the world is your acorn

I have a good amount of work to do by tomorrow, and I’m totally motivated to do it. The problem is that I somehow convinced The Little Red Haired Girl to make fried chicken for dinner. It’s sizzling away on the stove now, and it’s like torture. Southern frying torture. It smells good, it sounds good, it looks good, the weather is perfect for it, all the windows are open and there are sounds of people hanging out coming into the house. argh. I have to go shut myself in the bedroom if I’m to survive.

This morning on my walk to school I found myself waiting at a relatively busy intersection to cross the street. The corner also happens to be a bus stop, and as I waited to cross a bus pulled over to let me on. I didn’t want to get on. I almost got on just cause I felt bad that the driver had taken the trouble to pull over for me. However, I have no idea how much bus fare is here, and I have a lot of work to do at school today, so I decided I had to make the bus driver understand that I didn’t want to get on. How to go about this? I started by kind of shuffling a little in another direction, as if my attention was not on the bus or I was going to walk away. Then I realized that was stupid, so I just smiled and shook my head, and the bus drove on.

Is there proper etiquette for that kind of situation? Why do I feel like I didn’t handle it well?

On Friday I got my latest internet order in the mail: A Tiny Cat Pants mug! I’m going to use it at school, I think. It’s a cute little logo, and it makes me feel like I’m contributing to Aunt B’s enterprise, in some way, and thanking her for giving me something to read all these months. Well, hopefully she makes some kind of profit.

In related news, I have a couple more internet purchases on the way. One is some flannel pants that were on sale from LLBean, which are hideous (they have “wildlife” on them, apparently), and some polos (”summer uniform”). The other is a purchase that I made just this past weekend, of a slightly larger scale than the clothes order. Let’s just say that there is not much tax refund money left to take The Litte Red Haired Girl out to dinner when we’re in San Francisco. Don’t worry, there is enough. And I will totally show off the new purchase when it arrives. Whoopee!

Via The Education Wonks, a new blog that specializes in apostrophe misuse:
Apostrophe Catastrophe

ps- if you type the word “apostrophe”too many times it starts to look wrong…

Here’s a Boston T map with anagrammed stops

Boston Anagram T Map

I really like “Divas” and “Queer Parrots” on the Red Line, but them’s my old haunts.

It’s quite gorgeous out today. I took a little walk to school earlier this morning, but I wish I had someone to play “playing outside” with. I am getting a little tired of this “working on Saturday” bullshit that The Little Red Haired Girl has been pulling. Anyway, it is 60 degrees out, sunny, and birds are chirping. I even opened the windows in the house. But now I’m sitting in the tv room, where the blinds are down and I don’t know if the windows open. Maybe I will try going outside by myself again later.

banana peppers
you complete my sandwiches;
so spicy, and good!

I spent the day at school today, trying to get some work done for the busy week ahead. Late in the afternoon I walked over to the museum to meet The Little Red Haired Girl. We decided to go out for a drink, and go somewhere that we’ve never been. So we drove out to the music row circle, agreeing that we would have one drink each and share an appetizer, then come home to make dinner. Clearly, that did not happen. We even chose a pub over some fancy bar where we would be tempted by the menu. We decided on Dan McGuinness, where we ended up getting artichoke crab dip and fish and chips, seduced by happy hour prices. The beer was delicious and at the perfect temperature, the batter on the fish was light and just flavorful enough, the fries were thick and crispy, and the dip was chunky and artichokey. Now we’re stuffed and lazy and certainly not going to make dinner. It was a fun time though, and I think that we should make more of an effort from now on to try new places and get to know this city. Suggestions are definitely welcome!

I made a duck for dinner. It was yum. It had a mango sauce with it. The skin was not very crispy though. I don’t really know how to achieve that. Anyone? When we actually have some money I may switch to buying just breasts. It’s fun to gnaw on the drums and wings, but really the delicious meat is in the breasts. Isn’t that always the way. Anyhow, The Little Red Haired Girl had yoga tonight, so we didn’t eat until almost 9, and so I didn’t get a picture of the duck before I hacked into it. Yes, I hacked it up Chinatown style. I want to get better about blogging our cooking, but I guess that won’t start tonight.

I’ve been reading Just Another Pretty Farce for a while now, and hey, Katherine Coble not only has me on her blogroll, but cares enough to tag me! Woah.

What Were You Doing 10 Years Ago?
It was my senior year in high school. This is probably about the time when I decided to start falling in love with my (straight) best friend (whose birthday happens to be today, in fact) and trying to lie to myself about it. Hey, maybe I should have a coming out anniversary party for myself!

What Were You Doing 1 Year Ago?
I know this down to the week. I had just gotten home to Boston after having visited Vanderbilt for the weekend. My thoughts were, I really didn’t think I’d go there, but I’m glad I visited because it’s a really great school. Even though I enjoyed my visit, I still didn’t think I’d come. The next weekend I went to LA for a couple of teaching job interviews, and while at the Getty on my free day The Little Red Haired Girl called to tell me that a FedEx from Vanderbilt had just arrived. She read their offer to me, and that’s when we knew we were going to have some serious decision-making to do.

Five Snacks You Enjoy
1. Seafood. Is that too vague? Sushi, raw oysters, and shrimp cocktail
2. Ruffles and onion dip
3. Chili cheese fries
4. Lately I’ve been on a cottage cheese and canned pears kick
5. Fried Apple Pies, duh

Five Songs To Which You Know All The Lyrics
Umm, this is going to be hard for me. I’d have to be singing along, not all by myself. Otherwise there’d be no list at all.
1. Innocent Man, Billy Joel
(actually most Billy Joel songs, but especially this one)
2. Careless Whisper, George Michael (or Wham!?)
(only since we’ve owned Karaoke Revolution 3)
3. World Falls, Indigo Girls
(most Indigo Girls songs, up to Swamp Ophelia)
4. 7, Prince
5. Tainted Love, Soft Cell

Five Things You Would Do If You Were A Millionaire
1. Donate to my elementary school and to ywrfc
2. Send presents to podcasters and bloggers who have been entertaining me tirelessly for the past year or so
3. Eat more fresh meat, seafood, and produce
4. Find a productive way to contribute to education in America
5. Take The Little Red Haired Girl on vacation

Five Bad Habits
1. Relentless checking of email and blogs
2. Leaving coats, clothes, and dishes around the house
3. Not going to the bathroom until it’s a dire emergency
4. Obsessing over things past (both people and moments)
5. Smoking

Five Things You Like Doing
1. Learning
2. Hearing my own voice
3. Socializing (if it’s a comfortable situation for me)
4. Cooking and eating with The Little Red Haired Girl
5. Getting things in the mail

Five Things You Would Never Wear Again
1. Socks that are too big
2. Bowl haircut
3. Pants that are just short enough that I get an ankle breeze
4. Long nails
5. Fanny pack

Five Favourite Toys
1. iBook
2. Tivo
3. Chinese chef’s knife
4. The Grill
5. The Little Red Haired Girl

Let’s see, 5 people I’ll tag?
psy_galore, Nikki, fairouz, thegecko, saltysnack
Don’t be offended if I didn’t tag you, I probably just don’t think you’re reading.

ps- you may have noticed that The Little Red Haired Girl is in many of my answers. You may be thinking, “aw, they are so cute” or “ooh, that girl has no identity of her own”. I encourage you to go for the former.