mmmm...pie

Yay! It's spring...unfortunately that means it is raining...a lot. Water is falling from the sky, work is raining onto my desk and flooding my personal life. As I'm drowning in work, there has been very little time to spend on the thesis. However, I have gotten a few more pages written this week and have some resources from which I hope more genius-type words will be inspired. Enough with the boring update, here is a visual representation of what I have been spending my time on since Monday (not including the time it has taken to create this chart):


More thesis work will be done this weekend and hopefully more time will also be spent sleeping and avoiding the office. Have a great weekend. Have a drink. Get laid. Do both responsibly (because I've got too much going on to worry about your drunk ass getting coated in random, infested naughty juices).

why the man's parents seem to like me better

1. they don't have a daughter of their own
2. they never had to wipe my ass
3. they've never seen me throw a tantrum
4. they didn't know me during my annoying, adolescent angsty years
5. they don't look at me and see a resemblance to his estranged father
6. they buy me presents and are nice to me so that I won't leave the man (This point was raised by the man. Also, according to his mom, all the ex-girlfriends were bitches.)
7. they've never worried that my naughty parts would impregnate someone else's naughty parts (see above comment about bitchy ex-girlfriends)
8. I remind the man to call them on holidays and birthdays
9. they get better presents when I pick them out
10. I nag him so they don't have to

ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

I cut about eight inches off my hair last night. Actually, my hairstylist Amy did it. I wasn't going after the celebrity bob style, I just wanted something different. I like it. I had my hair very similar to this when I graduated with my bachelor's degree in 2003. I had not purposely scheduled my haircut appointment to conflict with the arrival of the man's parents from Oklahoma, but I did think it was a pleasant surprise that I wouldn't have to eat dinner with them last night. Unfortunately, it worked out that the time conflict didn't matter and we all (the man, his parents, and two sets of grandparents) went out for dinner after my appointment.

Needless to say, the man was surprised that my hair had been chopped off. Not because he hadn't seen it short, it had been MUCH shorter when we first started dating, but rather because he had no idea that I was thinking about doing it. I don't feel like I have to ask him before doing these kinds of things, but it is still nice to feel like I'm doing something naughty by surprising him.

Oh yes, the man's mom and stepdad are in town through Sunday. They stayed with us last night, but will be staying at a hotel for the remainder of the trip. The man is upset by this, but I don't think it is a bad idea because this way I will retain full usage of my den/spare bedroom. Yes, I am selfish. Do I care? Not quite.

We will still be spending a lot of time with them, but will not be tied to the house in the evenings. I'm sure we will be getting some free meals out of it, and it is always fun to hear about the man as a kid (I just found out he was a chubby kid until he went to kindergarten, HA!). The weather was a balmy 73 degrees yesterday and the last thing I wanted to do was sit around the house entertaining company. I really like the man's parents, but I'm not a good hostess.

Also, I haven't reported on my thesis progress. I know I bitched about the weather, which did try to engulf my very being while I was back in MN, the evil soul-sucking state. [I wonder why they don't put that on the license plates? It would be so much catchier than "10,000 Lakes."] It was good to be back, but it was also good to come home. The trip was very productive despite the blizzard.

I am feeling so much better about the whole project that I can't even explain it. And, I can honestly say that my thesis doesn't feel as taxing as it had been and that I kind of WANT TO work on it. Not just to finish it, but because I have a renewed interest. Whew...that is a damned good thing because I had been considering an early death to avoid finishing it.

groceries?

I'm writing my grocery list and so far the only two items are:

• birthday card for Dad
• condoms

Obviously, the birthday card is for my dad and the condoms are for the sex I have out of wedlock with my live-in boyfriend (I'm sure my father doesn't approve of either the sex or the living in sin). Hmm...and I guess I also need some Cheerios, which apply to neither of the aforementioned items. Oh, the juxtaposition!

i spoke too soon

I'm in Minnesota. We're buried in snow. Not just a little snow, upwards of a foot with at least five more inches coming in the next couple days. It seems that hell (MN) has officially frozen over.

Thankfully, Kristen is willing to let me stay an extra day if need be so that I don't have to drive in horrid conditions. Either that, or she wants an extra pair of hands to help shovel out...I'm sure it is a mixture of the two. This way we will at least get to spend some non-work time hanging out. It is so nice to be able to see some of my good friends again. Also, it was so comforting to be spending time at the library again. It almost makes me miss this place. I have not run into any of the people whom I didn't want to see and so far the time I have spent with my friends has been great. I just wish we weren't so far away from each other.

I will post more about my thesis progress at a later date.

on the road again

I leave today at 1:00 to go to Minnesota, where I will work on my thesis and hopefully make substantial progress toward finishing the first draft. Also, and very important to note, I will be able to spend some time with friends whom I have only seen intermittently since I left college. I am so excited about seeing my friends that this trip is bearable. Without that sunny spot in the trip, the whole thing would feel like hell.

I haven't tried to hide the fact that I hated living in St. Cloud, Minnesota. I didn't like the closed-mindedness of the city and, with the exception of my friends and a few coworkers, I was unimpressed by the caliber of people who lived there. That sounds snobby, but it isn't intended to be. I think I just outgrew St. Cloud about a year into my stint there, and going overseas for a semester made all of the issues I had with the location bubble up to the surface. Everything felt suffocating and so small in the grand scheme of things and it bothered me that people were happy with that, happy with staying in a holding pattern and not striving for more. That perspective created one goal for my future: leaving Minnesota for "greener pastures." Part of the reason I am dreading going back is because I haven't done as much as I thought I would have by this time. And the one thing holding me back is the one thing I should've finished before I left. Finishing my thesis will be like shedding a skin that has been suffocating me for the nearly two and a half years since I left Minnesota.

As much as I want to finish my thesis, I am scared to death of failing at it. It is a scary proposition and I've been out of the college mindset for what feels like forever. Damned procrastination, I wish I would have finished this before I ever left, but I couldn't bear to stay any longer than I had to. To be honest, I would rather do so many things other than continue writing this paper. So many things. Anything, actually. That is why it has taken me so damned long. That, and I don't feel like I know what the hell I'm doing half the time.

I understand why people pay others to write their theses for them. If only I weren't broke and didn't have a conscience.

love/hate

Hello springtime. I love you, but I hate you. With the onset of spring comes the onset of the incessant sneezing and brain throbbing associated with my springtime allergies. I took the damned medicine today and it is not working. Perhaps it has something to do with the ten hours I spent outside this weekend inhaling the nasty pollen being spewed from who knows where. Perhaps it has something to do with all the swearing I did back when it was wintertime. Maybe I'm being punished for all of my ill will toward Mother(fucker) Nature.

All I know is, it had better stay springtime if I'm going to have to suffer the allergy part of it. That means NO MORE SNOW. I mean it.

flavor

I've come to the conclusion that French vanilla flavoring means that something will taste like vanilla with a hint of cigarette smoke. At least that is what this flavored creamer I just added to my hot chocolate seems to do.