goin' to the big city(!)

I went to Cedar Rapids with K today. We shopped at Steve & Barry's, which was a little too good to be true. Everything in the store was nine bucks. I bought three things for my sister, and two things for myself. As long as the purchases for others outweigh purchases for self, I figure that Christmas time personal splurging is okay. S & B's apparently maxed out* our karma though, because we spent the following hour and a half searching for and finding two different Indian restaurants that upon eventual discovery... were closed. We then opted for an establishment called "Sushi House" which made us both want to throw up. The sensation of wanting to throw up led to a rather sketchy stop in Brandon, Iowa (Home of A Very Large Frying Pan), where we peed in a "Kwik Trip" that I'm pretty sure is going to be featured in Saw 5.

It was an extremely fun day.

*Speaking of maxing things out, one of my favorite Life Stories of all time happened in New Orleans in 2006. Clutching neon green hand grenades, SD and myself attempted to rebuild the city of Nola through the purchase of excessively priced souvenirs. At one particular establishment, SD's card was declined. So she tried another. And another. All declined. Although most people would be visibly flustered in this situation, SD calmly sipped her hand grenade, motioned toward my wallet, turned to the cashier and said: Oops. I maxed out.

RANDOM MONDAY NIGHT MUSINGS:

1. Hugs and love for the random girlfriend on The Real Housewives of Orange County who just pointed out that one mother's expectations for her children are particularly gendered in nature.
2. Final grades have been submitted. It was an A- sorta semester. That's what happens when you grade under the influence of Cup Of Joe's.
   
3. There is a sign near the condiments and other food amenities in Maucker Union at UNI that says: We have switched to a "greener" napkin. Please pull carefully as they tear easily. Every time I read this sign, I make a slight alteration in my head: We have switched to a "greener" napkin because they are cheaper. Please pull carefully as they tear easily because they are shitty.
4. Glamour magazine (which is on my highly preferred reading list) did a story about the fiance of a sex offender that was arrested for soliciting sex to a fake 14 year-old virgin on Dateline: To Catch A Predator. The woman decided to stay with the offender despite having two daughters, aged 11 and 13. In fact, she married him during her lunch break less than a month after the Dateline incident went down. My favorite part of the story was on page 187, when the woman revealed that in 2003, she was briefly addicted to crystal meth.
5. Clearly, I am watching the Real Housewives right now. A 21 year old without a job just got a fairly large tattoo with his mother's credit card. The mother asked her 7 year old what he thought about the tattoo. He said: "Um. BAD." Like, duh, Mom.

Speaking of moms, I'm going home tomorrow night. A and I are leaving for Des Moines (where all the prettiest girls live) at 2 a.m. We fly out at 5 and will be in L.A. by 9. I get that prickly feeling under my eyes when I think about it.

--buelsy (back to l.a.)

exciting news...

Thanks to K for the above. How awesome is that? I think I need every article of my clothing to be adorned with this announcement-slash-warning so that the rest of the world will finally understand why I am the way I am.

--buelsy (lots of christmas music, not a lot of productivity)

word association.

I like Google's dependable sense of holiday spirit.

As you may or may not have realized, I had a momentary break through at the laundry room last night and consequentially felt very confident for my Prospectus Defense today. It went pretty well. My thesis is semi-different than what I thought it was, but in a good way. I have more clarity and direction now. Yay. I also have some catch up work to do on my supposedly three-fourths of the way done Method Chapter. Boo.

Speaking of "boo," happy Halloween. There's a party in the squadroom, complete with streamers, costumes, and an ouija board. I, in the spirit of adding to the party, am going to bring a hefty bit of grading that needs to be done by tomorrow morning.

Speaking of tomorrow morning, effectively, there are only two more days of Oral Communication to teach. The rest are "speech days," when they get to do the talking. There would be three left, but I'm tapping into professional liberty and canceling class so that K, A and I can drive to NCA in Chicago a day early.

Speaking of early, I want to take a muscle relaxer because my back has functionally "quit," but I have to wake up early, and in my world, muscle relaxers last about fifteen hours.

Speaking of hours, only 24 hours until Friday Funday, complete with Netflix, wine, vietnamese/thai food, and lots and lots of brain cell inactivity.

--buelsy (where's the candy?)

sunday crunch time.

I've gotten into a bad habit of eating at McDonald's. It's close to my house, it's super cheap, and sometimes... $1 double cheeseburgers just taste good. It's also comforting on days like today, when I feel like I'm drowning in the world. Nothing like a little saturated fat to keep you afloat. Really, though, it's Sunday afternoon and I've accomplished virtually nothing this weekend. At least in the productive, academic sense. Or the productive pay-your-bills, get-your-oil-changed, do-your-laundry, buy-your-cat-food sense. On the Buelsy Productivity Scale, it was a 0. Time for a heart-weakening eight hour catch up session.

I did see Snakemouth, which was wonderful and bizarre. Wonderful because I love her, and bizarre because it felt like the past year and a half hadn't even existed. At one point on Thursday evening, I could have sworn that Gayley Avenue was down the block and around the corner, that JAD was across the hall, and that imbibing alcohol was a deliciously bad idea because I had to work at Expo in the morning. I understand the concept of Glory Days now.

I also saw an improv. show where A was working, went to a Capoeira performance*, caught up with K and CT (who FELL DOWN at said Capoeira show), and was prescribed lots of pharmaceuticals to make me feel less sad about developing sciatica at such a young age.

*Totally rad. I want to join. Not sure if they take sciatic neurotics.

My prospectus meeting is on Wednesday. I'm going to go hyperventilate now.

--buelsy (speeches to write, bills to pay)