What a terrible, horrible, rotten, very bad week so far. Ok, so today hasn't been that bad. I'm suffering more from residual grouchiness than anything else. Sort of a grouchiness hangover, if you will. I think most of my sadness earlier in the week had to do with the isolation of my job. If this position has taught me nothing else it's taught me that I would be terrible at a job where I'd have to work in isolation from home. Because here I'm in an office, but it's tucked away in a corner of GSLIS that no one ever visits, and since I'm the sole project coordinator for this grant I have no actual co-workers, per se. So I often go days without saying more than 10 words to someone in the course of a workday. Which bothers me sometimes more than others, and this week it bothered me quite a lot. I think it didn't help that friends were away on break or otherwise incommunicado, so I wasn't getting to talk to anyone after work either. Anyway, I just sunk into a giant pit of lonesome and wallowed there for a while. But the warming weather is making it hard to stay down, so begone, blues. Begone, I say!

Note to self: Don't spend several hours listening to sad music. It will make you cry.

Other things that make me cry (figuratively, this time, not literally):

• stupid gym exercise bikes. (Why are they so hard?)
• stupid Samsung Napster MP3 players that claim to be compatible with Audible audiobooks, but then freeze up your computer when you try to load them on.
  

So this weekend I went to the gym for my first-ever personal trainer session. Chad (not to be confused with Brad, the gym owner) finished up his previous session about 10 minutes late, so I stood around by the desk waiting and watching the little kids in the playroom play with a plastic... chainsaw? Um, what? Yes, I'm sure that will go well.

When Chad finally got around to ambling over he planned my workout while seeming half asleep and then walked me around to various machines, showed me briefly how to use them, and watched while I did a few reps to get the hang of it. Of course, since he never once corrected my form, and commented on every move that it was "perfect," I sort of feel like I could have just gone around and figured out how to use the machines myself. But at least he wrote everything down on my schedule, because by the time we were on the 10th machine, they all completely blurred together. He's got me doing 10 minutes on the bike to warm up before each workout, and then 3 days a week are some combination like arms and shoulders, or abs and legs, or whatever. Then on Thursdays I do the bike, the treadmill, and the elliptical machine. Sounds stick-to-able, I guess. Especially if I can get more little kids to entertain me like the three year-old girl who watched me on the elliptical machine this weekend. She stuck her mouth right up on the glass window and made all sorts of faces at me. Somehow laughing and sticking your tounge out at a pre-schooler makes the workout go much faster.

Saturday afternoon I went with some folks to watch the basketball game at Legends. Let me tell you, if it's enthusiasm you're looking for, the campustown bars are where it's at. Also, that was perhaps the most suspenseful game I've ever seen. It's even possible that by the end I might have been mostly standing on the seat of the booth and raising my arms in the air while I yelled. Hey! I said might.

Also saw Guess Who, which was fairly cute while I was watching it, but is so entirely unmemorable that even now I'm having trouble recalling anything about it.

Sunday was an entirely boring day, in which I walked around a little bit, did some stuff online, and confirmed that there is practically nothing open on Easter except for the grocery store. Yawn.

I've replaced the cgi comments script I was using with Blogger's built-in comments feature. This means that all previous comments will be temporarily missing. I'll try to go back and re-add them by hand later when I have time. I've also added a link in the left nav bar to let you subscribe to my Atom feed via Bloglines.

Is it just me, or are animals getting a little bit weird lately? Someone in China bought their dog a baby chick, because the dog seemed lonely and needed a friend. The dog is said to be quite protective of the chick, but somehow I think "protective" might not be quite what's going through the dog's mind here.

And scientists have caught footage of octopuses disguising themselves as coconuts or algae and sneaking away from dangerous situations on two legs. Kind of reminds you of Scooby and Shaggy hiding behind a potted plant and then trying to tiptoe quietly away, doesn't it? Silly octopuses. Don't they know the bad guys will always find them anyway?

In today's entry I feel like I'm re-enacting the Simpsons scene where Homer buys the monkey's paw and gets the free Frogurt.

Owner: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: [worried] Ooooh, that's bad.
Owner: But it comes with a free Frogurt!
Homer: [relieved] That's good.
Owner: The Frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: [worried] That's bad.
Owner: But you get your choice of topping!
Homer: [relieved] That's good.
Owner: The toppings contain Potassium Benzoate.
Homer: [stares]
Owner: That's bad.

Anyway...

Ow ow ow. Working from home has its hazards. I logged in from home the past two days while network connectivity was disrupted at work due to the server move. And now I find myself with a splinter embedded in my palm from trying to scooch my chair closer to my desk. [That's bad.] Not that being back in the office is much better. My computer keyboard has developed a relentless squeaking noise whenever I hit the space bar. [Also bad.] Anyone got any idea how to fix that? All I know about fixing squeaks is using WD-40, and somehow I suspect that wouldn't work so well in this situation.

Yet another thing to complain about... my apartment has ants. [Bad.] On the plus side, though, I found some organic bug spray at Strawberry Fields last night, so hopefully I can take care of them without having to inhale fumes all night while I sleep. [Good.]

Also, I almost froze my hands off while biking to work this morning. [Bad.] How does moving that slowly stir up such a wind chill? But at least I did use my new in-shower Olay body lotion for the first time, so now I smell faintly of lovely flowers. [Good!] Seriously, I keep sniffing myself. I think I'm going to like this stuff, because the thing I always hate about regular lotion is how putting it on makes me chilly after I've just gotten out of a nice hot shower. This one you can put on while you're still under the water and enjoying the warmth.

I'm getting a little nervous about the upcoming storytelling festival, but I'm looking forward to trying my new story out on an audience too. I hope it works as well as last year's Those Three Wishes. (Link goes to RealAudio file.) That was a pretty energizing feeling, to get people so caught up in the story that they didn't see the end coming. I don't think I'll ever forget that collective gasp from the audience at the end. This year I think I'm ready to try out for the Verde series, too. Probably with a version of a family story that I've been working on. [That's good.]

Last night I wore myself out so much doing the elliptical trainer that I could barely do 5 reps on the dip machine at the gym. (And that was after I adjusted the weight twice to make it easier.) [That's bad.] But... on the way out of the gym I saw that Lincoln Square Mall had an Easter zoo of bunnies, chicks, and ducklings!! [That's good.]

Ummm, and thus ends today's recap of good news-bad news.

Ok, first read the 30 hottest things you can say to a naked woman, and then read this entry at Defective Yeti.

Damn. Now I want a burrito.

More yummy yummy websites for your snacking pleasure:

• Thank God there's always someone on the Internet willing to put 14 year-old cereal into their mouth, so you don't have to. Steve, Don't Eat It!
• And, speaking of people who used to eat weird junk, the much-missed Brunching Shuttlecocks are always good for a taste of Japanese Snack Foods.
• He doesn't eat anything weird (as far as I know), but Ze sure is one hell of a dancer. Also, he can teach you many ways to impress your date.
  

I like this article I read today on different types of intelligence. It kind of crystallized something that I've been thinking about for a while. I think schools do students a disservice when they teach them that there's only one kind of smart kid, and it's the one who does well on tests. I did well in all of my school classes, and so people tended to think of me as intelligent. I'd argue that I had a particular kind of intelligence, and that once you start living your life outside of the framework of classes and tests, that may or may not make much of a difference in how your life actually plays out. You go to college, and you're suddenly thrown together with a lot of people who have your particular brand of intelligence. And you get a job, and you are better at some things and get your ass totally kicked at others. And really, it doesn't matter what type of intelligence you have; I think it matters how well you play to your strong points. (Going by the article's list, I think mine are linguistic and intrapersonal.) But it also doesn't help to focus on your strengths to the exclusion of everything else. To really become completely comfortable with yourself, I think you have to push yourself to explore your weak points too.

One of mine is definitely what the article terms "bodily kinesthetic intelligence". I've never been particularly athletic, and I've always had a complete aversion to team sports. For a long time I just thought that it wasn't something that interested me, but then I realized that it was a fear of failure. I felt like I was on the low end of the scale for physical grace and eye-hand coordination, and I hated the way that made me feel embarrassed when I tried a sport in front of other people. So I just didn't try. It wasn't like I became some kind of hermit; I rode my bike, I played frisbee, I swam. I just didn't feel particularly good at any of it. I've never really accomplished anything that made me proud to be in my body and proud of what that body could do.

So now I'm working on it. I'm going to the gym, where I can use my body without having to master a whole new set of skills. (If you can put one foot in front of the other and walk you can pretty much use a treadmill or an elliptical trainer, or a stairmaster.) And I'm slowly trying new things, like rock climbing, where I can do them at my own pace, and work on improving my own skills without the pressure of my lack of talent affecting anyone else's enjoyment of the sport.

I want that feeling of accomplishment when my body is able to do something that it couldn't have a year ago or a month ago. I want to feel joy at being in my own skin.

• Who knew that so many of the old Superman comics featured him being downright mean? You don't really have to like Superman to find this funny, because... Superman is a Dick! Also, this is probably the funniest single comic panel I've ever seen.
• The Internet Archive just keeps getting better and better. First there was the Wayback Machine (preserving my previous Girl-ish.com site designs forever!), and now there's the Live Music Archive. Want to hear Cracker play live at Chicago's House of Blues? Browse their list of trade-friendly bands to see who has made their concerts available online.
  

A quick weekend summary:

• Friday night was Farren's with the Psych gals and then Boltini's with more Psych folks to try to convince a prospective student that he'd enjoy the ice and snow of Champaign more than the sun and sand of San Diego. Got to tease WB about the fact that he's had my copy of Snow Crash for the last two years or more. Still, he's got other things on his mind this week, since a truck crashed into his apartment building.
• Saturday was lunch at Pekara, where they somehow were unable to find me when my crepe was ready, despite locating both of my table-mates with no problem. So, a cold and not-so-tasty-anymore crepe was my lunch. Then we went to the showing of Shaolin Soccer at the Asian and Pacific Film Festival at the Virginia Theater. Awesome! I highly recommend it.
• Saturday evening RL hosted a party at her apartment. Few things are cuter than two 5 year-olds building a pillow fort and nicknaming each other things like "Firestorm". Also received a lesson in the proper pronunciation of the monster truck MADUSA's name from one of said 5 year-olds. So sue me. It looked like Mad USA when he asked me to read it. You learn something new every day.
• Sunday. Um... Sunday was boring. But I did read a great book I found at the Salvation Army, Coffee, Tea, or Me?: The Uninhibited Memoirs of Two Airline Stewardesses. I could have done without the authors' hysteria about homosexual "perversion" and the stereotyping about passengers of different nationalities (their take on Arab passengers is particularly myopic), but mostly it was an enjoyable peek into 1960s male fantasy, as the women described their "racy" lifestyle. I think there are some professions people are just fascinated by, so they love anything that claims to give an inside view. So this was sort of the Nanny Diaries of its day, I suppose. God knows there are probably enough guys out there who would love some kind of sexy librarian tell-all.
  

More miscellaneous thoughts:

• When I was a kid I used to have this electric toothbrush where the base unit had a hard plastic sculpture of the tooth fairy that held the toothbrush when you weren't using it. When you picked the toothbrush up off the base it would start playing a little song... probably to entertain you while you brushed? Or to give you an idea of how long to keep brushing? Anyway, it was hideous and screechy and annoying, and it's still stuck in my head twenty years later!! "Brush your little teeth. Brush your little teeth. Keep them clean and bright all day. Brush them up and down. Brush them all around. Brush tooth decay away. I'm the tooth fairy!" Ahhhhhhhhh!!!
• I had a nightmare last week where I was one of the evil girls from The Craft. I was in a high school hallway and was making a kind of mini-tornado. Papers and books were spinning everywhere. For some reason it really creeped me out and woke me up out of a sound sleep. Of course, a couple of nights ago I had a much nicer dream where I was dating Johhny Depp, and an even nicer one last night where a boy I like gave me a flower and held my hand. Step aboard, folks. Tours of my subconcious will be departing every hour on the hour.
  
• This week I checked out the new gym that's about to open in Lincoln Square Mall and it looks like I'll probably join. It's about $10/month cheaper than the plan I had at Gold's, and you can get a trainer to design a workout for you for a really reasonable price. Of course, I'll have to give up my beloved sauna, but this gym is also within walking distance of my house, which Gold's is not, so hopefully I'll find it easier to go. I've got to get my arms in better shape if I ever hope to make it to the top of the rock climbing silo.
• When I got to work this morning (after catching the 8:40 bus for once) I went into the bathroom and someone was in the big stall, possibly changing. Plus there was a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste on the counter by the sink. Is someone living in the ISRL? It doesn't seem like it would be nearly as cool as living in the Met. Although I guess you could make a fort out of the big conference table and some office chairs.
  
• Reason #5,672 that I'm a gigantic dork: Yesterday when I was complaining to someone that it was too cold to wear a skirt outside he jokingly offered to trade his pants for my skirt. On the way back to GSLIS I thought of the perfect comeback, and it made me giggle the rest of the way there. My perfect comeback? "Are you saying you want me to get into your pants?" Um. Sure, that's great flirting... if you're twelve. Which I apparently am, because I'm still giggling just a little bit.
  

I know the burning question on everyone's mind is what would happen if Sir MixALot got some of that old time religion. I think the only thing I can say about this is holy shit.

• Baby Got Book

And now, what's your Popstrological sign? Mine is Whatever Gets You Thru The Night by John Lennon.

• Popstrology

Plus... One does not simply walk into Mordor. Hee!

• That would be so frickin' awesome!

Enjoy.

Last night I went to hear Anderson Cooper speak at Foellinger, and was pleasantly surprised. Not so much by Cooper, who I expected to be pretty likeable and articulate, but by the students who stood up to ask questions. Reading the Daily Illini, I often get the impression that the campus is filled with... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yes... morons. I mean, sometimes these kids can barely string a sentence together, and the mistakes that get through their "copyediting" just make me want to cry. But last night, when I would have expected questions like "who's your favorite celebrity" or, I don't know, "where did you get that incredible suit" (I mean, c'mon, you know Gloria Vanderbilt's son has to know from fashion), students instead asked about the emerging political power of the European Union and why the conflict in the Sudan wasn't receiving more media coverage. So... enjoyable and insightful questions and a speaker who strongly agrees with Jon Stewart that all the shouting on tv discourages rational discourse added up to a very enjoyable evening. Although I did have a momentary pang when I was one of the few people who laughed when Cooper said that his mother urged him to "follow his bliss" after graduation, when he had been looking for advice more along the lines of "plastics". Does no one watch the classic movies anymore? Sigh. What do they teach children in school these days?