happy new year, maybe.

Clearly I am behind on blogging. I feel funny saying this because only 4 people read this blog. I highly doubt that any of you are freaking out because I haven't posted 2 weeks.

Anyway, a London post will come soon, as soon as I have access to pictures (Claiiirrrreee???).

In the meantime I thought I'd talk about the New Year resolutions that I will not call resolutions. I will call them things I will try to do. They are below, in list form.

1.) Get back into yoga 2-3 times a week.
2.) Eradicate the word like (as a filler) from my vocabulary compeletely.
3.) Dress like a grown up everyday.
4.) Be more compassionately critical. I have, recently, received criticism that I am too harshly critical (isn't that ironic!?). However, I am a critical person and to stop being critical is not how things get done. So, I will be more compassionate, understanding, and open when providing criticism.


I think that is enough to keep me busy.

What will keep you busy in 2010?

Happy New Year!

merge not stop.

someone sould post a sign at the intersection of Southbound Mopac and 2222 that defines merging.

Merging does not mean stop on the highway, put on your blinker, and sit there until someone honks at you to move over.

thats all. im done.

roll of unsatisfaction

Sushi is good. I like it. I like the tiny ceramic cup of soy sauce, I like the spreading of the wasabi, I like fighting with the chopsticks. I like making my sushi-partner eat the ends of the rolls with the tiny fried legs and/or fried tail sticking out of it. It's foodtainment.

Saying "Let's go for sushi" makes me feel grown up and cool. But really, every time I leave a sushi place I feel unsatisfied. I'm hungry by the time I open the car door. I always secretly wish I had just said "Let's go for cooked food, a whole meal of it, in non roll form." A meal where I need a scoop and a daggar to get it in my mouth, not tiny sticks. A meal where I walk to the car thinking I may or may not pass out at any second because all the blood is in my stomach.

Here's the thing. I like fancy food, I like scallops with white wine and butter and lamb chops with garlic and roasted pears. I like getting dressed up and going to fancy restaurants.

But I love banana milkshakes, huge bowls of pasta, fried chicken, meatloaf, and cheeseburgers. I love eating in jeans that I can easily unbutton and a white t-shirt in my own house.

So, next time I'm tempted to say "Let's grab sushi", I'll just say "Let's grab an actual meal of food."

weather semantics

I'm just going to throw this out there. You can take it or leave it.

I don't believe in global warming. I just don't. I think its dumb, especially considering that Houston is getting snowed on and it's 37 degrees in Austin today. I feel sorry for those Greenpeace volunteers on Congress. Today is a hard sell for global warming.

Climate change is a different matter. I do believe in climate change. The climate changes every day. It has been changing for 6+ million years. If you think about it, hasn't every generation thought there was catastrophic climate change?

Dust Bowl, Floods, Hurricanes, harsh winters, mild winters, harsh summers, mild summers these are not new things. In fact, these are old things that reoccur in cyclical patterns, and have since the beginning of the planet. Just ask Littlefoot.

The term global warming has been largely replaced with climate change. Why? Because climate change is easier to sell. It really covers all the bases. Global warming was too restrictive to be correct.

I'm sure climate change is happening. I'm sure patterns are changing from 20 even 50 years ago. But I'm almost just as sure that they will change back.

So should we all buy hybrids? Should I start eating local? Should I shop with re-usable bags?

Sure. Go ahead. Just be sure you dress for the weather.

911

I'm going to recount the happenings of the last 35 minutes. I hope you find them as totally ridiculous as I do now.

So, as I approached my apartment building after being gone since 8 am, I heard a smoke alarm going off. I imagined someone had burned their tater tots and/or mozzerela stiks because they were distracted by a re-run of Scrubs. I actually thought that.

As I open my door I realize the ear-piercing, vomit inducing sound is coming from my smoke alarm. In my apartment. With all my stuff. And where I need to go to sleep.

I instantly assume everything in my apartment is on fire or about to spontaneously combust at any second. After I secure all flammables, I call the Gables Grandview answering service. Donna answers the phone. I have talked to Donna 3 different times about either A.) drunken "dj's spinnin" at the pool B.) about my smoke alarm.

She informs me she will call JT and he will call me back. I say "Thanks" but really I want to somehow find a way that this is Donna's fault, just so I can yell.

I pace outside my apartment. I'm assuming no one will call me back and that my smoke alarm will go off for eternity. I'm planning alternate sleeping arrangements. I'm texting and calling like a maniac. I'm getting ready to go inside and grab blankets to camp in my car when JT calls. I figured it had at least been 30 minutes since I called. It had been 9.

On this particular call JT was either stoned off his ass, asleep, or super pissed that Donna had called him and, in turn, super pissed that I couldn't figure this out on my own.

He let me know I could either take it off the wall and take out the batteries or he could come do it for me, if I couldn't figure it out. Now, my first instinct was to rip it out of the wall--but I decided that I would be fined by the fire department and possibly jailed if I did that. So I had called Donna.

But, now that I had JT's permission, I was on it. I ripped those suckers out of the wall immediately. Silence. For 2 seconds. Then it started again. How can this be? Am I on candid camera? Am I being haunted? Is Dad trying to reach me from beyond? Is this happening to save me from a fire that will happen tonight? Am I crazy? (These are all the actual thoughts that I had.)

I run around my apartment with the torn smoke alarm in my hand, wires dangling. I'm looking at the ceiling, I'm putting my ear up to the sprinklers in case they too have noise making devices, I'm putting my head in closets, I'm freaking out. I call JT. I tell him I ripped both of them out of the ceiling and that the sound is still happening. This is what happens next:

JT: Did you take the batteries out?

Alix: I RIPPED THEM OUT OF THE WALL. HOW MANY ARE THEREEEE? I CAN'T TELL WHERE THE SOUND IS COMING FROM, IT'S GETTING LOUDER!

JT: Is the sound coming from your hand?

Alix: Yes. I have to go. Thanks.

In my totally irrational panic, I had neglected to take the batteries out of the actual smoke alarm. I was running around my apartment like a maniac trying to locate this continuing screech and that was coming from the smoke alarm in my hand.

It is funny what the unexpected can do to me. I knew the solution to the problem as soon as I walked in the door but I didn't trust myself enough to just do it. I knew, rationally, that the smoke alarm would go off and I would sleep in my own house. I knew the batteries were in the smoke alarm itself but panic clouded my logic.

It's the power of irrational behavior. It's what makes people act, do, and say things they don't even understand.

It's why I put my ear to a sprinkler.

bank robbers are dumb

I went to Wells Fargo today to take my dad's name off our joint account. I mean, it had to happen sometime.

Anywho, I chatted it up with the banker dude and I asked him about the robbery that happened at that location 2 weeks ago.

He told me all about the guy that came in with guns and made people lay down and was all dramatic about it, like in the movies. He told me this guy was super rude (I wouldn't expect a robber to be nice--but I guess most robbers just slip a note) and didn't even try to cover his face.

He told me the cops knew it was a robber who had hit 17 Houston banks in the last year. This robbery was his first in Austin.

And this is where I get confused. According to Snapped, Deadly Women, Lock Up Raw, Law & Order, NYPD, Tru Crime, The First 48, and Crime 360 there is no way you get away with crime. Your DNA will be somewhere and you're done. Game over.

I do not understand how a man with no mask robs 18 banks in Texas and is able to go spend that money on cheeseburgers and hookers. I don't understand. Shouldn't his picture be everywhere? Why aren't Mariska Hartigay and Ice Cube on the case? Where are the crime scene experts and fancy labs? I'm sure a hair fell off his head in there, why dont' they have his DNA?

This dude doesn't work. He robs people that do and, apparantly, gets away with it.

Crime pays.

my body is failing

So, last week I had the black death. I'm mostly serious. I had Strep and a respiratory infection. I had fever on and off for 3 days, and, at one point decided I was probably going to die on my couch. Dramatic? For sure.

Yesterday, just as I am back at 100%, I get a headache then the twinges of a sore throat begin again. Today, its worse. I have been monitoring my progress all day and I think it is fair to say that my immune system sucks. Big time.

I can't live this way.

It's all over for me.

*cough, cough* "It's the black lung pa."