Projecting Emotions...

In History, you write papers. In Museum Studies, you do "projects." I have several projects due this semester which promise to be fairly entertaining. One involves following little kids around at the Indiana Historical Society and timing how long they spend looking at different parts of an exhibit, whether they're interacting with items in the way they were intended, etc. (IE, are they picking up the interactive elements of the exhibit and whacking their classmates in the head?) The one which will be more potentially amusing for all of you out there in TV Land is a web page for my Modern Material Culture class. The premise is still gelling in my head, but the overall theme will be "collections" on the internet. To get an idea of what this means, try typing "My collection" into any search engine and see what demented people not only collect, but have taken the time and trouble to display on a web page. So far my favorite is the Air Sickness Bag Collector's website. (to be linked later.)

Last week, the Zoo had me feed the sharks. I think they're trying to get rid of me....

Well, at least I got lei'd....Sort of...

This is my first Valentine's Day in several years without even a hint of romance on the wind. I actually wasn't too worried about this--frankly, after yesterday's adventure I was glad to have a day of just goofing around the house, listening to NPR, painting, and watching TV. No chances of a tragic accident, right? (Well yes, ok, 90% of my tragic accidents do happen in the home. But Wednesday my car got towed, Thursday...well, no need to go over that again. But I figured these things happen in threes, and it'd be better if I was within easy reach of the first aid kit.) But adventure and romance found me, in the form of a coconut. From Hawaii. Via Fed-Ex. Courtesy of Becky, Jeremy, and Alex, all of whom got to go to Hawaii this week for various reasons--and if they hadn't sent me a coconut I'd be roundly cursing them for getting to go to Hawaii. (Especially Becky, who's there for an academic conference. Where are MY academic conferences? Muncie, IN. Kalamazoo, MI. But psychologists? Hawaii. Damn scientists.) The coconut bears a friendly greeting from Alex which is nearly illegible, a rude comment from Jeremy on the illegibility of Alex's writing, and from Becky, a great drawing of three stick persons wearing colorful dog collars, with an arrow reading "Supposed to be people with leis!" Lastly, the cryptic message "TIKI! TIKI! TIKI!" (Sure Jer. Rub it in further....) All of this is in vari-colored magic marker on the outside of a large, sloshy-sounding coconut. Naturally I was deeply touched by this fantastic gift! And its arrival could not have been timed better. Here it's freezing rain, several inches of snow and ice predicted--and yet I sit, holding a Hawaiian coconut, dreaming of volcanic beaches, fragrant breezes, lava, and poi. And wondering how the hell I'm going to open this thing without injuring myself.

Jane Said It Best....

Today, I fell into the penguin enclosure at the Zoo.

Jane's comment? "The only thing that would make that better is....no, it can't get any better." True. If I had tried to imagine the one thing that I might do on my first day volunteering at the Indianapolis Zoo, the single most ludicrously hilarious accident I might possibly have on the job, I still would not have come up with this on my own. Bitten by something, sure. Accidentally releasing a dangerous animal into a public space, possibly. But actually FALLING off of the fake ice floe in the penguin exhibit and landing in the 40 degree water, mullet flying and penguins scattering for safety.... Wow. I've reached a new zenith of klutz.

Before you ask--no, no pictures will be available for sale. No film at 11. Move along, please, nothing to see here.

Say It: Ooo-Eee-Poo-Eee!

All right, enough with the serious posting. Back to my real life. Some have asked, innocently enough, “How’s school going?” Short answer is, fine thanks. But really, being back in school yet again is, as always, a little overwhelming.

In case you’d forgotten, I’m enrolled in the Museum Studies Graduate Certification program at IUPUI (for pronounciation, see above.) That stands for “Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis,” whose motto, “Why Not Both?” should actually read, “Why Not Neither?” As far as I can tell, IUPUI’s connection with Purdue is strictly nominal; they have no involvement in the administration or curriculum, and their library is unavailable to us. How does this affect me? Not even slightly, other than the fact I’d hoped there’d be Purdue University car window stickers in the bookstore. (It’s the height of wit here in central Indiana to cut and re-paste PU window stickers to read “Undue Purversity.” ) IU, on the other hand, is tantalizingly peripherally involved with IUPUI. We can drive down there for classes, and their library catalog is online at IUPUI--but don’t try requesting books from them, because IUPUI treats it like any other inter-library loan and orders the books for you from the Tahiti Public Library instead. Our parking permits don’t work there (I don’t think) and their academic calendar is apparently completely different. I thought about commuting down there to a class this semester, but on reflection decided it would be far too confusing for me to remember when two different spring breaks were, in addition to the driving time.

So IUPUI is an urban campus, right in the heart of downtown Indy, and it boasts 35,000 commuter students. Yes, 35,000. This boggles my little private-school trained mind.... I had not even begun to contemplate what that meant until I got down there for my first class at 5:30 on a Monday and tried to find a parking space amid the sea of students leaving afternoon classes and arriving for evening classes. Not a pretty sight. I was late for “Modern Material Culture,” and if I’d known how much Elvis, Barbie, and Farrah Fawcett he was going to cram into that class period I’d not have wanted to miss a single moment.... but more on that some other time.

“Ren? What’s the Big Sleep?”
“It’s Death! Death, you eeediot!!”

Actually not such a funny subject for me at the moment, Ren and Stimpy aside. My great-aunt Audrey died this week, after a long and painful illness. While I’ve been expecting to get that phone call at any time in the past year or so, when it finally came it was still a cold shock. I’d had plenty of time to get used to the idea; presumably, so had she, although she kept a pretty upbeat and positive attitude about the whole thing right up to the end.

For some time now, I’ve been of the opinion that it’d be better to go slow than to go fast. A long illness, while sad and painful, gives one the opportunity to sort things out, mend one’s grievances, say one’s goodbyes. (Not that Audrey could have had many grievances, mind you--she was even nice to my grandmother, which would have been a considerable trial for Mother Theresa.) Now, though, I dunno. When Steve died--three years ago, now--it was, to say the least, horrible. I’d had dinner with him the night before, we’d talked about work and ordinary stuff....our usual discussion of his marital difficulties, his anxiety and depression, but also the fact that things were looking up for him. He was looking forward to a bike race through town the next day. Only he was killed during the race by a freak accident. And while it was nearly two weeks before they took him off life support, it was pretty apparent that Steve was dead from the moment his head hit the concrete.... So I thought at the time, awful. Good that he didn’t know what hit him, but awful that there was no chance to say goodbye, to tell him I was sorry about stuff, to tell him how much I liked him. Audrey knew how much she was loved by all of us; we called and sent cards, her family pulled around her, her church stood by her. My 88 year old grandpa (her older brother) drove to see her at the hospital nearly every day of her many stays there in the last 2 years. And yet, when all’s said and done, death is death. This is the fifth in six years. I’m tired of going to funerals, Ren.

Arr, Maytey! Heave to!

So you all know I’m not exactly a techno-wizard. One of my reasons for continuing to be a rabid Macintosh loyalist is that I feel Macintoshes were made for people like me--people whose grasp of their computer’s inner workings are tenuous at best. So it’s not surprising that it’s taken me several years to jump on the MP3 bandwagon. But now, thanks to the efforts of my younger, tech-savvy friends, I’m all over that bad boy. Part of the problem has been that a lot of the Napster alternatives out there, such as Kazaa, are not mac-friendly (so I say, the hell with those losers! Nyeh!) But I’ve found a nice little program called Limewire, which is written in javascript and thus useable by even me. Limewire runs off a network called “Gnutella,” which I’m presuming is just like Nutella, but made of mashed up gnus instead of hazelnuts, and with more file-sharing capability. Since I installed Limewire I’ve been sailing the high seas of music piracy, sinking ships and taking their booty of Blue Oyster Cult and AC/DC, at the amazing speeds that my 56K modem makes possible. I have this sort of vision where if a T1 line were a little fast sloop, and a cable modem would be more like a barque, then my dial-up connection is kind of like a ponderous frigate with most of its cannons gone. (This image works better if you, like me, spent hours of valuable time playing Microprose’s “Pirates! Gold” in the mid-90’s.)

Anyway, so if you’re looking for a file-sharing program/network, I recommend Limewire and Gnutella, so far I’m pretty happy with ‘em.

The Wonderful World of Disney

At last, I’m back on after a lengthy hiatus. I came down with a horrible head cold two weeks ago; by New Year’s I was an utter mess. I resembled nothing so much as a 5’8” shambling mound of used Kleenexes. I’d like to appologise right now to anyone who I may have infected by my very presence at Mara and David’s New Year’s party.... God. Then January 2 I left for Florida with my parents, as the cold moved down into my chest and left me unable to walk at speeds above “turtle” without gasping for air and requiring a rest. This continued for 3 of the 4 days we spent at Disneyworld and elsewhere... so not the most relaxing vacation of my life.

This is not to say I didn’t have a good time. My parents are wonderful to spring for me to go to Disneyworld with them; even more wonderful were gourmet meals (Mom and Dad are firm believers in quality food experiences) and tickets to Cirque du Soleil. A lengthy bout of bronchitis is a small price to pay, right? In the spirit of my Two Towers review, I’ll just hit a few highs and lows for the ol’ memory book:
THUMBS UP:
I. Going on rides with my mom. It was she who insisted we go back to MGM first thing in the morning on the day we left to make sure we got to go on the Aerosmith G-Force rollercoaster. A few years ago she got me to go on the Tower of Terror, which lived up to its name in being the most petrifying physical experience of my life (including ones where I was actually in real danger.) For the record, my favorite is still the Thunder Mountain Railroad, followed by Splash Moutain, then Aerosmith, then Space Mountain. We didn’t do the Formula 1 track thing at Epcot, it looked boring.
II. Cirque. My god. Wow. I can’t even begin to describe it.
III. Oranges from the tree in my great-aunt Virginia’s yard. I’m usually not an orange fan, I had no idea they could be that good when they’re fresh. I still haven’t eaten the grapefruit....
THUMBS DOWN:
I. 38 degree mornings in Orlando? I never even got to put on my shorts. Yeesh.
II. Dad losing his keys in the Indy airport and refusing to even ASK the nice people at the security check-through if perhaps he might have dropped them there. He was ready to come back from Florida, pay for a taxi home to get the spare keys, and another taxi back to the airport to get the car, rather than spend 5 minutes investigating the disappearance of the keys. After fuming at the gate for a while, I went back to the metal detectors, asked the guard, found the keys. Dad gave me $40 spending money to not keep mentioning this incident over the course of the weekend.
III. Dad being in a cranky mood for the last two days of the trip, due to our visit to his Uncle Don and Aunt Virginia Saturday. Complicated situation, and sad; but I thought it was a nice visit despite wishing the two of them could sort out their differences. Being sorry that folks sometimes make bad decisions about their lives doesn’t keep me from being happy to see the fruit bats at the Animal Kingdom.

Argh! I forgot to add Fruit Bats to the first list!

Speaking of the Unspeakable....

Christmas brought us the first good snowfall of the year--about 4 inches of soft, packable, beautiful white fluffiness. I was naturally thrilled, and felt a need to celebrate the snow's arrival. How to let the Snow Gods know of my gratitude for their beneficence? Build them a statue, of course. Not one of those namby-pamby frosty-style snowmen, but one more fitting the wild and capricious nature of snow gods.....

SNOWTHULHU!!!!

The dark god himself, held in place by a trampled elder sign in the surrounding snow. You know, sometimes I even scare myself.

TWO TOWERS
First off, I should say that the most gratifying moment of the evening for me was before the movie started. There, at a Game Preserve-sponsored event, attended by the very woman who fired me, my former co-workers Jason and Jay proposed to start chanting “RE-HIRE CATHY! RE-HIRE CATHY!” and see how many people in the audience took it up. It was a sweet gesture, though of course it would have resulted in death for everyone involved....

Right, so I saw the midnight showing, 12:01 Wednesday, at the AMC in Greenwood, with about 300 Game Preserve employees, customers, and friends. No costumes, just a solid crowd of fantasy geekdom from wall to wall. That, in itself, is worth the price of admission. (Which was of course $0, since I had the coupon out of the extended DVD version. But still.) Last year at this time, I was totally jazzed--Fellowship was everything I wanted it to be, and then some! I didn’t miss anything that was cut, I didn’t mind the tiny alterations of plot because I felt they contributed to the movie trilogy as a whole.... It was beautiful, it was fun, it rocked. The Two Towers is very different. Even now, I am certain Tolkien geeks everywhere are spewing bile into their blogs complaining about this movie. I’d hate to be that negative, or take it that seriously, so I’m going to go through and rap about the stuff I loved, and then some of the stuff I didn’t love, and you can feel free to email me and tell me what you think of my thinking.

STUFF THAT WAS COOL....

I. The Ents. Wow. Cool. Super. Fabulous. They looked just as I always imagined them, and then some. The film did well in conveying the slow deliberate nature of Ents. John Rhys-Davies voices Treebeard, and he’s always a good thing! I wonder if when Gimli meets Treebeard in volume 3, they’ll explode in a burst of anti-matter.

II. The Ents assaulting Orthanc. Again, my mental picture of this event was done justice by the reality. Wowwww.

III. Rohan. Another triumph of turning New Zealand countryside into bona-fide Middle Earth. The viking-style huts and halls of the Rohirrim were perfect.

IV. Eowyn. Overall, a nice casting choice for a favorite character, and it’s good they gave her a moment of swingin’ her sword around to show us she’s not just a pouty teenage girl. Very much looking forward to her part in movie 3.

V. Gollum. More on him below, I was of a divided mind on Gollum. But the plus side is, his movement and animation is incredible. Especially his fingers. Gollum should be creepy, and those hands were creepy.

VI. The Black Riders on Winged Steeds. OK, Cthulhu players--THAT is what a shantak looks like! You saw them at Gavigan’s estate in England. Man, those were cool.

VII. Oliphants. Neato!

NOW, STUFF THAT WASN’T SO COOL...

I. Gandalf casting Sauruman out of Theoden like a revivalist preacher banishing demons. What the hell was up with that? Theoden’s depressed, not posessed.

II. Aragorn falling off a cliff during a warg attack. Again I say, what the hell? We all read the books, dudes, we know he’s not dead so there is no suspense involved. I’m presuming it’s so he can have a long dream sequence about Arwen, but couldn’t he have done that just dozing on the wall at Helm’s Deep before the seige, or something? (The only thing that would have redeemed this event was if Gimli/Rhys-Davies had greeted him with his line from Raiders of the Lost Ark: “Oh my friend, I am so pleased you are not dead!” There’s a nerd wish for ya.)

III. The Arwen-Elrond moment. It was like a bad TV drama--”You’re not marrying a mortal, and that’s final! Now get on the boat!”

IV. Elves at Helm’s Deep. Not only were we treated to more of that flaming elf from movie #1, he brought a whole damn army with him. I’m presuming this was because elves are popular, and we need a reason why Helm’s Deep doesn’t get totally squashed. Here’s the thing--and maybe I am being too nitpicky here--but in the book, the seige of Helm’s Deep ends because the ents send these things called huorns, kind of sinister living trees that creep up and surround the orcs and kill them en masse. To me, this would have been a totally amazing visual--looking past the sea of orcs, realizing that the background trees are moving closer, inexorably closer, then some of the backmost orcs start screaming, and then like the thorny bushes in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty suddenly all these branches and thorns are everywhere and the orcs are being pulled down and....and.....aw, man. Instead, we get elves. And then a bunch of Rohan riders. And that’s it. So I’m sad.

V. Gollum. I can’t put my finger on this, exactly, but somehow I feel like Gollum was missing something. Maybe it’s that they played him a little too silly, overplayed the multiple personalities or something. Gollum should be crafty and sinister, as well as annoying and pathetic. I want to re-watch the Ralph Bakshi version, I think; for some reason I remember being really happy with his version of Gollum, but I can’t think what he had that this one doesn’t. But don’t get me wrong, he’s still in the “cool” column.

VI. Faramir. The more I thought about it, the more bothered I was by this; Faramir is supposed to be different from his brother. He’s supposed to grasp the import of Frodo’s quest. Instead, the film has him act just like Boromir, drag Frodo and Sam around for a while planning to take the ring, and then suddenly, inexplicably change his mind and let them go. This Faramir is Boromir warmed over, rather than a clearly defined personality of his own. Why?

VII. Gimli as Comic Relief. Yeah, ok, dwarves are funny. But he’s my favorite character in the books, and he’s coming across with no dignity whatsoever. A little less buffoonish, please, and no more “tossing.”


I guess what it really comes down to is that I don’t see strong cinematic or plotting reasons behind these things. There were other changes that didn’t bother me at all, because they made a certain amount of sense. But these changes that I’m grousing about all just seemed gratuitous and strange to me. I still liked it, I’ll still see it again and buy the DVD and worship it and all that. But I was happier with the first one.

Idiocy is Our Watchword.

For all you aspiring cooks out there, a note:
Zucchinni bread comes out much, much better when you remember to put the sugar in.

No Snow. Doh!

Last night when I went to bed it was snowing hard. 1-3" predicted. I went to sleep with dreams of waking to a winter wonderland (we haven't had one yet this year...) Instead, I wake to a bit of crusty white slush stuck to the leaves I never raked up this year, and that's it. Apparently the temp got up above freezing soon after sunrise, and by the time I hauled my lazy ass out of bed, it was gone. BOOOOOOOOO!!!!

In other news, for those of you keeping track, I finally got word that I am unofficially accepted to start in the Museum Studies program at IUPUI in January despite their having lost, at various times, my application, my GRE scores, and my recommendation letters. It all got found eventually, and I'm apparently IN, just have to wait til the Grad School Admissions dept signs off on it. Still waiting to hear about financial aid. Also have gotten several possible new painting gigs (for my life as a painting prostitute, go to The Painter's Den, or possibly to my home page and click the prostitution link.) It's not really a living, but it's better than nothing. Beats working, as we say!

Simply MARVELous!

Last night I took an online quiz called "What Marvel Superhero Are You?" The answer:
Well, really, who else would I have been? As Erin can tell you, my love affair with the blue furry swashbuckler is a long-standing one. Nightcrawler rocks. Or he used to, apparently he's undergone some changes in the current Marvel regime. Anyway, to be fair, I also took the "Which Marvel Superherione?" quiz, and ended up with
That was a bit more of a surprise--yeah, she's the one played by Famke Janssen in the movie. Who knew I had a gorgeous red-haired telepath inside me, crying to get out? Anyway, if you want to take this quiz yourself, check it out at Liquid Generation. Click on the little button with the question mark and you get quizzes. You might also try their surprisingly entertaining cleavage-identification game show, "WHOOSE BOOBS?"

Liquid Generation comes to me courtesy of my friend Pete, who has the distinction of once having created a $500 error in the Game Preserve's computer system using only a Twix bar, the barcode scanner, and his index finger. I'd link you to Pete's web address, but he recently took down his site because "It was stupid." Yes, it was stupid, but it was YOURS, Pete! Defend what's yours!

Shaping Young Minds

Sub taught at Brebeuf Jesuit again yesterday--woo hoo! Two gigs in...er...4 months!--and had a good time. It mostly involved 4 back to back showings of the first 40 minutes of "Eyes on the Prize: The Civil Rights Movement Brought To You By Pepsi-Cola." (Nothing quite like watching Malcolm Jamal-Warner, formerly Theo Huxtable of The Cosby Show, introducing a serious documentary on civil rights by saying "Pepsi and I hope you enjoy this program.") I did have one class where the kids were supposed to "study quietly" for a test the next day; I'm not stupid, and after taking attendance told them that I knew perfectly well that only a handful of them were going to actually study, and as long as they took the "quiet" part to heart, they could talk or do other homework or whatever. Immediately 8 girls rocketed out of their seats to plant themselves on the floor--what is up with that? I can't even remember why it was cool to sit on the floor to study.... Anyway, I had a pleasantly intense discussion about the various merits of Lord of the Rings vs. Harry Potter, threatened to go all Gimli on a girl who commented that she thought The Hobbit was "the stupidest, most boring book EVER!" and told a young man who was squatting down to talk to the girls on the floor that "I am seeing waaaay more of your underwear than I really needed to, dude." Probably scarred him for life, but oh well.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM YESTERDAY:
1) Reading the list of intermural basketball teams, which all had great names; my favorites were "Spongebob Squarepants and His Absorbent Gang," and "We Didn't Make The Real Team."
2) Walking through the cafeteria and overhearing a group of male students having the following fairly loud conversation:
"I'm bisexual." "Yeah, I'm bisexual too." "Me too man, I think it's cool." My my, times have changed since this ol' fart was 15....How cool is THAT? :]
3) The girl who informed me that history was boring because it was "about dead people," and when I reminded her that she too would be a dead people some day, she said, "Yeah, but I'm not going to do anything important. I'm gonna be a pharmacist." Dear god, I hope she's not filling MY prescriptions one of these days.

Thanksgiving was fine, thanks, except that I had a horrible cold for the whole holiday weekend. Oh, and I can't seem to make a cherry pie that doesn't leak juice all over the place. Suggestions are welcome.

Reality Series in the Making


Those of you who know and love me, I want you to think for a moment about my personal qualities. Recall, if you will, the Blender Incident, the Flowerbox Stumble, the Toothpick Impalement. If you’ve known me since high school, you may even recall the Flying Leap Ankle Imbroglio and an injury involving a ball point pen which almost required stitches. Now, keeping all this in your mind, I want you to ask yourself, “Who among my friends should never, under any circumstances, attempt to clean her own gutters without a safety harness, climbing equipment, and possibly a team of paramedics standing by in the driveway, idly munching on Hydrox and taking bets on which piece of extraction equipment will come into play first when it all comes crashing down?”

Was it me? Was I the person you thought of?? Well, let me tell you, everyone, I am truly disappointed in your lack of confidence in me. Just because I am one of the clumsiest, most injury-prone individuals on God’s green earth doesn’t mean I can’t handle a simple household task like cleaning out my gutters with nothing but an extension ladder (2 feet too short) and my father standing on the ground going, “You know, I don’t think this is a good idea. No, seriously, come on down, this just isn’t safe.”
Oh, he of little faith! I wedged my tennis shoes up against the edge of the porch roof and proceeded to scoop the goop out from a mostly horizontal position, gripping the edges of the shingles with one hand and scraping with the other. Lacking the courage to actually stand up, I scooted up to the peak of the roof on my butt, and back down the other side of the porch to do the other front gutters, with dad wincing below and me freezing my cheeks off. (Both. Thanks for asking.) Then it was up and over the back of the house, whose gutters are about 20’ off the ground and whose roof is at about a 60 degree slope with nothing to hang onto. I’m no wimp, so I scooted on down there and started scraping.....and after about 5 minutes and one serious overbalance (which thank god dad didn’t notice, but for a fractional second I thought I was going over the edge) I chickened and retreated. I claim a partial victory! And my neighbor with the 25’ ladder will administer the coup de gras later this week.

In other news, y’all go check out my friend Francie’s new web site! Franciebroadie.com shows off the jewelry and other cool stuff that Francie’s been making for years, and if you like it, buy somethin’! The holidays are coming up, after all. I went to the Stutz Studios’ Holiday Show to visit her booth and provide moral support, and also had the pleasure there of meeting Rob Harrell, who draws a daily online comic called Big Top, which is worth checking out if you’re a comics buff! So there’s my pitches for the day, take em or leave em!

KIDNAPPED BY ALIENS????

Yeah, yeah. I've been busy, with all my....er...not working and all. Last year, around this time, the boiler started leaking, entailing two visits from the heating and cooling guys and a chunk of money, plus some water damage. Last week, literally two days before my houseguest was to show up, my plumbing backed up and flooded the downstairs bathroom, soaking the hall carpet to the point of total squishiness. Frantic mopping, dehumidifying, moving the cat boxes so the cats could get to them without getting their paws wet... Thought I had problem fixed, Claire arrived, and then it backed up again. One emergency call to Roto-Rooter later and things are fixed, but it turns out my plumbing has a Tragic Flaw which will probably lead to this problem arising again in future. Unless I buy the MIRACLE ENZYME CLEANER from Roto-Rooter for $75. Think I'll do a little comparison shopping first....

*Insert Bad Leaf-Raking Pun Here*

It's that time of year again! A veritable explosion of fall colors has done exploded all over my yard. I've been out today plowing the mulching mower through an ankle-deep carpet of leaves, trying to take advantage of the one or two warm days we're having this week before it's back to rain and chill on Sunday. I particularly like mowing underneath the silver maple, as its leaves are a gorgeous bright yellow and the chopped up bits blowing up on either side look like a fountain of gold dust! Well, gold dust made out of chopped leaves. At any rate, I got around the big part of the yard 4 times before the exertion and dust triggered a rather startling asthma attack. I had to make a dash for the inhaler, and I'm only just feeling semi-normal again. Think I may wait til tomarrow to do the rest of the yard, that gives it more time to dry out and gives me time to be smart and actually medicate myself BEFORE risking death. Sigh.

Well, it's been downhill since Halloween, I'm afraid. My fish died, and I have been frantically combing my house for the Vassar transcripts that I was sure I had but can't find. Now I'm going to have to beg VC to next-day-air them to IUPUI. Am I the most disorganized individual in the world? It's possible.

On a somewhat related note, my friend Claire is coming to visit next week. My decision to excavate the downstairs den was originally based on not being able to find transcripts (that's where they would have been, in the piles of unsorted papers left over from my move 16 months ago.) But now there's the added incentive that someone new is coming to visit! Someone who hasn't seen what a total rathole my place can be! If I can get things shaped up between now and then, Claire could actually sleep in the den if she chooses. (Less comfortable pullout couch instead of living room futon, but warmer and more privacy.) The possibilites are heady. So even though I've given up hope on the transcripts, I'm continuing my blitz through the junk in that room. So far I've filled two trash bags with old papers, receipts and records from my life in Chicago--that was 1996-1998, folks! Be afraid! Be very afraid!--and it's not over yet....

It's HALLOWE'EN!! YAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!

My favoritest holiday of the year, though of course it's been a bit of an anti-climax since I was finally forced to stop trick or treating by people who threatened to call the cops.

You all know how much I hate scary movies, right? I've gotten a lot of flak for this over the years. I trace it back to a night in 1979 when my best friend Karen came over on Halloween and her big sister Elizabeth was babysitting us, and she decided to watch the absolute worst choice of late-night movie possible in this situation--namely, the blockbuster horror hit from the year before, John Carpenter's "Halloween." My god. Two nine-year-olds and a babysitter, watching "Halloween," on Halloween? I was petrified. And that's with having watched the movie in short bursts, punctuated by me and/or Karen fleeing the room screaming. I didn't sleep for days.

So the other night on AMC, what should be on but a documentary about the making of "Halloween." Wow, I thought to myself, this could be fascinating! At last I can de-mystify this movie for myself, conquer my fears, and look forward, not back!

You guessed it. The documentary gave me nightmares.

More Aquatic Fun!

Red the Fighting Fish hasn't been doing so hot in the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure if it's that the thuglike danios have been beating the crap out of him, or if he's got some kind of fungus or disease that's causing discoloration. All I know is, he spends 90% of his time hiding under the air pump and he looks awful. So I resurrected my old goldfish bowl from my parents' garage, got the loan of a pump, airstone and tubing from my dad the fish expert, and set up a real hospital tank. No more beer pitcher for Red! I medivac'd him from tank to bowl this morning, and it's been a little stressful for all concerned.

1. He immediately injured himself on the plastic plant I put in there to give him something to hide behind. I had to take it out.

2. I went to the store to get some mecurichrome (mom's suggestion for disinfecting injured fish) only to find that it's no longer being made. One of the staples of my injury-filled childhood! And now it's gone. Apparently, someone found it disturbing that parents were painting their children's cuts with a vile orange compound containing mercury. Go figure. So I settled for iodine; it was just a bit of a shock.

3. The cat, who has never shown the slightest interest in the fish before, has locked onto the new fishbowl like a guided missile. Those who know my cat Hal know how big he is. When he stands up, he's tall enough to pat his little paws against the fishbowl sitting atop a 3' high, slightly tippy bookcase. So we have to find a new location. And lastly,

4. Froglet is now paralyzed with fear. Froglet is my tiny African dwarf clawed frog. He was an impulse purchase two years ago when I was in the depths of a serious personal depression. (Some people turn to drugs, or alcohol. Me, I go buy frogs.) He's in one of those little aquababy containers, and he's always seemed pretty laid back, never really took an interest in his surroundings. But now that there is a giant red fish floating (in his perception) just about 10 inches up and to the left of his box, he is pressed up against the wall, his little beady eyes locked on Red's every move. As Red's eyes are kind of atop his skull, I think he hasn't even noticed Froglet's presence. But he's being watched...

Bulbous?

Spent all day today planting bulbs. Well, not all day, but a while. I had to do a lot of preparatory digging first, I'm turning my front yard from a crappy looking lawn to a garden of bulbs and perennials and that requires the removal of a LOT of grass and weeds. Today the menu was as follows:
30 Grape Hyacinths (3 varieties, 10 each.)
6 Real Hyacinths (3 Peter Stuyvesant, 3 Woodstock)
6 Tulips (3 Orange Emperor, 3 Red Emperor, also known as chipmunk food.)
This is in addition to the 20 Lilies of the Valley and 9 Bleeding Heart I planted last week. Man, if this doesn't look cool in the spring, I am gonna be SO pissed.