Why everyone should hate Rupert Murdoch

Sleeping patterns

11 p.m. I am tired, I should go to bed.

Midnight: Ok, really going to bed now.

12:30 a.m.: Oh my god, I can't breathe. I have now sneezed 400 times in a row, snot is dripping down my face and my throat is closing up. I am going into anaphalytic shock for sure. I wonder how long it will take for someone to find me dead.

1 a.m. Moving to the couch where there is less cat hair, more circulation. Get clean sheet, breathe through wet washcloth on face which is more succesful than the two Benadryl I have now taken.

5:45 a.m. WHY AM I AWAKE? There's a phone alarm going off. Nope, not my phone. It sounds like it's in this room though. What's going on? Why has it been going off for five minutes?

5:55 a.m. It's going off again. What's happening and why can't I think clearly? Look for old phone on the off chance it hasn't lost battery in a month without being used or turned on and somehow its alarm is going off. Pull all couch cushions off looking for mystery phone. Put ear against wall to see if it's my neighbors. Look in drawers of entertainment center. Obviously still heavily under the influence of Benadryl. Suddenly feel like I am in an Edgar Allen Poe story.

6 a.m. What is that sound? Crap, the power just went out despite the fact there is no lightning, thunder, rain, wind, tornados. I just read an article about squirrels getting caught in the wires and killing power. God, I hate squirrels. This means my fans are off. It's like 90 degrees already, and I have no air conditioning. I am just going to get up and go to work.

6:02 a.m. Oh my god. What's that sound? It's louder than a car alarm. Sounds like a security breach of some kind. Pretty sure no one is breaking into that shady bar at this hour.

6:03 a.m. Seriously consider that loud alarm is probably a carbon monoxide alarm. Remember that I have my own carbon monoxide detector but suddenly can't remember if I have put batteries in it since I moved 1.5 years ago. Consider going out into hallway to see if anyone else in my building seems concerned. Decide too tired/drugged to move. Would rather just die peacefully from CO poisoning.

6:04 Loud car alarm and phone alarm of unknown origin going off at same time.

6:07 a.m. Phone alarm

6:09 a.m. Car alarm

6:13 a.m. Both alarms

6:18 a.m. Still both alarms. Why does God hate me?

7:45 a.m. My own phone alarm, electricity back, fans going.

8:40 a.m. Arrive at work. Speech still slightly slurred from Benadryl.

Thin walls

The walls in this hotel are very thin and therefore I now know everything about the girl's life who is in the room next to me. If I were to meet her in person, I would promptly punch her in the face.

1. She hates her parents. She has "every right" to come visit her birthplace and not see them. Fuck, she could have been in London right now. She will "never ever ever come back here again" unless she stays in a hotel. This hotel by the way is the most beautiful hotel she has "EVER" stayed in "EVER."

2. She tried to commit suicide and was in a hospital bed and her parents didn't even bother to come see her even though she should have been dead. I mean, "they had a chance to save their daughter's life!"

3. Everyone talks about how insane her family is. No one can stand her mother.

4. She's 42. But talks like she's 13. Seriously. I mean, seriously! Like, whatever.

5. She steals hotel robes. She requests a second robe be brought up for a friend and then she steals one and "they never know!"

O'Hare Observations

I broke my cardinal rule for living in using alliteration in the title of this blog. At least it makes sense, unlike the new Manhattan Marketplace in my hometown. Marketplace implies charming or a market like atmosphere where people browse fresh veggies while sipping coffee on a warm Saturday morning. Either that or a Mexican market where you are aggressively bartering for cheap crap that you will of course immediately throw in the garage sale box upon return to the U.S. But this "marketplace" includes box stores (Best Buy) and... well, that's it right now. Furthering proving my point that the title of the shopping center was chosen soley for the cutesy coincidence of "look, they both start with M!"

My bag got searched this morning b/c they saw "wires and a time device" or from a more layperson's mind, a computer cord and watch. I oh so desperately wanted to make a bomb joke especially after the top-notch security man couldn't find my "time-keeping device" and concluded "well, you can go. You don't look like trouble." National security at its finest. Note to terrorists: Young, short women dressed professionally and carrying bright blue suitcases. The key to your next plot.

None of the above writing was even about O'Hare. That's what alliteration does to a person.

Back at the airport

This should just be a airport blog. The only time I can write I am in the airport waiting and waiting.

Right now there are about 20 eighth graders experimenting with their cell phone rings. Their chaperone, a large older man, is loudly telling this story about a plane being late. It's not an interesting story at all. A plane? Delayed? At O'Hare? What a ridiculous fantasy. He also just referred to the word "fuck" as the "F flipper."

Now they are surrounding me and taking pictures of each other but they do have to occasionally pause to check their text messages which keep beeping every five seconds.

If they are next to me on the plane, I am jumping out the window. I'll take my chances.

I *heart* New York

Highlights from my weekend in NYC where I am having a hard time not living.

1. The best sushi I've ever had topping my previous best in Portland. Sushi Haru on the Upper East Side. Salmon that melts in your mouth. Yum.

2. Trying on dresses on the UES where the ladies compliment you and make you feel gorgeous only to tell them you can't afford their $300 sundresses and have them suddenly turn into snobby bitches.

3. Staying out til 5 a.m. and seeing the sun rise while eating grilled cheese in a Bronx diner.

4. Having a Bronx 8th grader ask if I was M.'s sister because all white people look alike.

5. Tasti D Light chocolate pudding frozen yogurt with rainbow sprinkles.

6. Trying to decide if I am in the mood for Korean, Thai, Greek, Mexican, Italian or diner food... or if I want to walk to the next block.

Loooooove it.

This is not your personal office

I am sitting at the airport waiting to go to New York to see M., and there is an asshole across from me in the seating area on his phone headset. He is balancing his laptop on one knee and a notebook on the other. He is talking LOUDLY and in a tool-like manner saying things like "The tasks, Chuck, are fundamentally the same..." or "Chuck, I'll arrange a meeting with the principles in this deal." If that was annoying enough, he's excessively gesticulating.

I want to punch him in the face. This is not his personal office and everytime he motions with his chubby hands, it makes me want to reach out and slap them. The guy next to me just saw me staring this guy down, chuckled and signed really loudly.

Also, he's wearing New Balance tennis shoes, oatmeal colored jeans and a blue patterned shirt. Oddly though, his fingernails are clean and manicured and his beard is really well groomed.

"You bet, Chuck. You bet."

Bizarre racism

So Jo and I are walking down my street to my car and two black girls are in front of us talking about getting into an apartment by fumbling for keys and then hoping someone lets them in. At some point, one girl says something about "white girls." She turned around to us and said "Sorry, no offense to you girls." We smiled and we all keep walking down the street.

Then, at the corner, she turns around and says "I feel like I need to justify that comment. It's not like I am racist. It's just... I don't know... like you're the police." What?

If I would have said something like that, I would have gotten punched in the face.

The world at 5 a.m.

I had to take a friend to the airport this morning at 4 a.m. so I ended up just staying awake and being productive. I like the world a whole lot better at 5 a.m. Who knew?

There is no one on the interstates eliminating any road rage, excessive use of the blinker and the eventual merge.

There are crazy people (at least 20) lined up outside the gym waiting for it to open. I got there three minutes before it opened but these people obviously have this as part of their morning ritual. Why not just wait in your car instead of in a line in the rain? Still, I appreciate them for their intense dedication/insanity.

The ghetto discount grocery store is mostly free from shoppers that make me want carve my cucumber into a point for protection if anyone approaches my cart. Also I get to watch the manager go through sour cream containers already on the shelves and smell them. Luckily I don't ever buy sour cream because if I did, that would be the last time.

Coffee tastes a lot better when you've already been up five hours and you are so tired you keep forgetting where you are.

Overcoming fears

I am not a rollercoaster person. I have never technically been on one. The only rides I would ride at the county fair were the ferris wheel ... and well that's about it. I hate the tilt-a-whirl and the one time I rode the spinny, fast moving red thing, I cried and had a mini panic attack. I was 17.

Today I got free passes to go to Disneyland and the connecting adventure park. I did the Grizzly Water Run which was mildly out of my comfort zone because it included getting wet and some fairly big drops. We walked over to the new rollercoaster and I could feel my stomach at my ankles as I watched the cars spin around, upside down, in the outline of the Mickey face. I can imagine my neck snapping and my internal organs coming up in my throat. That one is eliminated because of the upside down action.

So we meander throughout the park and end up at the Tower of Terror. Me, thinking to myself: "No effing way. I have never and never will do something this scary." My plan is to stand in line and then bail out at the last second to watch. So at least I could say I almost did but not actually have the horrifying experience. The thing is, I kept looking at the other people in line and thinking they looked like a bunch of wimps and I was definitely much braver than them. While analyzing all of this, I forgot to bail.

After some stories about the Twlight Zone and a long drawn out process to make everyone incredibly antsy, you board an elevator which takes you to another elevator shaft where you sit down and they double check your seat belt and make you tighten it. It goes slow at first as the elevator creeps up. You see yourself disappear in the mirror like a ghost and all is fine. Then you start dropping random distances. Absolute free falling and stop, then falling again. Then you climb all the way back to the top, the doors open so you can see how high you are and then you just fall. 13 stories at 39 mph.

Scariest thing I have ever done. Hands down. My hands were still violently shaking 10 minutes later.

Sometimes I feel like my life is one big Tower of Terror ride. The feeling though, when the doors open, you take off your seatbelt and the doors open to a much safer place and you think "Oh my god, I think I made it," might be worth the terrifying, mind-erasing, paralyzing fear.

1^%$gt4e@#&

Boss: "Why didn't you share these documents with me?"

Me: "You're the one who gave them to me."

Boss: "Why didn't you copy them so I had a copy for this meeting?"

Me: "You are holding them in your hand right now. Why would I copy them?"

Boss: "OK, I will go make copies."

Me: "What? We both already have copies."

You can't even make this shit up.

Play pen

I parked right by the door today which means everyone who walks into the building can see what's inside my car if they are even half as nosy as me. This is what they would find:

- Two Shrek dolls from McDonalds Happy Meals
- A Sponge Bob Square Pants candy dispenser
- Melted chocolate eggs from Easter
- One running shoe
- Lots of sweaty socks from rollerblading
- A cat toy
- White tank top
- Starbucks cup
- Lots of bills

OH.MY.GOD.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/17172298.htm

"But as a Christian, he said, he also can’t deny that some actions are sinful, and sometimes it’s appropriate for a school board to comment on those issues.

“If there’s a lot of breakdown and problems in the schools, and much of those problems you could relate to the breakdown in the family, then anything that breaks the family structure down I think is not conducive to good learning,” Allgeier said."

WHAT? Are these homosexual students having sex in the middle of class? Because really that's the only way I could see being gay would be in the way of good learning.

The GRE and other useless knowledge

I'm taking the GRE at the end of the summer. At least that was the plan before I found out that I am really stupid, and definitely NOT smarter than a fifth grader. Note: I would never actually watch that god forsaken show with Jeff Foxworthy.

So like a good student, something I never was past 10th grade, I buy the Kaplan books for GRE overall test and math workbook. I start with the vocabulary section because usually words triumph over numbers in my brain, and I want to ease into this. WRONG. I get to words like this: speulchral, novitiate and vituperate. The first word reminds me of scepetor, which reminds me of a king holding a long stick. Second word? Looks like novia in Spanish, which means girlfriend. Vituperate means nothing to me.

New plan: Make flashcards with five new words everyday that I will learn to use in sentences for the rest of my summer. After yesterday's cards, I can do this:

Sarah will never be an ERUDITE graduate student. The mean boy ADULTERATED the innocent girl. The GRE test is an ENIGMA to me.

I would write about the fact that I can't even freaking add fractions let alone know what to do with exponents but I have to make more flashcards.

Missing college

I am home this weekend and for the first time in two years, I miss college. Not everything just small things like feeling the same thing as 22,000 people whether it is the stress of finals or the excitement of a home football game. I miss the way a Mac mouse feels in my hand, scanning through newspaper pages looking for errors.

I miss the way my bare feet feel running down the hill of my driveway at night to get something from my car. I miss walking to my car at 1 a.m. when campus is empty but in the distance you can still hear people yelling or music playing.

I miss the crappy wood floors of the newsroom. I miss the purple fridge and the STD-infested leather couch. I miss looking at the clock, seeing it is 11:30 p.m. and thinking it was so early.

Then I miss some big things like knowing what I want to do for the rest of my life and not being jaded by the reality of how all those ideals are going to play out when the real world gets involved.

Being at home is just as unsettling as it is comfortable because I ache for the things I wish I had done, had another year to see how they would turn out or just that time in my life that is just a big memory.

Better than home

So iHomes are the coolest things about new hotels. Not only do I get to listen to my own music but my ever-so-hard-to-charge iPod Nano is being charged round the clock.

The most uncool thing about new hotels are Murphy beds. I walked into my "parlor room" and couldn't find my freaking bed only to discover it was hidden in the wood cabinet. It's small, but so am I so I won't complain. Plus I have a couch, full-size fridge, dining room table and flat screen TV. It all makes up for the random bed-in-wall trick.

Where I have been

What I've Been Doing
Working a lot. I wish I could say I did amazing and wonderful things while in the many fun cities I have been to in the last two months like Portland, New York City, Washington D.C. But it's all a blur of stress, frustration, wonder, indecision and more stress.

What I've Been Listening To
James Morrison's Undiscovered album, Josh Radin and Natalie Merchant

What I've Been Eating
I've had tomato soup and grilled cheese three times this week. Trader Joe's makes really good organic tomato soup. I buy the soup then add in pesticides and chemicals just to prove I am not a hippy.

What I've Been Thinking
I am currently entertaining the thought of curling up under my desk into a little ball until the world seems safe enough for me to be in it again.

What I've Been Reading
My Shape magazine although I think people judge me while I read it on the treadmill like "you really think you could have Kelly Ripa's body? Ha." I don't really think I can get a "perfect bikini body" by June 1. Let's be realists, people.

What I've Been Dreaming
I don't dream while in a Benadryl-induced sleep. The minute I start dreaming while taking Benadryl I will switch to meth.

What I've Been Watching
Twins games, Lewis Black standup on YouTube, West Wing Season One dvds.

What I've Been Predicting
One of these days spitting fire out of my mouth won't just be a threat, but will become a reality.

What I've Been Plugging
Exercise. I can't make myself go to the gym everyday but everyday that I do go, the world seems a lot less antagonistic toward me. If Minnesota weather cooperated a bit more I might be able to actually go everyday but snow is still in the forecast here.

I miss my mommy

Blizzard, Day Two

I am supposed to drive home to Kansas today but I-35 is closed right now. Stupid snow.

This is what it looked like when I stepped out my front door at 7 a.m. Official count 11.3 inches as of 6 a.m., blizzard warning til 6 p.m. today. That's on top of the foot of snow from last weekend.

Blizzard!

This is snow, not fog at 3 p.m. Thursday