I guess i'm sneaking this post in under the wire. I just didn't feel like sitting in front of a computer today.

Echo . . . echo . . .

I really don't want to post today. It's kinda silly, but . . . I sorta dread what I'm gonna say? I don't even really know what I'm going to write about, but I've just felt so disconnected from my words for the past two days. I feel like people are having trouble understanding me. The only metaphor that I can come up with is that there is something like an echo in my head and I keep seeing and hearing my words at a distance, rather than coming from me.

Oooh! Spooky! Maybe I'm channeling some spirit or another! You guys better watch out, this could turn into the Book of the Law any minute now.

So I guess that I will just keep things light today.

I recently discovered a new meta-book. It is called 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I have read 24 of them. (The list of books can be found here.) I really need to get started. So I am finally determined to finish Emma by Jane Austen. I love Jane Austen and have read Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice several times, but for some reason I can never make it through Emma. The main character is impossibly full of herself and believes herself to always be right (either I relate too much or not enough, I can't really tell).

Statistics:
If I have read 24 of them I only have 977 left to go.
That means if I read one a week (because I am convinced that I can finish even the most tedious book in under a week), I will be finished with them in about 19 years.
To be more exact, I would finish on January 7th, 2028 +/- 1 day.

Math is fun.

Riding on a roller coaster

Ok, so I don't usually do this, but here is a Youtube video that people really should check out. I'm somehow amazed that it is even on Youtube as it is well edited (it should be, it was on tv) and actually uplifting. I am not a huge fan of reality television. I think it usually plays on some of our most ignoble emotions, but occasionally, it comes up with a moment of reality that I am actually touched to be privy to. And besides, I know how hard it can be to get up and perform in front of people; this woman does it with such confidence, such grace and panache in front of a seriously tough crowd that I can't help but admire her.

Seriously, go see it.

My friend Schmoops showed it to me just minutes ago at the coffee shop and it really made my day better. This has been such an up and down day already. I woke up at 8 and hit the snooze button and I felt mildly enthusiastic about the day, but tired.

When I actually woke up because my cat was digging at me and insisting that I wake up right this minute, it was 10:10 and I was well into missing Vertebrate Paleo. I felt guilty, and my lungs felt smoking too much last night, and I just didn't feel like doing anything at all.

So, I wrote my 3 pages longhand like I've been doing every morning and by the time I was through I had decided that it was ok to miss classes sometimes and that I could spend the day catching up and just generally putting myself in a healthier state of mind. I felt that I could write the rest of my paper and find a summer job that would work out the way I want it to and that the rest of the day would be peachy.

Then I walked outside on my way to the coffee shop only to find that my car had been ticketed. Apparently in Ramsey County it is illegal to park within 20 feet of a cross walk. It's a $25 ticket, which isn't so bad, but that is exactly my weekly food budget recently. So I guess I'm not eating next week. (Really I'm being overdramatic. That is my weekly food budget, but I will manage to pull together the money for the ticket and still pull together enough money for food. I just might have to make other people buy me beer.) I moved my car ahead 10 feet and walked on to the coffee shop, resisting the urge to just go back to bed.

So, it's a good thing that Schmoops cheered me up, but now I find that I'm sitting here waiting for the next crazy-ass bipolar cycle today. Maybe I can get my head on straight with a long walk later.

Cephalopoda is the coolest class ever.

I don't know if everyone has a favorite extinct cephalopod, but I totally do. I give you:

Ammonites, ammonites, and more ammonites.

And a sink that I totally need to have if I ever build a house.

What's your favorite cephalopod?

What?

Ok, you can pick anything in Kingdom Animalia.

Norse in Greenland, Leela is back, and I'm gonna be a gamer again

In Climate Change in Human History class today we watched a fascinating episode of Secrets of the Dead that was about the Norse colonies in Greenland. It turns out that they starved out during a time of climatic cooling. (I always want to write climactic, but that means something different. Although in this case it might still be kinda appropriate.) The Inuit on Greenland at the time did not starve because they subsisted on hunting rather than on stock that they raised. It turns out that the church of the Norse might have been the real cause of their demise because it discouraged them from learning hunting and fishing from the Inuit (a religious ritual for the Inuit) and it possessed the hunting and fishing rights for the society. When the small ice age happened, the Norse overgrazed their pastures and therefore did not have enough hay storage to overwinter their animals indoors as was their practice. It is truly sad that archaeologist don't find more wild fish and game bones in the settlements. Sadder still, they found evidence of an elkhound that had been butchered for food. I can't imagine how difficult life must have been for these people if they were reduced to eating their hunting dog.

On a much more cheerful note, my friend Leela is back from her week spent on the streets of San Francisco and is none the worse for wear. She keeps apologizing for not being able to tell me about it and really explain what she learned and I keep telling her that I don't expect her to be able to tell me about it. Some experiences just take time before you can really distill what out what you want to say about them. Mostly I'm just glad that nothing went horribly wrong. I suspected that she would be fine as most people simply assume that it is more dangerous being homeless because they don't know what it's like. I think that some situations are more dangerous than others, but I have great faith that if you respect people and do your best to remain confident but open, you can be safe nearly anywhere.

I'm currently writing this while I should be working on my Paleo paper, but I swear that I will make more progress on it in a moment. I did manage to make a good start on it yesterday. I still only have one page out of the required 12, but judging by how well the ideas were flowing while I was writing yesterday, I have no worries about managing to write it in time as long as I take the time to do it.

I'm also excited because tonight I am going to hang out with the guys and play some Dungeons and Dragons (4th ed). I'm not excited about playing 4th ed (but being as how I never really played editions 1-3, that isn't too surprising), but I do want to see the guys. This is the gaming group that I left when I went to SoDak and I haven't really seen them since. I became a part of it because of my last boyfriend, but now he isn't a part of it anymore and they have invited me to join in this new game. I really missed some of them but I'm also nervous because the last time I saw them, and actually when I first met many of them, I was in a relationship with, well, that asshole. I wonder if some of them think less of me because of it. I wonder if some of them will have trouble viewing me as anything other than the asshole's ex. I wonder if they question my sanity and my virtue (I only wonder this because when I think back, I question these things). They are all nice guys though, and I am probably worried over nothing. Once again though, I will be the only woman in a group of 7 or 8 complete and utter gamer-geeks. It is always odd. I seem to vascilate between object of interest, advice giver, milady, and one of the guys. At least it's always interesting though.

Tee hee. I just saw a herd of shirtless men jogging on the river road. MN boys are sooo sale this time of year.

P.S. This is why I do not text to my blog normally. I meant to text "pale" MN boys are so PALE. I do not condone prostitution.

A quickie

This is just going to be a quick note. I really need to do more on my vertebrate paleo paper than procrastinate. It is clearly the first day of spring because after remaining silent most of the winter, my phone has not shut up today. It is always strange to me how minnesotans are not social unless it is warm out.

I am pretending to work on my Geochronology lab right now, but I don't think the TA is convinced or even cares. I will have to do it eventually, but right now I am getting my internets.

I'm running late again today. I didn't even make it to my class at 10:10, but tomorrow I think I should be back on schedule with regards to sleeping and waking up. (I'm not making any promises about anything else.)

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Sweet! Athena just called me and I might be getting a leather dress for her wedding in June! She asks, "Is that ok? 'Cause I don't know if you would ever wear it again . . ." Me: "No way! A leather dress! I would make a point of wearing that again!" So if you ever see me out wandering in a Native American style leather dress for no apparent reason, it's because I felt like it.

I really hope that everything pulls together nicely for her wedding. It is towards the end of June (I think . . .) and she still has to do invitations and I have to do the bridal shower and then there's the dresses and I suppose that we should even decorate the reception hall and stuff, but really, I feel for her. This whole traditional wedding process is a huge pain in the ass if all you want to do is commit yourself to your sweetheart and have a party with all of your family and friends. As another woman who has not been dreaming of that day since I was 5, I deeply sympathize with her lack of interest in planning every little detail of the day. God forbid a woman focus on the point of the whole thing rather than the details.

Death and Taxes

I might not get this posted until after midnight, but it is 10:47 PM as I'm writing and I assure you that I have not gone to bed yet if it is after midnight.

Last night I read a book all night. Sometimes I do that. It's not even that the book is all that good, it's just a sort of rebellious streak that I have maintained from junior high. Even if my mother isn't around to hiss at me to go to bed, I just feel plain naughty when I stay up late reading. However, doing that does make me pretty dumb the next day. It could be worse, I could be hungover. Instead I'm just beyond tired. I have the dumbs.

So, perfect day to finally do taxes right? I whipped up a 1040EZ in about 20 minutes and I will be getting some money back, but not very much. I think there are stimulus checks this year too. They always seem silly to me. It's one thing to get a refund for the money that you paid in erroneously, but when you are exempt from paying income tax (due to a very low wage), and the government gives you back all of the money you paid in, plus an earned income credit beyond what you paid in, it seems a little odd to be getting more money besides. Really, I am making $500 off of the government this year. Just for filling out a 20 minute worksheet. Huhn. Nice work if you can get it. (Of course I don't feel too bad, you really have to be abysmally poor to make any money off of the government by income taxes. And $500 barely helps in that case. Every year when I do my income taxes I am amazed that I somehow managed to eat.)