A slice of my Friday...

Boku is snoring softly upstairs. The TV is on mute. I pause in my reading ("The application of e-business practices can provide a massive......"). I have a vague recollection of an amazing line I read in a book last night that perfectly captures my feelings about Chicago and feel happy.

Before them, the skyline towered. Colin had always loved Chicago's skyline. Although he was not a religious person, seeing the skyline made him feel what is called in Latin the mysterium tremendum et fascinans - that stomach-flipping mix of awestruck fear and entrancing fascination. - An Abundance of Katherines, John Green

Just feeling happy tonight (and it doesn't hurt that I just finished that reading and am so, one less reading away from being utterly behind in my course)....don't miss the Questions post below this one...

Questions...

So the deal is, I asked my sis three questions. She reciprocated and now I answer them here. If you'd like, you can ask three questions in the comments and I'll answer them on this blog. Then I'll ask you three and you have to answer them somewhere (if you have a blog, on your blog. If not, then...I guess in the comments?). So here goes:

Besides the monetary benefits, was it worth it to go and get your Masters in something so far removed from your major in college? Was it the right choice?

Yes, yes, yes. I think part of the problem of being an adult and having to pay your own bills (boooo) is trying to find a job that you actually like. Or, put differently, finding busy work that you don't mind doing...and I managed to hit it with this stuff. I took an educated guess that since I spent so much time on my computer that I might as well marry it...maybe I should be an IT person. And once in school again, I figured out which part of IS fit me...it was a big gamble and it paid off (and I think the chances of it going the other way were pretty high).

Part of why I love my job so much right now is the atmosphere here. I laugh out loud, hard, probably at least 5 times a day and usually more around 15-20. And while that is a function of the atmosphere and people of this place, not the actual work...it is also something that could never exist in an insurance company (no offense Pooj). I will probably never have a stuffy job again. And I may never have to dress business casual again (hooray). And I think all of that fits me. I think my "people" fit somewhere in the large pool of nerdy IT people...

What's your favorite place in London?

My first instinct was Budgen's. My grocery store. Which is sort of hilarious and shows you just how much I like food. But I think it's more like...London was home and when you live somewhere the small places are most frequented: your favorite restaurants (Pret!), your grocery store, your public transportation hub (Mile End Underground stop!). And those little things are what I remember most. But, the place I would HAVE to visit if I was in London is Tate Modern. I love that place. I can even walk through it in my head...and if you know my memory, you know that means it's a place I value (and have been to a million times). My favorite ever piece of art was there...in one sentence: An large wall piece made out of plastic rectangles connected with tubes, full of sand colored as the flags of a whole bunch of countries that had, at one time, been used as an anthill.

What trends do you secretly wish you were taking part in right now? What trends are you glad to keep away from you with a ten-foot pole?

I love hats...and I wish that I could wear some of the cuter trendy hats without feeling like a tool. But I would. I'd feel like people would look at me and think, "Britney Spears wannabe?". Or "Hipster." I don't want to be a hipster.

That may be the only trend that I like. I don't mind that the shirts are a bit longer now. Cuts down on the riding up over my sloped belly.

As for trends that I hate:
Leggings are HIDEOUS.
Formal shorts are just plain stupid.

Girl last night who was wearing leggings under formal shorts with hooker heels: utter disaster.

Beedle, doodle, deedle...

This is all going to be entirely irrelevant...

For my final banned book I read "The Giver". I'm not going to say much about it here because possible readers of this blog are going to be reading it. I really enjoyed it...and this is a book I would whole-heartedly recommend to any reader. I won't go anymore into it, but if you haven't read it I think you should. It's about 180 pages and took me a few hours to read. I have a copy to borrow if any of you want it....

Last night, I was sort of at a loss for what to do. I was caught up with lectures. I had read the case we discuss Thursday. I was waiting for an assignment to be posted (promised over the weekend, never showed up). So I managed to knit this cute little baby sock:



I am a little uncertain about the so-called "zig-zag bind-off" which forms the weird little ruffle on top of the sock; shown in close-up here:



I think it's sort of ugly and unfinished looking. But apparently it's a fancy bind-off and it's meant to look that way. And to be completely honest with the timing of this knit, I knit a tiny bit on Saturday, a bunch on Sunday and then finished it up last night...

There's this commercial...a dog food commercial with a David Duchovny voice-over. And it makes me yearn for a dog. Not that my cats aren't awesome. I mean...hell, Boku lets me scratch her head almost all of the time now. But, all joking aside, I do love my cats probably a bit too much. But I have oozing amounts of pet love to give. And there is a certain amount of interaction that a dog provides that a cat just doesn't...although on the flip side of that, there is also a much larger quantity of poop to scoop...

Jumble of thoughts...

Ok...looks like while I have classes I am only capable of bullet point posts...

• Yesterday while walking to work I saw a girl walking what I can only hope was the walk of shame. She was wearing a vest. And a beaded bra. And some pants and shoes. It was the vest with the bra completely showing that threw me. And the bra was seriously bedazzled. It was hideous.
• How is it almost 90 out in October? Horrible.
• I hate movers. I understand that sometimes it is necessary to block an alley. Fine (although in my case, said "alley" is actually a street with a parking lot on the end. With enough room to squeeze a truck to one side...but I digress). Fine, block the alley. But when a car owner who pays to park in the alley needs to leave, don't be a gigantic ASS HOLE about moving the truck. I know you're just "doing your job", but you don't have to make me sit and wait while you move a couch from the truck to the apartment and then back (presumably because it didn't fit in the door). Put the couch down and move the truck.
• My new canvas grocery bags kick ass. The bonuses of these bags enumerated
1. Long straps for fit over the shoulder ease
2. Large insides to fit lots of groceries, therefore limiting the number of actual bags you need to wrangle. This also leads to the illusion that your groceries are somehow lighter
   
3. Saving the environment!

I advise all of you to purchase some. These are the bags I own.

• I plan to vacuum at some point this weekend and I can't wait. Isn't that lame?
  

Things I'm loving right now...

• Dominick's Signature Baked Potato soup
• The flexibility of my job, which allowed me to leave early earlier this week when I wasn't feeling so great
• Colder weather...where did you go?
• Jim & Pam being together, 30 Rock actually producing real laughs
• Baby zoo tigers (although did you read the story, the horrible story? Poor baby zoo tigers).
• Easy peasy classes.
• This donkey:

Banned book tres...

So for my final banned book review, I read the classic Are you there God? It's me, Margaret. I am fairly sure that I had read this book before (it all seemed vaguely familiar...).

In case you're unaware of the plot, I'll summarize. Margaret moves. Moving problems ensue (fitting in and going through puberty at same time). That's basically it. With the added twist that Margaret was not raised religiously and is trying to figure out what she believes in (I think it's important to note that Margaret is trying to find WHAT she believes in, not IF she believes. There is one point in the book where she gets angry with God. But she doesn't not believe).

I think it was actually sort of good that I had read Alice, because these two characters are basically going through the same age period. And where Alice was annoying, Margaret was lovable. Her search is endearing and in the end, it's more about reaching for knowledge than anything anti-religion.

And the religion thing...that's why it's banned. And that makes me sad. I think it's great that this young girl is trying to find her own way in the quagmire of organized religions. In the end she doesn't have a definitive answer, but she still believes. And that is a positive message for anyone, it certainly isn't anti-organized religion.

I just Wikipedia'd this, and it says that it's banned "due to its frank treatment of sexuality and religion." And by sexuality we mean: Margaret getting her period.

Banning books is SO WEIRD. Absolutely unnecessary in this case. A lovely coming of age book that I would recommend to anyone.

I got the music in me...

A few days ago my sister did a concert meme that I found intriguing. Then my Dad followed in her comments. So here I take part, off of my Dad's concert list.

Copy this list; leave in the bands you've seen perform live; delete the ones you haven't, and add new ones that you have seen until you reach 25. An asterisk means the previous person had it on their list. Two asterisks means the last two people who did this before you had that band on their list.

(note: my concert list and my sisters would have been far more similar than mine and the Dads)

Dave Matthews Band**
REM**
Pearl Jam**
Barbra Streisand**
Paul McCartney**
The Police**
John Mayer*
James Taylor*
Ben Folds*
Michael Buble
Kooks
Keane
Death Cab for Cutie
Incubus
Puff Daddy (aw yeah!)
Justin Timberlake
Christina Aguilera
Pink
Guster
Indigo Girls
The Killers
Kings of Leon
Modest Mouse (not impressed)
Weezer
Audioslave

I have no embarrassment about any of those concerts.

FRA...NKE....NMUTH!

That title should be sung to the tune of The Frankenmuth Polka, which you can hear here. Watch out though, you hear it once and you immediately love it...if by love it you mean hate it/get it stuck in your head.

This weekend was a study in family interaction (between the sister, mom and I). We crack each other up, we bicker, we encourage bad behaviors (altogether we purchased 33 donuts this weekend) and we love Christmas.



Case in point. Christmas on my head (Mom cut out of picture to preserve her anonymity on the internets).

Little Bavaria Michigan is fun to visit for a day (or really less than a day) but not so much fun to sleep in (I got very little sleep). Bronner's (the CHRISTmas superstore) can make the grinchiest grinch feel Christmas spirit (and the non-religious feel a little ill at all of the preachiness...lest we not remember that" It's HIS Birthday, It's HIS way"). But we had fun, we laughed an awful lot and we ate Chicken and donuts.

Now if only it were Christmastime and I could utilize my newly purchased goods...

Banned Books 1 & 2...

So in honor of Banned Books week, I chose to read 4 banned books. One of them is for a book club though, so you won't hear about it here. "Book reports" follow:

The first book I read was "Agony of Alice". And while it was an OK kids book (not even YA) I could not figure out why it was banned. Alice was pretty tame. Besides getting her period, having a brother who drinks beer and being raised by a single father (because her mother died), Alice was like any other kid. Except maybe a little more annoying. She annoyed me through most of the book.

It turns out, the series of Alice is banned...because of some of the later books...the high school books (Alice was in 6th grade in Agony). She probably has sex (gasp) or tries drugs or something. Either way, I was pretty neutral about the book I did read..mainly because Alice annoyed me so much.

Banned book number 2 is The Outsiders. I really enjoyed this book. And this one was pretty easy to see why it was banned. Death, violence, "hoods" and "greasers", rumbles (big, multi-person fights), switchblades, guns...etc. The main character questions all of this stuff constantly and in the end, we're sort of led to believe that he is going to make something of himself. Uplifting - a boy who has nothing and comes from nothing who can make it because he has brains - what a great lesson for kids. Also, there's a great subplot about family - family as the most important support system a kid could have (even if that family isn't typical, even if sometimes that family is made of friends).

I see why it was banned, but I think it is superficial to ban a book for death and violence. You'd have to ban the TV too. And the newspaper. Especially this book, which in the end is more about the triumph of a boy who to many adults would seem like a lost cause. Would recommend this book to anyone who is coming of age.

As a side note, I watched the movie for The Outsiders and wasn't all that impressed. Book is better.

And three repeating...

Sometimes when I'm bored in my class I do long division.

The truth is, I get so bored that I feel like I might go slowly insane, so I figure out what percentage of the class I've completed. Excerpts from my notes from last week:

.65128205128
.676923076
.71794871
.73333
.74358974
.7641025

I usually complete the division until it repeats (and it always repeats). I wonder what this says about me...

I should be doing long division right now, but I'm watching the Office instead. Because every quarter I care less and less about school..

Potato, potahto...

I have recently acquired a love of baked potatoes (recently as in...yesterday). I think I may eat a baked potato a few times a week now. Totally delicious. Why did I never bake myself a potato before this (and it's so easy too!)? Mmmm potatoes.

Let's see...what to say...a lot of my recent blog posts have been kind of downers, huh? I'm mostly cheerful lately, so it's a bit sad that I'm taking it out on the blog readers. It seems to be my tendency to want to get out my frustrations blog-style.

School is chugging along. I haven't done much homework-wise and plan to continue along that vein. I have done a fair bit of reading for my participation oriented class, but I may stop that now. I'm sure I'll pass my classes, I"m going to try to worry less.

I recently actually donated money to politics. Yuck, right? I don't know why but I just heart Obama. I have for a while. I think our country will be better off if he's the one who gets the Democratic nomination...so I put in a few bucks to pretend to do my part to make that happen.

Sort of random post you have there...

Listening...

Something weird is going on with my body. Ignoring the fact that I may be allergic to being a woman (uncontrollably sneezy Saturdays exactly one month apart during my period? Allergic to womanhood), weird stuff is going on over here.

This weekend I somehow accidentally (for real - both yesterday and this morning I woke up in the morning and was SHOCKED by the time on the clock) slept for almost 20 hours. I rarely sleep in. Mine is the kind of routine where I wake up before my alarm goes off most days (and on the weekend I usually wake up at that time as well). I've also been having headaches and some minor facial tingling (if I was super worried I'd have made an appointment with my doctor. But I don't think I'm dying, I just think something is up...which leads to...) So what the hell is going on here?

I think I'm not going to work out this week. I know it's not a solution - but I want to try to figure out what the hell is up here. And part of me suspects nutrition. So I'm going to take this week and get my diet together (not diet as in "lose weight" but diet as in "what I eat everyday"). Then I think I'm not going to work out again until I can get a fitness assessment/personal trainer session. And if something doesn't change and I keep tingling and snoozing, I may have to go to the doctor....

Here's your picture Sunday for you...my amazing new bag....



And the inside...

Seen and heard...

A plane slowly banking right directly over the expressway. Very low. Taking off to Possibly Maybe by Bjork. A good moment (but one that I will admit was immediately followed by "What if that plane crashed" crazy Katie thoughts...).

My picture Saturday is kind of lame, but I'm super excited about my new green cleaning products (thanks Dad!):


And, they even came with a handy dandy organizer caddy thing (that's all of the stuff below unpacked from the box - Mom, may this picture be proof that I do indeed have parquet flooring):


I was a little apprehensive about some stuff (for example: I admit to having a love for cleaning wipes and figured - no way are green products going to include cleaning wipes - but they did! And there are even two different kinds!). But I can't wait to try it all out. And by buying this all instead of normal cleaning products my Dad kept 108 pounds of waste out of landfills and eliminated 248 pounds of greenhouse gas. Ah green-ness...

I might do picture Sunday too....

And now I'll go the opposite...

Things I'm loving lately...

• Almost all of the rest of my coworkers. "Gassy cubicle wall sharer" is the lone wolf in that unhappy coworker category.
• The artist Jen Stark. I absolutely would love to have something like that on my wall some day (if you hit her site, I'm talking the "sculpture" section). I wonder how much that stuff costs? Because of course the one I love best is "Production Line" and I feel like I would desperately want all 3 (that's the sculpture picture on page 15). But to be honest, I love most of them...
  
• My family.
• The cooler weather that was here about a week ago. Today? This past week? Not so much. But I know it's coming....I can feel it. Ha ha you hot weather lovers, fall is coming...suck it!
  
• Big paychecks, no longer paying for individual healthcare (hell yeah!) and tuition waivers.
• Scrabulous! Although I don't love that nearly every time I go in to play, that terrible Glamorous song by Fergie goes through my head (but of course, it is: It's Scrabulous, scrabulous, scrabulous. It's scrabulous. Foxy, foxy....)
• One of my professors seems absolutely worthwhile and I think I might learn something! Rejoice!
• And on that same note, watching (listening) to my class while tooling around on the Internet or knitting (or writing a blog post), on the comfort of my own couch. Ah distance learning...I embrace you.
  
• Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays....

Hope you all have a good weekend. I'm thinking of trying to get another picture Saturday up tomorrow...

I am about to bitch...

Take cover.

It has not been the best day. It started badly with the alarm jarring me from a truly desperate and hopeless dream. I cannot explain it without it sounding funny. So giggle if you want, but it was truly frightening and sad. I woke up with a feeling of utter despair. Quick synopsis:

I was living at my Mom's. Something terrifying was in the basement (murderer? monster?). The cat, Allie, who sadly is no longer around in real life, was totally funky and I suspected, in the dream, beaten/terrorized by scary basement lurker. The Mom then told me she'd been lying to me and listed off a number of family deaths I didn't know about. At which point I decided to run away from my family and never speak to them again (this is where I felt despair). On a bike. A pink and purple bike from my youth. And I prepared by packing cookies and goldfish and trying to figure out exactly how I was going to sleep during my journey. The sleeping situation again brought about a feeling of despair. It was horrible.

Then, I got to work. I have a coworker whom I am having a hard time working next to more and more each week. His cubicle is behind me. We share a cube wall. One day last week he clipped his nails for 10 minutes (I can't imagine that he didn't do his toes. He had to have. How can it take you 10 minutes to clip your finger nails?). The sound of clipping makes me nauseous unless it's my own. I've had this argument with my brother before when I was living at home actually. Today...today he went a step farther and had very loud, smelly gas. Quite a few times. Audibly. And this wasn't just generic fart smell, this was: something is wrong with my stomach and I am rotting inside fart smell. It was horrible.

Realized in the middle of the day that the case analysis I wrote, which I thought had to be two pages, had to be 3. Didn't do anything about it and expect a grade reflecting my half a page shortcoming.

Got home to cat puke.

Now I'm going to bed.