Shiny and Slanted

Last day of teaching!!! Last day of teaching!!

Orgasm! Head-explodey orgasm!!!

The Democrats take the House! Rumsfeld resigns! I buy a copy of Neil Gaiman's Absolute Sandman!

Today is the best day ever.

Dear God, how I love today.

[Oh, I got evaluated today in my classes. It was a'ight. I'll be curious to see what kind of feedback I get.]

My new pasture owners/neighbors are idiots.  Sweet, well-meaning idiots.  They're both older: late 60s at the earliest.  About two weeks ago, my horse, Rickman, tried to jump the fence and hung his back leg on the wire.  (He's fine.  It didn't cut too deeply into the flesh; mainly, he just scratched himself and rubbed all the hair off).  But Karen, the female half of the sweet-well-meaning-idiot duo, went outside and held Rickman's leg while he was hung on the fence.  Then they called my Dad and told him that "the brown horse is caught in the fence."  So we're thinking post-horse-panic fence tragedy.  Dad shows up to find that Rickman's  back flank is slightly caught on the fence.  And she's holding his damn leg.  Uh, yeah, when a 900 pound animal is hurt like that and you don't know the animal or anything about animals in general, don't touch the damn animal.  We're lucky he didn't seriously hurt her.  We're also of the opinion that Rickman was too surprised by how fucking crazy the little 100 pound old lady holding his leg was to hurt her.  But, if she had scared him while he was already freaked out, he could have really hurt her and/or hurt himself trying to get away from her.

We got another Karen/Pete call yesterday, telling us that "something is wrong with the baby horse because she's just sprawled out on the ground and the other horses are all standing around her."  When horses colic (i.e., have any number of gastrointestial problems), they tend to roll around on the ground in pain.    Horses die from this a lot.   So, of course, rush rush rush out to the pasture to make sure Kael isn't dying.

They called us because Kael was sitting down, dammit.

This made me laugh for longer then anything I have seen in a while.

Is it wrong that this is what I really want to be for Halloween?  Because now that I'm not gonna be a librarian for real, I can live vicariously through this slutty costume.  Plus, I'd get to pick one special book as a Halloween accessory.



Oh, dear God, what if I could find tights with little books on them?  Guys?!?!

I like Sue's suggestion too: a leprechaun.  And I found little shamrock-covered tights and a kick ass hat for that.  Of course, I'd be a slutty leprechaun.  And, by the way,  if you run an image search on "girl leprechaun" for costume ideas, what you will get is an Irish girl/red-headed girl porn site and you will go... whoa.  Or, at least, I did... I went whoa...

Okay, maybe I can do this teacher thing.  Additionally, I am a sap because I was actually moved by The Ron Clark Story today.  What can I say.  The Dead Poets Society genre/ inspirational teaching flick gets to me. 

My waiter made me a rose out of a napkin. 

I'm in love with the Sky Bar.  Delicious.

Construction on the new deck (now with 100% more roof) begins this week.

I got my desk copies of the books for my classes today.  Free books!!  Free books!!

My mom's having some medical concerns, but we're hoping it's just pre-menopausal hormone stuff.  It might require a surgery though.  The universe should have to permanently lay off my parents.   They should be terminally healthy.  Vampirically, immortally healthy.

I'm hoping to have my internet set up at the house this afternoon.  I'm also currently avoiding going home because of all of the work I need to do there.

I still can't believe you people said I'm "proper" and "dignified."  Say what now?

My house is in shambles. I am now in the fuck-it-let's-get-rid-of-it-instead-of-packing-it phase. When I woke up this morning, the water had been cut off a day early.  My internet will probably go down tonight.  Also, my cat knocked one of my contact lenses out of my hand this morning so I have to manage to schedule in/ scrape up money for an eye appointment.  

I do think it's funny, however, that Bill Gates and Oprah are on TV grousing about how bad the public school system is.  Oprah keeps saying how "insane" it is that in America, "the richest nation on the planet," this is a problem.  How, she asks, can it be true that *Poland* ranks higher in academics than the US?  Poland!? The horror, the surprise.  Pfft.   Well, see, that's happening because of the "richness" of this nice little capitalistic nation and the massive ghetto-ization of the lower classes by suburbia and, uh, folks like your lovely selves [granted, among other issues, like the inability of many parents to spend time with kids because of financial demands, etc].   Also, big spenders, tossing money at a problem might not make it go away, but it would be a damn good start.

Bad, bad case of the Mondays.

This day rocks so hardcore.  

We've always boarded our horses at a family friend's pasture.  This is because it costs about $500 dollars a month to feed and board a horse.  With four horses, that's way, way, way more than my family can afford.  

The problem was that the family friend has decided to sell his house and land.  Because of this, we've been afraid we'd have to sell two - or even all - of the horses.  This was, actually, no small factor in my rabid depression for the first part of this week.  My dad loves these horses; he slept in the stable the night the colt was born to watch her and probably loves spending time with them more than anything else (save spending time with me and my sis).  He deserves them, and I was really upset that he/we might have to lose them.

But, !excitement!, because the 60-year-old man who lives on a property adjoining our friend's property has decided to buy the land and the stable, and he asked Johnny if we would *mind* keeping the horses there.  He offered to pay us.  We said we figured we could swing it for free.  Heh.

Hells yeah!  Not only do we get to keep the horses for free, the new owner is opening up the whole pasture (which gives us about five more acres) for the horses to graze in all day.  Plus, we get to keep using the barn we're used too,  watering the horses with the irrigation system, and fishing out of the pond.  

I say this calls for a big party (when the closing goes through), and all of you should come out and ride the horses and eat and fish and whatnot.

While painting, I backed up under the ladder, and my sister's black cat crossed my path while it was scrambling to get out from under my feet.

Yeah, that's how this month has been going.

I can't believe Netflix doesn't have a copy of Dr. Giggles.  I mean, come on!  My plans for the perfect doctor-cliche horror movie with my pre-med fella are ruined.

I am extremely tired of cleaning things and painting things at the house on the lake.  The term "insurmountable task" comes to mind.  I need to think positive thoughts; it has to be done within the month.

I was trying to explain my "dry" sense of humor to Mike today, and I resorted to my old practice of explanation through Buffy episodes.  There's a scene in "Restless" where Anya is telling a joke onstage at The Bronze and it goes like this:

Undoubtedly, I haven't been very much fun to be around in the last unemployed month or so.

But, now, I have a job interview Monday for an editing/proofreading position. Dear [insert any and all deities here], please let this work out.

I think that, if I get and like this gig, I might discard the library science and the fourth, and possibly useless, degree altogether. I still think I'd love being a librarian, but my perfectionist urge to organize and correct while actually producing a physical product would also be met by being an editor. Mainly, though, I HATE Tuscaloosa, and I don't relish the idea of being at the University of Alabama. Also, the Hoover Library contacted me to let me know that I was a very "attractive candidate," but that, unfortunately, "the position was closing without being filled." Understand that as: library jobs, like academic jobs, are forced to transform a decent full-time job (without, I should note, even clearing the $30,000 a year mark) into one or two pitiful, useless part-time jobs. And I'm not interested in going back to school again to work my ass off and move my level of dept up if I won't even have a shot at an apparently all-too-lucrative "$28,000 a year with health insurance" position.

Wise words concerning my upcoming interview and/or the thought of moving my career path to the copy editing/proofreading/editing arena are welcome. You guys know anyone who works as an entry-level editor or proofreader?

In other news, the third, and possibly useless, degree arrived in the mail yesterday. 666, indeed.

Can't sleep. Too stressed.

Youtube has one of the Beat the Geeks episodes. God, I miss Beat the Geeks. The Movie Geek in particular.

I think I'm going to forget the idea of going to sleep tonight and just go read and drink coffee on the patio and watch the sun come up.

Guess I won't friends-lock this since it's entirely inconsequential.

My first favorite thing about today is that I am reading King Dork by Frank Portman. It. Is. Awesome.

My second favorite thing about today is that I (with no small amount of hassle) picked up my cap and gown. This means that I am required to go to UAB exactly one more time.

Making bids for third and fourth would be, respectively, the new campus sculpture of a human body clawing its way out of the Humanities Building in order to puke up its intestines in a large bloody pile [yes, really... in vivid color... how I wished for my camera] and the fact that I have tonight determined that I did NOT make out with one of my youngish, high school pack-mates. I have confirmed this thanks to his blog post that his first kiss happened in college. Maybe that should be the saddest thing about today. For both of us.

Oh, yes. Stephen Colbert's line at the White House Correspondent's Dinner: "I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq." Future classic.

My personal favorite: "But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias."

The videos are all over the given sites: mytube, dailykos, etc. Here's a transcript if you don't want to watch it: http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/30/1441/59811.   

But watching the clips is worth it just for the chance to see the reporters' and politicians' little baffled, church-mouse reactions.

The palomino should be coming to town just in time for Spring Break. Perfect timing, for once, since I'll be able to spend the week messing around with him and another potential horse (a dun). Well, spend the week doing that and frantically searching for gainful employment.

Actually, I'm a lot less panicked about my peasant's quest for a job. While I was doing what turned out to be the surprisingly soothing process of writing my resume, I sort of saw the hard copy of how many varied, awesome, and/or educational opportunities I've had in the last six years or so. So I guess it's not so bad not to be committed a single, set career path. Destinations be damned anyway.

But second that emotion when my student loan payments for my third and useless degree come due. Then remind me of my pending plans for my fourth, Four-better-damn-well-be-a-charm M.S. degree.

My mom had a good date last weekend. His name is Roger. He seems nice; plus, as Mom told me, fully aware of what my response would be, he can play the liberal to my mom's increasingly bizarre conservative. Smiles all around.

I have to finish Bleak House so I can read about 200 pages of literary theory (which I was supposed to be done with today).  But, briefly, what the fuck is wrong with this country?  Seriously.  Did everyone just stop paying attention or something? The Roe v. Wade stuff, Bush's Katrina comments, etc.  What is it damn well going to take to get some much deserved public outrage?  Link: State bill proposes Christianity be Missouri’s official religion.

Less importantly, I got my hair cut today.  I like it.