Hometown: The Roch, MI (aka. The Crotch, aka. Crotchscratcher, aka. Crotchmolester, aka. Rochester)
Currently Living: Clawson, MI
Height: 5'8
Weight: Ha ha, yeah right
Favorite Color: Blue (preferably navy)
Profession: Researcher
Favorite Nickname: Trick, Sloan
Favorite Drinks:Vodka Tonic, Guinness, Diet Dr. Pepper, Dirty Martinis, red wine
Favorite TV Show: Friends, Sex & The City, Project Runway, The Amazing Race, Iron Chef America
Least Favorite TV Show: A Baby Story, I Love Lucy, Martha Stewart, Everybody Loves Raymond, every hour long drama
Favorite Books: The History of Love, Beloved, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Fight Club, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The of Being, SurUnbearable Lightness vivor, Empire Falls, The Corrections, The Bell Jar
Favorite Movies: Little Miss Sunshine, Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Wordplay, American Beauty, Life is Beautiful, Amelie, Breakfast Club, Singin In The Rain, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Sleeping Beauty, Dancer in the Dark, Duets, The Virgin Suicides, The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Austin Powers I, II & III, My Best Friends Wedding, Moulin Rouge, Tommy Boy, Billy Madison, The Shining, Gone With The Wind, Bridget Jones' Diary, Chicago, Love Actually
Guilty Pleasure Movies: Xanadu, Dirty Dancing, Overboard, Groundhog Day, Steel Magnolias, 10 Things I Hate About You, Bond movies, Footloose, Clue, Murder By Death, High Spirits, A Cinderella Story
What I Do Too Much: Check email, crossword puzzles, complain about my job to friends and family,
Obsessions: sushi, Indian food, ranch dressing, toenail polish, song lyrics, hands, awards shows, symmetry, avocados, maps, dreams, This American Life, the display in my car that tracks my MPG
Pet Peeves: loud eaters, slurping, gulping, arrogance, snoring, bad grammar, repetition, late mergers, ripping cardboard, the word "chunky", intolerance, couples in a restaurant sitting on the same side of a booth, pop-up ads, privacy manager, men that drive without shirts on, being foolish, unfairly jumping to conclusions, being made fun of, cat-calling, people who type too hard
Greatest Fear: crossing bridges
Relaxing Activites: late night drives to sing by myself, headstands, hot baths,
Wish I Was: Ansel Adams, Jenifer Aniston, in love, living alone
Prized Possessions: ring from my grandparents, flower pot of my Grandma's, electric blanket (temporarily broken), tongue scraper, my bed
Craziest Thing Ever Done: getting a tattoo, strip Jenga
Things I Eventually Want To Do: skydive, buy a guitar, learn how to play the aforementioned guitar, take flying lessons, travel to France, write a novel, learn how to play the harp, tap dancing lessons, run a marathon
Thursday, October 31, 2002
Guess who got mail today? And guess what it was? Kevin's CD! Yay! So I guess he'll be given the month of November. But don't tell anyone that it's only because Parini's, Dave's, and Kevin's Christmas gifts are going to be my selection for December. Which I've already been pondering for a while. I have so many suggestions in mind. And if I could have it my way, I would make it a repeat performance of Ryan Adams, but if the point of the CD club is to expose the other members to new music, well, I don't want to retread common ground. So I'll keep my ear to the wind for some inspiration. I'm also going to plow through Harry Potter now before the movie comes out. Hopefully it won't detract for the intensity of The Satanic Verses. Ok. I'm out.
9:21 PM
They're creepy and they're kooky. And all together ooky....Happy Halloween!!! Today is my nephew's 8th birthday. I bought his b-day gift yesterday. I got the Chronicles of Narnia for him. All 7 books. I just adore The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. He's the perfect age for it.
It was such a battle to get out of bed this morning. I was trying for the get to work early, leave early plan, but when I'm nice and cozy in bed, it turns into the come in on time/late, still leave early plan. There are new developments in the "Research Assistants getting shafted on the work they're doing" saga. The one doctor, Song, had asked my two bosses why the one girl's name was taken off the abstract he wrote and gave them, and my one boss' explanation was that all of the assistants were being omitted as co-authors because we "don't have any scientific knowledge." Now maybe I would be okay with that comment if I was working on my GED or something, but we're all college gradgitates, and all of us are working on our Master's (I will be as of Jan)/applying to med school. Just ridiculous. All I can do is shake my head. But our meeting on Monday promises to be a showdown of epic proportions. I'll come with both barrels loaded and ready to go. (That's figurative. Don't be tipping off the FBI of an impending rampage by a postal research assistant or anything....you never know these days what kind of preemptive warnings you need to give).
I have lots of random observations to include today that I've been forgetting about all week.
Recent driving observations:
~Someone along my route to work today is having a "Yerd Sale". And just what it a "yerd" might I ask, and how much are they on sale for?
~I've seen 3 people in the last two days just digging for gold like no one was watching. But unfortunately, I was.
~There's a warehouse on my route to work called "Fuchs Lubricants Co." I kid you not. Seriously now. Did they not say the name out loud before plastering it in huge letters on the side of a building?
Have you ever been kissed on the nose? I went for a drink the last two nights in a row and last night when I was out with Julie, this guy came over to our table saying that his friend wanted to come over and talk. Very middle school style. But he never did. So before they were leaving, the same guy came over to our table and apologized on behalf of his friend and tried to convince us to head across the street with them to a different bar. But before he left, he tried to give me a kiss on the cheek (mind you, he's said all of about 5 sentences total to Julie and I) and ended up getting my nose as I was trying to turn away. It was all I could do to not laugh in his face....What is wrong with some people?
So my parents have been looking around for a place to stay in Florida during the winter. All along, they've only been talking about being gone for like 3 weeks, a month, tops. But my mom told me yesterday that they were considering a place where they would be gone for 3 months (Feb, March and April). Wow. I guess that would delay my moving out plans, because why would I need to being paying rent for my own place when I could have my own place for free for 3 whole months! That would definitely help on saving $$ too. So we'll see. I don't think my mom can be gone for that long, but I'll keep you posted.
Went to go buy Jack Johson tickets yesterday. No can do, sold out. The woman at the Ticketmaster was all, "I don't even know who that is." And in anticipation for Kevin's CD of the month selection, I've been listening to all of the choices so far, in order while I'm driving. Needless to say, I'm on disc 4 in only a day and a half. That'll give you an idea of how much time I spend in my car.
Well, that's it for now. Hope you have a wonderful Halloween! Go do something fun! Rent a scary movie. Gorge yourself on those mini Snickers bars. Get dressed up to give out candy. Have fun. See ya manana.
9:17 AM
Tuesday, October 29, 2002 No matter what I do. No matter what I say. Offend in every way....A few quick issues to clear up.
#1. I like babies. I really like little kids too. I just don't like seeing them born.
#2. Parini has wonderful grammar. Country grammar if you will. #3. Yes my blog is self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing. I've never made any pretenses that it wasn't. But don't forget that the only reason I started the blog was so that I wouldn't have to email everyone the same stories over and over again (yes, the cat's out of the bag. My motivation for the blog was sheer laziness).Just because I don't want to discuss things like politics doesn't mean that I don't have opinions or that I don't know where I stand on things. I just don't like preaching. In fact, I've added a new pet peeve. Intolerance. Everyone should have their own opinions about things. But I abhor when people are immutable and unwilling to accept other points of view other than their own. No one should ever make any one else feel bad becauseof their points of view. That just might be my biggest pet peeve. But it's pretty closely linked to arrogance, which is also a biggie.
Ok, serious stuff done. On my way to work today, the big rig driving behind me had Halloween decorations. It had a fake, face-first, flattened witch on the grill. It made me laugh everytime I looked in my rear view mirror.
So I think it's amusing that "pimps" have become kind of a token thing. There was a guy at the Halloween party I went to on Friday in a purple velour jumpsuit with leopard print edging, big shades and a big gold chain with a dollar sign. But do you know how many men I've seen seriously dressed in similar outfits on a daily basis? Have you ever seen a guy dressed in a full red leather outfit with platform shoes? Do you have any idea how many fedoras I've seen in the last 4 months? These are the perks of working in a VA Hospital. Another perk is all of the inappropriate comments you can get. If I had a penny for every sketchy comment I've gotten, I would own the hospital right now.
I can't write this while I'm watching TV because it ends up taking me and hour and a half. Hopefully I'll be headed out for a drink in a little while. Bye.
8:05 PM
Monday, October 28, 2002
I have laid down a law with me that I, for the most part, always stick to. I 100% stick to it at work. I don't know why I don't do it here. But from now on I do. My rule -- 2 things I DO NOT DISCUSS : POLITICS AND RELIGION. They aren't arguments that anyone ever wins, and people end up resenting each other because of differing views. It's too personal and hits nerves. Everyone has their own individual opinions. It isn't black and white. There isn't a right and wrong. Or a "my way" and "the dumbasses way". From now on, I will not ever bring up politics (or religion. Although I don't think I've ever mentioned it here before...). I may from time to time poke fun at words like supposably and strategery though. But that could have been said by Parini, and I'd still make fun of her too. Not to imply that Parini is too ignant to have good grammer or anything...Ok. I'm done now.
9:48 PM
It's the perfect ending, to the bad day I was just beginning...Oh man. What a bad day. I wasn't too irritated when I got this bad news, but I sat in a frigid room staring at a computer screen and it festered so now I'm irritated.
So the reason work has been so busy lately is because we had these abstracts due for a big deal research meeting that's next May. The abstract is pretty much just the outline of the experiments that were done and the preliminary finding. And then if it's accepted, you make a poster presentation. So the three other research assistants and I have been busting our asses for the last two weeks to get everything done so the abstracts can be submitted on time. And we all found out today that NONE of our names are included as co-authors. But the residents who are only working in our lab for 2 months are. We have all been working on our projects from start to finish and they just kind of strolled in, made a couple spreadsheets, and voila! They're worthy enough to be co-authors. They didn't put in 15 hour days, or long ass overnight studies, or sit in the same seat for weeks doing data analysis like some of the other girls and I have. Needless to say, the four of us are pretty disgruntled. And I don't/didn't necessarily think it's that huge of a deal to get irate about. But what this does do is completely obliterate any motivation we have to continue to bust our asses. I remember like a month ago we had this big discussion about having to work Friday nights, and our boss gave us this tirade about how we were all participating in putting out a "product" and that we were all had equal share in our commitment to these projects. Which is a nice explanation when it favors them, but when the shoe is on the other foot, it's not quite the team environment it seems to be. We've all been more than willing to bend our schedules and sacrifice our time, classes, etc, but I have a feeling that's coming to a screeching halt as of tomorrow. So kind of a bummer of a day. Plus one of my subjects cancelled and the other one was late and tried calling but because the one chick was on the phone, I NEVER GOT THE MESSAGE. So she ended up not coming solely because she couldn't get through. So I sat around for like 2 hours when I could have left. Like I said. Irritating.
I didn't win shit yesterday from the pumpkin carving party. My pumpkin was beautiful though. I had these three beautiful bats flying over the bellfry and all. Alas, the competition was pretty tough though. But that's ok. I guess the judges just don't know real art when they see it. The apple orchard was very nice. But it was pretty damn cold. There is nothing better than cinnamon doughnuts when they're still warm and cider when it's made right there and it's steaming because it's so nice and toasty warm. The kids were cute picking out their pumpkins and putting apples in their little bags.
I hope that everyone caught Michael Moore on Donahue. I love him. Everything he has to say is so practical that I just don't see why people don't get it. Now I'm watching Maternity Ward on TLC only because it was filmed at Hutzel Hospital here in Detroit. I drive right past the labor and delivery emergency entrance every day. But don't be fooled....I can't STAND birthing shows. They end the same way everytime. These damn shows pretty much seal the deal that I will never ever ever have children. Not if I have to do that shit. I'm getting queasy just catching glimpses out the corner of my eyes. Miracle of life my ass. Uhhh....Andrea -- you can just skip over this paragraph. You're going to do great!!
Right, so now that I've pushed lots of buttons and complained a lot, I'm going to go away and hide now.
PS. I'm still on my Ryan Adams kick. New song. Different album. So so good.
9:23 PM
Sunday, October 27, 2002 Thanks for playing, try again....Yesterday would have been the most perfect day if only the Wolverines wouldn't have played like crap. Iowa certainly deserved to win, as much as I hate to say it. But I drove Blancho's Rendezvous (now fondly called, "The Vous" in honor of a strip club. It's a grocery getter by day, shaggin' wagon by night). Suzy and Parini met me here, and we picked up Sarah and my sister Amy en route to Ann Arbor. We had prepared for a pretty kickass tailgate. Complete with mini-grill, marinated chicken, tortellini salad, taco dip, spinach dip, cupcakes, and the all important, Bloody Marys, hot cider with spiced rum, and good ol' Labatt's. It's been a long time since I started drinking by 9 o'clock or so. But we parked the party wagon on the golf course directly across the street from the stadium. Where we had quite a few dropper bys. It was lots of fun. I've never actually tailgated at the golf course before. When you go to school there, you just wake up and go to the game. And I was amazed at how hard core the tailgaters are. The people across from us actually had centerpieces for their table of food. Now that's impressive. The game was still fun, aside from the fact that it started drizzling at the start of the second half. The people behind us were kind of scary. They had these fur stoles that were just dead animal carcasses. In Sarah's words, it gave her the "heeby geebies". So if they only would have won, the day would have been perfect.
The Halloween party on Friday was pretty fun too. Everyone was pretty decked out. Including the decorating they did for their house. They definitely got their money's worth out of the smoke machine they had. The whole house was cloudy. But my two favorite costumes of the night were this guy who was dressed up as Anna Nicole Smith and another guy who was dressed up as the invisible man. Such a great costume, all for the cost of an ace bandage, gloves and sunglasses. Maybe one day if I can figure out how to post my own picture on here, you can see me in my geisha costume. My mom really liked it, but said that the blue eyes just gave me away. And I forgot my fan at home. Dammit.
Today I'm heading off to the cider mill/pumpkin patch with my family. I'm going to a pumpkin carving contest tonight. I'm pretty much expecting to get my ass kicked. I'm sure everyone will be working on their recreation of Van Gogh's "A Starry Night" and I'll be hacking away on my triangle eyes. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes. I hope that everyone had a great weekend. I hope you enjoyed having an extra hour of sleep as much as I did. Cya later.
11:04 AM
Friday, October 25, 2002 I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so....So I'm all dolled up in my geisha costume ready to go pick up Parini and ready to head to the costume party. I suppose if it wasn't a costume party you'd be a little concerned about why I would be wearing a geisha outfit. Should be a sweet night. Me + alcohol + cosutme = good stories for you tomorrow.
Suzy pulled through at the last minute with 8 free tickets to the UofM/Iowa football game tomorrow. She is my hero and the luckiest person on the face of the earth. So there's going to be a large troupe of us en force with a huge, doin'-it-up-right-tailgate. But painfully, I'll be leaving the house at 7am. To go. Drink. More.
I need to be out the d-iz-oor now. Have a good night, and I'll let you know how things go!!!! Tata for now.
8:44 PM
Thursday, October 24, 2002 I'll be missing you...I apologize for being MIA the last couple days. Even writing this now is a stretch for me. I'm between trials for one of my experiments. I've been here since 7:30am and'll be here until about 10pm. Which I'm not too happy about.
So I think I"m officially a CPR girl now. I took my test today. Played with the Recess-a-Annie dolls and smacked a fake baby on the back for a while and voila! Suddenly I can save your life too! If you start choking near me, you might want to use your last bit of energy before you pass out to run the other way if you like your ribs intact. Mwa ah ah ah.
I have nothing to say. I haven't done anything at all in the last three days but work close to 30ish hours. And read the book for my Life Saving Course. Bitchin'. Seriously. That's it. Oh! I got my Halloween costume. The big par-tay is tomorrow night, but I'll give you the low down on that manana. Now I have to go watch someone breathe for another 3 hours or so. Do you know how similar the phrases, "Those are great breaths" and "Those are great breasts" sound? Pretty damn close. And the joke never gets old. Every single time, I'm the only one laughing.....what a dork...Ok. Bye now.
6:26 PM
Monday, October 21, 2002 I'm just waiting for the light to change....So imagine my surprise this morning when I'm driving down Rochester Road on my way to work and I glance over to see, who driving next to me? None other than my very own sister Suzy. After honking for a couple minutes and pissing off all the other commuters around me, she finally looked over and started laughing. It's strange because she never goes down that road, except for this morning. I've come to the realization that the world is either a very small place, or there are too many of my parents' offspring roaming around the metro Detroit area. A likely combination of both.
My brother called last night too. Just to talk to me. I haven't physically spoken to my brother in over 4 months. Since he was here for Amy's wedding. I mean, he's talked to my mom, but I haven't heard a word out of St. Louis for 4 months. Sometimes it seems very strange to me that I even have this brother that lives half (or maybe a third) of the country away. It's not like we're estranged or anything. There are no bad feelings between us whatsoever. And it seems strange too, because I see and talk to all my other siblings often enough to know them. You know? To just know each other and know what things they enjoy, and how things are going, and what makes them happy, and how they spend their freetime, and making our stupid jokes. It seems strange to me that I don't have this with my brother. He moved away from home to Baltimore when I was maybe a freshman (maybe a sophomore) in high school I think. So there's so much of each other's lives we've missed out on. I hate to even say this, but I really hardly even know my brother. Most of the things that we know about each other are from before he moved, and an enormity of things have happened to both of us since then. I mean, I love talking to him and still really enjoy his company when I do get a chance to see him, but I don't know how much that makes up for lost time. But the strange thing is, as corny as it sounds, but there's no one else on this earth that I could talk to less and still mean so much to me. I may seem like a paradox that I can neglect our relationship so much and still consider him one of the most important people in my life. I know it doesn't make sense, but I guess it's the old (and yes, corny) adage of blood being thicker than water.
And to keep the little family theme going on today, here's something strange that proves that Amy and I do in fact share a brain. So do you ever have those dreams where you can't run? Like someone's chasing you and you're the only one moving in slo mo? Well, I have these dreams frequently enough to have conquered this bothersome quirk. How, you ask? Well, I bend over and grab onto the grass of course and kind of pull myself along while kind of doing this hopping thing. Sound messed up? Well, AMY DOES THE EXACT SAME THING IN HER DREAMS. Is that not just crazy bizarre? Everytime we try to explain this to people, they think we nuts. Well, no big shocker there.
Ok, now that you've gotten the trip into my family album, I'm going to go now.
PS. OMG!!! They have a new show on VH1 starting next Monday at 10pm, that's like Trading Spaces. The best part about it, is that it's a rock star that's coming in to be the designer and redecorate shit. Where do I sign up???
8:42 PM
Sunday, October 20, 2002 I was breathless on a Sunday morning, I was speechless on a Sunday night....So I was trying to come up with a Halloween costume today. I hate having to be creative. I used to have a big bag of stuff I had amassed over the years that used to make it easy to come up with something. But somehow, when I moved home from the red house, that was the one bag of my belongings that didn't make it with me. So now if I ever need a costume, it's time to start from scratch. So I found the geisha costume that I liked -- the whole package deal together -- but alas, not in stock. So I trekked off to a different store to get the same thing, but couldn't find the store. So I wasted most of my afternoon driving around, but still no costume. I don't know how I'm going to find time to track something down this week....
So here's the picture I was trying to find --
I know that you can do impressive things these days with PhotoShop, but it still makes me laugh. And try going to Dubya Speak. They're just too unbelievable to be true. Enjoy some chuckles. The rest of the site is pretty harsh. I don't care so much for the wiseass commentary, I just like reading his ridiculous quotes.
I've gone to Starbucks for the last two days -- studying for my life support class. And today when I went there, the exact same guy was sitting in the exact same seat as when I was there yesterday. And I sat down in the same spot on the couch as I was in yesterday. When I walked in, I was completely looking at him like he was a leper. Or maybe just staring a little too much. But it was mostly because I couldn't tell if it was the same guy or not. But when he started laughing when I sat in the same spot, it was pretty obvious. I guess I'm not the only one who has no life.
Back to the rat race tomorrow. I hope you had a lovely weekend. And a lovely week.
8:28 PM
Saturday, October 19, 2002 With your standard issue broken heart, you step into your Saturday shoes....Speaking of Saturday and shoes, I bought the cutest shoes today. They're red. I don't think I've ever bought red shoes before...Just call me Dorothy.
So putting my G.W. plans aside -- I'll get back to it, I promise. I saw lots of websites that made me laugh my ass off today. But it would take more time than I'm willing to invest right now to track down all my links. Instead, you get to hear other junk -- but not anything about work. Per the request of one of my readers in Massachusetts (who shall remain nameless except for he starts with "D" ends in "ave Hartter" and whose Boilermakers got their ass kicked today), I promise to stay away from ranting about incomprehensible work jargon. Which works out convieniently, it being Saturday and all.
So last night Parini and I were all gung ho about,as Parini put it, putting on our dancing shoes aka big black beautiful boots and going to shake our groove thangs with her mystery guest. So after inviting a bunch of folks, it was still just the two of us and the mystery guest that headed out. We all went to Have a Nice Day Cafe. How can you beat no cover and $1 drinks? I don't think you can. So they have the most classic mix of music at this bar. It's totally your classic 70s and 80s music (think Brickhouse and Bust a Move and Wild Thing and Footloose and I Will Survive and Baby Got Back) mixed in with some recent stuff. And we just had a good time dancing. I also got to be Avril Lavigne last night. Was I a punk poser? No. Did I like Sk8er Bois? No. But at the bar, they had this strange thing going on with ties. Like the ties were cut and you were supposed to find who had the other end of the tie. But by the end of the night there were mostly just people wearing like 10 at once in many creative fashions. An interesting idea that didn't really go anywhere. Oh, and Kevin was the mystery guest, specially flown in from Connecticut for the weekend. Isn't that just the sweetest thing ever?
So that's all from me. I'm watching Trading Spaces, so I have to go be the couch critic now. It's been a while since I've seen someone cry on this show....Bye for now.
PS. Survivor was one of the most remarkably brilliant books I've ever read. I finished it today and I'm still thinking about how every little thing in it was just fabulous. From the use of the flowers to the etiquette to the clairvoyance. It was all so fabulous. I'm pondering. It's given me a lot to absorb and hopefully I'll have some fringe thoughts tomorrow if I can get it down on paper. I'm on to Salman Rushdie.
8:23 PM
Thursday, October 17, 2002 My life's gotten simple since. And it fluctuates so much. Happy and sad and back again, I'm not cryin' out too much....So remember that big rant I gave last week about my one night study being unsuccessful in the last possible moments? Well, I had an exact repeat performance last night. Except this time, instead of having the day off, I have to go in to work for a meeting and a practice run for a different experiment. I'll try my best to stay awake if the person happens to stop breathing or something. But the fact that it was my cutie subject made the night much easier to soldier through. Although the jury's still out on whether or not he's gay....I don't think this question is going to get answered without my outright asking him, which is unlikely to happen. Doesn't it figure though? All the cute ones. Or at least the type of guy I'm finding myself attracted to lately.
So here's a funny story. I think it's funny. Most people would think it's horribly offensive, but for some reason it makes me laugh. I met Sarah at good old Hamlin Pub on Tuesday night after not having gone for probably about 2 months. So on my way to the bathroom, I stand aside in front of someone's tall, bar table to let someone else go past in the crowded bar. This jackass guy sitting at the table literally shouts, "Look at the titties on that!" After giving the guy sitting directly in front of me the most incredulous look, I couldn't help but just shake my head on the remainder of my walk to the restroom, puzzled, and definitely taken aback. And here are my problems with that sentence (sounds like a grammar lesson right?) -- #1. Aside from it being the rudest thing anyone I didn't know has ever said to me, he literally shouted it. I'm sure that the half-deaf man in the far corner turned to look and see what all the fuss was about. #2. The "T" word. I hate the "T" word. It's almost as bad as the "P" words (2 of 'em) and the "C" words (two of those too). I hated even typing it. #3. That. He referred to me as "that". Clearly and error in pronoun selection. A "her" would have done just fine. So I guess this event should serve as a warning as to the caliber of clientele at Hamlin Pub these days...
Last night I made paper mache (I think I'm missing quite a few accents on that word) pumpkins with my sisters. I know, we're dorks, but they got the craft idea from Martha Stewart, who, despite her dirty dealings, still gets lots of "Oh that's so cute!" for her ideas from my family (my participation in the praise deliberately absent). So now that my pumpkin is dry, it looks like the sun-damaged-needs-to-use-some-fine-line-reducing-moisturizer-wrinkled version of a pumpkin. Whadda ya gonna do?
Well, I guess I need to get my act together to go back to work. Ugh. That sentence sucks. Coming tomorrow? Funny G.W. photos (if I can find them)/stories. Have a lovely Thursday.
PS. I think I've listened to Ryan Adams' new CD about 50 times this week. It's just been on continuously. And I seem to just be fluctuating between these two songs.
11:01 AM
Tuesday, October 15, 2002 C'mon c'mon get happy....There's no better way to eliminate my feelings of chagrin than to go see someone who can make you laugh for 1 hour and 45 minutes. David Sedaris was wonderful. For the most part, he read a bunch of his stories -- only one from his books, other articles that he had written, and some new. I think my favorite was one he had written about going to see a sentimental, romantic movie with his significant other. It made me laugh a lot. And if you have a second, read, Jesus Shaves. It's about trying to explain the holiday of Easter with a group of people in a basic level French class. Pretty funny stuff. He has the best way of making normal situations raucously funny and also being able to effectively translate what's funny about his writing to being funny told out loud. The question and answer portion was the most amusing, which is surprising because one would expect that an author can spend as much time as necessary to make their writing humorous, but not be that witty on the spot, but he was still pretty impressive in person. Oh! And it's always cause to make me happy when I see my adorable research subject there too. Call it destiny....I will.
So I've been trying to fix the setup for my experiment for the last two days, and I'm ready to throw it all out the window. What I'm trying to do is block one of the valves of our breathing circuit by putting in a balloon that you can fill from outside the bedroom without having to go in to wake the subject up. But the friggin balloon leaks no matter what I do to it. The damn plug isn't the right shape to begin with -- it's a hexagon going into a circular hole. I've sealed it with liquid latex, this epoxy stuff, duct tape, electrical tape, sealing putty/modeling clay. I've tried switching the the connectors, but I only have the stupid hexagonal plug. This is all I've done for the last two days. I'm going to have hot pink modeling clay under my finger nails and duct tape goo on my fingers for days and days. And I'm sure you're reading this thinking, "What the fuck is she talking about? Breathing circuits? Balloons? Hexagon plugs? I care about this why?" Bear with me....I like living in my little world where I assume everything I say makes sense to other people. And I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but telling people what I do for a living is by far the most notable conversation starter that I've ever had before. It's like the token thing for people to think is interesting about me. Which may be interesting to you, but gets a little tiresome for me. At least predictable. Do you have any idea how many times I've heard the question, "So do you actually watch people sleep?"
I met my friend Jenny for lunch in Dearborn today. We've been talking about doing this for a while and finally made it a point to meet. It was nice. MMmmm...good cracked wheat salad with tomatoes and chick peas.....I can't complain about a nearly 2 hour, executive lunch. Pnut and I had dinner last night before David Sedaris at this trendy new Mexican restaurant near the Opera House called Agave. And they had, hands down, the best tortilla chips I've ever had the pleasure of eating. We did a complete critique of the interior too. Here's where I would rattle off lots of fancy schmancy phrases such as "modern urbanism" or "planar", but instead I'll just say, it was purty.
Ok, I'm going to get back to work now. I just got a lot of someone else's work dumped on me, so instead of scamming out early, I'll be here for a long time....TTFN
4:59 PM
Monday, October 14, 2002 I think the thing you said is true. I'm going to die alone and sad....Highlights/Happyish Moments/Realizations/Observations from Last Night:
~I'm officially in love with anyone who stands with his feet pointing inwards.
~When you go to see most artists in concert, their set list is very predictable. All the big hits, all their new songs. Not the case. He only played 3 songs from Gold and 2 from Demolition.
~He was hilarious. I haven't laughed out loud so much at a concert before (yes, even more than BNL).
~He garnered points for using the word aubergine, and saying that he only knew the word from Steel Magnolias.
~He garnered more points for saying, "I said God Damn!" a la Mia Wallace.
~"Come Pick Me Up". Last song. Fucking beautiful.
~I need to start swearing more often.
~The show was totally acoustic, so it was pretty much just him playing the guitar or piano and incredibly mellow. I was floored by how phenomenal his voice sounded. And what a talented musician he is. But even though it was mellow, he was all over the place with this boundless energy. But when he was playing, it was absolutely silent throughout the whole theatre.
~He had a record player on stage and was playing "Like a Virgin" so he could play the guitar part to go along with it.
~Between songs, people were pretty frequently yelling out songs they wanted him to play, and at one point some guy yelled out super-loud, "Summer of '69!!!" Ryan proceeded to jokingly say, "Alright, turn the house lights on so I can find the mother fucker who said that." And it was done. The guy was all standing up in the balcony. R.A. pulled $$ out of his pocket and said, "Here's your $30 back. You can leave now. Or I'll hang on to this for band-aids for you later." Pretty hilarious. The next song he sat down for he started with a "Bought my first real 6-string...."
~No one could ever make smoking as sexy as he does.
~I'm convinced that people like him don't exist.
~I've never seen a performer enjoy themselves on stage as much as he did. It wasn't just going through the motions. That's probably why he played for close to 2 1/2 hours. Plus he played quite a few songs with the duo that opened too.
It was easily one of the best shows I've ever seen. And I swear I say this shit everytime I go see a concert. But he was better because of what I already said. It wasn't the canned set-list. He enjoyed himself, and he was just excellent. Don't pass up the opportunity to go see him when he comes to your town. You'll regret it. And I'll yell at you.
As a result, I'm kind of down today. I don't know if his songs make me sad, but I just am....I hate to rant on for the fiftieth time why about the same thing, so I'll hold my tongue for now. Isn't this getting boring? Me complaining about the same fucking bullshit that is never going to change?
Well, Pnut and I are going to see David Sedaris speak tonight. It should be pretty hilarious. But I'm going to go now so I can finish my work before Pnut gets here. Talk to you tomorrow.
4:54 PM
Sunday, October 13, 2002 There's a football in the air. Across a leaf blown field....So how wonderful was the Michigan-Penn State game yesterday? Here's what a dork I am...I went to Mr. B's in Royal Oak to watch the game with two of my sisters. Suzy left early, and Amy left when regulation time was over. So I was planning on running over to Best Buy on my way home to buy a CD, so I was listening to overtime in my car on my way there. And they were on the 2-yard line on first down when I pulled into the parking lot of the store. I was literally running into the store and hauling ass to the TV department to see the last couple plays and the final touchdown. The people in the aisle were laughing at me. Not kidding here. I was literally cheering and squealing in delight in the middle of the plasma TV section. And even on a couple thousand dollar TV, it was still the most beautiful touchdown I've seen in a while.
Hmmmm...what else is up. Friday night was a good time. Suzy and I headed off to Happy Hour for the Detroit Social Club at about 6:30, and I've never ever seen Fifth Avenue (the bar it was at) so crowded before. And I think I have this knack for choosing the most inappropriate place to stand in a crowd. Whether people choose to make an aisle directly where I'm standing, or whether they need me to move to make their pool shot (in which case I'm always tempted to say, "You're going to miss anyways"), I was beginning to think I was wearing a sign that said, "Please push me out of your way." But aside from extreme crowdedness, it was a good time. We headed over to Memphis Smoke later to see Jill Jack, who was excellent, as always. I had an extemely old man ask me for my phone number too, telling me that I was "bubbly". Last time I checked, I wasn't a rare vintage of champagne, but what ever you say buddy. Needless to say, the digits didn't get passed along. But on the whole, I had a fun night.
Michael Moore is my new hero. He was on one of those Sunday morning talk show things (with Stone Phillips maybe? I wasn't paying attention...). And he has such good points to make. But he makes them in such a great sardonic way, you can't help but think that we, as Americans really are morons. And even though he tends to make fun of things a lot, he still knows his shit. When asked what he thought about the sniper in MD, he pointed out that 7-9 children die everyday in the US by gunshots, but they don't get the satellite feed to the entire country about them because they don't happen to be in the same county like they are in MD. That murders in the last 5 years (I think that was the time span he gave) are actually down 20%, but on the news, their coverage of murder is up 600%. Isn't that just disturbing? Hopefully his new movie will be out somewhere nearby enough that I can go see it....On a slightly related note, I'm almost done with Survivor, and I might as well add it to my favorite books section now. Because there is no other word I can use to describe it other than brilliant. It has a lot of stuff in it that I need to mull over, but I'll get back to you when I finish it...
Well, Pnut and I are going to be leaving in a little while to go see Ryan Adams. I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!! I know I tend to get excited to see concerts, but especially for this one, I'm damn near giddy. So I'm going to go now. I'll tell you all about how awesome he was tomorrow. PS. I've added a new song to my repeats. He makes me happy. Bye.
PS. If anyone ever calls me in the middle of the night and Caller ID Blocks their number, what do you think that means? I think that means that they know I don't want to talk to them. So why the hell would I answer it then if I can figure it's someone I don't want to talk to?
4:42 PM
Friday, October 11, 2002 I want a girl that gets up early. I want a girl that stays up late....So I did just get up not too long ago. I ended up fighting rush hour traffic this morning....to get home. Not to get to work. You know it's cool when your parents are already awake when you get home. But let me give you a little explanation here about my night. This might get a little scientifically-lengthy, so bear with me.
So last night was the first night of the new study that we're attempting to do. And I knew that it was going to be incredibly difficult to do and longer than the previous studies. Because the normal protocol involves having the subjects in bed sleeping, with a nasal mask on, so we can monitor their breathing (oxygen and carbon dioxide levels, pressure in the mask, flow rates etc). They're also attached to this machine called a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) where we can increase the pressure being delivered to the mask, therefore either opening or closing their airway more. So when you increase it to a certain level for a certain period of time and then reduce it to baseline, you can cause an apnea, where essentially the subject stops breathing for about 10 seconds (but up to like 30. People who actually have sleep apnea can stop breathing for over a minute). So, normally, what we're trying to do, is determine what the lowest pressure is that we can cause the apnea (their threshold).
So last night, we pretty much tripled the length of the study. Because first, we determined the subject's first threshold. The problem was that it took like 4 hours because she was very sensitive to positive pressure. Everytime we would increase the pressure, she would wake up. So after that we exposed the subject to periods of hypoxia, where we reduce the amount of oxygen that the subject is breathing to 8% (it's normally ~21%). So we have them on 8% for 3 minutes and then room air for 5 minutes and do this 10 times. Math time = 80 minutes. And then immediately after that, we repeat the first part of the study to see if the threshold has changed, but it needs to be done no more than 60 minutes after the last hypoxic interval. But another stipulation is that we can only determine the threshold in non-REM sleep. So what did the subject do for the last 40 minutes or so that we needed to be changing the pressure? Yup. Dreaming away. So, after our 6 1/2 hours of toiling, we couldn't get the final value that we needed, and pretty much wasted our whole friggin' night. Not to mention that we had a barrage of setup problems with the equipment either not being the correct valve or coming off when the subject would move. So I had to go in the damn room with a flashlight trying not to wake her up like 10 times.
So that likely didn't make any sense at all, but I figured I needed to vent/explain instead of just giving you the standard "I was up late". So although it was frustrating, I would have been totally fine if it would have been successful and we would have had good data which we were so close to having! We seriously couldn't have been any closer to having everything work out. And they need to have three people done with this experiment by November 1st. Considering that, at the very most, we'll have 2, that might be a problem. ***sigh*** Don'tcha just love research....
Ok, enough work babble. What are you up to this weekend? I feel like I'm having football withdrawl considering that Mich had an off week last week. So that's my agenda tomorrow. Tonight, I'm going to a Detroit Social Club Happy Hour. I've been to one before and they're a whole lot of fun. It's not all that different than going to the bar normally, but I guess I just had a blast last time I went. and then later I think I'm going to see this very good local singer, Jill Jack, play at another nearby bar. So it should be fun. I'm just the little social butterfly this weekend/week. Going to see Ryan Adams on Sunday and "I think" going to see David Sedaris speak on Monday at the Detroit Opera House. Lunch on Tuesday with a frined of mine. Going to see a scary movie at a mansion on Wednesday. Don't fret, I'll give you more updates as the days go by.
Check the time kids. I'm just now leaving work. I've been here for 18 hours. I'll tell ya about it tomorrow....today? Tomorrow? Saturday? Later? Hell if I know.
6:27 AM
Thursday, October 10, 2002 Is it worth it? Let me work it....Now, I know that my new song on repeat is a little off the norm of my selections but I just cannot stop listening to this song. Missy Elliott is definitely the shit. It just makes me laugh. Maybe it's the elephant sound, or the backwards lyrics. I dunno. The album hasn't come out yet, so they don't have a sample up there at the link yet. Don't worry, you'll hear it on the radio soon enough. And yes, it's a little raunchier than normal, but I've never shied away from that. Did I ever tell you about the time that we were at Scorekeepers (your typical college bar with dance floor) and my sister Amy and I were jamming to Eazy-E's timeless classic "Gimme That Nut" and the DJ actually said over the mike to the whole bar, "Why is it that the only people on the dance floor who know all the words to this song are girls?" Classic. We were pretty damn proud of ourselves.
So I caught this show on TV last night that was the Most Outrageous Game Show Moments. It was easily the funniest thing I've ever seen. And yes, half of them were from Family Feud. Here's my favorite. The question was: "Name a question like 'How old are you?' that people might lie about the answer." The first woman's answer? 18. The second woman's answer? 50. The third guy's answer? 39. I guess you don't get on Family Feud by being a rocket scientist.
I'm at home right now. I have a study today at 2pm and then at 9:30pm, so I figure I'll go in at about 12-1ish and then just stay all afternoon, evening, night. I have permanently turned off the ringer for the phone in my room. Considering that I'm sleeping at such odd hours these days, and the only people that call during the day are trying to sell shit anyways. Gotta love caller ID.
Well, I should make a vague attempt to go get dressed now. Smoochie boochie.
10:43 AM
Wednesday, October 09, 2002 It's just that we stay too long in the same old sickly skin....So I just barely made it to work today. Although I didn't yesterday. I hardly even made it out of bed yesterday. Only enough to migrate to the couch. I've woken up incessantly for the last two nights with either these freaky couging fits where I can't breathe or from my completely wacked out, fever-induced dreams. So my head feels like it's in a cloud somewhere while the rest of me is here. But I'll try my best to be a trooper today while I carry around my honey cough drops and orange juice.
So I finally, finally finished my book. Thank God. It was really really good, but just so long and tedious. For some things, the length was necessary, and for others, just too much wordage. So I've started reading Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk, the same guy that wrote Fight Club. And no, it's not a conglomeration of best moments from everyone's favorite reality show. It starts at chapter 47 and page 288 and goes backwards. Which makes sense, because the book is about a character who is orating his life to the flight recorder of an airplane before it crashes. I'm not that far into yet, but feel that I'm going to enjoy this book. I just really like the way he writes.
Well, I should get back to work now. Happy hump day.
8:27 AM
Monday, October 07, 2002 Seventeen and I was havin' a ball, eleventh grade and yo, I knew it all....On Saturday night, I went out to dinner with my parents, and at the restaurant we happened to be at, were a whole bunch of high schoolers having dinner for homecoming. And my mom commented about how much she loved the red dress I wore when I went to my freshman year homecoming. Doing some quick math I came to the realization that was 9 years ago. It kind of like having an out-of-body experience watching the kids at the restaurant, knowing, full well, that I acted exactly the way any 15-year old did back then. But initially, I was thinking that I haven't changed that much, but watching them, I knew how strangely different I am now. Normally I don't freak out when I play the "how many years ago did this happen" game, but for some reason that threw me. And I think it's been throwing me a lot lately in other situations too. Like thinking that my brother Bill and his wife Lauri have been married for 8 years. I remember their wedding like it was yesterday. But there are so many events, that when I think about them, seem like they didn't even happen to me. I wish that your memory didn't have a storage capacity limit. Because I wish that I could just remeber everything perfectly without kind of abridging them into a highlight reel....
Ok. Flashback time over. The rest of my weekend was pretty good. I met Sarah at a couple bars on Saturday night for some chatty time. yesterday, dinner for my mom's birthday was fun. 15 peoople can put down a whole lotta food. She loved the DVD, and I'm surprised that we haven't watched it yet.
I found out today that for work, I have to get BLS and ACLS certification. I know, I had to ask what all the purty letters stand for too. But it's Basic Life Support and Advanced Cardiac Life Support. Or something close to that. They both involve mulitple day training courses. Which doesn't scare me all that much. I was always good in school right? I have my share of medical background right? Wrong as can be. I had to check out books from the library for these damn tests. They told us they were "booklets" but we're talking big honkin' textbooks that I have to read. And it's all very complicated. I don't know squat about cardiology. I work with lungs, not hearts. And when am I ever going to need to know this? If any one of our subjects ever codes, we're instructed to call the emergency staff. And there should be a physician on hand all the time anyways. So what, if I'm at the mall and someone falls over in front of me with a heart attack, knowing how to use defibrillator paddles that won't be on hand anywhere is going to help me how? I guess it's the old adage of always being prepared....or something along those lines....
I'm breathing garlic breath like a dragon right now, so I'm going to go take care of that. Brace yourself. I'm going to try to finish my book tonight. Here's hoping. See you tomorrow.
7:08 PM
Saturday, October 05, 2002 Red red wine you make me feel so fine. You keep me rockin' all of the time....Count 'em up kids. That would be 4 bottles of wine drank last night. It makes it sound like we had quite a huge attendence at last night's Friday night dinner. But to actually let you know, there were 5 of us. And Julie and Pnut's friend Steve got there late too, like right when we sat down to eat. So Pnut, Brian (Suzy's neighbor) and I pretty much took care of a bottle apiece while we were cooking. And headaches and hangovers abound today. But from what I can tell (or remember for that matter) a good time was had by all. After dinner, we all headed off to Tonic, this bar/dance club in Ponti-crack. Where we (or mostly just Pnut and I) proceeded to dance like no one was watching. Although I'm sure people were. Watching. And likely laughing. But it's all in good fun. I had a blast. And we ran into a bunch of people that were AHS alum. Including my homecoming date from senior year. And I just love it when he points out, 6 years later, that I had a swim meet that day and missed all of the pictures. I thought I was the only one who remembers that kind of shit. (I literally came home from my meet, showered, had my mom fix my hair and left straight to the restaurant for dinner). And he still had to wait downstairs while I finished getting ready. Ah, don'tcha just love setting adrift on memory bliss....So yes, last night was a good good time. I think next week we're going to have to put bowling on the agenda again. And less wine. That needs to be on the agenda too.
I'm coming to you directly from the Roch public library once again. My dad was trying to install this virus protection software on both of our computers, and has entirely fucked both of them up. He can't get either of them working at all. Good job. So I'll likely be making quite a few visits here. In the near future. That or just writing all of my blogs from work. Work schmirk. Who needs to actually be productive when you're "working"? That's the beautiful thing about being on salary. Man would it suck to have a commission job.
Today is my mom's 60th birthday. Isn't that crazy? She's not too jazzed about celebrating it, but we are all going out to dinner tomorrow. I'll bet that you haven't made a reservation for 17 just for your immediate family before right? I'm proud to say that I have. She's so going to love my gift. I bought her the DVD of Singin' in the Rain. Although I make no promises that it won't suddenly vanish when I move out.
Well, I need a cup of coffee and a nap now (not necessarily in that order), so I'm going to go. Enjoy the rest of your beautiful weekend!
4:55 PM
Friday, October 04, 2002 I never told you I told you so, but I told you so....So imagine my surprise yesterday to discover that they do in fact already have a Behind the Music of Kelly Clarkson. It's actually that show called Driven on VH1 where they round up all the random coat-tail riders posing as friends and mentors. Some poor intern probably had to bust his/her ass working overtime to amass all of the footage of her so quickly. Are we down to 13 minutes now?
So I had to work on Wednesday night, and lemme just say that I will work any night you need me to if the subject is going to be as damn adorable as the guy on Wednesday was. Thank God it's a 2 night study and he gets to come back. He was totally that cute, edgy, and kind of grungy look, but still adorable. And he garners points for using the word, "jammies" and reading Oscar Wilde. It was suggested that I ask him if he would sleep better if I stood in as his teddy bear for the night. Hey, anything for "science". And speaking of quotation marks, who wasn't dying watching Friends last night?
The tradition of Friday night dinners will be resuming tonight. The menu is set with a Carribean theme of lime grilled chicken and black beans and rice. Mmmmm...Man, it's only 8:05 and I already want to go home...I have jack squat to do today at work, so I don't really know how the hours are going to get filled.
Oh, my mom gave me the saddest news I could have possibly heard. When I was young, our whole family used to go up north to Port Austin, which is right at the tip of the thumb here in Mich. And it was just this little rinky-dink town that got a lot of summer vacationers because it's right on Lake Huron. This town is the definition of a one stop-light town. But there's something inherently ingrained in my brain about this town and all of the memories that my brothers and sisters and I collectively share. Like Nanie's spaghetti dinners, Slush Puppies, getting ice cream and walking on the dock (we used to pull the trick where you'd go, "Man, there's something worng with my ice cream. It smells really weird. Here you smell it." Where you'd promptly shove the scoop of ice cream into the unsuspecting victim's nose. Actully the unsuspecting victim was usually me...don't I just have the most loving family?), playing Putt-Putt (where I sucked so bad that I would hit the ball across the street) and eating dinner at the little restaurants and shopping in the little Dime Store. Well, my mom told me that part of the town burned down not too long ago. From the Dime Store all the way to the Hardware store. Joe's Pizzeria. Gone. It just breaks my heart. Even though I haven't been there in years, I just assume that everything up there should just stay the same. So so sad....
Well, I should probably get to doing something now. TGIF.
Wednesday, October 02, 2002 You would do and say anything to make your everyday life seem less mundane....Do you know what today is? Today is the first year anniversary of my blog. Can you believe I've had the attention span to be doing this for a whole year? 365 glorious days. Ahhh, where the time has gone. And oh the good times we've had. I originally had the intention of making today's entry a retrospective of the last year, keeping track of things like number of swear words, number of rhetorical questions, number of times Parini's name was mentioned etc. But once I was up around 250 rhetorical questions, just through September, August and July, I figured it would be a fruitless effort, but helped to accentuate the fact that rhetorical questions allow me to be noncommital to any one opinon. Anyways, I hope that you too have had an enjoyable last year and thanks for stickin' around despite my ever-increasingly blah life.
I think I have dyslexia this morning. It has taken me forever to type anything because I keep switching the letters around. I'd like to tell you it's because I'm just such a fast typist that the computer just can't keep up, but the truth is that I'm slow as a slug this morning.
There's something wrong with my eye. I don't know if it's a stye or what, but little by little, it's getting redder, and more painful and more swollen. So likely by the end of the day, I'll be a cyclops. Driving home should be a trip.
Just not a whole lot to gab on about today. C'est tout pour aujourd'hui. Happy Hump Day.
Oh and the new song on repeat. I don't really know why I like this song. It's kind of hokey, and makes me feel very cheezy when I listen to it, but somehow, I end up still listening to it over and over again. Perhaps it's just another venerable nod to Oliva Newton-John's finest performance....
8:13 AM
Tuesday, October 01, 2002
Holy Christina Aguilera's new video. It's just her bare ass in red leather underwear all over the place. I was kind of hoping that she would lay low while all the other pop singers shot themselves in the foot and then come back a little bit classier to transcend the pigeonhole that they all got lumped into. But alas, she has reemerged as a big fat whore. And it's funny because during the whole Making of the Video, she keeps saying that she hated having to be the "good girl" and that now she's being entirely "herself". Which apparently is a big fat whore.
6:47 PM
Fame, I'm gonna live forever....Kelly Clarkson is so a Behind the Music in the making. I'm surprised at the articles that I'm reading about how the show people and record executives are deciding every little thing about her career. From what songs she sings, to exactly how they want to market her (even her highlights are pretty much decided for her). Like she's a new line of clothing from The Gap or something. It's good to see that she sold her soul for zero creative freedom in her own life. Just a pretty face and a pretty voice. And frankly, I'm already getting sick of her. Start the clocks at 15 minutes!
So I finally went running last night. And although my feet feel fine from the plushy comfort that are my new Saucony's, the rest of my body on the other hand is an entirely different story. I haven't gone in at least 3 months, and my thighs, my hips, even my abs are just crying out in opposition to my healthful choice today. But the worst part about running is starting back up again. So I have to figure that soldiering through the pain will eventually die away.
Well, I'm tired, and I have stuff to do, so I'm going to go away now. Bye.
BTW. Ryan Adams. October 13th. I'm there. (Ryan! Ryan! Not Bryan Adams!)
8:25 AM
Today is my nephew's 8th birthday. I bought his b-day gift yesterday. I got the Chronicles of Narnia for him. All 7 books. I just adore The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. He's the perfect age for it.
