Hallelujah…holy shit!

No. I have not died. Merely lost the will to update my blog regularly. Yes, still capturing my thoughts on paper. No, have not transcribed a damn one of ’em. Maybe you’ll see them, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary.

Wear sunscreen! Which you shouldn’t confuse with lotion, because we all know what happens if you don’t rub the lotion on your skin…

I’ve gone mildly retarded this holiday season. Christmas cards going out late, gifts being mailed late, candies and cookies all half-assed in my fridge…I haven’t even put up decorations, save for my tiny tabletop tree on my bookcase where prying feline eyes can’t get at it. I like my ornaments NOT buried next to the Kitty Roca, thank you very much.

What I DID do was pull off yet another a 4.0 semester/term. Which would normally be easy to do if I weren’t working full time AND going to school full time AND running a (goddamned) festival. Which to be fair, I haven’t done much work on recently and I’m starting to feel like the worst festival organizer ever. I’d say that I feel good knowing I have Jared by my side, but his fall season hasn’t gone much smoother either. So. Yay for collective incompetence!

I also completed yet another successful NaNoWriMo, though what I wrote is so rough that I can’t even bring myself to reread it yet. That’s for another post though.

Chem class ended up being a total boon. I’m thankful for the knowledge I was able to firm up (because let’s face it…most of it is stuff we should already know from high school science classes) and tack on to, but I still can’t help but be completely pissed off at the waste of a semester. Had I known to go straight to my one last Bio course instead of taking aim at a 3-class Bio series (yeah, thanks, ADVISOR) I could be taking my Ecology class this Winter term and starting the foundation for my minor already. Fuuuuuuck. Just thinking about it pisses me off so I’ll stop right there.

Biggest shot in the arm this fall term was the evaluation I received of my research paper. To quote, “I have received many papers on salvage logging over the years, and yours is one of the best.” Rock. I inquired further into the comment because I wasn’t sure what really made it one of the best. I mean, I turned it in all pissed off and disappointed in myself and my work. Apparently I’m one of the few people who was actually able to supply a convincing support structure for the pro-salvage side, making the paper truly well-rounded. Dammit. Been hanging around too many Republicans lately. Still, I suppose it’s good that I am able to analyze from an impartial POV, even if it’s not what I really believe in. I attribute that skill to my many years of working for a big smelly oil company. It takes a lot of impartiality to be able to accept my paycheck without the heaping side of guilt.

Winter term at OSU starts in three weeks. Spring term at Solano starts in a month. My brain has already commenced meltdown. Fortunately the good professors at OSU post their syllabi online at the time of registration, so I’ve already got books in hand (one class required five books. FIVE BOOKS. JESUS HELP THE CHILDREN!) and once I get through the half-assed candy/cookie fiasco, the Christmas cards, the packages, the pre-fest planning…I can get down to brass tacks with my reading assignments. Because if I don’t get a jump on five classes worth of coursework (4 @ OSU, 1 @ Solano) I’m probably going to hang myself sometime in early February.

I kid. About the hanging part, not the coursework.

Sorta.

San Diego or Europe?
In other news, Kevin’s move to San Diego next month may be delayed by crappy landlords who guarantee you’re a shoo-in on Sunday if you put your deposit down by Wednesday, then call you Monday night to tell you they’ve rented to someone already.

No shit. That is exactly how it went down. After spending a good half hour interviewing with the landlord and her daughter Sunday evening, Kevin bought a plane ticket to fly down there on Wednesday to see the place in person, sign paperwork, and hand over the deposit. In hindsight, I guess he should have wired the deposit to the landlord first-thing Monday morning just to be safe. But seriously, who tells you that the place is yours and then yanks that rug out from underneath you in less than 24 hours?

Kevin and his new roommate were out celebrating at a bar Monday evening when the call came in from the chickenshit landlord’s daughter, letting him know that the rental was now taken and he was out. Now, mind you. He’s already bought his plane ticket for tomorrow. So. Um. Eat the plane ticket? Fuckers.

After a lengthy chat with him last night (bar hopping ended early because finding you’ve lost your new place? A total buzzkill), he disclosed that him and his roommate were about to give up anyway because apartment-hunting has made them its bitches and they were just tired of it. To be fair, San Diego is NOT the place you move to for your first time, unless you’re bringing twelve roommates to split the costs. He then said that they’d talked about just using the money they’d been saving up to take a fucking European vacation. At which point I inquired into how much they’d saved…I mean, I know my brothers. They’re cursed with the same spend-it-all gene I am (something which can only be overcome with age and wisdom, and even then it’s a lifelong struggle to not SPEND SPEND SPEND), and saving has never been a strength. So here I’d been thinking that Kev would have like $500 tucked away.

Nope. The kid’s got a couple thousand set aside. That’s a thousand with TWO S’s. I almost died and was simultaneously impressed. I told him to shoot for Europe. Granted it won’t get them very far, but shit. Spend it while you’re fucking young, dude. Before tuition and bills bend you over the kitchen table and rape your ass dry like a two-bit hooker.

Ouch. I really need to get out more. My wit is crumbling.