Thank you, Caree, for getting me out of the house today. Thank you for suggesting coffee and a walk. Thank you for talking with me, for laughing with me, and for looking at old houses with me. Thank you for getting my mind off school, and then for laughing/venting about school with me. Thank you for sending me off to meet one of my advisors in good spirits. Thank you for this afternoon. I love you peanut.
I received the first commentary from an advisor on my thesis. So far, so good. She feels it is “very strong,” and has “well-supported points.” Oh thank heavens. Sure, there are some issues, including occasional slippage into an informal tone (me? informal?) but I’m so happy to hear that it does not suck. Did you hear me, ONE PERSON BELIEVES IT DOES NOT SUCK!!
In other news, here is a picture of my kittens hunting a mama bird from the front window. The bird apparently built her nest nearby and is taken aback by the presence of two kittens so close. She even dives at them and sits, screaming, in front of them on the window ledge. This causes Ivan to jump away and Nero to hunker down with sheep ears (curled around his bitty head). You can’t see it here, but their tails are engaged in synchronized swishing.
It has been 1,213 days and LINDY IS STILL NOT ENGAGED.
I have decided to go back to being a vegetarian, sort of. I was a vegetarian from age 16 to 24. I started eating some meat, mainly fish and chicken, because I began fainting. I had been through two pregnancies and breastfed two babies as a vegetarian and remained healthy. For several reasons, when I was 24 my blood sugar began having “issues,” causing me to faint or nearly faint way more often than anyone ever should. Instead of exploring why this was happening, I chose to add meat to my diet. It worked, but I gained weight. I need to lose this weight to feel healthy again. Sure, some of it is vanity, but mainly I need energy and I feel uncomfortable in my skin. So, I’m going 90% vegetarian; well, more like 70% vegan, 20% lacto-ovo vegetarian, and 10% fish eater. This time I’m going to listen to my body. If my body needs salmon, it needs salmon. With cajun seasonings. And olive oil.
Today is my last day of class. Perhaps forever. I wish I was like everyone else who feels the urge to strip naked, run through the campus, and scream, “So long suckas!” Five year and a half years ago I began my undergraduate degree and I never thought I’d end up with my MA. However happy and relieved I am to graduate, I am saddened by the loss I feel. I may go back and get my PhD in a few years or in many years or I may choose to never go back. The only thing I will miss right now are the amazing friends I’ve gained in these last two years. The other stuff I love I will get in my new job. I will continually learn through research and writing here and I need that to survive.
My God, I am such a NERD.
I’m sure this sadness will pass as I learn how to function like a real person. You know, go to work and then come home to my beloved family. Nothing else.
Reasons I should never, ever go to the grocery store alone:
1) Frantic stockpiling of fruits, veggies, Very Vanilla Silk Soymilk, All Bran, Morningstar items such as my very favorite Spicy Black Bean Burger, and 12-grain bread the children will surely abhor
2) Forgetting stuff we actually need, like food for dinners that consist of more than Spicy Black Bean Burgers and celery with peanut butter
3) Random new fruity, vitaminy, energy-ish drink that I know tastes like ass but must try anyway
4) Twinkies. I loves me some Twinkies.
Maybe I’m thinking in female and he’s thinking in male. I’m sure that’s it. We’re refinancing our house and have the opportunity to do some seriously needed remodeling in our kitchen and bathroom. I am of the mind that instead of randomly guessing how much we need for the remodel, we should figure what we want, need, and can reasonably afford. I think we should at least get ballpark figures for things like countertops, flooring, tiles, etc. He is of the mind that x amount sounds about right. Hey, his guess might even be right but I do NOT want to find out in the middle of a remodel that we’re out of funds. Dammit.
It has been 1,208 days and LINDY IS STILL NOT ENGAGED.
I love Titian, or as the Smart Ass Guide to Art reminds us, Titty-an. This is a funny guide to several pieces of art with real, down to earth commentary. The author provides accepted information about an artist or a work, but then adds those interesting, sometimes off-color bits that make art so damn interesting.
As for that Titty-an, the Smart Ass Guide to Art refreshed my memory about the Venus of Urbino. In the classic Saturday Night Live sketch “Art Classics with E. Buzz Miller,” Dan Aykroyd pronounces the artist’s name as “Titty-an,” instead of tishan, remarking “I don’t think anybody can deny this is a very nice painting of a broad on a couch.”
Personally though, I like this one much better. Manet painted a naked lady in a whole new way. Instead of a goddess or an allegory, she was Victorine Meurent, a woman everyone knew and she was unabashedly naked and in a bed for a reason. She’s ignoring the flowers and she’s not looking shyly at you. Victorine looks right at you, very aware that you are looking at her naked. Look at her nakedness now.
In a grand attempt to fuck with my emotions, the security professionals at the institution (i.e. , the cultural institution employer) decided today to crack down today. With me in the building. Alone. That was NOT cool. Now, because I come in a half hour later in the morning than most others I work beyond the magical 5 p.m. deadline. At 5, the bustling place goes absolutely dead. In the past, it seems security has been a bit behind and although they turn the lights out on me while I’m up in the upper floor office, forcing me to walk gingerly through the dimly lit maze of things I CANNOT knock over, I am still able to get out.
Apparently, it is supposed to go down that the place turns into Waco and no one can get in or out past 5.
This time, the first time I actually alert security that I am in the building, they leave the lights on but pull down the chain-mail-looking security curtain and LOCK THE DOORS. These are not department store doors that allow one to leave while preventing others from entering. These are “No one is entering or leaving how dare you be around the priceless shit after 5 you wanker and oh yes the system can see your every footstep” doors.
After a happy stroll through said priceless shit in my attempt to go home at 5:30, in the light this time, I find the chain mail curtain pulled down at my exit. Um. Dude. Security? I naturally start to panic and hop up to the main entrance. Locked. I go back to my regular entrance. Chain mail. Um. Seriously, Help!
Finally, a security guard who looks a whole 13 and a half comes out and squeaks, “Oh, sorry. They told me to wait for you. I saw you walking on the monitor and realized you were still in here.” Sorry my ass, Doogie. But of course, I am still trying to breathe and just nod at the twerp. However, this twerp let me out and I guess I love him.
