Tuesdays are kind of rough.  They are busy, busy days for me.  Looong days.  Pretty much nonstop action for about 12 hours.  People have expectations during those 12 hours.  Crazy things like I should be productive, alert, intelligent, give a hoo hoo. Today is really a Monday Tuesday.  We haven’t been in school since last Tuesday.  And I’ve spent a good portion of the past three days writing this beast of a paper.  I started the day frazzled, tired, not firing all the jets, not enthused to be out of bed, let alone ready to face a loooong day.  So, my expectations for the day were low, really low.  Like sewage low.  I’m even wearing a gray sweater.  Don’t even know why I bought a gray sweater, but I did, and I’m wearing it today because it was Monday Tuesday and raining and just all around poopy.

Imagine my surprise when the day just didn’t live down to my expectations.

I walked into the classroom today all full of holy crap these kids have been with their parents for a whole week living the unstructured life that is a holiday break- same kinda life my kids live during a week off of school with pie and tv and spoiling grandparents.  And there was a riot.  Because at least 300 arms and legs came at me with hugs and more hugs.  Disruptive?  You bet.  But did I mind all these arms coming at me and wrapping around my legs and the joyous sound of kids who love me as much as I love them?  Nope.  I don’t.  I may say “let’s go do our jobs” and “that’s enough, now”, but inside I’m lit up like fireworks.  Yea, we eventually settled down.  Yea, they were a little riled today.  (This bunch is a little riled every day.)  I’ve heard that I may not be supposed to hug ‘em (not from official people I’d have to listen to, thank goodness).  I happen to think that sometimes the biggest thing that a 6 year old needs to learn in school is that someone loves them and is bright as sunshine glad they’re there.  Even when they’re whining, not listening, not doing the work, saying wildly inappropriate things (what the heck are kids learning these days?), and wiggly.  And it was a two love notes day.

So went the first part of my looooong day.  Not too shabby.

Second gig was just fine too.  Nothing to report.

I was dreading class tonight.  You know, because of that there monstrous paper.  That paper that is no fun, frustrating, annoying and ruining my life.  Today was rough draft day with a side of classmates helping you revise.  Yea.  How great is that going to be.  Well.  It was great.  Prof is smart.  I dig her.  She had the perfect plan for how 3 people can review each other’s papers and offer just the right advice.  We were the last group done today.  That’s how thorough we were with each other.  I felt a little bad because my beast is 18 freaking pages (probably the reason we were the last group to finish).  One paper was 3 pages.  It was relaxing to read her paper, needless to say.  In any case, it was interesting to read and talk about what we’d done.  Surprisingly so.  And they both thought the strongest part of mine was the part that I like the best.  Gratifying to have someone agree.

Then I did my 2nd to last long walk home on a beautiful fall night because the rain stopped just for me and the air is fresh and it’s not cold so much and there was just the right amount of wind and it was perfect.  Long.  But perfect.  And me and my very busy head were thinking melancholy thoughts but also thinking that maybe it didn’t need to be filled with melancholy thoughts anymore.

And there is wine and twizzlers and life is perfect.

I’m feeling a little philosophical today.  I think I read blogs by too many smart people. Thinking people who explore ideas.  People not me. 

This little break has been kinda cool.  Did the required visiting (except the one today since spawn is sick- hiding in her room, which looks strangely like a regular day, only she moans when I check on her instead of just glaring.)  Other than that today has been a good day.  I unloaded a pile of hard-earned cash at my favorite store buying disposable goodies for spawn and littleloudone.  Thank goodness they are creative at heart and don’t mind getting craft supplies.  I am all about giving stuff that eventually I won’t have to clean up (or ignore.) 

Speaking of cleaning up… yesterday was shovel day.  Littleloudone said not to bother because her room was perfect.  Evidence to the contrary:

Isn’t that just fine?  She has some floor today.  Two bags of junk to Good Will and only one bag to trash.  I’m raising a pig.  Just so you know.  Somehow unloading her stuff makes me feel lighter.  And now you just have to check this out.  I painted this a couple summers ago.  (and that’s her floor)

And I started the paper that has been hanging over my head for weeks.  I’m coloring myself almost done with this very difficult semester.  Since I can’t take two classes next semester, this is definitely going to be the hardest.  It’s all down hill from here.  Yay, me.

So the philosophical part of my exposition?  Were you still waiting for that?  I’m putting one foot in front of the other.  I’m allowing the imperfections to be ok, because any kind of forward progress still counts. 

The cares of tomorrow can wait till this day is done.

Apparently by philosophical I meant boring. 

It’s the spouse’s birthday.  Good thing we celebrated to my satisfaction last weekend.  Because he’s getting squat today.  Poor guy.  Must be awful to be old AND ignored. (only 3 more family birthdays in the next 30 days)

I woke up this morning full of get up and go.  So I went out to breakfast with a friend and coworker.  She’s crazier than I am.  We solved the problems of the universe, flat out gossiped, and discussed the end of the world.  Which led me to laughing hysterically.  In any case, my get up and go has resulted in a powerful need for a nap.

I was going to make a list for today.  Yesterday I actually accomplished 3 or 4 tasks.  It was amazing.  And I don’t mean those things that you just have to do again.  I mean done.

Ok.  First major accomplishment of the day.  I sweet-talked littleloudone into helping me deliver a big project thereby removing her from the path of spawn and friend, who are writing a book today- an hour into their day they are now eating breakfast.  Three-for-one deal.  I’m kinda a genius.  Anyhow. The Big Project.  You’ll never believe this, but I actually sometimes DO things for OTHERS.  No, it’s true.  The neighborhood elementary school has held this Helping Hands Fair in February for the past 3 or so years.  It’s usually run by the teachers, but a few years ago I had a proposition (when I was just a parent, not an employee) that flew.  So we (by which I mean school kids and parents) have been making these fun, but simple, polar fleece tied pillows that we deliver to the hospital.  Did you notice I said February?  Anyhow.  These pillows have been in my possession since February.  It takes a while for me to do quality control and then the hospital was being renovated.  Today, yes TODAY, the pillows are being stored at the hospital instead of my van, living room, and garage (rotation according to which space was needed for what).  Wahoo.  And it’s almost time to start thinking about making them again.  Littleloudone says we made 50 this year.  I feel like it was more like 75, but she has a much better memory than I do.

What I’m not thinking about today: Christmas shopping.  I have no idea what anyone wants.  I don’t even know what I want.  Except Rampage for the Wii and maybe a couple CD’s and my favorite college professor’s new book.  Not that Christmas is about what I want.  Seriously.  Spawn says she wants a shopping day at Good Will.  I mean as a present. That girl cracks me up.  And littleloudone will do all her Christmas shopping AT Good Will.  I think she bought for everyone last year with $2.38.  She cracks me up too.

“Rampage?” you say.  Rampage, I say.  When spouse and I were first dating, we’d often go across the street from my dorm to Playland.  An arcade.  Remember arcades?  How I loved Playland.  And Rampage.  Because there is just something so cathartic about pounding the crap out of buildings.  My Lizzie was a wild, violent thing.  I got electrocuted, ate many toilets and, more than necessary, “accidentally” punched Ralph.  I laughed every time I accidentally punched Ralph.  Until he lost his life, turned into a little human, and I ate him.  Ah.  Good times.  I think spouse preferred when I played Galaga.  A little less threatening, perhaps.  So.  Yup.  When I found out that Rampage was on the Wii, I immediately put it on my Christmas list.  No matter how little I touch the Wii now (or anything close to the tv, for that matter), I will have time for Lizzie.

And, speaking of time, it’s time for me to do something.  Still haven’t made the list.  Still haven’t had a nap.  But… Today is a gift.  It’s a wide open space that I can fill how I choose.  And I’m getting a little excited for Thanksgiving tomorrow.  Yum.  I think I’ll make 20 pound cake with lemon drizzle.  Hardly Thanksgiving-y, but so delicious.  Friday will almost certainly include a puzzle and hot chocolate with cherry kiafa or whatever the heck it’s called and Christmas music and games.  So carry on without me.  I know it’ll be hard. 

A peaceful, happy Thanksgiving, whenever you celebrate and however you celebrate, dear Xanga friends.

I’m getting the idea that I’m not the only one who has issues with the holidays.  This is actually sort of comforting.  In a way.

I’m going to try something new this year.  I always say the only good part about Christmas is the music.  So, at the very least, you can listen to some of my favorite holiday songs.

The past few years have been interesting, shall we say, on how I’ve “dealt” with holiday stress.  Three years ago I cried through the holidays.  Starting around September if I recall correctly.  I was a sobbing mess, practically a recluse, uninvolved unless I had to be.  On my birthday, I cried the entire day- a beautiful Sunday where the sermon was about joy.  Joy was so far from my life, the tears started flowing and wouldn’t stop.  I made a delightful scene.  The next day I visited my 12 year old doctor, still crying, and begged him to fix me.  So the next holiday season was my season of mood-altering drugs.  I don’t remember anything.  I clearly made it through.  The whole year is a blur.  Except when the holidays were basically over, I remember my family having dinner and playing games with another family I adore.  Laughing.  And I continued laughing and playing and rediscovered joy and ditched the drugs.  That was a good year.  Up until the holidays whereupon I made the worst decision of my life that got me through the holidays but wrecked havoc on the months after.  So, my recent holiday track record sort of stinks. And I’m not interested in recreating any of those years.  Once was enough.

Here’s one of my favorite winter songs, which I’m sure you’ve never heard.

I found myself in the past few days heading into the abyss that is the holidays for me.  Guilt and stress (and being sick and sleep-deprived) led me to being dissatisfied and critical and miserable and ugly and selfish.  Which lead to more guilt and stress and a trail of destruction.  Very, very ugly.

Here’s where I’m coming to the new thing.  Penetrating my consciousness is all the discussion about positivity.  Peeking through my ugly eyes are beautiful pictures.  Filtering through my ears are kind, affirming words.  As I’m working my way out of the hellish depths of ugliness, feeling almost nice again, seeing beauty, laughing, I’m wondering if I can just take control of my holidays and be happy about it.  Maybe if I treat each day as a single day, rather than dreading the season, I can enjoy the days.  Maybe if instead of thinking, “this is the day where I have to…”, I could focus on the positive parts of the day (and there are positive parts).  Maybe, just maybe, even say, “this is the day I get to…”

Here, have another.

Then maybe Christmas won’t be a bad word.

As for the of the name of the blog, spouse helped me and we burst out laughing and started singing that OTHER version of the 12 Days of Christmas.  Boys and girls, it’s going to be ok.

Prickly.  Cactus.  Porcupine.  Those little burr things that get stuck on your socks.   Me.

I had a couple dreams last night.  I dreamed I was lighting candles for some kind of ceremony.  I needed to be trained to do this for some reason.  I practiced with birthday candles and either burned my finger or had some kind of twitch, because I threw the candle across the room.  It stayed on fire (because this was a dream after all) and burned the ugly blue carpet.  In another dream, the wind was blowing in the window.  I have these little shelves around the windows in my current house, but the window in the dream was my childhood window.  Anyhow, I usually have these antique glasses up on the shelves.  They were my grandmothers.  They are frosted glass and have carousel animals painted on them.  Very sweet.  I put them away for last Christmas and haven’t gotten them out again.  That tells you how on top of things I am lately.  So in my dream the wind blew down the glasses which of course shattered.  As I’m picking up the pieces, I see that the blue paint on the wall is chipped.

Naturally, because I have remembered these dreams, I feel they must be analyzed or at least deemed important. I guess the blue is incredibly cliche.  So cliche we’ll just leave it to sit there and rot.  I am breaking things. Many things.

My mother is angry with me.  We have the ordeal of Thanksgiving looming, always with both families at separate times.  We’ve done Thanksgiving all together at all three houses a few times, but no one is ever happy with that except me.  For the past several years it’s worked out to do actual Thanksgiving with my parents and the weekend with spouse’s folks so that the bro- and sis-in-law can be there too.  My mother has enjoyed this.  Well, this year MIL wanted Thanksgiving so we could get together with assorted cousins.  I didn’t tell my mom until last week.  She’s pissed.  I hate Thanksgiving.

I have had a week of speaking without thinking.  I think I have annoyed every person who has had any kind of extended dialogue with me this week.  Random strangers are safe.  Generally.  I even let the sarcastic loose at school, but I don’t think the kids noticed.  So I suppose it’s just adults that I’m aggravating. I have had a week of being irritable.  I’ve been annoyed by everyone I live with.  Doesn’t mean they are not irritating.  Just means that maybe I have felt more irritability than the situation warranted.

I am so lucky.  I’m surrounded by people who are wonderful and care about me.  Real life people.  Here people.  And it’s just never enough.  Nobody can give me enough attention to satisfy the greedy demon.  And so I break.  Not me, seems like I’m already pretty broken right now.  But people.  There isn’t enough glue in the world to fix the ugly.

Yesterday spawn and I did a little craft show.  This is one of our bonding things.  We have all sorts of inappropriate conversations while sitting at a table.  I’m going to cut off her hair while she sleeps and pay for some therapy.  Anyhow.  I made these.  Simple, easy, looks like a 10 year old made them.  But, hey, it was fun and they are colorful.

And spawn got a hairigami gizmo or whatever it’s called.  We had fun playing beauty parlor.

There.  I said two positive, upbeat things.

Now I hit save even though I shouldn’t. 

I misplace my children.

Regularly.

First time it ever happened, spawn was almost two, I guess or maybe almost three.  In any case she was in her terrible twos which lasted approximately from 18 months to age 6.  We were at a crowded mall at Christmas.  The store had extra display racks all over the place.  The kid was in a stroller which was impossible to steer even though it was one of those little ones.  And she didn’t want to be in the stroller anymore.  She’d made that pretty clear.  Maybe I let her out, could be, I was kinda stupid and sleep-deprived back then or maybe she let herself out.  In any case, she was out.  Out and gone.  I think I watched her climb under a fixture and then I looked away for a second, because I was there to shop after all.  I looked back and she was gone.  I looked for moving racks and annoyed shopper’s faces.  Nothing.  Then… PANIC.  Absolute panic.  People every where.  And we were living outside DC where people don’t even look at you.  Don’t even want to think about what else was unpleasant about DC.  So there I am, stroller, no kid, ready to completely lose all grip on reality.  I had no idea what to do, where to look, who to turn to.  And then this angel man, who clearly was waiting on his wife and bored out of his mind- thank God, tells me that he saw her run out of the store.  I don’t know the rest of the story except that I found her and that I still don’t take her to the mall.

Let’s see.  I lost little loud one one day after a visit to the library.  We came home with books, some might say “of course”, but that one is less enthralled with books than the rest of the family, so it really isn’t “of course” with her.  In fact one day this summer, I suggested a library visit and she said, “Why would I want to go to the library?  There’s nothing there for me.”  I nearly cried.  Anyhow, a year or two ago, we went to the library and got books.  I went about my business until I noticed that I didn’t hear anything.  Now, not hearing anything when little loud one is around is an indication of trouble.  When she is quiet, she’s cutting off her hair, or coloring on the wall, or gone.  First I called her name about a bazillion times. (she never hears the first bazillion -1 times.)  So I started looking.   I looked outside because she’s an outdoorsy kiddo.  I’m pretty sure I went to some neighbors and so on.  No sign of her.  So I went up to her room.  She was reading a book, like it was normal. 

Last year I lost spawn again.  I’m minding my own business at the end of the school day (wasting my time on the computer) and it occurs to me that I’d had an awful lot of peace.  So I wandered out into the living room.  I surveyed the evidence and realized that spawn was not home.  I knew this because:  no backpack directly in the middle of the floor, no shoes thrown about, no jacket lying willy-nilly.  No way that kid was home.  I can’t remember if she had a phone then or not, but it wouldn’t matter because neither she nor the spouse ever have it turned on.  I searched brain banks to see if there was some after school activity that I hadn’t remembered.  Nope.  Then I figured she must have missed the bus home.  She missed the bus to school every stinking day, so this was not out of the realm of possibility.  So I drove to the middle school and started looking.  For once, the school was deserted.  I started panicking a little bit at this point.  Then I had a brilliant thought.  I called home and little loud one answered the phone (which is actually pretty amazing in itself), and I asked her to check spawn’s room.  Yep, you got it.  She was in her room the whole time, and thought I was crazy for misreading the evidence.

Also last year, in the spring, I lost little loud one.  She walks home from school.  It’s a block away.  Generally it takes her a half hour to get home, because there are things to see.  Well, I’m waiting. and waiting.  and waiting.  It’s more than an hour after the end of school and no little loud one.  I called school, her best friend’s house, neighbor’s house, looked around the neighborhood, talked to the lady with the fuzzy dog, went to school, exhausted all my ideas.  At this point, I was revving up a panic.  I had some kind of appointment with spawn and I certainly didn’t want to go to that with little loud one lost.  I drove around the block one more time.  There she was, standing next to the lady with the fuzzy dog.  The look on my face must have told her what she needed to know because she crossed the street, after looking both ways even, and got in the car without saying one word.  She was covered in mud from head to toe, but I didn’t care about that.  It turns out she’d stopped by the house with the garden and a little girl with the same name.  And they were playing.  The mom apologized for not immediately calling me.  Not that I blamed her at all.  For a little while at least, little loud one made it home in under 20 minutes.

This little trip down memory lane is brought to you today by the fact that I lost a kid this afternoon.  Spawn didn’t come home from school.  I was waiting for her to call for a ride home because she’s too lazy to walk 15 minutes.  I’ve been ignoring the phone all week, because I’m sick and I just don’t feel like getting her.  It’s annoying and ridiculous.  So I was studiously avoiding answering the phone today excepting that it didn’t ring.  So, I thought for a millisecond (because that’s about all the thinking ability I have today.)  I processed the whole list of possible after school activities, nothing seemed right.  I put it out of my mind while I fetched little loud one from the after school activity (that I remembered) and fetched the spouse to solve my computer problems.  Then it hit me, you know after spouse said it, that she was where she was supposed to be. Not home, but at her new church gig.  The one I can’t remember because this is only her second week and she still isn’t officially signed up for it.

Is there a punchline here?  Probably not.  It shouldn’t be this difficult to keep track of two kids.

Today I get to go see cows in their natural habitat accompanied by somewhere around a hundred small noisy critters.  In regular English, this means I’m going on another field trip with those cats I herded in the grocery store last week.  And there will be more of them today because the kiddo whose mother says, “asking ___ to sit still quietly is like killing him” is NOT on vacation.  Ok.  So… cow poo, small children who don’t listen.  Oh, and it’s raining.  But I do have a positive attitude.  Really I do.  Because I have my first monster germ fest of the school year.  I can’t breathe.  Which means I won’t smell the cow poo.

And I probably will survive this field trip and my cold.  Which is good because this weekend is an action-packed adventure of nonstop yummyness. Friday night we’re going to see TSO again.  Last year we had tickets so close it was scorching hot to see this spectacle.  Not so close this year, but that’s ok.

The best part of Trans Siberian Orchestra is the importance of synchronized hair flipping.  This is one of my favs.  (What with Pachelbel’s Canon being such a fine thing on its own.) 

Spawn and I are doing a craft show on Saturday because she wants to.  And I have tickets to two more performances this weekend:  one a high school play that my 2nd favorite 14 year old is in and the other a murder mystery that one of my good friends is in. No sitting at home.

Everybody’s working for the weekend.  I can finish my paper in spite of myself (although I think it may require playing hookie tomorrow), make it through everything I have to do, because there’s good stuff out there.  Well, there’s lots of good stuff.  I just need the big shiny, spectacle stuff to make it this week.

Excuse my little peptalk to myself.  It’s been days since I said something long-winded and we can’t have that.

So.  I’m a Penn State graduate, a resident in beautiful Happy Valley, a graduate student at Penn State now too.  I’m not a football fan- pretty much will watch the toilet bowl and that’s about it.  Joe Pa was never a god to me, he seemed a decent enough guy and I really get a lot of use out of his library wing.   I have never met Jerry Sandusky, may he rot in hell and soon. I had nothing to do with this. I have never rioted in my life- even as an undergrad. 

I say all this because I’m absolutely ashamed to have any connection with this university right now.  As is so often true, Jon Stewart nailed it.

 http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-10-2011/penn-state-riots?xrs=playershare_fb 

What do you do when you just can’t decide?  Here I sit with a couple options, really all the same, really not all that vital a decision.  But I’m stuck.  I can’t decide.  Each option has features that appeal to me.  More features that don’t, really.  I can’t even decide if I should actually decide.  I could do all of them.  I could do none of them.  That’s the problem, isn’t it.  None of them are the perfect option and I’d rather choose none of them.  But… then I would have to start all over and that’s not a pleasant option either.  So I sit here.. with my options… undecided.

What is it about decisions that makes me so… undecided?  When the spawn was little, in an effort to make getting dressed less dramaful, I would give her two options for outfits.  In fact, I used to make her options do little dances and swirls and might have had them talk to her.  She always chose option C.  Options 1 and 2 just didn’t work for her.  I think maybe she gets this from me.  Because I suspect that on any day, if I’m given option 1 and 2, that I will choose C as well.

I’m known for ordering the same meal at a restaurant every time.  It could be that I just happen to love that meal, and in several instances this is true.  It could also be that when I’m eating out, I want to enjoy the experience, not wrestle with a decision.  Deciding what outfit to wear to a gathering is torture.  I’ll often wait until the last minute, just so I don’t have enough time to worry about what I’m wearing.  And these are just the every day decisions that make no difference.  Imagine the ordeal of making a decision that is actually important.

And every time that I sit at the brink of making a decision or not, I remind myself that “if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” Sometimes this is the kick in the pants that gets me to just make a darn decision.  Because “a” decision is always better than none.  Even when it’s not the best choice, the smart choice, the right choice… it is then still MY choice.

Sent all.  The world did not end… yet.  Probably won’t later either.

I had one of those days today.  One of those days that sets the standards.  Low.

I woke up extra early.  Not exactly sure why.  Maybe it was the time change or maybe it was just a desire to dawdle more.  In any case, I woke up early and then proceeded to be late to work.  Later, in fact, than I was yesterday.  It really is pretty hard for me to be late to work.  It’s not like I have far to drive or need to be there at some unseemly time.  It’s ridiculous that I can’t get to work on time.  But there it is.  Late.

One of the kids read me her story.  It was about a lady who croaked and she was going to the feneral (funeral).  She smiled while she read me the story.  Croaked?  Yup.  croaked.  I had nothing.  What the heck do you say to a kid who is smiling when she reads her story about somebody croaking?  That there was a teachable moment. 

Then we had our first field trip of the year.  Herding cats in a grocery store.  These varmints can’t behave in the cage of our classroom.  I gotta admit I dreaded taking the show on the road.  I had low expectations.  They met them.  I got a big headache.

I laughed about something inappropriate today.  I can’t seem to remember what it was.

I did manage to vote.  Yay, me.  But I needed remedial voting instruction since I filled in 5 circles instead of 4. 

Let’s see.  I’m playing piano for the little munchkin choir.  This may not seem like a big deal, excepting that this is not my thing.  I’ve accompanied singers exactly twice in my whole life and both times were with one or both of my kids.  The elder spawn is quite skilled at rearranging her singing to match my playing (a skill we have worked on).  That song was short too.  The last time I did this was with both kids and I was so bad that little loud one laughed at me in the middle of the song.  Bad.  Like horrible.  Like colossal failure.  Like when the song was done, I collapsed in a heap of giggles (in the middle of church, in the middle of the service) that lasted pretty much until the end of the service.  And I decided then and there that playing piano while someone sings along was something I could just cross off my bucket list for all eternity.  Apparently eternity only lasted a couple months, because when choir director asked if I would, I didn’t say “hell no”.  So today’s rehearsal went just spectacularly.  Not. Choir director was very kind and didn’t explode.  I guess it’s a real good thing the kids can sing loudly.  I’m hoping for divine intervention on Sunday.  Or something.

This evening did not improve.  Went to class, quite apathetic.  I needed to deliver a piece of paper 4 feet away.  I crumpled it up and threw it at the recipient.  Professor observed that she’d never had that happen in a grad school class before.  I explained that I was trying to lower the bar.  I did apologize.  And laugh.  And really, that was probably ok.  Then we were making up hypothetical questions to ask the author of this article we’d read- an article that really kinda bugged me.  My contribution was the most unpolitically correct question you could possibly ask.  I do walk of shame.

Class over, I’m walking out with classmate who is also in tomorrow’s class that I skipped last week for spawn’s concert.  Classmate instigates discussion of where I was.  I proceed to mention the things I was supposed to do to make up for missing class- that I still haven’t done.  Then she tells me that we got out of class an hour early last week anyhow.  This launches my little tirade about how that professor had given the speech about giving us our money’s worth and would never let us out early and then she hasn’t kept us until 9pm since (not that I’m complaining about that).  I’d forgotten one detail.  Wed. prof teaches a class on Tues. in the same building.  The building I am currently walking out of talking about the professor.  Who is 2 feet behind me.  Who proceeds to walk with me for the next 10 minutes as I’m trying to engage in intelligent conversational smalltalk with very large feet in my mouth.  So, yea, tomorrow when she keeps us until 10pm, it will be my fault.

The bar is very low.

But tomorrow is another day.