Zaven at his best. Enjoy.

I was asking for help in coming up with an idea for my incident story for children's lit. Here is a part of our conversation:

zlo9324: how about a kid who wants a cookie and tries a bunch of stuff but just cant seem to get one
zlo9324: then at the end his mom gets it for him
daydreamerr87: what do you mean tries a bunch of stuff
daydreamerr87: i dont understand what you're talking about
daydreamerr87: what stuff
zlo9324: i meant different ways of trying to get the cookie from the jar
zlo9324: you kno
zlo9324: like tries to stand on his dog but the dog sees a ball and runs away
daydreamerr87: well THAT sounds dangerous
zlo9324: oh its ok
zlo9324: its just a puppy
zlo9324: and also its a childrens book
daydreamerr87: but they might try it if they read it
zlo9324: well
zlo9324: i dont think a little kid is gonna be able to stand on a dog
zlo9324: and if they try its there god damn fault not yours
zlo9324: where the hell is the damn parent

It will be Halloween all year long!

I cemented my fantastic fate for next semester today. Well, technically, I guess I did that on Friday when I emailed Katharine about my idea, but today it was confirmed. I'll be doing an independent study next semester with Katharine that focuses on monsters (like vampires, werewolves, that sort of thing) in children's literature! :)

I'm so super excited about this, and so is Katharine. I think it will be really fun, especially because I'll actually get to read the books. Bailey School Kids! Goosebumps! Also let me know if you have suggestions. Unless they include Stephenie Meyer.

One step closer to what I want to do with my life! HOORAY!!

You can't go far in life with a soup can stuck on your head.

This morning I parked my car near the Terraces, farther up the hill and on the other side of the campus from the Park building. I was about to walk to my class when I hear something behind me:

"Excuse me, miss? Miss!"

I turned around, confused, thinking maybe I dropped something. But the girl approaching me was too far away to have seen me do something like that. I could see she was carrying something in her arms, something large enough that she had to use both arms. As she got closer, I realized the little bundle was moving.

She was carrying an animal that had a soup can stuck on its head.

"I was walking back from class to my Circle when I saw this poor thing," she told me. "Would you please give me a ride to CNS?" CNS is the Center for Natural Sciences. "Sure, of course," I told her. She jumped in with her squirming buddy.

I looked at the animal as I pulled out of the parking lot, trying to figure out what it was. It was fat, and had claws like a raccoon. So I asked her if that's what it was. "To be honest, I have no idea what it is," she told me. It wasn't a raccoon because the tail was wrong; we just couldn't tell without seeing its head. And speaking of that, I don't even know how it got its head so far into the can in the first place. Someone must have dropped or thrown the can outside and there was probably food still in it, so the little guy went after it. He really must have shoved because it looked like his head was too big for the can -- after all, it was stuck on pretty tight.

The girl's name is Kate, and I learned she is a bio major with a specialty in small mammals. So the critter couldn't have been found by a more perfect person. I brought her down to the CNS loading dock, where she said she would bring the animal inside to a lab. I wished her luck, made sure she got inside, and drove back to the Terraces.

So how was your morning?

(Kudos to Mom for the title of this post.)

Don't do drugs.

My very world has been turned upside down. They've killed off a major character in the comic strip Apartment 3G.

I don't think anyone, except Erica, truly understands my distress and confusion about this momentous event in the comics. I have always viewed this strip as a "drama" that never really did anything too dramatic. Sure, things happened, but in a wholesome way. Even the drug addicts were chipper, in fact they felt "super" from the high. But this all went downhill when Jones, the only drug dealer in the entire city (apparently), went on vacation.

Ray ran out of stuff. And so, he went to ask Alan, the druggie boyfriend of Luann, for some more stuff. And Alan didn't have any stuff. So Ray freakin SHOT him.

THEY KILLED HIM. I can't even believe they took it that far, unless they were just looking to find a way to get rid of him. After all, Luann would never actually leave him, no matter what he did, since she is naive and stupid and believes only nice things about people. My theory is they got rid of him so she could get with Jack, who does NOT do drugs and does NOT "borrow" thousands of dollars from her. For drugs.

And now Margo has to go down to the art gallery (where they all work and where Alan got SHOT) to identify his BODY. God.

So the point is, I guess, stay away from drugs because you will get shot by a desperate man when the only dealer around goes on vacation. The funny thing is, I don't think they ever specified which drug they all did. They only ever called it "dope" or "stuff." I'm really hoping it was all over pot, because I think that would be really funny. In a morbid way. OH ALAN I'M SORRY.

And THEN...

This morning, the morning AFTER I had left B&N at 1 am because we uselessly stayed open to sell Brisingr to about 20 people, I went into work (AGAIN) at 10 am. And I was met with a lovely project to build a metal display in the biography bay. No directions -- I only knew where the fixture was. In pieces.

So I brought the metal shelves out to the section, and spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to put it together. For the life of me, I couldn't get it. So I called a manager, Frank, to help me out. He managed to find a few more pieces in the receiving room, so I told him I thought I could figure it out from there.

20 minutes later, I was surrounded by books and metal shelves -- in the humor section. I had to dismantle the same type of fixture there so I could see how to put it together. And I found my problem.

I was missing the most important piece. The shelf that attached to the bay. Right.

Apparently it was bent so badly when it arrived that it was unusable. And no one figured out it was important until I had wasted 40 minutes of my life trying to figure this all out.

Kind of NOT a big deal.

Last night has been in my mental calendar for a couple of weeks. It was the night B&N was having its Brisingr release party. You know, Brisingr? The Eragon book? ...No?

That's pretty much how I ended up explaining it to my friends that I told to come. Who didn't. Just like the rest of Ithaca. I mean I was expecting at least a decent turnout, not 20 people waiting around watching the movie (we put on the movie), half-heartedly coloring dragons and wandering around aimlessly looking for trivia questions hidden in obvious places throughout the store.

It was slow for a weeknight at a small store. We were searching for things to do. I ended walking around with a paper fortune teller I made out of a pattern they sent us (all you had to do was fold it) with a sign I made with crayons that said "Ask me your fortune." That was one of the bigger hits of the night as far as activities go.

At the end of the night it took us nine minutes to sell a copy of the book to everyone there who wanted one. After we had been hanging around behind the registers for a few minutes waiting for stragglers, Matt (our store manager) announced: "If you have not bought a book and you'd like too, come on up to the registers. If not, please make your way to the front of the store because we just want to go home. Thank you." We were like, you're awesome Matt.

When we finally made our way out into the night, Matt released the helium balloons we had bought for the occassion into the air (to the protestations of a few workers, but no one really cared). I'm hoping it will purge us of the bad karma accrued during the crap event. Screw Paolini and his regurgitation of the Lord of the Rings. Your books suck, man.

Behold: We are the children of the information age.

We were waiting for Stuprich, our professor, to get to class. He wasn't usually late, since he had a class in the same room right before ours. So we're wondering out loud, where is he? Did you get an email? I didn't get an email. People are checking their blackberries, whatever. I decide to go to the writing center next door to check if I got an email.

Nothing.

But as I walk back into the room, I stop short and do a double take. There is a CANCELLATION NOTICE next to the door. So we're just sitting in there like idiots. God forbid we get any form of communication that's not electronic.

Conversation typical in my house.

"What is B** McAree going to do about it?" (The noise on our street)

"I don't know, have a lame name."

"Wait, lame? ...You know he has trouble walking, right? Like, he uses a walker."

Just so you know I did that to his name because I'm paranoid these people will Google themselves and find my entry.

This is best out of context.

Erica: "I'm afraid I dropped the L-word."

Me: "...Lesbian?"

Apparently "love" was the correct answer.

Janitors hate me.

On Thursday nights, both Andy and I work in a writing lab until 11, and I drive us home. This Thursday, I got out a little earlier than he did, so I decided to lock up and wait outside in the hallway, where I was reading The Ithacan. The janitor was driving his little floor-washer car thing around, going up and down the hallway. And I had a Diet Coke.

We all know how I am not the most graceful of women. Well. I eventually decided to go over to Smiddy, where Andy was working, because I was kind of tired of waiting. I closed the paper, picked up my sweatshirt, and watched in horror as my Coke spilled all over the floor and bench.

I tried to pick it up before the whole bottle was on the floor, and had to cap it immediately as foam was still pouring out the top. So here I am, covered in cola, and I can hear the janitor in his motorized mop coming my way. It took me less than a second to decide what to do.

As I was speedwalking down the hall, I looked for the nearest exit since I wanted to get out quickly. Of course I picked the one that was encased in glass and led to Emerald City (the new business building, if you'll recall). I was trapped -- could I make it out the door and down the hall before the janitor got there?

I booked it. I had to go up the stairs toward the bursar's office, out the door leading to the music school. I went the complete opposite way of my car just to avoid the janitor. Who probably hates me.

Where am I?

I use the elevator in Smiddy, a building on campus, because I literally have no idea where the staircase is past the second floor. So I guess sooner or later I was bound to get off on the wrong floor without realizing it.

I was looking at something, I think a receipt for the document on which I log my hours for TAing, as I walked off after the elevator stopped. Just as the doors closed, I looked up and around, wondering where the hell I was and why I heard a very loud man with a German accent, speaking to his class as it turns out. Oh, so this is what the third floor looks like, I thought.

I should really figure out where that staircase is.

VMA = vomit making alert.

I've only seen 35 minutes of the VMAs and I've never seen anything so poorly produced in my life. It's like they didn't even try.

Also, I was scared for the Jonas Brothers' lives after they raised the walls of their set and thousands of screaming tweenage girls started stampeding toward them. I really thought they were going to die. Those girls could have ripped them apart like mynaeds ripped apart bulls. Yes, I just made a reference to ancient Greece.

We're off to see the... new business building.

I've decided I'm going to call the new business building (which is technically called the Park Center for something having to do with being environmentally conscious) the Emerald City. It's a "green" building, and a lot of the funding for it came from one Dorothy Park. Dorothy! Green! Thus, Emerald City.

Not to mention it was dumb naming another building on campus "Park."

I love cable.

I just watched Marc Summers talk about chocolate. I am now sitting, mesmerized, watching fast-paced competitive cooking. I still have 65 pages to read in a textbook by 9 am.

I am now simultaneously using both the cable and the internet that we had hooked up today. My downfall? Perhaps.

Procrastination and idiocy.

I should be doing my homework.

Just a little update: I started all three of my jobs (continuing them rather). The B&N here is super small compared to Burlington and things are really different. I don't like the eight hour shifts (there are no six hour ones), but at least it closes at 10 and 7 on Sundays. Also, I answered the phone with "Thank you for calling the Barnes and Noble in Burlington, my name is Tahleen, how can I he-- Oh. Wait. I mean Ithaca. I'm not in Burlington..."

Smooth.