We attempted watching an episode tonight, but he spent the entire hour going, "But that couldn't happen! Because they didn't fix it!"

I may have to kill him if this keeps up much longer.

Dear Potential Bridegrooms:

I'm watching Dateline. Never a good thing. This means that I will spend the weekend convinced that I will be sold into white slavery/murdered while on a run (except I don't run)/discover that my sister is my mother. Or, in this case, murdered by my new husband on while on a scuba dive on our honeymoon.

So, potential mates. Here's what's going to go down on our honeymoon. (We already know what won't be.) We will be going to Northern Ireland. I don't care that it's winter and it's cold and it's rainy and you want to do something that involved a wetsuit. We will go out to brunch. A lot. I may take a nap. A lot. (I love naps.) I will drag you to various sites and go on, ad nauseum, about the Troubles. Then we'll go have dinner.

At no point will I be putting on a swimsuit. At no point will we be doing a sport that I don't want to do. At no point will we be doing anything remotely dangerous (except when I make you go the Falls Road.)

Once we get home I will most likely be sick of you, and then you can go on your adventure vacation on your own. I'll be at home. Spending your money on morning lattes at Starbucks.

I hope this will be satisfactory.

Love,
Kathleen

Although I could have done without this nose.

Happy anniversary to my parents, who have been nauseatingly into each other for 26 years today. Honestly. Not in a weird PDA sort of way, but wow, they really like each other. More than I think I could ever like another person for five minutes much less a quarter of a century.

That being said, I really like my blue eyes and red hair (Even if the woman at the DMV said it wasn't red enough to put on my driver's license.) And your previous significant others were nothing to write home about. Dad? The mortician? Honestly? (Although she'd probably let me watch Crminal Minds in the living room.) And Chet? Good Lord, Mom, was your taste in men horrible. So I'm glad you two found one another.

And I've been reading a lot of Jodi Picoult lately, and I'd also like to thank you for never suing me, saying that my birth was a wrongful birth, aborting me, giving me up for adoption, growing me in a petri dish so that I could give a kidney to my cancer-ridden sister, ignoring my bulimia, discounting my ability to talk to God, or getting me killed in a school shooting. (Goodness. That woman does drama.)

My emotional nakedness! Let me show you it!

We showed the house today, for the first time. To a lovely woman who was perfectly nice and didn't say anything like, "Hey, why did you drop so much paint on the floor?"

(She did say "Oh! How nice! A small dining area!" about the perfectly large formal dining room, but I digress.)

But she obviously did not understand. No one understands. No one understands what we've gone through to get that house to be adorable and bright and cheery (other choice adjectives from today).

With the caveat that I love that house and I knew it had to be done, these have been the worst ten months of my life. I'm counting the months Grandpa lived with use and both times my mom had cancer. We've been through hell and back with that house, and no one who is going to rent it will understand that.

No one understands the horror of having to walk in there in August. I don't think anyone is ever ready for that, but it was horrible. I still spend half the time I'm there crying. Today I started crying because I looked at the little strip of paper on the register.

My mom got %*#(&%# CANCER halfway through this thing, and other than arranging to have the floor delivered a week later, we didn't stop.

I don't think anyone will ever understand how it felt that day I freaked out and had to call Mary from the end of the driveway. No one will understand what it felt like to hear them throwing your grandparents' furniture in a dumpster. No one will ever understand what it's like to finally not be able to take it anymore and have a major meltdown in front of the electrician.

Yes. It's freaking adorable. Wanna see the scars from when I burned my wrist or fell down the stairs or impaled my shoe and part of my foot on a nail? I remember painting the back hall while my dad was listening to the Brewers play in that wild card game last fall. They're half way through another damn season already! THAT'S WHY IT'S ADORABLE.


So I'm thinking that we need to put out before and after pictures, or maybe hand people a card with the URL for this page, just so that they can truly appreciate what a fantastic house that is. Because the fact that we made it go from this monstrosity-

...to this-

...in ten months while dealing with unbelievable grief that doesn't seem to be getting any better, starting college, going to school, full-time jobs, and major medical problems? As Aunt Helen said last night, it's miraculous.

Now. If we could just have another miracle that would allow me to graduate and get a job that would allow me to live there, that would be fantastic.

Because I understand. And I will never forget.

Difficult to Please

I rarely get to control the remote during primetime. It's not that everyone doesn't want to watch what I want to, it's just it's always a communal experience. But tonight Mom and Dad are gone, Colleen's at a friend's, and John is upstairs being angsty probably I don't know. So I get to watch whatever I want.

And I've spent the last two hours watching Nat Geo. Because I'm a huge dork. Also, I'm always looking for possible career paths for my worthless degrees and talents. Over the last forty-seven minutes of the show about mummies, I realized that I couldn't be an anthropologist. Because while I could probably tell you all about the cultural influences that led to a society desiring to consecrate their dead, like hell I could identify a needle mark on the neck through which embalming fluid was injected.

The head anthropologist on this show looks like he's about twelve, and kind of resembles the kid who plays Neville (I totally almost typed Chamberlain right there- thank you, Dr. Crain.) from Harry Potter. I have decided to marry him and maybe National Geographic pays enough to cover my student loan bills. This kid is adorable, I tell you.

However, we may have some problems. He got my hopes up at the beginning of the hour. The show focuses on how all these mummies that are HUNDREDS of years old managed to be preserved in the Sicilian catacombs. There was chanting and background footage of medieval monks and the narrator kept saying HUNDREDS OF YEARS over and over again. Dude. You just won out of Ace of Cakes on Food Network.

But then as the show progressed, these mummies turned out to be not that old. Like, most were from the eighteen hundreds. The major one that is remarkably lifelike died in 1920. Are you kidding me? Maybe she just hasn't started decaying yet because that was only like EIGHTY YEARS AGO.

Okay. I get it. Keeping a body around in open air for eighty years is a remarkable scientific feat. But I remain unimpressed. I wanted middle ages, y'all.

Yes! You get my thoughts on theology AND Jon & Kate Plus 8!

I know, right? You're thrilled you know me.

Okay, first. Jon and Kate Plus 8. Or, Kate Being A Martyr Plus 8 and Jon Off Doing Something Else. Which is how it's been this season.

Okay. After watching this episode (and wiping up the drool of excitement when THEY WENT TO CHARM CITY CAKES!!! THEY PLAYED WITH MARY ALICE!!! I WANT TO PLAY WITH MARY ALICE!!!), I kind of think the whole drama is mostly contrived. I mean, thought that before, too, but the premiere was so depressing and practically ended with a custody agreement. This one was more, oh, let's give one parent a reason to go be on their own but they're all still living together so things must not be that bad. Except everybody is mopey.

(EXCEPT WHEN THEY GET TO PLAY WITH MARY ALICE!!!)

However, if they actually do break up, I'd like to offer a loving home for Aaden. I love that little kid.

***

I got to Grandpa's this morning, and yep. My flowers had been replanted. My artistic staggering? Gone. They're in a straight row now. DO NOT WANT.

*sniff*

Meanwhile, I'm having a teensy bit of trouble with this other-people-living-there part. As we established earlier, I DON'T LIKE PEOPLE TOUCHING MY STUFF.

I like people touching my countertop even less.

***

So apparently Mel Gibson got some Russian pregnant? And People.com is obsessed with it? They called in "experts" to discuss the doctrinal ramifications of Mel's little...um...slip, which seriously makes me wonder who their expert is. That Jesuit from the Colbert Report? That would be pretty cool. I love him. I kind of just want to follow him around. Maybe he could introduce me to the guy who plays the Captain on Criminal Intent.

Anyway, apparently Mel is forgoing Communion. Which is nice, although I don't really feel comfortable judging him. (Shut up. Sometimes I'm not judgemental.) But what's more concerning is that it appears that his little chapel? Is actually a weird new religion. They keep mentioning how they'll have to return to the "mainstream" Roman Catholic Church to get an annulment, etc.

I always thought it was just a really conservative community that offered a Tridentine Mass, not this weird "traditionalist" Catholic sect that's not normal Catholicism.

Huh. That's strange, and it makes Mel Gibson seem even more crazy.

***

I'm sneezing. This had better not be the cold that the Artist Formerly Known as the Boy brought home. I will kill him.

Thoughts during the MTV Movie Awards

-Kate Winslet being a Nazi is kind of funny.

-Megan Fox scares me. No. For reals. She's not pretty. She's just scary.

-Twilight Guy looks like he wakes up and is immediately weary of his pretty. So weary that he cannot even shower.

-Twilight Girl is SOOOO over this.

-High School Musical Girl is not over this, and is PISSED that Twilight Girl won instead.

-Ben Stiller is too old for this.

-Really. Way too old.

-Anyone else get the feeling that the Harry Potter cast didn't show up so it wouldn't be supremely awkward when they bumped into Twilight Guy backstage?

-Why is Hayden Panettiere with Zachary Quinto?

-WHY IS ZACHARY QUINTO SMILING AT HAYDEN PANETIERRE?

-Why do I care?

-Did they honestly just congratulate Heath Ledger for winning best villain? They congratulated a dead guy? Nice, MTV. Really nice.

-You know what? I'm too old for this.

In general...

I spent the last three hours at work today not actually working but being the camera girl for Jen Lancaster- which is pretty fun. I heard a wonderful story involving a regular and some guy and some lesbian lover of hers for twenty years and how they all tried a three-way relationship and it didn't work and now she can't move to Florida and whatever, lady, I just wanted to know if you wanted lemon loafcake. I went out to dinner. I got to wear my pretty Wal-Mart dress.

I refrained from banging my head into the desk when someone preordered the sure-to-be instant classic "A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church".

I think this counts as a good day.

Musical health class?

Has anyone seen Grease 2? Because we're flipping between that and Walk the Line (and Joel Osteen, becase my sister wants to be a preacher's wife despite her Catholic faith. She does enjoy speaking in a Southern accent, though.), and I'm confused...and intrigued. We just got through the health class number (who knew you could rhyme so much with "reproduction"?) and it appears that there is next to no dialogue. Just some amazing musical numbers featuring high school students who are taking Metamucil.

I think I may have to actually watch this all the way through.

And I'm NOT in therapy.

My head- it's a scary place sometimes.

(And not just because it sometimes think that law school would be the best way to go for me despite the fact that the rest of my body is going "FRICK NO WE DO NOT WANT TO WORK PAST FIVE O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON!". True story- I walked past a place this afternoon that closed at three and resolved to come back tomorrow for an employment application.)

No, because now that Grandpa's house is almost completely finished (I know! Right? It's only been TEN FREAKING MONTHS! So if you know anyone who wants to rent, give me a call!), I kind of...um...really want to move in. Like, now.

Not only do I not want other people living there- although I emphatically do not. I don't share well. I never have. Those joint Christmas gifts with my sister when we were little? Screw 'em. The joint birthday parties we did for a few years? Gross. I don't like people using the bathroom attached to my bedroom- and it's the guest bathroom in a house that I don't own. I have repeatedly attempted to find a way to obtain sole custody of children when you're still married because I don't think I'm ever going to love anyone enough to trust them with my children- even if half of their DNA came from him. So other people wiping their gross little hands all over the walls I bled on, cried on, threw things at in frustration painted? NOT COOL.

But I want to live there. I'm going out after work on Saturday. I'm not going to lie, part of the reason I accepted is that there won't be enough time to go home and I'll have to change and get ready there. I've done that a couple times now, and I love it. I mean, yes, I'm using makeup out of a bag and I have to stay away from treatment-less windows because the women in that neighborhood have a median age of 85 and are huge gossips- and I'd hate for the entire group to know that I wear (*gasp*) black underwear sometimes! But it's still almost like I live there.

(AND IT EVEN MATCHES WHORE.)

I find myself stopping to refill my water bottle or use the bathroom, even if I'm just going home. I go for walks in the neighborhood because there are small roads that lack both a.) big trucks, b.) big trucks going incredibly fast around curves, and c.) rabid dogs who like to follow me home and hump my leg. It's just so much more peaceful.

I have developed into an adult at the socially acceptable time, and so I haven't spent a whole huge amount of time daydreaming since I was, oh, twelve, but whatever little story is running through my head at any given time? Probably is set in that house. Last winter I had to stop and pick something up on my way home from school and it was dark and as I was letting myself in I caught myself thinking, "Hmmm...I'm going to have to leave the porch light on...this is kind of spooky."

For God's sake, I have the nursery decorated in my head. I'm 21, single, and decidedly not pregnant. (Can one be decidedly not pregnant? Or decidedly pregnant for that matter? Whatever. I'm not.)

So. In my head, it doesn't make a difference that I have essentially no job, no car, no career path for the next nine years, and unless the pay for a barista goes up considerably in the next six months, no hope of changing any of these circumstances for a little while. No, in my head I'm picking out furnishings.

(Not wallpaper. NEVER, EVER WALLPAPER.)

But! The fact that in nine years I will have a piece of paper saying, "Hey, you can give her a job shaping not-so-young minds and she knows a crapload about the Troubles-

(OOOH! I have something to say about that, but it has absolutely nothing to do with this topic, so will you stay with me for a tangent? You will? Oh, good. Okay. I was watching the BBC news the other night because I'm a little bit sick of the American economy and that's all the US news organizations will report on, and one of the stories was about how there is now an investigation into why, exactly, a Catholic man was beaten to death outside his house, and this isn't the first one recently either. Is it starting again? Because Dr. Crain will be very sad if he has to stop ending his Northern Ireland class with the whole, "But now there's peace. And that will be enough." Okay. Tangent over.)

-but more importantly can make a mocha that will knock your socks off!" if we don't find somebody to rent it. So while I'll be locked away in the basement to prevent me from hissing at potential renters, it is a lovely house and if anyone wants to rent it please let me know!

(I'll be the one doing my makeup in a recently furnished bathroom that's not mine.)

Night at the Home of Old Vacation Memories

Went to see Night at the Museum 2 today, and it was quite lovely. Funny, stupid, Owen Wilson. Good times had by all.

Particularly those of us who have spent a ton of time at the Smithsonian museums, especially Air and Space, my mother's most beloved of all museums despite the fact that walking in the door gives me hives.

(At least I have never ended up sobbing in the bathroom. That was the Wright Brothers' Museum.)

(It was a bad day.)

The Wright boys make an appearance as well, which caused Mary to curl up into a little methods-induced ball and start freaking out about her paper grade and I got a little ill thinking about the abovementioned day...but other than that...

And the National Gallery of Art featured prominently as well, even though they changed the name to the "Washington Art Museum" for some reason. That made my little art history soul squee.

There were several...inconsistencies, however. (No, not the exhibits-coming-to-life inconsistency.) The gift shop at Air and Space is not in the main room, it's kind of in the back and most of it is in the basement. And the National Gallery of Art is not a part of the Smithsonian museum system.

This is why it closes three hours earlier than everyone else and I end up with twenty minutes there at the end of the day but we had four hours to stare in contemplation at the first plane to fly in March of 1953 or something.

(I'm not bitter.)

So now I want to go on vacation.

Dear Big Daddy,

Hi. It's me. Kathleen. Well, you'd probably know me as "Kathy" because despite the fact that I was one of your only fifteen students, you never got my name right.

Yeah. I'm not going to lie. I spent most of the semester hating you. I had lots of things to do with my Monday afternoons, and spending three hours every week listening to you talk about Post-Modernism but not really because if your graduate students couldn't understand it- well then! Neither could we!

You struck me as kind of like a perv. The Playboy, the lesbian article with graphic physical descriptions, when you said your five-year-old posed like a pin-up...yeah, weird.

You wore a pair of earrings. That's really weird.

Gradually, I warmed to you. Mostly after you wrote loving comments on my paper.

By the end of the semester, I was crying because the class was over.

(Although to be fair, I was crying about...oh...just about everything that week.)

However. If you continue to withhold our final grades for the class, I will be forced to consider you a mean pervert again.

Honestly, man. It's been two weeks since we turned in the papers. They're only 7-10 pages, hardly being handed a stack of master's theses, and you even got to read them beforehand, so you know what they're about.

Does your partner-of-an-ambiguous-gender really require that much attention that you need more than two weeks to grade FIFTEEN papers?

So. You're on notice.

Love,
Kathleen (Not. Kathy.)

Role Model

Okay, I'm in the middle of parties and movies and cemetary-going and four loads of laundry, so the only thing I have for you this afternoon (except that once again- Ewan McGregor: Hotter When Celibate) is a lovely little item about Brooke Shields from People.com

Brooke Shields announces she would have lost her viginity sooner.

A.) Who the hell cares when Brooke Shields started having sex?

B.) Yes, Brooke. You are truly a role model for young women everywhere.

C.) Obviously, the way to become okay with your looks is to do it with the first guy to come along. That's why anorexia is almost never present in sexually active young teens.

D.) Seriously, who wants to know when Brooke Shields is having sex???

The 40-Year-Old Dependent.

Had a minor meltdown today. Just a teensy little one. When it appeared that there are no loans available for graduate school if you are listed as a dependent for tax purposes. And yes, I am. Because I've been busy PAYING TUITION FOR THREE YEARS and WORKING EIGHT HOURS A WEEK. OF COURSE I'M A FREAKING DEPENDENT I CAN'T AFFORD TARGET.

So I had a brief dark moment of the soul when I wondered exactly how old you can get while still being claimed by your parents. 21 is okay. 25 is a little weird. But I'm hoping- praying- that I'll have Ph.D one of two by the time I'm 30. And while I probably still be living at home because I can't really take my term papers to the grocery as legal tender, it's even more pathetic to have the IRS think you're pitiful.

Then I stress-ate like four cookies and got massively ill.

And realized that if you're in graduate school, you automatically lose the dependent status, even if you technically still receive a substantial amount of support (like, say, all of it) from your parents. Fear not, I will be able to get a loan. Oh. That's good.

Ugh. The emotional taxation of that little exercise was way too much to handle. I spent the rest of the day watching Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Because Goren and Eames do not care that I have no money.

It's over.

You know my fantastic soul mate Meghan McCain? Well, I don't really care that we can have sleepovers and talk about small government and fiscal responsibility and omg did you see "Fox and Friends" this morning???

Now it will never work.

This afternoon she posted the following tweet: "On a sidenote, me and all my girlfriends might be a little too enthused about the jon and kate premier monday. Were planning food and drinks already for it."

Really? Do you mean you and your friends planned drinks? Because that's not what you said. You said that you previously planned food and drinks.

CONTRACTIONS PEOPLE LEARN TO LOVE THEM.

Thus ends tonight's episode of the Grammar Nazi.

Illogical.

CHEM AND METHODS GRADES ARE STILL NOT UP ON PAWS AND I AM NOT AMUSED. God. UWM. I love you. I really do. I appreciate that I can afford (haha...kind of) to get an advanced degree at your campus, which is totally a much better academic institution than a lot of people give it credit for. I love Pacific Wraps. I love the Grind. I'm not okay with you only offering scholarships to AIDS babies from Asian and/or Aboriginal backgrounds whose parents did not attend anything other than a bush school but tell those of us who grew up in the North Shore and have parents with advanced post-graduate degrees to figure out some other way of paying for it I hear truck stops are relatively safe? but I'll get over that. I AM NOT OKAY WITH YOU NOT POSTING MY GRADES FOR A WEEK AFTER FINALS.

After all, how will I be able to gauge my worth in the world if I don't know how I did in Chemistry 106???

We're beginning to watch Star Trek episodes, because that's just the kind of nerdy family we are. This means that I shall generally embarrass myself by fangirling every member of the cast except Mr. Sulu because, well, I know now that he's not interested.

This will be ultimately disappointing because, unlike my sister, I prefer new Mr. Spock to old Mr. Spock. In fact, if I were in a relationship with new Mr. Spock (and why the hell not, he is not, in fact, married to a Dixie Chick and really what else was stopping us?) I'd make him wear the ears and shave his eyebrows and possibly only dress in blue...

***THIS JUST HAPPENED:***

Me: Remember the Vulcan PMS episode? I'm going to figure out which one that is...
Colleen: Yeah, go to wikipedia and type in "Nurse Chapel"...
Entire Room: *erupt in laughter*
Me: Amok Time? Is that rig...
Mom: Yep. That's it.

My hair is filthy. I should really wash it before work tomorrow. Meh. Too much work. There is Trek goodness to be viewed. Pigtails tomorrow, I guess.

Wow. This was disjointed. But I'm really focused on the television right now.

Only two?

Unacceptable items:

1.) Dogs.

I don't like dogs. I know a lot of people like them, and that's just fine and dandy. I, however, am not one of them. From my perspective? There was a reason the Romans left them outside.

Look. Okay, I know that little dog isn't actually going to hurt me. I get that. I'm not stupid. But whenever one runs at me I get the urge to scream like a little girl and jump into the nearest pool of water in the hopes that I can lose the mangy bastard.

(Dogs swim? Oh.)

I have, in fact, almost killed myself on several occasions freaking out about a dog. When I was about four I went batshit crazy at Maker's Mark and ran in front of a car. When I was eight my friend's dog had the nerve to be in the front yard at the same time as me and I ran into the road. This happened several more times when I was eleven/twelve at the farm (The horses were no problem for me, but those dogs? Scary.)

Imagine my dismay when a stupid dog decided to follow me home today. I managed to not freak out, and okay, I had to call my mom because it felt better to be talking and I figured if I was just walking along the highway talking to myself passing motorists would begin to view me strangely. But I didn't dart in front of a car or throw any rocks at the crazy thing (Seriously, it was dumb. Running down the middle of the road and all. Pssh.)

And I'm only 21.

2.) I'm still missing two grades on PAWS. And it goes down for maintenance on Saturday. And so help me God if I don't have my official GPA by then I will NOT BE PLEASED.

I'm pretty sure I got As in everything in chemistry (I have four As right now officially and methods is outstanding, but it should be an A unless Big Daddy decided that I wasn't one of his special students...I don't really want to think about that), and chem should be an A- which I'm actually okay with because the - isn't for anything stupid like I didn't show up or study or anything- I worked my ass off for the class, and I did all the stupid extra credit. So while I'm mourning the loss of my 4.0, it's not the end of the world.

Well. It kind of is.

It's amazing what you pick up.

Saw Star Trek again this afternoon, and wow! It's so much better when you're not looking for a quiet place to throw up! I don't know if it was the sick or the tired thing last time, but I understood like the actual plot this time- last time it was pretty much "zomg they're so young Spock is hot Spock/Uhura que? zomg so gooood!!!"

(Yes. I am articulate when I'm tired.)

This time there was, like, time travel and stuff.

Also decided that I shall go see Angels and Demons again on Monday because Mary and I traditionally do a movie and the inaugural Memorial Day movie was even an Ewan McGregor flick and well, I cannot think of any better way to mark the day than by viewing totally damning hotness that Colleen was mocking earlier. Whatever. She doesn't have to come. *sniff*

I'm pretty sure I'm still high.

Hey, remember that day last fall? Yeah. I don't do well with anything in the turpentine family. I just don't like things that are caustic and have major warnings about how dangerous they are unless it also comes with a Carlo Rossi label and a 7% alcohol by volume certification.

Imagine my delight then when today's task was using Goof-Off on the floors. All the floors. There was cursing. And crying. And more cursing and I may have damned several people to hell in my head, but hey! It was rough and the fumes, they get to me.

Especially since Goof-Off is not actually that fantastic a product. They neglect to mention that it doesn't work on actual drops of paint, unless you already attempted to wipe it up while it was wet, anything remotely old, and sometimes not so much depending on the grain of the wood. So if you've got a smear of paint on a perfectly smooth pane of wood that you wiped up within the last fifteen minutes? You are golden. Anything else? Not so much.

Particularly fifty-year-old paint on slightly damaged floors. Yeah, that...is going to stay for another fifty years.

If I could have seen straight at the end of endeavor, I would have been really angry. As it was, I was just nauseated and looking for a drink.

***

Re: Last night's fangirling of Meghan McCain. She was fantastic on the Colbert Report, but I think she could have laid off the eyeliner a little.

Whatever, I was five.

I am deeply fascinated by Meghan McCain. Infatuated, really. I want to be her friend. We can Twitter and be slightly overweight but altogether not hideously deformed together.

This is due, I feel, to a number of issues. I have always wanted to be a political daughter. It was my neverending dream as a child that my dad would ditch that whole architecture thing and run for prez in 1996- what, like he couldn't beat Perot? My little sister and I would dress up and play "Chelsea Clinton" which was less a game and more fevered "OMG CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW MUCH FUN I'LL BET SHE HAD THE REAL BARBIE CAR, NOT THE GENERIC ONE, AND A KEN DOLL WITH BOTH LEGS!!!"

(What. I was easily distracted from her father's seriously lacking policy issues.)

But that's not all. I seriously need some youngish Republican friends (other than Katie- but hey! She could hang out with Meghan and me too!) . It's a cold world out here when you have Bobby Jindal freaking out and being pissy in the corner while Obama is hanging out with the cool kids across the room and beckons you over, "Hey, you wanna join us? We've got beer. I mean technically, you bought the beer with your tax dollars, so you should totally have some!" And you have to reply, "Um...no...thanks. I'm just going to sit over here with my lemonade and try to keep Bobby from talking too loudly. But Meghan is young and not a fundamentalist and has gay friends and hey! I have gay friends too!

And yes, she said that she voted for Kerry in 2004, which is an almost unforgivable offense because SERIOUSLY? KERRY? But I can get over it, because I love her clothes and she uses eyliner which is, again, seriously lacking amongst Republicans.

She got into a fight with Ann Coulter about how bitch crazy she's become. And I respect that something fierce.

Also I have always harbored a desire to be named Meghan. With an H. I don't know why.

So while I have never compared leg hair with her, as my sister did in a dream that is chronicled in a remarkable Facebook note that I can't link to because her profile is locked down like the Pentagon, but if you know her you should totally go read it, I think Meghan and I are basically soulmates.

And tonight? Tonight she's on the Colbert Report. Yes. Now she has my name, my party affiliation, my penchant for empire-waisted dresses, and gets to be on my favorite show ever. It's almost worth staying up until 10:30 for.

Hey, it's a whole thing I never even thought about!

MY STUPID GRADES STILL AREN'T UP ON STUPID PAWS.

And I am reacting quite rationally. Obviously.

(My chem final grade is up on D2L, however. Oh. It's not pretty. This is me--->ME. 4.0<--- that is my hopeful GPA for this semester. The massive gaping chasm in between them? Chemistry. Stupid. Stupid chemistry. That's okay. I'm trying to tell myself I'm not a bad person because I didn't get an A in chemistry. It would have been SO AWESOME THOUGH. Gah. Hatehatehatehate.)

Other than that, I discovered today that a.) spray paint is rather messy, b.) I don't like spray paint, and c.) scrubbing the shower at Grandpa's is as bad as scrubbing the shower at home but with stress and bitterness added on top. Fanfreakingtastic.

The spray paint was cool for like two seconds, and then not so much once the wind shifted and it looked as though I had just spent a shift in the coal mines.

Giant Sucking Waste of Oxygen

I have nothing tonight, internets. I feel as though I'm wasting your time. But here are some various and sundry items that I can comment on.

-In this week's Entertainment Weekly, there is a comment about how while the position of camerlengo actually exists, he is not as powerful as Ewan McGregor in Angels and Demons. Also, presumably not as attractive.

-In other news, I'm still stalking Ewan McGregor. Go watch the video of his interview with Craig Ferguson. I laughed and I laughed.

-In more other news, you can visit my cave in hell. It'll be the one that's flaming and has my name on it.

-My grades still aren't posted on PAWS. This is not a horrible offense, actually, because I only took the last exam forty-eight hours ago, but what the hell, Cuba woman? You've had my paper for ten days, and I know you're not really reading it. Just slap an A up on there and make us all happy.

-I probably will not get an A in chemistry due to the fact that the lab practical was quite possibly the most impractical thing ever.

-It's all Nazim's fault. I blame him for my lack of 3.9 as opposed to 4.0.

-I got tipped today and for the first time since September I didn't have to save the money for parking. Ahh. Freedom is sweet.

- I still need $900 so I can take Jews in Wisconsin. It's too bad I don't actually know any Jews in Wisconsin, because maybe they could give me some money.

- I'm tired now.

You're welcome, underemployed people.

(Like me.)

Colleen and I cleaned the closet today, because it was getting difficult to climb the pile of stuff in the middle of the floor in order to get to dresses or jackets. So, in case you don't have anything better to do with your Saturday, you could swing by our local Salvation Army and take a look at every single piece of clothing I have owned (not necessarily worn) since the mid-nineties. Ignore the fact that we moved here in 1999. I'm pretty sure I moved most of the crap and still didn't wear it.

Five little evening purses. More tote bags than I can count. A pink purse that I apparently paid $23.50 for even though it isn't that pretty. An inexplicable vial of Elizabeth Taylor's White Diamonds perfume (when were either my sister or I a 70-year-old woman?).

Oh. Lord. The velvet. We could clothe most of Ozaukee County with velvet.

But it's okay. Because I've spent most of today replaying all of Ewan McGregor's scenes from Angels and Demons in my mind. Most notably the one where he gets all crazy and rips off his Roman collar. The rest of the movie was pretty mediocre, but I was fangirling like crazy for him. Even if his "Northern Irish" accent was laughable when it was actually occuring and otherwise, he just sounded Scottish. Whatever. He's pretty. I'm off to watch Star Wars.

I've had very few accidents, so...

I got my financial aid package today, and wow, they totally just took away one of my loans. That was apparently need based. And I'm not needy enough. (Ha!) And my extra class is costing $900.

I think it's incredibly insulting that I get knocked out of the running for every single need-based award simply because I can't afford to pay rent. Honestly. Do you think I'd be living at home and depending on my parents if I didn't have to? If I had $3700 just lying around at the end of the semester don't you think I'd, ooh, have a car?

And also. Do I have to point out? I HAVE A FREAKING 3.9 GPA.

So. I need a new job like pronto. One that has me show up more than one day a week. But it has to close before 6 pm and I won't be a waitress. Any suggestions?

One More.

I'm doing...well, I haven't broken down in tears in the last twenty-four hours. Even though art history is over and I freaking loved art history. However, tomorrow is the chemistry final. This is easily the worst of the bunch because it's the only class I'm not securely in "A" territory, but I'm close enough that there's a shot that I could get one and seriously, do not screw with my head like that, possible 4.0.

I really need to calm down.

I did have a dream about art history last night. And it was weird.

By Friday I'll probably be a Jewish Studies major.

Oh, goodness. Between the exhaustion, the stress-eating, the unexplained pimples, and my unbelievable ability to cry at the drop of a hat, I'm either pregnant or it's finals week.

As the pregnancy thing would require either some spastic genetic mutation or the second coming of Christ (unlikely, given my propensity to swear), it's probably just finals.

I seriously do not know what is wrong with me. I'm just a mess. I mean, I get the being sad about classes I like. No, the end of Ireland and Israel probably didn't need to invoke tears and queries as to whether the professor needed a babysitter this summer, but whatever, I loved those classes. And I loved art history, and Dr. Counts, so yeah, that makes sense.

But methods? I freaking hate methods. I hate that damn class. The day the professor got food poisoning and had to cancel was the happiest Monday I had all semester. But when we finished up today I wanted to cry. Seriously. I was this close to adding his section of 600.

I think the worst was when I got the mass e-mail from the former director of undergraduate studies in history announcing his replacement. Let me set this up for you. I don't know this guy. I met him once, and our entire conversation was pretty much, "So you want to be a history major?" "Yes." "You have at least a 2.5 GPA?" "Yes." "Okay. Where's the form?" Not exactly a long and storied relationship. And even if it was, he's not going anywhere. The position of director rotates through the staff, a different faculty member is the director every year. The new director is a guy I actually do know. He's my thesis advisor. He lent me one of his books. We've had a heart-to-heart about John Paul II.

So. To recap. I don't know Old Guy. Old Guy's not really going anywhere. I know New Guy. The entire position is basically a person to sign declaration of major forms. But when Old Guy sent out that e-mail saying that he was forwarding us New Guy's information and that he was honored to have served us this year? I'm not going to lie, my eyes started to water.

Okay. I seriously need a drink. Or a nap. Or some prescription drugs. Or all three.

BECAUSE I JUST CRIED OVER AN AMBIGUOUSLY GAY MIDDLE-AGED HISTORIAN WHO HAS HOMOSEXUAL BONDAGE POSTERS UP IN HIS OFFICE. But he said I'd be an asset to any MA program. THIS ISN'T NORMAL.

(The posters are alleged. I've never seen them. But I can kind of believe it.)

Maybe independent study isn't such a good idea.

Author's Note: Channel 12 just advertised their news for tonight by saying, "Former Archbishop Rembert Weakland has a stunning announcement- he's gay." No. What? Knock me over with a feather. Did no one else get that from the whole hey, I had sex with this man and then paid him off a few years ago? Just me? Oh, how I love local news.

It's exam week, and I didn't have anything today. So I spent the entire day doing very important things like staring at the wall and stalking my liturgist on Facebook.

Things I Did Today:

1.) Went to Target.

2.) Discovered that I am so short that miniskirts are regular skirt length on me.

3.) Went for a walk.

4.) Spent awhile on Facebook.

5.) Read a few books (Silk Figures- awesome).

6.) Watched the Jeff Goldblum episodes of Criminal Intent.

7.) Decided I love Jeff Goldblum.

8.) Contemplated leaving my hair wet and curly because oh, God, so much work to straighten it.

9.) Realized I look something like a muppet with curly hair.

10.) Ate way too much of the cake that was left over from last night.

Things I Did Not Do Today.

1.) Study for chemistry.

2.) Study for art history

3.) Eat a reasonable amount of the cake that was left over from last night.

I suck. Exam week never instills responsibility in me.

Something missing.

Does anyone else think that maybe Mia Farrow just forgot to eat for a couple of weeks? Because I kind of totally do.

Oh, Mia. Hunger strikes are never the answer. Did we learn nothing from Bobby Sands?

Wow. Someday I hope to be that lucky.

Today at work I checked out a guy who was buying porn. Not really anything special, that happens all the time.

But he had his son with him

His three-year-old son.

And then he said, "Okay, we have to go get a card for Mommy."

You, sir, are disgusting.

Yes, the original series.

Now that I am not mostly concerned with staying upright and not vomiting all over the brand new theater lobby, you will be favored with a more in-depth analysis of the movie last night. I know. You're thrilled. And no, I don't know what made me sick. It wasn't swine flu, though. No one freak out.

I am a huge Star Trek dork. I mean, I don't attend the conventions, but I pretty much meet every other criteria. I could recite many of the plot lines of all 73 episodes. (To be fair, most of them were the same. The Klingon/Romulan is attacking and Kirk has to descend to the planet to repopulate the species.)

So I entered the theater last night with trepidation. I was psyched. I am a whore for a fun summer action movie, and I was not expecting to be disappointed, but at the same time I didn't really want them to spit all over my fandom, which some movies have been known to do. (I'm sure I have examples. I just can't think of them right now. I can only think of Get Smart, and I loved that. Hmmm. Maybe I haven't been disappointed. Anyway.)

I was not disappointed. It was freaking awesome. It was exactly the right amount of interesting and kitschy and all the actors did a fantastic job. Eric Bana was actually ugly. That takes some acting chops. Scotty? Hilarious. Kirk? Gross and lascivious but adorable. Spock? And Dr. McCoy was awesome, even if I didn't recognize him as Eomer. Uhura kind of kicked ass, and not just because she was in the Pirates of the Caribean movies.

It was so amazing that there were several times that I really, really felt sick but I didn't want to leave in case I missed anything!

I want to go back.

One question. Why is it that I don't actually find Zachary Quinto attractive but I wanted to have Spock's little emotionless babies last night? Does that make me a bad person?

I'm pretty sure I'm losing it.

By the end of my Ireland exam this afternoon, I don't even know what I was writing. Seriously. I was getting loopy.


I will say that Star Trek= awesome, even with the non-canonical romance. The brand new theater with the ginormous screen and brand new theater smell that I saw it in? Makes me want to throw up a little. So I'm going to bed now.

I am so over this.

Yes, I have had "We Didn't Start the Fire" stuck in my head since Tuesday morning when we talked about the Ayatollah. I maintain that this is a perfectly acceptable way to study the Iranian Revolution (1979, the shah was run out on January 16, Ayatollah Khomeni took over, started yelling death to the infidels, hostages on November 4, yay theocracy!)

I also know all about how we backed the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, pushing the Soviets out by 1989 and funding the Taliban by 1996.

Oops.

I'm going to bed.

Stay tuned for the breakdown.

I had a minor emotional moment (twice) in school today when both of my favorite classes finished and I loved those classes and I should not be this emotionally involved in the Northern Ireland conflict and why are you leaving me for four months God the last time we tried this people died and seriously is no one else moved by the power-sharing of the Good Friday Agreements???

*ahem*

Can you imagine what I'm going to be like next year? When I have to graduate and finish up Dr. Crain's classes? I'm going to be curled in a ball in the corner sobbing. My blue book will be runny with teardrops. It's just going to be embarrassing.

Meanwhile, I can't seem to study for those exams on Thursday. I think my fragile emotional state is to blame.

End of the Semester Weepies

It seems like no matter how much I complain (And, oh! Is it a lot!) during the semester, by December/May, I revert to the first grade when you're just devastated that school is over and how are you going to survive without this whole routine thing you've worked out? WHAT NOW GOD???

Big Daddy even made me laugh this afternoon when he said (in response to some kid asking what would happen if you missed one of the "mandatory" days), "Oh, I'll send one of my redneck relatives to your house and...I don't know...burn it down or something." I even kind of favorably reviewed him. Kind of. Maybe.

By the end of the afternoon I had gotten the review of my paper, and boy, was I having warm fuzzy feelings about him then! As Katie and I were discussing this afternoon, if you are a professor? The esteem in which I hold you/how attractive I think you are is a direct correlation to how well you grade me. I don't care if you're the nicest person in the world, you give me a B? I hate you and you probably murder babies and little kittens in your time off. Awful person but give me an A? I love you and are you doing something different with your hair because it's working!

Case(s) in point- Dr. Brusin. Socialist rabbi. I showed up to class every day wearing a crucifix and dragging my backpack with the McCain button on it. By the third A? I was ready to convert to Judaism. And possibly vote for Obama. (I never thought he was hot though. I'm crazy. Not delusional.)

And Big Daddy? I don't care that you spent a huge chunk of the semester talking about how Playboy could be considered a primary source and that once you said all women could be lesbians and none of us can figure out if you're gay because you keep saying "partner", wear a braided wedding band, but used the pronoun "she" once. You said you "really, really, really liked" my rough draft and said I'd make a good graduate student. If you are straight, will you marry me? (Um. On second thought. Not enough alcohol in the world.)

And well, let's just say that there are a myriad of reasons why I'm not going to apply for a student coordinator position, but one of them is that if you consistently give me over 100% and say you'd be honored to write a letter of recommendation for me? There is nothing, including alienating the rest of the faculty, I wouldn't do for you.

As it is I have to keep my mouth shut next semester.

I'm not even mad at my art history professor for not getting our quiz grades back to us, because he got busy ripping up carpeting this weekend. Oh, Derek, honey. Take all the time you need. Do you need help with tack board? Because I kind of kick ass at that. Extra credit?

I'm possessive, it isn't nice.

Oh, Mamma Mia. How you speak to me.

Okay. Going to be nice now.

I'm very tired, freaking out about exams, and I'm convinced that The Artist Formerly Known as The Boy has swine flu. Icky icky icky. Oh, and I can't skip Cuban history because I did it last week. *headdesk*

People are annoying.

Ugh. Lord. Like the person who wanted art deco books. But not just any art deco books, he "really preferred American pre-war art deco". Okay. I'm an art history student and I'm not even that pretentious. Go watch PBS and listen to NPR and leave me alone, okay? You almost made my sweet manager cry because she didn't know what you were talking about. And also? You just asked for mystery recommendations because you really like Dan Brown. ANYONE who finds anything remotely redeeming from a literary or historical or anything-other-than-Ewan-McGregor-and-I-had-an-afternoon-to-kill perspective about Dan Brown? IS DUMB.

Or the woman who asked me why our sandwiches were advertised as focaccia bread when it was clearly ciabatta. I don't know. I cut open the packages. That is my extent of the involvement with the sandwiches.

Or the mother and daughter pair who were looking for books about Anne Frank and were slightly concerned about getting it approved when I showed them The Diary of Anne Frank. "Are you sure you don't have a biography?" Um. No. I'm fairly certain that this, one of the most beloved books of all time, will be okayed by the teacher.

*headdesk*

UWM may be under the impression that I'm going to law school.

I may have told them that when I was a naive 17-year-old who didn't realize that I'd, like, have to be a lawyer then in order to pay off my $100,000 of debt, and I may have never changed it even after my mother helpfully threw things at my head until I realized that I DON'T WANT TO BE LAWYER.

(She totally did not do anything of the sort. When I would have bimonthly meltdowns about what graduate school track to pursue, she would very helpfully place a pillow under my head so that the banging wouldn't hurt my little confused skull. And then she's tell me that she had, in fact, gone to law school. And she had, in fact, been an attorney. And I would, in fact, want to kill myself. I finally started listening to her.)

Anyway. Now that Souter has decided to go hang out in the woods with his boyfriend dog, there is a Supreme Court opening. And I would love to fill it.

So. President Obama. I know we haven't exactly been on fantastic terms for the past hundred days. I may have had to get drunk the night you were elected and maybe said some things to my sister I regret deeply. But you could totally appoint me! I'm cute, and personable. The Senate Committee would probably let me through (meh, at least I won't swear at them in a Sicilian dialect like Scalia).

Also, I kind of feel like there should be a total turncoat appointed. Because it would be major judicial poetic justice. Ahh. My favorite kind.

Attn: Readers

My mother would like you all to know that we are not, in fact, hill folk. Our Christmas decorations were put away a long time ago, during a month that was definitely not April, and any indication to the contrary was merely poetic license. So. Don't discuss us and snicker at your next family gathering.

That being said, I have nothing else to add except I think I bombed a chemistry quiz this afternoon (well, only one question, but it was worth about 45% of the quiz grade so yeah. Bombed.) and I registered! For classes! For my senior year!

Well, almost completely. I got into Renaissance art and architecture in Italy, a comp lit class about gnosticism, intro to Jewish history, the Arab/Israeli conflict, something called Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed but whatever I'd take something called Watching Me Make A Grocery List if Dr. Crain taught it, and, of course, my thesis. Which I keep forgetting about even though it's going to be significantly more work and more nausea-inducing than the rest of them and all I can say is be thankful you don't live with me! Because for those of you that do? Fall is going to be a bumpy couple of months.

I still need to manually add Jews in Wisconsin, because the stupid computer won't let you do more than 18 credits. Pssh. Whatever. So far there are exactly...no people enrolled. I don't think I should have too much trouble getting in.

So. Yes. That was my day. Fascinating, no?

It's a little blasphemous.

My family generally likes St. Joseph. I mean, my parents are pretty convinced that he's the only reason they got married, they only have live children because of St. Joseph's hospital, etc. But for some reason we have not only one, but TWO beheaded St. Joseph statues at our house right now. One met with an unfortunate accident while being taken out of the nativity scene (SHUT UP I know it's April but you know what? Until like last week we were under six feet of snow), and the other? Well, John came downstairs this morning, looked out the door and went, "Oh, my."

Poor St. Joseph. I mean, you were the earthly father of Christ, but it was hardly an easy gig. You put up with the whole virgin birth thing, try to teach the Son of Man to use a hammer, and then aren't even mentioned after the first few chapters of the canonical Gospels. I mean, as long as you're messing with the story, John, why don't you add something about Joe in there, huh?

And then we can't even keep your head on.


St. Joseph? I thought you might like to know that Mary is watching from the other side of the porch and feels very badly for you. And she wants you to know that she's glad you didn't divorce her quietly. She'll try to stop the alarmingly large hawks that come RIGHT UP TO OUR HOUSE from mistaking your head for a small furry creature and stealing it.

I am the grammar snob about whom your mother warned you.

Oh, internets. Did no one else have to diagram sentences for years on end? Or was that just me?

Oh. I think it was actually just me.

Okay.

Thanks, Mom.

Anyway, I'm reading this book written by this woman whose brilliant poetry professor husband left her for some other faculty member and her subsequent almost-mental-breakdown. Just because I want a fun read, you know.

No, really it's because she played Det. Stabler's wife on SVU and I FREAKING LOVE SVU.

Except this woman? Can. Not. Write. Like, for shit. The prose is awkward and she misuses contractions and it's just...bad. I make no claims about my ability to do anything remotely creative. I could not write a story. Academic paper? Sign me up. I will hit that baby out of the park. So I'm not judging her, I just feel like someone, ANYONE, any one of her friends should have attacked this manuscript with a red pen at like the very beginning of the process. Really. It's only polite.

Because if you are going to write a scathing tell-all of how your loser husband dumped you for a freaking poetry professor who looks like Winona Ryder? You had better make your your prepositions are in the right place. He is an English professor, after all.

(Oh, and there was a story about getting a job in academia that made me want to take up drinking a permanent hobby.)

See? THIS is why you never leave a Law and Order. Bad things happen.

Thoughts During an Extra Credit Chemistry Video

Ugh. It's 7:00. I don't want to be here. I'm missing HIMYM for this.

There is like no one else here. How big a dork am I for showing up?

15 points. I would do anything for 15 points. Perky little TA Sandra down there could say that her boyfriend was bugging her and needed somebody to take him out and I'd be like, "Do you provide the weapons?"

Ooh, video guy says "exquisite" like Alan Rickman. *swoon*

ACK! Video guy looks nothing like Alan Rickman.

15 points. Come on. Your GPA is so worth this.

And, okay, now there are...no, there can't be...you can't show that in an educational video...this isn't cable...okay, yep, there is definite nudity there. Oh, ick.

Meh. 15 points.

Come on, you're an actual female. It's not like you've never seen boobs before. Granted, these are large, saggy, native-type boobs, but the general thought is the...okay. No. This is just wrong.

15 points. 15 points. 15 points.

I had better get summa cum laude for this, so help me God.

Video Guy: "Something prophetic about that mid-summer bonfire that I will attempt to conjure in the present." Oh, good. I was worried this would be a dull night.

15 points. 15 points. 15 points.

Video Guy: "Cold, calculating, cantankerous, prim, precise, puritanical..." Did you just learn alliteration, Jim.

Lavoisier perished in the French Revolution, like a good chunk of the entire nation.

Seriously. You have to stop saying "climax". It's freaking me out.

15 points.

And...now they're explaining atomic theory with those balls you use for lawn games.

You know, this would have been a hell of a lot more fun with Simon Schama.

I'm skipping Cuba tomorrow.

And because of that, it's going to be a good day.

Yes, I have a ton to do. Yes, I have five hundred dry Irish history pages to read because everybody bombed the last test and now Dr. Crain is convinced that we're not reading it. Yes, I have to kill two hours after art history and there will only be a wrap place open for an hour of it. Yes, I have to stay on campus until eight for a chem extra credit thing.

But it STILL will be a fantastic day.

Because NO CUBA.

Frick yeah.

Everyone will probably remain fully clothed.

It's been a really long week. I could have gotten together with Mary and Nick tonight, or I could have gone to the dinner dance.

Oh, the dinner dance. Last year was...well, it was amazing. But this year it's actually at church, which will significantly cut down on the drunken reveling. I'm guessing. Wait a minute. Yeah, maybe it won't. That parish likes to party. I saw people I've never seen before at Mass tonight in sequins and enough foundation to make a Boston Store makeup girl weep. They were looking for a great time.

Also, everything was like set up through the narthex and the school hallway and it's all congested and twisty and there's crap hanging from the ceilings and yeah, probably nobody will fall down and expose their...ahem...area to the general public.

(I still want to know what's going through your mind when you think, "Oh, I'm going to a church function. I know! I'M NOT GOING TO WEAR PANTIES!!!" Stupid whore.)

I freaking love drunk people.

But I don't think it would be the same, and like nobody else was going, so I'm doing the significantly more dorky but FUN way and studying Irish history notes and drinking sangria (Carlo Rossi- who I also discovered this morning provides the wine for St. Monica's. I knew I liked that place...). It's a good time.

Oh, I served confirmation this morning despite not actually being a server this morning and the fact that it wasn't actually at my parish. Whatever. It was fun. But their albs were significantly more like priest's albs and less like the loser server ones that we have and damn, I think I have figured out the real problem facing today's clergy. It's not celibacy or the sex abuse scandal- it's the fact that those albs are ridiculously unflattering.

Except maybe it's just if you're busty. Which shouldn't be a problem, I guess. Hmm. So maybe it's just a problem for post-pubescent female alter servers.

Fanfreakingtastic

Oh, internets. It is 7:26. And it is NOT a good day already. I was lazy this morning and didn't do anything I was supposed to, opting instead to sleep until the last possible minute. So I feel like schlub. Then I get out to car and realize that I don't have keys. No worries. The keys are probably inside.

Except wait.

The Empress may have taken them a week ago to go to work and not returned them (NOT being snarky to the Empress, I should have asked for them.)

Okay. We must have another set.

Oh. Right. With my dad. Who is in the other car (to which I am holding TWO sets of keys right now) en route to UWM.

This? Is not good.

So now I get to carpool down to my advising appointment, where I will undoubtedly be told to take summer school to finished the double major that I can't afford and I looked online this morning and Borders didn't even bother to deposit a check because do you know how much money I made in the last two weeks NOTHING THAT'S HOW MUCH but I love Borders and I keep hoping things are going to get better and I don't want to quit!!!

*headdesk*

Exciting times at Chez Morena

Me: What are you doing?

Colleen: Writing a note. On my hand.

Me: About what?

Colleen: Dixie cups.

Maybe my thesis will begin with, "So, have you seen that movie Keeping the Faith? With Edward Norton?"

It's official. As of this afternoon, I am over methods class. Any tender feelings I may have had because of my lovely secondary sources note have disappeared and I feel that failing out and becoming a full-time gelato chef or something would be preferable to finished this paper.

No, I didn't just write my entire analysis of the David Frost and Richard Nixon 28-hour interview based on a two-second portion of the Frost/Nixon movie trailer. Pssh. That would be irresponsible. I'm a serious academic here.

Except I totally did.

Who's an asset to any MA program now, Dr. Austin?

Baby of the Eighties

So...I did totally post something last night, but it appears that the internets ate it. Oh well. It wasn't very interesting. It was more academic angst, because I just realized that hey! I've kind of totally already completed the religious studies major! And I'm kind of totally going to graduate school for religious studies. So it kind of totally makes sense to, oh, I don't know, declare the religious studies major. That involves like way more weird classes and summer school and oh, hey, I never applied for financial aid for summer school because I don't take summer school and whatever, I just want a glass of wine.

The real post I was going to put up was about this absolutely amazing book I've been reading, Signs of the Times. I picked it up because it's subtitled "Understanding the Church Since Vatican II" and I'm planning on spending most of next year attempting to understand the Church since Vatican II- it seemed appropriate. It's less of a history than I would have liked, and more of a collection of theological studies by Fr. Richard Gilsdorf , who was actually from Green Bay.

In it, he describes himself as a "Vatican II liberal", which I found really interesting because I was talking with my advisor about how way too often, particularly in the United States, the whole Vatican II thing ends up being broken up into a whole liberal/conservative thing, and that's completely unfounded.

Like Fr. Gilsdorf points out, why do you need to be liberal or conservative? Why can't you be "as liberal as the pope and as conservative as the pope?" Why can't you just love the Church and want her to be the best she can be?

I really think that you can. All to often, the whole "dissenting" thing is just ridiculous. Those who dissent, such as Andrew Greeley (Gilsdorf calls him a heterodox, which makes me laugh. I've read Greeley, and my humble opinion? He's just mad he can't get laid.), don't really understand the theology behind the issue. If they did, they would see that there is always a reason, and it's usually a good reason, too. It's been five hundred years since we've had any "because I said so" theology. The Pope does have the highest position within the church. He is the highest servant of Christ. But precisely because he is the highest servant of Christ, he is the most humble, in Christ's own image.

Obviously, we've had crappy Popes. But I'm talking big picture.

And too often the whole Vatican II issue ends up being turned into a weird political thing. Like those who wanted the Church kept like she was before Vatican II are conservative (or orthodox) and those who like the changes are liberal and want to ordain women.

I was born in the late eighties. I've never heard Mass in Latin. I'm incredibly thankful for Vatican II. I thin it's amazing that a council was called to make the Church better and stronger. I really like Mass in the vernacular. I really like that there are lay ministers. I like that girls are alter servers now. I like Communion in hand (although Gilsdorf, writing in 1974, kind of freaks out about that). I have never been in a traditional confessional- I've always gone to a reconciliation room, and rarely did I use the screen. (Also as '70s-era Gildorf freaks out about- I don't think the advent of the the "reconciliation room" led to any increase in rampant illicit sex. Honestly. I've felt uncomfortable in confession before, but never like that. Really. Grow up.)

But I'm incredibly orthodox. I will tow the party line. I believe that sex is an expression of love within marriage and this is not supposed to keep us from having fun but rather to make marriage as an institution stronger. I think marriage is for life. If I were married, I wouldn't be using artificial birth control. It's not that I don't think about the teachings of the Church, but I generally agree with them.

So anyway, this was long. And it didn't really have a point, except that oversimplification is bad.

Oh, and apparently Milwaukee under Archbishop Cousins was a crazy hotbed of weirdness? Like polka masses and stuff? Would any of my mature readers like to comment on this, because again, I've never seen a chapel veil.

Oh, shut up. I worked on my papers a little bit too.

I had a day off today (Stop snickering. It's not my fault that there are no hours available at work.), and we didn't even go to Grandaps (I think the Goof-Off fumes were still making us all sick). So after I got home from Mass at like ten (Newbie goes FAST), I had nothing of consequence to do.

Thank God for cable. USA was running a marathon of Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Ooh. Settled in to watch that for a few hours. Ate lunch. Watched a few more hours. Sadly, it went off at five. *tear* But lo! Bravo had an evening marathon of Criminal Intent! I could get my Major Case Squad uninterrupted, y'all. And then! That most sacred of events, the season premiere was on at eight.

So. Today I've watched like eight hours of CI. This is a little embarrassing. But I have formed a few opinions.

I want to be friends with Eames. She is amazing, and I love her.

Goren's mom is a whack job, but their scenes together make me want to cry.

I much prefer Goren/Eames to Chris Noth's storyline.

I ship Goren/Eames like WHOA. By two o'clock this afternoon I was throwing small pillows at the screen and yelling, "SERIOUSLY MAKE OUT ALREADY!"

They never made out. It makes me a little bit sad.

I also prefer the new captain, whose name I'm forgetting. If only because he played Satan in a play that My Favorite Jesuit (which is saying something, because the Jesuits tend to bug me) and Colbert Report Chaplain Fr. James Martin wrote about in one of his books.

If your stepmom/brother/father/cousin is being evasive? Incest. Always incest.

Same goes for your real mom.

Oh, how I love this show.

Suburbia

Okay. So people my age are supposed to be all anti-establishment, urban, up with youth.

I'm not.

I spent two hours at a Starbucks on Farwell and Brady yesterday while my mom was at lunch, and by the end I really, really wanted to get back to Grafton. Well, at least until I realized that Hot TA lived (or at least used to live) on Farwell, and I LOVED Hot TA so much...

This afternoon I went for a walk in Grandpa's neighborhood because there was nothing to do except yard work and I HATE yard work like, for real. And it was so pretty! There were trees and little streets and it was just pretty. I was made for the suburbs.

Except one thing. All men of Fox Point? Just because it's the first warm day since September doesn't mean that you can work outside without your shirt on. Trust me. No one wants to see that.

For reals?

Dude. This blog is officially 1000 posts old. I know, right? 1000 posts of my inane drivel. I applaud those of you who are still reading. Also, thanks for sharing my mitochondrial DNA.

I feel as though I should have something massive to talk about because 1000 posts! That's HUGE. But I don't really. Instead, I'm going to talk about Facebook.

My account was closed for maintenance for a few hours this afternoon, and I could not log in. This disturbed me greatly. What if someone needed to get in touch with me? What if someone had put up fun pictures? What if I needed to "like" something???

I began thinking of status updates and feeling frustratingly impotent when I couldn't put them up.

"Kathleen wonders why Facebook won't let her on."

"Kathleen hates Facebook."

"Kathleen should be writing her paper."

"Kathleen hates footnotes."

"Kathleen wonders if she even exists if her Facebook page is down..."

It was a dark moment of the soul, readers.

There was a time that I actually talked to people.

It was a while ago.

Thankfully, I was allowed to log in late this afternoon. Whew. That was close. I almost resorted to Twitter because MY GOD WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF NO ONE KNOWS WHAT I'M THINKING RIGHT THIS SECOND!?!?!?

All is well now. There are even picture from the Easter Vigil on now. There was boxed wine. It was good.

Very Important Scholarly Work.

Eamon de Valera: Michael? I need to talk to you for a minute.

Michael Collins: But my show is on!

Eamon de Valera: Michael. Now.

Michael Collins: Fine. What is it?

Eamon de Valera: I have a very big job for you. I'm going to be very busy for awhile, and I need you to go to London for me. You need to go to this address, and talk to these nice men, and you need to tell them to shove their Government of Ireland Act up their asses. Do you understand?

Michael Collins: I guess...

Eamon de Valera: Really? You go there. You listen. You come home. You absolutely do not sign anything. Do you understand me?

Michael Collins: Yep. No signing.

Eamon de Valera: What do you do if they give you a pen?

Michael Collins: No signing.

Eamon de Valera: What do you do if they tell you your pompadour is pretty?

Michael Collins: No signing.

Eamon de Valera: Okay. You can go. Take Arthur with you.

***

Winston Churchill: Michael! You look amazing! I love your hair!

Michael Collins: *blushes*

David Lloyd George: We need to talk about this whole Government of Ireland Act thing. You know, Britain has so many more...um...liquidated assets...and we will be able to help you with the...um...GNP...and the CDC...and the CSI...and we really just need you to sign this.

Michael Collins: That sounds like a good idea to me. Big words! I love big words! Do you have a pen?

Arthur Griffith: Um, Michael? Hey, Michael? Yeah, see, Eamon told us not to sign. He kind of scares me. Just a little bit.

Michael Collins: Oh, Arthur. Grow a pair. Give him a pen, too, boys.

***

Michael Collins: Eamon? We need to talk.

Eamon de Valera: I so should have just stayed in prison.

Isaac Mizrahi never got to Lenin.

Today in the Class of the Damned Cuban history we talked about this Newsweek article that discussed the possibility of closing Guantanamo Bay as a base, but reopening it (still as US territory) as a free-trade outpost, complete with a Wal-Mart.

One of the ever-concerned and totally-in-touch-with-reality bleeding hearts in the class raised their little liberal hand and asked if honestly? Would the Cuban people really want that that much? Why would they want the corruption of capitalism?

To which my reply is...wait until they get a Target.

Target? Would change Leon frickin' Trotsky into a capitalist.

No, I didn't want to become a prostitute. But there is a beautiful gray brocade scarf that I can't afford and really want and if hooking at a truck stop would get it for me? I AM THERE. Even after fifty years of Grandpa Fidel and his no, really! You don't want meat! It's bad for you! This is much healthier! I'm fairly certain that Target and it's glorious reasonably priced and totally mix-and-matchable misses department? Would tempt the Cubans away from their superior socialist system.

Also. Scarves look fantastic on people with deeper skin tones.

Historians are academics that don't play well with others.

This morning I'm rushing around feeling inferior because, well, it's a school day, when I realize that I have a whole two minutes to spare. Well! I could read the paper. Yes, that is a good idea. After I claw through the ZOMG ARCHBISHOP DOLAN DON'T LEAVE NOES!!! articles and giggle a little bit because our priest shows up in the background of like every single picture of him and that makes me laugh for some reason, I come across a lovely article about yet another way UWM is interested in screwing their students over.

Because apparently it's not enough to cut staff, cut class offerings, raise tuition, crash the e-mail server (No one uses e-mail, right? I mean, hardly ever.), and have like two parking spaces. No, it gets better. See, if you manage to stick it out at this sucking black hole of death for the requisite number of years/suicide attempts to get a doctorate, you get to go to graduation to receive said PhD.

Then you have the privilege of renting the gown and hood for over $300, or buying it for almost $800. So if you'd like to keep this hood that for some people *cough*me*cough* means more than food, water, sex, or children, you have to buy it. For $800.

HATE THE WORLD.

And it's not even an attractive gown. Emily said it looked like a bumblebee, and yes, it totally does. A bumblebee that will be paying student loans until they die.

At least Marquette's is reasonable priced. I would not want to do that twice.

Meanwhile, my methods professor is the head of the graduate department in history and told us yesterday that this year the number of applicants had more than doubled, from about 35 to 70. Okay. Objectively, I'm usually pretty high up there in terms of academics when you put me in a group of 35. 70? NOTSOMUCH.

So now I probably won't even get the opportunity to purchase my ridiculous-looking and unbelievably expensive hood.

*headdesk*

So I'm the owner of Wedgewood china...

Very few things will make me laugh when I'm scraping someone else's old potato off of the pattern on a piece of china at 5:00 in the morning, but yeah, T-Money is one of them.

Oh, intenets. It has been a LONG day. I've got nothing.

Stein Optical hired a hot doctor (wedding ring...boo). I'm only going on Mondays from now on.

I've spent entirely too much money on Starbucks today, once helping Colleen study instead of studying for my own exam.

I cannot keep the politics of Middle Eastern oil straight. At all. Palestine? I'm good. WWII? Got it. Even the whole Turks and Armenians thing. 1.7 million massacred and they never apologized, bastards. But oil? I cannot remember the damn company names or the chronology or whatever, I can't afford a car, why do I care? If that is the big essay, I am seriously going to start to cry. It will not be pretty.

That is all.

These are the Cubs, right?

Why. Why at every family party must we watch baseball? It just makes me feel inferior. The few times I've actually gone to a game, I've been able to follow it. I felt ridiculously proud of myself, because I was able to keep the whole "run=point" thing straight in my head (CALL IT A POINT, DAMMIT), but on TV? Meh, notsomuch.

Maybe those are just the manhattans. I do so love a good manhattan.

Meanwhile, I'm going to fail art history tomorrow. Easter weekend? SUCKS as a time to study. Just letting you all know. It's up at 5 o'clock tomorrow again...

Shouldn't have worried.

So, it's been a year. And most of us are still alive. We had an Easter Vigil. We played hopscotch. And even if Colleen decided she was too old for the monkey bars, Mary and I still had a good time on them.

And Keelin even came! Keelin obviously needs to change parishes, because we are way more fun than Our Lady of Good Hope. At least I'm guessing. I don't really know. I've never hung out at their Easter Vigil.

So there was significantly less crying than last time, but there was significantly more boxed wine. While it may not be tradition that Daddy and John attend, this means that someone else gets to drive the car. New tradition!!!

Ookay. While tonight's party may have been shorter than others in the past (I'm looking at you, shoes-are-optional-after-midnight year), tomorrow is going to come really early. Happy Easter everybody!

Dear Guy Standing Behind Me at Church Today:

Hi! It's me. The redhead in front of you who is trying not to turn around and glare at you. Yeah. Me.

See. I actually belong to, oh, we'll call it Parish A. So I know what you're talking about when you say that you went to Parish A two years ago for Good Friday, and did not enjoy the service. In fact, you thought it was a little weird. That you think it's a little weird that they've adapted certain aspects of it here. I was there. It was not weird. It was reverent. There's a difference. And, except for our baptismal font/jacuzzi, we're pretty damn reverent.

And I get that we're at Parish B. You have every right to expect exactly the same service you've had your entire 50/60 years (I'm trying not to look/glare at you, remember?), and are probably miffed that things changed a little bit because today's youth don't find the prospect of a life filled with incense and celibacy the most exciting thing ever. But here's the thing. Half of the people here? Are from Parish A. So SHHHHH.

Seriously. Have the decency to wait until you get to the car to tear things apart.

Honestly.

Not that I did that.

Totally not.

Love,
Kathleen

Tantum Ergo

I freaking love Latin. And incense. And kneeling. You sit me at a Holy Thursday Mass? I am thrilled.

Except I mispronounce everything. I learned classical Latin at a Lutheran school, so all my v's sound like w's and my mouth is incapable of forming a soft c sound. Grrr. Dr. Wilmeth ruined me for the triduum.

Now I really want to go back to Latin. I kind of miss it- I loved it so much and I actually didn't suck at it horribly (well, at least until participles.) I need to take either Latin or Greek (or Hebrew, but ha! We saw how Russian went.) for my theoretical theology degree, so maybe we'll do Latin. Yep. Definitely.

Maybe at a Catholic university they'll teach me to say the "v" sound.

This is why the IRA has any funding at all.

I tend to not side with the Catholic community in the whole Northern Ireland conflict thing. I don't really side with the unionists either, but I think both sides needed to just chill the frick out and things would have been okay a whole lot sooner. Nonetheless, after spending several weeks researching Bloody Sunday, I've definitely come down on behalf of the nationalists. I don't know how you can not. I mean, really. Are you going to decide to support the guy shooting at the priest giving last rights to the 17-year-old kid you just mortally wounded? I think not.

Anyway, I was watching the movie Bloody Sunday this morning, a "dramatization" of the "actual" events. Uh-huh. They were suggesting that the British army pre-planned the whole massacre.

I almost dropped my mascara brush (Yes, the only time I have to watch movies is while I get dressed in the morning. Primetime is all CBS, all the time.). Oh, hell no. Now, I will give you that the British screwed up royally in the planning of the military deployment here. The fact that 1 Para was there at all was the most dangerous move ever. And what the individual soldiers or whomever actually ordered them to start shooting (and here's the thing- we don't know if there ever was an order at all- there is no record of it in the transcripts) are despicable. But the British government did not decide going in that they were going to start murdering teenagers.

Oh, my brothers. Why do you have to be so inflammatory?

Cleverly masquerading as an adult.

Today I met with the guy I was hoping would be my thesis advisor to talk about possible topics and generally kill half an hour because yeah, I have nothing else to do like three tests next week and a term paper, no my schedule is totally open, thanks.

Anyway, we talked about topics and how this all would work and a little about John Paul II and yeah, then he starts talking about how I should probably finish the paper in March and hand it into the reading committee.

The what now?

Apparently, I need to pick two other faculty members to be on my committee and grade me. Two faculty members that can even be from another university.

(I'm 21. I work at a bookstore. Do you think I hang out with a lot of tenure-track people? Can I ask Dr. Crain? He likes me. Can I ask my mom? She has a doctorate. She likes me even more. Although she actually graded me harder when she was homeschooling me than Dr. Crain does now. Hmm. Maybe I'll stick with T-Money.)

Yeah...so then it occurs to me, do I have to defend this thing? But as soon as that sentence passes my lips I realize it sounds completely whiny. So I add, "Not that I would have a problem with that, I mean, it would be great experience! *big smile*" And he responds, "I'm not sure, but I think you will have to. But you seem like the kind of person who wouldn't have a problem with that."

Oh. Oh. Haha. You obviously don't know me very well, do you?

Three hours ago I literally had to lay my head down on my desk because I was worried about a paper grade. I have one outstanding grade currently and I'm really freaking out about it, and when I saw the professor in the hallway this afternoon it required more self-control that I'd like to admit to stop myself from throwing my sobbing self at him asking if he could like at least please just tell me it's an A. I don't need any more information than that. Blink once, I swear!

Yep. Totally wouldn't have a problem defending a thesis TWO YEARS before I had planned on it.

Meanwhile, the blog posts a year from now should be fantastic. So, you know, stay tuned for that.

And if you know anyone with a worthless Ph.D. who wants to read my thoughts on Vatican II and smile encouragingly at me after I crawl out of the fetal position in the corner, tell them to friend me on Facebook.

I still want an iPhone.

I had bad luck with alarm clocks. They tended to not actually alarm. This is a bad thing. I don't think I've ever actually missed anything, mostly because I'm pretty sure during my teenage years I didn't have anything to get up for (oh, wait, except that 7:00 AM Latin class with the Lutheran seminarians. Yeah. Great time for a 17-year-old Catholic girl. I was made to feel inferior and way more interesting than any of them at the same time!), but I dislike waking up in a panic because you know you should have been up an hour ago.

So when I got an iPod a few years ago, I got an iHome alarm clock base. It was lovely. It had the cute little docking station, because only plebeians recharge their iPods on the computer, pssh. It had a graduated alarm, the first beeping just lightly rustling you from slumber before getting really obnoxious later. And I could awake to any song I so programmed. (Never mind that I've only done this twice in the three years I've had it because it turns out that it's a hell of a lot easier to sleep through Josh Groban than incessant wailing ala a fire alarm.) It even has a little daylight savings time switch, so I don't even have to burden my pointer finger spinning the dial an hour forward or back.

(It also cost enough that it by rights should wake me with coffee and a muffin and maybe Johnny Depp telling me how much he likes watching me sleep...whatever, it was a gift.)

One teensy weensy little baby problem. After an hour of hitting the snooze button, the alarm just resets.

Now, I know what you're thinking. What the hell are you doing hitting the snooze button for an hour? Okay. A normal person might not do that. But I'm hardly normal. (Stop laughing.) I have a ton of stuff to theoretically do in the morning, and so I am supposed to get up at 4:30 during the week. This allows me to do laundry, clean the house, unload the dishwasher, do Pilates, and maybe even comb my hair before leaving with the Artist Formerly Known as the Boy at 7:10 7:00 (there was some issue with clarification this morning.) I know, right? Exciting.

Anyhoodles, this works about half the time usually. The other two days I end up cracking my eyes open at 4:30 and deciding hell, I'm single. Why shouldn't I be fat too? The frick would convince me to get on a treadmill at this hour? So I hit the snooze until a more appropriate hour like 5:30, which would still give me time to get the laundry in (it waits for no one.)

Except Apple decided that if I didn't want to get up at 4:30, apparently I don't want to get up at all. Now, I don't know about you, but if I've been hitting the snooze button for an hour? I really, really need to be awake. Like, maybe the alarm clock could get up and maybe throw something heavy at my head or something. The whole point of the snooze button is that you can hit it while you're still kind of asleep, and certainly not counting the number of times it has buzzed.

You dropped the ball on this one, Steves Jobs and Wozniak.

But I still really want an iPhone.

Because you obviously need more Facebook status updates.

I'm sending my credit card bill to my parents.

I was dumped at Wal-Mart this afternoon while my dad when grocery shopping. Right here, you can see this will be a problem. Dad is not good with the budgeting time. I would be lucky if I got home in enough time to get to school tomorrow morning. But no! He assured us that he would go quickly, and we would probably still be looking for jeans when he got back.

(YES I buy my jeans at Wal-Mart. Whatever. I'm poor and they're cute. My stylist to whom I'm paying good money to make me feel inferior told me they were cute.)

Ostensibly I was supposed to be helping the Empress find jeans. She left the store with no jeans. I left the store with jeans, a sweater, lipgloss, hair clips, a headband, pretty, comfy mary janes, South Beach snack bars, and a hair straightener.

The sweater was $10. And I refuse to pay anything over $10 for anything white because I am a klutz with bionic sweat. White doesn't last long in my world. (This is why I want a black wedding dress.)

(Well, that and the fact that I look like a whale in pictures and this is the one day of my life I will want pictures.)

(Too bad I'm one of the approximately three women remaining in the US who can legitimately wear a white dress.)

Daddy still wasn't done when we were finished in clothes. So we wandered to cosmetics. I tried to convince the Empress that she would look good in some imperial lipstick. She suggested that because she looked like a slob most of the time, everyone would know that she was wearing it. Then I realized that they stocked my shade of lipgloss! The shade that usually Walgreens only has because no one else stocks the entire range of Maybelline Super Lustrous Lipgloss. N00bs.

Then we wandered to hair stuff. Clip that held thick hair? In the cart arms (we forgot a cart). Pretty filigree headband for only two dollars? Arms.

Food was right across the aisle, and Colleen wanted to comparison shop the South Beach meal bars. They didn't have her kind, but I will be noshing on a lovely 120-calorie mocha bar tomorrow.

Still hadn't called.

We couldn't believe we hadn't looked at shoes yet, so we mosied on over there. And lo! They had adorable little almost flat mary janes that would be so cute for when I just don't feel like the four-inch heels.

Still no call.

I had a flash of brilliance! I have spent months and tons of money trying to find a hair straightener as good as Colleen's. The day she moved into the dorm and took it away from me was a dark, sad day. But they no longer stock it at Target (my white trash store of choice). Why not check here?

You saw this one coming, didn't you?

They had it! So obviously, need. Duh.

It's a damn good thing he called then, because I might have gotten new bedding.

Inappropriate

Johnny Depp voices a character on Spongebob Squarepants.

Please excuse me as I attempt to quell only the second-most inappropriate reaction I've had to a children's series.

My fourth son will be named "Widgery".

After James Chichester-Clark, Charles Pomeroy Stone, and Pliny Fisk.

They will be beaten so hard.

Oh, internets. I have spent the last three days immersed in tribunal reports, and criticisms of tribunal reports and eyewitness reports and grainy bootleg video footage of Bloody Sunday and I think it's starting to affect my brain. This morning I was reading a theory that someone proposed that there were actually two groups shooting- the 1 Para group that everybody knows, but also a military presence at Derry's Walls. There was never any mention of the second shooters (haha, conspiracy!) in the official tribunal or any other contemporary literature, but there is actually considerable agreement in some of the eyewitness statements, and the fact that three men were killed right next to each other, all with 45 degree downward trajectories makes it kind of attractive.

I got really excited and then I realized that I seriously needed to chill out and spent an hour watching grainy bootleg footage of Eleventh Hour instead.

After I wipe the drool off my keyboard, I need to get started on the fifty-page 1o-point font 1997 analysis of the original tribunal report. Thank you, Tony Blair. Without you commissioning this lovely report I would have nothing to do this Friday night! Thank God the current commission (oh yes, there's even one going on now) has gotten a teensy bit behind and won't release their report until 2010 at the earliest.

Just in time for thesis research!

A fantastaic night of television.

I mean, no, there's not Office becasue we really need five straight hours of ER retrospective. However, Eleventh Hour is finally back, if only for a week (*tear* I want the DVDs. Now, please.), and God knows I'd watch that guy read a phone book. (Which is actually sometimes better than the storylines sometimes!)

And Rory Gilmore is playing an intern on ER.

Oh, this is good.

CSI: Londonderry

Oh, internets. I spent today reading the report of the Bloody Sunday inquiry tribunal. The inquiry tribunal appointed by the British government. The same British government that signed the paychecks of the guys who opened fire on a bunch of teenagers who were running away.

I wouldn't call myself a nationalist. I tend to be nauseatingly middle-of-the-road and my whole conflict resolution theory (for any conflict, really) is sit down and shut the hell up I will show you real problems.

However. I read the report. Granted, it's only about 50 pages, but it took me a while because I had to stop occasionally a retch. I've watched all the BBC footage that the government has released. I read eyewitness reports compiled shortly after the event. And I must say that it seems pretty clear to me. None of the victims were shooting. No guns were found. No bombs were found. Some had gunpowder on their arms or around their wounds, but that would be pretty easily explained by BEING SHOT AT. And most of them were shot in the back, usually in a crouched position. Everyone agrees. Not a single civilian there (unionist or nationalist) said that they saw ANYONE with a gun.

Huh.

The conclusion of the report reads, "there is no reason to believe that the soldiers opened fire first". Really? Really? What, exactly, were all these teenage boys shooting at you with, huh? Because no guns were found on them. And there's videotape. Videotape with crowds running away and people screaming at the soldiers to stop shooting. Yet, it's all the Catholics' fault?

Of course it is. My God.

However, at one point the guy writing the report was talking about how there was no way to tell which bullet came from which rifle, and I totally thought, "CSI could do it. If Grissom had been Derry in 1972, this would have all worked out much better and maybe the IRA wouldn't have gained sympathy power."

Yep. Conflict resolution. Totally my thing.