corporate wisdom

there are no stupid questions.

only stupid people who ask them.

ode to ice racing

o, ice racing, you make my heart sing
as the tufts of powder mist across my wing
i'm happy my toyos weren't classed as super snows
and you bet i'm wearing bergelene underneath all my clothes

it may be a tad chilly, sunny but only twenty
i would usually complain, but smiles they are a-plenty
i won't wind up on my butt cause i always wear yak trax
and i'm never without my iced coffee and plentiful bags o'snacks

so fun to ride along with kz, nutz, or james
and shoot the breeze with brenton (hey, i miss those flames!)
so great of our pal steve to bring us bagels from nyc
but i hate walking all the way up to that condo just to pee

gathering around to watch stan jr show how to wave the flag
i plot my course to get DFL (dude, it's in the bag).
watching sean get the tail end loose, doing it trunkmonkey style
i'll hang around to talk and work the practice course for a little while

i remember my first year, i was like, wtf, i'm on a lake??
but by now it's nothing special, and i'm all about left foot brake
it's fun to learn and practice when to use countersteer
if i can avoid high-centering in those banks, i think i'm in the clear

the day flies by and when the sun's on the way down
everyone rolls off the lake and heads to get pizza out in town
stories to be told, so many pictures and video clips
humor's in the air, especially the jacksons' quips

so the bad news is we only got one race for the season
but to all you whiners out there, i really see no reason
it was a great event and we've got nothing to fear
the lake's not going anywhere - see you all next year!

lazy friday post

for the sake of posting i will do e$'s ghey meme.

favorite things ghey fake retardo meme:

candy bars

i do not have 5 favorite candy bars. i have not even eaten a candy bar in many years. i am partial to spiced exotic dark chocolates.
but when i was a fat kid, i liked:
-skor
-bit o'honey
-mamba (ok that's not really a bar)
-mounds
and i can't think of anything else.

shows that were on nickelodeon when my parents had cable

and i watched them all:
-hey dude (what was on just before that? cause i was obsessed with whatever it was)
-are you afraid of the dark
-doug
-welcome freshmen
-rugrats
-ren and stimpy!

disney cartoons

-ducktales - holla!
-tailspin
-chip and dale's rescue rangers
(disney afternoon rocked my shit every day)

video games

-#1 tie: yoshi's cookie and streetfighter II (yoga fire!)
-super mario kart
-super mario world, mario 2, mario 3...
-wrecking crew
-gyromite
-omg streets of rage

inventions, all-time

-tampons
-gel electrophoresis
-flavored coffee
-contacts
-teh int4rweb

favorite office supplies

-brightly colored self-sticking flags
-sharpies
-pilot pens
-mechanical pencils
-trapper keepers with unicorns and rainbows

tagged: my random readers. come on people now, join together, everybody get together and try to...whatever. happy weekend.

a little support

this is my radical new knee brace that i waited a whole month for. apparently they had it 3.5 weeks ago and something got messed up. i've been having this kind of good luck with medical professionals lately. the guy who fitted me for it asked me for the second time if i was a power-lifter. i told him i was just big boned. i think he was hot for me or something.

it should allow me to lift weights without peril (upper body, anyway. i still can't squat yet. i may never have to clean the bathtub again). and i might be able to make the ~14 mile? hike to be a part of a friend's wedding in august.

unfortunately they have not invented a female sieve brain brace. i put the milk in the dish cupboard again this afternoon.

a rare treat

that was my delicious dinner tonight, masterfully cooked by chef kz himself.

you might think that looks like the cross-section of a tasty, very rare steak.

you'd be right - but it's a tuna steak. homemade sushi, anyone?

the verdict

i've emailed just about anyone i can think of who would care, and even some who wouldn't, but i figured an announcement to my anonymous random readership was in order too.

it's official, i'll be spending the next ~5-6 years of my life at umass med.

i'm very happy and although i will feel forlorn when it's time to leave my close inner circle of dick-and-fart-joke friends at work, i'm pumped for the fall semester.

my brain must know it's time to relax, because i can't remember shit this week. like keys, wallet, phone numbers, experiments, words, tasks, directions...yep. we're talking tv remote hidden in the freezer kind of lapses. welcome to my brief stint as a frazzled chick.

enjoy it; it won't last.

nesting

i have unofficially decided on umass medical's doctoral program.

which means we don't have to move for about 2 years, which is awesome.
which means i have to actually unpack from our move here 1.5 years ago, which is not so awesome.

when we came to NH my life was in a sort of limbo. new jobs, new state, new cohabitational partner. owning a car, for the first time. i knew i wanted to go back to school "soonish" and that would necessitate moving. so why unpack? boxes make great stackable art, coffee tables, laundry drapers, lamp and plant stands, occasional step ladders...and they are also the sole inhabitants, along with some of their contractor bag and sterilite bin friends, of our 2nd bedroom. so it's really 1 BR + storage locker.

our original intention was to turn this into an office. who needs a home office when each person spends 8-9 hours a day at a real office, no one can say. but it seemed like a good idea and indeed, where would all the garbage live if not for the second bedroom?

in a matter of months i will require a home office, a place to study biochem and physics late at night, a place to crumple pages of miswritten theses and throw darts at journal articles published by competitors. a place to draw organic structures on large wipe boards and leave them there to contemplate and admire for months on end so that i feel cool.

and this task of turning landfill into office is not unlike mucking out the mythic augean stables. but i have put myself on a strict schedule of at least 1 hour per day of serious cleaning (even picking up all pennies off the carpet). i'm on day 2; i've built worthless particle board closet modular solutions and wielded a phillips #2 like a home depot valkyrie.

hold me down; i'm making progress.

not feelig berry goob

i caught everyone's plague. that's a drawback to working with people who have kids. they all go to the same grubby daycare, and play pattycake with sticky, syrupy hands, and rub it all over their parents, who then bring it to work and touch all my stuff. no matter that i wash my hands umpteen times a day and slather them with moisturizer; i'm left with peeling knuckles and green phlegm for all my effort.

i sounded so bad (e.g. prepubescent male) the other day that i was permitted to "work from home," a coveted dispensation from the group director that i wasn't allowed to tell anyone about, lest everyone start doing it. i may have had the unique opportunity to write my monthly report interspersed with naps and watching free movies on demand, but i'm still sick, i feel like slugs are taking a perpetual streaming dump down the back of my thoat, and i had to talk for 6+ hours while interviewing at BU on friday.

waaah.

comeuppance

until today i had always maintained my uncanny good luck for being able to talk smack about every living person, and often straight to their face, without it ever biting me in the ass.

i'm still waiting for the bite, but getting caught was bad enough. even worse, the person of whom i was speaking (to quote, "she's asian, so she talks fast and is hard to understand") is the one who overheard me.
hopefully she's as bad at eavesdropping as she is at speaking english.

oh, snap.

extreme loafing

nothing makes you feel more old at 25 than really beginning to notice which chairs at work and home are shorter, and thus harder to get up from. blargh.
new ortho said i tore my joint capsule. that sounds hot. i get to feel guilt-free about watching tv for the next 6 weeks while i follow my Rx of 'taking it easy.'

in a similar vein, i got my REI dividend in the mail today, packaged alluringly in a brochure covered with scenes from arctic kayaking, scaling giant redwoods, cycling atop volcanic fixtures, etc...and i thought to myself, whenever i buy something from REI it's always clothes, on clearance, which i then wear in a suburban setting so that i *look* like a weekend warrior. i never buy ice axes, cramp-ons, harnesses, snowboards, spelunking goggles, or freeze dried nutrients for those 8 months in the wilderness. i buy 20 dollar fleece vests that i retire when they are full of holes from proximal flicking of cigarettes at nightclubs, not as they disentegrate against my rippling muscles, soaked with the juices of sheer physical exertion. i'm a yuppie.

and my dividend was $0 anyway, so i can't even purchase anymore poseur gear to wear while i watch extreme sports and nature specials on tv for the next 6 weeks.