No, I will NOT Work Lunch

So last weekend, Mike finished his third exam, which meant there was only one take-home final standing between him and lawyerdom (well, and the bar exam). To celebrate, we went out to lunch at Nacho Mama's, where we sat at a sidewalk table and had chicken enchiladas and drinks in the blazing New Orleans spring sun. Lo and behold, the phone rings. It's my manager, wanting to figure out everyone's schedule for the summer. I said I still had class this week through Saturday, could we do it next week? He said, why don't we do it now and it won't start till next Monday? Despite my current occupation of sitting on a crowded section of Magazine Street having a Corona, I said OK, and we added a couple of lunch shifts and one dreaded double until I had a schedule I thought I could deal with... with the caveat that it won't start until I'm done with finals week. Not that I have finals, but I have projects and papers that need to get written.

Fast forward to yesterday, when I am racing around to get materials to make the previously blogged artistic project, and I find I have a message from work asking why I'm not there, because I'm on the schedule for Tuesday lunch. Argh. OK. So I call, and say I thought we got it straight that my summer schedule does not start till next week. They say, fine, everyone's confused, it's OK. Until this morning, when sure enough I receive another call-- "You're working lunch today, right?" I explained the deal, said I'm still really busy with school, and I thought we said not to put me on the schedule for Tuesday and Wednesday until next week. Seriously, these internet outages have put me way behind schedule, since the classes I still need to work on are online classes. "So... can you work today? Maybe come in later?"

Yes. At 4:30. Like I do every Wednesday. Tough.

The most absurd thing about this whole misunderstanding is I caught myself actually feeling bad about not being able to work. I find myself obligingly saying, "Oh well, maybe--" Wait, am I crazy? It is physically impossible for me to work a double today and get my papers written and posted on time. I do not know what people-pleasing vibe comes over me when they ask me to work more, but luckily it recedes in 15 seconds. I fear I am one of those people who has a hard time saying no.

Tags: work, grad school

Fun With Art!

Why I'm glad I switched grad programs from the law to teaching: I get credit for spending my afternoon up to my elbows in paint and paste creating final projects such as this.

Tags: grad school, teaching

Wouldn't it be cool?

Wouldn't it be cool if Cox(uckers) was able to go through an entire day with no outages? Wouldn't it be cool if I had an online class for which I was actually able to post work (in finals week, no less)? Wouldn't it be cool if I had a blog which I was actually able to update?

I ask you, wouldn't it?

While we're on this tack, wouldn't it be cool if people were more concerned about this than the Saints' draft pick? 'Cause the lack of pumps sounds a bit ominous to me, when we consider that the storm that made my ceiling collapse last summer was the first week of July, and it is now the first week of May.

Why not end this post on a positive note, though? Yesterday I stopped in at the Planned Parenthood, and I just want to throw them a shout out. They provide much needed services, and they do it efficiently and nicely. One of the most efficient appointments I've had in New Orleans in fact. In these days of Bushism, it was refreshing to go and bask in their pleasant pro-choice vibe.

Tags: Cox, rant, hurricane katrina, new orleans,
planned parenthood

Rave: Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager

Picked this one up at the Winn Dixie last week. Yum! I just had one (on Sunday afternoon, yeah yeah what's the problem? We're celebrating being almost done with the semester!) and found it quite tasty. (I am not a particularly discerning beer drinker: I just know it tastes like strawberries!) Yesterday I finished a research paper entitled "Dissecting the Harry Potter Phenomenon: Young Adult Fantasy Fiction and Literacy," in which I, quite enjoyably, cracked open a couple of my young adult books for use as references. I talked in depth about archetypes in Tamora Pierce, J.K. Rowling, and Phillip Pullman.

Yesterday at work was quite disastrous. The Jazz Fest crowd wasn't tipping, and we dropped and broke an exciting number of plates. Good times.

Tags: beer, abita strawberry lager, rave, grad school

I'm Cute, I'm Fun, Wanna Give Me a Book Deal So I Can Get Into a PhD Program?

With the New York Times as my startup page, I couldn't help but click through to follow the scandal about 19-year-old Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan's plagiarized novel. I am trying to honestly dissect the many levels on which I am disturbed by this particular current event. It's easy to just say, "Whatever. Sour grapes and jealousy." But it's more complicated than that.

While I wasn't Harvard material (though, if my parents had hired a $20,000 applications counselor, who can say?), I certainly was Ivy material as a high school student, with a solid 1430 SAT, A's across the board, and diverse extracurriculars. I suppose, though it stings to admit it, there is still some part of me that longs for that kind of academic prestige. I got into higher-ranked schools than St. Lawrence, but my parents explained that the price tag was too high, the $2,000 or $3,000 scholarships offered too small, and I should think seriously about taking on that kind of debt. So it really does kind of hurt that some people are just handed everything. Shit, would I have finished law school and gotten a superfluous J.D., even though I hated it, if daddy was paying? I honestly might have.

But I think the part of this whole scandal that resonates with me the most is summed up fairly well by this student editorial in the Harvard Crimson.

It’s hard to disagree with this assessment: whoever was responsible for the unfortunate (let’s be honest, uncanny) parallels between Viswanathan’s novel and the work of Megan F. McCafferty, artistic ambition had less to do with this project than dreams of big cash. What is most disheartening for me is what happened before the scandal hit the presses: In fact, I think the real transgression here is the corporate project masquerading as an artistic endeavor.

This book deal had once seemed like a charming accident: “I had only vaguely thought of becoming a writer,” Viswanathan told the New York Sun just over a year ago, claiming she wanted to be an investment banker.

So perhaps, in the end, it is as a writer that I am offended, not as a bitter former smart kid with failed elitist leanings. I know it's a business. I am not deluded enough to assume it isn't. I mean, are writers (and I include myself in this group; I am as yet unpublished, but I take my writing seriously) this insulated snooty pack of elitists themselves, looking down on people who write because their schmuck college consultant had a contact with a book packaging company and thought it might look good on an admissions application? Well, in a word, yes. "Book packaging?" When I'm sitting here editing my manuscript for the agent search this summer, and everything I've read insists that the rules are important, that you must send out at least 50 query letters, that you must have a completed work before you query? To read about other authors being "recruited" to write simply as a gimmick is demoralizing, and I don't blame anyone with talent who feels this way. (Ugh. I just assigned myself talent. Elitism rears its head, and I dutifully try to quash it.)

But seriously, I got out of the law field because I wanted to pursue creativity, and now they're paying huge advances for teenaged aspiring investment bankers to write novels? I think what I'm trying to convey is that creative people like to surround themselves with other creative people, to seek out a lifestyle and a community. And when other people-- who are inexplicably being paid big money to write-- aren't interested in writing as an art and as a lifestyle, it sort of thwarts that, doesn't it? It's disappointing and disingenuous. What if this girl really did have talent? Surely being contracted to push out a book her freshman year of college isn't going to help her develop it.

Do I wish I had a book deal at 17? Absolutely. But I remember being 17, and realizing that I hadn't had enough practice yet to write something big-- to write in a way that would fulfill the vision in my head-- and knowing it was OK to wait. Also, I had an innate sense of fairness that was in place even then, and that would never have let me plagiarize.

Are these poor justifications for my annoyance? 'Cause if anyone wants to join me in forming Bitter Snobs Anonymous, I'm ready to go.

Tags: publishing, books, writing, Kaavya Viswanathan

Randomness About Me!

Thirteen Things about Sarah Well, since a lot of the blogs I read do this on a weekly basis, I thought I'd give it a whirl! So here are 13 random facts about me. 1. I have metal rods in my back. This is due to surgery I had for scoliosis in 1996, where they fused seven vertabrae. 2. I can't parallel park. I grew up in a rural area, shopped in suburbia with huge parking lots, and didn't have a car in college, so I forgot how. My boyfriend doesn't believe I've managed to live in a major city for two years without parallel parking. I just drive around the block five times till I find a spot I can just pull into. 3. I have two tattoos. One is a turquoise hibiscus flower on the back of my right shoulder. The other is the St. Lawrence logo (which looks like the St. Louis Cardinals' logo) on my upper left thigh in red. They are both small. 4. I am an NRA sharpshooter with the .22 rifle. 5. I take my coffee black. 6. The weirdest thing that was looted from my house during Katrina was... all our porn. I lived in a house of 4 girls, and we used to do Pizza and Porn parties (to laugh at how tacky and low-budget they are) on Thursdays occasionally. The looters left all our other DVDs but took the porn! 7. The coolest place I've visited is Alaska. I did some hiking & sea kayaking around Anchorage and would love to go back someday. 8. I read the most recent Harry Potter book in a six-hour marathon. 9. I think I've taken every grad school test except the MCAT. This is due to Gemini indecision about what I actually wanted to go to grad school for. 10. I've got a weird allergy to red wine. Not an allergy per se, but I can't drink it because I get a horrible sharp headache before I've even finished a glass. 11. I have one brother, a year younger than me. He lives in St. Paul, MN at the moment. 12. The best four years of my life were at St. Lawrence University. I still miss it, even though it's been three years now. So pardon me if I obsess. 13. I met my boyfriend Mike in a pool last summer. We now live together. Go figure. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. Robin 2. Mar 3. Nancy 4. Denise 5. TLC 6. May-B 7. "Lifecruiser 8. Mama Kelly 9. Ardice 10.Chana 11. Lisa 12. Carmen

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Jolee Bindo: A Symphony in Four Movements

Tags: cat, jolee

Tuna Glop Vindication!

Lo and behold, imagine my surprise when I took out a box of macaroni and cheese with which to make tuna glop for lunch... and found the recipe for tuna glop on the side! Well, technically it said "Tuna Dinner," and I have seen "Tuna Casserole" as well. But they don't know the correct title for this recipe is Tuna Glop. I know this for certain because it's what my dad says it's called. ;-) So for all those exes and friends who said my tuna glop was gross... ha! Of course, the recipe on the box differs slightly from mine, which is:

1 box macaroni & cheese
1 can Campbell's mushroom soup (because everything needs a soup ingredient; I mean, look at the title of my blog)
1 can tuna
1 small can of mushrooms
Some extra noodles (just "some," I don't believe in cooking measurements)
Some frozen peas (see above)
Dash of milk
Extra cheese (cheddar is nice but others are OK too)

Yum... I'm hungry already!

"If I had a million dollars, we wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner
But we would"
- Barenaked Ladies

Tags: food, recipe

Swallows and Amazons in Space

Reading a bit of space opera this week, to put me in the mood for finishing my book (well, as soon as I write an 18 page paper for my literacy class). I'm reading the Heris Serrano books by Elizabeth Moon, and finding them rather fun. Nothing deep, just adventures flying around space in a yacht that gets into trouble. Except yesterday I came across a Swallows and Amazons reference in the book Hunting Party. !!!! (In case you don't know, these are some of my very favorite classics from my childhood and early teens.)

"That's what it was," Bubbles said. "I told you; we all camped over here. My cousins, too. About-oh-five years ago was the last time I remember. We'd stay here while the grown-ups were on Bandon. We'd sail over in little boats. My father thought it up- it was out of some old books from England on Old Earth. Kids went camping on an island--"

Brilliant.

Cox was out all weekend. Literally, the entire weekend. So my apologies to anyone who thought I was dead because I wasn't on IM and didn't blog. I thought the internet would be back on Saturday night when I got home from work. No such luck. I certainly thought it would be back the next morning, but I awoke to Mike ranting on the phone with customer support about how we both work from home and we'll switch to DSL. Not that any of the public services or utilities in New Orleans are great, but we've had so many frustrations with Cox. Every time Mike calls, they tell him something different. The last time the cable was out, they tried to tell him we needed a new modem, and they would send someone out to look at it on Friday. He said, "But the cable is out. As in, the TV is not working. The internet is not working. THERE IS AN OUTAGE." They chose to ignore this and said, "It sounds like your modem is old." He gave up. Yesterday's idiocy was: "Oh, yes, there is currently an outage in your neighborhood. But we don't send someone to fix it unless three customers call." ???$*&%(@#!! I could go on about how in January we signed up but they didn't turn it on for a week and a half because someone didn't document that they signed us up, and Mike had to physically go to the store to take care of it because no one on the phone could supposedly do this, or how they forgot to bill us the next month, then shut off the internet for non-payment... but those are stories best left alone. Suffice to say that now we shrug in annoyance and say, "Guess we'll have to call Cox(uckers)."

Tags: science fiction, books, swallows and amazons, rant

Cat Humor

Mike: It's kind of a Russian Roulette. I feed him whatever I grab.
Me: And hope it's not a smelly variety?
Mike: Yes.
Me: (in hurt, yet perfectly earnest voice) But... you don't ask him?
Mike: All right, I am going to hit you in the face. I don't care if you're my girlfriend. I can't believe I heard you say that.

What? Some nights he wants mixed grill, some nights he wants salmon dinner!

My apologies for the short and random nature of the last few posts. It's suddenly caught up to me that I am in grad school and have about 12 assignments due in the next two weeks.

Tags: funny, cat, jolee

FEMA Cheap Shot of the Day

Me: So I waited on this table full of 6 FEMA workers today. They asked for separate checks. It takes me 20 minutes to do them, and when I get back to the table, they go, "Oh, you can just put these two on this card, and these two on this one." Why the hell don't you tell me that BEFORE I separate your checks? Do you not comprehend the concept of separate checks?
Mike: And you wonder why FEMA can't get their accounting straight.

Because everyone (well, here in NOLA at least) loves a good FEMA joke.

Tags: post-katrina, waitressing

If You're Not Bryan, Feel Free To Go About Your Business

OK, so I was reading comments over on Livejournal and someone had this icon, which caused me to crack up and drool coffee. I am posting it here for the sole entertainment of my brother. (Who I know reads this because he just commented about his pants.) And, well... fine. I find it pretty hilarious myself.

Tags: geekdom

Just a 90's Girl in a World of Stupid Ass Shorts

So I went to Lakeside Mall because I got out of class early and I had to pick up some stuff. I figured while I was there I would go buy some new shorts. True, I already own lots of shorts, but they are mostly of the athletic and board shorts variety. What I wanted was a simple pair of cotton belt-looped shorts in perhaps a pastel alternative to khaki. The kind you can walk around in and appear as if you got dressed that morning, as opposed to the "schlepping" look.

Would you believe that they had NOT A SINGLE PAIR OF SHORTS in the Gap? I am not making this up. They really didn't. Yet the summer merchandise was out. Baffled as to why a store would have bikinis (on sale already, no less!), capris, summer dresses, and no shorts, I trekked to J. Crew... where I was met with this travesty:

OK. Um. I know J. Crew and Gap sell shorts. I know this because, when I visited both of their websites last week, I saw multitudes of the plain, preppy, simple khaki shorts I want. Why don't they carry them in the store? What is up with these stupid ass shorts? I swear both stores had them by the boatload, in about 10 different varieties. Is the capri (and, I shudder, the Bermuda) the new short? Knee length shorts? Seriously? WHY DON'T PEOPLE WEAR PLAIN OLD SHORTS ANYMORE? This is Louisiana. It is hot out! Why would you not want the air on your legs? Don't even get me started on that stupid layering tank top trend. I saw a girl in the mall wearing three. Three! If you are going to wear three tank tops, why don't you just wear... a shirt?

But seriously. Back to the stupid ass shorts. Do people actually wear these? Because I don't know anyone who does. I feel that the stockpiling of these shorts, like the supposed comeback of the skinny jean, is a ploy by the fashion industry to make us think this is what's in. But do people actually wear them? No. They do not. Because they look stupid. I will now prove my point: if anyone is the ideal body type for this supposed clothing, it is me. I mean, I have friends who get mad in stores because women with butts, hips, and larger legs cannot wear this stuff. OK, then I present Exhibit A: me. 5'6", 115 lbs, 34B, size 2. No butt, no boobs, no hips, thin legs. People, I do not look good in these shorts. I would not be caught dead in these shorts, because women with model-thin legs have bony knees and ankles. We don't want to draw attention to them! It took me years to work myself up to wearing capris. If I wear these shorts, I might as well wear a shirt with an arrow that says, "BONY KNEES THIS WAY!" I would look like a pair of legs with a head on top. Yuck (though I do believe I have that belt in the picture).

Baffled. So baffled.

Tags: fashion, rant

The Sleepy! I mean, the Kitty

Aw. So gratuitous. So sweet. He looks like an otter.

Tags: cat, jolee

"It Is Clarissa, he said. For There She Was."

We have had the movie "The Hours" here from Netflix forever, waiting for me to remember to watch it. Which means movies tend to sit... because apart from my recent Firefly craze, I don't watch TV much. I had ordered this one because I knew it was based on "Mrs. Dalloway," which is one of my favorite books. Watching the movie brought back how I felt when I first read that book.

I just told Mike the story. This is really how I read "Mrs. Dalloway" for the first time. I had this 7-10 PM British Women Writers class once a week my senior year of college, for which we had to read a book a week (Gaskell, Austen, etc.). The week we were supposed to read "Mrs. Dalloway," I hadn't really gotten into it. I sort of tried, but the stream-of-consciousness style threw me off. So I skimmed to make sure I knew the major events, then went to class. We're about 30 minutes into the class, and people are talking, and I get bored. So I pull out the book, ostensibly to look something up. And I start to read. And somehow, whatever didn't work for me earlier that week was working for me now. I read the entire book during the class. It was mesmerizing-- if the professor had called on me, I don't know what I would have done or said. I was so caught up-- this time I got it. By the time I got to the last scene...

"'I will come,' said Peter, but he sat on for a moment. What is this terror? what is this ecstasy? he thought to himself. What is it that fills me with extraordinary excitement?

It is Clarissa, he said.

For there she was."

I was utterly blown away. Because, you see, it's not a book you can read in bits and pieces and expect it to form a story. Then it's just the hours of one woman's day and not a whole. The revelation that the society wife and the suicide soldier are one, are feeling the same overwhelming things, won't hit you hard. But it hit me that night, and I walked out of class, under black sky and poignant stars, across a frosted quad, dazed. Because I was thinking about how life becomes truly precious as balanced against death, and because I knew the humbling truth: I could not have written that book.

Tags: books, virginia woolf, netflix

Oh For The Love Of...

Distraught. In tears. With a HUGE INTENSE HEADACHE that will probably last all day. I have had 3.5 hours of sleep. First the cat woke up at 6:00. Then Mike, angry because the cat woke him up, hit the snooze button on the alarm three times in a row. And then the jackhammering began. For the second day in a row. They are tearing up our street. I do not know why. They are tearing it up precisely from 7:00 to 8:30. I do not know why. Can't they wait till people are at work? It can't be because the day isn't hot yet; the guy who's drilling holes in the street is in a truck. Then he leaves at 8:00 so the regular guys on foot in orange vests can toil the rest of the day in the blazing heat. What the hell. There could not be anything more ridiculous than jackhammering a street slightly before 7 AM. Even when I worked 9-5 I was still asleep at 7 AM!

I work the next two nights. I don't get to bed till 3 AM. If they are going to keep doing this, I guarantee there will be some crazy woman yelling off the porch action. She will be clad in nothing but a T-shirt, probably damp with sweat from rolling around attempting to sleep, and she will be me. Fuck the City of New Orleans. My head hurts so much right now.

Currently taking bets on whether anyone will come and fill in the 30 foot strip of street that is being torn up. Odds are 50 to 1 against. The fact that I know they will just leave it that way almost pisses me off more than the 7 AM jackhammering.

No. No it doesn't.

Edited to add: AND NOW WE HAVE NO WATER!!!

Tags: new orleans, rant

I Am the Envy of Geeks Everywhere

On Friday I got my prize set of autographed George R.R. Martin books. I now must bear the jealousy of fantasy geeks everywhere. They are so shiny and matching. Though I admit that I liked the old covers better. Well, I liked the Game of Thrones one with Ned Stark in the snow, anyway. "Winter is Coming." Brrrr... I stared at them for a while, turning them this way and that, stacking them up in different ways, before putting them in their place on the shelf. Martin goes next to Hobb on the eye-level shelf because, well, they're the best, obviously. I discovered both of them pretty far into their series, in 2003, when I was in law school and trying to avoid it by burying myself in fantasy (or in fact anything that wasn't the law). In this genre, discovering a great author late is a thrilling experience I wish happened more often-- the books are already finished and you can go right out and impulse buy and eat them up in a weekend. I had read enough "eh" fantasy to know that here, finally, was the stuff I wanted to read. And when [that event at the end of AGOT] happened, I was in shock, like, "No he didn't!" But he did! And upon reflection, it was damn cool.

Valar morghulis, kids.

Tags: geekdom, george r.r. martin, fantasy, books

Wealth!

Last night I did $240 in tips on a very busy Saturday. I just wanted to throw that out there. This afternoon while I was busy tossing hundreds and twenties in the air and rolling around in them, it occurred to me to do my taxes. Which led to the thrilling discovery that, after I was finished claiming my destroyed car, my tuition, my student loan interest, and my mysterious Katrina tax credit, I will be receiving $1,180 as a refund this year. Wha--??

One of my most important lessons of 2005: Do not question the Federal Government when it comes bearing gifts.

Tags: waitressing,taxes,hurricane katrina

Jolee: Fear My Giant Pimp Feet

Tags: cat, jolee

Anywhere But the Office

I called ______ ____, PLC yesterday to get them to resend my W2. Sort of wanted to get transferred directly to accounting so I wouldn't have to talk to the office manager. I did kind of skip out after the hurricane, ie: I called several times but never actually spoke to someone in charge. Of course the windows blew out of the building and the CBD was a mess, so even if I'd been allowed here I couldn't have gone to work. Anyway, she gets on the line and says, "Oh, do you want to come back? Need a job?" And I was like, "Uhh... how do I tell them I equal what I made there full-time (after taxes, health insurance, parking, etc.) in 3 nights waiting tables?" I think I am just not cut out for the cubicle life.

Rejections this week from Asimov's and Pedestal Magazine. Nothing like rejections to make you feel like you have no talent!

Last night a table tipped me $72. That was cool.

Tags: work,hurricane katrina

Welcome to the Jungle

If you read the previous post, you know I am anti-domestic. I don't think I've ever gardened willingly in my life. And we are renters, so it's not our responsibility. And it was the ten foot tall Katrina debris pile that ate our hedge. Again, not our fault. And I don't necessarily have anything against thistles that are chin height.

But.



This is the last straw.

Tags: gardening,hurricane katrina

Huge Slob? Or Patterns in the Chaos?

It has come to my attention, from my loving boyfriend with whom I live, that I am a disgusting pig. I probably already knew this. For as long as I can remember, I have somehow attracted empty dishes. They gravitate to me like flies to a lightbulb. I am also a proponent of the "twelve inch stack of papers and mail" method of filing. I possess a complete inability to keep clothes from forming piles. And oh, they are large piles, of the variety capable of eating entire pieces of furniture the size of an armchair or a couch. Someone sends me something in a box? The box sits under my desk for months. What? I might need a cardboard box! What if a situation arose when we needed five cardboard boxes and I had THROWN THEM OUT? Mike thinks I grew up in a barn, or it is something about the way I was raised.

He is wrong. My mother is extremely cleanly. (Cleanly: adj. Being disposed to cleanliness; having characteristics in direct opposition to Sarah's.) My dad, however, enjoys collecting stuff and having a healthy bit of clutter. I feel as if I may have inherited my ability to acquire stuff and stack it up from his side of the family (my grandparents introduced me to the joys of garage saling at a young age). I also feel as if I have taken this to a new level. Seriously, my parents tried to enforce the idea that you rinse your dishes immediately instead of letting them pile up in the sink. They threatened to get a chute and send the contents of my room down it into a large dumpster. They demanded to know why a trail of dishes, books, pencils, and other detritus followed me from room to room. I do not know the answer to this question. I really don't. I make a cup of Coke, I put ice cubes in it. Then it occurs to me to do something in the bathroom. I take the Coke with me, where I put it down in the cabinet and proceed to lose it. I don't remember where I lost it. So I make another Coke. I take it to the living room. The next day I find a flat Coke in the linen cabinet and think, "Huh." I am forever doing things like finding my lip gloss in the entertainment center.

I like to think of myself as some creative genius for whom the mundane has no relevance. But I think I may just be a mess.

I am going to try to give you a glimpse into my thought process. Here is my secret: I don't see clutter. It's like my eyes gloss right over it. I could type at my desk all day and not notice that there are three coffee cups and a bowl on it, until someone points out the excessive dishes. Mike is fascinated by this particular quality of mine, and has taken to testing me by leaving random things out and seeing how long it takes me to notice them. Here's another thing: I am easily distracted. I think this is my Gemini nature; when I am into something, I forget the existence of other things. I also jump disconcertingly quickly from one thing to the next. So like, I could be washing dishes, wash two, and then it suddenly occurs to me that I really haven't seen "Braveheart" in a while. So I go watch it. I tell you, I do not know how this happens. It just does.

But sometimes I get in these weird moods where something grosses me out and I have to clean it. Like a couple weeks ago, I was kneeling on the floor and I saw that there was seriously dust about half an inch thick on top of the molding. I thought, "Gross," and went and dusted it. Mike is at a loss as to how I can notice that and ignore the stack of smelly water-filled dishes preventing us from using the sink tap. Am I not driven crazy until I have finished the task by dusting the rest of the house? Does it not, he demands, interfere with my inner peace, with the feng shui of my life?

Does not occur to me.

But wait! It isn't just me who suffers from this! Witness the following IM conversation I had this morning with Chrissy:

Sarah: he threw a box of kleenex on the floor last week and left it there to see how long i would walk around it
Chrissy: haha
S: but like, he threw it! why would i pick it up?
C: i don't know
C: for all you know it was there for a reason
S: i dont know, it was there for 3 days
C: i often don't even see that sort of thing
S: because he thrrew it at the cat
C: it's invisible
S: i dont either!
S: exactly!
C: unless you need it or you fall on it
C: you don't see it
S: this is exactly how i am
C: actually i don't see things when i need them either
S: he thinks i am some weird species

Tags: cleaning,thoughts,clutter

NO WAY!

I just won the set of autographed George R.R. Martin harcovers in the contest on Patrick's Fantasy Hotlist! Eeeeee!

I somehow knew that if I bought those book club ones, I would win that contest... Oh well, if anyone needs George R.R. Martin books, I now possess a motley extra set of one regular hardcover, some smaller book club hardcovers, and some paperbacks. (OK, if you do the math, there are only four books in the series so far, so yes, this means I own multiple of them.) But the signed set? The signed set is mine. :-)

But seriously, I have been at a banquet at Court of Two Sisters in the French Quarter, so could someone please go and check that link to make sure I didn't hallucinate this? K, thanks. And if you haven't seen the blog, you ought to go check out the interviews and contests Pat offers over there.

Tags: fantasy,george r.r. martin,books

Rave: My Roly Poly Sandwich

I tell you, it is that good.

Roly Poly is, hands down, one of my favorite reasons I'm glad to be back in New Orleans. Neither Massachusetts nor New York have joined civilization yet, aka have a Roly Poly. I am a total addict. When I worked downtown, I was such a regular at the One Shell Square store that they knew my name and my "usual." (#10 California Turkey: turkey breast, bacon, cheddar, scallions, lettuce, tomato, avocado, sprouts, ranch, and mango chutney.)

It's slightly pricier than Subway, but the flavors are more sophisticated and varied. Today's wrap, #31 Delhi Chicken, which I am trying for the first time, has curried chicken salad, swiss cheese, bacon, avocado, pineapple, lettuce, sprouts, and mango chutney. Quite satisfactory. In fact, I have tried a good chunk of the chicken and turkey menus and have yet to find one I don't like.

I have seen the top of the fast food mountain. This is the top, and I can say no more.

Tags: roly poly,rave,dining

Something Evil Lurks in the Shadows

Tags: cat,jolee