spacekadet

Photos from Christmas in Chicago and the Arboretum with Jason.

Posted by monica at 09:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

only 2 more nights and 3 more days until i head off to chicago. i was initially not looking forward to 9 days in the burbs, but now i'm a little anxious to leave. austin is dead at the moment. everyone's left town. tim is in en zed. and i'm going a little stir crazy. in a way, i'd rather be in chicago among people rather than in austin among dead leaves. normally i'd welcome a few days of me time, but at the moment i fjear that being alone with my thoughts could cause me more stress than my nicotene-cravings could handle. so, i'm trying to channel my thoughts to positive things. i've been taking walks and riding my bike. i figure that being good to myself and trying to be a better person is the only way forward though the uncertain future. besides, it would be a shame to waste the beautiful weather.

Posted by monica at 12:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

is there something pornographic about the phrase "thin pizza crust" i should know about? because when i search for '"thin pizza crust" recipe' on google, i get a slew of porn sites. what gives?

Posted by monica at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In case you haven't noticed, I wrote my own Javascript Quit Meter to monitor and motivate my smoking progress. It's pretty ghetto, as I don't really know JS. I found this javascript faq site to be really useful.

I don't know it happened, but I love Matchbox 20. All of their songs sounds the same. But they all sound good. So good. Good and cheezy. Just like I like my meals.

I think I've already lost you
I think you're already gone
I think I'm finally scared now
You think I'm weak - but I think you're wrong
I think you're already leaving
Feels like your hand is on the door
I thought this place was an empire
Now I'm relaxed - I can't be sure

I think you're so mean - I think we should try
I think I could need - this in my life
I think I'm scared - I think too much
I know this is wrong it's a problem I'm dealing

If you're gone - maybe it's time to come home
There's an awful lot of breathing room
But I can hardly move
If you're gone - baby you need to come home, come home
There's a little bit of something me
In everything in you

I bet you're hard to get over
I bet the moon just won't shine
I bet my hands I can stay here
I bet you need - more than you mind

I think you're so mean - I think we should try
I think I could need - this in my life
I think I'm just scared - that I know too much
I can't relate and that's a problem I'm feeling

If you're gone - maybe it's time to COME home
There's an awful lot of breathing room
But I can hardly move
If you're gone - baby you need to come home, come home
There's a little bit of something me
In everything in…………………… you

I think you're so mean - I think we should try
I think I could need - this in my life
and I think I'm scared - do I talk too much
I know it’s wrong it's a problem I'm dealing

If you're gone - maybe it's time to come home
There's an awful lot of breathing room
But I can hardly move
If you're gone – Hell, baby you need to come home
There's a little bit of something me
In everything in you, everything in ….in you.

Posted by monica at 10:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh noose tied myself in, tied myself too tight
Looking kind of anxious in your cross armed stance
Like a bad tempered prom queen at a homecoming dance
And I claim I'm not excited with my life anymore
So I blame this town, this job, these friends
The truth is it's myself
And I'm trying to understand myself
And pinpoint where I am
By the time I get things figured out
I've change the whole damn plan
Oh noose tied myself in, tied myself too tight
Talking shit about a pretty sunset
Blanketing opinions that i'll probably regret soon
I've changed my mind so much I can't even trust it
My mind changed me so much I can't even trust myself

Posted by monica at 02:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

last week may have been one of the worst weeks of my life. you might say the proverbial shit hit the thermantidote. i won't go into details, because this is no place to get personal. but i'm a boosh interrupted afloat in a sea called Flowliness with no forseeable boundary. i just hope it has a happy ending.

my week from hell resulted in the resurgence of my smoking habit. first i was having a smoke and a beer at night to calm me down. then i was having a smoke and a cup of tea in the morning to get me going. cigarettes are evil. so i quit again, last saturday at midnight. a week ago i set sunday at midnight as my quit day, but as the week went on, and the pack got lighter at ever increasing rates, i realized that the longer i waited to quit, the harder it would be. and just a 24 hour difference in my quit date meant that today, monday, i'm already feeling better and less toxic. it's funny, because yesterday quitting wasn't so hard. i felt shitty, my lungs hurt, i wanted to feel better. now as i'm feeling better, i'm craving more. i've also found that having someone to take care of really takes my mind off of ciggies. but today, woe is me, i'm all alone. but i kept face by leaving the house for school, printing some articles, cleaning my desk, and hitting the gym for the first time in weeks. my workout was aimless, but it felt good to sweat. i felt like i was getting lots of things -- nicotene, tar, heartache, finals -- out of my system.

my attitude about quitting smoking is better this time. those of you who were around during the hynposhrink era know that i wasn't really all about quitting, but i rationally knew i had to. irrationally, however, i still loved the company of the friend i paid to keep. now, i just wanna feel clean. i want my mouth to taste good when i wake up in the morning. and i really don't want to sneak out of my parents house late at night in the cold to have one precious cigarette. (frankly, i think mom was onto my evening "walks" last christmas.) more importantly, i don't want to have to explain any more cigarette burns on car apolstery.

in the end, last week's hell was good education. i learned the following:

- smoking is the devil. if i am willing to give into temptation even once, i must be prepared to sacrafice my life and my dollars to giving into that temptation 1000's of times

- sufficient statistics are easy if you take the right notes and prepare an mp-style outline before approaching the problem.

- statistics is hard in its requirement of a comprehensive understanding of the material.

- i'm very poor at developing a comprehensive understanding of anything

- honesty is always the best policy

- no matter how much it hurts, it's not the end of the world

- 3 beers, 1 hydrocodone, 1 can of diet Coke, 1/4 bag of popped microwave popcorn results in the worst barf fest ever

- making fun of people is bad

- drinking too much is bad

- i want to be a better person.

i learned lots of other stuff but that's for me to know and you to find out.

which brings me to the present. although my classes are over, i continue to struggle with the ever pressing matter of finding a thesis topic. i'm trying to get excited about phylogentic networks, but i'm finding that my limited knowledge of biology is making these articles from BIOLOGY JOURNALS a little tedious. this is frustration because i think i could like what i'm reading if i knew what the standard implementation of gamma distributed heterogeneity was. or rather, what is gamma distributed heterogeneity? and do i even care? furthermore, i want a cigarette. and this paper would read much better outside on my porch while i puff puff the day away. i shouldn't be reading. i should be running around cleaning and biking and lifting and keeping my mind off smoking.

such is life. hurray for caffeine and uppers. times like these i feel like i did the right thing by going into mathematics. strangely enough, as soon as i wrote that, i began to question the very statement. i wonder if math has jaded me. when i was younger, i wanted to study astronomy because it was beautiful and eternal and greater than anything human (like politics - ugh), and therefore more fundamental. but then i realized that i didn't like observational astronomy because it involved too much guesswork. and i wasn't very good at memorizing names of processes in stellar evolution. but i did like the mathematical models. now i see everything in the world as a sequence of random events, and the best way to understand the world is to figure out the mathematics behind its processes and put them in a computer. mechanics, thermodynamics, pretty pictures. but the more i do this, the more i understand that none of it really matters. the andromeda galaxy that i used to marvel at as one of the only galaxies outside of our milky way that i could really see through my small 4.5in telescope, now decomissioned, is just a bunch of stars swirling around a black hole because physics says so. i still get excited when there's a meteor shower in town, and i might even go outside at night and look for a few. but it always makes me a little sad. i think i'm sad that i never really had the brains or the gusto to come up with my own good ideas about how stuff works. and yet i still think i'm too smart to believe in god. ignorance must be bliss, because if i thought there was something meaningful to all this randomness, maybe i'd have an easier time being awe-stricken by nature. don't get me wrong, i'm not a hopelessly bored person. i still love science. it's just that sometimes i wonder if i'd appreciate it more if i saw it from the point of view of a museum exhibit rather than an indepth mathematical study.

ya know what i mean??

(there is a chance that i'm fundamentally an aimless individual. shit - i still wonder if i should have gone into journalism; perhaps those of you who read this thing would like to back up my decision not to pursue writing professionally?).

so in a great juxtoposition of study, i am turning my gaze around from the cosmic microwave background to the microcosm. from the evolution of the universe to the evolution of life. as a meaningless speck living in a universe bounded only by my clothing, perhaps i will find inspiration in the science that defines my person. and from there, back to stardust i will return.

speaking of a universe bounded by my clothing, i think i may have just found an avenue for a spiritual argument for nudism. perhaps i'll come back to that later. at the moment i think i'm going to get back to that genetic stuff. i've done MCMC simulations to model the mechanics of polymer filaments. i would like to learn how to use similar simulations to model the thermodynamic evolution of RNA. this is pretty exciting. in my previous models i was looking at one filament and trying to figure out what it did in a medium. but the evolution problem is all about understanding genetic relationships between all species on earth. frankly, this makes me more than a little moist. this study will be crucial in answering questions like, "War, what is it good for?", "Dog: Man's Best Kin or Best Served On A Sesame Seed Bun?", and, "Is George W. Bush: an Alien From Outer Space or Merely an Average Texan?"

whatever. it's all random.

Posted by monica at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

QuitMeter Counter courtesy of www.quitmeter.com.

Posted by monica at 12:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

wish me luck on my final exam today. i'm really nervous about it. hopefully by 5:30 i will be prepared enough to at least make a B. i'm sick of school. actually, i think i'm just sick.

There was a time when i had nothing to explain
Oh, this mess i have made
But then things got complicated
My innocence has all but faded
Oh, this mess i have made

And i don't believe in god
So i can't be saved
All alone as i've learned to be
In this mess i have made

All the untested virtue
The things i said i'd never do
Least of all to you
I know he's kind and true
I know that he is good to you
He'll never care for you more than i do

But i don't believe in love
And i can't be changed
All alone as i've learned to be
In this mess
I have made the same mistakes
Over and over again

There are rooms in this house that i don't open anymore
Dusty books of pictures on the floor
That she will never see
She'll never see that part of me
I want to be for her
What i could never be for you

But i don't believe in god
So i can't be saved
All alone as i've learned to be
In this mess i have made

Posted by monica at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

i could have slept all morning. but i didn't because i slept with my computer (almost as warm as a person) and had a an urge to check my email that was strong enough to wake me up. it was nice, though. i love being a student because it affords me the opportunity to take a slow morning when i feel like it. so i put on my scarf and hat and started things off with a little aimee mann. quiz question: who did Aimee Mann play in the Big Lebowski?

Now that I've met you
Would you object to
Never seeing each other again
Cause I can't afford to
Climb aboard you
No one's got that much ego to spend

So don't work your stuff
Because I've got troubles enough
No, don't pick on me
When one act of kindness could be
Deathly
Deathly
Definitely

Cause I'm just a problem
For you to solve and
Watch dissolve in the heat of your charm
But what will you do when
You run it through and
You can't get me back on the farm

So don't work your stuff
Because I've got troubles enough
No, don't pick on me
When one act of kindness could be
Deathly
Deathly
Definitely

You're on your honor
Cause I'm a goner
And you haven't even begun
So do me a favor
If I should waver
Be my savior
And get out the gun

Just don't work your stuff
Because I've got troubles enough
No, don't pick on me
When one act of kindness could be
Deathly
Deathly
Definitely

And a little Outkast to go with my tea...

Caroline! Caroline!
All the guys would say she's mighty fine
But mighty fine only got you somewhere half the time
And the other half either got you cursed out, or coming up short
Yeah, now dig this, even though
You'd need a golden calculator to divide
The time it took to look inside and realize that
Real guys go for real down to Mars girls, yeah!

I know you'd like to thank your shit don't stank
But lean a little bit closer
See that roses really smell like boo-boo
Yeah, roses really smell like boo-boo

Caroline! See she's the reason for the word "bitch"
I hope she's speeding on the way to the club
Trying to hurry up to get to some
Baller or singer or somebody like that
And try to put on her makeup in the mirror
And crash, crash, crash.. into a ditch! (Just Playing!)
She needs a golden calculator to divide
The time it took to look inside and realize that
Real guys go for real down to Mars girls, yeah!

Well she's got a hotty body, but her attitude is potty
When I met her at a party she was hardly acting naughty
I said "Would you call me?"
She said "Pardon me, are you ballin'?"
I said "Darling, you sound like a prostitute pursing"
Oh so you're one them freaks, get geeked at the sight of ATM receipts
But game been peeped, dropping names she's weak
Trickin' off this bitch is lost
Must take me for a geek a quick way to eat
A neat place sleep, a rent-a-car for a week, a trick for a treat
Now go on the raw sex, my AIDS test is flawless
Regardless, we don't want to get involved with no lawyers
And judges just to hold grudges in a courtroom
I wanna see ya support bra not support you!
Better come back down to Mars
Girl, quit chasin' cars
What happens when the dough get so low
Bitch, you ain't that fine
No way.. no way.. no way

Crazy bitch
Bitch, stupid ass bitch
Old punk ass bitch, old dumbass bitch
A bitch's bitch, just a bitch

Posted by monica at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

how could i forget to mention this... i had a doug shupe sighting last night at milto's. he looks so different in person! less commanding... but very neat and clean! he also appears to be in impeccable shape -- right on, doug!

p.s. milto's has some mighty fine pizza!

Posted by monica at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

study break time, so i thought i'd sit down and write a weekend update. then i realized that my weekend blew and it wasn't worth writing about. i mean, there were some good bits. saturday was really nice. there were some moments shared. i ate some good food. i didn't get any work done. and i've been smoking again. which means i have to quit again. if i subject myself to any more self torture this week, i will probably end up eating my own face and then throwing it all up again. so a week from today (monday dec 8) i will start anew. and this time, i am going to utilize the quitmeter. in the meantime, i refuse to get totally out of control and stink and have a bad taste in my mouth at school where i can't brush my teeth, so i'm eating carrots... lots and lots of carrots. digestive system, eat your heart out.

and now for a bit of perspective. some read alt.support.divorce, i bitch about lubbock. that way i can always think, "it could be worse."

since people have been finding my page by doing a google search for "lubbock sucks", i thought i'd do the same google search to find other anti-lubbocks out there. here's what i found:

Dan Hillman, professor of something, writes the following in his treatise A Year in Lubbock: Academics or Why I Chose to be Unemployed in Boston Rather than Remain Tenure-Track in Lubbock:

There were trade-offs [ to working at TTU], of course, all of which seem to stem from the fact that Lubbock sucks ass. Lubbock is -- according to the real estate guides -- a great place to raise children. That's code for "housing is cheap, the taxes are low, and it's a pretty good bet that if your stupid kid chases a ball into the street drivers might slow down." But Lubbock is much more than that. Lubbock is a foul brew of Texas bravado, provincialism, and cloddishness -- the bastard child of Children of the Corn and The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again.

Sadly, luboocksucks.com seems to be dead.

Some people at digital city had a bit to say about Lubbock night clubs:

Bandrebram: ALl of lubbock sucks i hate this pplace
CottonJahn: They're all trash holes....

in a moment of feeling for dear speeddemonellie, this peed racer so poinantly expresses the plight of living in lubbock on this blogg0rbater's livejournal:

"if things don't work out at lubbock, feel free to fucking run away as far as you need to. lubbock sucks anyways, and being there by yourself is hell on earth."

and from the usenet:

Nancy: Lubbock sucks rilly big green ones.

Beth: Lubbock SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS. giant attack cockroaches. flatter than a pancake. HOT in the summers. COLD in the winters. tornadoes. rednecks. dusty. flat. yuck.

Posted by monica at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

friday morning headache since yesterday's sunset. sleep in til the store for milk and eggs to make the tea better. avoid the beer bottles and the dirty laundry on the floor and pretend that includes my lucky panties, lingering on the lampshade. i sat on my porch drinking and thinking and wishing i'd remembered my sunglasses because the bright light white heat doesn't help a sore head. from where i'm standing, the earth is spinning at about 800 mph, so there's not much sense in trying to stop time.

i reflect too much. it's the price i pay to adhere so closely to precious moments, so few. the toyota celica, new orleans, stealing firewood, the scars, the orgasmatron. but i get as crazy about johnny g. as i do beaumont and lubbock -- i'm just trippin'.

which is why, this afternoon, i got a haircut.

today i didn't even mind the head massage or the shoulder rub, even if it was just 'cause the girl was pretty and reminded me of cara. today i took a walk in the sun without changing into comfortable shoes. today, for a change, i feel like i hold my mind safely and sanely in my hands. today i feel like i know what's important, beyond my hair.

And when you said I could not stay with you
That's not the way you would have wanted to be
Convince yourself that everything is alright
'Cos it already is

Don't sell your heart and break just anyone
I want to run with you through moorland fields
Convince yourself that everything is alright
'Cos it already is
'Cos it already is

So take your lessons hard and stay with him
When your car crash comes, don't be misled
Convince yourself that everything is alright
'Cos it already is
'Cos it already is

So take your lessons hard and stay with him
And when your car crash comes, don't be misled
Convince yourself that everything is alright
'Cos it already is
Yeah it already is

So take him home
So take him home
So take him home

Take him, Take him home

Posted by monica at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

brilliant.

someone found my website by doing a google search for "lubbock sucks".

Posted by monica at 08:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

analyze this dream: i'm at a math party at an unknown location. pot brownies were delivered by a certain math grad student whose identity i will not disclose out of sheer embarassment to myself. this same person had to leave the party early because he had smoked some bad crack (i found this out from his roommate). meanwhile, someone who i did not know was walking around the party with his fly open and had a huge johnson hanging out of his pants.

WHY AM I SUBCONSCIOUSLY THINKING ABOUT THIS SHIT?

but an even better question is...

who's the guy with the big johnson?

Posted by monica at 03:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

one class down, two to go. yesterday was my last installment of my 9am bioinformatics class -- rejoice. i stayed afterward to help a friend with some stuff who missed class last week because she "totally forgot that the class even existed". that cracked me up like it don't make no sense. inbetween being angry with chip-eaters, i spent the rest of the day preparing for a presentation i'm giving in 20 minutes. and by "preparing", i mean doing everything from figuring out a topic to research to typing up a preliminary report. procrastination sucks balls, but i'm sort of glad i only spent one day of my life on this. or rather, i'm glad i spent thanksgiving break relaxing and having snacks instead of working on school b.s. if you would like to know why i care about dna sequence alignment, check out my talk.

Posted by monica at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

we all know why potato chips suck, right? in a boosh knot: they're bad for you. they also leave your hands greasy and make you look like a buffoon when you lean back like homer simpson and dump a bunch of crumbs all over your face.

but how about sitting next to someone in the process of getting through a bag of chips? it's the most audibly offensive act i've ever heard, next to wet sloppy smacky kisses on soap operas.

first, the offender (we'll call him "Chip"), reaches into the bag which causes the bag to crinkle for what feels like an eternity while Chip gets a good handful. then as the fried potatoes begin to enter his mouth, Chip, possibly out of anticipation, inhales before chomping down and attempting to chew the 10 chips he just shoved in his mouth. then, a minute of gross chew noises: the crunch of chips between the teeth, the smacking of saliva as he licks the salt and grease off the corners of his mouth. then perhaps the licking of fingers. and then repeat, until the bag is done and crumpled, and discarded.

ugh, i wish i had remembered to bring my iPod to school today.

Posted by monica at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

monday morning, so far, has been like any work day following a vacation that felt way too short.

alarm at 7am... snoozed until 8.
fresh laundry ... never folded... wrinkle fest til noon.
shoei helmet for the scoot... bad hair for the rest of the day.
missed breakfast... substituted with coffee.

but i can't complain because this is the last week of classes, and i'm enjoying the looming stress that comes with the mad scramble to salvage my grades before it's too late. this stress could have been avoided if i had worked all thanksgiving break, but that wouldn't be very interesting, now would it?

so let's talk about my fantastically interesting thanksgiving weekend festival.

one major activity was finishing the move. the boxes are cleared. the old apt is clean. the key is turned in. moore blvd is behind me, except for my security deposit which may or may not be returned in full thanks to that fucking goddam no good ficus tree. maybe someday i'll break into it before they tear down the house..

Broke into the old apartment
Forty-two stairs from the street
Crooked landing, crooked landlord
Narrow laneway filled with crooks
This is where we used to live

I want them back

thanksgiving day was pretty wild. after the move, tim and i, who were not on the ball whatsoever despite our strict schedule, had a snack followed by chips and queso and pizza while we watched the Farm Aid 2003 Highlight show on PBS. it was highly disappointing. when they announced dave matthews band, the only band member who was there was dave matthews, stoned out of his mind, plaing solo. then billy bob thorton sang this terrible song about being desparate and i can't get it out of my head it's driving me crazy i'm going to eat my face before the day is done.

on friday, i observed buy nothing day. this was a little hard because i'd been thinking that i really need to get a bedside table. with a drawer. but furniture is expensive. then i started thinking about building my own even though the table i built for tim and i at harris park sucked. then this made me think that building a table would be much easier if i had a table saw. and if i had a table saw, i could adjust my bed frame. but table saws cost money, too. so at the end of the day, i don't have a saw, or a bedside table. woe is me. my life is hard.

so i stayed in friday night to unpack and put up some hideous shelves in my kitchen.

saturday night i caught up with Dave L. from Assram at the Draughthouse. i had intended for the trip to be brief, but are beer outings ever brief? sheri and joel ended up coming by, and tim ended up drinking too much. it was a lot of fun and i enjoyed having a bit of Churbana in my presence.

last night i attempted to make pizza from scratch. disaster was almost had between transfering the pizza from the peel to the pizza stone. it was pretty tasty but the crust was incredibly thick. this week i might try to master thin crust. i'm going to chicago soon and it's going to be cold so i better put on some insulation before i get there.

don't see the movie "the quiet american". it's terrible.

Posted by monica at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)