if you're vaguely attracted to rooftops...

I hate doing laundry at my apartment. In college, there were a small enough percentage of us doing laundry in our dorm that we could generally guess at whose laundry we were callously shoveling out of the occupied drier of our choice, and either feel bad about it, possibly leave a sufficiently apologetic note, or chuckle as we sprinkled their neon sex thongs on the floor. Or we could alleviate the stress of literally airing our dirty laundry by doing laundry as a group, jamming up the available appliances while hoisting ourselves onto the driers and splitting six-packs. We also shared minimally similar ideas about what passed as acceptable underwear, and even if our underwear didn’t fit in, we accepted a strong enough social hierarchy to realize that this was some sort of failing on our part, and not on the part of others who owned things like clean undergarments, exercise clothes, and things in size small. In my new grown up apartment, it’s not like that. I feel uncomfortable putting my unmentionables in a place where they remain vulnerable to be seen by people whose general cleanliness habits remain a mystery to me. Not only do I want to keep these people as far away from any kind of situation in which they might feel prompted to touch my underwear, I’d also really like to prevent them from thinking about whether or not I wear it at all. I want the whole thing to just stay off their radar, much in the way that I have no need for my grandparents to understand what exactly a NuvaRing does.

was it love or fear of the cold?

Whenever I'm forced to live through excessive amounts of snow, I'm left wanting only comfort: comfort food (, comfortable clothes (sweater tights and flannel), comforting drinks (whiskey/tea or whiskey/coffee - it's actually good!), comfort music (Bon Iver), and comforting places. Comforting places, for me, this year, is becoming a little more difficult. As I've mentioned a multitude of times, I went to college at a small liberal arts college in northern (okay, it's what I consider northern - I suppose it's actually central/east) Wisconsin, where it would snow sometimes five days out of the week (this was probably related more to the outrageous weather pattern of the last three years), the sun set routinely at four o'clock, and there was no major body of water to cut the wind chill or add moisture to the snow and air. We were, however, blessed with a campus bar in the basement of our old student union that opened at four on Wednesdays and Fridays, and a cafeteria that had seemingly missed the memo about margerine and other healthy eating options. At first I resented the location - being from southern Wisconsin, the weather hardly seemed novel, like it did to friends from other parts of the country. Eventually, the kitschy, somewhat antiquated comforts of a northern midwestern community that my university could provide turned out to provide the backdrop for some of my most treasured memories from college.


Last winter, I took a class called "Zymurgy," which meant "Beer Tutorial," which meant we got to drink beer in the bar before it opened with professors, and then we got to talk about the beer. The beauty of the class revolved around drinking delicious, expensive, imported beer, talking about it with importance, and doing all this with professors. The class was held from three to five on Thursday, which meant we were sitting underground in front of sheets of glass windows as the sun was folding behind the river for the evening. We all seemed to dress like eskimos, so we sat bundled in our sweaters and scarves and corduroy pants, gradually peeling off layers as we filled our glasses with the contents of multiple pitchers and watched day turn to night. The time spent in this class is my ideal version of a "snow day," so much so that it is difficult to struggle through snowy afternoons at work without wondering how much more fun I would be having, were I sitting on an uncomfortable wooden bench, surrounded by fourteen peers, three professors, and as many pitchers of Belgian beer, grasping a mug imprinted with my initials, dutifully taking notes in our beer journals, drinking away the outdoor chill with every sip.

most of y'all can't even eat without per diem

Here are some things I just did at work:

Sent four individual calendar invites to my boss - two were the times of her flights, two were the times she had to leave for the airport. She did not tell me these times, but sent me the link to her flight reservation and asked me to send invites for the four events. Because she was dissatisfied with the times I'd picked for her to leave the airport, she resent the invites to me so I could fix them, send them back to her, and have her resend them to me and fix them again.

Read aloud all the settings listed under my printer settings so my boss could copy them into her computer and hook her computer up to my printer.

Crawled on the floor to find some sort of number for my computer so that some tech support person could hook up her computer to my computer (I think? I guess? I don't know why I had to do this). After finding the number, they doubted that I'd read them the right one, so they came over to look. I was right.

I'm not complaining, it just seems like in an economy like this, more people should have the opportunity to have positions like this, that are actually completely unnecessary in every way. Seriously? What?

snOMG

Things I wish I were doing during Snowpocalypse 2010:

• Wearing french terry sweatpants
• Watching back-to-back Bravo programming
• Multi-tasking: making coffee and putting liqueur in it while watching Bravo
• Googling jobs in LA and also resort wear
• Finding every way possible to avoid having to wear UGGs in public

Here are some things I don't really wish to be doing: 

• Walking from my office to the bus stop and then waiting (downwind) for it to be 10-15 minutes delayed.
• This is more theoretical, but still: I rarely see people I find attractive in Milwaukee at all, much less on the bus or in bars, which are like the only two places I ever spend any time. Recently, I've noticed that the only days that I have actually spotted reasonably attractive men my age on the bus are also the same days that I'm wearing UGG boots (and also, glaring because that's what I do when it snows). This seems generally unfair, especially because in Appleton, UGGs weren't even seen as a necessary evil. They were revered as a style item. The adjustment is brutal, especially in a blizzard.

 I also have a job application to finish up, so that hopefully next year I can help kids get into college instead of help my boss fill out her expense reports and serve water to her. I could be sitting at home in my previously mentioned terry cloth and flannel ensemble, crafting a tear-jerking masterpiece, but no, I'm sitting at my desk looking busy, because of course my boss didn't come in today (but sees fit to send numerous emails about how people are "overreacting" to the blizzard). No hate, just UGH. SNO- frustrating. (Sorry for that).