Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

Now that my test is over, I’m living the lush life.

Thanks, DefMo, for the technical skill and artistry.

Saw The Mountain Goats for the second time last night. And by “The Mountain Goats”, I mean John Darnielle and his guitar. Amusingly, though, he did walk out on stage alone and say, “Hi, we’re The Mountain Goats.” It was a great show. He played a lot of really old songs, many I didn’t know. So of course today, I’m going to have to look into his back catalog much more carefully! There were some real gems. I think he was kicking himself for some prior heavy-dabbling in alternate tunings. Without a guitar tech at the ready, it meant he had to recall and implement these on the spot. And some were ones he hadn’t done in a while, so recalling just how they went wasn’t exactly effortless.

The crowd didn’t mind, though. They love their John. Although, if you ask me, I’d say they were pretty darn demanding, yelling and screaming requests after every song. I guess that’s what you get with such a large repertoire, and a ton of renegade MP3’s of live performances all over the internets. He responded to one guy’s constant LOUD requests for some obscure number by explaining that he barely remembered the song at all. Some guy on some radio station played it for him, it sounded vaguely familiar… He acknowledged that it was, in fact, one of his children, but knew little more about it than that. This response did not dissuade his audience though. The yells continued all the way through to the end.

What a charismatic and genuine performer. His lyrics are honest and specific and always manage to evoke something so salient for me (and clearly the rest of his fans). He uses his voice in the most unique way to express what he’s saying. He’s a storyteller. If you have the chance, don’t you dare miss him.

There’s a relatively popular song of his that I woke up singing to myself this morning. It seems fitting, given that this is the morning after my big exam. I do feel that I “woke up new” today. It’s about a breakup, but you’ll see how it might (and in fact does) fit my current state of mind:

On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time
I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared
And I began to talk to myself almost immediately
Not being used to being the only person there

Wanna hear what I’m talking about? Listen to some tunes stream on Hype Machine. (Hope that works.)

11:58-1:12pm Items 1-75
1:20-2:07pm Items 76-150
1:22-3:28pm Items 151-225 + review of all the items I marked

So it was 3.5 hours minus 23 minutes of a break, during which the clock is still running. So the whole things (225 questions) took 3 hours and 7 minutes.

Every time I left the testing room for a break or came back in, I had to show ID and get fingerprinted (aka “Biogenic ID”)! I had a nice cubicle in the back, so it was a very nice environment – not at all distracting (I had been a little worried about that). There were things I didn’t know. There were a LOT of items where I knew it was one of two. I couldn’t believe after so many practice exams, I still came across items I wasn’t familiar with, but that’s OK. I didn’t leave with feelings of impending doom. I’m going to make the assumption that I passed, because to spend the next “several weeks” worrying doesn’t seem appropriate (because I think I probably passed) or fun.

Next is the state exam, which is supposed to be very easy. Tomorrow is cleanup day (study detritus is strewn everywhere!), then a REAL weekend, then on Monday, I look into the state exam and get tags for my damn car (yes, I know… I’m REALLY overdue now). Tuesday is when I’ll start the currently suspended job hunt again.

Tonight is a celebratory dinner with friends and The Mountain Goats at Cat’s Cradle. Life is good… MUCH better than a few hours ago!

I woke up thinking about that scene at the end of The Wizard of Oz when the Wizard finally “grants” powers to the three companions, particularly the part with the Scarecrow. He’s given a diploma, and he holds it to his temple, then says something that sounds smart, but kind of isn’t. From a pretty early age, I noticed that he got the Pythagorean Theorem wrong, because the squared hypotenuse is equal to the SQUARED sum of the opposite sides, not the “square root of any two sides”. And it pertains to RIGHT triangles, not isosceles triangles! Silly Scarecrow.

Let’s just hope my knowledge demonstration today is correct and not just correct-ish.

A few on the way out photos: