Alex Trebek: This German physicist had a unit of frequency named after him.

Jeopardy! contestant: Who is Ohm?

Me: No, you idiot! An ohm is a unit of resistance! I know that, and I don't even know what resistance is.

David: That must be why I had sex with you so soon.

 

"There is present in them that, how should I say, hollow isolationism that is so ubiquitous (and often so affected) in today’s portraiture" - Graeme Mitchell

Compare: Elsa Dorfman

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"[In portrait photography] the key things are people, clothes, taste, ideas, light. Concentrate on these. Learn to understand how they work for you and how you work for them." - Graeme Mitchell

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(In other news, I got a parking ticket on the very last day of the semester and now they won't let me see my grades until I pay it. GRRRRRRRR.)

(in a discussion of language variations)

Professor: For example, there's some debate among linguists when people ask, "If I'm going to learn Spanish, which kind of Spanish should I learn?" Some say you should go to Spain and learn Castillian. Some say in America, you're mostly going to be encountering people from Mexico, so you should learn that variety of Spanish. What do you guys think?

Student: Well, I mean, is there a root form of Spanish? You know, that all the other forms developed from?

Me: Latin.

Class: [blank stares]
 

David: Oh, god, Pixel! Cut that out!
Ellie: What?
David: She's chewing on my paper again.
Ellie: Maybe instead of Pixel, we should have named her Pica!


(the next day)
Ellie: [makes a joke]
Joke: [falls flat]
Ellie: Whatever, I'm still proud of that Pica joke! I don't need you! I don't need anybody!

Please drop by this thread and say a quick hello!

OK, I admit that elfy is right --the chances of this sparking an actual Board Renaissance are slim. But who cares, I'd just like to see some of those people again. ... Anyway, tell us a little about what you've been up to since we saw you last.

No strings, no commitments -- just pop in and let us all poing with you one more time!

(I have just put on a cute, tight pair of shorts. David has just woken up.)

Ellie: My ass looks great! Seriously, check it out. [turns around, displays ass]
David: Oh, wait, let me get my binoculars to take a look!
Ellie: That would imply that my ass is very small, and you need to make it bigger to see it.
David: Uh. Right. ... I need a microscope!
Ellie: That also implies my ass is small.
David: ...
Ellie: ...
David: ...
Ellie: You need a wide-angle lens?
David: YES! That's what I need!
[Ellie and David shake hands]
David: Thank you for insulting yourself. Good job.
 

I haven't properly updated in a while. Well, there hasn't been a lot to tell.

Right now I'm working two jobs. I'm doing technical editing half-time for the university IT department. It's a great opportunity, and I do enjoy it, but OH MY GOD it is so mentally exhausting. I'm also still doing in-home caregiving. I have one client at the moment; I stop by five evenings a week to get him ready for dinner, and also give him morning baths on the weekends. His wife is really cool, a spunky New Orleans lady, and we get along very well.

Classes are ... mrrrehhhh. I have two professors with high expectations from their students, which is awesome from the standpoint of "intellectually challenging and engaging," but tough from the standpoint of "I've been an English major five minutes and I'm still learning how to write essays without sounding like a douche." I've been pulling a lot of B-minuses, which I think means "you had impeccable grammar and plenty of examples so I can't quite give you a C, but seriously, learn to construct a fucking thesis already."

Anyway, I'm taking five classes this semester, plus using my editing job as an internship for credit. Women in American Lit is turning out to be really enjoyable. I was expecting a lot of in-class discussion that would make me want to stab myself with a pen (seriously, hell is other English majors.) But it's all lectures with a really funny, smart teacher. Appalachian Lit is okay; I signed up because we were going to be reading Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, whom I love, but it got dropped the first week due to time constraints. Nothing we've read so far has been terribly interesting for me. Also, shut up, Cormac McCarthy. Early American Lit is a sophomore phone-it-in class. Structure of English is AWESOME and I will blah about it more in another post, since I'm working on a big project for it. Finally, I'm taking freshman-level physics which is giving me nervous breakdowns. Science: not that cool actually.

As I mentioned earlier, we got another cat. She is all white and is named Pixel, after Heinlein's cat. (Us? Nerds? Nooooo.) She is really stupid and whiny and I love her SO MUCH.

Ummm. About the only other thing I've been doing is watching TV, and nothing real interesting to report there. I'd like to hold forth at length some time about why Burn Notice is so good. I'm thisclose to breaking up with Heroes but somehow never can pull the trigger. 30 Rock is finally back in stride. I haven't watched PBS in months and I feel incredibly uninformed about the world.

Spring break starts tomorrow afternoon! OH THANK YOU GOD.
 

Ellie: Did you know that Tycho Brahe had a tame elk that lived in his house? It got drunk on beer, fell down the stairs, and died.

David: What? He had a taint elk?

Ellie: I hate you so much, you don't even know.
 

(texting back and forth)

Ellie: When you get off work, will you bring me two large roast beef from Arby's?

David: I'll bring you two large roast beef FROM MY PANTS.
 

The church choir sang at a funeral this evening. I didn't personally know the man who had passed away. All the stories about him were so funny and sweet, and the Episcopal burial service is so beautiful. Plus, I have two people I care about a lot (not that I know closely, though) who are dying. All in all, I was pretty much a mess the whole way through.

It was actually kind of funny; the only other tenor there was Oliver, a guy my age, who is also a crier. We each kept trying to comfort the other, then getting weepy again, then putting on a brave face to buck the other up, and so on.

 

I made this for a weightlifting site I'm on, but hey, why not -- if you've ever wanted to see me fall over while back squatting a broomstick, here's your chance:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3965023854793694003&hl=en

Eagle-eyed viewers will note that I swiped David's "Marshall College Department of Archaeology" t-shirt for this. If you get that reference, I salute you.

Someone on The Biggest Loser: I could get up on the scale and see that I hadn't lost any weight. I can't think of anything scarier than that.

[simultaneously]
Ellie: Manticores.
David: Velociraptors.
 

Gah, I am so un-motivated, school-wise. I haven't done any reading for my Women in American Lit class, and we have a test tomorrow. The problem is that I keep ending up in classes that make me read a bunch of old-timey novels. I get that they were influential and had social commentary and themes and blah dee blah, but really, by modern standards, most of them are very badly written. Cardboard characters, corny plots. People choking out their last words and then dying tragically. Sooooo much exposition.

In other news, I think my Early American Lit teacher kind of hates me now. The class spent a week absolutely bashing the Puritans, talking about how they were such terrible judgmental hypocritical losers, so I used my first reading response to basically bitch about how one-sided the discussion was. (Not that I lurve the Puritans or anything, but Albion's Seed proved that they are at least more INTERESTING than that, if not more laudable.) And she wrote a big defensive thing back, like, "Nuh-uh, remember when we read the 'city on a hill' essay and I was totally all 'History is never black and white'??? You're an ass!"

Also I got really pedantic on a kid who said that women were burned at the stake at the Salem witch trials. ("There were no burnings and also they executed men, too!" "Okay, I guess they were hung." "HANGED!")

And last semester, we read Evelina and I mentioned that it's the earliest source quoted for the word "ain't" in the OED. Then yesterday we started talking about "ain't" in Structure of the English Language and I was able to bring it up again! From memory!

Basically what I am trying to say is that I am a freak among English majors.
 

(I have nothing to do at work; can you tell?)

I like this poem a lot: Orpheus Among the Cabbages by Tim Pratt

I can't remember if I've mentioned Thaumatrope: The Twittering E-zine in my LJ before. It is what it sounds like: a sci-fi/fantasy/horror e-zine where all the stories (or reviews) have to fit in a Twitter message. It's amazing what wonderful, evocative images result! Some of my favorites:

I couldn't bear life so sent out twelve clones to live it for me. They mail me postcards. They're having a blast. So maybe it was just me.
        (link, by gregvaneekhout)

Lying in drag, waiting for the little girl, the wolf wonders what his own grandmother would say about how his life has turned out.
        (link, by discorobot)

Arthur finished setting the last dynamite plug and looked at Merlin. "What? No one said HOW I needed to get the sword out of the stone."
        (link, by MaryRobinette)

I get that Mrs. Ino's entrails saved the president. But if Mom keeps divinating on the neighbors, I'll have no one left on my paper route.
        (link, by AletheaKontis)

For some reason I haven't been quite as capitvated by Everyday Weirdness, probably because "flash fiction" is less novel than "Twitter fiction." Though I did love A. W. Gifford's story "A Watched Pot."

I realized recently that it's been years since I've written any poetry. That just seems amazing to me. I think it was too tied up with my depression, this weird irresistible pouring-out of emotion. Once I got better, I lost the touch. I need to find a new way back to it. I like being sane, but I miss being a poet.