The Most Ironic Moment of My Life

Hello. Guess who's busy these days... guess... really, guess.

Did you guess ME? If so, you are correct. (I'm sure many other answers are correct, but you needed to pick the *best* answer...)

My brain is buzzing with Durkheim and Marx and others from Sociological Theory, the structure of memory and the encoding process, and how these two things relate to questionnaire design, bivariate statistical analysis, and of course, planning my 101 lecture. BZZZZZ. (That's my brain.)

Instead of talking about what's been happening recently in my world, I'm going to recount for you a story that happened last August while I was visiting a friend in Washington D.C., which I have finally decided is the most ironic moment of my life...

So, I was visiting my friend Jessie. We were out in Adams Morgan with a bunch of her other friends. A friend of one of her friends... let's call her Maggie... tagged along as well.
We spent a few hours at a tiny Mexican restaurant, feasting on burritos and chimichangas - and several pitchers of frozen margaritas.
When it was time to leave, Jessie's friend of a friend Maggie was very very .... very.... drunk. We wandered along the street looking for some other places to visit. Most of us decided on a bar called the Pharmacy (or something like that).
Maggie decided on a tattoo parlor. She just HAD to go in. "Guys, I just GOTTA do this!"

In the window of the parlor was a big sign "We do not serve anyone under the influence of drugs or alcohol."

Right.

I went to the bar with a few others. Maggie and her friend went to the tattoo parlor. An hour or so (and a few vodka cranberries) later, the tattoo posse joined us at the bar.

Here's the ironic part....

Maggie rolls up her left sleeve to show us the artwork. She's very proud (and still very drunk, somehow). She raves about how excited she is about her on-the-fly decision.

On the underside of her forearm - just before the elbow - is a word in black ink, readable primarily to Maggie.

The word?

Patience.

And then there was a day in February that didn't suck... at all...

Okay...
So...
I had a really great Valentine's Day. I feel like a traitor to myself by saying that. I strongly believe that we shouldn't have ONE holiday to celebrate love, and that it's over-rated and the greeting card industry made it up to be a candy/flowers/card day.... blah blah blah.... I feel like a democrat gone republican. How horrible!

Anyway, no matter how hard I tried to ignore yesterday, it just didn't happen. I was really excited to give Steve his orchid, and I awoke to some pretty great stuff too...

Steve's orchid -- he loves these things... and it was the very LAST ONE at Whole Foods! I was so lucky!


My roses.... you think it's cliche, but it's not... kind of. I have a thing about roses - they share my middle name. My dad called me 'Rosebud' since I was very small. I love roses.



This is the teapot I got. I've wanted one with an infuser for a while... and it's blue... soooo freakin' perfect, I feel like I should want to vomit. But I don't. Dang.


After spending the day at school, I came home to find Steve making a ''very special dinner'' - pink shiraz, grilled cheese & tomato soup. :P eh. Yay.


I apologize if I've just overwhelmed you with sappiness. Right now I can't help myself. Hopefully this feeling will pass. :)

Hot Seat, Solved Mystery, Beach Tags

Today in my evening class, my professor appeared very frazzled and didn't have all of the class materials with her. She apologized and launched into a story about how the heated seats in her car had caught fire last week, burning a large whole in her coat (and through the seat, of course).

She wasn't physically harmed, just shaken.

She has a BMW. Hmm.

After that, one of my colleagues mentioned that her chiropractor has the same fiasco happen to her last week. We decided that perhaps it was due to the below-freezing temperatures... ? Who knows.

I have a Jetta, Happy. Happy has heated seats too (which I adore). Now I'm very scared for both myself and Happy that my seats (and my ass) will catch FIRE! It's probably nothing. How many people are driving around right now with their heated seats set to the max without any hint of igniting? Several. Okay.

Yikes.

In other news, Ma called today and said she got a letter from the police. They caught the person who hit my car back in October. (!!!?) WOOOOAAAH! That's nuts!
I don't know if I'll get my $1000 back yet... the letter didn't say anything about the person having (or not having) insurance.

Lots to do this week. Many papers to grade. My discussions went the full hour again this week. :) Yay.

I miss Dad. Last week it was the four-year anniversary of my grandfather's death (my brother reminded me...). He died of cancer too (lung cancer, not brain cancer). I was digging through one of my desk drawers the other day looking for stamps (I didn't find any).
I did find the beach tag that I bought on the last day of my Cape May vacation last year - the vacation where it was just Dad and me.

He took me to Cape May Beach during the day. I hadn't done that in years (you're supposed to pay to get on to it - and there are several other beaches that don't require tags). Buuut, our hotel was right across the street, and it was just the two of us (my aunt came later).... so we just bought the beach tags.
I can't believe I kept it. I don't remember deciding to keep it. But then there it was. The back of it poked my finger while I was rummaging for stamps. I was so surprised... I have some really special, amazing memories from our trip out east last summer - the best coming from that day we spent on this beach. When I spoke at the memorial service, I talked about this day on the beach (among other things). It's such a wonderful memory, and I still can't get past how lucky I am to have shared that... to have BEEN THERE. Damn.

Maybe he was saying hello, letting me stumble upon the silly orange beach tag....
It was a nice, out-of-the-blue reminder that Cape May (and my beach) is still there, even if my dad is not. Most likely, it will be there for a very long time, and I can go there whenever I need to, and I can remember that beach day, and I can remember him.

Kitchen Table

This past Friday, I bought a "new" kitchen table. (I actually bought my landlord's old one that was in the attic... he was selling it for a relatively cheap price.)

We've been table-less here since last November when one of my roommates moved out. I didn't think it was a very big deal. We obviously haven't died or been physically injured from our table-less state.
I have been very surprised though, at how helpful having a table can be. Friday night, we made spaghetti and homemade sauce - and there was ample room to chop things and mix things! Saturday morning we made pancakes - and once again, no lack of space!
I've been reading Theory at the table all weekend - it's great to have a place to sit and a surface on which I can spread out my pile of Marx articles!

I'm so impressed with this table that I thought I'd share it with you... enjoy. :)

More on feburary sucking...

Welp, february still sucks. Yesterday the high was about -2 degrees. My three discussion sections were very sparsely attended, and I've received at least 10 emails now from students wondering what we did/apologizing/saying it was in their health's best interest to stay indoors/that they thought school was cancelled/or (a reason I actually believe) that their cars wouldn't start.
Great.
I handed out their first paper assignment yesterday too. Do I really have to explain this individually to everyone who didn't show up? Hmm.

I did have a personal triumph regarding my discussion sections yesterday... my lesson plan actually equalled out to an hour (err, 50 minutes to be exact). I've never actually done that - I'd always have to let the classes go a bit early (or a lot early), just because the material I had would never last as long as I thought it would, and I didn't know how to facilitate discussion.
I know it's been a semester, but I think I've finally learned something.

I was SO proud yesterday during my first discussion, when I had one more thing to go over, and I turned around and looked at the clock and there were six minutes left! I almost started laughing. Unfortunately, I haven't yet found anyone who finds this as exciting as I do.

So anyway, it's still freezing here. I did make it to school yesterday (didn't have a choice there). I wore two pairs of socks, leg warmers, boots, and two scarves (plus all other articles of clothing that you'd generally expect a person to wear on a cold day). The good thing is that it's supposed to warm up this week - to almost 30!!!........ cough.

I'm still sick, btw. I had a coughing fit last night in class. I was trying so hard not to cough that my eyes started watering, and I was sniffling... I'm sure I looked like a mess. The professor made me go get water.

I bought the new Organ Donors CD online at organdonorsmusic.com. For those of you who are unaware, this is a band of guys who I went to undergrad with... I don't really know any of them personally (anymore), but they are great musicians with a funky, rhythmic, blended sound. Check them out. Make them famous.

In other news... I have no other news... not until I get over this cold.

february [still] sucks

So it's february again. Fuck february. I know, that's a bit harsh, right? Not really... february is a stupid, stupid month. So stupid that it doesn't deserve to be capitalized. february is the cloudiest month and includes the lamest holiday ever - Valentine's Day... a day made up by Hallmark and friends to con us all into buying stupid cards and heart shaped chocolate boxes.

I'm actually not as bitter about february as I once was... but I still felt that I needed to get in my yearly february rant.

In other news....... um....... I don't know.... school...... cold weather................ um............. I have no idea what has happened in my life over the past few weeks.
That's probably because 1) all I've done is schoolwork (very busy this semester) and 2) I'm currently dealing with a monstrous head cold and am doped up on Tylenol Cold Mulit-Symptom Nighttime (it's not nighttime right now).

I feel like I've lost touch with several people lately... read "old friends." I'm very sorry about that. I guess when I'm busy and the temperature is -6 and I'm sick, I just don't feel like reaching out. Blah blah blah.

Guess how many Kleenexes I've used this week. Guess!!! I don't know the actual number - but it has to be a lot..... like almost a whole box. Who knew that one girl could contain so much mucus.

I know, gross. Gross, Laura, gross.

I'm going to go get ready for FOOTBALL... SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY.