alias recap

since semaphoria mentioned it (and even though i had class last night but watched it when i got home) here's the high points and low points of last night's alias:

• high: marshall explaining the concept of a spork to jack
• low: marshall using a spork to dig someone's eye out

• high: the use of 1950's vehicles in present day cuba (which is funny, although i have no idea how accurate it may be)
• low: sydney's wig in cuba

• high: seeing marshall at home with carrie and mitchell
• low: seeing marshall understand what it's like to deal with working deep-cover while having a family

• high: marshall yelling at vaughn when marshall's out in the field and vaughn's in the field office
• low: he didn't say "my name is marshall j. flinkman and i'm here to rescue you" even once

• high: getting home finally after the world's longest day
• low: not having any hot and spicy cheez-its at home to greet me
  

(for the record, semaphoria, my love, i don't want to do covert action or counterintelligence so i'm not too worried about being captured in the field and buried alive...)

russian rock stars

the moscow times (free!) report that rock stars are being recruited to "fight a revolution."

now THAT is a revolution.

covert action and counterintelligence

now that's the sexy stuff. or so my international intelligence services professor keeps saying. and then he get's sort of embarassed and acknowledges that since he's an old guy his idea of sexy might be different than our idea of sexy. but this is what the class is about.

however, we all know that CA and CI are the sexy stuff.

what a kick-ass class. how ridiculous is it that this is a class i get to take?

how awesome is it that this is a class i get to take?

it's just past 11

and i've already had an exhaustifyingly long day...

must nap before class tonight...

things that make me go hmmmm.....

• i have a subscription to latina magazine. i didn't pay for it. it just keeps coming to the house
• the spazmonkey's mouth waters when i cook anything with artichoke hearts or white wine
• ragweed is related to melon
• the us doesn't use color-differentiated denominations of paper money
• i can't type money without typing monkey first.
  
• puppies are so cute but they grow up to be spazmonkeys
• people can have babies. there didn't use to be a baby but suddenly there's a whole little person there where there was none!
• the internet
• dogs smell like popcorn (buttery, too) when they sleep
• if you throw together some milk, butter, eggs, sugar, and flour then get it really hot, it becomes cake
• the simpsons and friends are funnier in syndication
• i've never been to washington, dc
• cop rock
• cheese is the best moldy goodness ever

i've been a little sad lately... nothing major, just blue...

Kathy's Song
(c) Paul Simon 1965

I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls

And from the shelter of my mind
Through the window of my eyes
I gaze beyond the rain-drenched streets
To England where my heart lies

My mind's distracted and diffused
My thoughts are many miles away
They lie with you when you're asleep
And kiss you when you start your day

And a song I was writing is left undone
I don't know why I spend my time
Writing songs I can't beleive
With words that tear and strain to rhyme

And so you see I have come to doubt
All that I once held as true
I stand alone without beliefs
The only truth I know is you

And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There but for the grace of you go I

sunny and 72

after lamenting our crappy weather last week, in denver today it is to be sunny and 72. yay!




i really need a digital camera though...

majikat

i caught the tail end of cat stevens' majikat dvd on pbs last week. lately i've also been obsessed with his songs "peace train" and "on the road to find out." (especially the latter, that's the story of the last 10 years of my life)

i go through phases where i want to write and perform music so badly it aches... i'm there right now in a current fit triggered by the aforementioned majikat (even though it's a concert with magicians. the random 70's people).

i have so many things to say (duh - i blog up to 4 times a DAY) but i feel so inadequately prepared for give voice to them, and my lyrical ability is mediocre at best. i am much better with prose than poetry. and it is so frustrating not to be able to put the things i want to say into song.

i feel much like salieri must have felt. and it sucks.

aw, nuts...

it is officially underway.

spring quarter, that is.

where homework and classwork takes precedence over my life, makes me hate my job (which i don't), and makes me check my email compulsively.

i might be looking for a new internship this summer.

due to a governmental overthrow (in the host country), changes in budgetary appropriations (ditto), and other fun stuff, the balkans trip might not happen this summer. {sad sad sad} the trip will likely still happen, but the ministry of defense, as well as the new defense minister aren't willing to foot the bill this year, so it will be monumentally more expensive and drastically scaled down in scope. the class that's required to go to the balkans is still on, i'll still be disaster certified for the red cross, we're still doing a 3 day simulation in the CO high country in may (i'm going to need to increase the ol' cardio as we'll be about 10,000 ft. elevation), and new for this year, we're going to be certified for combat medical training. so in addition to delivering travis in the woods, i'll also know how to tie off an artery, do a field tracheotomy, and do really crude but lifesaving field surgery.

i think the former EMT and i were the only people who didn't turn slightly green when presented this information.

but worry not, i shall not practice on you if you don't need medical intervention. primum non nocere




i will be really disappointed if i can't afford to go to the balkans.... the program scares the bejesus out of me, but i think i have to do it for myself...

mmmmm... now that's some good friday...

it just don't seem so right to say happy good friday! so i guess i'll say, hey! it's good friday!

good friday linktastic:

• wanna get your stuff into MoMA? sneak it in!
• sorry all you shy sumo wrestlers, no pants for you!
• way of the cross at the vatican.
• now's not the best time to visit kyrgyzstan.
• some 68 million year old soft tissue was found in MT.
• pinochet (boo, hiss) won't be tried for the murder of his predecessor.
• for the second time in my memory, there's poultry running around on the CA freeway. last time was about 2 years ago and there were chickens in the carpool lane of the 405. less environmentally friendly, today there's a rooster in the right lane of the 605. (hard to link to traffic info from LA radio station heard over the internet)
• why britney loves her some kabbalah.
• quick! there's only 1 more day of the glory of easter at the crystal cathedral! (my memory from 22+ years ago is that camels are smelly and it was WAY too long)
• come easter, don't forget to celebrate the easter monkey!
• since i'm allergic to bananas, i may develop a latex allergy sooner or later.

happy purim everyone!

whew! thanks to p-man for reminding us that at sunset it will be purim! hooray queen esther! (and hooray for encouraging people to get so drunk they cannot tell between the good guy and the bad guy in the name of piety!)



(p-man if you want me to use yours instead let me know, and up it goes!)

when i called crazy mara and said, "happy purim, crazy mara!" she said, "THAT'S RIGHT! i have to call my mom! can we go to services tonight, dressed up as esther and eat hamentaschen (this would be a perfect segue into what i love about judaism, but who's got time for that? - hf)? oh! that's why emeril was making hamentaschen last night! i can't believe i forgot it was purim! ohand then it's passover! tomorrow's passover!" well, no, that's in april, but who am i to argue with a markowitz?

ah, passover... that's REALLY the perfect segue into what i love about judaism...

yes, the day of bitter herbs, unblemished lamb, and unleavened bread. (get your candles! it's time for a leavening hunt!) but i still don't have time to get into that...

Bucko II

a few weeks ago i named the illustrious ipod bucko. i named it in memory of the crab that gave his life that cherz may have his own. and that made the toilet noise stop.

then, my own bucko had a stroke. so i sent it to apple, and they fixed it and sent it back. i got it back last wednesday. and it was completely dead. i couldn't restore it, i couldn't sync it, i couldn't update it, i couldn't reset it, it just showed me the freaking folder with exclamation point. so i sent it back. (apple charged me money for sending it back, but i said, no no, you broke it more, you fix it on your nickel, biznatch) so yesterday i got my own shiny new ipod have put my 2500+ songs on it, and have some 25 gb left. that means i get to go back and put the songs off of the cds i don't listen to much on it since i decided against it in the interest of saving room on my hard drive, but then i got an external hard drive and all is happy happy.

since i have bucko ii, all is happy happy happy!

now playing: "the shriners loaned us cars, we raced up and down the sidewalk twenty thousand million times..." {sigh} one of my favorite songs ever...

three, THREE posts in one day!

i haven't been able to get count van count out of my head since the fredster brought him up.

but now i've got a news link collage to share (i've taken a muscle relaxer and am slightly punchy and irreverent at the moment):

• undercover agents go nutty (nytimes.com)
• kyrgyz civil war threats makes people take faces out of posters (moscowtimes.com)
• the oft overlooked biblical elmo and powerpuff girls (haaretz.com)
• patch adams tries to help tsunami victims laugh it off (english.al-jazeera.net)
• the always wordy rockland, me police blotter (knox.villagesoup.com)
• that chess hound bobby fischer gets to be icelandic (news.bbc.co.uk) (okay, he's said some unkind things about 9/11 and jews, and is maybe not as agoraphobically benign as we thought)
• and just because the flexoril is making me silly, don't click this if you don't want to see barney doing a hard-core rap video.

update (3/24): okay, i know that most holidays are bastardized away from their original purposes. christmas is all madison avenue-y, halloween is refined begging, easter is a strange fertility rite and candy fiesta, and purim's about dressing up. tradition says on purim you dress as mordecai or esther or someone from the story. but as a mexican?

ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!

i gots the pinched nerve in my left trapezius... whilst palpating said trapezius, it is approximately the density of italian marble. it's making me wiggle and assume startling positions in my chair at work (i.e. sprawled on desk with my head at unnatural angles to the body)

also, i gots the inner ear itch that i can feel in the back of my throat.

(ew...that makes me think of the dirtiest thing someone's ever said to me in a bar. or out of a bar, for that matter)

i would like some muscle relaxers very much please.

and a chicken greek salad from pete's for lunch.

thank you.

the poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

happy birthday jillybean!

i have a card for you and everything! but i have no stamps. i'll work to rectify that forthwith.

enjoy this, your 27th year because if nothing else, it's how old i'll be for the next 2 months!

love you!

boy oh boy...

i decided what i would like for my birthday please. it is not for 2+ months (freddie, when is my birthday?), but i have made my choice:

banjo lessons at swallow hill
a 5-string banjo

mountain dulcimer lessons at swallow hill
a mcspadden hourglass dulcimer
(if you want to know what a mountain dulcimer sounds like, please go here)

and heck, a swallow hill membership.

i'll even write you a thank you note sans quotes.

oooh.

last night i made the tastiest dinner i've made in years...

shrimp, artichoke hearts, and spinach in a white wine, lemon, and garlic sauce over angel hair. for those of you not so much in the know, angel hair isn't the follicular output of celestial beings, it's pasta.

and now at work, i have to read a year's worth of financial reports for my department and track the spending on events like those i plan.

yippee!

uncontrollable "auto-pet peeving"

so, i made a rambly, long winded comment to p-man the other day, and mentioned that putting "strange" things in quotes is a pet peeve of mine. it gives things seriously sarcastic overtones, and just makes people think you're "special." since making said, i have not been able to stop putting things that don't quite "belong" in quotes.

see the posting below this one for case in point.

(and yes, thank you cards that read: "thank you" for your generosity are the worst)

justice is blind, but yes that was a hot, single lawyer.

this is peppered with superficial, yet true observations. i embrace my shallow parts and wallow in the...other stuff.

so i did my civic duty for the next 12 months and went to jury duty today. i was closer to being selected for a jury than i have been ever! as in, i was in the jury box.

but, no they didn't want me. which is okay because how much more boring could the case have sounded? it was a mortgage company suing a dude. that thought the trial would last 2 days, and deliberations wouldn't be much more than the mortgage company had a really cute single lawyer (i'm such a deep person - so take note p-man, people will get all dreamy eyed and think you're the most interesting person ever if they think you're cute, even if they're not listening to what you're saying), and a boring mortgage companyguy. the defendant had a greasy mullet, wasn't wearing socks (well, he DOES live in hawaii, even if it was SNOWING HERE THIS MORNING) and had a lawyer in a really cheap suit (again - these are just superficial impressions, but it made me not like the cheapsuitlawyer so much when he started talking. the lesson, again, is nicer suits make a better impression overall).

all in all though, i'm not a jury duty shirker, and one of those people with "beliefs" that people should be tried by a jury of their peers, and think it's important to go, even if it's inconvenient and you have to stand out in the rain/snow mix for 45 minutes because they take forever doing the security screenings in the courthouse. but that doesn't mean you can't be relieved when you're not selected to sit on the jury of a boring case. and it CERTAINLY doesn't mean you can't be relieved when you aren't in the jury pool for the brent j. brents case. (even though i doubt his trial is anytime soon)

somewhere in the distance a dog barks...

ok, who am i kidding? the barking occurs like 3 feet from me, and it's driving me up a wall.

f.o. means yarn and sweater!

I gave the sis the poncho, it's officially out of my hands.

her scarf is in progress.

but to save myself from rowan polar smirk boredom, i bought a bunch of tahki cotton classic and with which to make myself this:



in celery as the MC:
and lilac as the CC:

instead of white as CC2, I'll just use more of the celery.

to ask the age old yarn question however, why don't the nice yarns just come in center pull skeins instead of making you do it your own self? anyone want to by me a yarn swift?

yo, step on my buzz why dontcha?

so supermo (me momma) is here, and she TOTALLY killed my monkeys are funny buzz.

by talking about chimpanzees (which are apes, NOT monkeys) who ate a man's extremities (face, feet, testicles, and all 10 fingers) and is now comatose in loma linda, ca.

because i'm not REALLY a grownup..

will someone look at this picture and tell me what the giraffes are looking at?

Storybook Knits Loving Giraffes Fine-Gauge Hand-Loomed Sweater

ok, end of my rope time

so i'm having issues with blogger AGAIN. here's the gist of what I was a-tryin' to post without the charm and humor:

i give all my friends nicknames. james the chick (aka fred, aaka semaphoria) said once upon a time that my nicknamed friends sound like superheros. since this is the internet and no one uss their real names, they are pre-superheroed, but tell me your superpower.

capturing moments

the internet is wonderful because:

• it shows you how to spell the word "ophthamologist"
• it is always on when you can't sleep
• it lets you maintain better correspondence with your far away friends than you have in years
• it lets you plug your friend's band repeatedly, ad nauseaum
• it teaches you how to knit silly things
• and it lets you see amazingly beautiful pictures from sites that are linked to sites that are linked to sites that you read

truly this post is about brownglasses.com. today's front page picture talks about remembering the first time song lyrics made sense to you. and to this day that song puts you back to the first time you understood those strung together sounds...

i am such a sucker for eloquence and good photography... but only when they're the echoes of genuine human existence.

because, isn't that what it is really about?

cozumel, here i come. okay, i lied...

i finished my paper, it's being emailed now, and i'm officially on spring break!

no sunny climes for me this spring break. nope, i'm staying in denver (where it's 31 and snowing), cleaning my house some more tonight, then hanging with the momma beginning tomorrow. oh, and working, too.

man, except for the seeing mom thing, spring break's gonna stink a little. if nothing else though, maybe the moms will take me grocery shopping - wouldn't that be something?

freaky dream

i just remembered i had a dream that my mom came to visit, my kitchen light fixtures flooded again, the bedroom floor caved in (interestingly i live in the basement and don't know how the floor could go much lower), and my spare room was INFESTED WITH RABID BATS. i think i feel my house isn't ready to show off to my momma...

a plug

since sxsw is all the rage for blogging these days, i may stick my proverbial oar in and plug

WORLD LEADER PRETEND

one more time. they'll be playing on the 17th at maggie mae's and once upon a time i saw something about them doing a radio show on the 18th, but can't find that information at this time (if you can, please let me know, and i'll sre as heck see if i can't stream that little gem)

(fyi, rockstar matt is second from the left in that picture)

update: the radio segment will be on kcrw on the morning of the 18th.

papers....gah!

i CANNOT put this paper off anymore! so why do i blog? because i want to put this paper off. i still need to clean and find my dpns. so insted of writing the paper, i've also been cleaning.

why do i go to wifi cafes when i have papers to write? i should go to cafes without wifi, or paid wifi service. i only have 4 of 15 pages done...

in other news, it snew here last night, and luckily the streets are all melted and clear. i got to capuvino (where they also have wine - another obstacle) and there was a scottish terrier sitting outside, next to the requisite community dog dish... he had teeny tiny snowballs hanging all over his fur! that's the cleareest memory i have of denver before i moved back here last may (other than the whole pope incident in 1993): my aunt's cocker spaniel, dudley (may he r.i.p.) playing with me in the back yard and havig snowballs dangling from his fur. then we used the blowdryer to melt them. i was 6 i think.

okay, terrorism assessment, ho!

that will be $9 gazillion, please.

i intend to propose to the chancellor and the president at the university of denver that it be illegal to work when it is lovely outside. complete with hefty fine.

(this is since it is evidently legal to have a paper due smack dab in the middle of spring break)

like today when it's 65, sunny, the sky is alarmingly blue and even though you hate parades you'd rather be watching denver's st. patty's day parade because you'd be outside and not in the library surgically attached to a computer at the fingertips...

everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads

you may not have recognized me driving around denver and its suburbs today. you may have thought you saw my car, but didn't recognize the driver, so you decided not to wave. however, if you thought you saw my car, but the driver looked more like someone who had a pizza in lieu of a face, that was indeed me driving... man, pms just gets funner and funner with age...

on a happier note, the poncho alluded to before (see: yay!) is completely finished. it's blocked (at my aunt's house on her kitchen island), it's washed (so as to avoid a massive allergic reaction in its recipient), and it's sewn. it's actually better looking once it's actually on than i thought it might be.

but, so help me god, that's the last time i do a straight stockinette rectangle.

sweetmonkeys! (a boring narrative of random things)

toes go in first, you knoe!

i've been busting to janet jackson's "rhythm nation" the past few days. i get interesting looks in the car because the weather's nice and the windows are down. and "rn" and "miss you much" are on a random cd that's followed by "tiny dancer" (hold me close, young tony danza) and preceded by "motown philly" (which always reminds me of the adorable 7th graders in our lip sync show in 9th grade who were cuter than cute. that event is what caused them to start implementing a ticket limit to shows because we sold that bad boy out and broke a few fire codes that night.)

and i am filled with glee to tell you that this quarter's classes are finito. completedamundo. have ceased to be. shuffled off this mortal coil, if you will. are pushing up daisies. (whoa... just started channeling monty python...)

i still have a little matter of my terrorism paper, but for all intents and purposes, that class is DONE!!! (and in course evaluations i know of QUITE a few people who created new orifices for the professor)

but last night, i went out to spanky's with my suicide bombing group after class which was alternately sickfun and aggravating. as in some of them were better to hang out with than others, and luckily the better than others ones are in a ton of my classes next quarter. then, i went to a bowling alley up by my house and met up with crazy mara and her friend keeley from work, and keeley's friends. mara was slightly cranky and ready to go, but then we started dancing to the theme song from st. elmo's fire "man in motion" and things got much more better. and we were doing our strange little dancing and singing things we do (this is usually when we forget we're in public, and it all comes back to us very suddenly. and yes, i was stone cold sober.) and we may have drawn a crowd, but it was stupidfun. then i went home and went to bed, got up, and went to work, where i'll work a 1/2 day then i'll go home and work on my terrorism final paper and go to lakewood and do some laundry and go home and have dinner with the pups, then go to crazy mara's and go out with her and yaymee. yay!

yay!

i finished my sister's poncho last night! (okay, i finished knitting it, but it stil needs blocking. more on that later) i wish i loved it. i don't like the colors (lion brand wool-ease thick and quick in green heather and white) because they remind me of junior high, and they're not the fun kind of contrast like red and orange in the pattern, and i wish i HAD done it in garter stitch instead of stockinette - it would be a bit stretchier...

at least i still have her scarf that i LOVE that is in the works... but i only have a week off of school, so it will be some time before that cabled piece of soft, rowan loveliness is finished... and although it's tiny tiny in the picture it's about 2.5 times that long at the moment - so although it's slow going, it IS going. (and will need blocking, obviously)

but as far as blocking a big rectangle, though it sounds easy enough to do, i just don't have the counter, table, or floor space to do that where my dog won't get fur all over the damp piece of tangled yarn that it is... so i may have to just break down and pay someone to block it for me... {sigh}

but there are some projects that i yearn to start, but won't so that I finish the pink scarf... there is actually a keller family project i want to start. however, it requires my addi 10.5 dpns, and currently they are MIA in my apartment.

once i finish my terrorism paper this weekend, i'll have to do an in-depth quarterly house cleaning because MY MOM IS COMING TO VISIT ON TUESDAY! yay for mommy!

hopefully i'll find them then.

monkeys are so funny

here's a snippet from the new york times in an article on robert blake's murder trial (registration required, but it's freeeeeeeeeeeeee!):

Earlier in the trial, a professor from the University of California, Los Angeles, testified as an expert witness about the psychotropic effects of cocaine. He said that he had smoked crack cocaine himself and sat in a cage with monkeys to teach them how to smoke cocaine as well.

well, duh, how else do you research monkeys on coke?

(random grammar nazi note: denver pop station kiss 95.7 undertook a new campaign in 2005 where they have reduced the number of commercials by 20%. in all of the commercials, they state that they have "20% less commercials." at least the dj's have been instructed during live segments to say "20% fewer commercials.")

everything zen

so, i finally broke down and bought a firewire card for my laptop.

and now the ipod works again.

but it doesn't charge the 'pod while it's updating.

yet in good news, i can finally blast concrete blonde's "joey" with the windows rolled down on my way to work.

one more class, one more paper, and the quarter's done.

and mama will be here in 1 week.

(speaking of mamas, hi travis! tell yer mama to check her snail mailbox in the next few days)

update: in my unending frustration with having problems with ipod syncing with itunes via usb, numerous resets and restores of the podster, finally getting the music back loaded on the pod-a-licious, i forgot the whole reason my problems started was that it was skipping. as in it would play only certain songs for about 25 seconds, and then it would skip to the next song, skipping over about 5 in line, and then play for the next 25 seconds. that problem is NOT resolved, so due to the joy of a 12 month warranty, i'm sending it in to apple when i get their shipping stuff and they're sending me a newbie. so, i have a firewire port now, and yay! a new pod in the chute.

it's one of those days...

...where i have nothing to say.

well, i have some things to say, like this:

"With the breadth of facilities that are capable of supplying the necessary elements for creating a biological weapon, it is particularly challenging to establish universal security standards that will apply to every facility. Between medical research facilities such as the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, to university biology departments, to school supply companies, to agricultural research projects, the biological agents that are genetically replicated and alterable into a biological weapon are readily available. Furthermore, the amount and detail of research in bioweaponry provides relative facility for constructing biological agents from scratch with partial DNA sequences and bacterial samples. Addressing this point, it becomes extremely unambiguous that designing and implementing a single standard for security in varying facilities is a monumental feat to implement on a national level, if not an international level. "

but i don't know if you want to read my thesis proposal. (gee, use, commas, much, heather?)

so i'll say this instead:

sjgisdjafgpomwerkl;gm skpadgjoawjgpmsvk;mas adfgjisdjfiwejtrkwmlfmasvmsofkg gjrogjrojgmvkgjnifgj gjrogjosrtjgkmdgfohtr9hktojkl;mgvoasf345tjsbrohj'g

{nods solemnly}

'tis the season...fa la la la la la la la la

it's time for procrastinating!

i have people leaving comments from posts in februrary, in december, in october...

for those of us on the quarter system, it's FINALS WEEK! (aka, i'll do anything BUT work)

me? i'm worst off when i have teeny papers to write. for instance, i have this tiny 3-5 pager that i basically know precisely what to say in, and i have been writing it since 9 this morning with a few (okay, millions of) tiny respites here and there.

and i had to redo my whole ipod and itunes again because it SUCKS to have a pc without a firewire port, and itunes/ipod.

update: speaking of procrastinating by looking at other peoples' blogs, the quote of the night comes from a comment following the great election of 2004:

"i voted for kerry, and i can't stand W, but it's not like we missed having ghandi and got hitler instead. it's more like we got a chimp instead of a haunted tree."

it has been two months

and this is still one of my favorite blog posts ever.

for your very own, go here.

don't you hate it when...

...you start to sing one song in your head and then it suddenly morphs to another song, and you can't remember which song says what and how each song goes independently of the other?

e.g. "the scent takes me dreaming of wild mountain thyme all around the purple heather..."

cherz brang it up

how do i post a powerpoint presentation?

Update: okay, i'm eventually gonna post the suicide terrorism slideshow up on my yahoo briefcase. i'll letcha know when it's done! i tried emailing cherz, but it got bounced back... :-(

sssssizzlin'

tonight's the big suicide terrorism presentation. i put the powerpoint on green slides (i believe the template name is "Glass Layers" if you're exceptionally curious). most of the other group presentations have been around 40 slides apiece. but the professor kept calling our presentation the ultimate, the big bang, the grand finale, so after some major editing we clock in at 96 slides. so if you have questions about al-Qaeda, HAMAS, Hizballah, Chechen Separatists, or the Tamil Tigers, lemme know, and i'll hook you up.

and although the presentation isn't until this evening, i did have to work this morning so i did my hair, i'm wearing a suit, and yes, so help me, my brown knee high boots. makeup will be applied in a few hours. vodka will be applied liberally after the presentation.

because if i wind up cracking under the pressure, at least they'll say, "she looked lovely when she fell to bits!"

random congressional committee moment

in my strategic intelligence class we frequently discuss the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI). they're abbreviated because all things governmental are abbreviated. and to make things simpler, the abbreviations are bastardized into words.

the hipsy and the sissy.

we talk about people who have served on the hipsy and sat on the sissy way more than i'm comfortable bringing up.

are you serious?

so a job that is truly a means to an end should NOT make me stressed or interfere with my schoolwork.

and truly, the things i'm working on aren't actually crisis, all things considered. yes, they seem important here, but the fact that there are people fighting for their lives across an ocean - heck, even upstairs in this very hospital! - makes the fact that we don't have someone to speak at a meeting in 10 days seem very important.