Back in DC!

Well, I made it back in one piece yesterday...

An interesting trip indeed. First, I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to make sure I didn't forget anything for my three month sojourn here in DC, and then my taxi didn't show up on time (hello, stress). Just as I was about to frantically dial the cab company, my taxi rolled up, and of course, his A/C was broken so I had a nice, hot, and windy ride to the airport. Frankly, it didn't really bother me... I was just so happy to be getting out of Tucson.


Note the brown rocks and old freight train... very Tucson-esque.

The first leg of my flight from Tucson to Dallas was lovely. I sat next to a very sweet and quiet 60-something year old woman named Linda from Chicago, who had been assisting her elderly mother in Tucson after a hip replacement. While I'm not much for talking to strangers on airplanes, Linda was pretty cool and didn't over-do it on the chit-chat (which generally makes me want to stick a barf bag over my own head)...


Please imagine me pulling this over my large noggin.

...although she did tell me all about her and her husband's visits to Pakistan and China, where he buys hotel furnishings in bulk to sell as a distributor, which I did find genuinely interesting. The rest of the time I listened to music and read the novel, "Prep."


Which, by the way, is really good.

The second leg of my flight, from Dallas to DC, was not nearly as relaxing. As I boarded the plane, I came to a quick and intensely disappointing realization that I was in a dreaded "center" seat. Nooooooo! Worse still, I was next to an abnormally thin old man, on the aisle, who appeared to be in his mid-80s. I was at least pleased to see that he wasn't a large person that might invade my space with body fat.



As I plopped myself down next to him and an empty seat, I wondered who might be on my other side. Holding my breath in anticipation, I watched as a middle-aged Chinese woman (not Asian-American, but seemingly very much from-China- Chinese) with a very bad perm came barreling down the aisle carrying what appeared to be the largest carry-on bag this side of the Yangtze River. I watched as she struggled to lift it over her head and then managed to jam, pack, push, cram, pull, and wiggle the enormous suitcase into position, crushing every other person's items in the overhead bin. At that moment, I just knew she was my other seatmate. And I was right.

She clomped over the old man and me to get into her window seat, where she immediately placed a bird flu mask over her face. Hmmm, strangely discomforting, I thought...


At least she didn't cough a lot or seem sickly.

As for the thin old geezer on my other side, he and I quickly became engaged in an armrest turf war. Although I didn't even attempt to put my elbows on the armrest we shared, he insisted upon dangling his bony old elbows over the armrest into my seat area, which made for constant rubbing on my own elbow, tucked neatly into my ribs. It really started to piss me off. I looked over at him silently trying to give him the subliminal message of "Get the hell out of my seat territory, old man," but then I caught a good look at his face. What I saw was quite horrifying...imagine at least 25 scabs like small pieces of carcinoma pepperoni covering his age spotted old cheeks and nose. I really wished I hadn't looked over at him...

Because it looked a lot like this...

I thought I might really need the barf bag.

While his elbows were covered by long sleeves, I kept thinking about what his old lesioned elbows must look like, and how only two thin layers of cloth (my shirt and his) were separating our skin from each other. I tried to push these thoughts into the back recesses of my mind, but the idea lingered around for the entire flight, especially when he didn't get my hints and kept smacking his elbow into my own.

We finally landed in DC around 9pm, and my sweet boyfriend was there waiting for me. It was sooo nice to be home!! I quickly forgot the traumatic center seat experience, and spent last night talking to him for hours and enjoyed today by sleeping in, hanging out with his brother, reading my book, and taking a walk in the green lushness of DC (where the streets are wet from rain!).

Time to go now... I'm at my mom's and she just got home from work. We're going speed walking in a few minutes... ahhhh, to be home!!!

DC and Puerto Penasco

I have so much to say tonight that I'm going to have to organize my thoughts into sections:

1. I am going back to DC tomorrow! My flight leaves at 11:44 am and arrives at 8:56 pm at Dulles (yuck...). However, I can't complain. My summer fellowship is paying for it. According to my mom, who arrived back in DC today, it's 64 degrees there and beautiful. And to think, I was just sweating my ass off here this afternoon, tooling around the parking lot of Fry's, miserably staring at a Mexican toddler wearing only diapers and sporting a six inch rat tail down his back. On the flipside, I did also take a final swim at the pool here today, and I think I swam my personal best, or at least I was faster than the four people on my side of the pool (including two guys), which was somewhat of a mental boost for the competitive freak that comes out in me from time to time.


Oh, my lovely UA pool, I will miss you so...

2. I must warn you that the blog action might slow down a bit while I'm back in DC. First of all, I have a life there and hopefully won't rely on my computer (and this blog) as my best friend. Second, I won't be able to blog at my place of summer employment. And third, my access to a computer during my "off" time may be spotty.

3. Speaking of having a life, I'm already booked for this coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday! Miguel is taking me out for my b-day on Friday (holy crap, I will be 32... how scary is that?). Then we are going to Nichole & Luis's annual Mexican BBQ on Saturday. Around 50 people have already RSVPed to their evite, and I am friends with at least half of them (many of whom I haven't seen in almost a year) so it should be a fabulous time! They are promising a huge layout of food, plus a special tequila punch, and I have no doubt that beer and wine will be plentiful. Two years ago we were there dancing and hanging out until almost 4 am. If anybody can throw a great party, it's those two...


Some members of the "Nichole & Luis fan club" hanging out in Mexico in 2004. N & L are on the left both wearing green.

And then on Sunday, my friend Lizzy is hosting a party at her parents' house in Upper NW. It's actually a fundraiser for her non-profit, the St. Bernard Project, that she and her boyfriend started to help New Orleans victims re-build their homes.


Here are my supremely philanthropic friends, Liz & Zack.

4. And now, moving on to totally non-philanthropic issues... allow me to recount my recent foray into Mexico with my mother...

We left mid-morning on Sunday, heading SW on Ajo Way out of Tucson. We nearly baked on the four-hour drive out there, passing through mile upon mile of nothing but saguaro cacti, scrub brush, and sand. Although we drove through the Arizona "towns" of Sells, Why, and Lukeville, each of them consisted of nothing more than a gas station where one could purchase fuel, drinks, and Mexican car insurance (which I certainly did buy)...

Here was a view out my window right near the border of Mexico...

I kept trying to watch for coyote smugglers leading little clusters of illegal immigrants through the desert landscape, but I never spotted any, although I told my mom I thought I saw a few 'staging areas.'

And here is a Border Patrol checkpoint we had to drive through...

We were questioned by a stumpy little ex-football player (now Border Patrol guard) with lots of extra testosterone. Luckily, we passed muster. Can you even imagine having a job where you have to commute 40 miles to stand in 100 degree heat along a blistering roadside in the middle of nowhere? I'd prefer death.

Anyway, an hour over the border, we finally came to the sandy, dusty, and scrappy little town of Puerto Penasco (AKA Rocky Point), which is located on the Gulf of California...

Let me sum up the place for you in a nutshell:

a. It's RV Heaven

b. There's not a lot of pavement in this little town... it's mostly sand roads

c. Every U.S. state has rednecks, and they all love the beach. Arizona rednecks like Rocky Point.

d. Rednecks love four-wheeling, which is one of the main activities around town.

e. Richer people are starting to invest in an area called "Sandy Beach" near to where our hotel was situated, but it's still in the somewhat early development stages. Give it five years to become nicer.

f. Sonora has a little ways still to go in developing its tourism industry... (see below)

Here is our hotel, the Laos Mar, which was located on Playa Bonita, near Sandy Beach...

The pool was really very nice... and our room was very clean.

And here is the palapa hut where they served breakfast...

It was also very nice.

But then, when I was walking up to our room after breakfast, I spotted this in the central foyer...

That would be a black sock next to the plant, and an electrical socket with the front plug and wires totally pulled out of the wall. I don't even want to know what happened here, but this scene remained unchanged for the full two days we were there. Perhaps a memorial to an electrician lost on the job?

The big problem was that the beach in front of the hotel was pretty dirty with garbage washed up onto the sand. It resembled a less grotesque version of the below photo:


Really, it was not, I repeat... it was NOT this bad (this is a picture I pulled off the internet and is not of the beach where we were located), but it was very noticeably garbage-y. Lots of broken glass, plastic bags, and food remnants that made one not really want to dip in to the water for a swim, even in sizzling temperatures. It also didn't make for particularly pleasant beach sitting either, although we made do after clearing out a little spot.

The really bad part came on Monday morning, when we headed out onto the hotel beach in the morning after breakfast, only to come upon the corpse of some bloated stinking creature that had washed up with high tide. I suggested to my mother that perhaps it was Natalie Holloway.

Needless to say, we got in the car and drove a mile down the beach to a nicer, non-smelly spot near an RV camp. The beach and water was enough cleaner that we actually did take a mini-swim.

Lest I have been too negative (as I am sometimes apt to be), I will say that we had a very nice dinner at the hotel next to ours on Sunday night, where they had great seafood and live music with a balcony overlooking the water at enough of a distance (and in the dark) that one could not decipher the Wal-Mart bags floating around in the tide. We enjoyed that a lot... and truly had a delicious dinner with excellent service and to-die-for Mexican fried ice cream while reveling in the crisp sea breeze. As a sidenote, I also enjoyed watching NASCAR dads cavorting around on the dance floor doing the "white man's shuffle" to the Casiotone keyboard of the band.

We did a little shopping in town (and had a tasty lunch of chimichangas and fajitas) before returning to the U.S. on Monday.

I wanted to share a sample of the t-shirts available for sale in Puerto Penasco (just like the Hamptons!)...

Option One:


Option Two:


Option Three:

I like the artist's representation of pubic hairs on this one...

And finally, Option Four:


I want you all to know that a NASCAR dad with two teenage daughters (or at least, we thought they were his daughters) wore this last t-shirt option to breakfast at the hotel on Monday morning. My mom and I were pretty impressed with his candor, not to mention his clearly announced large package hidden in his jean shorts. However, I was even more impressed that one of his teen girls was wearing a Hustler magazine t-shirt. It made for quite the dynamic and polished duo.

Viva Puerto Penasco! Or should it be Puerto Penisco?

I have to go to bed now... I have a big day ahead of me. I'll be back in a day or two... KVB

Last Party of the Semester

There's nothing better than a party to drink away your cares at the end of the semester. Even though my mom was here visiting, I dragged her along to Greg and Ashwin's "going away" fiesta that they hosted in their nearly furniture-less apartment on their second-to-last night in town. My mom got a bit bored/tired/"I'm too old to be doing this" around 11pm and had my friend Alana drive her back to my place, but I stayed until a bit after 1 am, drinking several cans of Tecate beer and having a great time. Needless to say, I'm pretty bummed out that Ash and Greg are graduating, as they added a certain lifeblood to our mostly socially awkward and "not so fun" graduate department.

Here are a few snapshots of the event last Friday night:


Quiet Greg K. (different Greg than the host/my friend Greg J.) with Roller Derby A.M.K.

The Indian Party Gurus:

Ashwin (on the left) and his friend, whose name I don't know. He's getting a PhD in the astronomy department so he must be pretty dumb.

Some of my favorite people in my department:

Greg J. (sadly graduating), Satoshi (who my mother likened to an Asian chihuahua), Alana (my gemshow shopping partner), Carrie (my yoga partner), and Hikmet (Turkish exchange student).

Liquor out of coffee mugs is high class... and so is canned Mexican beer.

Here I am with Jordy, who is hilarious, and Ben & Greg in the background. Jordy played DJ for the night, but I guess he was taking a break here.

Ladies o' the Department... or at least the ones that drink...

Carrie, Alana, me, and Lindsey... (redheads vs. dirty blondes)

Last night to hang out with Linds...

OK, is my head honestly twice as big as Lindsey's? Or is it the camera angle? Jesus, I look like a moose in this photo, although for my sake, I will tell you that Lindsey is only barely 5'1" so it's sort of like a white, female Kareem Abdul Jabar posing next to a large-breasted Bart Connor or something along those lines...

More later on Mother's Day in Mexico. I must pack now to get ready to go back to DC tomorrow!!

Off to Mexico for dos dias!

My mom is still here so I can't write for the next couple of days while we're sunning ourselves in Puerto Penasco, Mexico, where we're headed tomorrow. It's only a 4 hour drive from here on the Gulf of California -- we'll be sunning ourselves and enjoying margaritas on the playa for Mother's Day!

I'll be back on Monday or Tuesday... with lots of photos and stories to tell!

Until then... adios!!!

Pigs and bottle openers

I'm feeling like this little character right about now:


My mom and I just got back from a huge dinner of jerked pork and chorizo nachos at Tucson's J-Bar (one of my favorite, truly lovely restaurants in town). However, I feel like a pig at the moment, and actually I am literally internalizing one as well.

We are what we eat? Uh oh... next thing you know, I'm going to be this woman at my next big party event:


The human bottle opener...

My mom's visit... Day # 1

I woke up this morning a bit bleary-eyed from my happy hour (just one drink!) gone wrong (approximately five pitchers of beer later)...



... with the sudden and shocking realization that my mother's plane was arriving in (oh shit!) just two hours! This gave me exactly an hour and a half to lug my sad self out of bed, wash all the bedding and linens (hey, I am the hostess with the mostest and must keep up my reputation), scour my apartment, and prepare my mom's mother's day gift since I can't really do it while she's here this week. (All things I planned to do the night before, BTW).

The mother's day gift involved making a necklace from items bought at the gem show earlier this year, and if you've ever tried working with very small, detail intense craft supplies at 8:30 am without having had coffee yet and suffering from a mild hangover whilst also angsting about making it to the airport on time to pick up your mother, I can assure you that it tests the patience of even the most very patient person (which is most definitely not me, BTW)...

This is more like it...

Although I'm not sure if this is the right self-help guide for me:

"Dealing with stress is all about Jesus! Here's a brand new, six-unit Bible study that deals directly with the stress that slaps you in the face (on a daily basis). Through exploring God's Word with author Cindi Wood, you'll find practical help for dealing with issues like managing your time, getting along with difficult people, and even organizing your life!"

Or better yet, just drink a pitcher of beer and deal with stress later.

After all, it worked for me... although I drove in excess of 75 mph the entire way to the airport, I made it with exactly 15.3 seconds to spare, looking refreshed, dewy, and perhaps even perky by that point.

However, I hadn't managed to squeeze in a trip to the grocery store so I took my mom straight from the airport to the local "Fry's" food store by my house (the AZ version of Kroger), which has the nappiest clientele in Tucson. Although I could have taken her somewhere more "quality," I believed she needed to be indoctrinated with the type of people I see in Tucson on a regular basis, especially in my neighborhood... you know, pony-tailed men with 80 tattoos per arm, toothless meth addicts, women too obese to walk cruising around on Lark scooters, pregnant teen drop-outs, and haggard old ex-strippers...


You know what I'm talking about...

Anyway, we had a nice day, even with our visit to Fry's (which my mother found "scary") and aside from roasting in the 100 degree heat. We hung out in my apartment for a bit, got pedicures, and then swam laps at the pool to cool off.

My poor mom was exhausted tonight as a result of her super early flight from the East Coast and the three-hour time difference so she's peacefully snoring away now on fresh sheets.

Hopefully, I'll have a minute to write up something tomorrow... apparently there was a big brouhaha in our department today when this crazy girl named A. (name omitted for "Google" search protection) got fired from her teaching assistantship position and then her lunatic mother showed up at the department threatening the administrators...


"How dare you fire my precious? I will axe all of you up into a million little pieces and eat your flesh later this week! And if it doesn't put the lotion in the basket, it will get the hose!"

Apparently the staff were so freaked out, someone called the police, who showed up to defray the situation. Damn, I always miss out on all the excitement! I heard this was the event of the year for our usually lame department...

On that note... I'd better go to bed since my mom will be up and chirping around 6 am or so.

The End of the Semester!!!!!

In celebration of the end of the semester, here's what I did tonight... beer & poker.

That's pretty much it... thanks Greg & Ashwin!! (now that I know you're reading this) BTW, I suck at poker. I kept thinking about what things were worth in Yahtzee, but I quickly learned that it's not quite the same.

I have had a couple beers so I'm going to keep this short & sweet... there's nothing worse than "drunk writing" --- similar to driving or dialing...

So in lieu of writing, I'll just show you what I have been doing the past several days, locked in my sad, small studio apartment...


The 800 or so Islamic Law books I've been perusing


Me reading about Ibn Taymiyya's rule on Shari'a law in governance

And now... to bed! I'm tired, and my mom gets here tomorrow. I planned to clean my apartment tonight... perhaps I can enlist her help now? Hey, isn't this what moms are for?

Too buzzed to write properly. Signing off. Ciao.

I hate Islamic Law... and Arabic... and history...

So... tomorrow (or maybe that's today... well, I mean Tuesday) is it! My mom arrives for a week-long visit starting this Wednesday so I need to have everything finished by then. That means only one last day to kick it into high gear.

My life thus far:

Thursday through Sunday: Parked in front of my computer writing about Ibn Taymiyya and the Shari'a for my never-ending, interminable, endless, and infinitely stretching Islamic Law paper. (Feel free to start humming Limahl's "Neverending Story" here) I know you don't want to know any more about it than that... trust me.

Monday morning: Arabic Final Exam from HELL. The worst test all semester. Nightmare. Awful. Bring me death. My dreams of an "A" sizzling like bacon on a plate full of grease...

Monday afternoon: Getting my haircut "fixed" in the back because my hairdresser (OK... admittedly at Cost Cutters) totally jacked it up when he cut it this past Saturday. I hate having to go back to hairdressers, but I honestly looked like I was wearing an ill-fitting wig. Anyway, he kindly re-shaped it, and now I no longer have to hide under a hat. Also swam laps at the pool to keep from having a nervous breakdown after aforementioned test and swam next to a guy that never moved his legs! They just floated around behind him in a bow-legged peg-leg sort of way. But wouldn't you know it, he lapped me about 20 times...

Tonight: Recording myself on video (on my computer... and no, none of you may ever see it...) talking for 3 - 5 minutes about my life in Arabic as a another part of the tortuous final exam. Yeah, see, you would not even know what I was saying (or care).

Late tonight: Editing and re-reading my monolithic 26-page "Demise of the Saudi Ulama" Islamic Law tome. I must have it done tomorrow!

Tomorrow: Writing another paper (a manuscript review, or some such nonsense, on a book I haven't quite finished yet on Algerian fundamentalism) for my "Struggle and Survival in the Middle East" history class. Luckily, the teacher is an easy grader.

However, seeing as it is 1:31 am, I have no time to be particularly clever tonight (eyes involuntarily closing now)... but this picture did make me laugh when I saw it somewhere on the internet a couple weeks ago (when I could still enjoy life):

Mom Jeans

OK, I'm fairly horrified... Miguel informed me yesterday that in this photo I posted in the "woodpecker defeated by sandbag" blog entry, I apparently look like I'm wearing "Mom shorts"...


Eeeegaaaads... nooooooo!

You must watch this video clip to fully understand the horror of being accused of wearing "Mom jeans":



In my defense, lest any of the rest of you believe I was, in fact, wearing "Mom jean" shorts, I was absolutely not.

For the record, I would only wear jean shorts (of any type) under sheer duress (such as a knife put to my throat) or if someone paid me approximately one million dollars. The shorts in the photo are actually an Old Navy garment made of grey cotton with a draw string, and they typically sit at my hipline. While Miguel admitted that perhaps it was the upward angle of the photo that made it appear as though my waistline was only three inches below my boobs (and in his words, "rather full in the hip and bulging forward in the front"), I do want to set the record straight... I am not a "Mom jean" shorts type of gal!

Texas Ranch House

I believe I've already admitted my geeky interest in 19th century pioneer life... and tonight I found my dream TV program... "Texas Ranch House"... on PBS.

Yes, yes, I know, while other people are into 'normal' shows like "Law and Order," "CSI," and "Grey's Anatomy," I'm mesmerized by a show about Texas cattle herding and crapping in outhouses. (Hey, wait, that sounds kind of like "Dallas"!... which I also liked a lot)


Yeehaw for J.R.

Of course, as is my typical luck, I discovered this show on the night of the series finale, but I still completely indulged in all of its fabulousness and am just sad that I didn't know it was on earlier. If any of you have ever seen "Manor House" or "Pioneers," this show is of the same ilk... ie: take suburban people and throw them back to another century, where they have to live exactly like people of those times. That is, they have to use tools, furniture, and cooking utensils like 19th century people, and of course, practice 19th century hygiene, which is always one of the more interesting aspects of the show.


Yummmmm... it's the new Dove shower gel called "Cow Carcass"

One of the great things about "Texas Ranch House," which was set in 1867, was that the entire cast hated each other by the end of the show, and the cowboys actually walked off the ranch on the last day, in defiance of the way they'd been treated by the ranch family.

Here's the most rebellious (coolest) cowboy, Jared:

And here's his quote from the PBS website, which makes me like him even more:

"We met the ranch family and basically they don't look like they know much about ranching. But, then again, I don't look like I know much about disco dancing, but I'm really quite good at it."

And honestly, the people chosen to be the ranch family were so obnoxious that after only an hour of watching, I loathed them. In particular, the dough-faced wife just needed a nice crisp smack on her pudgy face to wake her up to the fact that no one liked her for a reason. Not only was she bossy, but she was also smug, and she had the shortest leash on her wimpy husband I've ever seen.


Bossy Rosacea Doughface... Evil Personified

The husband was totally unorganized (he had only about half of the information he should have had in his 'accounting ledger' when the 'expert ranch historian evaluators' showed up at the end of the show), and he treated the ranch hands/cowboys like cretins, which forced their rebellion. Of course, the idiot wife kept egging the pathetic husband on, pushing him into making terrible decisions.


Wimpy Washed-Out Mr. Cooke... with all the personality of a feedbag

Oh... and the wife was a terrible housekeeper, throwing manure right outside the front door so there were flies everywhere in the house, plus she and her chubby, lazy daughters didn't do the dishes regularly either, making the fly problem even worse. One daughter, named Vienna, was particularly annoying.


Dumpy, loud-mouthed Vienna (Sausage... bwaaahahaha)

OK -- I'm geeking out right now on this show, and I'm sure you're freaking bored... so I am going to go back to writing my paper (and/or sleeping)...

If you're actually interested in hearing more about the show, go to the PBS "Texas Ranch House" website. I loved it!

I love Borat

Today was the last day of classes... wooo hooo! Now, I have two days to buckle down and get my Islamic Law paper done...

(Insert picture of Muhammad here... ) -- haha

So I am going to read a bit before bed, get a good night's sleep, and spend tomorrow writing all day. Oh, lucky me...

On that note, I leave you this evening with my favorite Borat episode from the Ali G Show. (If you've never seen it --- I'm talking to you, Mom --- Ali G is a British comedian who pretends to be a Central Asian journalist and interviews people in hilarious situations). I like this one because he keeps talking about the C & C Music Factory song, "Everybody Dance Now":


Sorry for the tiny size, but the larger videos keep messing up my blog layout... if you want to see it "normal size," just double-click the video image to go to the You Tube page.

Celebrating My Good Fortune

This is going to be short and sweet because a) today was boring, and b) I'm sooo tired right now.

Highlights of the day:

1. Finding out I don't have to write a 10-page final exam essay for my economics class because I already have an A in the class... can I repeat what wonderful news this is? This is wonderful news.

2. In celebration, Lindsey and I went to the pool for most of the afternoon and laid in the shade of a palm tree while revelling in our good fortune. After I swam my requisite 30 minutes of laps, I celebrated again by doing many flips in the deep end of the pool... while wearing goggles of course. I don't care if I look like a dork.


Or do I? I had no idea I looked like this much of a tard.

3. We cooled off after the pool with Eegees slushies, eaten on a park bench under another palm tree... I almost finished mine in the time that Lindsey had eaten less than a quarter of hers. I nearly exploded afterwards.


They are definitely as good as they look...

4. It is already 97 degrees in Tucson, and because I'm cheap, I won't turn on my air conditioner. Thus, my apartment feels much like a pizza oven. Or maybe even hotter. All I know is that my Pepperidge Farm "Chocolate Delight" Seville cookies turned into a soup inside the bag. And they taste even better that way...

So with no further ado... au revoir.

Pimping, the Pecker, and Porn

I have three things to say today (all of which are very different in nature, so I shall separate them numerically):

1. I have nothing in my refrigerator. Since I'm out of here in just two weeks, I figured it wasn't worth investing in perishable items so I haven't been grocery shopping in at least a month. Therefore, I have been subsisting on nothing more than what is currently in my fridge/freezer for the past week: spinach salad, cereal, yogurt, and popsicles. However, after I checked out Lovey's blog today, I discovered that she had a link to the most delectable website called "Pimp My Snack" (I recommend you check it out)... which is encouraging me (in a bad way) to instantly head out to the store and indulge in some chocolatey, dessert-like goodness. Her site shows the most amazing giant Reese's peanut butter cup. Ever.


My old wheat bread just isn't cutting it anymore...

2. The woodpecker remains defeated.

3. I had a memorable experience at the library today. I needed a couple of books for my Islamic Law paper so I headed upstairs to the book shelving area. I got my books and headed back for the stairs. As I was walking down the hall toward the staircase, I saw this dirty homeless man (with applicable plastic bags full of his worldly possessions) standing in front of one of the computer terminals along the hallway.


This could be him!!

I thought it was very perplexing that he was at the library, and immediately my little mind started thinking, "Wouldn't that be so cool if this guy was really a genius that became an alcoholic or crazy and lost everything but is still secretly brilliant and so is here doing research on quantum physics or economic game theory?" (Spoiler Alert: This is the plot in "A Beautiful Mind")

Curiosity, of course, got the best of me, and so I turned around while I was passing by and looked with great interest at the computer screen on which he was working. And what did I see?... A giant penis entering someone's bare ass.

I suppose that's what I get for being nosy (and expecting life to be like Hollywood)...


I can't believe I missed this Sesame Street episode!