Evolution and Mountain Dew

I really like mountain dew. Especially the livewire one. You know, the kind with the orange flavor in it. I think they stopped making it or something, but the store near us still sells it. Sometimes I wonder if they didn’t just buy a really big case of it and just haven’t gone through it yet. I also wonder how old the snickers with almonds are. Oh, and my parents brought me some of those after dinner mints. Those ones that look like little mouse pillows. Not mouse poos, but little pillows. I love them. The texture is amazing-- they’re like eating soft chalk.

I like sour pickles better than the sweet ones.

I read a really terrible book recently, and in it the author had a character mention the fact that women can tuck their legs up under themselves, but men can’t. The statement niggled at me for a few days before I realized that most of the men folk on my mom’s side of the family can actually put their legs under themselves. In fact, my cousin (who is quite a bit older than I am) often sits on the floor with his knees on the floor and his feet near his butt (just the way my sister and I prefer to sit on the floor). Ah well, I suppose I should just chalk it up to artistic license and let it go.

I feel prettier than normal when I wear purple. I don’t know why this is true, but it is. Whenever I acknowledge this, it briefly makes me wonder if it’s because I’m actually a tyrannical ruler in Rome or something. This feeling passes quickly.

The child in me is continuously delighted with the dinosaurs that have been uncovered with feathers. I had a discussion with my physics lab partner last week where she mentioned that she didn’t enjoy the biology class that she was in because it was about evolution, and thus boring. I was shocked and a little confused, because that has been my favorite subject since I was little (when I would watch shows about dinosaurs on the Discovery channel, where they would drag out the archaeopteryx fossils and talk about birds). When I pressed her for her reasoning, she just said something about how she didn’t like the professor. I think what blew me away about it was the idea that everyone on earth does not find the mechanisms behind evolution as completely compelling and fascinating as I do. This should not have come as a surprise to me, but it did. I guess my self-absorption is showing.

Oops.

Watch yo' Soup

I got a new watch today. Before entering the store, I knew that I wanted a watch with a thin brown strap, a rectangular face, and no gold colored metal, and I wanted it for less than fifteen dollars. Six dollars and change later, I have my dream watch.

Of course, I got home and realized that for the trip that I bought the watch for I am going to be wearing black shoes, and I have a black dress, so now I’m thinking that I’m going to get another, similar watch in black. Go me.

My friend and I were talking about the internet as a series of tubes in the car today. I realized the absurdity of the topic, and I laughed. He asked what was funny, and I told him that I had just realized how silly and nonsensical it would have seemed if you were looking in, and he nodded and said, “Ah, you had an out-of-conversation-experience.” How absolutely amazing is that phrase? Besides that, I realized that it’s something that I have fairly often. Of course, I don’t think all that quickly, so I’ll often lose track of the conversation that I’m in while I’m thinking objectively (ha) about whatever the subject is.

I love soup with crackers all crushed up in it, but if I ever break up with my boyfriend I won’t be able to eat it anymore.

I haven’t decided what I’ll be having for dinner tonight, although I think it will probably soup, or something similar. I also want some iced tea, although that is probably more to get me through the essay that I’m working on. Actually, that’s inaccurate. I haven’t started yet, so it is really the essay that I will be working on. I hope.

Chocolate Owls

Rather than doing the physics lab that is due tomorrow, I am rocking out to that Oingo Boingo song about little girls and eating an extra crispy Kit-Kat bar. Unfortunately I’m a doofus and left the candy bar in the sun, which made it melt. Short story shorter, my mouth was completely coated in cheap chocolate, which was not a pleasant feeling.

I’m having one of those super-sappy days where everything feels a lot more emotional to me than it would normally. (Funny-- I’m wearing a shirt with a leopard face on it, and it’s bunched up and in my reflection on the computer screen it looks like the leopard is squishing up the left side of his face in disgust). I just noticed that I got a bunch of chocolate on my shirt. My brand new WWF shirt. Sad.

There was an exploded mouse on the sidewalk near my car when I was walking to class this morning. Seriously, there were it’s whole, furry little hind legs with the tail attached to the spine with intestines all over the place. It took up almost two square feet. There was no heart, no lungs, no liver and no head as far as I was able to tell. People must have thought I was absolutely bonkers, standing over this shredded little rodent. My best guess is that an owl ate it and then dropped the bits it didn’t want. I think this because it was under a light post and the owls near our house really like to sit up there because they are hidden that way.

Rock on, alfalfa.

I love my body. I don’t mean that in the egotistical, YE-OWW sort of way-- I don’t think I’m that hot. But I do love the feeling of being. I’ve been putting on a teensy bit of muscle, and it feels great. I can completely understand why people get addicted to body-building. This feeling of being stronger is amazingly heady, especially in my legs.

I’m riding in the car right this second, on my way to the museum (no, I’m not driving) and the clouds are really pretty. The weather has been pretty wild for the last couple days, and our hills, which are normally just a flat, sun-burnt yellow have become a softly beautiful grey-green yellow, and the normally dull and dusty bushes have become a much more lively green. Funny-- we didn’t see the burros.

There’s something wonderful about the huge boulders that stick up out of the ground here. I don’t know why I like them so much, but I do.

I was eating lunch with a very nice lady at school the other day, and I went to refill my water bottle out of the drinking fountain, and she mentioned to me that the water in this area has a lot more lime in it than most places. I told her that it made sense because this whole area used to be underwater, and I might just be overly sensitive, but I think she gave me an odd look.

My dad loves to “rock hound,” or search for rocks, and I have been known to go with him. Once, we were digging through some soft sediment near a freeway off ramp, and a police officer pulled over to ask what we were doing. His hand hovered near his gun until my dad handed me the pickax, and he didn’t believe our story until we showed him the fossil mollusks we had found.

I think prickly pear cacti are really cool. In fact, most cacti are neat. Succulents in general, they’re fascinating. Actually, I find all of the adaptations that plants and animals make to dry climates very interesting. What’s really kind of cool is that in the areas where there really is very little precipitation, the plants tend to be the kind that store water somewhere, so I wonder if that’s part of what animals are able to eat just those plants and get enough water? Food for thought, anyway.

I think if I were going to be a mythical sea monster, I’d have to pick the kraken, and probably just because of the cool name. When I was little, I had this book of monsters that had the most beautiful illustrations. They were like collages, and were less than hyper-realistic. Some of the monsters even had paisley patterns. I must have read that book a hundred and fifty times.

I like how dense orange trees are. I had a dream last night where I was flying around, over all of this farm land, but the strange thing was that the things I was flying over really shouldn’t all have been growing in the same area, unless I’m totally crazy. There were normal crops like oranges and avocados, but there was also alfalfa (which I wouldn’t recognize in reality) and corn, and probably a whole lot of other stuff whin I recognized in my dreams but wouldn’t awake.

We just passed a sparrow harassing a crow. I wonder who the crow was molesting to get that sort of reaction out of such a little bird. Perhaps the sparrow was just attempting a preemptive strike, though.

Ten short days.

Ten days is a crazy long time between updates, yeah? I’ve been busy, yada-yada-yada. Anyway, as I was walking across my bedroom to turn on my duck lamp, I realized that the bones in my feet (and yours, too) seem rather counter-intuitive at first glance. Putting the small, delicate foot-bones down on the ground with the substantial thigh and hip bones above? But then I realized it’s so that the foot can have a lot more flexibility and movement than the thigh, and it all made sense.

I love pasta, but when I eat it I am usually hungry immediately afterward. I don’t understand this at all. My mom thinks it might be a type of wheat allergy. I have no idea what it is.

Right this second there is a huge yellow wasp on the screen of my window. It’s moving it’s wings all slow-like. We have two large dogs which I refer to affectionately as organic doorbells.

The moon moves so quickly when it’s full.

Smooth Chit

I’m drinking a green tea (with citrus!) drink, and I can’t decide if I like it or not. Every sip tastes completely different, which makes it difficult for me to make a definitive decision.

Today I am going to go have smoothies with a nice young lady that I met through my chemistry lab. The only problem with that is that I don’t really like smoothies, so while I’m sure she won’t care if I get a coke or something, I still feel like I’m living a lie. In a couple hours though it will all come out and I’ll feel better about it.

I also feel like a bad person when I chit chat with someone who I know I will never be friends with. I know that it’s completely irrational, because everyone talks with people that they aren’t going to become best friends forever with, and it isn’t as though I’m really even lying by omission here, it just feels funny. I don’t mean people who I just won’t see again, but when I can tell that our personalities just aren’t going to be compatible. It’s like a bad date, and I don’t like it.

I just finished a book by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas called The Harmless People, and it was very good, although it was a little sad. It’s about people who live in Africa and hunt antelope. Some of those animals are really beautiful. I am particularly drawn to the greater kudu. They are absolutely huge and gorgeous. They don’t even look real, even in person (hey, I’ve been to the Wild Animal Park).

Who decided banana should be the base fruit in yogurt? They aren’t that fantastic, especially when combined with other fruits. Strawberry banana? I’m sorry, I just think that as a culture, we could do better. Same with orange and cream--I’m going to have to give that an F.

The classroom I’m sitting in has stools instead of real chairs, but the problem is that they don’t move in or out, they only swivel around. This sucks because it makes my shoulders sore no matter what I’m doing. I can’t imagine that I’m the only one who is bothered by it, either.

I really don’t like peer-editing in English classes because I feel that it often ends up being an unequal exchange, and today I got shortchanged. While I love the praise, telling me that there’s nothing that needs fixing is completely unhelpful (unless you’re grading me) and while it’s a sweet sentiment, it’s also a lie. And lying, like drugs, is bad, m’kay?

Newton't Llamas

I have been studying hard for Physics lately, and had to look up the conversion from pounds to Newtons. It turns out that one quarter pound is equal to one Newton, so my mom, who was sitting next to me said, “Why don’t we order a Newton with cheese?” Stitches in my side? I’ve got ‘em from laughin’.

Similarly, while snuggling on the sofa with my boyfriend, I made the astute observation that he has a man-pelt. Without missing a beat, he informed me that his spirit animal is the llama. Just thinking about it, I’m dying.

I don’t know why it is that when someone around me says something even mildly witty I often think it’s just amazing, but when I’m told a genuinely funny joke, I often have to force a chuckle. That makes zero sense to me.

In a similar vein, it’s hard for me to drink hot chocolate out of a cup that sounds like it’s in a lot of pain. For some reason, the paper coffee cups they sell at the Java Hut thing on campus sound like they’re crying when you take a big drink, and that’s just off-putting. Somehow I doubt that most people want to think about the pain their food and drink causes their paper cup.

I hate animal rights organizations. I take them as a personal criticism and insult, as well as a more general threat. I feel like they are saying that not only am I not smart enough to decide how I feel about my dogs, I’m also not observational enough to see when they’re unhappy or in pain. Besides that, I take great offence to anyone who tells me that I should be dead multiple times, or, barring that, be a wheelchair bound cripple. It also gets my fur up when someone says that my entire family should be dead to save a few mice, especially when that person is on insulin themselves. As far as hypocrisy goes, a lot of those animal rights organizations are up there with religions. Really, it reminds me of the Handmaid’s Tale; I mean the bit about the woman who through her career helped to end the ability of women everywhere to have a personal identity. Though I might be using animal research to stay alive, you shouldn’t be allowed to, so then I wouldn’t be allowed to, and we’d all be dead. The thing is, honestly, people are animals too, and I don’t see a lot of animal right’s activists protesting outside the ant colonies where they use aphids as their cows. SLAVERY AND OPPRESSION IN THE SOUTH AMERICAN AMAZON, PEOPLE!

If I had to have a freakishly enlarged body part, I’d choose my neck, so long as it didn’t have to get much thicker. I mean, how cool would it be to have a neck like those women who stretch theirs with the copper rings? Who’s swanlike now, bitches?

Sugared Eyes

I have a migraine right now. Complete with nausea, dizziness and visual blinkies and black-spots. In all fairness to the mighty migraine fairy, it isn’t a particularly painful one… yet. Unfortunately, I get migraines when I’m stressed out, and I’m sure it’s my body telling me to cut the crap and weird stress hormones and whatnot, but when I’m crunched for time and working super hard at something, the last thing I need is to feel like there is a cat inside my skull gnawing on my eyeball and rabbit kicking my temples. It is not going to help me learn physics, it’s just not. Maybe I’ve listened to too much Johnny Cash, because my migraines get rhythm when I get the blues.

Okay, even I have to admit that was a stretch. Because I don’t learn from my own experiences, I went back and got a cocoa from the same coffee shop where I bought the hot water last week, and it was actually pretty good this time. The lady tried to stiff me for a dollar eight though. She said, “That’ll be $2.16,” and I said, “… are you sure about that?” And lo, it wasn’t two sixteen after all.

That story seemed a lot more interesting in my head. I guess I could lie and say I hopped over the counter and scissor kicked her in the face, but that’s just silly.

So I drank some Mountain Dew Code Red--JESUS CHRIST IS A LOIN (actually meant to be lion, but I mistyped and thought this was funnier) THERE IS A SPIDER ON MY WALL!

So I drank some Mountain Dew Code Red and ate some Funyuns (Onion Flavored Rings) in the vain hope that the combination of salt, fat, sugar and caffeine would knock out my migraine like wachaKAPOW, but it didn’t. So now my mouth tastes like a litter box, my stomach feels OILY and nauseous, and my eye still feels like it’s being eaten by Maurice. Where’s the justice?

Only slightly related, but why is it that my English Professor decided that the week that I have three midterms would be the best time to assign a thousand word essay about WC Fields? I mean, a thousand words really isn’t that bad, but with Calculus, Phyiscs and Chemistry to worry about this week, I’m really not up to analyzing a fat clown’s motives, unless there’s free chocolate cake involved, and trust me, there isn’t.

Hyena Shots

I was shot in the leg today.

Of course it was with this little spring cannon thing in Physics, but it still hurt. I also ripped up part of my finger nail on accident and that hurt more. In fact, that still hurts even though I did it at eight thirty this morning.

I am having one of those days where I have eaten way, way too much. My stomach hurts, and I feel slightly ill. I wish very much that I had had water with dinner, instead of a chocolate shake.

I am tired of being cut off in traffic by people with bumperstickers that I disagree with. Hey Bush-voting-war-supporting-SUV-driving-Christian guy-- cutting me off, flipping the bird and tossing your lit cigarette into the dry leaves on the side of the road? Classy. Seriously. Kudos.

I have an affinity towards cream colored lace, but I don’t wear it. Ever. I don’t know why this is, because every time I see a little ruffled skirt with the stuff I go gaga, but it stays at the store. I think I’m afraid that I’m not female enough for that and the sale’s people will know. More likely, it’s the fact that if I bought it, it would probably hang in my closet for three or four years before going to the goodwill without ever seeing the outside of my home in between. I need to really start wearing a more varied wardrobe.

I love the word wardrobe. It makes me think of magical hospitals with wizard doctors. I bet lions would fare a lot better in their war against hyenas if they would just set up some field hospitals. I’m still on the hyena’s side in the Lion-Hyena fight though. Any animal which kills it’s siblings before it’s eyes are open has got to be one tough cookie. Take that, you giant yellow pussy-cats.

I’m slowly being won over by the color purple. Seriously, now that I’m getting over the whole Barney association thing, it’s not really so bad. Just please, don’t combine it with bright green. That’s just weird.

My favorite kind of ice cream at the moment is cotton candy, but rainbow sherbet is starting to catch up now that the weather is getting warmer again. I spent a good fifteen minutes laying in the sun today after class and it was wonderful until our dog Sheila put her head on my neck and tried to use her chin to drag me off the hammock.