Bip and bop...

• Today I saw an elevator stopped between two floors with men working on it. They were trying to open the doors (one even said "Push the open door button and see what happens"). Obviously there were people stuck in there. Yuck.

• Harry Potter Theme Park! Yay!

Do do do do....

Tuesday night I had a creepy, creepy thing happen at 2 in the morning. I didn't really think it was that creepy at the time. And honestly I sort of forgot. Until I tried to fall asleep last night...and then I started thinking about Tuesday night and I couldn't fall asleep.

Basically I woke up at 2am on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning and the bedside light was on. There are three possibilities for how this could be so:

1. I somehow magically became a normal/easy sleeper and fell asleep with it on.
2. I turned it on in my sleep.
3. It magically turned itself on. There are only three ways this could have happened:
• One of the cats is genius and flicked it on.
• A ghost turned it on.
• A person, besides myself turned it on.

Ok...so the chances of any of these happening is about 0%. Each one. 0%. So what the hell happened?

Things I learned in Utah...

I was in Salt Lake City for the first time this weekend...and here for your enjoyment is a list of things I learned throughout the weekend (note: I was attending a family wedding.....No. They are not mormons. List presented in no logical order)

1. No matter how drunk I get at Katy's wedding, I will NOT kick off my shoes. Near head injury.
2. No matter how drunk I get I will NOT jump up and down in my dress. Um. Yeah. Insert mental picture of a strapless dress, a girl with large breasts line dancing. Not. Good.
   
3. Sitting next to your Grandpa while listening to My Humps is awkward. Very, very awkward.
4. Utah is probably much more interesting in the winter.
5. However, seeing the Olympic ski jumps and luge/bobsled track was pretty interesting.
6. I am thinking about learning to ski this winter. Anyone interested in a quick trip to the nearest bunny hill?
7. Not to offend any mormons out there, but "Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" sounds like a swear. Say it like you're angry or like you just hurt yourself. Works, doesn't it?
8. My ability to do homework while on vacation is...low. Very low.
9. My grandparents are very mortal...what I mean is, they seem to be aging heavily, by the second...
10. Buying a skirt right now is easy for a short person - for the first time ever, shopping for clothes is easy for me! Because the trend is short...skirts fit me like they are a normal length!

Inspired by Utah but not directly related:

1. I bought the cutest shoes...although they do have some gold on them which is very unusual for me.

Totally unrelated:

1. My quest to be eco-friendly now includes laundry detergent. It smells delightful and I notice no difference in its cleaning power. It is a huge, heavy container though (compared to my All Small & Mighty) and that's no fun.
2. I have added a bunch of the stuff from my Amazon wishlist to my kaboodle wishlist - I may just add everything there and sort of shut down the amazon wishlist. It sort of sucks for you all to have to go to 2 different places. I know the bonus of the Amazon list is that you don't have to know my address or whatever. But how many people actually would buy me a present who don't know my address? And...it's probably better if you don't ship it to me anyway...the package thief may still strike.
3. That midterm that I bitched about and hated so much (I still feel a bit angry when thinking about it)? Well, I aced that thing with flying colors. I do believe that the professor has stopped grading in an evil, unkind way. Maybe everyone was doing so poorly that he became a softy?
4. While I was away over the weekend one of my groups failed to turn in an assignment that was due. Yes. They just didn't turn it in. 3 people. No one turned it in. I emailed my professor about how much my group just SUCKS and that I haven't spoken up because up to this point I've managed to keep it all from falling apart. But I leave and it all comes crashing down. Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints I hate those people (see? It works! I wonder if I'll get mormon death threats now....)
   

Sometimes...

I'm having a bad day. It started out pretty poorly (it's summer again. Which means my apartment is hot. And I sleep fitfully and sweat a lot. A/C unit coming next week)...then it was OK (I made some great strides in coding at work) then it hit a wall (coding at work is still throwing an error I am not sure about). And now I've been slowly slithering down that wall...I think I just hit the floor pretty hard...

I'm doing a project for one of my classes - a website with a "group" (just me and another girl). Most classes, if you do a group website, you get a new, clean web account to use. This class we are using mine. And I just realized that the configuration files for our project are rendering my assignments unworkable. So while our project is really close to done, all of this other work that I thought was perfect has stopped working. I want to scream. There is no fix. Either the project works or the assignments work. This is why we should have gotten a clean, new account. Fucking A, it just sucks ASS. What if I fail 2 assignments (the number that haven't been graded yet) because I was nice enough to offer my account to the group to use? I guess another case of the nice guy never coming out first huh?

I think I'm having a little panic in general and so this project/assignment wrinkle is hitting especially hard. My panic is over the fact that I am losing 4 solid days of work time to go to Utah to a wedding. I want to go to the wedding. If I wasn't still in school, I'd be super excited. I've never been to Salt Lake City. I want to be excited. But every time I stop to think, I think about all of my classes.

Writing this out has made me feel a little better...hopefully my professor will answer my email soon and there will be some resolution to this homework issue. Sigh - I have got to go clean a little. I can't really leave dirty dishes in my sink over the weekend (that's a bit gross).

I hope you all have a great one. I imagine I won't be writing again because I really need to go do some work...

Some letters...

Dear Cicadas,

If you don't live in Chicago, I'm going to be super disappointed. Pictures of you disgust me and the idea of "crunching" over you on the walk to work is revolting.

BUT, having said that, I want to see one of you buggers, up close and personal. 17 years is a long time - what if I go blind 16 and a half years from now and never get to see you? Some may argue that I didn't miss much...but I just, I want to see you...

Move to Chicago please,
Katie



Dear Those-who-have-religion,

Tonight on the train, a "preacher" went on and on in a loud voice about the disastrous mistake I'm making in not accepting the Saviour into my heart. I do believe he was some kind of preacher...he and his cohorts, with their bibles, were very well dressed, attractive and mostly intelligent sounding (besides, you know, all the Jesusy talk).

What I don't understand is how people who preach about giving, forgiveness, love (which this gentlemen was doing) can then, in the next sentence, tell me how I am going to hell. That is the worst kind of hypocrisy. If Jesus is all about the forgiveness, wouldn't he forgive those who make one judgement error? And what about people who are "simple"? Are they all going to hell because they don't even understand about Jesus and hearts and such? Babies - no decisions made there...Hell?

And I'm always shocked by the tolerance of a crowded train. No one spoke up to this man to tell him to can it (and he was LOUD). Can you imagine if I stood up on a train and starting telling people about my beliefs? I would be stoned. Forgiveness my ass.

As a slightly unrelated side note - I am always a little surprised by people who think atheists are ruining things for them (in terms of taking religion out of schools/government). From my perspective, we're the only ones that are trying to protect everyone's right to believe what they want. If you don't believe in Jesus, you shouldn't have to see him on a cross at your court hearing. And if you do believe in him - by all means, bring a little picture with to your court hearing, pray loudly in public - do what you want. Just, don't force me to participate. That is unfair.

That is all,
Katie

Activity list...

Today I:

• Got my hair cut (by maybe 1/2 an inch).
• Made an appointment to lop my ponytail OFF.
  
• Thought about putting progress bars on this blog for my knitting projects. Any thoughts readers? Would anyone look at them but me?
• Thought about putting a countdown to the "ponytail lop-off" on this blog (DOING IT).
  
• Bought wood for the first time (for leveraging up the A/C unit that I'm hoping to install successfully in my window).
• Spent way too much money on eco-friendly litter. If it works like it's supposed to, then I won't regret the purchase because it's supposed to last forever. If it doesn't, then I'm out $33 (and I had a $5 coupon).
• Got my eyebrows waxed.
• Created a custom control for my website project (it's a survey site - and it looks pretty cool if you ask me).
• Almost finished assignment 1 of 2 for one of my classes. One more paragraph of BS and I'm done.
• Bought some yarn I didn't need (sale at my knitting store! It's time to have a stash!).
• Suffered through a headache ALL. DAY.

Maybe I'll watch a movie tonight while I do my homework...wouldn't that be exciting?

Meme...

So...I was tagged for a meme and since I'm game for anything, I decided to go ahead with it.

Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write on their blogs 7 facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and need to read your blog.

1. I'm not the best at sharing the things that I really like. I am a worrier by nature, so I can't help but worry that I'll never get said item back (remember when I owned About a Boy, KATY). Applies to food especially.
   
2. I call my cats Doker and Boner frequently (their names are Boku and Mona respectively. Yes, my nicknames make no sense. No, I don't mean boner in a dirty, dirty way).
   
3. Sometimes I wonder about the most inane and inappropriate things. Today's example: What do homeless women do when they have their period? Anyone?
   
4. I would like to get another tattoo.
   
5. I prefer this weather to warmer weather. And the other day it felt so much like fall that I started thinking about pumpkins and apples....and I got really excited...only to jump back into reality bummed about spring and flowers (and really, cicadas. yuck).
   
6. My efforts to save the environment now include: toilet paper, dish washing liquid, paper towels. Soon to include cat litter. We'll see how that goes!
   
7. I'm going to a wedding in Utah next weekend - never seen Salt Lake City...yay for new adventures.
8. This should be item 7.5 because it's not really a fun fact about me - but I got SO MUCH mail today that it's insane. I imagine they're still doling out the backlog....
   

That was a boring list, eh?

I don't really love tagging people (and I'm definitely not leaving a comment on any of their blogs - I'm fairly anti-comment)....but here's the only 7 I know out there...

Redhead, sister, Al, the Dad, Rita, co-worker CG (don't know if you're public with your name in the blogosphere), ScottScottScott....

And if any of you do this I will be shocked. Although it will prove that you actually read my blog....mua-hahaha...public verification of my reading audience...

How to NOT do homework....

While I should be working on a fairly intense piece of code, I've been playing with a new, awesome knitting site called ravelry (it's basically a way to keep track of all your finished objects, find patterns, meet people, do knit-alongs, find events etc). Just putting in all of my projects has been intense (and I'm not done yet). I sadly only have pictures of a few of my finished objects....but that can be fixed(Katy - picture of the orange scarf? Could you? Sister- we'll have to talk, because I'm hoping that S has an OK picture of Max IN his blanket, and then of course there are the wristwarmers).

Eventually I'm sure there will be a widget on this site linking to Ravelry. But, it's still in beta, so that could be a while...

As for school - I think I did OK on that midterm (after hearing the correct answers in class; no grade yet). I'm fairly positive I didn't "ace" it, but I probably pulled off a B. I've stopped going to two of my classes almost altogether and really, really need to suck it up and go to my Monday class next week.

Other than that...just trying to get stuff done before the trip/wedding over memorial day weekend. I may be bringing my laptop, sitting in a hotel remoting in to my work computer to do homework...Yuck.

Hairy mother's day...

A lot of tributes to Mom's out there in the blogosphere today. My Mooj knows how much I appreciate her...so no tribute here.

Instead, it's a long awaited hair picture day. I remembered last night that I needed to find a new haircut (coming soon, soon!) because while getting comfortable in bed my hair got stuck in my armpit and prevented any movement for a minute. I had to pull it out and readjust. Hair should not be long enough to get stuck in your armpit. Just saying....

So, while working on school stuff (ok, haven't started yet today, but let's pretend), I'm watching crappy movies on TV and I noticed that Julia Stiles has had some cute short dos:

The only issue with this do is that I can't see the back - if it's longish in back I won't have enough hair for it. Ok, I probably won't have enough hair for the front either, but one can hope! Maybe I can work towards a do like the one above, I really like it. I even like the bangs (and I am anti-bang.)

Now, Mandy Moore looks darling with short hair:

But, right there its a little "overdone". I would never, ever be able to do my hair like that everyday. Nor would I want to. But it was hard to find a picture with her with it more natural that was large (see below for less done hair). Isn't she cute? Isn't the hair cute?
(click to enlarge a bit)


I'm not sure if I'm going to do color right off the bat. I was growing out my color to see my natural hair color (it's probably been 10 years since I've seen my real hair color). I would love to experiment with darker (every hair colorist I know wants me to be blond. I would love to try reddish...).

Happy Mother's Day, Moms out there!

Dashes of nothingness...

Every year around midterm and final time, I set records for minesweeper. Because I play it so much as a procrastination method that I'm bound to set a record. I just set an amazing expert record of 91 seconds. While using a touchpad on a laptop. Beat that.

Have you ever sort of hated someone but liked them at the same time? Or been unable to figure out if you're attracted to someone? And then that person is the same person? This is why I don't date. Because I might be attracted to someone I hate. Except not really, when I think about it, I'm not attracted. Nor do I hate him. Most of the time. Apparently I'm confused.

I've been knitting a lot too (Knitting my blanket: I'm at row 54 of a 76 row repeat and each row is 254 stitches - which I have to do 3 times total....so yeah, still nowhere near being done). Knitting and trying to structure my thoughts. Because this midterm sucks..and it involves actual strategizing and coming up with bullshit but pretending that bullshit is intelligently crafted. I really am expecting a horrible grade on this exam. I hate this kind of shit. I prefer programming; tangible creation of goods. Burn out city: population, me. Honestly, I already checked what I could get in the class, gradewise, and still have it count towards my degree (C-). This one, awful class is going to ruin any chance I have of graduating "with distinction." Even with burn-out, my other two classes are solid A's. Boo.

Now I should go back to the midterm. I'm so close to being finished that I keep putting it off (I'll finish the last two sentences in the next commercial break. I have 24+ hours still, no rush, I'll take a break, etc).

Pro-cras-ti-nation...(sang to Anticipation)

I was tagged for this meme a long time ago...but I was hesitant because my middle name and the tagger's middle name are the same. And that's not really much fun. But now I'm procrastinating a midterm...so I decided now was the time to take it. I tag no one...my sister could do it...but her middle name starts with M, so again...not much fun.

Also, I deleted Redhead's answers a while ago, so if mine are the same, it's pure coincidence.

....Your Middle Name: Marie

1. Famous singer: Mick Jagger
2. 4 letter word: More
3. Street name: Montrose
4. Color: Mauve
5. Gifts/presents: Moola
6. Vehicle: Mercedes
7. Things in a Souvenir Shop: Mugs
8. Boy Name: Maxwell (welcome Max!!)
9. Girl Name: Mindy
10. Movie Title: I cheated and looked at my movie rack: Mansfield Park
11. Drink: Mojito
12. Occupation: Martial arts teacher
13. Flower: Magnolia
14. Celebrity: Matthew Perry
15. Magazine: Men's Health
16. U.S. City: Miami
17. Teams: Miami Heat
18. Something Found in a Kitchen: Mice (oooh, hope not...how about Miracle Whip. Again, sort of hope not...how about...Marshmallows..yes, please!).
19. Reason for Being Late for Work: Married an abuser (that's terrible, but marriage was the first M I came up with)
20. Something You Throw Away: Money (on rent...)
21. Things You Shout: MOVE!
22. Cartoon Character: Mighty Mouse
23. Food: Muffin!

This was sort of Scattergories-esque. If friend Katy still had a blog I'd tag her...although I think her middle name is Mary or Marie. So that sort of ruins that...

Dips toe into murky waters...

I'm about to talk about religion. Be warned. I know there are people who read this site who have completely opposite beliefs to mine and I absolutely hope to not offend anyone...

I just finished reading a really short "pro-atheism" book called Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris. Basically I decided I needed to read an "atheist manifesto" (my words, not a description of the book) to learn about what intelligent, learned atheists have to say.

For part of the book (mostly the beginning) I had a bit of a hard time - I guess it felt like an attack on Christian morality and I personally, am very much of the non-confrontational, what you believe is what you believe nature. I think a lot of my problem with it was that, while I do find it incredulous that intelligent people can take the word of the Bible to be the be-all, end-all of moral teachings, I can't judge a Christians morality based on a silly belief. Yes - if they act out some of the more ridiculous teachings, then they would be immoral (kill your wife if she's not a virgin on your wedding night, etc). But I think a lot of morality is based on action rather than words. (I do want to state though, that I found it interesting that Harris used abortion/stem-cell research as an example of skewed morality. Believable to me).

The questionability of the prophecy stuff was totally interesting (why didn't God specifically predict that major tsunami? The internet? Katrina? If he's omniscient/omnipotent, he should have known upon creation of the Bible that these things were going to happen...so where is mention of them?).

And then he got into the science stuff. The proof that God exists. And this is where I really agreed with the whole thing. Not believing in evolution? The fact that our country is one of the only developed countries that has a contingent of people rallying to put creationism/intelligent design in science books? The fact that our country is sort of stunting itself with all this religious stuff? SCARY. Makes me love the UK all that much more...

I actually would sort of recommend this book to anyone - believers and non. It's only 91 pages, so a quick read. I'll probably read more this summer, so watch out. And, if any of you have read a book about where atheism has gone askew, I'd be interested in reading the other side too...

A quick random note: I agree that it is sort of random to have the term atheist at all. Sam said something like: We don't have a word for other nons. You don't have a term for a non-astronomer, for a non-biologist..so why have a word for a non-theist?

A letter plus flotsam...

Dear Harry Potter Lego key chain,

You have been strong during this last year of one-leggedness. You have bravely soldiered on as my mailbox key chain (even through this period of disuse). But your time has come to an end. You no longer have a mouth. Your tie is rubbing off. And your leg...well, you've been one legged for a while.

I'll miss you HP lego man...but your replacement is raring to go (Welcome wooden, Italian fish).

Love,

Katie

Flotsam:

I got LOADS of mail today. And the brilliant part is: I watched the mailman struggle up the stairs on my side of the building (it's not brilliant that she had to struggle, that sucks. Although I can't help but observe that if she didn't have 60 pounds of undelivered mail it wouldn't have been so bad). The point was: they FINALLY got so many complaints that the mailman was forced to walk around the block. It's sort of blissful to have mail....

Last night I had two sort of devastating dreams (so I'm a tidge tired). In the first, my Mom fell down the stairs while I watched. In the second, Planet Sears (yes, I know...imaginary planet) collided with the Moon and the Moon fell to Earth. My imagination was fairly vivid because watching the Moon fall to Earth was amazingly graphic and horrifying. And then it was a random assortment of scenes of myself and others dealing with the catastrophe (and at one point trying to figure out what the actual consequences had been). Not restful.

My midterm came on Sunday at noon and isn't due until next Sunday at midnight. It sort of works out better for me this way anyway since I have nothing to do this weekend.

'S all for now....

Weekend review...

I know, the weekend isn't over yet...but it's been a busy one and I feel like reviewing it. So stop complaining and read. Here's what I did:

I tried what is possibly my second attempt at baking since moving here in 2004 (yes. That is sad.). After baking it for much longer than the recommended 45 minutes, I have banana bread; one of my favorites. I think I probably should have baked it even longer, but it still tastes good (it's not doughy...I don't know why I feel like I should have left it longer, I just do). So - that was a success.

I checked the website for my class one million times to see if my midterm had been posted. As of 10:00pm on Saturday, still not posted. It is due at midnight on Monday.

Had a nice lunch with long lost cousin B and the sister.

Had drinks with some co-workers and didn't die from social anxiety. I think my social anxiety works like so: get invited somewhere. Accept. Feel nervous and anxious up until the point where I am actually there (be it for days, minutes, hours). Get there and feel fine. Maybe I should call it...anticipatory social anxiety? Is anticipatory a word? If not, I don't care, because that is the perfect word for the situation.

Went to a concert (The Kooks) at a very early hour (start time: 6:30). After seeing the band, we realized this is probably because at least one of them is under the legal drinking age. Yes. The band was made up of babies. After some fairly informative Wikipedia'ing I learned some really interesting (although you can never fully trust the validity of Wiki-facts) tidbits:

• At one point, the one guitarist was known as "the youngest man in rock". He's still under the legal drinking age.
• Naive, a delightful song, was written by the lead singer when he was....wait for it.........16. Yeah - you can feel bad about your 16 year old self now - what were you doing? Worrying about prom? Breaking up with your boyfriend? Worrying about AP classes? Writing a hit single?
• Um...this is the weirdest one...they are supposedly starting a fashion line.....of boots. Which is FANTASTIC, since all I did at the concert was make fun of their boots. No really. Not kidding.

I feel I should mention that this was possibly the best concert-going experience I have had at a Chicago venue (of the Metro/Vic/Riviera variety). We found an amazing spot to stand (and I'm not telling you where, so that you can't use that spot and ruin the possible use of it in the future). By the last few songs, some nice girls decided to leave and gave us their perfect seats. I saw the band the entire concert, got to sit for a while and didn't feel too crowded (although we did have two drunkies behind us...but that's almost a given). Perfect. Possibly impossible to repeat.

What else, what else...I complained a lot about my mail. I bought myself a pot of mums to cheer myself up after the mail fiasco escalated yesterday. I bought a seriously brilliant present in advance for my friends personal shower (ha ha ha ha!).

It's been a good one - I didn't do much for school and it felt nice. I'm telling you, this quarter I'm having a really hard time caring about my grades/class. For two of my classes, this doesn't matter at all. For another? Bad. News.

The waiting game bites me in the ass....

Remember my mail issue? I forgot to put that in my post yesterday: Waiting to get mail regularly. Well, today it just got that much worse. I'm about to fricking contact Chicago Tribune about this shit (emailing What's Your Problem sounds really tempting...).

Ok - so the post office claims the buzzer is broken. This morning I actually spoke with a human at my landlord's office and he explained the situation: The buzzer on ONE side of my building is broken (the building can be accessed from two roads). The side of the building it's broken on? NOT MINE. So, if the mailman was actually doing his job, he would walk to MY SIDE of the building, use his buzzer, and OPEN THE DAMN DOOR. But, he won't. I can only assume it is because he is lazy. I'm not getting mail because I have a lazy-ass mailman.

So...my landlord, to temporarily fix the issue, gave the mailman a key to the lobby. HE WON'T USE IT (i guess we should all be glad? Because apparently they aren't allowed to use keys? But right now, it just seems insane). This is insanity.

The landlord is waiting for a part to fix the buzzer (that is on the OTHER SIDE OF THE BUILDING). It could be a week. It could be longer.

I have no words here. Fury?

The waiting game...

That's where I feel that I am right now...firmly lodged in "the waiting game". Let's break it out into time increments, shall we?

In this minute: I'm waiting for my professor to post a midterm...a midterm that was promised to us on Wednesday, then delayed to Thursday afternoon. 9:00 pm on Thursday qualifies as night, right? Still waiting...

In this hour: I'm waiting for Luca and Abby to get married and for Neela to choose Ray. I'm also waiting to watch the end of my Tivo'd Ugly Betty and then possibly watch the Grey's Anatomy marathon (but that will probably wait until tomorrow)...

In the next 24 hours: Waiting for the midterm (hopefully not, hopefully it will be posted NOW. Ok....NOW) and then doing the midterm. Then waiting for the night when I'll go have a drink for the first time in ages (have to build up some tolerance for the Bachelorette party in July)...

In the next weekend: Waiting for the midterm to be over, to see the new family member, to get a concert ticket?

In the next months: Waiting for a friend to be in the city (yay! Congrats Kate!), waiting for the wedding, dreading the speech, waiting to cut my hair (can-not wait)

In the next years: Waiting to finally finish school (for good this time), to get a job, to buy a condo, to adopt a greyhound...

I'm sure that everyone else out there can quantify their life this way...it sort of makes it seem more manageable somehow and...somehow so far away...