VOMITPOPSICLE.COM VOMITPOPSICLE.COM


VOMITPOPSICLE.COM




August 27, 2010

Various things:

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — Tina K @ 8:18 pm

-I got a haircut!
008

See? I’m very excited about it.

-I had banh mi for lunch today and it was a huge, delicious sandwich for only $2.25. I’ll be back.

-Today I woke Bryan up from a nap by balancing a cube of cheddar cheese on his nose.

-My skin has been breaking out like I am a teenager lately. It’s gross. I am trying out some solutions, but–ugh. I am 26; shouldn’t this be over with by now?

-I went to a group volunteering thing yesterday and was really disappointed in the experience. I’ve been to two so far (both with different nonprofits and organizations), and while it was nice to be able to help the nonprofits and actually see what they do, I’m also doing this group volunteering to meet people (both for personal and professional reasons). It’s hard to do that when we’re all separated into different tasks. It did give me some perspective, as a volunteer coordinator, on how to manage networking groups when they come to volunteer at the food bank. I was also disappointed because I was two (2!) minutes late, but when I arrived I had no idea where to go and there was no indication that anyone else had arrived or that an event was happening, and when I asked someone she said, “I have no idea.” So when it was all sorted out, I was over ten minutes late. Blah.

-I have had “All Cried Out” by Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force in my head for two days. It alternates with “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler. At first it was entertaining, but then it just got annoying and kind of embarrassing.

-I have a friend from college coming to town next week, but he’ll be spending most of his time here. (The gamer convention). To that, I say NERD.

-Do you see the clock radio in the background of the picture above? I have had that thing since I was in first grade (1990-1991). My parents bought it for me so I could start waking myself up in the morning. It will be a sad day when that thing dies.

August 18, 2010

Vintage Tina: July and August

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — Tina K @ 6:43 pm

I’ve been neglecting the blogging world. But it’s been for good reason: I’ve been having dreams about Barack Obama and Katie Couric wearing the same outfits. This prompted me to start writing down my dreams again, which prompted me to start reading through my dream journal again, which made me start dreaming more again, which has created a whole level of crazy-in-my-head.

If so many people weren’t so bored and annoyed at hearing other people’s dreams, I would create a dream-blog because some of the stuff in my dream journal is just weird. Like the dream I had about a little girl with a radioactive arm.

But let’s get back to the purpose of this post: exposing the shameful and embarrassing journal entries from my teen years.

–

July 24, 1997, age 13

The movie Good Burger opens tomorrow. I want to go see it. But I cant. We will be in Oklahoma until Sunday and I don’t have any money. Maybe I can go when we get back and borrow some money from someone. I want to go see Good Burger.

[added as a side-thought at the bottom of this entry]
Y’know what would be really cool? If I went to the movies in Oklahoma and saw Good Burger.

–

August 5, 1997, age 13

I just got done watching the tonight show with Jay Leno. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was a guest. I know this sounds crazy and stupid, I wrote down some stuff about him. I didn’t tape it like when he was on the Rosie show. He looked cuter on the Rosie show.
-Has a driving learning permit
-Got car 3 days ago (Aug 2, 1997)
-Missed 5 questions on written driving test
-Is not a good parallel parker
-has a dog named Mac (weenie dog)
-JTT quote: “basically a Q-tip with an attitude.”
-Cat named Sam was brought to Canada with him and got stuck in a hotel wall.
-has a dog and 2 cats
-Not a steady girlfriend (he is single now) he said when he gets his license.
-gets a lot of mail (duh)

–

I watched Good Burger again in college (on a date, actually—we rented it because we thought that would be hilarious. And it was.) and actually watched a large portion of it pretty recently. I guess the obsession never went away. But the JTT obsession went away. I absolutely do not have a poster of him on the inside of my closet.

August 5, 2010

I’m going to the desert

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — Tina K @ 6:36 am

I’m heading out this morning to the Southwest corner of the country. I’ve never been there, and I’m not looking forward to the 107 degree weather. That’s almost twice the temperature that it is right now here in Seattle, and almost 30 degrees hotter than it is when it’s “hot” here. I’ve dealt with hot weather before, but it’s been awhile–so we’ll see how big of a pansy I’ve become.

Anyway, this means that today I’ll be riding the bus, the light rail, and a plane and spending lots of time in the airport. It’s a buffet of people watching for me (which is almost as appealing as an actual buffet of delicious food), and I’m actually looking forward to the travel time for that reason.

I always look forward to the travel time when I take trips–until I get on the plane and realize that the baby behind me has a dirty diaper and the plane is going to smell like the dirty diaper for the entire ride. Or when the guy next to me is listening to really bad music really loudly on his ear phones (Linkin Park esque music).

I hope someone starts playing the flute while we’re in the air.

This trip is a family gathering. And it’s not my family, but it’s Bryan’s family–which I can easily describe as “the opposite of my family.” That means there will be no games of charades, no loud farting, and no nights of sitting around until 1am seeing who can make the most ridiculous face or who has the creepiest dead-eyed stare (my dad always wins this one).

But that doesn’t mean it won’t be interesting. How the word “interesting” should be interpreted has yet to be determined.

SMELL YOU LATER

July 11, 2010

This is much like the skinny jeans incident, but with more Lady Gaga and run on sentences

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — Tina K @ 9:04 am

(Here’s the skinny jeans incident.)

I put Lady Gaga on my mp3 player.

See, I pretty much only use my mp3 player for when I go jogging, and I have quite a mix of embarrassing music on that thing. I didn’t think this would be much different.

The problem is that I can’t listen to a Lady Gaga song and let that be it. I see her face and her ridiculous outfits and I begin wondering what it’s like to be her, and why the heck someone would go through so much trouble to create such an image and that maybe I’d like her more if her preoccupation with image didn’t undermine talent that she has. And then I think that she’s completely achieved what she set out to do because people like me are attempting to listen to her and then thinking about why and either way she is getting attention. And then I think about the stories that I’ve come across about her–like all the pictures of her falling because she was wearing such a ridiculous pair of boots, and about how she took a flight in a ridiculously tight outfit that could actually cause damage because it could cut off circulation if she sits in it for a long amount of time, and about how she doesn’t ever want to be seen in public without high heels and how she refused to wear bowling shoes at a bowling alley and caused all sorts of damage on the floor and just gave the employees tickets to her show after that and how, if I were the manager of the bowling alley, I would’ve made her wear the goddamn bowling shoes.

And then I wonder if I’ve really read that many stories about her and what the heck compelled me to do so and why my brain is retaining this information about Lady Gaga when I don’t even really consider her to be someone that I even feel very strongly about. I don’t love her. I don’t hate her. I shrug about her.

And then I wish that my brain would spend time pondering more important things, like why Prince’s antics (ass-less chaps, the whole name change, this picture) don’t prevent me from listening to his music and just enjoying it for what it is. Or for what it was, since I have no idea what kind of music he is making now.

And then I think about how maybe grad school would’ve been more successful and enjoyable had my brain had the drive to consider poems the way it considers Lady Gaga.

Anyway, I took Lady Gaga off my mp3 player. I don’t want to think about all that stuff when I’m out for a run.

May 30, 2010

It was a mistake

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — Tina K @ 9:41 am

I tried on a pair of skinny jeans yesterday. That will never happen again.

April 22, 2010

Just call me a fitness guru, okay?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — Tina K @ 12:00 pm

I’ve started jogging again.

Here’s where I give you the history of my running:

I ran 8th grade track when I was 14. That’s 12 years ago. That’s it.

I still have my track t-shirt, and it still fits because I stopped growing in 8th grade–other than getting a little lumpier in certain spots.

That’s really about it. I didn’t run track or cross country in high school, even though my coaches strongly recommended it–because I was scared and shy, and staying at home writing bad poems about relationships I never had in a dimly lit room while listening to depressing music like Silverchair was just, for some reason, more appealing than going out and doing something I liked with other people. That involved being around people. See? People. Scary.

In 8th grade, I was one of those runners that was in-between. I wasn’t one of the fast sprinters, and I wasn’t a star long distance runner. I always ended up running the 400 meter (one lap around the track), the 800 meter (2 laps around the track) or the 4×400 or 4×800 relays.

I don’t think I ever got first place in my solo runs The female relay team I was part of, however, was famous (note: I use the word “famous” very loosely here). We always won. I was always the second runner. I wasn’t fast enough to be the first runner, and I wasn’t fast enough to be the team’s anchor, but I was good enough for the team, and it was one of the few things that made an insecure 14 year old me happy.

Not continuing my running through high school is probably one of my regrets. Also, side note: I don’t believe people when they say they have no regrets.

Over the last few years I’ve been the occasional jogger—I’ll be diligent about it for two months or so, then I’ll do it sparingly, and then I’ll decide that standing up while eating cold pizza and watching Law & Order SVU on my laptop is sufficient exercise for a day. I mean, it’s exercise you can do in your underpants, and there’s food involved. There’s a valid argument in that.

Anyway, I am jogging again, and it’s surprisingly not that hard. I have a 3 mile route in my neighborhood (I can’t run the whole thing without stopping yet, but I can run the majority of it). It certainly helps that I live in a really pretty neighborhood with beautiful yards and views of mountains and water and boats and the cityscape.

I thought jogging again was going to be really hard, so I just want to take the time to say: IN YOUR FACE, Susan Powter! (Remember? Susan Powter sometimes shops where I work.) I have stopped the insanity!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to finish that 1/2 pound block of pepper jack cheese that I bought for lunch.

April 15, 2010

I want to talk about me

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — Tina K @ 11:16 am

I know that title is sort of a reference to a Toby Keith song—at least the phrase always will seem like a reference to that stupid song, thanks to the fact that I lived in Missouri when the song came out, and I worked at a KFC that played country music most of the time, or I heard country music coming out of passing car windows all the time, or I heard it at home with my parents all the time–and I should probably be sentenced to a term of public humiliation for making the reference. Toby Keith kind of makes me want to throw up, even more than Ricky Martin did when he was all over the radio in 1999.

Side note 1: Once I downloaded the song “I Wanna Talk About Me” and then burned it to a CD as many times as it would fit and gave it to my friend, Maurine. The CD was labeled “SURPRISE!!!!”

Her reaction was: “This is Toby Keith on repeat, isn’t it?”

This is the same friend who, after I called her on someone else’s phone number using my very handy voice changer toy and said that I was a lonely Satan that wanted to have a date with her—a date that included cuddling and watching Miss Congeniality–replied, “Tina?” Either she is very intuitive, or I am very predictable.

Side note 2: It’s true. I never did like Ricky Martin, and my family sometimes gives me Ricky Martin merchandise because of it. My dad gave me a Ricky Martin biography one year for Christmas, and he put a fake signature in the back of it. He signed Ricky Martin’s name with hearts for the dots in the i’s. My sister made me a special t-shirt spelling out my love for Ricky Martin. Each year, at least one of the gifts I received has “From: Ricky Martin” written on the gift tag. This is how our typical Christmases go. We are a very thoughtful family.

This was all a roundabout way of saying that I signed up at Formspring. Like Twitter, it’s something I keep hearing about, but don’t totally understand. And since it’s free, unlike the iPad (something I definitely don’t understand) I thought I’d give it a whirl. It might also help me generate ideas for future blog posts. I can’t promise that it’s going to make me any less “mysterious” or “secretive” (as I’ve been described by people before), but it might be hilarious.

Maybe I’ll post the answer to these as audio files, using my voice changer, and talking as the Satan character that I created in college.

Side note 3: Did I ever tell you about the guy I repeatedly prank called in college? I met him once or twice through my roommate; she had a class with him and they had to work on a project together. There was something about him that made me realize that this guy needed a prank call or two hundred. Luckily, by this time, my dad had already given me the voice changer for my 19th birthday.

I would call him and all the calls began, “Hello [guy’s first and last name]. This is Satan.”

They’d either get all sappy and say something like, “I was thinking about your soft skin all day today. It was so distracting. I would like to caress it. Will you let me?” Or they’d be more straight forward: “Meet me at the bell tower at 8pm with your pants down.”

My roommate and I would even call him on one phone, and then call him on another, so when he’d put Satan on hold to answer the other line, it would just be Satan again. We were dedicated.

And then he found out it was me. And then I just kept calling.

Oh, also, I used to call this one guy that I worked with repeatedly (while hanging out with other co-workers) and say, “I’d like a cheeseburger!” in a ridiculous voice (the reasoning behind that phrase would involve a long, drawn out explanation about how he reminded us of Grimace, the big purple McDonald’s character). It was perfect for me to be the one calling because 1). I’m funny, and 2). No one ever suspected me, and when they found out, they were surprised but never approached me about it.

Sometimes I think about looking up these guys’ numbers and giving them the old lines again.

March 26, 2010

Why I deserve awards, recognition, attention, a cult following, and a fan club

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — Tina K @ 10:04 am

Here are some things that you might or might not already know about me:

1. I am the youngest of three. My sisters are 8 and 10 years older than me. We all, including my parents, live in different states.

2. I am a quiet person. I always have been. This is something that people have always made comments about. In first grade, during the brief time that I participated in Brownies, I was voted “quiet as a mouse.” That was twenty years ago. I partially feel that grad school made me uncomfortable because it is largely about talking, and a lot of the time I just want to listen and make jokes inside my head.

3. During my last year of college, I started a pelvic thrust revolution. What this involved was drinking, going to bars, and then getting on the dance floor with a group of friends and pelvic thrusting (along with other fashionable dance moves, like the running man) while other people took dancing at a rural Missouri bar far too seriously. At one point a DJ came up to me and said, “IT’S YOU. IT’S ALWAYS YOU!”

4. I can roll my tongue like this.. That is not my tongue though.

5. Piercings: For my 18th birthday, I got my bellybutton pierced. I took it out when I was 21, but now I wear a bellybutton ring as an earring in my upper cartilage (wow, so interesting!). When I was 19, I got my eyebrow pierced. That one eventually grew out. I can’t imagine ever having an eyebrow ring now. I also got my tragus pierced when I was 19 and I’ve never removed that ring. It’s been almost 7 years. My ear lobes each have three holes and the first is gauged to a size 00. I don’t really care about piercings now.

6. Without getting too preachy, here’s a list of how I contribute to my community (aka reasons why I am a good person without having to go to church): I volunteer 7 hours per week between two different organizations that strive to end homelessness and poverty, I volunteer about 2 hours per week to a literacy organization. I donate blood. I give money to the food bank. I buy newspapers from Real Change vendors. I fundraise for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society each year and also donate to the Susan G. Komen foundation. If you ask me to donate to a cause you support, and it’s not the Republican Party, I will likely give you a few dollars.

7. Here are some albums I can listen to over and over: Graceland by Paul Simon, Middle Cyclone by Neko Case, Rain Dogs by Tom Waits, Doolittle by The Pixies. I love listening to Bitches Brew by Miles Davis when I’m trying to write. I think that album saved me when I was trying to write my thesis in grad school.

8. I really really love eating and my grocery store job has only increased the amount that I think about food. Sometimes I wonder if I am a compulsive overeater, but I’m not. I’m just an overeater. This may be a problem when my metabolism slows down.

9. I have a soft spot for b-movies.

10. Literary things: I can recite “Funeral Blues” by W.H. Auden by memory. My MFA critical thesis explored Elizabeth Bishop and Amy Clampitt and their use of concrete description in their poems.

11. My favorite color is green. Maroon is a close second.

12. I once saw Def Leppard in concert with my sister. At the Missouri State Fair. There were a lot of women with leather skin, with torpedo boobs, wearing leopard print tube tops.

13. I can sing every word to the Jackson 5 Christmas album. I’m pretty sure my whole family can.

14. I don’t think Ben Stiller is that funny, but I am one of those people that can quote Zoolander. And I happily do so. That crap is funny, but not as funny as Wet Hot American Summer, which is my all-time favorite ridiculous comedy.

Dear Christopher Meloni,

How do you switch so effortlessly from Detective Stabler to Gene in Wet Hot American Summer to the ridiculous characters you play in the Harold and Kumar movies? I admire you.

Sincerely,

Tina

—

This post was inspired by the three awards I received this month from Christina, Amber, and Johana. I’m sorry that I don’t really know the conditions of each award and I’m not passing them on, but I do appreciate it!

January 25, 2010

101 things to do in 1001 days

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — Tina K @ 12:14 pm

This isn’t an original idea. I’m copying what I’ve seen done on several other blogs, which is an idea started by Day Zero. I’m doing this because I love making lists and then crossing things off the lists–so much that I’ll sometimes add things to my to do lists that I’ve already done, just so I can cross them off.

Anyway, about the list. Day Zero says:

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on your part).

You’ll notice that my list largely consists of reading, eating, and spending money. I hate spending money and shopping and things I need/want to buy have added up. I need to get over it. On the other hand, I love reading and eating!

Start date: January 25, 2010
End date: October 22, 2012

Tina’s List of Things That Will Make Her Leave the Apartment/Put on Pants and/or Experience New Things

1. Read Moby Dick (have never read it!)

2.Double my savings account

3.Begin a CAREER by getting a more professional job with a nonprofit or other cool organization
Was offered a Volunteer Coordinator job on May 24! Went in for my first day on May 27.

4.Take a cooking class

5.Go to a wine tasting

6.Sign up for a library card (have used university libraries for years; can’t believe I don’t have a card)

7.Go to a massage therapist

8.Read The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan

9.Read The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

10. Learn new crochet techniques, crochet 5 new things

11. Re-read all the Kurt Vonnegut books that I own (Breakfast of Champions, Cat’s Cradle, Hocus Pocus, Mother Night, Player Piano, The Sirens of Titan, Slapstick, Slaughterhouse Five, Wampeters, Foma, & Granfalloons, Welcome to the Monkeyhouse)

12. Hang out with someone new

13. Donate blood at least 10 times
-First donation: January 28th, 2010
-Second donation: March 26, 2010
-Third donation: May 24, 2010
-Fourth donation: July 31, 2010

14. Take a meditation class

15. Visit my friend Crystal in LA (seeing an old friend AND visiting a new city ALL AT ONCE)

16. Try 50 recipes from my new, humongous cookbook
May 19, 2010: Tried recipe Savory Balkan Bean Salad (which is also online here
June 8, 2010: Tried Lemon Cornmeal Cookies
June 8, 2010: Tried Ranger Cookies These were a hit at work.

17. Get a passport or that special WA driver’s license to cross the Canadian border (have never been out of the country)

18. Go to Canada (I live so close!)

19. Take bowling lessons OR join a bowling league

20. Host a dinner/snack/board game party

21. Get those two pair of pants altered

22. Take a class, either a language, sociology, or art class

23. Mail out at least 100 cards and/or pieces of snail mail
3 packages mailed on 3/13/10
2 more packages mailed Easter weekend
Mailed both of my nephews birthday cards in June 2010
TOTAL=7

24. Re-read Catch-22

25. Make kimchee

26. Eat a sandwich from Paseo
Accomplished on 3/17/10. I split the cuban roast and the pollo salad with my sister. It was awesome.

27. Visit Jimi Hendrix’s grave

28. Order prints of the favorite pictures I’ve taken, frame them, and put them up

29. Watch Casablanca (never seen it)

30. Watch Citizen Kane (also never seen)

31. Buy a raincoat (yeah–two years in Seattle without one)

32. Go to Macy’s and let someone put makeup on me

33. Buy a new tv

34. Buy a Wii (!!!!)

35. Buy/borrow a few collections of short short fiction
-Books borrowed from Kirstenon February 3, 2010! I will complete this task after they’ve been thoroughly thumbed through.

36. Try writing a few short shorts. Have at least 5 solid drafts (setting the goal safely low).

37. Put clothes on the Waiting for the Interurban
Achieved on 3/15/10. I put a long beaded necklace on one of the people with my nephew.

38. Bake cookies or bread specifically to give to homeless people I encounter on the street
I’m not crossing this off, though I did specifically buy some fried chicken and dog food for a homeless lady with a dog the other day (Sept 2010)

39. Learn how to count to ten in Japanese

40. Watch Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

41. Try chickenless chicken nuggets
-Had some for dinner February 3, 2010. They were so-so. Will give them/another brand another go.

42. Buy a sewing machine (used, likely)

43. Buy toys for disadvantaged children for Christmas

44. Participate in a walk—an AIDS walk or March of Dimes, etc.

45. Learn the difference between “who” and “whom”
March 2010: Funnily enough, I read up on this and then also stumbled on a few blog entries about it over the course of a few days. “Who” is used when it’s referring to the subject of the sentence. “Whom” is used when it’s referring to the object. Now if I could just feel more confident in correctly identifying subjects and objects.

46. Go to another Sounders game

47. See a psychic

48. Eat a vegetarian diet for one month—just to say I tried it Had a Meatless May. Will not do this again.

49. Go to the Asian Art Museum (I have a pass, but I’ve only used it at the main museum)

50. Make homemade laundry detergent

51. Make homemade herbal tea

52. Bake a homemade pie–make the crust myself

53. Read the William Shatner book that Maurine gave me

54. Bake and elaborately decorate some cupcakes

55. Send homemade cookies to someone in the mail
Sent peanut butter cookies to 3 people on 3/13/10. None of them broke! More cookies to be mailed soon.

56. Eat at theFareStart restaurant

57. Host a couch surfer or meet one for coffee/drinks

58. Get my CPR certification

59. Take a grant writing class

60. Re-read The Grapes of Wrath

61. Subscribe or resubscribe to a literary journal

62. Clean out my sock drawer (Really, do I need those worn out heel-less socks? Why is this drawer so full?) Accomplished on Sunday, June 13, 2010

63. Learn to work with children better by participating in a volunteer activity with children

64. Re-read The Odyssey

65. Read that book of Fifty Great Essays that I’ve had since I took advanced composition in college.

66. Read that other book of great essays that I found on a bench.

67. Re-read that book I have about writing creative nonfiction.

68. Grow a sweet potato plant

69. Submit work to at least 5 credible literary journals
Work submitted to one journal, 4/12/2010

70. Get a new computer that doesn’t have to be restarted twice before it works
-New computer arrived 2/19/2010! The old one gave me a middle finger and crashed.

71. Get my student loan debt down to $15,000 (and I even went to grad school for free)

72. Begin and complete my mission to buy The Ugliest Christmas Sweater Ever

73. Make some homemade meatless meatballs
I made some homemade seitan on April 12, 2010, and I think that counts well enough.

74. Try to eat sushi again, and this time eat something more risky than a California roll
Done on 3/15/10 at Blue C Sushi. I’m not a big fan of fish.

75. Take my vitamins regularly, at least 951 days of the 1001 days (can’t skip it more than 50 days, so I’ll keep a tally of each day I forget)
oops 1. Forgot to take vitamin, 1-30-10
oops 2. Didn’t take vitamin on 2-1-10 because multivitamins make me nauseous if I don’t have food with them, and I was so hungover I couldn’t eat any food. Lame.
Um, to be perfectly honest, I’ve been taking my vitamins regularly but not keeping track of the couple days I’ve missed. I knew I shouldn’t have chosen things that would take a lot of tracking. I’m done with this one and will now replace it with this new goal:

Go play bingo somewhere.

76. Bring my lunch/dinner to work more often—on average, do not buy lunch at work more than once a week (that’s about 143 weeks, so I’ll tally anytime I buy lunch—should not exceed this number)
1. Bought a Raw Revolution (coconut agave) bar and a Sweet Leaf Raspberry tea for lunch, 1-30-10
2. Bought a cup of chili at work on 2-1-10 because I was hungover all morning and didn’t eat and the thought of preparing food before work made me want to barf. By the time I had a dinner break at work I was starving. Very lame.
Like the vitamin tracking, I suck at tracking this and give up. I’m replacing this goal with:

Go to a roller skating rink OR go to a roller derby game. Two different things, but whatever.

77. Fill up my dream journal notebook

78. Visit the Olympic Peninsula

79. Contribute my own piece of gum to the gum wall
Completed on 3/15/10! I put a piece of gum on the wall, and then it fell off onto the ground, but it counts still, right? There’s lots of gum on the ground too.

80. Go ice skating (have never done it!)

81. Visit Bruce Lee’s and Brandon Lee’s grave (in honor of my Poppy, who was obsessed with dead actors and often visited and took pictures of their graves)
Achieved on 3/14/10.

82. Visit Jim the Wonder Dog’s grave (this is in my hometown, so I’ll have to do it when I visit my parents)

83. Learn my neighbor’s first name (because she knows mine)
3/6/2010. I’m pretty sure her name is Laura, which is what I thought it was. I just thought I was wrong because she reminds me of another Laura that I knew before moving to Seattle. Anyway, I heard her Irish husband saying her name in the hallway, and there was a package for her waiting at the entrance. Her name is Laura. Unless that’s her 2 or 3 year old daughter’s name.

84. Bake some gluten free cookies. Just to try it out.

85. Take pictures in a photo booth
accomplished on 8/29/10 at the Seattle Art Museum for the Andy Warhol photo wall.

86. Have a picnic

87. Send flowers to someone

88. Learn all the bones in the human body (I know many of them, thanks to my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Shull)

89. Visit Portland

90. Find a dentist (assuming that I eventually get health insurance)

91. Visit the Museum of Glass in Tacoma

92. Make pancakes with Batter Blaster and document the experience because it is such a ridiculous product that I need to adequately make fun of it

93. Spend a day making casseroles/meals that I can freeze for easy preparation later

94. Re-learn all the state capitals (Seriously, shouldn’t I easily know all these? I knew them in high school)

95. Finish reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks. As interesting as that book is, it’s been half-read on my nightstand for months.
Finished on May 22, 2010

96. Join meetup.com and attend an event.

97. Make a cake from scratch

98. Play some frisbee

99. Take Bryan to Gasworks Park

100. Re-watch The Muppets Take Manhattan and Follow That Bird—because why the hell not?

101. Go to a concert–and it has to be a band/artist that I am actually familiar with

—
So here it is. I guess I had better put on some pants and get started.

p.s. Do you want to do any of these things with me? Make a reservation!

January 20, 2010

Why I must be insane, or why I majored in English and not math

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , — Tina K @ 9:04 pm

I apparently forgot what unemployment taught me:

-there are 24 hours in a day and I really enjoy sitting around in my underpants for a good portion of those 24 hours
-I like streaming Law & Order SVU while lackadaisically riding a squeaky exercise bike in my underpants. In order to do this, I need to have at least 42-43 free minutes, but preferably up to 120 minutes, of free time in a day.

That’s just the beginning of it. Please allow me to be even more self-absorbed than usual here while I add up all the hours I spend doing things each week.

Work at my grocery store job: Lately I’ve been scheduled for 36 hours per week.

Work at my online teaching assistant job: In the weeks that I’m grading, up to 15 hours for one class. For some reason the school thought I was capable enough to take on another class and for some reason I thought I was too. That’s 30 hours per week of grading, answering/deciphering student questions, sending out data emails to the instructor.

Side story: The other day a student didn’t turn something in. She said she tried (and may have), but I had to give her a zero. It’s the students’ responsibility to make sure things are submitted correctly, right? She emailed to ask that I give her a few points anyway because she wants to receive a good grade.

Volunteer gig 1: I teach conversational ESL for 1.5 hours per week, and on some weeks, spend up to 2.5 hours lesson planning.

Volunteer gig 2: I spend 4 hours per week handling the main desk of a transitional housing program for women, hanging out with homeless women, sorting through produce donations–a quarter of which are often rotted.

Volunteer gig 3: I spend 3 hours per week helping out with office tasks in another program for homeless women.

The commute time by bus or walking: About 8 hours per week

GRAND TOTAL: 85 hours

HOURS IN ONE WEEK: 168

HOURS REMAINING: 83

Minimum hours of sleep per week: 5 hours per night for a total of 35 per week. Ideally, I’ll be sleeping more, but I’m trying to conserve hours here.

HOURS REMAINING: 48

Time spent showering, getting dressed and groomed, pooping: 1.5 hours per day (again, conserving time), for a total of 10.5 hours.

HOURS REMAINING: 37.5

Time spent doing laundry, washing dishes, and other general household tasks: On average, 30 minutes per day for a total of 3.5 hours per week.

HOURS REMAINING: 34

Time spent working out: Lately, it’s only been about 30 minutes per day, 5 times a week, on average. That’s a total of 2.5 hours per week.

HOURS REMAINING: 31.5

Time spent new job searching and applying to jobs each week: About 3 hours per week (if I’m only applying to about 1 or 2 jobs a week).

HOURS REMAINING: 28.5

Conclusion: I do not have sufficient time to hang out in my underpants each day.

Here, I’ve illustrated my situation for you:

Why Tina's Weeks Have Sucked Lately

Insufficient time to be spent hanging out in underpants (the assumption is that by “underpants” I mean underpants, unshowered, with crumbs in my lap, etc.) is likely the reason for any of my unhappiness–and, even more likely, the unhappiness of human kind.

Older Posts »



Powered by WordPress.