Lime in my Squid

When I was a very small child, I knew that when I grew up, I was going to be a dog. Once I got a little older, I grew out of that phase for a little while and decided that I was going to be the first person to photograph a live giant squid in the wild. Now, I didn’t really make a big deal out of this, and it wasn’t as though I was ever super interested in squid, but in the back of my mind and the bottom corner of my heart, I held on to a secret hope that my life would work itself out and I would be the one to photograph one of those suckers.

Obviously, since the event has come and gone without me, this life goal has been shattered into a million pieces. Which is fine, I suppose, because the odds have always been slim-to-none that I’d even go into the field of marine biology anyway, especially as a field researcher. This doesn’t explain the soul crushing disappointment I felt when I saw those stills for the first time (in my defense, the disappointment was quickly followed by elation and awe).

Lime is better than lemon in iced tea.

I have a pet snaked who is named Spike. I’ll admit that his name is sheer laziness on my part. I’m not all that fond of it, but he used to belong to my cousin, and while I could have tried to think of a slightly more mature name, I didn’t do it. He is a Kenyan Sand Boa, and is very pretty. He is, however, the most useless pet I’ve ever had. This is, of course, not his fault. He’s a snake. He’s a desert snake. Of course he’s not interactive, and of course he is completely uninterested in me. That’s fine, but the kicker is that he lives under the sand. So I basically have a nearly empty terrarium that I feed mice to once in a while. Despite this, I’m still very attached to the snake, which baffles me.

Spike’s terrarium lives on top of my bookshelf, and I feel slightly funny right now, because my books are completely discombobulated. Now, I don’t need them in alphabetical order by author’s cat’s maiden name or anything, but it would be nice if there was some sort of system here. I feel funny about having Poe touching Napoleon’s Buttons. Richard Dawkins is jammed haphazardly between the novelization of X-Men2 and the Mini-Atlas of Cats! Madness! On the positive side, though, at least they aren’t dusty anymore.

I am completely addicted to chapstick. I am more upset when I realize that I’ve left my lip balm at home for the day than I am when I realize I’ve forgotten my calculator before a chemistry exam. If I think the word “chapstick” to myself, I have to apply it or I freak out about the pain that my lips will be in. I didn’t think any of this was such a big deal until I found out that there is this anti-lip balm movement. Then I thought to myself, the movement has to be fake, right? So now I’m doubly insecure-- on the on hand, what if there is a movement and they’re right? Have I been bringing about the downfall of modern man by wearing lip balm? (And oh god-- have they even seen my lip gloss collection?!) And on the other hand, have I been duped into caring? It has to be a fake organization-- but what if it isn’t? On the outside, I don’t care. They don’t have to wear chapstick, and I’m sure they don’t really care that much when I do. Still, it always bothers me when I think that people might disapprove of something that I do when it hasn’t occurred to me that they might care at all. It doesn’t bother me when I offend people as long as I know in advance that I am committing a social sin. But it is mortifying to me to think that I may have accidentally made someone judge me. This is why I don’t mind little old ladies glaring at me while I wear a tube-top, but if my pants slip down and I bend over I’m terrified that someone may have seen my underwear. I also hate it when my brand new white socks get those first gray stains on top. What are those even from?