Charts and Graphs

Found this great bit from How I Met Your Mother featuring Marshall's graphs and charts. I know lots of people who organize their life this way (myself sometimes included.) I really love that he ranked U.S. Presidents by how dirty they sound. That strikes me as a surprisingly good party game.

Tokens

I went to a party.  We played this token game.  Basically, there was a massive pile of tokens and you got to take so many for each thing. 
For example, Faith would read "take one token if you made your bed today."  Obviously, as my form of making the bed is making sure the blankets are all on top, I didn't take a token. 
It was pretty fun.  Claire took all sorts of tokens that she wasn't meant to, including the end, where you got to take a token for not cheating.  Hayley, Ruth's roommate, came, and it was the first time I had ever spent lots of time with her.  Lavvy came a little late, but we let her play too. 
I didn't get to take too many tokens myself, but I was triumphant when one of them was "take four tokens if you went to church today."  One of the few times being religious in my group of friends as panned out. 
Mimi was being especially annoying during the game.  She kept interrupting Faith, and finally, putting on her best authority voice, told Mimi she was making the decisions.  All of my friends, clustered around a table, roared with laughter. 
I told all of them about my idea of having a garage sale type thing.  I was thinking it could be more like a table sale, where everyone sold the stuff they didn't need anymore. 

The First Weekend of the Year

I watched the game, and by the time we got to the third quarter, my heart was broken.  We were behind by thirty-five points.  Alabama kept getting the ball and running it against us. 
Then I remembered that it was after three and I still hadn't had anything to eat.  I made myself some nachos.
My Mom came in and ate some of them, and this personally irked me.  I hate how people are always eating my food. 
I turned the tv off after we fell behind by forty-two points.  I just couldn't watch it anymore because it was depressing me. 
My sister turned on some dumb MTV show.  And then my internet wouldn't connect.  I don't know why, but it seems like lately a lot of bad things have happened, and somehow, not being able to connect to the internet was too much to deal with. 
I went out for a walk.  I haven't been out for a walk in weeks, even though I've just stayed inside to exercise.  For the first part of my walk, I was still depressed, thinking about the bad things that had happened this week.  But by the time I got back home, I was feeling cheerful. 
As I was taking off my shoes, my Mom started talking to me about all this stuff she wanted me to do in the next few days and then about my Grandma (who is still in the hospital).  I just felt like a deflating balloon. What little cheerfulness I had left me. 
We went out to dinner.  My sister didn't want to come along.  In the car, my Mom asked if she had a fight with her boyfriend. 
"I don't know.  She didn't say anything to me about it," I said.  Mom didn't really have any proof, just that she was sort of a mope the last twenty-four hours.  I had noticed that too. 
Dinner was okay.  My Mom usually is fine at restaurants, but she chose tonight to be one of those people who harass the wait staff.  One of the waiters came up and asked if we wanted more of some chips.  My Mom said that she was hoping the food would come out soon.  This apparently prompted the manager to come over and say the food was coming soon. 
Uh-oh. 
Then my Mom wasn't happy with how her burger was cooked, and they took it back and got her a new one.  The manager came over again and checked to make sure the second one was cooked well and then came back to ask her again if it was okay. 
I think the manager was overreacting a bit, but at the same time it's so embarrassing.  We got out of there soon. 
When I got back, my sister was watching Jersey Shore.  I tried to do some work in the same room.  Then the boyfriend called.  She talked to him briefly, telling him that all he had to do was give his Dad's name and use his ID.  I don't know what that was over, but doesn't sound much like making up. 
I worked on putting some new music on my MP3 player.  As I was trying to get a CD to work, and it wouldn't import.  I tried to get it a second time and it worked then.
Then the boyfriend walked into the room.  He sat down with my sister and they tried to watch a movie.  Something about the air was really tense (they couldn't decide what to watch) so I left.  I went to the next room, continuing the fixing up of my MP3 player and reading about French chansons in between. 

My sister and her boyfriend watched the UConn/Oklahoma game.  I watched bits and pieces of it.  Man, Oklahoma's a good team.  They're fast and they're rough. 
The only thing I don't like about them is their mascot.  I'm strangely picky about mascots, and I find there's something really awful about glorifying the Sooners, who were part of a bunch of white people who kicked Native Americans off their land, the land the government forced them on after torturing them through the Trail of Tears.  (Among other things, soldiers raped Native American women, specifically targeting those who spoke English.) 
I watched part of the Crow which I've never seen before but heard a lot about over the years.  I can see why people like it.  Then I watched Criminal Minds.  I'm trying to watch as much of it as possible because I don't have access to it when I leave home, being without a tv and all.  Mostly, being without a tv is a good thing, but sometimes I don't want to do anything but veg out, and watching tv has to be the ultimate way to veg out. 
Afterwards, I was still not quite ready for bed, so I sat down and read for about an hour.  Then I fixed myself a drink and read for another hour and finally I felt ready for bed. 
I had another dream about Sam, the second one in about a month.  It's so strange dreaming about Sam because I don't usually think about her at all.  This time, I walked into a room and there she was, sitting at her computer.  We talk, though I can't really remember what about, though I think part of the conversation centers around music, specifically a CD I bought when I was in Canada.  Then we start dancing around, and she's shouting the way she used to. 
I haven't seen Sam for at least a year now.  Right around this time, she packed up her bags and left, not saying goodbye to me or anyone else.  In the time leading up to her leaving, I saw her around less and less, because we were no longer living in the same area or in the same field of work.  But she was living with Emily and Chrissy, and she didn't say anything to them either (even if my last dream implied Emily knew more than she told me at the time.) 
When I got up, my Mom was in the kitchen, talking about how she was going to see my Grandma in the hospital today.  I wanted to go, but not really now.
I took another walk.  This time, I put on my MP3 player and went around the neighborhood.  There was no one around, and I sort of like it this way.  I don't really like it when people around here stop and talk to me because I don't necessarily want to talk to them, and usually they ask what I'm up to, and honestly I'm too tired to talk about that these days.

I Hate Being a Cliche

I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping these last few months, more so than the previous months when I was still at school.
Part of it is stress.  Just thinking about all the things going on in my family makes me so upset.  I often get really angry while I'm lying in bed, when I have the moment to consider just how awful some particular thing was.
And then I think about friends I'm having issues with, and it's all I can do not to pick a fight, even if I have to call that person to have that fight. 
The last week or so, I've been playing this "music" of it raining and thundering.  As I've mentioned before, I really like this sound, and now that we're in a dry season, it doesn't rain much.  Sometimes this sound stuff helps me fall asleep, sometimes not so much. 
I got up around two yesterday, and played Solitaire on my computer.  I was hoping that would tire me out.  After losing four out of my six games, I realized no, that it wasn't helping.  I was sleeping and my game wasn't getting better.
And then I laid in bed, doing the tossing and turning thing.  God.  I hate being a cliche.
If you've ever had trouble sleeping, you know that it's awful, because you know what you want to happen, you usually fix things in your favor so that will happen, but still you're just waiting.  In my case, my brain accelerates at two hundred miles per hour and I can't slow things down.  Usually, my brain going this fast is a good thing, because it's part of what makes me a good student.  But it works against me too, since when I haven't had much sleep my brain gets sluggish and I say stupid stuff. 
Then, last night, my jaw started hurting.  Why is beyond me, as I was laying on my side (like I usually do) and, except for the sleeping thing, was fine. 
After a while, I must have fallen asleep.  Probably some time after three. 

Con Virgin, part 2

Like I was saying in my last post, Matt and I spent a lot of time in the game room, since Matt was interested in learning more about games.  And, as I also mentioned in that post, I was looking to do a little amateur anthropology work.
The game room ended up being the best place to talk to people.  Whenever I'm in these situations, I feel very much like Elizabeth Bennet, since I find myself being witty and doing my best to endear myself to people.
I made jokes making fun of Republicans, and those went over surprisingly well.  Because of all the time I've spent with Dean over the past few years, I guess I've gotten it in my head that all nerds are libertarians, but my sense was they were liberals, which made me happy.
One of the people I ended up meeting was Matt Arnold.  When I first noticed he was wearing a tag with that name, I was tempted to ask him if that was really his name.  (The last time I saw that name, I was at Westminister Abbey.  Go on, look up who the historical figure is.)  I was impressed with certain things about him, and he seemed game enough for my wit.  (Along with his friend Nathan, who played along.  Score!)  Briefly looking around on his website, he appears to be way nerdier than I ever have been, but that's okay.  And the best news?  He appears to be pro-poly.      
I hate to admit it, but there were some cute boys there.  And there were some not-so-cute boys there who also had personality.  And, let's face it, I'm a personality fan.  If you want my immediate attention, sure, looking cute helps, but if you want to keep that attention long term, you better be something more.  It's too bad that I will certainly never see some of those boys again.  Some of them might be worth it.
The strangest thing that happened was that a young boy named Milo followed Matt and I out of the game room.  He introduced himself to us as Milo.  He was so young, and maybe a little too young to be wandering around the convention alone.  Matt totally blamed me for getting him to follow us around, but honest to God, I didn't do it on purpose.  I didn't even talk to the boy.  But, really, he seemed harmless enough, so no biggie.  
Matt and I also sat through this discussion of a steampunk movie maker.  The movies were well-made, and the one director seemed a little boring, but his best friend with him was hilarious and maybe manic.  I'd totally love to see the latter do nerdy stand-up. 
So maybe I didn't end up doing much in the way of anthropology, but that's not the end of the universe.  I definitely feel like, for the most part, people were very friendly.  There were a few people who were exactly like the most negative stereotype of nerds, but I was mostly pleased with the experience.  
Getting home?  Not so much.
Matt is wonderful and all, but he managed to get lost three times on the way back home.  I know what happened the last two times, but I'm still trying to figure out how the first time happened.  I wasn't paying attention because Matt and I were having an intense, heart-to-heart conversation and I was dealing with frantic text messages from my Mom, so I wasn't watching where Matt was going.  I think the first time he turned somewhere funny, because all he had to do was go straight before we hit a particular freeway.  At one point, it became clear we were going east when we were suppose to be going north.  And then for some reason, Matt turned around and went south. 

Library Fantasy #2

I spent a ton of time today and last night doing reading for various classes (a piece on the Crusades, one of Saint Louis, part of a book on Shell Oil in Nigeria, Oranges are not the Only Fruit, "Recitatif," a Winterson article.) Mostly, when I'm doing a lot of reading, I wander around until I find a comfy/semi-quiet spot to work in, since I don't have a couch at my place right now and I get antsy if I'm not moving.
One of my favorite quiet places are on the second floor of the building I live in. There's these two different rooms in two different corners of the buildings, and they're perfect. Generally, no one's there, and there are leather couches and tables and chairs. One of the rooms has tons of books, which I cataloged as a sophomore. Last night and today, I opened the windows, and enjoyed the nice weather and the perfect atmosphere for productivity. The weather has been a big help in keeping my mood up, and being left alone made it possible for me to really concentrate. I actually don't mind interruptions, usually, from friends. (It's when it's people I dislike it's a problem.)
As I was sitting in this reading room, I found myself fantasizing about having a large library someday. A nice library is a real steal. (The picture is from a conceptual piece for Buffy the Animated Series, which never happened. As of right now, it's my ideal library, except I want there to be comfortable, huge chairs, like the kind you find at Barnes and Noble, and blankets and even Snuggies.) I want to have lots of books, strange ones, leather ones, fugly ones. I want there to be no room for anything else, so there's no art on the walls. Except for Roman Empire busts. When I was in London, I hung out a little at the British Library, and one of the workers told me of a library they had received was cataloged by whatever Roman bust was on top of the shelf. I can say that I'm probably not that crazy, but I definitely want a collection: Julius, Augustus, Caligula, Nero, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Sepitimus Severus, Caracalla, Elgabalus, Valerian, Diocletian, Romulus Augustus, Justinian. And then of course, when I have visitors to my library, I'll see who's up on their stuff. Maybe to throw them off, I'll throw in Suetonius and Catullus and see who's really on their game.