My life is a never-ending parade of cleaning supplies and computers

Grades came in the other day.

Latin, A; obviously. Ecology, Biostats and Orgo Lab, all Bs. And then, the C in Organic-- but you know, I passed, and I can continue. And I won't let it get to me. No matter how irritated my dad is.

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My grandmother is still up; this means I am sleeping on the couch downstairs on weekends and cleaning the house pretty much nonstop. Between cleaning, promises to help people move/unpack/pack up their room/etc, and assorted parties, plus the primary next week (I have to go to Durham, that's where I'm registered), I won't have time to sit and breathe for a week. I'm already struggling to find time to see Bisobrina, who had a mental breakdown and was hospitalized and is now at home recovering; I also want to go see Vivacia sometime soon, to give her my Christmas gift to her, give her mother a bag of romance novels that is sitting in my car, and hopefully sit and talk for a while. You know, relax, the thing I'm supposed to be doing on vacation?

I really wish I could spend more time with Vivacia. It bugs me that we don't see each other as much. But the trouble is, Ryter's available online from 9 AM to 10 PM with very few times away from his computer; planning stuff with him is beyond easy, and most of the time when we get together it was his idea. Vivacia, to compare, has a very busy life and spends a small to moderate amount of time on AIM, usually while studying. And I am phenomenally lazy, so the extra effort to track her down and find a common time, or even just keep calling her until I find a time when she's able to pick up the phone, tends not to get done. I guess I'm a bad friend for that. But you know, I've always been an introvert; I've always needed other people to plan things and get me out of my hole.

I should call her tomorrow.

I return.

*Enormous sigh*

Well, it's over. I had my last exam yesterday and I am now at home, helping my mother clean the house. Supposedly it was to be a family affair but Shrewd spent the morning knitting and watching TV with Daddy while the Brother helped by cleaning up his own Legos and robot stuff, which was everywhere. Daddy started the kitchen, went and sat back down to watch TV, Mummy went out and I cleaned a good portion of the downstairs all by myself before Daddy and Shrewd wandered in and asked what they should do... bah.

So yeah, "Welcome home! Now clean the house." And it was pretty bad, too. Mummy and the Brother have been busy and Daddy won't clean unless we make him; Shrewd just recently got home as well. We're talking like mail stacked in every corner of the kitchen and all on the dining room table, robot stuff everywhere, school projects and college applications scattered about... Not to mention the piles of laundry, mostly Shrewd's and dish towels but my small basket as well. It wasn't like, pick up a few things and vacuum.

Plus when I got back my mother had not yet assembled the Christmas village. When I asked why not she said "Well, I had to paint the living room the first two weekends and then it didn't seem worth it for only a few weeks, and your dad didn't want it there because he's been talking about getting a flat screen TV..."

My dad already spends pretty much every hour of the evening parked in front of the TV doing nothing. He only reads if there's nothing on. Now he wants a flat screen despite the fact he has a perfectly good, LARGE TV he only got a few years ago? Bah.

Anyway, she agreed to put it up with my help, so after the house was cleaned we assembled the village. Then after dinner we watched The Nun's Story and then I went and wrapped presents for my dad, who claims he is incapable of doing so properly.

Tomorrow I go to Ryter's family Christmas party; I'll also hopefully get a chance to talk about the Hanukkah festivities as well...

I say the pickled cauliflower was weirdest. And that's what he KEPT.

Last night I went over to Ryter's. He's been doing increasingly poorly the longer he has to deal with the tic and the pain, which really sucks. I'm trying to just be there for him, there's not much else I can do, and he can't really do anything either until he sees the neurologist except handle the pain as best he can.

Today, randomly, I started cleaning his fridge. I don't really know why I did it, but I was feeding Jesus the Lizard for him and instead of putting Jesus' veggies back I started pulling out the old veggies and dumping them out in the compost bin. But it was an experience, certainly. There was clumpy milk and gray cheese, pumpkin beer over a year old and a hot dog that was completely solid. He had a liquefied squash and something we couldn't identify in a plastic bag, and the V8 had a fuzzy white thing floating on it. But now his fridge is clean, so if he feels up to it and goes to see his dad tomorrow (for laundry and a Costco trip), he can put the things he buys somewhere. Plus I won't go to pull out Jesus' blueberries and almost put my hand in a strange off-white substance with a green shimmer that has pooled at the bottom of the fruit drawer.

Boys.

I also did all his dishes, but that's mostly because I'm the one who asks that we use them-- he just eats with his hands or disposable packages half the time, and reuses dishes many times before cleaning them-- and his OCD means he has issues letting things soak, because of the dirty standing water. I don't mind doing that sort of thing-- Ryter's always worried that I'm going to get sick of dealing with that stuff and break up with him because of it, but I mean, come on. I'm hardly going to fault the guy for a liquefied squash and a few dishes, especially not when he's got all this other crap to deal with (and cleaning fridges is actually kind of fun, sort of like how I imagine forensic scientists might enjoy their job. I always like seeing what weird things people put in their fridges and forget about). Part of the dishes was giving him one less thing to have to deal with-- at least he'll have something to clean to eat off of if he needs to and he won't have a whole pile of dirty dishes laying around getting in his way.

I'd clean his whole apartment if I thought it would improve his mood, but I think the only thing that would do that is going to the neurologist and having them say, "Oh, we know exactly what is causing every single one of your problems. Take this one pill once a day for six weeks and then you'll be cured of all these problems for the rest of your life, and be happy and productive until you're 80."

And then he comes home, and wins the lottery.

Oh well. Things will get better, at least, if the neurologist can handle the tic and help with the pain. Which seems very likely.

He told me when he dropped me off that he didn't want me to worry about him. I replied, "I'm your girlfriend and you're suffering, of course I'm going to worry. But I won't drive myself crazy over it, I promise." He settled for that.

One and a half weeks until he can see the neurologist. Only one and a half weeks...

Vicious Cycles

It's my last night at home, and I think it's sort of fitting that my dinner is a glass of Crystal Lite lemonade and whatever I can scrounge up from the kitchen, as I clean my bedroom post-packing.

I'm gonna come right out and say it. This was a miserable summer. Pretty much the only bright points were the times I got to spend with Ryter or the even rarer times I was with Vivacia; the rest of it just seemed like a long parade of obligations and chores. I spent at least 50% of the time just frantically trying to earn money, most of which I spent on gas to see Ryter or going out to eat with him. To which my mother points out that he could come visit me, and we could eat at my house.

Except, of course, that she insists that the house be clean before anyone comes over. So that's a day and a half of cleaning, which you know I don't get paid for or even the satisfaction of the cleanliness since it's a sty again in 24 hours. And then I have to make something for dinner, thus making myself messy before he comes. And then my dad comes home and takes the TV in the family room, sending us downstairs, which I had to pick up as well, and people will wander downstairs sometimes so we're not really alone. So we'll go to the orchards, but we're still in public, there. AS much as I love going to the orchards, it's sometimes buggy or the weather's bad. Basically, if I want to spend time with Ryter I have to go to his place because my own house is annoyingly occupied.

So thus I've spent the summer in a cycle-- work my ass off to earn money either at the Discovery Store or by doing exhausting work in the hot sun at home, then go visit Ryter to relax, thus using up my money, requiring me to earn more.

Meanwhile, there were only two real reasons I wanted to come home this summer instead of doing and internship or summer school or something-- one, I wanted to spend time with my family, and two, I wanted to be able to go to the Cape.

This summer I have spent a total of five days at the Cape. Five. And it's the last summer I will be able to go. I've always had chores to do or work. And spending time with my family? Most of the time they're at work or at the Cape, and anyway, my dad's been driving me crazy and my mom's been worrying me sick.

I bet by May I forget I felt this way, but I honestly think next summer I should just go to summer school on campus. My family was all gung-ho for taking me back and seeing me off, but I don't really care about that, I just would have liked to have a real dinner that I ate at the table on my last night at home. Is that too much to ask? Instead they're at the Cape and I'm packing, cleaning, and wondering what I can reheat.

At least it's over.

"It was tragic and delicious."

This week has been a bit insane for me. Why? Well, let's recap.

Monday night, after I got my last paycheck from the Discovery store, I went down to Cape Cod with my folks, saw Order of the Phoenix, and spent the night, because on Tuesday Ryter was coming down to join me, Mummy, Daddy, my great-aunt (the one who took me to the Revels), her significant other to whom she is not married, my grandfather, Shrewd, and Shrewd' s college friend Spaz, who I can actually call Spaz on here despite that ALSO being how I think of her in real life (she and my sister have the same name, Spaz is her nickname, etc) on account of it not being a REAL name. We were having our big annual lobstah feed.

It could have been worse. My great aunt didn't interrogate Ryter nearly as bad as I had expected, and he made a good impression on my family for showing up, staying all the way until dessert, generally being personable and, in the case of my father, turning down that second glass of champagne. My aunt has voiced her approval. Plus we got to build a sandcastle-- Ryter is quite the accomplished sand-castle constructionist. And we got to scare the crap out of the teenage boy who didn't realize the architect was on the beach and thought it would be funny to destroy the thing.

Boy: YARGH! [kick, kick, jump, swipe]
Ryter: [glowers]
Me: That's not very nice.
Boy: Oh, it's my castle, I made it.
Me: No, you didn't.
Boy: Yes I did!
Me: Uhm, no, he did. [points to Ryter]
Boy: [dawning horror and anticipation of a smack down, followed by frantic attempts to "fix it"]

It was pretty hilarious. Almost made up for the kid's assholery.

I think Ryter was expecting the park to be, like, overun with unwashed toddlers and hillbillies, so he was pleasantly surprised to find that it's not the sort of place trailer trash affords-- most people who go there are like my family, with enough money for a summer place but not enough for a full-sized cottage they can only visit for a few weeks and weekends. The problem was, what with it being a three and a half hour drive down from Durham, and his hamstrings acting up, it wasn't really a fun day for him-- I mean, he flatly stated that the only reason he was going was because it was important to me that he go.

I wish there was a way to make the experiences that are fun for me be fun for him, too. I like everything, anything he wants to do is usually fun for me, but the reverse is not so, and he's usually dealing with pain at the same time which makes things even more difficult. Basically thus far the only things I've suggested that he's been able to get enthusiastic about are making pizzas with weird toppings and going to the orchards in my hometown and stargazing (there's no ambient light, so the night sky is amazing on clear nights-- so amazing that last time we went we saw several shooting stars, clear as a bell). Most of my ideas he either tries and winds up disliking (the planetarium in Concord, for example), or KNOWS he won't like (hiking, or the Chatham band concert). Vivacia wants to go to Old Home Days in our town, and see the fireworks, and she suggested I invite him, but I don't think I'll have much success. Unfortunately, if Ryter doesn't come along it looks right now like it will wind up being Vivacia, her boyfriend Closer, me, and my former boyfriend Mack, and that would be awwwwwwkward. Well, for me anyway. And yet I can't picture Ryter wanting to go to an Old Home Days thing, even if we do spend a lot of the time hanging out on the swings at the elementary school and chatting.

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Then Wednesday I spent the WHOLE DAY cleaning my house. I even washed the kitchen window, the hardest one to clean because it basically involves squatting in the sink and leaning backwards out the window with a bottle of glass cleaner and a paper towel and no means of support. The house is basically clean. If Shrewd doesn't mess it up too much, it will be clean for my folks to come home to, which is what I was hoping for-- last weekend Mummy complained bitterly about coming home to a filthy house, and all I could think was, You didn't say you were coming home today!

I should have gone to the gym. But I didn't. I've been really bad about that lately.

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Then yesterday I drove back to the Cape on my own, so that I would have a car. I've never driven that route before. It's two and a half hours and it's very boring when you haven't got anyone to talk to, and you can't fall asleep. Plus it goes through Boston and is kind of a stressful drive in parts. I kept myself alert and focused by playing the street sign alphabet game in my head. Remember that game? You have to find all the letters of the alphabet in order by reading street signs... yeah. Then I got to Z and started again with license plates, that was MUCH harder.

I was planning on going to the Chatham band concert tonight, but it rained so that wouldn't have been fun. Instead I crocheted and then Mummy and I visited with my great-aunt, I shared some family gossip Bisobrina had told me that I probably shouldn't have, then we went to a glass museum for a while before Daddy joined us and we all went to the Lobster Hut for dinner. Then I drove back here.

I'm a bit bummed. I wanted to see the band concert. But I can go when The Brother is back, he'll want to go too. He's still in California with his drum corps, but if they win the next competition, they'll win the big World Championship thing for their division. My mom is REALLY EXCITED. He comes back Sunday.

Meanwhile, I will continue to clean the house. Next task-- windows. Daddy promised me $200 if I do all of them except the ones holding air conditioners.

Damn I hate paranoia.

Today is the Ludi Tarentini, a three-day celebration. It started out as a private celebration funded by a man whose children were ill. It consisted of three days of stage plays held every hundred years to honor Dis Pater/Hades and Proserpina/Persephone, the king and queen of the underworld. In 17 BCE, Augustus converted these days into the Ludi Saeculares, when all free men would pray and fast, then gather at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus at the Capitolium (if they were Roman citizens) or the Temple of Diana on the Aventine (if they were Latins, which were the rustic types).

They offered the first fruit and various sacrifices on the first day, today, and the festivities would begin tomorrow evening.

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Went to Curves for the first time this summer today. I remembered everything well enough, and, bonus, it didn't require the amount of energy that it did last year to start so I haven't become totally sluggish after my year at college.

Tomorrow Shrewd and I are getting the bikes back from the shop and then I'm gonna try to bike to Curves, for some extra exercise.

Oh, and I ran into my old boss there-- the one from the day care. Apparently they need help for the summer. She asked me to consider coming back, but I'm torn-- on the one hand, I really want to see the kids again and if I can't get a better paying job it does pay more than TJ Maxx; but on the other hand, I had nightmares about the kids getting hurt or into trouble because of me the whole time I worked there. It was kinda stressful. And I kinda swore I wouldn't do childcare again. Not that I ever keep oaths like that, really...

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The Brother was inviting his girlfriend over for dinner, and while Mummy went out to get groceries and worked on a problem for work and The Brother did homework, guess who fulfilled the "Can't have non-immediate-family over without cleaning all parts of the house they might see" rule? Oh, yes. Me. I mean, she paid me $20 for it and I wanted to get this pigsty clean anyway, but it's the principle of the thing, in that if I had asked to have Ryter or even Vivacia (who has known my family for FOREVER) over, my mom would have made me clean the whole place or refused to let them visit. She wouldn't have paid Shrewd or The Brother to clean it for me, unless they offered.

Basically, until I get a job, my mom's gonna give me new chores every day to help out around the house, and as much as I like getting paid, cleaning this house is a bit like shoveling the sidewalk in the middle of a blizzard.

Oh, wait, she makes me do that too.

In Which I Apologize For The Lack Of Posts

My my, do I have some catching up to do. I'm sorry, late nights and much homework have distracted me from the blog...

Thursday was primarily devoted to homework; I didn't get as much Chem studying in as I might have liked but I finished my project, and then needed to practice it. Alas, I was at a loss as to who would want to sit through a 10 minute presentation on the gods that were unique to the Roman pantheon (as opposed to those borrowed wholy from other regions). I complained along these lines to Ryter via AIM and he immediately invited me over to practice it in front of himself and Loquelo, who was visiting. After much reassurance that it was okay (I am a nervous sort and hate being a burden) I consented in exchange for buying them a pizza. I thought it a fair trade.

One half-sausage-half-mushrooms-and-black-olive pizza and a lot of procrastination later, I gave my lovely speech, and was informed that while it was engaging, it was 25 minutes long. Factoring in the amount of time we got distracted it was probably about 23 minutes. So I knew I had to cut it down to a more manageable size, anyway. But I got back late because of this and still had studying for the Chem test the next day, so I was unable to write.

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The Chem test went surprisingly well, considering that I spent maybe a half hour preparing for it. I didn't remember everything but I think I got a decent amount correct, at least. We'll see.

As for that Latin presentation, I think it went well. Forgot nothing, paused seldom, only took fifteen minutes all told and I think I did well.

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After Latin I walked over to Ryter's apartment (it's a short walk from Murkland Hall) and helped him get ready for the party. This was basically washing dishes and sweeping the floor. I was a little worried that I would seem pushy or something, or like I was calling him a slob (Which would go somewhat like this: "Hi, kettle. My, you're looking black today"). But we got the place ready, then bought party supplies (the alcohol, though, he bought earlier) and then hung out until the first gues arrived, a very close friend of Ryter's named Inconcinnus, or at least, named that here because it would kinda suck if you had a parent who named you after the Latin for "awkward, inelegant, and absurd." The reason for this naming will become patently obvious.

Ryter showed Inconcinnus his sword upstairs (REAL sword. It's a katana. Though when you're downstairs and they're up there saying "Oh, cool, can I hold it?" and "That's so cool, I need to show you mine someday" giggles are induced. Ryter apologized for abandoning me at one point, so I pointed out that I was getting a good laugh out of it. Living up to his name, Inconcinnus [and Ryter] promptly started making the lewdest sword-related innuendos they could conceive), and then Inconcinnus discovered the foam sword Ryter bought when he visited me in Londonderry, and it was decided that the party would be unable to progress unless I fetched my sword from my dorm. I took Ryter's SUV, fetched the sword and also some bubbles, and returned, and I only drove the damn over sized thing over a curb once.

Oops.

When I got there, the company had increased by two, both guys (or maybe not, I'm a little fuzzy on who arrived when), and there was a sword fight on the deck, then Inconcinnus discovered the bubbles and started to blow them, and continued through the arrival of two more (one girl, one guy), even blowing them down from the opening between the loft and the kitchen so they would fall down into the kitchen without an obvious source...

They played a video game, Soul Caliber for a few rounds, then put on a bad kung-fu movie to comment on. The girl left after only 45 minutes, pleading homework, and a while after Loquelo showed up with a female friend, and then the awkwardness began... Put Loquelo and Ryter in a room and the sketch factor raises precipitously. Inconcinnus could stand in a room all by himself and the sketch factor would be raised. Three of them together... yeah.

But it was fun. There wasn't that much drinking, really-- only about three people seriously drank and no one was really impaired. The majority of us steered clear of the alcohol. The biggest the party ever was was ten people, enough to please Ryter (who had been worried that no one would show besides like, me, and maybe one other person), but not so much that I started to get nervous, which happens at around fifteen. And yes, I go through my classes in a constantly nervous state. Plus everyone had fun and it was in general a rousing success, and I survived Never Have I Ever without making it uncomfortable (I've gotten much, much better at that, but in my heyday I could have topped Ryter, Loquelo, and Inconcinnus combined), and I carefully seem to have forgotten everything awkward Ryter may have admitted that I didn't already know, which is convenient.

Alas, it was 2:30 when I got back last night, I started to write this blog entry then gave up and went to bed.

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Today I woke up late, went to see Spiderman 3 with Ryter (and went to a Fresh City for dinner, there's one here! This is exciting), and then we went back to his place and had a quiet, low-stress evening, which was nice. We watched the Count of Monte Cristo and then I mentioned that it was a kind of sandwich and I think I have instilled in Ryter a serious desire to eat one. I have no problem with this... Sans the ham, Monte Cristos sound pretty good.

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2:03. Shit. Well, I'll sleep in late tomorrow.

Bouncing Graviton Particle Beams Since 1966

My internet connection at home is always choppier than on campus, so since I got here last night and soon lost access to Blogger (but not livejournal, oddly enough) I wasn't able to post. This is the first time in like forever I haven't posted so momentous occasion. However, I did write a post, so I'm putting it up now. I wrote it Friday night, for time frame.

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So I'm at home now, and Spring Break has officially started. Thus far I have been here for four hours and have spent 50% of that time talking with Writer Guy on AIM and the other 50% dancing. For some reason, I come home, and I find myself dancing in the kitchen to the song mentioned in my previous post with my goofy older sister doing the same as she cooks dinner, which is about 500 times better than college fare. Then I find myself chilling in my brother's room as Shrewd prints out something ridiculously long because she's too nice to her friends and I'm dancing again.

Dancing is my natural reaction to being happy. I can't actually dance, mind you, besides like the rumba and foxtrot, but I just naturally move around and I move around more when I'm happy, and I move in patterns and it's sort of a vague facsimile of dancing. You can tell I'm happy if I walk like I'm about to break out into an impromptu musical number and if I can't stop smiling, which is another reaction I have. I don't have a nervous laugh or a nervous smile; when I laugh and smile it is because I'm in a fabulous mood.

I hate that I can't really dance at school, because I can only actually dance when I know full well that everyone around me dances just as badly and randomly as I do. Or when I'm all alone.

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In other news, that cold that I was over last night? As in, I was totally and completely over it, but just feeling ill for other reasons?

It's baaaaaaaaa-aaaack.

I'm pretty sure at some point I felt my lung break apart in my chest and rise up through my trachea. I sound like Vader's lovechild. I feel perfectly fine, though, until I start to cough.

This means, too, that I totally was acting as a biological weapon yesterday when I was wandering around and breathing near people. Great.

Meh. At least it's not pneu-- oh, wait, best not finish that sentence, or it will be, and then I will blame Mistake, and then I will have to cause her great pain and suffering for the pain and suffering she would have inflicted on me in her small act of bioterrorism.

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Anyway... I have to clean the whole house by next Wednesday, because that is when Writer Guy is coming over. To my house. Where my parents live. And yet, must find a way to do this without actually having him meet them... Mummy has promised she will continue her rampant workaholicism, and not wander downstairs, but the issue arises as to what happens if Daddy comes home early. I really, really don't want to make Writer Guy get grilled by my folks. The ride home with the bajillion questions ("What's his major? What's he going to do with that? Where's he from? Who's his favorite Trek villain..." okay it was my mom so the questions were a little weird) was bad enough. He said he didn't care but meeting the parents at only the third date is so very high school, and honestly, when you're dating a guy three years older than you you try to deemphasize the age difference...

I'm going to cook for him. His response to this idea, while not being bad in and of itself, was... unexpected. Though at least "Oh, that's hot" is better than "Erm... will I survive this encounter?" which would have surprised me less but irritated me more...

I Communicate With My Ears

I love conversations, both as a listener and a talker. What people say is important to me, and I'm often most affected by words, not actions. I love to hear compliments from others. Music is very important to me. It's difficult to find me without my iPod or laptop playing music aloud...

How Do You Communicate?

Life is much less interesting without fortune-cookie titles

I have this final paper to do for Bio, on... anything Biology related. Gotta love vague topics. So anyway, the trouble is that it's 7-10 pages. So I was going to do it on a disease like everyone else, figuring that would be easy to research, but fatal flaw- there's only so much you can SAY about a disease. Like, sure, the important ones can have whole books written about them, but your average non-epidemic disease is kinda limited. Besides, I kinda wanted to do something that someone who doesn't actually have a certain illness would care about.

So I figured I'd do it on x-ray crystallography. Here's my approach: If my mom can read it and say, "Oh, that's fascinating! But I don't really understand the science of it," then it's a good paper. For those of you who haven't a clue what I'm talking about, crystallography is how they know what molecules look like. Molecules are too small for even microscopes, but yet scientists know how they are put together. They do this though crystallizing the substance and shooting x-rays through it, and measuring how the rays are diffracted. It's pretty cool and I only marginally understand it. So I'm going to try to understand it and then I'm going to write a paper on it.

And my doing a paper on x-ray crystallography has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the fact that my professor loves the subject and wants to try it before he dies. Not a bit. Nope.

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I discovered a new life form today! It was very exciting. I named him Moe and then Moe and I had a tearful goodbye before I washed him and his three-month-old jello-y home down the sink. Moral of this story: Basiorana ought to clean that fridge out more often.

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I actually look presentable right now, but believe me, it was not an easy ride. My skirt, for example, is safety-pinned so it doesn't slip down too low, not for modesty's sake, but because it's supposed to rest at my WAIST, as in, that part that dips in, not the belly-button or the hips. I'd complain a lot more if this didn't mean I was loosing weight.

Meanwhile, the only marginally clean blouse I could find stretches so tight across my chest that I'm kinda concerned that it will rip open any moment now and I will be forced to live out some kind of weird version of a trashy supermarket novel. Actually, that's a pretty bad description, since it doesn't sound NEARLY as problematic as my shirt bursting open would be. Suffice it to say, though, that just because a fabric stretches, does not mean it fits. I really need new shirts, and then, I need to THROW THESE ONES OUT.

And then, there's the hair. My hair is SO GROSS right now. It's also ridiculously long. Actually, some of it is. It's really all different lengths, so the last inch is composed of about 1/3 of the hair that is actually on my head. I started the day in a braid, but it quickly frizzed and worked it's way free to escape in messy glory. So I poured a gallon of hair gel into it and pulled it up into a bun on the top of my head. So there.

I have won this battle, Oh Wretched Hair. But don't think I rest easy, for I know that tomorrow will be a struggle of equally Biblical proportions.

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Okay, so last night was my last Chem lab ever, and after the INCREDIBLY SCARY moment when she was assigning groups and I swear I thought that the group doing methane with me consisted of Incredibly Hot Guy, shorter-but-still-hot Flirts With TAs, and this guy that hangs out with them who's also surprisingly attractive. Thank GOD I heard wrong, that would have ended oh-so-badly. I only wound up with Surprisingly Attractive Guy. You won't understand why I call him that unless you see him, and you won't see him unless I tell you his real name, and I won't tell you his real name unless I get a head injury...

Anyway, we were looking at methane because it's a greenhouse gas, and then we had to find ways to reduce methane in the atmosphere, and honestly, the best we could come up with is stop raising cows for meat, because that's where 14% of the atmosphere's methane comes from- domestic livestock. Don't think about it. So next time someone asks me why I don't eat beef, I'm totally gonna say, "COWS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING!" and whip out the statistics chart I happen to have in my back pocket.

We made posters and then graded each other's posters, based on content and "wow factor," how impressed we were by it. The most "wow" one had to be the one with the farting cow on it, and in the cloud was methane facts. Only it wasn't a "Wow, great poster" so much as a "Wow. You put a FARTING COW on your poster." But I said wow, so they got the points.

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The last Group session was today, with 3/8ths of us present- man. I'm the only one who hasn't missed a meeting since I started, which was after the first meeting. Anyway, not much accomplished, but I learned that the guy in Group that I refuse to admit is attractive because he's in Group and at least as messed up as me (that was going to be his name, or GIGTIRTAIABHIGAALAMUAM [pronounced Gig-teer-tay-ab-hee-gah-al-ah-moo-am] for short, but I thought that that was just unfair, especially considering the acronym is longer than most names I use) is going to do the Art Therapy group next semester, so if that works out for me, we might be in Group together again. Not entirely sure if that's an incentive, you know, familiar face, or not. Meh. Not that I'd make my choices based on one kid anyway. Hmm...

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I've been reading blogs, as in, blogs other than those of people I know, and there's this neat feature on the modestly named Bestest Blog Of All Time which picks out a random blog for you and notes the good ones. Some of them I found kinda boring, but there are these ones: Nate is a Blog, which is funny random, and Dating Profile of the Day, which amuses me in the "oh god there are people like that out there" sense.

One blog I found only mildly interesting, save this quote: "Nonetheless, it matters to me that Canada is fair and just, even if it doesn't jive with my jehovah." (Shanthology). Jive with my jehovah? I want excuses to use that phrase in everyday life.

Some other note-worthy blogs I've found include Kissing Frogs, a collection of bad dates, and Go Fug Yourself, which is like a Worst Dressed column in a news magazine only funnier. I'll put these all in my blog list later.

But if you're really bored, check out Bestest Blog of All Time and cycle through the random blogs. Seriously. There are a lot of bad writers in the blogsphere, but there's lots of good ones, too.

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Hmm. There seems to be something I should do right now... something... related to the fact I'm in college... and have my last day of class tomorrow... hang on, it's coming to me... OH YEAH homework. Damn.

"Accept the Next Proposition You Hear"*

In Ancient Rome, there would be a festival to Ceres today, and we wouldn't have to do anything. But it's Saturday, so I guess that's still kinda true.

I was not intending on waking up this morning, but apparently it wasn't my decision; my best friend MakeaMistake called me at 10:51, with an hour and nine minutes still to go before "morning" was officially over. My roommate Loquatia picked up the phone, and once she told me who it was and I stumbled out of bed, trying desperately to disentangle myself from the sheets, she proceeded to laugh at me and say, "You're so funny when you've just woken up."

Gee, thanks.

An alarming percentage of my Saturdays start about this way. Anyway, the call was inviting me to go eat with her and Closer at Holloway Commons, the main dining hall, so I naturally accepted despite the audacity that lead her to call it "lunch" instead of it's rightful name, "breakfast," considering it was the breaking of my fast, at least. She told me to meet them at 11:30. I talked her down to 12:00, pleading the need to shower.

By the time I returned from the horrible dorm showers (I got the one that actually produces hot water, yay) Loquatia had started to clean the room. I immediately felt bad, considering that my section is far and away the messiest. In my defense, though, Ajax and Deiphobus have been sick lately, most likely due to the poor quality of the water here, and I went to the pet store on Thursday to get them all new tank stuff with the hopes that it would be fungus-free. So strewn across the floor in my little corner there were all sorts of bags containing the old tank stuff, the remaining new tank stuff, and the stuff I'd used to clean the tank. I was going to clean that up today...

I told her so, in fact, but she kinda shrugged it off. She was kinda on a cleaning spree. I told her about three times before I left, and yet, when I got back this afternoon, she'd cleaned up my space. She'd also vacuumed our little rugs and swept the floor around them, but... my SPACE.

But I only have a little while longer before the new rooming situation and anyway, I'm non-confrontational. Besides, I'm sure she thought I'd appreciate it. And I did appreciate the carpet-cleaning and garbage-removal, it was getting kinda gross in here. There is a perpetual smell that can only be described as "funky." It might have been the combination of empty sushi plates and orange juice in the trash mixed in with the bleach from tank cleaning and my vanilla body spray, or it might not...

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Anyway, I did get to hang out with Mistake and Closer today; after eating we went over to Brooks, the movie place, and the Durham Marketplace, commonly called the DuMP. They're all in this one mall on the edge of campus, by the main drag. I needed to buy paper and, uhm, other stuff at Brooks, and meanwhile Closer was sent to pick out the movie of the day, which was decided to be The Perfect Man. We were gonna get another but there's not a lot of good movies out there right now, especially since Mistake and I would rather not see horror movies, action movies don't appeal to her, and dramas depress me. Besides, Closer always cries at sad movies and I have to make fun of him for being sensitive.

Post movie-renting, Mistake voted to go to the DuMP while we were there and get snack food so we weren't consuming all Closer's food during movie-viewing. And I saw A&W's Root Beer, which totally made my day, since I can't really have Barq's (caffeine is bad for me) and that's all the root beer you can usually find on campus.

Thus, laden with shopping bags, we trudged back to the wondrous Stoke Hall, where Closer and Mistake live (he's one floor down from her). Closer has a nice sized TV, or, rather, his roommate does, and we watched our chick flick. The movie was cute, though there were waaaay too many awkward moments, those moments when I have to wander out of the room because honestly, I don't want to see people in horribly embarrassing social situations... This is my issue with chick flicks. That and the fact that they depress me. The Perfect Man is a bit like that: I get bummed out because the perfect man exists, he's just NEVER single, straight, and interested in me. He's particularly not single, straight, interested in me, and able to ignore my communication troubles.

Still, good times. It was decided that we take a study break, as in, a break to go study, at that point, though I had just settled down to do a report on our recent photosynthesis lab when Mistake IMed me and told me that she'd made herself a blog, since she saw the blog belonging to Hillary Duff's character in The Perfect Man, and it was pretty cool. I'd already been thinking about a blog, since I've been reading some really funny ones with regularity- Old Horsetail Snake and Life in the Corner are absolutely hilarious- so I decided to do the same. The lab report is as of yet unfinished. But I've got me a blog!

Today's moral is: I get distracted easily.

I also ate dinner with Mistake and Closer, naturally, as it was Ice Cream Night at Holloway. Gotta love Ice Cream Night. The food in general is lousy, or at least really repetitive, but the hard ice cream on Ice Cream Night is GREAT.

Now. About that lab report....

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*My title is my daily fortune. I was somewhat concerned about this one: could be dangerous. Especially since Closer immediately proposed that I jump off a building. I'm saying that one doesn't count.