A Scientific Experiment, of sorts

This is my friend Kendra.While this picture was taken a couple of summers ago, it is reminiscent of a roadtrip we recently went on. We met up in Portland to see The Flight of the Conchords (who were, by the way, a total kick in that pants, as expected. I was not disappointed.). The next day, we drove back to ye olde Tri-Cities together.

Along the way, we busted out some Skittles and while she was trying to be sneaky about it, I called her out on picking through the Skittles for her favorites (the red and the purple, which coincidentally are also my favorites, hence my disapproval with her antics. Are the reds and purples everyone's favorites? Hmm...). Everyone knows that in a communal pool of candy, there is no picking allowed. You get what ya get, and ya don't throw a fit.

After a, "but I don't liiiikke the other ones..." (said in the perfect likeness of a whiny six-year-old), I handed her a Skittle and asked her to blindly identify the flavor (no peeking!). I think she was certain it would be no problem.

"Orange." Nope, it was green. ha! Next.

"Green!" Nope, it was yellow. Next.

"Red?" Nope, it was purple. Ha ha!

To be fair, she did get some right. But, I will say that her accuracy rate was tragically low. Low enough to NOT warrant the picking through said pile o' Skittles.

Also, be warned. She has a penchant for just the red and pink starbursts.

Why I Love the Northwest

So, right now I'm going to school in Nebraska. The scenery looks much like you might expect it to look.

There's corn.

It's flat.

I drove 420 miles to the other side of the state and still there was corn and still there was flat.

While I do believe that Nebraska is beautiful in its own right (have I shown you the pictures of the fabulous bike trail I like to frequent?), it is not My Northwest.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to go to Portland for a conference for school and since I had family nearby, my advisor all but twisted my arm to stay a few extra days to visit them. Graciously, I accepted the offer. In that time, I drove around the state of Washington visiting and staying with various members of my family.

In that time I saw mountains,

I saw rolling hills,

I saw valleys,

I saw rocky hillsides,

Desert,
Columnar joints,
I even saw flat. Very flat.

And I didn't even make it over to the coast where I could have seen sandy beaches, rocky beaches, ocean, and rainforest.

All in the same state.

That is what I love, and miss, about My Northwest. Beautiful, stunning variety.

My Subconscious Self Has Left the Building

I know it's the end of the semester. How do I know? For the past few days, I keep dreaming of going on vacation. To exciting places. That are far away from school.

Dream 1. Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords was my personal tour guide on a trip to Australia.

(Jemaine. My tour guide.)

I spent an inordinate amount of time packing in the dream as I was very concerned about having the proper attire, equipment, needs, etc. At one point, no lie, Jemaine turns to me and says, "Oh, Katy, take the sunglasses. You'll definitely want the sunglasses." (On a side note, this is only the third time in my life, that I can recall, that a celebrity has made a cameo in a dream. One time, I rollerbladed with Steve Carrell from The Office in Howard Amon Park in Richland, the whole time I was thinking to myself, "Omigosh! I'm rollerblading with Steve Carrell!"; and another time I dreamt Jim Halpert was my boyfriend and he was declaring his undying love for me in my parents' kitchen. Hmm...). But, back to Australia. I finished packing, we took a bus to the airport and got on the plane. Jemaine made hiLARious comments the whole way and it was just fantastic. And, sadly, just as I looked out the window and saw the Australian landscape, I woke up.

Dream 2. I don't remember much from the dream, EXCEPT that I was going to London. I was leaving notes everywhere letting people know where I was. One in particular I remember is the note I left on my door at school, "Hey hey. I've gone to London. Later!" Someday, I would love to actually leave that note. Again, I woke up before actually landing IN London. Aah!

The exciting thing is that, in the real world, I do get to travel for the next couple of weeks! Not to London or Australia (nor with Jemaine--although I do get to see Jemaine in concert in a couple of weeks!), but travel is travel and it will be fantastic.

Goodbye Spring Semester. Hello Summer!

Reach for the stars

Wherever I go, whatever I do, there are a few goals I always carry around with me. These are seemingly unimportant, nay, trivial ambitions for my personal quality of life but, I assure you, they are crucial.

Goal #1. I have a furtive goal to never be ambiguous. Put another way, I don’t ever want to be the object of a “male or female?” conversation. You know the type. It often involves a mullet, gender-neutral clothing, and overt signs of too much testosterone. If I’m ever encroaching into this territory, please, please slap me upside the head and help me.

Goal #2. I don’t want to be in a place where I have to wear a muumuu, not because I choose to wear a muumuu, but because a muumuu is the only thing I fit into. There is a particular episode of The Simpson’s that haunts me on this point.

If I ever proudly show off my collection of muumuus in every color of the rainbow or try to prove to you that the muumuu is the perfect article of clothing because it doesn't constrict my girth in any way, please, please slap me upside the head and help me.

Goal #3. I want to avoid the flaunting of accomplishments and/or mourning of disappointments greater than 10 years after they've happened. I witnessed a woman in her 40's regularly remind us she was her high school class valedictorian and another woman in her late 30's regularly sob because she didn't go to her high school prom. I remember thinking, "Wow. But, what's happened in the last, oh, twenty or so years since then?" If you ever witness said flaunting and/or mourning emanating from my mouth on any occasion on a regular basis, please, please slap me upside the head and help me.

Goal #4. I want to marry a big, burly man because of my own big, burly stature. When I was in Boston a couple of years ago, I saw this illustration by William Steig in the Boston Public Library

and prayed that I would never be “the potato” in a “string bean and potato” couple. I’m happy being the potato, but just let me be a potato with another potato. Hence, the need for the big, burly man. If I excitedly introduce you to my string bean fiance, well....just congratulate us on our upcoming marriage and move along.

what IS that?!

So, I need some help. While I was finishing my walk on this overcasty, springy day I came across this tree.

It didn’t look that extraordinary until I noticed the pinecone-esque things that didn’t really look like pine cones. Because they weren’t pine cones. I had no idea what they were. I left the trail to get a closer look.

What the heck is that?! Of course, I had to touch it, which totally repulsed me. Think cold, gelatinous, slime encased in a water weenie about to burst. Disgusting. But, fascinating.

I've never see them before.

I find them quite strange.

Here's another one that seems to be earlier in whatever this cycle is.Little help here?

I THOUGHT I knew you...

Every morning on my walk, between 7:15 a.m. and 7:35 a.m., I pass this woman.
Every morning, we nod to each other. Every morning. Rain or shine. In the winter, we both have our earflap hats, baggy sweats, puffy parkas, and carefully wrapped scarves bundled around us to ward off the windy cold and now that the weather is improving, our unkempt just-out-of-bed hair is exposed and blowing in the wind as we nod and smile at each other. I have learned there is a community of trail users, a camaraderie almost, and when you pass the “regulars”, there’s an unspoken bond that says, “That’s right. We are always here, together. I notice you here and you notice me. And when I miss a day, you notice you didn’t see me.” It feels good. I love this community. There’s the old smiling gentleman that rides his cruiser bike up and down the trail, back and forth, in the same 2-mile stretch for at least an hour, sometimes two hours, every morning. There’s the tall, middle-aged man who exclaimed aloud, “I wondered where you’d gone!” after my 8:00-9:00 absence because I had an early morning class that required me to walk earlier.

Last night, I attended a guest lecture on campus by Joan Jacobs Brumberg about the way women’s perceptions of themselves have changed over the past couple hundred years and the cultural shift from valuing “good works” to a culture that now primarily places value on “good looks”. A very interesting lecture. But, that’s another story.

Anyhow, while I was waiting for the lecture to begin, I noticed a woman filing in with the crowd and noted she looked really familiar but couldn’t place her. I sat there for a moment stealing glances at her and noticed her doing the same to me. Clearly, we knew each other. And then it dawned on me—she’s the woman from the trail! After the lecture, as she walked by I stopped her and said, “Hi, you don’t know me, but I think I see you every morning on the bike trail.” And she said, “THAT’S who you are!”

And the whole thing made me chuckle. If she had walked in with her blue sweatpants and binoculars hanging around her neck, I would have recognized her instantly and perhaps if she had seen me sitting there in my grubby navy blue sweatshirt and black warmup pants and my uncombed hair there would have been no question of my identity.

Come to find out, her name is Barbara Dibernard and she is a well-known, accomplished English Professor here at UNL. She has published many books on women’s studies, is an expert in Gay and Lesbian literature, Literature and Disabilities and she is an award-winning professor for excellent teaching. I found out she is an avid birdwatcher (hence the binoculars she wears every morning) and has carried out missions to help document and save endangered bird species, including the Laysan Albatross.

And I found it thrilling to find out who she was. It made me consider the other people I pass, not just on the trail, but everyday. I am a believer that everyone has not just a story to tell, but an interesting story to tell. And this morning, at about 7:30 a.m., I passed her again and she waved and smiled, and I waved and smiled back and thought, “There goes Barbara Dibernard, professor extraordinaire and my trail friend.”

An indulgence, if you will

I am in my late twenties, I am working on a PhD, I am not a groupie, and I have a confession to make. This year, since January, I have religiously watched American Idol Season 8. If I can help it, every Tuesday and Wednesday at 8/7 Central, there I am sitting on my couch "doing homework" and watching/cheering/judging all the way. If I have to miss because of some so-called important life activity such as Class (ho-hum), Church (curse my Heightened Sense of Obligation!), or Socializing (yeah, yeah), I am on the gossip websites the next day to get the full recap.

What is with this new obsession? With the exception of the occasional crazy audition episodes (who doesn't love those?!), I'm fairly certain I have never seen an entire episode before this season. In fact, I may or may not have been one of those who hmmphed and rolled my eyes at all the hype in years past. Maybe.

It could be because I've had a crazy, busy semester and American Idol happens to be on when I get home and sit down to eat dinner.

It could be because of my old roommate who aspires to be the next American Idol herself (although she refuses to join her ward choir until they sing a Cher song).

It could be because of The Blind Guy and his ability to learn whole pieces on the piano in a matter of days, which totally intrigued me from the getgo and of course led me to have to watch so I could find out if he was staying alive in the competition (he's out, as of tonight, by the way. It's okay, though. It was time for him to go...).

It could be because of the aforementioned crazy, busy semester and my desire to find at least some joyful moment in the week to let my hair down and chill for a couple of hours in the evening.

Or it could be the bond I now feel with American Idol because of one fateful youtube video. Which was the reason I almost burned my house down on January 17, 2008, and subsequently picked up a stove-to-ceiling flaming frying pan with my bare hands and threw it out the backdoor and burnt off my bangs in the process. But, that's another story.

Whatever the reason, American Idol is my guilty pleasure this semester. And it's lovely.