The Myth & The Majesty

I like online quizzes. It's odd ... Possibly the same reason I used to get a kick out of Scantron tests. (I don't want to hear about it, okay?) Anyway! Darren posted the results he got from this one on his blog, and I decided to follow suit. The results were mildly predictable (and vague enough to apply to anyone), amusing, and on at least one occasion a little alarming. So naturally, I decided to post them. Okay, okay, maybe that's not what you wanted to hear, but I'm all about telling you more than you need to know about me right now. ----- The Color Quiz Current Situation: Feeling stressed out due to her current situation and the demands which are placed on her. Working to release herself from all things that hold her back or tie her down. Stress Sources: Needs to meet people who have the same high principals and values as herself, but finds the need unfulfilled. Her need to feel dominate and superior leaves her feeling isolated and does not allow for her to give fr...

This has easily been one of the nuttiest months I've had in recent history. Coming from April -- one of the worst months I've ever had -- I had low expectations. You might even say I was just hoping it wouldn't be completely miserable. Yeah. Aim high. The month started with a trip to Appleton with the girls -- the perfect stress relief after a couple of crazy weeks. The following Wednesday, I got to see the Russian National Ballet perform "Don Quixote" at the Grand. Fantastic evening. The next Friday I sent flowers to my mom at work for the first time, and the following weekend I stayed home and started the spring cleaning process. I wish I could fully express how badly I needed that weekend as it was -- alone, productive, and keeping whatever hours I felt like keeping. Then, my 25th birthday, starting early in the day with cinnamon rolls and ending with an outing to Red Eye. The next day, a beer launch at the same establishment. The day after that, ...

The Interweb is rumbling today ... Wikipedia has banned IPs that can be traced to the Church of Scientology from editing articles due to not being able to keep up with the edits that were being made (and the self-serving nature of said edits). My opinion on this is: okay. I understand the reasoning. Wikipedia would like to remain a reliable source and they frequently ban select IPs. While it might seem extreme to ban an entire organization, let's remember that this is NOT the government regulating free speech -- this is an organization trying to maintain credibility and solve some problems for its employees. Perhaps it's setting an interesting precedent, but again -- it's an organization. They can do what they want or need in these cases. Apparently there was some serious arbitration required before they could officially do this, but it's done and now the CoS is out. That's not what I find funny about this. As a result of this ban, the Google news feed...

Hmmm... I have a sore throat, and it's making me nervous. Does that make sense? It's all about that timing thing ... Next week I'm headed to New Jersey and I'd rather not be more unthrilled to be there than I already will (a person can only get so excited about all-day meetings). And let's face it -- traveling for any reason while sick just plain sucks. After some truly spectacular weather all weekend, it started raining yesterday in the wee small hours of the morning. There was a break in there yesterday evening, but it started up again and has been pretty steady since. As someone lacking in the technology to water her yard (no outdoor spigots), I like getting rain. But as someone who has been wishing for sunshine for the last three months, I'm really hoping this system moves through. Unfortunately at the moment it's stretching almost as far south as Cedar Rapids and west into SoDak, so it may be awhile. Wow. After my highly repetitive weekend p...

Rubik's Cube party Friday. Kayaking Saturday. "Star Trek" Sunday. Cookout Monday. Back to work Tuesday. Wow, what a weekend.

What a crazy weekend this is turning into ... It started with a Rubik's Cube birthday party. You wear one item of each of the six Rubik's Cube colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and white) and then you trade items until you're wearing all one color. The pictures that resulted are priceless. Then yesterday morning nine of us went kayaking. It was my first time out, and I have to say -- I think I might be hooked. I've already started looking for a used kayak (because, well, new ones are expensive) ... and a roof rack, because I drive a little car. I was surprised. I thought I'd probably enjoy it, but ten minutes in and I never wanted to get out of the water. I think it was a maneuverability thing, coupled with a control thing (shockingly) ... So much fun. Anyway! That's what's spurred another list. This one is One New Preference And Eleven Other Preferences I've (Re)Discovered This Weekend 1. Kayaking over canoeing. 2. Mowing the yard over shoveling...

It's a Friday afternoon. I've got a full, gorgeous, practically perfect weekend ahead. Oh, and it's going to be three days long, which really just makes it that much closer to perfect. There's enough pollen in the air to coat Sophie -- which basically means that I have never before been so relieved to not have seasonal allergies. [That sentence is a bit convoluted.] I intend to spend as much of my weekend out and about as I can, but sneezing fits would definitely get in the way. I really need to finish fixing my bike. I'd rather get a new one but that's just not going to happen this week. Or next week. For the comparatively small amount of sleep I'm running on, I have way too much unfocused energy.

Four Things I'm Currently Saving Up For 1. A decent bike 2. A digital SLR camera 3. A plane ticket to South Korea 4. A new couch Three Things I'm Doing In The Next 3 Days 1. Tango 2. Playing volleyball 3. Kayaking for the first time (finally!) Five Things I Get To Think About This Week 1. Getting my bridesmaid dress for the wedding I'm in later this year 2. The potential of hanging out in Door County in a couple of weekends 3. Possibly switching Internet providers 4. My upcoming work trip to New Jersey 5. My siblings both leaving the country in the next eight weeks

Tonight is possibly the perfect night. Almost chilly but not quite. A nearly clear sky. Quiet. Neub's dude can host any time he wants. I'm more than happy to be in walking distance. Next time we hopefully won't shanghai him, though ... Poor guy. (This rather useless post happens to be #800.)

You know it's a long day if your 4:00 meeting gets postponed to 4:30. You also know it's a long day if that's your third meeting of the day. Hey, at least we're making headway.

It was a nutty weekend. A lot happened. I'm tired and I could probably fill pages with what I was thinking about on my return trip. But for now, I'll spare you the ramblings of my brain and tell you one truly crazy story from the drive itself. I had just turned north onto I-35 (headed toward Minneapolis) when a car came up behind me in the left lane, just a couple of miles an hour faster than me. It was a nondescript, champagne-colored sedan (maybe an Impala?), moderately new, with a normal-looking driver. Nothing that would normally stand out. But he was hauling something on the top of his car. Something in a blue tarp. Something with four hoofed feet sticking out on the right side. I'm curious by this point -- they're not sticking out like a freshly dead animal, but more like a large animal statue. Strange. So I slow down a bit so he can pass ... and I find myself watching a full taxidermied zebra go by, head sticking out of the tarp on the back. Staring at m...

My horoscope this morning makes me a bit uneasy. "Keeping the peace is simply not your job -- so today, do not take on any additional burdens by trying to ease tense situations. Your compassion is admirable, but if a conflict is going on today, you need to do your best to avoid it. Resist your urge to step in and make these people talk to each other or try to come to an agreement. This is something you are not a part of, and you should stay out of it. Let them work out their problems on their own. You can't help."

To my parents: Happy anniversary! 32 years, 3 children, several towns, even more houses -- and you still seem to like each other. It never ceases to impress.

It's a busy week. Shoveled sand yesterday, then went to a beer release party ... Tonight, there's a Taste of Home expo downtown. Tomorrow, the first volleyball game of the sand league season. And on Friday I make the trek west. I'm sure there's a slow week coming up sometime soon.

Twenty-five years ago -- around this time of the night -- I was born in Rapid City, in the shadow of the Hills that would become my second home years later. Two weeks later, all of the segments of the hospital building in which I was born had been moved to a new, much larger facility, and the old building became the behavioral health center. That's right -- shortly after I was born they turned the hospital into the mental health clinic. I can't make this stuff up. I spent most of my childhood 350 miles away, on the eastern side of South Dakota. Life was good most of the time. Sure, we had our ups and downs (some years heavier one way or the other), but life was good. On my eighteenth birthday I was in Kansas City, riding roller coasters with my physics class and a few hundred other high school kids. Looking back, I can't think of a better way to have rung in adulthood. It was an absolutely fantastic day. A few months later, I headed off to school. Rapid City had been callin...

Twenty-five. It seems like such an inconsequential number, but for some reason it's hitting me weirdly hard this afternoon. Twenty-five. How the heck did that happen?!

My post yesterday about my little brother sent me off on an interesting nostalgic path. I don't often talk about my family here, but today I think I need to write more. I've talked about my parents before but a conversation with my mother spurred some more thoughts on how awesome they really are. My mother is in a fairly unique situation: in addition to her whiz kid son, she has two daughters, one who is 23 and the other who is almost 25, and they are both single. Not just single in the legal sense (which, in case you're wondering, simply means we have never been married) but single in every usual sense of the word. There are all sorts of reasons -- neither of us are into casual things; Mia Sorella was a liberal arts major and as such met few men (and now isn't in an ideal situation to be meeting people); I don't meet many single guys anymore and besides that I'm scared of commitment -- but the bottom line is the same. Neither of us are attached, and neither of ...

One week before I head west for Shorty's graduation! It's a little alarming, to be completely honest. The poor kid is forever eleven in my head, just as he was when I moved out seven years ago. In the meantime, he's grown up and turned into the kid at school in drama, soccer, debate, on the honor roll, leading the youth group -- and the one that takes the Swedish exchange student to prom. I don't know how they all fit together. He used to be the kid that was utterly tortured by his two big sisters ... He was kind of a scrawny kid and we could gang up on him a little too easily. We kept him hyped up on Santa beyond the healthy age and he was scared of the basement because we had him convinced there were monsters down there. It wasn't until he was about nine that he had a chance against us -- and by that point we had moved into the Fiercely Protective Sisters range. No one was going to be messing with him on the bus. Now he's the golden child. He's...

It's a perfect day outside. I'm going to have a social lunch. I've been listening to Modest Mouse this morning, which -- weirdly enough -- makes me dance in my cubicle. Kind of awkward at times but always fun. I'm looking forward to a weekend of hardcore apartment revamping. My mom just got the flowers I sent her for Mother's Day. And until I get comments back, I'm done with the things I absolutely had to get done today -- which means I can work on the things I need to finish over the next week without that extra pressure. It's a good day. Happy Friday, all.

This particular day, the second in a weekend backpacking up by Deerfield Lake during my last semester at school. This photo is titled "Map Check #35." Obviously we weren't terribly lost -- we found a bridge, after all. Yeah. No attention span when the weather is this nice. I'm going outside now. Goodbye.

... picked up over the course of the day. Well! Last night I bought my plane ticket for my trip west in June. Today the same ticket costs about 50% more. Seems a little extreme, but it sure makes me happy with my timing. Tonight, Emma Jean and I are headed to the ballet. That's right -- the ballet. The Russian National Ballet, even, performing "Don Quixote" ... As I am mildly obsessed with most things Russian, I'm really, really excited about this. I think the enthusiasm overrides any possible snobbery, too, which is kind of funny. And a little alarming. This project may be slowly burying me alive. If you're a "Firefly" fan, I recommend reading xkcd this week. This weekend will likely be a weekend in. Lots to get done in that house-apartment of mine, from cleaning to baking to yard work. If only the weather would cooperate so I could get the mowing done ... The soda machine here is a little frustrating, and not the most efficient design...

Two weeks. That's all. Heck, a week and a half ... Can slow back down in time for Shorty's graduation. Seriously. Where's that fast forward button? I can't decide if it's a sense of dread or just plain cabin fever. Whatever it is, I'm ready for the next couple of weeks to be over. Kind of too bad, considering the other things going on between now and the 19th ... I mean, this is a couple of action-packed weeks. Not usually something I want to miss. But there it is. I'm ready to skip ahead a bit. I succumbed to the Facebook quizzes yesterday for a bit and one of them determined that my greatest fear is being trapped. Considerably less than shocking. As a matter of fact, you might say that was predictable. It explains some of my apprehension about this month, though. It's a rare occasion where I have my week scheduled two weeks ahead of time, and even rarer that it's an inescapable schedule. But here I am. Scheduled to the point ...

Well, it was an interesting weekend. Mostly good. A little downtime, some shopping with the girls (although one of them wouldn't appreciate that label -- but he was more gung-ho than us), some chores actually done for the time being. Then there was some time with a splitting headache and not managing to be useful for the better part of Sunday. Very frustrating. I have to admit, though -- I'm ready for the next, oh, two weeks or so to be over. They're gonna be just a little crazy.

You know, there are times where I think my life is kind of boring. Really. It happens from time to time. But in the last week I've had a birthday party, met a handful of random folks, helped entertain a friend who's fiancée has been out of town all week, sweated bullets at work, accomplished more in a 24 hour span than I do some weeks, gotten a new CD, and cleaned up half of my apartment (which is fairly momentous to me, even if it's not to all of you). And, ten minutes ago, I watched a couple of grown man-boys play with a Styrofoam cup filled with liquid nitrogen because my job allows for random distractions like that. Some days this place is a nerd paradise.