Things that freak me out January 9, 2007

Rocker Marilyn Manson is romantically involved with 19-year-old actress Evan Rachel Wood, sources close to the situation tell PEOPLE.

does this freak anyone else out?

the full story can be found here.

How ’bout them Gators? January 9, 2007

So I am still feeling a little blah, but at least I am getting stuff done. In fact, i think i cursed myself complaining about not getting anything done, because now I have an impossible amount I need to get finished.

I really did not watch much of the football game last night, because honestly, I did not care who won. I turned it on near the end of the first half and it was already lopsided, so I just went back to watching stuff on my Tivo.

Speaking of Tivo, mine has been acting really strange. Actually, it may not be the Tivo, but rather the directv. Regardless, the scheduler does not have all the shows. For example, last night, on a whim I checked the shows that were scheduled to be recorded last night and saw that neither How I Met Your Mother nor The Class were scheduled. I checked the guide (on screen) and they were both shown to be on and new. I manually scheduled them and then checked a bunch of other shows and this whole week is missing! If you look to see upcoming shows, they all start after January 12, but the shows are listed in the guide. Very strange. When I left this morning I reset the receiver so hopefully the problem will clear up.

Today I spent getting ready for class. It is hard to believe I have to teach next Tuesday. I have done powerpoints for the first 2 classes, so now I am about 1 week ahead. I want to get a little bit ahead now since the first two months of class are the busiest part of the debate season. I am a little stressed about this class, however. Not because I am not ready, but because the school is being ridiculous. I still don’t have access to their computer system, which means I can’t get parking, I can’t get my syllabus, etc. on the student website and a bunch of other nuisances. In addition, they have not listed me as the professor on the class. Which means, when I get access to the web, I may not be able to post anything to the class. Also, the bookstore has my name on the class, which means a bunch of students are going to be confused and may think the book is not the one they need. This could all be avoided if the department would just do their job. I don’t want to be a bitch, but the person in charge of all this did not email me back when I asked about the status yesterday. I still have not heard from her, so tomorrow I think I will have to try again and maybe cc her boss.

I have also been busy working on new debate cases. I like the case my policy team is going to start running, but it is a little unconventional. Which means I will spend the next 2 hours reading definitions of the word persons. Fun. Fun.

Wasted Weekend January 7, 2007

The title says it all. And no, not wasted caused by alcohol, but rather wasted like, I did absolutely nothing. Granted it wasn’t so much me being lazy, it was the mystery ailment. So where I last left off, I nearly passed out at Nordstrom. My Friday was spent in a sort-of semi-daze. I was awake, but not really functioning. Saturday was the worst day by far. In fact, it might have been the worst day I have ever had.

I woke up at 11:00 after sleeping for 12 hours. However, saying “woke up” may not be true. I tried to check my email, etc, but my head was spinning like crazy. I went and sat on the couch, and the next think I new it was 3:00. I decided to move back to bed. I woke up again at like 8:00, just in time for my stomach to explode. I spent the next 2 hours in the bathroom, half conscious just wishing it would all stop.

Finally I went back to bed and watched the end of the Cowboys game. Wow. I have not been a huge Tony Romo fan, but I felt so bad for him. The look on his face after he dropped the hold, you just wanted to hug him. He was sitting their with the blood all over his hand, and you just felt for him.

Went to bed again at about 11:00 and slept another 12 hours. So yeah, Saturday I was up for about 4 hours. Today was better. Once I woke up, I was up. My head stopped pounding. I got a little work done, but mostly I watched TV. My biggest issue today was, I did not eat anything Saturday, so I was starving, but my stomach is still not quite right, so eating too much food was not a good idea.

So that was my weekend. Not much fun, but at least I seem to be doing better. We have a busy debate week, plus my first class is 1 week for Tuesday and I am not ready for that either. So being healthy is definitely important.

Strange Day January 4, 2007

Today is the day my cleaning person comes to my condo, so I need to disappear for a few hours to let her work. I went and got lunch at my favorite place and had great eggs. Then I headed to Borders and noticed I was getting really jumpy and just felt off. I did not see anything I liked so I headed to the mall. It was pouring rain and I figured even if I did not feel like shopping I could at least walk around. So I did just that. I was really disappointed by Sephora since they had a fraction of the philosophy stuff I was interested in. Then I remembered that Nordstrom at a Philosophy counter and went in there to look around. The girl working was really nice, but they were really more of a makeup counter and did not have the 3-1 body wash/shampoo stuff I like. Then I wandered around and ran into my favorite makeup artist in the world.

I met her nearly 5 years ago when she worked at the Stila counter at Nordstrom. She was always super sweet and never pushed me to buy anything. Plus she gave me so many free samples and was just really cool. She has done my makeup for about every big event for years. Well, this past summer, Stila was sold and the new owners pulled them out of Nordstrom and I lost track of her.

It turns out she is now working at the Laura Mercier counter. I never really knew there product and we played with some of it today. I liked their foundation and some of the lip stuff, but their eye shadows and mascara I was not impressed with. Plus all of it is crazy expensive. Anyway, the reason she is so cool is she is honest and told me what I would like and then what other counters had stuff I would like. We had a lot of fun for about an hour and I bought some Lancome mascara and some foundation and got a bunch of cool samples to try. I was very excited to catch up with her again.

Now for the strange part. When we were done I got up to pay and was standing at the register talking to her when the room totally started spinning. My head was going crazy and I got crazy nauseous. I went back and sat down and she got me a cold drink. It took like 15 minutes for me to feel better. I managed to drive home and now I am sitting in bed. I am feeling really lightheaded and think I am just going to be laying here for a little bit.

I really hope this passes, this is my last free weekend for a long time. We have tournaments the next 4 consecutive weekends.

Back to the Grind…sort of January 2, 2007

First off, Happy New Year to everyone. Mine was very uneventful. My parents left that morning for a 3 week trip, so the usual dinner and movie routine wasn’t going to happen. One of my downstairs neighbors (for the record, the sane, nice one) invited me to come downstairs and hang out with her friends. As I had nothing else planned, I took her up on her offer. It was a lot of fun. I have hung out with her friends before and it is always enjoyable. They come from a different world than me and have such different experiences but they never judge or treat me differently because I grew up in the richest part of town and my parents still live there. It is a shame to say it, but so many people judge you differently or inadvertently treat you differently just because you come from money.

So that was my New Years Eve. My New Years Day started too early. My other downstairs neighbor (the freaky weird one) woke me up at 5:30 am. Now I don’t really ever drink, so the only hangover I had was a Diet Pepsi one, but when you go to bed at 2 am, 5:30 is too early. How did she wake me you ask? Her freaking TV. There is a long story here, but I will give you the abbreviated version. About 6 months ago she got an LCD flatscreen, digital cable and surround sound system. When she got it she put it in her bedroom, which is right below mine. After about 1 week of my bed shaking in the morning from the bombs going off on CNN, I asked her if she could turn down the bass and also maybe the volume a little. She did and said she never really watches tv. That was true. She would watch CNN at like 8 am and otherwise I never heard it. Well something changed about 2 weeks ago. Now it or a CD played through the same system is on every moment she is awake, and the volume is cranked up. Now it is not just the bass, I can hear every word of whatever she is watching or listening to, plus my whole bedroom is shaking.

So New Years Day, I moved to my couch in the living room. I have never been disturbed by her tv in there. Well not that morning. No matter how loud I turned up my tv, I could still just here hers, or enough of it to make my show impossible to watch. I ended up going back and laying in bed fuming. Finally at 11 it quieted down, so I thought I would take a nap. My head hit the pillow and the phone rang. It was my mom calling. They had an awful trip and she was cranky and pissed because the doctor said if she was going to take a plane she had to wear a mask. The mask plus being bald right now got her more attention than she wanted. So I talked to her for about a half hour and then went back to take my nap, and what happened? Loud booming DISCO music for 2 hours. I wanted to shoot somebody.

I did find solace later in the day by discovering that my Directv now carried the Style Network. So much fun. There are two shows I have been watching whenever they are on. One is called “How do I look” and in it 3 people shop for their friend who need style help, they also pick hair and makeup. Then the friend picks there favorite collection. The other is called “Style Me Famous” where Jay (Mr. Jay from America’s Top Model) helps do a makeover for somebody based on a style of a celebrity. Both were just fun and frivolous, but hit the spot.

Tomorrow practice starts back up, but as the title says…sort of. I am only meeting with a few of the students. My policy kids are writing a new case and I have alumni coming back to help some of the other students. It is always weird going back after a big break. It is hard to get the kids motivated. Hopefully this time it will be ok, since they have a tournament the 12th and 13th. It is also strange for me, since I will work for a few hours tomorrow afternoon and then nothing until Monday when the real stuff starts.

I also need to get ready for the class I am teaching. It is Criminal Law which I am not that familiar with anymore. Yes, I took Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure in law school, but I never practiced in the criminal arena. I have ordered a text book and looked at it and most of what I know is coming back to me. I do need to start getting lecture notes together. Because once the semester starts, debate season is going to crank up with our tournament and National and State qualifiers.