Prosaic Paradise

School report: It’s all over but the very quiet sweating and scan-tron bubble filling in. We had our last lab and lecture. We got to (heh) fill out our course evaluations. That took everyone quite a while. I am trying to let go and be relaxed about the end product. I do want an A but I don’t want to set myself up to lose my mind if that doesn’t happen. So, this weekend I will do the best I can to study. And by Thursday? Miller time.

I’d reckon I have over 8 hours of available study time tomorrow (hope to actually study for half of that) and due to plans on Sunday, probably a bunch less. I need to work on identifying histology slides and details of the chemistry of digestion. I want to take the sample exams online as well.

For some reason I find the slides of hyaline cartilage aesthetically pleasing.

Tags: class, School

This evening I was thinking about how when it’s all quiet in the house, and particularly this happens when I am studying, I freak out at little noises. I can identify all kinds of noises around our abode; mostly they are outside. We’re extremely blessed (for some agnostic value of blessing) to be able to live in our little victorian single family, but it’s a fact that it’s located on a postage-stamp sized lot and on two sides is bordered directly by sidewalk. So I hear lots of stuff. But I have learned in four years to filter all that out, so I recognize immediately when a sound is weird.

Like sometime last year when I heard a drunk driver do a hit & run. I knew before the hit that the driver was driving erratically. And this is from a state of drifting off to sleep. Or fights – I can identify normal high-schooler-play fights vs. someone-on-the-cell-phone-with-a-loved-one-endearitating fights vs. domestic-disharmony-and-we’ll-see-the-cops-soon fights.

Sometimes I admit I fantasize about having a place “out there”. I guess I by this I mean beyond the suburbs, in a place where you can’t necessarily see your neighbor’s house – or really, even a place where you can see a couple of neighbors but they couldn’t hear you if you went outside and had a normal conversation. But on nights like tonight when I’m home alone and trying to study but listening for marauders, I think… wouldn’t it be that much more terrifying to be so far away from everybody?

Today Jack’s mom called me to tell me about an attempted kidnapping that happened nearby. It’s really a weird story, in the sense that they don’t mention any force, just verbal threats. But of course when I got home tonight it was all about looking around the house for marauders and then hearing more of the noise that goes on than usual. But one thing that was comforting to me is that I have neighbors in ten yards (or less) in just about every direction. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but when I think about being in a house where the next physical human is a football field away… well I imagine it would take some getting used to for someone who’s never lived like that.

Probably some of you figure being “out there” is safer, with a lower per capita amount of marauders around. I, on the other hand, have read In Cold Blood. Twice. (Hey, it’s that good.) I think I’ll keep my postage-stamp lot!

Tags: house, local

I swore I was not going to be meta at all this month, but on the last day of National Blog Posting Month it’s kind of hard not to.

Friday night we sat down with Genie and Rich and we ended up talking at length about what it’s meant to participate in NBPM, what we’ve learned from blogging over the long stretch of time before that, what privacy means to us, and a whole host of other things. This was obviously really great, because duh, really smart folks.

Everyone who blogs asks themselves (probably frequently) “why do I do this?” And the list of answers is too ridiculous to list here. I often answer this “to be accountable to myself” or “so I can remember what happened” but there are also the shadow reasons “to be outgoing” or “to get attention”, for instance. Lots of people do it to practice writing and I figure as long as I don’t mention that or claim to be any good at writing and totally disavow any claims to writerliness, I avoid a whole mess of judgment. I know that many people (at least try) do it for the money – but I don’t know any of those folks personally.

So regardless of the whys, I have, at this posting, managed to post every day for a month. And I think there’s been a pretty good content/dross ratio. But on this the last day of NBPM, I have also signed up to attend BlogHer ’09. I justified this out of my vacation budget. I’m still not exactly sure what I’ll do there apart from extend that conversation I just described to a thousand new people who feel at least as passionate as I do about blogging. I don’t have a concrete desire to drive traffic. I don’t have one topic or identity.

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What I like is to make contact with people, and blogging has just recently paid off in just that way. When I got home last night after a long drive, I found in my mailbox a package all the way from Australia from someone I linked who writes for The Rising Storm. In one of my first posts I’d mentioned I wanted to contribute towards the efforts to send Mental Notes gold in Australia, and this total stranger helped me do just that. And sent a bonus CD. Now that’s what I’m talking about.

So now you can look forward to only hearing from me when I’m sure I have content I want to share. At least until next November.

Tags: Meta

It seems like we just got here but today we’re going home. But before that, we’re headed off to an Antique show – it wouldn’t be a visit to my parents’ house without antiques.

We actually did venture into a store yesterday! It was the Costco. And we parked right in front. And we didn’t buy anything. I just wanted to see what they had for deals on DSLRs and they had a good deal on the XSi but not so inspiring that we had to snap it up right then. People were buying plasma TVs like there was no tomorrow! We saw a lady with no less than 4 on her cart.

I found out that dad actually wants to see a concert! This happens so rarely so I immediately picked up tickets to see Tom Rush at the Ram’s Head in Annapolis. I am actually really psyched for this.

OK! Off to look at old stuff.

Jack and I are down in Norfolk. We’ve had a stunningly good Thanksgiving dinner. We have so much to be thankful for I could in fact write another month’s worth of posts about those things alone. It all comes down to folks, really. So my first thanks priority goes to my friends, my family, and just nice folks all along the way. Thank you.

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Tags: Family, Friends

Notebookism recently had a post plugging the Typotheque 2009 limited edition pocket calendar/sketchbook. I was in a whimsical mood, so I bought one even though I have a notebook that I really need to fill (that is a whole other post) and even though it had to ship from Denmark. There were some Concerned Noises coming from the significant other side of the room but I persevered. Last week I got this thing in my hot little hands and I won’t say that my current notebook is demoted, but this is a nice little number. And it being out of print isn’t going to stop me from writing a review!

There are a few little perks to this notebook, starting with the holiday list on the first page and continuing to the foldable front and back covers that act as bookmarks. And of course, the thing that sold me on it, the various unusual graph paper pages in the non-calendar half. The descriptions says that the notebook is bound in the “Otastar” method but I can’t find a good description of that anywhere online. As far as lying flat, it kind of does that and so far bounces right back if not being actively held down.

When I first opened the package, I was a little disappointed in the paper… it looked so thin! I thought it could not possibly stand up to my favorite pens, the kind that blob ink on the page in great big 1.0mm lines. As you can see, however, it does a fine job with the G-2 as well as the Varsity, in fact there was virtually no bleed at all. The cover being a thickish craft paper/card paper means that it easily gets creases, which might not be great for longevity. My only other thought as to why this notebook might not work is that I feel like the pages are just not big enough to let me spread out my lists and notes as I would like, but I think that’s a personal preference thing. I’m sure there are lots of people that want an analog planner to be more compact.

So, yes, it was a little extravagant and maybe stupid to get a planner shipped from Denmark. I’m assuming they didn’t charter a whole boat for it (certianly not for mumblemumble dollars as many as that is) so I’ll only feel so guilty. I’m sorry you can’t order this exact notebook, but they have other interesting products, some blank books, and there is always the 2010 edition…

Tags: stuff

So. I made it to the Howard County Community College advising hours, and after looking at my unofficial transcripts, they OKed me for either or both of the remaining classes I need. After some thought I decided to take Chemistry first, in the regular-size semester, because it will be harder. I know this because I’ve taken it twice and it was painful both times.

The first time was around 1992. I believe it was the summer before senior year in high school. See, at my schmancy private school they offered all three AP sciences, and you had a choice. I can’t quite recall what my driving need was to take all three of them, but in order to do this I had to voluntarily sign up for (and wheedle my parents into paying for) a summer school session of Chemistry. I can only assume I was just a giant fucking nerdburger and felt I had to prove it. I somehow involved Genie in this plan as well, or she involved me, I’m not sure. It was mutual assured nerdstruction. What followed was several tear-filled weeks of desperate A-chasing.

My most vivid memory of that summer – scratch that – I have two or three vivid memories. I know that I practiced crafting the smallest possible handwriting ever recorded, because one feature of the class was an allowed one-sided cheat sheet for each exam. I remember (please forgive me for this Genie – or hopefully you already have) desperately trying to spy what Genie got on her exams to see if I did better. (Supporting the “something to prove” theory above.) And finally I recall sitting on the stone benches outside the “Pit” actually crying because I did not get an A on something. I remember very distinctly feeling burning shame over that, and I can’t remember if it was because Genie did better than me (again, I am so sorry I used to be an ass) or just my own whatever. But in the interest of full disclosure, it is a memory that stuck with me.

I got another chance to take Chem in college. I guess my AP scores were not up to par. (Physics had been a right disaster; something fell apart for me around the lens chapter. Best not discussed.) Unfortunately, I figured I could pass without attending the class at all. That did not work. I have virtually no memory of burning shame at my failure because it was totally washed away by the actual clinical depression I was experiencing. Good times.

So now I’m coming back for more of this, since shockingly HCC won’t accept a 10 year old D. I am some kind of glutton for punishment. Although, eeeeverything is different now – hopefully I’m not an ass. And I’m not contemplating throwing myself through a plate glass window. And I remember the first two elements on the periodic table. I think that is a good place to start.

Tags: class, hindsight, History, School

It’s not all that often that I find out that Federal law has actually touched my life in a concrete way. Last week I was feeling downtrodden when I was looking at my new insurance information (our company moved to a different parent blah blah) because it looked like I would be losing my mental health benefits, which (TMI alert!) help me to be able to afford to see a therapist. I voiced this concern to Penny (said therapist) and she was like, “girl, you check that again because Mental Health Parity Act is in the house!”

OK she didn’t say it like that. But I did check it again and found out that for 2008 there was no coverage, but for 2009, there is coverage! A somewhat reasonable copay and 40 visits per year. Now we’re talking. How this got included in the bailout plan is beyond me, but I don’t really care. I can continue getting treated for anxiety disorder without going broke.

So I’m making this post so that YOU know your insurer probably has to cover you for mental health now (or at least starting October 3, 2009). I am also making this post as a public thank you to all those who undoubtedly worked very hard to get it made into a law. Thank you advocates and lawmakers. This is really important to me but undoubtedly to many others who need it even more.

Tags: health

Here’s a fine post for a Monday, something really niggling and silly to think about.

Why do some people turn on read receipt for every single email they send out? Do they really like to recieve approximately a million receipts a day in their mailboxes?

I have turned on read receipt two times in my entire life. Exactly twice have I deemed an email so important for people to read that I would like to see an acknowledgement that they have read it to ease my mind that they recieved my email which almost certainly contained a message that directly impacted their immediate health and welfare.

Yet there are people who turn this feature on for, as far as I can tell, literally every single email they send out. And now I’ve discovered that there’s a further feature, one that tells the sender if you deleted their email! So when I go to empty my trash several messages relating to whether I want to let [unnamed person] know I’m deleting their email pop up. Really? You really needed to know I was deleting your email?

I am not that torqued about an extra click, but I just don’t get it. Can anyone explain it to me?

Tags: trifling

I have had one of those very nice days. Nothing went haywire, nothing was particularly planned. I wanted to clean house and go for a walk which don’t sound like hefty goals but we probably haven’t let you upstairs in our house lately.

We did manage to go for a walk. I’ve lived in the historic district of Laurel for a whopping four years now and never taken that walk down to the Patuxent, so today I said I am going down there and getting some sunlight while I can. We ended up getting some pictures of what I guess was a Great Blue Heron (correct me if I’m wrong) and climbing around on playground equipment and getting some kind of a workout to boot. I’m probably a paranoid but I don’t like walking down there by myself so I was glad Jack was willing to come along. Yay Patuxent in our backyard!

Prior to that we took a lunchtime jaunt down to the Ritz camera because it May Finally Be Time to get a DSLR. A nice young lady named Tina tried very hard to unsell us the Canon XSi and sell us the Sony a300. So now I have more research to do because Sony wasn’t even on my radar, but she did a good job of selling it, so I’m willing to consider it. I’m willing to bet those of you out there in the peanut gallery have some opinions on this.

Yesterday’s annual cooking turned out to involve no cooking at all; I made Ambrosia salad which mostly involved me chopping up fruit. I like to make it without coconut but no one cared! It was a hit. Now we’ve just vacuumed the crap out of our bedroom and we’re both beat, so I’m actually going to cook. Hamburger Helper, bzntches.

Tags: camera, food, local