Six Years...

How much have you changed in 6 years?

***** Six years ago *****

1.) How old were you?:
22 + 1 day

2.) Where did you go to school?
I was out of school.

3.) Where did you work?:
Communications department at Goodwill.

4.) Where did you live?:
Laurel. Actually, at this point in 01, I was in the process of moving from an awful apartment into an awesome one.

5.) Where did you hang out?:
I don't think I had discovered Champion's yet, so I have no idea.

6.) Did you wear glasses?
Nope

7.) Who was your best friend?
Jackie

8.) How many tattoos did you have?:
None.

9.) How many piercings did you have?:
Just ears

10.) What car did you drive?:
1988 Chevy Nova...the only non-Toyota car I've ever had.

11.) Had you been to a real party?
I'd even thrown a few.

12.) Had You had your heart broken?:
No

13.) Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?:
Single


***** Today *****

1.) How old are you?:
28 + 1 day

2.) Where do you go to school?
Catholic University

3.) Where do you work?:
I have 1 1/2 days of being a PR professional left, then it's unemploymentville. Thank God.

4.) Where do you live?
I'm in the process of moving from an awful apartment in Takoma Park to an awesome house in Burtonsville.

5.) Where do you hang out?:
Oh, here there and everywhere. I still haven't found a hangout to rival Champions, but I'm trying.

6.) Do you wear glasses?
Nope.

7.) Who are your best friends/close friends?
Jackie, Joan, Tracy, McCay, O.

8.) Do you talk to your old friends?:
Sometimes

9.) How many piercings do you have?:
Just ears.

10.) How many tattoos?:
None. I'm not really a tattoo kind of girl.

11.) What kind of car do you have?:
1992 Toyota Camry

12.) Has your heart been broken?:
No

13.Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?:
Taken

A Few Words For My Professor...

1. I don't care about your cat. In fact, I may require therapy to erase the memory of that incident yesterday in which you impersonated your cat, complete with meowing.

2. As an adult, I do realize that cats are incapable of speech or typing. As such, I don't need to get an email from your cat.

3. I would appreciate learning something in this class, aside from the names of your cats and their behavioral habits. So far, this has not happened. If I will continue to learn nothing, I would prefer that my $2,500 be refunded.

4. I will not critique your fashion choices. I will, however, request that you begin brushing your hair. Or at least washing it.

5. Way to reinforce the stereotype of librarians as frumpy old women with no social skills and an unnatural obsession with cats. Thanks for nothing.

For once in my life, I think I'm going to enjoy doing a course evaluation.

Procrastination by Evite

I sent an Evite today. If you didn't get it, don't worry. Check out the bulletin that I posted. But that is not my point today. My point is that once I send an Evite, I check it compulsively. Like, every ten minutes compulsively. And the feeling of joy that I feel when I see the screen that says that I have new responses...well, let's just say that I understand that it's an overreaction and leave it at that.

Please somebody tell me that I'm not alone in this.

I hate this time of year

I have resigned myself to the fact that I'll be sharing my kitchen with baby praying mantises for the time being. But as of tonight, the crickets are back.

I can't wait for moving day.

Things I learned today while gardening...

1. No matter how much soil you buy, it's not enough. Go ahead an invest in the 100 lb. bag--that tiny little 5 inch pot will take all of it.

2. There's something very soothing and satisfying about planting vegetables. For about twenty minutes, I was a pioneer woman out in the fields, planting a garden to feed my family. Then I came inside and made a frozen burrito for dinner.

3. Basil is such a drama queen. I'm maybe two hours late with the watering, and it's all "I'm wilting, I'm wiiiillllting," until I expected to see a teeny-tiny Judy Garland standing next to it in ruby slippers, clutching a broom.

4. My house is apparently a prime spawning area for praying mantises. I've removed six little 3/4-inch long babies from my kitchen since I got home from work. I keep putting them on my peppers, hoping that they'll eat whatever little fucker is chewing the hell out of them. Also, I feel guilty about the fate that befell the first one, before Owen told me what they were. In my defense, who knew they started out so small?

5. That is all. Come over for dinner in about two months, when we see what I can make with an eggplant, basil and a habanero pepper. With parsley for garnish.

For a really crappy song...

...There are certainly a lot of people analyzing it. I dispute the fact that This Is Why I'm Hot by Mims is the worst song on the air now; I think all of the dreck that Gwen Stefani's been churning out lately is far worse. (Gwen! What happened to your awesomeness?!?) However, I can say that I have heard of no other recent song that inspires the textual analysis that this one has. First:

Found in Translation, where you must download the translation. Seriously, I nearly peed myself.

And then the Village Voice got in on the action. Not quite as funny, but still fairly amusing.

So now that that's all analyzed, we can turn our attention to another matter. Can we, by analyzing her songs, determine exactly when Gwen Stefani was replaced with a pod person?

The flag at half mast...

When I was in the fourth grade, Marlo M. showed me a gun in the back of Mr. Dukluski's math classroom. It was small, in a black case, nestled into a foam cutout. I didn't tell a teacher. I didn't tell my parents. In fact, I think this is the first time I've ever spoken of it, because at the time it didn't even cross my mind that it might be real. I was in college by the time that I thought about the incident and realized that, hey, we were in the middle of Baltimore City, most of the kids I went to school with came from fairly rough neighborhoods, and yeah, it was probably a real gun. I was a naive kid.

Thus begins and ends my one and only personal experience with weapons in schools.

In high school, we had to fill out a survey on weapons, drugs and sex, and I remember being shocked at two of the questions. The first was do you think there are people in your school who bring weapons, and the second was do you feel safe in school. It had never occurred to me that someone at Spring Grove would bring a gun to school. Remember, this was well before anyone had ever heard of a little school in Colorado called Columbine. Of course I felt safe. Maybe it had occured to others that schools were vulnerable, but not to me. Hell, we had a kid threaten to blow up graduation and nobody did anything but gossip about it endlessly. I was a naive teenager.

I watched Columbine unfold on the little TV in the ECTV office. That TV attracted quite a crowd that day. It certainly wasn't the first school shooting, but it was the one that grabbed everyone's attention. Suddenly schools were locking their doors. Metal detectors and security guards began to appear. And it was horrifying and scary, but I was past high school and didn't feel the personal threat that I'm sure students and teachers did.

Today I was on the Catholic University campus in the early afternoon, for the first time ever. There were students everywhere. For the first time I felt vulnerable. For the first time, I felt like it could happen here, to me. If I want to work in a high school, I think I'm going to have to get used to that feeling. I'm not naive anymore.

My heart goes out to the students, faculty and families at Virginia Tech.