Posts Tagged ‘Random Thoughts’

 

I.  Soooo…

I’m que solo this week while Jack is stationed in a Shining-like resort in the Middle-of-Nowhere, West Kentucky-ginia, and I think I forgot how to live by myself.  It’s funny how you can live with a fierce independence for years and years and years and then suddenly everything is turned on its ear and changes completely in ways you never saw coming.  After a few months, you totally forget how to interact in the world like you did in the first place.  I’ve never experienced this before, but… I hear it’s called… “happiness”… and being … “comfortable”…

That’s all well and good, but the fact remains that I don’t like my world jostled at all, and I will still likely resort to eating Spaghetti-O’s for dinner (which, by the way, are a hell of a lot healthier than I ever expected them to be.  Trust me, I’ve been overly label conscious for the past few weeks.  Like… Label CRAZY).  They aren’t the ideal dinner, but they are a million times better than the alternatives of Fatburger and Five Guys that my little hunger monster keeps screaming for every time I get into a vehicle.

II.  Wait, why does that matter? 

Oh, that’s right… My arteries are clogging with pounds of butter, blocks of cheese, and grease I have consumed over the years.  For the first time in, oh, EVER I had blood work done to check my gauges.  Turns out even though I have been known to eat enough sugar to down a small elephant in one sitting, my triglycerides are great, my “good” cholesterol is just fab, and my “bad” cholesterol is… Well, it’s something to be desired (and I’m not talking about the Pittsburgh based Internet series here, folks).  Actually, it’s 240. 

That means our eating habits have recently gone a major overhaul.  Kind of.  It’s much harder than I thought it would be, and some days I can’t help it and I find myself cheating.  Today, for example, I had a gigantic bowl of apples & cinnamon oatmeal for lunch (good to help lower my cholesterol, and now my daily lunch of choice).  An hour later I was dragged to the kitchen area where there were tacos, chips, salsa, and guacamole.  I haven’t had a taco in… I can’t even tell you how long!  So I had one.  With cheese.  And whatever kind of ground beef it was.  And sour cream.  I realized I didn’t have a clue what was in anything I was eating, and so I piled some freshly made delicious salsa & chips on to the plate and headed back to my desk. 

You guys… I ate it all.  I can’t help it… My will power is weakened…

 

III.  Speaking of Super powers….

I’ve been on Chantix for a month now, and I still haven’t quit completely.  My instinct is to consider that a failure, but according to my doctor, I made incredible progress, and “Keep it up!”  I went from smoking a hell of a lot to only smoking roughly 3 cigarettes a day.  Sometimes I don’t even do that.  The emotional Pitfall (check out the ride at Kennywood, or the good ‘ole Demon Drop from Cedar Point back in the day) was insane, and I owe Jack, my family, my co-workers, and my friends a big one for putting up with that hysteria.  It’s calmer now, and I’m aiming to be finished smoking entirely by the end of the week.  I just can’t actually plan it.  I have to trick myself into it just kinda … happening.  If I try and put deadlines on my willpower, I’m guaranteed to fail.  I have a remarkable superpower that not many folks know about: 

I can rationalize absolutely anything. 

I can justify buying any book or film that captures my interest… even if I already own three copies.  Especially if I already own three copies… I don’t have this edition of the Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe and Super-friends!  This copy has rub on tattoos!

I can rationalize buying anything Shakespeare or Renaissance Period related.  Anything.  I don’t have that replica of Anne Boelyn’s ceremonial headpiece….

I can excuse away eating pretty damn near anything.  Cake?  I really shouldn’t, but I’m sure it’ll be okay since I plan on working out sometime later this week… err.. month… whatever.  Just give me the cake…

I can rationalize having one more cigarette.  I’ve been smoking for half my life, one more won’t matter.   Or the personal favorite of my subconscious:  Well that really wasn’t ceremonial or momentous or meaningful in any way… I’ll just have to have another one and make sure to make it count next time.

 

But I’m making progress on the health front.  I exercised yesterday for the first time in forever.  I did it on my own with Carmen Electra making me want to punch the TV every time I glanced up at her and she was in yet another cute workout outfit.  And usually in heels.  SO THAT’S WHAT I’M DOING WRONG…

IV.  The Stars Never Lie… Much.

Aries (March 21- April 19) Horoscope for week of August 6, 2009

I expect that you will soon stumble upon a key secret to your next masterpiece. And I’ll be surprised if you don’t discover a healing agent that will be effective in correcting an old mistake. In fact, Aries, I prophesy that in the coming week, you will have a sense that you’re doing the smart thing at least 90 percent of the time. Sorry: I’m afraid to say that I have no sad, bad, or mad news to deliver. If you’re the type of person who thrives on cynicism, your immediate future may be pretty boring. If you’re on the fence about whether life is a gorgeous feast or a chaotic mess, your ability to deal with outbreaks of goodness will be supremely tested.

Hey, I like order and rules and boundaries and explanations.  I also like Astrology.  The good kind.  Not the kind you get out of your daily paper.  I find star charts fascinating and in my experience with my own and those of family and friends, eerily accurate when done thoroughly.  Nevertheless, I enjoy bouncing around to find interesting Astrology sites, and this one at FreeWillAstrology.com just so happened to catch my eye today.  I haven’t tested the accuracy yet, but we’ll see.  I can’t say I mind the snarkiness, either.

V.  BTW… z0mg…

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18
Jun

Random Thoughts

   Posted by: Dawn    in Academic Musings, Fun, My Life, Odd, Quickies, Random Thoughts, Updates, rants

 

I have decided that if I were to attempt time travel I would definitely take a notebook and pencil.  In the past, depending on how far back I went, such luxuries wouldn’t be readily available (parchment was costly), and in the future because I’d want whatever I was taking records of my visit with to be able to work in whatever “here and now” I return to.  Why a pencil?  With my luck, the pen would clog or break.  Or both.  You can always sharpen a pencil.

 

*****

It bothers me that the Latte cups from McDonalds don’t have a seam on the lip.  Every other To-Go coffee cup with a lid has one, but McDonalds doesn’t.  Do they think they’re better than everyone else?  They don’t need a seam?  Oh yeah?  Well how the hell am I supposed to know I’m putting the travel lid on correctly?  Hmm?  Everyone knows that at Dunkin Donuts and Starbucks, and every gas station you’ve ever been to to procure coffee for the road, you align the seam to the back of the lid opposite from where the opening is to drink from.  This prevents spills and uneven flow.  It also prevents the lid from popping off unexpectedly.  How am I supposed to know which way to put the lid on?!? 

While we’re on travel coffee cups, I might as well note that when the lid is put on incorrectly I have to adjust the lid myself or it drives me to distraction.  Even if it’s not mine.  What is the correct way?  Seam in the back and in line with the opening to drink from on the opposite side of the cup.  This becomes problematic, though, when the lid is placed on correctly, and the opening from which you are to drink is off-center from the pattern and logos on the actual cup.  Was the print shop just lazy?  How hard is it to center graphics? Doesn’t the company care that they’re off-handedly dismissing someone’s hard work that went in to designing that cup just so?  These issues become irrelevant, though, when a protective sleeve is provided with a logo.  I can forgive ignore this error in printing by placing the logo on the sleeve in line with the drinking opening.  Simple solution.  Problem solved. 

 

*****

People who go out of their way to talk down to others or criticize from a “superior position of knowledge” and still use “there/their/they’re” and “then/than” incorrectly make me want to pinch their nose in a grammar primer.  Do it once– you’re skating on thin ice; twice, and I can’t help but categorize you.  A colleague of mine once said that everyone has small clues or cues in the way they speak that give away their background and attention to detail.  His theory (well, not just his… it’s been talked about quite a bit across the field) is that language is the great truth revealer.  I’m reminded of a well known, well respected scholar who intimidated everyone in his field with his brilliance and heated debating style.  When I heard him speak and he not only misused “then/than,” but also mispronounced “Economics” multiple times, I just sat back and smirked along with the others who noticed the same things.  It was as if the Red Sea had parted and suddenly there were two classifications of people in the conference room–those who saw through him, and those who didn’t.  Ahhh, the trifles of Academia…

 

*****

Wii Fit said my Wii Fit Age was 42.  I called it a lying @%&#!%  and had another cookie. 

That’s what I wanted to do, anyway… Instead I immediately started practicing balance games to try and please my tiny box of plastic, fluorescent lights, and microchips.  Slave to technology, indeed.

 

 

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