How are you today? I'm superfantastic.

That Craig lets anybody on his list

On Saturday, my college friend Kristine was here to photograph my place and also generally hang out.  We were talking about her recent online dating experiences, which have been with a Christian dating site.  You'd think the guys would be nicer.  You would be wrong. 

Kristine wrote to one guy to ask if he was a musician.  He wrote back an extremely short answer, then took the time to write again, entirely unprompted, to tell her that he was only interested in women who are stunning.  She took the high road and didn't write back.  Whereas I would most likely have written back to say "How perfect.  I'm only interested in men who are shallow assholes.  What time are you picking me up?"

So we thought we'd look at Craig's List to see if the men of the greater Madison area might be more promising.  And...yikes.  Sure, there were a few guys who sounded potentially interesting, but for the most part, we found far more entertainment value than dating potential.

First, we have the many, MANY guys who specify "no drama, no games".  Right.  Here's the thing, boys: if you want to date women, there is going to be drama.  I like to think that I'm pretty much as low-drama as women come, but that still does not ensure any man in my life a completely drama-free relationship.  And secondly, boys of Craig's List, even under the best of circumstances, dating is a game.  It doesn't have to be a bad thing, as long as you find someone who plays fair.

Next we have two polar opposites.  There's the man of few words.  Maybe he tells you his age.  He's looking for a woman.  That's about as much as you're getting out of him.  Then we have the man with the uberspecific list of qualifications.  Must be between 26 and 27 1/2.  Must be "slim", "thin", "fit", "HWP", "BBW" or "takes care of theirself".  Must love baseball/fishing/biking/performance art/snowboarding/cooking/death metal/Kafka.  Must be family-oriented/want kids/not want kids/not have kids/understand that his kids come first in his life.  Must be sweet/generous/open/affectionate/smart/funny/independent/a free spirit/driven/religious/spiritual but not religious/not religious/420 friendly.  One guy specified "must run fast".  Another one wanted someone with no midwestern accent.  You live in Wisconsin, friend.  Yes, it is one of the unsexiest accents going, but you're going to have to either get used to it or move.

Then there's your embittered guy.  This guy can go one of two ways.  Either he's straightforward about it and just writes something about how there aren't any REAL women left and he's a gentleman just looking for a nice girl, but he guesses there aren't any left in Madison.  The other route is the deeply sarcastic "I'm looking for a drama queen to spend my money, never have sex, dump her kids on me, never cook dinner, lie, cheat, and then leave me.  Is that you?"  Oh, bitter guy.  Maybe take some time off from the internet dating.

I've saved a couple of specific postings for last.  Like this one:

seeking a woman age 20-27 who has some acquaintance with the work of pierre bourdieu, carl schmitt, alain badiou, yukio mishima etc. i know this implies a degree of effort in thought, so please, don't strain yourself.

it would also be nice if you are thin, as i am thin.

i haven't had much success meeting people who are actually interested in thinking, most people around here are more concerned with "finding themselves" or getting laid.

i'm pretty fashionable. pic for pic.

Capitalizing apparently requires a degree of effort that this guy isn't willing to strain himself with, even when it's going to good use, such as insulting his entire potential dating pool.  But don't worry, ladies, not only is he interested in thinking, he's also thin and fashionable.

Then there's this guy, who finds himself in Madison after a successful career in college and semi-pro basketball:

If you've got some game on the b-ball court, let's go one on one...loser (which will be you) buys the bottle of cheap or expensive wine and cooks or buys dinner. Deal?

What girl could resist an offer like that?  Forget helping Kristine, I am thinking of emailing him myself.  I just can't pass up the opportunity to play basketball against a guy who has no plans to go easy on me despite the fact that he has played (semi-)professionally and that I am a girl and THEN I can buy the wine and it's entirely up to me whether I want to make dinner myself or pay for it.  A lot of guys won't give you that option.  What a dove.

If you like what you read here, leave me a comment.  Serious replies only.  I'll only respond if you include a pic.  It would also be nice if you are stunning, as I am stunning.  And you're buying the wine.

This Space For Rent

Wouldn't you like to live here?

A lot of people might have put their ironing board away before photographing their apartment.  Then again, a lot of people might buy plants for the plant stands in the corner of their living room, believing that they should function for more than keeping the cable (running from behind the bookshelf strategically placed in the bedroom) shoved back in the corner.  I am not one of those people.

All of this (plus a parking space!) can be yours (laundry in the basement AND secure storage in the attic!) for the bargain price (all utilities included!) of just $700.  Because I'm moving out.

I'm going back to San Antonio.  It does make me sad to think of leaving Madison.  I have a lot of really good memories here and the weather is just about to get beautiful.  Then again, barring some sort of apocalyptic event (e.g., the apocalypse) there is no chance of one hundred inches of snow in San Antonio.  So there's that.

I've been accepted into an alternative certification program in San Antonio, meaning that I'll complete summer training and then get my provisional license so I can start teaching already this fall.  After participating in more training throughout the school year and given the recommendation of my principal, I can have my full teaching certification by next summer.

I have chosen to teach special ed.  You're welcome.  Because you know I'll have stories.

So I'll finally get a marketable skill and a lucrative job with paid time off and health insurance, while also getting to live with Holly again, be near my family (including certain small people), and wear flip flops three-quarters of the year.  It only makes sense.

Bringing us back to the photos (courtesy of Kristine).  My lease isn't up until August 15, meaning that I need to sublease.  Fortunately the leasing company is perfectly cool with that.  I'm not sure exactly when I'm leaving, but I do need to be in San Antonio by mid-June to start training.  Craig's List, here I come.  (Lake view!  Quiet building!  AC unit thrown in for free!  MORE CHARACTER THAN YOU CAN SHAKE A STICK AT!  THAT EXPRESSION MAKES NO SENSE!)

The Not Ready for HGTV Players

There are actual serious things to say, but Thursday night hardly seems like a time to say them, especially since most of you will read this on Friday, not a serious time at all.  So until I get around to that, here: enjoy this true tale of my ineptitude creative home repair solution.

My alarm goes off at 6:00.  This is so I can snooze a few times and still get up at around within twenty minutes of 6:30.  So I mean to go to bed by 10:00 so I can get eight hours of sleep.  This never, ever happens.

So, at 10:30 one night last week, I was working on reinstalling my wireless router and getting through the pile of To Be Ironed items that had been living on my ironing board for a while.  I heard the smoke detector beep once.  Then again.  Then it was beeping pretty much once a minute or so.  This was going to be problematic for sleeping, seeing as how I can't shut my bedroom door to block out the noise, what with there not being a bedroom door.

Also problematic: my hugely high ceilings.  In my first apartment here in Madison, I'm pretty sure I could have reached the smoke detector by standing on tiptoes.  This apartment, not so much.  Nor could I get within a foot of it by standing on tiptoes on a chair.  The tallest movable item in my apartment that seemed sturdy enough for standing on was my kitchen table.  I know that it will support my weight (recent Girl Scout Cookie binge notwithstanding) since in that first apartment, it was only by sitting on that table that I could get cell service.

I cleared off the table and carried it over to the smoke detector area.  I climbed up.  I was still a good six inches short.  What to do?  There are built-ins on either side of the smoke detector.  Sitting on either would get me up high enough to reach the ceiling.  Unfortunately, with the smoke detector centered between them, I was going to need some go-go gadget arms to reach it from there.

There's this plastic stepstool I have that my parents bought me for my first apartment lo these many years ago, in large part because the thermostat there was located above eye level, so I couldn't see from the ground what temperature I was requesting.  It was getting on 11:00 by this point and the beeping OH MY GOD THE BEEPING so I plunked the stool on top of the table, climbed up on top and angrily clawed at the smoke detector.  Ok, I didn't claw but I did pull that sucker off the ceiling and remove the battery posthaste.

Then I climbed down and put in an online maintenance request for some tall men in possession of a ladder to put a new battery in the following day.  Which they did.

The End

Babies R Cute and Fun For a While and Then You Give Them Back to Their Parents

Did I mention that I was going to be seeing some babies over the weekend?

Baby #1: My new niece, Allie

See how excited she clearly is to be meeting her Aunt Lori?  It only goes downhill from there.  See, in the course of people discussing Allie's skinny legs, it came up about how I was once even smaller than she is.  "Enjoy the skinny legs while they last," I told her, "If I'm any indication, you've got a couple of months, tops."

Baby #2: My slightly older nephew, Owen

Here we are at Christmas.  This is my favorite photo, thanks to the clearly panicked expression on his face, silently pleading with my brother (taking the photo) to please rescue him from the grips of the crazy lady.

And here we are, as of Sunday night.  One of us has put on quite a bit of weight.  For once, that's not me.

That same one of us also got two new teeth and learned to sit up unassisted.  He's working on crawling too, but so far it's pretty much just rocking back and forth while getting increasingly frustrated about not getting where it is he wants to go.  I'm familiar with the feeling.

Here we see Owen and Allie meeting for the first time.  Allie slept through the brief encounter and Owen was thoroughly unimpressed.

You may notice that I am holding onto Owen's right arm there.  That's because his right hand is his dominant smacking hand.  Owen's primary pastime these days: smacking.  His leg, the couch, his toys, even Glow Worm got a good smacking around.  Not his tiny cousin though. 

I did let him go to town on this toy.

He would smack the little doors repeatedly until they all stayed down and I'd pop them all open again.  Then he would turn and look at me with a face that clearly said I just got all of those closed, woman, KNOCK IT OFF.  Oh, what a time we had.  I even got him to sit still in my lap for a few minutes while I read him some books.  What?  It's not like I was teaching him phonics or anything.  We'll get going on that as soon as he turns one.

Yes, I think I like being an aunt.  All of the fun stuff with none of that pesky round-the-clock child-rearing responsibility.  And so far, not a single diaper changed.  That's what grandmas are for.

What I've been doing tonight instead of packing

Inspired by these, I created my own pop culture chart just for you.  Even the most vigilant of coworker spies could not catch me using valuable work time to think up stuff like this.

   

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me (You're welcome for that song.)

In case you hadn't noticed, I've had a bit of a month.  There's the stuff you know about, plus some that you don't.

Question: But Lori, isn't the stuff we know about more than enough to deal with?

Answer: YES.

The fact that Tattletale Coworker has now escalated to full-on spying is pretty much the living end.  I noticed her standing watching me today and then another temp came over to ask whether TC had needed anything from me since she saw her peeking over a cubicle wall at me.  (I wanted to give TC a nastier nickname, but if you think about it, how sad must her life already be if she makes it her personal mission to bust a temp for intermittent internet use?) 

Nevermind that I finished my entire assigned workload for the day by 12:30 and went back three times to get additional work.  No, the important thing is that TC most likely witnessed me printing off a copy of my Federal tax return from the H&R Block website since I forgot to bring it and didn't want to go home before the post office to mail my state return. 

(Yes, ok, I completed my state taxes in January, but I had to call to ask a question and I never, ever remember to make phone calls at appropriate times, which is one of the many reasons I vastly prefer email.  So I called last week and then mailed it today, complete with Ziggy return address label from the ones sent to me by The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.  Really brightened up the taxes, I thought.)

Fortunately, I will only be available for TC's surveillance for two more days this week.  On Friday, I fly to Texas.  I'm going all the way to Dallas on a teeny tiny plane, which is not the model that has been grounded, so I'm hoping that means I'll actually get there.  I'm pretty sure it's another little guy for the rest of the trip.  If my large plane back on Monday got grounded, well it sure would be tragic if I wasn't able to return to the watchful eye of my favorite coworker on time Tuesday morning, wouldn't it?

In the intervening days, there will be babies to snuggle and margaritas to drink, although I will not do both concurrently.  My brother told me that he probably has to work all weekend, but he knows he's not the important one anyway.  That's right, you're not.  It sounds like Owen will be able to catch a ride to me with his mom.  And I am assured that Allie's schedule is wide open for this weekend.

I also see that the pollen forecast jumps from HIGH on Thursday to VERY HIGH in time for my arrival on Friday.  Awesome.  I guess we'll find out whether my new friend Zyrtec is up to the challenge.

In the meantime, I better try to get my internet fix tonight, lest I make TC's awkward attempts at espionage fruitful again tomorrow.  I mean to stymie that woman, if for no other reason than it will provide me another opportunity to say stymie.

Because one of us has to recognize that we're not in third grade

Instead of telling the boss, I'm telling the Internet. 

As I mentioned on Twitter, I'm pretty sure a coworker of mine went and tattled on me to my supervisor that she had seen my email up on my computer when she came into my cubicle.  She then went over to someone else and spent the next ten minutes discussing The Biggest Loser.  I failed to bring this to management's attention.  Because I am a grown up.

When you do the kind of repetitive, mind-numbing work that we do, you need the occasional mental break.  Most of my coworkers accomplish this by standing around talking, making personal phone calls, or going outside to smoke.  This doesn't bother me.  It's totally understandable.  But I don't do any of those things.  For my sanity, I turn to you, Internet.  Which apparently represents a whole different thing to the women I work with, despite the fact that I waste less time than they do and at least I'm quiet about it.

I therefore present to you, and not to my boss, this list of things that I have to listen to them talk about all day, every day:

What has recently happened on The Biggest Loser/Survivor/Big Brother/Dancing with the Stars/America's Next Top Model

Whose kids are learning to drive.  How it's going.  How it went with the people's kids who already learned many years ago.

Whose kids play for which soccer teams.  Which teams invited their kids but they declined.  When the games are.  How much they hope the games are rained out.

How hard each of their husbands are taking Brett Favre's retirement.

The new Taco Bell opening up by the Kwik Trip.  Who loves Taco Bell and to what extent.  Who walks by there during their evening walk and are therefore at a greater Taco Bell binge risk.  How their husbands reacted to the news of the new Taco Bell when they called them to let them know.

What they're cooking for dinner.  Whether and to what extent the husbands and/or kids will complain.  Whether, for what, and where they will need to grocery shop first.

Which store has what deal on which brand of cereal.  This actually turned into a lengthy and heated debate.  I am not kidding.

What diet they are currently on.  Weight loss potential of Slim Fast diet.  When they last did the cabbage soup diet.  The recipe for said cabbage soup.  Who actually liked the cabbage soup.

The current whereabouts of Johnny Depp, who is filming in Wisconsin.  Whose daughters have seen Johnny Depp.  Whether Johnny Depp will take photos with people (consensus: no).  Is Johnny Depp staying in Madison and if so, does he go to the continental breakfast in his hotel?  Could they make the rounds of breakfasts at Madison's nicer hotels and perhaps see Johnny Depp enjoying a bagel or some Special K?

Then there's whatever I miss when I have to turn to my iPod because the constant rattling of all of the snack food packaging is driving me out of my mind.  Cubicle life: not for me. 

I'm working on that, by the way.  Hopefully in the next month or so I'll be able to tell you when I'm leaving the go-go world of data entry and for what job.  I'm not being coy - I'm just not entirely sure yet how it's all going to shake out.  But when I figure it out, you'll be the first to know. 

Provided there aren't any middle-aged tattletales afoot, that is.

Maybe I should have stretched first

I thought I'd give this love list thing a try again.  It's been a while, but as always I think Meg Fowler is right that we can all stand to spend more time thinking about what we love.  So I'll start us out and then you either write your list in the comments or write it on your own blog and leave us the link in a comment.  And here we go:

Thunderstorms.  We had a bit of one last night.

The nice rainy smell outside this morning

Getting to wake up on the weekends whenever I'm ready with no alarm going off

Jon Stewart

Really cold milk

Now that I got the new wheel, my teeth no longer rattle when I drive above 50 mph.

Casual Fridays (although I do still miss the Casual Everydays that I used to have)

Zillions of daffodils for sale at the grocery store

Gnocci with just the right fall-apart-in-your-mouth texture

Reading something that is so smart and well-written that it challenges my ideas on the topic

Reading something only because it makes me laugh, such as the Heather Wells books by Meg Cabot.  Yes, they're chick lit, but in the best possible sense.

Twitter.  How ever did I make it through long, boring temp workdays without it?

Certain babies who are related to me

The Accidental Shower Nap.  I accidentally invented this when I lived with Amy and we'd go to the dog park or something on the weekends and then I'd take a long hot shower and then accidentally lay down on my bed and accidentally fall asleep.  Eventually I would just tell Amy that I was going to take a shower and then an Accidental Shower Nap.  Whoops!  Not as good as the football nap, but it's all that is available to me during this long, brutal off-season.

String cheese

New Scrubs last night!  Which featured brinner (breakfast for dinner) at the same time that I was eating pancakes.  Pancakes as big as my head since I get impatient toward the end of the batter and just start making them huger and huger so I can get finished with the pancake making already.

Classic Melissa Go.  Read.  Laugh.  Thank me later.

But not until after you've written your own love list.

In which Allie demonstrates for you exactly how I feel today

Thank you, Allie, for that dramatic representation.  I bet you had no idea that you had the power to make the internet yawn.  Ah, the things your Aunt Lori will teach you!

Every Now and Then I Fall Apart

Just not in front of anybody.

I've written here before about how I'm a repressed WASPy Midwesterner and don't generally acknowledge that I have feelings at all around very many people, much less what those feelings might be.  I come from a stoic people.  I've been told that I am "hard to read", "inscrutable", and "dead inside".

Plus, when you're pretty even-tempered most of the time, it's all the more shocking to people when you display strong emotion.  As a person who doesn't like to draw attention to herself, I learned early on that emotional outbursts were not in my best interest.

I'm also really neurotic about whether people are doing things for me because they want to or because they feel obligated.  One way of making sure that no one is feeling emotionally manipulated into anything is just to keep emotion out of it as much as possible.

But perhaps most significantly, there's my early religious education.  Wasn't Away in a Manger one the first Christmas carols that you Christian-type folks learned in Sunday school?  Let's consider these lyrics:

The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus no crying he makes.

The message here?  "Yeah, the cows woke the baby Jesus up, but did he cry about it?  He did not.  And you, preschool Sunday schooler, are not even a baby.  What's all the blubbering about?  How about taking a cue from the little Lord Jesus and turning off the waterworks?  You're almost four now.  Get it together."

It's entirely possible that I wouldn't be emotionally stunted at all if not for the Christmas children's program.  Maybe I wouldn't have had to define effusive for my boss last summer after having told her that I'M NOT IT so she'd stop asking me wasn't I excited about whatever it was.  I might even have been able to cry in front of one of my closest friends last month without the benefit of an Irish car bomb and an indeterminate number of Lynchburg lemonades.

Yep, it's definitely all due to early Christmas carol exposure.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

We interrupt my pity party to bring you some HAPPY NEWS FINALLY THANK GOD

It's a niece!  My sister and brother-in-law (although mostly my sister, effort-wise) had a daughter, Allie Charlotte today at 12:28.  She is healthy and, I assume, beautiful. 

Update: She was 6 pounds, 4 ounces and 19 inches.  And here she is:

(I'm going to go ahead and let my sister decide whether she'd like to post photos involving herself just post-giving birth.  You're welcome, Lisa.)