Banished

Gomez cannot be trusted.

He sees all carpet and rugs as his own personal gigantic scratching pads. The first few times we allowed him in the boys' room, he proved himself incapable of resisting temptation. Even with us standing right there to regulate on his stinky butt!

Three strikes. And now he's banished.

I think he's handling it well.

Dissertating

This is what a miserable grad student looks like.

Please note the aforementioned double chin...

Worst. Movie. Ever.

On the movie front, I've seen three more. One decent, one just okay and one HORRIBLE! And this time I have no problem calling out the horrible film. It was the new Seth Rogen flick Observe and Report. A-W-F-U-L!

I cannot say enough about how much I hated this movie, and I don't hate a lot of movies. Usually I'm just indifferent about bad flicks, but this one pissed. me. off. I'm mad at Seth Rogen for playing in it, which will probably mean it grosses a decent amount of cash at the box office. I'm mad at the director, Jody Hill, for being such a douche and obviously finding this kind of humor hilarious. (He also directed Foot Fist Way. Roger Ebert wrote a review about this film that I think could fit Observe & Report perfectly with a few small detail changes. If I had known this information beforehand, I could have saved two hours of my life that I will never get back.) I'm mad at the vast majority of the audience, especially the guys sitting behind us who were hyena-laughing through the whole movie - even the most disturbing and disgusting scenes. How they find that funny, I will never understand. I'm mad at Warner Brothers for funding this abomination. And I'm mad at SXSW for bringing such steaming piles of crap to this festival. What were they thinking?

The only thing that restored my faith in humanity was seeing the many people who got up and walked out of the theater during the middle of it. Thank you for showing me the entire world has not gone mad. I wish I could have been right there with them, but Dilek was my ride so I had to wait for her. What I should have done was just get up and go sit & wait in the lobby. Because what has been seen cannot be unseen. Turns out she found the movie just as disgusting, but we didn't realize that the other wanted to get the hell out of there until the movie was almost over.

It's hard to narrow down what I found so revolting about this movie, but I'll try to limit it to just a few scenes. In the first, Seth's character is having sex with a barely conscious Anna Farris, who had been throwing back shots and popping pills all night long. The only way they depicted this scene as "consensual" was by making Farris's character briefly reach consciousness to slur something like, "Why you stoppin', mother f#$%r?" In my opinion, this sends a horrible message to the target audience of this kind of movie - pubescent boys and the emotionally stunted.

Another scene is when Rogen's character, a mall cop, has been fired from his job, and the police have to be called in to remove him. He refuses to leave so when about 20 cops rush him, he pulls out a huge flashlight and proceeds to use it by smashing them about the face and head. Idiotic and completely gratuitous violence. The final scene involves a flasher running through the mall. This is full frontal nudity of a fat, middle-aged white man. Running. It's gross. But that didn't even offend me. What offended me was how he was caught. Just as the flasher is about to tackle Farris's character, Rogen shows up, pulls out a huge gun and shoots the guy in the chest, followed by graphic blood splatters and the guy going down like a ton of bricks. The crowd went wild as if this was funny/heroic/the most awesome thing ever. My faith in my fellow man plummeted. I think that's when I turned to Dilek and finally said I need to get out of here.

Ugh. I've spent way too much space on this movie. Just trust me, unless the above sounds like something you'd enjoy, save your money, your time, and a few bits of your soul and skip this movie!

Confession

I've been walking around with my pants unbottoned today, hoping that no one can tell under this hoody.

I have to. It's either this big fashion crudity or cease to breathe.

Time to buy the next size up, I guess. And I know I'm pregnant & I have a good excuse, yadda yadda yadda. But that's still just de-press-ing.

What IS That?!?

Another downside to working in a chemistry building: the intermittent smells of death and fart.

Right now a potent waft of the latter is making its way through our labs. We have no idea where it's coming from or where it's going. We just want it to move along, never to return again.

Personally, I blame the organic kids down the hall - possibly a nasty trick but more likely some unfortunate soul forced into research requiring a sulfurous compound that not even the venting of the chemical hoods can contain. I don't know whether to hate him or pity him.

No. Pity, definitely pity. Off to steal a few breaths of fresh air...

Bureaucracy...

You know one of the great things about being a scientific researcher at a big educational institution?

Spending 60 minutes of your life reading over a powerpoint presentation addressing the hazards involved in work you've been conducting for the past 7+ years.

1. It's a little late, isn't it?
2. Most of this is pretty intuitive.
   
3. By now, I think we've all got the hang to taking care of business safely and effectively without a remedial tutorial, thankyouverymuch.
4. What could be condensed to 15 minutes worth of information is dragged out to 60 minutes for what I suspect is a raging case of boredom. And on a completely related topic, why is everyone so stinkin' long-winded?
   
5. I'm a lucky one. Because I procrastinated, I can take the course on-line whereas others have had to sign up for and then sit through a 2-hour talk.
6. Don't mind me. I'm just a bitter grad student with too much to do and too little time to do it...

My day has really been a good one - I promise. I'm just a bit frustrated at the moment.

Smug and Only Slightly Sorry For It

Despite the very sound advice I've been doling out on automatic repeat with mounting frustration and annoyance for months - quite possibly even a year! -, Greg has pigheadedly refused to heed my suggestions or even acknowledge the possibility that maybe, just maybe, I might be right on this one.

No, forget the fact that I've run two marathons and countless other races and have dealt with knee problems many times in the past. Forget the fact that I've sought much advice from friends who also happen to be physical therapists. Forget that I've followed that advice and self-corrected my own knee problems. I couldn't possibly have anything worthwhile to say on the subject...

(Hear that? That's the sound of me bashing my head against a brick wall.)

So after the last soccer game when his knees were killing him and he was hobbling and grimacing and groaning, he finally broke down and made an appointment with the bone & joint doc. About damn time! If he wouldn't listen to me, maybe he'd listen to an M.D.

Yesterday I accompanied him to that examination for two reasons:

1. the doc's office is near campus so I could hitch a ride rather than catching the bus, and
   
2. I wanted an unfiltered, straight-from-the-horse's-mouth account of the doc's prognosis and prescription.

Call me paranoid or untrusting, but I had a feeling what the doctor was going to say, I wanted to be there to witness it first-hand.

The prognosis: Greg has a loose ligaments that don't provide enough knee support for all the running and soccer-ing we do. That's right, soccer-ing.

The prescription: Anti-inflammatories, ice and adductor & thigh exercises to strengthen those muscles that support the knee

And as the doc said this, I tried - I really tried - to suppress that smug, know-it-all grin of righteous vindication that creeped across my face. But it was no use. I couldn't help it, folks, because that, the advice that Greg sought out and just paid Godknowshowmuch for, is EXACTLY what I'd been telling him since our softball days last summer!

When? When is he going to accept the fact that I am always, ALWAYS right?

Throwing in the Towel

Greg and I are stupid, stupid homeowners with delusions of grandeur and masochistic tendencies. That's what our imaginary therapist would call it anyway.

Our Saturday ended in whimpers of pain and delirium after spending EIGHT back-breaking hours trying to strip the old stain off our 400+ square foot deck (man, I seriously got woozy and light-headed just typing that... I am so not kidding! I think I have emotional scars from this week-end). It was a disaster! Why, oh why did we think we could tackle this task on our own? Ugh.

After making it through 70% of the deck, we finally called it quits. We were done and just could not go on any longer. We barely had enough energy to drag our tired, demoralized asses in to shower, and then we crashed. Hard. We're still recovering...

We're sunburned and inhaled way too many corrosive chemicals. Soreness is everywhere, even in the palms of our hands. Making a fist hurts right now. What's worse is that the stripping only partially worked. There are still scattered bits of red all over. If you didn't know any better, you'd think our deck was beaten within an inch of its life and is now covered in red welts and blisters. It hurts to look at. Our poor, abused deck...

We've decided to do what we should have done in the first place. We're calling in the experts to clean up our mess and finish the job. We don't even care what it costs as long as we don't have to lift another finger on this awful mess.

Enough whining. Just remember this if you're ever considering stripping and refinishing the deck yourselves. I would seriously advise against it. Call the professionals! Some things are worth the money!

Major Melody Melt-Down, Number 1.5

7:37 a.m. : My sister called me this morning in absolute hysterics.

When I answered the phone, she was in the throes of a full-on, blood-curdling, frantic SCREAM. I cannot even describe adequately what I heard. I thought she was being murdered! I seriously had a flash of her fighting off some crazed, knife-wielding homicidal maniac while I had to sit there powerless, witnessing this horrific, tragic scene from my cell phone.

I was on the other end, panicking and yelling, "Mel?!? Mel?!? MEL?!?"

Just as I was about to yell for Greg to call 9-1-1, the scream broke into sobs.

Turns out she was just on her way to a testing facility to take the last exam that will complete her teaching certification. She had 23 minutes to make it there in time. And she was lost.

And now I. Was. PISSED.

I am a hard-wired worrier, and you do not do crap like that to worriers!

I used to have nightmares as a kid of people breaking into our house and murdering my entire family while I slept. I was an 11-year-old kid diagnosed with spastic colitis, an affliction usually reserved for 50-year-old stressed-out men with ulcers and high blood pressure. My bowels would twist into knots and cause an excruciating pain in my side. The mere smell or even thought of food would make me vomit. I couldn't sleep so I would just lie in my bed contorted, squeezing my side until my hands cramped. It was awful.

Over the years I've mostly outgrown it, but even now I'm still a worry-wart. I have daymares of things happening to Greg. I hear about car wrecks on the highway and send a silent prayer out to the cosmos that it didn't involve my husband. I hear about crazy people doing crazy things, and then scenarios of my loved ones being hurt by these crazy people dance in my head temporarily. Its completely irrational - I realize this - but I just can't help it.

But then to answer the phone this morning to THAT when absolutely NOTHING was wrong with Melody, except the fact that she was lost... I could have killed her.

But I remained calm though because, quite frankly, one of us had to. Greg and I rushed up to open mapquest.com to find out where she had gone wrong and direct her back. We were working it out, making progress. But Mel was still losing. her. shite. on the phone with me. Finally after one hysterical sob too many, I'd had it. In my meanest, harshest, loudest voice ever, I screamed at her into the phone. "THAT'S IT, MELODY! YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN AND FUCKINGPULLYOURSELF TOGETHER!"

I don't know if my tone or my words finally shocked her back to reality, but that seemed to do the trick. With a few gasps of air, she finally stifled her sobs, cleared her throat and adopted a more cool-headed tone. We eventually got her to the testing center with 3 minutes to spare. She got to take the test. All is right with the world again.

But man... I hate busting out my angry voice and dropping f-bombs. Especially at 7:30 on a Saturday morning. That's just not right.

Cry Baby

Yesterday afternoon we beat one of the best soccer teams in our division! This team had 3 of the top scorers in our league. Their guys were all super fit and could run circles around us. Their ball control made us look like a bunch toddlers with severely under-developed motor skills. I mean, they were tough. So how did we win?

By default.

2:20 p.m. came and went and not enough players showed to form their team. So instead we took advantage of the empty field and scrimmaged for 30 minutes. Scrimmage, by the way, apparently equates to "No holds barred". Playing meant taking my life into my own hands and praying that I made it out alive. It was like Thunderdome out there, a fight to the death!

Or maybe I'm just over-dramatizing a bit because that was the first time in a LONG time that I've actually cried, out loud and everything, from physical pain. It was ugly. And I am so embarrassed about my sad little display of sissy-ness.

Here's how it went down. They had such disproportionate possession of the ball that much of the game was played out near our goal. They were even so confident that the goalie, the cocky shit, had come out of the box and over into our field to assist in the assault. He took possession of the ball, and just as our players were about to close in on him, he made a last ditch effort to score by rocketing and I do mean r-o-c-k-e-t-ing a shot off at the goal. Luckily my face was in the way.

I had a split second to register the fact that this lethal missile was speeding toward my head before some animalistic instinct of self-preservation made me quickly turn so that the full force of the brick wall that ran me over hit my right ear and neck instead of my nose and eye. For a second the impact just reverberated through my brain and skull. There go differential equations. I stood there stunned before the pain kicked in, but I was still lucid enough to hear Greg yell at the guy before he came running out to get me. Then I don't know what happened. As soon as Greg came to put his arm around me, the tears just started flowing. I even let out a few pathetic whimpers as he walked me back to the bench. It was like a small but overflowing floodgate.

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't all due to the physical pounding I took on the field. I think some of it may be the emotional pounding I've been dealing with lately, namely graduating and getting out of grad school. Whatever it was, it only served to piss me off. After I dried my tears and iced my ear, I was all the more eager to get out there and risk life and limb once again.

Incidentally if this had been a real game with a ref, that would have been a foul thanks to the "macho" rule. I'm so not kidding about this. The macho rule is "a foul in coed play where a player is determined to be playing too aggressively for the given game situation", i.e. much better players trying to prove their manliness by launching missiles at girls' heads. Wanker!

(Is it just me or does it sound like I get the snot beaten out of me on a fairly regular basis? I present to you Exhibit A, B, and C.)

By the way, I think the last time I cried out loud from physical pain was when I slid 150 ft down a mountain in an uncontrolled tailspin and landed in sharp, jagged rocks seven years ago. That was fun. I'll have to share the story some time for posterity if nothing else...

Soccer Synopsis

• 1-9 thrashing last night. We got our bottoms spanked fair and square.

• Lance makes the most dramatic goals (and collisions) of all time. Last night it was a flying head-butt into the net, which took everyone by surprise, including, thankfully, their keeper or else it would have been a complete shut-out.

• The team member threatening to quit was a no-show so I'm guessing she really is quitting. I was going to try to talk her out of it but decided against it.

I've hit my drama threshold, to be quite honest. This was supposed to be a fun, social way for us to get a little exercise each week, not an outlet for a bunch of repressed anger and frustration. As I see it, there are two problems here: 1) people take things too personally and 2) some people are just jackasses and need to grow up already. For the love of God, you're almost thirty! It's time to put on your big girl panties and quit with the temper tantrums! its embarrassing!

I just want to play the game and escape the crushing, suffocating stresses of work for a while. That is the whole point of these extra-curricular team sports, is it not?

Soccer D-R-A-M-A

Last night we lost an exciting soccer game that kicked off with yet another spectacular fall, this time with my head sliding dangerously toward the wall at an extremely high velocity. The thunk could be heard from clear across the field, followed shortly by the simultaneous sound of synchronized sharp intakes of breath from a few team members thinking the worst. Luckily I only have a bit of a bruise this morning. No concussion, Ma! Thank God for my thick skull! It has saved my butt on many occasions.

This soccer business! Thrilling stuff! And sometimes also explosive. After the match two team members blew up at each other, and one is now threatening to quit. The other, like the ass that he sometimes is, screamed back with an offer to pay her fees right then and there if she wanted to leave. Ugh. Not helpful.

We're going to try to play ambassador and calm people down - a coming to Jesus meeting, if you will. We've had one of these before when players needed to be reined in, but I don't know if it'll work out this time. Oh, the drama... :)

Frustrated and Pissed

When playing soccer, I can handle being smacked with the ball or having my foot crunched or colliding with another player or tripping and falling hard to the ground or whatever. Its all a part of the game. I'm tough. I can take it.

What I cannot take is bitchiness! We're not in high school anymore, girls. We're all adults. Temper tantrums ceased to be cute a long time ago.

GROW UP!!

Oh, Puh-lease...

This morning as I was getting ready, I was listening to one of those morning news programs. You know, the ones that are about 10% actual news and the rest is entertaining fluff. They had a holiday segment about doing the world a favor by giving "green" gifts - of the environmentally friendly kind. Besides non-toxic household cleaners (and you know people love receiving cleaning products as gifts), one of these guilt-free treasures was jewelry made from "100% recycled gold".

Huh?

I hadn't realized that gold wastes in our landfills had become such a big problem. I mean, I know when I get tired of my gold necklaces, rings and bracelets, I just chuck them in the trash. But had I known recycling programs were in place, I would have much preferred to do that rather than contribute to this growing problem.

Ugh. No shame in the marketing world. Seriously...

Paying Dues

I am very begrudgingly finalizing the slides of my work that will justify my boss's attendance at some tropical island getaway in the middle of December under the guise of a scientific conference. Ok. Whateeeeeveeeeerr.

I've seen the pictures!

I know all you and your buddies do is spend a morning comparing notes and then its off to the beach. Or hiking a waterfall. Or tubing some river. Or sipping pina coladas from extravagant glasses with little paper umbrellas.

God, I'm jealous...

Intervention Time

Ok, I'm fed up. This holiday/grad student paunch is getting out of control.

Lately I've noticed all my clothes fitting uncomfortably tight. And my tummy, which has never ever been a problem area before, has started to poke out revealing very early-stage Buddha Belly.

Not cool!

I've chosen the Statesman Capitol 10,000 race on March 30th to help motivate me. However, just signing up is no guarantee that I'll get moving. (Recall the recent relay marathon?) No, I have to do better than that. I have to try for a new PR (personal record to those of you who haven't been obsessed with running at one point in your life) or else I'll just wing it, which totally defeats the purpose.

I've run the Cap 10K three times before. My fastest was 54:28, which equates to 8:45/minute, back in 2004. I'm going to beat that time this year! I've printed out my little schedule using Runner's World on-line SmartCoach program and have 18 weeks to get in shape for it.

Wish me luck!

Booo!

Greg and I had plans to catch Los Amigos Invisibles at Antone's tonight.

BUT I had to cancel our plans at the last minute because my boss dumped a heap of bureaucratic b.s. in my lap earlier today. Oh yes, and did I mention that it's due tomorrow?

Niiiiiiiiice... Appreciated...

At least we should still be able to hit up Capitol City Comedy Club tomorrow night. Unless, of course, my boss has more tricks up his sleeve.



God, am I a Debbie Downer lately...

Enough of this mopey crap! I promise to get back to my usual cheerful self soon. I have refrained from completely losing it (although just barely) so surely I will climb out of this funk by the week-end.

Halloween Bust :(

Halloween this year. A colossal failure. And I'm ridiculously upset about it. :(

Earlier this month I was thinking about all the freakin' adorable, little kids that have come to our door for the last two years. I've gotten to the point where I even recognize a few of them. I was soooooo excited about passing out candies again this year. It is a serious cheap thrill for me.

A few days later I realized that my boss had scheduled the second exam for the class I'm TA'ing on that very night! Who schedules an exam on Halloween NIGHT?!? Instead of running to the door and seeing all the little cuties, I had to sit for a mind-numbing 2 hours in a quiet room with a bunch of my students stressing about a biochem exam. Not fun.

But I thought I could still vicariously live through my husband for the night. He was at home tonight from 6 p.m. until 7:45 p.m. Plenty of time to get most of the kids in our neighborhood. I called him from work and left him very specific instructions as to what to do. Being a Brit, he didn't know about the porch light rule. If the light is on, that means there's candy to be had. If the light's off, it means to skip that house because the people inside weren't playing. Simple.

Our outside porch and garage lights are on a sensor. They usually stay off until someone approaches. There's a very simple way to fix this. You simply have to flip the light switch off and then on again. That basically turns off the sensor function and it defaults into normal light mode. It will stay on. All the kiddies will see that the light's on. The kiddies come to the door. The kiddies get candy. Everyone gets a cheap thrill.

What was so difficult about this concept, I cannot fathom.

HOWEVER, when I got out of the exam tonight and called my husband, he informed me that he could not get the lights to stay on. He assured me that he tried the very complicated light-switching function several times but to no avail. No matter what he did, that evil light would just not. stay. on.

When I prodded him further, I found out that he had spent the evening on the computer. At some point during the evening, he realized that no one was coming to the door. So he subsequently went downstairs to investigate. And that's when he realized the front porch light had been off the entire time. More attempts at fixing the light, but alas, no luck.

So the entire evening not a single person rang our doorbell. I spent a small fortune on goodies that no child in our neighborhood would ever see. Great. I was so, so upset. Greg insisted that he was by no means to be blamed for this snafoo.

*sigh*

So why is it that I get home, flip the switch, and the light has now been on for the last 30 minutes and counting?

I am so upset with Greg right now.

Seriously??

Remember how I said Dr. James Watson, Nobel prize-winning scientist for the elucidation of DNA structure, has a reputation for being a bit of an ass?

Well, he's just taken it one step further. Today he added 'racist' to his ever-growing list of morally questionable political and social stances.

I can't decide if he's cleverly decided to stir up controversy to coincide with the publication of his new book or if he's just a raving lunatic... Maybe its a bit of both.

Dodging Bullets

My advisor just walked in and asked me cryptically Have you been good? And nothing else.

There are a number of things to which he could be referring here:

1. working on writing my dissertation - um, not this week-end...
2. finishing multiple choice questions for his class's first exam - only about 1/2 done...
3. writing an abstract for a conference so to that he can enjoy a fabulous tropical island vacation with some professor buddies under the guise of scientific exchange in which he'd present my work (so unfair) - haven't even begun to think about it and resent that I have to...
4. buying a new computer monitor because ours pooped out and I've been borrowing one of his - no attempts made thus far...
5. reporting good experimental results - well, seeing as he doesn't give two craps about my research other than the fact that it allows him a relevant excuse to attend previously mentioned conferences, I knew he wasn't asking about that...
   

In an attempt to avoid jogging his memory of any of the above points, the only response I could muster was a very guilty Well, that depends on your definition of good...

Luckily, he just wanted to share with me a recent bootleg copy of Norah Jones material. We're both big fans. Whew! :)

On a scale of one to ten, how severely does my grad school bitterness show?