in lieu of writing something interesting….

I’ll do this long long thing that’s been making the rounds.  I’ve chopped it all up since it had about 12,000 questions and you know I can’t just give a brief and concise answer. So here’s my version of the survey swiped directly from sunny baudelaire:

Hi my name is…  Edna! Of course that’s not my real name. I’m not telling you what my real name is. Because I complain WAY too much about my job in here. I don’t want to be one of those people who end up on Unemployed and Homeless Row because they bitched about their jobs in their blog.

Never in my life have I… been across the ocean. And I really really want to.  I’ve stood on the beach and stared across the water towards …well, Marrakech. Hey, Morocco will do.

The one thing a person can do to drive me nuts is…  The one thing?? You ARE kidding, right?? Well, how about we start with yak on their cellphone while in a restaurant. Or library. Or anywhere if they’re being loud and annoying, and it seems to be a given that anyone on a cellphone is going to be loud and annoying. Actually, I think being clueless and ill-mannered would be my real answer, because that would take care of pretty much everything. And clueless and ill-mannered seems to be running rampant around here lately. And I’m NOT turning into an cranky old crone, thanks so much.

High School…  Ewwwww. I mostly have horrible memories of high school. I didn’t like high school. Except ninth grade. I didn’t like elementary school either. I remember ninth grade fondly because I got to go to a brand new school full of brand new people and expanded my horizons a bit from the elementary I attended for eight long years with the same people.  And my best friend was there too – we went to different elementary schools but the same high school.

When I’m nervous… I start looking for chocolate.  

The last time I cried was…  I’ve wanted to cry all morning, because I’m plowing through the horrible horrible student teaching applications. I want to shed tears for the future of us all when prospective teachers are as illiterate as these appear to be. I’ve really lowered my standards at this point, too, because if I’ve read and corrected them twice and they are STILL coming back with misspelled words and serious grammar issues, then it’s their own problem. I don’t care that no school will want them because they can’t write on a second grade level. I’ve gotten 194 applications and I’m sure that 85 percent of those had to be revised. A whole bunch had to be revised twice. I’d love to know exact numbers, but New Person J has apparently abandoned keeping track on her database. That’s all I’ve done for DAYS and I don’t have time for this. On the plus side, Insane Boss agrees that this is nuts and is going to come up with some other solution for the next bunch. Like make their advisor go over it with them first.  Make them responsible for doing it right to BEGIN with.

 That’s not really answering the question, is it? I’d be making some notes on this one if it was a student teaching application. OKAY, I’m kind of a crybaby. I got a little weepy Sunday night thinking about how stuck I feel in this job and how I don’t seem to be coming up with any good options and how I dreaded going to work and how I’m getting old and decrepit and I’m wasting my life and I don’t know what to DO and waaaaaahhhhhh!!!! I am NOT a drama queen.

If I were to get married right now my maid of honor would be… pretty shocked. I’d be pretty shocked too, since I already did that and have no intentions of doing it again. Actually, since my maid of honor last time didn’t get to BE my maid of honor, we could just do another ceremony and let her have her moment. My maid of honor did not make it to my wedding, because her Piece O’Shit boyfriend took her car to the flea market as she was having her hair done, after she gave him specific orders to NOT to take her car ANYWHERE because they had a 45 minute drive to the wedding site after she got finished at the hair dressers, and she didn’t want to take any chances of anything happening. Like him making her late because he was an idiot. Well, Idiot Boy took her car anyhow and had a wreck. Which in fairness wasn’t totally his fault – someone was backing up on the exit ramp and hit him – but we certainly placed full blame on him anyhow since it made Kim completely miss the wedding. And we all hated him already. Luckily it was a fairly informal event and she just had a pretty floral dress instead of an actual bridesmaid’s dress, and by happy coincidence one of my cousins ALSO was wearing a pretty floral dress that fit right in, so she was our Emergency Maid of Honor.

My hair is…  finally finally finally sporting a dye job by someone who actually knows how to properly dye hair. And it looks pretty darned good, although it’s a little darker than I planned. She dyed it a color that is close to my natural color- "Dark Blonde" – and gave me highlights. Since it was also more expensive than I was planning – probably because of the highlights – I’m okay with it being darker. I won’t have to do it again so soon.

When I was 5…  I was very very shy and spent all my time reading and playing with my little toy animals. Yes, I COULD read when I was five. I was a huge weirdo and that’s one reason I hated all my school years.

Last Christmas…  As in this past one? Is barely over. I still have the decor to prove it. I think that’s coming down this weekend though. Except for the Lights on the Beams, which will stay up till the cold weather and early darkness stop making me so unhappy.

I should be… working, and not playing on the computer. I AM at work. I’m also totally burnt out and totally enjoying the fact that everyone is gone this afternoon except me!!!!!!!! And I’m letting the machines pick up everybody else’s phones, too. I’m taking advantage of this unusual little break.

When I look down, I see… My new shoes! Rykas. For walking. They are REALLY comfortable. I just got them a couple of days ago. They are encouraging me to go walk on the treadmill after work. I didn’t go at lunch due to errands, but I can make it after work.

By this time next year… I better be happy at this job or have a new job. I also plan to be in much better condition and have, oh, FINISHED my novel.

My current gripe… It’s cooooooold!!!! It was 25 until noon. Oddly, now it’s 3:00 and it’s 36. I know, I know – I hear the Canadians howling with laughter. Cold??? But it’s been awful – howling wind and down in the teens. We keep having Wind Advisories. Oddly, one popped up as I was writing this. And I’m cold right now, although I could turn my Illegal Heater on.

I have a hard time understanding…</strong> pretty much anything having to do with numbers. Budgets, checkbooks, whatever. Damn, I need to mail the car payment. I needed to do that at lunch. DAMN.

Take my advice… don’t start this. It’s taking FOREVER. Even skipping questions.

My ideal breakfast…Oatmeal with cranberries. And just a touch of butter. And lots of coffee. I really DO love oatmeal. I know that’s weird.

If you visited the place I was born…  You would find approximately 1,894,765 more houses there now. Both in the spot where I grew up and the entire town. The hospital, where I was literally born, is still there and has merged with the rival hospital, which was oddly right across the street.

I plan to visit someone… not this weekend. Maybe I’ll go see my parents next weekend. Maybe not. I do want to go north in the spring and see family members in the Baltimore/Delaware area.

If you spend the night at my house… I hope you don’t mind dust, dirt, grime, Christmas decorations, cat hair, and nothing to eat. We’ve got beer, though!

I’d stop my wedding if… what’s up with the wedding questions?? Only if a natural disaster struck. We had a missing maid of honor, our own rings instead of each other’s, and the minister said, VERY clearly, "May the lord shine his shit face down upon you", and none of THAT stopped us.

Seriously. He said that. He was trying to say something about the lord shining his face down upon us (yeah, yeah, yeah, I let Baptists marry us to pacify my inlaws since I didn’t really care) and that’s what came out. We played the video back later and yeah, he SAID that. Most of the wedding party was stifling hysteria. I think that was his first wedding. Maybe his last too.

Most recent thing I’ve bought myself…. The most recent exciting thing was the shoes day before yesterday. Today I bought myself a zip pouch for my Daytimer, and some colorful stripy paperclips.

Most recent thing someone else bought for me… Probably some colorful plastic files and some gel pens I love. New Person J ordered them for me. She ordered like EIGHT BOXES of these kind of pricey Pentel EnerGel pens, in blue, black, and red. Nobody else seemed interested in them, so they’re all in my desk drawer now. I LOVE these pens.

My middle name is… Suzanne. Funny, I’ve been married so long that I hardly ever think of my middle name anymore. In eighth grade I hung around with a girl whose middle name was my first name, and a Suzanne whose first name was my middle name. We all found that odd.  

This morning I… I did some work. Oh, and went to a goodbye party for one of the tech guys who has gotten a real job in the Big City. Nothing like cake first thing in the morning! And weird frozen punch. Oh, oh, and sent some pictures to Walgreens to be developed, so I can submit them to the annual photography competition. Last year I submitted some I loved of fences and rocks on the parkway in the fog, but apparently for the "parkway" catagory they wanted things that were obviously parkway related.  When I told Baker B I was entering again, he said, "Well, just submit your WORST pictures, and you’ll win! Go take a really bad picture of the Viaduct!!" I’m skipping the parkway this year and doing "culture", "landscape", and perhaps "flora/fauna".

Living things I would like to see flying besides birds are…  ill-mannered people on cellphones. Wheeeeee!!!!!!!! 

Last night… We watched an episode of Lost, as is our habit of late. And I went to bed at TEN THIRTY. I usually go to bed at midnight. And I was STILL tired when I woke up. But was a lot less tired today than I’ve been, so I think I needed that.

What I really want for Valentine’s Day is… a vacation far far far from here. Not likely to happen. However, we WILL go to Charleston over Easter, which falls very near our anniversary this year. That’s not TOO long after Valentine’s Day.

I’m wearing…  really boring clothes. A pair of jeans that is kind of big but not big enough to declare TOO big, but they still keep looking unflatteringly baggy. And a black hoodie that is from Liz Claiborne, so it isn’t one of those cool I’m-a-ghetto-kid hoodies. It’s more of a soccer-mom hoodie, with white piping down the zipper and white, light blue and black stripes inside the hood. Not real cutting-edge fashion. I do actually have a much cooler hoodie at home, kind of a arty hoodie with silver ornaments hanging off the hood strings and ziz-zaggy stitching, but it’s very thin. And it’s very cold today.

Tomorrow I am… sleeping late!!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!!!! I do love to sleep late. And I’m going to walk on the treadmill again too. Unless it’s warm enough to walk outside.

The last thing I ate was…  A bunch of baby carrots. I love baby carrots.

I really want to… go home. Well, go work out and THEN go home. And have a beer. And watch some more Lost.