Wait. Wha?

Erm… This is the first semester that I’ve actually wanted to read the texbooks for my classes. It’s interesting. I actually want to learn about the history of math. I actually want to learn about Japanese art and the history of architecture. When the fuck did I start caring about school again? Have I just finally found my niche? Am I destined to be a historian of some kind? Oh, God… What would my parents say if I told them that I’ve changed my mind (again) and want to be an academic and teach and research historical stuff for the rest of my life? Actually, thinking about the look my mother would give me is incentive enough to do it. She’d give me the glare of death and I would giggle about it because, deep down, I’m still just a rebellious little twat.

After my 3 hour history of architecture lecture, I plan to go home, read two chapters for Japanese art, start notecards for that class, and write out notecards for a talk on Plimpton 322 I have to do tomorrow (I might throw a powerpoint presentation together, but I’m not sure). Tomorrow morning/afternoon, I plan to read 3 chapters of history of math. When I get home from class, I plan to read history of architecture and start notecards for that class.

It kind of feels good to want to learn something again. This hasn’t happened since high school.

Dear CVS Customers:

Here are a few hints that will make your shopping experience more enjoyable for you and everyone around you:

1. Do not throw your credit card and ExtraCare Card at the cashier because you forgot your coupons. The cashier has no control over your memory and cannot make coupons explode out of their ass. Throwing your cards will just get you dirty looks and will cause the cashier to call you a douchemuffin when you leave the store.

2. Do not leave your basket/cart sitting right in front of the register. Hand the basket to the cashier or take it back to the stack yourself. Leaving it sitting on the floor in front of the register where the cashier cannot see it means that someone else will trip over it and sue CVS because you were an asshat. As for the carts, you were perfectly happy to wheel the cart all around the store because you were buying all kinds of shit that you probably did not need. Why the hell couldn’t you wheel the cart back to the corral on your way out the store? It’s right next to the exit.

3. Don’t plop your stuff down in front of the register that has the “Next register please” sign up and then get mad because you have to move your shit. It’s not the cashier’s fault that you a) couldn’t read, b) didn’t listen when they practically shouted “I can help you over here!!!”, and c) couldn’t see the cashier in the bright blue shirt standing at the very next register.

4. Don’t talk on your cell phone while at the register. This is common courtesy and shouldn’t need to be explained.

5. Don’t yell “CAN SOMEONE RING ME UP??!11!!!!ELEVENTY!!!1!!!” when a) you are standing at a closed register, b) the cashier is standing less than 10 feet away from you in plain site at the photo machine, or c) you are watching the cashier walk towards the registers. Actually, don’t yell in the store at all. The cashier will always be lurking near the registers, so a quick glance around and a polite “Which register is open?” works very well.

6. Don’t throw a hissy fit because CVS does not carry your soap anymore. It’s soap. Find some place else that sells it or buy a different kind. Deal with it.

7. Don’t yell at the cashier because the demo massage chair does not work. If you must complain to someone, complain to the pharmacist as the massage chair is in the pharmacy waiting area and therefore the pharmacy’s problem.

8. Don’t get pissy with the cashier because the pharmacy is not open yet or has already closed for the day. Some stores are not open 24 hours, so the pharmacy opens an hour later and closes an hour earlier than the rest of the store. The hours are clearly posted on the front door.

9. Do try to be polite to the cashier when something does not ring up the correct price. It is not the cashier’s fault, but the cashier will do everything in their power to fix the problem including modifying the price for you or refunding your money. It’ll get fixed. Chill.

10. Don’t be surprised that the cashier is smart and knows about things outside of being a register jockey. Some cashiers are cashiers because they can’t do anything else, but others are cashiers only because they are in school, needed a weekend job to cover the bills, or couldn’t find a job in their field after a move. Don’t treat us all like the shit you stepped in this morning just because we don’t make as much as you and are working in retail.

11. If you’re really that embarrassed about buying condoms/pregnancy tests/laxatives/tampons/rogaine that you have to hide everything under a newspaper or sale ad, then you need to get the fuck over yourself or just wear a paper bag over your head for the rest of your life. The cashier doesn’t give a shit what you buy and won’t remember anything you bought 30 seconds after you walk out of the door. The other customers don’t give a shit what you buy. The exception to this is the guy who bought 11 economy sized packages of magnum condoms (at Walgreen’s, not CVS). He is remembered only because of the sheer awesomeness of needing a shopping cart for that many large boxes of large condoms. Condom Man, if you read this, you are full of win.

More hints to come at a later date. I need to get back to ogling Olympic athletes.

Vogue Knitting

I’m not usually the type to bitch about having to buy a magazine for one stupid pattern because I go back through the magazine multiple times until something else grows on me (makes it sound like a parasite of some sort…). If nothing grows on me, I just won’t buy the magazine. Big deal. There are too many patterns to make, but not enough time in this lifetime to finish them all. BUT! The Fall ‘08 Vogue Knitting? ARGH! I hate everything in it except for the Greengable Hoodie (ravelry link). I have had my eye on this sweater for way over a year now (I’ve only been knitting for one year and 8 months). I want it to be My First Sweater ™, but I don’t wanna buy the whole damned magazine when I hate everything else in it!! I have flipped through this particular issue of Vogue at least 6 times now, hoping against hope that something else will catch my eye… Alas, there is nothing.

I still don’t have time to knit. Pfft. By the time I get home from work, I’m so exhausted that I just crawl into bed and die until 6am when I have to get up and do it all over again. Maybe this is why retail companies always schedule short shifts. Still, I very much prefer working 8-9 hours a few times a week instead of working 3-4 hour shifts all week with no day off. I also LOVE getting paid weekly. It is so wonderful to know that even though I’ll only have $6 to my name for the next three days, I’ll have a paycheck waiting for me when I get back to work on Saturday morning.

I did manage to finish cutting out all of the pieces for My First Quilt ™. It should be wonderfully bright if I ever get the time to actually put the thing together… I still need to get some fabric for the back of the thing. I couldn’t decide what I wanted, so I decided to put the top together first and then figure it out. The top is made up mostly of super bright turquoise and brown batik fabrics with some orange, pink, and green thrown in for the hell of it. I’m thinking either a solid or a subdued monochromatic batik print for the back so it’s not melting any eyeballs with all the brightness. And this is where 90% of my projects stall out. I can’t decide what the fuck I want to do, so I just put it away while I think about it. Then I end up thinking about for years at a time until I forget about the project. *sigh* I wish I could finish things. Starting new projects is way more fun than actually finishing old ones. Why, yes, I am an Aries! How did you ever guess? :p

“Why is everything so fucking GREEN??”

Right. I have a paper due in 4.5 hours. All of the research is done for the paper. I’m sitting here staring at the one page I have written, but I cannot force myself to finish it. It only has to be 3-5 pages for fucks sake! I could have the next two pages done in less than an hour, but I just cannot make myself write them for some reason.

In other news, I look absolutely amazingly hot today. Except for my jeans. They have grease on them are getting too big because I’m losing weight finally (lost 5 lbs!). I’ve been a jeans and tshirt girl for so long that I’ve forgotten how nice it is to wear a nice shirt, do my hair, and put a little mascara on occasionally. So thank you to my mother who sent me a box full of shirts that didn’t fit her or didn’t look good on her. She wears the same size as me, but forgets that she’s 52 and not 25 anymore. She buys really cute shirts, wears them once, decides that they don’t look good on her or don’t fit right, and then mails them to me.

Knitting, you say? What’s this “knitting” you speak of? Oh, that thing that I love to do! I remember now! I have had ZERO time to knit lately. I’ve been working on the same sock and shawl for over a month now. I also have the pieces cut out for my first quilt, but have not had time to actually put the thing together. Everything is sitting in a pile on my desk. Maybe I’ll be able to finish it next week. Doubtful, but maybe.

Right. Paper. Architectural history. The Branch House at 2501 Monument Avenue. Tudor-Revival. John Russell Pope. On axis with Broad Street Station as Branch was involved in the building of the station and pretty much said to Pope “Hey! Since you’re already here doing the train station, why don’t you build me a mansion and exhibition space for my tapestries?”

Major ADD moment going on here. The stack right in front of me is filled with bright orange journals and I’m sitting here going “It’s so…. orange! Why is it so orange? Ooh! Look at the birdie perched on the window! He’s cute… Goofy freshman wandering around all excited about orientation and starting college. That girl I work with is bothering me because she can’t stop talking about modeling and going to college. Shut your face, girl! I used to model and I’m in college at the school you will go to! Ain’t nothin’ special about it. The only reason I don’t model anymore is because it eats up way too much of my time. Granted, I might be able to make a couple of hundred bucks a month doing it, but all of that would go towards makeup and gas. Pfft… What was I doing? Oh, yeah! Paper! Branch House! Get there!”

I think I need less blood in my caffeine stream… Err… More caffeine in my blood stream… Same difference.

I want to watch Death at a Funeral now…

New shoes! Just in time for new job!

My mother absolutely ROCKS. Seriously. I found these toasty Chucks with a fuzzy lining that can actually be worn in the winter. I sent her a link because she used to wear Chucks when I was a kid and thought that she might want a pair (her feet get cold like mine). I also sent her a link to the Naot brand shoe page because they have narrow sizes and I thought she might like to order herself a pair (she bought herself a pair of Naot shoes last year in medium width, but they were too wide… so she gave them to me!). Well, she just sent me an email with a receipt for an order of the fuzzy Chucks linked above and another pair of Naot shoes in the same style as the ones she gave me last year (different colour, of course) all being shipped to my P.O. Box! Yay! New shoes! I have got to make her another awesome pair of socks for this. I wonder if I should use stash or get some really awesome yarn with my first paycheck…

Speaking of paychecks… I got a job! Finally! I have been looking for a job for over 6 months that a) doesn’t start at the asscrack of dawn, b) doesn’t keep me at work until after midnight, c) isn’t terribly far away, and d) has a manager that understands that I am a full time student and therefore cannot work 40+ hours a week. It’s at CVS… Yeah, yeah… Not a great job, I know. But it’s a paycheck! I’m already familiar with pharmacy hell (I worked at Walgreen’s for a while), so I know what I’m getting myself into. They’re giving me $8 an hour to start, which is not bad for a photo lab/front cashier underling. Plus it is well over the $6.55 minimum wage that starts the end of the month, and still over next year’s minimum wage rate. Hopefully I’ll get a raise by then or be working a REAL job that pays much better than that. $8 isn’t too damned shabby for right now though. The extra $400 a month will help so much. I might even be able to get financial aid this year, but I’m not holding my breath.

She’s not my neighbor anymore!

I don’t know if I ever mentioned my neighbor here. Long story short: I hate her for random reasons. Now I actually have a really good reason to hate her! She is currently in jail after being charged with aggravated assault because she apparently SHOT her SO in the head this past Monday (it might be manslaughter now since I saw the forensic van in front of the building today. Do they show up if the person hasn’t died yet?). I have spent the last few days talking to detectives and investigators who seem to think that I know every intimate detail of her life just because I happen to live across the hall from Miss Batshit Insane. I didn’t even know her name until I saw it on the news Tuesday evening. My apartment building has been on the news and there are still blood stains on the carpet in the common hallway in front of my front door. Oy. On the plus side, it has been so nice and quiet up on my floor since Miss Batshit Insane got arrested. It has not been quiet up here since she moved in last month… Oh, should I mention the fact that all this happened in my old apartment? So I know the exact layout of the place and can imagine the blood spatters on the windows in perfect detail. Nice. Makes for excellent late night pondering (note the sarcasm… I haven’t slept well all week because I keep thinking about it…).

So what does a good girl like me do when faced with craziness? Knit a sock, of course! I’ve got about 80% of the first sock done, and I’ve really only been working on it while waiting for class to start and while talking to detectives and investigators. The pattern is Seduction Socks from Interweave Knits Spring 2007 issue. The yarn is Berroco Comfort Sock in some strange teal colour. I’m not crazy about the yarn, but my mother mailed it to me. *shrug*

The many uses of the word ‘fuck’. In honor of the fucking amazing George Carlin

The worst part about knitting as a study break is when your 10 minute break to knit “just a few rows” turns into 2-3 inches of a sock. Now I need to make a choice: study for the physics exam I have in an hour or knit… Knitting is definitely winning. Fuck. I shoulda been a crafts/fiber major so I could play with fiber instead of taking physics tests. Fuckers don’t have to take fucking university physics…

And holy fucking shit! George Carlin is fucking DEAD! I’m honestly surprised at how old he was. I had no idea he was 71 years old. The world is darker and less funny today…

So what’s with all the cool fucking people randomly dying this year? I can’t even blog about half of them because I start to cry. Yes, I cry when cool famous people die, but I don’t cry when a family member dies. Figure that one out.

I am such a rebel.

Today I am wearing ripped jeans and doc’s. I am ditching school to play music and make crafty things. I’m going to have a beer and chocolate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I even have a flannel shirt that I threw on a little while ago because I got cold all of a sudden… Ok, so what if this is more early ’90s rebel than anything that would be considered “rebel” nowadays. It still works, dammit!! (and no, I wasn’t even old enough to be a rebel in the early ’90s, but I’ve been wearing doc’s and flannel shirts since about 1993…).

In reality, I’m ditching class because I feel like crap and don’t want to puke all over my lab partner, but I probably will play music and craft later today. I really am wearing ripped jeans and a flannel shirt. I was wearing doc’s before I decided I didn’t feel well enough to go anywhere.

I has project pictures! Really! I finally do!

Pinwheel Baby Blanket:

The Clap:

Saturday Market Bag:

Bellatrix Inspired Sock (that needs to be frogged because the leg is HUGE):

Notice the random cat head. Marley is a sneaky little shit…

Now, I am going to go put some sweats on and whine about my tummy hurting.

Time for a Happy Dance!

Yay! I just finished the take home final for my math class, and I am DONE with that class. In fact, this signals the end of my core classes for math (aside from the bullshit programming class I have to retake in the fall because I was full of fail the first time I took it). After fall semester is over, I will have two math electives left and one art history class. I actually could have taken them all in the summer and fall semesters and graduated in December, but noooo… Both the math and art history departments had to screw me over scheduling wise. Evil. Ah, well.

Now I just need to look through the slide list a couple of hundred times in the next 14 hours for my art history final and I will be done for the semester. I can’t wait for my month of vacation before my evil Physics class starts for the summer semester.

Swing a little more on the Devil’s Dance Floor.

I’ve been thinking about taking a dance class over the summer, so I went through my box of dance shoes and leotards and what not. I found the following shoes:

• 5 pairs of ballet shoes (including a brand new pair without elastic sewn on)
• 2 pairs of pointe shoes (one pair with the shank ripped out and the box broken)
• 3 pairs of tap shoes
• 2 pairs of ghillies
• 2 pairs of lyrical half sole shoes
• 2 pairs of those nasty white acrobat shoes
• 4 pairs of jazz shoes

I haven’t danced since I was 16. Even then, I’d only done ballet, Highland, and tap since I was 12. Why the hell do I still have all of these?? Oh, yeah. Because I always think “Someday I’ll dance again and it will be nice to have already broken in shoes that still fit.” *snerk* Sure I will. But all of those shoes are still in good shape. I could use them. Ya know, on the off chance I dance again. Hell will freeze over and the devil will have to pick up ice skating before I start dancing again.

I need to quit using songs for the titles of my posts. I promise I’m more original than that, but I always think of a song that fits the post perfectly. Plus, I woke up singing Devil’s Dance Floor this morning.