I like my fingers.

I do. I really do. So it disturbs me that the universe is conspiring to disable all the fingers on my left hand.

Sunday night: drawer broke and slanted up, sandwiching my thumb between it and the top of the counter. Result: one painful, moderately purple thumb.

Tuesday afternoon: I catch my index finger in the file drawer, and, reacting to the pain, jerk my finger out of the door...taking a large, bloody chunk out of my finger.

Next to go: the middle. We're on a 36 hour or so trend here, so if I make it to 48 hours with all digits intact and unharmed, I'll let you know. But I'm leaving the chopping for Michael until then.

Ok, and I had a hilarious work moment. I love the people I work with; have I mentioned that?

I have three professors in my office. One is trying to recall the name of a street a fellow prof lives on; mentions it is the name of a great author. Troy's genius quip? "Steele?"

I think I snorted before I literally lost it. It was hilarious...probably more my reaction to it than the actual moment. I'm actually chuckling right now, thinking of it.

I'm such a dork.

Ice cream, blazing infernos, and stick shifts

I know, I know, I haven't blogged in forever (aka two weeks).

So, let me catch you up:

Michael and I's favorite ice cream store (that makes their own frozen deliciousness in the back) went out of business. During this fated ice cream run, we also discovered that they were selling their stock: 10 pints of hand-packed, homemade ice cream for $10. Needless to say, our freezer is quite full at the moment.

uhhm, don't know if you've noticed, but... Southern California burned to the ground. Jim and Ami made it out of Rancho Bernardo just fine, as did Chris and Chandra out of Ramona. My brother was put on voluntary evacuation, but it was lifted about a day later. Alpine was miraculously spared...again, if you remember their proximity to the 2003 fires. The Grass Valley fire was named for Grass Valley road...the road that borders one side of the camp. Anyway, far as I know we're all safe and only slightly singed.

I got a new psychologist...nice guy; I think it'll work out fine. I always hate introductory psych meetings. "Hi, this is me. Here's my medication history, symptom history, family history, blah blah blah." Ick. So glad to have that over with.

But, on a high note: I learned to drive a stick yesterday. Whoohoo! I think I only sort of freaked out Mike (and all others unlucky enough to be parked in the far end of the SEARS parking lot). I even took it out on the road this morning and didn't even stall! Yes, yes, I know. I'm hardcore. But I look like a total granny because I'm sitting so close to the steering wheel in order to push the clutch all the way in. Still working on the "style" factor.

And that's life. I'm off to finish my crossword, sort and fold laundry, and work on my philosophy paper due next week. Happy Sunday,

Tired...so very tired

Does anyone want to tell me how 650 or so pages of hardcore political philosophy can be adequately translated into 4-5 pages? Yeah, I don't get it either. I'm working like mad (ok, except for the time out for this blog) to get my paper done and sent out this morning, and I'm constantly reminded that MY INSTRUCTOR IS INSANE.

On a brighter note, I am *gasp* now 24 years old. Booyah. Or something like that.

This schedule is really taking a toll; I don't know how much longer I can keep it up. To be 18 and never need to sleep again...well, I could always just go off my meds (those hypomanic episodes are fantastic for getting stuff done), but I'm pretty sure Michael would divorce me.

Anyway, I've had a couple of breakdowns this past week (just stress and depression and the time of year...AND my meds aren't quite right). I get to do my introductory meeting with my new psychiatrist on the 23rd, which means I tell them everything about myself...AGAIN! Yay! I guess they do it because there's such a high rate of misdiagnosis and over-diagnosis. And you don't want to put a normally functioning person on anti-psychotics (or, as I call them, the good pills). And I have to face the fact that October is a horrible month for manic depressive people. It's the month with the highest rate of hospitalizations, consistently. Oh well.

And the kitties have discovered a new game: run after each other up and down the stairs at 6 am. Make turn-around point upstairs the bed with the two sleeping people. Stop occasionally to set up camp on person's chest and be petted.

I love the dorks, but grrrrr....

Birthday...Part 1

So, I have officially celebrated the first weekend of my birthday stretch. Since my birthday is Wednesday, I get BOTH weekends. How awesome is that?

Anyway, Friday: I took the day off of work (I got a day for my birthday), marathoned on my papers and ran errands, then went down to Disneyland. IT WAS INSANELY CROWDED. Everyone and their mom thought D-land was the place to be that random Friday in October. So we left shortly after seeing the Haunted Mansion all dolled-up for Halloween. We got on the road, realized we were heading home in 6:00 pm Friday traffic, and promptly detoured to IKEA to kill some time. Nothing too special (other than the fact that we got to hang out in IKEA, which is always nifty). I think we bought a microplane and a corkscrew.

Got BACK on the freeway, and sat. For an hour. Moved about a mile...maybe two. Got off freeway. Went to Best Buy to look at laptops. (Michael and I have been sharing my broken, super-slow laptop for about a month...the insanity has to stop). Got back on freeway. Sat for 1 1/2 hours. Moved about...eh...5 miles. Finally passed a five car pile-up; it looked bad. Hope everyone was ok. We finally got home wayy after ten. Geesh!

Saturday: Got up, got coffee, BOUGHT A LAPTOP!!!! YAY! Scary as all heck to drop that much money on something that I didn't drive or live in, but it happens. Anyway, we got a to-die-for deal on a way-tricky HP. It has a lot of gig and ram and... techno stuff. And it looks pretty, which was my favorite part (Michael would tell me it looks "sexy." I have a hard time giving that title to hardware, but whatever). Oh, and we got our desk delivered, which had a big ol' gouge in the front corner, so we have to exchange via mail...boo! But other than that, I got cracking on my papers again before finding out we could go pick up the kitty we adopted a couple of weeks ago. She's gorgeous; I'll post a picture as soon as I can. (Name: Clio Satine "The Iconoclast.")

Sunday: Missed church, which I'm sad about, but it happens. :( Got breakfast. Wrote and read for four hours straight. Introduced the kitties to each other. Lots of hissing (on Turk's side). He's a bit of an only child. Dinner with the Lakes, wherein I receieved totally awesome cups and saucers from SBUX (with fall leaf motifs...I'm so excited!!!), and a Borders gift certificate. Needless to say I lost no time in putting that one to good use. Bought a few books (Swann's Way, The House of the Seven Gables, Jacob's Room). Came home, marathoned on paper.

Going to bed. GREAT WEEKEND! Can't it be longer?

Simple

Everytime I really sit down and think about Christianity, I'm overwhelmed by how simple it is. Love God, love others. It's really not that difficult. So why do we make it so hard? We start worrying about how we worship, and what posture we take when we pray, and what we eat, and our stance on the environment. Some of us get irritated when other Christians would rather sit in a formal latin mass and pray on their knees...and I know plenty of Christians that don't like that I pray with my eyes open, wear jeans to church, and listen to the sermon while I'm sipping a cup of coffee.

But you know what? I don't think God cares. I think Jesus would be happy to sit in a Catholic mass, and I think he'd totally rock out next to me at my church. I like to think he's a half-caf cappuccino kind of God. I think he'd smile at the guy who's half hung-over from the night before, and hug the homosexual, and buy the homeless guy on the corner breakfast. SO WHY CAN'T WE DO THAT? WHY IS IT SO HARD?

I'm not perfect at it. Heck, I'm not even good at it. I give it my best...sometimes. And other times, I admit that I slack and expect a better Christian to come by and pick up my responsibilities. But God loves me anyway. And he loves you, anyway. And he's a Sex God and a Green God and a terrible and jealous God...all of those things. But he's also the lover of my soul and my savior.

I always liked the little sermon clip at the end of Chocolat. Tell me what you think:

"Do I want to speak of the miracle of our Lord's divine transformation? Not really, no. I don't want to talk about his divinity. I'd rather talk about his humanity. I mean, you know, how he lived his life, here on Earth. His kindness, his tolerance. Listen, here's what I think. I think that we can't go around measuring our goodness by what we don't do. By what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create... and who we include."

Wet Paint

I went to lunch today, and there was a "wet paint" sign on the door to the James building. I carefully avoided all surfaces since, frankly, I had no clue to what area it was referring.

I came back from lunch. There were now three wet paint signs posted around the doorway. I still walked through very carefully, touching nothing. Still not entirely sure what was wet.

Left for the day. I now had to dodge two orange cones wrapped in "wet paint" signs in addition to those plastered on the walls. I haven't been back since, which is too bad. I probably missed the "wet paint" portable scrolling marquee and mime.

Lolcat

I don't care if pictures of kitties with clever captions are low art.

If Lolcats are wrong, I don't want to be right.