I Made My NAME!

Look at this. Seriously. I made this happen. It was magic.

That's right. I made my signature a picture. Now if you don't mind, I'm off to show everyone I've ever met how clever I am, even though Candie Cooper taught me how to do this and I didn't figure it out on my own at all, even a little bit.

Isn't it nice that I can be entertained by such small things? I think so.

The End of an Era

It finally happened a few weeks ago. The beginning middle end of the end.

When I had just finished college, and I realized that I no longer had the ability to use internet with a connection that didn't involve dial-up, I decided the time had come for me to finally break down and buy a laptop. I had a bit of money, so I went to a store and picked out a mid-range HP laptop with a sizable hard drive, 4GB RAM, and a CD/DVD burner. To make matters even better, it had a spot for you to plug an SD card RIGHT INTO THE COMPUTER. This was living it up, and I was a very happy girl. I took the laptop home and promptly wrote a very crappy novel on it during National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).

That was nearly seven years ago.

My new laptop was running Windows Vista, though, so there were some problems. Windows Update was a nightmare, there were warnings every 30 seconds asking me If I Really Wanted to Open Internet Explorer, Was I Sure, and Just In Case, Did I Want to Change My Mind Before It Was Too Late? I found a fantastic tutorial, learned Windows Vista inside and out, turned off all those ruddy warnings, and made Vista run more like XP, which was a very functional form of Windows that I am quite fond of.

Years passed. My laptop was lovely.

Around Year 3, the cooling system of my laptop wasn't working all too well...and the battery wasn't holding a charge because the fan had to run so very hard to keep the whole computer from overheating and shutting off.

After a bit, someone on Twitter clued me in, and I saved myself a good chunk of money by not buying a cooling dealie for the laptop. Instead, I used a cooling rack from the kitchen. It worked brilliantly.

I was still using it ages later, when the inevitable happened. After five years, the laptop finally came into contact with the ground.

I didn't drop it. But I had sat down on the bed, where the laptop was sitting (on the cooling rack), and the shift in weight caused the cooling rack to tilt, and the laptop dropped off the bed and onto the floor.

That was when the DVD drive stopped working.

Also, there was an incident with buttermilk that made my speakers a bit less than ideal.

And the hard drive was full, so I'd bought an external hard drive for my photos and documents. And then I bought another for my iTunes library.

And even still, in the last two years, there developed a bit of a lag with the keyboard. I'd type a sentence, and then another sentence, and then the rest of the paragraph, and when I'd moved on to the next paragraph, the first few words would finally appear on the screen, quickly followed by the rest of the paragraph. It was only about a 30 second delay. Not that big of a deal, really.

But finally, a few weeks ago, it got much worse.

See, I had to keep the laptop plugged in, because the battery would die if I didn't, as the fan had to run as hard as possible just to keep the whole thing running. And for some reason, the plug wasn't working so well...

I mean, the cord worked. The cord was fine. It was the part of the laptop, the port in the side where the plug went in. For whatever reason, plugging in the cord, it didn't make a difference. The little blue ring around the port, it didn't light up so well anymore. I would have to turn the cord around inside the port to make the blue ring light up.

A week passed, and it wasn't just something I could solve with a little wiggle of the cable. Nope.

By last week, I had to spend 15 to 20 minutes messing with the cable to get it to connect and stay connected. And I knew the time had come.

So yesterday, I bought a new laptop. It works. I'm utterly shocked. I have no idea what to do with a working laptop. It's another HP. I read all sorts of reviews online, and this one was well liked by all. It has a massive hard drive, 6GB RAM (that can be expanded to 8GB), and it is quite an improvement. It hasn't died once, words appear as I type them, and even though I haven't tried it yet, there's a DVD drive over on the side here that seems willing to accept a DVD and maybe even play it.

I don't even know how to deal with this.

Bad Preservatives. Bad, Bad Preservatives.

I did not die of mayonnaise.

That being said, the idea of a mayo that can last for over two years beyond its official expiration date is troubling. It's been over TWO YEARS since that mayo should have gone around the bend, but it didn't. It was still edible. And that brings up a question...

What did they PUT in that mayonnaise?

Traditionally, mayo is eggs, vinegar, and oil. By slowly whisking these ingredients together, one creates an emulsion, which is an awesome chemical reaction that is also delicious on BLTs. That being said, eggs spoil. Usually, they spoil horrifically, and are very dangerous.

Eggs can kill you.

Eggs can make you wish you were dead.

That means there's bound to be something in that mayo that keeps the eggs from killing people. And I can guarantee it's a chemical with an unpronounceable name that will last even in the case of nuclear holocaust.

It makes mayonnaise the cockroach of condiments.

So maybe, instead of worrying that spoiled mayo will make me sick, I should be wondering if ALL mayo will give me cancer, or slowly pickle my organs so that when I actually die, people will only notice I'm dead because I stop buying yarn and sweet tea.

Bad Mayo. Bad, Bad Mayo.

Today I consumed mayonnaise with an expiration date of November, 2010.

Lots of things go through your head when you eat a sandwich covered in a condiment that is well over two years old. You think, "Why didn't I LOOK before spreading this on my sandwich?" You think, "How did I TRUST a condiment from a refrigerator shared by every library employee?" You think, "Gee, I hope this afternoon has more to it than just me waiting to throw up. Or die."

Can you die of mayonnaise?

I suppose we're about to find out.

When I was eating my sandwich (ham and Swiss), I thought that Dijon mustard tasted awfully acidic. I kept telling myself that maybe I'd not spread it as evenly as I usually do, so I was getting more mustard than usual in the mustard-to-sandwich ratio I prefer. But no. That acidity was probably millions and millions of angry little bacteria, which are now descending into my digestive track fueled by their desire to live and the rage caused by being trapped in a jar of mayo, unable to grow and spread, for over two years.

Right now I'm trying to figure out whether this dyspepsia I'm feeling is related to thinking my sandwich is poison or my sandwich actually being poison.

Food poisoning is such a sucky way to die. I was hoping for something epic, like falling off a mountain, or tripping over my own foot and triggering a Rube Goldberg-esque chain of events leading to my subsequent demise. But no. Instead, I will expire with my face in a toilet, losing my sandwich as I lose my life.

But do you know what the really sad part of all of this is?

My mayo-sandwich death won't even make a decent Youtube video.

The World's Most Horrific: Why We Should Be Afraid of Nature

Thursday night, I came home from work, I opened up Pinterest, and I saw something so terrible, no one should ever have to see it, let alone think about it. It was a picture of a child's skull (that's bad enough), but a section of bone had been removed so that one could see the adult teeth above the baby teeth, and there they were, teeth sitting in what looked like giant bone-pores, existing in a place that defied logic, and generally ruining teeth for me for the rest of my life.

Seriously, I am glad I've run out of teeth to grow, because I'd have all the potential teeth removed right now. It was awful.

What?

You want to see?

No you don't.

Really?

Well...if you insist. But don't come crying to me later on. Here it is.

Unspeakably horrible. It was so bad, I almost threw up on my computer right then. Of course, it was far too horrible for me to touch my computer with the picture still showing, so I ran into The Brother's room and he came back to my room and closed the window for me. Naturally, he mocked me mercilessly, but then I saw the picture again and retched, which was enough for him to know that This Was Serious and one Should Not Laugh About It Anymore.

Unfortunately, I had to re-open the teeth picture window so I could make sure it never appeared in my Pinterest feed again. And then I had to see it again when I gave you that link up there, and I almost threw up for a THIRD TIME, this time at work, so you owe me one.

I have a problem with holes with things coming out of them, apparently, because this is not the first thing of that sort that has terrified me, and really, growing teeth are only freaky because it reminds me of That Other Thing.

Toads.

I love toads and frogs, they are awesome. Frogs are really neat, and I love it when a frog of the tree variety chooses to cling to our windows in the hot and humid Indiana summer, only to slowly slide down the glass because it is too wet for his (or her) little froggy feet to cling. I rescue toads I find in inopportune places (like too near the road) and put them in the garden so they can grow fat and happy.

But one day, in Biology class, our teacher was absent, and we were shown a video. The video was about a specific river in South America, and it showed all the biodiversity of the river, and was all around a cool sort of video, until the narrator introduced me to a certain species of toad that has its babies hatch OUT OF ITS BACK.

Yes, that's right. The Surinam Toad, scientific name Pipa pipa. Seemingly sent from Hell to visit torment upon unsuspecting observers, the P. pipa has found a way to take care if its offspring without actually having to pay attention to them. It lays eggs, the eggs embed themselves in the female frog's bag, and then, just when you think it can't get any worse, you're sitting in biology class watching fully-formed tiny toads using little hands to drag themselves out of gaping holes in the mother frog's back.

That is just unacceptable. That's all I have to say on the subject. It is utterly and completely unacceptable. If you really want your eggs inside you, be a mammal for crying out loud.

I sat in Bio, watching in stunned silence. When the video was over, I gathered my things, left class, went home, and had violent nightmares about the backs of toads and living toad babies popping out of MY skin for...well. It's been about 14 years or so.

The worst part is, once you see the toad, once you REALLY see it, you see things that remind you of the baby toads EVERYWHERE.

Like, say you're watching TV, and they decide to record video of a plant growing out of a seed. Then they play it, all sped up, and you look at the TV and see a plant, except what you really see as the baby plant comes out of the seed is TOAD BABIES.

The Brother told me, after I recounted to him the Story of the Toad Video on Thursday, that I should just forget about those toads, because they live in Africa and they aren't all that populous anyway.

BUT HE WAS WRONG.

They live on the SAME LAND MASS as I do, PLUS they are not endangered, not threatened, and are actually classified in the "Least Concern" column. So I do really have a reason to be afraid. I think these toads are as common as, say, LOBSTERS, and you all know how I feel about lobsters.

Nature is going to kill me. And I really like nature. But nature is scary. Lots of things happen that shouldn't happen, and PLUS, things are out there that are way bigger than us and think we'd be nice and crunchy, if they could only get their claws, jaws, tentacles, or talons around us. Basically, run. And don't stop, because before you know it, someone will have flushed their pet lobster or baby-back toads down their toilet because when is a baby-back toad ever cute in the first place? And then they will be living in the sewer system in the cities as well as out in tropical places, which are supposed to be beautiful and sunny and not at all frightening, but ARE, because where else but the tropics can you find baby-back toads AND lobsters just a short walk from your hotel room? And the lobsters and baby-back toads will grow in the sewers and become like those giant rats, and then it will be just like Godzilla, only with BABIES COMING OUT OF ITS BACK.

The way I see it, only the moon is safe right now, and even then, we'll have to search the space shuttles very carefully to make sure there aren't any tiny frogs clinging onto the underside of the control panel or lobsters scuttling across the cabin floor, because then these creatures will be in space too, and we may as well give up.

Things Just Happen

I have been reading a great deal of Terry Pratchett of late, which is a consequence of reading Dodger, a book I highly recommend.

The result of this is that I now have various quotes from his novels bouncing around in my head, which is a decent place for quotes to be bouncing, when you think about it. And one of those is a bit of philosophy from a character named Didactylos, who said, "Things just happen. What the hell."* And that was today.

We had loads of snow. All kinds of snow. And naturally, that meant I had to drive in said snow to reach work, which is inconveniently located outside of my house.

On my way to work, as I drove along on an inch of solid ice and a haze of snow, I saw an abnormally tall person leaning over a car that appeared unnaturally short and not at all on the road.

And that tall person was Paul. Of course.

He had attempted to turn into a parking lot in order to turn around, finding the roads unpleasant enough to persuade him to abandon the trip to Warsaw. And he turned into this parking lot only to discover that he had turned into nothing at  all, because the semi tracks he used as a guide were not going into the driveway of this business at all, but rather, over the ditch.

Paul's car went into the ditch, not over it.

I turned my car around and went back to Paul, who had already called Dad. Dad was on his way. When he arrived, he had brought a snow shovel and various plans, which we exhausted in rapid succession.

Plan A: Rock the car. In which A Person sits inside the car, puts it into reverse, and presses periodically on the gas, resulting in lots of tire spinning and mud.

Plan B: Rock the car, in which A Person continues to sit in the car, in reverse, pressing periodically on the gas, with Two Other Persons pushing the car, resulting in more tire spinning and a good deal of mud.

Plan C: Rock the car. In which A Slightly More Frustrated Person continues to sit in the car, this time in drive, pressing periodically on the gas with Two Other Persons pushing the car, resulting in Two Muddy Persons in Less than Stellar Moods, and also tire spinning.

Plan D and E: Shovel around the car some more. Repeat Plan B and C.

Plan F: Stare at car. 

Plan G: Realize that the only likely way the car will be free of the ditch any time soon is if a random driver happens to have 1. a 4-wheel drive and 2. a chain or strap and 3. the desire to help us.

Plan H: Hope that people will be nice and help us at some point, because it is getting chilly. And muddy.

Indeed, Plan H was the winner. Not a moment after Dad said he hoped someone would come help, someone came. They had a truck, to able-bodied people, and were ready to drag Paul's car from the ditch, if only they had a chain. Did we?

No. We so didn't.

But no worries! Coming down the road was a cement truck, which just so happened to contain a friend of the two men who'd stopped to help. And he, they said, would have a chain.

And he did.

Moments later, Paul was free of the ditch. We applauded (which is an entirely different sound when the applaud-er is wearing mittens), and Paul set off down the road for home. I took his picture first, for obvious reasons.

Then, I proceeded down the road to the library, where I have been ever since. Luckily, the mud on my pants dried rather quickly, and I discovered that the snow-brush thing I have for my car happens to double as a very effective clothes brush. 

Happy Monday, everyone.

*This is from Hogfather by Terry Pratchett, which is an awesome book and a fantastic movie starring Michelle Dockery, who happens to also star as Lady Mary Crawley on Downton Abbey.

Harry Potter and the Best Mother Ever (That Would Be Mine)

I am rereading the Harry Potter books for the first time in ages. The last time I read them all in sequence was after Deathly Hallows came out. As I was reading the first book this weekend, I began to remember little things about what my life was like the first time I read each book in the series. This happens to me with books sometimes, I will associate a certain song, a favorite snack, a life event, or some such thing with a book, and I'm instantly taken back to that thing when I read the book again.

Maybe this is why I haven't managed to become an adult.

Oh well.

Right now I am reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which is my favorite of the Harry Potter books, and I have just remembered how I came to read this particular Harry Potter book for the first time.

I was still in high school, and while I loved books (especially Harry Potter) more than anything, we had only dial-up internet at home and one very slow computer shared between four people. My brother used it mostly for computer games and hovered over my shoulder every time I tried to use it for anything other than schoolwork, so I never used the computer unless I had a paper to write, which wasn't often. Even if publishers posted release dates of books online, or book blogs existed then, I would still never have known about it, because my brother wanted to play Starcraft matches all day long. What all that boils down to is this: I didn't know the release date for the third Harry Potter book.

Back then, I would prowl bookstores. I had the names of all my favorite authors memorized--with correct spellings (when you work in a library, you will realize how rare this is). I would walk in the front door, and go through shelves checking for each series and author I loved. If there were none of those to be found, I searched for new authors to love. There was a system. It was a good system. I never, NEVER, missed a book from any of my favorite authors, and I kept up to date with every series I read. But, as there was no bookstore in my area (and there still isn't), I spent a great deal of time staring at the same five books at Walmart, on the single shelving unit that housed coloring books, Bibles (hundreds of them), romances, and a smattering of bestsellers.

And one day, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

It was the only copy.

It had not been there the day before.

Did I mention, it was the only copy? I'm still pretty sure it was actually shining on the shelf, as it was so far superior to the cheap trade paperbacks around it. I think it was the only hardcover book in the entire store.

I seized it. It was mine. I would not let it go.

But there was a problem. I never got an allowance as a kid, I didn't drive, I didn't have a job...so my money came from birthday or Christmas presents, if that. Still, my parents never said no to a book, so I never missed having cash on hand. Until that second at Walmart when I held Harry Potter and thought, "Does Walmart need a dishwasher?"

I clutched Harry Potter, hoping my mother wouldn't turn down a BOOK. Not to mention a HARRY POTTER book. And a new one at that.

But Mom had not counted on a new book, and had left her checkbook at home. (Yes, these were the days before everyone had a debit card. It feels like ages ago, but no. Not really. It was 1999.)

Mom understood, because she gets this sort of thing, that the book could not be put down. Clearly, if it were reshelved or even cleverly hidden in a different spot, someone would find it, buy it, and my life would be over. So quickly, we hatched a plan.

I would hold the book. I would wait.

Mom would drive home for money. And then she would drive back. Thirty minutes both ways. My mom loves me.

That gave me an hour to keep Harry Potter safe. And read. I went over to the clothing section, huddled in a corner, and read the first hundred pages of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban right there. I discovered my favorite Hogwarts teacher while perched on the corner of a shelf filled with sweatshirts in every color of the rainbow. Mom came back, we bought the book, and I read aloud to her the whole way home. I still have that same copy; it's the one I'm reading again now.

Gosh, I love Harry Potter. And isn't my mom awesome?*

Meanwhile, check out the new Luna Lovegood shirt I bought. It's a design by Megan Lara, who contributes all the time to TeeFury and an all-around amazing artist. Here it is on Redbubble. Megan has tons of other Harry Potter and Doctor Who designs that I want, but I NEEDED the Luna shirt. It was necessary for survival.

And yes, I took the picture of myself in the mirror. Check out my awesome smart phone. Isn't it amazing?

* Mom says this story is much more flattering than the one about her not knowing whether a vacuum cleaner sucks or blows. Although apparently, it does neither. And Joel, if you're reading this, my mum says you're her favorite person for telling us about how air gets pushed into a vacuum cleaner. It made her feel much better.