Brush that dirt off yo shoulder

Unimportant people and concerns in your life are like pieces of dirt clinging on your shoulder. They're really like fleas or lice, living on your shoulders (literally and metaphorically) and you just can't get rid of it because you think things will fix themselves.

But sometimes, all you really have to do is brush. that. dirt off yo shoulderz.

And your life becomes 10xs better.

*brushes dirt off shoulders*

*two fingers*

Just not my hour, is it?

So today I woke up thinking it was going to be a fine day. I suppose I should've realized it wasn't going to because on my way to my apartment (from the house), the sun was not shining.

Between the time 11:30am to 12:30pm, I endured a lot of pain:

11:30am: Mad shits

11:35am: Left ankle starts throbbing (due to injury during soccer yesterday)

11:50am: A huge, smelly woman sat down next to me on the bus (yes, this is indeed painful)

11:58am: Stepped off the bus and got DRENCHED in what would be a normal 15 sec walk from the bus stop to the door entrace of my work building

11:59am: Glasses are fogged up from the rain, so when I slip at the entrance, I missed the door handle and almost fell on my ass

12:01pm: My soaked paper bag lunch explodes and all of its contents go flying all over the floor right as I walk off the elevator

12:05pm: Trying to blowdry myself off in the bathroom, and in doing so, burn my skin because hand dryer was too hot

12:08pm: Trying to turn the airhole more downward, I burn my finger because well, that thing gets hot after blowing hot air for a while

12:15pm: While carrying a stack of papers to another room, one of the papers cuts me nice and deep on my left arm

12:25pm: As I open the door, I scrape the top of my right hand on the bolt

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. I NEED TO LIKE...NOT MOVE RIGHT NOW. MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, I'LL BE SAFE.

And watch, an anvil will fall on my head.

X-Men has women too

This past weekend I went camping with a fun bunch in Upper Iowa. We decided to go on a 4 hour canoe trip (which, by our slow and lazy standards, was a rough 5 hours at least). Before the canoeing, I got bit in the arm by some weird flying bug (not really a mosquito--though I could be wrong). My arm started tingling and the bitten spot turned red. I acted like a hypochondriac and automatically assumed it was something as deadly as malaria, but then I decided I had been looking forward too much to the canoe trip, so I ignored it and moved on with my life.

During the canoe ride, my friend Kelly and I decided to get drunk. After 4 beers, neither of us had felt anything. About 2.5 minutes later, we were paddling at record speed and passed everyone ahead of us while engaging in a serious conversation about racism (she's my white-on-the-outside-yellow-in-the-inside friend), totally unaware of all of the above. So my buzz hits pretty damn hard as we flounder through the beautiful rainfall and such, and I am paddling in the back with so much force and consistency that I thought back to my Pucon, Chile days when I did that straight 10 mile bike ride without stopping once, thinking I was Lance Armstrong with testicular and all that other cancer.

Anyway, later that evening, my awesome paddling caught up to me as my arms fell limp and I could barely put any muscle in them. I ended up knocking out earlier than everyone else after my dear friend MaiVue massaged them tenderly. But the pain was absolutely unbearable. Women--imagine the worst menstrual cramps ever--then imagine that on BOTH of your arms. I was tossing and turning all night. Good thing it was just Kelly and I in a huge 6 person tent (ahhh so comfy).

Anyway, I think what happened to me was some sort of weird mutation. I thought maybe it came from that weird little bug that bit me earlier in the day. Because you know how when Peter Parker got bit, he fainted and such before he woke up a Spiderman? Maybe that's what happened to me--that I was going through so much pain because my body had to learn to deal with the mutation process. I woke up the next morning feeling fine and dandy, just a very very very minute soreness in the shoulder area. I think my triceps bulged out a bit more now. I think I'm like...Canoe Paddling Weird Bug Woman now. My special powers haven't quite exposed themselves yet, but I am excited to see what develops. Aren't you all glad you now know a really cool mutant? God my arms are gonna like...be awesome.

Plasticity

Who knew hitting around a plastic cup in a group could be so much fun? Seriously. Try it.

I think I am finally a little tan. Being out in the sun all day does that. So instead of being completely albino, I have upgraded to just being Caucasian.

Saying goodbye is never easy

Sometimes one of the worst feelings in the world is that you feel when you're sitting in the car, bus, train, airplane, etc...on your way home from a long happy weekend elsewhere. It's that sort of feeling where, even if the goodbye is just temporary, you look up at the sun setting through the white grey clouds and all you feel is a part of your heart sinking lower and lower into the depths of your soul. Even though you're on your way home, you're going to miss the place you just left. I get this feeling a lot, and it makes me really sad. I felt it on the way back from MN where I reunited with childhood friends, I felt it on the way back from a happy rainy picnic with the family, and I most certainly felt it a year ago when I left South America. That hit hard.

The family also finally met our long-lost cousin after 15 years. He's a cool kid. It's so great that he fit in with the family so quick and easily.

Anyway, on a lighter note, ITALY WON! :-D

I watched it with my entire mom's side of the family (a huge family of soccer players). We have 2 cousins from France and a few other France fans, and the other half Italy fans. So we were pretty divided and it made the championship game just 10xs more fun. TAKE THAT FRANCE! muahahahaha

Alls I gotsa says is...gotta be the best way to be remembered Zidane...way to end your career in styleeeee. Probably gonna get shot now.

I myself am the chaplain

"The late-August morning sun was hot and steamy, and there was no breeze on the balcony. The chaplain moved slowly. He was downcast and burdened with self-reproach when he stepped without noise from the colonel’s office on his rubber-soled and rubber-heeled brown shoes. He hated himself for what he construed to be his own cowardice. He had intended to take a much stronger stand with Colonel Cathcart on the matter of the sixty missions, to speak out with courage, logic and eloquence on a subject about which he had begun to feel very deeply. Instead he had failed miserably, had choked up once again in the face of opposition from a stronger personality. It was a familiar, ignominious experience, and his opinion of himself was low." ~ Catch-22

Meet my psychologist, Dr. Joseph Heller.