An observation of my mother:

She always goes outside when the space station goes by and looks, and just marvels, since that kind of thing came into existence while she was a kid, but hadn't been around before that.

And, every time, she just thinks how the space station is nothing special for me and my brother and other people our age, since it's always been around.

Nightmare of periodontal work.

The other week I dreamt -

The stitch comes loose in my mouth, and I just pull and pull, and then there's this huge long wet thin tangled stitching thread just in my hand, like two feet's worth of it, and I just keep thinking to myself, what's happening with my gums now, now that this thread's been pulled out, like are they okay and all, and though I'm not entirely sure, I'm pretty sure that they're not okay anymore and that all of the periodontal work's been messed up.

. . .

(I had this dream the night before I got my stitches for periodontal work out, so that was on my mind.)

A compliment from a library coworker.

The other week me and a library coworker met in the stacks and got reacquainted (I had forgotten his face, I've talked to so many people about unionization).

Anyhow, he was super supportive (in fact, just the other day, I had seen his name in the list I keep, and I was trying to remember his face), and in any case, he asked me how the unionization was going.

When I told him well, he was like, "You're a lot like Lenin."

"How so?", I was like.

"You go in and get something done," he was like.  "And, if you weren't doing something here, you'd be doing something somewhere else."

He's Canadian and working class, too, and he said it was interesting to come from a superunionized university where the student body had become wealthy and the union was a protection for jagoffs and most of the kids there didn't even really need higher wages, to the university where we're at, where one is needed and there's so much that needs to be done in terms of just having basics.

I share my love of movies with a server.

A few weeks ago me and some friends went out to dinner for ramen, and then we all went to a local arthouse movie theater to see a famous movie about ramen (it was an evening of ramen).

As we were leaving, the (mid-30s) (white) (punkily tatted) server woman asked what we were up to, and so we told her we were going to see a movie about ramen.

"No way!", she was like.  "What movie, where?!".

So, I told her.

She had never heard about the movie, and when I looked up days/times on my phone, she said she was going to gather a few of her close coworkers to go either Sunday or Monday, they usually had both of those days free.

She said they were a tight bunch, and hung out together outside of work all the time.

2 practical jokes thought up for a judge.

The other week my one lawyer friend from Missouri was telling me about 2 practical jokes the people in her office had thought up to maybe one day play on their judge:

1) Get to the office early one day and before he gets in, replace his robe with a fluffy pink bathrobe.

2) File a fake pro se motion from a guy who wants to be heard by a jury of cats.

. . .

They've talked about these jokes for forever now, but they're a bit afraid, since sometimes their judge can be unpredictably grumpy, so for right now they're erring on the side of not risking it.

Unexpected ATM line.

The other Saturday afternoon, I was at my local bank branch, and not only could I not get to an ATM right away, but there were like 2 people in front of me, and a 3rd came in pretty soon right behind me.

As we were sitting there chatting - I had to ask the 2 people in front of me if they were waiting for an ATM, or just waiting for a friend - we all started noting how this was the first time all of us had ever seen a line for the ATM there at that particular bank branch.

"That's because of the snowstorm coming in," the guy behind me was like.  "Everyone wants to get their errands for the weekend out of the way now, including getting some money."

And, that's how I found out that a snowstorm was going to hit the city.

I do live without a TV and a lot off the internet, you know.

Decently costly carelessness with my phone charger.

This year I've sunk like $80 on replacement phone chargers, all because I've carried them in my backpack too much and the cord got banged around with two of them, and once one of the outlet prongs got bent.

The first time I picked up a replacement at the local Cricket store ($30), then like two months later that died when I was on vacation visiting relatives and my mom popped for a new charger at a local Radio Shack there ($20), then *that* one died the other week, so I called in late to work, waited for the Radio Shack on the way in to school to open, and got a new charger there ($30 for the charging hub alone, which surprised me, since I got everything for $20 at the last Radio Shack, which is why I sought one out again).

Anyhow, I think this uncharacteristic carelessness of mine is symptomatic of how much I've been running around this term, between my two jobs, my studies, and my applying for full-time jobs.  A lot of times I haven't had a chance to charge my phone fully before I leave for school and I'm working 10-12 hour days on those days, so I just fire the charger into my backpack, and this has been the result.

And, $80 is a lot of money over the course of a year, and it's even worse when you consider that I make somewhere around $10 an hour at my near-minimum wage library job.

It's like I'm being penalized in life for having more money, and that being penalized results in further penalties.

I can't wait till I get the f*ck out of higher ed and I'm in a full-time job somewhere with decent hours and decent money.