she's much prettier . . .

. . . than Dante, don't you think?

As seen at lil'rumpus's.

*************************

Galadriel

Possessing a rare combination of wisdom and humility, while serenely dominating your environment you selflessly use your powers to care for others.

Even the smallest person can change the course of the future.

Galadriel is a character in the Middle-Earth universe. You can read more about her at the Galadriel Worshippers Army.

**********************

I'll try to return with some substance soon.

but misery loves company

Seems Nim and I will be having tea as we chart our way though hell.

You scored as Dante Alighieri. According to you most of humanity will spend at least some of their afterlife in hell. You have a high likelihood of being exiled, but anyone as bloody fucking romantic as you deserves what they get. You have an exceptional moral code, overshadowed by the fact that you yourself cannot uphold it. Your existence bears a definite irony, although of fairly Christian morality, many pagans, satanists, communists, and intellectuals admire you and your works for all the wrong reasons. Also, the brighest star in your sky is never going to be your lover... It takes a lot of grief to be the cartographer of hell. Dante Alighieri 83% C.G. Jung 67% Stephen Hawking 58% Friedrich Nietzsche 58% Steven Morrissey 50% Mother Teresa 42% Miyamoto Musashi 33% Charles Manson 33% Adolf Hitler 25% Jesus Christ 25% Sigmund Freud 25% O.J. Simpson 25% Hugh Hefner 0% Elvis Presley 0% What Pseudo Historical Figure Best Suits You? created with QuizFarm.com

20 things i probably should know but i don't

• World geography
• My late grandparents' middle names
• The phone numbers of my closest (geographically and interpersonally) friends
• How to change a tire
• My weight
• The driving route to my mother's house
• The formula for calculating percentages
• The names of birds who sing or squawk or trill within hearing distance of my front porch
• The last names of my neighbors
• My medical history
• The license plate numbers of my cars
• What it's like to have viewed Citizen Kane or Casablanca
• The names or order of all the U.S. presidents
• My tolerance level when it comes to doing shots or drinking hard liquor in any form
• What I think would make me happy
• The names of all elected officials in my state
• The deans most relevant to my job
• How to file taxes
• My average blood pressure
• How to spell consistent

random bullets of "you have to be kidding me"

• Bush's address on the war in Iraq.
• Over 10 hours of doggy-insanity while I tried to prep for the new semester.
• Being granted a course release the semester before I go up for tenure--rather than a sabbatical--on the condition that I teach a class of 300 students.
• Having The Glorious but still having my spine crushed on a nightly basis.
• A friend/colleague misspelling my name--repeatedly--in his editorial statement upon his taking the reins from me in his editorship of The Top Tier journal in my field.
  
• Nearly a year passing since my father's death and feeling as if it were a day.
• Madonna's Truth or Dare. I'm watching it right now. I thought she was the awesomest person alive when this film debuted.

housecleaning

For the past few days, I've been chiseling away at the various messes surrounding, impeding, and constituting me.

• I made the annual trip to the office supply store for files, labels, sticky notes, and binder clips of three sizes. I started making piles in my home office to be further harnessed by the abovementioned supplies.
• I spent over three hours over two days cleaning off my virtual desktop. About halfway through the task, I realized that I had nearly 200 documents (mostly resting in one virtual pile in the top righthand corner of the screen) that needed to be filed or trashed. And, of course, I had to open the majority of said documents given my inability to recall the significance of titles such as "fac memo 3-06." Often, I found myself wondering why I downloaded and saved certain documents in the first place. On the other hand, I found quite a few essays that will be quite useful in my current and upcoming projects.
  
• I spent another three hours focused on my email. After deleting 10 of the 320 pages of messages in my Inbox, I did a quick calculation and learned that, with 25 messages per page, I had 8,000 messages just sitting there. If it took me three hours to delete 250 messages--and these deletions were easy (mostly old listserv crap)--how long will it take to get through the remaining 7,750? Errr. Make that 7,759. I got 9 messages today. All work-related. All yet to be addressed.
• Yesterday, I met with my therapist. (I need to give her a pseudonym. I've been seeing her for a year and a half, but haven't talked about her. Hmmm. Probably because we do lots of hard work together that I'd rather not go into here. Overall, though, she brings me such peace. Let's call her "Serenity.") We did our usual thing--focused on how I can handle better the maelstrom of my emotions and the required clean-up that follows--then our talk made a surprising turn. Serenity started asking me about Dr. Spanky. Seems Spanky is overstepping his bounds a bit, by Serenity's estimation. She thinks he's engaging in therapy with me just a leeetle bit too much. Plus, Spanky doesn't consult with her. A big no-no in co-care of a patient/client. Seems to me Spanky's going to get a talking-to. So, while I felt pretty good about our session yesterday, I may have messed up Dr. Spanky's day a leeetle bit. Oops.
• Finally, I've spent some time cleaning up my Bloglines account and my Blogroll. Check out the roll! If I missed anyone who would like to be added, just email me and I'll get you on the roll. Unless you're, like, creepy or something.
  

lady medusa is right

One should have a new title for the new year.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Reverend Countess Lucyrain the Discombobulated of New Porton Wells Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title