sick poetry

sick and at home and laying down in my bed
there's pain in my chest and pain in my head
i'm cold and i'm hot, these symptoms in tandem
i hate this attack on my weak immune system

my left nostril drips while the right stays plugged up
i sneeze, my eyes tear, and if that's not enough
i've become a mouth breather so my tongue is all dry
and now the left's plugged and the drips on the right

went to work for an hour, didn't go to school
but i've got friends, so no worries, it's cool
thanks to netflix, i've watched 10 law and orders
detectives, you're being called to the judge's quarters

no time to be sick, i have too much to do
family's coming, homework, not scheduled this flu
no orange juice, no soup, no meds, no clean spoons
guess i'll just have to get well soon

spring break

so, so close. two and a half days. i mean, i have to work next week, but no classes. i almost get teary just thinking about it. ok, and i'll have homework to work on, but no classes. sigh.

everyone here at school is so ready for break and it shows. we come to class, walking slowly, only going into the classroom at the last minute. we're tired and grumpy and indifferent. had a mid-term exam on monday and the post-mortem discussions were decidedly lackluster. oh spring break, how we long for thee!

mom, dad, and sister arrive from so cal on saturday. haven't seen them since july. they say they're looking forward to seeing me, but come on, the only two grandchildren in the family live in middleton, you really think they're coming to see me? can't say i blame them, my favorite nephew and niece are the cutest children ever. hah! they thought they were so clever, waiting until the snow melted to visit; they don't know about the bicyclists.

winter showers bring spring cyclists

almost as bad as driving around snow is my newest challenge: driving around bicyclists. as the snow melts, hundreds of thousands of bicyclists emerge in madison, pedaling their way to and fro, enjoying the sunshine after the long winter months.* many are commuters, cycling to work and/or school, and were i to wear a hat, it would be off to their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint. others are serious bikers, wearing special biking clothes, helmets, shoes. a friend of mine here owns five bikes. seriously, who needs five bikes? but, you see, they're all different kinds of bikes. utility, racing, mountain, and variations therein. madisonians do not fool around when it comes to cycling. [to give my friend her props, she did have a tramatic bus ride last week - she got hit on by a toothless man and a blind woman sat on her lap. i'd ride a bike too if the bus was my alternative transportation.]

madison is a pretty friendly bike town. there are bike lanes on most major streets and most bicyclists are defensive drivers, but omg, there are just so many of them! to your right while you're driving, crossing the street while you're waiting to turn left, waiting at a stoplight next to you. and what happens when the bike lane ends? all of a sudden, you're sharing the road with them, you can't get too close to the car on your left, you don't want to hit the biker on your right, you find yourself gripping the steering wheel at 10 and 2 with white knuckles and a tension headache. the worst is when there's a right turn lane, a bike lane to its left, you're in the driving lane to the left of the bike lane, and you need to get into that right turn lane. you have to cross over the bike lane. i think i check my mirrors and over my shoulder, like forty-five times before i cross over.

oh! and you should see the looks the bicyclists give you! behind their special bicyclist sunglasses are eyes full of judgement. 'why don't you ride a bike?' they ask. 'why are you driving a car, polluting our environment, not being healthy and exercising like me?' my eyes send messages right back. 'why don't you move to madison from los angeles where no one rides their bikes or takes the bus because the roads aren't pedestrian friendly and the bus system stinks? how do you have enough time to ride a bike or take the bus which takes three to four times longer than driving your own car? oh, not in a phd program and studying sixteen hours a day? excuse me while i cross over your bike lane.'

so, yet another challenge, albeit one i can definitely handle. although, come to think about it, when i was learning to drive around snow, i did hit a car...bicyclists beware.

*these numbers have not been verified

winter's legacy

it's not yet spring, but the snow has mostly melted, leaving in it's wake mushy brown sod. like a receding hairline, the white blanket of frozen matter slowly changed from a solid to a liquid state, revealing, inch by inch, lawns, parks, those strips of land between the sidewalk and the street, landscaping long forgotten.

but there's snow that doesn't melt. heat doesn't melt it. rain doesn't melt it. sodium chloride doesn't melt it. black snow. snow that sits in piles along the streets and in parking lots. snow that has become so mixed with exhaust fumes and other pollutants, it is no longer recognizable as the pretty white snow it once was. what will it take to make this snow go away? how long will it take? and where will it go?

(picture courtesy of google images)

oh wisconsin, what have you gotten yourself into

well, it's official: i'm official. officially a wisconsinite. i finally made it to the dmv today, while it was open and with all of the necessary documents. i'll get my new wisconsin driver's license by mail in 7-10 days. in the meantime, i have a 'driver's receipt' to carry around. it's pretty not awesome and i was very sad to relinquish my california driver's license. as far as the title for my car, because i didn't bring in my current title, and apparently, there's some law that you can only have one title per car at any given time, i got to pay for a wisconsin title but i didn't actually receive a wisconsin title. i didn't even get a 'title receipt'! the very nice woman behind the counter did say, however, that if i bring in my california title and pay the dmv another $5, they'll give me the wisconsin title. finally, wisconsin license plates. these, i actually walked out of the dmv with. haven't put them on my car yet (what! i just got home, like 10 minutes ago!) but i have them. can't complain about the wait at the dmv, it really wasn't bad. i will however complain about the $177.50 that the three transactions cost. ridiculous.

so there it is, i'm a wisconsin resident with wisconsin license plates, a wisconsin title (theoretically) and a wisconsin driver's license, i mean, receipt. i've even made it through most of my first wisconsin winter (i think 40 degrees sounds heavenly warm). the only thing left is to develop a love for beer, brats (bratwursts), and cheese curds.

i might have to be ok with living on the fringe of wisconsin society.

smell my breath

dentists, dental hygenists, dentist office secretaries who wear scrubs, my friend kristin. for years i've been hearing about the wonderful blessings that will be bestowed upon one's teeth if only one will use an electric toothbrush. sonicare, oral-b, doesn't matter. the key is the vibrating brush that properly hits all the surfaces of your teeth for a full two minutes.

so, you guessed it, this weekend i got my very own electric toothbrush. this morning, i used it for the first time. i put toothpaste on the brush, turned it on, and proceeded to fling toothpaste all over the bathroom. my second attempt involved putting the toothpaste on the vibrating brush really, really close to my open mouth. tonight i'll try turning on the brush after i put the brush in my mouth (thanks, kristin - genius!).

so to get everything brushed proportionally and for a full two minutes, you're supposed to brush outer upper for 30 seconds, inner upper for 30 seconds, outer lower for 30 seconds, and inner lower for 27 seconds. just kidding! 30 seconds. there's supposed to be a 'beep' (onomatopoeia!) to notify you of the 30-second mark. apparently, i missed all of the beeps because the toothbrush shut off and i was still on the upper outers - they got a really good cleaning. i thought it seemed like a really long 30 seconds, but who am i to question an electric toothbrush?

so, who knew? there's a learning curve for electric-toothbrush use. despite my inability to master my new toothbrush right out of the box, my teeth felt really clean so i couldn't have screwed up too badly. is it wrong to feel so victorious?