I got up at 3:00am my time this morning to watch the Royal Wedding. (I think you get arrested by beefeaters or something if you don't capitalize that.) The fact that I can do this with no ill effects is one of the myriad of benefits of being an unemployed college student.
It's also the perfect opportunity to get up in the middle of the night and have exactly two cups of coffee that would have been embarrassingly plain and in no way appropriate for a Royal Wedding if I hadn't served it to myself in a silver-rimmed coffee mug (which renders any cup of coffee immediately ineligible for microwave reheat, because of the metal rim) and with the honey coffee creamer that my friend Sue turned me onto. Two points here. The addition of the honey creamer and the special coffee cup instantly renders my coffee frou-frou and Royal Wedding Appropriate. And Sue is not my only friend, contrary to what this blog might suggest. She's just the friend who has the most influence on my daily choices of food and beverage. Oh, also I'm having an embarrassingly huge and tasty chocolate-chip muffin. Anything less would be horribly low-claaass.
I have a history of plopping myself down in front of the TV for events that I feel are somehow "historical." This dates all the way back to 1981, when I can remember lying in bed with my mother, watching another Royal Wedding (it's actually one of my earliest memories). Since then, I've made a point to watch things like the OJ Simpson verdict, That One Time When Prince Charles Had To Give Hong Kong Back To The Chinese, Princess Diana's funeral, Michael Jackson's funeral, Barack Obama's Inauguration, and all sorts of shock and awe. (Probably, I watched other memorable occasions in history, but they can't have been too memorable, or I'd have remembered them here, wouldn't I.) I will absolutely admit to sobbing like a baby throughout the two funerals mentioned above and also the inauguration.
I did not watch any of the lead-up to the wedding, not even the Lifetime movie, because I don't care about any of that. It's not the love story I'm watching here, because I'm essentially a cold-hearted reptile. I'm in it for the history, people. The history.
We're only at the "arriving" stage, which is startlingly like the Oscars, except that nobody stops on the red carpet to talk to the press. I'm watching this totally alone in my living room, as the rest of my very sane family is still sleeping. I'm pretty sure that M1, like any other nine-year-old girl, wishes that she could be up with me right now, but she has school today, so I get to watch it blissfully alone, muttering to myself ("Oh, William and Harry look so handsome!" and "Wow, that outfit is unfortunate." [That last one is directed to Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, who I sort of hate for no good reason at all.]) and stuffing my face with muffin and frou-frou coffee.
The one issue I have to address at this time, given that the wedding hasn't even started, is the wearing of completely bizarre hats. I realize that this is some sort of British tradition, but WTF. I'm looking at you, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. I can't ever tell the two of them apart (I mean, I know they look different, but I don't know which is which), but one or the other of them looks like she has a huge logic puzzle stapled to her forehead, and the other one looks like she has an explosion of feathers occurring on the very top of her head. Piers Morgan on CNN has informed me that this is called a fascinator. I'm certainly fascinated by it. I could probably stare at it for hours. And if I did, it might just tell me the secrets of the universe and blow my fucking mind.
While I totally understand that if I'm socially-aware and whatnot, I shouldn't be watching this (what with all the unemployed people in Britain and the fact that the very same nation spent millions upon millions of pounds/Euros/whatever on this event and all), I'm still going to watch it. And I'm going to enjoy it. And I'm going to weep copiously. I have tissues all ready.
In fact, I will totally cop to tears when William and Harry arrived, because they look so handsome. The tears weren't even a little bit about how sad it is that their mom can't be there today. And maybe I like tears with my middle-of-the-night historical event watching. Don't you judge me.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Updates of Many Things!
Sneaky Lizard Update!
He has not been spotted at my house, but the other morning when I was leaving in the early hours to go to Algebra class, the clarion call had apparently been heard, because there were about four types of lizard on my front porch. I ran on my tiptoes out of the house, squealing like a little girl under my breath so as not to wake up M2, whose window I was right outside. And as I was squealing my way to my car, I ran face-first directly into a giant spiderweb. Sometimes, I think God put me on Earth to entertain Him. If so, I hope the resultant gyrations satisfied my purpose on Earth this week.
Algebra Class Update!
I got a 44 on my most recent algebra test. In my defense, my new baby niece was born last Thursday, and I spent Wednesday night through Friday evening in South Texas, staying with my 13-month-old nephew while my sister-in-law was in the hospital. So that put a crimp in my studying time. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I don't know what the rest of the class's excuse is, though, because a 44 was the fourth highest grade in the class. The highest grade was a 66 (two people had that), and the next-highest was a 53. Then there was me. I should elaborate on this.
I totally knew I was bombing the test while I was bombing it. I could not get my brain to function, and promptly had a huge panic attack in the middle of the test. I finally stopped torturing myself and turned in my test without even trying a bunch of the problems. And then I immediately went home and cried in the bed until it was time to get the kids from school, skipping Radio and TV entirely. Which was actually okay, because the Radio and TV guy didn't care. So I felt guilty all day Monday for no reason. This has actually happened to me before - in 2000, when I took this class the first time. I bombed a test and left the testing center in tears, only to run into my high school algebra teacher in the hallway (NO LIE), who asked me what was wrong and then gave me a hug when I told her and said "Well, you always were a mess when it came to tests." Nice to know I made a good impression on you, Miss Cooley. Turned out that everybody in that class bombed that test, too, so she curved it. I'm wondering now if maybe it was the same part of the subject matter. Maybe rational expressions just are not for me.
The Final Exam is on May 9th. Our instructor passed out the review packet today, and I feel pretty doggone good about it. There are only about three rational expression questions, so I should be just fine. I'm still going to study like a madwoman, and I sort of want to get a hotel room for the weekend so I can just hole up with my dear friend algebra and have a weekend-long tryst that will result in a good grade. After the test, I'll have two weeks (srsly) until Intermediate Algebra begins. And then in the Fall semester, College Algebra. So two more semesters of this. Le sigh.
Punctuation Matters!
It's amazing what a difference a hyphen can make.
"I am so sick of these stupid-ass hairs getting in my mouth."
OR
"I am so sick of these stupid ass-hairs getting in my mouth."
Misplace the hyphen at your peril.
He has not been spotted at my house, but the other morning when I was leaving in the early hours to go to Algebra class, the clarion call had apparently been heard, because there were about four types of lizard on my front porch. I ran on my tiptoes out of the house, squealing like a little girl under my breath so as not to wake up M2, whose window I was right outside. And as I was squealing my way to my car, I ran face-first directly into a giant spiderweb. Sometimes, I think God put me on Earth to entertain Him. If so, I hope the resultant gyrations satisfied my purpose on Earth this week.
Algebra Class Update!
I got a 44 on my most recent algebra test. In my defense, my new baby niece was born last Thursday, and I spent Wednesday night through Friday evening in South Texas, staying with my 13-month-old nephew while my sister-in-law was in the hospital. So that put a crimp in my studying time. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I don't know what the rest of the class's excuse is, though, because a 44 was the fourth highest grade in the class. The highest grade was a 66 (two people had that), and the next-highest was a 53. Then there was me. I should elaborate on this.
I totally knew I was bombing the test while I was bombing it. I could not get my brain to function, and promptly had a huge panic attack in the middle of the test. I finally stopped torturing myself and turned in my test without even trying a bunch of the problems. And then I immediately went home and cried in the bed until it was time to get the kids from school, skipping Radio and TV entirely. Which was actually okay, because the Radio and TV guy didn't care. So I felt guilty all day Monday for no reason. This has actually happened to me before - in 2000, when I took this class the first time. I bombed a test and left the testing center in tears, only to run into my high school algebra teacher in the hallway (NO LIE), who asked me what was wrong and then gave me a hug when I told her and said "Well, you always were a mess when it came to tests." Nice to know I made a good impression on you, Miss Cooley. Turned out that everybody in that class bombed that test, too, so she curved it. I'm wondering now if maybe it was the same part of the subject matter. Maybe rational expressions just are not for me.
The Final Exam is on May 9th. Our instructor passed out the review packet today, and I feel pretty doggone good about it. There are only about three rational expression questions, so I should be just fine. I'm still going to study like a madwoman, and I sort of want to get a hotel room for the weekend so I can just hole up with my dear friend algebra and have a weekend-long tryst that will result in a good grade. After the test, I'll have two weeks (srsly) until Intermediate Algebra begins. And then in the Fall semester, College Algebra. So two more semesters of this. Le sigh.
Punctuation Matters!
It's amazing what a difference a hyphen can make.
"I am so sick of these stupid-ass hairs getting in my mouth."
OR
"I am so sick of these stupid ass-hairs getting in my mouth."
Misplace the hyphen at your peril.
Death of a US History Professor
Last Wednesday, I went to US History class, after sitting around at the bar at the golf course on campus (no joke - it is not as glamorous as it sounds, but it does have some really good french fries) with Brian, one of the guys from my class. We were waiting for our US History professor. We planned to buy him beers and ingratiate ourselves so that he would like our term papers and give us As. He never showed up, so we just talked for an hour or so and went to class.
Upon our arrival, the guy who teaches the class before our class was still at the front of the room. He wasn't packing up. He was just hanging out. After a few of us got there, he says "I'm sorry to tell you - your prof died over the weekend."
Oh. That would be why he never turned up at the bar.
I, like the idiot that I am, said "Are you serious?" Because really, is a seventy-something-year-old man going to joke about something like that? I know I wouldn't, if I were seventy-something, because I'd always be afraid that Death was standing over my shoulder, ready to make an example of me and my flip ass. So, yes. He was totally serious. We have absolutely no details (and I even looked up the obituary - it's just a death notice), so we have no idea what happened. We did discover that he had a wife. I had heard he had a French girlfriend. He may have had both. Wily old bastard.
Understandably, the new guy was baffled at our class rules. He just kept saying to himself "open book tests?!" as if we had told him that the professor had taught our class wearing reindeer antlers and a fuschia-pink serape. We did manage to convince him to keep our open-book test, and to keep our attendance-free policy, because it wasn't fair to the people who had developed expectations of the class based on the syllabus. (We like to call those people Test Day people, because that's the only time we see them.) I'm going to class today just to see what it's like.
While I thought he was a horrible history professor, he was a pretty nice guy. And I'm so sorry to hear of his passing. I feel really badly for his wife, and possibly his girlfriend, if he had one. And his kids, which I know he had, because he told me about them once. But I can't help but be glad that, if he's in heaven now, he's got all the facts straight. And also, if he's up there, he's probably read this blog. Sorry for making fun of you so much, Miller, but really - you deserved it.
Upon our arrival, the guy who teaches the class before our class was still at the front of the room. He wasn't packing up. He was just hanging out. After a few of us got there, he says "I'm sorry to tell you - your prof died over the weekend."
Oh. That would be why he never turned up at the bar.
I, like the idiot that I am, said "Are you serious?" Because really, is a seventy-something-year-old man going to joke about something like that? I know I wouldn't, if I were seventy-something, because I'd always be afraid that Death was standing over my shoulder, ready to make an example of me and my flip ass. So, yes. He was totally serious. We have absolutely no details (and I even looked up the obituary - it's just a death notice), so we have no idea what happened. We did discover that he had a wife. I had heard he had a French girlfriend. He may have had both. Wily old bastard.
Understandably, the new guy was baffled at our class rules. He just kept saying to himself "open book tests?!" as if we had told him that the professor had taught our class wearing reindeer antlers and a fuschia-pink serape. We did manage to convince him to keep our open-book test, and to keep our attendance-free policy, because it wasn't fair to the people who had developed expectations of the class based on the syllabus. (We like to call those people Test Day people, because that's the only time we see them.) I'm going to class today just to see what it's like.
While I thought he was a horrible history professor, he was a pretty nice guy. And I'm so sorry to hear of his passing. I feel really badly for his wife, and possibly his girlfriend, if he had one. And his kids, which I know he had, because he told me about them once. But I can't help but be glad that, if he's in heaven now, he's got all the facts straight. And also, if he's up there, he's probably read this blog. Sorry for making fun of you so much, Miller, but really - you deserved it.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Getting Smarter, but Getting Dumber
This weekend, I incorrectly identified Quiet Riot when "Cum On Feel the Noize" came on the radio.
If you know me at all, that was mortifying. I pride myself on my encyclopedic knowledge of rock'n'roll and pop culture in general. I never lose Trivial Pursuit (except that one time, but they got me absolutely shmammered beforehand to handicap the whole game), I can usually tell you not only who sang a song but what year it came out, and possibly even what the name of the album was. I am a rock'n'roll idiot savant. Fortunately, I only said it to my husband - there were no other witnesses. Of course, now I'm telling you, but there's a point to this. I am losing vital knowledge that I've had tucked up inside my head for at least a decade or two.
The trade-off is: I can factor the shit out of just about any trinomial you throw at me right now. I can factor their fucking faces off.
Is this a worthwhile trade-off? Until May 11th, it is. Until I finish the very last question on my algebra final, it's just fine with me.
Once, years ago, my grandparents went to the doctor because my grandmother was having difficulty with her memory. The doctor told her that your memory is like a box: it can only hold so many marbles (memories) at a time. When you add new marbles, older marbles might be forced out of the box to make room for these new ones. (My granddad tells this story 100% to get to the punchline, which is: "Doctor, are you telling me my wife is losing her marbles?" It seemed wrong to tell the story and not give you the punchline, so there it is.)
I have no problem shoving the rock'n'roll marbles out of the box for the moment. Or memories of the third grade. I can part with those, too. Also, lines to movies that are not very funny, and/or are hackneyed or cliched. Like lines from Top Gun. I'd like to keep the funny ones, however. The name of my kindergarten teacher. That can go. I would like to remember the dog I had when I was a kid, though, that would be good. The entirety of the eighth grade. That was pretty much useless. Also, all the words to Young MC's "Bust A Move." (And ZOMG, I just had to Google who sang "Bust A Move." Please let this semester end so that I can go back to being myself again, full of completely irrelevant trivia.) Any and all football stats pertaining to the Houston Texans. Those are worth approximately less than nothing.
Brains should be more like iPods. Just as I can go into my iPod and realize that I haven't listened to that one Aberfeldy song in the last six months and delete it to make room for the new Allison Krauss , I should be able to go into my memory, realize that the last time I accessed my phone number from my junior year in high school was 1999 and make some room on the hard drive by deleting it. Anything I haven't thought about since approximately 2001, you're up for possible deletion. Including my second grade best friend's middle name. And her address. And her phone number. All of which I can tell you right now. (See? That line from Pee Wee's Big Adventure that you're thinking of right now? That can go too.)
I need space for algebra, history, accounting, philosophy, probably some sort of science. Any and all embarrassing memories can go. That thing that makes me blush to think about it now, fifteen years later? Don't remember it. It never happened.
Instead, with my luck, I'll end up forgetting something important to make room for the new stuff. Like the PIN for my debit card. Or my kids' birthdays. Or the password to my e-mail. Something that will really affect my daily life. But while my kids hate me, I can't access my e-mail or get any cash, I'll still be able to sing all the words to "The Humpty Dance." Don't hate.
If you know me at all, that was mortifying. I pride myself on my encyclopedic knowledge of rock'n'roll and pop culture in general. I never lose Trivial Pursuit (except that one time, but they got me absolutely shmammered beforehand to handicap the whole game), I can usually tell you not only who sang a song but what year it came out, and possibly even what the name of the album was. I am a rock'n'roll idiot savant. Fortunately, I only said it to my husband - there were no other witnesses. Of course, now I'm telling you, but there's a point to this. I am losing vital knowledge that I've had tucked up inside my head for at least a decade or two.
The trade-off is: I can factor the shit out of just about any trinomial you throw at me right now. I can factor their fucking faces off.
Is this a worthwhile trade-off? Until May 11th, it is. Until I finish the very last question on my algebra final, it's just fine with me.
Once, years ago, my grandparents went to the doctor because my grandmother was having difficulty with her memory. The doctor told her that your memory is like a box: it can only hold so many marbles (memories) at a time. When you add new marbles, older marbles might be forced out of the box to make room for these new ones. (My granddad tells this story 100% to get to the punchline, which is: "Doctor, are you telling me my wife is losing her marbles?" It seemed wrong to tell the story and not give you the punchline, so there it is.)
I have no problem shoving the rock'n'roll marbles out of the box for the moment. Or memories of the third grade. I can part with those, too. Also, lines to movies that are not very funny, and/or are hackneyed or cliched. Like lines from Top Gun. I'd like to keep the funny ones, however. The name of my kindergarten teacher. That can go. I would like to remember the dog I had when I was a kid, though, that would be good. The entirety of the eighth grade. That was pretty much useless. Also, all the words to Young MC's "Bust A Move." (And ZOMG, I just had to Google who sang "Bust A Move." Please let this semester end so that I can go back to being myself again, full of completely irrelevant trivia.) Any and all football stats pertaining to the Houston Texans. Those are worth approximately less than nothing.
Brains should be more like iPods. Just as I can go into my iPod and realize that I haven't listened to that one Aberfeldy song in the last six months and delete it to make room for the new Allison Krauss , I should be able to go into my memory, realize that the last time I accessed my phone number from my junior year in high school was 1999 and make some room on the hard drive by deleting it. Anything I haven't thought about since approximately 2001, you're up for possible deletion. Including my second grade best friend's middle name. And her address. And her phone number. All of which I can tell you right now. (See? That line from Pee Wee's Big Adventure that you're thinking of right now? That can go too.)
I need space for algebra, history, accounting, philosophy, probably some sort of science. Any and all embarrassing memories can go. That thing that makes me blush to think about it now, fifteen years later? Don't remember it. It never happened.
Instead, with my luck, I'll end up forgetting something important to make room for the new stuff. Like the PIN for my debit card. Or my kids' birthdays. Or the password to my e-mail. Something that will really affect my daily life. But while my kids hate me, I can't access my e-mail or get any cash, I'll still be able to sing all the words to "The Humpty Dance." Don't hate.
Monday, April 11, 2011
My Granddad (and How I Wish He'd Never Found Facebook)
It's a hat-trick! Three posts in one morning!
Dear Person In This Classroom Waiting For Class To Start: I can hear your music. Even though you have earbuds in. And it's annoying music. Love, the Curmudgeon in the Corner.
So the part that I left out of my post about my birthday is that in the morning on Saturday, my granddad, who is 87 years old, suffered an attack of low blood sugar. He then slept the whole day and woke up in the early evening with chest pains. My mom (who lives with him) took him to the emergency room, and it turns out he has atrial fibrillation. So they're looking at a pacemaker.
Because I'm a selfish, horrible person, the first thing that I thought when my mom called was that if he passed away, it would ruin my birthday forever. I've always been extremely close to my granddad - he was pretty much my dad growing up - and losing him suddenly like that would have just crushed me, thereby ruining the day forever.
My second thought was that if he passed, his last words to me were "I don't want to talk to you anymore; here's your mom." He said that because I was fussing at him about his blood sugar on the phone that morning. I told my mother to tell him that I love him, to which he replied "I'm sure she does, and I'm thankful." Ouch. He is not a good/cooperative patient, and the EMTs were there giving him an IV at the time, so I'm going to let that pass. In any case, it's no "Bite my butt, Bill" (the last words of my mother-in-law's mother), so I don't have much to complain about I guess.
Third thought: I never accepted his friend request on Facebook. And then I felt horribly guilty. And then I got really, really pissed off at Facebook, and whoever introduced him to Facebook. (I know now that it was one of my uncles, and I want to punch him hard in the knee.) I specifically have not accepted his friend request on Facebook for two reasons. 1) This blog. I really don't think he'd like my language in this blog. And I don't want to censor myself to cater to his feelings on that. And 2) I'm not really sure I want my 87-year-old granddad knowing what I'm actually up to, as opposed to what I tell him I'm up to.
It's not that I lie to him. It's more that I don't necessarily need for him to know that I was drunk as cooter on Friday night. Or that I question organized religion. He knows I'm a Democrat, and that's hard enough for him to accept. Why peel away the veil and let him know that I believe Muslims are people too? What if I mentioned at some point on my FB page just how much I hate the conservative e-mail forwards I get from him by the truckload? (Don't worry - I've already come to grips with the fact that I know I will miss all of the "DEMOCRATS ARE RUINING AMERICA" subject lines I've come to expect pretty much since he found out how much I hate George W. Bush in 2004.)
So now I feel like a deficient granddaughter. But I'm still really undecided on this. Do I make him feel good for a minute when I accept the friend request, and then risk ruining the way he thinks of me forever? He's becoming more and more crotchety and less forgiving as he ages - he's already told me what he thinks of me a couple of different times. And I feel like if I make him face the last few illusions he has about me, our relationship won't recover.
For now, I'm sure he's thinking far more about his health (and mostly, so am I) than he is about whether or not we're friends on Facebook. But if I know him, he'll be a lot better really, really quickly. And then I'm fucked.
Dear Person In This Classroom Waiting For Class To Start: I can hear your music. Even though you have earbuds in. And it's annoying music. Love, the Curmudgeon in the Corner.
So the part that I left out of my post about my birthday is that in the morning on Saturday, my granddad, who is 87 years old, suffered an attack of low blood sugar. He then slept the whole day and woke up in the early evening with chest pains. My mom (who lives with him) took him to the emergency room, and it turns out he has atrial fibrillation. So they're looking at a pacemaker.
Because I'm a selfish, horrible person, the first thing that I thought when my mom called was that if he passed away, it would ruin my birthday forever. I've always been extremely close to my granddad - he was pretty much my dad growing up - and losing him suddenly like that would have just crushed me, thereby ruining the day forever.
My second thought was that if he passed, his last words to me were "I don't want to talk to you anymore; here's your mom." He said that because I was fussing at him about his blood sugar on the phone that morning. I told my mother to tell him that I love him, to which he replied "I'm sure she does, and I'm thankful." Ouch. He is not a good/cooperative patient, and the EMTs were there giving him an IV at the time, so I'm going to let that pass. In any case, it's no "Bite my butt, Bill" (the last words of my mother-in-law's mother), so I don't have much to complain about I guess.
Third thought: I never accepted his friend request on Facebook. And then I felt horribly guilty. And then I got really, really pissed off at Facebook, and whoever introduced him to Facebook. (I know now that it was one of my uncles, and I want to punch him hard in the knee.) I specifically have not accepted his friend request on Facebook for two reasons. 1) This blog. I really don't think he'd like my language in this blog. And I don't want to censor myself to cater to his feelings on that. And 2) I'm not really sure I want my 87-year-old granddad knowing what I'm actually up to, as opposed to what I tell him I'm up to.
It's not that I lie to him. It's more that I don't necessarily need for him to know that I was drunk as cooter on Friday night. Or that I question organized religion. He knows I'm a Democrat, and that's hard enough for him to accept. Why peel away the veil and let him know that I believe Muslims are people too? What if I mentioned at some point on my FB page just how much I hate the conservative e-mail forwards I get from him by the truckload? (Don't worry - I've already come to grips with the fact that I know I will miss all of the "DEMOCRATS ARE RUINING AMERICA" subject lines I've come to expect pretty much since he found out how much I hate George W. Bush in 2004.)
So now I feel like a deficient granddaughter. But I'm still really undecided on this. Do I make him feel good for a minute when I accept the friend request, and then risk ruining the way he thinks of me forever? He's becoming more and more crotchety and less forgiving as he ages - he's already told me what he thinks of me a couple of different times. And I feel like if I make him face the last few illusions he has about me, our relationship won't recover.
For now, I'm sure he's thinking far more about his health (and mostly, so am I) than he is about whether or not we're friends on Facebook. But if I know him, he'll be a lot better really, really quickly. And then I'm fucked.
Newsflash: I am old.
I've mentioned before that my thirty-third birthday is giving me hives. Not literal hives, figurative ones. And that sucks worse that the literal ones, because at least with those, take a little Benadryl and they go away. There is no figurative Benadryl.
Usually, it's your landmark birthdays that give you grief. For my twenty-fifth birthday, I had a small child, so that one didn't bother me. I was suitably distracted from the implications of my thirtieth by a surprise trip to New York City. (That trip was so surprise that the actual destination was a secret until we actually boarded the plane to Newark, NJ. All I knew was that we were going on a trip and I needed a pretty dress. Still the all-time favorite birthday. Good work, Spike and Speith.)
For some reason, this one is really getting to me. And it's not the fact that I'm officially one-third of a century old, although if you say that out loud, that's fucking daunting. It's also not that people keep telling me it could be so much worse, I could be 40 or 50 or whatever. I get that. I'm not sure what it is.
The birthday itself was wonderful. On Friday night, the birthday eve, we went out to a fancy dinner with Speith and his family, and our little family of four. We had a fantastic time. I got absolutely smashed. And it's a little bit sad when your nine-year-old goes with you to the bathroom at the end of the night to make sure you don't fall into the toilet. (Me: What would you do if I did fall into the toilet? M1: I would go get Dad. He's right outside the door.) The good part to that is that she's not witness to my drunkenness terribly often, but now I'm pretty sure she equates birthdays with drunkenness. Or maybe just my birthdays with drunkenness. And maybe her dad's. As both kids noted when we walked into the restaurant: "It's Mom's turn to have wine and drinks! It was Dad's turn last time!" (Last time being Dad's birthday.) Although, she appears to have taken the example of my entire life as a horrible warning. Here are the things she will never, ever do: smoke, drink alcohol (it's a drug, Mom!) and have a baby. I may be raising a very boring adult. Who is apparently directly from the 1940s, because she informed me this weekend that "I'm not steamed about that cat business anymore." (Which is to say: she's no longer angry at her father for not allowing us to adopt a cat on impulse yesterday. She did, however, punish him by crying like her heart was broken for a solid hour. She didn't win, but never underestimate a nine-year-old's powers of manipulation.) It's all fodder for more emotion-laced therapy sessions, but now we have to worry about the possibility that they will be emotion-laced, new-age therapy sessions, what with the possibility of past lives that has now been introduced thanks to her seventy-year-old vocabulary.
Saturday, the children gave me gifts: a bottle of Faith Hill perfume from M2 (it was all sealed up, so he couldn't smell it before he bought it for me - so he went on bottle aesthetic as his criteria) and a Happy Birthday Barbie from M1. I think that it might have been a bit of a boomerang gift, but she insists that it's because I collect Barbies. Really, the Holiday Barbie 2001 I have belongs to her. The other two Barbies are Frank Sinatra-centric, and not purchased for the "Barbie" part at all. In any case, I thanked her and put HB Barbie on the shelf with the others. Saturday night, the kids went to Grandma's for a sleepover, and Spike and I went to eat Thai food and see movies. We saw Your Highness, which was not as awesome as I wanted it to be, and Paul, which was more awesome than I had any right to hope for.
The day sped by, and it mostly just felt like a day.
I don't know that there are any deep-rooted reasons for feeling this way, other than the society-imposed feeling that I absolutely should not be doing all this at the age at which I'm doing this. It seems to just be a feeling of uneasiness, like my mortality is creeping up on me like a ninja wearing an invisible suit. I can hear him breathing, but I still can't see him.
Usually, it's your landmark birthdays that give you grief. For my twenty-fifth birthday, I had a small child, so that one didn't bother me. I was suitably distracted from the implications of my thirtieth by a surprise trip to New York City. (That trip was so surprise that the actual destination was a secret until we actually boarded the plane to Newark, NJ. All I knew was that we were going on a trip and I needed a pretty dress. Still the all-time favorite birthday. Good work, Spike and Speith.)
For some reason, this one is really getting to me. And it's not the fact that I'm officially one-third of a century old, although if you say that out loud, that's fucking daunting. It's also not that people keep telling me it could be so much worse, I could be 40 or 50 or whatever. I get that. I'm not sure what it is.
The birthday itself was wonderful. On Friday night, the birthday eve, we went out to a fancy dinner with Speith and his family, and our little family of four. We had a fantastic time. I got absolutely smashed. And it's a little bit sad when your nine-year-old goes with you to the bathroom at the end of the night to make sure you don't fall into the toilet. (Me: What would you do if I did fall into the toilet? M1: I would go get Dad. He's right outside the door.) The good part to that is that she's not witness to my drunkenness terribly often, but now I'm pretty sure she equates birthdays with drunkenness. Or maybe just my birthdays with drunkenness. And maybe her dad's. As both kids noted when we walked into the restaurant: "It's Mom's turn to have wine and drinks! It was Dad's turn last time!" (Last time being Dad's birthday.) Although, she appears to have taken the example of my entire life as a horrible warning. Here are the things she will never, ever do: smoke, drink alcohol (it's a drug, Mom!) and have a baby. I may be raising a very boring adult. Who is apparently directly from the 1940s, because she informed me this weekend that "I'm not steamed about that cat business anymore." (Which is to say: she's no longer angry at her father for not allowing us to adopt a cat on impulse yesterday. She did, however, punish him by crying like her heart was broken for a solid hour. She didn't win, but never underestimate a nine-year-old's powers of manipulation.) It's all fodder for more emotion-laced therapy sessions, but now we have to worry about the possibility that they will be emotion-laced, new-age therapy sessions, what with the possibility of past lives that has now been introduced thanks to her seventy-year-old vocabulary.
Saturday, the children gave me gifts: a bottle of Faith Hill perfume from M2 (it was all sealed up, so he couldn't smell it before he bought it for me - so he went on bottle aesthetic as his criteria) and a Happy Birthday Barbie from M1. I think that it might have been a bit of a boomerang gift, but she insists that it's because I collect Barbies. Really, the Holiday Barbie 2001 I have belongs to her. The other two Barbies are Frank Sinatra-centric, and not purchased for the "Barbie" part at all. In any case, I thanked her and put HB Barbie on the shelf with the others. Saturday night, the kids went to Grandma's for a sleepover, and Spike and I went to eat Thai food and see movies. We saw Your Highness, which was not as awesome as I wanted it to be, and Paul, which was more awesome than I had any right to hope for.
The day sped by, and it mostly just felt like a day.
I don't know that there are any deep-rooted reasons for feeling this way, other than the society-imposed feeling that I absolutely should not be doing all this at the age at which I'm doing this. It seems to just be a feeling of uneasiness, like my mortality is creeping up on me like a ninja wearing an invisible suit. I can hear him breathing, but I still can't see him.
The More Things Stay the Same
Throughout my educational career, there have been two main observations about me. I have noticed recently that these two traits are constant in my life - and they're much more likely to be remarked upon in a school setting than at an office or in a work setting.
1. "You're tall."
Yes, thanks, I know. I've had a good thirty-three years to notice, and I have definitely noticed. Here are some examples of times that I have noticed this particularly hard: on an airplane (hooray for long thigh-bones that put my knees directly into the kidneys of the person in front of me!), in the doctor's office (a very helpful medical assistant once announced to the doctor's office at large that my height was "five feet, twelve inches!" Really? Wouldn't that be six feet? And don't worry, I was having especially good posture that day. Usually, I'm five feet, eleven inches.), when small children scream it out in the middle of the supermarket/public place (which has happened twice, and both of those small children were little bastards for their phrasing, and their parents are worse for letting them scream things like that in public places) and when I'm looking down at the top of your head. Because generally speaking, about two-thirds of the people I meet are shorter than me. Especially older men. I'm not sure why that is. At any rate, I'm accustomed to it. I was 5'7" in the fifth grade. I've learned not to wear heels to job interviews or at work because that makes me intimidating. Do not worry, faithful public, I get it. I'm a giantess and it's apparently okay for you to remark upon it, loudly and with very little tact.
If that sounds testy, it probably is. But it's the same thing to me as if someone walked up to you and commented upon your most obvious physical attribute, in the basest and most idiotic way possible. "You have a wart on your nose." "You have big feet." (Actually, I have big feet, too, but I figure that's the only thing keeping my gargantuan frame upright.) It's not pleasant, but you sort of have to marvel at people's tactlessness and move on. It's not really a teachable moment. Because if you're in your late teens, early twenties, your sixties, whatever - teaching you tact at this point is probably a lost cause.
As unrelentingly fun as all that is, it's the other observation that's been making me most uncomfortable.
2. "You're smart."
Now, I have to say that that's a very nice thing to say to somebody. But it makes my heart stop just a little when people say that (and not only because the sentence, in its natural form, is usually "You're smart; you can explain this to me"). It's a personal thing that dates way back to probably elementary school, when being smart was a Very Bad Thing. If you were too smart, people looked at you funny and then there was meanness. So my knee-jerk reaction is to play it down. If they want me to explain something to them, I deny all credit for being smart and just say "well, I think somebody explained it to me really well" or something like that. It bothers me that even now, in my thirties, I feel the need to be dismissive of my brains at school. I have no problem tooting my own brain horn in the workplace (probably usually without cause), but at school, I feel the need to be just as dumb as everybody else. And I realize that if I were at a better institution of higher learning, I would not be smart - I'd probably be the dumbest person in the room. It all has to do with the particular learning environment, I guess. I can't own or be proud of my smarts because I'm secretly worried that people I will probably never see again will think I'm weird. And then I also secretly start worrying that there's a physical manifestation of my smarts: like the guy in Megamind. I might have a huge blue cranium and nobody's pointed it out to me.
Although given their stance on my height, I probably shouldn't worry.
1. "You're tall."
Yes, thanks, I know. I've had a good thirty-three years to notice, and I have definitely noticed. Here are some examples of times that I have noticed this particularly hard: on an airplane (hooray for long thigh-bones that put my knees directly into the kidneys of the person in front of me!), in the doctor's office (a very helpful medical assistant once announced to the doctor's office at large that my height was "five feet, twelve inches!" Really? Wouldn't that be six feet? And don't worry, I was having especially good posture that day. Usually, I'm five feet, eleven inches.), when small children scream it out in the middle of the supermarket/public place (which has happened twice, and both of those small children were little bastards for their phrasing, and their parents are worse for letting them scream things like that in public places) and when I'm looking down at the top of your head. Because generally speaking, about two-thirds of the people I meet are shorter than me. Especially older men. I'm not sure why that is. At any rate, I'm accustomed to it. I was 5'7" in the fifth grade. I've learned not to wear heels to job interviews or at work because that makes me intimidating. Do not worry, faithful public, I get it. I'm a giantess and it's apparently okay for you to remark upon it, loudly and with very little tact.
If that sounds testy, it probably is. But it's the same thing to me as if someone walked up to you and commented upon your most obvious physical attribute, in the basest and most idiotic way possible. "You have a wart on your nose." "You have big feet." (Actually, I have big feet, too, but I figure that's the only thing keeping my gargantuan frame upright.) It's not pleasant, but you sort of have to marvel at people's tactlessness and move on. It's not really a teachable moment. Because if you're in your late teens, early twenties, your sixties, whatever - teaching you tact at this point is probably a lost cause.
As unrelentingly fun as all that is, it's the other observation that's been making me most uncomfortable.
2. "You're smart."
Now, I have to say that that's a very nice thing to say to somebody. But it makes my heart stop just a little when people say that (and not only because the sentence, in its natural form, is usually "You're smart; you can explain this to me"). It's a personal thing that dates way back to probably elementary school, when being smart was a Very Bad Thing. If you were too smart, people looked at you funny and then there was meanness. So my knee-jerk reaction is to play it down. If they want me to explain something to them, I deny all credit for being smart and just say "well, I think somebody explained it to me really well" or something like that. It bothers me that even now, in my thirties, I feel the need to be dismissive of my brains at school. I have no problem tooting my own brain horn in the workplace (probably usually without cause), but at school, I feel the need to be just as dumb as everybody else. And I realize that if I were at a better institution of higher learning, I would not be smart - I'd probably be the dumbest person in the room. It all has to do with the particular learning environment, I guess. I can't own or be proud of my smarts because I'm secretly worried that people I will probably never see again will think I'm weird. And then I also secretly start worrying that there's a physical manifestation of my smarts: like the guy in Megamind. I might have a huge blue cranium and nobody's pointed it out to me.
Although given their stance on my height, I probably shouldn't worry.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Elaborating on the Speeding Boulder
That last post was a bit hurried because people kept coming in to the Radio and TV classroom wanting to talk to me about life. I did not try to explain that I was already busy talking about life to myself. I just sort of tried to type furtively while keeping up with conversation.
I can't guarantee that the same thing won't happen again while I'm typing this post because I'm at a picnic table right now. Not the picnic table - I don't show up there until 2:15 at the latest. I'm at a different picnic table. And I'm trying to keep my feet clear of like five giant red ants that appear to be building an ant metropolis somewhere, because they are damn busy. So if this post just ends in "AUGH!!" you can be assured that either I have turned into Charlie Brown or my foot just got chomped by a pissed off ant-worker who got tired of having my foot in the way.
A digression of my own: last week at the picnic table, I felt something tickling my foot and when I looked down I saw a huge monarch caterpillar just meandering lazily on top of my foot. I screamed like a little girl and kicked until it flew off and landed in a pile of oak tree thingies. (If you live in Texas, you know what an oak tree thingy is. If you don't, try Googling it or some shit, because I cannot explain it to you. They fall off oak trees in the spring and stack up like freakin' snow-drifts full of allergies.) And then I did a dance, because I could still feel its creepy-crawly little feet on the top of my foot. It was highly amusing for everybody except me. The caterpillar was okay. I checked on it, and it was dazed for a minute (probably very impressed by my dancing skillz) and then it wandered away in a direction not aimed at any of my exposed skin. Which makes me think that maybe monarch caterpillars are smarter than they look. Some people might argue that this is a very good reason for me to wear closed shoes (as in, not my flip-flops, which is all I ever wear), but those people would be idiots. My feet need freedom. You can't trap my feet.
It's gorgeous outside today, which makes it that much harder for me to get my curmudgeon on. But I'm going to try anyway.
Here's one: WTF? Why did those two girls start running just now like their feet were on fire? They were walking along like normal human beings and it was like there was a starter pistol only the two of them could hear. I don't like to run even if my feet are on fire, and theirs clearly aren't. Fucking teenagers.
Anyway. I don't know if this happens to non-old people when they're in college and past the halfway point of the semester, but here's a phenomenon that I have been experiencing, and it makes me want to punch a baby in the face. I've been working on my algebra homework during the week like I'm supposed to do, but then about halfway through it's like I hit an invisible wall of stupidity. Even if I'm on a roll, answering questions on the homework and just killing it, suddenly and without warning, I become really, really stupid. The equations look like a foreign language, and try as I might, I cannot get the brainpower going again. I've tried experimenting with the time of day when I'm doing homework, and no. It doesn't matter. Algebra wants to make me stupid and it. is. winning. (You can make your own Charlie Sheen joke here. I'm sort of over Charlie Sheen at the moment. Wife-beating bastard.) I cannot seem to make algebra understand that I have a limited amount of time to do said homework, otherwise I end up with the demon eyes and the spinning-around head and the Linda Blair voice and my children become afraid of me, so its cooperation would be greatly appreciated. No, instead, algebra just laughs evilly and makes me dumb. It's really unfortunate.
Also plaguing me are topics for papers. Two of my classes have extremely, extremely broad topics for the papers that are due before the semester ends. The parameters are not quite as broad as "write a five-page paper on something," but they're close. In US History, the parameters are "write a five-page paper about something that happened in US History from pre-Columbian days to 1877." Wow. That covers a lot. In Business Computing, the parameters are "write something about computers that interests you." That professor at least tries to be helpful by printing out thousands of pages of articles about how your cell phone is silently giving you brain cancer. This is not helpful for a woman who suffers from extreme anxiety over bizarre and improbable ideas, which manifests itself as feeling the compulsion to build an escape plan from her car in the event of either zombie attack or bridge collapse. (When my kids were small and in car seats, I would torture myself with trying to figure out how to get both kids to safety from a car sinking in Town Lake. Now I have to stop myself from formulating an escape plan using detailed graphics and then explaining to my children how we're going to get this done in event of water landing. I have a nine-year-old daughter who also suffers from extreme anxiety over bizarre and improbable ideas, so this would be parental cruelty at its finest, perhaps resulting in future emotionally-intense therapy sessions. I despise emotionally-intense therapy sessions. So I keep my mouth shut.) In both classes, I have a case of too many possibilities. If I had less of an imagination, I'd be fine. I'd pick the most boring thing in each subject and write a damn five-page paper on it. Instead, I'm coming up with ever-ambitious topics that probably would require an actual dissertation or some shit as opposed to five effing pages.
You know what's going to happen, don't you? I'm going to end up running out of time, picking the most boring thing in each subject and writing a damn five-page paper on it. It's practically inevitable.
The problem is that I think too much. (Holy Cheezit, that was an acorn that just fell out of a tree next to me and smashed on the concrete like it was dropped from the Empire State Building. What the hell is wrong with that tree?) And, clearly, I'm easily distracted, but goddamn. If that acorn had fallen a foot to the left, I'd probably be on the ground unconscious right now.
My friend Xavier the Spaniard has picked his topic for his US History paper. He got dinged for not writing a conclusion on the last test, too, so he's decided that he's going to write one page of content and four pages of conclusion. I sort of like his style.
Speaking of US History and tests, I have one today. I better get cracking on amassing my interwebs information to make up my "notes," since it's an open-note test. My plan is to take all of the study questions from the syllabus, find the Wiki article about each thing and write my essays from that. Not copy them, just write from them. That's the plan, Stan.
I can't guarantee that the same thing won't happen again while I'm typing this post because I'm at a picnic table right now. Not the picnic table - I don't show up there until 2:15 at the latest. I'm at a different picnic table. And I'm trying to keep my feet clear of like five giant red ants that appear to be building an ant metropolis somewhere, because they are damn busy. So if this post just ends in "AUGH!!" you can be assured that either I have turned into Charlie Brown or my foot just got chomped by a pissed off ant-worker who got tired of having my foot in the way.
A digression of my own: last week at the picnic table, I felt something tickling my foot and when I looked down I saw a huge monarch caterpillar just meandering lazily on top of my foot. I screamed like a little girl and kicked until it flew off and landed in a pile of oak tree thingies. (If you live in Texas, you know what an oak tree thingy is. If you don't, try Googling it or some shit, because I cannot explain it to you. They fall off oak trees in the spring and stack up like freakin' snow-drifts full of allergies.) And then I did a dance, because I could still feel its creepy-crawly little feet on the top of my foot. It was highly amusing for everybody except me. The caterpillar was okay. I checked on it, and it was dazed for a minute (probably very impressed by my dancing skillz) and then it wandered away in a direction not aimed at any of my exposed skin. Which makes me think that maybe monarch caterpillars are smarter than they look. Some people might argue that this is a very good reason for me to wear closed shoes (as in, not my flip-flops, which is all I ever wear), but those people would be idiots. My feet need freedom. You can't trap my feet.
It's gorgeous outside today, which makes it that much harder for me to get my curmudgeon on. But I'm going to try anyway.
Here's one: WTF? Why did those two girls start running just now like their feet were on fire? They were walking along like normal human beings and it was like there was a starter pistol only the two of them could hear. I don't like to run even if my feet are on fire, and theirs clearly aren't. Fucking teenagers.
Anyway. I don't know if this happens to non-old people when they're in college and past the halfway point of the semester, but here's a phenomenon that I have been experiencing, and it makes me want to punch a baby in the face. I've been working on my algebra homework during the week like I'm supposed to do, but then about halfway through it's like I hit an invisible wall of stupidity. Even if I'm on a roll, answering questions on the homework and just killing it, suddenly and without warning, I become really, really stupid. The equations look like a foreign language, and try as I might, I cannot get the brainpower going again. I've tried experimenting with the time of day when I'm doing homework, and no. It doesn't matter. Algebra wants to make me stupid and it. is. winning. (You can make your own Charlie Sheen joke here. I'm sort of over Charlie Sheen at the moment. Wife-beating bastard.) I cannot seem to make algebra understand that I have a limited amount of time to do said homework, otherwise I end up with the demon eyes and the spinning-around head and the Linda Blair voice and my children become afraid of me, so its cooperation would be greatly appreciated. No, instead, algebra just laughs evilly and makes me dumb. It's really unfortunate.
Also plaguing me are topics for papers. Two of my classes have extremely, extremely broad topics for the papers that are due before the semester ends. The parameters are not quite as broad as "write a five-page paper on something," but they're close. In US History, the parameters are "write a five-page paper about something that happened in US History from pre-Columbian days to 1877." Wow. That covers a lot. In Business Computing, the parameters are "write something about computers that interests you." That professor at least tries to be helpful by printing out thousands of pages of articles about how your cell phone is silently giving you brain cancer. This is not helpful for a woman who suffers from extreme anxiety over bizarre and improbable ideas, which manifests itself as feeling the compulsion to build an escape plan from her car in the event of either zombie attack or bridge collapse. (When my kids were small and in car seats, I would torture myself with trying to figure out how to get both kids to safety from a car sinking in Town Lake. Now I have to stop myself from formulating an escape plan using detailed graphics and then explaining to my children how we're going to get this done in event of water landing. I have a nine-year-old daughter who also suffers from extreme anxiety over bizarre and improbable ideas, so this would be parental cruelty at its finest, perhaps resulting in future emotionally-intense therapy sessions. I despise emotionally-intense therapy sessions. So I keep my mouth shut.) In both classes, I have a case of too many possibilities. If I had less of an imagination, I'd be fine. I'd pick the most boring thing in each subject and write a damn five-page paper on it. Instead, I'm coming up with ever-ambitious topics that probably would require an actual dissertation or some shit as opposed to five effing pages.
You know what's going to happen, don't you? I'm going to end up running out of time, picking the most boring thing in each subject and writing a damn five-page paper on it. It's practically inevitable.
The problem is that I think too much. (Holy Cheezit, that was an acorn that just fell out of a tree next to me and smashed on the concrete like it was dropped from the Empire State Building. What the hell is wrong with that tree?) And, clearly, I'm easily distracted, but goddamn. If that acorn had fallen a foot to the left, I'd probably be on the ground unconscious right now.
My friend Xavier the Spaniard has picked his topic for his US History paper. He got dinged for not writing a conclusion on the last test, too, so he's decided that he's going to write one page of content and four pages of conclusion. I sort of like his style.
Speaking of US History and tests, I have one today. I better get cracking on amassing my interwebs information to make up my "notes," since it's an open-note test. My plan is to take all of the study questions from the syllabus, find the Wiki article about each thing and write my essays from that. Not copy them, just write from them. That's the plan, Stan.
This Semester is Like the Indiana Jones Boulder
The longer it goes on, the faster the momentum gets. I'm not in great shape, so I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be able to run fast enough to keep from getting squashed.
Not grades-wise. Grades-wise, I'm doing pretty well, if you don't count that son-of-a-bitch history teacher. (That was really hard to write. I've been watching episodes of Showtime's Brotherhood and it makes me want to call everybody a "fackin' cacksuckah" and then smash them in the face with a baseball bat.)
It's the work that's killing me. I'm only working at my job one day a week, and it's still killing me. Plus, the longer this semester goes on, the tireder I get, which is not a word, but it is now because I just made it up. It's like one of those merry-go-rounds on the playground, but some asshole is spinning it too fast and there's no way to get off until he stops. fucking. spinning. it.
It doesn't help that I'm a master procrastinator. I think I actually may have a Ph.D in procrastination. Which makes April one fucking scary month, because my semester is over on May 11th and I still have an absolute shit-ton of work left to do, including two big papers and two huge presentations.
I would also like to blame all this on my 33rd birthday, which is Saturday. I'm starting to think that 33 is a magical number that suddenly causes me to become a senior citizen. My joints ache, I'm having trouble sleeping, I have a huge knot on the side of my neck that might be preparing to have its own solo career. The wear-and-tear of the last 33 years appears to be catching up with me in the space of a week.
I'm not really sure why 33 is so emotionally difficult for me in particular. It's not a landmark number. It is, in fact, a palindrome. That ought to make me feel better, but it doesn't. It just makes me tireder.
Not grades-wise. Grades-wise, I'm doing pretty well, if you don't count that son-of-a-bitch history teacher. (That was really hard to write. I've been watching episodes of Showtime's Brotherhood and it makes me want to call everybody a "fackin' cacksuckah" and then smash them in the face with a baseball bat.)
It's the work that's killing me. I'm only working at my job one day a week, and it's still killing me. Plus, the longer this semester goes on, the tireder I get, which is not a word, but it is now because I just made it up. It's like one of those merry-go-rounds on the playground, but some asshole is spinning it too fast and there's no way to get off until he stops. fucking. spinning. it.
It doesn't help that I'm a master procrastinator. I think I actually may have a Ph.D in procrastination. Which makes April one fucking scary month, because my semester is over on May 11th and I still have an absolute shit-ton of work left to do, including two big papers and two huge presentations.
I would also like to blame all this on my 33rd birthday, which is Saturday. I'm starting to think that 33 is a magical number that suddenly causes me to become a senior citizen. My joints ache, I'm having trouble sleeping, I have a huge knot on the side of my neck that might be preparing to have its own solo career. The wear-and-tear of the last 33 years appears to be catching up with me in the space of a week.
I'm not really sure why 33 is so emotionally difficult for me in particular. It's not a landmark number. It is, in fact, a palindrome. That ought to make me feel better, but it doesn't. It just makes me tireder.
Update on the Sneaky Lizard
So, the last time we spoke of the Sneaky Fuckin' Lizard, he was hiding in Spike's tire on his car.
A few days later, Spike was driving from work to lunch and noticed that the lizard was on the hood of his car. And was still there when he came out of lunch to go back to work. Somewhere between lunch and work, the lizard took flight and landed God Knows Where.
Well, everybody at Spike's work knows where, now. A couple of days after that, he was doing work at the end of the day in his office when he heard a girl scream "OH MY GOD!" in the breakroom. She then appeared in his doorway and said "You have to come down here and see this."
And there, in the middle of the breakroom floor, was the lizard. I'm pretty sure he gave Spike the finger before the girl scooped him up in two styrofoam cups and let him outside. (Can a lizard give the finger? Would it have to be the claw? Or worse, the toenail?)
A few days after that, Spike was walking between two buildings and there, in the middle of the sidewalk, fronting, was the lizard. And he has friends. He has either started or been recruited to a Reptile Gang. Given his inherent sneakiness, I'm betting that he started it and recruited. I wonder how lizards get jumped in. Was his stunt in the breakroom part of his initiation?
Spike is keeping an eye out. I'm betting that in a couple of weeks, he's going to come out to the car and it's going to be up on blocks, completely cleared out of anything of value. I wouldn't put it past that fuckin' lizard.
A few days later, Spike was driving from work to lunch and noticed that the lizard was on the hood of his car. And was still there when he came out of lunch to go back to work. Somewhere between lunch and work, the lizard took flight and landed God Knows Where.
Well, everybody at Spike's work knows where, now. A couple of days after that, he was doing work at the end of the day in his office when he heard a girl scream "OH MY GOD!" in the breakroom. She then appeared in his doorway and said "You have to come down here and see this."
And there, in the middle of the breakroom floor, was the lizard. I'm pretty sure he gave Spike the finger before the girl scooped him up in two styrofoam cups and let him outside. (Can a lizard give the finger? Would it have to be the claw? Or worse, the toenail?)
A few days after that, Spike was walking between two buildings and there, in the middle of the sidewalk, fronting, was the lizard. And he has friends. He has either started or been recruited to a Reptile Gang. Given his inherent sneakiness, I'm betting that he started it and recruited. I wonder how lizards get jumped in. Was his stunt in the breakroom part of his initiation?
Spike is keeping an eye out. I'm betting that in a couple of weeks, he's going to come out to the car and it's going to be up on blocks, completely cleared out of anything of value. I wouldn't put it past that fuckin' lizard.
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