Last year, I participated in NaBloPoMo for the first time. For you newbies, NaBloPoMo is National Blog Posting Month. You write a blog post every day during the month of November. It was a fun exercise, and I'm glad I did it once... but I don't know if I'm up for it this year. It's hard posting every day, yo! Especially when you've got other irons in the fire, yeah? Beyond my day job (what my family loosely calls my "stuff"), I've signed up to do InaDWriMo: International Dissertation Writing Month at 15,000 words (two thin chapters). Could I do that, plus my "stuff," plusNaBloPoMo? Would I survive? Oh, what the hell. Sign me up.

There's an episode of Sex and the City in which the ladies are sitting around discussing ex-boyfriends: the aftermath. Carrie is of the opinion that it's possible to remain friendly with an ex after a breakup. Miranda, though, is not as convinced. "Believe me," she says, "I would love to be one of those people who's all 'we loved, thank you, you enriched my life, now go and prosper.' But I'm much more, 'we didn't work out, you need to not exist'." And I'm very much with Miranda on this one. After a breakup, don't ex-boyfriends go to Ex-Boyfriend Land, some farm in upstate New York, where they can run around and chase bunnies? I'm convinced that they ought to occupy some sort of parallel universe from the rest of us, so that we no longer run the risk of contact. And I say this as a person who has not had to deal with breakups and ex-boyfriends for lo these ten years. Yet somehow, through the miracle of technology, one of them has found me again, through Facebook. (Apparently the parallel universe of Ex-Boyfriend Land has Facebook, too. Who knew?) He messaged me the other day, "just wanted to say hi." Huh? You wanted to say hi? Couldn't you have said "hi" to your neighbor or something? Why me? I've chosen to ignore it, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that I think it's weird. It's weird, right? I'm not alone on this, right? Bueller? Bueller?

When John came inside from packing up the vehicle on Thursday in preparation for our imminent Miami departure, he had some news.

John: "There's a frog in the truck."
Me: "Wait, what?"
John: "There's a frog in the truck. He was on the door jamb, I tried to get him out, and he hopped in. So there's a frog in the truck."

Friends, I don't think I need to tell you how I reacted to this information. Let's just say that the prospect of spending five hours in the cab of a truck, wondering if and when a rogue frog was going to jump on my face wasn't terribly appealing. Realizing that I couldn't flat out refuse to get in the car ("Well I'm not going!), I took the path of least resistance and off we went. Five hours later, the frog was nowhere to be seen. I began to think that he'd escaped while John was loading up the suitcase. The rain was starting to fall as we navigated the suburbs of Miami. The streets were shiny and wet. The sky was darkening. The windshield wipers were not so much wiping the windshield as smearing them. Suddenly, John noticed a drop of rain inside the truck, near the rearview mirror. His back window already leaks, so it wasn't too surprising to hear that the windshield, too, had started to leak. I ran my hands across the seal and felt no wetness. As I withdrew my hand, I saw it: The Frog. He was sitting on the dash, looking back at me, seemingly as surprised to see me as I was to see him. It couldn't have been a more inopportune time for him to make his grand entrance. Drivers were shooting past us at 90 miles an hour, we weren't familiar with the area, and the lane markings on the wet roads were becoming increasingly harder to see.

Me: "The frog is on the dash."
John: "What?!?"
Me: "THE FROG IS ON THE DASH!"

As I reached for a piece of tupperware I'd brought along, no longer filled with scones, tension filled John's words. He may have used the phrase "so help me God," I'm not sure. In any case, it was quickly made clear to me that I was not, under any circumstances, to undertake any sort of Frog Relocation Program. The frog and I continued to stare each other down. As we neared the hotel, the frog jumped on our GPS. He sat directly over the speakers, so that (I'm sure) his little butt vibrated as a cheerful voice called out, "Left turn ahead!" We pulled up to the hotel, and discovered that it was valet-parking only. We wouldn't be able to extract the frog as we'd hoped, because of the throngs of cabs waiting for us to get out of the way. All we could do was turn the keys over to the valet, take our belongings, and head inside.

I still don't know where that damned frog is.

So, KFC is running this ad about the $10 challenge. The idea they're pitching is that you can get a meal of fried chicken in a bucket (bleargh), mashed potatoes and gravy, and biscuits for only $9.99 and you couldn't make that meal for $9.99. They show this family in a grocery store, buying everything you'd need to make it, including a bag of flour. And lo, the groceries total up to more than $10. Well of course they do, you MORONS. That bag of flour will last you more than one damned meal, as will most everything else in your cart, save the chicken. How stupid do they think we are?!? And are some Americans out there going, "By golly, they're right! Let's go to KFC!"? Because if there are, I may need to move to Canada.

In no particular order:

1. Fancy hotels, even at conference rates, come with fancy price tags.
2. It costs A LOT of money to fly these days.
3. Students who demand appointments somehow are always too busy to actually make the appointment.
4. Jury summons come at the most inopportune times, no matter who you are.
5. Gift-givers are a stubborn lot.
6. Super Mario Galaxy is indeed, as my friend Ben said, pure awesome.

I was at Chipotle today, eating a quick lunch before heading up to campus. If you've never eaten there, they make your food and then put it in a lined plastic basket, and when you go to pitch your trash, the trash receptacles very clearly (and in big red letters) admonish you not to throw away the plastic baskets. So I was a little surprised to see a plastic basket in the trash at Chipotle today. Because, really, what does that say about us? Are we so lazy that we can't read and follow simple (large, red) instructions? Or are we so used to our trash-happy lifestyles that we don't think twice about pitching a perfectly fine plastic basket in the trash? Either way, it's pretty unsettling.

If there ever was a sports metaphor for how this election might end, last night's Rays-Red Sox game was it. The Rays were up 3 games to 1; all they had to do last night was win, and they'd secure the American League Pennant. And by all stretches of the imagination, it looked like they were going to. They were up 7-0 in the seventh. Boston fans started leaving the stadium in droves. The champagne was already chilling on ice, for crying out loud. Everyone thought it was a done deal. And then Boston did the unimaginable, scoring four runs in the bottom of the seventh and three more in the bottom of the eighth. And suddenly, when everyone thought the election...er, game was over, it wasn't. I finally went to bed, not able to stay up any later to see the final score. Just as I did in the 2000 and 2004 elections. And I had to wait until this morning to see the final score. Boston 8, Tampa 7. I guess the lesson there is, it ain't over till the fat lady sings.

So, yeah, looking for a job. As well you know. As well everyone knows, if they've come into contact with me lately. I pretty much check for new jobs every day, and I add any to my list if they're a good fit (ie, in my area of expertise, somewhere in the midwest, etc). If they're not a stellar fit, but they seem like they might just work, I consult my advisor. I found one such job the other day. It was at [Random Midwestern School]. And I was pretty excited to find it, as I am any job that I can potentially add to my list of jobbie jobs. I started poking around their website and saw something about their mascot, The Mastodon (no, I'm not kidding. The Mastodon.). So I clicked on the link. And OH HOLY JESUS THEY HAVE A HUGE STATUE OF A MASTODON RIGHT OUTSIDE THE LIBRARY. You know, right? I've talked about this before. If you google "fear of statues," there I am, fifth one down. So an enormous mastodon, plunked in the middle of campus, meant that the job was a long shot for me. I talked to my advisor about it (the job, that is, not the mastodon-- not everyone needs to see the crazy, remember that). And she said it wasn't worth applying for, since it was a teensy bit out of my area. Whew! Crisis averted.

When I was little, my parents and I were on a walk up near the zoo and we saw a man hovered over something in the parking lot. My mom and I went to see what he was looking at, and found that it was a large brown toad. I don't remember if either of us asked him what it was, or if he just volunteered the information, but I do remember distinctly that he said, "It's a horneeeee toooooad." He had a thick accent, maybe Minnesota or South Dakota, and he really drew out the words. "Horneeeeee toooooad." And I thought it was hysterical. Not the words, mind you, but his accent. So I kept repeating it all day. "Horneeee toooad. Horneeeeeeeeeeeee tooooooooooad." And every time I said it, my mom laughed even harder, and said, "No, it's a horned toad. A horned toad." But I knew what I'd heard, I knew what the man had said. "Horneeeeeee toooooad." Ah, the innocence of childhood.

So apparently I forgot to set my alarm last night. (You already know how this is going to end, don't you?) I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and, frankly, wondering how that was possible, since I'd gotten only a handful of hours' sleep. Thinking that I'd woken up before my alarm went off, I looked over at the clock to see what time it was and whaaaaaaat? It was 8:45! No wonder I felt refreshed-- I'd slept for almost NINE HOURS! Suddenly I wasn't so much refreshed and on top of things, but harried and stumbling out of bed. Whoops! I guess we've all had days like that!

Dear Professor,

I'm sorry I didn't email you sooner. I had an injury/accident/financial crisis/stint in jail/pole-dancing gig/whatnot that prevented me from coming to class the other day. I'm really, really, really sorry I wasn't able to come to class. I'm sure you understand that it Wasn't My Fault (TM). Anyway, I was wondering if you could tell me what I missed? Also, could you tell me if there's anything important I need to know for the upcoming exam/paper/quiz? Thank you!

Sincerely, Your Student

Lots going on here, and not a lot of time to post, so I'll leave you with this brief reminiscence: When I was little, I thought that working for a non-profit meant that you wouldn't get a paycheck. I had this idea that it would be great to work for a non-profit and be a part of a worthy cause, but I was always worried about how I'd pay my bills.

I'm going to go ahead and ask: what, what, is so threatening to hetero married people about gay marriage? Same-sex marriages are already illegal in Florida. But in November, we're going to have the opportunity to vote on a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages. Wait, what? If there's already a law against it, why is a constitutional amendment necessary? Oh, I get it: so it's harder to overturn than a measly law. I ask again: what is so threatening about it? Why are so many people so vehemently in favor of keeping a group of people from realizing one of society's most timeless rites? Proponents of gay-marriage bans claim that gay marriage would undermine the institution of marriage. "If marriage can mean anything, marriage means nothing," says John Stemberger, chairman of Yes2Marriage. Uh... how is that, exactly? Maybe I'm naive, but I don't understand how my marriage-- or the institution of marriage-- is in any way undermined by gay marriage. Can someone explain it to me? Because I just don't get it.

Do you ever feel like your life has turned into one giant game of Whac-A-Mole? That you're dealing with a hundred things at once, standing on tiptoe and wielding your rubber mallet, trying to stay on top of everything? Except, not only are you not able to stay on top of everything, you're also not devoting enough attention to anything? Let's form a club together, then. Because this week, I'm not able to do anything 100%. I'm barely managing 50%. I'm not able to devote enough time to my dissertation, not able to scrape together any free time for the people (and animals) that I love, not able to maintain some semblance of patience, not able to feed my family in a timely manner, and don't even get me started on the laundry situation. I'm at the point where I feel like I'm drowning, and there's nobody who can throw me a rope. Or maybe they could throw me a rope, but I wouldn't be coordinated enough to catch it. And no, this isn't indicative of anything seriously wrong, and tomorrow I'll probably have forgotten the fact that I felt like this at all, but right now, the moles are winning. Handily.