Monday, September 12, 2011

It happens to everyone, yes?

Did you ever do something you know you're smarter than to do, but which was innately human and yet embarrassing to take responsibility for? Have you ever been in a panic situation?

Well, I have. It happened to me.

Meet Rocky. He's a 6 year old Red Eared Slider. He lives with us. In that clear glass box.  This is relevant, I swear.

Matt and I have been fondly referring to the wildfire of last week as the "free excitement" that our apartment complex so graciously supplies to us. I mean, with our monthly rent we get all the following amenities:

Granite countertops
Full tile showers
A full garage
Excellent maintenance staff
An incredible view
Exercise room, leisure room, and pool
....and all the adrenaline-pumping excitement you can stand.

But I digress.

There was a lot more involved in the fire last week besides the awkward 911 call, evacuation procedures, and annoying calls with Allstate (that ended up not being needed). We also had a little..... carpet situation.

When the fire reached the transformers in our area and they exploded blew, leaving us without power, that was my first inkling there was something wrong outside. (I had been falling asleep for a nap on the couch, and thought I smelled our neighbors starting their barbeque early, but I was horribly mistaken wrong.)

This weekend I had to send an embarrassing maintenance request to our leasing office, which Matt states is due to an innately human reaction on my part, but I'm still horribly embarrassed and too scared to think of what the possible outcomes could have been were we not so lucky. Tomorrow the new carpet people are coming to repair our carpet and I am seriously considering leaving them the following note.

Dear Benchmark Carpet Repair,

Hi! We are so happy that you are here to repair our carpet, and regret that we will not be present to answer any questions you may have. If you do have any questions while you're here, please feel free to call me at XXX-XXX-XXXX, and I will be able to answer your questions.

But let me explain.

See that turtle? The one right there? He's been around since I was in college. Which means I've had him for 6 years. (Can you believe how old I'm getting? I wish to not discuss that further.) And you see that lamp right there on top of him? That's how this happened:


But don't be fooled into thinking that I'm some irresponsible pet owner who shouldn't be allowed to handle simple circuited heat lamps while unsupervised. As previously stated, I've had Rocky since I was 21 and I've never had a situation such as this. Not when I drank a whole bunch, not when I was sad, or even when I got more responsible a few years ago last year.

That lamp (which has since been replaced, but we're talking generalizations, here) never touches the floor. For a number of reasons:
1. I have a science degree and I understand that UV light bulbs generate heat (you know, like the sun does)
2. Small enclosed spaces + direct heat light = serious trouble. (Want proof? Check the floor.)
3. I'm terribly scared of fire. Terribly scared.
4. I don't enjoy getting in trouble or doing anything wrong. (Perfectionistic control freak? Me? Have you read any of this letter?)

So, approximately one week ago, there was a great big fire behind our apartment. And when the transformers blew, and the power was out, and I looked out the window to see 50 foot flames fire behind our fence, I maybe sort of panicked. Like the hysterical kind of panic.

Who knew I'd not be in control all the time.

After placing our very sweet kitty, who I'm sure you've met by now because he is only a little bit annoying, in his kennel, ending a very humorous call with 911, figuring out how to open the garage door without power proving that I'm not effectively trapped in this apartment, I then decided to grab the turtle for our evacuation. I picked up the lamp, which was off due to the power outage, placed it on the floor, put the turtle in an ice chest (because I couldn't find his traveling ball..... a whole other story), grabbed my purse and left. I didn't even put the grate back on top of the cage, because I thought I was about to die. I could smell smoke, which turned out to not be from a barbeque, and my eyes were burning, and I was scared. (I was also alone, but I feel bad guilt-tripping Matt for that because he was at work. So I won't mention it. Again.)

When we came home, almost immediately after the power came back on, and as soon as they'd let us back in, we found the lamp on the floor, and it had turned back on.

I am well aware of what could have happened to not only our apartment, but the entire building if we had decided to not come home that night. I lost lots of sleep over the "what ifs" of the situation, and the guilt and disappointment in myself because every firefighter in town spent 8 hours that day out here fighting fires and keeping all these homes from burning and I almost did that with a lamp.

It took me almost a week to muster the courage to notify our leasing office about my mistake, which was an embarrassing email as well.

Anyways, long story short, I am very sorry for burning a hole in our carpet. And yes, I know what could have happened. Yes, I know we're lucky that it wasn't worse. And we are very appreciative of you all repairing it. Hopefully you can make it a patch job instead of having to rip this whole section up, yes?

Thanks a bunch,

Me.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Panic situations

So.... there was a fire this labor day. Immediately behind our apartment. Yup our backyard caught fire.
And by "backyard", I mean "the giant park in the canyon we overlook".
I didn't know about this fire until it had reached our complex and the transformers behind our building exploded.
NOT LIKE IN THE MOVIES. Our transformers did NOT save the day.
So I called 911 once I looked outside and saw flames. Which, in hindsight seemed to be everywhere and very close. But now they seem a little farther away than originally thought.
Anyways, my 911 call was apparently hysterical. It went a little like this:
911 operator: Do you need fire, EMS, or police?
Me: fire! I need fire!
911 operator: let me connect you. One moment.
::recording:: all operators are currently busy. Do not hang up.
Me: you've got to be fucking kidding me. (I'm running around the apt trying to get the cat, the turtle, and figure out how to get my car out of the garage since the power is out.)
911 operator: I'm sorry ma'am. They'll be right with you.
Me: (clearly not realizing she could hear me.) Oh, um. Thanks. Whoops.
Dispatcher: how may I help you?
Me: hi, I live at ::here:: and the transformers behind our building just blew up and there is a fire now.
D: in the stone oak park area?
Me: yes. It's behind our apartment and the flames are right behind the fence.
D: ok ma'am, we already have responders in the area.
Me: ok well its a fire. And its behind my apartment. And I can't get out of the garage because the power is out and I need to get the cat and I can't see anything because there are no lights on and I'm effectively trapped in this apartment and there is a fire right outside.
D: ok ma'am. There should be a latch you pull to get the garage manually open.
Me: this one? ::yank:: now what? Nothing happened!
D: you should be able to just pull it open on your own.
Me: you're amazing. Thank you.
D: do you need anything else?
Me: no. I can go to my mom's house. She is nearby. Thank you very much.
Then I thought I Hung up the phone. I pushed end. You know what my phone does? I have to push end twice. To be sure I guess. I didn't know that. So the dispatcher heard the following:
Me: Come on, kitty! You wanna go to grandma's house? Come on, kitty! We gotta go now!
Then I heard the dispatcher still talking. So I put the phone to my ear and said, "um... do I need to do anything else?"
D: no ma'am. Do you still need us?
Me: nope, we are leaving now. Thanks.
And I really hung up the phone that time.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The Best Years of Our Lives

.... Which is what I was always told would be high school. That was false.

For a little while, the best years of my life were college.

Then 2011 happened, and I'm pretty sure that it's been the best year for almost every single person I know. (Myself included)
I could list them all, but that would be ridiculously boring for my dedicated and loyal readers, plus it's a bit "why everyone else is having a better year than you"-ish, don't you agree?

Just an overview, though....

I will have been a bridesmaid/maid of honor in 4 weddings by year end. As far as I can remember. I may have lost count, because sometimes my brain tells me 5. But I might be secretly living out my own wedding on occasion in my own little fantasy land, so I'm pretty sure it's 4 real weddings.

Miss Rachel got married in February of this year.
Miss Angelica got married in April.
My sister will say her nuptual vows in November.
Miss Meredith will vow matrimonial happiness and loyalty in December.

(Yup, it's 4. Which means I've officially caught wedding fever. Sorry. I'm human. With 2 X chromosomes. It happens.)

At my last count 750, a whole bunch of people I grew up with or have known since it was socially uncomfortable to be pregnant have had or are having babies.

(I don't have baby fever. I still see LOTS of dollar signs and poo when I hear the word "baby" or "pregnant". It's a panic attack inducing word.)

However, this post isn't about me.

Anymore.

I guess. ::sigh::

Miss Rachel got a blog when she popped had little Molly, so it's only fair that Miss Meredith gets a blog because she's getting married.

And moved far away from the great nation state of Texas.

In November, I was text messaging regularly with Meredith because I had done this really brave thing and gave online dating a shot. And I managed to meet a man I really liked, and clicked with right away, and of course I had to tell some all of my girls about him, because well, it was my turn to meet a man that was good, dammit.

Back to Meredith.

Anyways, because Meredith saw me being brave, she decided that if I could do it she can. Then she almost chickened out, but I told her not to, and so she joined the big internet dating world too.

Then she sent me some text messages about not wanting to go meet this guy (or two, I can't remember) she had been talking to, but I told her (nicely) to put her big girl panties on because she could be missing out on her soulmate if she bailed.

And I was right. Ha! HAHA! I wiiin. Wiiiiiiiinnnnnnniiiiiiing.

Long story short, Meredith had some really long day dates with Chris, and made him drive an hour to see her, because she's worth it (which I'm also going to claim credit of teaching her by way of "good dating rules"), and it kind of went like this:

Chris asks Meredith to be his girlfriend.
Meredith says no, citing some silly reason of it being too soon.
Meredith changes her mind roughly three days later (not typical at all......) and decides that what other people think doesn't matter and says yes.
Mushy Mushy Romance stuff
Someone says they love the other first.
The other reciprocates said feeling.
Chris gets into grad school on another planet in Michigan
Meredith panics calmly devises a solution.
Chris plans a solution all on his own.
Meredith picks up on said solution and starts pre-planning.

Chris proposes to Meredith in some sneaky yet horribly mushy and disgusting romantic way.
Meredith says yes.

Meredith makes phone calls.

Facebook statuses change.

The Earth celebrates and floods Meredith's facebook wall (and maybe Chris's, but I don't know) with congratulations and good tidings.

I buy another bridesmaid dress that I will be dying attening Cross Fit classes to look good in. (Cause pictures are forever, y'all.)

I receive a save the date in the mail (even though I have a mental rolodex, I still appreciate the memo. And have a slight tinge of misery that my mental rolodex will not last forever.)

I check out Meredith and Chris's wedding webpage, because I should  be doing research and scientific article reading for a book project, but a 25 page paper on algae eyespots seemed daunting after reading 3 other papers.

And if you wish to check out the happy couple's very cute and witty webpage, I've linked it above, but it can be found here:

Meredith and Chris, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G


Much love and congratulations to the both of you!

PS: And thank you, Meredith, for not making me buy a dress made out of satin that cost $200 which I will wear once and may or may not have a marsupial pouch in the front which as much as I love you I will torment you for the rest of our lives for ::coughAngelicacough::.

<3

Sunday, August 7, 2011

I'm not your consultant

I'll admit it, I on occasion do some really stupid things. And I'm a smart girl. So, I'm able to overlook some things that very intelligent people do on account of all sorts of things like:

Stress
A general inability to understand simple concepts without making them hard
Sleep deprivation
Or just generally not wanting to do them

For example:

I am a fully grown, independent, American woman.

And I HATE getting my car maintenanced. (It's a word, now, y'all. Hush.) I hate taking it to get an oil change and tire rotation because it always happens when I'm actually out doing things that require me to look cute, so the chauvinistic Y chromosome behind the counter thinks that I'm just a pretty face (I say this with zero little narcissism) and that I don't know shit about cars besides "They go and they stop."

Which, in a sense, is true. I also know that they need gas in them to go and stop. See? Winning.

But my father did instill in me the importance of regular oil changes, tire rotations, and making sure the tire pressure is adequate. Because no one wants a blow out on the highway and I'm not nearly calm enough to handle that gracefully. So, I bite the bullet every 5,000 miles when my cute little Scion's light goes on and it tells me obnoxiously every day that Maintenance is Required.

Last time, this cost me $175. Because I needed a new tire and Firestone claims I have "low profile" tires, which translates to "expensive," and no, ma'am, we don't have any tires cheaper than $123. Then he called me again while at a baby shower to tell me that my alignment is off and "MUST be fixed today" and that this will cost another $180 for lifetime adjustments.

Well, Mr Firestone dipshit man, I just started a new job, and I haven't been paid in going on 3 weeks, plus I don't feel like charging $400 to my credit card today, so you can take your alignment and shove it up your happy manipulative ass.

Which actually sounded more like "I'll just take what we've previously discussed today. When can I pick it up?" (Matt got to listen to the explicit diatribe. Lucky man.)


There is a point to this blog post.


After quitting my last job (AKA "The most boring job ever with the coordinator from hell"), I thought I was done there. That I wouldn't have to go back and deal with them again. Once I was in new job, I actually realized how horribly unorganized they were, and I thank science every day that I got out when I did and got in to where I am. It really does make such a big difference when you are happy with your job. I come home happy every day. (Except Friday this week, because I sat on a highway entrance ramp for an hour. Traffic makes me exceptionally bitchy. EXCEPTIONALLY BITCHY.)

I was wrong about being done with old job, and now I'm apparently a free consultant. Which mostly pisses me off, because I only work for free at the zoo. And even then, I get cool perks. Like free shirts, the ability to cuddle the animals (after special training I sort of need to get 16.5 more hours to qualify for), free wine and food, and other cool shit. Docenting is awesome.

Anyways, I nicely agreed to attend a meeting with my old boss a week after I left so I could explain to her how I did things while I worked there. Since she was a scheduling nightmare and thinks I have nothing else to do (I'm *not* working another job 40+ hours a week, trying to workout more, doing research on 8,000 papers for a scientific book with an old professor, and then cooking dinner and keeping the apartment clean because Matt is just as busy as I am), I sent her a three page document outlining how I did all the major aspects of my job.

I left out the "Watching the live coverage of the Casey Anthony Trial on cnn.com continuously" part.

While she appreciated this document, she still wanted to meet with me, so I ended up having to go to downtown San Antonio at 5:30 in the afternoon on a weekday, and was thus, pissed. The meeting lasted 45 minutes, and then I had to rush to a dance class. Basically all I did there was fold the contracts open to the budget sheet and place them in a folder that they were already in.

This woman is a MEDICAL DOCTOR.

She writes prescriptions. Writes treatment plans. Is a Chief of Staff.

And she can't figure out contracts and budgets.

I, initially, attributed this to the whole "out of her realm" thing, and tried to be nice about it.

Then she called me yesterday. SATURDAY! While I'm vacuuming, doing laundry, and taking  pictures of our abode. Instead of asking me her questions at that time, she scheduled a phone call for today around 1. Seriously, woman. This is ridiculous.

She's confused about the bills. (Honestly. That was her reasoning.) And my initial thought was, "you pay them. They have a dollar amount on them, and you write a check, and mail it. They'll send you another one in 3 weeks. Sucks, doesn't it?"

I'm a sucker though, and my dad also instilled in me the "not burning bridges" thing, and in my industry once you're hated, you're hated forever. So I agreed.

But now I wish I hadn't.

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Home and Heart

Let me first preface this post with the following disclaimer:
I never do large picture posts because I find them to be horribly annoying and frustrating in terms of formatting. I have to upload, then rotate, and edit, and caption, and organize 21 pictures for this post, and I've already so far put them all on the new post document page and then deleted them all because blogger is not nearly as formatting friendly as Word. (I mean, really, I have a 24" computer screen and I can make the internet window as large as I want, but the formatting frame remains a dinky 5x7"). If I wanted to format a three page document on a notecard, then I'd have done that with scissors. And paper. Not really expensive technology. So, I'm sorry if it's poorly organized and/or frustrating. 

AND NOW......


The actual post. 


In early July, Matt and I moved into this new apartment. Which we love. And since then, only a handful of the people who helped us move have actually seen it. So, since between the two of us we've been basically inundated with requests to post pictures of our new home on facebook, I decided I may as well just make a blog of it. Because facebook isn't any easier to utilize, really, and it annoys me as well. 

Plus, this also allows me to blog, which I realize I haven't done a lot of lately. So now I'm playing catch up. 

This is what you see when you walk in our front door.  Please ignore the paint container on the first shelf. Our mover-friends sort of nailed one of our corners with my couch. We need to fix that.


The bowl on shelf one. Matt found these really neat looking pieces, and I feel it's only fair to pay him credit for his find.


Shelf Number Dos. 


Shelf Number Three. Which mostly happened this way because both my bookshelves are full and Borders is closing. I have a problem, y'all.

I realize all these vase pictures are annoying. I'm annoyed by them. But consider this a virtual tour of our home, and be happy that I'll never be a real estate agent. This sits at the top of the stairs before they turn.


Here is the living room from the top of the stairs-ish. That's my awesome couch that my movers friends hate. 

It's a kitchen. We cook here. And wash dishes. But we LOVE our granite countertops, and the real tile on the floors. (And in our showers. Whatwhat?!) 
More of the kitchen. See my fancy knives? I'm standing between the pantry and fridge. Which, really, you don't need to see. It's boring. Much like the rest of this post probably is to you. 

Dining room which we see from the kitchen. Yes, there is a shoestring tied to that chair for kitty. And that is a lot of booze, but I assure you, we have more. We like to party. We like, we like to party. 

That's what I fondly refer to as "the nook" and which kitty fondly refers to as "personal playgound". Which leads Matt to fondly refer to kitty as "Shkitty," which is a combination of "shitty kitty." And it's trademarked. You can't steal it.
The black hole of productivity entertainment center. I didn't pick that song, the cable TV people did. I did dance around to it though. 'Cause I'm annoying fun. 

Our porch. And for those of you who asked me what a zero gravity chair was recently, this is them. They get all lean-back-y (also known as recline-y) and you don't touch the ground at all. Sometimes you fall asleep in them. 
Our view from the balcony. It's kind of awesome for sunsets. And hummingbirds. And I was hoping I could birdwatch from there, and not be the creepy lady with binoculars, but even I'm not confident enough to risk being seen doing that. 
The master bedroom. I realize there are no sheets on the bed, it's laundry day. And I was multitasking. 
The other side of the master. From the closet. 
Master bath. Yup, more granite. And full tile showers. Which really just means that we're going to have to buy a really expensive house in a few years, because I'm getting spoiled. 
More living room. This is basically what one of us runs into each morning while it's still dark. 
The stairs to the split level. The guest room/office is up here, but that's actually where all the mess is still, so I didn't photograph it. On the left is the guest bathroom cat's room. So that obviously doesn't get a photo (who wants to see bowls of food and water and a hidden litter box?) Also a linen closet on this floor. With another vacuum. We have 8000 3 vacuums.

My parents have had this bronze in their house forever, and I mentioned to my mom one day that if they ever wanted to put something else in it's place that we'd take it. My parents actually have something else to hang on the wall where this was, so we got it. If I remember the story correctly it was a wedding present to them from my uncle. So it's like, a family heirloom. Sort of. 
This concludes our tour. We hung this nice little piece of metal art on the blank wall space here so that all of our guests can see something pretty as they leave. There's the door. ;-)


 Well, so that was maybe easier than I originally thought, but I hate how it's one picture per line. What if I wanted to put them next to each other? I realize there is probably a way to do this, but I just don't have the time patience to deal with it right now.

So there's our new abode. We love it, and like having people over for dinners, and I totally want to play drinking games, so let us know.... we're fun people. <3














Thursday, July 28, 2011

The 5th H

Back in the Baylor days, Rachel, Meredith, and Sarah had a little group of four friends all with the letter H in their names.

I know, by now you've realized that you can count and I can't.

I didn't know the original 4th H, but I recall her name being Ashley. So, I can count, just stop getting ahead of me while I tell this story. Okie dokie?

Well, Ashley was one night abducted by local Wacoan aliens, and taken to a trailer park to be held hostage for the rest of her long long life without the privilege of sorority letters, Common Grounds coffee, obnoxious church songs sung in Chapel, and pretentious daddy's girls. No one ever saw her again, and Meredith, Sarah, and Rachel were all very sad.

Until Meredith met me in one of her classes, and decided that I was infinitely more cool than this Ashley chick and that I'd make an awesome replacement H because really, their lives were incomplete without me. I was one of those dreaded greek system "independents" and didn't belong to a sorority, so meant that they could brainwash me on their own without the worry of that silly Panhellenic council over their heads. And I could do things like get drunk and wait for the pizza man man man man man to show up at the apartment, and answer annoying repeat anonymous callers in a spanish accent with a short amount of sentences revolving around the singular statement of "Si, soy Nina."

But I digress. Because those are inside stories between myself and the other H's that they will understand but none of my other millions five readers will understand.

Anyways, we all grew up. And it was awful and scary and fantastic and horrible all at the same time.

I did a bunch of things involving not going to medical school, working with rats in the name of SCIENCE, starting my career and going to grad school.

Meredith got a million degrees. And is still working on one. And she got engaged.

Sarah also got another degree and had a big grown up trip to another big city far far away.

Then Miss Rachel became a teacher and was the first to get married.

And pregnant.

Not that I ever particularly planned to do the spawning thing before the age of 30, but she did beat everyone else to it.

Today we welcome Miss Molly Mahan to the world! She'll be the 5th H to our happy little group, on account of her last name actually having an H, and her mom being awesome.

Congratulations to the Mahan family. I'm so very proud of Mrs Rachel for growing a beautiful baby girl, and I just know she's going to be one fantastic momma. I can't wait to meet little Molly.

And one day, I'll catch up to the rest of the H's in my group. Apparently all I've done is work. And go to the gym.

<3

Friday, July 15, 2011

Graduation Goggles

It's my last day of work at a job I've despised for quite some time now. And it wasn't my bosses that made me hate my job. It was one particular coworker, and the complete lack of anything substantial to do.

Yes, I'd really like to tell this person exactly what I think about them. And I'd LOVE to do it in a blog post. But I'm not that girl. It'd be mean and hateful, and I just don't want that kind of stuff on here. I said I'd leave here via the high road without driving the bus over her, and so I will.Even if she never will read it.

But that doesn't mean I won't leave her with a ton of crap to do that she should have done before I even started working here.....


Anyways, in other news, it all reminds me of The Exploding Meatball Sub episode of "How I Met Your Mother". They talk about "graduation goggles", which is that nostalgic feeling you get when something you despise is ending. Like high school, or working here. I wanted to embed a clip of it, but it's actually quite challenging to find one. So.... no clip for you.  

I will leave this photo, though. Because it's a more accurate description of Graduation Goggles in the workplace.

Since Marshall (who's name I can never remember) is quitting his job, he goes through this whole sequence of making his most despised moments actually happy memories. And it makes him second guess his decision. I didn't have that experience. I still very much fear that Monday morning, CTT will tell me that they didn't hire me and it was all a silly dream. (But thanks, crazy lady, would you be interested in participating in a research study?) I do remember how excited I was to start this job, how very cool it was to be getting not one but two offices in San Antonio, my own Blackberry (in addition to my personal iPhone), business cards, and the elite-ness of a management position. And then I walked in and met my coordinator. Who, as previously discussed, is a generally miserable excuse for a human being that decided to make my employment here hell from the very moment she laid eyes on me. I never trusted her, and was proven to be correct in that instinct throughout my tenure here as I made more and more discoveries of just how self-serving and non-cooperative she really is. I remember my first ever study that I initiated from feasibility to green-light, my first big contract, my first real business trip, and losing my first trial. This job was important to me in many ways, but as time went on, and things became less shiny and more real-world, I realized that this job was not at all what I thought it was nor what I honestly believed it had the potential to be. As long as the evil coordinator works here, this place will never grow into everything that the PI's want it to be. Primarily because she has a complete aversion to change (which I attribute to age, ignorance, and egotism) and the PI's are too scared they can't find someone to replace her. That is what makes me most sad about this place. The PI's are fantastic, they're excellent physicians and some of the best people I've ever worked for. They want this place to be the best it can be, and there's a huge market for clinical research in San Antonio, and they could stand to make a lot of money off of this industry if they just had someone running their company who really cared about it as much as they cared about themselves. And the coordinator they have now is not that person. I tried to be, but was blocked from doing so by evil coordinator.

The truth is, I won't miss this place. At all. But I made a friend here in Rita, who is our research assistant and a general badass person. Plus, she actually does all her work and our evil coordinator's work. While I blog. And become a desk accessory/paperweight during my last two weeks. (While also taking 5 days off.) Rita's awesome, and I know she sometimes reads this blog, so shout out to you, I'll totally miss you. Thanks for being such a great person and coworker, and if you ever need a reference for a new job, you've got my number. <3

Additionally, it stands to be noted that in the two weeks since I accepted new job, and turned in my resignation for old job I've gotten three different offers for interviews and jobs. All of which I've declined for one reason or another. I'm really excited about the company I'll be working for starting Monday. And that in itself says a lot.

I have a lot to do today, actually. Most of it is "finishing up" kind of stuff. I need to finish some budgetary stuff from this year, and change my passwords for my email, write my auto-response message, forward my emails to evil coordinator (dude, INCLUDING ALL THE SPAM), turn in my keys, clear out my internet cache (so no one can find my chloroform searches) and take all the shit that *actually* belongs to me home with me. Among other things. Hopefully I can get out of here early, as well, because it's not only Friday for me, but my last Friday here. And I have a date tonight. With a cute guy. Who I live with. (Still fun to say.)

HAPPY HARRY POTTER DAY!!!!!!!!!


See how I did that? How I waited until the actual calendar day of the Harry Potter release date before I told you Happy Harry Potter Day (which will from here on out be referred to as HHPD, or HPD if you aren't happy about it)??? It's a magical skill, actually, that I've worked on for years and years called patience. It's still very much a work in progress. Baby steps, people, baby steps.

So, I've cleaned off my desk of the actual shit I need to do today, and I feel it's about time I get rid of it. Because the sooner I do that, the sooner I can peace outta here.