No spring chicken, me (but that's alright)

I turned the big 2-5 yesterday, which puts me solidly in my mid-twenties. Last year, when Dani hit this milestone, I taunted her mercilessly and informed her over and over again that she was old. There were many jokes about broken hips made. And so, this year she returned the favor.

This is only underscored by the fact that I have been introduced around the psych department as "one of our advanced doctoral students." When did that happen? I don't think I was advanced last year. There's a similar thing happening in my grad union, for which I am one of two Solidarity and Political Action co-chairs. And one of three of the officers who actually remembers the last contract negotiation. So it's always like, "well, you, X and Y were there. Let's ask the old-timers."

This whole old-timer thing isn't bad, understand, I'm having no crisis about the fleeting nature of youth or anything. It just...sort of...snuck up on me. Damn you, time, and your unstoppable forward progression!

OK, now that that's out of my system...birthday news! Since Friday, I have done exactly three things: play The Beatles: Rock Band, watch Planet of the Apes and its numerous sequels of varying quality, and get this tattoo.

old-timey quote for an old-timey gal

It's from (not so shockingly, considering) Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville (no whales are involved), which I highly recommend if you've never read it. It's brilliant. And I like it, especially the end (which is where the quote is from) and the dead-letter office passage, because it brings up a lot of interesting questions about the insignificance of life and the paradoxcial myopic importance it holds for us anyway. Why does polite society matter? Because we think it does. So, does it really matter at all? Perhaps not, suggests Bartleby, but it is sort of the only thing holding us together. Maybe that makes it matter enough. As a psychologist, I find it to be a work of fiction that addresses the underlying motives for social constructions and why we tend to get so profoundly disturbed when someone doesn't buy in to said social constructions. I have to admit, one reason why it resonates with me so much is that there's as much Bartleby in me as there is the lawyer. It's a tension I face every time I go to (what I consider) another useless meeting and one of the underpinnings of my now-legendary avoidance of my phone. In any case, it seemed a fitting if highly nerdish tattoo to get.

A final note: I will update this blog! It will happen! I have posts planned, see?

• a discussion on Rock Band in general and how I'm terribly addicted to it
• Fat Girl Face Off '09
• the Decemberists in concert
• the planning of Jarthen: Book 2
• how writing an autobiographically-based character unnerves me
• many, many socks (a week of socks! huzzah!)
  

Oops! There went January....

...without any posts. Sorry about that. Let me catch you up on what happened once my Christmas hermitage ended. In a nutshell...


...Jon got decorated. I think (but I'm not exactly sure) that this happened because he threatened to go running. Dani and I decided this was a terrible idea and said that he could - but that he would be COVERED IN SHARPIE!! He decided not to. Then, New Years got closer and we....


...built a really bad-ass fort! Look at that setup: 2 blankets for maximum canopy coverage, two-level seating arrangement, and a coffee table. We spent 3 or 4 days in this puppy solid and watched the entire Twilight Zone Marathon! Well, we took shifts, but someone was awake and in front of the TV for every single episode. which is impressive nonetheless. A couple of days later, the Twilight Zone Fort was repurposed for...


...Dani's birthday party! Don't ask me what's going on with me an Jon in this picture, I just don't know. Rest assured it was awesome. And finally...


...Dani and I got tattooed! These are little moonmonsters we;ve been thinking about getting for awhile. It's a long story, which involves a long drive to Texas culminating in my sister running around our front yard in a bathrobe trying to scare us. I think you had to be there. Oh! Interesting tidbit: the tattoo parlor we went to also did Jim Jarmusch, one of the best directors ever.

Stay tuned for knitting content, while will appear before February come hell or high water.

Shenanigans in Houston

Soooo......I'm leaving Houston in a couple of hours, but before I go, I wanted to catch everybody up on all the cool, fun stuff that happened while I was down here. I tried to keep you posted as it all happened, I really did, but my ungodly workoad (writing two papers up for publiation and trying to get the data collection for two separate projects underway) ate up all of my time. Sorry about that.

Cool thing #1: My sister and I got tattoos!

(click for bigger)

We got them a couple of days ago, but we'd been thinking about it for awhile now. Leila already has a tattoo. They're both variations of the arrows of chaos symbol (which I mostly just think looks cool), so they're from the same family but not identical. Getting it was surprisingly not at all painful, and I think it hurt less than when I used to bleach my hair with industrial strength chemicals to dye it funny colors. I totally psyched myself out, though, right before the guy actually started tattooing me. I'm such a loser.

Cool Thing #2: 3rd Annual Fat Girl Face Off

A couple of years ago, my sister and her friends decided to have an eating contest and dubbed it the Fat Girl Face Off. It's turned into kind of an ordeal around here. Last year, the girls let Jon participate as long as he dressed in drag, and he kicked their asses.

So, who took home the gold for eating a ton of tacos, doughnuts and watermelon?

Sam did! It was a rousing return to form for the 1st annual champion. Which means....

Jon lost. He went from reigning champion to last place. I was his coach and I was truly shamed by his dismal performance. He didn't even bring his C game! I've since dropped him as my athlete and adopted Mandy (who came in at a very close second) who was basically coachless.

Cool Thing #4: Leila finished her scarf!

I made her frolic in the backyard so I could take pictures. I'm very proud.

And finally, Cool Thing #5: IHOP!

Man, I love IHOP. Always have. I met my friend Lisa there for breakfast yesterday. Here she is stealing ketchup from a nearby table:

Everytime I go to IHOP, I order the happy face pancakes from the kids menu. I know it's silly, but those things are tasty. Also, I really believe that few things in life are more fun than getting food that's happy to see you and gleefully eating it, especially when you pour strawberry syrup on it and pretedn it's blood. I guess it awakens a werid Godzilla impulse in me or something.

So that's what happened while I was in Houston. I'm flying to Minneapolis today to hang out with Dani (who the penguin on the sidebar is named after) and go to another of those big socialist thingies.