It only took two hours for me to stop studying and start watching the latest episode of Merlin.

In other news, I bought my default user icon on a scrabble tile pendant on etsy.

Sadly, this post is not about my love life. (Which is laughable and nonexistant)

Instead it is about the particular kind of crazies I've been encountering at work lately.

Poets.

I keep encountering poets.

My first one I really enjoyed. She was a rotound little redhead nurse, and she came into the store. I chatted with her about Yoga for a while, and then she asked me, "Have you been visited?"

I confessed that I was unsure what she was talking about, and turned the question back on her (an old tactic I have always used on people who've asked me if I'm saved-a quick yes and then ask them how they were saved-ANYWAYS-).

And then she told me about being visited by the kindest aliens who lived on another planet and were searching for a truly unique species to call their friend. She said they told her, when she was a child, that she had many gifts. And she told me to be watching because they come for special people.

And she knew I was special-I had a feeling she identified me by hair color. Because she moved on to if I was Irish or not, and I always say that I am, despite my feelings, because the less conversation you engage in with crazies the less they have to work with.

Because I was Irish, she thought that I would appreciate a performance of her poem, written as part of her participation in the Society for Historical Anachronism. Whatever her guild is, it has no King.

So she performed a poem in which she played two characters by moving dramatically to one side of me and then the other side of me, about being a lover refusing to bow to anyone but her one true love, and the EVIL OGRE KING WITH A BIG VOICE who demanded that she bow down (there was something about virginity too, but I have repressed that part).

This elegant display of poetic prowess made me kind of eager to encounter my next one.

Sadly, the others have not been performance artists.

This week's poet laureate was a woman who walked in and said, "Did you know that I turned 45 yesterday?"

I know it was going to be good at that moment, and I didn't even have to wait for it.

"Here, I wrote this today."

And I was handed a copy of a rhyming poem about her mother dying.

"I wrote this when I was imagining what it will be like when my mother passes. I live with her, you know, and we fight alot. Do you like my poem?"

"Oh, very nice." I've found the key to these interactions is to keep your responses short and your face very very blank.

"Here, read it again, tell me what you think."

This went on for a while, as she told me about sending the poetry to Washington DC to have it made into songs, and telling me about writing a song because it sounded like lyrics.

I am not kidding.

After about 15 minutes of this, we were staring at each other across the counter, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from kicking her out of my store and my life. Because I had read her horrible poem twice, and then she'd produced another one, dedicated to Jesus, that she said she'd written in ten minutes that was, if possible, even more painful.

I wish there had been extra copies, but the library limits how many pages you can print in a day and by the time she wrote these out she was out of pages for the day.

Sometimes, I wonder how I attract such artists.

Then I remember I work next door to a public library and there's a bus stop in front of my store.

I just finished watching The Waters of Mars

My (short & spoilery) thoughts below the cut: ( Oh, Doctor )

Last weekend was rough. I caught a GI bug, lost my only day off to being unable to do anything but sleep, feel sick, and eat Popsicles. By the time I'd caught things up, changed my sheets, and worked, it was Monday morning of a busy week and I felt like I was never going to catch up again-my hamster wheel had fallen off its hinges and was going to be a bell jar over my head.

So, I made a list on Monday morning.

The State of Megan's Life
1. Beer from Halloween on my bookshelf
2. Dangerously cascading pile of dirty laundry
3. Pile of $500 cash on my night stand
4. Two missing paychecks (the physical ones that have to go to the bank)
5. The lingering feeling that Medical Mutual of Ohio has stolen my money and won't give it back
6. TWENTY TWO VOICEMAILS on my phone, dating back to early October.
7. Accounting Project #3 was unstarted.
8. Accounting Homework was not started
9. Business Law & Ethics Project not started
10. Hadn't paid October Bills yet
11. Only 5000 words into my nano!

Then, slowly, day by day, I have addressed this list. I still have a pile of dirty laundry cascading out of my closet (but I now have a plan for addressing it). I did dig through the trash to locate those missing paychecks, and I took them along with the pile of cash on my nightstand (seriously, I had people fetching things and carrying my crap around while I was sick and not one of them pointed out, 'who left such a big tip on your nightstand, megan?')

I did my homework, started my projects. I also wrote the deadlines really big on my calendar so I can't forget them. I paid bills and cleaned off my desk. I checked my voicemail-I really only had to check 2 voicemails out of the 22. I wrote another 2000 words for my nano, and I've succeeded in taking my money back from the thieves are Medical Mutual (details an entry back).

The State of Megan, in short, improved so much that joirerson and I were about to watch the crack that is Princess Diaries 2 without me feeling guilty about it.

Anyways, I feel like a very busy human being again, and I'm starting to collect my thoughts about what it's like to study something that you have no love for, because damn, I'd forgotten how much I love history and psychology and all those soft sciences where you have to sew connections and facts together until the story makes sense when you hold it up to the light.

That, quite possibly, was the worst metaphor I've come up with yet.

I've spent a couple of hours (over the last month) on the phone with my health insurance broker and my health insurance company trying to ask why they won't refund me $600 of health insurance premiums they charged me after they canceled my insurance (because I was picked up by school's group plan).

Over the course of these calls, I've been told that the money's going back on my credit card, the check was in the cashier's office, the check was in the mail, there was no check, they'd already reversed the charge, or it was still in processing. No one was able to tell me when they'd refund me the two month of premiums they'd charged me for-also, they charged the October premium AFTER they knew I'd switched coverage and after they'd told me I was getting the September refund. So that was a lovely surprise last month.

So, after another phone call this morning, where another Medical Mutual employee didn't know why I hadn't received my refund check, I decided that it's easier to go straight to the money.

I searched consumerist on how to file a chargeback, assembled my evidence, and called my bank.

Within ten minutes they'd filed a charge back. Apparently, since I have a letter over 30 days old saying my service was canceled and I have not received a refund check or a refund on my credit card, they can reverse the charges.

Ten minutes.

$600 dollars.

Thank you, US Bank. Thank you.

(Also, did you know my health insurance premium when I was self-insured was $330+/month? The Canadian in the call center was aghast.)

Since I'm in graduate school, have a full-time job and two part-time gigs, of course I should tackle nanowrimo for the eight (or ninth) year.

SO:

Poll #1477320 What Should I Write for Nano?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 9

What Should I Write My Nanowrimo Novel About?

Please come to my aid. Or click some ticky boxes. And forgive my gross spelling errors.

I can't finish anything, so here's some bits and bobs.

From Sunday:

I've spent my morning with money, so here are some numbers.

Stapler Removers Destroyed in 2009 to date: 3
Grouchy Where's the Money Emails I've Sent: 2

Unaccounted for monies recovered through my awesomeness: $167.50 (and counting)

From Wednesday: 

I am so bad at statistics it hurts. And people still keep asking me to study with them. (I guess my barely-there-B is better than their F-you-can-only-hope.)

I wish there was room in the front row so I wouldn't have to sit with the frat boys anymore.

From Thursday:

As of 9:00 pm, I have earned 60/60 points between all of my classes. I can't keep track of each individual class separately (blackboard makes my eyes bleed).

But I can pool them all together as I earn them and set goals!

That's a couple of quizzes, discussions and papers, and in one week (thur-thur) I earned a all perfect scores!

Go me.

From last night's insomnia: 

Stolen fromtheoreticalpixy

"Using only episode names from one TV show, cleverly answer these questions. Try not to repeat an episode title. It's a lot harder than you think! Repost as "My life according to

My Life According to Doctor Who (new and old school)

Are you a male or female?: The Doctor's Daughter
Describe yourself: The Space Pirates
How do you feel: The Time Monster
Describe where you currently live: The Poison Sky
If you could go anywhere where would you go?: Utopia
Your favorite form of transportation: Turn Left
Your best friend is: Partners in Crime
What's the weather like: Silver Nemesis
Favorite time of day: Midnight
If your life was a TV show, it would be called: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
Favorite food: The Stolen Earth
What is life to you: The Chase
Your fear: Human Nature
What is the best advice you have to give: Enlightenment
Thought for the Day: Fury From the Deep
How I would like to die: Journey's End
My soul's present condition: Inferno
My motto: Silence in the Library


Alright, time to study business law and ethics.

http://www.ismercuryinretrograde.com/


This explains everything.

I keep thinking I need to go back and re-tag my journal. My tag cloud bothers me because it's largest tag is Life, and the second largest is Phil (my wayward best friend who I occasionally think I should marry, and then I remember about those incidents with his sister). And if I don't re-tag now, how will I procrastinate from graduate school?

OH, GRADUATE SCHOOL.

I'm not very good at Blackboard, it makes my eyes hurt, I can't get everything together on one calender without individually making entries, it won't let me click on test and assignments in the today box-so when I see a Quiz I didn't know I had to take, I have to go into all my classes individually to find it.

Also, all course content is listed in one section-I think this is an instructor thing. It's lead me to all sorts of problems-I couldn't find the spreadsheets for my Finance homework, and I didn't even know that we had mp3s of the lectures for another class until someone mentioned it in one of the discussion forums. At least I know how to use the discussion boards (I did use type UBB code in one message, which did not work at all. I don't know what I was thinking.)

Anyways, all my blackboard confusion (and the fact that two of my classes have really simlair names-MLR 501 & MRK 501.

Well, I missed a test.

One of three. And a forty point project.

I know, I'm a spaz. I haven't been this bad at school since I was taking 400 with the proffesor that reminded me of my mother when she was really angry all the time, and I withdrew from the class the day before our main paper was due because I wasn't finished with the paper at all because, since I felt like I was writing a paper for my mother (only she was a mideval historian not a dietician), I had been seized by the perfectionest bug and had only written 3 pages instead of 40.

Actually, at least in 400 I knew I had to do the work. I completely spaced for MLR 501 and basically missed all the deadlines for the first three weeks.

The only assignment I managed to complete on deadline I submitted to the WRONG class.

I went into CampusNet today to withdraw from the class and found out that graduate drop dates are different than undergraduate deadlines, and I was still able to drop the class (which means I'll get most of my money back-yay!).

I like it when stories have happy endings.

I have decided that my life is one big morning after.

Goodbye August, you mostly sucked.

I will return in September in a better mood-so I've only got three hours to go.

So, today in Business Law we read aloud the Constitution. That wasn't too painful since we skipped the "boring parts"-you know, like the parts about the judicial system.

The highlight was the in-class activity: we got to write our own amendments to the Constitution! Anything we wanted! Unlimited powers to guarantee cake to all citizens!

Proposed amendments included allowing people under 25 who are sentenced to prison for not-felonies to chose the military instead, forcing municipalities to reimburse citizens for damages caused by potholes, and making 18 the legal drinking age. Someone also suggested that East Cleveland be required to spend its money on roads instead of schools-my inner response was: What PLANET DO YOU LIVE ON? and my outer response was to stare at the board and pray that class would end.

Fortunately, I was asked to read my amendment.

"Well, I'd just bring back the ERA-the Equal Rights Amendment, which wasn't ratified. You know, make it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of their sex. I'd probably add race and gender for good measure."

I earned a rainbow of bonus points.

And hopefully the respect of the undergrads that populate the class (I am now one of two graduate students in a class of 30-some, so this will be a fun semester). And there wasn't even time for anyone to ask if we really needed an equal rights amendment.

Good times, good times.

I wanted to take a picture outside the house, like my mom made us do for much of my childhood. Unfortunately, no one was awake when I left the house at 6 am this morning.

I've arranged my schedule so that I park at Job #2 around 6:30 am, work for a few hours, take a break to go to my class, come back to job #2, finish up in 2.25 hours, eat a peach while driving to the east side and work 6 hours at Job #1. Day ends at 8:30 pm.

Tuesdays are going to be long-ass days that kick my butt and hurt my soul.

Oh, but why will they hurt my soul?

Because I'm taking Business Law & Ethics with a professor who likes group work, and I am one of 4 graduate students out of 35 students. Because I am a graduate student, I have to write two papers instead of one. That's the only difference between the undergrad and the graduate course. (I should demand to pay undergraduate rates.)

Also, I 80% of my grade is based on two tests. 10% of my grade is based on if I write a coherent paper. If I turn the paper in and stand in front of the class to talk about it, I will get full credit. I have a history degree, writing two five-page papers on a tedious topic is something I can do in 24 hours. And those would have more than two sources!

This class is one of the two prerequisites I must pass before I can start Level 600 accounting classes.

I already looked into switching sections, and all of the other sections are during my normal working hours. And I'm not giving up real money to take Business Ethics.

Oh, and Thursday, in class, we're reading aloud the Constitution. Aloud>. (I think I did that in APUSH in 11th grade).

I was going to write something in depth about life. Instead I'm uploading pictures because I've spent the night organizing the photos we recovered from my dead laptop in Picasa. Really, recovering my pictures from college is much more important that writing about living with the priest-to-be who breaks hearts. (Actually, that's coming, I swear).


( Three Pictures to tell the story of the last two months )


Summer has been delightfully boring this year.

Sometimes, my Boston wife has to wake up extremely early and go to work at 5:15 am. This makes everyone very sad, but no one is more upset about it then her dog, Luna, who does not like to wake up before 9 am on a good day, and will stay in bed all day long if the temperature rises above 80 degrees.

This morning was one of those mornings, and it is the morning where I realized exactly how whipped that dog has me. Because Luna ran upstairs and jumped into my bed at 5am, only to let out the most pitiful sounds of pain and torture when my alarm went off at 6 am and I had the audacity to actually get ready for work.

When I took her out to pee at 6:20, she looked at me with eyes that called me traitor.

Almost four hours later, I am sitting here at work trying to figure out how I can go home early and walk her so she won't be mad at me anymore.

The beast has me wrapped around her bright red paw.

I am going to school!!!!

my Schedule:

ACT 501: Financial Accounting (Sketchy Math 101), online, six teachers, whatevs.

BLW 511: Business Law & Ethics (How to Break the Law), Tue & Thurs mornings

MKT 501: Marketing Management (How to Make People Buy Crap they Don't Need), online!!

OMS 503: Statistical Methods for Business, (Fuzzy Maths), Wednesday nights :(

MLR 501: Management/Organizational Behavior (How to Navigate Phone Trees), online!!!

The titles in italics are what Cait & I imagine that I will learn. Business school is going to be so strange.

(and I'm really working full-time and going to school full-time in the fall. I've tried so hard to screw this up including failing to actually file my FAFSA early. But no matter how hard I try, I can't mess this up. Apparently, there's a yogic principle about this: basically, if it's meant to be, you aren't going to be able to sabotage yourself-the universe will correct you because no one can be that dumb. Unless you're me, and you're just that stubborn.)

I have a tag, that I used to use a lot. It's the security tag. I mostly now use it on private to track license plate numbers that park in front of my house suspiciously.

I used to use it often. Because my house was broken into three times, and I've had my wallet stolen several times (the most recent one was when they made up checks with my name on them and cleared out my bank account). It is unsurprising that I worry about safety and security. Because there's nothing like trying to sleep when you know your house isn't secure.

I've gotten much, much better in the last two years. I don't walk the perimeter of the house every night anymore.

At least until now.

So, I came home tonight to find the front door wide open, with the lights on. The back door open, with the lights on in the kitchen.

I came home at midnight. I know my two roommates have to be up really early, so I assume they've been in bed for quite a while.

I was  apoplectic. So much so that I searched the whole house to see if there was anyone in it (because anyone could've walked in), and I almost woke both of my roommates up to explain how to CLOSE a door. I did not care if they had to be awake in five hours, because they didn't know how to close a door.

I'm not talking unlocked, because they knew I was coming home late, I'm just talking closed. (Our front door doesn't even have a screen, so they don't even have the excuse that it was to let in air).

Added to the fact that I already kinda stormed out once tonight (on an unrelated mostly personal/hormonal matter), I feel like a jerk hassling them about it. After all, I was a jerk earlier. So maybe they decided to be jerks back to me.

I did it anyway. On the message board (which usually isn't a place for passive aggressive notes-by mutual agreement) I wrote:

GUYS.
Leaving BOTH doors open is UNACCEPTABLE. It's midnight. No one is awake. WTF???
-I've been robbed 3 times, Megan
*I'm talking open not unlocked. OPEN WIDE OPEN.

I'm sure it's probably a simple mistake and not the rumblings of a roommate war.

But of all the nights to freak me out, really guys?

I fell asleep last night listening to my ipod, and Meatloaf's Objects in the Review Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are must have been playing, because I dreamed about driving home from daycare with my Dad in the pea green Chevy. I was back to being three or four, because I had pigtails and pokey car seat parts against my shoulders.

I kicked the back of the driver's sear and asked why the song wasn't called Objects in the Review Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear, because that's what it said on the review mirror in Mom's car.

My Dad said, "He must have spent so much time in the car he forgot to read it right."

The only moment of this dream that wasn't dragged into the cloudy colors of near-sightedness was my dad's face as he turned around to answer my question. The me part of my knew that he was just tired, but the three year old part of my burst into tears because he looked angry.

**

I've decided this is a real memory and that being three must be confusing.

More about my Kansas City/Omaha vacation later, because it was exactly what I wanted (but probably not what I needed).

I've got two hours to my flight, and I can't wait to be home.

Strange Things Said To Me this week:

1. "So, they were wrestling and tying each other up, while this dude was watching. Tell me that's not homoerotic."
2. "Keep that mate to yourself, I don't do fad beverages." (Okay, this was me to an aggressive barista)
3. "What kind of lube is popular amoungst your crew?"
4. Me: I'm cranky today. Yogi @ Work: Of course you are, it's a full moon. Me: ?
5. My roommate couldn't remember how many priestly people he invited to breakfast tomorrow.
6. I got into a texting battle of Mean Girls quotes.

I'm very much ready for my day off tomorrow.

Also, I was accosted at the ATM by a woman who kept telling me to be more careful, because I wasn't safe. And she isn't some local, lovable crazy, she was just a concern citizen (apparently).

I've been watching Supernatural, and I just watched an episode where Dean gets it on with an Angel in the back of the Impala.

I think my head just exploded.

To make up for the pointlessness of this entry, here is my favorite picture of all time:

joirerson and I are watching Space Seed, the episode of the original series of Star Trek where they meet Khan Noonian Singh, the guy who comes back in the second movie to do evil things.

Some brilliant observations:

Me: "This show is doing nothing to improve the portrayal of hot redheads who love history."

joirerson: I wouldn't get a lady-boner for Stalin.

That is all, Mr. Spock.