Here's a fun trick. Get a group of academics together in a room. Doesn't matter what department they're in. History, Sociology, Econ, Statistics, Engineering... get a good mix. Talk to them for awhile. Move around the room and watch them interact with one another. Do this for at least an hour. Then review what you've just seen and heard. I guarantee that you won't find a bigger group of social retards socially maladjusted people. I don't know what it is about universities, but they tend to draw an overwhelming number of misfits. It was described to me perfectly the other day: in society, you have a majority of normal people coexisting with a minority of oddities, people on the fringe who don't know how to act in public. In academia, it's the reverse. The misfits are in charge and the normal folks are on the fringe, getting the weird looks and the sidelong glances. Why is that?

Remember Garfield? The cartoon cat with a weight problem? Growing up, I couldn't imagine a cat being fat. Our cats were always slim and fit. The whole Garfield-is-fat thing just never really made sense to me. When Amos came into our lives eight years ago, he was this tiny little puffball, so young he couldn't even be fixed yet. In Manhattan, he made a game of begging to be let out (on the pretense that he had to use the facilities) and then racing up and down the street, hiding under cars, in a tremendously-fun-for-him game of chase. In Lawrence, he raced around the yard, chasing bunnies and birds and anything else that moved. And here in Gainesville... well, here in Gainesville the lethargy set in. At first he tried chasing lizards and frogs, but quickly found that they caused him to froth at the mouth if he caught them (they being poisonous and all). Ever since he's given up on that, he's just been eating and sleeping. And eating some more. Until one day, it dawned on us that it's not just that Amos has a lot of hair, nossir. Amos is fat. "How fat is he?" Amos is so fat, when we recently went to look for a cat door for the front of the house, we realized that he'd get wedged in the one we picked out. We put it back. Frankly, I'm at a loss as to what to do. For almost two years now, we've had Amos on a diet. He no longer gets his daily ration of food in one go, because he'll eat it all. Instead, he gets (no kidding) two tablespoons of food at a time, three times a day. When I took him to the vet recently and asked what we could do to help him lose weight, the doctor (not our usual vet) responded, "feed him less." When I pointed out how little we already feed him, she hemmed and hawed and said that we could try taking him on walks. Ha. Ha ha. It is to laugh. Have you taken a cat on a walk? It's not so grate, akshully. We've tried playing with him, pulling a string around the house (which he used to love), and he's nonplussed. My only hope for Amos is that when we finally get out of here (fingers crossed, knock on wood, salt over the shoulder) next summer, we'll move to a place that's better for him physically and mentally and he'll start to drop the weight. Otherwise, I fear the worst.

Yesterday I was talking to my students about two women in American history who argued that marriage was nothing more than an economic arrangement. I wanted to get the kids talking about their opinions on it, and what I discovered floored me. Marriage is completely about money, they said. Love has very little to do with it. Love is a factor maybe when you first get married, a few argued, but love fades and after twenty years or so, you need something more to fall back on. What's more, a few of them pointed out, everyone has a prenup these days. While I stood there, gaping at these eighteen-year-olds who seemed even more cynical than my most cynical friends, they went on to tell me countless stories of friends and family members of theirs who had recently married (many still in college) solely for money. And one told me that she dumped her last boyfriend because he was too poor. Finally, when I didn't think anything else could shock me more, it happened. Of course marriage is all about money, one of my students said, isn't that why the gays want to get married? And with that, my crumbled soul started to weep.

Uh, yeah, so when I talked about how the new clothes I'd bought wound up being see-through, I should have explained a bit more. No, they're not from Frederick's of Hollywood (dude, are they still in existence?) and no, they're not from Forever 21. They're from JJill, Title Nine, and Garnet Hill (which, actually, those clothes showed up Tuesday and are decidedly NOT translucent. Score!). The two tops I got from JJill didn't look initially like they'd be a problem. They certainly didn't online. One is a traditional short-sleeved, button-down white shirt. It looked super conservative online, and I thought I could liven it up with a cool necklace or something. The second is a kicky short-sleeved lavender blouse (for lack of a better word). Again, I want to emphasize that neither looked translucent online. I guess they have better lighting in The Internet than I have here At Home, because as soon as I put each of those tops on, I looked down and saw... everything. That was last week. On Monday, my order from Title Nine arrived. The first top is a white long-sleeved shirt that's bunched (quite possibly the wrong word) in the front. The second is a fun 3/4 sleeve baseball top (they call it a "slugger tee") with a white trunk and red sleeves. I tried both on as soon as I got home on Monday. SEE-THROUGH. John suggested that maybe this was the way fashion was headed, and that I might need to consider changing my sensibilities. Instead, I went online and bought some camisoles so that I can layer, which (I agree with Jeci here) I think is the way the kids wear things these days. Keeping up with fashion- not so grate, akshully!

Recently, I bit the bullet and bought myself some new shirts. Nothing fancy, just a few things for teaching and a few things for, well, the other 95% of my life. What I noticed when these New Clothes arrived was nothing short of astonishing. They are all see-through. No, seriously, they're SEE-THROUGH. As in translucent, transparent, OMG YOU CAN SEE MY BOOBS. Is this the new style? Is this just how they make clothes these days, leaving nothing to the imagination? I'm no goody goody, but I'd rather keep some things personal. Know what I'm sayin? I don't exactly want to go out to Rate My Professor and find some student saying (about me): "She's a good teacher, and she shows off her rack! Bonus!" So, seriously, translucent clothing. Has anybody else noticed this? Hello? Is this thing on?

So, uh, I'm on the job market this year and, as I've mentioned, the market is tight. Tighter than... well, no cliches come to mind at the moment (at least none that I can publish in good conscience on this blog), so we'll just say that it's tight. And all along, I've been worried about getting a job. It's tough, yo. Everyone says so. To complicate matters, I make no secret of the fact that we'd like to get back to the Midwest, which (obviously) narrows the possibilities in terms of job prospects. So I've always been worried about just being able to find a job. But then something occurred to me this weekend: what if I get offered a job that I definitely don't want? What if I'm able to find a job, but it's not a good fit for me? Do I take the job anyway, because a job is a job and I should be so lucky to have one? Or do I hold out, hoping that there'll be something better another time? And if I do hold out, what if there isn't something better another time? These are the questions that keep me up at night. Well, that and wondering if capris are really out of style or not. You've gotta have your priorities, after all.

When I was little, I would come home from school.... wait, that's a different story. I get lots of mileage out of it, clearly. But seriously, folks. When I was little, we didn't have birthday cakes for our birthdays. We had birthday pies. I don't know how the tradition started, actually, but the result is that I'm not a big fan of cake and instead I'm a huge fan of pie. I'd wager that for the rest of my life, my favorite dessert will be apple pie. It's as simple, and as complicated, as that. You see, apple pie is easy to come by. Look in the bakery of any grocery store, and you're bound to find an apple pie or ten. But the sad fact of the matter is that good apple pie is impossibly hard to find. Scour the planet, if you will-- I know I have. And in all my years of searching, I've yet to find an apple pie that tastes as good as my father's or my grandmother's. When we find ourselves at a restaurant that serves apple pie, inevitably I order it. And John shakes his head, knowing that it won't live up to my exacting apple pie standards. It's a tricky combination of pie and apple filling, you see, that has to be met. The crust needs to be sturdy enough that it doesn't fall apart at the mere appearance of a fork, but it also needs to be flaky. The apple filling has to be flavorful, but has to let the apples speak for themselves. The few times that I've had such a pie in restaurants have gone down in Emily History. I talk about them to this day. There was one time, years ago, at a restaurant in my hometown, where I had a delicious piece of deep-dish apple pie. Who knows what else I ate, frankly. The pie was all that mattered. Then, more recently, when John and I visited Portland, I had a slice of apple/blackberry pie at McMenamin's Edgefield that nearly killed me with its deliciousness. And, actually, that's it. Apple pie. It's a tricky mistress.

I had this brilliant invention when I was little. It was nothing short of genius, I tell you. It was a bed, right? But no ordinary bed, no sir. This was a bed that was at least twice as tall as your average box spring and mattress. It had a small door on the side that you opened up in order to climb right inside the bed. Once you got in, it was climate controlled (warm in the winter, cool in the summer), and it had pillows as well. So you see, you could be perfectly comfortable inside the bed and unencumbered by blankets. Cool, huh? Of course, when I revealed my brilliant invention to John, he derisively remarked that it sounded more like a coffin than a bed. Whatever. You know he's just jealous that he didn't think of it first.

Tonight at the dog park, I looked across the field that lay before me and it appeared to be swimming. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that individual blades of grass were moving, but not all of them. This was weird in and of itself for a few reasons, not the least of which was that there wasn't even a trace of a breeze. When I discovered what was making the grass move, I was horrified. Internet, I couldn't make this up: hundreds, maybe even thousands, of fat black mosquitoes were swarming around in the grass. WELCOME TO FLORIDA. WE HOPE YOU'RE INOCULATED AGAINST WEST NILE VIRUS. HAVE A NICE DAY.

When I was little, my mom would make me bread and butter and jam when I came home from school. Wait, what? You've already heard that one? Oh, lordy. Okay, how about this one:

When I was in junior high, I announced that I couldn't wear red because I did not look good in it. It's not that I believed it, mind you. I just decided to make that proclamation. (Someone medicate this kid, STAT!) And since nobody disagreed with me, I assumed that I indeed did not look good in red. It was years before I bought anything red. Now I wear red with reckless abandon. (Except, come to think of it, I don't think I own anything red. Huh, weird.)

So, something occurred to me the other day. (Please hold your applause until the very end.) Nobody is going to write this dissertation for me. I know, right? What a monumental discovery. They should give me a t-shirt that has Captain Obvious emblazoned in gold across it. But it's so true, and it's so hard to come to terms with that fact. And it's not just dissertation-writing; it's everything. If there's something that needs to be done, I'd bet that nine out of ten people will willingly do laundry or scrub the toilet before they actually get to it. And I don't really know why that is, actually, because we're only postponing the inevitable. I remember in college, my apartment was never so clean as it was during finals week. And I was contemplating all of this today while I was writing, and it reminded me of an Ellen Degeneres routine we watched once. So, naturally, I hunted around on YouTube until I found it. Watch the whole thing if you want, or start watching the relevant part at 4:15.

This isn't my story, it's Sally's story, but since my other posts this week have been Sally-related I thought I'd run with it. Sally met a stripper at the Atlanta airport. Wait, that sounded bad. Sally had an hours-long layover in Atlanta and spent it at the Houlihan's bar, where a young woman sat next to her. Sally asked the woman what her job was, and the woman replied that she was a model. Over the course of their conversation, it turned out that she wasn't so much a model as a stripper. Now, I'm not judging her, we all have our talents. But here's where the story blows my mind: the stripper told Sally that she strips with her mom. Not just that she strips with her mom, but that they make more money that way. Wha-huh??? It raises a number of questions, certainly, but one of them has to be this: how did they stumble upon that business model?!?

At the IKEA restaurant, Sally was effectively boxed into her seating area by patrons and baby strollers, so I offered to get her a drink refill when she needed one.

Me: What do you want?
Sally: Something diet.
Me [up at the soda fountain, pointing at the Diet Pepsi]: Is this okay?
Sally: Yeah! [then, turning to John] I hate Diet Pepsi.

Later, at our house, I held up a dish we got as a present.

Me: Do you like this?
Sally: Yes!
Me: Really?
Sally: Well, no.

I don't know what you all did this weekend, but we had the most fabulously awesome weekend here at Sally Central. Wait, what? You hadn't heard? My soul-sister Sally flew in on Friday evening and from the time we picked her up at the airport to the time we dropped her back off at the airport (hey, JAX: three dollars for 32 minutes of parking is RETARDED!), we had the most fun ever. EVER. Mostly, we laughed and ate. We got stared at and talked about by two separate (and clearly fun-free) couples at the restaurant on Friday night. We took IKEA Orlando by storm on Saturday, then stayed up until FOUR AM talking. We solved the age-old question, "How do we eat lunch AND go to IKEA?" Solution: eat lunch AT IKEA. We laughed unabashedly at the most off-color jokes, but in the confines of our own home, prompting John to stage whisper the subject line you see above when we were in public. We coined the phrase, "I was so mad, I could have eaten a baby's head!" (It's a versatile phrase, so you're welcome for that.) And on Sunday, we managed to eat scones, pizza, AND apple pie in the course of just a few hours. The fact that part of that plan involved taking a homemade apple pie TO Jacksonville airport should in no way disturb you. Along the way, if it wasn't already clear, we laughed and laughed and laughed. My stomach hurts today, from all the laughing. When John and I got back from dropping her off, and it started to sink in that I wasn't going to see Sally's smiling face on Monday morning saying, "So guess what?", I started to get wholly and completely bummed out. At the same time, it makes me utterly giddy to think that we'll be getting out of here in less than a year and that we might just get lucky enough to be close to family and friends.

So I got bitten by an ant the other day. An ANT, for crying out loud. Ants are, what, one-one-millionth the size of us humans? And the bite itches like you wouldn't believe, itches like the worst mosquito bite you've ever gotten (and, lo, I've gotten some doozies). How can something so microscopic inflict such great discomfort?

And while we're on the subject, the mosquito bites I've been getting recently are out of this world. Clearly the rest of you should kneel down on bended knee and thank me for doing whatever it is that I do to lure all the mosquitos in the states into a 1-mile radius of my body. These suckers are so mean, the bites they administer leave scars. I'm a pockmarked mess from my knees down, simply because of mosquito bites. John tried to be helpful by suggesting that maybe it wasn't just the mosquitos leaving the scar, but the West Nile virus they were carrying. Not helpful.

Along with being pockmarked and itchy (and possibly diseased with West Nile virus), I also find myself in the middle of a Post-It (TM) note connundrum. When I started collecting gobs and gobs of dissertation-related paperwork, I decided to color-coordinate it. (AM A HUGE DORK.) I used these turquoise Post-It (TM) notes to designate dissertation research folders and then, apparently, went on a turquoise Post-It (TM) spree, wasting countless numbers of them on notes like, I don't know, "buy milk" and "take a shower." The result is that now I'm out of said Post-Its (TM) and the only way to buy more is to buy a pack of 8, wherein only 1 is the correct color.

I try not to get political here, because it's only going to alienate people, but I have to make one observation. Not only does Sarah Pallin frighten me and give me a headache, I suspect she also scares John McCain a little. Have you seen the two of them together, when she's talking? It's comical, really. She does this jabbing point gesture with her right hand and each time she does it, McCain jumps a little. I can picture him taking her aside and saying, "Sarah, you're fabulous, but can you stop with the finger jabbing?"

"This little piggy went to market, this little piggy stayed home, this little piggy had roast beef, this little piggy had none. And this little piggy went 'wee wee wee' all the way home." Remember that nursery rhyme? I certainly do. It's one of my youthful favorites. But recently, that happy childhood memory was blasted apart into a million little pieces. See, I always thought that the little piggy who went to market was going to market to do some shopping. You know, maybe he'd put on his best seersucker overalls and, holding hands (hooves?) with his mom and dad, would trot off to the market to buy fresh fruit and veg. Maybe some handmade soap. It seriously never occurred to me that the piggy would be going to the market to become someone else's shopping. What kind of messed up nursery rhyme is that?!? Of course, when I discussed all of this with John, he shook his head in bewilderment at how different our childhoods were. Apparently he has memories of actually taking the pigs to the market to be sold. Minus seersucker overalls and quaint, happy piggy shopping. Clearly John was raised by much more cynical people.

I'm speaking to you, people who will eventually buy our house. You people don't know how good you've got it. You're getting an amazing deal here. Not only are you getting a cute house in a nice neighborhood with a huge yard, but you're also getting a house that needs nothing done to it. You see, we've done it all for you. That's how nice we are. We've replaced the water heater, the heating and cooling system, and all the flooring. We've installed a new dishwasher, oven, and refrigerator. We've built the fence, painted all the rooms, and installed fancy closet systems. We've planted trees, flowers, and ground cover. By the time you buy the house, we'll also have built an addition to the deck and completely remodeled the master bathroom. See the guest bathroom, with its new sink, faucet, mirror, and toilet? All our handywork. All of it for you. In pointing this out, I'm not seeking praise or thanks. I just want you to know how lucky you are to get such a swell house. We've put lots of work into this house, and odds are that we'll have to do it all over again in our next house. You, however, will have only to unpack your boxes and then sit out on the deck with a glass of iced tea. I may despise everything about Gainesville, but I love this house. Take good care of it.

Thanks, Emily