Television, clearly, is the only good thing about being sick

You may be wondering where I've been since Tuesday.

The answer is, sprawled across my bed in pain watching the complete sixth season of Full House (it came out on Tuesday).

I have been sick since late Wednesday night, so the only thing for me to do has been to curl up in bed and watch tv. And I know I've written about it before? But I really do love this show. It's unbelievably corny, and sappy, and I'm not entirely sure I could've stood to act my way through it for eight seasons, but sometimes it makes me laugh out loud. It's not side-splitting or anything, it's just that kind of laughter you get when something is 55% happy, 40% nice, and 5% actual humor. Or it could just be that the joke they make is slightly funnier than I thought was possible. It's still a win-win situation.

I'm still feeling a little rough, but hopefully one more day of nothing but popsicles and gatorade will do the trick. Sadly, I finished Full House yesterday, but I'm excited to move on to something a little bit more grown up.

Learning Material

I'm struggling with my creativity lately. I had to write a song last week for my music class, and I couldn't do it. I just couldn't figure out what to do--I don't have it in me, but I want to. I didn't want to take the easy way out and record myself reading a poem (who likes hearing their own voice, anyway?), but I didn't do very well trying to go the other way. In fact, I would say that I failed: I failed at producing something original and creative.

I have always known I'm a little bit Type-A, but I sometimes forget how devastated I get when I crash and burn in front of others. I failed as a defense lawyer in my American Government class's mock trial. Whenever I get flustered because I can't think on my feet, I picture myself back in that classroom, dressed well (I looked so professional that day), but frozen in place while I try unsuccessfully to make my classmates understand why the defendant's clothing was covered in fibers from the getaway car even though he didn't do it. I hated being dressed up for the rest of the day because it was a reminder of how poorly I'd done.

I don't think this little composition problem is going to be etched so permanently in my memory the way that trial is (although, isn't it wonderful I'll always be able to read about it here), but it has bothered me the same way. I'm not a particularly gutsy person, which makes confronting shortcomings that much harder. I'm sure no one else cares or even remembers the trial just like I'm sure that no one will remember Monday's music lecture.

I learned in that high school classroom that I am terrible at defending my side in arguments. I'm just wondering what it is I'll learn from my failure this time.

Novel Ideas #1

"It has not yet been recorded that any human being has gained a very large or permanent contentment from meditation upon the fact that he is better off than others." Sinclair Lewis, Main Street

Yay for Spring!

A fabulous game of cornhole on this beautiful first day of spring, because this



is MUCH better than this. (It was 74 degrees earlier, but I was too busy enjoying the weather to waste time capturing the temperature.)

It's a slow news week

1. For the record, I don't dislike the roadrunner. I just think that if I'd been asked 15 years ago which Looney Tune I'd see most frequently during my college career, I would not have chosen him. I'd have picked one who could talk, at least.

2. I am employed! Now I can worry about things more than 45 days away, instead of just worrying about not worrying about them! In my interview, I must have answered the question, "if you could remove any state from the U.S., which would it be and why?" correctly (I answered Kansas, of course).

3. I learned to crochet over break, bringing my lame factor up pretty much to the maximum. I am the opposite of cool, but I have come to terms with that. Would you like to come over to watch some Golden Girls reruns?

Wondering

is it okay for me to be bothered by the fact that Road Runner is the cartoon character I see most frequently? I was always more of a Yosemite Sam or Marvin the Martian kind of person.

Interview prep with my little sister

"Ask me another one."

"The next one is, 'what kind of salary are you looking for?'"

"Hmm. I don't know."*

"Well, they say not to give an answer. Just say 'that's a tough one,' and then if you have to answer, give them a really wide range. "

"Okay."

"So, you should say, 'Wow, that's a tough one. Anywhere from zero to a million dollars.'"



*A blatant LIE, as I played with salary.com endlessly last week. But, this question still makes me a little uncomfortable.

Maybe I need to just accept that my "things" are bad writing and insomnia.

It seems like every time I come home, you all get treated to my little walks down memory lane. I'm not sure if this is because I find my past entertaining, or if when I come home I'm just trying to find some way to sort through all the things I've been trying to keep from affecting me these last four years. I honestly can't tell you which one is the right answer. Maybe it's a little bit of both.

At any rate, I had this wonderful little book set out at my graduation party, and as people came by I asked them to write something in it. For the most part, people wrote about half a page. Some of them were short and sweet, and some still make me laugh ("Loren, you're my favorite cousin, because you're the only one who laughs at my jokes. Love, Mike") (This is probably true). But my brother takes the cake. He didn't get around to writing in it until the night after the party, but he wrote a good four-and-a-half pages. And it is my favorite four-and-a-half pages of the entire book, except probably for the two lines on which my dad did the math problem

2 good
+2 be
4gotten.

My two siblings and I each got our fair share of the good genes, and so my brother is much wittier than I am, and a much better musician. My sister is the only athlete of the three of us. Come to think of it, I am the only one without a clear-cut "thing." Unless it's the website? Oh, wait. Wrong again.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and just throw it out there, my high school graduation SUCKED, and that's not something I often just come right out and say. "It was hard," maybe, or "I can't believe that's how it all happened," but I don't often beg pity for it all. So when I go back and read this little piece of what my brother wrote to me, it never ceases to remind me of how much I wish I had a quarter of his sense of humor:

"...Anyway, my memory fails to serve me (as it always does, in case you didn't notice yet), but we've been around each other for quite a while (duh), and yet sometimes, I have no idea what you're doing or thinking. Apparently, you're quite successful, and bright, and happy. Okay, so maybe I know that...but sometimes, when you seem so unhappy with something I've done, I just don't get it. But, hey, which one of us is valedictorian? I'd give you a clue, but..."

So as you can see, this doesn't really fit in with all the other comments people left--things more along the lines of "You're Great!" and "Remember all the good times we've had!" instead of "I just don't get what's going through your head!" But hey, here I am four years later, and who's the one getting quoted on the internet? I guess that's the price I pay for not getting to be the funny one.

Things I did this week instead of getting my work done

Calculated my options for next year with Google Maps, Salary.com, and Rent.com

Counted down the last 11 minutes of March 5 so I could buy Albert Hammond, jr.'s new album on iTunes at midnight, March 6

Made photo albums with iPhoto (the Mac and I are apparently still in our honeymoon phase)

Read this ridiculously long but absolutely interesting article about why people are inherently religious

Watched several episodes of Sex and the City on TBS (they were shortened for commercials and were quite disappointing)

Celebrated Green Beer Day

Wondering

what my homepage should be after I graduate. I'm pretty sure I won't care about my current course list at Miami in July, and I think I'm ready for a change now anyway.

What's yours? Let me know in the comments.

Losing my religion

A few months ago, I was really, really excited about getting a new (used) Mac (specifically, a Powerbook G4). I finally got it during finals week last semester, only to find that I had two major problems: if it went into sleep mode, there was a good chance it wouldn't be coming back until I took out the battery (losing everything I had running and setting the date to 1969), and there were only about free 3.5 gigs of storage space when I was supposed to have about 70.

I had planned to take it to an Apple store Genius Bar over winter break, but as everyone apparently got a Mac for Christmas, there were never any appointments available. And because you can't make an appointment until the day of, I hadn't been lucky enough to get one until Friday.

I have to admit, I was skeptical going into my Genius Bar meeting. I thought about all the absolutely unpleasant IT people I've dealt with in the past, and I was dreading being treated like I didn't know how to turn on my computer or use virus protection software, let alone have a problem worthy of their technical prowess. And when that happened, I was going to sign off on Macs altogether and just be glad that I at least knew how to use one.

So when I got to the mall, I sat and waited for the condescension to begin. Of course, this was the one time that my computer could actually come back from being asleep, so with five minutes to spare before my appointment, I was frantically opening and shutting the lid, knowing that I was about to try to explain something that I couldn't prove.

But when I explained, the genius who helped me out was so, so, SO incredibly FRIENDLY, and hooray, my computer is now working like new, and I am absolutely in love with it. Partially because it's so pretty and sleek, and partially because I can close the lid and I can store more than ten pictures on my hard drive.

I had resigned myself to being a PC person a few weeks ago. But this...this is changing my mind. If I never have to deal with a snarky computer person again, I'm all about being a Pretentious Mac Person.

Freaky

To dream about high school may be telling you that you need to start preparing for the real world.

To dream that you have to repeat high school, suggests that you are doubting your accomplishments and the goals that you have already completed. You feel that you may not be measuring up to the expectation of others. The dream may occur because some recent situation may have awakened old anxieties and insecurities.

I'm not totally attached to dream interpretation, but I'm just saying if I were, this would be, like spot on.

Not at all because I'm creepy, I promise.

The way my bedroom is set up, I have a good view of the courtyard of my apartment from my desk chair. If I'm expecting someone (or, let's be honest, if I'm feeling like being a nosy neighbor), all I have to do is wait to hear a car door slam or footsteps, at which point I can turn to my left and peek through my blinds to see who's outside. Sometimes, if I'm feeling particularly voyeuristic, I'll open the blind and prop my feet up on the windowsill while I use my laptop. I tell myself that I do this because it puts my feet directly over the heating vent, but really I am just enjoying a good dose of people watching.

You might think that the best thing about this window is that I am lucky enough to live near people I am friends with, or that I'm a story up so no one can really see in. You might also think that very best thing is the thing that happens least often, and that is when people give me the opportunity to eavesdrop because they are standing right below it. I don't generally get this opportunity. Christina and I spent a fantastic half hour at the beginning of the school year crouched below the window--it was open--listening to people from a party we were having talk with each other over a few cigarettes.

But my favorite thing happened last night, and as I heard some of my friends leaving a party a few doors down, I opened my window and talked to them before they headed home. Maybe I'm just waxing sentimental over graduating, and maybe I'm just a sucker when it comes to feeling like I have good friends, but being able to be so accessible is the nicest thing about my window. That, and knowing when the mailman is going to come. Because that's pretty nice, too.

Elsewhere

There are a few things I'd like to comment on that deserve more than the five or six words I'd give them if they were over in my del.icio.us list (by the way, there are some good things over there), so here you go:

Have you seen these Kleenex commercials? I do not want my tissue manufacturers telling me it's okay to cry. It freaks me out. You know what else freaks me out? There is a website. The whole idea of contributing a video of myself using a tissue to "let out" my emotions is strange to me, especially since the entire thing is commercialized. Maybe I just don't have enough feelings.

I read all my websites through Google Reader, and when I come across something interesting I'm too lazy to post on del.icio.us, I just click this little button and it sends it here. Most of them are time-intensive things I haven't tried but think are fun, so if you've got time to spare, I'm your best friend.

If you can't make it to the west coast for these amazing concerts (hello, Cake? and the French Kicks? yes, please) you can stream them, live, here. A friend and I have life goals of seeing Cake and The White Stripes, and this makes me feel one teeny tiny step closer to realizing that goal. Although I don't really know why.