Big Girl Underoos

I don't know why, but when I see him get his first hug, I get all teary eyed. Then I went to Freehugscampaign.org and found out the lady's cat had died that day and it was the anniversary of her daughter's death and I got even more choked up. Something so simple...

Ignoring the fact that this guy kind of looks like the love child of Boy George and Weird Al, I love, love, love this song. I think all three songs I just posted were from 1991 or thereabouts. I was in 9th grade and probably deep in the midst of adolescent swooning for anything vaguely romantic. I can't say much has changed since then.

I love this song: Lisa Stansfield - All Woman. This is sort of non sequitor, but last night a random thought popped into my head, as random thoughts often do. I took this thought and kind of mulled it over. The thought was that I was with my X for a total of 10 years and yet I have as much feeling for him now as I would for an acquaintance I don't really know. I wouldn't exactly use the words "dead to me" but that's kind of how I feel. It seems so odd that someone who was around for literally a third of my life would mean so little but there you have it. Strange.

Yesterday there was an incident. Nothing tragic or life threatening, just slightly embarassing, yet absolutely, amusingly bloggable. I couldn't have made this stuff up if I'd tried. So yeah. I passed out while on the commode. Stone cold, out on the linoleum, someone get me some smelling salts, underwear around the ankles, fainted dead away. At work. Oy. But I'm ok now. Nothing a little TLC from the handsome paramedic I'm sleeping with couldn't cure. So what happened was this [Warning potential TMI ahead.]: I was in the bathroom and apparently I bore down just a wee bit to hard. That coupled with my propensity toward low blood pressure and a possible dehydrated state lead to light headedness and those black clouds in my vision. I sat up quickly thinking, "whoa, that's one hell of a poop." Next thing I know I'm waking up thinking, "I could have sworn I already got up for work today. Wait...this isn't my bed, it's linoleum!" Luckily,...

No, I am not with child. But I am with nephew. Above is the ultrasound of the little bugger gestating. In case you can't quite make out the image right a way, he's in profile, looking up, possibly sucking his thumb. This next picture is even worse for illiciting a Rachael Green, "I can't see the baby!" response. Supposedly, the picture below is looking up at the baby, as in the baby is sitting on the camera and facing the lower left corner. That little triangle pointing southwest, attached to the larger triangle pointing northeast is apparently what indicates the masculine gender of my sister's second child. I'll just take the doctor's word for it. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank my sister for providing my four parents (if you include step) with grandchildren so that it takes the pressure off of me. Amen and pass the birth control.

Now that I am thesis free, I don't know what to do with myself. I have nothing looming over my head forcing me to care about time management. Or to make me feel guilty for watching my Netflix DVDs. In fact, not having a thesis to work on has kind of taken the fun out of doing things I "shouldn't" be doing. Now, when I watch an entire DVD worth of LOST, I feel like a lazy bum instead of like I'm rewarding myself for all the work I've done. Free time is now actually free instead of a trade off. Don't get me wrong, I'm definitely enjoying the freedom. Oh yes, I'm enjoying it with wild abandon. Or at least as much abandon as I can handle as a white, female, lower-middle class liberal New Englander. (We aren't necessarily known for our wild abandon.) It's just interesting to see what I've lost from my gains. ------------------------------------------------- Speaking of gains, "today is Equal Pay Day , which is observed to symbolically r...

I celebrated Earth Day yesterday by not getting out of bed until 11 (nothing got turned on before noon except me) and then conserved water by co-showering. I also recycled a printer and a scanner at a local collection place, but the conserving water thing was way more fun.

Good lord, I've found a way to both procrastinate and stick it to the man. "The man" in this case being McDonald's and Hummer. From this website : McDonald's often emphasizes its "long-standing global commitment to environmental protection and leadership." So why did they give away 42 million toy Hummers in Happy Meals? The fast-food chain that helped make our kids the fattest on Earth cut a deal with General Motors to sell future car buyers on the fun of driving a supersized, smog-spewing, gas-guzzling SUV originally built for the military. Use the Ronald McHummer Sign-O-Matic™ to say what you think of this misguided marketing marriage. You can go here to make your own. My personal favorites are these two: I feel really bad about this, but now I kinda want a Fish Filet and some fries. Seriously, I'm like Pavlov's dog here with my mouth watering. Damn.

This post at this random blog (Geek Girl) I bookmarked long ago for no apparent reason and somehow decided to visit today helped me gain a little more perspective on the whole Virginia Tech shooting. I guess the news just wasn't giving me enough of the human perspective. It was too glossy. Too...newsy. I don't think I ever even heard of the shooting she's talking about.

Congratulations to Vanessa over at Fried Dreams . She just got engaged. Yeah Vanessa! I'm not knocking Vanessa's fiance's proposal (because it appears that his method was exactly right for Vanessa), but if anyone out there (you know who you are) gets the idea of using a text message to propose, put that thought right out of your mind. Not that I'm gunning for a proposal*, and a text message would be kind of funny, but a person's got to kick it up a notch. I'm just saying. * Seriously, I'm not. FG - Push that heart back down from your throat into your chest cavity and put your head between your knees. Inhale...exhale...

A very old friend of mine (we're talking 8th gradeish), Justin M, posted a comment a couple posts ago thanking me for the learning experience resulting from my posts complaining about IUDs, PMS and other womanly problems. Justin happens to be one of my ex-boyfriends from high school (twice) and is now a good friend of mine. I have to say, there is something about blogging, especially anonymously (although people I actually know who read this know who I am), because if Justin were standing in front of me right now, despite having known him since I was 14, there is no way I would be regaling him with stories about female lubrication . I probably wouldn't even feel comfortable talking about cramps, even if I was curled into the fetal position in a booth at Pizzeria Unos and he wanted to know why. I don't know if I'm behind the curve or what, but actually talking about things like periods, birth control, and sex is not something I do well. It's SO much easier to blog a...

I'm having a hard time with the shootings at Virginia Tech, but not in the way you might think. Of course it is horrible. It's awful, tragic, maddening, and all those other things bad events like this should be. Hell, I even work on a college campus so this should be hitting me pretty close to home. However. The main emotion I feel is indifferent. I feel jaded. Ho hum. Lackadaisical. What the heck kind of emotional response is that? Perhaps it is a knee jerk reaction to all the news coverage using phrases like "the worst campus shooting EVER!!!" Bigger than the University of Texas! Bigger than Columbine! Like the shooter won some kind of jackpot. The media makes it seem like entertainment. The scariest thing was when I thought, "Only 33 people? Whatever. What's on TLC?" If I'm feeling jaded* by it all, I can imagine some sicko thinking, "I bet I could take out at least 50 before they got me." I don't even think it would be a stretch for...

UPDATE: I must have pissed off the gods of PMS with my last post because I am having the most hideously bad cramps right now. My period, although currently whacked out by the shock to my system of the IUD, should not be coming for another two weeks. Why my boobs are sore and my innards are twisting, I do not know. Given that I haven't had cramps in years, I'm really not appreciating this new turn of events. I also just happen to have my two week IUD check-up in a couple of hours. They want to make sure it's still in there. Since right now I'm having difficulty curling out of the fetal position on my desk chair, I'm not sure how excited I am about the prospect of a speculum. I'm going to go raid my coworkers' desks for Advil. Bolux!

Apparently, I am not the only one to have experienced the IUD insertion from hell. My long time friend, Jennifer, (I've known this lady since we were 16 or so, a whole half lifetime ago) also lived to tell the tale of the IUD. And she's singing it's praises. I'm not yet singing, but I'm doing some warm up excercises. Mi mi mi mi mi... Although the insertion itself was really, really, really unpleasant (I'd advise anyone going to get one to have a designated driver), the Mirena IUD itself has been a good thing so far. I don't have to think about it, I only had spotting for a couple days, and despite the fact that I was supposed to have my period the day of the insertion, it never came. I dried up like the Sahara (more on that in a moment). I still have a few more weeks before I get my next scheduled period so I don't know yet what to expect. I'm hoping to be one of the 20% of women who stop getting their period altogether on Mirena. Fingers crossed....

I did some thinking (I generally try to keep that to a minimum) and discovered that since the fall of 2003 I have been continually working under a Masters related deadline. To get to this point, I took 8 classes back to back to back, including in the summer, and then I went straight into my thesis in the fall of 2005. So, for the last three and a half years (almost as long as my undergraduate career! Holy smokes!), I have had something due all the time: a term paper, a report, a presentation, a thesis. I don't even remember what it feels like to have guilt-free free time where I'm not thinking, 'I should probably be working on [insert Master related project here] instead of [watching TV, spending time with friends and family, reading this magazine, paying my bills, doing the dishes, watering my plants, living my life, etc...]" I have yet to fully realize what not having a thesis to do anymore will mean to my life. For now, I'm going to enjoy the hell out of not hav...

Guess what, guess what, guess what!!! I just turned in my thesis. My signed, sealed, printed on bond paper, official thesis. I'm done. Done, done, done! Not a bad way to end the week!

Forgive the canned language but I thought I should share: Did you know that current federal hate crime laws don't protect everyone? The US has had a federal hate crimes law on the books since 1969, and it has never included crimes targeting victims because of their gender, gender identity, sexual orientation or disability. Congress is about to consider a bill that would change that. It would also help under-funded law enforcement officials investigate and prosecute hate crimes. Tell your representative to support this bill. Here's something else that may shock you -- one in six hate crimes are motivated by the victim's sexual orientation. And currently, the federal government can't even investigate most of these crimes or help bring the criminals to justice. In past years, conservative right wing groups have blocked attempts to expand hate crimes laws. They're gearing up for another fight now, so we need to make sure our representatives do the "right" thin...

As mentioned in my last post. Love it!

It's good to see all that discipline and training being put to good use. And that they have an outlet for their stress. Very entertaining! Also see YouTube for them doing Pump It.

Quick! Stop the presses! This is horrible, just horrible. I don't know how the world is going to cope with this news. It's just...I can't even...Life as we know it can't go on! Not with headlines like this in the news: Valerie Bertinelli - Ready to Get Slim: The TV star, now a size 14, vows to lose 30 lbs, and opens up about finding love after her split from Eddie Van Halen. According to the Table of Contents: "Actress Valerie Bertinelli opens up about being "fat," finding love after Eddie Van Halen and her public vow to lose weight." First, I would like to say that wearing a white muumuu on the cover of a magazine does not make one fat. It does however make me question her judgement and/or the judgement of the shoot coordinators. Even Kate Moss could almost pull off girth in a muumuu. Second, size 14 is not "fat." I've been there, and although I didn't really like it, it wasn't a death sentence. Look how cute and happy Valerie...