Moment of Truth

Jon and Katherine, I miss you. Why are you no longer my office mates?

No matter. All of that will be over soon enough. The past 24 hours have made me thankful for this.

The behind-the-blog business of the past two months has been me deciding to get my M.A. and ditch the fuck out of grad school after this year. Too many trifling people, too little opportunity to Do Good Work. Academia, it is not for me.

Now I just have to go in and make it official.

Now THAT'S a Life

"Never doubt that a
small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

-- Margaret Mead


Thanks and goodnight, Ms. Parks.

Awake

Why is it that ruminations on life, the universe, and everything cannot wait until daylight? I have to be up in five hours.

Also, tonsils suck.

Send help.

Or sleep.

Failing that, rubber mallet.

Anger Management

Me: Talking about things is so much better than eating people.
E: ...
Me and E (same time): I'm so blogging this/You should really blog this.

(I was claiming that venting my anger kept me from being mad enough to eat something... human. Yeah, I ran out of metaphor on that one.)

Mischief

Dude What Fixes the Heat Machine is here, fixing the heat machine so that we might not freeze this winter (this is Very Important in Minnesota). He is, unfortunately, extremely annoying. He got started on movies, kept going, and somehow ended up at religion, talking about a movie that took place during the crusades. He didn't like it because "it made it out to look like all Us Christians are bloodthirsty, and all them Muslims are just as nice as can be." Dude. It was the fucking CRUSADES.

I'm presently fighting the urge to go put a scarf on my head and tell my mom that I'm heading off to the Mosque.

I think I'll have to settle for walking around with lysol after he leaves, spraying away the bigot germs.

EDIT: I forgot about the part where he dismissed an old outcry against the gas company's former mascot (a buxom Native American woman called Minnie) as "people being oversensitive to things that don't matter." You know, like minority women being used as sex symbols to sell natural gas. That doesn't matter to anyone. Except, you know, a bunh of Injun women, and they're all drunk, right?

EDIT 2: OMG HE STARTED ON YUGOSLAVIA. WTF DID I DO TO DESERVE IT?

EDIT 3: HE JUST DERISIVELY REFERRED TO SOMEONE AS A TREEHUGGER FOR BUYING A HONDA CIVIC!!! GET OUT OF MY GODDAMN HOUSE!!!!!

A Very Merry Un-Birthday to You...

Me, I'm having a happy birthday for me!

Little Umbrellas

Today was the day that I was going to spend in bed, making sweet comments to a crap ton of student papers. It started out with a pleasant surprise -- an invite to join Mel for breakfast. She's in town for her Zadie's funeral and to sit shiva, and while the circumstances are sad, the company is rare and exquisite. We went for a walk in the Autumn leaves, and then helped her mother clean up the kitchen before lunch (so! much! food!).

On my way home I checked my voice mail, and the day took a downturn. I had a garbled message from my mom that sounded like "hospital... mumble mumble scratch... dislocated shoulder... mumble mumble... you're not there..." Called home -- no mom. Called mom's best friend. Mom's on her way to the hospital. Drive two exits up the highway, run into mom and EMTs at the ER door, and promptly wait four hours in a crammed hospital. Full moon is out in force, I tell you. Screaming children, alzheimers patients, and what I overheard one doctor saying was "the most disgusting throat I've ever seen."

I've considered gargling with bleach, just to be on the safe side.

After we got home, I got E and M to take me out to freaking ARDEN HILLS to retrieve mom's car, then came home. Have been a freaking zombie all damn night. This was supposed to be my day to veg.

(Re: title. In one secons season episode of "The West Wing," John Larroquette guest stars as White House chief counsel, and has to clean up someone's stupid legal mess on the day he's supposed to be in Tahiti. He spends the ep ranting and raving about how he's supposed to be on the beach, drinking drinkd with little umbrellas in them. By the end of the day, he's reduced to impotently moaning "little umbrellas" in a pathetic sounding way.)

Penal Fallacy!

Another wild and crazy Friday night Chez Turtle. We have: 1) made fun of a bad CBS sci-fi show (not sure which one); 2) geeked out over Numb3rs (Krumholtz is my network TV boyfriend); 3) had a lively discussion about logical fallacies (ok, that one was more me commenting on never wanting to have to lecture on them again, and then being asked what the hell I was talking about); this had the effect of 4) causing us to laugh like fourteen-year-olds at the word fallacy. We then got on the subject of ideal forms of government (answer: benevolent dictatorship, run by me, E, and M), which brought us to talking about penal theory. More snickering.

Hehe. Penal fallacy.

EDIT: Yacky smacky!!!!!

EDIT NUMBER 2:

"We'll get a mutant kitten -- we'll just play the radio at it." M, on naming a cat Fizzgig. Because the bad sci-fi show involved viral sound waves that caused humans to mutate.

This Just In:

Jon has come over to the Dork Side. He's having an IM conversation with me as we speak about Harry Potter fan theories.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled internet.

I am, in Fact, Tonks...

Your Hair Should Be Pink

Hyper, insane, and a boatload of fun. You're a traveling party that everyone loves to follow.

What's Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

Have purchased West Wing season 1. Am knitting sweater. Also, class to prepare. Please forgive blog absence. Also send chocolate... or wine... possibly mental help...

Jumping Jesus Christ on a Fucking Pogo Stick

I swear to every deity ever invented, one day I am going to spend the entirety of my waking hours telling every friend I see that I love them. Without qualification. No "in a purely platonic manner," or any of that rot. I'll just fucking snap, and make loads of people uncomfortable, and barely contain my laughter at the looks on their faces because I am sick to motherfucking death of romantic fantasy worlds co-opting the entire range of meaning for the word "love." I'm sick of having to find words or assume that people know I'd tell off my boss for them.

(NB I'm a fan of the tell-off-your-boss test. It's better than killing or dieing for someone, as you's actually have to deal with the repercussions, rather than be dead or in prison. Though I suppose there are some bosses who wouldn't mind, and some people who are eminently employable, so youre mileage may vary.)

This whole rant brought to you by the fact that I was surfing LiveJournal tonight. I know. I'm sorry.

In other news, at least I don't have negative ass.

Airplane Hijinks

The World's Funniest Woman had one of the most irritating nervous passenger experiences I've ever read, and got some fairly hilarious revenge.

Can you imagine? Seeing someone with metal sock needles and telling them you're uncomfortable with them because they "could be used against" you? How paranoid do you have to be to accuse a small Canadian knitter/author/taker-care-of-babies of attempted hijacking by half-finished sock? (And before you cite The Rulse, the TSA has now decided that all knitting needles are OK for flight.)

As usual, the irritating experience turns into a pile of hilarity in the hands of Stephanie and her commenters. My favorits comment? "He was worried you'd knit an Afghan."