If I were still writing books

Here are two of the worst feelings in the world:

1. The moment when you realize that you've messed up a Sudoku puzzle.
2. That moment when you lean too far back in your chair and you feel like you're about to DIE. Of course, it doesn't help that the library's chairs are angled. I drew a picture of this and labeled it the angle of DOOM because I experienced this phenomenon yesterday. It should be taught in geometry classes.

I have some cool designs that I want to show you guys. It's times like these where I wish I had a better art program on my computer, but that would involve a brouhaha, and we don't want one of those.

So instead, I'll tell you a TRUE STORY:
I'm the secretary in the Accounting Association, and so I make the newsletters that come out 2-3 times per semester. This most recent newsletter's feature story was on Accounting Day, which is basically when everybody comes together to eat and give each other money. (Btw- I think I have a shot at a scholarship this year because of my GPA. But anyway...) So the people from whom I received the information to put in the newsletter were all like, "Someone should make a logo for this!" And since I'm only a team player when I have to be, I went ahead and did it. In paint. And then I saved it as a jpeg and it got even grainier:











Of course, I did that at work, and Caleb comes to my cubicle and he's all like, "So you're doing graphic design now?" Haha. Maybe. When I sent the rough draft newsletter to all the other officers, I said FEEL FREE to provide me with another picture to put in its place, or, if you like the grainy picture we could keep it that way.
And they liked the grainy picture.
Or at least Mark did.
So it stays.

Why do parrots feel the need to do what they do?

Seriously- I have been so giddy the past 2 days that I've been annoying even myself at times. And I haven't slept all that much, but I still feel great. Perhaps I am showing symptoms of SPRING FEVER.
Yes- I have been stabbed.
Wait- wrong holiday (season??).

Athena is a pretty name. Not for me or anyone related to me, but I think it's pretty.

I'm turning 20 sometime soon:

Things I don't want for my birthday:
1. yarn
2. video games
3. gift certificate to the Olive Garden

Things I do want for my birthday:
1. Texting
2. A lit-ol table so I can sew at college
3. a mandolin

And you have to say "lit-ol" like Andy from the Office.

Awesomesauce,
T.T.

Correspondence

This is how my boyfriend invites me to dinner:

Telegram for Allie J

Dear Allie STOP

I do hope you are finding the city well STOP
It gets lonely sometimes out here in the wilderness STOP
Just yesterday one of the freight trains were boarded by bandits seeking gold STOP
The only thing that gets me through the days is knowing I'll be able to see you again STOP
There are many fine womenfolk here, but none could hold a candle to you STOP
But I must get to the point STOP
I request your presence tonight at the Mexican restaurant with some friends STOP
Of course, it will take at least a fortnight for this message to find you STOP
I must go, there are buffalo to kill and the Indian tribes are only a few miles behind STOP
Farewell, my dear STOP

Love, Cleve STOP

My reply:

Dearest Cleve,

I am not finding the city well, though I'm certain the wilderness fares worse. I sit here with this interminable typewriter in front of me, slaving away the hours by not really slaving, looking longingly outside the window only hoping that one of the passerbys would look up into my lonely window, and that face that shone upon his would only be yours, dear.

Rescue me, SIR CLEVE, for I am in distress! Approach this north tower, tear down these walls of boredom, slay the dragon of workplace monotony, and taketh thee fair maiden back to your cabin in the village!
I acquiesce your invitation to said restaurant with said friends, and shall hope to encounter your whimsical presence in the next hour. You must be told, however, that I shall need to change into more comfortable cloths. I feel akin to a sack of mutton.

But I look longinlgy for the hour upon which I see your face!

For summer without you is cold,
but winter without you is even colder.

Love,
Allie J

Sir Cleve is his X-box live name, so that was super appropriate.

We're awesome.
And I love us.

Real talk,
T.T.

A time when common sense was common

Story time:

At the end of winter break in January, my grandmother was like, "I need you to help me wash my curtains" because she can't reach up to get them down and balance at the same time. I was willing to help, but since I was heading back to school, she suggested that I save it for an "activity" over spring break.

So when I came home for spring break, she reminded me as soon as she saw me and I told her I could do it some time the following week. I woke up on Tuesday to grey skies and thought, "This would be a good day to do the job!" 15 minutes into my morning coffee the phone rings.

And just by the way the phone rang, you could tell it was her.

"Hello?" (in my "student accounts" voice)
"ALLIE!?!??!"
"Yes?"
"THIS IS GRANNY."
"I know."
*requests my services for the morning*
"Yeah- I was thinking about coming over there today. Let me finish my coffee, and I'll be over there in less than an hour."

Not 20 minutes later, the phone rings again.

"Hello?"
"IT'S RAININ'."
"I know."
"I don't want you to have to drive in the rain."
"But it's like a quarter-mile to your house. I'll be fine."
"Oh, ok."

REALLY? I can't drive in the rain now?
Anyway...

So I drove over there, in the rain, and took all the curtains down, which took approximately 5 minutes and 46 seconds. Then we had to wash them, which took like 41 minutes, so I drove home and cut out a pattern.

Then I got another call to come back. I drove there again and spent like 2 hours ironing curtains. What good is ironing the curtains if they just hang there all bunched together anyway? And then we had to thread them back on the poles, which is much more difficult than dismantling them.

So I got a chair to stand on in order to put them back on top of the windows, and Granny's like, "Do you need a LADDER? I have a LADDER."

Why would I need a LADDER when I have a chair?

Curtains upon curtains later (and sometimes we'd put 2 curtains on a rod facing one way, and 1 facing the other, so we'd have to take everything off again, and start all over) when I start to look like I'm about to faint, she says I can go home and hang up the rest when we come to her house at night. I then get to eat lunch at like 2:00, which means I get no afternoon snack.

And I like my afternoon snack.

But the last zany thing about this day was payment. She wanted to know if I would like payment now, or wait for my birthday. The reason she wanted to combine the funds was so that- get this- she would only have to write one check. She didn't want to have to dispense another piece of paper one month later. So I got wages + birthday money early due to check-stinginess. Which I guess was a good thing.

And also- she has these pencil erasers from like the 1950s that are so hard that you can't even squeeze them to put them on your face. And they don't erase- they just kind of smudge the pencil around so everything turns an illegible grey. I've witnessed this with the crossword puzzle books she keeps in her bathroom. The end.

You know those days when you get up in the morning and you're like, "Ok- I'm going to have to take a nap later." Today was one of those days. I had an extremely productive morning- finishing two CISM labs and half of accounting homework, so when I came home from Marketing (curses) and ate lunch, I was able to take a one hour nap before work, and it was GLORIOUS. So hopefully I'll have the stamina to persevere through my accounting association meeting.

I just got an e-mail that was all like, "You're enrolled in 18 hours for upper-division accounting courses. If you make below a C, you will fail and not be able to graduate! Please limit your courseload to 16 hours!"
And I'm all like, "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

Going through life, I've noticed I'm an outlier.
I have enough money to buy expensive clothes, but instead I thrift.
I like going home for spring break instead of spending all week with 14 drunken students in PC.
I have taken 18 or 19 hours almost every semester, and I'm not about to stop my momentum with the threat "harder courses". Duh, they're going to be harder, and it's about time they got that way. These courses weed out the people that aren't meant to be there- that just slide through life with C's. I think it's safe to say that I'm not the norm...

Like today in marketing, we were talking about course evaluations being marketing research and what all students complain about, and my teacher was like, "Are there any accounting majors in here?" About 15% raised hands. "Do you think your tests are too long?"
And they were all like YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
And I was like WHAT? Are you kidding me?

Yeah, I'm not worried about the fall.
I'm excited. :)

We've both got better things to do,
T.T.

Nightmares and Terrorism

Since this is apparently now a saga, I will tell it like it is one.

So recently I have been experiencing some arachnid activity in this apartment. Way back in the fall, there was once this scary spider by my coffee maker, and that was all.

But now, there is like this whole army of spiders that is out to get me.

And I don't GET IT. Nothing has changed! WHY SO MANY SPIDERS!?!!?!?

About a week ago, I pulled back the shower curtain to take a shower and there was this big, old hairy spider in the tub. Luckily, I wasn't naked- because trying to kill a spider while you're naked would not end well. But instead of screaming, I stifled a gasp and put together this simple set of instructions on how to kill spiders successfully:

1. Paralyze with cleaner (so they kind of curl up)

2. Smash with rainboot (heavy AND water/gut proof)

3. Wipe up and completely wrap up tightly in trash. This is so that its corpse can't reconstruct itself in the night and come back to life. These things do happen.

So I killed the spider in the shower and moved on with life.

Then either the next day or sometime soon after that, I come home turn on my light and sense something. I look, and by the bathroom on the wall was another spider. So I do the Kill Drill- except this time, he fell on the carpet, and we have this brownish/navy/blackish carpet, and he blended in so well, I could barely see him.

And it's REALLY FREAKY to not be able to see what you are killing. It's like in Predator. Or Halo. Oh. My. Gosh. Listen to my references. I have been hanging out with guys too much.

Then the next day, I come home and there's ANOTHER FREAKING SPIDER in the exact same spot. I'm like, "Did I really kill the other one?" So I'm about to do the Kill Drill, but he scuttles away into the hole from whence he came before I got a chance. I then proceeded to stuff up his hole with a tissue and scotch tape it in place. Take THAT, spiders.

But then: the worst happened.

I went to bed last night and woke up at 4:25 from an accounting dream.

"An accounting dream- What's that?"

They're like calculus dreams where you're trying to solve a problem in your sleep, but since your brain's numb, you can't figure it out and it becomes really frustrating and you just want to cry.

I woke up and I was like, "WHY can I not FIND the CONTRIBUTION MARGIN?"

And then I noticed someone left the kitchen light on and it was shining right in my room. So I heave myself out of bed and go turn it off. This part of the story is actually irrelevant, but since you've made it this far, you might as well keep reading it.

I eventually fall back to sleep and then at 6:12- I remember this time very vividly- I wake up to a light tap on my forehead. And then I realize that SOMETHING IS WALKING ON MY HEAD.

AND IT'S A FREAKING SPIDER! OMG!!!!!!!!!!

So I reached up and wiped/grabbed it off my head and threw it on the ground. My heart was pounding and I was so afraid that everything in the world was a spider that I couldn't go back to sleep. I just lay there hoping the spider had "learned his lesson" not to crawl on me anymore. These were illogical stupid morning thoughts. I mean, do spiders really learn lessons?

Finally, at 6:30 I get up and start making coffee and looking for the spider. Because of the carpet, I couldn't find him anywhere. And I kind of wanted to make myself believe that it was just a terrible dream. And I could've believed it, except that I remember grabbing something off of my face and throwing it down.

I should be on "I Survived".

But the story's not over.

After carrying out normal morning activities, I go to school and work and try not to think about it. I sent Cleve some IMs about the trauma, and he sent me a photo of a guy with a huge spider on his face. If the aforesaid spider had not already ruined my day, this photo would have. Great move, "supportive" boyfriend.

Then I came home, made dinner, and sent in a work request for spider extermination because this room is beginning to feel less like a room and more like a pile of rotting lumber. Then Cleve and I went and played an awesome game of racquetball.

And THEN:

I came back all sweaty, but yet I would sweat more. Upon my wall when I first entered my room was the largest spider I have ever encountered in my life. With a leg span of more than three inches and a body the color of butterscotch candy- I knew I had caught my culprit. This was the guy that walked across my face this morning.

And I was going to kill him.

I will say that he did pick a strategic place to get killed. I couldn't spray him with cleaner because I didn't want all that mess on my printer, so when I smashed him with my boot, he fell into the crevice by my desk where no light shines.

After valiantly stabbing with a tissue-covered umbrella:

What's even more disgusting and horrifying about this picture is that IT COVERED ALMOST MY ENTIRE FOREHEAD. I could've died from the sheer terror of it all.

So yeah. That's been my spider trauma. Luckily, I get to leave for spring break in 4 days, and hopefully maintenance will come and exterminate all of the living beings in this apartment. Except for the humans. Maybe.

But anyway- I have to get up at 5:45 to register for classes tomorrow, so I better get to bed soon.

A bed without spiders.

Oh, and Jim tried to ask me out and I was like noooooooooooo I love Cleve k thx bye,

T.T.