How did we celebrate Valentine's Day?

Of course you're wondering, since Michael and I are such romantic fools. Well, it all started like this.

On Monday, at his Spanish club, Michael made me a card that said, "Te amo mi vida! Que' tetas!"

Oh, I love that boy.

And today (Valentine's Day), I went out walking. When I came back, Michael said, "Was your walk eventful?"

And I said, "No."

"Oh," he said. Then added, "That's good."

"Well," I amended, "There was the teddy bear slaughter."

His eyes grew wide. "Uh, that sounds eventful."

I shrugged. "I missed the actual slaughter event. I only got to see the carnage left behind."

And I told him how, out on the corner of our street, this teddy bear was laid out as though it had just been slain. And so, of course, we went back out there to see it. Together, because it's Valentine's Day. And also, I brought a beer along. And also, Michael brought a camera.

Note that we did not move the teddy bear at all. This was how we found it:



And so, yeah. That was fun. But, later, when we went out to go grocery shopping (as you do on Valentine's Day), we saw that the bear had followed us. Just outside our apartment is an empty lot, and the bear had come along to wallow in its Valentine's Day misery by our place. Again, we did not move the bear. This is how we found it:





When we came back from shopping, it was still there. And, dude, we just couldn't resist. This is how we found him:






(In this one, you can see our apartment--it's the one with the lights on just below the No Parking sign)


Oht noes! The cops have found Vagrant Bear!


Eh, just let him sleep it off...

So that was our fun tonight. Then Michael made his famous chili and we watched Battlestar Galactica. Who says romance is dead?

You better recognize (the voice)

Hello. I’ve been mostly MIA for the past few weeks which has been a result of 1) not having very much to say, and 2) being disinclined to type very much because of my wrist injury. Which I may add, I lied about earlier. It actually did result from heroics and impressive death-defying feats of stunning caliber and near perfect quality. They would have been dead on perfect if only I hadn’t stopped to wash those damned dishes. Aw well, at least they were heroic dishes.

The exciting thing, though, is that today I have activated my windows voice synthesis software which allows me to speak into my headset and words appear on the screen. No typing is necessary. Which is totally awesome because typing sucks right now. Which totally sucks because typing is just about all I have to do anymore, between class and thesis and work and… Oh yeah! My favorite mode of relaxation! Writing stories.

So I’m going to give this software thing a go. So far today I have used it for work, and now I’m using it for a blog entry. And more or less, so far so good. There was the whole “pulled in tree" — "blog entry” fiasco of two sentences ago, but I managed to fix that just nicely. Heroically, even.

So what exactly is up with my wrist anyway? Well, one month ago I heroically punctured my wrist while washing dishes. That healed within a week, no problem. Except for the problem of a huge, painful, itchy, frustrating red welt appeared in its place. The campus clinic Dr. Could not tell me what was wrong with it and so eventually sent me to a German tall adjust who could. (I like Dr. Could, I’m sure you can figure that one out. I also like the German tall adjust, which was supposed to be dermatologist in case you were wondering). The German dermatologist, who I don’t think was German, told me I have a keloid scar and he gave me a steroid injection.

This was on Tuesday. I’ve been wondering ever since then why the hell anyone would ever abuse steroids. There are far less painful drugs out there. Find one of them. In fact, I will go ahead and suggest pot because anyone suffering from ‘roid rage could really use a few hours in front of the TV with a bag of cheetos.

That’s really all the rest of the story. It hurts again. And it’s itchy. And it’s driving me crazy. But nothing terribly interesting. Oh, except that my once-again-reduced-gripping-ability cause me to spill coffee all over my lap yesterday at work. Which very nearly made me cry, because not only did I look like I had pissed myself, at work, but that coffee was supposed to have gone in my belly.

We also have a new leak in our ceiling which is dripping directly into the bathroom light fixture. Unfortunately for the sake of the story, it did not explode or cause mayhem or even act heroically. It just started happening, and now we’re waiting for the roofers to come patch up the roof.

Happily, though, class and thesis and work are all going very well. I am well into the interview portion of my thesis, and it is so awesome. I love talking with people about their knowledge and experiences. This has got to be the absolute best part of being a research psychologist. I absolutely love this.

Except for the not being able to type very well part, which I’m in the process of rectifying, I am really enjoying the semester. And I’m still holding out some hope that I will manage to graduate in May—though rational expectations are still pushing the toward graduating in December. But ah hell, rationality be damned!

I’ll update again either when I can type again or when I have a better hang of the software. But right now my throat is starting to get sore. My voice is tired. And so until we meet again, just imagine exciting heroics and death defying feats of spectacular proportions, or at least dream of a kinder world in which there are no dishes to wash.

Heroics at Burning Orphanages Not Included

Hey y'all.

So, some of you may be wondering why I haven't posted in awhile. Others of you know already. Yet others find they don't care too much either way. And still others are too unobservant to have bothered noticing that I hadn't updated for the last some amount of time.

Well, one of my excuses is that I injured my wrist during a freak dishwashing accident. Yes, dishwashing. I was not injured for a good reason, I was injured for a non-reason. Here's the whole story. The scoop, if you will.

I was washing dishes. The handle of the mug I was holding shattered, and somehow the force of the break caused me to smash the intact mug (including the little nub of the handle) into my left wrist, causing a puncture that bled a lot and scared the hell out of me. I ran around like a crazy woman for awhile, cleaning out my new wrist hole in the bathroom sink while still holding part of the mug handle. But eventually, I settled upon wrapping it tightly (my wrist, not the mug handle) in cotton and runners tape and hightailing it to the campus clinic to let someone professional decide if I needed stitches.

I didn't.

But they did pull the skin back together with those sticky plastic thingies, and give me a nice huge bandage running longways up my wrist. So, rather than walking into my psychology department like that, I decided to wear Michael's carpal tunnel wrist brace over my bandages. Call me vain or paranoid (and Gina did), but I had a feeling that carpal tunnel wouldn't peak the interest of psychologists the way that a blood-tinged wrist bandage might.

Eventually (after about five days), the wrist brace took a functional turn. The puncture had healed nicely, but I had bruised my tendons badly enough that when I would unthinkingly grasp something, it would hurt like a mofo. Wearing the wrist brace around reminded me to be careful, and it held my wrist still and allowed me to heal. Another two weeks has passed. I have nearly full wrist mobility back. It no longer hurts to type provided I have a pillow or cloth underneath my wrist, and I can even pick up fairly heavy things without pain. Usually.

But alas, the wrist saga continues because now it appears I have an infection or something under the surface. It's driving me crazy. It itches like madness and when something touches it, all of my wrist senses flare up... well, okay I only have the one sense in my wrist. But still. Flares up. Back to the doctor tomorrow for antibiotics or something.

Less exciting, but more interesting news is that I've started data gathering for my thesis. I've interviewed several people already and I'm in contact with five more. Interview on Wednesday. Going back to Kauai again soon. Now that I can type again, I'm about halfway through transcribing the interviews I've already given. This is absolutely fascinating stuff. I can't wait I can't wait I can't wait to write it all up and become a Psychology Master. Which may or may not happen in May.

I've turned in my application to graduate (with Masters... I'll still have a PhD to go after this) in May. But, I don't know yet if I'll actually be able to finish my thesis before the deadlines for Spring commencement. So I may still have to defer and get my Masters in December. Either way, it will be a whopper of a surprise to me if I don't have a Masters this calendar year. Huge HUGE major things would have to happen to keep me from finishing this, this year. I'm not trying to tempt fate, I'm just saying. It's all coming together now.

Oh, and also I learned that since the Civil Rights Movement, African Americans are the fastest moving minority into the middle class. As my professor (Ashley Maynard, awesome woman) says, it's not fair to count what happened before Civil Rights. But since my people stopped openly blatantly purposefully oppressing them, African Americans are in fact making great strides. This doesn't mean, of course, that we can now stop working for social justice, just that people who wonder (sometimes with snide intent) why things never change can stop wondering. Things are changing.

And oh man, I wish I had known this when I still lived in Tennessee. I kinda wanna look up every bigoted arse I ever got into it with and give them a good whatfor. Not that I didn't back when we were into it. Just, now I have a little more ammunition.

Like you, guy I argued with in Waffle House that day because you were such good friends with the KKK. Suck it.

Everyone else, have a great day!