updates, and my first screenplay

I really appreciate yall humoring me this week. Who knew I would launch Comment-Gate on you without any warning like that? Ha! Anyway. Let's be honest: commenting systems are like...extremely low on the list of Things That Matter in the World. And actually even pretty low of list of Things That Matter in My Life. But thanks for joining me in over-thinking it to death this week. And for VOTING!! So far 43 people have voted, which I think is more than turned out for the last presidential election in America, so I'm pretty happy about that! The vote is way closer than I had anticipated, so I'm going to not call this race just yet. Perhaps I'll reveal the results over the weekend. In the meantime, feel free to keep voting!

Let's see. In other, non-comment-system news...

-One of our Chinese visitors emailed us back last night! He seems very sweet (?? that is probably not okay to describe a man in his mid-20s, is it. Kind? Friendly?) and his written English is fantastic, so that's good! (Then again, not surprising. He's coming to grad school in America...where classes will be in English...so if you can handle graduate-level physics in English, I'm guessing a friendly email is fairly manageable) He is going to be arriving even earlier than we'd expected- Tuesday! Like, the one that's next week! Yikes! So now we have even less time to prepare (our other student is arriving on Friday the 26th). He did, however, comment that Lola is 'lovely' (we sent pictures) and that he looks forward to meeting her, so I think we are all gonna get along juuuuust fine.

-Guess what coffee-table book I got for free yesterday?

Oooh yes. Indeed. I found it in the little free book exchange thing in downtown Athens. I'm sure you're familiar with the blog, but apparently they turned it into a book (which then someone gave away to the free book exchange, so do with that what you will). So obviously I snatched it up and brought it back to work where we proceeded to waste a nice chunk of time laughing at people. I generously donated the book to our break room so that people have something hilarious to look at while they eat their lunch. Also, it looks like they seriously published this book on Shutterfly. It looks exactly like the photo books I've made of vacations and family weddings. Then again...well, yeah. I don't know what else I'd expect from a photos-with-captions blog trying to write a book, so whatever. Do whatcha gotta do, I guess.

-I have turned into a terrible wannabe triathlete-trainee. Seriously. You have probably noticed that I have the sports-commitment of a flea (I think that metaphor is going to start catching on...) and currently tri training is not NEARLY as fun as tennis, so it's taking a backseat. Which is dumb if I think I'm still going to compete, but there you have it. I like to do what's currently most fun to me, and as long as I can limit that tendency to the exercise arena (versus using that philosophy with, say, jobs...money...relationships...things that MATTER...), I don't really see a problem. I felt a tiny bit guilty going to the tennis court yesterday afternoon when it was finally sunny and I really SHOULD HAVE been riding my bike or running...but whatever. Tennis is my favorite sport du jour and so maybe I'll do the tri and maybe I'll punk out. At any rate, my knee is still giving me too many problems to run, so this is probably better than just doing nothing, right? (Well, unless resting would allow it to actually get better...but that's just not an option.)

-I watched the last half-hour of SharkNado last night. It was as ridiculous as I had anticipated. That kind of laughter is good for the soul.  I wish I had been in the meeting where they thought of this whole concept. "Alright, guys...what are two REALLY SCARY things that we can blend together to make THE SCARIEST THING EVER? And then we'll get a fourth grader to do our special effects using Microsoft Paint and IT'S GONNA BE AWESOME!!" If it were me thinking of the things I'm most scared of, you woulda been watching BirdHotelBeds. So just be thankful I wasn't in the meeting, because NO ONE could handle that scary of a film.

The skinny, vapid blonde girl and her meathead husband enter their luxurious hotel room, giggling and flirting as they unlock the door and stumble through the doorway, dropping their luggage. As they lay down to sleep off their jetlag (my movie is PG, guys), Blondie's hair fans out on the pristine white pillowcase. As the first snores escape Meathead's mouth (nostrils?), we glimpse the sheets starting to move strangely. As the violin music crescendos, we see the sheets transform into a giant flock of birds. Blood splatters the IKEA wall art as the birds mercilessly peck Blondie and Meathead and savagely touch them with their wings. And feet. Blondie's shrieks drown out the violins as we fade to black.

And with that, I'm gonna get back to my day job. Have a good weekend. Good luck sleeping, and may God help any of you who might find yourself in a hotel bed...