Dead and Gone Like Me

Actually this title comes from a t.v. show I just discovered via Sci-Fi, which I now want to go out and rent the entire first season to watch. It's totally the type of shows (movies) I like. Dark Comedies are the defence mechanisms of the mundane daily existence for the rest of us I guess. Dead Like Me is an interesting premise with a well written script and it is also well acted. I caught this last night while my father and I watched t.v. and mom and I played Scrabble ( i beat her 219 to 216. yes, that's right TOm, I BEAT someone at Scrabble, imagine after all these years playing with you online, I simply needed the board in front of me to win, though I don't count a 3 point differential "kicking ass" or anything.)
In other news the "gone" part. I will be gone to Okoboji Iowa this weekend, through Tuesday for my family reunion. Much rejoicing and such will occur (or so I hope) though this gal has to apparently stay out of the sun! WHAT!?!?! stay out of the sun on a LAKE? are you kidding me? Doctors are on crack btw. Or at least those I apparently wind up seeing. I've been on an antibiotic (which I'm posed to be on for the whole month which says on the bottle "avoid prolonged exposure to the sun) okay, well, fine, I heed bottle warnings. I was out for all of an hour on Monday, wearing a new bikini (which makes me self-conscious enough anyways right?) and low and behold about half an hour later, I start to itch on my stomach...well surprise....rash city! lovely right? so I'm thinking, okay, go see the doc. Tuesday morning, i see the doctor, and he's like, stop taking that antibiotic, this is a photo-sensitivity rash, and you can develop allergic reactions to drugs even after taking them for a week and a half. so, tah-dah, I stop taking it call the doc that prescribed it, and she says, "NO, keep taking it, it doesn't cause photo-sensitivity." - Except that it has to, b.c otherwise they wouldn't put a label on the bottle warning about it right? and besides the other doctor that saw me actually saw the rash and diagnosed it...so I go with his answer.
I seem to have rotten luck with health these days :( blah. otherwise everything else is going well...still looking for that full time job, so I can move out of the basement, and the ability to pay rent somewhere else (perhaps moving in w. laura or pete or cassi? who knows!)
anyways, the "gone" part also means I'll be in Naperville next weekend - going to see the King Tut exhibit with Erik and his folks...hooray. I am looking forward to that. and I promise I won't collapse in the museum ---been there and done that already.
Hope all is well with the rest of you out there.

What do I do with free time??

Greetings faithful viewers, readers, gawkers, movers and shakers. I am now back in IC, for a few days, until flying to San Fran for a few more days...then back here.

So, I've got some free time on my hands, while I search for a job (primary goal now that XML is finished.) So, much to your liking..a blog post counts as a use of free time.

I've watched alot of Wildfire. It's addictive, it's about racehorses, and it's fun to pick out what they mess up about horseracing (after all it IS a t.v. show)

I also got to visit Hilary in Waconda, IL and see the Lake County Discovery Museum (heh, kinda fun, though my health does seem to want to really co-operate these days)
did anyone else catch word that this is the highest pollen count season on record so far, in both Iowa and Indiana? (perhaps Illinois as well?) and moving from state to state hasn't helped my allergies settle down at all. Regardless, I've had a good few days visiting folks, and culturing myself up a little.

Now for the rest of my relaxation I will read some books --surprise --and download some classics on to the ipod from a casting site, to listen to on the plane.

I promised someone that I would actually try to do Alcatraz this time, so that's on the list, along with visiting the asian art museum, napa valley wine tour by train (with the rents) and hopefully enjoying a few days in California sun (do they have pollen there also??? I hope not)

Official graduation celebration starts tomorrow night - so feel free to send your congrats and such my way ---change from the sofa does count in my eyes also :)

in a related note --if anyone realizes they need to simplifiy their life of material possessions, even with sentimental value (and we know who we are) I think I shall write a book someday entitled "why don't you want to part with that croucheted blanket with the hideous orange and lime green flowers?" (the back cover of the book will then host the reply of "my grandmother made it!!") --it will be a self-help book about coming to terms with realizing that one person just cannot possibly hold on to every sentimental object/article of clothing given to them over the years --especially those of us in our mid-twenties moving around alot.
(*note to self: you probably have already defeated the purpose of your future book by continuing to possess scrapbooks full of birthday cards from ten years ago...*)

In a not so great coincidence, holding on to PHOTOGRAPHS should be paramount in all one's endeavors...especially when your laptop gets sent to the best buy service warehouse WITHOUT them backing up your files like you told them to...so those of you with CDS of images that i've made (over the last year..i.e. new years eve, misa/casey's visit...halloween, etc) might be kind enough to send me copies of those copies??/ that would be fab....because images on the computer - and slim-cased cds full of digital images take up very little space in homes of 20 somethings...:)

that is all for now...

You HAVEN"T read the book!?!

Dear Indiana, Mom/Dad, Tina's, Waitress, PF. Chang's, Little Tibet, IMA, Residence Inn, B-town Theater, Trac, Erik, Rena, Jon, Steve, Becks, Misa, Aaron, Lenny's, Circle Center Mall,

Thanks for a nice drive to/from Indianapolis on Wednesday to pick up "Alaskaboy." Thanks also for a fine and somewhat windy drive to Indianapolis on Thursday for Thanksgiving festivies with my folks. Thanks also for not being too annoying with traffic or weather and delivering the other travelers safely to your state. Thanks also for not having the police decide that 10 miles over the speed limit was worthy of pulling over the blond in the civic...

Thanks to mom and dad for driving Thanksgiving food across three "I" states and sending me home with ALL of the leftovers. Thanks to Tina's in Bloomington for delivering a scrumptous pie. Thanks to the waitress at the Hilton hotel resturaunt for carding me and taking a long time to find my date of birth. Serves her right, haha. No thanks to P.F. Chang's mushrooms, though depositing them on other people's plates was a tad entertaining and the pin noddle soup made up for this slight problem with fungus. Thanks to Little Tibet for still serving their Iced Thai tea..sooo yummy.

Thanks to the IMA for having a real Norman Rockwell painting, which my dad found worthwhile and interesting to see (as so often I feel I drag him to art museums and subject him to lots of cultural things he could care less about.)

Thanks to the Residence Inn for having a hot tub! SCORE! :)

Thanks to the B-town theater for hosting a lovely and interesting affair called a matinee of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Thanks to Trac for pointing out things that are different between the movie and the book, since no, I HAVEN"T actually read this one (grad school got in the way). Thanks to Erik AND Trac for the combined effort to engrain the words "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time" in my brain probably until I die. Thanks to Erik for attending some after movie dinner beer time at Lenny's. Thanks to Rena for letting us bug her afterwards.

Thanks to those I talked to on the phone: Jon, Steve, Becks, Misa, Aaron

No thanks are in order for Lenny's being out of my newly discovered Ruby beer. No thanks are allowed for the Friday morning 6 am wake up call for Circle Center Mall shopping, and no thanks for the fact that it was the record low for the past 16 or some odd years at 17 degrees upon the 4
block walk to said venue.

But THANKS overall for a good break.

Signed,
one of your visiting students from Iowa


PS: According to Trac - I should also thank Martha and her Baking Handbook something. :)

PPS: Faraji wants me to thank him also, even though I technically didn't talk to him over Thanksgiving weekend, but this evening - so thanks Faraji 11/30/05

It is March now. just an update for those of you paying attention to how fast the semester flies by. I am looking forward to my trip next week to cincinatti to the art museum library for class, and perhaps to Indy to go clubbing that night, then driving back to IA in the morning, and hoping to see some of the ic friends that night, then flying out sunday for san fran. then meeting w .the head librarian at the sfmoma library on tuesday for an interview and library tour - oh ya, BIG library dork here!!! then fisherman's warf, eating really great food, sunny days, the asian art museum, riding a cable car, setting foot in the ocean (since i haven't been to the west coast ever before!) so ya,fun times ahead. also have to homework over break...reading and studying for a midterm, and researching for papers...blah...but yes, very fun options ahead....
so that's the update...have to work at 8 am tomorrow morning, so this one is short and sweet..unusual for me...well at least the short part.

wrapping up

Well the semester will be over for me officially tomorrow, after I get my 401 homework turned in. Tanya and I will go to a more upscale place for dinner and out for some billiards. I'm joining Traci for our last Starbucks visit before break - sadness...I'll talk to her over the vacation I imagine though. I meet with the art librarian, B.J. Irvine tomorrow to hopefully beg and plead to be in her class next semester since my sched. got messed up. Profs should not be allowed to change the time of their classes this late in the game, it's been almost a month since we first registered for them...but hopefully all will work out okay. I've started my website project that will occupy some time over break. hooray. Today I went to INdy to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, there is alot of construction, but i did get to see the european paintings galleries, and the african galleries. it was a fun lill sojourn, though I was most proud because I did not get terribly lost, even though Mapquest didn't give me fully great directions. I-65, 465, and 74 are the same thing for PART of the trip, but not ALL of the trip...since 465 just circles in a "loop" i was okay just getting back on it to find my exit, however the Highway 37 to I-65 was NOT marked properly. Oh well, it was an adventure. I have wondered if anyone's ever written a scholarly text tracing the comparrison between stools and thrones of the kings in Africa to neckrests that they also make there...I thought they looked kinda similar, and I hadn't seen neckrests before this trip to Indy. The collection was pretty decent, though I was disappointed not to see more of it because of the construction, guess I"ll just have to go back in September (it'll be closed Jan-April) and I won't be in B-town over the summer...it was a good way to spend a few hours though, soaking up some artistic culture and remembering why I'm in this career path....I miss studying slides for tests though - how odd...guess i truly am an academic dork. Good luck to all on getting final papers/projects and such done! I'll be thinking bout ya! I feel like a wine dealer too, cause Oliver Winery will get good business from me on Sat...it's a lovely gift for those of age :)
night folks!