Who DOESN'T Think They're Going Crazy?

Someone came into work a couple days ago and asked what "that big, red building up on the hill" was.

This building:


I laughed and told him it was Southern Virginia University, a local liberal arts college. His response was a simple "Oh," followed by a pause, followed by a "I thought it was a mental institution." I laughed even harder, explained that I attended the school, and that it was finals time, so "mental institution" probably hit the nail preeetty close to the head.

Mental institution, indeed.

Finals Week, Part VIII

I didn't think it was humanly possible to be this exhausted, but here I am, with a eight-hour shift ahead of me, and then two and a half hours in the library. I hate finals.

My last day at the Stop In is on Saturday, and I'm extremely touched by the number of people who have told me they'll miss me. It doesn't mean they actually will, but they took 4.3 extra seconds out of their day to say kind things to me, and if this last week has taught me anything, it is how precious 4.3 seconds are. I can write two sentences in that amount of time, or locate 15 relevant sources. Or stare blankly at the monitor while I try to remember what my argument was, why I even thought I could do this double major thing, and why I hate myself so terribly.

I'm living for Tuesday night. When I (hopefully!) start my new job.

Spending Money Is A Sign That I Actually Have A Day Off

I went to Wal-Mart today with the intention of buying two things: a scratching post, and a floor mat. (There was a third item on that list, a bag of Chester's cheese-flavored puffcorn, but I was certain that all production had ceased on the cheesed puffcorn, and all bags had been seized by some government agency, because I had been searching for the stuff for days and no dice.)

Upon entering I spotted the biggest box of plain Cheerios I had ever seen in my life, on sale, and I HAD to have it. HAD TO. I'm a determinist, so don't even bother arguing that with me. That right there blew the whole gameplan, and I went around the store buying all the stuff I'd been needing for ages, but had been too stingy to buy. My bedroom now has curtains. And we can actually Swiffer the floors again, which doesn't mean anything outside of my bedroom will actually be cleaned (I think our kitchen is a lost cause, really), but at least we have it, for appearance's sake.

Oh, and I went to Goodwill and found a stunning leather trenchcoat for $7. Be entirely jealous.

Life Changes

I've been trying for a couple weeks now to switch jobs to a more lucrative career (trust me, they do not pay me enough to deal with hick psychos all day, while I slowly feel my intelligence dribbling out and messing up the floor I just spent 45 minutes mopping), but there have been a few hangups.

Until last night Art looked at me and told me I could just work at Domino's, no hassle, making pizza, for $8/hour. SOLD.

I think I'm going to wait until the end of the semester, though to make the switch. That gives me enough time to fulfill the standard two weeks of notice that they certainly don't deserve and buy myself some khaki pants.

13

It's Friday the Thirteenth, so to celebrate this auspicious holiday, I have:

- Had to literally cut poo off of my kitten. With scissors. Which he didn't like one bit, and I was almost certain the ordeal would end with my cutting his tail off, but I guess it ended well. Except for the trauma experienced by both parties.

- Gotten locked inside my apartment - yes, inside. Kelly and I tried to get the attention of a passerby to open the door for us (it doesn't have a handle on the inside, so if it's closed, we can't open it from the inside), but just our luck, no one was walking by. So we called Frog, a friend of ours (and, um, the local fire marshall), who in turn called his buddy Randy - a local cop who was on duty at the time - to come see the fun. So all the people driving by on Main Street got to watch the police seemingly swarming our apartment. And Frog and Randy stood at our door for a couple minutes laughing at us before they would let us out so we could get to work. Awesome.

- Officially become hooked on energy drinks. It all started when I accidentally had a SoBe energy drink, not realizing what it was. That kept me up for about a day and a half, and now today Kelly bought me a Red Bull. I am so frickin' buzzed. Buzzzzzzzzed.

April Showers

My kitten is curled up, playing with his feet next to me, and I'm thinking, Is work REALLY going to happen today?

It's a rainy, cold, terrible day, and all I want to do for the next five hours is watch movies. Then mosey on over to the library to get this presentation for my Platonism class done, and hope that one late-night library employee is there again. He lets me print out stuff for free; I'm pretty sure he considers that flirting, and I am willing to take it.

I'm feeling the need for a partner-in-crime. Life is stale right now, and I don't do stale. I'm just going to try to hold on 'til the end of the semester, and somehow manage to crank out two more fantastic papers - it's what I do.

Home Again, Home Again...Okay, Everytime I Come Home It's the Same Title

One paper down, two more to go. Well, four more if you count graded revisions, but whatev.

Since it's Easter weekend, I decided to take off work and come home. Apparently my parents now own a NordicTrack. Which they've had for "well over a year." Never mentioned it to me, once, and I've never seen it, which is...I mean, NordicTracks are HUGE. I don't know how this happened, but it's very expressive of my new relationship with my family: estranged and vaguely embarrassing let's-pretend-it's-not-ours child. But I got to work out on the NordicThing for a while, and that was fun. So much more boring than running; I almost cracked a book open and tried reading, but settled on staring at an exposed nail for a while instead.

And now I'm waiting for my younger brother to scrub out our tub, the tub that has steadily become en-caked with his boy germs for the last who knows how many months since I've been gone (apparently "well over a year," by the feel of things) so I can bathe in it. Bubble bathe in it. Maybe even with a candle or two for atmosphere, mmm. And then there is a chocolate Easter rabbit waiting for me in the kitchen; waiting to be steadily nibbled away until he is just one small, disgusting little nub of maybe-this-is-chocolate that I don't think anybody actually eats. Some people lose it under the couch, other people lodge it in the back of their fridge for a few months until it fuses with the old tortelini and becomes some jellied congolmeration of ew, and probably others just look at it for a bit and toss it into the garbage. I think I'll do some scientific testing on my nub this year. Science seems to be pretty in right now.