Miscellanious Crankiness: A List.

• I am scared to death of the GRE. I really am. I know I'll probably do pretty darn well on every part of the GRE except Algebra, which is annoying. I can feel the walls closing in when I think about it and I want to curl up and eat ice cream until it goes away.
• On a related note, the whole grad school thing has me freaked out. I know I'm smart enough to do it, but my GPA is not so hot, so why even apply? Sure, I have an awesome writing sample and I can get some killer letters of recommendation, but they'll take one look at my B- in stats and write me off immediately. Even if the program has nothing to do with statistics.
• I have too much crap and not enough space to put it in. When I moved back home, I did not think for one minute that I'd be there as long as I have. It's a weird situation that works well for all of us, but I'm often frustrated beyond reason that I don't remember what's in my boxes and that I have no idea where my muffin tins are and that I never bought flatware and that I have no place to display my beautiful music boxes or my collection of useless decorative tins or tiny shoes and then my dollhouse isn't finished and I can't work on it because where will I put it because the sewing room is already 80% full of my stuff and there's no room for ANYTHING ANYWHERE.
• I have something like 38 pairs of shoes. Some of which need to go in a plastic bin marked "costume shoes", but where will I put the bin? I do not know.
• I hate my bed. It is old and a little saggy, but I can't decide if I want a full or a twin bed when I buy a new one. I don't have room for a queen (I know it's only another few inches, but a few inches makes a lot of difference when you're wall-to-wall furniture) and I don't know if I can sleep on a twin, so I've avoided even thinking about buying a new one. Except when I go to Ikea or something and fall in love with half the stuff there. *insert eyeroll here*
• I got rear-ended on Saturday, and it's taken five stupid days to even get a claim filed, let alone get any response from the insured. I just want my bumper straightened out and it would be most convenient to have my car in the shop next week when I will have free access to two other cars at any given time. How hard can it be to return a phone call?! I ask you.
• There is no satellite receiver for the TV in the sewing room and I am bored with all my movies and I can't sew in a vacuum. I need some kind of background noise.
• I listened to the first two parts of The Count of Monte Cristo on my trip to visit Lisa in Tucson a few weeks ago, and then I found out that there is a third part that didn't fit on my MP3 player, so I am left HANGING with Albert and his stupid friend Franz in stupid Rome watching the stupid execution from the stupid vantage point of the stupid Count's carriage or whatever. Or maybe it was the stupid Countess being afraid of the Count at the stupid ballet during which every stupid person talked instead of watching the stupid thing.
• Pressed, thin-sliced, chicken loaf is nasty and I ate some for lunch because nothing else looked remotely appetizing. *hwarf*
• I just looked out the window at the cute little mallard couple keeping house in the fountain, only to see the Mrs. take off followed by the Mr, who didn't have enough clearance and hit the windows of the Hall of Flags and fall down. I am completely freaked out that he's dead and I can't cry at work or I will make a spectacle of myself. Now I have to go out there and see if he's alive because I can't handle something dying and leaving his mate all sad and alone.
  

I am not a fan of this week.

Ah, Spring!

I love Spring. I love everything about it except the weather vagaries, the mud, the threat of flooding from the snow melting, and all the cute clothes in the stores.

Let me explain:

There are usually a multitude of pretty, airy dresses in lovely colors and fabrics that I really want and (now) can afford. However, most of these pretty, airy dresses are sleeveless, low-cut, and too short. It doesn't help that I have to buy longer lengths in most skirts and dresses, or that I need to have some kind of lining in sheer sleeves. I went outlet shopping over the weekend and found some dresses I just loved, but I knew that most of them would be too short so I didn't even give them a third glance. A second glance I couldn't help, because they were so pretty, but I had to look away after that. I found one that was long enough and light purple and had a decently high neckline, but the sleeves were sheer and there was no good way to fix them. My sister said "Heidi, is there anything here that you like that you DON'T have to alter in some way?" The answer was, of course, no. Unfortunately. I don't want to have to spend good money on a dress and then have to spend another $40-50 on a cardigan and a camisole just to make it wearable.

The obvious answer to this dilemma is to make my own dresses. Well, let me tell you, I'd love to! But finding fabric I like is hard around here (stupid fabric stores full of ugly fleece!), and finding patterns I like (and don't have) is also hard. Finding both patterns and fabric at the same time? Highly improbable!

The less obvious answer to this dilemma is to print my own fabric, learn draping and pattern drafting, and not be quite as picky about what I put on my body. ha.

The most logical answer is to just move to LA or New York--anywhere with better fabric stores.

I want pretty things, and I do get inspired, but then I get discouraged because I hate the fabric selection, the pattern styles, or the prices. So what happens is that I buy patterns that sit there just waiting for the right fabric, or I buy fabric that goes into storage for 10 years to wait for the right pattern. Either way, it's getting ridiculous and something must be done!

*sigh*

Etymology, or How My Train Wreck of Thought Works

Why must I have the urge to disprove "common knowledge" stuff like where "hysteria" comes from? Ok, in this case, it's not so much to disprove it (because I know it's right) as to justify it. Amanda says it's because I'm a snob.

Yeah. I kind of am.

But really, it makes SENSE to call it "hysteria" when you think about what the Greeks were coming from. Look at it. Once a month, women get all weird. And then, after having babies, they get depressed. THEN, when they get older, they get all hormonal and weird again.

Not to mention libido changes and being classified as the more emotional sex, which, let's face it, they are. So of COURSE the ancient Greeks are going to say "hey, so these women are different from us. What could be the reason? Oh right. They have uteri."

DING! Fries are done, and you get "hysteria", which wasn't actually coined until something like 1801.

This is what my brain does when confronted with things like this. It's just the process of my brain. Which isn't always logical, but I don't want to offend anyone. "No, I really DO know more about history than you!" sounds a little immature...

PS: While I agree that much of Freud's research was intrinsically flawed, I will still defend the man. Go ahead. Guess how I arrived at that sentence from the previous rant. I dare you!

FINE. Be that way!

Here's a funny thing: I have often wished for a private blog to gripe about my family, but I've never bothered to set one up because of the tedium in thinking of the perfect name that they'll never guess and coming up with a catchy theme for the thing. Since I can't post or write anything cranky about them without them somehow reading it or hearing about it, I just don't.

And, you know, I've discovered that I really don't have gripes about them at all.

Time. Not just an awesome Pink Floyd song.

Tuesdays are my early days, when I have to be awake at 4 AM and out the door at 4:40 at the VERY latest, so I make sure that I get as much done as possible before bed. Lately, because I have rehearsals Monday night and we often don't get done until after 10 PM, I've been turning the bed down, laying out my pajamas and clothes for the next day, making breakfast, and setting alarms before I go to rehearsal so all I have to do when I get home is take off my makeup, brush my teeth, and crawl into pjs and bed and pray for deep oblivion for the next 5 hours.

Last night, I set my two regular alarms and slowly fell asleep, anxious that I wouldn't get enough of it. My radio went off at 3:45, as set, but I was confused because I had set my beeping alarm to go off just before the radio did. My beeping alarm clock is 25 minutes fast, so I always have to do a little groggy math before setting it so it goes off a few minutes before or after my radio. When the beeping alarm goes off, I check the time on the radio to see how much time I really have left, and either turn over for five more minutes or get out of bed. This morning, however, when I checked Mr. Radio against Mr. Beepy at about 4, Mr. Beepy was suddenly 35 minutes slow--it said 3:25 AM, and my confused brain thought "how odd that it's suddenly 35 minutes fast the other way". I looked over to Blue Clock on the dresser, which said it was 3 AM. It took a few seconds to register that something was wrong. Very wrong. How in the world could Mr. Radio be going off at 4, but Mr. Beepy hadn't gone off yet and Blue Clock was still at 3 AM?

It made no sense to me. None. Until I got up and checked my cell phone. Yup. 3 AM. A full hour before I had planned to get up, and only 4 hours of sleep in my brain. I checked my phone twice, just to be sure. Somehow, I had set Mr. Radio an hour ahead. I have no idea how that happened, but I had the alertness to set it back to its normal time, reset the alarm on both Mr. Radio and Mr. Beepy, and go back to a fitful sleep until 4. I was still confused and worried that maybe Mr. Radio was right and the other three were wrong. I almost turned on my computer as well, just to be on the safe side, but I'm glad I didn't because that would have meant another 10 minutes of being awake. I'm barely functional on 6 hours of sleep, let alone less than 5. That extra restless sleep made a difference today, but not much.

I am anxiously awaiting leaving work and hitting the hay as soon as possible, and annoyed with myself for not being able to figure out what was wrong this morning. Let's be honest, I'm also annoyed that I couldn't leave rehearsal early last night...it'll pass. It practically has. But as long as I'm tired and my stupid eye keeps twitching and stinging, I may break out into tears at any given moment today.

Let that be a lesson to you! Always make sure you clocks ALL have the same time! Too bad setting Mr. Beepy to the right time will just be confusing... *sigh*

I'm dead tired.

Baby, it's Cold Outside!

A few things to preface this rant:

I live in Utah.
Winters are cold in this part of Utah.
Right now, it is 36 degrees outside, and snowing.
Snow is made of frozen water--little flakes of ice are falling from the sky.
Last week, temperatures at my house (according to my outside thermometer) were less than 10 degrees some nights.

With those things in mind, can someone please tell me why people (especially girls, it seems) don't dress for the weather and then have the nerve to complain about the cold? I see girls wearing jeans, spiky heels, cute lacey tops, and hoodies, trying to navigate parking lots covered with half an inch of ice. Or they're wearing those obnoxious, ubiquitous, cheap knit skirts with high-heeled boots that look neither warm nor non-slip. They might look good, but they also look cold and in peril of breaking an ankle or wrist. Then there are the guys--some of them still wear shorts and t-shirts and flip-flops. In the snow. When it's 20 degrees outside.

Then, with all of that, they complain that they're cold.

Where is the logical disconnect? Which synapses need repair? It snows in Utah. Snow is essentially frozen water. Frozen water is called ice. Ice is cold. When it's snowing, it's cold. When it's cold, you should probably wear a real coat and perhaps some practical shoes, fashion be damned!

Now, I'm not advocating wearing a grandma coat (although they made good coats back then, and you'd probably be pretty warm), moon boots, and an ugly hat, but sometimes, for your own health and safety, you should do what it takes to stay warm and non-frostbitten. My sister's colleague at BYU-Idaho told her about a girl whose ears got frostbitten during the five minute walk from her apartment to her class because she didn't wear a hat and it was below freezing outside. If water is going to freeze, human tissue will also freeze eventually. You can't just thaw your ears like you can a bag of peas--the damage is usually a little more permanent.

Please, for your own sake, invest in a decent coat and some gloves! There are some really cute coats out there that are not only stylish but WARM. I, for one, wish we hadn't given away the bright pink, knee-length, down-filled coat I had 15 years ago, because it was WARM. I hate wearing socks, but I also hate being cold, so I wear them nearly all the time in winter, just waiting for the average temperature to be above 45 for at least a week before I take them off for summer. My hands get cold, so I wear ski gloves. I don't like wearing a hood because it makes my hair staticky, but I hate it when my ears are cold, so I wear a hood. Sure, my coat isn't all Abercrombie cute, but it keeps me warm. I don't care if people look at me funny because I know I'm warmer than they are and will probably only get the flu once all winter.

And, you know, that makes up for looking a little dumpy in my down coat and practical shoes.

Cripple Fight, or How Many Euphamisms for Money Can I Use in One Blog?

Not because I want to see cripples fight, nor because of the South Park episode which I must admit brought me great hilarity, but because every number key across the top of my keyboard except these two--5 6--is broken. BROKEN. I cannot even express my dismay and annoyance at this because I can't type an exclamation point. Nor can I make clever asides, as is often my wont, because the parentheses are equally as broken. Or borked. Depending on what lingo you savvy.

Either I need to cough up the dinero for a new keyboard, or take this one apart and clean the thingies. Contact points. Whatever they are. As it stands, I have a nice Benq flatscreen monitor in black and a bright pink tower and a drab, greyish beige greige keyboard. Perhaps this is a sign to me to spend a few sawbucks on a new keyboard. Or perhaps this is an exercise in saving my bread and learning to express myself without the ubiquitous exclamation point. However, socking away my pesos doesn't necessarily mean I can live without my AMPERSAND. AMPERSAND, people. Ampersand, asterisk, all are useless to me now. I think maybe I can justify spending some hard-earned bread on a keyboard. After all, I shelled out plenty of clams for my new shoes, and those aren't as necessary for my computer travels as a keyboard is, although my feet will probably kill me if I return their lovely new friends.

Is my genius being destroyed for lack of wampum? Am I being inhibited by my miserly hesitance to part with some cabbage? Is my gleeful shout being stifled because I don't really want to spend more beans on a good keyboard? For goodness sake, I got a new computer for Christmas. Well, new components to put in my existing computer. In any case, why shouldn't I just fork over the coinage and get it over with?

I don't know. I have some extra moolah in the bankroll. I just have to decide what color of black to buy...