A-list

i like to make lists a lot. i think one time when i was a kid, when i was preoccupied with becoming an adult as soon as possible, i heard that it was a good organizational tactic to make lists. and also a good way for a female to make some sense of the primordial stew of craze and evil brewing in her head.

you can make all kinds of lists. shopping lists, of course, and budgets, 'things i want and can't afford,' reasons to go to grad school, places to apply, things to do this week, things to start doing to become a better person...

one time i even made a list about whether or not i should dump my ex. i spent the better part of physics class coming up with a points system, assigning numerical value for everything he did and said, giving more points the more fucked up a particular action or insult happened to be. by the time i finished, i had worn out my TI-82 with the formulae, and i was pissed about all the negative things i had just remembered. he cheated anyway so it worked out.

the other day when i was hungry and dissatisfied with our cupboard inventory, i made a list of all the yummy things i intended to procure from trader joe's. it was only about 9 items long but that's $50 anyway.
i put this list in my bag, to have when sometime this week, i would inevitably think, 'i hate buying groceries. but i hate the gym more right now. time to go to trader joe's.'

this happened today, when i was pit-stained beyond miserable after an hour in traffic with no a/c. so i grabbed my list out of my puma bag and headed for the organic aisles of TJ's. only i realized too late that it was another list, without groceries on it. it was a list of different possibilities of buffers to use for capillary electrophoresis at work. not so helpful when hungry.

part of me was all, well i didn't take my list on purpose. i just wrote it to give me something to do, and i'm smart - i'll remember what's on it. this is kind of like a crossword puzzle of comestibles - what was on my list, and how many of those can i get right without it? and the password is...
so i bought 19 things instead of 9. i'm fairly certain half of the 9 never re-entered the spongy tangle of my PMS-girlbrain. tired of feeling so forgetful, so silly, so female, so downright middle-aged, i tossed a heaping $8 bottle of ginko biloba in my basket.

but that was definitely not on the list.

moment of humble thanks

*boredom disclaimer: if you've already read about my near-accident on nesic, then you've already read the bulk of this post.*

if i were a guy, i would be posting this as a 'that time when i was awesome, in case you missed out on it' follow-up, but chicks don't do that kind of shit. instead i'm just imparting a tale about my ass, how it got saved, and how much i appreciate my tires, my suspension, my car, the o'neil driving school, ice racing, racing america, all those hours watching le mans/F1/WRC/top gear/speed channel, and the state of being alive in general:

driving to work on 495 at 7.30 am, things were pretty packed. in the left lane, a long line of us were doing about 75-80. the camry about 1.5 car lengths in front of me hit its brakes, and for the first second i just lifted. then he went into a total lockup - squealing, lots of smoke - and i started threshold braking. he came around so i would have t-boned his passenger side, then whipped into a full 180 across our lane. i was about to head off into the grass, but he got into a full spin and flew off into the median just as the dodge ram behind me went off to avoid rear-ending me. luckily i escaped being sandwiched in the middle by staying on the road. now the camry's tail was half-in the lane and he was still sliding; i was still riding the threshold. a simple "lift, turn, accelerate" around him and i was out of there - all 3 cars around me were involved in some serious off-roading, and i just drove off, never even breaching the middle lane. this whole thing probably took about 4 seconds, but if i hadn't learned accident avoidance, my sentra would be an accordion right now. thank you, o'neil school training.

formula fiasco

some of us F1 fans may be sick to our stomachs today (literally, especially if we ate bad clams yesterday...sorry, TMI?). our hearts shredded by yesterday's debacle at indy, we're searching for a scapegoat, trying to give ownership of this catastrophe to someone. the fia? bernie and max? gpwc? michelin? the teams who withdrew?

nay. look not to those associated with motorsport's most illustrious championship series. after reviewing the physics behind the tire problems at indy, it's clear who's really at fault:

pinkeye

you might remember pinkeye from kindergarten. little candy-apple sticky fingers stuck in noses, mouths, eyes...waking up the next day like a giant insect took a gooey crap on your eyelids. yep.

but i'm an adult now; i had to go get my 0.3% ofloxacin drops all by myself, and remember to administer them appropriately. on the bottle it says 'store at 25 C, excursions permitted.' so i guess that means if i want to go to the park, or on a picnic, i can take my little bottle too.

i also get to wear my "OSHA-approved prescription glasses" (pictured above) with detachable chemical shields, mandatory in the laboratory. i work in the laboratory. so i wear these all day. it's like a pocket protector for your face. only geekier. the glasses and shields are genuine; the foolhardy grin is not.

jesus loves F1

so if you can't tell from the previous posts that i was at the canadian grand prix, you're not too quick (excluding e$, of course, who makes the best gin and tonics and is exempt from any of my harsh judgments). maybe you just thought i love formula one - this is true. my weekend pilgrimage - and yes, i am a pilgrim; i suffered the saharan heat, i traversed through the maddening throngs, i vilified the immigrant vendors, i flagellated myself with fountain water, i converted the foreign currency -my pilgrimage brought me to the mecca of motorsport, and left me touched by god.

i'd be untruthful if i said the whole weekend was pleasurable. i was hot enough to cry, sticky enough to snap at my sweet honeybear, stupid enough to wipe my eyes with metro-dirty fingers and catch pinkeye. i was disemboweled with disappointment when the golden boys of renault, whose colors i flaunted on race day, started off with a mclaren-owning launch from the grid and lead half the race with a solid wall of blue in a renault 1-2, only to retire within laps of each other and fail to score points for the first time this season. i felt cursed to have to witness such a fall from grace.
but seeing ferrari get their asses in gear and unsettle kimi, if not oust him from the lead, was a salve to my open wound.

the agony of polluted, humid, skin-scorching weather is forgotten when i close my eyes and think back to the ribcage-tearing roars of those 3.0 liter v-10s, screaming a high-pitched protest through the spitfire downshifting as they approach the chicane, a little bit of tire squeal around the corner, roaring through my visual field, thundering past with a deep mechanical chatter like the reverberations of the belly of a giant beast.

if you told me that's the sound you hear when you leave this earth and head towards the white light, i'd believe you.

Bar-honda

Holy shit!!!

48 HOURS

concentrated happy

i would like to announce that the new coffee flavor shots at dunkies are, indeed, one of the best inventions ever (totally unsweetened!). no more inconsistent “you call this ass french vanilla?” brewing imbroglios. the power is in your hands, consumer. what will it be today? blueberry? marshmallow? you can even ask for my favorite, half vanilla AND half coconut. with more than 5 shots to choose from, the possibilities are endless. you do the math.

as a scientist, i think my next home project will be developing flavor shots for people. i’ll take my best friend, but with a shot of humility, and some common sense mixed in, please. i think it would be a great idea. attitude adjustments, while you wait. and sugar-free.