Morale is the highest it has been all week.

Sometimes, when what you really want is a break, you have to settle for a few minutes alone in your cubicle with a bagel and coffee and some photocopies and a highlighter, looking busy so people will leave you alone. And sometimes, if you're at your second workplace of the day and you're tired and sick, that few minutes will actually feel like a break. Which is the sad part. Except it doesn't feel sad. It feels like a tremendous relief.

I am pretty sure there is a Gordon Lightfoot song about this.

I watched the greatest movie last night. It's called Desk Set. Have you seen it, Internet? Katharine Hepburn is in it, and she plays a librarian, and she is AWESOME. She's smart and sassy! She wears awesome clothes! She knows everything! In other words, she is Who I Want to Be When I Grow Up. At least I am on the right track. I mean, I already have a library degree, and at least a few items of awesome clothes. It's nice when you realize you are becoming the person you want to be.

The only other thing I have to say is: INDIANNNNNNA JONES!

Repudiated!

Earlier, I commented on the impossibility of ever buying Freaks and Geeks for less than $50. Well, I stand corrected! Yesterday I found it at HMV for $35, and there was only one copy, and you KNOW I bought it. I'd forgotten how AWESOME this show is. If you've never seen it, you should rent it. I mean, don't buy it, because you'll never find it for less than $50, but rent it. It's sooo funny and understated and the theme song is Joan Jett and I would marry Bill Haverchuk.

The only place in my neighbourhood where I am allowed to park my ninja

ninjaparking, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

"You see what I'm saying? You need to find your reason for living. You've gotta find your big, gigantic drum kit."
-Nick, Freaks and Geeks

Whoa, internet!

So I took some Benadryl to help with the coughing and sneezing, and those things went away. But! Instead I feel a series of symptoms that can only be described as "loopiness." My head is spinning, as if I've been dancing around! The back of my throat is itchy! My fingers keep hitting the wrong keys, or no keys at all! All of my thoughts have exclamation points at the end of them! My hands are shaky, as if I've had a lot lot lot of coffee. Or even coffffeeeeeee. Merciful heavens.

I'm off to a meeting at which I risk losing all my content management system access privileges. The form (not that there's a form) will say, "Jocelyn is clearly loopy, and cannot be allowed to edit government websites."

The word "awkward" is, itself, awkward.

Celebrating excellence in redundancy

When I was a kid I was completely allergy-free. These days, I am the opposite of allergy-free, and I in fact seem to be allergic to everything located outside: trees, flowers, pollen, possibly even cars. The symptoms are disgusting, but live-with-able. My head hurts all the time, and my throat is tickly, and I sneeze CONSTANTLY--six times in a row, this morning, as if to make up for time lost while sleeping. The real problem is this nagging feeling that my body has betrayed me, suddenly becoming convinced that it cannot deal with things that were clearly fine before. Dear body: Bits of organic material in the air are not going to kill us. CHILL OUT. Kthxbai.

The nice thing is that it's a short week after a long weekend. I only have to work here for one day, and then at my new job for three days, and then it is the weekend again! Lucky thing. Four days is plenty of time for me to die of sadness and allergies.

(The title of this post is related to the fact that just a moment ago, I attempted to use the title, "Excellence in Teaching Awards celebrate excellence in teaching," before I decided that was too stupid and beaurocratic even for me.)

Trying to get back into the habit of blogging.

Look!

They may look the same, but the first one is flowers, and the second is sugar snap peas.

Fun with capitalism! Give $10 to the something store and they'll send you... something. It's a shopping surprise!

Things that are awesome today:

1. I started my balcony garden! I have tomatoes and zucchini and a single pepper plant which I don't hold out much hope for. Oh, and sugar snap peas. I've already begun my constant vigilant pigeon surveillance. Those birds better not get all up in my face, or whatever. (My inclination is to do that thing little kids do: to plant seeds and then check on them every few hours to see if they are growing.) Also, I improvised a watering can out of a milk jug. I poked holes in its lid with my stabby screwdriver! So thrifty and crafty. These plants are not all going to die like last year's did, oh no sir. I'm going to water them every day, now that I know from helpful library books that balcony gardens need to be watered every day.

2. There is a fancy new grocery store in my neighbourhood. I've been waiting for it to open literally since I moved in here, almost two years ago. It's not that great for actual, efficient, cost-savings grocery shopping, but it IS good for five kinds of olives, or little containers of alfredo sauce or bruschetta topping or glass jars of organic pear juice. I'm going to throw a succession of ridiculous parties, now that the hors d'oeurves are so convenient.

3. The first season of Heroes. I'm about six episodes in. And I need to get back to it.

4. The Jonathan Coulton song Skullcrusher Mountain.

I'm so into you
But I'm way too smart for you
Even my henchmen think I'm crazy
I'm not surprised that you agree
If you could find some way to be
A little bit less afraid of me
You'd see the voices that control me from inside my head
Say I shouldn't kill you yet

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don't like it
What's with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don't like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn't it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

Seriously. It's the most romantic song EVER.

5. There are things I like all the time, but that I like extra today, including my boyfriend, my apartment, and being a librarian. I'm just in a good mood. Don't worry, it won't last.

Q: Jocelyn, how do you update your blog?
A: I forget.

Kids today

Handy "information" about today's youth, from McSweeney's: Youth Culture Findings.

Also, CBC News reports Texas man trying to cash $360-billion cheque arrested. My favourite part goes, "In addition to forgery, Fuller has been charged with unlawfully carrying a weapon and possessing marijuana."

Updates from the front lines of... oh, whatever.

A little girl just gave me two pteradactyls she made at school. I doubt she made them specifically for me, since she just met me ten minutes ago, but I'll take hand-painted dinosaurs where I can get them.

Jocelyn to old people: "WTF?"

There are all these old people who walk around downtown with absolutely petrified looks on their faces, as if they expect to be mugged AT ANY SECOND.

Actually, I notice the same phenomenon among the old people who live in my building. Whenever I ride elevators with them they look at me with a combination of anxiety and hostility, presumably since I am under the age of 30. I don't really understand why. I'm usually excited about some package I just retrieved from my mailbox. I wear shirts with robots on them. I exude librarian-ness. I don't really know what else I can do to reduce their hostility.

Ooh, except: find a shirt that says I am not going to mug you. Although those wily old people might interpret that as a fake-out.