(no subject)
I have a bet on with my roommate, he says I can't get my room clean to his standards by Friday, I say I can. If I win he has to cook potatoes, which he never does. If he wins, I have to try a yeast cake (his term for the type of cake I despise, as being dry, tasteless and generally yucky).
I admit, it wasn't looking good. I've been so tired, and so eager to catch up all my books that I have been yearning to read, I wasn't really trying. He looked in this morning, and I saw the smugness in his eyes.
Ah, but then. Then came the Grin. I felt it slowly creeping up on me, the look I know I get when I've decided to try something bizarre, or do something people say I won't be able to. My father's whole family is prone to this look, a dangerous light that comes into their eyes, and wicked smile. It's a dangerous look. In the eyes of Eileen or Mary, it means we might want to back away and get a fire extinguisher. In the eyes of more....competent members of the family, it means something weird is likely to happen, but it will all work out. It's the look my father got in his eyes while rigging up his home-made pontoon boat (made of two metal-clad pontoons, held together by two boards) so that he could tow it to the lake behind his bike. It's a fun look to have.
This, of course means that I will win my bet. Because no impossible to get perfectly clean room can stand up to the Look. The Look takes it all in and laughs at its puniness, and mess will melt away before it. I am usually competent. When the Grin comes, I am unstoppable. I carry six foot wooden bookshelves home to my apartment on a scooter, and get said bookshelves set up inside my room, up the stairs and through the narrow corridors, all by myself even though I cannot lift the bookshelf entirely. Since this afternoon when the Grin first set upon me, my room has gone from being entirely impossible to finish by Friday to being somewhat unlikely but certainly possible to finish by Friday. Almost all of my books are cataloged, most of my craft supplies are neatly stacked, the yarn is mostly put away, it's only my notes from the semester and random cap to sort through and laundry to do. I am somewhat ashamed to report that with almost all of my books cataloged, I only have 456. I thought I had more books than that: what kind of crap bibliophile am I?
Oh, and I switched the binding on my Bluebook. It's a crappy binding, so I took my toy, which was made out of binding materials from Co-Op, and sacrificed it in order to give my Bluebook a decent spiral binding that would allow me to flip pages at will without risking tearing them out. That will be helpful for the summer!
Looking forward to potatoes soon. Love potatoes. And corn. HOLY CRAP, the corn up here is SO DELICIOUS!!!! I was previously of the opinion that one cob of corn was a perfectly good meal. I am now of the opinion that it is too good to just eat one, at least two must be consumed to make a proper meal, and only strong willpower is enough to prevent three from being consumed. I have this week gone through 9 cobs of corn. It's just that good. Every evening, I hope Damian won't cook because then I'll have an excuse to have more corn for supper. COOOOORN! I know I complain a lot about Yankee food, but damn, their corn is out of this world.
I admit, it wasn't looking good. I've been so tired, and so eager to catch up all my books that I have been yearning to read, I wasn't really trying. He looked in this morning, and I saw the smugness in his eyes.
Ah, but then. Then came the Grin. I felt it slowly creeping up on me, the look I know I get when I've decided to try something bizarre, or do something people say I won't be able to. My father's whole family is prone to this look, a dangerous light that comes into their eyes, and wicked smile. It's a dangerous look. In the eyes of Eileen or Mary, it means we might want to back away and get a fire extinguisher. In the eyes of more....competent members of the family, it means something weird is likely to happen, but it will all work out. It's the look my father got in his eyes while rigging up his home-made pontoon boat (made of two metal-clad pontoons, held together by two boards) so that he could tow it to the lake behind his bike. It's a fun look to have.
This, of course means that I will win my bet. Because no impossible to get perfectly clean room can stand up to the Look. The Look takes it all in and laughs at its puniness, and mess will melt away before it. I am usually competent. When the Grin comes, I am unstoppable. I carry six foot wooden bookshelves home to my apartment on a scooter, and get said bookshelves set up inside my room, up the stairs and through the narrow corridors, all by myself even though I cannot lift the bookshelf entirely. Since this afternoon when the Grin first set upon me, my room has gone from being entirely impossible to finish by Friday to being somewhat unlikely but certainly possible to finish by Friday. Almost all of my books are cataloged, most of my craft supplies are neatly stacked, the yarn is mostly put away, it's only my notes from the semester and random cap to sort through and laundry to do. I am somewhat ashamed to report that with almost all of my books cataloged, I only have 456. I thought I had more books than that: what kind of crap bibliophile am I?
Oh, and I switched the binding on my Bluebook. It's a crappy binding, so I took my toy, which was made out of binding materials from Co-Op, and sacrificed it in order to give my Bluebook a decent spiral binding that would allow me to flip pages at will without risking tearing them out. That will be helpful for the summer!
Looking forward to potatoes soon. Love potatoes. And corn. HOLY CRAP, the corn up here is SO DELICIOUS!!!! I was previously of the opinion that one cob of corn was a perfectly good meal. I am now of the opinion that it is too good to just eat one, at least two must be consumed to make a proper meal, and only strong willpower is enough to prevent three from being consumed. I have this week gone through 9 cobs of corn. It's just that good. Every evening, I hope Damian won't cook because then I'll have an excuse to have more corn for supper. COOOOORN! I know I complain a lot about Yankee food, but damn, their corn is out of this world.