The world is actually really cool if you stop and look at it...

...too bad it's moving really, really fast.

X-Men are kind of my wheelhouse.

Today's Topic:

This Banner Ad (and no, the link won't take you there, it just makes it bigger so you can see it better).

What they were probably thinking:

"It's an obscure comic book character. No one will know who she is. We'll totally pass her off as, like, a super hot Greek goddess. With tits. And people will click on our ad because they want to see her, and they'll end up playing our stupid game instead."

Flaws in their reasoning:

1. Emma Frost is kind of a big deal if you're at all into X-Men.

2. "No one would know from looking at me that I was Greek." Except this time for real. Unless that hand is reaching for a homemade spanakopita.

3. Greek goddesses with tits are like this:

Real men order their mochas straight up.

I want to talk about The Girl Who Say Fuck A Lot's Best Wedding Ever, but I don't have any pictures yet, so you have to wait on that. All I'm gonna tell you now is, seriously, I've never had so much fun at a wedding in my life, and as a former catering employee, from a purely observational standpoint, I've never seen so many people having fun at a wedding.

Also, I'm quite sunburned, but I'm okay with that, because I somehow managed to keep my feet from being burned (even though I was wearing flip-flops and sometimes no shoes). It occurred to me as I felt the skin on the back of my neck baking and peeling that if my feet were sunburned, wearing running shoes and socks in the heat would be unbelievably painful.

But I'm good. I put in my Turtle Monday 10 this morning - three of those were faster with The Librarian, but after we stopped for water at the park, we separated. My legs felt kind of crappy because we did 26 miles on bikes yesterday afternoon. Is 26 miles on a bike a "long ride" or a "short ride?" I have no concept of distance on a bike. I mean, I know it took a long time but... is it like going for a 4 mile run or a 10 mile run?

Anyways. I went for the ride yesterday for two reasons, both of which are actually the same reason: I ate way too much mac n' cheese at the wedding. Sheer number of calories meant I HAD to do something or I was going to feel totally awful about myself, and sheer amount of cheese in my lactose-intolerant system meant that going for a run would have disastrous consequences.

I'm not sorry at all because it was so freaking delicious and The Girl Who Says Fuck A Lot is only having the Best Wedding Ever once. But I needed to get some kind of burn in to sort of... balance it all out in my head. The Librarian coming along was really nice and made it a pleasant afternoon instead of 'something I gotta get done.'

So now I'm sitting in Caribou Coffee. I finished my exam (it was a timed exam so I had to have finished by now whether I was done or not, but I did just fine) and now I'm wasting my time. As I do. The trivia question today is "What is the medical term for baldness?" which I of course know is 'alopecia,' because I have a slight obsession with circus freaks and medical mysteries, and I play Scrabble. So that's 10% off my obligatory coffee purchase.

Maybe something will happen later tonight that acknowledges that today is Memorial Day. By which I mean, maybe we'll go somewhere and sit in the grass with beer and watermelon.

But not the watermelon we brought back from the wedding. Because that's been soaking in moonshine since Saturday.

Be careful, don't get spoiled...

Two posts in one day, what what!

I found these guys via the Deal of the Day on Amazon -
The Civil Wars, composed of Joy Williams and John Paul White.
Just... listen. Their album is only $4 on Amazon today.

He's got a rolled cigarette hanging out his mouth - he's a cowboy kid.

Today is Thursday. We're wrapping up this first week of summer school quite neatly, maybe not with a ribbon but, hey, cats eat ribbons when ribbons are not made of food, so it's best not to use them anyways.

I've never had summer classes before. It's a new, not altogether unpleasant experience for me. I mean... "Summer" as a concept doesn't really mean anything to me anymore, schedule-wise. It's kind of silly to assign it a special status and then sulk about the fact that I have to go to school anyways. I mean, what was I gonna do with my summer?

And I really do like school. So this is kinda fun for me. It would be more fun if I could access the internet from my house, and didn't have to get up so early to eat breakfast and bike over to the library so I could do my online class. But I really love being nerdy and learning how stuff works.

Like, yesterday while I was running, I kept thinking about what I was learning about the Sun and the angle of its radiation to the atmosphere affecting how much UV I was getting. This was particularly helpful as a rationale mid-run when I needed to take off my shirt or I was going to die of heat stroke. I could explain to my brain that it was late enough in the day that the Sun was low enough to reduce the amount of damaging UV rays on my tattoo. Even though it was still hot as Hades. I actually felt wibbly a couple of times. I stopped at two water fountains and actually overdrank at the last one because the water got cold and it was SO GOOD. So then I ran home with a stomach that kept threatening to cramp.

Today in ASL3 I get to tell a story about losing my keys. I practiced in the bathroom mirror at the auto shop this morning while I was waiting for my tires, and I think if I can keep from being too nervous and flubbing my signs, it'll be a good, funny story. There's only 12 people in the class and I guess I've got to get used to signing in front of them, anyhow.

Amazon's new Cloud Player feature - where all the MP3s you buy are immediately saved on Amazon's server and you have to then go get them on the Cloud Player - annoyed me until fifteen minutes ago, when I realized that it meant that, even though I'm at a lab computer, I can totally still listen to my music.

They did an interview with the head guy of Foster The People this morning. He was really interesting and honest about his music, this song specifically and how he understands that all the people that love it and have hailed it as a perfect happy summer song aren't really comprehending the lyrics. "All the other kids with the pumped up kicks... better outrun my gun."

Yeah, perfect summer song. Just like the Beach Boys, sug.

Pancake Batfish. Of course.

I got to the Superlab a tiny bit early in my self-imposed work schedule today, so obviously I'm celebrating by wasting time, instead of getting ahead on work. Because Food Network Humor isn't going to read itself, people.

I read on National Geographic today about a fish with an awesome name - the Pancake Batfish.

Go on, say it out loud. Pancake Batfish.

It's a new species that was discovered in 2010 that may already be extinct or endangered due to the fact that it lives in parts of the Gulf of Mexico that were hugely affected by the oil spill. It's so ugly I think it's cute:

It's called the Pancake Batfish because it is flat, like a pancake, and it uses its fins to actually walk on the ocean floor. This gives it an odd stride that looks like a bat walking. Yeah, I don't understand how biologists' minds work sometimes, but Pancake Batfish is such an awesome name that I don't care. Pancake Batfish Pancake Batfish Pancake Batfish.

But, you know, on to my next favorite time waster - babbling on here. I have no real evidence that anyone reads this, so it's kind of become like talk therapy for me. Bag space is at a premium these days, so I can't carry a physical journal, but this usually serves the same sort of function.

Speaking of, today marks the third day of Getting Shit Done Without Using My Car - even if I did have to catch a ride to track with The Librarian, which is kind of cheating except car pooling is economical and environmentally-friendly, too. I'm getting really into having a bike as my main mode of transportation. I'm much more aware of my surroundings and the actual trip itself, not just as a line between point A and point B. It's a part of the day now.

Also, I have lost two pounds, but I suspect that the torso-sized bag of Malt-O-Meal Honey Buzzers (Honeycomb facsimiles that are actually better tasting because they're not as sweet) may change that.

Track last night started out awful and I totally wanted to just throw in the towel during the warm-up. It was hot and I was unhappy and everything just felt wrong. I didn't quit because I suspected that I was going to feel hot and unhappy whether I was running or sitting on my ass on the grass, and if I was sitting on my ass on the grass I would have felt hot, unhappy AND fat and lazy.

We did two 800s followed by eight 400s, walking 200 in between each 400. I felt like shit the first couple but then it started to cool down and my body started to get what I was asking it to do. I had one 400 that felt actually really good (even though I didn't say anything because no one wants to hear that while they're suffering through the same thing) but it was kind of an aberration as I ran the same time before and after and both of those were hard. It takes me 117 strides on my right leg to get around the track once, in case anyone wanted to know. When I'm hurting, my brain clicks back into OCD counting mode. If you ever ask me how a run went and I say, "I counted the whole time," then you know either it was shitty, or I was really stressed out about something.

I've been thinking about running form a lot lately, and paying attention to mine. I understand what's supposed to be good form, and I can hold that for a while, and I can feel that it's more efficient and makes me move faster. But for whatever reason, I can't hold it naturally, or over a long period of time. I can do it consistently for like 200 meters, or for short bursts of speed, but when I start to struggle to hold pace, I seem to sort of... sink down into my normal form. Which is not bad, I don't think, but I just can't move as fast in it. I feel like I could be a lot faster than I am when it comes to shorter distances.

Well, I didn't drag this ridiculously heavy Earth Science book here just to have the extra weight going up hills. Time to learn about the heating of Earth's surface and atmosphere. Personally, I think I learned all I needed to know about it at track yesterday.

They say training in heat makes you better conditioned, even for colder temperatures. I'll be telling myself that a lot this summer. I can already tell.

I'll die living just as free as my hair.

Lady Gaga's new album dropped, as they say, yesterday, to much anticipation on my part.

I have to say that, so far, I like it very much. The BFFFE and I listened to it twice while we were sanding my abode, and while there are a couple of songs that aren't quite as epic as the rest, taken singularly, I think I'd find them more than just good. That's been the case with both The Fame and Fame Monster - some of the songs are really, really good, and they totally eclipse others, which are just solid. Like, to me, putting "Brown Eyes" on the same album as "Just Dance" is borderline idiotic. No one is going to want to listen to "Brown Eyes" when the better option is just a couple of tracks away.

I was actually a little worried about the album, considering how great I think "Born This Way" and "Judas" are. But think I'm ready to go on record as saying that at least two of the releases are better to me. I really like "Hair," which is an interesting reference to the titular song from the musical "Hair," I think, which is one of my favorite songs of all time. "The Edge of Glory" is an excellent song and ends the whole album with a bittersweet triumphant note and a saxophone solo.

Also, there's a whole song about unicorns. For srs.



Three of my fingertips are so rough I think I could use them as sandpaper themselves. And I still have two walls to go. Thank God for Lady Gaga.

Every time I twitch my toes, they pop.

Yeah, I'm the worst blogger right now. I don't have regular internet, and I've been relying on my iPod Touch to check emails (and play Words With Friends). The people at Caribou are starting to recognize me. But this afternoon is devoted to studying, which means obviously I'm going to stall for as long as possible by writing this blog and catching up on my reading.

I had a good long run this morning, 13.3 miles at an average 7:59 pace. I'm pretty sure I was going faster for most of that, but my stomach started throwing a tantrum in the last mile, mile and a half, and I had to cut my pace way down. It was the first time I really decided to stick with the FSA group for the long run, and I'm beyond happy that the decision didn't blow up in my face.

Oh, FSA - Fast Skinny Assholes. That's what The Librarian calls them. They're those long-legged, lean runners you hate to see when you're out because they're prancing along through fields of daisies while you're about to die.

Usually on these long group runs, we divide up naturally into two pace groups, without any discussion about it. For a while lately, I've been kind of waffling in the middle - if I stay back, then I end up accidentally bullying the second pace group into a faster run than they want, while if I try to hang with the FSAs I worry I'll get left behind. I've been getting a lot faster, though, so I decided to try today.

It occurred to me as we were running down a street that it must have looked pretty funny, five tall guys and little bitty me. Every single one of them was at least 4 inches taller than me. I usually don't notice how short I am but I think my brain was a little desperate for distraction.

Also, I saw and sort of met Molly Nunn at last night's PM in the Park 1-miler, and she's tiny, maybe only an inch or so taller than me (if that). So that got me thinking about size. I still wish my legs were longer, though. I'm all torso, and you don't run on your torso. But I don't think my height in and of itself is what's going to hold me back.

My Fake Boyfriend, The New Girl and I were volunteering, and we got these shitty posts standing at turns and making sure no one went the wrong way. My Fake Boyfriend also had to tell people in cars that they couldn't go through the gate because there was a race on. Apparently people complained to the point of near fisticuffs about this. I have no sympathy for them because I think people who drive cars in parks are going to the Special Hell. With the child molesters, and people who talk at the theater.

So naturally we were all bored out of our minds, except for maybe 30 seconds every ten minutes when a heat blew past us. So we texted each other. Mostly complaining about how bored we were, and talking about how cool Molly Nunn was. She was warming up before her heat and she actually stopped to ask me if it was ok to warm up on the course. I said yes, of course. Because she's Molly Nunn. She can do whatever she wants. She ran one mile in 4:59 less than 10 minutes later. When you're capable of going that fast, what am I gonna do, stop you?

The New Girl was laughing at My Fake Boyfriend and I because we were, shall we say, in awe of her form? If you've ever seen a picture of Molly Nunn, in person she's actually even prettier. And very polite. Actually, both winners, male and female, were excruciatingly polite. I was really happy that David Roche won. He was just so happy and nice to everyone beforehand, even stopped his warm-up to thank me for volunteering. And then he ran a 4:23 mile. The lesson here, I think, is being nice to volunteers who are grumbling and swatting at mosquitoes makes for good race karma.

-GOSLINGS-

I'm having dinner with my dad tonight. Hopefully he'll want to eat early and also hopefully he'll want to eat Thai or maybe Indian food. Though I would also love me some Mellow Mushroom tempeh. I brought a couple of apples to Caribou since I tend to get hungry about 2pm on Saturdays. Not hungry enough to warrant lunch, but too hungry to wait until dinner.

Actually, he just texted me requesting Emma Key's, on Walker Ave. I told him about the place soon after it opened and he really likes it. They have a good veggie burger option, make their own barbeque sauce, and put Tabasco in their ketchup, so I really like them, too. Plus the guys who work there (and perhaps own the place, I can never tell) are really fun.

I told him that he couldn't have ice cream there, though, even though they have great shakes, because I'm taking him to The Full Scoop after dinner. They're new (new to me, anyways, I don't know when they actually opened) and awesome. I love house-made ice cream, in general, and they really seem to hit home runs with their flavors. I've been planning to eat their cookie dough for a week now. I love Cheese Day.

I guess I should probably study something now. Lady Gaga's Born This Way album is released on the 23rd. Are you ready?

Goslings are the perfect change of subject.

I'm covered in paint from priming the bathroom and closet with the Kilz stuff, but that didn't stop me from trying on all the dresses Catface Meowmers got for me at a thrift store! I don't normally like dresses but lately I've become determined to find some that I like. I mean, I understand that I'm shaped a bit like a shoebox, but I'm not a total freak show. There have to be other women built like me out there, and someone has to make dresses for them.

Actually, Meowmers did exceptionally well. I have two cute dresses I can wear right now, and two that I'm determined that I will wear, with some alterations by the BFFFE or Meowmers. Apparently I'm a size four with the ribcage of a six. Curses - the one body part that can't be altered via increased discipline. I mean, where it couldn't zip, what was stopping it was literally just skin and then bone. I'm not Cher. What's there is staying there.

But clearly it's the dress' fault, and it should be the one to be punished - not my self-esteem.

So now I'm sitting at Caribou Coffee, peeling latex primer off my fingers and letting my computer update stuff while the BFFFE and Meowmers are painting things for real. Well, also spackling. Since, you know, I didn't do it good enough or something. I'm a bit grumbly about that, so here's a picture of some goslings.

It's not a really good picture, because I took it with my camera from a car while we drove past. But they were a really cute family of geese, in spite of being rather like that 18-Kids-And-Counting family. We had to stop and wait for them to cross the road, because I guess the babies got tired halfway across and had to take a break. I should have taken the picture earlier but the BFFFE and I were too busy squealing.

Next Wednesday, I have an online class starting up, and it says right in the syllabus, under 'teacher contact information,' that the professor cannot be reached by phone. Only email. Add this to the fact that it's a totally online course, and clearly the professor is actually a robot. So now I'm looking forward to it much more.

No, really. It should be cool. It's all about Earth and stuff it's made out of and how it all works, and that really used to be my bag, baby. I was a science major just so I could learn this type of thing. It was the math that got me.

Anyways. Time to go pick up dinner and then go watch some hockey. Go Pirates!

And now I have a Lauryn Hill song in my head...

To be honest, I'm starting to enjoy my simple, urban camping lifestyle. I have running water, an electric tea kettle, and a refrigerator. I have my mattress AND my chair, plus a futon if I can figure out how to get all the dust out of the cushion by myself.

I wake up and go up to the kitchen to start the hot water for coffee. I'm cone brewing for now because I don't have a coffeemaker, obviously. I drink coffee, do my morning calisthenics, maybe watch a dvd, though I'm trying to go through those slowly because I don't have internet and they're all I've got. I eat something for breakfast with my second cup of coffee, and then I figure out the day.

Today was Friday, and I finished patching/sanding the walls Thursday morning, so I sat on my steps and finished my book while my buddy worked on the electrical outlets. I mentioned that my brakes were squeaky on my bike, so he fixed them, just like that. Then I went out for a ride because that's what you do when your brakes are suddenly quiet like ninja bike brakes.

I'm becoming addicted to bike rides. I don't think they'll ever replace running - not remotely the same feeling for me - but I really enjoy them. They're peaceful and dynamic at the same time.

When I'm not urban camping anymore - i.e. when everything I need to survive is at my house with me - then I won't be using my car at all. As of right now, I don't have internet, and I'm not comfortable taking my computer on my bike. If I have an accident... well, I'm made of squishy bits that have two things going for them that my laptop doesn't: 1, they can heal themselves and 2, they're insured. So I'm at Caribou Coffee and I had to use fossil fuels to do it.

The fact that I'm essentially having one over on the dinosaurs is only slight consolation. Jeff Goldblum did it better and everyone knows it. Plus, I read too much Dinotopia as a kid to really dislike dinosaurs. I still think a triceratops would be the best friend ever.

I don't really need the internet for at least another week, when my online class starts up. But I want it. My Hulu queue is starting to look impossible, and I miss bothering my friends on GChat while they're at work.

Urban camping would be perfect if there was internet. I could do it forever, I think. Especially once we get the washer and dryer hooked up.

Oh, I forgot to mention the exciting times I had at 9:30 this morning, when the delivery guys came by unannounced. I was still in my pajamas and not my cute, other-people-can-see-me-like-this pajamas. No, I was wearing my super comfy fluffy purple leopard spotted pants and a white wifebeater that I'd been sleeping in for a couple of days. The secret of wifebeaters is that you can't ever wear them in public more than once a washing. They stretch out really quickly.

So the delivery guys were kind of chuckling and said, "Did we wake you up?" and I lied and said they did, even though they really didn't and I'd been up for a couple of hours. I sometimes come home and change into pajamas for two hours in the middle of the day before I have to leave again. I don't understand people who are dressed in real clothes all the time.

So I showed them where to put the machines and they showed me how to hook them up once I got the hoses and things, and one of them managed to make asking if I had a boyfriend seem like a totally innocent question about tools. It was very artfully played and I deflected it into a discussion of roommates rather than say I was gay, somehow in recognition of that fact.

Either he has the worst gaydar on Planet Earth, or the fluffy purple leopard pants somehow negate all the gay vibes I'm told I exude. I don't do it on purpose and to be honest sometimes I really appreciate it when people don't know. It's not a lack of pride or anything, it's just that I don't like feeling like that's The Thing about me.

You know The Thing. Everyone has one. When you're trying to tell someone who someone else is, it's the first thing you say to describe them. "The tall guy," or "the chick with all the piercings," or "the one with all the tattoos." I don't like feeling like people preface me by saying, "You know, the raging dyke." So when people think I'm straight, it makes me think that maybe that's not The Thing about me.

Then I stop thinking about it, before I start wondering what The Thing actually is.

Nevermind the bollocks.

Well, assuming food ever happens, then tonight we'll be having the first Family Dinner ever. For now, though, we're just sitting around having the first Family Time ever, and that's ok. Because I figured in advance that 'dinner at 7' didn't mean 'dinner at 7,' so I had a snack earlier and have been snitching things from the kitchen for a while now.

Lots of exciting things happened in Urban Camping Land today.

There was a plumber. Then, in a direct causation, I was able to take a shower for the first time in two days. This was a big deal because, since we discovered the plumbing issue and all showering activities were halted, I ran sixteen miles, filled a bunch of holes in the walls, and then sanded all of those holes smooth. I was really gross and had resorted to wrapping my head up in a bandana so no one could see my hair.

I met the mailman. His name is Mike. There's another mailman, and he's also called Mike, but I didn't meet him. This Mike was very nice, but I'm predisposed to liking mailmen. I don't know why. I think it's their short pantsed uniforms.

I also now have a chair AND a futon. This brings my furniture grand total to 4 things. I'm almost a real person. A real person living a transient lifestyle because I can't live in my own room yet, but a real person nonetheless.

-TOPIC CHANGE-

(Keep up, now!)

I was listening to NPR today and All Things Considered did a segment on this book, Out of the Vinyl Deeps by Ellen Willis. It sounds fairly good and I'll be trying to obtain it in a cheap or free fashion soon. I do like to hear people waxing pretentious about music. If you can't tell by my constant waxing pretentiousness about music.

Anyways. In the interview they talked about her experiences with the Sex Pistols, and it made me decide that this was the video of the day.

Adventures In Urban Camping: Part 1

I finally have a mattress set! I'm planning on making this my bed entirely - I genuinely like the notion of "floorbed" and bed frames have a tendency to displease me anyways. I can't actually put it in the room it goes in, yet, because that room is first on the list to be painted after the Kilz goes up in the bathroom, but I'm all set up in the larger basement room for now, along with the truly awful, cheap entertainment center someone left behind.

I made a joke that apparently was only funny to me here:

See? It's my version of an entertainment center. Since everything happens on my computer...

Yeah, maybe it's not THAT funny of a joke, after all.

Anyways. Today I got up and immediately went out for Turtle Monday. Turtle Monday is my new notion of running an easy-as-possible 10 miles the first day of the week to kind of... warm my legs up for the rest of it. It helps me to feel better and considering that I've been running faster overall since I started them, what the hell. Turtle Mondays.

Then I spent the rest of the morning scraping off the cheap popcorn ceiling in the laundry room. The room has to be ready by Wednesday when our washer/dryer are delivered. So for a long time it was me, a mask, and a putty knife. Apparently I actually did something good, though, because when we were sitting at the Golden Dragon (on Battleground - one of the best cheap takeout places we've found so far), I mentioned quite casually, after I had some food in my stomach, that I had finished the room, and The BFFFE stopped eating her General Tso's to hug me.

Which was a pretty big deal considering I looked like this:

I took a long shower and I still feel like everything in the world is covered in plaster dust.

I've listened to this song about 6 times today.

I'm gay.

No, seriously, according to Kinsey's Scale, I'm really, really gay. I've never, to my recollection, been below a 5 on the scale ("Predominantly homosexual, only incidentally heterosexual") including when I was trying to be straight in high school, and dated that gay boy who wants to be my friend now.

I do have one glaring spot of heterosexuality: Some men have really pretty voices, and I would have their babies just in case that sort of thing is genetic.

The Idiot Confession

I constantly feel like I should preface things by saying, "So, I'm an idiot."

Because, as The Librarian will attest and tell me, I have this tendency to do things that I shouldn't do because they are not good for me. I think we all do sometimes - we all have our vices, as they say. Mine just happen to be running related.

I was getting sick Friday and when I woke up Saturday morning I knew I had a fever.

I still went running. Because I'm an idiot.

And it was a great run, according to the numbers. 10 miles, 7:30 pace. You can't really argue with that. I might have felt like crap the whole time, but to be honest I felt less like crap while I was running than I did before and after running. Lately I've been finding that the crappier I feel, the faster I can make myself go. Like when my legs are tired, if I push them just a little bit harder, I'll stop feeling the tired. I can count the number of times I've run at a 7:30 pace on one hand, and I had a fever yesterday morning.

Like I told The Superhuman the other day, "Running slow or feeling like crap, I can do forever. It's running fast and feeling great that I have to work on." Maybe one day I'll have a superfast run and feel great the whole time. Won't that be awesome?

So then after I finished running, and ate breakfast with the guys (I was the only girl at group this morning), feeling more than slightly nauseous the whole time due to drinking an Emergen-C on an empty stomach, what did I do?

I drove two hours to Raleigh for a job. Because - say it with me now - I'm an idiot.

But I was an idiot on DayQuil, and that makes all the difference in the world. That stuff is kind of scary, now that I think about it. But I at least remember the whole night, and I didn't do anything too bad. When Mama Bear Boss told me I could go home a few minutes early, and I did, I felt bad about it, but at that point I was seriously tired and all too aware that I had to drive two hours back home, in a car without cruise control or adjustable seats (long story).

I actually feel much better today. Hopefully all of the Vitamin C, zinc, and mysterious-properties-of-DayQuil bashed all the germs into submission. My mom told me about these when I called her yesterday, and they really saved me. Stopped the cough and horrendous sore throat in it's tracks. There were times when I wasn't sure I had a throat at all; they're that good.

Speaking of, Mother's Day is today, I know. But my mom is working a double at the restaurant today, so we're celebrating tomorrow, hopefully, which is why you'll have to wait for tomorrow for a saccharine post about how much I love my mom.

I take being an honorary aunt very seriously.

Today, for instance, the Little Monster and I had special Gaga time.

At the end of this video, I shifted to put her back down on the floor, and she reached out and pushed my face back towards the screen. Smart babies love Gaga. And bonus, they can say her name.

That's what God made sailors for...

I hate posting live videos. Because they're usually not good, and you can't hear the lyrics, and sometimes they were obviously filmed from the inside of some guy's coat pocket.

But I really want this to be the song of the day, so I'm breaking the rule.

This is a Rasputina song called "If Your Kisses Can't Hold The Man You Love."

Rasputina automatically win because they're playing rock and roll with cellos.

Stand on it, Amanda, stand on it.

I spent the morning baby wrangling because the BearCat-CatBear and the Best Friend For Fucking Ever were looking like the walking dead, and Catface Meowmers had her final exam today. So while BC-CB and BFFFE slept like open-mouthed baby angels who had just discovered memory foam mattresses for the first time, the Little Monster and I hung out in her room.

We read books.

Well, we read one book. Skippyjon Jones 1-2-3. It is her favorite book when I am reading to her. I don't know why - I don't think I'm any better at reading it than any other book. It's about math, which is certainly not my area of expertise, and some of the things in it don't make sense. For instance, why does Skippyjon Jones have 5 bags of frozen peas, and why does he have six fuzzy piñatas but no sticks?

I think my main issue was the fact that I neglected to have coffee before I went in. I did this because I figured the smell and the sound of the hot water kettle would be disturbing to the snorfling angels.

But now that I have two cups of coffee in my gut, I think my first foray into hardcore (i.e. long term) baby minding went rather well. We read books and I sang some songs because she likes music - I don't know very many children's songs, though, so she was treated to Cee Lo Green, Lady Gaga, and Old Crow Medicine Show.

We started to sing Old MacDonald, but I really don't understand why babies have to learn their animal sounds. I mean, for one, no animal sounds like what we say they sound like. 'Oink' is a totally made-up word. The only horse that says "neigh" is Mr Ed when he is voting in opposition to a movement. I lacked the energy to make the real noises, though, so I switched over to 'Forget You' because that song is at least true to life.

I'm adding Born This Way to her permanent repertoire, though. If I only accomplish one thing in my influence over her, I want it to be a complete lack of insecurities. Though considering that Amanda Palmer is her favorite musician, I somewhat doubt that will be a problem. Also, it's just fun to sing. Especially when you have a tiger puppet on your hand doing the dancing.

I'm eating Mighty Tasty hot cereal for lunch (that's the brand name, although it does happen to be mighty tasty) with granny smith apples and cinnamon, and I've decided that the Little Monster is enough baby for me. Mom is going to have to count on her other child for grandchildren. I'm gonna need another cup of coffee soonish.

Tune in again soon for my chronicle of Urban Camping: Life In A House Without Furniture.

Life Goal #19: Participate In A Flash Mob

This is my favorite one of all time.

You call them 'Before' pictures for a reason...

House pictures!

Because what's the good of making improvements if I can't come back to the blog later and say, "Look how awesome it is now!"? (I puzzled over this punctuation for about ten minutes before deciding to just... let it be.) Here's a few pictures of the house we're renting. By a few, I mean "only the parts I'll be living in." This is not because I don't care about the rest of the house. It's because I'm under a time crunch before my exam and I don't have time to edit them all.

(There was absolutely no reason to do this. Except it's hysterical.)

Horses - you climb back on them. But you do not gallop immediately.

I'm an awful, slack blogger, I know. In my defense, it's exams time AND moving time and I'm just about whipped into stiff peaks.

Even this is not a real post. This is just a song of the day. I'm gonna tell you all about moving in a little bit but I wanna post this and go eat breakfast first.

Here's Thao With The Get Down Stay Down. I honestly don't remember how I discovered them, only that suddenly they were there in my mind and I loved them.