Gardening is Not News

I don't know why I'm updating, because I have pretty much nothing to update about. The nice thing about that is that my life is incredibly easy right now. I'm trying to enjoy this lazy feeling while I can since I know pretty soon I'm going to be dealing with moving stress, and before too long I'm going to be dealing with the whole Ph.D. thing, which, as much as I know I want to do it, is probably going to be 4 years of lots and lots of stress.
So what's up? Well, my thesis went up to the grad college last Thursday and it's not quite approved yet because of a few minor formatting things (the formatting of this thing is killing me, they could not possibly be more nitpicky about things and I don't understand why most of this stuff-like the font of the damn page numbers-makes any difference at all whatsoever). I made the necessary edits and am having another meeting about it tomorrow morning and hopefully it will get the final approval and then I can make copies of it, get it bound at the library, and finally be done with it already. Still, I'm more or less done with that and have been for weeks.
I did my final play report in class on Tuesday night, and now the only thing I have left to do is take my final exam on May 1st and I'm totally finished. Next week I just have to show up and watch other play reports. And since I think my grade in that class is a pretty solid A, I don't think I even need to study for the final all that much. I also finish managing the box office FOREVER on Saturday! In other words, I'm basically done with school.
So what else am I doing since I'm not busy with school anymore? I'm still working at the restaurant, but only for another month since I decided yesterday that May 18th will be my last day of work. I'd like to say that it will be my last day of waiting tables ever, but it so won't be. In fact, I was talking to Dad today about maybe working at his restaurant as well as his bar this summer. I don't want people being bitchy about me swinging into town for just a couple of months and taking shifts away from them, especially since I know that I can live without the money and it's very different to work like I do (to be able to sometimes buy an $8.00 drink without worrying about it and to save up some money for leaner times) and to work like so many other waiters and bartenders do (to pay their rent and buy groceries). So while part of me wants to go, "Chill out, it's two months!" I also understand their point and I figure if I divide my time between the restaurant and the bar (possibly bars, plural, since Dad has a new place on the other side of town) I'll be able to work plenty of shifts and save up some money but I also won't be invading too much on other people's turf. And for the record, I realize that I am about to have two degrees and I still have to wait tables and yes, sometimes I find that annoying. But I figure I can justify it as long as I'm still a student and living on stipends. Sure, it's enough to live on, but barely. And having the extra income from waiting tables really has given me the chance to spend money on pretty much whatever I feel like spending money on and also be able to put some money into savings, so I can't really complain. And the fact is I do need the extra income in the summers, since a 9-month paycheck just doesn't stretch a whole year. So yeah, I'll be waiting tables for the near future, but at least I'll only be at Applebees for the next month!
I figure the 18th is a good day to quit. My family comes to town that weekend for Chelsea's graduation and I'd like to be able to spend time with them, and then on the 20th my Mom is flying with me to the east coast so I can hopefully sign a lease on an apartment and actually see the D.C. metro area and my new school for myself. I still can't believe that I chose a school and a city to live in without ever having been there before in my life, but I'm trying to convince myself that it was a brave move and not a stupid one and I'd rather you not tell me otherwise, even if you disagree. And technically I did the same thing when I moved down here, although at least I'd been to Austin many times and driven through this little town so it's not like it was the Great Unknown. Oh well. It's going to be an adventure!
Figuring out what to do with all of my stuff over the summer and planning a 2,000 mile move is also turning out to be...well, I could be optimistic and call it an adventure, or I could be honest and say it's a huge pain in the ass. But it's all going to work itself out somehow, especially since I have several weeks to kill until graduation and nothing to do in the meantime except finish catching up on The Sopranos so I can watch the finale with everyone else. That should give me plenty of time to figure out a plan.

You Just Loved the Sex, Fool

College Ex is annoying me tonight. We don't talk much these days. We're still friends and on good terms, but ever since we finally stopped fooling around completely in fall 2005 I have stopped calling him just to chat. He still texts me every now and then (when he's drinking and feeling nostalgic, presumably) and I'll text him very, very rarely when something reminds me of him, and he'll call me every couple of months or so to ramble on about how much he loves me.
Tonight is one of those nights. First he sent me a text message that said "I still think about you all the time." And I didn't respond because how does one respond to that? "Congratulations, I DON'T think about you all the time, or even all that often"? "Why?"? "I think about you, too, but mostly I think about how that was fun for a while but I'm glad I'm done with that phase of my life"?
Then a couple of hours later he sent me another text message that said, "Can I just say that I'm still in love with you?" And so I responded, "You can, but that's kind of weird considering I don't think you ever really loved me in the first place." Well, it was a mistake to say that, because he spent the next hour calling me multiple times and trying to prove to me that he loves me and that he has always loved me. Which just doesn't make sense to me, because although he has spent a large part of our relationship and our entire post-relationship telling me how much he loves me, and how I'm the only woman in his life that ever knew his secrets and called him on his bullshit, and how I inspire him to be a better man and blah, blah, blah, for someone who supposedly loves me so much he sure does sleep with a lot of other women. And he probably says the exact same thing to them. I just don't trust him. At all. I never have, and I never will. Truthfully, I think he just wants phone sex tonight and whoever he normally calls for that job these days isn't responding and so he has turned to me, but since he knows I won't do that with him anymore he thinks that if he sweet talks me a lot first it will maybe turn into that. Either that or he really does think he loves me, in which case someone really needs to teach him that sex and love are two very different things and do not necessarily go hand-in-hand, even though they probably should.
--Interrupting this post for a live action update--He just called AGAIN and I answered again (Why? I'm not answering anymore after this, he's getting repetitive) and this time he said he needs to see me before I leave Texas because he has to give me something. I asked what he has to give me, and he said "Something that's really meaningful and important to me and symbolizes everything I've been trying to tell you about what you mean to me, and you might not ever wear it but I need to give it to you anyway." What the hell?! I really think he's on drugs or something right now. He also just compared his love for me to seeing a box of Tic Tacs on the shelf at the gas station and suddenly remembering how much you love Tic Tacs even though you haven't had them for a while. I had to put the phone down so I could laugh as loudly as I wanted to, and when I picked up the phone again he was still babbling on. Worst. Metaphor. Ever.
I don't know what his deal is, but I'm not answering the phone anymore. This is ridiculous. There was a time and place in my life for him and I don't regret spending so much time with him in college. We had a lot of fun. But the time and place in my life for showing up at a guy's house at two in the morning to smoke a bowl, have a beer, and fool around is over. Or at least, I think it's over. I'm certainly not in the mood for that sort of thing these days. And as soon as I stopped being in the mood for that, I stopped being in the mood for him. So it sure as hell wasn't love, and I hope he's not actually so delusional that he thinks it was. I'm pretty sure he's just drunk.

Know what else is annoying? Trying to find an apartment on the internet. I don't know why I'm even bothering to look, since it's not like you can get a sense of a place at all based on their online ads. And even things like that apartment ratings website don't work because people pretty much only post about their apartment complex online when they have negative things to say about it, so you don't get an accurate idea of how the place really is. I'm going to go up to my future home in a month or so and I want to sign a lease then so I'm trying to do some research, but it's just frustrating me.

Anyway. I'm gonna read for class and get some sleep and stop obssessing about the logistics of moving myself, a basset hound, a cat, and all of my furniture 2,000 miles, because I have months until I actually have to deal with that.

Drum Roll, Please....

Today has been a definitive day in my life. Really, it has. In fact, I can't think of another day in my life so far where two major milestones, two life-changing events (interrelated though they may be) have taken place in the same day.

But today? Today I sat before my committee and defended my thesis and took my comprehensive exam. Two hours sitting across the table from three professors, answering questions about everything I've learned about theatre EVER was one of the most intimidating and stressful things I have done in a long time. And to think, I went into this with full confidence that I would pass and I was still that nervous when it came time to actually do the defense. I don't know how I'm going to do this whole comprehensive exam thing again in a couple of years, much less defend a dissertation.
But the important thing right now is that I passed my exam and my defense, and now I get to graduate for sure! I am a Master of Arts (officially as of May 12th, but technically as of right now)! Go out and have a drink for me to celebrate!
One of the best parts about the whole thing is that I have an entire month to kill between now and graduation, and absolutely nothing to do between now and then except take a final in my Classical and Renaissance Theatre class. I think I have loved this spring semester more than any semester I have had so far. I even loved the parts of it where I was writing my thesis (although that's mostly because I had a lot of distractions, like Justin Timberlake).

So that's all great, but the really major thing that happened today was that I finally decided on a Ph.D. program. I know I've been terrible about updating you here at the end of the process, but it's just because everything happened so fast and I had so much to think about. I ended up getting awesome financial aid offers from both schools. One offer came in on Monday night, the other came in on Tuesday morning. From that point I only had Tuesday, Wednesday, and today to make a decision since I need to have my official answers reach the schools through mail by Monday.
I won't bore you with the whole decision-making process except to say that it was the most difficult decision I have ever had to make in my entire life and that's no exaggeration. I talked to faculty at the schools, I talked to students currently in the programs, I talked to faculty here, I talked to my friends here, I talked to my parents (who are in Mexico for the week and are now going to have a ridiculous phone bill from hashing the whole thing out with me, sorry Dad!), I asked my basset board friends who live in both areas of the country for their opinions, I was practically asking strangers on the street for their opinion. In the end I felt like I made the most informed decision I possibly could, considering I didn't have the time to visit both campuses.
I'm feeling good about my decision. I chose the school that is going to give me the biggest stipend for my teaching assistantship (even taking cost of living into consideration, this school is still giving me more money than the other one would have) and they are also going to give me health insurance, pay my full tuition for up to four years, and give me $2000 of travel/research money for my first two summers. It's an amazing offer, and one that I ultimately just couldn't refuse. I also feel confident that I will be able to find good dissertation advisors in this program, and I'm excited about where I'll be living. And that's what it came down to, ultimately. My friend and professor, Christin, who just finished her Ph.D. in December, pointed out that the Ph.D. is such a self-directed degree anyway that when comparing two very similar programs, the programs themselves don't matter as much. So she said, "Where would you rather live?" And when she put it that way, my decision, which was already becoming pretty obvious, was clear.

Alright, enough of the suspense. I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. And you probably just scrolled down to find out what I chose anyway, right? So...

[Haha, just kidding! This used to say which school I chose, but now that identifying information has been deleted. Figure it out for yourself, or e-mail me or myspace message me if you know me personally and want to know]

Eeeee!

Know what's fun? Having two schools and being able to very carefully play them against each other to get the best possible deal for myself. It feels so good to be wanted.

By the end of this week I should know for sure where I'm going. Sorry for not writing more right now, I have a book report to write before tomorrow (a book report, I know, what am I, nine?) and I haven't even finished the book yet, much less started writing the five page report. I just had to let you know, for those of you that have been listening to me babble about this stuff since last summer, that I'll have a plan soon.

I'm so excited! And freaked out! And excited!

The Universe is For Me, or Against Me, I'm not Really Sure

So after all that babbling yesterday, I heard from two more schools today. One, the other California school, doesn't want me. The other, however, DOES. And there's still one more school that has yet to accept or reject me, but since it's the weakest program (still a good program, but the weakest) there's no way I'd go there unless they gave me a financial aid offer and neither of the other schools did. So it's down to a decision between two schools. Fortunately, this is a very pleasant dilemma to have, and I'm grateful to have two options because it means the fact that I got into the up-North school wasn't just a fluke, I really am a qualified candidate, apparently. I feel more confident now that I have two schools to choose from. Incidentally, I also feel more confident having gotten rejection letters, too. I know that sounds silly, but when I got into college and then got into an MA program, I got nothing but acceptance letters, which left me with the idea that ANYONE can get into those programs and do what I'm doing. Which isn't true, I know that, but that's what it felt like. But now, having gotten both acceptance and rejection letters, for the first time in my life I'm really thrilled at having been accepted anywhere because I realize that it actually is pretty difficult to get into a Ph.D. program, much less one of your top choice Ph.D. programs. So yes, it's flattering, and it's a great decision to have to make, but still, I HAVE TO MAKE A DECISION.
The guy who wrote me from School #2 today wrote an extremely flattering letter that basically said, in not so many words "We really want you, we're going to give you a financial aid package that matches our extreme enthusiasm for your application, please don't accept the other offer without hearing ours first". And that's all fine and good, except that they don't think they'll be able to officially present their financial aid offer until April 12th, which is exactly four days before I need to declare my intention at School #1. Not a lot of time for decision-making. The other problem is that School #1 has yet to present their financial aid offer, either. I wrote to School #1 today, now that I have another card to play, and told them that I have another offer and would really like to be able to consider both programs--including their financial aid offers--side by side so that I can make a truly informed decision. So I'm hoping that now school #1 will either get on the ball and give me my financial aid offer ASAP, or that they'll let me wait on accepting or declining their offer of admission until they have had a chance to give me my financial aid offer.
And then I'm hoping one offer is substantially better than the other, because otherwise I seriously don't know how I'm going to make this decision. I'm trying not to freak out about it yet and to just be thankful that by this time next week I should know for sure where I'm going, but still. I hate making major life-changing decisions, especially in this case where I've never actually visited either school and can't make a decision based on gut instincts, which is what I usually do.

Anyway, wish me luck in the decision-making process. I'm off to Houston/Galveston for the weekend with Mandi tomorrow. We're spending Friday night in Houston to hang out with Matthew and one of Mandi's friends and then I'm going home with Mandi on Saturday to meet her mom and spend Easter there, hopefully on the beach if it doesn't get too cold this weekend. It should be fun. So long until I get back.

Just Wasting Time

It has been almost a week since my last post. Sorry guys, I'm slacking. I don't honestly feel like all that much has gone on in the past week, but I guess I must have been busy doing something since I didn't have time to write.

I haven't been busy studying, that's for sure. My thesis is back from my committee, and it's good to go other than a few minor punctuation things that weren't caught in earlier revisions (apparently I underpunctuated for the first time in my life; normally I'm the Comma Queen so I'm not sure how that happened). All in all I've been surprised at how easy writing the thesis was. It was time consuming, sure, but in retrospect it took much less time and effort than I thought it would. Now all I have to do to earn my degree is make those minor edits and get copies of my thesis bound at the library (once it gets approved by the grad college dean, which it will), do three more things for my Classical and Renaissance Drama class (another play report, a five-page book report, and a final exam) and do my thesis defense/comprehensive exam. That takes place a week from tomorrow, and I'm at a loss as to how to study for it. How do you cram two years (six years, really) of material into your head in a week? The answer is YOU DON'T, so I haven't studied at all yet and I don't think I'm going to. I either know it or I don't, at this point. I'm probably just going to skim my Dramatic Theory notes, and then I'm going to hope that they want to chat a lot about Shakespeare and the Greeks since that's what's fresh in my mind this semester. So yay! I'm almost done! A month and seven days until graduation! I think I'll spend the entire time lying out, reading for fun, trying on sun dresses, and bar hopping, which is what I've been doing with my free time so far. Don't you just hate me this month?

Speaking of graduation, I still don't know where I'm going when I'm done here. I finally e-mailed the three schools I haven't heard from, but I haven't gotten a reply yet. I'm hoping that the fact that I have another offer will make them give me an answer promptly, but who knows. I'm not-so-secretly hoping that all three will come back as either rejections or "sorry, there's just no way we can let you know your status before April 17th" because then I won't have to make a decision on where to go, I can just accept my current offer. Because the thought of actually having to make a decision that important in a matter of days is really daunting to me. It would be kind of nice if the universe just gave me one clear path for now.
And speaking of trying to decide what to do, my dad was in town last night and he said--with no prompting from me at all whatsoever, which leads me to believe that he and Mom just don't want me cramping their style, haha--that he and my mom would pay my rent for me if I decided I'd rather spend the summer living here instead of in El Paso. Unfortunately, it's too late for me to stay in my current apartment because I would have had to renew my lease by the middle of March, and I don't know if they'd have let me go month-to-month anyway. Subletting another apartment here for just three months at most seems pretty pointless, and my sister mentioned I could move into her house in Austin for the summer but...eh. I hate packing and unpacking. I also really, really, REALLY hate not having my own space. I don't care how big my own space is, I just need to know that I have some space of my own to organize the way I want. So if I moved up to Chelsea's, I wouldn't really have my own space, I'd presumably have her space with all her stuff still in it, even if she had technically moved to her boyfriend's house (which is her current plan). Or if she had moved out completely, I'd have to move all my own stuff to her house and then move it again three months later. Not fun. Plus I'd have to find a job in Austin since I wouldn't want to commute back and forth to my job here all summer, and finding a job in Austin for three months seems pointless, too. And then there's the fact that ideally I only want to pack and unpack one time. I want to pack here, and unpack when I get to wherever I'm going. I realize that I might have to move stuff into storage temporarily, but that isn't completely packing and unpacking, that's just loading and unloading. And ideally I'll somehow find a way to skip that step, too (maybe use one of those shipping/storage companies like those Pod things? I don't know). So moving all my stuff to another location in this area, unpacking it or living with my space like a storage unit (UGH) and then packing it all up again and moving in the fall just seems stupid.
What makes sense, of course, is to just go back to El Paso. In El Paso I have my own space at my parents' house. It's just a bedroom, sure, but at least it's all mine and it doesn't involve any unpacking to make it livable and I know I'm capable of being comfortable and relaxed there even if I am living out of a suitcase for three months while most of my stuff is in storage. More importantly, in El Paso I have a definite job where a) I can make better money than I'm currently making here at Applebees and b) my dad is my boss so I can have time off to go on family vacations, go to Ruidoso, maybe visit Cassie, etc. Plus I wouldn't have to be paying rent, and I honestly wouldn't have to be paying for much of anything while living with my parents. Trying to earn and save as much money as possible this summer seems like the best possible plan.
The one thing lacking in El Paso, though, is my friends. But logically, I just can't convince myself that hanging out with my friends is enough of a reason to stay here all summer. Especially since most of my usual gang is spending most of the summer in Stratford (or Canada). The truth is, even if I stayed here for the summer, I probably wouldn't have all that much of a social life anyway. It wouldn't be like it is right now, that's for sure. I just hope I don't regret the decision to go home, though. I hope I don't get there and feel bored out of my mind all summer. I hope that I can hang out with Mike and the people I know through him without it being weird, I hope that I can make my own friends at the bar or elsewhere. I hope that my grand scheme to take several vacations works out, because I think I can definitely handle--and would even enjoy--spending a few weeks in El Paso, then taking a week-long vacation, then spending another few weeks in El Paso, then going on vacation again, etc.

I just don't want to make the wrong decision. About anything. But I also make the best of things no matter what I decide, so maybe there are no wrong decisions for me. I don't know.

Oh, and about those friends that I don't want to leave behind? Well, this afternoon Richie and I were standing at the box office together watching these scenes that were going on in the lobby (our department's contribution to this ) and during a very quiet scene change Richie turned to me and said, very loudly, "How are you, anyway? I haven't seen you since our drunken night!" And the guy working in the box office just goes, "Uh..." and Richie was like, "Oh. I meant..." and everyone turned to stare and I had to quickly clarify, "Not OUR drunken night. A drunken night," and I think everyone in hearing range was relieved because Richie and I share the exact same taste in men, and he's engaged, and Richie and I having a drunken night together would blow everyone's mind. Ha. Plus all that actually happened on our drunken night was that Richie ate the world's most disgusting hot dog and then five minutes later bought a slice of pizza because he'd somehow totally forgotten that he ate the hot dog. I love Richie.

Knowing

I am so sick of filling out applications. It was enough to fill out all the Ph.D. program applications a couple of months ago, but there are also graduate assistantship applications to fill out. The department I have been accepted to is automatically considering me for assistantships and fellowships within the department. I feel like I will probably get an assistantship of some sort, considering the fact that their website says they fund "most" of their graduate students and I have never heard of a Ph.D. candidate that isn't receiving at least some funding from his or her university. The thing is, I won't know whether or not I'm receiving money from the department until mid-April. Which helps A LOT if I have to make a decision between two programs, by the way. If I happen to get another offer, how am I going to decide which is better if this school isn't going to give me financial aid information until AFTER the deadline for accepting their offer of admission? It's so screwed up. Also screwed up is the fact that I still haven't heard from the last three schools. They're all getting e-mailed this weekend so I can get an update on my status. The thing is, it's not a huge deal. I think the fact that one school accepted me immediately in February and the others are taking their sweet time making a decision should be a sign, and I think I'll be accepting this first offer anyway unless another school comes back with an amazing financial package. The head of my department here said that the school that has already accepted me is definitely my best option, all things being equal. It's a good school, a very well-known school that I'd be proud to earn a Ph.D. from (I still can't believe that might actually happen, by the way). So yeah. Unless this first school is planning to offer me nothing and another school is planning to offer me a full ride, I think that maybe, possibly, my decision has already been made. Still, I'm just ready to be absolutely positive, you know?
Anyway, assistantship applications. Because I won't know whether I'm getting an assistantship through the theatre department for a few more weeks, I decided to apply for other graduate assistantships on the campus. These are jobs at the on-campus arts center, and they're open to graduate students from any department. They sound like pretty awesome jobs, actually. They're all jobs that I'm perfectly qualified for, that would look great on my resume and would advance my career, and if I'm not going to get a teaching position then they're equally good options. But the applications are due tomorrow, and that annoys me. I could have just spent two hours filling out job applications for no reason at all whatsoever, if the theatre department is already planning to offer me an assistantship. Ugh. There should be a more organized way to deal with this whole application/admission/funding process. Seriously.

Other than filling out more applications, I've been doing a lot of nothing. I've been working at the restaurant and trying my best not to break hearts. One of the guys I work with has had a not-so-secret crush on me since December, and yesterday he told me, "I really wish you weren't leaving so soon, because I really want to date you." I feel bad about the whole thing, because he genuinely likes me but I can't get excited about him. He's a nice guy, but I'm not the woman for him. He works in the kitchen and is perfectly content to do that for the rest of his life (I know this because I keep asking him what he wants to do with his life and apparently what he wants to do with his life is be a line cook at Applebees. Forever. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's just that I need someone with more ambition, or at least more creativity, than that. Sometimes I wish I didn't, but I do). He also supports his deadbeat mother and sister, and it bothers me that he lets people walk all over him like that. There's such a thing as family obligation, but that only goes so far, you know? And then there's the fact that he wants to be a virgin until marriage and doesn't drink, which isn't a problem at all except can you see me in a relationship with a virgin who doesn't drink ever at all whatsoever? Yeah, me neither. I'd corrupt him. Plus I'm not interested in teaching a guy how to do things in the bedroom. I have never gotten off on the teacher role. I do feel bad, though. Luckily he has accepted "I'm leaving soon so I'm on hiatus from dating" as enough of an explanation for why I won't go out with him. Sometimes being only two months from moving is a very good thing.

What else? I talked to my mom on the phone today and we had an interesting conversation. She dated the same guy during her senior year of high school and all through college, part of the college time long distance. So this guy was basically her Mike, only it was an even longer term thing. She ended up breaking up with him her senior year of college, and it was her idea to end the relationship, although obviously she felt a little bad about it. They lost touch after that, and she went on to date more guys and then she eventually met my dad a few years later and they fell in love and the rest is happy history. At her 30 year high school reunion back in 2004 she found out from mutual friends that her ex was now pretty badly brain damaged from a fall (that she later found out took place way back in 1998). A couple of weeks ago, she learned that he died. She ended up deciding to write a letter of condolence to his mother, even though she hadn't spoken to her since the break up all those years ago, and today she told me that his mother wrote her back, and one of the things she wrote was "If parents could choose their childrens' spouses, we would have chosen you for him." And Mom told me she cried. I would have, too, because how could you not? I guess that does make me wonder what his mother thought of her actual daughter-in-law, because she did have one, but that's beside the point. I just think it must be so weird for Mom to think about the whole thing. I can't imagine any of my exes not being here anymore. The weirdest thing, though, the most spooky thing, must be the validation that she definitely made the right choice all those years ago. I'm sure that even though it was her decision to leave the relationship, there must have been points in her life afterwards when she asked herself if that was the right choice. And to compare where she is now, happy and getting ready to go on vacation to Cancun with my father, with where she would be had she chosen to stay with her ex instead, must just be...I don't even know. A relief, surely, but really unsettling somehow, too, to think of how close she was to another life entirely. And I know that if they had stayed together it would have changed the course of events anyway, and maybe he wouldn't have gotten brain damaged and died because he wouldn't have been in the situation that caused his brain damage in the first place, and so on. But still. It just had me thinking this afternoon about how everything happens for a reason, and how you never can tell which way your path is going to curve next.

On that note, I'm going to continue the Crest Whitestrips experiment and then go to bed.

Defense

Apparently I have to defend my thesis and take my comprehensive exam sometime during the week of April 9th. That's only two weeks from now! I know I'm going to pass, even if I only pass because my committee feels like being nice, so I'm not worried about that. I'm just worried about looking like a complete idiot when my committee asks me something and I just sit there going, "Uh...well, um..." and then they all sit there going, "Uh oh, we're sending this girl off into a Ph.D. program?" The nice thing is, that's really early. It will be kind of good to get it out of the way that early, because once that's done I'll have almost a month to kill before graduation and I can just chill. A free month sounds pretty nice to me.

Hey, here's something good: A Freebirds restaurant opened in town last week! And it's in the same shopping center as Jason's Deli and Fazoli's! Pretty much the only way that could get better would be if a Chic-fil-A opened up across the parking lot.

On a completely unrelated note, there's a show on right now called Great American Dream, or something like that, and people get to present their dream and then the audience votes to narrow it down and then the country gets to vote for their favorite dream and that person gets the funds to make their dream come true. Well, there's a woman on it tonight who wants to build a sanctuary for senior basset hounds. I actually know of her because we post to the same basset hound e-mail list. That's the only reason I'm watching this show in the first place, because I wanted to see her win. The thing is, she was up against a guy who wants to build a chicken amusement park. I was insulted that the show's producers even considered a joke like an amusement park based on chickens in the same league as a rescue shelter for homeless dogs. How are those two dreams even comparable at all?

Oh yay, Devon made it to the next round! Go to abc.com and vote for Devon and her home for senior basset hounds! I promise that it's a legitimate dream, even if she's up against a guy who wants a hair transplant (what the hell?!) and ABC is apparently trying to make it seem like a joke.

New York, Again

It's pouring down rain today, so of course I picked this afternoon to go to the grocery store for the first time in almost two months. I had to stock up on everything. After the sixth trip from my car to the apartment laden down with grocery bags, I was completely soaked and really cursing myself. Why couldn't I have just waited until tomorrow? I don't know. Because once I have a plan I tend to stick to it, interfering factors be damned. And in my defense, it wasn't pouring down rain when I headed out to the store. Sure, the sky was leaden and it was clearly about to rain at any moment, but I did think that maybe I'd be able to avoid the worst of it. Oh well. By the way, I bought Crest Whitestrips at the store today, because I've never had a problem with the color of my teeth before but suddenly for the past two weeks they've been really bugging me and I feel like I'd like them better if they were whiter. So do the strips work? I hope so, considering they cost thirty bucks and they feel gross in my mouth so this better not be a total waste.

Now, back to New York. First, a brief rundown of how I ended up in Brooklyn:
Mandi and I had been on one of those double decker bus tours, and we realized as we started to head back uptown an hour into the tour that we probably weren't going to make it back to Times Square in time for the show we were supposed to see at 2:00. So since we'd already seen all the sights on the tour and would have just been stuck on the bus in traffic going uptown, I decided it would be faster for us to just get off the bus and catch the subway. And it would have been. Except that when we got down into the station, Mandi made it through the turnstile, but I didn't. I swiped my ticket and pushed the turnstile but it clicked and didn't let me through. And I couldn't swipe my card again because it was one of those unlimited use cards and the machine knew that it had just been swiped at that station so it wouldn't let me do it again. So there I was on one side of the cage and Mandi was on the other, so I told her I'd be right back and I ran upstairs to get a subway worker to fix my card. Except that there wasn't a person upstairs, and I had to go across the street to the other station entrance to speak to a human being, which wasn't exactly right across the street but across the street and a few blocks up. So I ran over there, explained to the station atttendant what had happened, and she let me into the station. Except that once I was in I realized that finding Mandi wasn't going to be all that easy. I thought I could just walk over to the train line where I thought I'd left her, but I got hopelessly lost and confused underground, and then when I finally went above-ground to see if I could buy a single-use ticket and re-enter the station a few blocks back where I'd left Mandi, I realized that I no longer had any idea what street I was on or how to get back to the station where Mandi was, since I'd gotten so hopelessly turned around running around underground for ten minutes. So basically, I ran around underground and then aboveground in far downtown Manhattan (which is NOT a simple grid like the rest of Manhattan, unfortunately) and finally I managed to reach Mandi on her cell phone for exactly long enough to say, "Go by yourself and I'll meet you there!" before losing the signal (since she was still underground and her phone wasn't working, either). I was worried about leaving Mandi by herself since it was only our second day in the city and she has never had to navigate public transportation and so she didn't know what she was doing, but I didn't know what to do since at that point there were only twenty minutes until our show was supposed to start. So then I tried to get on a train myself, only to find a sign saying that there were currently no uptown trains from the particular station I was at. So I ran back upstairs (for like the nintieth time at this point) and asked a guy where I could catch an uptown A train, and he said "Right there, where you just came from," and I told him about the signs and he said, "No, no, you're right, those signs are wrong." And so I went back downstairs, and sure enough, a voice came over the intercom and said, "Uptown A train now approaching." So I got on the supposed uptown A train and hoped that Mandi had done the same thing and that we'd both make it to the theatre in time. And then I sat there. And sat there. And sat there. And thought, "Wow, this train is going a long time without making a stop." And then when the train finally stopped I saw that the station sign said, "High Street" and that's when I realized that the reason the train had gone so long without a stop was that we had been traveling underwater to get to Brooklyn. And by that time the show was supposed to start in ten minutes so I knew I'd never make it in time. So yeah. It was just a series of one mishap after the other. Thankfully it all worked out in the end, and it makes for a good story (since this story is slightly more entertaining when I tell it in person...slightly.)

As for whether or not I was a lip slut in Manhattan (correct answer: NOT, because kissing two people does not a lip slut make) I'm realizing that to summarize every strange thing that happened while we were hanging out in New York bars would be impossible. So, the highlights:
-On Tuesday night, we went to a bar near Kymberli's apartment and got to watch an angry Scottish (Irish?) guy go storming out of the bar announcing that he was going to kill someone, I think for stealing his coat.
-On Thursday night Mandi and I put in a request for a bar that was a) not just a bar but not a club, either, more like a lounge with good music, b) a place where we could potentially find hot guys, and c) somewhat pretentious but not too hard to get into. Kymberli added the request that it be somewhere near Times Square, since we were there already after seeing Spring Awakening, and so her friend that works in the nightclub business directed us to The Living Room at the W Hotel, which fit our criteria quite nicely. We started out the night there, where we met our friend from The Color Purple and a bunch of firefighters from Los Angeles and some other random guys and then we eventually moved downstairs to the Whiskey where we intended to dance, except by that point I was too busy making out with a guy named Ted. I know, I know, who is actually named Ted? But I swear that was his name. What do I remember about Ted? Um...he's from Maryland originally, he lives in Hell's Kitchen, he's a banker, he was cute, and, well, that's enough I think. Actually, we talked for quite a long time before all the kissing and I legitimately enjoyed talking to him, although later in the night he got all girly on me and accused me of just wanting a face to make out with, which I suppose was sort of true even though I told him that was supposed to be my line, not his. There was also a very Bridget Jones's Diary-ish moment when he went to feel up my leg and I had to explain that I don't always make a habit of wearing panty hose under my pants, I was just doing it because it was freezing outside and I didn't have any boots with me so I needed some way to keep my feet warm in my dressy shoes. Ha. He seemed pretty taken with me, despite the panty hose and the fact that he assumed I was just using him, and he tried pretty hard to get me to go home with him. In the end I didn't, mostly because Kymberli really needed me at that point (she ended up having kind of a lousy night) and because deep down I knew going home with someone I had just met four hours ago wouldn't have been the brightest idea.
-I did, however, let Mandi go home with the guy she had met, the bouncer from the bar upstairs. Why I did that is beyond me, especially since she was pretty far from sober. I guess I just figured she needed to do it since she and her boyfriend broke up the week before we left on our trip and I know exactly how she's feeling these days and she can use some good distractions right now. I had the sense to at least get the guy to write down his full name, telephone number, and address for me before they left (not that he couldn't have lied about those things, but I was getting a pretty good vibe from him, and ultimately I was right, he ended up being a good guy). It was only later on the cab ride home with Kymberli that I actually looked at the address closely and realized I'd let my best friend go to the Bronx. The Bronx! At four in the moring! With a guy she had just met! Luckily she made it back to the island happy and in one piece, and the whole night made for some great stories throughout the rest of the trip.
-That same night I also decided to kiss an Irish guy named Barry. This happened after the club had already closed and Ted had given up on me and gotten a cab home. I honestly can't remember exactly how the whole thing came about. One minute I was standing outside the bar while Kymberli had a cigarette and Mandi prepared to disappear to the Bronx for eight hours, the next minute I was kissing a tall, dark-haired guy with an Irish accent. I actually thought he was faking it at first since it was just a couple of days before St. Patrick's Day and all, but he finally showed me his passport. I don't know why I kissed him. Maybe I was just taken with the accent? Actually, I think he just leaned down and started kissing me totally out of the blue and I let him. I was really amused when we stopped kissing and he shouted, "I love American girls!" I wanted to tell him that not every American girl will kiss a guy she has known for two minutes in the middle of Times Square at four in the morning, but I thought better of it. Let him go home with a story.
-I kept it tame the rest of the week. Friday night Mandi and I found this really weird bar in the East Village that was...I don't even know how to explain it, but nobody seemed like they belonged there. It had the feel of sort of an urban club, but it was full of nerdy white college kids and Asians dancing to disco music. Mandi and I stayed for a while, mostly just because we couldn't stop going, "What the...what IS this place?" I still don't know what it was all about.
-Saturday was St. Patrick's Day, which meant it was impossible to move in any bar without getting jostled and bumped all over the place. The first bar we tried was so crowded I couldn't breathe. The second place was better, but still really packed with some really strange people. Like the big bald guy that tried to hit on me. Now, big and bald may be some people's type, but it's pretty much the antithesis of mine. So when he first came up to me and started chatting, I just did a lot of, "Uhuh...yeah...okay...". I wasn't trying to be rude; part of it was just that I was trying to pay for my drink and then not get killed by all the drunk people leaping around so I couldn't really focus on the guy in the first place, but truth be told I really wasn't intrigued by him at all. So I walked away. Ten minutes later he walked straight up to me and blurted out, "Do you find me attractive?" What?! Who does that?! Talk about putting me on the spot! I didn't want to lie, but I also couldn't bring myself to be a total bitch and just say, "No." So I settled for, "Sorry, but I'm not looking for that tonight." Which served the purpose of not being completely rude but discouraging him enough so that he left me alone the rest of the night.
Then there was the cute but fratty-looking guy who shouted at the top of his lungs, "I asked Chrissy out to this song!" and when he noticed me laughing at him quickly amended the statement, at the same volume, with, "We broke up and now I'm single again!" Later I told him I'd been laughing because I'd been picturing him standing outside a girl's window with a boom box playing the song, even though I knew he really probably meant that it had just been playing in the background when he asked her out, and he got all indignant and told his friend, "This girl thinks I'm John Cusack!" Haha.
Weirdest of all was the guy holding the purse. I was waiting for Mandi to come out of the bathroom (actually ALL of the above happened while I was standing by myself waiting for Mandi to get through the bathroom line and for Kymberli to arrive from work, which just goes to show you that a single girl really shouldn't go to bars alone, ever. It was probably the single weirdest ten minutes of my life) and Purse Guy came up to me and said, "Do you like my purse?" I sarcastically told him, "Yeah, it's a good look for you. Why are you carrying a purse?" and he said, "It's role playing, I guess. She's wearing my shirt," and he gestured to the bar where a girl buying drinks was wearing his fire department shirt (there were firemen EVERYWHERE, all in town for the St. Patrick's Day parade). So I said, "Oh. That's...interesting. That's your girlfriend?" and he said, "She is for tonight. What do you think of her?" Again, what?! Who asks things like that to people they don't know at all whatsoever?! For whatever reason I replied honestly instead of just walking away, and I said, "I don't know, I can't see her face from here." He laughed, and then she came walking back towards us with their drinks. I ended up getting stuck talking with her for a moment, too, as I tried to figure out a semi-polite way to make a break for it (I'm too polite at bars, that's my problem) and when she got distracted by another conversation her boyfriend-for-the-night leaned in and whispered to me, "Well, what do you think?" and so I just said, "Eh," which was true, and he nodded his head somberly and said, "Yeah. I agree," and then he looked at me hopefully and luckily right at that moment Mandi came back and I was able to say, "Oh look, there's my friend, BYE!" What did he think he was going to do, trade up? After he'd just explained to me that he was looking for a girlfriend for the night only? Not that I'm entirely opposed to that idea, but come on, he needs to know that he can't explain that he's looking for a one night stand AND make it clear that he obviously has pretty low standards and then expect that I'm going to go, "Sure, ditch her and hang out with me instead!" Ugh.

So yeah. That's basically my trip to New York in a nutshell. I wasn't really ready to come back to Texas, and I'm already looking forward to heading out again. Next up I think I'm going to D.C. with my family, and I'm also seriously considering going to Chicago this summer to see Cassie. Of course, that all depends on what's going on with Ph.D. programs and if I need to start working somewhere this summer or not until fall. It would REALLY help to know where I'm going to be heading in two months. I wish the other schools would hurry up and let me know if I'm in or out so I could make a definite decision.

And on that note, I'm off to read Richard III for class tomorrow. I've somehow managed to get through six years of intensive theatre study, including a six week class solely on Shakespeare, without ever having read one of Shakespeare's history plays. So I guess it's about time.

New York Part II

I am not in the mood to clean my apartment. Normally I clean my apartment on Fridays, but I wasn't in the mood on Friday, either. Plus I had to work, then work out, then go watch people play pool and drink Dos Equis and then have everyone over to my apartment afterwards--because have I ever mentioned that bars here close at midnight (1 a.m. on Saturdays) and that's completely ridiculous because nobody is ever done hanging out at midnight?--and so I didn't have time to clean my apartment. And yesterday I just wasn't in the mood, either. And now it's Sunday and I STILL don't feel like doing it so I'm going to write this instead.

So, about New York. I really couldn't have had a better time. Even when there were problems (like the whole subway-to-Brooklyn thing) they generally ended up working in my favor and leading to even better things

Like the snow, for example! The first couple of days we were there were beautiful. Wednesday was particularly beautiful. When I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, it was sunny and warm enough that I was comfortable in just a short-sleeved shirt. See:

And this one, also:

Sunny! Beautiful! Probably 70-something degrees!
Then on Thursday Mandi and I were having lunch at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station and our waiter said, "Hope you brought a jacket, it's going to snow!" I'm used to Texas, where "It's going to snow" means it's maybe, possibly going to snow for an hour or so. But in New York if someone tells you it's going to snow, it's really going to snow. By Friday night the city looked like this [this is my favorite picture from the whole trip, by the way, taken from 'inoteca, the coolest little wine bar in the East Village]:

It was freezing, but it was so much fun, too. The snow made everything seem kind of romantic and different and it was beautiful until it all got plowed up and turned into gray slush. But it was beautiful for a while. To have the contrast of warm, sunny New York with snowy, gray New York was a nice experience.

And now for topics more interesting than the weather. Like food! It's a good thing I walked a whole lot while we were there, because, damn, did I ever eat. I love food. LOVE IT. I would gladly go on a vacation entirely devoted to eating, and Mandi is like me in that respect, so we tried a whole bunch of different restaurants, and Kymberli would come with us whenever she didn't have to be at work. We had delicious sushi at this place near where we'd catch the tram to go to Kymberli's apartment [The tram, by the way, was not a monorail, which is what I'd been envisioning whenever I'd talk to her on the phone and she'd be calling me from the tram. It was an actual aerial tramway, an enclosed box hanging on a cable, like the thing you take to the top of a mountain when you're skiing. Very odd.] Kymberli also took us to the Pinkberry in Koreatown, and I'd have eaten it four more times by now if I were still in the city. We had to get hot dogs from Gray's Papaya, of course. There was also the above-mentioned awesome wine bar in the East Village, 'inoteca, which was probably my favorite restaurant Mandi and I ate at all week. We split panini sandwiches and a bowl of these meatballs glazed with an orange/tomato sauce (sounds horrible, tasted delicious) and our waiter was awesome. When I told her I wanted to do a cheese plate but couldn't decide what to get, she asked what kind of cheese I like (answer: everything...or at least everything they'd have at a wine bar, since I love goat and sheep milk cheese and the only kind of cheese I don't like is American) and then she came back with three different kinds of cheese that were all great. She did the same thing with wine. I'd be like, "Okay, I want another red, but this time I want something smoother and lighter..." and she'd bring me the perfect thing every time. The last night we were in town we went to Bobby Flay's restaurant Bar Americain. We splurged, big time, but it was well worth it. There was a lot of other eating, too, but I'm trying to remind myself again that food talk is only interesting to me.

Let's see, what else? Well, there were the shows, of course. That's why we were there, after all. We ended up seeing A Chorus Line, Spring Awakening, and The Color Purple. All three of the shows were amazing in different ways. I think we must have seen the three best shows playing on Broadway right now. And if we didn't and there's something better out there, then wow, the calibur of show on Broadway right now is impressive. I especially loved Spring Awakening and The Color Purple. Spring Awakening was just so different, almost like being at a concert instead of a show. I think if I were taking a non-theatre person to New York I'd take him or her to Spring Awakening, for sure. The cast was hot, the music was great, and the singing was very strong (Kymberli will be pleased to know, because she keeps asking me about it, that the original cast recording is being delivered to my apartment as we speak). Oh, and the set and lighting was so cool! As for The Color Purple, I can give it one of my biggest endorsements, which is that I cried. In fact, I cried through the whole curtain call and for five minutes after the show was over. And I felt like a fool because we were sitting in the second row and so during the curtain call the entire cast could see that I was crying. Which probably makes them happy, that they clearly touched their audience, but still. I rarely cry, even when I am feeling emotionally taken by a show or movie, so the fact that I was emotionally involved enough to cry means a lot. I always feel like such an idiot when I talk about theatre here. I study theatre, critiquing theatre is what I do for a living, for god's sake, and all I can say here is a variation of, "It was so cool!"? It's like there is no in-between for me. I can either write you a three page critique of the show, or I can say, "It was good". Lame. Sorry about that.

The coolest thing about The Color Purple was that we had met one of the cast members at a bar on Thursday night, and he told us how we could get tickets for just $27. He also told us to call him if we ended up going and said that he'd give us a backstage tour. Well, Kymberli, Mandi and I got tickets and went, but we felt too weird calling him. What if he'd just been acting polite at the bar? We were afraid that if we called him three whole days after he'd given us the tip that he'd just go, "Who are you again?" So we weren't going to call him. After the show we decided to go back to the stage door just to tell him thank you for telling us how to get tickets, but when he saw us there he said, "Hey, come on in!" and he really did bring us backstage! Not only that, we got to go ON stage! It was amazing, seeing all of the props and set pieces lined up and ready to go for the evening performance and meeting cast members and thinking to myself, "I am standing on a Broadway stage!" Which is the only way I'll ever actually get to be on a Broadway stage, by the way. He was such a genuine guy, so friendly without any sort of ulterior motive, you know? It wasn't like, "Come backstage and I'll show you around and then you'll do such-and-such for me." He's just a guy that is excited about what he does and wants to share his enthusiasm with other people that are interested in the same thing. I love that.

Speaking of the bar, I haven't gotten a chance to tell you about our New York nightlife experience. And oh, there are some stories to be told. But this entry is already too long and I really do need to clean my apartment. So I promise to tell
a) the subway mishap story (because I owe you that one, too, even though it's probably not all that exciting)
and
b) about all of the weird and slightly less weird men I met in Manhattan

If I don't update about these things soon, remind me that I promised I would. Because it really is time I talked about something other than my thesis.

P.S.-The good thing about being home from New York is how cheap everything seems now. On Friday night we got dinner from Taco Cabana and I sat there for a full minute thinking, "I can't believe I just got two tacos and a drink for only $3.97!). When I mentioned this to Richie, he said, "I'm from Canada! I feel like that ALL THE TIME!"

Finished!!

It has been over a week since I last posted, so I have a lot to say. I need to tell you about the rest of the New York trip, mainly, (it got even better as the week went on, which shouldn't have even been possible) and I suppose I can tell you what has been going on around here, if I can think of anything vaguely interesting.

But today all you need to know is I FINISHED MY THESIS! Okay, technially it's 99% finished. Everything is written, the references pages are done (I HATE doing works cited pages, they are the bane of my existence), the images are in, the pages are numbered, the acknowledgement and title page and all that jazz is done. The only thing it is lacking at this point is the table of contents, which I opted not to do yet just in case I have to do some editing and my page numbers change, and my vita, which I realized just a couple of hours ago that I forgot to print out and include. Oops. But for all intents and purposes, it's finished. Now it's in the hands of my committee. I'm not anticipating having to do much editing since my committee chair has been helping me edit it as I go along, and since she has already approved everything I think my other two committee members will just go along with whatever she says. So I should get it back in a couple of weeks, and then it just needs to get approved by the graduate college, which I'm not at all worried about.

You'll understand, I'm sure, why I need to go out celebrating tonight. Now that this project is done I'm hoping I'll have so much free time that I won't know what to do with myself. I mean, there IS the matter of passing my comprehensive exam, but I'm hardly worried about that at all. Remember how I mentioned that I was chosen as the "most outstanding graduate student" in my department? Well, now they're telling me that as of this week I've also been named most outstanding graduate student in the entire College of Fine Arts. I feel so stupid even typing it, and all of my friends and professors keep telling me, "That's a big deal!" and then they make fun of me for just brushing it off like it's nothing and then I feel even more silly. But I don't know what the proper reaction should be, so I just keep saying, "Yeah! It's...cool." I don't actually win anything, just recognition at the department awards ceremony and at graduation and I get some sort of medallion, apparently, and it's something to put on my resume when I'm applying for jobs one of these days, and every little thing helps so I'm definitely grateful. But yeah. I'm really not all that worried about passing my comps. I figure if the most outstanding student in the college doesn't pass the comprehensive exam, no one will. Ha.

Taking Manhattan

I have so much I could tell you right now, but so far I can summarize the first two days of my trip by saying that it has been serendipitous and lucky and so far I'm having an even better time than I thought I would.
I could tell you about how Mandi and I almost missed our 7 a.m. flight on Tuesday morning and managed to get on board the plane literally five minutes before it took off, and yet somehow our bags made it onto the same flight.
I could tell you how awesome it is to have my best TCU friend and my best grad program friend together in one place and to realize that they seem to like each other as much as I like both of them.
I could ramble on and on for days about how Mandi, Kymberli and I decided on a whim to try to do the lottery for A Chorus Line tickets on Tuesday night, knowing that in order for all three of us to see the show two of us would have to win the lottery (since it's only two tickets per person), and also knowing that we'd showed up five minutes before the lottery was supposed to end and so our chance of getting tickets was slim to none. And yet Kymberli's name was drawn, and a moment later my name was drawn, too, and we sat in the very front row, so close that I could put my hand out and touch the stage, and we saw the Broadway revival of A Chorus Line for only twenty dollars!!
I could (and probably will, when I'm home and have the time) regale you with Ashley's Great Subway Debacle of 2007. To make a very long story extremely short, I missed seeing Talk Radio with the girls this afternoon because I was too busy taking the subway to Brooklyn against my will. The downside to this was that I was out the forty bucks I'd paid to order the ticket online. The incredibly awesome upside, however, was that I ended up having a wonderful afternoon on my own. I wandered around the DUMBO area and sat on a pier under the Brooklyn Bridge and ate ice cream from a shop I'd read about in my guidebook before I left home and then happened across totally by accident. Then I walked the mile across the Brooklyn Bridge footpath, something I've always wanted to do but never done before because not many other people want to walk a mile across a bridge just to take some pictures and I'd never tried to talk any traveling companion into it. But this afternoon the weather was perfect and I just so happened to be in Brooklyn by myself with no one else to answer to, so I just did it on a whim. And it was amazing, and beatiful, and so much better than I even thought it would be, and I was just having a MOMENT, you know? And finally at one point when I was almost back to Manhattan I got sort of emotionally overwhelmed with I don't even know what-being here again, thinking about 9/11 and history in general and then the strangeness of life in general, thinking about how wonderful it was to be all alone by myself for a few hours to just be independent in the city and how all this independence is such a key part of me and my life, and thinking about all of that I had to stop on the bridge and wrap my hand around one of the cables and say, "Thank you, whatever it is that put me here, because I'd never want a life other than this one, flaws and all."

There's so much I could tell you, and I will try, when I get home.

Babbling

-I kind of hate that the time changed today. It's way too early for this daylight savings time nonsense, and there is no such thing as a good time to lose an hour. And I congratulated myself last night for remembering to change my clocks before I went to bed, but then I forgot to set my alarm and was twenty minutes late for work anyway. Brilliant. (And no one noticed that I was twenty minutes late for work...possibly because I am ten minutes late to work as a general rule and so twenty minutes wasn't that big of a difference, but I wonder how late I would have to be before I got the, "Where are you?" phone call.)

-I didn't even notice the effects of the time change because it was dark and rainy all day long here. We're under a flash flood and tornado watch right now. Luckily it's only 9:30 and I plan to be up working on my thesis for most of the night, because I don't like to sleep during tornado watches. I realize that's completely stupid, because what better way to die than to be clunked by flying debris while you're fast asleep and don't even have the chance to see it coming and panic? Surely sleeping through a tornado is better than being awake through one. Still, I'm going to be up well past 1 in the morning, and the tornado threat should be over by then.

-Speaking of the oh-so-fascinating topic of weather, I'm totally stumped on what to pack for my trip to New York (which starts the day after tomorrow!!). It's supposed to be between 30 to 60 degrees the whole time we're there, which is a pretty big range of temperatures, and kind of an annoying one. The day time temperatures are supposed to be in the 50s for the most part, and the 50s are the most annoying temperature range out there because I can never remember until I'm actually experiencing it if 50s is going to feel freezing to me or whether 50s is like, sweater-but-no-jacket weather. Or if it's possibly even long-sleeved-shirt-only-no-jacket-necessary weather. I mean, I'm going to bring a jacket, obviously. I'm going to bring my leather jacket, which combined with scarf, hat, and gloves is currently the warmest cold weather ensemble I own (a fact that's going to have to change very soon if I am in fact moving to the northern U.S. later this year). And Kymberli says I can borrow one of her really warm coats if I need it. But it's the other stuff that has me stumped. I don't have many clothes that are good for layering. I don't have any clothes that make me feel sexy and are also warm (another issue I'll have to remedy if I'm moving to the tundra in a few months), and it's New York City and presumably we're going to go to at least a few places where I'll want to feel attractive. So what's a girl to do? And then there's the fact that I can't carry my damn cosmetic bag on the airplane with me thanks to that stupid no liquids rule and so I either have to pack it in my big suitcase and take up valuable clothing space or I have to just check it by itself and assume it's very likely going to arrive at JFK crushed up and oozing shampoo and toothpaste and reeking of Very Sexy for Her. Or I can pour all of my liquid things into 3 oz. or smaller containers and place all of it in a plastic bag and who the hell has the time or inclination to do that?!

-To change the subject completely-which is I guess why I'm doing bullet points in the first place-one of my co-workers waited on this truly gluttonous couple at work today. First of all, they each had a salad but drowned the salads in so much ranch dressing that really, they should have just eaten bowls of ranch dressing with a spoon and thrown a couple of carrot slices into them. Then they each ordered a steak combo, which is a big enough meal in the first place since it's a sizable steak and comes with veggies and mashed potatoes and spinach artichoke dip. Oh, and a dessert at the end, too. So that's more than enough food for any normal person, right? Especially considering they already had all that ranch dressing. But then they made their potatoes loaded mashed potatoes, which means they get covered in cheese, bacon, and sour cream. Which is an okay indulgence once in a while (you know me, I'm all about everything in moderation), but is it wise to indulge in loaded mashed potatoes when you're already eating the combo meal and a gallon of ranch dressing? And if you DO decide to indulge in loaded mashed potatoes, what makes you think it's necessary to make it a DOUBLE ORDER? They each had an entire soup bowl of loaded mashed potatoes! I mean, that alone right there would be a full meal for me. An unhealthy meal, sure, but a full one. And then. Then! Naomi comes back to the kitchen and fills up a bowl with Saltine crackers and takes them the bowl of crackers and a container of melted butter because along with all that other junk they wanted to DIP CRACKERS INTO A BOWL OF PURE BUTTER AND EAT THEM. Just thinking about it is making my heart hurt. And it probably goes without saying that they each weighed 300 pounds, easily. Why would you do that to yourself? I just...you know what, I'm not even going to say anything else about that because I can't even wrap my mind around it, to be totally honest. There is poor eating habits, and there is lack of exercise, and most of us do that at least sometimes to a certain extent. And there are genetic issues, and there is the way you were raised to make food choices (I do not think it's entirely a coincidence that I crave turkey and mustard on wheat while someone else might crave the triple bacon cheeseburger instead) and those factors come into play, but at some point it just gets disgusting. Sorry to say it that bluntly, but it's true. And this couple had definitely crossed the line from mildly overindulgent to scary.

-Speaking of indulgences, although not disgusting ones, I spent eighty dollars in Austin on Friday night. I hardly ever spend that much money on a night out, mostly because I don't have the sort of cash flow to regularly spend eighty bucks on a night out. Although if I did I'd be regularly having nights like Friday night because Friday night was awesome. It's nights like Friday that make me realize how easily I could become a very high maintenance woman, if given the opportunity. I went out with Mandi, Richie, and John, and we started out at Kenichi because Mandi got addicted to their calamari on our last trip there and wanted to get some for dinner. So I was all happy to be at Kenichi, where I can watch beautiful and trendy people and pretend to be hip which I really like doing sometimes, and between two cocktails and edamame and a sushi roll and some sashimi and dessert, it wasn't hard to blow fifty dollars on dinner. It was fifty dollars damn well spent, though. And then we went to an entire spectrum of bars. We started out at Apple Bar, which is kind of a lounge of sorts with an older-twenties crowd...uh, my crowd, I guess, since if I'm not there already I'm rapidly approaching an age that no longer counts as "college age". Then we went to Canvas, a sort of arty bar in a warehouse where an artist hangs out in the corner and paints all evening (hence the name). Then we went to Latitude 30 where I was the only white girl and Richie was the only gay guy and I was really out of my league, frankly. I mean, I was a bit out of my league at Kenichi, too, but with the right jeans or dress I can pass as a scenester with a trust fund if need be. But I'll never be the sort of girl who can convincingly shake my ass to Ludacris or drink Henessey, no matter how hard I try. I'm not even sure I know how to spell Henessey (is that it?). Anyway, we finished the night up dancing at Spill, where Mandi and I got hit on by some really funny Puerto Rican guys and John had this conversation with a guy who spent five minutes trying to sell him a cell phone plan at 2 a.m., for whatever reason:

John: Look, buddy, we're artists. We're concerned with our art. We don't care about phones.
[Incidentally, I almost died when he said that, first from embarrassment when I thought he was being serious, and then with laughter when I realized he was joking but Mr. Cell Phone remained oblivious]
Random Phone Guy: No, man, just check this out! A phone can help you with your art!
Richie: No, seriously, you're trying to convince the wrong people. I don't have a cell phone. I don't WANT a cell phone. And none of us have money.
Random Phone Guy: I can get you a good deal, though! This isn't for the guy in the Benz.
John: We're just not interested, really. You're wasting your time.
Random Phone Guy: No, listen, I can hook you up with something really good, something that can help you with your career.
John: Tell you what. If your phone can explain Hegel's dialectic and Nietzsche's Apollonian and Dionysian principles, I'll think about it.
Random Phone Guy: This phone can do Hegel! It has a touch screen! Look! Touch screen! Touch screen!

And finally at that point we had to just walk away from him because he wouldn't shut up. Crazy. Wonder if he now thinks Hegel is some sort of technical phone term he should be learning about. Anyway, Friday night was awesome.

-I saw this ad on TV today for some sort of ab workout that is supposed to be four hundred and eight percent more productive than your average work out. I know absolutely nothing about math, and I acknowledge this. I will tell you, for example, that according to GRE I am better at math than only 42% of the other GRE takers. And I realize that GRE takers are a reasonably book smart pool of people to begin with and so therefore I'm probably better at math than more than 42% of the entire population of this country, but still, math is by no means my strong suit. So I'm okay with admitting that I have absolutely no idea how something can be more than one hundred percent effective. More than one hundred times effective I understand, but more than one hundred percent baffles me. And also, why would you advertise a random number like four hundred and eight? Maybe I misunderstood since I was in my bedroom and just overheard the ad playing in the living room, but isn't that really odd?

-The thesis still isn't finished. Why is the end of a project always the hardest part?

Break!

I feel the need to update, although I don't know why. I have nothing to say that's not

A) The same boring school-related stuff I've been talking about for months [my thesis advisor has declared me "in good shape" and I'm determined to finish the thing as much as I possibly can before I leave on Tuesday...I mean, I'm sure I'll have to do more edits once it goes to committee, but for all intents and purposes it will be finished]

B) Completely mundane [I got a hair cut today, nothing extreme but I really like it. I'll be cleaning my apartment this afternoon because it needs to be done, badly.]

or C) Stories about how much fun I'm having right now. My life is fun to live right now, but it's always more intriguing to hear about people's hard times as opposed to their good times. That's just how it is. When people write about how great their life is, you kind of just want to hit them. [Case in point: My life is so easy right now. Minor concerns about the future, sure, but nothing major keeping me up nights. No big projects to worry about any time soon. Tons of free time. The weather is beautiful. I'm healthy, my family is healthy, my friends are healthy. No guy problems to speak of (no guy to speak of at all, truthfully, although that feels like a very minor issue these days). I threw a party last night and it was really laid back and so much fun. We're thinking about bar hopping in San Antonio this weekend for a change, which should also be fun. I'm going to New York in three days...like I said, fun to live, not exactly entertaining reading]

The only remotely bad thing going on right now doesn't even concern me directly. Mandi broke up with her boyfriend of two years on Wednesday night, and I think it's the right decision (I mean, if she gets back with him I'll be supportive because he's a nice guy and only she knows what goes on in their private life, but for now I think she's making the right decision in at least taking a break) but it's really hard for her and she's sad and since I was in a very similar position this time last year it's making me extra sad for her because I know exactly how she feels and I know there's nothing I can do to make her feel better in any significant way. I'm hoping New York will be really good for her and take her mind off of everything.

But yeah. I'm here and doing well, and now there's a whiny basset hound at my feet that wants to go for a walk, so I'm out of here.

Can You Make it Hot for Me?

So yesterday Shane, Gus and I drove up to Dallas for the night to go to the Justin Timberlake concert. And it was AWESOME. Everyone seems really surprised that I'm a Justin Timberlake fan, and when I got back this afternoon the cast of the show I'm stage managing was teasing me, but come on! Have you seen him dance? Have you heard the new album? Do you see the striped shirt and the skinny tie? What's not to like?!
To be honest, I don't have much to say about the concert. First of all because it was great to be there but it's probably boring to read about, and second of all because I have nothing to say that isn't going to make me sound like a sex-starved teeny bopper. It was really fun, though. Just as good as I was hoping it would be, and well worth the whirlwind trip to Dallas.
It was also really great to get to see Katy (we stayed the night with her and Scott since they live in Dallas now). We realized we hadn't seen each other since we went tubing last May. I can't believe it has been that long. It was also fun hanging out with Shane. I like spending time with Shane and we always have fun together and we get along well but we honestly don't have that much in common (in fact, I think our only common interests are Justin Timberlake and, um...hmmm...) so it was fun to do something together. I think I'll forgive him for the fact that he made me listen to the "Go Cubs Go" song in the car (I know, you're amazed that such a song even exists. So am I) and for the fact that he won't stop insisting that this elderly couple we saw outside the arena after the show were Grandma and Grandpa Timberlake. In Shane's defense, he announced that his grandparents were at the show, but these people milling around in the crowd were definitely not his grandparents. Although I am a bit curious about what prompted a 70 year old couple to go to a Justin Timberlake concert. Anyway, it was a really fun night and now I feel like fast forwarding straight to spring break because I don't want to do anything productive.

I did stage manage tonight, though, and I will tomorrow as well because the show is up and running. I hope Richie and the cast are proud of themselves, because I am proud that I get to be involved in this show. I think it turned out great. I'm going to miss working on it. But with that said, it's going to be really nice to have three free hours every week night once the show closes tomorrow.

Oh, and my computer is fixed! And I found out today that I got a perfect score on that test I took last week (one more A and my grade in that class will be 50% A and I can stop worrying about it altogether). AND I found out today that the department nominated me to the graduate college as their most outstanding graduate student. I have no idea how that is determined, or what it means exactly, but now our graduate chair lobbies the graduate college on my behalf since I guess the ultimate goal is to be named the top student in the graduate college. I don't know what you get if you win, probably just bragging rights, I guess. I should be excited about this, but instead I'm just thinking, "Really? Why me?" I just do what I feel like I need to do, you know?

How brilliant, well-established, and self-confident do you think you have to be before you can just smile and say, "Oh yeah, of course I'm the best," when someone tells you that you are?

And on that note, I'm out of here. One week until I head to New York, which means one week to totally finish the thesis. And other than the fact that the thesis deadline is still looming over my head, I have to say I'm feeling pretty damn good about life right now.

Best Band Name Ever

For reasons I don't entirely understand (yet another manifestation of their mutual midlife crises?) my parents are in Las Vegas AGAIN this weekend. I swear, every time I have talked to them in the past year they're either getting ready to go or have just returned from Vegas. And neither of them even gamble all that much (well, Dad is crazy about sports betting, but he does that at home anyway and doesn't need to go to Vegas for that). My parents, who are 50 years old, are going to Las Vegas every two months or so primarily to go clubbing. I'm not making this up. Hey, they're really happy, so good for them. Plus I'd much rather have a MILF for a mom then one of those ladies in a cat sweatshirt. I'm definitely not complaining.
Tonight--again for reasons I don't entirely understand--they're at a Christina Aguilera concert. The opening acts are Danity Kane and the Pussycat Dolls. Mom just sent me a text message informing me that Dad couldn't remember the name "Danity Kane" and so he called the group "Akita Dan". Akita Dan! I DIED when she told me that. I don't know why that's so funny, but it is. Akita Dan. I mean, it's not any more stupid than Danity Kane. In fact, it's much, much better.
Then a few minutes later Mom sent me another message saying my dad accidentally dropped his cell phone in his drink and that it's broken. How that happened is totally beyond me, but whatever. I think it's kind of funny, too, although not as funny as Akita Dan.

So my parents are tearing it up on Las Vegas. I on the other hand am lying on the couch with my basset hound on my lap getting ready to take a four hour nap and then do more work on my thesis. Maybe I'll be cool when I'm 50.

P.S.

I knew there was something else I meant to tell you!

So yesterday out of the blue a guy friend from college IMed me. We hadn't spoken in well over a year, so it really was out of the blue. I'm not sure how to describe my relationship with this guy. The simplest way to put it is that he's a guy who was always more interested in me than I was in him. Which is not to say I wasn't interested in him at all, because we had a certain amount of chemistry and I think he's a nice, entertaining guy. And we had some "moments", if you will. But he just never did all that much for me. And it didn't help that for a period of time Kymberli was pretty interested in him. That obviously would have put a kink in things had I actually been interested in him in a serious way, and since I wasn't interested in him in much of any way at all, it was even more reason for me to just kind of laugh off his advances. Which is what I spent much of senior year of college doing.
He caught me off guard and kissed me once at a Christmas party, and there was a period of about a week during spring of senior year when I was on the outs with College Ex and briefly considered whether I could date this friend, but after going on a couple of dates I realized that I was forcing things and just didn't feel the same spark he apparently thought he did. He is also the friend behind the "This is not a pleasure shower, this is a business shower" story, a story that has now become somewhat infamous here at grad school, mostly because my friend Amanda loves it an insists I tell it to everyone. Maybe I'll tell that story one of these days, although it's an entry in and of itself. But I'm sure you can sort of infer what happened just from the story's title.
At any rate, this guy and I had an interesting friendship that definitely could have become something more and I think would have become something more had he had his way. Instead I moved down here, and he started dating someone else seriously after I moved.
Well, lo and behold he's suddenly IMing me again. And why am I not at all surprised to hear that he broke up with his girlfriend extremely recently (like, days ago)? Guys love to do this to me. Every guy that I've ever dated seriously, or casually, or not even dated but almost-dated, has eventually tried to come back around. Some of them have done it multiple times. For the most part, I try not to encourage them when they do this (the notable exception of Mike notwithstanding, even though I mostly know better now). I know I should be flattered, and I am. It's good that the guys from my past think of me fondly enough that every time they end a relationship they dust the memories off again and wonder why we let each other go in the first place. But of course the flip side to that coin is that if I'm really good enough to keep them coming back, why did they let me go in the first place (because even if I was the one that let them go technically, they let it happen)?
I referred to myself as "back burner girl for the whole world" when I was telling this story to Kymberli just now, and I was mostly joking, but really! What are all these guys going to do when I'm seriously off the market one of these days? They can't keep thinking I'm always going to be there for them, because I'm not. I'm ALREADY not. As a friend, yes, of course. As anything else, well, I think College Ex got a wake up call last time he came down here and realized I was serious about just wanting to be friends. I suppose I'll have to get to that point with this guy eventually, too, if it comes to that. I don't hang out on the back burner these days. Hell, at this point I don't think I'm even on the stove. But that's gotta be better in the long run than being the girl he comes back to. For someone, I want to be the girl he never leaves in the first place.

So Not Funny That it Is

For those of you utterly fascinated by my progress, the bulk of my thesis-about 90% of it-is due on Monday ("preferably by Monday", which I'm pretty sure is a nice way of saying "Monday").
So what happened today?
My computer died.
How many completely and utterly cliched things can I manage to do in one lifetime? I'm already the girl that lost her virginity on prom night. Now I'm also the girl whose computer died three days before her thesis is due. It's not funny, except that it sort of is because really, what are the odds?
I was on the phone with Dell for over an hour, and it finally got to the point where the guy had me taking my computer apart with a flathead screwdriver, which freaked me out and didn't fix anything. Eventually he determined that my screen is fried somehow, and someone from Dell is supposed to come out here and replace it, hopefully on Sunday. Getting it fixed on Sunday doesn't help me much, obviously. So I freaked out and cried for two minutes and then realized it could be a lot worse. At least my hard drive is fine. In fact, if I hold my laptop at an incredibly bizarre angle near a bright light, I can almost see what's happening on the screen, and so I was able to move some of my research files to my zip drive (with much frustration). And the other good news is that all of the pages I've already written are printed out already, so at worst I'll just have to retype the whole thing. It could be a million times worse. Still, it sucked. Thankfully my sister isn't using her computer much these days so she drove down here and dropped it off so I could use it for the weekend.

Anyway, I'm getting back to work. I have way too much to do this weekend.

P.S.-So that ugly bruise I had? It's almost 100% gone! I'm amazed. My massage therapist did a cream rather than oil massage (shut up, pervs) on Sunday and mentioned that the cream he used would help with bruising, but wow! I wasn't expecting results this amazing! My body normally holds onto bruises for weeks. All I know is it had arnica in it, which I know is meant to relieve bruising, but seriously, I didn't think I'd be this impressed. It looked better immediately, like the next morning, and now it's gone!

Just Rambling

I spent the weekend eating sushi and drinking raspberry mojitos and getting massages (okay, just one massage, but it was wonderful and I really wish I could get one monthly because I think it's really good for my body) and now I don't really feel like being responsible anymore.
I had a midterm in my class tonight and I feel like I did okay considering how little I studied and how much I just don't care right now. That's the only problem with knowing that I already have a plan for the fall if I want it: now I don't see the point of putting much effort into stuff here when even if it's just mediocre it's not really going to make a difference. I just have to pass. I just have to finish. And I can do both of those things with a minimal amount of effort, so I can already feel myself getting incredibly lazy.
I am going to finish my thesis this week, though, or at least attempt to finish the bulk of it, if only because I really don't want to have to worry about it over spring break.

Just out of curiousity, I started looking online at apartments in my potential future home today. Not that this is a necessary step at this point because nothing is definite right now, obviously, but it was just something to do to waste time when I should have been studying. The thing is, it just stressed me out because they're already renting apartments for fall 2007 and I feel like by the time I'm actually ready to look for an apartment anywhere, everything "good" is going to be gone. It also stressed me out because it's hard to find an apartment that is pet friendly. It's even harder to find a pet friendly apartment or house that would give me the space to get a second dog, which is what I really want. I'm already trying to talk myself out of the idea of getting a sibling for Cohen. I don't think he's unhappy being my only dog, I just know he'd be happier in the long run if there was another canine member of our "pack" and I'd hate to wait until he's 6 or 7 years old to try to introduce a second dog. The weird thing is that all of the places I was reading about today have "pet rent", a monthly charge I'd have to pay for Cohen and Jose. I'm not opposed to that, and obviously I'm going to do whatever I need to do to keep my animals with me, but I find the pet rent concept really strange and would rather just pay a one-time pet deposit like you do here. The nice thing, however, is that the cost of renting an apartment doesn't seem to be substantially more expensive up there than it is here.
It's still so weird to think that in a few months I'll be living somewhere else (well, in a few months I'll probably be living in El Paso, but THEN I'll be living somewhere else). I'm not going to lie, I'm sort of nervous about it. I just don't like the six month adjustment period. Part of it is really exciting and fun, but there's the lonely part, too, which will be lonelier than ever this time since this will be the first time I'll move and truly know NOBODY where I'm going. And then there's the fact that I just really hit my stride here a year or so ago, so it seems too early to already be leaving here. I love my friends here. I love the way all of us grad students get along so well this year. Even the professors are commenting these days on what a unique, cohesive group we are and how great it is that we get along so well with each other. I think if you didn't know which of us were second years and first years and which of us were history/crit or directing you'd never be able to tell just by watching us together. It's great, the feeling that we all belong here and were meant to end up together here at this point in our lives. That sounds cheesy, but it's true. So I'm going to hate to leave everyone here. I'd never dream of staying, of course, because you can't hold on to times like this. These circles of friends form under specific circumstances and in specific moments and even if nobody leaves they eventually fall apart anyway. Still, it's going to be hard to leave in May.

Vacation Planning

With less than three weeks until we're in New York, Mandi and I finally got with the program tonight and did some real planning. We (me, Mandi, and Kymberli) now have tickets to see Spring Awakening and Talk Radio. I'm really excited about both, especially Spring Awakening, which I've been hearing really great things about. We wanted to try to get tickets to Wicked, too, but I'm not about to pay $250+ for tickets to a show. That's ridiculous. The only seats left were "premium seats". I figure maybe we'll try the lottery or the TKTS booth for that one, or maybe we'll decide that two Broadway shows is enough for us and we have other things to do.
As for other things I really want to do while I'm there, the only thing I'm dead set on trying to do is visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art because I've been to New York three times but somehow never been there. Other than that I'm hoping that Mandi will want to call a lot of the shots, because it is her first time there and I feel like she needs to try for her ideal experience (and I'm happy to do anything, frankly). I'm getting really excited about seeing Kymberli, too. It already feels like it has been years since we saw each other in Las Vegas.

I'm still on an emotional high from getting into a Ph.D. program so everything has been making me happy lately [incidentally, when I do have 100% definite plans I will do a post letting you know what program(s) accepted me...it will just be a temporary post, but I don't intend to leave you in the dark forever if you actually read my nonsense regularly]. I'm also really excited because my parents are coming to town tomorrow and we have a fun weekend planned. Tomorrow a big group of us is going to dinner at Kenichi. Sushi! It's Shane's belated birthday dinner since he turned 20 earlier this month. Shane is bitching (in a mostly joking way) that now it has turned into a celebration for me, too, but as far as I'm concerned it's still Shane's birthday party and that's it. Then since my parents are being all extravagant and staying at the Four Seasons again (lucky bastards), Mom made us massage appointments at their spa for Sunday, which I'm so excited about. I'm afraid my massage therapist is going to be horrified, though, because my entire body is covered in bruises from that stupid scene I did earlier this week. Zak and I tried to be careful and not actually injure each other, but I have a fairly visible bruise on my right calf, another one on my back, and a HUGE bruise on the upper part of my right thigh. I am so amazed by this bruise that I kind of want to take pictures and document it, except that's disgusting. I think it will be bathing suit season before this bruise fades completely, that's how intense it is. Sick.
Sunday Chelsea and I are also going to try to have a little birthday party for Morty and Cohen. Speaking of which, today is Cohen's birthday! My "baby" is two years old now! Time flies. I remember when I could hold him in one hand, and now he's 46 pounds of howling hound dog.

What I haven't figured out yet is when I'm going to get any thesis work done this weekend and when I'm going to study for my midterm on Tuesday because my weekend schedule is basically
Saturday:
8:30-10:30: Wake up and clean the apartment/groom the basset (ideally-I may in fact sleep in spite of my best intentions)
10:30-4ish: Shift at the restaurant
6:00: Run box office for the show
8:00: Dinner with everyone, and I'm sure I'll get home way too late to get anything accomplished

Sunday:
11:00: Work out (again, ideally)
12:30: Another box office shift
3:00: Massage
4:30ish: Dog birthday party
Evening: Dinner with my family, probably

So I can probably do a tiny bit of work tomorrow afternoon if I get ambitious, and I can hopefully get some work done late Sunday night. But basically, the bulk of my studying/writing will have to get done Monday and during the day on Tuesday, and I don't have a whole ton of time then, either, because rehearsals for Richie's show are in high gear now since we open March 6th. Plus we need to spend Monday morning at Goodwill looking for props.
But don't even bother telling me how stupid it is to prioritize things like dog birthday parties and massages over my studies because I realize how ridiculous I am. I also realize life is too short to be responsible all the damn time.