Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

A couple of thoughts for the morning:

1. I am so freakin’ happy that Jay won Project Runway. GO JAY! I just loved him, and I really didn’t think he’d win. Kara Saun has been the favorite for so long. Jay has worked hard, spoken his mind, made me laugh, and has generally been a completely likeable yet strong contender since the beginning. And like the judge said, he hasn’t taken himself too seriously on the way, and that’s the kind of style I like to see.
2. I can’t help but notice that I am still not in Paris, which is a problem for me.

Still not there. 🙁

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Today was a pretty exhausting day. Spent about 4 hours over at a school dealing with a case… the case an administrator keeps referring to as "trial by fire" for a little intern like me! It was a trying morning, then on the way home in the car, I got a call saying I have an interview for a post-doc applied for recently. So that’s really good news! Happy me! Then later on, two cancellations that I was secretly kind of happy about. A couple of hours ago I reread the description of the job, and it’s a little different than I had first thought. Just like when I use a recipe, I always miss a detail or two. I’m still qualified, but I’m not as over-the-top excited as I was earlier. Still… a potential job. A way to move. It’s what I want, so I am happy.

Tonight, I thought I’d kick back and relax. Saw "21 Grams" sitting on the coffee table from my free Blockbuster trial membership. I put it in my queue because I heard it was filmed at my apartment complex. I tried skimming it, but it kept hooking me in. I probably watched about 40% of the whole movie, but man, it was wonderful. It was desperate. It was heartbreaking. I probably don’t need anything that heavy given my day job, but I think I may have to go back and watch the whole thing properly. I didn’t see my apartment building, but I saw lots of other things I recognized.

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Oh, and I won’t keep you hanging on why I love "Happiness is a Warm Gun" so much. It ain’t no thing. I have had many Beatles phases in my life, starting with my dad’s copy of Rubber Soul back when I was little bitty. This had another strong resurgence around the 5th grade when I asked for "The Beatles Box" for my birthday. By the time I reached college, I had gotten pretty far in their discography, but I never really GOT the white album… not until I met Annie. Annie turned me on to The Beatles I had always thought was "weird." Now, I can’t even imagine thinking the white album is weird in the least. Another thing about it is that it is singable in my rock ‘n’ roll voice, and it was one of the first things I could sing very well that way. Somehow all the classical training always ends up coming through. I think it probably still does, but "Happiness is a Warm Gun" was my first success in that arena.

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I’ve always thought February was the worst month. The weather generally sucks. The only celebration that’s going on is Valentine’s Day, which seems to do much more to depress people than to make them happy.

People in relationships feel pressured to have this unforgettable time together, and it’s hard to arrange that, especially since you’re competing with everyone else for the good restuarants! And you’re supposed to have strawberries dipped in chocolate. What?! Strawberries are completely out of season in February. What are people thinking with that?

People NOT in relationships of course feel that their lives are miserable and without meaning because they aren’t in a relationship. It leads to feeling unloved and useless and over the hill, which usually isn’t at all true.

So the weather blows, the main holiday blows. There’s no sunshine. It’s usually rainy or snowy and grey. Then in terms of the school calendar, you’re about as far from a break as is possible. It’s when things tend to go south behavior-wise. I don’t know why exactly, but I see it every year in the kids I work with.

I wondered if others hated this month as much as me. It seems that they absolutely and positively do!!!

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I just woke up to Mike’s blog post about the recent events in Midtown. It reminded me that my response to these events have not been reasoned or critical. They have been purely emotional. I don’t expect anything less given where I live, but it’s important to remember. I posted a comment on his blog, and here’s what I said:

Because I’m so close to the park, my response to these events has been all emotion. I haven’t had the calm disposition to be my usual critical self, so I’m glad you posted this. It’s important for me to keep perspective.

The reports have basically played into my fears. There is a very tall man "on the loose" in my neighborhood whom a police officer couldn’t even catch. A white woman (of which I am one) was found dead across the street. Everyone else is freaking, too. These reports together are enough to keep me scared. No, I haven’t thought of getting a gun, but I have thought there must be some cheap way to put an alarm on the back door or at least one of those fake security stickers.

I’m still not going for a late-night walk in the park! Not that I would have anyway.

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Addendum
To review, here are all of my posts on this topic:

• Gotta Question For the Memphis Bloggers
• Body Found in Park
• Another Picture
• Something Just Ain’t Right Here
• Oddly, This Makes Me Feel A Little Better…

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To know that other people are freaked, too:

… For folks who live right across the street it is the second scary incident in just a few days.

"Siren after siren, cops, you know, coming, here comes one… and so we thought what in the world and so we finally got up cause we can’t sleep through that. And looked out and thought well, the cops are back over there where they found the body the other night." Jeff Zuber says.

Elise Pugh live near Overton Park.

"I kind of thought it might freak me out a little bit but really it’s been more like watching it unfold right outside the windows."

One building over, Jeff Zuber is reacting very differently to this week’s "excitement".

Jeff Zuber is also a concerned neighbor.

"It’s just kind of a feeling of unsafe, unsafeness, and it’s this feeling we’ve had cause we just moved here from Texas and I’ve never considered having a handgun before until we moved here."

Two separate incidents have shaken up this part of midtown this week. First a body found in woods Thursday night. Then early Sunday morning, a Memphis policeman shot, the gunman still on the loose…

Just watch that video (Firefox users: You’re gonna have to open Evil IE for this one). I feel more like the guy in the video than like the woman. And I’m telling you, I couldn’t be closer to where this happened. There is honestly no building closer than mine, which is why I saw it all happen outside my window. I am freaked… definitely, but I’m hanging in there. Just feeling awfully "on alert."

Shit, I hope the "shooter on the loose" isn’t the killer returning to the scene of the crime. Jeezy creezy. Just jeezy creezy.

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