Complain, Complain

Someone was giving me a hard time last night for not having blogged for 10 days here.... I should point out that the aforementioned sickness rendered me completely non-functional for a significant part of those days. And now I'm at a sci-fi convention with a sinus headache. Is there no end to my self-pity? I think not, friends, I think not. But I do have a hot cup of coffee, and I'm about to go to a panel on picking fights with people at cons (in a nice way, I sense--though my temptation was to hum the fight music from Star Trek when tensions run high in the panel.....dun dun DA DA DA DA dun dun DA DAH...) We'll see if that gets me cordially evicted from the room....

Sicko.

Friday night, I played board games at a friend's house. His daughter was on the couch with a 103° fever. I didn't come within 10 feet of her, but apparently her plague aura had a longer radius than anticipated. Saturday, I started feeling a bit oogish. Saturday evening, my enjoyment of the Roller Derby was somewhat marred by an achy feeling in my chest and throat. (It was also marred by the worst hot pretzel I have ever been horribly overcharged for--who knew you could form kindergarten paste into a pretzel shape and then get some poor slob to pay $3.25 for it?) I stopped at CVS on the way home, picked up some Vitamin C, some Dayquil, and a new box of Kleenex. Then spent a semi-miserable night feeling my sore throat and congestion get worse by degrees until 5 am, when I took more Tylenol and symptoms receeded somewhat. Today I've been a pathetic lump all day; I finally went out and got some of that "Zycam" homeopathic stuff, and I'm going to try one of its little fizzy tablets right now. Hang on.

********** <---represents tablet dissolving on my tongue.

Ok, this is simultaneously more gross and less gross than I was anticipating. I'd envisioned something sort of alkaseltzery exploding in my mouth, and instead it's like mushy, vaguely-cherry flavored chalk. I'm not supposed to drink for 15 minutes after taking this thing, and so of course the one thing I want more than anything right now is to rinse my mouth and rid it of this grainy residue. Uk. Well, if it makes my cold go away faster I am all for it... but next time I think I'll get the nasal spray version of the stuff.

Ding! Toast is ready.

OK, grading is done. Done-ish. I still need to go down to campus and determine whether anyone slipped a last-minute please-don't-give-me-an-F assignment into my mailbox. I somehow doubt it though. I do still have to figure out this whole online class I'm teaching; my style is so lecture based that I have a hard time understanding how I am going to convey all the coolness that is art appreciation in an online format. Mmmm.... maybe I'll link them to the Museum of Bad Art website for week #1....

I went to a concert on Friday, and I was going to do a post on "Why I am not a good concert-goer"--but think I will save that for the main blog. I'm not saying I don't like live music--far from it, I love going to shows both big and small when I can. I'm just saying I'm not anyone's ideal audience. Especially when it's a concert where 90% of the audience is taking the music very.....VERY.....seriously. My own ability to take any music that seriously is long ago impaired. I far prefer a relationship song by Christine Lavin to endless "you changed my life" or (conversely) "you ruined my life" sentimental chick with guitar songs--one or two is fine, but when it's more than 50% of the set list I do start squirming around a bit in the seat. And then Rat Girl whispers something funny, and I lose it completely. And then Coaster Woman punches us both. Yeah. I'm a bad concert-goer.

Grading Blows.

Hm. Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Just as last time, I am avoiding grading exams by blogging about how much I hate grading exams.

So far, the best thing I have seen on the Art 101 exams was the person who identified Georges Seurat's "Sunday at La Grande Jatte" as "Sunday on La Latte Grande." Starbucks really IS everywhere these days....

Stand Down Red Alert

Ok, things are now under control, more or less. For those of you who were in on last week's crisis, thank you for your support. For those of you who weren't--believe me, you do NOT want to know. It was the most fucked up awful week I have had in recent memory (I can think of only 2 other times that compare even slightly in my life) and in the middle of it I had The Big Job Interview, followed by The Interview With The Person Who Was Out of Town During the Big Job Interview But Was Still Important. The fact that I managed to remain coherant and relatively poised during both of those Importances still amazes me. I had a big fall-apart on Wednesday night, but have been picking the pieces up and sticking them together since then and I think things are going to be OK. I hope. At any rate, it's out of my hands.

And the capper on the story, of course, is that I did get the job. Which makes me very happy, and of course also apprehensive--not that I will do it well, I'm actually pretty confident of my abilities. More just the nervousness of adjusting to a new situation after years of being my own boss, more or less. And it's going to be a big mental adjustment as well from a financial standpoint; after years of living pretty much right on the edge of insolvency, and before that having been comfortable but not having a huge disposable income, I am about to have a huge disposable income for the first time in my life. Not just from this job (which does pay well) but my parents are insisting on continuing to give me my "dole" payment that I've been living on in recent years--their argument being I'll get it eventually anyway, and this way I don't have to pay taxes on it. I am not an extravagant person, and I'm pretty good at managing my finances; I have a few things I want to spend money on, when I have it. But I've never even really thought about things like travel..... or investments. Or major home improvements instead of frantic emergency minor ones. Suddenly all this stuff is lurching into my head, and while I'm not going to fly off the handle and just start buying a ton of random shit and taking trips to Timbuktoo, the sudden opening of possibilties is a little mentally overwhelming. A month ago, getting carpet in the downstairs room was a source of extreme financial anxiety. It's going to take a while to not have a panic reaction to the thought of spending dough on something I don't desperately need. I know, poor old me! I'm not complaining, I'm just being my usual nervous self. The squirrels in my head are talking to me again. :)

Please Stand By....

I have been experiencing technical difficulties this week. Will return to posting when my blood pressure returns to normal. That is all.....

Mrs. Peel, We're Needed.

I am a Bowler Hat. I'm very proper, often politically correct, precise and dapper. I generally look down on the masses, but I usually try not to let it show. What Sort of Hat Are You?