THE MISADVENTURES OF AN ESOTERIC INVESTIGATOR

Ann Landers Race for Multiple Myeloma Research

My girlfriend/lover/domestic compatriot/bane of my existence/love of my life/cutest lady in the world/antarcticlust is running her first 5k race on September 7th to raise money for the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, whose work has improved the lives of those suffering from Multiple Myeloma.  She will be running with our dear friend brdgt who lost a brother to multiple myeloma last winter.  Please help her out and make a contribution and help her reach her fund-raising goal.

Here's the link in her journal and here's where to donate.

Thank you for supporting a good cause!

I've recently started working Saturdays, during the UW Badger football games which, for lack of a better word, or rather, for lack of a more perfect word, are insane.  People come in from all over the state, and out-of-state for these games - not to mention a majority of the 40,000 UW students who all descend upon the area surrounding the stadium and clog the streets and parking lots with red and rowdy drunken antics.

Driving them around is great.  Trying to not run them over when they drunkenly cross the street against the light, yeah, not so fun.  The tips are great (I usually make three times the tips I make on a regular weekday) and the energy of a massive celebration is infectious.  I wish there was a home game every Saturday.  Ok, almost.

Yesterday, after work, Jacquelyn and I went to the Great Dane and quickly devoured some three-alarm buffalo wings and the Bard's Sampler, which consisted of skewers of marinated and grilled jumbo shrimp around homemade chorizo sausage, served with an assortment of fresh mozzarella and vegetables.  We drank quite a bit of their crop-circle wheat beer, which is probably my favorite beer of all time.  We had to hurry because we had to be at  The Bartell to see Art at 8:00.

It is a required performance for my Drama class and tomorrow I have to write a critique of the play.  My teacher was the director for this show and I have to say it was really well done.  The play, from what the interwebz tell me, is widely accepted as excellent, and the actors were intense and genuine.  The theatre was small, only 72 seats, so it was hard to be disconnected and objective, being so close to the actors.  This works to its advantage because the play revolves around three friends, discussing an all-white painting.  The setting is primarily one character's apartment, so there isn't a lot of action or scene changes to grab your attention.  The actors really needed you to be close and involved as an audience member.

Afterwards, we grabbed a piece of cake and a latte at Michaelangelo's just before catching the last bus home.  Almost every person we saw on the way home was arguing or ranting into a cell phone.  We decided there must be something in the air, or in the stars and when we got off the bus, there were something like five or six police cars at the house just down the street from us.  It was hard to tell what was going on because no one seemed to be out.  Odd indeed.

After four months of bicycling at the very least, thirteen miles a day, four days a week, plus whatever I do on my days off, I have finally started to lose weight.  Ten pounds so far.  I haven't really altered my diet at all ( not that my diet is really bad or anything), so this all seems to be stemming purely from an increase in physical activity.  Another advantage is that I've also stopped getting as many headaches and it's a lot easier to get up in the morning.  I actually feel kind of odd, like I'm forgetting something, if I don't get out and bicycle at least once a day.  The best advantage, methinks, is that I now have zero transportation costs.  I get a free bus pass through school and I bike, so I actually spend nothing to get around.  My mobility is a little limited, but I think it's definitely worth it to not know what the gas price is.  Oh yes, I've been car-free for over a year now.

I was feeling good and skinny today and snapped a photo this morning:


Okay, I'm off to bed, dear reader.  Tomorrow is a long day or reading, writing, cleaning, and procrastinating.

As you can see by my previous post, or for those of you reading in reverse chronological order, the next post, I have made a separate post of my FIFTY BOOK CHALLENGE list which I will just update every time I finish a book rather than reposting the list every so often.

Good idea, methinks. Jacquelyn's idea. I stole it. Smart girl.

Jacquelyn is gone. To Vermont. She'll be back for a few hours on the 18th and then she's off again to Indiana for a research trip until the 24th or so. All in all, she'll be gone for about three weeks.

Why are you looking at me like that? I miss her, so what? You wanna fight about it?!

We kissed goodbye as she boarded a VanGalder bus headed for Chicago's Midway airport in a sleep-deprived blurry early morning.

As far as keeping myself busy while she's gone, I had the initial intention of starting a novel, but more and more ideas are coming to me about it every day now. It's solidifying in my mind in a way I've never experienced. Each day it expands and grows and I worry I should be keeping notes, but it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

Perhaps I'll write a short story just to be practical. Maybe I'll have it be an audience participation piece. You offer up three characters, names, characteristics, likes dislikes and maybe a setting and I'll tackle it. Don't be a hog now, don't suggest the whole story, just a thing or two. Let everyone have a turn.

Speaking of which, when you were trick-or-treating as a kid 1) did you ever do the trick part for those who didn't cough up the treats? and 2) when those people left out the bowls that said "Just Take One!" did you ever 'just take one'?

Watched the film version of The World According to Garp. Because watching the book is boring unless you're turning the pages. John Lithgow plays a good tranny. I still can't get Robin-Williams-the-coke-fiend out of my head, so it was hard to imagine him as a young kid. He looked old even then. Read the book, it was so much better.

I also watched The Aristocrats. Hilarious if you're not offended by the most obscene humor you will ever hear. I suppose if I were going to tell this joke, I might tell it like this: