A Very Special Mother's Day Message

So I never really noticed this before, but I was writing a sticky note that said "Call MLT, JO, and VD" and realized that two of my three grandmothers have initials that form sexually explicit acronyms. Happy Mother's Day, everyone.

Your Fifteen Minutes Are Up

Dear Joe the Plumber, the feeling is mutual.

A Children's Treasury of Hair Related Comments

"You look so manly."
"You look so rugged."
"You look so... Farrah."
"Wow, lots of hair."
"I saw your pictures from Greece. They were beautiful. Cut your hair."

And guess which one of these is my mother.

The Perks of Being Post-Thesis

One of the things I like best about being done with my thesis is that we no longer decide what to make for dinner based on how rapidly it can be cooked and consumed. ("How about rice?" "Rice takes thirty minutes." "Cereal it is.") Today we totally picked up parsnips, couscous, and tomatoes and got rid of our leftover potatoes, carrots, onions, yellow bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and broccoli in the BBC's five-a-day tagine. Also, I can cut hair. This has been a very educational night.

Kids Smell Weird

I dropped off my thesis at the Exam Schools today and celebrated by filling out a fellowship application (not even joking) and then going to see Hannah Montana: The Movie with Sarah. The movie theater was filled with screaming girls between the ages of 4 and 14, and we were so comically out of place that I felt really bad for the toddlers who had to sit behind my comparatively giant head. (Also, kids smell weird. You forget that in a university setting, but there you go.)

I was picking up my tickets and the guy was like, "for what movie?" and I was like, "for Hannah Montana, please!" and I suddenly realized that I was actually a little bit excited about seeing this movie and I blushed. I wasn't aware that I was this invested in what happens to Miley Stewart, but it turns out I am. And I was not disappointed. Sarah and I both agreed afterwards that it was unsettlingly compelling, and when Hannah reveals a major secret at one point in the film, I gasped a little and put my fist up to my mouth. The soundtrack was good enough that I might have gone home and immediately listened to Hoedown Throwdown on repeat. (We will never speak of this again.) It also had the weirdest cameos ever, such as Barry "Rocky Horror Picture Show" Bostwick, Vanessa Williams, the woman who plays Jan Levinson-Gould on the Office, and the adorable mail carrier from the end of "Paris, Je T'Aime," who played Miley's grandmother and was my favorite character for so many reasons (she is sassy, she is matronly, she looks like my grandmother, "Paris Je T'aime," etc.). As a bonus, I'm going to give away a secret and say that watching Tyra Banks throw Miley Cyrus over a couch was the highlight of my week.

Whoops.

Oh, I did not intend to fall asleep in my clothes for seven hours. I'm going to be nocturnal for like a month.

Signed and Sealed, If Not Quite Delivered

I had the weird foresight to ask at the print shop yesterday to see if they'd be closed for the Bank Holiday on Monday, and lo, they are. This basically meant I had to have it finished and dropped off for binding in time to pick it up when they close at 2pm today, even though the thesis isn't due till Tuesday. WHATEVER I DID IT. I worked on it all of yesterday afternoon, did some proofreading in the evening, and suddenly it was midnight and I was like, "oh, balls, here we go again." It's like the first actual all-nighter I think I've pulled since my senior year of college, in that I didn't sleep at all except for fifteen minutes during breakfast when I either a) fell asleep or b) got roofied by General Mills. I just went to drop it off, and I'm sitting bolt upright at my desk because I'm terrified that I'll fall asleep and they'll close with my thesis locked in the building. The good news is that it's done, the bad news is that I plan to celebrate by crawling under the covers and slowing my whole body down until I'm clinically dead. I will wake up on Monday.