They’ve been moving some furniture around in the library and today I walked by a row of upside-down tables just like this one. COVERED IN GUM.
Is your faith in humanity appropriately rattled? This plus the booger incident is proof that communism can never succeed.
Who is doing this? Is it you? If these crimes are ever prosecuted, you’re going to feel really dumb about leaving your DNA and a perfect finger print at the scene.
Let’s spend a little time together. I’ve had some posts planned in my head that just haven’t materialized. One is titled “Jealous?” and I show you a picture of my new red ten-speed resting on its kickstand in the sun and I tag it “You want to ride my bicycle. You want to ride my bike.” It might still happen.
What have I been up to lately besides wearing sweaters and not blogging about it? I’m overwhelmed. I don’t know where to start. I touched Seelander again. I attended Ms. Stanifer’s class. I went to Florida, saw some weird birds and found one shark tooth.
Let’s just start with today. I didn’t like it.
When I woke up at 7 I knew I had to give a 45 minute presentation to a class of library students, and all of my demo code was broken because I spent all day Sunday breaking it. I made coffee and started working on it. I broke more than I fixed. Including my toilet, for no reason. I tried to flush a smooshed bug and it started to overflow. It was sleeting outside but I had to walk to work. Then my umbrella broke, too. I struggled to hold a door for someone with my stupid umbrella and a mug of coffee in my hands and he scooted in behind me, rather than touch the germy door (I HATE that) and I almost broke him.
I worked on my presentation through lunch but I finished it on time! It was titled The Metadata Magic Show, and it included a live rendering of these two static webpages (from the same xml file using XSL and rudimentary css). The instructor loved it. Two students (out of eight) nodded off and two updated their Facebook status – one of the updates, twenty minutes into my show-and-tell: “Today sucks.” Awesome.
Part of this presentation was a plug for this class I’m supposed to teach this summer but based on the interest level, I’m guessing no one is going to sign up for it and it will be cancelled. Who will pay my rent?
When I got home, I tried to reflush the partially smooshed bug floating in my toilet and I realized it was still (barely) alive, kicking his broken little legs. I’m sorry! I deserved a shitty day!
[Updated to Add:] The secret bathroom is now closed!
It’s possible that you’d rather not read this post. I did finally update my About page, and there’s nothing about diarrhea over there.
This note was taped to the door of the secret bathroom at work for about one hour on Wednesday before someone ripped it down. (It’s not really secret, but I used to not know about it.) I thought maybe “medical problem” was a euphemism for something like offensive farting or discarded heroin needles. Sarah documented it and did some sleuthing to find out what it was all about. Apparently someone has been smearing liquid poop all over the place and barfing in the lady boxes. It happened last semester, the bathroom was closed, and now the culprit is at it again. The janitor suspects he is being targeted because when he was away for a few weeks, it didn’t happen. Shawn proposed that maybe it’s like Fight Club and the janitor himself is doing it but he doesn’t know. Which is a funny idea.
I could leave you with that, but against my better judgment I’m going to keep sharing. Yesterday while at my desk, I suddenly felt barfy and my intestines rumbled ominously. I thought, Oh no I have a medical problem! and I booked it to the secret bathroom. Am I about to destroy this bathroom? Has it been me all along? Is the janitor going to catch me?
As far as I know I did not destroy it but I went home to recuperate and I will never use that cursed bathroom again.
I flew eastward for this conference and now I’m at my parent’s house. I was supposed to leave for Iowa early this morning but yesterday my mom woke me up from a pre-dinner nap with a pitcher of margaritas, and I thought about how the library (where I work) is still under water. (Did you know the Midwest is suffering from flood and bloat? My Northwest airline agent had no idea and that surprised me. Since you have to fly through the Midwest to get to the Northwest.) And I decided I might as well stay here where there is always cheese in the fridge and ice cream in the freezer.
(Unfortunately I made this decision after I had bailed from visiting the littlest Lisa in Rochester because I didn’t have time to make the trip. And now I have time but no car priveleges. I miss you, Lisa.)
So here I am and I just trounced my parents in Scrabble. Not scrabulous. It’s been a while since I’ve played it at an actual table. My dad is a miserable speller. The most absurd of his spelling questions came during his last turn (before he quit), with rhaaait in his hand.
“What’s the arabic word for law?” (He was going for shariah. Not legal.) Immediately follwed by: “What do you call the guy who collects dead horses?” Do you know of such a noun?
I was browsing through another library’s site for work and I found a photograph collection for The Book of SOYP.
In 1919, David Whitcomb, president of Rainier National Park Company, and Tom Martin, general manager, came up with the idea to cache supplies at Paradise Inn on Mt. Rainier before the road was blocked with snow and to return after the new year with a group of friends who loved the outdoors. Calling themselves the Tribe of SOYP (Socks Outside Your Pants), the group first had an outing in February, 1920, and met annually thereafter.
Where was I in 1919? Did they really wear socks outside their pants? Yes they did.
Here’s a picture someone cataloged as “Nine men throwing George Hall up in the air from a stretched-out blanket.”
