sans widsom

I will always remember the small sign which was perpetually displayed on my dad's fridge: "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Now, I have that sign which has been permanently stained from spaghetti sauce explosions and sticky fingerprints. Although I struggle with that whole gee-oh-dee thing, I have continually tried to let the serenity prayer guide me, admittedly with more success at some times than others. At some point the wisdom snuck out and doesn't seem to be coming back. (It is entirely possible that while leaving, wisdom held the door open and let in the mouse. The mouse is now missing as well.) It seems like a relatively easy task to deal with an issue once you know whether or not you have any control over it. What then, are we supposed to do when we genuinely have no idea whether or not we have any control at all? Wisdom? Baby? You can come home now.

in. love.

This weekend I went to the Metro Arts Two Rivers Expo and found my new favorite thing. Last week was a little rough so I am quite grateful for those things in which I can find a little joy and peace. An Iowa City artist named Bekah Ash immediately won over my heart. I need to be saving money for a variety of important necessities but it would be SO SO SO much more fun to save money to buy one of her larger pieces. For now I settled for a smaller print but I am completely and totally in love with it. She has bunches of her work on flickr and I have already spent far more time than I should sifting through her work and drooling all over myself. I found the print I bought on her flickr site:


totally. in. love.

love it

reCAPTCHA strikes me as an excellent candidate for my list of the most brilliant things ever made. It is directly below my macbook pro and above the cord connecting my ipod to my car stereo. Unfortunately there is no longer room on that list for sliced bread.

for the record

Those gooey electrodes left sticky residue in a variety of places that I have been working very hard to get off. During yoga, my pants repeatedly got stuck to my leg. There was also one on my neck and it now appears that I have a rather well-developed hickey. Make-out party at the sleep clinic?

boooo!

That is the sound of me booing the sticky gooey stuff smeared into my hair. Now whoa tiger, before your mind goes down the gutter too far, know that I had a sleep study last night so I was hooked up to approximately 5.7 million cords, wires, electrodes, and what appeared to be the control pad that Al used to make Sam time travel in Quantum Leap. The woman that did all the hooking up (also the woman that watched me sleep all night via the camera above my bed) assures me that the goo will all come out easily in the shower. I was going to try to not shower until after I work out, thinking maybe a hat or a ponytail could buy me some time, but that is clearly not an option. There is something not amusing about a stranger waking you up at 5:45am, turning on all the lights, and then declaring that you look like a punk rocker. The moral of the story is if you see me today and my hair causes me to look like Nick Nolte's mug shot, try to be gentle. If you haven't seen his mug shot you really should go to that link. If you have already seen it, you should go again because as I just discovered, it gets more hilarious over time.

hooked on a feeling

Some might say two in one weekend is a bit much. I'm not worried. I am especially excited for yoga on Monday so someone can ask me what is on my foot and I can show them the coolest tattoo they will ever see in their life.

Laying it out:


Deep breathing:


Hooray!:

commitment

I find commitment to inanimate objects much easier than to people. Sometimes, maybe a little too easy. Several years ago I got a tattoo that I was quite smitten with. Over time though, I grew less and less impressed with it and decided that I wanted to change it. Today I finally followed through and made some updates. Here are the official pictures of the transformation from star to lotus flower:

encore

Two posts in one day - ooooh!

As long as I am on a roll of passing along gems from my favorite blog goldmines, I might as well send you this link. Slate Magazine is something, much like Thai food and Weeds (the show, duh) that I just cannot seem to get enough of sometimes. I have avoided writing anything about the election and I am not particularly sure why. I somehow doubt I will begin a Dooce-like event. So maybe I will tackle that before too long.

In the mean time, suffice it to say that identity and persona are playing huge roles in this election. Dare I say more so that ever before? Hillary Clinton's campaign and now Sarah Palin's are inducing some interesting insights about sex/gender and politics. The debater in me found this to be particularly interesting because let's face it - a lot of us had already thought about some of this. Maybe I should wear my "Debate Like a Girl" t-shirt today.

On a side/unrelated note, gmail has a series of links at the top of the page and they are clearly tailored to the emails you send. For instance, I bought a laptop bag and the email confirmations induced links about computer bags. Given the large numbers of emails which include the word debate, I often get links about debate-type things. Recently the only link gmail can find about debate is a reference to a joke that tops my list of most-hated jokes, ever, in the history of ever. Come on gmail, get it together.

good thinking

As I did my daily perusing of blogs I came across a this video on Boing Boing. As soon as that nice old man started talking I burst into laughter. I cannot be entirely sure why it was so funny to me but for right now I will blame it on the fact that I am so congested I have become delirious. It did inspire me though, so I think I will work on taking more movies. I have recently become a little better at taking more pictures, as evidenced by the fact that iphoto has found a permanent home in my dock. For you non mac lovers, 1. shame on you, 2. that just means I use it a lot.

So I will give this whole movie thing a go and then maybe I will make something fantastic. Maybe. I am still in the process of thinking that thought (One of my favorite people said something like that in a meeting yesterday and I vowed to find some way to use it - success.)

Back to my beloved blogs and blowing my nose.

mmm cake

When I tried to declare my booty a "pancake booty" the other night, a friend explained that I actually have an "angel food cake booty." The end.

things I forgot i knew

Everyone has bad days but that does not seem to make them any easier. Knowing that the next day could get better does not make a lousy day feel better. However, having several lousy days in a row does make a day that might have previously been categorized as mediocre feel like winning the lottery. I can only imagine how tomorrow will feel when I actually win the lottery. And by lottery I mean finally get a paycheck which brings me above the poverty line for the first time in, well, ever.

screaming may now commence

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

long awaited updates

It seems I have been missed during my blogging hiatus - there were IMs, phone calls, emails, people knocking on my door, registered letters, the whole works just to see what was happening to Kesley Hair.* The thesis got totally finished and turned in and then I had nothing left to procrastinate so I took a break from blogging. Good news though, school starts Monday so there is plenty to procrastinate again - thank goodness.

Life has not been all that exciting and the feelings of pure bliss associated with finishing a Master's degree faded more quickly than I had hoped they would. In just a few days I will officially be employed in my first, truly full-time job. I add truly because I have been working more than full-time the last two years but it paid so little sometimes I feel like it didn't count.

My new favorite hobby is making lists of things I am going to buy with my first paycheck. Unfortunately, there are a lot of necessities that have been moved up the priority list and some fun stuff has been moved to the bottom but eventually I will get there. I have been considering personalized license plates but the reality is that I can't handle that sort of commitment so instead I have been shopping for new tattoos, good thinking, huh? I have vowed to take myself on a celebratory date to have a dinner where I don't even think about the prices. Then I am going to come home and do nothing the rest of the night because that is what non-students do. Speaking of things non-students do, sleep every night. I think I will go do that now.


* Okay there was only one IM asking about the blog but still, I am sure the rest of you were on the verge of missing me.

for the record

Want to know what is better after you have successfully defended your master's thesis?

EVERYTHING!

kesley hair: word ruiner

Usually the closer I get to any sort of intense culmination of work, the more nervous I get. And I don't want to jinx myself into a panic attack tomorrow morning but I am actually feeling okay about tomorrow. I don't know if it was the thai food, under-baked brownie, or the nap but I just feel ready to go rock this thing and be done with it. Yay for late-night confidence boosts!

On a totally unrelated note, I have a new hobby that I am really quite good at. My ears are finely tuned to recognize when people use the words gyped, jipped, gyp, etc. Why do so many professional media outlets insist on saying that? You got "gyped" out of a beer? No! You went to a bar where a bartender gave you a poorly-poured beer. I don't mean to go all lexicographer on you or anything but for the record, the cool kids don't use those words anymore. The cool kids decided genocide wasn't as funny, well, once they realized they were talking about genocide. Don't worry, you are good people, you just need a little vocab update and then you will be as good as new. I have plenty of other words I can ruin for you some other time.

so close

In a mere 25 hours I defend my thesis. I have been waiting for this day for what feels like eternity and now all I can think of it how badly I want it to be over. On a scale of 1 to "uh oh"
anxiety levels are at an "oh shit."

pure bliss

I was determined to kayak today despite it being overcast all morning. The water was so still and calm - it was perfect kayaking. Then the clouds got darker, it began to mist, then sprinkle, and eventually I was in a downpour. At first I was a little fearful that I would die from a lightning strike but it was actually kind of nice to just accept that I was going to be soaked and to take my time. By the time I got back to the cabin the clouds had moved on and now we have the most perfect weather ever. I kayaked a while longer and now I'm laying on the end of the dock listening to the water hit the shore and my ipod in the background. I know I have a bunch of edits waiting to be finished inside but I just cannot bear to go inside right now.

I love blogging but boy oh boy do I love blogging from the end of a dock when I am this insanely happy and relaxed.

Go on AT&T, do your thing...
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

from the dock

I barely had to lift my head to take this - vacation and technology at their best.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

lake days

Believe it or not I have actually gotten a fair amount of work done while on vacation. Right now I'm laying on the dock soaking up my fair share of cancerous sunrays while my ipod sings me to sleep. Maybe I will go kayaking later, maybe I won't. That's the beauty of vacation - I can do anything I want. I am so stress free right now I don't even care that AT&T forces me to have a goofy signature.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

updates

1. I did not, I repeat, did not win a Wii. Oddly enough, I am okay with it. If I am going to have something insanely unlikely (yet insanely good) happen to me I think I will hold out for cash money or a dissertation.

2. Arrested Development might be one of the best shows I have ever watched. My sincere apologies for not watching it sooner.

3. This Hulu thing does not impress me in the least. There is all this talk about it being the next Youtube but it has not been as good to me as it has been to others. Although it has been my sole source for the first season of Arrested Development, it is slower than slow and stutters.

4. This vlog is the best combination of awkwardness and awesomeness I have seen since Hanson.

blogging in bed

The novelty of a mucked up sleeping schedule has worn off. I miss the days where getting into bed was followed by sleep. I even miss the days where I woke up in the middle of the night a lot because by definition that meant I was sleeping at least part of the time during the night. Most of all I miss waking up not feeling like a city bus had been parked on me all night. Ugh.

I am not old enough for this sort of stuff. I swear yesterday I was 19 and most concerned with the daily dilemma of classes that met at the same time my favorite tv show was on. I can't even bear to label this post "disappointment."

On a more positive note, not sleeping has allowed me to be nearly finished packing for vacation AND to clean up around home a little. Coming home to a messy place always makes the sting of vacation ending that much worse. I am spending a week at the Minnesota cabin I spent all my childhood summers. Maybe what this sleepy woman needs is some good Minnesota air and a little mosquito poison in her bloodstream.

Okay, take 72 on this sleeping deal - don't let the bed blogs bite!

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

life goals 1, artistic ability 0

I know that I said if this project of mine didn't turn out well that I was going to delete all evidence of the idea. However, now that I actually managed to do something with all the pieces that had been camped out on my table for weeks now, I feel like I should get credit for not giving up before I started. I am also not convinced that it looks like something done by someone over the age of 7 (which is sad given it is tassels up through an M.A.). So I need a little help to figure out what to do with it to make it better. FYI I tried the whole white matte behind the tassel thing and it just looked really odd.

I forgot to take any pictures while I was actually making this trainwreck because I was too busy cursing and measuring without any real measuring device. Here it is right after I finished it:



After it sat just like that, on that very table for a few days, I finally got motivated to hang it on the wall, even though I will probably change it. I figure the wall is a good place to start storing things so that I can put different junk on the tables. Yea for fitting more junk in this tiny apartment! So here it is on the wall:


What you have probably noticed by now is that despite being from the same school, the black tassel is actually significantly shorter than the gold one. The idea was to leave space for the fourth tassel and to have an empty hook/pin for it. (I was thinking this would be good motivation, as if I would finish a Ph.D. just to avoid repositioning the tassels in a shadow box I will probably lose in the move anyways.) There is an empty pin but the pins are so small you cannot really see the empty pin unless you are up close. So now it just looks like I am horrible at evenly spacing. The small pins are nice because they don't really show from behind the tassels. I'm lost. Help.

I never knew how much disappointment was in my life until I started blogging.

vlogging gives me heartburn

either that or staying up late drinking caffeine does. If I were a bettin' woman, which I am, I would bet on the vlogging.

lucky # 10193

Tonight was a fairly low-key Monday evening. Despite having a list of things that I SHOULD have been doing, I opted to do only the things I WANTED to do. I am not sure my should and want lists will ever become the same list, but now I can write them on the same piece of paper and I think that is a sign of real progress.

Something I always WANT to do is read blogs. In case starting a blog of my own didn't immediately make you think "THAT WOMAN IS ADDICTED TO BLOGS NOW," I should probably warn you that I really love blogs. I especially love reading them on my new laptop . One of my favorites, Dooce, is one of the greatest blogs in this whole blog-oh-sphere. If you don't read it you need to start. Not tomorrow, or even after you finish reading this post, right now. Don't even scroll back to find the original link, just click here.

Today on Dooce Heather announced a context for a Wii and Wii Fit. Well I, for one, was pumped for several reasons.

1. Winners are chosen by random which has got to up the odds of a nobody.
2. I really want a Wii so that I can take pictures of people (myself included) looking like an idiot while using it
3. Wii Fit increases the chances of people looking like idiots by a factor of 1 million.
4. My only current game console is Nintendo, yeah, NES. I can play Mario Brothers, Duck Hunt, Jeopardy, or Sesame Street. Moving my gaming up a few decades might be good for my karma.
5. I have grandiose visions of Wii parties where we play Wii Fit and drink to toast Heather every time someone falls.

Moral of the story? I really want a Wii so I posted on her comments to officially get myself in the running.

(click to see all it's glory in full size)

The winners will be selected randomly by their post number, therefore, until this is all over, my lucky number is 10193.

Comedy legend Mitch Hedberg one time explained, "My lucky number is 4 billion, that doesn't come in real handy when your gambling. I'm gonna need some more dice, 4 billion divided by 6, at least."

Well I would be in a similar predicament if it weren't for the fact that I do not roll any dice, let alone enough to ever roll a 10193. No, I don't roll dice, I read blogs. And I think that reading blogs brings me more luck than any pair of dice ever has. It's no wonder I WANT to read blogs. I am not sure any of the things I SHOULD do have ever gotten me even this close to a free Wii. I guess a Wii is the very thing that is preventing my WANTS and SHOULDS lists from coming together to form one, harmonious list. Maybe if I got a free Wii everything would just sorta fall into place.

Come on 10193!

a little essentialism and a lot 'o truth

For those of you who don't know (read: apparently live under a rock), the midwest has been mere days away from calling up Noah to build us an arc. Recent flooding had really taken its toll on communities across the midwest and a lot of folks are still trying to get back to normal. As I found out 15 years ago, floods change not only major parts of life but also day to day life. This evening I was faced with one of the more horrific "changes."

My very favorite coffee shop, which I cannot speak of highly enough (despite them being the only coffee shop on the planet to not have wireless internet), has been forced to make a dramatic flood-related change. Since the floods began, the men's bathroom has been labeled a "danger zone.". This has obviously forced all the male customers to seek refuge in the women's bathroom for all their intestinal needs.

I know I have an unusually high demand for bathroom privacy but this is a one-person sorta set up - so how bad could it be, right? It's bad, real bad. I just do not understand what goes on when men get in the bathroom that forces urine all over the same areas that I will later sit, touch, and put things. Do some men attempt a simultaneous bladder-emptying/macarena move? I feel confident that the new male users are the problem because after more than seven years of frequent trips to this place, I have never encountered such a scenario.

I have faith that not all men suffer from this clearly atrocious affliction. I welcome those men into my clean coffee shop bathroom long after the floodwaters have receeded. To the other men, if you cannot control yourself in more socially acceptable ways please lay off the coffee and wait until you get home to make your messes.

Cue the forced signature...
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

not so mobile upload

I only like to pretend that I am a tech goddess - the truth is that I have to work very hard at faking it. (Faking other things, such as my desire to have a purple and silver swirl chair, see below, come more naturally). So I tried out blogging from my phone and it was quite the success.

The picture is of the remains of the first meat I ate in I don't know how many years. Yes, it was Applebees. I know that is not the best place to start eating meat again but not everything can be perfectly-planned.

Now if I can just figure out a way around AT&T's penchant for an idiot signature on all emails sent from my phone. I do not need to alert everyone I email that I have a blackberry. This is why I get pegged as tech-savvy in the first place. I bet the iphone doesn't do that. sigh

mobile upload of triumph

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

an open letter to all grad students (and my future self)

As the saying goes, sometimes the truth hurts. But I think it hurts the most when it sneaks up on you. So I would like to take this opportunity to give you (and remind the me that will be back in grad school a little over a year from now) the cold hard truth about graduate school. I may not be the ultimate authority on grad school but there are a few things that I am quite certain of and this is one of them:

You are going to hate it. And by hate it I mean you will be convinced you somehow cheated your way in or were admitted out of pure pity. You will think you are mere days away from having everyone find out that you cannot actually cut it. You will tell yourself weekly (if not daily) that you have no hope of ever finishing whatever degree it is you are working on. Some days you will not even know why you decided to get that degree in the first place. Most of all, you will think about how much better your life would have been if you had not gone to grad school.

But know this, if you did not go through that process you would not be doing it right. The fact that you never think you can do it and you still continue to find the guts to come back every day is proof you were meant for this place and that you are just crazy enough to succeed.

***This was on the "old" blog - something I wrote in the middle of the night and we all know night-writing is the most honest. It is at least if you have recently drank a can of Diet Rockstar.

post #1

There is a lot of pressure to make the first post good so I wanted to get it over with. I also wanted to set low expectations for future post titles.

***This was from the "old" blog and I wanted to bring it on over so that you could understand exactly how low expectations should be for this blog - probably even lower than the last blog, which you never knew existed.

Post #3

Although it might appear as though this is the first post on this blog I can assure you it is not. In fact, the other two posts from the old blog (and by old I mean new last week) will eventually get shuffled over here. I am only posting to announce my new membership in netflix. I thought it was going to be totally rad when I found out I could watch unlimited amounts of movies online. Then DOOOOHH!!! (That is the sound my head makes when it falls back in disappointment.) As it turns out netflix immediate viewing stuff is only available for PC users. Something about DRM stuff. After everything they have available cant some techny guy figure this bull crap out on their lunch break? Very frustrating to say the least.

I also have two new life goals - and by life goal I mean something I would like to do in the next few months but if it never really gets started then okay and we are no worse for the wear.

1. Recover the purple/silver/swirl chair in my living room so that it looks like something that I put into the room and not something someone guilted me into keeping. The chair is good - but not for my place. I will post some pics - probably of me looking confused over a pile of fabric, pins, and needles.

2. Memory box with tassels - this is something that will either catch on and everyone will be doing it or it will be dumb, which will force me to delete this portion of this post, and we will never speak of it again. I really feel like I can trust the interwebs enough not to bring up failed ideas long after they...well...failed.

Okay back to working on my netflix que/cue thing and then bed.