Lucky Number 6

Thelizabeff tagged me to do this lame-o list of six odd things about me or else she would make the list for me. I am little scared because I have always been the kind of person that people feel okay telling me about quirks in my personality and I am not sure I want to add 6 new neurosis to the world at large. I'm doing it today for the following reasons:
- I am afraid of thelizabeff - I imagine her like a cat in that she's lovely, spry, and not someone you want mad at you.
- I have a lot of work to do and I am very tired of working.
- I feel like this: blaaaah. I might as well wallow in my oddities.
If you want to see Thelizabeff's list click here

Here we go:

1. I often get the overwhelming sensation that I am not nearly old enough to do a lot of the everyday things in life. Surprisingly it is rarely things like "I have to pay a mortgage." I am far more likely to get overcome with the idea that I am going to get out of the shower and walk onto my closet in my bedroom where there is A BOY IN THE BED. A real boy. There is a boy right on the other side of this door and he won't think anything of seeing me without clothes on. My inner 13-year-old just cannot believe that this is reality. Or even something as mundane as grocery shopping. I will walk through the aisles with my shopping cart and think, "I have a shopping cart and I am buying food for my household. I am an adult? That can't be right? Can it?"

2. I read a study when I was in college reporting that people that breathe with their mouths open tend to have lower IQs than people who breathe through their nose with their mouths closed. As a result, whenever I catch myself breathing through my mouth I catch myself and close my mouth immediately and think "be smart, Mary, be smart." As if closing my mouth will somehow make me smarter.

3. I call my kittens my kids, as in "Hi Kids!" when I walk through the door. Greg gets mad.

4. When I am super-duper tired and cannot sleep (which is actually quite often) I actually burst into tears. Then I get a headache. I also curse really loud. None of these things help with getting to sleep.

5. When I was a kid my immediate family called me The Bear because I was so cranky when I woke up. I was really mean. I still am, but I try really, really hard to be civil. It is still best if you give me half an hour before you start talking to me, though.

6. When I see kids having a temper-tantrum in public I am often envious of them. There are tooooooons of times I want to jump up and down and yell at everyone to get away from me because I have just had it!

If It's Not Irish It's Crap

Look - I know the saying is "if it's not Scottish it's crap," but bare with me.

Greg has taken to a speaking with an Irish accent. It's better than his French accent (which is NOT saying much), but worse than his Alaska Native one.

There are several cute things about this:

• He gets all bubbly and tends to prance or hop rather than walk when he is talking.
• He turns into a Chatty Cathy and just will not stop talking - which is includes play-by-plays of everything going on.
• He thinks he is wildly charming
  
• He thinks it demonstrates his worldliness
• He frequently pronounces "Brad Pitt can kiss my ass!" (in the accent, of course) because my brother told him that his Irish accent was better than Brad Pitt's. (Also stated: you can blog about how my Irish accent is better than Brad Pitt's, if you want.)
  
• He called my brother to talk to him over the phone in an Irish accent.
  
• He'll ask me to say his name. I'll say it and he'll reply "oui" rather than "aye" and then stop, moan, and ask me to do it again.
  
• He has bought a shit-load of Irish music of iTunes.
  

There are several decidedly not cute things about this:

• He turns into a Chatty Cathy and just will not stop talking - which is includes play-by-plays of everything going on.
• He will not stop talking - even to include me in the conversation.
• He will speak in his accent when I don't think it's cute because I am really tired. Like right when I wake-up or am trying to go to sleep. I need a buffer.
• It's not very good.
• HE WILL NOT STOP!
• It has been almost a week straight.
  

For Valentine's day I gave him permission to talk in his little accent all night without getting annoyed but he didn't take the opportunity. It may have something to do with my relaying that my brother said that is accent was wonderful, but not necessarily accurate. Or that I bought him double stuff Oreos and ice cream so he was distracted.

Panic! At The Disco

My only journal entry for the last several weeks is this: panic, panic, panic.

I have about a million things on my plate right now, all of which either deeply affect my near future (and I thus care about immensely), deeply affect my students and soon-to-be students (and I thus care about immensely), or deeply affect my sanity (and I thus care about immensely).

So, I apologize to the two people (why only two? don't you people love me?) who have expressed interest or concern regarding my lack of posting. I only have the following story to subside you because I do not have the mental capacity at the current moment to follow thelizabeff's suggestion for a posting. Sorry. Maybe later.

When I lived in Portland I would spend Wednesday nights from 7-8pm walking around southeast listening to "The American Life," my favorite show on any medium. It gave me an immense sense of peace, and now that I can get it on podcast and can listen to it whenever I want (I work when our NPR affiliate plays it), I decided to bundle up for a walk. Unfortunately I cannot just head out my front door because the snow is plowed on sidewalks, so I drove to Westchester Lagoon to walk on the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. Once I got used to the tender walking that is required when on fresh snow and identified that I needed to get out of the way of cross-country skiers, I quickly lost myself in the stories of Ira Glass and Company. In fact, I got so wrapped up in what was developing in my earphones that I didn't hear the skier coming up behind me until I heard a faint "on your left!" I turned around and a smiling-but-very-very-close Tony Knowles was trying desperately to change directions as to not hit me. After realizing that I was taking up over half of the trail, I jumped to the right and he was able to glide past me without either one of us falling. I couldn't help but smack my head because if there is anyone that should get the right away on the Tony Knowles Coastal trail, it is Tony Knowles.

Is that good enough for now?