Like I'm 12 years old.

I can't help it.

Fangs.

I was never a huge fan of Cedric Diggory. In the book or the movie.

I mean, he's, like, okay and all. He's an archetype, a placeholder, the smart, talented, sensitive, handsome, kind jock you wish to meet (or I wish to meet. Though I would probably get annoyed with how perfect and good he is and then call him a pansy).

And I was kind of indifferent to the actor playing him in the movie. Except I didn't think he was that hot.

And now he's playing a vampire.

And I am weirdly, bizarrely intrigued (despite the really bad pastiness the vampires have going on. Really, really bad).

It may be a case of two wrongs equalling a right. As so:

A = Robert Pattinson, who I'm largely indifferent to and don't find that good looking
B = The Stephenie Meyer Twilight series that I am also largely indifferent to, given my distaste for angst-y vampires and the women who love them (Bum). Though the books have pretty covers.

Therefore: Indifference A + Indifference B = Embarrassing Interest C

Though this is all moderated by (Love for Kristin Stewart)X.

List of things on my desk at work. Right now.

Diary of a patient.
Caddy of office crap.
Purell.
Business cards (that I have to hand print my name and number on).
Travel mug of stale, overly sweetened coffee.
Paper cup of overly sweetened Crystal Light (Pomegranate Cherry with B-vitamins. Am obviously a health nut).
Datebook.
Cell phone (with Internet access, so I can look at sites my office computer blocks. Am obviously a subversive revolutionary).
Ceramic pen container with an Asian character on it, that was made in Denmark that I think just toes the line of being racist, but it's over thirty years old and my parents bought it, so I don't care very much.
Hunk of hematite. To "ground" me. Whatever the fuck that means.
Phone (that seems vaguely dirty).
To-Do lists miles and miles long.

I'm pretty sure this makes me the most boring-est person ever. But that's okay. Because Bum has managed to bring up Colin Firth's penis, which makes me think of the story that Mr. Firth told of when he was making Pride and Prejudice. He was told, allegedly, to pretend he had an enormous erection whenever he looked at Elizabeth.

Worked for me.

in which i'm back (after a four-day train/bus/plane trip)

In short:

Sunday 30 March:
0545: walked to bus stop in San Francisco (to catch the bus that would take me to the cross-country train in Emeryville)
0635: bus is late. Wait
0640: bus is still late. Worry.
0655: bus arrives. We make it to Emeryville with 20 mins to spare.
0830: train leaves Emeryville on its two-day trip to Chicago. Expected arrival time Tuesday 1 April, 1530

Sunday afternoon:
Make friends with a German fellow-traveller and fellow PhD-er. Chat with two elderly ladies. Meet a Mum and a baby (baby was called Sequoia).

1740: Realise train is running late. Ask conductor about it. Am told this is normal and "we'll make it up easy"

Sunday evening:
Eat a banana and an apple. German has bread and cheese. Share fruits in return for bread/cheese.

Sunday night: Train is increasingly late. Conductor, once again, tells me not to worry. Worry anyway.

Monday 31 March:
Train is even further delayed. Waiting for freight trains, frozen switches, people being arrested (two sets of people, not just one) and random stops in the middle of cornfields for mysterious reasons take their toll. Train is now 10 hours late.

Monday night:
The last coach is decoupled from the train. Wake up, after a dodgy night's sleep, to find we are suddenly the last coach on the train.

Tuesday 1 April:
Announcement is made we will not make any of our connections in Chicago. Sandwiches and (non alcoholic) drinks are given away for free. Alcoholic drinks are discounted.

Much revelry among people wearing singlets ensues.

I make a frantic phone call to LilSis who books me a flight from Chicago to Washington.

Tuesday night: arrive in Chicago at 2355, almost 8 hours late.
Walk to the subway (two blocks away). Take subway to the airport.

Wednesday 2 April, 0545: catch a flight to Washington. Realise there's a one-hour stop over in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia-DC flight is delayed.

1234: arrive in Washington. Take metro to Woodley Park. Wait for L bus.

1400: catch L bus after a 30-min wait. Arrive home. Sleep.

OED bound.

I'm taking a page from Holly, and am decreeing supertuesday my word of the year. Or at least my word of late winter/spring.

I have a habit of using a phrase or word to death, until it becomes annoying to my ear (and usually this occurs long, long after it's become annoying to other people's ears). In high school, I used chiquita like I lived on a banana farm. (Do bananas come from farms?) Then there's shit on a stick, which, to be honest, I use quite a lot still. Right now, I'm using dude. I have to actively restrain myself from calling my supervisors dude. As in "Dr. XYZ, could you sign off on this treatment plan? Dude." It is the time to embrace my adolescence.

I think this will work out if you say supertuesday superfast. So it comes out like "That's soopahtoozdei. Dude." And then don't explain.

Because only the weak explain.

Puh.

Can we slow it down just a little? Turn the lights down low? Maybe a little wine, baby? Let's get closer to that fire.


I live in this lovely complex with lovely (-ish) buildings and lovely landscaping and even lovely staff. And some people leave their blinds open and are all out there with weird, twisty candles and ugly couches, and questionable running shoes lying in the middle of the living room. These are interesting people. They have stories to tell about where they are running, who they are lighting those candles for and why that couch? Why that hideous Navajo blanket draped across the back? I am interested in these people.


Even more intriguing are those that leave the blinds just a half-way closed. Where there's a blurry image of what's going on behind there. And what's going on is marvelously interesting and exciting and mysterious and just a little bit dangerous. But it's all amorphous shapes and the tantalizing draw of the unknown. These are the people I am even more interested in.

But I suppose...to get these questions, my wonderings appeased, I would need to actually know these people. And the stories in my head will not be the stories that they tell. And I'm not sure I'm ready to give up the sometimes belief that that hideous Navajo blanket is actually a magic tapestry leading to enchanted worlds where unicorns and dragons frolic, instead of a gift from Aunt Paula when she went on the Senior Citizen road trip out West. And they would learn that I'm not running a sweatshop with tiny immigrant children, churning out imitation Rolex.

I don't think I'm ready to do that.

Guh.

Am interviewing candidates for my post next year. They're all shiny and new and very concerned about making the right impression and have thought out every answer possible to every question there is and their suits are all dark and nary a blue eye-shadow to be seen.

We ask the question "What is your favorite movie and why." We are very fond of the "...and why." Inordinately. And we've gotten the stock answers: Citizen Kane, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Traffic, blah, blah blah blah.

Just once I want them to say Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle for the subtle commentary on racial politics, impressions and identity.

Or the BBC Pride and Prejudice because Colin Firth was young and yummy and when he approached Elizabeth, he was instructed to imagine he had an enormous erection.

This blog is devolving into something interesting.

Uh.

I have a confession.

When I saw this, I did a choking kind of "harumph-y" kind of guttural kind of laugh. I mean, really, what the hell? Is this suppose to be empowering and a testament to her no-nonsense, balls (excuse ) to the wall gutsiness? Or is this another attempt by those intimidated by her power and sense of courage to forge new paths and actually be successful at it to make her into an object of ridicule and ridiculousness?

Hee heee or ewww? I suspect ewww. And I'm a little embarrassed for linking to it.

And ever so sorry for devolving into politics. Smack my hand and call me naughty.

Must go stick my head back in the sand.