petco

it's all confirmed now, i have a job.
no unemployment; no ramen; no lounging in torn adidas sweats watching CSI reruns all day (wait, i'm doing that today, nevermind).
so i'll be doing some protein purification and synthesis for a very small outfit out in the hinterlands, working with what seem like some really awesome people. i decided to trade in my hopes of big bucks for a little humanity - i realized you could pay me $100k to push a button all day like a trained monkey, and sure i'd have $$$ to make my car fast and buy unnecessary sneakers for my collection, but 40 hours of every week i'd be soul-less, miserable, depressed, empty, and altogether too female.
plus i realized that if you've got an awesome boy in your life, a cool pad, a phat whip, good family and friends, smarts and an education - christ almighty, you want to be rich too?
methinks if the hamster has everything all at once, he will stop running on the wheel in frantic pursuit of the next acquisition.
and then what's left to do?

southern comfort

we're officially past xmas...i've survived the down-home dysentery and toasted christmas eve with xtreme gatorade in like, blue glacier. and i discovered my dad is not a believer of the "extra roll on-deck" philosophy. the things you take for granted in your own house, i say.

i recovered in time to stuff myself with goose, red cabbage, and currants in customary deutsches fashion. my little brother ken and i paid a visit to the redneck weight room, where no two freeweights are alike and we find lifting magazines strewn about with interesting anatomical additions drawn on all the men.

we just got through a heated match of scrabble with grandma, who put my gift of an official scrabble dictionary to good use. ken kicked our butts but only because we allowed him to cheat by making the word "ubonnet." you know, like the kind of hat you'd wear on a u-boat. so we added it to the official dictionary with a bic pen.

i'd give more colorful details about the past few days, like my mom's gift of a compulsory needlepoint project (i'd call it 'forced induction' into her little southern cult), but we're about to hunker down for some prime rib...tomorrow a little leg of lamb, you know - home cookin. yee-haw.

domestic protocol

today i discovered a really good reason to actually remove the bag from the bathroom trash can and go to the trouble of replacing it, rather than just dumping the contents into the kitchen trash. stuff gets stuck inside the bathroom bag and you've got to reach up in there and pull it out, help it along its journey into the kitchen bag.


my 1 really good reason: q-tips covered in ear wax. do not attempt.

bravo, bernie!

while ecclestone may have lost his day in court and resorted to his usual fallback - bribery - he must be doing something right, cause...

there's definitely a british GP this year, and 19 grands prix total!!

sabominator was pleased, and the villagers were spared. life is good.

patina of productivity

the last few weeks have been a special kind of slackitude, even for me.

i've been driving in and taking the green line more often, rolling in around 11 or so. driving on 95 is fun! who knew?

it's been an uphill effort to keep applying to jobs after the first interview fiasco. i have another one on monday, but i won't get all excited about it - when you've been burnt once, you know better. getting all mature and stuff in the process.

i think i've acquired an aloof apathy regarding my future employment. if "holy ass i'm totally awesome and i love science, please hire me" didn't work, maybe "whatever man, i can eat just as well on unemployment and catch up on CSI" will do the trick.

the other day i was supposed to go to annual OSHA training or they turn off your access card and you have to stay home, i guess. i was late at the hands of the MBTA and locked out of the meeting. so 3 min after it ended, i went back, ran in and was like, "oh my god, i forgot to pick up a safety packet!" and they were like, ok...did you sign in? "no, crikey, i forgot, i'd better do that." they're like, are you sure you were even here? and i gave them a bitchy look and said, "i sat right THERE, i even went to the bathroom, i can't believe you didn't notice." how can you challenge that? then i started asking them about their christmas shopping while i signed in. moral? there is no moral, nor morality, didn't you catch that? lessons learned: women really can lie to perfection.

so i've completed my last experiment until after xmas. i still have to go get my TB test read and get my picture taken (thumbs up, harvard! yeeeah!) and have free pedestrian food and mediocre booze at the holiday party.

then i'm home for a week, playing scrabble and mini-golf with my grandma, who makes jokes about how much longer she can hold on (i mean, jesus, that's hardcore). i get to eat goose and mems and i will be baking sehr deutsches kuchen and whatnot. and eating it too.

i'll get to the gluttony later. first i have to survive my flight on a bankrupt airline.

my little holiday tune

18 hours working

5 dunkies coffees

3 sets of ratchets

1 seasoned expert

2 semi-n00bs

3 missing nuts

1 ripped hose

2 foot long subs

1 broken jack

3 sausage biscuits

7 AM bedtime

1 stuck transmission


and now it's back at the dealership...

like a colonoscopy, only less fun

so yeah, yesterday's interview...

it was long. and hard. and i'm totally spent.

seriously though, i was at the tender mercy of like, 3 menopausal matriarchs who seemed to think my backround was total nonsense. i was really tempted to ask, "ok so if you think i'm this dumb, why are you wasting your time talking to me?" it was that good. they were all foreign too, i also wanted to say, "ok, so chemistry is taught better in turkey and china, all very well and good...we're in AMERICA now, so deal with it."

and today i get a request to come back and give a presentation to all these battle-axes next week. i can't say it fast enough: "i'd rather chop off my legs and put them in a chipper-shredder whilst my axons are still attached, feed it to my pet goat and throw myself on a funeral pyre in the ancient tradition of sutee." so maybe not so much.

but hey. it's friday. and it's only the end of round 1. bring it.

bitchin technology!

yeah so you might want to be one of the cool kids and check out my

gallery

. so far i've only got a few cursory offerings, whatever was lying around in proper format... lots of me, teh honeybear, etc. but there will be more, especially when i start adding ones from my camera phone. i have a vision of a separate page where i describe everything i end up doing to my car in great detail and with photos, since usually when i'm doing those things, i really wish there were someone like me with that already posted...you know how it is.

bring out the gimp

so on saturday morning, out of the blue, my lower back decided life wasn't challenging enough and signed off on its bending abilities. it's been awhile since i've had any real aches and pains, except for that time last month when i dislocated my knee while i was sitting still, through my own sheer brute strength (gwrarr!). so i went from being my chiseled, muscle-bound self to needing help putting on my pants. is this what it's like to feel old?

i spent all weekend putting on menthol and Rx-strength lidocaine patches (which were generously donated), and 99% of my time - awake and otherwise - i was flat on my back on a heating pad. normally i get depressed if i have to be sedentary for more than about 2 hours, but it was made bearable by witnessing kz helping a friend pull his engine/transmission on saturday, followed up with massive amounts of RI fish fry. sunday and today were a blur of spicy ethnic foods and watching kz play 'katamari domacy' on PS2, which we saw TCITB kids playing on saturday night (i was comatose at that party, the lidocaine having reached my brain. sorry i didn't have patience for your discussion on manufacturing stem cells, JP - some other time). the katamari music haunts my daily actions now, and was quite fitting for my achy venture to the mall today for 'interview clothes,' the pursuit of which really hurt my soul. there will not be any pictures to prove that sabominator really wore a blazer and matching slacks. it never happened.

so i'd say something clever but i need to get back to my XXX, CSI, and marzipan - pardon me, we have our priorities. couch is wating.

like, total makeover

so how sweet does this look now? more changes soon to come:

-updated wishlist for both me and steve; now that we've amassed snow tires, suspension, and a bitchin toaster, there's more to be desired...

-top 10 cars to buy will be split; i realize now that i have a top 10 'cars that make me have wet dreams' and a separate top 10 'cars i have a hope of owning someday.' i think men use these same categories for delineating their chick lust.

-i might even include some links that work.

-i'm thinking of putting my resume up here. cause i'm still in search of gainful employment (emphasis on gainful).

-which brings me to my latest "let me tell you how awesome i am" news of the day, which is that i have an interview next thursday for a very promising position where i'd get to rock some surface plasmon resonance technology. i have an all-day itinerary and i get to meet with several phD's. further proof that sabominator = important.

-this weekend we get to use kz's new 252-piece craftsman tool set. and have margaritas. and see a blown engine. and go to a sleep-over. and get a free computer. and maybe bake cookies.

-and my lab is staying here till at least mid-january, which allays those pesky fears i was having about not getting a paid xmas vacation, having to go on unemployment, and not being able to finish my project, thereby causing MY paper to be written by someone else.

-so yeah. new site, job opps, almost time to go home for a week, and awaiting a check for $$ to arrive in the mail, enabling long-awaited purchase of a short shifter. life is good!