winged orange

I used to be a reader when I was younger. I was never, ever without a book in my purse and often had a spare in my locker in case I finished a book in study hall. As I got older, the only reading I did was in class or when a new Harry Potter book would be released, and the ever-present book in my purse was replaced by the now-ever-present knitting in my purse. I’ve been trying to get more into reading for pleasure, but my ADD kicks in, and I’ll read a few pages and stop to do something else. After a night or two, the book gets discarded, half-read.

Scott likes comic books. Well, I use the word “likes” loosely – he “likes” comic books the way I “like” yarn. So by “like,” I mean, “love and adore”. He’s been trying to get me to read comic books for the 5 years we’ve been dating, and he’s failed miserably. I know a little about a lot of comic book characters, but I am not a good versus evil superhero kind of person the way that Scott is. One of our friends, though (who has a boyfriend who is AT LEAST as nerdy as Scott, and I only mean that lovingly and in a good way), is reading this series called Fables. The link will tell you what you need to know, but basically, it’s about characters from fairy tales and fables being forced out of their Homeland by the Adversary and are now forced to live in New York City (and upstate, for the less human Fables) in exile. Remember how, in Shrek, all the fairy tale creatures showed up in Shrek’s swamp when Lord Farquaad banished them? That’s kind of what Fables is, only with lots of snark and badassery. Scott brought me the first 4 volumes to try over the weekend, and I polished off two of them in an hour each. It’s fantastic.

So when we went out with friends this weekend, we stopped at Borders and Scott bought me some presents:

I got the most recent issue of Spin-Off magazine and volumes 5, 6, and 7 of Fables. I’m set for a while, I think. :) Also, I feel the need to point out that one of the Fables is Frau Totenkinder, who is the witch from Hansel & Gretel. She knits, and her knitting needles have names – and they are Hunger and Judgment. This made my life in so many ways.

I also did a different kind of reading today. A few years ago, when I was unemployed, I picked up a learn-to-read tarot set for $10 at B&N. I thought it would be good for me to learn, since a.) I had nothing else to do at the time, and b.) I thought it might help me be less Type A. I like everything really clear-cut and concrete, and tarot, by definition is not that way. I learned, did a few readings for Scott that were accurate but not necessarily positive, and I did one for my mom that told her she was going to get a windfall, and later that week, she won $10,000 in the lottery. Then I got a Real Job, moved, and forgot all about it. While we were at Borders this weekend, the craft section was right in front of a display of tarot decks. Scott told our friends that I knew how to read them, and it totally reminded me. When I got home from work today, I dug them out today and did a reading for my week. This grad school thing is stressing me out, and since I’m not getting any answers anyplace else, I figured why the hell not?

Here are the cards I drew:

According to the book that came with my cards, it says that in this spread, the card in the middle is the significator, and it’s supposed to give you the flavor of your week. Mine is The Wheel of Fortune, which the book says means a major life change and is generally a fortuitous card.

I started reading from Tuesday going through next Monday. In the Tuesday position is The Star, upside down. According to my book, it can mean either turning away from creative opportunities, or having unrealistic expectations. I don’t think I like that one – unrealistic expectations about getting into grad school? Do not want.

For Wednesday, I got the Knight of Cups, also upside down. The book says it can show you an individual who will let you down badly, or can represent the end of a project or relationship. Also, in the context of this week – DO NOT WANT.

Thursday’s card was The Moon, which the book says means I am doubting something (no kidding, cards. No kidding). It also says, “A risk is involved that could take you away from familiar surroundings.” So…am I going to grad school here or what, cards? :P

Friday’s card is The Lovers, upside down, which the book says means weakness and temptation, or taking an easy option I may regret in the future. It also represents a lack of commitment. I don’t think I appreciate this either, and I don’t really understand it. My actual relationship is very committed, and I can’t figure out what this means in terms of other events.

Saturday’s card is The World (I will not sing We Are the World, I will not sing We Are the World…). My book says this represents a successful outcome, and that one chapter of my life is closing so another can open. This card I like. :) I’m confused why it’s on Saturday, though. The university faculty aren’t in on Saturday and therefore won’t be making calls that day.

For Sunday, I got the Two of Swords, upside down. The book says that this shows deception in a partnership and a lack of trust and that hidden lies may be distorting my views of a life situation. …? I have no idea what to make of that one.

And lastly, for next Monday, I drew the Nine of Wands. The book says that this means that I am a strong person with a good support system, which I find to be true. It also says it could represent excessive demands on my time, energy, and finances, which grad school would totally be, if I got in. (Even though I drew it right-side up, I find it interesting that the interpretation for it upside down is “stress and intense pressure”.)

I know that interpretations of the cards are open to more finessing than I know how to do at this point, and also that the cards may mean different things depending on which interpretation of the tarot as a whole that you follow. So I don’t know really what to make of this besides the lame interpretation I offered up, but I like some of the more positive influences I pulled. I’m just talking out of my ass here, but it’s nice to have something to look at besides my phone that’s not ringing with an admissions offer.

• Looking out the window and yelling variations of, “DAMMIT, STOP SNOWING!” After 4 Nor’Easters, the snow clearly has a mind of its own and does not care at all about my personal vision of what constitutes “too much snow”.
• Procrastinating on my Convertibella mittens. I just have seven rows of the gauntlet cuff and the hand/flip-top left on the second mitten. There is no good reason why these aren’t done yet.
• Taking naps. I should have no need for a nap today. I slept in a few hours because of the aforementioned snow.
• Being bitter that we are on our 6th snow day of the school year, and that these snow days are likely eating into our spring break at this point.
• Being bitter than I probably will not see Scott AGAIN this weekend, because of the aforementioned snow.

And the most important thing I will STOP doing today is:

• Staring at my phone and trying to mentally will Lehigh to call me and accept me. I realize that this is not productive, but waiting for this (very, extremely important) phone call while trapped at home in the snow is seriously stress-inducing. It’s like the phone is right…there. All the time. Staring at me. And mocking me because it doesn’t ring.

I’m back from my interview at Lehigh! It was a pretty crazy couple of days. I got lost in every possible way – on my way to PA in the first place, from Scott’s uncle’s to the university, AT the university, from Lehigh to Kate’s…everywhere. It was pretty insane. Scott has a wonderful uncle, though, who used his wonderful sense of direction and guided me all over the Lehigh Valley by phone.

So apparently Lehigh University is on a mountain. ON. A. MOUNTAIN. No one told me, until Scott’s aunt mentioned it the night before. I’m from New Jersey. We don’t have mountains. Also, when I heard “on a mountain,” I took that to mean a mountain that had been flattened off and had a school built on it. Yeah…not so much. The undergrad campus is built at the foot and into the side of the mountain, but the graduate campus is called “Mountaintop Campus,” and it’s aaaalllll the way at the tippy-top of the mountain. I was almost late to the interview because I had terrible directions from GoogleMaps and couldn’t find the building I needed to be in and I kept getting lost on the very wind-y, steep mountain. I mean, this thing is like a Mount Krumpit, “the Grinch-tried-to-stop-Christmas-from-coming” mountain. I’m afraid of heights, guys. I was doing really well driving up the mountain until I looked to my left and saw…well. I saw all of Bethlehem, PA. I almost had a heart attack. And when I had to do a U-turn on the mountain to go back in the right direction, I almost rolled my car and I think I have TRULY had a mini heart attack. Not gonna lie, it was scary as hell.

The interview itself went as well as it could have gone. Mountain aside, I like it there. I introduced myself to all the faculty, talked forever with a lot of the current students, and was in general a lot more comfortable with the process than I was when I interviewed that one time in undergrad. Aside from a couple of off-the-wall interview questions, I felt like I knew what I was doing. The interview committee said that they have one more day of interviews on Monday. They’ll deliberate on Tuesday, and let us know if we’ve been accepted by the end of next week, so now the trick is just to breathe and get through the week.

Meanwhile, I have another interview at Fordham on Wednesday. I’m not as stressed about this one, partially because it’s in Manhattan and I know where I’m going and how to get there. The other part is that even though Fordham is a Ph.D. program, their funding is nowhere near where Lehigh’s is for their Ed.S, so even if I got into Fordham, I might not be able to go. When I was applying to schools in the fall, Fordham’s funding looked to be all partial, whereas Lehigh is full. It would be easier to go to Fordham just location-wise, but it’s 5+ years as opposed 3 at Lehigh (and really, the 3 years is 2 years, because the third year is practicum and I can do that anyplace). I wish I had interviewed at Fordham first, so I could go through what I consider to be a lower-stress interview before I got to Lehigh, but it is what it is. I was charming, I sizzled, I did the best I could have done, so it’s on Lehigh at this point to make their decision.

In any case, this is also a short week for me at work, which is good. I’ll be out on Wednesday to go to Fordham and then Friday, my class is taking an all-day field trip to Adventure Aquarium, which is arguably one of my favorite places in the world. And hopefully I’ll have good news to report by then as well. I kind of can’t wait until this business is over, because it’s wearing me out.

Good god, guys. So you know how my car Sadie died on me over the weekend? Well, last night, about 8:30, my Mac died too. Hard drive gave out. It was making horrible grinding noises that no computer should ever, ever make, and when I would boot it up, it would just give me a gray screen with a flashing question-mark-folder icon. I cried. I drank. It was bad.

Fortunately, I have it back now. I took it to the Genius Bar this morning, and the Genius booted it up, listened, and said, “Yep. Hard drive is fried.” There was no chance of getting anything off of it, but they happened to have a hard drive there at the store, so I left it for a few hours and got it back this afternoon. I’m just happy that I didn’t have to send it out for repair and that my AppleCare doesn’t expire until April. I lost everything, though. I was stupid and didn’t back anything up because honestly, it never occurred to me that my hard drive would just DIE like that. Especially not after I spent 3 hours on Thursday cleaning it up and organizing all my now-non-existent stuff. :P The only thing I have left is my music, because I spent 3+ hours today reverse-syncing it off my iPod. No, iTunes doesn’t have support for that. It involved messing around with Terminal, forcing hidden files to show themselves, and manually adding 1300+ songs, videos, and audiobooks back onto my Mac from my iPod. It’s done, though. Everything made it, so when I sync my iPod next time, I won’t suddenly be devoid of music, in which case I would cry long and hard. It’s bad enough all my knitting patterns are gone. And we won’t talk about all the macros and LJ icons that are now floating around somewhere in pixel heaven. :P

In better news, I got something else back today: Sadie is out of the shop! And the best part is that all that was wrong with her was that a couple of her wires were eroded from old battery acid. It only cost me about $300 to fix her plus have an oil change done. After I got her out of the shop, I took her up the highway to pick up my Mac, and man, she runs quiet now! And accelerates like a dream. And her check engine light is off, which is a Big Deal if you own a Ford, so hopefully that means it’ll stay off for a good long time and she’ll pass inspection in August. I freaking love my car. I’m so glad I didn’t have to get a new one. I’m also overjoyed that I don’t have to rent a car to take to Lehigh this weekend for my interview. I don’t like driving strange cars, especially not to relatively-unknown places. I’d rather take my car, thankyouverymuch. And now I can.

I am so, so over this weekend. That having been said, I’m not especially eager to go back to work tomorrow. At least I only have to teach for three days, and then I’m out for my interview. And then weekend. :)

Since Friday, I feel like most of my life has been an exercise in frustration. I left around 4:00 for Scott’s house (an hour and a half away) because we were supposed to go to NYC this weekend to see a show and celebrate his birthday. It took me forever to get out and on the road; I kept forgetting things and had to keep coming back to the house. Looking back, maybe it was a sign.

I had been driving for about an hour and was really only about 30 minutes away from where I’d started, thanks to rush-hour Friday night traffic. I was waiting in stop-and-go traffic on Route 70, which is a fairly busy “highway” (I use the term loosely) around here. I had my foot on the brake and was rockin’ out to Gaga, and the guy in front of me inched forward, so I took my foot off the brake to inch too. Just then, I heard my tape deck click. I thought it was my cassette adapter for my iPod flipping itself over, and I was just about to yell, “HEY! I was LISTENING to that!” when I realized that my car had gone quiet. Sadie died. Right there on Route 70, in the middle of the right lane. Dead. I didn’t even have any lights; I couldn’t turn my hazards on or anything. Sadie wouldn’t turn over – the engine didn’t even try to grind. It was just silent.

Meanwhile, I’m wigging out in the car because I’m in the middle of traffic and I have no way to let the people behind me know that I can’t move. Fortunately, I was only there for about a minute before a police officer showed up. I was never so happy to see flashing red and blue lights in all my life. He was a nice guy. Neither of us could get my car shifted out of park and into neutral, so we couldn’t push it off the road, so they set up a police blockade and called me a tow. I got to ride in the squad car, which was actually pretty cool. That was the last cool part of it, though. After that, I had to pay $120 for a tow (which really got me because they literally towed me ACROSS THE STREET) and wait at Pep Boys for two hours while I waited for someone to come get me. There was no way they were getting to my car that night, they said.

Yesterday, I called Pep Boys at 10 to see what was up. “Oh, we’re just getting it into the shop now!” Of course you are. But I let it go. I called back at 1:00, and they finally fessed up that they couldn’t do anything with it because they couldn’t get it out of park. Once I got past my initial rage of, “When exactly were you planning on letting me know that?!” Scott, my dad, and I went down there so Dad could take a look at it. He did get it out of park somehow; all I know is it involved him opening up the little console thingy my center-mounted gear shift sits on. Meanwhile, the asshole at Pep Boys was telling us that they couldn’t fix it, because mostly likely (with a pointed look at me), “She fried something.” I had to walk away; I almost lost my shit because he was implying that I fucked up my own car. Like I was offroading it in puddles or something. Never mind that we’ve had 3+ feet of snow and ice, so yeah, I did have to drive through a little water and over some rough icy patches. Jackass.

We had to tow Sadie to the dealer yesterday. They won’t get to her until Monday. I’ve been mentally preparing myself to have to rent a car for the week. Beyond that, I’ve been mentally preparing myself for the fact that I may need a whole new car. Sadie is a 1998 Ford Contour and she has over 111,000 miles on her. If it’s going to cost me more than about $800 to fix her, unless they can guarantee me she’ll make it for the next two or three years, it’s not worth it to put money into her. Especially not if the fix won’t hold. She’s been in the shop once a year every year since I got her: 2005 it was because her muffler fell off; 2006 it was because she needed a new battery; 2007 her fuel pump broke; 2008 she needed new brakes; 2009 the battery cables corroded off. I LOVE my car; she’s gotten me everywhere and it’s the first car I’ve had that I’ve been able to drive really really well. But she may not make it. I can’t exactly afford a new car, so I’m hoping and praying that they can fix her for less than $500, so we’ll see.

I’m trying so hard not to stress about this until I hear from the dealer on Monday. It’s really hard, though.

On top of it, I’m working on my Ravelympics project, which is the colorwork snowflake mitts I started over the summer. I put them down to study for my GREs and then got distracted by other things, like you do. So when Ravelympics rolled around, I decided to make those my WIP event project. (For those of you who are not knitters, Ravelympics is an event that coincides with the regular Olympics where you challenge yourself to either knit a new project in the two weeks in which the Olympics runs, or to finish an existing project in those two weeks, as long as that project has been marinating for over a month.)

Well. I think these mitts are out for my blood. So far, I have discovered:

• I should not put down colorwork projects for six months and come back to them. I had to frog about four rows that I had just knit because I can’t read a chart, apparently.
• I think I’m putting the thumb in the wrong spot, so even though I’m knitting the left chart, I’m making the right glove. This isn’t inherently a problem because the hand and palm patterns are exactly the same on both gloves, but it’s going to be a pain in the ass when I have to reverse it for glove #2.

At least I have off work on Monday.

It is STILL snowing. I don’t know how it’s possible. There’s, like, 3.5 feet on the ground from this storm and the one we had over the weekend, and according to the news people, we’ve had like 66 inches of snow this winter. It’s insanity. To quote Elinor, it’s “snowverkill”. For real.

We got two snow days this week (today and tomorrow), and then we have off Friday and Monday for President’s Day weekend. I’m kind of loving the time off, not even gonna lie. I’ve been having a ball with the Shamone girls on Twitter, knitting on my Moonwalker scarf, and sleeping. I’ve also recently discovered Listography, and I may be hopelessly addicted. I love lists, and Listography allows you to either make original lists or get a prompt for a new list. It’s amazing. If anyone wants to add me, I’m listography.com/wingswithoutme. I’m the girl with 101484728 lists.

I’m hoping this stuff clears out tonight so we can clean up around here. I’m driving to Scott’s on Friday, and we’re heading into Manhattan on Saturday. We’re supposed to see Rock of Ages, and just generally enjoy our favorite spots in the city (like Crumbs). I’m just praying it’s not bitingly cold or windy. Scott’s choosing our dinner restaurant; the last four times I’ve picked eateries in the city, my choices have been either wildly expensive (thanks, Midtown) or closed due to the economy.

For now, though, enjoy – Snowmageddon 2010/Snowpocalypse NOW:

More at my Flickr.

It’s going to snow forever, I’m convinced. It’s been snowing since roughly 7 pm yesterday with absolutely no sign of slowing down. We have probably close to 2 feet on the ground so far, but it’s hard to tell because it’s been windy and it drifts. There’s at least a foot, foot and a half for SURE. Part of me is seriously chagrined. The last time we had this much snow on a Saturday, we had two days off school, which is not good. Two more days off will put us in school during my Disney trip, which is stressful, because I’m getting on a plane on June 24, school or no school. I hate to leave my co-teachers in the lurch like that, but they all know (and my bosses both know) that I’ve had this trip planned for a year. There’s no way I’m NOT going.

But part of me is still all, “Ohmygod, SNOW!” inside. I love snow, when I can sit inside and watch it. I love the way everything is quieter in the snow, and how when it snows (especially at night), I feel kind of insulated and isolated from the world. When it’s really snowing like this, it’s not safe to go anywhere, so I feel like I’m off the hook for everything in my life that needs to be done. Gotta run errands? Pfffft, can’t! It’s snowing! I should go to the gym, but look! So much snow!

All I can really do is sit inside and watch movies and listen to music and knit and read. Last night was a movie watching and reading night. Today is a music-listening and knitting day. I think I’m going to try to bang out the other half of those flip-top mittens I started. I’ll need mittens on Monday; it’s going to be all cold and snowy.

I have these grand delusions that I’m going to bang out the entirety of my Moonwalker scarf while I’m sitting inside watching the snow, and that is completely not happening. I have a good amount done, though – I’m considering 8 inches “a good amount” because it’s knit on size 2s and I have to pay attention to every stitch I knit because it’s lacy. I have been working on it, though! See?