Ska

I occasionally buy music online; usually when I'm not sold on the whole album but I love one song. Today I found myself itching for some new ska, so I went through the genre filter to see what they've got. I got a new song!! It's even a song I already liked, which is a nice bonus. But in addition to the more mainstream ska music (Streetlight Manifesto, Sublime, Goldfinger..) I found a few surprises lumped in there. That 40's song "My Boy Lollipop", the Charlie's Angels theme, Desmond Dekker. Yep.

Good News

Last Saturday Z took me on a dinner cruise. Dinner on a boat as we cruised the bay. After dinner we wandered the ship and finally settled on an empty balcony. We shared quiet conversation and enjoyed the view. Then he got down on one knee and proposed. I, of course, said yes and there was much rejoicing. We don't have a date planned or anything, in case you were wondering. Updates as they come.

A year ago last Monday, Zach and I went on our first date. Since Mondays this month have been awful with our schedules, we celebrated on Saturday, smushing it in with/replacing Valentine's. It was kind of entertaining, because Z had been worried about doing something big, while I was hoping for something low-key. I told him I would be very happy to just rent a movie and hang. When he mentioned that to his work buddies, they told him it was a trap. More correctly, that it was a test. They were filling his head with all of that stereotypical girl nonsense. I tend to really just think of things like that as completely fictional, until it seems like everyone - boys and girls - is spouting them as fact.

Anyway, I really just wanted to gush somewhere over the fact that he rented the movie we saw on our first date.

My parents work well together. It's an easy statement to make, and it's backed up by nearly 30 years of marriage. They've both got their personal strengths and weaknesses, and they do well balancing each other out. But sometimes I wonder about what it's really like to be married.

As I mentioned, my parents have been married for 25+ years. In that amount of time, you must surely get to know the quirks and tastes of the other person. I know that in that amount of time, I've got a fair idea of what things are likely to set off which parent and which to apply to for specific requests. So I know that my mom appreciates it when my dad takes the burden of cooking dinner off her. She likes the food he cooks (ok, except for the amount of fat and grease he usually includes), but at the same time she's exasperated by the fact that he uses nearly every dish and cooking implement we own.

So I'm left wondering if he's really oblivious to her preferences at times, or if he just counts it as the 'con' side of the decisions he makes occasionally. (Disclaimer: I know this street goes both ways, but the latest incident I witnessed went this way, thus the pronouns.)

Post Secret

What are you supposed to do if you see someone's secret on Post Secret? Or if you think you've seen one. It's funny, but seeing the secret of someone I know on the site is bigger in my mind than if their picture were to be taken with a celebrity or they were to be on television or something. Being able to take something so personal and send it out there deserves respect in my mind. I keep my secrets closely guarded, locked up tight. They give me that measure of control I just can't give away, even to those closest to me. So to know that a person I talk to, that I've known for years can not only give up that privacy, but that out of all the secrets that Frank must get, it gets picked to be posted makes me want to ask. But how awkward could that conversation be? It's one thing to give that secret up to a world of strangers that might never see it, but there's a reason they kept it a secret, right? I have to assume they wouldn't want to talk about it, even if it truly was them. And it can only be more awkward if it wasn't. I'm assuming that it's truly about them, and that they felt they had to keep it a secret, and that they actually sent it out.

So, to recap all the rambling, here's the meat: If you thought someone you knew got their postcard on Post Secret, what would you do? If your secret ended up there, how would you want your friends, family, acquaintances to react?

I went to school today. It was alright

I just finished my first final of the semester. Wait... did I ever update this thing on my classes this semester? Oops. Let's consider that ball very dropped. I've been taking World Religions (Eastern), Biology 101 (Lecture and Lab), and Lifetime Fitness and Wellness (my P.E. credit, which I'm taking online). It didn't really hit me until last night that my Lab final was today. So I skimmed our lab manual before class today to refresh myself on what we've covered. The lab is set up into 'stations' covering most of the labs we've done. Even with the working around slow people and trying to find elusive Number 9 I was out in less than an hour. I like to believe that means I knew what was going on, not that I was just a fool rushing in. There were only a few I wasn't quite sure of. My lab prof. was pretty cool. One of those old dudes who worked as a real, honest-to-goodness scientist before teaching. He did something fancy with bacteria. Dr V is always fired up and excited about what he's teaching - he tweaks the pre-planned labs to make them more interesting. Additionally, he's been prepping us for our final from day one, quizzing us on pertinent information weekly and sweetening the deal with money. (really, he just gives out his pocket change for correct answers.)
So we're all done there and I've just got the other three finals next week. Religion will be posted online next week to work on. My lecture final's on the 10th. And I guess I really could do the last of my P.E. this week. It's due by next Thursday. So by Thursday of next week I'll be done for the semester. And then comes the fun!I'm already planning and mentally packing for my super awesome trip of fun - which should tell you how excited I am. Usually my overdeveloped procrastination stalls that until a day or two before departure.

Speaking of time, it's been more than nine months since Z and I started dating. He seems to be taking my quirks in stride.

I just saw a dude who looked like a very tan, short Justin Long. (I wrote this in the hall while I was waiting for my lecture to start...)

And there was more, but it's just weird. So we'll leave this as is.

Sometimes I wander around wrapped in a blanket and pretend I'm royalty.