I've frequently heard people who "work out" and "exercise" say things like "that worked muscles I didn't know I had!"
As a testiment to what appears to be the fact that I'm utterly lazy and completely spoiled: Swedish massages are the most wonderful thing on earth and I plan to get one every day for the rest of my life as soon as I sell a few of my unneeded organ on Ebay.
Typically the (non-company) perks of living with your Grandmother for a week include (not necessarily in this order): dishes of candy sitting around the house, enough cookies to cause blood sugar poisoning, new socks (always new socks), vanished responsibilities (ie: when you try to do something responsible you find it's already been done) and now: Swedish massages in your own house, first thing in the morning.
I was going to rake the lawn today but my messeuse told me to "take it easy." I'm currently laughing with self-indulgent glee-- even if it only lasts for one day.
Tomorrow it's back to Shreveport and all that responsibility crap. Oh. My. God. I'm so exctited about buying people Christmas presents. Tell me what you want.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Thursday, November 24, 2005
I'm in the High-Fidelity, First Class Traveling Section...
I love flying. I love airplanes. I love the simultanious order and chaos of airports.
This is my 12th flight this year and for some reason this time I was N.E.R.V.O.U.S. I thought perhaps that I was nervous because, oh, say, the plane was going to go down in flames-- turns out I was mostly just nervous about having to wear the same underwear for a week and a half.
My luggage has never gotten lost before so I didn't know what when your luggage doesn't show up the best explaination they will be able to give you for the following 13 hours is: "we're sure it's on one of the planes," and "we really have no idea where it is; it never showed up."
neat.
My underwear (and everything else) did arrive finally but I think between that and my five hour layover in Minnapolis I'm not going to mess with Northwestern again.
Being home is nice. I wasn't sure what I would do. Every trip has a purpose. We say: "I'm going home for the Holiday," or, "I'm going home for a funeral." It was both this time and it's sort of hard to reconcile the two.
You couldn't have picked a clearer, brighter, more beautiful day to say goodbye to my grandfather. It's true, I see, that he knew most everyone in this town and was loved by all of them. The hardest part is just the space that is no longer filled. This enormous gap where a lot of laughter used to be. Grandma is still funny and brite, but this house is a half-house. Just not whole. Just too quiet: not enough country western.
Anyway I'm tired of saying goodbyes so if you're planning on passing away, forget it. It's time for showing up and not for leaving.
This is my 12th flight this year and for some reason this time I was N.E.R.V.O.U.S. I thought perhaps that I was nervous because, oh, say, the plane was going to go down in flames-- turns out I was mostly just nervous about having to wear the same underwear for a week and a half.
My luggage has never gotten lost before so I didn't know what when your luggage doesn't show up the best explaination they will be able to give you for the following 13 hours is: "we're sure it's on one of the planes," and "we really have no idea where it is; it never showed up."
neat.
My underwear (and everything else) did arrive finally but I think between that and my five hour layover in Minnapolis I'm not going to mess with Northwestern again.
Being home is nice. I wasn't sure what I would do. Every trip has a purpose. We say: "I'm going home for the Holiday," or, "I'm going home for a funeral." It was both this time and it's sort of hard to reconcile the two.
You couldn't have picked a clearer, brighter, more beautiful day to say goodbye to my grandfather. It's true, I see, that he knew most everyone in this town and was loved by all of them. The hardest part is just the space that is no longer filled. This enormous gap where a lot of laughter used to be. Grandma is still funny and brite, but this house is a half-house. Just not whole. Just too quiet: not enough country western.
Anyway I'm tired of saying goodbyes so if you're planning on passing away, forget it. It's time for showing up and not for leaving.
Friday, November 11, 2005
What you missed
So, what I meant to tell you about the week before is that Sunday night my advisor called me and asked if I wanted to give a speech and present the award-winning author Bobbie Anne Mason with Centenary's award for literary excellence, the Corrington award. After about fifteen minutes of freaking out and thinking "why did they ask me of all people? I can't give an introduction in front of the entire freshman class!" Then I remembered that the freshman class is entirely too lazy to come to manditory award ceremonies for famous authors and that it would make me feel totally rightous in my egotism if I said yes. Oh yeah, and the speech only had to be 4-minutes long. So I said yes. Go here for cute pictures.
So last Wednesday I got to hang out with Bobbie Anne Mason (who was a finalist for the pulitzer prize- cha CHING!) and eat free care of the English department all day, then dress up and give a speech and do that "pose holding the medal" thing. It was neat, basically.
Last weekend was also Rhapsody in View, the Choir's big concert. I've been four years in a row and this was the best yet. The choir is MASSIVE and well, they're singin' fools. Banquet afterwards was good too except that Tim's parents are so nice and sociable and almost everyone elses are so... not.
After that "Hell Week" started for the TKEs which means the pledges sang to me and Blaine recited the poem he composed for me:
When we, the pledges, think of beauty,
We think of you.
You,
The one who walks this campus
With a heart so full of the right kind of passion,
TKE passion.
The one who is devoted to best brotherhood around.
Tau Kappa Epislon
This fine model of feminine appeal
Pumps TKE blood.
She is a TKE girl, tried and true.
We love you, you see, because
As us pledges walked upon this campus,
For the past few Wednesdays,
You never hesitated to say,
“My look at those pretty pledges on pretty pledge day.”
Your soul lies in the memorable mud pit,
Which became our memorable horse race.
Your memory will be framed with our brothers and us,
So as to never forget who are first sweetheart was.
You see,
We are the fortunate ones,
O yea we pledges are,
Because come Valentine’s Day,
You will be ours.
Tim will have to deal with it,
You are not just for him,
Because honestly,
Would rather have just 1 senior
Or two sophomores plus fourteen freshmen?
So in professing our love,
To our one and only,
We wish you the best TKE year of your life,
And soon,
You will no longer have sixteen loyal pledge followers,
But you’ll have 46 brothers,
All hailing,
The sweetheart so foxy,
That she can only be called one thing…Roxie.
Normally I wouldn't brag and post the whole thing but really, who wouldn't be thrilled to have a poem composed for them that wasn't written by a stalker or, well, no, I think stalkers are the only people who write creepy poems about other people. Anyway, Blaine isn't a stalker, he's just totally hot fot TKE, as we all should be.
I'd write more if this headache I've had since Sunday would go away, but that doesn't look probable so I'll go to bed. Vive la weekend. Just one more week before I get to go home.
So last Wednesday I got to hang out with Bobbie Anne Mason (who was a finalist for the pulitzer prize- cha CHING!) and eat free care of the English department all day, then dress up and give a speech and do that "pose holding the medal" thing. It was neat, basically.
Last weekend was also Rhapsody in View, the Choir's big concert. I've been four years in a row and this was the best yet. The choir is MASSIVE and well, they're singin' fools. Banquet afterwards was good too except that Tim's parents are so nice and sociable and almost everyone elses are so... not.
After that "Hell Week" started for the TKEs which means the pledges sang to me and Blaine recited the poem he composed for me:
When we, the pledges, think of beauty,
We think of you.
You,
The one who walks this campus
With a heart so full of the right kind of passion,
TKE passion.
The one who is devoted to best brotherhood around.
Tau Kappa Epislon
This fine model of feminine appeal
Pumps TKE blood.
She is a TKE girl, tried and true.
We love you, you see, because
As us pledges walked upon this campus,
For the past few Wednesdays,
You never hesitated to say,
“My look at those pretty pledges on pretty pledge day.”
Your soul lies in the memorable mud pit,
Which became our memorable horse race.
Your memory will be framed with our brothers and us,
So as to never forget who are first sweetheart was.
You see,
We are the fortunate ones,
O yea we pledges are,
Because come Valentine’s Day,
You will be ours.
Tim will have to deal with it,
You are not just for him,
Because honestly,
Would rather have just 1 senior
Or two sophomores plus fourteen freshmen?
So in professing our love,
To our one and only,
We wish you the best TKE year of your life,
And soon,
You will no longer have sixteen loyal pledge followers,
But you’ll have 46 brothers,
All hailing,
The sweetheart so foxy,
That she can only be called one thing…Roxie.
Normally I wouldn't brag and post the whole thing but really, who wouldn't be thrilled to have a poem composed for them that wasn't written by a stalker or, well, no, I think stalkers are the only people who write creepy poems about other people. Anyway, Blaine isn't a stalker, he's just totally hot fot TKE, as we all should be.
I'd write more if this headache I've had since Sunday would go away, but that doesn't look probable so I'll go to bed. Vive la weekend. Just one more week before I get to go home.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
The sun will come out
This is stupid. I'm supposed to journal here and write some sort of dissertation about what's going on. Here's the deal: if you have grandparents still, call them today. I'm not kidding.
I naively thought that my Grandpa Smitty would be able to hold out two weeks for Thanksgiving. But he was tired. He passed away this morning at home.
I'm so lost and confused and, well, almost panicky that anything I say here doesn't matter and doesn't serve much more of a purpose than to let you know what's happened.
I can't tell you how I feel right now and I can't tell you what kind of a person he was except to say that there wasn't a single thing I disliked about my Gramps. I liked the way he buttered his bread. I liked his stupid jokes and the way he laughed at them. I like that he remembered how may inches of snow fell on January 7th, 1975 or any other day, for that matter. We should all be so lucky to have these things in our lives.
He always said as we were walking out the door: "come back when you can't stay so long!" Which was his way of saying you never stay long enough.
I naively thought that my Grandpa Smitty would be able to hold out two weeks for Thanksgiving. But he was tired. He passed away this morning at home.
I'm so lost and confused and, well, almost panicky that anything I say here doesn't matter and doesn't serve much more of a purpose than to let you know what's happened.
I can't tell you how I feel right now and I can't tell you what kind of a person he was except to say that there wasn't a single thing I disliked about my Gramps. I liked the way he buttered his bread. I liked his stupid jokes and the way he laughed at them. I like that he remembered how may inches of snow fell on January 7th, 1975 or any other day, for that matter. We should all be so lucky to have these things in our lives.
He always said as we were walking out the door: "come back when you can't stay so long!" Which was his way of saying you never stay long enough.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Zombie Survival Kit
H-A-Double-L-O-W-Double-E-N.I've slacked on reporting an entire week of Halloween free-for-all. Sarah and I had a blast decorating our awesome house with purple lights and spider webs. We spent an entire evening carving pumpkins and baking the scariest damn cake that anyone has ever seen.
Halloween is indisputably the greatest holiday ever (besides my birthday) but no one can argue with a solid week of Halloween. It hasn't even come yet and we're all still freaking out to the best of our ability.
Friday the TKEs had Graveyard, their annual Halloween party. There's nothing like falling in love with your friends all over again when you realize how shamelessly creative they are. (And the ones who aren't creative, well, at least their still shameless.) The boys work so, so hard every year to make thier house look like a place you wouldn't go into EVER, unless you were a dumb teenager in a horror film.
However it may seem, it was more fun than even pictures can convey. I went as France, complete with Eiffel Towers hanging from my ears, a tattoo of the french motto (Egalite, Liberte, Fraternite), ballet shoes and a button with "J'aime TKE" on it. I'll admit that from the shoulders up I looked more like a girl-scout, well past her age group, but I felt cute and french-ish. <--- That's me with Amber, who was Hermione Granger. Tim was Lance Armstong and anytime anyone asked what he was he would turn around and point to the seven on his back, flexing: "LANCE ARMSTRONG, SEVEN-TIME WINNER!" He was very excited, despite the fact that neither of us are particularly interested in Lance Armstrong for any reason whatsoever. It was a good time to be had by all.
I went to Faust last night with Carrie and Ashley. We got to be French nerds together without baing made fun of. Yes, Faust is an opera in French, even though the most famous Faust is in German. Get off my back, I didn't write it. Anyway, I was unaware that an opera could have subtitles and that I would have better french skills than someone who was paid to translate subtitles for an opera, but it's true.
It was my first opera and now I know that I like opera even if it is, ahem, sort of, bizarre in this case. (They switched the order of the acts around and, well, danced around a lot.)
Anyway, today is free. I have to enjoy my free day since next weekend Tim's moving into a new place. Someone broke into his other house and it's just the absolute last straw. It's also Rhapsody next weekend. But for now, it's still Halloween weekend. Happy birthday Dad!
And Happy Halloween tomorrow!
(If you're really sadistic you can check out the pictures by clicking here)
Thursday, October 20, 2005
Don't Call me Woody
Click hereTo learn about the coolest thing ever -->
Two of these birds live in the Pine tree outside of window. This is a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. I heard one of them tapping the other day when I walked home from class and today I can hear them talking to each other. If you can get an awesome bird to be your neighbor I totally recommend it.
I like that they sound like they're saying "Cha cha cha."
I wish I knew what to feed them.
Man, I'm glad they're not yellow-bellied sapsuckers. Har har.
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
The Bad with the Good
It always happens this way.
Today I got the news that a friend of mine passed away. Sarge was my boss at the Renaissance festival, and I'm sorry if this sounds cheesy but it's true; it's more of a family than you'll ever know if you've never worked there. A large, disfunctional, costume-wearing family, but a family none-the-less.
Sarge worked with his wife, Anna, in the back kitchen in the booth singularly known as "Sarge and Anna's." They traveled all year long so they could work at different festivals around the country. Sarge had large hands like paws, which he would wrap around your own hands in a warm greeting that was entirely his own. He was enormously sweet and absolutely friendly all the time, to everyone. Two summers ago he brought in a box of hand-woven pieces for everyone in the booth (I suspect) based entirely on the fact that Alsn also likes to weave. He was so much like an adopted grandfather and even when he was obstinant he was still funny and good. I just plain liked him. I think everyone did.
Maybe I'm a snob but I don't think I would have liked working anywhere else nearly as much as I enjoyed working at Sarge and Anna's. What's worse is that they're the kind of people you never expect to go away because they're just essential to the whole idea of the "The Ren Faire." I don't know if Anna will do another faire, not without Sarge. I don't know if I want to do another faire without Sarge and Anna, and Alsn, who seems to think she can go to Japan without me.
My heart goes out to Anna and her whole family. I wish there was a way to make it to the service. If my heart hurts, I can't imagine what they're going through.
But I suppose it's standard that while horrible things happen, good ones happen too.
My mom just finished another big part of her school and is that much closer to being an around-the-clock drug abuse/domestic violence councilor. She's been working on this since I was in high school and what she's done for herself is definitly something to be proud of.
More big things have happened this year than I can ever remember happening in such a short amount of time. Death, marriage, travel, natural disasters, and upheaval... slow down, please. Slow down.
Today I got the news that a friend of mine passed away. Sarge was my boss at the Renaissance festival, and I'm sorry if this sounds cheesy but it's true; it's more of a family than you'll ever know if you've never worked there. A large, disfunctional, costume-wearing family, but a family none-the-less.
Sarge worked with his wife, Anna, in the back kitchen in the booth singularly known as "Sarge and Anna's." They traveled all year long so they could work at different festivals around the country. Sarge had large hands like paws, which he would wrap around your own hands in a warm greeting that was entirely his own. He was enormously sweet and absolutely friendly all the time, to everyone. Two summers ago he brought in a box of hand-woven pieces for everyone in the booth (I suspect) based entirely on the fact that Alsn also likes to weave. He was so much like an adopted grandfather and even when he was obstinant he was still funny and good. I just plain liked him. I think everyone did.
Maybe I'm a snob but I don't think I would have liked working anywhere else nearly as much as I enjoyed working at Sarge and Anna's. What's worse is that they're the kind of people you never expect to go away because they're just essential to the whole idea of the "The Ren Faire." I don't know if Anna will do another faire, not without Sarge. I don't know if I want to do another faire without Sarge and Anna, and Alsn, who seems to think she can go to Japan without me.
My heart goes out to Anna and her whole family. I wish there was a way to make it to the service. If my heart hurts, I can't imagine what they're going through.
But I suppose it's standard that while horrible things happen, good ones happen too.
My mom just finished another big part of her school and is that much closer to being an around-the-clock drug abuse/domestic violence councilor. She's been working on this since I was in high school and what she's done for herself is definitly something to be proud of.
More big things have happened this year than I can ever remember happening in such a short amount of time. Death, marriage, travel, natural disasters, and upheaval... slow down, please. Slow down.
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