Wednesday, October 7, 2009

A Bad Start to an Amusing Day

So, the tail end of last night and this morning were probably moments of karmic backlash from past lives. I mean, how else do you explain all the crap that seemed to just keep happening? I dunno, but for now I'm filing it under the same category as why celebrity deaths seem to happen in groups of four. In other words: mysteries that I'm too lazy to look into.

Anyways, the reasons I counted it as a really crappy day are:

1) My friend (almost 22) just told me she's dating a 40 year old. She said she was using me as a "sounding board" for when she tells her parents. Here's my biggest thing: how do you respond to the fact that your friend who is essentially your age is dating someone less than ten years younger than your own parents! Seriously! And I'm not a good person to act as a sounding board, especially for shit like this (i.e. relationship stuff), nor will I react anything like your parents will (who will probably snarl and yell and lecture) because I know, from experience I might add, that I have no control over your actions and have no room to lecture on dating when I, myself, am not/have not. I know there are a million versions of the dating "age rule" for acceptable age-spans for you to date (the one I'm thinking of is your age plus or minus 7 or something like that). Whatever rule you use. Dating someone nearly twice your age is pretty much always out. I really don't want to get drawn into the exploding drama that will happen when she tells her parents (because it will be awkward and tense and, well, drama) so, hopefully she'll take my "I honestly don't know what to say" as the "I don't want to be involved" I intended it to be.

2) When someone says they want to "drop a subject" please leave it be and don't keep bringing it up or those people involved in the subject (see above in 1). I don't want to hear about your 40-year-old's costume ideas that involve leather pants because they inevitably lead to envisioning my not-so-much-older father in leather pants and scars me for life. I don't need any help adding to my mental trauma, I do fine on my own thank you very much.

3) My shower knob-control-thingy fell off when I was trying to take a shower last night. I mean it just fell off. I was trying to pull it out to turn on the water and it just came away in my hand. I had to take a "ye olde shower" with a bowl of water and trips to the sink. Maintenance said they'd be by today to fix it, its still broken.

4) Because maintenance said they'd be by to fix the shower, I spent an hour last night cleaning my apartment so that I don't look like a complete slob to them. I could have been sleeping at 10:30 last night, but no. Not until 11:30. Because I needed to do dishes and shit.

5) I spilled scalding hot cocoa all over myself and my desk this morning which was horrible in 5ways: I nearly killed my laptop, I destroyed all my notes/drawings that were on my desk, I burned my lap, I was late to work because I needed to clean up the spill, and I didn't get my morning caffeine fix. That last bit was the worst. I need caffeine to function at work and without it i'm just a little bit testy and more prone to snarling and lashing out at people when they irritate me. I was able to counteract the snarling, raging beast that is uncaffinated Allison by playing nothing but classical music at work. This also nearly put me to sleep a few times, but I decided inattention was better than biting the head off my boss or the graduate students if they decided to treat me like an idiot child. I think I made the right choice though.

Despite all that horribleness, today ended up being somewhat amusing. Of the three of my friends I sit with in Parasitology, only one showed up today so we spent class working on Sudoku and crosswords instead of listening to lectures of Trypanosoma bruci gambience (parasite which causes African Sleeping Sickness). Art Theory was full of quotes and discussions of country music during which I admitted to developing a southern drawl or twang whenever I listen to extensive country music. Plus I finally was able to label what I am in terms of the music I listen to: music schizophrenic. I seriously am too. I really wanna swap iPods with someone to see their expression when they put on My Top Rated playlist and hear it go from HipHop/Rap to Country to Emo to Indie to Metal to Classical to Classic Rock to J Pop and so on.

One more mini-rant before I go onto quotes: people, I have no problem with you wearing your pajamas to class if its before 10 AM, but at 3 PM you should have real pants on. Seriously. Its not that hard to do, nor are jeans uncomfortable. Also refrain from wearing short-short pajama bottoms to class. Especially if you have cellulose legs. Its really unattractive. And insane when we were only in the 50's at highest today.

Quotes (all from Art Theory):

"Ah, the British Museum. Its one of those huge ones...full of things they stole." - Prof. Andersen

"Every time you use 'incredible' in your paper you lose credibility." - Prof. Andersen after 20 minute lecture on our first writing assignment

"...and then someone poured beer over a Van Gogh or something." - Prof. Andersen on Parties in Museums

Student: "Most people who listen to it and love it smoke weed everyday."
Prof. Andersen: "And we have so much of it around "

"Stoners typically aren't rich."

Also, hearing your Prof going off on a tangent about Dancing with the Stars is both amusing and somewhat disturbing especially when it begins to sound like gossip.