Interview went ok. Now I just have to sit tight and see if there are enough enrollments for them to justify hiring me.

In other news, I'm slogging through the last circle of grading hell... after I'm done, I'm taking the world's longest shower and assessing the Fiber Arts Situation I've got going on around here.

Oh, so you think my ramblings about Fiber Arts would be more "interesting" if I posted pictures, too, do you?

I can't decide if I should flip you the bird or just start laughing maniacally. I am, after all, working on about 3.5 hours of sleep here.

Pictures! hah! Oh the technology! oh the humanity! the horror! the horror!

The digi cam and I, we are not such great friends, to say nothing of that creepy little digi cam cord that transfers the pixely pictures to the 'puter...

... but maybe after the World's Longest Shower, and the Fiber Arts Situation Assessment, I'll see what I can do.

until then, slog through the blue books I shall.

what do you think the strong verb declension for "to slog" should be? Let's have a contest! The winner will not receive a used blue book.

Second Thoughts...

In less than 5 hours I will be interviewing for a job in which I will use my finely honed bullshitting skillz to cater to the egos and college-application-resumes of extremely entitled, privileged teenagers. I will be expected to lead "seminar-style" classes, but am dubious about the whole "ability to assign homework and hold students accountable for doing it" thing.

Remind me again: why I am *voluntarily* exposing myself to judgement, eye-rolling, pubescent hormones and youthful self-importance?

16 bucks an hour, baby. Mama ain't got no standards, and apparently no pride, neither.

I will let you know how it goes. If I get the job (which I actually do kind of want) I promise not to whine about my every day material reality of pandering in this space.

As a woman much more famous, witty, educated and self-confident than I am recently wrote: rich kids need teachers who are interested in social justice, too.

It's been about 6 weeks, so time for a new post, no?

Today while walking down Bascom Hill, I overheard one dude say to another dude: "...and then someone drank my pee as a chaser, and that just made my weekend awesome."

Well.
Hearing that story did not make my Monday awesome.

But that is kind of ok, because I am so distracted by all the crazy ideas and schemes in my brain that I keep forgetting that it is Monday, and ask people if it is a Friday. I suppose, in a way, the end of the semester is like The World's Biggest Friday, with a 3-month-long weekend coming at the tail end of it.

I've been busy knitting. And playing with yarn that I re-claim from sweaters purchased at the Goodwill. And by "playing" I mean "I am completely obsessed" and by "yarn" I mean "fiber arts in general."

This is how crazy it has gotten: there are specialized wooden tools that help you do things in fiber arts: a niddy-noddy winds yarn into a skein for dying and soaking; a swift helps you wind a tidy ball from a skein; a lazy kate holds multiple balls of fiber that you intend to ply together to create a thicker yarn. Not only have a researched these tools and their uses (and crazy cool names!) I have found instructions for making them on the Internet, and I am going to build them for myself. I already have the niddy-noddy built, and I am currently tweaking the design slightly. Oh yes, I am a nerd. A fiber-arts nerd of the first degree. I won't tell you how many Goodwill sweaters made out of luxury fibers are sitting at home waiting for me to deconstruct. If I did, you might laugh too hard and die of an aneurism or something tragic like that.

Don't die. If you do, who will wear all the crazy stuff I knit with all the yarn I re-claim from those sweaters?

A Simple Lesson in Economics...

Consider a spherical cow. Or rather, consider the given that I Like Brussel Sprouts.

At the Farmers' Market, a pint of Brussel Sprouts costs 2 dollars.
A giant stalk of Brussel Sprouts costs 4 dollars.
The lady farmer selling the Brussel Sprouts says that one giant stalk can yeild up to several quarts of Brussel Sprouts, but that she sells them already trimmed off of the stalk for people who don't want that many or who don't want to do the work of trimming themselves.

I say "I have a knife and a freezer, and I'm not afraid to use them!"
We buy the Giant Stalk of Brussel Sprouts.
J. trims them, and blanches 1/2 of them for the freezer while I go shoppingrun errands.

Dudes, my life is made of so much win.

Psychopharmacuticals, I love you!

I'm currently trying out a new combination of medicine to help me combat my depression. Yes, at the behest of my doctor. Yes, under the supervision and advice of a professional psychotherapist person. So far, I LOVE the newest ingredient in my "sanity cocktail"! I have felt so focused, so determined, so confident ALL DAY LONG. My thoughts have not been this clear since I-don't-know-when. I am superwoman. I am Maniac-Brainiac McGee. I am on the ball, on top of the tallest tree in the forest, balancing serenely. Got any shit, world? Just throw it at me, and watch me cope with it in an efficient and competent manner!

Don't worry, I will only use my newfound superpowers for good. I will leap tall trees, write coherent and intelligent papers, save puppies from drowning and dance my booty off in the privacy of my living room every night from now until the end of time.

(I am totally going to regret this public jubulation, aren't I?)

If you could be the patron saint of something, or of some group of people, what would you be? For example, St. Jude is the patron saint of Lost Causes, but there are also specific patron saints for blacksmiths, sailors, actors, and television.

For example, I coud be St. Regina, patron saint of Tone-Deaf People Who Sing Kareoke, or St. Regina, patron saint of Thrift-Store Shoppers.... or, or, or... The possibilities are endless and endlessly amusing. So, what or whom would you be patron saint of? Choose carefully, because this is something that could totally make or break your resume!

Stuff Going On In My Life...

1) We went camping again last weekend up on the Door County Peninsula - the little strip of land that separates Green Bay from Lake Michigan. It was so amazing to look out across water so big that I could not see the other side, and to feel wind in my hair, and to hear the rhythmic crash and roll of the waves. At the same time, however, it reminded me of how much I miss the ocean, which I have not seen in 3 years. I am so excited to go home in August and smell the salt water and go tide-pool exploring.

1.5) There are pictures from camping, but as of yet, I have been too lazy to get them developed/post them on the Interweb. This should not surprise you.

2) I wish I had a dog. There is a beautiful collie waiting outside the coffee shop where I am typing and I really want to pet its soft fur and get some puppy kisses on my hands. Too bad I live in The World's Smallest 2-Bedroom Apartment and thus would need to get a miniaturized dog, were I to get a dog at all. There are never any "good" kinds of miniaturized dogs at the local animal shelter (I am not really a terrier kind of person). Wah wah wah wah, etc.

3) The CSA has blessed us with an over-abundance of jerusalem artichokes lately, and so we are having a fancy-restaruant-style Artichoke Festival at my house tonight. 3 courses, 3 different preparations of sunchokes. If I am feeling ambitious (or perhaps just stupid) I may even try to make an artichoke-based dessert. This sound gross, but my brain has been popping with possibilities- what about shredded artichoke in the coating of a Fried Ice Cream? What about timbales of sweetened artichoke puree, flavored with warm spices and served with plum sauce?It's gonna be a full-out night of Iron Chef at chez moi!

I'm not sure if I'm disgusted or amused that I ate salad with my fingers tonight.

At least I used a napkin.

Well Worth Watching - and Segues!

Have you seen Everything is Illuminated? No? Well, go and put it at the top of your Netflix queue. Right now. It is the best movie I have seen in a long time. A very long time. This movie has lines just a quoteable as The Big Lebowski. It is touching and heartwarming and tragic like Finding Neverland (except without the whole akward 'is James M. Barrie maybe a little too into that kid?' thing) and Wings Over Berlin (except shorter). Oh, and it's funny, too. How can you not love a movie with a dog named Sammy Davis, Jr. Jr. and a very memorable scene with a potato? Hi-larious hi-jinks, I'm telling you. And then there's that whole 'plot' thing, with its valuable 'themes' like identity, memory, family, the role of the past in our present understanding of ourselves and the world, and friendship and shared experience overcoming the barriers of linguistic and cultural misunderstanding. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

Trust me. See this movie. You will love it.

I would like to read some of Jonathan Safran's novels now.

Currently, I'm reading The Master of St. Petersburg by J.M. Coetzee. It's quite complex and thought-provoking, but I'm not really enjoying it. Coetzee paints his geniuses so bleakly. Plus, novels set in Russia always make me cold. I actually don't know if I've ever enjoyed a Coetzee book... To be fair, I read Foe ages and ages ago and I never finished Waiting For the Barabarians so that just leaves Disgrace, and the sexual violence that fuels the plot of Disgrace is hard for me to stomach, so I will have to finish this one and sort out my thoughts before I make any proclamations.

On the other hand, I really, really love Regina Spektor's album Begin To Hope.

Oh what? You were expecting a cohesive blog post? On one singular subject? That does not meander? Too bad, so sad, it's too late at night for me to do that. You should consider yourself (yourselves? Does more than one person even read this blog?) lucky, because here is a list of relatively banal subjects about which I have refrained from waxing eloquent, even though the impusle moved me, JUST IN THE SPAN OF ONE MERE WEEKEND:
-Things Overheard On The Bus That Make Me Happy
-Why I Love My Kitty
-Why My Kitty Is The Best Kitty In The World
-Don't Go To Tar*Get On A Saturday Because Children Scream
-I Have Decorated My House Some More! Look At My Decorations!
-I Made Spotted Dick For Breakfast
-Why I Don't Like Grading
-My New Postage Stamps Are Cheap And Flimsy

Just kidding. I wasn't really going to write about that last one. I just made it up to be funny. Aren't you diverted? Didn't I say that I was only going to write wittily and elegantly/eloqently in this blog? What time is it? Why am I not in bed yet? Whose idea was it to drink coffee after 7pm? Stupid coffee.

Do you know how sometimes, when you don't have a lot of time, and maybe you are feeling kind of poor and/or low energy, and you just don't feel like making dinner, ordering in or going out? And maybe it's just all you can manage to eat some scrambled eggs and toast? Even if you don't really like scrambled eggs? And then the situation sort of magically becomes Officially Very Exciting once you declare that you are not just having scrambled eggs because they are easy and inexpensive and one of the few edible items left in your fridge, oh no, YOU hare having scrambled eggs because you are having Breakfast For Dinner, you lucky thing you?

Breakfast For Dinner is awesome and delicious! It's a celebration! It's dangerously and exhiliratingly close to (shhh, don't tell...) breaking the rules! Upsetting the norms! Etc!

Well, perhaps not too surprisingly, the same trick works when you are feeling tired and worn out and grumpy and not-necessarily-in-the-mood-for-going-out-or-hanging-out-in-a-large-group-of-people on a weekend. This bleak situation can be remedied by declaring a shockingly decadent Sweatpants Night! Break out the comfy clothes, the ice cream and a good movie! Nope, you can't make it should anyone try and tempt you out to the bar - you've got plans, you're having an Official Sweatpants Night with your sweetie. Your friends are free to join you, but they have to wear sweatpants and bring their own pint of Haagen Das and not talk during the movie, because those are the rules of Sweatpants Night. It's like the fun part of a slumber party, except for that everyone who doesn't live at your house goes back to their house to go to bed, so no one wakes up with genitalia drawn on their face -or if they do, at least it's not your problem. Magic. I am brilliant. People should pay me money to use this idea.

(Now you know what I really did this weekend.)