Bette, will you go to (after) prom with me?

I saw "Prom" tonight.

More specifically, I went to Prom with Erika tonight.

Hahaha, I crack myself up.

Erika was trying to be all secretive about it; we were buying our tickets at one of the electronic kiosks and she said, "What are we seeing?"

I told her, "You know what we're seeing."

Then on the way home I listened to the "Beaches" soundtrack in the car.

I think I should eat some cheese to match the cheesiness of this evening.

Oh but was I SINGing this in the car, particularly the part that shows up at 1:29 in this clip (and let's not forget that Mayim Bialik, who now stars on "The Big Bang Theory" and whose character RECENTLY KISSED SHELDON on the show, played the younger version of Bette Midler's character in this movie):

Brought to you by the produce section

I don't know why I haven't spent a greater portion of my life in love with avocados.

I chopped one up tonight and shoveled it into my mouth.

Mmmmmmmm.

(Bop).

Too much time with the computer screen today

Too...

tired...

to blog...

something competent.

Not even sure if I used competent correctly.

Bed is beckoning. Night, y'all.

Say WHAT?!

I had NO idea this existed:

A documentary about my favorite writer, Anne Lamott.

I just emailed the Amazon link to my fam to add to the shopping list for my birthday, but I can't promise I won't click "Add to Cart" first...

P.S. I loooove her voice. When Kristen and Tommy and I went to a reading of hers in 2007 it was such a wonderful surprise to discover that her actual voice is as rejuvenating and individual as her writing voice, which I also love love love.

Love.

Food for some serious thought

Um.

Was anyone else here aware that Sally Struthers provided a voice on the TV show "Dinosaurs"?

I'm just gonna let that simmer for everyone to think on for a while...

That show was so weird. Not that I didn't watch it...(not sure if I really, truly liked it, though--I can't really remember for sure)

Keep your pants on!!

When I went to the gym today I didn't bother with the locker room.

Oh man this post already sounds inappropriate and I haven't even got to the actual punch line yet.

I was already "dressed out" (oh man, remember when they used to say that in middle school gym class? Was that just my middle school?) in my workout duds, and just had some sweats on over them--for the slightly chilly walk from the car to the Rec Center--and my student ID card in tow.

So I just peeled off the extra sweats when I got inside and put them on the ground beside the stationery bike I was using and then the weight machine I used.

On my way out, I sat down on a chair to put my sweats back on over my workout clothes.

As you'll recall, or for those of you just joining us here in paragraphs 4 & 5, outside=brr, hence the sweatpants.

Well I slipped the sweats on over my shoes so they were at my ankles.

Then I realized my problem.

In this particular instance, you smart alecks.

If I stood up to pull on the pants--which I was totally planning on--it would look like I was just putting on pants (as in, not over a pair of shorts) in the middle of the lobby!

Well I waited for some people to pass, then realized:

a) it still looked awkward, perhaps quite a bit more awkward and resembling someone sitting on the john, with me just sitting there with pants around my ankles, and

b) this is a pretty big school with a pretty busy rec center, so foot traffic in the hallway was not likely to peter out anytime soon.

So I figured I had two options:

1) take the pants off, or

2) just finish what I had begun.

So I stood up, with I believe at least two males walking in my direction, and pulled my pants up.

Thinking on this hours later I realize I suppose it's better to be caught pulling your pants up in public rather than down.

Sniffles on the subway

Have I told you guys the story of when I gave a kid a tissue on the train?

Okay well I'm gonna tell it.

It was my...sophomore year?, I believe, of college, and I was taking the train back from Chicago to school. I think it was the day that my parents met Jen's parents, and I went along because I wanted to see my fam. I remember watching the line of hand-holders in front of me, walking down the sidewalk: Mom & Dad, Pat & Jen, Jen's mom & dad, and considered grabbing the hand of a man I didn't know to even out the line.

Anyway, whether it was that trip or not, on the way back there was this boy--probably 11 or 12-years-old--on the train next to me and he sneezed.

Well, as sometimes happens when one sneezes, his nose began to run, and he looked at his mother in a kind of panic. Not really a panic, but it sounds funnier that way, yes?

Nonetheless he looked at her with a "Mom, my nose is running, help me!" look. While she seemed genuinely desirous to help him, she didn't have a tissue on hand, and I remember specifically she said, after apologizing and perhaps shrugging her shoulders:

"You're just gonna have to do the best you can."

There's just something about that statement, isn't there? I don't know what it is. It could sound rude, but I was there and I remember it being more sympathetic, but it's encouraging all the same. I guess that's maybe what it is: how often do you get encouraged when your nose is running? I have a feeling the profundity of such a statement in such a situation is probably why I haven't forgotten it.

Well it either occurred to me immediately or after some moments that I had a tissue in my bag. So I gave it to him.

He used it. I can't remember if he told me "Thank you" himself or if he did so after a maternal nudge. I want to say he said so on his own accord. I recall him being a pretty classy kid, which you may disagree with as you read on, but the ending of this story actually confirms his classiness in my mind.

Some moments after he used the tissue, he looked at me and asked if I wanted it back.

He really wasn't trying to be a brat, I think he just felt bad that he had put me out a tissue and didn't want to leave me empty handed.

I smiled slightly, and told him I didn't need it back.

Class act, that kid. I hope he's doing well these days. Man, he's probably in college now! All grown up, my once-upon-a-time homie.

Oh, the life one leads in grad school...

This is a research group who's been together for almost eight hours on a Saturday, in an otherwise abandoned study lounge at 9:02 p.m.:


Here's that same group, taking a dance break at 9:55:


And here's yours truly, finally home and settled in at 12:32 a.m. Cheers, y'all. And GOOD WORK, Team Research, for powering through today and getting some serious stuff accomplished! (Admittedly, Rosie and Erika had the tougher job today, next comes my chore of inputting data):

Hypnotic birthday reminder, plus semester recap

First two weeks of this semester: Bored.

Third week of this semester: Sick with a cold. Stuck inside while a blizzard accumulated outside.

End of third week, and for some time afterward: Depressed. Big time.

Fourth, fifth, sixth weeks and so on: Just kind of bumbling along.

A few weeks ago or so: "What?! Where did all this work come from?!"

Last week: "I'm so behind, I'm so behind, I'm so behind." All but hyperventilating. Cried twice.

This week: Blinders on. Ignoring others' accomplishments, trying to focus on why I came here in the first place.

Right now: Tapping my fingers (lots to do, just hard to focus on school, school, all the time school). Blogging to avoid typing the draft I'm supposed to be writing. Did I mention it's Friday night?

Tomorrow: Meeting with research group for who knows how many hours.

And the beat goes on. Done around May 13th! I think! Then back to the classroom May 24th! [Big fat smirk!] At least I don't have class on the 23rd, my B-day....

Did everyone catch that? Mark the calendars?

May 23rd....

Cuuuuuute

I'd just like to share with you all what I just set as my desktop background. I was just in Facebook, and you know how it will show you thumbnails in the upper right corner from a friend's photo album? Well I'd already seen it before, but this pic was lookin' at me so I clicked. She's so chubby and drooly, I just decided to make her my background pic and then decided to put her on the bloggie.

Little smoochy poo! We love you!

New topic of discussion, please

Today, I shall speak, rather than write. About writing, ironically. Or the lack thereof in my life right now, considering my current standing as a rather behind-on-things student...

Rockin' the chalk at MIZZOU!

I was walking through campus yesterday and came across some pretty ambitious hopscotch courses.

The lines of chalk squares looped around and intersected themselves (I have a vague memory of drawing such challenges for myself during my youth, but not positive on this), but what was really impressive was the number of squares in each trail. Usually you have 10 squares for a standard hopscotch, right?

Yesterday I saw one that went to 33 and another that ended at

52!

Now there's sidewalk ambition if I ever saw it. And I saw it.

Looks like the term "Rock Chalk" can apply to Tigers, too...hmm...how 'bout that? Just trying to find a way to mend my two allegiances. ;)

(I almost threw on a Jayhawk tee before heading to campus today...whoops.)

Study BUDDY

I was grading some papers earlier tonight and Dibbs Face decided to step in and assist me.

How did he do this?

By laying his cute self on top of my closed laptop.

Remove my sleeping cat from his comfortable position? Only in a need-to-send-an-email-right-this-second emergency!

Okay so I didn't grade papers for super long, but I did stick with it for a while and didn't open up the computer for any distracting virtual activities during that time.

Good work, baby face. Yuvs you.

1098. 1040. Blargen.

Some things I don't ever think I'll get the hang of.

Filing taxes is one of them.

Also on the list is:

Never mind, my brain is too fried to think of what else should be on the list.

Night night, peeps. Here's to taxes being filed, fending the process off for another year. When, once again, I'll think, "Crap! I still don't know how to do this! I have less than 48 hours to do this!"

Well, it's my understanding people love me anyway.

(I will say TurboTax is quite great. My friend Dee introduced me, and I'm a fan. It's really helpful.)

Breakfast upgrade!

If I had some boys--

and when I say boys here I am picturing several 20-something age men I know--

in my kitchen right now,

or, for that matter, playful women,

they would be super excited. I am making muffins from cereal (and a few other things; haha, "Poof!" Cereal becomes muffins! Breakfast upgrade!) for my research homies and I want the cereal to be a little less solid so there aren't awkward chunks to bite through in the finished muffin product.

I can just see the faces of, say, my brother Riley and his roommates if I were to hand them a bag of cereal poured in a freezer bag and inform them that they need to bring it back to me crushed.

I am almost certain

a) they would immediately head outside, deciding this is not a job that can be adequately accomplished indoors, and

b) there would be car tires involved.

Am I right, boys?

That said, I just tried crushing the cereal with my bare hands but that seems to be not super easy and a little time consuming. So back to the crushing board. Gotta figure this one out since Ri and his friends are two states away.

Dinner Bell

I am sitting on my bed with my back to the edge. Dibbs is on the floor behind me.

He does this sometimes.

Just sits there and waits for me to get off the bed--oh you know, whenever--to feed him. If I really hang out for too long, he'll start to meow.

I just turned around to check on him (because it's hard to type about him, thus think about his adorableness, without then turning to look at him) and he gave me a little gurgled chirp.

He's also taken to pawing at the wall in the mornings. I don't have a headboard, so my mattress is just pushed up against the wall. So he jumps on the bed by my pillow and paws at the wall to get me up and pouring the Purina. "Get to gettin', Ma." At least I think this is what's happening in the mornings, I'm pretty out of it in the a.m. to be entirely sure.

[Pause while Daily Bailey checks on the cat behind her]

Yep, still there. Waiting patiently. See, I know he's hungry because otherwise he'd have jumped up here minutes ago and just snuggled in beside me.

See now I might not be in an adult committed romantic relationship that some people are in, but you have to give me credit for the communication understanding between me and this animal. I think it was two Christmases ago that Pat mentioned while he was home, "Bailey's done some good things with the cat," meaning I'd tamed him and made him more people-friendly. Or at least tolerant, since he knew he could escape to his mama when the Daily volume level simmered.

Uh oh. Two more stifled chirps. Gotta go.

You get a little bit of everything in this post :)

Hey kids,

My Internet seems to be a little fussy so I'm gonna do a quick post here in case it decides to quit on me.

Great. I don't even know what to say.

I could tell you about how awful today and yesterday were for me, but sometimes I wonder if people get sick of hearing about all the crocodile tears I shed...

I could tell you how many mugs are on my coffee table right now...three.

I had some Skittles today. My research prof. mentioned Skittles on Tuesday, I think, and I said to Kelsey, "Skittles sound good." They were pretty good today, but I feel like I might have appreciated them more on Tuesday. But it's not like they were bad today.

I'm spent! Physically, emotionally. I just feel my droopy eyelids. I feel like I look like that dog, what's his name? Deputy Dog? Nope. Droopy Dog. No but seriously. They not only feel droopy, but earlier they were puffy (which only happens when I cry a lot--like I mentioned, baaad days, but moving on, I really don't want to bore/wear you guys out with the details...and it's not like I'm holding it in--I made my crybaby phone calls and emails to fam and friends earlier, so don't you worry, pals).

Okay I just realized what I should write about. I sent Nick an email earlier and told him I was wearing a new pink tank top that I bought with him in January, and he just wrote back asking me how the wearing of it was (because I was slightly excited to wear it--not even being sarcastic. I was only slightly excited considering my mood, my energy level, and the fact that I didn't expect to see anyone I knew in it--which I actually told Nick before I left for the park, and you will see the irony of that when you read on...--but I was genuinely a little happy to be wearing it). This is the response I'm about to send him:

"well.

i drove to a park and parked my car. i got out of the car. it was quite windy. i had put on my gray cardigan thing over it, and then wanted to tie it, but the wind was blowing the pink shirt completely up in the air! i had another tank underneath, so i wasn't revealing anything, but i was like "this is ridiculous" so i was trying to tack it down. well the wind just kept at it and then it was hard to even tie the cardigan. so i finally tucked at least one, if not more of the shirts in my jeans to get my clothes to CALM DOWN!

then i finally turned toward the path and i was like "wait, that's kyle!" and it was my friend kyle with his dog. he had headphones on so i didn't yell at him but then i ran to catch up with him. and then immediately after our greetings asked if he saw me during my shirt fiasco. he had, but didn't recognize me.

hilarious. had an audience and everything."

And...scene. ;)

Oh buddy

Today was rough. I'm not going to write about it, though, because instead I'd like to let some puppets speak.

Yesssssssssssss:

Thinking, thinking. Always thinking.

You know how in high school--well, in the summer after high school, or on weekends during high school--you could stay up until 3, 4 in the morning and feel so alive and excited that you were talking with friends that whole time, or thinking about something invigorating, or working on a creative project or something?

Well, I hate being up this late. HATE.

That said, I just chatted and chatted and chatted with my friend Courtney and loved our conversation, truly. But I'm just so out of practice with this much extroversion, really, and also the late nights.

So to be clear, this is a very positive review of my time with Courtney, but a very old crotchety review of being awake much beyond midnight. And it is MUCH beyond midnight.

I was getting in my car tonight and thinking about what life will be like, God willing, if/when I have kids and a husband and we're all conked out at 8 p.m. I was just thinking about it in a neutral way, I suppose. Seeing the positives and negatives in both lifestyles.

As if I haven't said this enough lately: Sigh.

Approximately 4 raisins

Today I was walking back to my car after class, and literally jumped a little bit--I'd call it a hop, really--with an arm up in the air because I saw my friend Deniz in the courtyard and wasn't expecting to see him there.

And Deniz is quite the provider of smiles in my life.

I was eating a box of raisins--

to quote Craig Ferguson, "I know!"--

and offered some to Deniz. He reached in the box and pulled out a tiny clump of approximately 4 raisins.

Holding them before me, he asked if he had taken too many. I gave him the go ahead to proceed and enjoy his plenty.

After finishing the clump, I asked him if he'd care for some more raisins.

He informed me he was full.

Two can play at the technology game...

Recently I considered occasionally adding to my email signature:

"Sent from my jPhone"

or

"Sent from my Schmerizon Wireless BlueBerry"

just to be a brat. And to see if people would notice.

Also, one of my professors was listing off different smart phone brands during class one day and he spouted off the term "ZoomZoid," which we all thought was hysterical.

"Sent from my ZoomZoid"

I love it!!

That's enough stress, thank you

I have a pound cake in the oven. In hindsight this seems an appropriate choice because I've been carrying around some emotional and stressful weight this week.

Friends, I have been rear-ended not once but

TWICE

this week. Within 48 hours of each other.

My car seems to be fine, and I hope I am fine (I think I am, but I tend to worry--ha, have you ever noticed?), but when I got hit again today I just thought,

"Really?!"

Actually, I cussed a bit. But I also thought, "Really?!"

I truly am grateful that I'm fine and that I don't have to spend time or money on the car, but si-igh. Seriously!

Also, I won't flat out tell you how much money is in my checking account (well, some of you I will or have already, privately), but you know that scene in the cartoon version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas where that mouse is crawling around and there's only one crumb? Well I feel like my checking account looks a little bit like the inside of a cupboard recently robbed by Grinchy McGrinch Face.

Jerk, he even took the last can of WhoHash.

Well, as I've been typing this, the pound cake appears to have finished. It smells yummy. Gotta offset the stress with something! I usually vote--beyond spiritual God seeking and emotional human support--for sugar. Cake is cooling, but then I'll be on it!

"Me sleepy"

Friends,

Last night I went to bed around 2:30 a.m. When I told my friend Deniz this tonight ("2:30!"), he responded with, "That's not that late!"

Yes, it is, young man. I am a little more than a month older than you*, and I know these things, being an old woman. You'll understand when you're older.

I'm not letting such a bedtime** occur again tonight.

Current time? 12:14 a.m. (Thanks, politicians, by the way, for working out your grumbles so we can still have a federal government tomorrow, I really appreciate that.)

I'm getting this body to bed. Like a responsible adult--or just a natural human--who listens to her body when it says, "Me sleepy," and turns out the lights!

Night night,

Sleepy me

*This specific knowledge brought to you by Facebook stalking. I mean research.

**Deniz also told me I'm the only person past the second grade who has a bedtime. He always offers me lovely compliments, it's one of the many joys of hanging out with him. He and Mary and I had a rooftop drink this evening and it was delightful.

Cinema on a student budget

I don't know if I've told you guys this, but I check people out in my rear view mirror all the time.

Not necessarily checking out, as in "Hey, hottie" (well, sometimes of course), but just checking out what people are doing in the car behind me, particularly at stoplights.

Think about it.

It's like the only free, somewhat creepy yes, but also legal, way to look at people while they think they're alone yet not doing something so terribly private or embarrassing that you'd really be intruding by watching them, without them knowing it.

(I sound like such a creep from that last sentence. But we're just gonna move on.)

And it's way more entertaining than the other things to look at while at a red light, generally speaking. You can look at the people in the cars next to you--but see, then they can see you looking at them and that's just totally uncomfortable--or you can stare at the light, or you can look at pedestrians if there are any. Pieces of trash blowing across the pavement. Meh. I've seen it already.

Really, when you think about it, the opportunity to stare at the person (or persons) in the car behind you is one that is seldom matched for its entertainment value in our society which is full of social boundaries.

So, briefly: I pull up to a red light, I come to a complete stop. And my eyes go to that mirror two feet from my face. I say "free show." And I strongly urge you to watch the ever-changing show on the magical reflective screen in your own vehicle (while safely stopped, of course).

Without being too creepy, like me in paragraph 4 up there.

Well let me tell you who and what I saw today in my RVM (we're calling it that now, FYI).

In a big ol' truck, probably twice the mass of my Lancer, was a guy with a hat on backward. He had glasses on--points for him, hello--but really I thought, based on the truck and hat, that this guy was more of a, well, a truck guy, than a bookworm.

Well as I was watching him, he pulled something out of the console in his car. As he brought it toward his face, I thought maybe it was lip balm in a tube. Although it looked more like a tube of cold sore medicine.

It was nasal spray.

It was so adorable.

He sprayed it in his nose, put it back, and then turned his hat with the bill facing forward.

Now see, had I not creepily--really, is it that creepy? I'm just looking where any other person is free to look. There's a mirror there, I'm supposed to look at it for safety purposes--checked out the goings-on in my RVM, I would have missed that pinch-the-cheeks moment.

Oh, and when you're too busy staring at the person behind you and don't notice when the light turns green, then you get to see that person get mad. Which can be funny. :) Just consider it a bonus scene, the kind they throw in after the credits.

I get by with a little help from a chart

What I am about to tell you is true.

I've made myself a chore schedule. As in, what you make for small children to get them to brush their teeth and make their beds.

To be fair (and very CLEAR), I have no trouble in the tooth brushing department. As several of you know, I love to floss, and any time that I have my toothbrush on hand and feel I need just a little scrubby dub in the mouth, I waste little time gettin' to the brushin' of those teefers.

But making my bed? I won't even say "not so much," because my bed-making activity score is not at all, save maybe five days a year.

That said, and, again, to be fair, the bed making is not that big of a deal in my mind. I live with me, myself, and a cat. He doesn't give a hairball if the bed's made or not. And grad students spend too little time in bed as is, why waste time on making the thing when doing so takes away from the precious minutes you could be snoozing in it? No brainer, I say.

But allll those other things--

dishes, vacuuming, tidying stuff that accumulates on countertops and tabletops, cleaning out the fridge--

that's where I really struggle.

So what does your average, living-on-her-own grad student do when faced with such lack of structure and natural adult behavior?

Well, your average person in the aforementioned population would get her act together and just start cleaning.

Or. She probably already does clean.

But did I ever claim to be average? Yah. Didn't think so.

So I made a chore chart.

If I had time and the funds, I would have made one with stickers. And symbols. But instead we have the grad school budget-friendly, black ballpoint ink on computer paper calendar. It's actually my calendar for (some of) my school deadlines too--ooh, multifaceted. Sophisticated.

No, Bailey. Sophisticated would be an already clean apartment.

Without a chore chart on the fridge.

[Cat], Chandler, new word!

I am refraining from posting a

(truly remarkable)

photo of a certain animal I live with, because you guys hear about him enough and this truly remarkable event was really more impressive to my family who knows him better, soooo...

now I have to think of something else,

probably less remarkable,

to tell you all. Hmm...

I feel like I thought of something earlier today, but I'm not sure.

Well I don't remember. So, I was watching Friends and was going to tell you how Pete was one of my favorites of Monica's boyfriends (oh look, I just told you) and I was going to provide the clip where Chandler (who is listening to a smoking cessation tape at night which, unbeknownst to him, is designed for women) jumps up and down when Monica goes on her first date with Pete and tells her that just because he buys her dinner "doesn't mean you owe him anything!" Love it.

Anyway I couldn't find the clip.

So instead I'll tell you the new word I learned today. Have you guys ever heard of "hyphenate"? As a noun??! Check it out:

"A person who is active in more than one occupation or sphere."

Apparently it references to the hyphens between one's various titles, when they are so numerous and many.

"Bailey, the blogger-sleeper-eater." See, you see. ;)

Spring smooches

I saw something totally precious today. There were three students sitting next to each other in the class I TA for, and while greeting each other--I assume for the first time since spring break--they gave each other kisses on the cheek. Not in the "let's pretend we're European way," with one kiss on each cheek, but just one kiss on one cheek, to each person.

So. Student A kissed Student B, then Student C. Then Student C kissed Student A, then stretched across Student A's seat to kiss Student B. I think Student B kissed Student A, but not sure if she kissed Student C.

It was two girls and one boy.

I thought because they opted for the non-let's-pretend-we're-European way, it was very genuine, pure, mature, and sweet. Mostly just very sweet. It truly warmed my heart.

Now, since I just told you a story about returning from break, I will provide you with a review of my break. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Week in Pictures (the indicated dates may be off--all of my days kind of blended together, as you will see, haha. Please note also that not all days are recorded pictorially, which means, yes, I spent even more time than indicated below in S-Bucks. Please don't judge.):

Sunday...

Tuesday...

Thursday...

Friday... (this one so captures my mood at that moment, and, for much of the week :)

Saturday (please note the recent manicure)...

I was quite creative with my time, eh?

Sentences

I went for a run today. It was hot (and windy).

I cleaned my car today. It was dirty.

I'm watching The Nanny right now. It's funny.

I had pizza and beer for dinner. It was delicious.

I shared dinner with Mom and Dad. They're precious.

I cried this afternoon. I'm a little emotionally overloaded.

I kissed on BooBoo cat today, and held her. She's sweet.

I should go to bed soon. I'm sleepy.

Not without reading Bill Bryson first. He's hilarious. So. Hilarious.

I go back to school tomorrow. :( It shall be busy.

I'm taking Dibbs cat with me. I yuvs him. :) (By the way, Deniz, I passed on your message to him that you said Hello, but I'm not sure he was listening.)

I owe you a better post

Friends,

I'm tired.

I had several ideas for blog posts today, but...I'm tired.

So, I'll just say "Hi!"

Check in tomorrow. Sweet dreams, pals.

Lunch. Jazz. Craig.

Today I had lunch with one of my favorite people ever.

Her name is Lynn.

We were chatting with her husband Devin and he called me a "jazz writer," based on my style.

Um, love this title.

Thanks for lunch, Lynnie! It was delish!

Time to watch CraigyFerg. "And you've got the Sandman at the door..." Everybody! Sing along!