Mad Merry Maudlin

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Romance!Reader and I went skating yesterday, as per the usual, and on the rink with us were about ten little tweens (who were, against all odds, capable of skating and texting at the same time).
Anyway, I don't have much opportunity to hang out with large numbers of twelve-year-olds, which is possibly how I missed this new fashion trend, but friends... has crimping come back into style? Real tight jagged crimping?
Between that, the large belts worn on the outside of shirts, and the tight acid-wash jeans, I felt like I was trapped in a bad episode of Saved By The Bell.
God I'm old.
In other news, I know most of you have seen this already, but I stumbled on it again and, as per the usual, it continues to freak out my brain:
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azmanig, huh?

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Wow. I've been watching videos about creating webpages through one's own knowledge of HTML rather than, you know, by using a site like Dreamweaver like a normal human being.
Rather than having nightmarish flashbacks to the FrontPage course I took in college, though, I keep catching myself thinking, "Huh. I know this already. Blogger has taught me to do


page breaks


and that underline thingy

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and also bolding and cross outs and all manner of hyperlinks already!"
...
I'm pretty sure I should pass through sheer awesomeness alone, don't you, friends?
And in that case, I can go to bed instead of finishing my homework, right?
Right!
Awesomeness ftw!!

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Well friends, it took me three separate showers, but I finally managed to get (most of) the zombie face paint off.
I feel like the tube should have come with a warning.
A warning, that is, other than the somewhat alarming Do not use red, blue, or green paint near eyes - Do not use yellow or white paint near mouth, which was written in large letters on the side of the box. Yeeks.
Anyway, after nobly sacrificing the top quarter inch of my skin, I managed to scrape the majority of the "omg blood red!!!!1" stuff off.
The zombie festivities in and of themselves actually sucked a fairly large amount, but it was worth it to hit up Steak 'n' Shake afterwards, in full Living Dead regalia.
Good times.

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You know what I’ve realized is a bad combination? Having an at-work potluck whilst proofreading thousands of pages about healthy eating. Not only is it tricky to balance a plate of meatballs and coffeecake on one knee without spilling, but the topic is so depressing. After all, boring ideas like Portion Moderation and Limiting Saturated And Trans Fats don’t go very well with today’s motto of “Would you like another block of cheese to go with that platter of fried chicken?”

And what’s this that my current page is telling me? “Commercially-made sweets and snacks are the first things you should cut from your diet”?

Oh, yes, I can definitely see that. But this cookie that I'm horking down has *oatmeal* in it, and as I learned earlier in this proofing process, whole grains like oats (And quinoa? What the heck is quinoa?) are healthy! Victory is mine!

Someone pass me another bacon-wrapped water chestnut.

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So there I was, friends, carving pumpkins at Kiker's house.
She and her sibs were all "Triangle Triangle Square TEETH" and called it a day.
I, on the other hand, decided to carve my pumpkin in the shape of Doctor Horrible.
It meant that I spent approximately five hours etching each individual hair and goggle lens into the stupid thing, with my fingers blistering and my back cramping, and whatever.
But then I was done!
It was beautiful!
It was perfect!
The only problem? While I was downstairs carving, Kiker's dad very nicely cleaned up the table, throwing out all the pumpkin guts and pieces and... the lid to my pumpkin.
Without the lid, no one would be able to see my beauteous carving!
The carving that was literally making my fingers bleed.
So I sprang into action like a cheetah on a trampoline, and recruited Kiker's helpful younger brother to show me where the trash was.
Oh, out by the curb?
Okay.
So we sprint out there, in the dark, in the rain, stopping only long enough for me to remove my socks, because feet dry faster than socks, right? Right!
Ten minutes later, having just pawed through a bag o' pumpkin guts in a trash can in the dark, we *raced* for the house, the pumpkin lid clutched triumphantly in my hand.
It was at that point, obviously, that I skidded on the floor of their garage and somehow managed to cut off the top of my big toe.
The injury has left me a crippled shell of a human being, as I cannot even put pressure on the stupid thing without it bleeding. ("Hmm," says Mom. "In retrospect, maybe I should have stitched it up last night. Oh well, too late now! It'll take about a month to heal if it doesn't get infected!")
The moral of this story, friends, is that one shouldn't go running around outside in the dark barefoot in the rain whilst unbalanced by a pumpkin.
On the upside, it does mean that now when people ask me why the heck I'm staggering around the office like a drunken zombie, I can look them straight in the eye and tell them it was a freak pumpkin-carving accident.
Which, let's be honest, is a pretty awesome excuse.

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Aws. It's two in the morning and I'm up listening to Lady GaGa with a Red Bull in one hand and a textbook about the inner workings of computers in the other.
It's like I'm back in college!
Only Roomie!Ann isn't seven feet away, bravely attempting to sleep and not commenting on my super-loud, tap-dancer-like typing!
Poor Roomie!Ann.
She suffered much over the five years we lived together, I imagine.
n00bie!r00mie came over this evening and the two of us watched trashy girly movies and ate more queso than is probably good for us. (Gasp! How can such a thing be possible?!) Then she went to bed, because she's responsible. I hope it's not catching....
Speaking of catching, I had my OMFG FLU shot today, and my arm has subsequently gone tingly and strange. The hypochondriac that lurks just under the surface of my brain is having literal seizures of panic. The rest of me is blaming the aforementioned Red Bull. I'll let you know if it falls off, shall I?

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Received the following tweet from Cath today:
@Monica Hey. You. Blog more.
By God, I haven't been updating, have I!?
AHAHAHAHAHAHA!
...
I apologize.
You know I hate those people who abandon their sites without any warning at all, and I'm afraid I have almost become one of them.
I hadn't really thought through how many hours were in a day, minus a 45-hour work week, minus six credits, minus two novels a week for Hungry Readers.
Apparently it equals negative thirty-seven, which leaves me precious little time to eat/sleep/blog. Sleeping is out, obviously, but I do occasionally need to eat....
But moving on from me whining about how busy and crazed I am -- how have you all been?
I've missed you!
I promise I will update at least weekly from here on out. Feel free to yell if you notice I'm slacking.
For those of you in the area, Romance!Reader and I have started going roller skating every Friday. Y'all should join us!
Apparently if you do it often enough, you end up with a back end that appears to have been sculpted out of marble and steel.
Plus, I just like disco balls, and roller rinks have those in spades.

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Coasting along on the recent success of Shel and me getting an actual Dot Com domain name for Hungry Readers, I've purchased merrymaudlin.com all for my very own.
Just in case someone wanted to steal it.
I don't know if it's actually up and running yet, but at *some* point I'll get it figured out, and then you all can say to yourself, "Wow. Who knew that we were cool enough to read a blog this classy and official?"
In unrelated news, I have to post a three-minute video to one of the message boards for Liberry Skool.
It needs to be informative.
About me.
Anyone have any ideas? I figured I'd show them my bedroom and call it a day.

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I was alone at work today, Faithful!Readers, because LB deserted me. In her defense, I suppose attending the funeral of your grandmother is slightly more important than keeping your cubicle-mate out of trouble. Slightly.
(Also, side note, she was *robbed* last night by someone that the police think read about the visitation in the paper and then broke in when they knew her family would be at the funeral home. A) I had always thought that was an urban legend, like the girl who is babysitting and thinks the parents keep a super-creepy full-sized clown statue in their bedroom but at the end it turns out to actually be a crazy murderer who was lurking in the house, and B) I'm pretty sure there's a special place in Hell for anyone who would case a house based on when the family would be at a funeral. That's just not classy, robbers.)
Anyway!
The highlight of the day was watching the women's bathroom slowly being overrun with ants.
I'd check in on it every hour or so. At eight, there were one or two. Around ten, there was a solid group of them making their way across the floor. By noon, you couldn't see the tile for the ants. By two, the walls were moving. And by the time I left work, the ants had gnawed their way through the door and were well on their way to world domination, a la Them. Without the nuclear radiation. I think.
Don't worry, I did alert Maintenance to the fact that the bathroom floor was crunching underfoot more than normal. I can only assume that when we come to work tomorrow, there will have been a vast massacre. And, presumably, the ants will have triumphed.

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Oh, Patrick Swazye. How I loved thee.