The Soap Box
A place for me to dump my brain and you to pick thru it

My Cat Could Work at Gitmo
11:50am

Cats are quirky beings. Especially mine. I have one cat, whom we fondly refer to as Crazy Old Lady Cat, who spends most of her life on our bed...which is fine. She's very well behaved for the most part. She always uses the litter box, etc. However, starting at around 7am every morning she will start meowing for me to get her fresh water. When I say fresh water, I mean fresh spring water from downstairs. I realize it's all my fault that she equates fresh spring water with the only type of water worth drinking but it happened for a good reason...sorta. Apparently, if a cat can't smell the water, they won't drink it. This often happens if they get sick and their noses are stuffed up. In fact, that's the only time this particular cat wants to drink out of the toilet (GROSS). So anyway, one day she wouldn't drink the tap water and I thought maybe she was getting sick so I went downstairs to get her spring water because I was paranoid that if she didn't drink she'd keel over and die. (See why I don't have human babies?) So then she got a taste for spring water and that's all she wants to drink now and it's a royal pain in the ass for me!

So around 7am she will meow for water, which wakes me up but I tend to play possum and not move. I'll easily fall back to sleep at which point she meows again. I'll fall back to sleep and she meows again. I swear she can tell the instant I'm back asleep and waits for that exact moment. Usually, we play this game, although I am not a willing participant, until around 8:30 when it's too late. Now I'm awake and pissed off at the damn cat. I do wonder where she learned this particular form of morning torture. I swear though, if she did the same thing to get information out of me, I'd gladly tell her anything just so I could go back to sleep in peace...especially on a Sunday!

Fool Me Once, Shame On You. Fool Me Twice...
10:25pm

Nathan Fillion, best known as Captain Malcolm Reynolds from Firefly, has picked poorly once again. When I saw that he was going to star in Fox's new show Drive, I thought, "How can Fillion work for Fox again after what they did to Firefly?" I mean, here was a well written, very entertaining show that Fox jerked around so much that even its diehard fans had no idea when it was on.

So here is the wonderful actor, Nathan Fillion, starring in another vehicle for Fox. The funny thing is, I've watched the show and I thought, "Whoever wrote this is a genius! You got some great rock music and people racing in cars. And not that boring around the track NASCAR racing. This has street racing! People racing on sidewalks. In really hot cars! And it's got Nathan Fillion to boot!" Boy, was I wrong. After the 2 hour premiere and 2 episodes during its regularly scheduled time slot, Drive has been cancelled. The other 9 episodes already shot with either never see the light of day, will be shown on iTunes, or will show up in a "Season 1" boxed set of DVD next week.

So the lesson for Fillion is obviously to never EVER do a show for Fox. The lesson for me is to not bother watching (and ergo not get hooked) on any show on Fox. After all, now they've cancelled Futurama, Firefly, Greg the Bunny, Family Guy, Arrested Development, Dark Angel...

I Still Don't Get It
12:07am

Even though I am a third year graduate student in Psychology, I still don't understand how one day you can be anxious about everything --school, family, relationships, finances -- and then the next day it all doesn't seem so overwhelming. Nothing has necessarily changed but some days are just a lot easier to put up with. Personally anxiety plays with my sleep patterns and physical health in very bad ways. I get the most sick when I'm stressed out and my body just gives up. Depending on a meeting I have tomorrow with my mentor, my weekend may be full of such stress that I most likely freeze and get nothing done or full of working on a take home final. Believe it or not, I'd rather work on the final than be paralyzed with anxiety. Call me crazy...

A Penny Saved...
11:08pm

So April's a difficult month financially, with taxes and all. Nick and I found ourselves a little short on funds to go out last weekend. However, by scraping all the pennies in our house and in our cars together, we had enough change to go to the dollar theater (which actually costs $2 on weekends) and have enough left over to get some snacks at the convenience store and sneak them in the theater. It was kinda fun turning our leftover change into something entertaining. Of course, now we won't be able to do it again for a few year...when our penny collection grows back into the monster it was.

Odds and Ends
4:36am

Happy birthday to Jack Nicholson who turns 70 today! Holy cow!

And speaking of movies, do you ever wonder why some actors, after initially having great success in movies, couldn't pick a winning script if their lives depended on it? It seems to me that several actresses fall into this category such as Meg Ryan and Sandra Bullock. Entertainment Weekly just gave Meg Ryan's newest movie (In the Land of Women) a grade of F. Ouch! Bullocks latest movie, Premonition, didn't fare much better. It's too bad too because when Bullock is in a decent movie, I do enjoy watching her. But ever since she tricked me into seeing Forces of Nature, I won't go see another one of her movies without reading reviews first. You know, John Cusack is in dire need of a hit movie too around now...

Has anyone seen this season's green uniforms of the Red Sox? Man, they freak me out. With the red long sleeved shirt under them, they kinda remind me of Christmas. You know, red & green? I was really against them until I found out the Sox were wearing them to honor Red Auerbach. Ahhh...ok, I get it. I can accept them now, but I still don't like the way they look. For some reason, they seem minor league to me.

A Japanese toilet maker is recalling bidets because they may catch on fire! I admit I don't have a bidet myself but what part of a bidet, exactly, can catch on fire? I totally don't get it and I don't want to. "Fortunately, nobody was using the toilets when the fire broke out and there were no injuries," company spokesman Tanaka said. "The fire would have been just under your buttocks." Yeah, that would feel good.

Virginia Shootings
12:57pm

Didn't I just blog on March 29th about how sick this society was? This is not an unrelated incident. This is not a fluke. This is the continuation of a pattern.

The question in my mind is will it get worse before it gets better? The optimist in me says no. The realist says yes.

Whatever
2:09pm

Yeah, I haven't been blogging. There are 3 weeks of classes left and I have no motivation. I have to initiate my comprehensive exams by the end of the semester and I just don't wanna. I mean I REALLY don't wanna. I'm struggling with my health. I feel like crap about 75% of the time over the past month. And because I don't like to just bitch on this blog, I don't really have anything to say so I will leave you with a bit of trivia.

In the 1984 movie Scarface, the word "fuck" is said on an average of once ever 29 seconds. We've come a long way from when Gone With the Wind was made (1939) and the word "damn" was so controversial!

And that's all I got for ya.

The Confession Booth
10:51pm

One thing that always gets me about school is the revolving door of people coming and going. It's getting close to the end of the year and that means I have to say goodbye to friends leaving on internship, transferring to other schools or leaving the program for other reasons. I don't make friends easily, never have, and I really am not fond of change. Harder for me than making friends is keeping in touch with old ones. It would all be a lot easier if people could just stay put. Pretty impractical, huh?

At the start of each school year, when we have new lab members, it is assumed that I will orient them and take them under my wing and play the big sister. And really I don't mind but I am less enthusiastic regarding this role with each passing year. I was excited when I was no longer the only grad student and the first thing I did was pass on the role of lab manager. Unfortunately, the new grad student wasn't really interested in that role either. It's interesting. I'm in one of the rare labs where no one needs to lead. No one needs to be the boss. This is not to say we are not hardworking or competent. It's more like we have so much expected of us school-wise that we really don't need the extra work or the extra power that come with the position. We're all pretty happy keeping our heads down and getting our shit done without being noticed for the most part.

So, it's time to say goodbye to old friends and hello to new. Even though it happens every year, it does not get any easier.

WTF?
10:32am

It is snowing outside. Let me repeat that. IT IS SNOWING OUTSIDE on April 7th in the desert. What is up with that? It was 80 degrees just a couple of days ago. All my fruit trees are blooming and this sudden shock of cold could kill all the fruit for this year. While I don't think you could prove the existence of global warming in Albuquerque, NM, you could prove that the weather patterns have gone cookoo-crazy for sure!

Is This Why I Feel So Bad?
9:55pm

So, before you look at the info below, I just want you to know that a count of 91 pollen grains per cubic meter of air sampled is considered high. Also, I live on the east side. OK, now go look...

Yeah, that's gotta be why my scalp itches, the inside of my ears itch, my throat burns, my eyes water and I just wanna die.

New Goal in Life
6:01pm

I'm gonna get liposuction then eat pizza until I'm back to my current form.

Blast From the Past
8:24pm

I used to live here.

Blog Name: The Soap Box
Email: jenben[at]g-r-c.com
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