Breaking News from Navel-Gazers Anonymous

Welcome back! Sit down and have some Cheerios!

SOTM! What, are you kidding me?

Yes, it is true. Viva has officially been crowned Student of the Month of her preschool class. I almost thought Miss Svetlana was joking when she first mentioned it, and then she kept telling me Viva was going to be Student of the Month, and I had to ask what the criteria were. I mean, she is two years old. Is this not a little nuts?

Well, apparently I have been doing remarkably well with my home-schooling program, you know, with the flash cards and the subliminal message tapes and the 5 AM drills, because Viva knows all her shapes, colors, the alphabet and numbers up to 20, and is able to identify all the animals Miss Svetlana throws her way. Also she never has to be told anything twice, listens well, follows directions, etc. From what Miss Svetlana says, Viva is the youngest child in the class, but also the most advanced. I think this is all perfectly wonderful and hilarious. I already have a copy of the school newsletter with the official announcement, and I am waiting with bated breath for the bumper sticker, which neither Sweet William or I intend to put on either of our brand spanking new cars.* Oh, yeah, speaking of which…

* Sweet W says he is going to hang it in his office at work, but as you may have surmised, he is a bit insane about his child.

Vehicular, Splendicular

I finally got my car. Now I do not need to think about this again for…oh, another couple of years, since I like to spend the year before my lease ends off and on obsessively researching and agonizing over which car to get. I got this, in Lakeshore Slate (basically a blue-grey), which was a big deal for me, because every single car I have had up to now has been either black or white. Oh my God, what does that say about me? Is there some sort of crazy symbology to all this?

Search for the Jobby-Job

I have a job interview tomorrow morning for a position for which I am ridiculously qualified*, in an organization where I know two reasonably influential people** (via the pro bono stuff I’m doing). I am also meeting a former colleague later this week, ostensibly to pick her brain about the stuff I am doing pro bono, but also to get the lay of the land where she works. This whole networking/schmoozing/being all diplomatic and shit wrings my brain out, man.

* and ** I say this because it seems like one of those situations where, if I want the job, it's mine. But I'm not really sure I want the job. And yet it might lead me in a completely new and much cooler direction, ultimately. More on this post-interview...

Shut up, brain, or I'll stab you with a Q-tip!

Speaking of brains, here is a great book to check out if you haven’t read it yet: Drop City, by T.C. Boyle. It’s kind of The Beach meets Lord of the Flies meets Easy Rider. Speaking of books, my library list is running low. I’ve received almost all the books I requested and I am almost done with them all. Still waiting on three: I am #123 on the holds list for Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go; #8 on the list for Martha O’Connor’s The Bitch Posse; and #301 for Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down.

You want links to all these? Sorry, maybe I’ll come back and edit tomorrow. By the way, since I haven’t come up with my own tagline, from now on I’m going to end these transmissions with favorite Simpsons quotes, because I am that kind of gal and because that show is never going off the air, so I will have plenty to choose from, ad infinitum, and when you get right down to it, I am just lazy that way. So:

Homer: Oh, you know what Arthur Fortune did lately? He donated two male pandas to the zoo and got them to mate, successfully!
Mr. Burns: And a stunt like that impresses people?
Homer: Oh, yeah. And I'm not easily impressed. (looking out window) WOW, a blue car!*

* See the relevance? I just bought a blue(-grey) car. Aren't you impressed by my, um, ability to look stuff up on the Internet and somehow make it about me?