Word Girl! But not like on PBS; or, Pick a side.

I think there's a PBS show called Word Girl, isn't there? It's something like that in any case.

ANYWAY.

In looking at the lists of favorite words you've left so far (keep them coming!), I came to a realization.

I have to blame KEY mostly, but Lost in Translation helped, too.

It has to do with "serendipitous" and "pugnacious."

My lovely friends gave the adjectival forms as their favorites, but I prefer the nouns "serendipity" and "pugnacity."

I guess I could also have called this post "Are you a Shuss or a Tee?" ("shuss" being "-cious" and "tee" being "-ity" if you didn't catch that). Team Adjective vs. Team Noun. I find it interesting that some people lean more to the adjectives when I guess I like nouns more, even though it's all basically the same word but for the suffix (if my prose lacks clarity or beauty here, today was another non-nap-day).

And I wonder why that is. Is it another weird property of word attraction that some people just like the way certain forms sound or feel more? Or does it have more to do with usage?

Because Shuss is really, when you get down to it, a prettier sound than Tee is. And yet, for all my love of good sounds, I think the auditory connection is trumped by my old creative writing teacher's mantra.

No, not "Show, don't tell," although she did like that one, too.

"Use strong nouns and verbs."

The point being that if your verbs and nouns are strong, you don't need to qualify them with adjectives or adverbs, which tend to gum things up. Also, that means that when you DO whip out an adjective or adverb, it makes a stronger impact; it hasn't been diluted by superfluous words. (There are exceptions, though. For example, I like "superfluity" better but it just makes the sentence more awkward. Which brings us to another mantra, "Use good judgment." Although come to think of it, that one was my mother's mantra, not my teacher's. Huh.)

So keep your adjectives; give me a noun!

I am Elliespen, and I am a Tee.

Goooooo, Team Noun!




Also, just incidentally, gooooo Day 18! So, are you a Shuss or a Tee? Let's forget Teams Edward and Jacob (or whatever other Teams may be out there) and pay attention to much more interesting teams. I want Team Noun and Team Adjective to battle it out in the comments section. Woohoooooo!

A Tale of Four Socks; or, Really Just Two Socks Now.

The Little Guy has roughly two pairs of socks (out of the dozens that he owns) that consistently stay on his feet. As fate would have it, these are also his only two pairs of brown socks. I'm not sure why we don't have more brown socks for him when most of his wardrobe falls into the green and brown category, thus clashing with his multitude of blue socks. But so it goes.

So why is it that on the same day that half of one pair goes missing in the laundry, half of the other pair decides to fall off of his feet for the first time? And why is it that this happens in the middle of a cemetery full of fallen leaves?

Imagine looking for a light brown sock in a pile of light brown, orange and yellow leaves.

Yeah.

Farewell, sock. We hardly knew thee.

Hopefully I'll have better luck with the dark brown laundry sock. Or else infant sockbuying might be in my very near future.



Day 16! We are officially over the halfway point now. Who would like to celebrate this milestone by sending me brown baby socks?

Short and sweet: The Amazon PayPhrase.

Today was rather busier than usual so we're going with the short and sweet post today.

All I really want to say is that Amazon PayPhrase is one of the joys of my life. I have not yet and never will set my Amazon PayPhrase because if I did, it would stop suggesting pay phrases for me. And I get such good ones.

Like today's gem:

"Elliespen's Austere Sofas."

Past favorites include:

"Elliespen's Sketchy Seat"
"Elliespen's Unstoppable Disco"
"Elliespen's Glowing Jewels"
"Elliespen's Unfocused Thoughts"
"Elliespen's Social Fraternity"
"Elliespen's Extreme Retention" (This was either a good omen for bar study or an apt reflection on the size of my pregnancy feet.)

A friend of mine once got "Metallurgical Episodes" and "Racy Writings." Today, Shallow Man got "Gradual Layers," and once it was "Shallow Man's Wild Missions."

Yes, an Amazon PayPhrase suggestion can brighten up a grey day or add extra zest to a happy one. What are some of your favorite past PayPhrases?


Today, mine should be something like "Elliespen's Continued Triumph." Day 6, baby!

You never know what a Monday will bring.

So today did not start out very promisingly. In short, things did not look good for Homestar Runner (read: the rest of my week). I got to work and found out that my little half-gallon of milk, whose sell-by date will not arrive for two more days, not only smelled rancid but had little bits of stuff floating on top. I don't know how a half-of-a-half-gallon of milk spoils that badly over a weekend (Shallow Man surmises that there was a power outage over the weekend and the fridge got turned off for a while), but it didn't make me happy in any event. This frustration was repeated when it turned out that half of my individually wrapped string cheese packets (whose best-by date is not until Oct. 30) had also started to putrify in their wrappers. This is not the way you want to start a Monday.

I'd rather not get into the story of how my boss's inability to handle looking at and sending out a 1-sentence document in less than 96 hours also started to send my blood pressure skyrocketing. Let's just say I'm not getting paid nearly enough. And that it did not bode well for the rest of my week.

Third trimester nausea is also back in full force and was really making its presence felt today, too. But I don't want to talk about that, either.

But then Shallow Man and I had an appointment for another ultrasound today, this one as a follow-up for the exciting new gestational diabetes issues going on. Baby is doing fine but was being a punk and hiding again so we couldn't see his face. But seeing the rest of him helped lower the blood pressure significantly. The technician took all his measurements and then took them out to the doctor, so the doctor saw Baby's stats before she saw us, and was a little worried about how big his head seems to be (not ginormous, but bigger than you'd expect). Then she came in and saw Shallow Man's large noggin, and heard how even I have a hard time finding a hat that isn't too small, and she was reassured. Yayy for crazy genetics rather than weird complications, I suppose. We also got a good picture of Baby's foot and determined for certain that he has what are referred to in my family as "Daddy toes." Very cute. (Can't tell yet if they're webbed like his daddy's or not, though.) So that helped make Monday feel a bit better.

And when we got home my Monday luck underwent a major change. I may or may not have mentioned in my last post that I like YA literature. And that I am anticipating the release of several awesome YA books this year.

Well, one of those books is the highly-anticipated Mockingjay, the final book in Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games series. (I must admit that this is not the number one book on my list of anticipated releases, but that's just because I haven't had a chance to actually read the first two yet. Law school managed to take up a lot of time, and then I figured I may as well just wait until the third one is out so I don't have to do the whole waiting-so-impatiently thing. But it was still number 4 on my list.)

Mockingjay is not supposed to be released until tomorrow, August 24, 2010. Or, at the very least, at midnight tonight.

Yeah, Amazon just delivered it to my door about an hour ago.

This means a few things:

1. Someone at Amazon made a shipping error.
2. This kind of shipping error would be considered lucky for the recipient.
3. I am that recipient.
4. That means something lucky happened to me, to wit, I have a copy of the year's most highly anticipated YA release in my hot little hands a full seven hours before I am supposed to.
5. This situation definitely calls for a diabolical laugh.
6. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This is not the kind of lucky thing that happens to me very often. I can't decide if this means that my week is not going to be as horrible as I was afraid it would be, that my overall life luck pattern is about to change for the better, or that the universe is simply giving me a small apology for a quarter-gallon of wasted milk and the fact that I had to eat my regularly scheduled peanut-butter-and-jam-on-toast with no milk to wash it down this morning.

I figure, whatever works.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a trilogy to read.

An open letter to Miguel Rivas.

Dear Miguel,

To my knowledge, we've never met, although I've come to feel as though I know you.

After all, I've had conversations with so many of your acquaintances. I know many of them are probably just your bill collectors who think I'm lying when I say I don't know you—they must think I'm your overprotective girlfriend or something—but still. I've even had (very confused on my end) text conversations with some of your buddies. (By the way, what WAS so awesome about that one time you and your buddies went to Midvale? I've gotten texts about that one at least four times. "Hey man remember MIDVALE? 4REAL!" If you could fill me in on that, that would be great. I like feeling included. Also, I was unaware that there was anything that exciting going on in Midvale, and my curiosity is piqued.) And the number of Spanish calls telling me that I—sorry, I mean YOU—may already have won $10,000 has really increased my level of cultural awareness and the amount of randomness in my life. So thank you, Miguel, for that.

But Miguel, I am disappointed in you. I know it's hard to hear, but a true friend tells you stuff like that.

Seriously (and I'm just basing this off the number of times she's called and the length of time that I've had this cell phone number), you need to call your grandmother more often. We're talking four years and she still thinks you're at my number.

Shame on you, Miguel. Shame on you.

Now go and call your abuela, stat.

Regards,

Your cell number successor (that would be me)


P.S. Oh, and pay your Comcast bill. They're getting a bit testy.

Frustration; or, the Story Port-a-Potty.

So I have a REALLY GOOD story of something that happened today. As in, the story is really good. Not necessarily the what-happened part. Because that wasn't so great. But the story itself is one that would be great for blogging about.

And I really want to tell this story. Because, as I said, it's a really good story.

Tangent (not at all related to what happened today): I had an acquaintance a while back who pretty much hated me but loved drama and sharing juicy stories. One day I was the only person around when this acquaintance had a particularly juicy story and NEEDED to share it with someone like I need to run to the bathroom when Jr. starts playing kick the bladder. So Acquaintance shared the story with me and later told a mutual friend that we had really bonded that day. From that point on, there was no hatred Scritchy-ward from this person, because I essentially had pointed Acquaintance to a story Port-a-Potty at the necessary moment.

And yes, that metaphor was a weird one, but hey, it WORKS.

Because (and here's where the tangent comes back to the point)—

THIS IS A PORT-A-POTTY SITUATION.*

For various reasons, I can't really share this story on the internet at this time.

Even though I really, really want to.

I can't even give you the super-awesome tag line that would be the facebook version of this story.

This is probably about as frustrating to me as it is to you. Seriously, great story + not being able to tell it on my blog = ARRRGH.

However . . .

This is totally a story I can share in person.

You know, in case anyone wanted to hear it.

Or happened to ask me next time they see me.

Just sayin'.

(For all you lurkers or people who unfortunately have not had the privilege of meeting me in real life yet, I'm very sorry. All I can say is, I'll post it when I can. I just don't know when that may be.)


*Please note: the actual story has NOTHING to do with port-a-potties whatsoever.

So long, 2009!

So I've been looking back at 2009 and I just can't quite muster up the same feelings of AWESOME as I did for 2008. Which is probably because 2008 was pretty darn awesome and it would probably be hard to beat by just about any year's standards. But I think it also has a bit to do with the fact that, in many respects, 2009 was just not that great. It did have some good points, but the overall backdrop for my personal year (see, e.g. the economy) helped lend a sense of doom and foreboding to the year. And I don't think it was just me.

But here are some of the things that come to mind when I think about 2009:

*Finishing up my second year of law school.
*Starting up my third year of law school and seeing the end approaching quickly.
*Geek nights galore. We have seen this thing grow from an impromptu game of Duck Hunt to a massive behemoth of multiple systems, games, tons of people, lots of good food, and networking galore.
*Making a very successful pitch to the CEO, CFO and other higher-ups of World Book, Inc.
*Helping to pull a publishing company out of the "some guy working out of the garage" mode to a more stable level. We've moved from the garage to the basement, I guess you could say, but we also have not only a consistent stream of projects each month, we've also got a cushion of projects that are already done so we're ahead of the game.
*Combining my publishing company experiences with Geek Night experiences and being able to hire several of my friends.
*Editing essays. Oh, the essays I've edited. . . .
*Trip to Alabama to visit Shallow Man's family. Love his grandparents.
*Having Shallow Man's sister drop our camera on the hard tile floor and breaking it as we were about to leave. We still haven't bothered to get it fixed, come to think of it.
*This is partly due to the fact that I have continued trying to maintain my Lemony Snicket-type existence, keeping photos to a minimum.
*SPENT and the epic-ness that was the Katamari presentation. Also the battle of the chairs and a return to junior high drama. (Good times, good times.)
*Taking a class from one of the most inspiring and all-around awesome people I ever hope to know, Michael Goldsmith.
*Getting a chance to sass back at Prof. Goldsmith and watch him enjoy it and play along.
*Yeah, I also got a pretty good one-liner off in Business Associations. (Hey, I told you the year wasn't great; I have to take what small pleasures I can get here!)
*Continuing to get to know the awesome people in my law school class. (But not the 2Ls. They are not awesome. Except for a few.)
*Getting a chance to finally read To Kill A Mockingbird for a class.
*Getting to write a paper about TKAM, A Man For All Seasons and Alice in Wonderland, of all things.
*Footnotes. Beautiful, beautiful footnotes. Lengthy, beautiful non sequiturs in footnotes.
*Trying to finish a paper while sitting in my car in the early morning waiting for the gas company to arrive because the carbon monoxide alarm had gone off and thinking we had a leak.
*Oh, the chagrin of realizing that it was just an "Lb" for "low battery" and not a "97" for "that's a lot of toxic gas floating around in your house", which we probably would have realized a lot earlier if we hadn't been so dang sleep-deprived from finals at the time.
*Ice cream after finals.
*Our fifth anniversary. (Holy crap!)
*Finally finding a great doctor who listened to ME and not to the sound of his own voice.
*Getting that positive pregnancy test back in May. Very high point of the year.
*Making lists and plans for the baby.
*Seeing my mother's face (and the faces of the rest of my family) when we told them the good news. They probably had already figured it out, anyway, though, because of the sheer number of times I had to use the bathroom during that camping trip.
*KAT CAME BACK!!!
*Just Jane. I think you girls saved my sanity this year, in so many ways.
*Being an orphan in June when Shallow Man was in DC and all of my other family members were on fun vacations without me.
*Helping to clean out my grandfather's house when he moved into my aunt's house, and seeing the family gathering spot for as long as I can remember all out of sorts and empty. Then seeing it again later after it had been remodeled and loving the new changes, and thinking that it's good that life still goes on.
*Working from home periodically through the first part of the summer when I was feeling sick.
*Seeing that motorcycle accident with the car who made the illegal u-turn over by Riverwoods with KEY and Shallow Man. Crazy.
*Sitting in the doctor's office while he tried to find the heartbeat with the doppler. Sitting downstairs while he tried to find the heartbeat on the ultrasound. Sitting in the hospital waiting for the grouchy ultrasound technician to get around to telling us the results and praying that it wouldn't be what we already knew it would be.
*The worst four hours of my life on July 16th.
*Love and support from family and friends and God.
*The other blog.
*Weddings for my cousins.
*Henry Crawford, Henry Crawford, and Henry Crawford. Did I mention Henry Crawford?
*Driving on back roads for the first few days of August because we hadn't been able to get our car repaired for inspection before July ended.
*Babysitting my nephew and taking him to church while my sister was in the hospital having my new niece.
*New niece = very yes.
*SYTYCD in the summer with KEY and my sis.
*Getting a new nephew, too.
*Baby blessings and almost having to leave my niece's because you just never know when suddenly something is going to be too much. But making it through anyway with only Shallow Man and the four-year-old sitting in front of us really noticing anything.
*Just Jane again. Did I mention you girls are amazing?
*Firing people but finally getting a working staff.
*That horrible, horrible FSU game.
*Discovering the Art City Trolley.
*Game day at the cabin at last.
*Swine flu. Very No.
*Playstation 3, yo. It has changed my life.
*Actually passing the MPRE after not getting enough time to study for it. And kind of rocking it. (Why can't I do that with finals?)
*The primary kids. And the parties. And nearly going insane some weeks.
*Going to see Ingrid Michaelson in October with Kat and KEY. Epic.
*Pink plaid shoes. Oh yes.
*SYTYCD concert with Kat and my sisters. Epic, epic, epic.
*The impromptu dance party with all those other cars stuck at that malfunctioning light.
*The passing of two great men in November within two days of each other: My grandfather and Prof. Goldsmith. A week of funerals and tears, that one, and of good reunions with friends and family. Bittersweet to say the least.
*Fixing the oven door that had been broken ALL BY MYSELF.
*Seeing "Singin' in the Rain" at Hale, even though I had a headache afterwards.
*Working at the same place as Shallow Man and how interesting that's been.
*Billy the bookcase says hello.
*Thanksgiving with my entire family -- so much fun.
*Finishing my Christmas shopping early because I actually knew, for once, what I wanted to get for Shallow Man weeks in advance, and I still managed to surprise him a little bit.
*ROCK BAND. And Lego Rock Band.
*Finishing a 20-page paper in less than 24 hours.
*Having major scares at Stake Conference.
*Baby, our car, finally breaking down. Borrowing Bertha from my cousin. (Thanks again!)
*The adventure to Temple Square and breaking Kat's screen.
*Getting surprised on Christmas with an iPod touch.
*Getting released from Primary without 1) asking for it, 2) moving out of the ward, 3) having a baby or 4) getting a new calling. I still think this might be unprecedented in our ward.
*Extreme Jenga.
*An amazing New Year's Eve party.

This, of course, is in addition to all the late nights with the Smiths, hanging out with other good friends, long conversations with KEY, getting my Kat back, hiring all my friends, great movies and good fun (I especially enjoyed "Up" and "Star Trek") and good books (mostly re-reads, though). So, all in all, not a horrible year, even though I've had better.

Now let's just hope that 2010 can beat its predecessor. I'm looking forward to it.


I'm sure I've forgotten a lot of things here. Just know that if I haven't mentioned something it doesn't necessarily mean I didn't enjoy it. I probably did, in point of fact, but my brain, while it holds an amazing number of things, still does not do everything.

Salmon Carrot Cake; or, Good Grief, I Love Parentheses!

So back when I was an English undergrad, I had to take a course entitled "Introduction to the English Language." I called it my crazy language class. The professor (whose name, and I am not making this up, was David Bowie) opened the class by saying that he was a Linguistics professor and that he didn't know why English majors had to take this course as a requirement, but that the powers that be didn't really know where else to put the class.

I spent a fair amount of the class keeping a detailed record of the random things this professor would say, along with the three other people who sat in the back right-hand corner of the class. One of my favorite moments (besides the time when he stopped, mid-class, to tell us "Where I grew up, hurricanes were the natural disaster of choice, so earthquakes just freak me out") was when he was talking about how the mind processes things we think we hear but that just don't make sense. The example he used was from his youth in the South (yayy for sight rhymes!) and a group of ladies (in my mind I picture a Sewing Circle like in Anne of Green Gables) were discussing what goodies and delectables to bring to the Big Function. (Probably a bazaar. Which, when I was little, I always thought people were saying "bizarre." This could explain some of my dislike of shopping.)

BUT ANYWAY. One lady said, according to my professor, "Salmon carrot cake sounds nice." (His response: "And it DOESN'T sound nice.") Everyone did a bit of a spit-take until they remembered that they were in the South, where people insist on speaking in such a way as makes misunderstandings mandatory (think: that moment in Gettysburg where Johnny Reb explains that the Confederacy is fighting for their rats), and realized that what she was really saying was "Cinnamon Carrot Cake" (which does sound nice), but her crazy accent had produced gobbledegook which everyone's brains had translated as "Salmon Carrot Cake."

Mmmmm… imagined malapropisms…. yum.

Well, I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

There's a moment in the Disney version of Peter Pan where this crazy pirate (I think he's wearing a pink shirt, but I may be wrong on this) is sitting up in the riggings with a (very fake-looking) accordion (seriously, it has no buttons!) and singing. (Yodeling, almost.) And Captain Hook loses patience with the long, drawn-out caterwauling and shoots him (whereupon you hear the sound of a falling fake accordion and a splash). And cute Mr. Smee tsks at him and says, "Oh, Cap'n. Shooting a man in the middle of his cadenza? 't ain't good form, you know!"

Yeah, I like that part.

But it wasn't until I was older that I actually realized that the word was "cadenza." As in, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

No, what I had heard as a child and for a rather ridiculously long time afterward was "credenza." As in, one of these:




It gives the line a whole new meaning, doesn't it?


Okay, everyone, all together now:

Mmmmm… imagined malapropisms…. yum!

Let me introduce . . .

Well, folks, I have some exciting news for you. Today we have a very distinguished guest here at The Scritchy Nib and...

(whispered aside) Wait, what? Who wrote this? "Very" distinguished? Really? . . . In fact, is "distinguished" even the word we want to be using here? . . . So maybe not distinguished, but still a guest . . . Or not. . . . Did we issue an invitation or anything like that? No? So not really a guest, either. Um . . . how about we just say:

Click here.

I believe you have my stapler.

So does anyone remember that small scene in the movie Office Space (which I've only seen edited on TV, but really, who hasn't wanted to take the recalcitrant printer or other bit of office equipment out to the back field and whack it with a baseball bat?) where you hear this squeaking noise going up and down repeatedly and then the camera pans over to the next cubicle where the girl answers the phone and it's her voice pitch changing as she says "Hello" and "Please hold" that was making the noise the whole time?

Yeah, me neither.*

But I'm sitting at my carrel here at the law school at 5:36 p.m. when most people are gone so the few people who are left feel safe talking a bit louder than they otherwise would, and the tone of their talking is having the same effect where it sounds like some sort of cricket or small baby bird has made its way into the law library and is chirping whenever someone says a word containing the letter "s" anywhere in it.

Which of course, leaves me torn between the desire to save that poor baby bird and the urge to find that bug and kill it (or at the very least make it leave the building).

Which I guess is the long way of saying that the reading for tomorrow's class has failed to catch my interest.


*Actually, I totally remember this part. I just couldn't find a clip online quickly and didn't feel like making a protracted search effort. If one of all y'alls finds it, though, please feel free to share it with the class.

An orphan, but not often.

I am sitting at a desk in my sister's old room in my parents' house as I write this. I'm camping out here overnight even though my parents and sisters are out of town, since Shallow Man is flying back into town on an 11:35 p.m. flight and who wants to drive another hour to get home at that point in time?

Not me!

I've been an orphan for the last few days while Shallow Man was out of town, and feeling a bit neglected because my sister pointed out that none of my family loves me. Well, not in so many words. What she SAID was, "Did you know you're the only family member who's not going on vacation this weekend?"

Yeah, they've all abandoned me. Shallow Man was in DC for an interview (and coming back late tonight as aforementioned), the parents and my two younger sisters are at Mount Rushmore (hence the empty house), my brother and his wife and son went camping, and my other sister and her husband and son are visiting her in-laws.

And I'm here (i.e., not on vacation).

I ask you, where's the love?

Oh, well. At least I have the house to myself, and I only promised not to burn anything important...

Raising awareness.

Whenever people ask me if I have any pet peeves, my standard answer is "People who commit apostrophe abuse." It's a pretty good way to see if this person and I are destined to be BFFs, good friends, casual acquaintances, mortal enemies or "let's-just-pretend-this-introduction-never-happeneds" based on their respective responses:

BFFs: "I KNOW! I can't stand the villains! (falls into sobs at the thought of the poor, bruised bodies of abused apostrophes) Oh, the humanity!"*
Good friends: "Yes. Why can't people just learn that apostrophes do not make things plural?"**
Casual acquaintances: "Um... Okay."
Mortal enemies: "Thats stupid. When a book gets it's apostrophe's wrong its the best thing ever. How are you're celery stalk's?"
LJPTINHs: "What is an apostrophe?"

So now that you all know exactly where you stand in my regard (or why I never answer your calls or emails, etc.), I would also like to give you the solution. I know you're all just dying to be BFFs with me. And once you get the proper help for your condition, I'd be more than happy to hang out sometime. Call me when you're ready. Or if you need a sponsor. Or, you know, if you just feel like calling. Whatever.


*Actually, if someone ever did give me this response, I have to be honest and say I'd probably just smile, nod and back away verrry slowly.
**Except in very, very special situations, like the tag for this post.

Aren't you glad you know someone so awesome?

They wanted to use my real name but I insisted on maintaining my anonymity. I think it adds to my mystique.

Now, if you can still manage to sing that song, I'll be impressed.


In other news, I am now officially halfway done with law school. Wahoo!

Happy something; or, slightly unsettling

So, hey, last post was number 100 (woohoo for me, I kept a blog going this long and actually have slightly more than seven readers, who also get woohoos for sticking around this long) which makes this number 101 and since I didn't commemorate the last one, I'm commemorating this one. Um. Yeah, that was the commemoration right there. (We keep things pretty simple over here at the Scritchy Nib -- which, now that I think about it, sounds like some sort of Dickensian pub -- not to mention I HAVE NO TIME even though it's been freakin' PLACEMENT BREAK for goodness sake and I still didn't get a break. Stinkin' two jobs, gosh!)

But I digress.

Mostly what I wanted to say was that I managed somehow (no, I really don't know how) to get a paper cut on the tip of my right middle finger the other day. This happens to be my mouse/trackpad finger. It doesn't hurt at all now, but it's at that slight paper cut healing stage where there's still a definite groove or bump, so when I use the trackpad or, to a lesser extent, type, it feels like I've got a small piece of grit or a crumb or something stuck to my finger. Which is slightly unsettling. And when I try to get it off it doesn't come off (which also is slightly unsettling) because it's a convalescent paper cut. Am I the only one these kinds of things happen to? And if so, is it because I'm slightly more klutzy than the next person, or is it because my life is unentertaining enough that this sort of thing becomes fascinating in comparison (read: this is the most exciting thing that's happened to me for several days), making me more likely to notice it than someone who's got more excitement in their life anyway? Inquiring minds want to know. Well, I want to know at any rate.

Okay, so I lied a little bit. The gritty paper cut thing is NOT the most exciting thing. The most exciting thing is that I finally got my ring re-plated and cleaned and all that jazz for the first time in almost two years and it is SO SHINY. And we all know how much I like shiny stuff.