Blargh.

You know you aren't fun anymore when you don't have anything to do for Halloween except write a research paper and answer the door for all the little fatties.

You really suck if you forgot that it was even Halloween to begin with, so you planned to do the research for the paper that night after work.

Yeah, that would be me. Plans, anyone?

I personally want to pour myself into a skirt and heels and play billiards. I've been having that urge lately. Sadly, Michael has to work all night.

Again; plans, anyone? I'm up for anything. I might just run over to Mike's place for burgers and to set his pumpkin on fire. That's assuming he hasn't finished it off with lighter fluid yet, of course.

We'll see.

A Michael win.

I had a hectic day yesterday. Despite being completely drained from RenFest, I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed and off to class. After that I deposited my check *yay* and grabbed some food with Michael before dropping him off at school and running off to work. Conner and I ran around campus answering backed-up call tickets.
Oh. I got my own desk, complete with a setup that's a bazillion times better than my home setup. -Dance, dance- I should have accepted this job a year ago, when they first offered it to me.
Anyway. Surprisingly, the teachers were pretty civil. (Conner had problems with a few of them last week.) At least they were after they checked Conner's nametag to make sure he wasn't some kind of man-imposter. I figure they thought I was just another teacher walking with him until they saw my badge. I got a few surprised looks. Silly.
After work I had dinner with my parents, my grandmother, and her new husband, Chris. He's a fun person. We celebrated his birthday. A good time was had by all.
I had to jet out of there around 9:45pm, though. I went to a tutoring/cramming/shit-I'm-gonna-fail class for Organic Chemistry that was from 10pm to 12am. That kind of sucked, but I cemented a few things.
I got home and found Michael laying down, curled up in my comforter instead of studying like he was supposed to. So I sat down Indian-style next to him and poked him a bit until he woke up and talked to me. I was in a fine little mood, so I teased him a bit and told him he looked like a worm, all curled up that way. He replied with a little barb of his own. We got into an insult-trading contest. Much to my dismay, his wit sharpens when he's half asleep. The bastard. He quickly got the upper hand. I got tired of that, so I decided to end this conversation by lifting my fuzzy-sock-laden foot up and placing it on the side of his head, slightly over his ear. His head was still on the pillow. I asked him, "How does this feel, peon? Is this demeaning?!"
At that point he finally opened his eyes, looked straight ahead, and said dryly, "No. I have a great view of your ass."
I really couldn't say anything to that, so I conceded and went to watch House.

Update

To correct my earlier post, they're Nike shorts, not Adidas. Also, I counted four pairs of them walking around (beneath sweaters, I might add, with one girl wearing furry boots) on campus during the walk from my car to class this morning. That was absolutely ridiculous. The temperature was approx. Too Fucking Cold.

I have to share my slip up this weekend. I got called out by a friend at RenFest on Friday night. I was wearing flip flops with jeans and a jacket out there at night. It was pretty cold, but we were in front of a fire. I didn't notice. The friend had read my post about the shorts earlier this week, and spotted my flip flops. He turned to another friend and said something along the lines of, "Man, can you believe Misty's wearing flip-flops out here? That's almost as silly as those little Adidas shorts that girls have been wearing lately..." and it went on from there. I have to give him props. He got me.

I'd like to point out that flip flops are way more acceptable than those shorts any day - especially if you add toe-socks. Just so you know.

Question

These girls made it to a higher education institution. They have to have some brains, right? We can't all be little candy Smarties, but we at least have to be half a Smarty, right?
I don't understand the fad with these new balloon short thingies on campus. It's like a virus among the female population. They're all over the place. They're these little Adidas shorts that are made from that kind of windbreaker material. I assume they're running shorts. They all look like they were put on backwards, and they all look like they were made for people with asses. Therefore, they accentuate the fact that these stick figures don't have asses by being all saggy in the back. According to all the guys I've talked to - it's very unattractive.
However, nobody has told the roves of women walking around. The guys at Double Dave’s counted 57 Adidas shorts walking into the store in a three hour period recently; all the same style, just in a myriad of different colors. They're doing a study. They made me swear, under intense scrutiny, that I didn't have a pair of the monstrosities and that I wouldn't go out and buy any. I seriously didn't think guys cared that much.
I was mildly annoyed by seeing these shorts everywhere, but ultimately I didn't care because it made me look that much better than all the delusional beauties walking around. (Yes, I am that vain. Every woman is. We just lie to you about it.) But now I've witnessed the utmost stupidity. A cold front came in. Instead of finally, finally casting off a fad that should have been cast off long ago (sort of like the entire 80's wardrobe), the masses have evolved. Now I see them wearing long sleeved shirts, jackets, and . . . these shorts and sandals. Did we just miss something here?
You’re shivering from the cold airflow circulating in the back of your itty bitty saggy shorts, and yet you are determined to stick to fashion. That's perseverance, right there. If they applied that to their education, we'd probably have a metric shitton more graduates here.
This is population genetics without a control at its very finest. Natural selection does not apply due to delusion. (Can you tell I'm a biology major?) It started with one little girl who saw some shorts in a store that her boyfriend said looked good on her (due to self-preservation, no doubt). She met another girl, who began with "O-M-G! Those are so cute!" and went to buy a pair. Generation 1. That girl went to a party, talked to billions of her little bimbo friends, and Generation 2 was exponentially larger than Generation 1. It proceeds from there. It's sort of like Johnson grass. It's fucking unstoppable.
Eventually something that actually looks good will come along. I'm only hoping. Until then, I'm going to sit back and laugh my not-quite-so-tiny ass off.

Ramble Ramble - Tues, Oct 21, 2008

Keep in mind the fact that this post should have a very droll, detatched tone to it. It sounds like I should be whining, I know. Really, I was speculative while I wrote this.

If you want something upbeat and funny, go somewhere else.

I'm looking forward to this weekend, but not to the recuperation time of the week after. The people at RenFest are what really draw me. Them, and the escape from the drama in my life. RenFest drama is different. It isn't personal. I can step back and be uninvolved if I want to. You can't escape the drama at home, or at school, or at work. It's in your face, personal and demanding. It's something akin to strings tugging you in different directions, demanding your attention for little details, little movements you have to go through, soothing words you have to speak, tasks you have to accomplish because no one else will. At RenFest you can slip that string off your finger, and onto somebody else's. You can sit back in a cheap chair in the smoking section and let the smog envelope you, bringing anonymity with it. For an hour, two, you can sit in the middle of a group of people who know you, like you, but don't want anything from you other than your presence and a funny phrase here and there. There are really no obligations other than to go out there and make money.

Sure there are friends that need attention there, too. But they mostly need you to just sit there and listen to what's going on in their normal life. They just want someone to acknowledge their stresses and worries, and offer a supporting word or two. Most of their stories are interesting, just because the situations are so different from my own. The key is they don't want you to do anything at all about it. Besides, there are only a few people like that. The others don't care either way. They're trying to escape just as much as I am.

Don't misunderstand, now. I'm merely explaining the appeal of RenFest for me, personally. This doesn't mean that my life here in Aggieland sucks, nor does it mean I'm trying to run away. I love and enjoy many of the people here. There are just too many that demand my attention sometimes. Part of me feels bad that I don't have enough time for everybody. The other, bitchier part says they can line up and take a number.

School is stressful, obviously. I'm not alone in that feeling. It tends to be a constant worry in the back of my mind. There is always something I could be doing, preparing for, working on, etc. Sometimes that's invigorating. Lately it's just been irritating.

Home can be comforting - when there isn't something that needs to be done. Living with other people can be both comforting and stressful. Things need to be done there, too. It's difficult to go home and relax, unless I go straight to bed and succumb to sweet oblivion. Even then, I don't dream anymore. It seems like I close my eyes, then wake up a second later to an insistent alarm, feeling the same way I did a moment ago.

Work is mindless. I go through the same motions, time and again, shift after shift. I serve the same faceless, stupid people. I clean the same counters, tidy up the same surfaces, refill the same things. I don't have to think about it, but that in itself is utterly frustrating. A monkey could do my job. Why am I there? I need something to figure out. I want something to think about. I want change. That's another thing about RenFest. You're doing the same jobs, but there will be blips in there that demand double takes. Things seem to change constantly. It's invigorating.

Anyway, Wednesday is my last day at Double Dave's. I won't have to deal with that much longer. I switch over to BISD again on Friday. It won't require too much higher brain function, but at least it'll be more interesting. The guys at DD say they're going to bring whipped cream to work and jump me when I'm walking out the doors after my last shift. I'll tell you if that happens.

This brought me out of my little daze. Sorry if there are grammatical errors, run-on sentences and such. I need to hit my lab report while I'm still functioning. I don't have time to proof read. Have a lovely day!

Exhaustion - Tues, Oct 21, 2008

This won't be that interesting. Any of you seeking entertainment should probably look elsewhere. I'm sure failblog was updated recently.

So I haven't been this tired since.. well, finals of last semester. I spent Monday in an actual daze. I retained about 10% of the video shown in Cultural Anthropology that morning, went through my errands in true mechanical robo fashion, and didn't really wake up until work that evening. I don't know why I woke up for that anyway. A doped up monkey could do that job more efficiently than some of the people there.

I had an embarrassing moment somewhere in there. Thankfully I was alone at the time. Not like it matters anyway - it was in the middle of my highly desensitized state, and my reaction was a slow blink and a small "Oh."

Yeah. I managed to overflow the dishwasher. I'm really a neophyte when it comes to using those. I spent the large majority of my life washing dishes by hand. It's sad. I can tell you all about little microorganisms you can't see, but I can't put the right amount or the right kind of dish soap into the damn dishwasher. Ridiculous.

Can you blame me? I bet most of you assholes can. Go figure.

So I did that. Teddy was useless as always. He did a little tap dance around the ever-expanding pool of suds. Then he left the clean-up to me.

Numbness is my current state. I had eight hours of sleep last night. I should be good to go. But I blanked out my entire Evolution class this morning, and now I'm staring at this Chem lab report without the faintest idea of how to analyze this data.

Oh wait. This is normal.

I guess the only difference is the urge to be still. Usually I want to run around and get things done. Right now I feel like if I stopped for even a moment I'd succumb to stillness and shut my brain off, thus slipping into a temporary vegetative state. I really don't like this feeling.

I think I'll wake up fully tomorrow.

I killed a roach this morning - Tues, Oct 14th, 2008

It's the only thing I can think of that's responsible for the bad karma I've been subjected to this week.

The little bugger was in my bathtub this morning. My territory. Teddy, the miniature puma, just sat on the edge of said bathtub and gave me a "Yeah?" look. I'm thinking the law of diminishing returns applies to my cat. The more money I put into him, the less useful he's proven to be.

Anyway. Roach. My bathtub. Ew. I had my little God moment and smote it with my shampoo bottle. It was necessary. The satisfaction gained from such a maneuver was exquisite but short lived - it was soured by the rest of my day.

I took my shower, and in the midst of a not-so-Herbal-Essence moment I lost the ball to my belly button piercing to the drain Gods. No hope there. It followed the roach to Hell.

But that's okay. Those are replaceable. I can cope. But then I stepped outside and it was all muggy and misty (hah), a pretty terrible atmosphere. I got in the car and was reminded of how my windshield wipers utterly suck. One more thing I need to do. It's okay. I'm chill. We're cool.

I decided to get some breakfast from Kolache Rolfs; highly superior to Shipley's doughnuts. Highly. It's fast, convenient, superior food, utterly yummy and exactly what I need before my test. And what happens? The damn place closed down. The only Kolache Rolfs on my side of the city line closed the hell down, and I'm stuck with Shipley's expired milk. Ew. But it's okay. I can cope.

I had a big test. Genes, Ecology, and Evolution - a class for my major - taught by Dr. Manhart, hosted it's second seasonal exam today promptly at 9:30am, Central time. It was frikkin' ludicrous. This man is a tree-hugging, global warming hippie enthusiast with no goals in life other than to bitch about how America is going to shit and how we're doing all the wrong things to solve it. (Hey. I can understand your dissatisfaction. I'm not happy either. But after the first rant I want to learn something other than your political and ecological views.) His test incorporated subjects ranging from ecosystems to primitive agriculture (Um. Hello. Doesn't that belong in Cultural Anthropology?) to global warming, topped off with a healthy dose of sexual selection in populations. Really? Really? It all comes together loosely under the subject 'biology', but I'm sure you could organize much better than this. The lecture notes lacked so much as a spell check administered to them, much less proof reading for relative content. His TA is a useless prick. At the help session the night before, the asshole told us he 'wasn't going to teach us the test, only the concepts', and brought up Wikipedia to consult when answering questions. Wikipedia! Is this a University? You're actually graduating?!? I'm pissed.

The test was all over the place. Some of the questions required me to pull information from other classes in order to answer the question correctly, because he didn't go over the material in either the lecture or the book. Even then, I was unable to answer a few questions due to his lunacy. The poor girl sitting next to me is a freshman, and had absolutely no hope. She called me basically in tears after that monstrosity of an exam.

Going through, I was astounded by his poor word choice. Most of his questions were ambiguous and could be answered multiple ways. But due to my experience with his previous test, I knew that he wanted a specific answer and not a different interpretation, however correct the latter may be. Frazzled from his idiocy, I went through the test again after completing it and changed one of my answers after re-reading his question. I found out later I had it right the first time, and thoroughly screwed myself out of five precious points. Also, there were at least three questions over material that he explicitly mentioned we did not have to know. Did I tell you? I'm pissed.

Now I get to work on my Organic Chem lab report. Something I despise. Tomorrow I get to go get fingerprinted for my new job so they can easily track me down and ruin my life if they need to. Want my social? Access to my immortal soul? Here you go! Am I the only paranoid one here?

After that I'll be subjected to another eye exam. Apparently my prescription expired sometime in the last year. I wouldn't have known if I hadn't called to reorder contacts. That's right – I'm wearing glasses and hating every moment of it. I aged at least six years and added the adjective 'frumpy' to my appearance upon donning these. They won't stay on the right part of my nose. Am I the only one this happens to? I'm pretty sure the doctor is going to tell me my eyes have deteriorated even further, and I'll have to spend at least $400 getting new contacts and glasses. My bank account is screaming in agony.

There's my rant. I'm sure you're thinking "That's not so bad!" and scoffing at my complaints. But you know what? Screw you. I'm pissy and I can be that way.