cupcake

my birthday is coming up...and I know what I want.

cupcake

OK, I'm really proud of myself, so I'm gonna share my success.

I bought my books for this semester (finally)! I went to campusbooks.com (shameless plug) and found all my books for cheaper than the stupid rip-off campus bookstore.

Spanish, Book 1:

• Bookstore price: (used) $76.75
• Ebay: (used) $49.99
• Bookrenters.com $41.28

Spanish, Book 2:

• Bookstore price: (used) $80.25
• Half.com: (used) $10.00

Intro to Special Ed:

• Bookstore price: (used) $100
• Chegg.com: $56

Human Sexuality:

• Bookstore price: (used) $82.95
• Barnes and Noble: $13

Total saved: $221

Total spent (my other class doesn't have a book selection): $125!!!!!!

stupid job

There are about 10000 things I didn't get to do this summer. Usually I am forced to blame myself, my procrastinating nature, for my crippling summer-onset laziness. BUT this year, it's totally my job's fault.

At least that's what I am telling myself.

Whenever I think, OK, need to make a list of all the crap...why didn't I do that already...need INK don't forget INK...I have six more days of work...can I ask for a day off...I need boxes... and all these things begin to overwhelm me, I just think STUPID JOB instead of STUPID CLAIRE. Which is good for my psyche, overall.

But now all the things I didn't do this summer (like watch Pulp Fiction or finish my quilt) are buried beneath all the things I need to do in the next six days. One list is full of regret, and the other is full of anxiety.

I'd better get crackin'.

this is my life

(Sean and I walk in the door after work. We had stopped at McDonald's for lunch and come home to find Ryan and Daniel alone in the house. Mom is out getting groceries)

ME: Hey, puppy! (to Einstein)
Sean: Daniel, why are you on the phone?
Daniel: (already exasperated, after one question) I'm talking to Ben! Gosh!
Ryan: You guys got food??? Mom left us here ALL. DAY.
Me: Sorry, you can make your own food.
Ryan: Daniel ate the last pizza.
Me: Make your own with the English muffins! Or make a peanut butter sandwich.
Ryan: I already did.
(Sean and I look over at the counter, and the bread is open, the peanut butter is on the counter, and a knife is jutting off the edge of the counter.)
Sean: Ryan! Put your knife AWAY (commanding, too-deep, adolescent Sean voice)
Ryan: It's not mine!
Sean/Me: Well, who's is it? It's not ours! It's not Daniel's!
Sean: It doesn't matter if it's yours! We pick up stuff that's not ours ALL THE TIME!!! (the voice again)
(Ryan picks it up, shows Nutella on the bottom side. Only Mom eats Nutella.)
Ryan: See??? I DON'T EAT NUTELLA.
Sean: JUST PUT IT AWAY
(Ryan places it in the sink)
Ryan: now it's with the others.
Me: Ryan, just put it in the dish washer! How hard is that??
Ryan: WHY?
Sean: YOU DON'T DO ANYTHING ALL DAY. YOU'RE STILL IN YOUR PAJAMAS. IT'S 3:00.
Ryan: Oh yeah?! I helped Mom with the computer room while you two were at work! I didn't do the wallpaper, but I helped her lift stuff!!!
Claire: Ryan, that job is barely ten minutes a day.
Sean: YOU ARE STILL IN YOUR PAJAMA PANTS. (this is a common issue this summer)
Ryan: why would I get perfectly good clothes dirty if I'm not going anywhere?
Sean: HOW WOULD YOU GET YOUR CLOTHES DIRTY JUST SITTING AROUND?

At this point, I got tired of the argument and went outside to check the mail.

I move back to college in 8 days.

Magnum, Thomas Magnum

While on vacation, I was able to learn many new things about my family members. For instance, my grandmother, uncle and father all love Magnum P.I., a show I had never seen before the trip. But after watching several episodes, I think I understand where the love comes from.

Several factors:

• It's set in Hawaii! My dad has been to Hawaii a few hundred times with his family. Interestingly, these trips stopped when I was born, or I was neglected to be invited.
• Thomas Magnum has a ridiculously full mustache. Something a family of bears could comfortably live in.
• Short-shorts: they come in many textures and colors, but they're always the same size: tiny.
• Vietnam flashbacks- who doesn't love those?
• There is a grumpy British butler (Higgins). This is what made Batman and The Addams Family work too. OK, so Higgins isn't a butler, he's "curator of the estate," and Lurch isn't (wasn't?) British. But still. Basic principles.
• He drives a red Ferrari. Cool cars are essential for successful characters, such as the Batmobile, the delorean, K.I.T.T., the Gadgetmobile, the Millenium Falcon, the stair car (watch out for hop-ons), the Mystery Machine, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and that car Ferris Bueller steals from Cameron's dad (which is also a Ferrari).
• He's what my mom calls a "gland." It's hard to explain what that means because I don't exactly know. Basically he flirts with anything that moves. Which may include his 'Nam buddies; TC and Rick (whom I call Ken because his character is exactly like the Ken doll from Toy Story 3).

The show is endlessly entertaining in the way all 70s/80s cheesy private investigator comedies are. I suggest watching it so I have someone to discuss it with who was born after the invention of the VCR.

needles in the sand: a photo essay

That's right. Needles.

Last week I was on vacation in Gulf Shores, AL. A place I was sure would be less of a get-away and more of a first-hand-encounter-of-the-BP-oil-spill. I wasn't disappointed. The double red flags were up, meaning people should stay out of the water for their own safety. Some people ignored them, and nobody came back from the ocean covered in sludge, looking like the bad guy from Ferngully.

On our third or fourth day at the beach, I decided it might be a good idea to actually go to the beach. It would be too weird to drive six hours and never touch sand. So we walked on the beach. I tried to avoid the water, imagining it would strip away the skin from my foot, but it was warm and inviting. Damn your enticing refreshment, ocean!

A ways down the beach a construction crew was working on a new complex, and we slowed down to look at it. Then Ryan and my mom glance down,








and find this:
That's right. That's a USED SYRINGE. In the sand. In the sand in which we are walking barefoot.
So naturally, Mom tries to do the right thing and safely dispose of it.





A port-o-potty is probably not the best place.






and then the trucks came...

Mom makes the handoff. I feel kinda like a private investigator snapping pictures of dirty dealings...


And the guys are pros- they plop it into an empty water bottle and throw it in the trash. End of needle scare. Or it should have been. But when you see a needle in the sand, you start imagining them all over the place- and every step is like tiptoeing through a mine field. A mine field of needles. But they're only imagined needles, so there are no foot punctures or AIDS. Only intense psychological trauma and newly-formed sand anxiety.

Thanks, Orange Beach, AL!

it would be awesome

I want a flight suit.