The first pumpkin is the one that I carved. I was trying to copy my friend's Día de los Muertos design. Skulls are made of sugar and chocolate, and people celebrate the memory of deceased loved ones.

The second pumpkin is my boyfriend's. Notice that it has no teeth and it's smiling... what can I say?

I was sent a link this morning for this shirt. Obviously I have to buy it or I will lose my mind.

But with all my prep and anticipation for Halloween, I must say, I'm ready for it to be over. I'm a little tired. I think maybe I came on too strong with my pumpkin mania. I don't think I'll do the same thing with Thanksgiving... unless I start buying things with turkeys all over them. Actually, a cupcake pan that makes little cakes in turkey shapes would be kind of awesome. I'm ahead of my time.

Happy Halloween to everyone and to your family! I hope it's full of treats (not tricks), spooky stuff, and old, cheesy horror movies.

How Do You Keep a Jack-O-Lantern From Rotting?

It seems like you don't!

Texture

Incase you were wondering, no, Blogger has not yet fixed the issue with my title bar, nor have they even responded to say, "hey we got your message," or "look, Blogger is a free service, so deal with it."  Nothing. 

I've had some developments in the case of the missing career.  On Friday I ran into a woman I went to college with on the metro.  We talked for awhile about what was going on in our lives, and I mentioned my law school/career search/nurse shadowing experiences.  She reminded me of another person we graduated with who had majored in nursing.  I couldn't believe I had forgotten about her!  As soon as I got home I Facebook searched her, and it turns out she works in labor and delivery at a hospital not 10 minutes away from my apartment!  I thought, surely, the higher powers are smiling down on me.

But before I get all higher powery, I'm just glad to have another outlet to speak with.  I contacted her and she quickly responded that she would love to meet with me.  So, even if I don't know what the hell I'm doing, I feel pretty blessed to have all these connections and to have had friends with such varied interests. 

We finally carved pumpkins this weekend.  Our friend who was visiting decided to carve a Mexican day of the dead type pumpkin.  I thought that was pretty creative and I tried to copy him.  But he's an artist, and I'm not... so... mine looks a little 'special.'

We also found a totally sweet book sale this weekend at the local library.  It was really big and they had pretty amazing selection.  We bought a cardboard box full of books (which we have no space for on any of our bookshelves, so I'm in the market for another one).  I bought The Corrections: A Novel, Stiff (which I've been interested, but terrified, of buying for months), The Little Friend, Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe (on Halloween my junior year in high school, my English teacher turned off all the lights except for some spooky ones, played a CD of Halloween sounds, and had students come up to the front of the class and read Poe from a ridiculously old and tattered book.  I had a great time, and I'd been looking for a reasonably priced Poe collection ever since.) , and Lonely Planet: Hawaii.  The boyfriend bought about three times as many books as I did.  I've never seen him buy things so impulsively, but the most expensive book I bought (the Poe) was only $4, so I guess you have to take advantage of the excellent sales when you can! 

The book sale was really great.  It made me think again, "How can I go towards the sciences when I love books so much?  When I'm actually good at reading something and then writing about it?"  Basically, I should just get kicked in the face.  And maybe I will... because now I've got to go to work.

What Do We Know

I am pretty exhausted.  It's been such a busy week, and I've been acting like a crazy woman.  I need to sleep for a while. 

We have a visitor coming up today to stay for the weekend; sometimes this place is like a hostel.  I'm excited for him to come, but right now I just feel completely drained. 

My mother has called a few times since Wednesday.  It feels so strange not telling her where I went (the icu).  I'm trying to keep everything about my career search secret.  I'm not telling them any options I'm considering, what I'm doing to get there, who I'm talking to - none of it.  I don't want them to influence me in any way.  They'll say they've never influenced me about careers, but that's absolutely wrong.  Some of the things I just grew up hearing make me feel it's already too ingrained in my mind to take back.  For example, they've never had anything nice to say about psychology.  So I never even took a psychology class in college.  If I ever wandered down that road they'd completely flip out, and I don't know if I could.

It would be great to find someone to untrain my mind.  In a Gilmore Girls episode a few weeks ago (yes, poor example), Lorelai said something about how in life she's always done things to go against the rules her very strict parents set up.  What if she really doesn't like any of those things?  What if she only likes them because her mother doesn't like them?  I've wondered that before myself.  How much is me and how much is the safety barrier I've set up?  What if I didn't have that instant aversion to what they support?

But it's not quite that simple for me.  I'm pulled in both directions, sometimes so much so that I can't really form an opinion on my own.  The best example here is politics.  My parents are pretty conservation.  My dad is more pragmatic, my mom is more, "blow them all up."  My boyfriend and his family are liberal city.  When I'm with my parents, I think they're insane and I side with the liberal half.  When I'm with my boyfriend's family, I feel that they go a little too far.  I can't decide which side to support on my own.  I've grown up hearing, "less government and lower taxes," and that information influences me so much that I have a hard time accepting anything.

To toss a cliche and a popular chain restaurant name in here - T G I F!

When Money Doesn't Talk

By the way, on my way to my shadowing experience last night I hailed a cab.  This is the second cab I've flagged down on my own.   Maybe it's something about me, or maybe cab drivers are insane, because I always flag down the weirdest people.

On my first by myself cab experience, the driver didn't know how to get there.  He asked me to give him directions, and I really didn't know myself.  Yesterday, the cab driver just didn't want to take me any where at all.  I told him where I needed to go and he just grunted and sat there.  I said, "uhh... can you not go there?"  He replied, "Nah.... I couulldd...," in an extremely whiney, 5-year old kind of way.  Then he said that he knew someplace better to take me and he started driving there.

What is this?  Hop in a cab and see where the driver feels like going?  Finally he relented and got me where I needed to be, but only after a ridiculous amount of hair pulling.  He got pretty friendly towards the end of the trip.  But seriously, what is the deal with cabs?

I Don't Know That I Believe in Divine Intervention, But Someone Please Just Point Me in the Right Direction

I don't know how much I can say because I don't want to get anyone in trouble.  Let's just say I was in a certain ICU.  Does everyone know what an ICU is?  I didn't, honestly.  It's pretty darn bad.  Here it was people who have just come out of surgery.  Most of them are still unconscious.

I had the scene in my mind that I would be following her around on some rounds.  It would be long hallways with many little rooms.  She'd go into the rooms and say hi, close curtains, bring food, and I'd peek in.  Obviously I had little idea of what a Nurse Practionner does. 

We were in a big room with around 13 beds.  People were not really separated from each other.  Some were doing better than others.  One person was not closed up yet from surgery; they showed me all this and more.  The ICU is not playin' around!

I never in one million years expected to see all that I did.  Like I said, my image of all this was pretty tame.  It was interesting, and it was an amazing and invaluable experience.  I'm just really not sure how I feel about it.

I was a History and Philosophy major, with strong leanings towards English and Art History as well.  I wrote and read about life and death, long and flowery prose about not going gently into that good night.  My thesis was on how a murderer's intent factored into their punishment in Imperial China.  I hang out in coffee shops.  I've defined myself my entire life by my artsy, liberal arts side.  Am I a science person?  Can I even dare to cross into that realm?  What happens to the rest of me?

I might be more confused now than I've been yet.  True, this is just the first career path I've explored since law school, but I don't really know what my second and third paths would be.  The search is exhausting, and I don't understand why it has to be.  I don't see my friends going through all this; why is it so much more clear for them?

I'm not saying I'm canning the idea of nursing, but it's definitely a lot to take in.  It didn't gross me out or make me squeamish, but it was certainly something I'd never seen before and that I'll never forget. 

Pepsi One = Half the Fun

Currently drinking Pepsi One. 

A 12-pack of Diet Pepsi was $5.30 on Sunday... WTF?  Pepsi One was $4.99... still WTF, but a little less so.

I don't know about this Splenda stuff.  Does anyone remember the commercial with the Splenda fairy?  It was a magical land with Splenda floating around... or maybe that was crack.

Saving Early Really is KEY!

Alright, shoot me, I don't have an exact source for this.  It's from the Washington Post; that's all I can give you.

But I thought this information was so staggering that I just had to post it:

a 25 year old who invests $2,000 each year for 40 years... total investment: $80,000... yield at age 65 assumed a 10% return: $973,704
a 35-year old invests $2000 each year for 30 years.... total investment: $60,000... yield at age 65 assuming a 10% return: $361,887

25 year old invests $2,000 each year for 8 years and nothing more for 32 years.... total investment: $16,000... yield at age 65 assuming a 10% return: $531,200
35 year old invests $2,000 each year for 30 years... total investment: $60,000... yield at age 65 assuming a 10% return: $361,887

$973,704?  Holy hell!  Why haven't I started a Roth IRA yet? 
Maybe I'd feel better about it if I had an extra $2,000 just lying around!

Shadow

Today is a pretty important day for me.  Yes, I'm going to go to work, have too much to do, and have to deal with some snotty attitudes.  But after work I am going to attempt to hail a taxi and scurry off to shadow a nurse for a few hours. 

I don't know what we're going to do or how much I'll be able to see, but I'm excited for the experience.  Maybe I'm hoping to get too much out of it, but it could certainly be the thing to make or break me with this career path. 

At the very least, maybe I'll get a set of scrubs out of it that I can wear for Halloween...

When Facing Stormy Seas

And when times get tough and the job gets rough, I just have to remind myself, "at least it's not law school."

When your boss gets fishy and makes you wonder if he really does have Asperger Syndrome, you just have to smile and nod because it sure beats the Socratic Method.

On the likely chance that your co-workers make you wonder, "Et tu, Brute?" quietly muse on the fact that you're not competing against each other for grades that determine the rest of your career and career path.  

And if that doesn't work, my father always says, "At least it's not Akron!"
(...hope I don't offend anyone from Akron...)

Still No Title, Only Pain

So... what can I do?  Blogger has defeated me.  I'm stuck writing entries via email which, while it has its perks, isn't as good as the real thing.  I can't add images, for one thing.  And Wordpress is pretty confusing.  I'm not sure how to mess around with templates, I know html but basically no CSS (which Wordpress is all about), and because I updated to Blogger Beta I can't transfer my entries from Blogger to Wordpress.  That last one is the real kicker.  So when/if I switch I'll either have to leave up this blog as an archive or transfer each individual entry... why don't I just let a bus run over me now?

Sorry if I'm bitter, but it's not exactly pleasant when technology craps all over you... especially all at once.  My digital camera has also been claimed by techno-Satan.  Sure, my camera is a little old as far as digital cameras go (5 years), and it's a little big and bulky, and it doesn't have a lot of fancy features like some people do (no night vision, and it's only 2.0 mega pixels), but at least it worked!  It produced decent pictures for what it was.  It got me all over Europe and back with some wonderful stories to tell.  Of course I took it with me this past weekend, and now I can't get the computer to recognize the camera.  The cord doesn't fit nice and tight inside the camera anymore, it wobbles around.  I'm going to try to buy an xD memory card adapter which will hopefully transfer the images, but I won't bet on anything these days.  Maybe for Christmas Santa will leave me a tiny, sporty, sharp image digital camera under the tree.

And if I hadn't learned my lesson yet (the lesson in question is that I shouldn't make software updates so quickly... especially to "beta" things), this morning I updated to Firefox 2.0.  This time I even remembered to save my bookmarks beforehand (Firefox and I went through a bout there where it would delete my bookmarks every day), but I didn't even need to.  Everything transferred over A-okay.  So far it looks good, but a word of caution: if you like Fasterfox, StumbleUpon, Adblock, or that Firefox Forecast thing, maybe it's not time to switch yet.  The old extensions are NOT compatible with new Firefox.  Hopefully new extensions will be made quickly (and hopefully Wordpress will create a system to transfer entries from Blogger beta). 

In other news, has anyone ever seen the commercial for Sunsilk hair products?  The commercial features a bunch of women walking around and then a voice comes on and tells them how bad their hair looks.  The voice says things like, "fluff all you want, honey, but your hair is still flat as [I don't remember the rest...]."  The one that applies to me is probably the woman with big curly hair.  The voice says, "OH! Somebody get a straight jacket for that! BLUE! BLUE!"  "Blue" refers to the color of which type of product you would buy.  Blue is "anti-poof,"  yellow is for flat hair, pink is for dry hair, etc.  This commercial ALWAYS make me feel bad about my hair.  So, no kidding, on Sunday when I was at the grocery store I bought the "Get Hairapy" shampoo and conditioner. 

Talk about good marketing?  I haven't noticed my "straight jacket" kicking in yet, but hopefully it will soon.  If you're willing to sit through a quick video of some rather obnoxious men talking about hair, you can get a free sample on their website.  There is even a "Get Hairapy" blog!  Canadians really take beauty seriously?  Don't forget the free sample!

Do you use WordPress?

I've been trying to set something up there, and usually I think I'm pretty competent about this stuff. But, damn, it's really confusing!

One good thing about all this: now I can blog clandestinely at work! But, my boss is back today after being gone for awhile. So it's probably going to be a rough day.

This weekend I visited my alma mater for the second time this year. It was excellent and amazing. Last time boyfriend and I went back we spent time with our younger friends, but this past weekend we were able to really talk to people we graduated with. After a day of community service on Saturday that included extending a pig shed, laying rail ties, and putting up wire fencing to keep coyotes from eating some horses, all the while nestled in the lovely Blue Ridge mountains, the alumni had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. There were seven of us at dinner, which is a great size to still be able to talk to everyone. I felt bad for any tables around us, though.. our conversation probably wasn't that appetizing. Two out of the seven of us are in medical school, and they just loved talking about their cadavers.

I talk to people from work, I meet people from other people's work, but nothing compares to the people I met in that service fraternity. Maybe it's because I could say something really stupid and be pretty weird and they would still love me. We'd still be bonded together through this organization. We're brothers, we're family. There's nothing better than having that support and some excellent,
relaxed conversation.

That's ENOUGH, Title Bar

This is getting ridiculous... it's been forever. It's not a problem that I even created because I use a Blogger template. All I've tweaked are some colors and added a header. But Blogger still hasn't responded to my cry for help e-mail.

p.s. The reason you're seeing a title right now is because it only works when I email posts to my blog.  And if I try to edit that entry in Blogger, the title bar goes away again... great.

... Still no space for a title...

So the little block where you can put your blog title... it's disappeared! If you see it, please tell it to come back. I think the issue somehow started when I was experimenting with posting entries via e-mail. Apparently the experiment failed miserably.

In addition, I was using a different computer the other day and I noticed a nasty looking glitch in my template. I wish I knew why it was there or how to fix it completely, but since I'm not a Photoshop wizard I don't have a clue. I also don't understand why my blog would have errors that are only visible on everyone else's computer but mine!

If I could make a title, I would call this entry, "Bite Me, Blogger."

Please forgive the lack of updating while I deal with these issues. Thanks!

Blink, Part I - The Science of Marriage

So I am one-third of the way into Blink, the book I mentioned earlier today, and already it has me thinking.

The author, Gladwell, is discussing the work of a man named John Gottman. Gottman wrote a 500 page treatise called The Mathematics of Divorce which attempts to show that marriage has a kind of morse code to it. He has made a coding system with 20 categories for every conceivable emotion that a married couple may express while talking. Disgust, contempt, anger, sadness, whining, stonewalling, neutral... all of these are given numbers. Gottman and his staff get a couple to sit in a room for 15 minutes and ask them to discuss a topic from their marriage that has become a "point of contention." There are electrodes clipped to their fingers and ears, their heart rate is measured, and they even have a "jiggle-o-meter" to record how much they move around in their seat.

If Gottman analyzed an hour of husband and wife talking, he can predict with 95% accuracy whether or not they will still be married in 15 years. If he watches them for 15 minutes, he can predict with 90% accuracy.

Gladwell says that he watched some of Gottman's tapes and tried to predict the state of the marriage himself; he only had about 50% accuracy. Gottman and his staff really analyze every movement, gesture, split second of eye rolling, etc. in a way that the untrained eye just couldn't do.

It's kind of scary to think that your whole marriage can be dissected in just 15 minutes. Gottman is so well trained at this that he says he can even get a good sense of whether a marriage may end in divorce while eavesdropping at a restaurant! Also, within the 20 marriage codes he has distinguished an even more focused grouping of those categories which he calls the "Four Horsemen:" defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. If one or both partners in a marriage is showing contempt toward the other - it's trouble city.

Although I think my boyfriend and I treat one another amazingly well, reading this of course makes you wonder what kind of morse code you're giving off. How we treat each other is so important. It's off-putting to think that an entire marriage can be judged in 15 minutes, but maybe it's true. Maybe a couple's little scrappy moments can turn into huge shitty moments, and Gottman is tuned in to what some couples are probably trying desperately to cover up.

The Tipping Point

Last week I finished reading The Tipping Point. When I started it I was looking for something analytical; I didn't want to read more fiction. It had actually been a long time since I'd read a book for pleasure. Law school threw more than a few wrenches in that pasttime.

And then, this may sound bizarre, but I was a little afraid of reading again. I can't explain it, but being off the horse for so long just made it seem impossible to get back on. How do you choose a book? What if it's not any good? When should I make time to read - before bed, in the middle of the day? Reading used to make up so much of who I was and how I defined myself, I couldn't just skate back into that.

But, somehow I did it. Even though most of my reading time was to and from work on the metro (when I could get a seat). It was nice, though. It made going to work a little less painful. And no matter how much work numbed my mind during the day, I could take a few seconds to think about what I was reading and destress with it on the way home.

It's a book about change. In particular, it's a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. For example, why did crime drop so dramatically in New York City in the mid-1990's? How does a novel written by an unknown author end up as national bestseller? Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill? Why is word-of-mouth so powerful? What makes TV shows like Sesame Street so good at teaching kids how to read? I think the answer to all those questions is the same. It's that ideas and behavior and messages and products sometimes behave just like outbreaks of infectious disease. They are social epidemics. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.

It's a very interesting read, and I think there's a lot of truth in it. Sometimes I felt like Gladwell was beating me over the head with his point, but his stories are great. It's amazing how people pick things up from one another.

The author talks about three kinds of people: Mavens, Connectors, and Salesmen. As I was reading about these groups the author has made I could really envision people in my life who fall in to these. I could see how the scale tips.

I picked up another book by the author called Blink.

It's a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. When you meet someone for the first time, or walk into a house you are thinking of buying, or read the first few sentences of a book, your mind takes about two seconds to jump to a series of conclusions. Well, "Blink" is a book about those two seconds, because I think those instant conclusions that we reach are really powerful and really important and, occasionally, really good.

Hopefully this one will be as good as the first.

My First Time Buying Marie Claire

And probably my last time. I only succumbed because I had to support my beloved SMG who is on the cover this month.

And then I had to make a collage of the photos, put it in a poster frame, and hang it above my desk.

I'm not saying you need to go to my, ahem, extremes... but if you're a Buffy lover, then there's no excuse!

Lovely Time Lapse Video - Happy Weekend

When Impending Doom Isn't Doom At All

My boss came into my office yesterday, shut the door and asked, "Can we talk?"

If my life was a play, the soliloquy would have gone like this, "shitshitshit I'm getting fired! I knew I shouldn't have been reading Pink is the New Blog at work! I knew that dream I had about my company being able to read my Google Talk messages felt real! And what about that time I wouldn't stay late on Friday because I had plans to be somewhere? He's just been waiting for the perfect time to corner me when I'm not expecting it! He waited until I had finished my special projects and now I'll get the axe!!"

So, basically a complete freak out.

But despite my fears, things actually turned out quite differently. I didn't catch a lot of what he said because I was a little wrapped up in my own (stupid) panic. I did hear that even though my probationary period isn't due to be over yet, he doesn't think it's necessary to wait any longer. All my benefits officially kick in ASAP, and I got a raise!

This is the part where I should have crossed stage left, firmly shaken the man's hand and said, "thank you." Instead I gave a, "uhhummmThank you!uhhh ummmduhhduhh." I was more than a little surprised and dumbfounded.

But afterwards I felt very Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic:

I'm the king of the woooorld!!! WOoooOOo!

Where's the Party?

I don't know that I appreciate the sass of this article in the Metro Express today:

AH, AUTUMN. WHEN the air develops a still, calming chill, the leaves ignite in quiet fireworks and people combine pumpkin with every edible substance on the planet. This morning, as we enjoyed a plate of pumpkin pancakes, Pumpkin-Os cereal, a cup of pumpkin yoghurt and a grande pumpkin-spice latte from Starbucks, we were thinking: Wouldn't it be nice to make something seasonal for dinner? Perhaps with pumpkin? With some nice pumpkin pie with pumpkin ice cream for dessert? Apparently, as Yahoo notes, we aren't the only ones.
» "30 ways to eat a pumpkin." [Yahoo! Buzz Log]

What's wrong with a little seasonal cheer? I will, of course, be browsing the recipes later.

So, what do you do for Halloween when you don't have kids, you're not in school, and you live in an apartment? I don't believe we'll be getting any trick-or-treaters. The boyfriend knows someone who is having a Halloween party, but I don't know them. And I'm not sure that it would be my kind of Halloween party. I'd like decorations, good friends, and good food; I believe this party will be sketchy area, strangers, and slutty costumes.

I'm not even sure if I should try to figure out a Halloween costume because I don't have any plans yet. But just from looking around for ideas it's pretty clear that all a female costume requires is something low cut in the chest and barely covers your ass. As "Mean Girls" so aptly put it:

In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut, and no other girls can say anything about it. The hardcore girls just wear lingerie and some form of animal ears."

I don't know if I've ever been something "sexy" for Halloween. Most recently I've been Luigi (my roommate was Mario) and Artie - the strongest man in the world (from The Adventures of Pete and Pete, my roommate was little Pete, but I just got mistaken for Where's Waldo a lot). Maybe now is my chance to get sexy and go buy a corset and a set of fangs...

What do you do for Halloween?

Tuning in the Love

I'm having an I-want-to-go-to-nursing-school week, so I'm sure that following this will be an I-wanna-pee-my-pants week.

Also, you may remember that I have Sirius satellite radio. It keeps my mood light at work; in the morning I listen to "Alt Nation" (they play a strange assortment of mostly rock and pop), and in the afternoon I switch to "Chill" (which plays everything from light techno and house to Enya). The radio was also a huge lifesaver last year when making the drive from Pittsburgh to anywhere. But lately I'm wondering if it gives me more trouble than it's worth.

I got it as a Christmas present last year. Within the month I already had to take it back to Radio Shack, something about the car docking kit wasn't working. A few months later the screws started falling off the docking kit and I had to find new ones at Home Depot. And most recently, the power supply for the car kit died.

I figured that this time I could just take it to Radio Shack and they'd replace the part like last time... WRONG! Stupid Seredne, always thinking things might work the logical way! In fact, even though it's only the cigarette lighter/power supply part that died, I have to mail the ENTIRE damn radio package back to some department in Texas. They told me to send: the radio, the car docking station, the giant cords, the remote control, the instruction manuals (good thing I'm such a pack rat!), and the antenna.

Oh no, it gets better. After they receive the entire package via UPS, then they'll mail me a gift card. Then I have to trot my ass back out to Radio Shack (keep in mind they never have Sirius in stock and I'll have to go to 8 different stores) and purchase a brand new radio and car kit. All the while I'm paying for a monthly subscription that I haven't been able to use the way that I want. It's too ridiculous. I'd switch to XM satellite radio except that I have a subscription through December 2006.

I also recently learned that Sirius used to have a channel just dedicated to Folk, but right before I signed up they killed the channel thinking that the channels "Acoustic Coffeehouse" and "Bluegrass" were folky enough. Those channels really fall short, though. I wish they would bring "Folk Town" back.

One of the things that makes it so hard to go home is that I have such a great time wrapped up with such a painful time. My boyfriend's family is from the same city, so we often see them as well. Time spent with them is great: his father listens to loud folk music at night, he makes us some amazing home cooked meal, we play games, we have great conversation that isn't judgmental at all about careers or life, and the evening is full of laughter. They'll take us to festivals around town or have over a bunch of interesting people. My parents don't go out, they don't like people coming in, and we certainly don't have a night of folk music and laughter. We have nights of silence or screaming.

It's amazing how much sound or smell can evoke a memory or even a particular feeling about a time and place. I can't hear folk or celtic music without thinking of those happy times. I want to wrap myself in my happy memories and feelings. I want to snuggle up next to them and make a wall so that the hurt can't get in.

Those jerks better fix my radio!

Skeleton Dance!!

Holy crap, does anyone remember Disney's Halloween Treat? It was a little Disney Halloween special that aired many years ago. It featured snippets of popular Disney cartoons at the time (like Fantasia).

While reading over someone's shoulder on the metro today I noticed a mention of a "skeleton dance" on a featured blog. It's a clip from Disney's Halloween Treat! It's weird, and it's awesome to see how much cartoons have changed. Plus it takes me way back!

(click this blog title to watch it!)

It's Not Exactly a Pint of Ben & Jerry's

I came home with yesterday with guilt, sadness and a rampaging headache. Not even watching the antics on Bachelor in Rome last night helped (although it was funny to hear one of the women whose occupation is "socialite" call the others "commoners" and explain how she judges them because they weren't raised to be princesses like she was).

I even made another batch of pumpkin ice cream last night hoping that would make me feel better, and it didn't work! WTF! I may have even liked the recipe a little better when I messed it up and used egg whites instead of egg yolks! Don't ask me, I'm just a crazy woman.

But you probably already knew that. I could swear to you that I'm not crazy or compulsive, but after I tell you that I went out this weekend and bought those Williams-Sonoma baking pans I was oogling, why would you believe me? You probably also think I'm 800 pounds with chunks of pumpkin hanging out of my mouth and stuck in my hair the way I talk about food. You're probably thinking it's amazing I could even get out of bed let alone walk into Williams-Sonoma.

So, if you're still reading instead of reporting me online as another blogger on the edge... please enjoy this photo biography on the life of a pumpkin... except I cheated a little because I really used canned pumpkin instead of straining my own.

There's No Place Like...

It was one hell of a weekend. I went home to my parents' house. I realized, with some help, that I probably thought things were getting better because I don't live their anymore, not because they actually are. I wound up leaving the house pretty early on Sunday. They want me to go back again this coming weekend because my brother will be in town, but I don't know if I can do it. I let them guilt me so much all the time. It's probably time for me to get serious about helping myself so that they can't hurt me so much anymore. But it's scary, confusing, and of course I'm guilt ridden.

Happier thoughts or more detailed troubles may appear this evening...

Apologies, Explanations, Obsessions

Sorry, Internet, I haven't felt very Bloggery lately. I've been in a funk this week. And I'm sure you know what that is like.

A few things probably contributed to my funk:

a) My tense, uneasy feelings about work. These feelings mostly revolve around my boss, the uncomfortable atmosphere in the office because most people really don't care for the boss and have no qualms about making it known, and me thinking that I'm not really working to potential.

b) And on that note, my constant confusion about the future. At least in law school I looked forward to the end of law school. I was feeling like I had nothing to look forward to, that I could just stay in this job, or even in this smallish apt without ever finally being able to have a pup, forever.

c) Boyfriend had meetings and things that kept him from coming home pretty late every night this week. That may not seem like a huge deal, but when you're in a funk and you're making dinner for 1 every night it just gets increasingly depressing.

I am slowly emerging from the funk now. I realize a) is something that I can't change, but I'll have to change my attitude towards it. I can't let it affect me so much. I need to stay positive. And similarly towards b), I need to constantly remind myself that this isn't forever. It's probably for at most two years. I have so many things to look forward to, just because I don't have a date where I can put it on my calendar and make count-downs doesn't mean that it's any less real or definite.

So, hopefully I've explained my recent suck-blogging. It may not be gone all the way, what can I say? However I did get paid yesterday, and since I'm weak when it comes to Williams-Sonoma, as you very well know, I may have to crumble and buy my latest obsession.

What will those brilliant people think of next!?

Sometimes I Miss My Little House

In winter or summer,
it felt like I was hiding.

It's Always Darkest Before...

I'm feeling a number of strange and disjointed feelings that don't match. I think I just have a lot on my mind.

I've been really thrown by the news lately; it's just so sick. A 5th girl died from the shooting at an Amish school in Pennsylvania where, if you haven't heard, the gunmen let the boys go, tied up the little girls in a line, and shot them execution style. In national news we have a Republic Representative who makes sexual advances on very young and much less powerful boys. And closer to home, a young woman was murdered who went to my university.

It seems like too much lately. And last night my main concern was watching The Bachelor in Rome. It's a ridiculous reality show where the women all attack for the attention of one man and say things like, "I've got the secret weapon right here," while looking down at their enormous breasts that are bigger than my head.

The news and reality tv, both aimed at capturing or imitating reality, seem nothing like it.

So We Meet Again, Monday

Well, well, it's Monday already. And I am definitely one of those annoying people with "a case of the Monday's."

I had the night to myself on Friday, and it gave me a great opportunity to get caught up, finally clean and get some paperwork done like I always yap about. I also caught up with some friends. Everyone keeps asking me how it is living with boyfriend. But they ask it like they either expect it to be hard or want it to be hard. I don't know why they'd want this, but I can't help hearing it in everyone's voice.

What do they want me to say? "Dang, that boyfriend is always hogging the bathroom!" Well, it's just not true. Sure there are things that were a little different when I lived alone, but is that supposed to make it not worth living with someone?

On Saturday night we actually went out to some pretty divey bar, had a few beers and played pool. I didn't mind at all that it was a dive; it kept the anxious-single-young professional-20-somethings at bay. I didn't feel like I was out of place just because I wasn't wearing lingerie in public. It was really fun, but unfortunately for me I got a little tipsy (did I mention it was 9 or 10pm?). We were coming back from the bar, and when we got in the elevator four or five other random people got in at the same time. They were talking and one of the girls said to one of her friends,

"The only way to offend a girl is to talk about her nails."

Oh, you can imagine how this amused me. I started laughing inappropriately loud, and then everyone, including me, got quiet until we got to our floor and got off. It was funny and very awkward.

Basically, you can't take me anywhere.