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Header by shipperfey

Not to be melodramatic or anything, but if I don't get this proposal done by the end of summer, I'm going to fling myself in front of a bus.

Sigh.  It's not going well.  I will use any excuse at all to get out of doing actual work.  Yesterday I took apart my ceiling fan.  It was one of those things that went from "that would be a bad idea" to "this is a bad idea" to "well, that was a bad idea."   The problem I was trying to fix is still there and there are two leftover screws that I don't know what to do with, but it still works.  As of right now.

I did manage to successfully assemble a shelving unit.  A few weeks ago, my mom decided that the solution to my problems, along with regular pedicures, was reasonably-priced Swedish furniture.  Yup, I got dragged to Ikea.  Y'know how some random line from a TV show will get stuck in your head, to the point where you know that on your deathbed, you will not recognize the faces of your children or grandchildren but you will remember that line?  Mine comes from the episode of the Simpsons where they go to the Ikea (well, it's called Stör or something).  Lisa wants a fancy pencil cup, but Marge suggests something cheaper called a Püpli.  Lisa says, "Moooom, everyone makes fun of the Püpli kids.  I make fun of the Püpli kids."

So that's pretty much how I feel about Ikea.

I totally approve of how everything has a pretentious Swedish name.  They were having a sale on Blomsters, but I already have plenty of those.  I did end up with a nice Rönnskär (the two umlauts are how you know it's fancy).

One of the needy students is back full-time in the writing center.  He's not really a bad guy, but one of my co-workers rather uncharitably compared him to Dwight Schrute -- the voice, the mannerisms, the hairline -- and now whenever he talks, all I hear is "Beets.  Bears.  Battlestar Galactica."  Which makes his papers on the Holocaust very hard to consult.

I've been idly wondering what it would be like to live in a climate wherein sweat fulfills its biological cooling function and actually evaporates, rather than making one's clothes unwearable.  At least an 87% reduction in general stickiness, I would imagine.

The Powers That Be at the apartment complex decided that all door locks needed to immediately be replaced with key card locks.   Much is being made of "improving security."  Key card locks are more secure in the following way: manual locks only work if you lock them.   Because of the dumbass undergrads, the only entrance to my apartment is now dependent on a thin piece of plastic that could potentially be demagnetized everytime my cell phone rings.  APARTMENTAL EXCELLENCE ACHEIVED.

I think I may be a tea snob.  Last time I was in NY, Michelle took us to a fabulous little place called Alice's Tea Cup, and I ended up buying a variety of fancy teas with names like White Rose Melange.  They really should be drunk out of bone china cups so thin you can see the light through them, but my industrial ceramic mug will have to do.  Anyway, after spoiling myself with that for a few weeks, I made a cup of Celestial Seasonings Peppermint at the writing center and it tasted like bog water.  Of course, God only knows how long those tea bags have been sitting in the cupboard with the cleaning supplies, but I might be off bagged tea for good.  Watercress sandwiches and currant scones sure to follow.

Not sure I want to eat anything called "clotted cream," though.

I woke up thinking about donuts again.

This has been happening lately.  Usually it's not a problem because a) it doesn't happen at 8 am and b) I can fall back to sleep afterwards.  Not today.  I laid there for an hour trying to go back to sleep, since I'd only fallen asleep at 3 in the first place and I knew if I got up I'd be tired all day until finally collapsing at some point in the late afternoon, sleeping for several hours, and laying awake for a long time tonight.  But my main concern was preventing this from happening again, so I asked my stomach If I buy you a donut, will you shut up?  It replied Maaaaaaaaaaybe.

Don't get me wrong; I like donuts.  I just don't feel the same way about them that I do, say, Slurpees or Tim Tams.  And I only seem to crave them when it would be inconvenient to get one.  On the way to the Dunkin' Donuts, I realized I was not wanting them quite so badly anymore.  I warned my stomach This is not how this works -- I am going to stuff you full of donuts until you can't stand them anymore, and it was all Bring it, sucka, and I was like Do you think I won't? and it said You can't piss me off -- you need me for Slurpees and then someone honked their horn and I realized that any and all imaginary conversations with vital organs should probably wait until I am no longer driving.

Anyway: bought donut; consumed donut; stomach is unmercifully smug.

Things You Don't Want To Hear Yelled Across the Portable Room at Work:

"Hey, Kris, what're the odd David Carradine died by autoerotic asphyxiation?"

We are a classy bunch at the writing center.

Now off to Cocoa Beach with the family for three days of staying inside because of the monsoon.  Huzzah.

Wasn't planning on posting tonight, but since this prompt showed up in the Writer's Block box, I thought what the hell.

Sweet Lord, that was FIFTEEN years ago.  I was nine.  Given, I didn't start watching regularly until about the middle of the second season, but I am so old.  Next thing you know, they'll be running this on TV Land.

Anyway, in answer to the above question, my favorite episodes are Beyond the Sea, Eve, Ice, Aubrey, Irresistable, Grotesque, Pusher, Paper Hearts, Never Again, Mind's Eye, Triangle, Milagro, and the last really good episode, Field Trip.  If you ask me, the final three seasons were an atrocious hallucination brought on by the fungus cave.

Worst episodes: Gender Bender, 3, The Walk, Sanguinarium, Chinga, anything involving Cassandra Spender, Terms of Endearment, The Rain King, and after season six there are just too many to list.  I don't consider Home, that abomination from the fourth season, to be part of The X Files at all.

I could go on, but I should be getting to bed, and most probably no one but Amber knows what I'm talking about.  Too bad.  As to paranormal activity... well... I might've had a precognitive experience once when I was 15, but everything happened so fast and the memory has blurred so much that I don't really know what it was.  Whatever it was, it was like getting kicked in the gut.  If it truly was some type of psychic phenomenon, I pray that it never happens again.