Literal Conversation I Am Overhearing As I Write This Between JD and His Powerbook

JD: CompuTOR. ComPUTOR. Tell ME A Joke.
Computer: --
JD: CompuTOR. Tell Me A Joke.
Computer: --
JD: ComPUTOR. SNORT.
Computer: --
JD: COM PU TOR. TELL ME A JOKE. COMPUTOR.
Computer: Knock. Knock.
JD: WHO IS THERE?
Computer: AVENUE.
JD: Avenue WHO?
Computer: --
JD: Avenue WHO. Avenue Who. AVEnue WHO.
Computer: --
JD: COMpuTOR. Tell me a joke. ComPUTOR.
Computer: Knock. Knock.
JD: Who's there?
Computer: --
JD: ComputOR. Open Speakable items. TELL ME WHAT TO SAY.
Computer:--
JD: Tell me a joke. ComPUTOR. Tell me a joke.
Computer: Knock. Knock.
JD: Who's there?
Computer: Harry.
JD: Harry who?
Computer: Harry up, we're late.
JD: HA. HA. HA. GOOD ONE, COMpuTOR!
Computer:--
JD: CompUTOR. Make this page speakable. Make this page speakable. Make this page speakable. COM PUTOR. SPEECH.
Computer:--
JD: Computor. Make new item. Move page up. Tell me a joke. Tell. ME. A. Joke. TELL ME A JOKE. TELL. ME. A JOKE. (Irish accent, poorly done): Aye, COMPUTOR, tell me a weeeee joke.
Computer:--
JD: Laves las manos. COMPUTOR. Quit speakable items. COMPUTOR. Suck my balls. COM pUTOR.

This all takes place while I am pretending to be engrossed in work so he doesn't notice that I am transcribing. And the whole time, he's holding his laptop up in the air so he can talk directly into the tiny microphone at the front of the keyboard. Yes, apple speak is totally convenient and not at all stupid. Awesome.

Dave I'll call you tomorrow. Thanks for the congrats. XOXO

If A Lion Could Talk We Could Not Understand It

Must take break from creating brilliant study materials. Or will stab own eyes out for real this time.
I am fucking tired. This is a pretty common thing now. Booo. Sometimes I am completely able to be smart on top of being tired. Today, however, is not one of those type of days. My prospie is on her way home. She was nice, it was fine. Tiring. Jeeze, I sound like I'm a thousand. Tomorrow's going to be an especially long day.


I dropped my computer a couple weeks ago for the first time. I was so excited that I figured this bit of html out for the same study materials I am working on now, and I started dancing and shook the couch so my laptop fell off the arm of the couch onto the floor. That was a quick shift from happy to not happy.
I had class today too and it sucked because I can't wake up and class is never fun when you are foggy and tired. Worse, I am no fun when I am like this. Oh oh oh what else.

Oh I worked hard on this one thing and it actually went over well. That was the best reinforcement I've had in about a year. If my advice er hadn't liked it I very well may have leapt off my office rooftop. I am reaching epic levels of frustration with not having Anything to show for my time here thus far. Urgh.

I'm writing a book chapter. Those of you in the "know" may realize that a chapter is less valuable than an article, but JD The Layman is delighted by how "cool" it is that I'll have something in a book, and has been telling all his work friends. Do you find it equally delighting, laypersons?

Oh lord I am so lame when I'm this tired. Back to wahrk.

If You Could Go Now, Your Mind, Into A Crab

Here is a list of things that are very jarring when you are not expecting them:

1. The sensory assault of being in an elevator with a gaggle of MBA students on their way to a business lunch. My nostrils burn from the cologne cloud they left behind.
2. Walking into the ladies room and having it smell strongly of chicken soup.
3. Running into Dear Ed Win, the cohort gossip (he informed me that I am well liked by one of my professors. Whew!)
4. Early morning meetings with Pseudo Mom #2


I am busy. B dumped her prospie on me for the weekend (really it's just Sunday and Monday) because I gave her an easy out, in hindsight not a great move on my part, so now I have to deal with an extra houseguest and I therefore have to clean my house and tell Jessica to be on her best company behavior. I also have to get all my work for class done today so that I can get other stuff done before Monday.

And my well-intentioned reminder emails to certain faculty about certain projects have resulted in my TOTAL INNUNDATION with work that should have stayed on the damn back burner for another couple weeks until I could claw my way out from under some of this other stuff. I'm retarded.

And then there's all that tax bullshit, passport paperwirk bullshit, fin aid bullshit, reimbursement bullshit, that I dont' have time or patience for.

Oh and I have a three-day headache. I think I am going to take a nap and then stay up until Sunday. Great plan. Yeah.

He Declined Our Invitation

I just made a to-do list for myself for today. Because that is how I roll. Anyway, the major things I have to do today concern two projects of mine, both of which happen to have a lot to do with emoshin regoolashun, akka ER. In my notes to myself I call it ER for brevity's sake.

So today's to-do list, which was originally and boringly titled, "Wednesday," got infused with new life when I scribbled out "wednesday" and wrote, "get ER done" in its place. Get it? Geeeeetttt it?

Maybe you will only get it if you are needing some coffee right now. Maybe that is why I think it is so hysterically funny. Maybe. But definitely, I thought that was awesome of me.

If You Listen Hard Enough

You can hear JD tell three bad jokes that bomb, Kristin remind us all (and all of you) that we are PhD students, dammit, and therefore it is Totally Not Annoying for us to be the loud drunk people at the bar, and me slur my loud stupid speech enough that my voice annoys even me.

We are at a "karaoke" bar that has karaoke but no official stage. We three ladies are arguing over what song to sing, and all night I insist that I will not sing anything but "Love Is A Battlefield" so eventually Eric puts our names in. My camera battery dies right before we actually sing the song, making this the stupidest and least entertaining video of What I Did This Weekend ever, but since I went ahead and made it I thought I would also go ahead and post it.

And Voila

Danger! Danger! High Voltage!

God, I am having one of those days where I just want to stab my own face with a knife. I tend to have these days whenever I work on particular papers.

I like JD a lot. I know, I better. But I do. And I'm aware of that more and more. It's awesome. I called him to see if he wanted to go to lunch with me today, because tonight we are going out for my friend Briana's birthday, and I needed to get her a present. But I bribed JD to go with me by promising I would buy him lunch. So we went to the most Briana-like store in the world and I only wanted to spend $15 so we walked around the store about sixteen times (it's kind of pricey) which killed his entire lunch hour, and then when I finally picked the cutest, most on-sale dishes ever, I got to the register and didn't have my wallet. Nice.

So what I'm trying to say is that he has a very intact sense of decency.

No, what I'm really trying to say is that he didn't even get mad that he had to buy her present, and I was so picky that we didn't have time to eat. Most people would probably have punched me in the face for that, and rightly so.

Oh goody, he's totally home from work. Time to get all girly and go drink 'ritas. WOOT.

Loosen Your Shoulder Blades

I think I may have erroneously forwarded some of you a VD card I received from my mother. I say erroneously not because I didn't mean to send you cards, but because even I am not so busy as to not have time to delete the "love to you and jd" message and replace it with some joke about venereal disease, but the crazy cat website never gave me that option. So I spammed some of you, and I feel badly about it. So I apologize.

We registered.

I think I've decided to ease into being vegan. We got a couple great looking cookbooks this evening and dairy has been making me sick lately. We'll see.

I got some flowers yesterday but only because I made a big fuss for weeks about how stupid VD is and how I would get mad if JD got me anything because it's so lame and then we were at TJ's buying flax meal and tortillas when i saw a bunch of calla lillies and whined about how I wasn't getting any flowers and then I pouted for about ten minutes. This was over lunch, and afterward we both went back to our jobs. I went home in the afternoon and discovered very prettily arranged flowers in the living room and bedroom. Awww. I'm such a turd.

Dude, I forgot to go by the bank AGAIN tonight. Dick.

Yeah, that's how exciting I am on my day off. Bed Bath and Be-yawn!

*cymbal crash*

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKE!

Remember That Time You Forgot How To Sit Down?

1. My mom wrote me an email today saying she'd try to call very soon (today). That was four hours ago. If you have time to write an email about how you're going to call later....sheesh

2. My aunt wrote me an email Friday (the "You won't be the first doctor davis in this family" aunt) basically asking me to look something up for her on Sike Info. I haven't talked to her in, probably, almost 2 years. Last time I was in town staying with my grandma she was too "busy" to drop by and see me, since I am so often in the Chicago area and that yoga class isn't every damn day.

3. I had a fun girly night out last night. No pics, though, sorry. I get tired of my friend K (she is the skinniest person i have ever seen in real life) saying self-depricating things about herself in the same breath as offering to let me borrow her tiny clothes. But for her, I think the therapy has been life-changing, because she seems much much happier these days.

4. Ok, my mom just called. And actually said, "oh, you'll feel so much better about all this hard work when it happens" which I didn't understand. i think she meant that SHE will feel so much better about all HER hard work when she's done with this recital thing that's coming up.

5. I'm tired. This productivity thing is exhausting. And I'm not doing it full out. Shit.

Switching To Secondary Systems

1. StaceFace, I will make time for talking. When tomorrow are you around? If not tomorrow, let's try for Sunday. I know most people (you) are cool and may have plans on Friday in the late afternoon/evening, but I will call you when I leave my Tower and if I getcha I gotcha. Whatever.

2. So our anniversary? Yeah, that day yesterday? Awesome. We did a bunch of "us" things. Like eating at vegan restaurants, eating vegan breakfast (have I told you guys about how JD always makes me breakfast? Well, usually makes me breakfast? It is the fucking best thing in my whole world. Yesterday he made tofu scramble. Sweet god that stuff is good). It felt like Christmas morning. We went to the beach, went to a bookstore and read magazines. So fucking awesome.

3. He got me an iPod. Oh yes, a video iPod. I put all my photos and my entire music library on it last night and I still have about half the gigs left. Dang. It is fucking awesome. I peed my pants right away. then, THEN, I see that he had it engraved: 2,557 days and counting. AWWWWWWWWWWWWW

4. So I got him a PSP.

5. Yeah. Must go. Work to do and this is the most gorgeous day I've ever seen.

We've Both Been Very Brave, We Walk Around With Both Legs

Tomorrow is me and Jadles' 7 year (give or take, snicker) anniversary. How horrible a person have i already become upon internalizing the Laziness Decree? So horrible that I just now, the night before the day of this momentous Last-Anniversary-As-Unmarried-Couple event, googled, "anniversary gift" for ideas.

Yeah, lame. I KNOW.

I am tired as fuck. I ache. I want to take a nap so damn bad. But I haven't solved the analytic problem I have been working on for, NO SHITTING YOU INVOLVED HERE: nine hours. On one little tiny fucker of a problem. It is preventing me from writing the remainder of the section of the paper that it concerns, which puts me behind schedule, which irritates me. Were you curious to know how I would cope with direct criticism of my laziness? Well, I made the most neurotic, detailed, organized spreadsheet you have ever seen. I listed each and every project and time commitment, and I estimated time-to-completion (in hours!) of each item. Then, I made this week's to-do list, but I made it in hourly increments. So I am telling myself when to do which project and for how long and there is very little leeway for me to do otherwise. In this fashion, I am very productive as a grad student. We will be interested to see how long this holds. I've been at it for about four days now and, while it could be because of my extremely irritating day today, I want to stab myself in the face and I'm not even near done with today's items.

I sent my advisor a bunch of things today that are not due until Thursday. This was very pointedly done. She emailed me back that I had obviously been busy. WELL, THAT WOULD BE THE GODDAMN POINT, WOULDN'T IT

Sorry. So sorry.

In other news? My wedding band came today. I would post a photo of the little blue box with white ribbon that it arrived in if I thought anyone else cared. Yes, I took a photo. JD ordered his too and it should be here sometime this week, I think. Why boys like titanium over platinum I will never understand. Teehee.

Planning was in full swing this weekend. We planned two different rooms (the library and the old rectory) in Edinburgh, 2 nights in Inverness, and Aberdeen.I've talked to a photographer, JD's talked to the registrar people (such a mountain of fucking paperwork!), things are moving along.

I just discovered podcasting the other night. Don't laugh. I just hadn't gotten around to it. Love it. LOVE LOVE LOVE ricky gervais. We have the office season 2 and the special extra episodes on netflix loan right now, have had them for about a monht, but I can't part with either. I watch them all the time. Fuck, I wish I had gotten into that show a long time ago.

Ok, I have to go think hard about what a bad fiancee I am to not have any killer ideas for a present. He mentioned some kind of music cable, but that is just too too lame. Can't do it.

Ninnyway

Now you see why I don't update? I am so boring. I am delving into this Full On Dork Thing, as prescribed, and already nerd jokes seep into my everyday thought. Boo. Ok back to reading this thing by this guy whose name rhymes vaguely with "science" about whom JD made the following joke: "You should call the article "He blinded me with zience(sic)" when you present it in class next week." I laughed for about an hour straight, until I walked into a fart cloud some frat boys courteously left over by the leg extension machine and threw up in my mouth.

You'll Make Me Wish For The Day Right Before I Was Born

1. Ladies, ladies. Do you ever have days where one of your nipples is just really sensitive? And your bra bothers the poor thing all day long? I am having one of those days. What's that? Oh, the left one. Yeah.

2. I had a sit-down with my advisermom yesterday. She told me nicely that it's time to grow up and stop being lazy if I want to make anything of myself in the next few years. She sandwiched that between two compliments, so I barely registered the Verbal Bitchslap, but she's right. There is no point to doing this halfway, and I have been doing the bare minimum so far and it has to change. It was like the State of the Student address. I didn't like the part where she told me how she used to work 7am-11pm, 7 days a week, though. So not my style. But, the gauntlet has been thrown down, and it's time to get my fucking act together. Personally, I was not sure it was possible to be any busier than I am, but obviously since I have time to blog, breathe, shit, and occasionally hang out with my friends, that is Not Busy Enough. She's right though, and she was very nice about it, making it seem more like my idea than hers, and I've been thinking I need to get my ass in gear and smarten up anyway. So, there's that....

3. Comp cds are finally in the mail to those of you who requested them. They are KICKASS.

4. Well, I have to go. We are spending our days off (but now since I don't get those anymore, I suppose I'm dipping into negative time off) cleaning this pig sty because the g.parents are coming over again tomorrow. And unsurprisingly, our house is a total mess. I won't point fingers, but if you were here you would see that I am pointing at Jessica.

5. Oh Kyle I'll pay it forward. I am not buying you a camera, but I will send some good vibrations your way. I still don't totally get how it works, because I don't want to end up stabbed. So I'll babystep it for a while.

6. I have an existential crisis to return to. Laters.