an earthquake in Illinois?

Indeed.

I felt it this morning, but was so half-asleep that I didn't really stop to wonder what it was.

I just went back to my very important work of drooling and sleeping.

the ice storm

It's magnificent. It's monstrous. It's dramatic and, yes, it has been deadly. Ice storm 2007.

On Saturday S. and I were at the grocery store and he was gonna pick up a couple more jugs of ice melt, but they were kinda pricey, so we decided to wait. Big mistake. This morning he got up early early and went to a couple stores before work. None. A rumor that one of the other grocery stores has some left. I go on my way into school. There are literally nine 10-pound bags left in the store--left in the two cities, that is. I bought two and felt like a selfish pig.

At about 4:45 this afternoon, while in my office collecting final papers, I happen to be online looking at the local newspaper's site and I see that the town of Normal has donated 6 tons of salt. They've dropped it at the Home Depot and people can bring their buckets and load up. I call S., who's already home from work.

Me: What're you doing?

He: Nothing. Having some alone time.

Me: There's free salt at the Home Depot. You just gotta bring your own bucket.

He: Can't you go on the way home?

Me: I don't have a bucket.

He whines.

Me: You've been home for an hour. That's plenty of alone time. Plus I don't have a bucket.

He whines some more.

Me: I've got to stop at Target on the way home to get tampons, so I'll be a while.

He: You could buy a bucket at Target.

I only wish I had said this, but I didn't think of it until after, but this is my blog, so I'll write it anyway: Buy a bucket to get the free salt?

He finally agrees to go. I stay at school till a little after 5, make my way to Target, pick out a few things in addition to the tampons, and am standing in line when I hear people talking about how all the salt at the Home Depot is already gone. 6 tons is already gone.

I call him once I get in the car. He's home already. His alone time was interrupted so that he could grab a bucket and go circle the Home Depot parking lot like an idiot.

Good thing I didn't buy a bucket. I'm just sayin'.

order up!

Yesterday I put in an order for some fall weather. Um, hello, I like hot weather and all, but not at the beginning of October for days on end. The reason I love October (aside from the obvious reason of PRESENTS! for my birthday) is the cool, crisp weather and the crunchy leaves. Pittin' out in class is not fun in August, never mind 8 weeks in.

So this morning was nice and chillers when I got up. The forecast calls for a high of 81, but 60s and 70s for the rest of the week.

Perfect.

on humidity and frizzy hair

S. and I have begun a couple of home-improvement projects at his house, largely because if a social worker ever stopped by the house and saw the state of the carpet, they'd take me away from him. I've begun the grueling process of removing the wallpaper from the hallway bathroom--and let me just say that it's been g.r.u.e.l.i.n.g. But perhaps its best that I chose to begin with this project because the other painting project will seem like a cinch in comparison.

We're painting the living room Old Mill Blue and, though I can't find it on the Dutch Boy website, it's a medium purplish blue. It's gonna look fabulous because THEN we're putting in fake wood floors in the living room, dining room, and hallway, and Jesus H., the house will be completely transformed. The wood furniture in the living room is dark, the couch and sofa are light, and the walls are gonna give the room a burst of color. Fabulous.

But that's not what this post is about. It's about humidity and hair. See, yesterday I figured out that the best way to get the wallpaper to peel off the bathroom walls is to turn on the shower super hot and shut the door. I was in a sauna. The sweat was dripping from all parts of my body. My hair looked like little Orphan Annie's. Let's just say it weren't pretty.

And this reminded me of my 7th grade science project. I wasn't really all that into science, so I went to the library and read through a few books about the weather. I found one such project that demonstrated the effect of humidity on one's hair. I shit you not. All you had to do was get a piece of long human hair (I had to ask many friends for samples, as mine wasn't long enough) and tie it up to this contraption. Turn on the water super super hot and watch as the hair begins to shrink.

The story of my frizzy headed summer life. My project earned an A even though when we turned the hot water on in the science classroom, it didn't get hot enough, so I and another girl took the contraption to the girls' bathroom to turn it on really hot.

My 7th grade science teacher was named Mr. Such. Isn't that a funny name? Mr. Such and Such.

A lifelong battle against the elements. That's what my hair has endured and will continue to endure until I decide to up and move to Arizona.

cruel, cruel April

Imagine if I were a person prone to depression.

Oh, wait a minute. I am one of those. And this month is going to be the death of me.

THIS WEATHER is enough to make Pollyanna shoot herself. Drizzly, cold, gray, miserable.

Because I'm on meds, I work to look for the silver lining, and here's what I came up with: at least with weather like this, I don't ever feel like I'm missing out on a gorgeous day when I'm sitting in a classroom. THAT'S IT. That's all I could do.

I feel like I'm trapped in a cruel joke.

Dar Williams' song "After All" comes to me now:

And it felt like a winter machine
That you go through and then
You catch your breath and winter starts again
And everyone else is spring bound

doggone April

happy Spring
Originally uploaded by aerobil.

Here's Belly in our front yard chomping on a Nylabone, happy as can be. As I used the front porch to assemble a new table-top gas grill (S. believes 100% in charcoal grills--he's afraid to blow himself up), Belly kept watch over the neighborhood on this gorgeous, gorgeous spring Monday afternoon. You can see that already the grass is ready to be mown. And yet it's gonna get down to the 40s again by Wednesday.

Chomp chomp.

oh good lord I needed this weather

52 degrees. Life already looks so much better (not that it was looking bad, mind you, but you get my drift), and on Sunday we get an extra hour of daylight.

First day of spring break. Today's plans: Nuttin, nuttin, and a little more, um, nuttin. I went to bed around 11:30, had massively weird dreams, woke up at one point with an appendage attached to my upper body that had utterly no feeling, shook it a bit, and went back to sleep. Woke up at about 8, let the girl outside, and went back to bed. For two more hours. Holy sheee-it. I was a tired girl. Poor Belly was abandoned outside for two hours, but she made good use of her time. She picked up all the poop and then picked up all the sticks and put them in a neat pile for me to carry to the curb. When I finally let her in, she was a bit clingy, more so than usual. Poor girl thinks her mommy abandoned her. I have been known to fall back asleep, leaving her out there in the rain. In a yard with no shelter whatsoever. But today is the start of a string of days in the 50s, so the guilt shall evaporate relatively quickly.

Since getting those last two articles accepted, I've been a bit easier on myself about relaxing, taking entire days off because I need them, trusting that the work I'm doing is good, that I'm being productive even when it feels like I'm not. Giving myself a break.

For more laughs, I present you with this, wholly unrelated to the rest of this post. Context: in the car on the way home from dinner.

Me: My butt really is getting smaller. I just bought these pants a size smaller and they're already sagging.

S.: I keep telling you that.

Me: You love my butt.

S.: I do.

Me (classic): You mean you didn't love my big butt?

S.: Of course I did.

Me: Wrong answer. You're supposed to say I never really had a big butt.

S.: Please don't blog this.

Me: I can't help it. It's a compulsion.

SNOW DAY!

I feel like a kid again. Well, I felt like a kid again for about 30 seconds until I immediately began planning how I'd use this gift of a day: responding to chapters, figuring out how to make up for this lost time in my classes--that kind of thing. But there will be a trek out in this blizzard, no doubt, each of us girls with our boots and our coats on.

The last time ISU closed was December 1, and that was a Friday, so it didn't affect my classes. The time before that nobody can remember. Is the weather really getting worse or are we turning into bigger and bigger wussies because of the relative rarity of this kind of weather? Syracuse always got much much worse weather than this, and it never closed once during my four years there. (It didn't even close on 9/11.) Ditto for my undergrad and master's institutions, both in Massachusetts.

I love the drama of it all. I've always loved dramatic weather. Love love love thunderstorms, especially really bad ones, and when I lived in Alaska for a year, that was something I really missed. Belly and I shall spend some quality time today watching the snow blow around, taking comfort in our warm home and lots of blankies. Too bad she can't share a cup of hot cocoa with me.

2 years ago when it was this cold, I almost got a cat

I miss my dog park friends. We haven't been to the park since Monday, and even then it was for only a half hour. Before that, I can't remember when we'd been last. It's just been too damn cold. Even with her coat and her boots, Annabelle can't last very long in these temperatures. Last night she came in from her last call at around 11:00, and she was shaking, tail between her legs, so damn cold and wondering why her mommy sent her out there in the first place.

During my first winter here, two years ago, I seriously considered getting a cat. I wanted Belly to have something to chase, er, to play with so that she wouldn't drive me quite as nuts. She's two years older now, of course, so she doesn't need quite as much exercise as she needed when she was 3, but there are still those moments when I think she just might drive me to drink. So I bundle her up and I bundle myself up and we go for a walk and my boogers freeze and her boogers freeze and we come home and snuggle up with some hot tea.

But life is really so much less fun without my dog park friends. I'm doubting we'll be going tomorrow morning, as the HIGH temperature is predicted to be 14, with a "realfeel" of -1. That's the HIGH. Mother o' god.

Wake me up when this shit's over.