goodbye, oh nine

my willful ignorance of the fact that tonight is new year's eve is only a defense mechanism.  if i have lowered expectations, tonight has to exceed them, right?

the year in review:

- i finally experienced the rodeo
- i interviewed for grad school
- morgan came to houston for a sisterly reunion (and corruption)

- the aussies taught me to play cricket
- i signed up for netflix again, and have since become a twin peaks fan and gotten through a lot of my criterion collection list
- someone stole our coffeemaker, flavored coffee creamer was outlawed in the lab, and nescafe proved to be undrinkable; i switched to tea
- i got to see my family not once but twice, showed michelle and sean around the bay state, and had lovely trips to new york and iowa
- i watched a sox game practically on the field at fenway

- even if it was only for an afternoon, i was reunited with miss andrea and mister michael

- the How Unfortunate!™ moment of the year: i took a HUGE digger on the cobblestones in harvard square, so spectacularly that i shredded my knee and the homeless guy on the corner asked if i was alright

- michelle and i got pretty good at buck hunter

- i started spending a lot of time out in the country outside the loop

- i made more international friends than american ones

- i channeled my inner martha stewart and hosted a successful christmas at my house, complete with homemade sangria and the christmas lasagna

and of course...

best new albums:
mr. hudson & the library - a tale of two cities
metric - fantasies
here we go magic - self-titled



best songs:
edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros - home
beyonce - halo  (guilty pleasure)
sleigh bells - infinity guitars
le loup - beach town
kasabian - fire

for your listening pleasure, a mix:


resolutions:
- learn to sew (i have a few projects in mind..)
- read more; i just need to pay my library fines
- take a class in something

happy twenty ten!

i love my tec-9

finally - going shooting today!  herrow, future sniper career!

take the 6

fate (or my subconscious) is conspiring to trigger my nostalgia reflex.  or my 'grass is greener' reflex.  perhaps because it's a friday night and i'm at a coffee shop in the heights drinking my namesake lager, and pretending to work on resumes when i'm really just daydreaming about more desirable locales.  it's a combination of my own poor choice in movies and current circumstances, but i'm going to blame the beer.

in a nutshell, this is the more desirable locale: the auction house, upper east side.

long live jeopardy

a socio-anthropological analysis of small-town iowa

• the flight in was fine, aside from a crazy stewardess and the people in front of us being escorted off by police.  as for the flight back.. i don't want to talk about it.
• half of the population is extremely nice.  the other half seems to be well-versed in the 'we don't take kindly ta yer kind' slow turn and stare.
• dude.  the drinks are so cheap.  a round of four gin & tonics came to $8.  after frequenting places like anvil here in houston my brain can't comprehend that kind of math.  also, we played ping pong in a bar that was previously a meat locker.
  
• fun fact: i don't ever match my socks.  (i can't be bothered.)  this became painfully apparent and a frequent topic of conversation for the ENTIRE family when we arrived and were instructed to take our shoes off in the house because of the new carpet.  GOOD ONE.
  
• there is a blarney stone in the town square.  here's hoping for good luck.
  

 

i will guarantee you that within 24 hours, the entire town knew that there was some crazy tourist chick out taking pictures on main street.

• most of the businesses are two-in-one.  for example, there's the motel/laundromat and a coffee shop that also does furniture restoration and sells wood carving tools.  perhaps not the best idea to be whittling while you have the caffeine shakes?
• my first ever black friday shopping experience took place at true value hardware.
• the accent is very slight.  disappointment!
• sean's dad built an exact replica of the little house on the prairie in their backyard.   it's impressive. 

oven-mitt hot

i can't decide if this is hilarious or unsettling.  i'm going to go with: both.  give it a ponder.

a mixtape

crescent roll day

this year i was invited to thanksgiving at someone's house.  'great', i thought.  'no stress, i don't have to cook.'


except as it turns out, that someone's house happens to be in Iowa.  so i'm replacing the stress of 'gee, is the green bean casserole done?' with 'hey, we're flying a tiny Buddy Holly-killing plane into the frozen tundra'.  don't get me wrong, i'm excited because i've never been to the midwest and my only frame of reference for Iowa is Footloose mixed with the accent from Fargo.

[i know for a fact the minute i hear someone say 'oh yah!' or 'you betcha' i will lose my shit.  not good when Meeting The Family.]

but i will be much happier once i'm standing on the ground in Des Moines.  happier, and most likely drunk.  did you know that it's not illegal to take alcohol in your carry-on? oh hello, 3 ounce bottles of Bombay Sapphire.

may everyone travel safely and have plenty of crescent rolls.

lab astronaut

my boss just paid me ten dollars to make her chocolate chip cookies.  i think i like this new responsibility.




(they were very tasty.)

yes

dean martin & shirley maclaine

ciao

on this lovely afternoon i am skipping out of work to look at a new apartment.  the thought of moving isn't terribly thrilling, but it might be nice for a change of scenery.  and being a block from rudyard's wouldn't be bad.

my morning commute, in smells

rye toast, car exhaust, cut grass, elephant manure*, skunk, stagnant water, cut grass, cigarettes, cheap cologne, chemicals, gasoline, bacterial broth, coffee.



*although i am prone to exaggeration, this is actually true; i park at the zoo and the back of the elephant pens are right along the sidewalk towards the med center. can't see them but sometimes i hear them.

victory

not bad, n'est pas?

i got high fives, an 'outstanding' from buck, and a set of martini glasses for winning Most Creative in the mcelroy's costume contest. credit is really due to sean, though, for making the flag and ears for me at the last minute.

and sing songs by diana ross

a letter to sid vicious after he was arrested for killing his girlfriend, found here.

'i don't like dress-ups'

halloween costume progress: 60%

not bad, given my track record. it usually takes me til october 30th to even make a decision on what to be. i have high hopes for this year; it should be fairly easy to acquire, comfortable, and somewhat original. the hardest part is getting michelle to go along.. like i said, aussies don't really do halloween.

scary movie choices, however, have been lacking. i netflixed 'let the right one in', which i yawned through, with the exception of 30 seconds at the end. not worth it. i should know better than to stray from bravo's list.

the future

'breakfasts' = funnier than 'breakfast'

dangerous

tasti d-lite is in houston?? whaaat? i may never eat real ice cream again.

autumnnnn

things i am pining for:
a bright yellow shirt
pastrami on rye
some effing cool weather

dude. when will it end? the humidity once again has me in the throes of a 'houston sucks' mood, it's hard to like a place when every day i arrive at work a sweaty mess. however we've kept up the charade that it's fall and had a pumpkin-carving party last weekend. apparently australia doesn't really celebrate halloween, so i gave michelle a lesson. step one: get a really big spoon.

it was a huge success, and by that i mean no one lost any appendages. a lot of people got all fancy with their designs, but i kept it traditional with the 'triangle eyes two teeth smile' method.

next up: scary movie selections.

it's not easy being brown

found here

("is that peter fucking frampton?")

(this blog is quickly devolving into a collection of arrested development/high fidelity nonsense.)

not to be all sporty spice...

red sox, you are BREAKING my HEART.

i thought we had a chance. i thought we could come through in the last minute, like always. but not even my new Pedroier jersey could save the day. (no one down here appreciates the humor of that but i love it.)

as of now, go twins.

sparklers and fringe

'it's a mystery of human chemistry and i don't understand it, but some people, as far as your senses are concerned, just feel like.. home.'
- high fidelity

i was given what may be the nicest compliment possible yesterday, which made me think of this.

it is a cruel joke to go outside in 70 degree weather (translation: chilly) wearing a wool skirt and my inspector gadget coat only to overheat on the walk from the parking lot AND look like an idiot for the rest of the day. it's october; starting now i'm basing my wardrobe on the theoretical season and not the temperature. houston residents, please look for me wearing mittens as i drink my gin & tonic on the patio of mcelroy's come december.

a song for the weekend: metric (again), who i'll be going to see at warehouse live next month.

...what?

from the heart-warming children's book 'If You Give an Octopus a Rubik's Cube'.

just kidding. it's science.

howdy

feels strange to be back. but that could be due to dehydration from consuming massive quantities of coffee, magner's, and sam octoberfest. oh and a bumpy flight from logan. to call my traveling companion a nervous flyer would be like saying helen keller had a slight vision problem; somehow that gets transferred to me (i'm young and impressionable), and it gets tiring to keep a plane in the air through sheer force of will.

anyway, a proper update is to come once i get pictures downloaded.

me neither

"The opposite of a mosquito is spooning: mosquitoes are awful, whereas spooning is super. The one thing I haven’t really figured out is where the person in the back is supposed to put that bottom arm."

via Abstract City

if anyone ever comes up with an answer to this conundrum, i want to know.

that is the greatest blog ever, by the by.

completely off-topic: i may have found a way to catch at least part of the sox game on thursday at fenway. fingers are crossed. toes are crossed that the rangers keep their current distance for the wild card.

library love

book that i highly recommend without even reading all of it yet: Outliers - The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. i got almost halfway through just sitting at kraftsmen bakery yesterday after picking it up at the library; it's quite thought-provoking.

[sidenote: be wary of the pigeons outside kraftsmen. they've developed a taste for blood. i watched one tear the hell out of a piece of ham the other day.]

and i'm very impressed with the 'young adult' cd selection at the stella link library branch. besides providing the youth of houston with flo-rida, they had deerhoof, antony & the johnsons, fischerspooner, and hot chip. all of which are now on rotation in my car. free music!

accepted!

i'm officially author of the riveting 'Smad1 Smad5 ovarian conditional knockout mice develop a disease profile similar to the juvenile form of human granulosa cell tumors'. thus proving a PhD is a waste of time. (for me, anyway.) and i only really care because it should help my resume for the job i want.

it's funny to me that i'm now searchable on pubmed, something that was the bane of my existence during those long nights in seeley mudd, looking up papers for neurobio.

shipping up

i am incredibly spoiled. next week i'll be back in the bay state for the second time this year; unheard of. but this will be special because a. i'll be playing tour guide again and b. i will see miss andrea, light of my life, for the first time in TWO YEARS.

i can already tell that i'm reaching a level of excitement that borders on annoying for my traveling companion. "we'll get maple syrup! have you had maple syrup? the real stuff? and lobster! and irish pubs! how about a duck tour? maybe tunnel bar? mmm peet's coffee!" i'm trying to rein it in.

bugs

i know i said there would be a moratorium on cockroach blog entries. but i have to break it. a line has been crossed.

this summer hasn't been so bad. roaches and i have been coexisting peacefully for months now, and by 'coexisting' i mean 'smashing them with 10 pounds of the may issue of Vogue whenever one appears'. (sorry for the noise, downstairs neighbor.) no freaking out, no tears; i had resigned myself to the situation. but that was until last night, when i saw that they've been IN MY BED.

how do i know they're hanging out there, presumably having pillow fights and snuggling up in my comforter? because there is poop left behind. POOP.

how do i know what it looks like? oh i wish i didn't. no one should know. and bugs should never be so large that they leave FECES THAT ARE RECOGNIZABLE TO THE UNTRAINED EYE. but there it was, on the sheet. and then i checked the rest of the bed. ah yes; that's not a mint on my pillow. excellent.

so if in the near future you see me with bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep while scratching myself to death, i'm not a crackhead. it's the fucking roaches.

there are times that being so far away from home is a good thing. this is not one of those times.

then again, i hope you don't

two songs of the week:

	Free Kitten - Seasick
	Found at skreemr.com

	Metric - Twilight Galaxy
	Found at skreemr.com

screw healthcare

EDIT: not three hours after i posted this michelle and i settled in to watch Hung on HBO, starring tom jane, a.k.a. Homeless Dad. and in the middle of the second episode he said "i just want my kids back"!!! inside jokes live on!!

“At what age do you tell a highway it was adopted? I think seven, because that’s about the time he starts to think: 'I don’t look like Kiwanis club.'”
- Zach Galifianakis

the 'alternative' video he made for kanye west's 'can't tell me nothing' never ever fails to make me laugh. (co-starring with the always-awesome will oldham.) i wish i had his ability to keep a straight face.

you may find yourself

david byrne seems like he would be fun to hang out with. apparently he was in houston last month to play jones hall, and then went for a bike ride in the heat, bless his heart. his blog entry on the experience is pretty interesting. actually, i just like that he uses the term 'shotgun shack' in real life.

it was inevitable

i am now the owner of a pair of cowboy boots. they are eel-skin and cowhide, and approved by buck. (he is a connoisseur of boots, as a name like buck would imply.) and to be honest, a tiny bit of their appeal is knowing i could be wearing either flotsam or jetsam from the little mermaid. because they scared the crap out of me when i was young.

this week's song on repeat is naked girl by the velvet teen. besides the fact that it is excellent to listen to while driving, i like that there's a point about 30 seconds into the vocal where you think, "huh. that's a dude."

change of address

please forward all correspondence to:
the roof
metropolitan museum of art
1000 5th avenue
new york, ny

oh, sigh. i could stay up there forever. sipping brooklyn lager.. people watching.. breathing, not drinking, the air.. the whole trip was amazing.


stayed out til 5. went to a bar in the village that is only accessible by walking through a dirty chinese restaurant to an unmarked door. wandered barneys. contemplated a pair of lanvin heels. (they were on sale.) stayed at the waldorf-astoria(!!!)

still sighing. oh i miss it.

eeeeee

i'm going to spend next weekend in MANHATTAN!
this will be the longest week of my life.
(photo found here)

hot

why is it that once this lovely city has reached a comfortable summer temperature of 108 i have a sudden urge to bake? really, it's all i want to do. i made blondies on sunday for bob's birthday, and now i'm looking for any semi-legit excuse to make a cake. roopa's paper got accepted? congrats, here's a baked good. as if my kitchen doesn't already feel like the fifth circle of hell.

yesterday i drove down richmond past two restaurants that are engaged in an ongoing billboard war.

pappadeaux: 'try our top shelf margaritas!'

khyber: 'what if they're made by a midget?'

in summary:

(found here)

valley of pioneers

did i mention i went to a psychic? i was in northampton with morgan the night before graduation and she wanted to do something exciting; it was either palm readings or tattoos. (i really pushed the tattoo idea but she resisted.. being a big sister/role model is a responsibility i take very seriously.)

so 'dorina' told me the following:
- i will be proposed to twice but married once
- i'm artistic but it can be my downfall
- i will become successful and have a famous name, but not a famous face

the last one i think is plausible, if by 'famous' she means people will say 'hey, is your middle name Middle? bwahahahaha!' actually, it's already happening. good job dorina!

that weekend i also learned that the controversy of the pronunciation of delano's has officially ended, because it is now called stackers. LAME. i didn't go in, because i will not patronize an establishment that has a line out the door of brahs in polo shirts and dirty sox hats worn backwards. it's like the loss of barselotti's was too much to bear so they had to ruin a perfectly decent bar. whatever, dudes. what made me feel better was seeing motown benny playing his bucket out front. at least that doesn't change. (and we are facebook friends, after all.)

author

my first research paper is currently 'in review'. so, hooray? come on, journal of endocrinology. (edited by my former PI.. which is either very good or very bad.)

i hate being a nerd.

so.

	Leonard Cohen - Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye
	Found at skreemr.com

chopped

got my haircut the other day. would you like to see?


not quite that short, but the effect is the same i think. i called michelle:
me: 'i'm not a fan. it makes me look really young.'
michelle: 'i think that's your face.'

birfday

today i am 27. a few months ago i was losing sleep over being in my late twenties, which is understandable when everyone around you is talking about getting married, having kids, making money, having one foot in the grave.

but i've decided not to play that game. i'm ok with 'almost thirty'. it doesn't change the fact that i'm going to do what i want to do. not being on some arbitrary timeline is much more relaxing, and it leaves me to lie awake at night thinking about what the hell i'm going to play on my new radio show. (shameless self-promotion! ktru 91.7fm!)

so i've celebrated this year by eating. a lot. to wit: queso on friday, grasshopper tacos (not mint & chocolate; actual fried grasshoppers.. crunchy) and squash blossoms from hugo's on saturday, chocolate carrot cupcakes, and steak night at volcano today. with more queso, because gluttony is the spice of life.

i sort of love this

and you know how i feel about pie..

acl

guess who's going to austin city limits in october???

sonic youth, mos def, grizzly bear, coheed, ghostland observatory, pearl jam, and ME!

(i'm going to pretend my hardest that dave matthews doesn't even exist.)

it'll be three days of heat, humidity, and dust, but it will be glorious!

lunch

looking to go on a diet? try my new weight loss plan! it's fast, easy, and only available to baylor employees. see how simple it can be:

1. go into the pathology department break room between the hours of 12 and 2.
2. inhale deeply.

i guarantee your appetite will be gone after just 30 seconds! if the smell of weird microwaved food isn't enough, just move on to step 3, putting your head in the fridge, and you can bet that you won't be wanting food of any kind for the rest of the day!


side effects may include nausea and vomiting.

flatte

happy birthday to me... i just ordered a bottle of knockout matte black.

hey it's karen o from the yeah yeah yeahs!

having black nail polish on makes doing anything, like, say cutting brussels sprouts, ever so slightly badass. (please note i said 'slightly'. not in this universe will the word 'badass' ever really apply to me.) i've been obsessing over this for a few months, because i'm a sucker for anything matte. i can't wait to try it out next to my glow-in-the-dark skin.

speaking of celebrating my emergence into this world, i can't decide what to do for the big day. i sort of want to go shooting..

whitest girl alive

how is it possible to sit outside for half an hour at lunch and get a sunburn? unfair!

sons of bankers, sons of lawyers

today's song of the day. i had forgotten that i like old elton john until we watched almost famous this weekend.

(this makes me want to get on the MTA to grand central. i miss new york.)

please be mine!

spotted while driving down shepherd. it's my favorite color. sigh.

and those are two starbucks, directly across the street from each other, not one big one.

i'm wicked excited.

it may have given me an ulcer, but i booked my ticket back to mass. twelve days at home, morgan's graduation, and michelle will be joining me for a weekend so she can compare old and new england. (meaning she can experience all the things i've overhyped.) time to figure out who we know that's closest to the T!

lately

a spontaneous picnic of breakfast tacos outside the menil. living in montrose is the best.

ask me about tie-down roping and/or bronc riding. i am now very knowledgeable on rodeo subjects. also, they had fireworks INSIDE.

i am obsessed with poladroid. it makes all my pictures magically look as if they were taken in 1982.

presents

today at work i've been sitting in a little room using the scientific equivalent of a deli slicer and taking tiny slices of mouse organs to put on slides. normally i sort of loathe this, but not today. for today i have a new birthday ipod, given to me by a certain someone whose name begins with 'd' and ends in 'ave'. it has a click wheel! my old ipod would be so ashamed, sitting up there on the shelf next to my phonograph and the bonfire and blanket i use as a means of communication. i happily sliced uteri while listening to nick cave. it was about as nice a day as it can be at baylor.

but wait, it can get better: there are thin mints hidden in the lab freezer. (inside a latex glove, don't want any contamination.)

eff this

I'M CRABBY.