This morning I was listening to Soul Coughing’s album Ruby Vroom. The song was Is Chicago, Is Not Chicago. The opening line is “A man drives a plane, into the Chrysler building.” The rest of the album is peppered with songs that include “Bus to Beezlebub” and “Blue-eyed Devil”. But I digress.

As the Chicago song is playing, there is a knock on my door and I see two well dressed ladies through the peep hole. I open the door and one woman says,”I am sure that you are aware of all of the war and terrorism going on in the world today. Did you know that the bible talks about the same kind of events?” Then she wants to read scriptures to me. I AM LISTENING TO SONGS ABOUT SATAN AND TERRORISM and a woman comes to my door to tell me about the bible and TERRORISM. I just thought it was funny.

I have just some random things to share.

First, I have at least 3 readers. That makes me happy. Thank you guys for leaving comments. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Second, I want to share something about my bus ride this morning. This story starts back before I knew winemonkey. Before I met him, I was meeting boys over the internet. This is the story of one of them. I met this guy who talked about 10 decibels above what the typical conversation volume needed to be. Here is the painful rehashing of the first meeting and the subsequent bus encounter.

He was a statistics graduate student. This is how our first and only date went. We met for coffee during the work day. He comes up to me at the coffee shop and starts talking to me. LOUDLY. So loud that I am embarrassed to just be standing there listening. So I decide the best way to deal with this is to get out of the crowded coffeeshop. So we start walking and then he sees this dog and he stops to pet it. Now, this is not strange to me. Last night on my way home from Sacto I saw a woman walking her pug and I pulled over, jumped out of my car, asked if I could pet the dog, then proceeded to talk to her about pugs in general… at 11:00 at night! But he starts talking to me about dogs and his voice is so loud that the dog is startled. So I just keep suggesting that we walk over to the park so that we are out of most people’s ear shot. We sit on a bench and start talking about Vitamin C and RDA’s and all of this stuff and I say something about a study I heard about on NPR and he said, “What day did you hear it?” And I say, “I don’t remember, some morning last week.” And he said, (and I shit you not, this man was incredibly asinine) “If you don’t know the source, you shouldn’t state it as fact.” At which point I was trying my best to hold back the, “Excuse me for trying to have a casual conversation with an egotistical statistician.” Instead, we walked back to campus and said that maybe we would run into each other again, which I think we both wished wouldn’t happen.

But then it did. This morning. On the freaking bus. He got on the bus with a girl and sat in the front. I don’t even know if he recognized me. But he was talking loudly to this girl and he was wearing a cape. A CAPE! A Lord of the Rings, may I never grow up CAPE! And he gets on me for not knowing a source on which I based a meaningless opinion. Right. Whatever!

Third, I mentioned a few posts ago about the rollercoaster. Well the designer of this ride has graced me with a long elevated stretch of happy mood. And I thank them. This has been the best few days of the month. A shame that PMS will come crashing down in approximately 3.5 days.

10 reasons why I love the fall:
1. Soup. Soup is good when it is cold outside.
2. Blankets. Nothing feels better than getting warm under a blanket.
3. Space heaters. Mmmm. Direct heat on your cold feet. Who could ask for more?
4. Carbohydrates. And lots of them. Bread, potatoes, yams… somehow when fall comes around, I consume more carbs.
5. Hot chocolate. But seeing as I could list a million things in the “warm tummy feeling” category, I will stop with soup and hot chocolate and hope that you understand that I like being warm inside and out, unless it is summer.
6. Rain. I love rain. In fact, I wish it would thunderstorm here. We only get lightning if we get anything at all.
7. Changing vine leaves. This is the only thing comparable to the most awesome fall phenomenon in PA. Driving through Napa or Sonoma county and seeing all of the leaves on the grape vines change to a vibrant red before falling off.
8. Fog. Yes driving is hard, but it gives everything such an awesome allure. Something that can only be recreated in Photoshop.
9. Clean air. This is mostly because of the rain. Keeps the small particles out of the air and stops fires from spreading.
10. Books. Can’t go hiking in the rain. Don’t like driving on the freeway in the rain. Don’t like standing outside waiting for the bus to take me to work in the rain. So what do I do? Stay home, in bed, with the blankets, space heater, hot chocolate, and a book. ALL DAY.

Why do you love the fall?

I adore this man. He is the reason I miss cable. May he continue to have the balls to tell the jackasses on Crossfire how he feels about their show.

I support Jon Stewart. More than any of the presidential nominees.

Okay. Not love. More like rollercoaster of hormonal imbalance. That has to be it. This is how my day went:

1. Woke up at 5:30am after only going to bed around 1… for the SECOND time this week (It is onlyWednesday people! That means two days straight of less than 4 hours sleep. Maybe some of you with chronic insomnia are thinking, “Lucky bitch, what is she complaining about?” But as I have said in the past, I am a 8-9 hour a night kind of gal…). Mood: sleepy and irritated and I have a freaking headache. Lack of sleep is the #1 cause of emotional instability in my life. I swear. Too much, I’m intollerable. Too little, take cover!

2. Caught the bus and got to the coffeeshop right at they were opening (7:30am). Got a fresh cup of coffee and a white chocolate cranberry scone (which they always sell out of by 10am). Mood: happy. Got my scone and caffeine (which I hoped was going to take care of the headache).

3. Began a lab write up that needed to be finished by 8:45. Yes. I know that I am a procrastinator. And yes this down swing was mostly because I should have done the work the day before and I didn’t. But I had forgotten the manual to write up the report so I couldn’t do it last night. So I need to print something out and the printer jams at 8:30. I am trying to print something out for class. I finally just print to another printer though now it is 8:40 and I have to get to class. Mood: mad. And so much for getting rid of the damn headache.

4. Went to class. My lab partner and I get along really well for the first time ever today. Probably because I let her tell me about herself. I was interested in what she had done before she decided to go back to school. And this is the first time that a lab actually went well – from beginning to end. Mood: good. I didn’t screw up. The TA flirted with me, which bolstered the good old self esteem.

5. Ate lunch with Miss P. Talked about PP. Mood: alright. It was nice to chat with Miss P.

6. deleted for potential readers’ sakes, but it left me way pissed off.

7. Meet with TA above to talk about statistics. He is a nice guy, but we talk about statistics. Mood: Tired of being the dumb one. I am just as accomplished as most of the people I meet and yet I let them act superior to me.

8. Present moment. Mood: Teary. Should I stay here and work? Should I catch the bus home and enjoy what little daylight is left? I know that when I go home, I am not going to want to work, but I have to finish my lab tonight and I have to read up on enrichment factors. What do I really want to do? Cook myself a meal (for the first time in a long time), enjoy some music and just lay in bed under the covers. If I can get all of my data finished by tomorrow, perhaps I will spend some of Friday doing just that.

Recap: sleepy and irritated and I have a freaking headache THEN happy THEN mad THEN good THEN alright THEN Way pissed off THEN Tired of being the dumb one THEN Teary.

I’m done man. Pooped out. Thanks for listening.

I live in Yolo County in CA. There are about 4 fires going on at the moment. The sun is blocked out of sight because of the smoke. The air quality is horrendous. On Tuesday, when I was walking to class, I actually had difficulty breathing because there was so much garbage in the air. It was hard to see. It looks like it is going to rain today, but really it is just all of the particles in the air. I wish my digitial camera would capture just what it is like here, but I don’t think that it will.

I realize that this is a nerdy post. I study the atmosphere and days like today sicken me. They are also the reason why I will be able to find gainful employment in this state.