The Teal Deer Corral

Tried to boost my endorphins by getting a bag of M&Ms. Got back to my desk and realized the bag was unsealed. It was $1 which is not enough to make trying to exchange it worth it but enough to have the opposite effect of what I was trying to accomplish. Sometimes my life is so hard, guyz.

I got teased a lot in high school when I took a Social Dance class for my PE credit instead of something that involves sweaty dudes bumping into each other (although Social Dance involved sweaty dudes AND sweaty girls self consciously bumping into each other and, I suppose, occasionally couples made contact with other couples resulting in sweaty dudes hitting up against other sweaty dudes. Anyway-) but, deep down, I knew it would pay off. This weekend it did when I got drunk at my friend's wedding and was the most popular groomsman out there. I hope this story gets told at my funeral.

Partially as a result of this, I have had Low and Thunder Road stuck in my head all week.

That is all.

I went almost exactly a year without [paying for] internet in my apartment, subsisting off of infrequent, weak signals from other people and my own imagination. I read so many books. 

It is depressing logging into this, skimming my sparse posts, and realizing I have been working on that superhero story for almost six months and have made little progress. I blame a few 90-100 hour weeks and the soul-crushing associated with that. 

Things I could be doing right now: making a bunch of pico de gallo. Cleaning my apartment (legos and bottles everywhere). Reading a book or books. Working on that story project I am always talking about. 

Things I will most likely do: Stay up too late reading some random blogs. 

So it begins. 

Just so you all know, I update this daily but I made it private because I only want SOME people reading the things I post on the internet.

jk. The reason I haven't been posting is because I DON'T HAVE HANDS

-gf (dictated not read)

We were told to pack our things and be ready to move offices by yesterday. That didn't happen so we spent the day working out of boxes/narrowly avoiding having things fall on us or our students. Today, we were told our new space would be ready by the end of the work day. We spent the day wishing we had our boxes of files to work from.

As a result, I read about this happening. Not such a bad day after all.

Got two tickets on a Sunday (totalling $216) for expired tabs. Went in, paid the $120 for new tabs. Got up early to come downtown and contest the two tickets. I expected to still have to pay the $216 but have the satisfaction of calling the Hearing Officer an ugly name. what actually happened was the guy cancelled one ticket and reduced the other to $49. Not bad considering my tabs were legitimately expired--there was just an extenuating circumstance preventing me from getting this done the week before the tickets were incurred. Now I have $167 to go out drinking with. Math!

The repair shop came through sort of and got me a rental car so I could still visit the family in Omaha. They got called to tell me this at 5:41pm on Thursday--well after both Loren and I had changed our Friday plans. The result was losing a day of visiting time but at least we made it down there. Also, the car they gave me had no cruise control, leading me to wonder if the guy I have been working with at LaMettry's is vindictive or just incompetent. For an update, he told me yesterday that my car would be ready today... I am still waiting for him to call. I called him a few minutes ago and got his voicemail. Don't go to LaMettry's.

I got a new pair of shoes last night. I also got the new lego pirate ship. Since I am a Lego VIP member, I got $15 off AND a free little bucket for the "pick-a-brick" wall. Not a bad value.

I also got promoted at work today... so good thing I didn't call in so I could build the pirate ship--I thought about it pretty hard.

-gf

Well, the plan was to drive down to Omaha this weekend to visit my sister and parents (on the first leg of a trip which will eventually bring my dad back through Minnesota). To recap, I got in a minor car accident on March 11. The repair shop still isn't done with my car so I won't be seeing my family this weekend. This is a lesson in how failing to look both ways can ruin my weekend a month later.

I am also going to tyr to make it a lesson in customer service for the amateur hour shop I have been dealing with. After driving my car from Loring Heights to Maplewood in the rain, they gave me a ride to work in downtown Minneapolis in my own car. Good thing I got gas that morning, I guess. The representative has also been really shifty about giving me any real details about time. Had he said "this will take a month. I'll try to get it done earlier," that would have been fine. What he said was, "this will probably take a week or two... but I'll let you know." The more I talk to him, the more I am getting the impression that they have other projects they feel are more important and are just working on my car when they get to it. This would be fine if it was a little local place but I was referred to them by the Toyota dealership so I expect them to be able to keep up with the volume of work. Anyway, I now have a whole weekend to figure out ways to waste their time/generally be an awful human being to have to deal with. Working with snotty, entitled art students every day has given me some ideas.

What probably irritates me the most is that, annoying as this is, it isn't a very interesting problem so I can't use it as fodder for NaPoWriMo. Oh well.

Whining aside, I saw Arms & The Man last night--one of my favorite plays by one of my favorite playwrights. Some of the energy seemed a little flat but it was still Shaw's words.

I've been burning through graphic novels lately. Yeah, I'm calling them "graphic novels" and not "comics." For those of you who value my obviously informed opinion, I recommend From Hell and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen as a kind of "Alan Moore on Victorian England" double feature. I cannot say as much for the film versions of these stories. On that note, I don't recommend reading Blankets right after the aforementioned books and Arkham Asylum as I spent most of Blankets expecting someone to get murdered.

Blankets made me want to read Catcher in the Rye again. I don't think there is a good way to mean that.

I also caught and conquered a stomach flu last week. I don't recommend that either.

-gf

It isn't the snow or the Lutherans that makes me most uncomfortable about living in Minnesota. It is the phrase "hot mess." I don't know the history and I don't want to.

-gf

I've had Let It Slip by The School stuck in my head all day. It's so high pitched, it was more like having random sounds stuck in my head. I finally googled the lyrics and got all sad. You win again, Brit-pop!

-gf