So I'm going to be uploading photos from my phone probably all day as we do such things as barbecue and stuff.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/demented_pants

There are also photos from our Cincinnati vacation there.

Wear the Lilac.

Conflating Judicial Empathy with Gender is a Trap.

So I just scheduled my first semester of classes:

S-510 Intro to Information Science M 1:00 - 3:45
S-511 Database Design Tu 1:00 - 3:45
S-556 Systems Analysis and Design Th 5:45 - 8:00

These are all classes I took already as an undergraduate, so I'm pretty comfortable with the fact that SA&D is a 550 class.

Not a bad schedule, though. I may be able to keep overnights.

I'ma be an MIS student next semester.

The e-mail says I can start this summer but financial aid is a no-go so I'm going to see how much it would cost to take just one class. Maybe get the programming requirement out of the way.

It's funny. I've been indulging in quite a bit of introspection lately - thinking about certain parts of my past that I'd thought well and truly behind me. I have to admit that here and there I've been quite maudlin about all of it. It's funny - I'm standing here on the edge of the next chapter in my life and I can't stop looking backwards.

When I was little I liked a song called "Somewhere Out There" quite a lot because I liked the idea that the world was connected, that whatever my fate was, it was out there looking at the same night sky as I was. Later I would admire a similar sentiment in a song of the same title. Oh, sute, they were both drippy love songs, but that hardly mattered to me. Still, in my infinite wisdom at age 18, I couldn't help but roll my eyes and scorn the idea that there was any such thing as fate.

I hadn't listened to the more modern "somewhere out here" in ages until tonight, but surprisingly I've found that it still speaks volumes to my sentimental side. It's funny how some random happenstance can bring you back to something you'd completely forgotten.

There was one other song with a similar lyric that caught my attention around that same time:

"I check the weather wherever you are 'cause I wann know if you can see the stars tonight. It might be my only right."

Too bad I have no real idea where I should be looking. I guess only time will tell. For now I'm content to be where I am.

I can't stop giggling. :D

Last night had a crazy dream
You were everywhere it seemed
You were filling up my soul
Doin' everything to make me whole
Read about you in the Sunday paper
Saw your face on the evening news
When I woke everything was gone
And I remembered we were through
Don't come 'round here no more

[CHORUS:]
Hey get out of my mind
Then you tell me we got things to say
You come around here looking so fine
Makes it so hard to walk away
Oh, get out of my head
Because that look there could leave me dead
Then you tell me that you love me

Remember you were the one to leave
I came back home and I couldn't believe
I know I would have given anything
You took it all and you made me think
Why would she leave me for another man
What does he have, Lord, that I don't have
I see you stayin' in his fancy home
I put on Lauren and I drink alone and say
Don't come 'round here no more

[chorus]

I'll be there for you
I remember when I said that I would
Always love you, too
I lied
Don't come around no more

(As a note, man, Hootie is some of the whitest music ever)

So there are a couple of shows coming up at the Bluebird that I kind of find myself wanting to go to. First up is the Sister Hazel show this Friday, which I probably won't go to because I have to work. Then, on the 28th, Josh Kelley with Ryan Cabrera - I have no idea who the latter is, but I like what I've heard of Josh Kelley's.

And then in May, Eric Hutchinson.

I probably won't go to any of them just because of sheer lack of having anyone to go with. Meh.

So there's this fixation I have - more of an addiction, really - that's been under my skin for so long that I can't remember what I was like before it was there. This addiction is just like an itch, always lurking there just beneath my skin, ready to remind me of itself at a moment's notice. Just like an itch, when it isn't making itself known I let myself believe that I have finally conquered it, and just like an itch it always comes back eventually, demanding to be scratched.

Just like an itch I always tell myself that this time, when I scratch, I will manage to dig it free of myself and it will go find some other unsuspecting victim to terrorize (addictions, like itches, are freelancers. They go where the work is.) Just like when I scratch an itch, I am always wrong. Always I dig it further into my skin, make it worse, inflame instead of soothing so that, having started to scratch, there is nothing I can do but continue with my scratches - a vain exercise in futility that can only worsen the matter.

This addiction of mine is an insidious thing, ever present in the back of my mind. Waiting to take center stage at the most inopportune of moments, it whispers along my senses looking for an in that I am unable to prevent myself from giving it.

Because I like to scratch my itch I have come to eagerly anticipate its coming. When I finally submit to the urge, the satisfaction is overwhelming. And yet each time I indulge my itch, rather than getting it out from under my skin I merely dig it deeper.

And so, on both fronts, the exercise in futility continues and I tell myself that I may yet manage to keep my self-control when confronted with my own special itch. And even though I tell myself that I may yet be able to get this need out from under my skin, I don't know if I really want to. So I keep scratching, because my addiction has sunk its claws into me. I can't help but feel like my itch even takes a certan satisfaction from its victory over me. Lord knows it seems to win every time.

There's just one final way my addiction is like an itch - no matter how many substitutes I try to use to calm the urge, there is no balm. The only thing that can take the itch away even for a little while is to scratch it. I've tried any of a dozen things to take my mind off the need; some have worked longer than the others and others not at all. In the end, it always comes back to that good, old-fashioned scratching session. Even if sometimes I have to scratch so hard I draw blood before the itch is satisfied.

So I realized today that I don't keep in touch much on here these days, and since I have cut back on being a minutia tweeter that's really no recourse for anyone either. Not that most of you ever actually cared about my tweets, but if you do happen to be interested but not want to join Twitter you can also RSS my friendfeed, which is either http://ping.fm/jL9D2 or /dementedpants - one of the two.

In other news, I'm getting ready to move down to the south end of town with crossp and kixiefaerie (sorry, m peek has no angle brackets for tags) and wells whose lj I have no idea regarding the existence of.

In other news, last weekend I got to go to the Woods and give my lil sis her Woods ring and it was nice to visit but for the first time I really found myself feeling like I didn't belong there. It was nice and not nice at the same time. And, of course, the dorm food made me sick for about three days, after just one meal, for which privilege I paid $12.50. Yeah, I didn't miss that, or those god-awful mattresses either.

I just got home from working a ten-hour graveyard shift, but I have to be back on the bus at 3 to go back for another 8 hours so I think I'm just going to forego sleep in favor of massive amounts of caffeine. If I seem cranky later, that's why. Nothing personal. These days when I have eight hours in between shifts are only barely mitigated by getting three days a week off. Hopefully it won't be this bad come summer when the schedule changes again.

July 9 will mark my one year anniversary at UITS, which will probably mean that I start blanketing the city with resumes. In the meantime I'm at least fairly financially secure, if a bit broke, though that should get better once I move and my monthly living expenses get cut in half.

In the minutia side of things, I need to do laundry, ad also start the giant game of keep, trash, or goodwill that always precedes a move. It is also time to give serious thought to the ridiculous amount of crap I have in my medicine cabinet - vitamins, pepto, hand sanitizer, five or so different headache meds, all otc, bandaids, and god only knows what else. It's quite sad, really.

Anyway, typing a lot on the peek sucks, so I'll leave this here with the hope that maybe I'll check in more often starting soon.

I hate you, Ping.FM

So I've been in the market for a decent bike recently. I saw one today that was a little bit out of the price range I'd established, but since I'd planned on spending almost that much on a used bike and this one was new and I had a little extra cash, I decided that it was fine to spend the extra.

http://tr.im/hBUv

It's a Schwinn Jaguar, modeled after a classic bike of the same name, and I love it.

"Hey, I'm gonna go take the Jag out for a spin..." :D

It's going to take some getting used to, riding a bike that actually has working brakes and actually shifts gears, but I think the Jag and I will be very happy together.

This was supposed to be a twitter post but I'm dumb. ):

Sent from my shiny new peek device which is remarkably useful given that its only supported function is email.

Http://Getpeek.com

I keep meaning to go to these Bloomington Geek Dinner things and missing them. They happen like once every six weeks and this is seriously the fourth one I've wanted to go to but missed for one reason or another. The second-to-last time it was because I needed to be at work that night, and thus was asleep for the event.

Last night I got a migraine.

Anyway, I try to make a point of posting about said geek dinners on bloomington because, hey, where better to find a bunch of geeks who might like to attend such an event than LJ?

And apparently last night someone from LJ showed up and was asking for me. Pity I didn't make it. I hate to disappoint my public.

LOL.

Awesome defaced currency: http://www.picdumps.com/picdumps-lustig-bemalte-geldscheine-2506.htm

kixiefaerie reserved our rooms today at a BnB in Indy.