A Wild World of Nausea

Drove up to Ball State University yesterday for my one academic conference of 2003, sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Early Studies. I've no idea what "Early Studies" are, as the paper topics seem to range from ancient Egyptian artifacts to 17th century poetry and philosophy. Maybe "early" is code for "anything you want to send us a paper on since we're a small conference and we need all the material we can get to flesh out the program." Not that there's anything wrong with this, mind you! I usually go to a huge medieval studies conference in Kalamazoo each spring, and while it pretty much stays medieval (with occasional Shakespeare on the high end) I am usually guaranteed of hearing 2-3 papers which I do NOT understand in the slightest, and at least 1 where some poor young grad student is savaged by the tribal elders for not properly checking her sources. The CAES conference, while tiny by comparison and having far fewer sessions, is a more friendly and inclusive atmosphere, and there are papers given which I actually feel well-read enough to comment on. I don't think I've ever made a comment in a session at Kalamazoo... but I babbled a good bit at CAES about such diverse topics as Margery Kempe, Tolkien's love/hate relationship with Celticism, and Arthurian heroes.

So where was I going with this? Hmmm.... Oh yeah! So the two things I remembered from last year's CAES conference were Greek's Pizzaria, and a little used bookstore called the White Rabbit. (I would have remembered more, I'm sure, but I gave a paper last year and most of the experience was lost in a white haze of nervousness.) The White Rabbit is owned by a guy who is a stereotypical geek--he's erudite, overweight, unwashed, plays RPGs and watches ceaseless sci-fi network. I like him a lot, needless to say, and we had a pleasant conversation last year that made me look forward to seeing his store again. So after a pizza at Greek's, I stopped into the Rabbit, and we chatted for about a half hour about MST3K, Cthulhu, etc etc and so on. Talk turned to bad movies, and of course I had to bring up "Sorceress" and "Legend of the Superheroes." (Which, incidentally, has been responsible for about 60% of the hits I get on this site. People look for that movie on Google every damn day! I have to wonder if they know what they're asking for...) I asked jokingly if there were any bad movies in his video section I should be aware of....

$6 later, I walked out the proud owner of "The Wild World of Bat Woman." MY. GOD. What a total reek of a film. I had planned to let it fester a few days, but Emily offered to watch it with me last night and I figured it would be better with company than alone. It was HORRIBLE. I cannot convey its awfulness in mere words. Yes, Li, it's worse than "Legends." It's still not worse than Sorceress, but it's as close as it gets. The acting stinks. The dialogue stinks. The premise stinks. It combines moments which are just nightmarishly dull with moments that make you go, "I'm sorry, what the fuck are they DOING in this scene??" The best/worst part, really, is that fact that no one in this stupid town where this is taking place seems to think it odd that there is a busty middle-aged woman, wearing a skimpy black costume made of monkey fur and ostrich feathers, with a cult of go-go dancing followers wandering around claiming to fight crime. (Never mind that the only actual crime depicted in the film, a mugging/homicide, goes on right in front of two of the idiot Bat Girls, and they don't do anything about it!) As you can see, I'm still recovering. It may take a couple days.

Jurassic, Schmurassic.

This week (that is to say, last Friday) I got to go on a field trip to the Cincinnati Museum Center with my museum studies intro class. Now, I haven't been on a field trip in quite some time; it was a heady rush, deciding how to spend my pocket money on trinkets and lunch options, and remembering to be back at the bus by 3:30 Ohio Time, which is 2:30 Indiana Time. (Hearing my teacher say this brought back a wash of memories of school band trips to King's Island, which were always punctuated with the mantra, "Ohio Is An Hour Ahead....Ohio Is An Hour Ahead..." I can't blame them, in a crowd of 40 5th Graders you're always going to have a few who just don't get the concept of time zones.) We went there to talk to some exhibit designers about controversial exhibits--how does one handle controversial topics in a museum? It was interesting and thought-provoking. And then we saw an I-Max film and ran around the museums for two hours.

So this brings me back to another controversial topic, namely the Museum of Jurassic Technology, which I mentioned in an earlier post. Nobody who responded in comments seemed particularly disturbed by the MJT.... But for those who didn't check out the link, it's a fictional museum. It exists physcially, you can go to it and see the exhibits pictured on the website... But none of it is true. The information presented in the exhibits about the habits of the Deprong Mori Bat or the works of neuropsychologist Geoffrey Sonnabend is purely fictional. The history of the museum is fictional. It's all one big joke. Yet every element of the museum is presented with the utmost sincerity and gravity, and if you were not paying attention, you might well believe everything this museum is telling you. Which is exactly what happened to about half of my classmates, and when the truth was revealed, they were furious. A lively debate ensued about what makes a museum a museum, whether the MJT can be classified as a museum or not, and whose responsibility it is to ferret out the truth. Personally, I think the MJT is great--it shows up just how easily we are manipulated into believing "facts" simply by trusting in the authority which presents them to us, complete with footnotes. But there were some in the class who were livid that a museum might, under some circumstances, lie to you. And yet we read lies in books and on museum panels all the time, assuming it's true because it's in black and white in front of you and seems to come from a credable source. A healthy skepticism is a valuable tool....

And on that note, Jeremy has some good links this week to info about the Diebold Voting Machine controversy. Books, museums, vote tabulation--it's good to know what's actually backing them up.

Beer. It's What's For Breakfast.

Beer bread, that is. It's been so freakin' cold here that I went ahead and made beer bread on Monday. Talk about a power breakfast; coffee with a slab of baked flour, butter, and beer. I needed it this morning, as I woke up with one of my total destructo headaches.

I really hate this; I've been non-functional for the better part of the day. I call them migraines, but really don't know if that's what they are in a clinical sense. All I know is, I get them once a month (predictably) and for about 8 hours I'll be nauseated, achy, light-sensitive, depressed, and miserable. Drugs help, but for some reason today I just wasn't able to shake it off. So I got almost nothing done. While it's going on I can't really read, or paint, or use the computer for more than a few minutes, or watch TV... I can sleep, but I avoid napping in the middle of the day because it throws my internal clock way off. GAH! Now it's after 5, I've got a game to run at 7, and I finally feel able to concentrate long enough to actually do some reading. Which is what I should be doing instead of posting to my weblog. Right. I'm off, then.

A Little Ray of Commentary Sunshine

Well, the links are there, so let's see if it works. Many thousand thanks to Karen, whose blog uses the same template as mine and who copied and pasted the exact locations of the Enetation code for me to sort out. Not sure why this was so complicated... Probably just because it's me.

All right, well, so the first use for comments is as follows. As you know, I'm embarking on a career in the museum field soon (very soon! Really! Any day now!) and the classes I'm taking this semester are "Intro to Museum Studies" and "Exhibit Design." I've also got an internship at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis. So naturally I'm thinking a lot about museums, why they're important, what it's all about and so on. For class this week, I paid a virtual visit to a unique sort of museum, called The Museum of Jurassic Technology. The class discussion on this museum got somewhat heated, and I'll go into that on a future post. But I'd like to hear what you guys think of it first. Go on, click the link and check it out. Take your time, then come back and leave me a comment telling me what you thought of the MJT. I'll wait.

No Comments, Folks...

It's like a domino effect, I start adding goofy stuff to my web log and then I can't stop. First it was sitemeter, now it's comments. The catch is, I can't figure out if I'm sticking the code in the right orifice, so to speak... Guess I'll see when I publish this tripe.

In other news, I found out last week that my former supervisor at the Zoo (we'll call him Dave, because that's his real name) up and quit; the old I'm-giving-you-two-weeks-notice-oh-by-the-way-I'm-taking-my-two-weeks-paid-vacation-starting-now trick. Sigh.... I'd say I expected better of Dave, except...well... Anyway, so now I'm thinking about applying for his job. On one hand, it's a job at the zoo, working with people I mostly like, it's something I spent all summer doing so I know what I'd be getting into, and it has benefits which I sorely need. On the other, it's the most boring gardening job at the zoo--no animals, no people, just lawn care, flowers, traffic on West Washington street, and a hell of a lot of trash pickup. I tried hard not to let this get to me when I was seasonal, and even with that by the end of the summer I was taking any excuse to leave the perimeter and go work in someone else's area. I once actually abandoned all dignity and begged the Deserts area gardener to pretend he had something for me to do so Dave would loan me out. Dave, being an anti-social sort in some ways, was not particularly bothered by the isolated nature of his area; me, I want a little human contact. Especially because I live alone, the thought of working alone for the better part of each day is pretty unappealing. But still, it's the Zoo for god's sake. It's a job in a museum, in Indianapolis, which doesn't require me to sell my house (at least until I can't pay the mortgage any more.) So I'm gonna see if they'll interview me, and go from there. Cross the boredom bridge when we come to it, you know?

Avast, Ye Scurvey Dawrgs, and Heave To!

Tis International Talk Like A Pirate Day, and frankly I've talked like a pirate so much I've started to repeat myself. I tend to fall back on cliches when speaking pirate. My friend Emily, on the other hand, left a 45 second fluently piratical message on my voice mail that delved into entirely new levels of high seas vocabulary. I was impressed. Also slightly frightened.

Mazel Tov, T & T!

My buddy Tripp in Chicago is gettin' married! And while I haven't yet met Trish, she must be a kick-ass person or Tripp wouldn't be marrying her--such is my considered opinion.

I got to know Tripp while I was at grad school at Loyola; he and Jersild were kind enough to include me in their social activities despite my being a good friend of Jeremy's. Tripp's a great guy, he and I have had some wonderufl discussions /debates on church history, religion, philosophy--all things I love talking about, and all things I don't get to debate that often these days! A while back, he made the big decision to embark on a pastoral career and headed up to Seabury-Western Theological Seminary (in whose library I spent many happy--and a few unhappy--hours researching my master's thesis.) This seemed to me to be a perfect fit; and it gives me joy to know that the friends I have who've chosen the pastorate as a life commitment are people who really embody what Christianity is supposed to be all about--kindness and caring for your fellow man. So congrats, Tripp and Trish! In hoc signo vinces....

Gone Fishin.

Yesterday I added new fish to my tank for the first time in quite a while. Both my neon blue gouramis died last month, due to extremely poor fish-care techniques on my part; I have no one to blame but myself. It's not like when Red died, and I went to great lengths to try to rescue him (though I did evac gourami #2 to a hospital bowl for a day or so to see if it would help. It didn't.) So I did pennance: a massive water change, cleaned the hell out of the tank, added Stress-Cote Slime Replacement Fluid to help the other fish get over the loss.... Then waited a month for the tank to settle itself out. So I'd been reading about these anabantoids called Paradise Fish, and figured I'd give them a try instead of just getting more blue gouramis. (Which are also anabantoids, as are Siamese Fighting Fish. I think it means they can breathe at the surface.) Went to The Reef, my pet store of choice, and found that the Paradise Fish tank was full of albino Paradise Fish. Now, I'm not opposed to albinism on principle, but these fish were frankly creepy looking--and I want more color in my tank, not less. It's a very dark tank, too, the back glass is painted black and the substrate is dark, so white fish would look really ghostly and odd. Instead I say, how about those Black Paradise Fish hiding behind the filter? Reef guy says sure, they're cool, I'll net two out for you--and sure enough, they're gorgeous. Not really black, more dark gold with blue stripes and red fins....actually they look a lot like gouramis... Turns out this is because they ARE gouramis; the Giant Gourami to be exact. The guy at the checkout informs me that the tank was mislabeled, the only Paradise Fish they have are the albinos, and I've got Giants. I say, "Whoa. Don't those grow to be like 20" long?" He says, "No no--there are two kinds of Giant Gouramis. These are the other ones." Riiiiiight. Like I believe THAT. But I bought them anyway, because I was embarassed and didn't want to argue with him.

Damned if there aren't two completely different fish called Giant Gouramis. One is Osphronemus gourami, grows to the insane size of 2 feet long, and is raised for food in its native India and Malaysia. The other is Colisa Fasciata, two of which are enjoying the relative peace of my tank where they are not being constantly assaulted by roving gangs of albino Paradise Fish. They're gorgeous. I'm in love.

An Excitable Boy, They All Said...

Well, Warren Zevon died last weekend. Another great talent lost--though my shallow music collection contains no Zevon albums, I think it’s telling that the very first song I ever downloaded off Limewire was “Lawyers, Guns, and Money.” He’s always been one of the artists on my “love him when he comes on the radio, one of these days if I ever have money I should pick up some CD’s...” list. So, sad to see him gone.

Not much else to mention this week, I’ve spent hours and hours painting, trying to finish up three different commissions at once and save myself an extra trip to the Post Office. My car blew its head gasket (actually that happened over a month ago, but it took this long to figure it out) and I got to spend $860 on the repair. IUPUI’s Financial Aid Office is auditing my application; they are a thorn in my flesh. (I'd blame "Legends of the Superheroes" for both these things, but that'd be giving the movie a lot of credit...) On the up side, though, the kitchen and bathroom are still clean, and it’s been a whole week. Um. Yeah! I ruuule!!

Better Than Sorceress... But That's Not Saying Much.

I'm a big fan of bad films. Mystery Science Theatre 3000 was one of my favorite programs (especially during the Joel Years.... Oh, Joel.... how we miss you and your deadpan delivery...) and during college we made a point of watching every bad sword and sorcery flick Empire Video had on offer. Until recently, my benchmark for bad was Sorceress, a film whose only redeeming quality is occasional nudity. In the words of Aaron Shattuck, " this movie does its best to wedge a tent spike into your soul." (For his full plot synopsis and painfully apt commentary on this horrible waste of celluloid, click here.) Now, I am not saying that Sorceress has been surpassed in my annals of badness; but Rob certainly gave it a run for its money last night.

"Legends of the Superheroes" was a made-for-TV movie on the order of the old "Batman" series, right to the point of including Adam West, Burt Ward, and Frank Gorshin reprising their roles as campy sendups of comic book originals. I loved "Batman," mind you. It's some of the best parody TV ever created. Now, imagine if you will, the "Batman" TV show--without a SINGLE REDEEMING COMIC FEATURE. Now you're getting closer to what "Legends of the Superheroes" is like. It's awful. Spectacularly so. A bunch of supervillains--badsupervillains, mind you, like Weather Wizard and Gargantua--sitting around their incredibly poorly-furnished secret lair, decide to end the world with a doomsday device (a large clock which descends from the ceiling) and to give the Justice League clues so that they'll try to foil the evil plan. They don't even TRY to make that make sense! The Justice League, for their part, goes rushing around trying to find the bad guy lair; the unifying feature is that since apparently they don't have wrist communicators or an answering service, the superheroes plan to leave messages for each other at the corner gas station. Everyone ends up at the gas station at some point or other, and the only--ONLY--funny thing in this movie is the black lady--played by Marsha Warfield--using the pay phone at the gas station: "Child, you would not believe what just walked in here. A big white guy with wings. Yeah, wings. Now he's talking to that ugly dude I told you about...." The movie's piece de resistance is a jet ski battle between Batman and Robin, and some sorceror dude called "Mordu." Oh, god... But wait! There's more! Apparently the producers of this...thing...somehow got the funding to do a sequel, which Rob also has on tape. It's worse. Far, far worse. It's got Ed McMahon. And a musical number from a supervillain. And a guest appearance by one of the most offensive stereotypes I have ever seen in my life--Ghetto Man! Yes. It's things like this that set the civil rights clock back during the 1970's... It's not even funny, it's just painful.

So was it worse than Sorceress? Li thinks so. I'd have to say that comparing the two is like apples and oranges; you have to take the filmmakers' intent into account, and the people who made Sorceress were really under the impression that they were making a quality fantasy film on the order of Conan. "Legends of the Superheroes" was intended to be campy, corny, and stupid. All goals it admirably achieved--without actually being FUNNY in any way shape or form. So Sorceress still holds its place in my heart.... But if I ever have to watch "Legends of the Superheroes" again, I might actually claw my own eyes out.

And One More Thing...

Football Season starts tonight. I finally succombed to peer pressure, and I'm in not one, but two fantasy football online leagues. My first game in Jane's league is against Tripp. Tripp, being a seminarian, has God on his side... All I have is Peyton Manning and Edgerrin James. You're going DOWN, Tripp! DOWN! :] Oh, and also, due to some massive technical meltdown, Lycos Email has been dead for going on 4 days now. If you happened to have tried to get in touch with me using the link button off this blog, I can't get at it til at least tomorrow. Try me at hamaker88 at yahoo.com if you need to track me down in a hurry. OK, so that was two things.

Mais Oui, Apparently.

Make that 6 people--8 if you count my grandfather and my mom--all calling to check in and make sure I'm not soaked or dead. I'm loved. And it was 9 inches in 48 hours, which is some kind of record round these parts. Today it's sunny, and things are starting to dry out.

The sunshine, combined with a certain amount of self-loathing, has brought on a new sense of personal resolve about my house this week. The one thing I truly, truly hate about myself is my inability to keep my house/personal spaces clean and uncluttered. Everyone who's ever visited me knows that I tend to outwardly shrug off my messy tendencies; I've been a slob since I was a kid. But I'm crying on the inside. Deep in my heart of hearts, I hate it, and I hate that I can't seem to do something that other people make look so simple. About twice a year, I decide that I'm going to turn over a new leaf and 1) clean the hell out of my place, and 2) keep it that way. Obviously, I've never yet accomplished #2 for any length of time. But hope springs eternal... I've done the kitchen. I'm working on the bathroom today. Tomorrow is living room and front porch. I just know that at some point critical mass will hit, and while I'm juggling the dining room I'll somehow drop the kitchen and it'll all come crashing down. And if the worst thing about me is that my house looks like crap all the time, well--I can live with that. But I'd like to think I can do better. We'll see.

Apres Moi, le Deluge?

You know it's been raining a lot when not one but two of your local friends call you to find out if your house is underwater. We had, I think, about 4" of rain in 24 hours here, and I live on a tiny triangle of land situated between a river and a canal. Thankfully, I'm on about the highest ground possible, and I'm right on the canal, which can't flood. (well, I shouldn't say can't... but it'd have to rise about 5 feet to top my levee, and since the opposite levee is shorter, it'd flood all of the neighborhood on the other side before it could ever get to me.) My neighbors closer to the river, of course, are ankledeep in basement flooding, and their yards are lakes. Jason tells me he had several inches of standing water in his basement at 5 pm yesterday, and spent the whole evening sucking it out. (With a pump, presumably.) Me, I just had a little water on the back porch, which drained away leaving soggy rugs and gardening equipment but no other damage. Still, knowing my friends are concerned about my well-being makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.... No, wait. That's the mold starting.

Mars Needs Women

Oddly enough, as it happens, I live within walking distance of one of the most powerful telescopes in the midwest. It's at Holcomb Observatory at Butler University, and it's a 38" monster. Now, knowing that Mars is presently zinging past the earth at a distance of mere millions of miles, I figured that now was the time to take advantage of Holcomb and go have a peek through the telescope. Figured I'd head over there Wednesday night, catch the 9 pm planet'arium show and then check out Mars.

Only, when I reached Butler campus and wandered around the Lily music hall toward the Observatory, what did I see but about 500 people standing in line outside the building? The line went all the way down the hill where the Observatory is perched, and part way around the long cement sidewalk that loops below it. Good god, thought I. I could just come back another night.... OR I could stand in line for 2 whole hours to get a look through the scope. Which is what I did, of course. I swear, it was like being at a Dead show--all these folks milling around, kids taking turns rolling down the hill in the grass, people shouting out entertaining Mars facts to one another.... A bunch of dudes from the Astrophysics Dept. there had set up smaller telesecopes on the lawn, and you could go kill some time looking through those while you waited. It was just plain fun, and I didn't mind the standing. (At least til the backache hit, about 18 hours later.) Finally, though, I got into the Observatory, climbed the 3 flights of stairs to the room with the view... And saw it. Mars, triumphant. Polar Ice Caps and all. I'd imagined it showing a little more color, it was pretty much just bright greyish with a faint orange tint. But it was still cool...

And to Sarah, whose attempt to see Mars at the Adler in Chicago was a tragic comedy of errors, I have only these words of sympathy: BWAAA-HAAAAA!!!!

Gaahhh! It's Got Me!!!

OK, Sitemeter is totally, horribly fascinating in an obsessively self-involved way. Not only does it guilt me into thinking about more frequent posts (a thing which Jeremy has been trying to do for months, without success) but I'm captivated by the occasional totally random visitor to my site. This morning, someone did a google search for the phrase "Ninja Hedge." Cautionary Tale is the FIRST SITE to come up on Google when you search for ninja hedge! Can you believe it? You'd think Ben Edlund would have gobbled up ninjahedge.com back in the early 90's....

Thank God the Tiki Bar Was Open...

Musically, it’s been a great week! Non-musically, only so-so. But that’s not the point. Point is, I got to go to a fantastic concert on Saturday night, for only $15. John Hiatt is one of my all-time favorite artists; I’m usually frustrated when he comes to town because his concerts sell out so fast. Anyone who’s ever looked at my CD collection knows I have pretty shallow and eclectic taste in music--II have a lot of different stuff, but seldom more than one or two albums per artist. There are exceptions, of course, and one of them is John Hiatt. He’s from Indianapolis, he’s got a quirky sense of humor and his stuff rides the rail between country (which I hate) and blues rock. He’s written a lot of stuff that other people cover, though I find I usually prefer his original versions anyway. So John was playing this charity blues street festival this weekend, along with Johnny A., who’s also pretty freakin’ amazing if you love the blues. It was a “bring your own chair” event, to which of course I failed to bring a chair. The street was packed for a full block with people who DID bring a chair, and I ended up spending the concert standing in a doorway on Mass. Ave, about 50 feet from the stage, with a great view and great sound. John Hiatt’s set was 2 hours of acoustic solo material, and it was the best $15 I could possibly have spent. Sometimes you get the blues.... and sometimes you just need the blues. I needed some blues in my life, and Saturday delivered for me.

THEN, last night, I finally finally finally got to hear my friend Steve’s band, The Bishops, playing at a local bar. It’s been my curse for months that I either don’t know when Steve’s got a gig until after it happens, or I find out and there’s no way I can go. At last, another dream fulfilled. Steve’s a fantastic guitarist, and once they got the sound mixed so you could actually hear him over the relentless rythym guitar, they sounded pretty good! It’s a cover band; I still aspire to hear his other band, who do original music. But that’ll have to wait, they don’t get gigs as often as the cover band (naturally.) And tomorrow, I’ll have the pleasure of hearing my friend Emily in concert for the first time. She does original stuff, solo acoustic at the moment; reminds me a bit of Indigo Girls style sound, and she’s quite good. I’d link you to her website, but she doesn’t have one at the moment. But if you like that sort of music and want to give her a try, let me know! Her CD’s $10, pretty reasonable really.

And finally, I signed up for the iTunes Store on Apple.com! The future of music on the internet, legal downloads for $1 apiece. Hell, that’s not so bad, considering the quality of the dl is guaranteed, I don’t have to worry about someone disconnecting while I’m shopping their stuff, and I won’t be prosecuted for doing it. Pirate ship is in drydock, all hail iTunes.

Who Are These Wackos, Anyway?

I've added Sitemeter to my blog. (At least, I think I have.) Either the results will depress me, or will inspire me to post more often. We'll see.

Hmm, What an Odd Aftertaste....

I finally, FINALLY went out to my garden today to see how bad things had gotten. The answer, of course, was bad. Bad like my cucumber plant had utterly disappeared, dying a lonely death beneath the weeds; bad like my bush beans had been completely decimated by the japanese beetles; bad like my tomato plants had produced so many huge, succulently ripe tomatoes that they had bent their tomato cages beneath their weight and had toppled over into the neighbor's plot in one solid viney mass. Bad like all my basil was flowering. For basil to flourish, you have to pinch off the flowers so that the plant will divert its energy into making more and bigger leaves (so it can make more flowers for you to pinch off. It's cruel, I know.) Bigger leaves means more pesto. So I ignored the weeds and the beans, picked the tomatoes, and then started pinching the flowers off the basil. About halfway around the first plant I found a flower that didn't match; thought to myself, sayyyy.... that's not basil. That's deadly nightshade.

Yep. Nightshade is a fairly common weed in this parts, so it's not too unreasonable it's in my garden--but pretty disconcerting that it's growing right next to my basil. While the flowers and little berries are quite distinctive, the leaf is not entirely unlike lemon basil in both size and shape... And while deadly nightshade isn't really deadly, at least for a healthy adult human, it still probably wouldn't be a great idea to get it mixed in with the pesto. Looks like I've got some more weeding to do...sigh....

Iwantone Iwantone Iwantone!!

It's "Shark Week" on Discovery, so naturally I had to flip past it while vegging out this evening. Two words, folks: CHUM CANNON. Yes. It's a cannon that fires a mass of fish blood and guts into the water to attract sharks for filming purposes. A cannon! That shoots chum!!!!

I can think of so many uses for this. Most of them involve cruising the strip, firing chum at unsuspecting pedestrians. Think about it! It'd be just like "Carrie"! Only more mobile! Wow.

Unemployment, here I come.

All good things come to an end, and so it is with my job at the Indianapolis Zoo. This is my final week of digging in the dirt, and I have to say I'm going to miss it. I'll miss the people, I'll miss being outdoors all day... and, of course, I'll miss the paycheck. Not that it was a huge paycheck, I've still been surviving with the kind and generous assistance of my parents this summer--but it was something! And it was the first real paycheck I'd had in nearly a year when I started this job in May. Working 40 hours a week after a year of total inactivity was a bit of a shock; waking up at 5:30 to be at work on time at 7 was even more of a shock. But it was a good sort of shock, and it helped counteract the creeping edge of depression that comes from feeling that no one wants to hire you. I know I'm not a worthless pile (unless you're asking Jason, in which case I am a worthless pile) and I know there are lots of jobs out there which I could do with grace, skill, and aplomb. Knowing that is all well and good--but having it confirmed by someone who actually calls you up and says, "We want you, will you take the job?" is something else entirely. Thanks, Indianapolis Zoo, for helping me get my groove back.

So I start back to school next week, and I've got my old job in the Museum Studies office, assuming that my work study gets approved again. I just applied for a job at the Indiana State Museum, and we'll see what comes of that. Hopefully I can keep my momentum going.

And now I've got time to think about my own yard again! I'm contemplating burning bush and bayberry to replace the honeysuckle which forms a crappy-looking privacy hedge along the front of my property. Or maybe a ninja hedge, like in the Tick comic book of yore! I bet I could pick up some surplus ninjas cheap at Lowe's! Mmmm....ninja hedge....

A Religious Experience...

(first, let me just say again how irritating it is that Blogger is unable to handle posts from a state that doesn't go on Daylight Savings? 99.9% of the time, who cares... but when I post on my birthday, I want to see the dateline say "July 30, 2003" dammit.)

So last night I got an excellent t-shirt as a gift. (the second excellent t-shirt I've gotten this week; for the story of the first, click here.) It's a black shirt from goodwill, never worn, from the Baptist Bible College of Indianapolis. The back of the shirt has a number of quotes screened on it; a couple from the bible, perfectly nice firey quotes from Isaiah and such. Then there are the slightly more corny quotes that caused my friend to actually purchase this shirt for me:
"God meant the Bible to be bread for our daily use, not just cake for special occasions!"
You hear that, folks? The bible ain't cake. The other good one is "Be careful how you live, You can be the only Bible some people read." To which Karen suggests we add a footnote: "Now available in Braille!" Heck, I might just have to start a ministry with that...

Lest folks think I am an utterly sacreligious pig, I should point out that my philosophy of religion for my own life is quite in-depth--which is one of the reasons I find distillation of religion into t-shirt form so darn funny. Anyway, I went ahead and followed Tripp's link to the Belief-O-Matic, just to clarify where I stand in the grand scheme of things (other than poking fun at Baptist t-shirts.) After answering 20 questions about my beliefs and their priority in my life, here's my top 5:
1. Reform Judaism (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (99%)
3. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (98%)
4. Unitarian Universalism (96%)
5. Baha'i Faith (85%)
#3 surprised me a bit, just because it surprises me that it comes out only 2 % points different from Reform Judaism in my list, with the Quackers sandwiched in between. At any rate, it was interesting to me to see that nearly 20 years after deciding that Reform Judaism was the path I wanted to follow in my life, and after then spending those 20 years weaving back and forth on the issue of formal instruction and conversion, my core beliefs apparently still line up with where I thought I was going (philosophically) when I was 13. Maybe it's time I revisted this issue. OR, maybe I should look into Baha'i, just to make sure I'm not missing something.

No, I Didn't Fall In. Or, Happy Freakin' Birthday To Me!

I like to stretch my birthdays out. Especially after my depression at hitting 30, 3 years ago, I make it a mission to have the happiest freakin' birthdays possible. What makes me happy is being surrounded by friends, and doing something different than we usually do. This year being no exception, I planned a trip to Rustic Gardens, a mini golf course here in Indy that's been in operation since 1930. The course goes around an old farm yard, up hills and around trees and through the chicken coop, and it's just too cool to be believed. Only $2.50 for 18 holes, or $5 after 6. So I invited all my buds to come play mini golf with me, and then to go to the Broad Ripple Brewpub for food and beer and friend time.

BUT, now here's the best part, today was also "Seasonal Gardener Appreciation Day" at the zoo. That is to say, all our gardener bosses held a pitch-in for the seasonal help. We had masses and masses of food, and then--joy of joys!--we got to go over to the Marine Mammal building and have a personal encounter with the walruses and dolphins. I got to pet a goddam walrus today!! A WALRUS!!! It was amazing. They're very smart and darn cute to boot. The dolphin was cool as well, though more kind of nervous and shy. I'd always been told that touching a dolphin feels like touching a wet balloon, and I'd have to say that's true. But a >living< wet balloon, which is totally different from the ordinary kind. The walrus was kind of velvety and wet, and the whiskers (called vibrissae, I believe) are like really thick fishing line. It was just amazingly cool, and an excellent way to spend my birthday. Oh, and I got a twinkie with a candle in it from Kyle and Emily, and a personally drawn birthday card from Emily as well with a picture of me complaining about my advancing age.

Then after work it was the mini golf, which of course I did badly at--Andy W. and Francie tied in our foursome for the win, and i think Stephen trounced the other group but I never did hear the final scores there. Then at the Brewpub I had no less than 12 of my pals hanging out with me, and I can't imagine a better way to spend my time. So was it a good birthday? Abso-friggin-lutely.

President Bush Stole My Flag!

Here it is July 4, and I, a patriotic American, feel cheated out of my independence. In the last couple years--particularly since 9/11--the American flag has been usurped by the present administration as a symbol of support for our current "Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead!" foreign policy. Here in Indiana (presumably elsewhere too) the flag is plastered over T-shirts, in car windows, and on bumper stickers proudly proclaiming "Don't Mess with the U.S.!" and other idiotic slogans. The greater global good philosophy of the 90's has been tossed out the window, and our flag has become a symbol of an isolationist, love-us-or-we'll-kick-your-ass approach to world politics. So if I, a thoughtful American for whom the flag repesents free speech, due process, and democracy, were to fly an American flag from my house today, it would be taken by passersby as a statement of support for an administration I didn't vote for. This, despite the fact that many recent actions taken by this administration demonstrate their total LACK of regard for free speech, due process, and even democracy (as seen from the very beginning, in Florida's ballot fiasco.) My flag's symbolism has been stolen from me, and Mr. Bush is the culprit.

Two political blog entries in a row. See what happens when I don't have anything else to write about? Right, well, I'm off to make some non-partisan, non-mayonnaise-based potato salad and enjoy the 90 degree Indiana summer afternoon at a pitch-in. Happy Independence Day, everybody!

I Love My Job....

So today at work, my special group project involved weeding virginia creeper out of the bald eagle enclosure. The enclosure consists of a lot of rocks, dirt, plants, and dead trees surrounded by plastic mesh; the eagle spent all of her time while I was in there sitting on a branch about 30 feet above my head and making irritated whistling sounds. I couldn't help noticing that the plants I was weeding out beneath her tree were spattered--nay, covered--with bald eagle poop. Now, I don't know about you, but I've never before had a job that offered me the opportunity to be crapped on by our national symbol. I had goosebumps just thinking about it! Sadly, though, she didn't let fly while I was in there. That might have been the one thing that could have trumped the penguin story....

When you think about it, though, being an American during the second Bush administration is kind of like getting crapped on by our national symbol. Isn't it?

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

The real problem with maintaining a blog mentality, for me, is that I'm usually only moved to write if I A) want to complain about something, or B) have something really funny to talk about. If I don't have something amusing or irritating to talk about, I dry up. So that's really what it's been this last month--it ain't that I'm dead, or even really that I'm busy. It's just that since I broke the hose coupler, nothing else particularly ludicrous has happened to me in recent weeks. And really, life's going along pretty well, so nothing to bitch about. Except, of course, that I have nothing to bitch about, and Jeremy's on my ass again about updating! Jerk. :]

Actually I did do something pretty imbecilic at work this weekend; I filled the lawnmower with 50:1 gas-oil mixture instead of straight gasoline. (For the un-lawn-equipment initiated, what this means is that basically the mower could blow up. Or something. Actually I have no idea, but it'd screw up the engine plenty good.) Fortunately I realized this before I started it up and got the bad fuel into the fuel line.... I'm not at liberty to say how Susan and I fixed the situation, except to mention that the EPA would not have approved of our methods. But no harm done, and I'm still not fired. Other zoo news: our baby elephant died, which sucked. My direct supervisor, though essentially a good guy at heart, has said enough dumbass things to me that I don't quite look forward to working with him as much as I might. (Dumbass examples will be supplied on request.) I still love the job though. And other life news: flooded with painting commissions, more than I can handle. May get to give a presentation at the American Assn of Museums conference next spring in New Orleans, on IUPUI's tab--most excellent. And I got friggin pooch-screwed playing Blood Bowl with Mac this evening! Jesus, could it have BEEN any worse?? Oops, sorry, wrong blog....

That's my life in a nutshell. How are all of you?

What's a King Without a Crown?

It's been a fun couple of weeks. One of the high spots was me breaking a tooth--the second one in two years, as it happens. The first one broke while I was eating a jelly doughnut; my dentist kind of rounded off the tooth and filled it with epoxy, and everything was cool. Then last month, my yearly checkup revealed that my tooth is starting to flake away around the epoxy patch. So I got the splendid news that I really should get a crown ($700) on that tooth, before I get some serious decay and need a root canal. I don't have dental insurance. So then I'm mulling over this prospect, wondering if I can put it off til I get a "real" job that offers dental coverage--and boom, another tooth breaks! Jeez louise. My dentist confirms that this tooth, too, should really be crowned. $1400 in future dental costs! Now that's a pleasant prospect.

Other than that, though, things seem to be going well. My summer job at the zoo is excellent--where else can you take a work break to watch pit vipers get fed? Or galapagos tortoises engaged in amorous pursuits? I managed to go an entire week without doing anything totally klutzy.... Then yesterday I was left on my own to water some rosebushes by the park entrance, and was moved by the Doofus Spirit to give the long, heavy hose a firm tug when it was almost completely extended. Thought it would straighten it out to give me maximum watering potential. Instead, it caused the hose coupling to snap off its pvc pipe connection to the water main, causing a six foot jet of water to go shooting up in the air and causing me to go "Holy ****!" I naturally ran over and tried to block off the fountain with my hands, thinking the coupling had just come undone and I might be able to re-attach it. But nooooo. I broke it good. So now I was totally sopping wet from head to foot, facing an unstoppable gush of water that was rapidly flowing out across the entrance to the zoo like a miniature river. Had to go running to the administration building to ask security to radio my boss so she could turn off the water main... and every single person I passed had to say "Gee! Looks like you got wet!" Or, "Got a little wet, eh?" Or, "Hey! You're wet!" Gosh. Thanks. Anyway, problem got taken care of and I didn't get fired or killed or anything. They were warned, after all. They knew about the penguins.

If You're Gonna Dew It, Dew It Right...

AAAAAAUUUUUUUGHHHHHHH!!! I am DONE, Ladies and Gentlemen, DONE with everything I was panicking about for the last two weeks. I have a take-home final and an in-class final at the beginning of next week and then school is OVER for the summer! Yes! Yes! Yes! Woo hoo!

I think I'm regressing. I drank more Mountain Dew in the past 6 days than I've had in, probably, years. Dew was my sustinance in college; I lived off of Dew, it was a friend through good times and bad, my companion through all-nighters and long car trips to Poughkeepsie... And then I abandoned it, when I went on a semi-newfangled health kick after college. I still drank, of course, but casually--socially. That's it, I became a social Dew drinker. Our relationship had changed. We grew distant. Now, though, we've gotten back together. Our tearful, joyous reunion nearly killed the 12 pack in the kitchen in the space of 3 days.... I swear to god, it's like being 20 again, only the caffiene hangovers are worse. Mmm...hair of the dog...mmm....

In another concession to whinyness, may I present a link to Li Rapkin, a most excellent friend and gamemaster of my Play-By-Email GURPS game, The Grand Ellipse. Li is also the one who celebrates the Chinese New Year with a showing of Big Trouble in Little China each February, kindly invited me to her Passover seder this year, and (even more kindly) did not poke fun at me for preferring the Mogen David to the real wines on the table. Voila la Li!

Look out!

John "Big Whiner" Washburn points out, in a very pouty sort of a way, that I had omitted linking to his webpage on Cautionary Tale. As you will see, this was a grevious oversight--not just because I'm a bad friend, but because the very nature of John's site dovetails nicely with the theme of Caution in general...

Tonight I get to give a Powerpoint presentation in my Audiences class. That's if the A/V guys actually remember to supply the cable that makes it possible to hook a Macintosh up to the projector. I got about halfway through designing the presentation last night, and then thought, "You know, if the projector thing is screwed up, this is just going to have been a MASSIVE waste of valuable sleeping time." So instead of laboriously converting all my charts and graphs over from Appleworks to Excell to Powerpoint, I'm going to end the Powerpoint portion of the program halfway and go to pure reading, begging lack of skill with the MS software. I think I'll get away with it. The grading in this class has been ludicrously easy.

Patio's done! (almost.) Pictures are being uploaded and arranged.

DON'T PANIC

So said Ford Prefect. Alas, I'm having a hard time taking the motto to heart this week; the end of the semester looms nigh, and all I can do is stare helplessly at my two huge class projects and whimper. Well, whimper and watch television. And buy a new iBook. Yeah, that too.

It actually was a big weekend in the sense that I had two large accomplishments. One was buying the iBook, which made me very happy though slightly more panicky in a financial sense. The other was spending 6 hours today working on the new patio with my father, which gave me a sense of accomplishment but made me panicky in that I should have been working on my Anthropology project instead. But the good news is that the patio is more than half done, and no one got hurt. I did fall over once, but that could happen to anybody. Pictures of the patio project will soon be visible on my website, I'll slap a link up here when they are since I suspect it'll make an entertaining jpeg-flipbook when we're done.

Good movie last night. "Bend It Like Beckham." Came out last year, has just toiled its way to Indianapolis. See it. I guarantee enjoyment.

Change is good....?

Well, updating is, at least. Note that my links have been expanded, updated, polished and cleaned! Several links to other friends have been added, in some cases without their permission as I'm far too lazy to email them and ask. Karen? Bryan? Do you care? If so, say and the links are zapped.

Speaking of other nerdy friends, Jane has just begun a blog dedicated to the ins and outs of her present EQ game! This is reachable through a link on her page; I'd link directly to it here, but I can't remember the url off the top of my head. It's linked from her main blog, if you're also an EQ nerd take a look. But the upshot is that she has inspired me to unveil my own gaming blog that I started over a month ago and hadn't been publicising due to it being really ugly and strangely formatted. I still can't seem to manipulate the code to make it better, and what I really should do is get my own url and write it myself with my limited skillz as a web page author. But in the meantime! If you play in one of my games, or are interested in RPGS and board games, and want to see my occasional ramblings on the subject, check it out! It's called Dark's Carnival, after a board location in Chaosium's classic "Arkham Horror" board game. That is all, you may return to your posts....

You know it's a bad day when....

Today I went to the Summit Occupational Health Clinic for my first work-related drug test ever. Yes, the zoo requires it. (What do they think people are going to do, get high and fall into the penguin pool? Oh, wait...) So I went, even before breakfast, figuring that since I hadn't gone (in the wc sense) since 11 last night I'd probably be able to supply the necessary sample. But no. Nooooo. My tendency to tense up in public restrooms, which has been pretty well mastered in the last 10 years or so, returned with a vengance. I wasn't helped by the fact that the nurse informed me, "If you can't go, then you have to wait another hour and try again. No, you can't leave and come back tomorrow." If that's not a threat, I don't know what is. So I chugged a Mountain Dew, walked around, and tried to go. No go. An hour later, I was doubled over in bladder-screaming agony in the waiting room, begging them to call me back in. They finally did. I couldn't go. I mean, I was in actual physical pain, and yet the tiny muscles down there were somehow saying, "Now is not the time!" Holy crap. Finally, by methods which I won't elaborate in this forum of good taste, I was able to fill the cup. It was awful. I never want to do this again. (Have a drug test, that is, not urination in general.)

And Charles was kind enough to point out that IUPUI was the 16th seed in the NCAA tourney, not the 14th. Thanks Chuck. :] But we lost, and IU lost, and Purdue lost, and Butler finally lost. So that's that! On to more important things, like the NBA Championships!

Hoop Dream?

I don't know how many of you (all 6 of you) are basketball fans; my guess is none. However, I feel the need to inform you that something miraculous is happening today. My current school, IUPUI, is playing in the first round of the men's NCAA basketball tournament today. This is unheard of--to the best of my knowledge, IUPUI has never experienced anything like this before. This is a school where the average student age is about 26, where most students are commuters--essentially, there ain't no Michael-Jordan-style scholarships luring players to IUPUI. In fact, IUPUI drawing its student base almost exclusively from the Indianapolis area, they're in an even worse situation in that every local high school basketball prodigy goes to either I.U. or Purdue; that's the problem with a state so obsessed with one sport as Indiana is with basketball. But here's IUPUI, playing in the first round today, ranked 14th in the Midwest division--and they're playing #1 ranked Kentucky. My prediction is that UK will wad up IUPUI like a used kleenex in the first 5 minutes and then dunk them repeatedly into the trash can. BUT... I still feel a sort of tiny sense of pride about IUPUI's presence there at all. Go, Jaguars, go.

Well, at least I come by it honestly...

My dad’s in Costa Rica right now. As many of you know, I maintain that the secret to my parents’ long marriage is that they frequently take seperate vacations. Well, that and two full sets of covers on the bed. Anyway, so dad is happily paddling around in the rainforest (I hope) and my mom is eating shrimp and cocktail sauce for dinner every night. We call this “eating single week.” I went over there for dinner tonight, as I do most Sundays--no shrimp, she hoards that, instead it was irish stew and bright green biscuits--and we had a pleasant conversation about a number of family-related topics. The reason I’m bringing this up is for those of my friends who believe that I am somehow responsible for all the ludicrous personal accidents that occur in my life--in point of fact, it’s genetic. I was telling her about chopping up some massive dead branches in my yard with the big axe Dad unwisely purchased for me last summer, and from there we segued to a fond discussion of my 88 year old grandpa, who once managed to hit himself in the head with an axe. Since he’s now 88 and one of the sharpest people I know, it apparently didn’t affect him much. I’d heard about this accident before; but mom added a new dimension to the whole genetics theory by telling me about the time (c.1950) Grandpa tried out the neighbor’s new power mower. Being unable to turn it off when he was done, he decided that instead of walking it to the sidewalk and up the neighbor’s driveway, he’d just lift it over the hedge that separated the two yards. Yes. Lifted. A running power mower. Over a hedge. Of course, it only made it halfway over the hedge before his grip slipped, and the mower fell on his leg and carved a large chunk out of his thigh.

Lest you think that this gene skips generations, may I point out that my mother once bludgeoned herself in the head with a phone receiver by accident and had to get 20 stitches.

It’s not my fault, I tell you!

Spring? Sproing!

Yep, it's finally getting warmer here, in little bitty increments. Yesterday it was 20 degrees out. Today it's near 50. Last Saturday we hit 60, to be promptly followed by 35 Sunday. I swear I wouldn't live anywhere else, each one of these warm days is like a shiny jewel during March. I'm turning my back porch into a greenhouse for seed starting (no promises on success, but I have my hopes) and the compost bin I ordered through the mail just showed up last week. 100% recycled plastic, from a distance it looks like wood and up close it looks like melted-down car tire slag. Which is probably what it is, of course.

School proceeds apace, it's a good thing that Spring Break is next week because I've gotten awfully apathetic about finishing my reading for each class. I thought about trying to find someplace I could roadtrip to, just to make it seem more like a real "Spring Break"--after all, it'll probably be the last one I ever have. Barring disaster I should be finished with the Museum Studies certificate by next January. Anyway, so I gave it some thought and realized 1) I don't have any money, 2) there's no place I really feel like going that I can get to quickly, and 3) I should spend the break painting miniatures. Suddenly I have a surfeit of painting jobs, there's a nice man in New York city who seems perfectly willing to have me do a huge quantity of stuff for him and wants to pay in advance. So really, I ought to get cracking on that. I'm full of fear, got an email today from a guy who wants me to do a bunch of Spanish Succession Wars 6mm figures--6mm scale figures being approx the height of your little fingernail. That's smaller than I've ever done, no idea what to charge or how much of a pain in the ass it will be. Bah. As Bert would say.

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.

Don't mind me, just trying to fix my archive problem....

Could Cathy Be the D.C. Sniper????

Well, no. Definitely not. I think I effectively removed myself from the pool of suspects yesterday when I went target shooting for the first time in about 10 years. Not only does my choice of weapon not fit the M.O. (bow and arrow, field points, rather than semi-auto rifle, .223 caliber) but my marksmanship is so poor as to be almost laughable. I mean, wow. I was shooting at a target about 16" x 16", 20 yards downrange, on lane #7. I hit that target 27 times. Out of about 120 arrows. Yep. Just call me Oliver Queen. The other arrows hit above the target; below the target; over in lane #8; over in lane #6; and the wood framework around the top and bottom of the backstop, which causes the arrow to make a really loud "BAM!" noise when it hits and bounces backward up the range. This also causes the other archers on the range (all using compound bows with advanced deer-seeking target systems) to glance over at me with a "What the hell are you DOING?" look in their eyes. My personal dignity is in a shambles. But it's a small price to pay for the eventual realization of my dream--which is, of course, to hit the target with a full 50% of my arrows! Woo hoo!

Well, THAT was exciting.

I always wondered what it would be like to have one of my tires blow out while doing 75 mph on the highway. Ideally, this would happen on one of the stretches of I-65 where there is nothing for 15 miles but corn, soybeans, and the occasional sharp-shinned hawk wheeling overhead. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if it had been sleeting at the time.... As it was, aside from the high winds created by passing semis, the whole experience was really not too traumatic! I had a mini-spare, I had a jack, and I had the sheer muscle power required to get the lug nuts off (that last was sort of iffy for a few minutes.) I got to Chicago just fine, and Alex helped me go tire shopping the next morning, so all is well.

BACK, BY POPULAR DEMAND!!

Well, all right, so the only demand I got was Jeremy's. But it's been a busy week, and then when I did try to post a couple days ago, Blogger rejected me. I was sad....hurt....unable to continue. I had to have time to recover from the experience.

So what have I done for you lately? That is to say, what have I done worth writing about in the past 10 days, in no particular order? Let's see:

1. I took the GRE. Again. When I did the practice test I missed 20 out of 24 questions on the quantatitive section--I'm too old to remember crap like how you find the circumferance of a circle! Well, too old, or too dumb, or something. Anyway, I did fine on the exam, apparently 66% of GRE testers are even older and dumber than me about math.

2. I gave a paper at an academic conference. My first paper-giving experience ever. A success, plus I made friends with an Egyptologist. You never know when you might need one of those.

3. I went to a haunted house with a bunch of friends down on the southside, and almost got myself punched in the face by a high school girl who didn't take kindly to me gently pointing out that it's rude to yell "CUT THAT SHIT OUT ASSHOLE!!" at the masked Jaycees one has just paid $10 to be scared by.

4. Won two games of Warhammer, a surprising feat coming from me.

5. Finished a rough section of the book I'm trying to write for Call of Cthulhu, and posted it on the web for Mr. Willis to look at. (If you'd like to look at it too, find it here.) So far I haven't heard back from him. The way my luck has been going, he'll reject it out of hand. :]

Oh, and to bring everyone up to date--no, I still don't have a job. Right now I am looking for temporary work, and am applying to go back to school at IUPUI here in Indy in January. This will hopefully lead to my getting a "Museum Studies Certificate" which hopefully then will lead to an actual job at a local museum. That's the Life Plan at the moment. Subject to Change Without Notice.

A DEAD CAT IN MY TRASH CAN???

That's what I thought, too--good god, there's a dead cat in my trash can! I was on my way to Evan's yesterday to watch the Colts/Bengals debacle, running out the door, and as I pass the tall green trash can I keep outside the back door, out of the corner of my eye I see matted grey fur smashed down in the bottom. I did a pretty visible double take, and came back to find NOT a dead cat at all (thank you, lord) but a very small opossum, curled up, asleep. Apparently he/she got up on top of the recycling bin to climb into my trash can, and then found he was too small to climb back out and too lightweight to tip it over. Being a possum--practical animals, though dumb--he made the best of the situation and sacked out. I left him there for the rest of the day, figuring that evicting him during daylight hours would be unkind at best, and dangerous for him at worst--plenty of dogs here in Rocky Ripple. Got home after dark, shined a flashlight on his now awake and irritated little self, and tipped the trash over so he could escape at his leisure. Which he did.

What else is new? Not much. Heard from Chaosium again, so I am throwing myself wholeheartedly into this book project. Giving a paper at a medieval studies conference this weekend, I'll probably get all worked up about that in another day or two. Wish me luck.