I'm not saying it's the end of the world...

...But it is.

Haha... No, I'm not so batty as that just yet. But, seriously, there is smthg. weird going on w/natural phenomena these days. More than usual, I mean. For example, in my little region alone, we have recently had hellacious thunderstorms, at least two of which spawned tornadoes in neighboring counties, and there is/was a new tropical storm meandering abt. the Atlantic a full month after hurricane season ended (which possibly lends credence to the growing suspicion that smthg. is amiss w/the Gulf Stream). We almost never get tornadoes (or thunderstorms, for that matter) this time of yr. b/c usually by now winter has come even to my balmy, mild habitat, which creates conditions not conducive to tornado formation, since they depend on a sudden interaction of v. warm and v. cold air. As we all learned in pre-school, with the assistance of tissue-paper snowflakes and cotton ball snow, winter is a "cold" season, cold on the ground and in the air above. But this winter we have had almost no truly cold days. The high for the next three days is 72 degrees. Seventy-f-ing-two in *January*. What is that? And GA/the Lowcountry of the Southeast region isn't the only anomaly, either. I didn't use my coat once the whole time I was in VA for Christmas, which, in my 23 yrs. of experience w/mid-Atlantic weather, has never before happened. [Perhaps Daniel would like to comment on this, as he is in MD, which is more firmly in the mid-Atlantic region than VA, and so he would have a more informed opinion this yr. than myself, since I decided to pretend I was raised by wolves and did not see any of my actual family members over the holiday.] Also, Eli's family lives north of Anchorage, AK, and reported having absolutely no snow at Christmas. Not an inch. That miserable bitch of a state is usually five ft. under by now and should remain so for another four mos. When you add this to all of the earthquakes and mudslides in recent wks. around the world and the polar bears freaking out and the increasing likelihood that w/the ascension of an(other) uber-conservative to the Supreme Court the US will regress abt. 3000 yrs. in matters legislative, judicial, personal, and environmental... Well, let's just say that if the four horsemen show up next wk., I won't be overly surprised. I might even make them some tea. B/C I'm gonna need to know someone to get out of all of that Purgatory I've accrued.

Seen and heard:
The Washington Post yesterday ran a mildly informative article abt. the growing # of evangelical Christians who have a real affinity for Judaism. I've known several such ppl. and I've gotta say that they're even nuttier than your average evangelical, but hopefully that's true only of my completely unscientific sample. Anyhow, the introductory paragraph of this article was: "Everyone who worships at the Tabernacle quickly learns three facts about its deeply conservative pastor. He comes from a broken home. He rides a canary-yellow Harley. And he loves the Jews." The Jews. I thought it was rather questionable to use a phrase like "the Jews" in a newspaper not officially connected to neo-Nazis or the KKK, so I read this to Steve to see if it was just me being frighteningly, uncharacteristically over-P.C. and his response was, "Haha... Yeah, just like Steve loves the [insert plural of N-word here]." riiight... But at least I know it wasn't just me who perceived this potential faux-pas.

Steve called me a tree-hugger b/c I've been recycling, using my "green bag" that Jill brought me fr. Australia, and I don't shop at Wal-Mart. WTF?

I called my brother today during my *four*hr.*break* b/t classes and left the following msg.:
"Hey, spunk-monkey. I just thought I would see what's up w/you b/c I have a lot of time before my next class and I thought I would kill you."
Naturally I meant "*call* you," but it probably does not bode well that I have been in school again for a grand total of two hrs. and already the brain has decayed to such a deplorable state.

In response to Steve's oddly outraged/distraught query of why I would be okay w/contracting a deadly strain of bird flu (of which he had not heard before), I said, "I'm just kinda tired." I need smthg. better than that, I think.

The Question of the Day on one of the rap stations here was, "Grillz: Turn-On or Turn-Off?" While this would have been funny enough on its own, the humor caliber was augmented by someone who called in, (erroneously) declared grillz to be hot, and then said, "Yeah, I got me a nice one, but it ain't permanent cuz I got to go to work and dey won't lemme wear my grill." BWAH HA!

On a tenuously related note, I was yet again reminded abt. how old I am when a 14 y.0. called the rap station for "Tootsie Roll", which seemed totally normal b/c when I was 14 just three seconds ago, "Tootsie Roll" was my jam! And then the DJ said, "Oh, you wanna take it back, do ya? How you even know abt. da 'Tootsie Roll' when you only 14?!" And I thought, "What does he mean, 'take it back?' That song's not that...Holy shit, it's been almost 10 yrs. since I was 14!!!!" And then I proceeded to dance while driving for the next 3.5 mins. b/c how can you not break it down for da Tootsie Roll?

The ugliest, loudest, least helpful librarian in the world just shuffled over to some poor unfortunate soul in need of assistance w/Lexis-Nexis. She is now making almost as much noise as the idiot across fr. me who is apparently downloading new ringtones for his phone, but has not yet mastered the volume key, resulting in periodic bursts of ear-shattering rap and hip-hop and reminding me of just how fab-o GA Southern is. wee-haw.


One more anecdote before I run along to Comparative Physiology and release you all fr. my rambling thrall. A few mos. ago, I was looking for a new leave-in conditioner, the spray-in kind, not the creme kind. After several trips to several stores yielded nothg. but irritation, I found the perfect solution during a fortuitous visit to Target -- a large bottle of spray-in conditioner that smelled rather nice and was not tested on animals AND was on sale. Score! I looked at the brand (Soft and Lovely) and thought vaguely, "I think that's a black company," but it didn't say anythg. abt. that and the only picture was of a hazelnut or smthg. and then I read the bit abt. how it wasn't tested on animals and I was like, "Well, maybe not. And who cares anyhow, I'm buying it." So I check out, notice a slight look of surprise on the (black) cashier's face, chalk it up to oversensitivity on my part, and go home to try out my new product. It works beautifully. My hair has been shinier and more manageable than I ever remember, which may also be due to the fact that I now have the best hair-stylist ever, but I'm pretty sure the Soft and Lovely leave-in is playing a role, too. Fast forward to a couple of wks. ago. I'm wandering around Big!Lots, collecting various items I don't really need, but that are too cheap/interesting/weird to pass up when I come across a bottle of my Soft and Lovely spray-on, leave-in conditioner. Except this bottle has a black woman on it where mine has some sort of nut. And the directions mention smthg. abt. spraying it on your corn-rows to keep them properly moisturized. So it is now confirmed that I purchased and have happily been using a product intended for corn rows. This, inappropriately, made me laugh really hard b/c the mental image of me gaily spraying down my corn rows wouldn't go away.