keymaster

we had a small office meeting at work yesterday in which we were able to voice any problems or concerns. i piped up and said that i didnt have a key to the office (only once have i arrived before anyone else, but still....). so i got one. thousands of medical charts, drug samples, and stickey notes at my disposal....muwahh ha ha ha ha!!!!!!!

(disclaimer- yes, i have a conscience, and could never ever steal from my place of work....well, except for the stickey notes, maybe....we get them from drug reps all the time and we have a huge cabinet full of them.)

mouse in my house: part deux

last night parley put out some glue traps in hopes of catching a mouse. one of the traps was placed at the bottom of the stairs going up to my room (we have suspicions that they are nesting in the attic space behind my closet). i got up and showered this morning, and as i was walking from the bathroom to my room, noticed a rustling sound at the foot of the stairs. i turned on the light and saw this poor little mouse trying frantically to free itself from a glue trap. still in my bathrobe, i woke up parley (it was 7:30, he was not pleased) and told him to deal with it- there was no way that i was going to leave for work with that mouse still going crazy. parley was able to free the mouse using veggie oil, and then tossed it into the neighbor's yard across the fence. if i notice any glowing rosebushes outside, i'll know that our mouse extermination failed.

small world

so we finally replaced our awol check in girl at work, a nice girl about a year younger than me. she's worked in med offices before, so she's got a decent background for what she's doing. she's been here for about 2 weeks, and she's done fairly well. still has a few things to pick up on, but for the most part is learning quickly. turns out that she's from mexico. i asked her if she knew my ex joe, which she did- was in his graduating class in high school (her response was- 'you dated him?.....that's....interesting. he used to be sooo quiet, but then he made new friends and turned into this whole different person'). she also knew my freshman roommate brielle (she gave her condolences for having to put up with her).

i was talking with my ex mark a month ago, and he told me that he was approached by a girl named erin at one of his grad seminar meetings in blue springs. she asked if he knew me, to which he gave one of those smug 'actually, i dated her' answers. turns out that erin is now dating joe, who is currently living in overland park. erin knew that mark was a social studies major, and probably knew who i was, and he was able to give her an update of what i was doing.

it's bizzare how small this world can be...although it's probably made smaller by the fact that i'm still living in columbia.

there's a mouse in my house!

we have known for quite some time that there is a mouse, or more likely mice, in our house. i've seen it in my room a few times, and it occasionally makes apperances downstairs. we hadnt done anything about them thus far since they havent bothered us too much. then i read this thing about how mice are responsible for about 70% of all electrical fires and can sometimes carry 'the deadly hantavirus' (sounds like something i dont want to mess with). josh came over this afternoon and while we were watching football, we saw the cutest little baby mouse just sauntering through the living room. it couldnt move very fast, so we decided to try and catch it. we were able to get it trapped in a small trash can. it was probably the most adorable thing i had ever seen...we didnt have the heart to kill it. josh almost wanted to take it home with him and keep it as a pet, but we didnt have a good container for him to take it back with. so we walked to the end of my parking lot and let it out in the grass (a good 80 feet from the house- we figured it wouldnt be able to find its way back...but who knows...). that's one less mouse to worry about. i know that there's at least one adult mouse out there that can move pretty fast, so we may have to invest in some traps. i hope they arent crafty enough to outwit them...

it was a huuuge choir....

did anyone else see the newsweek article featured on msn today about the mormon church? i thought it was pretty interesting. they also had a slideshow featuring 'megachurches', and they included the conference center...even though it's technically not a church.

'ugh, this costume is so damn heavy'

i've been trying really hard to think up of a halloween costume for this year. usually i'll dress up as a movie character- past costumes include margot tennenbaum, holly golightly (pictured below), and mia wallace (from pulp fiction). this year's going to be a little more difficult because josh has expressed interest in having a dual costume- and two are harder to plan than one. ideas generated thus far:
1. mitch and mickey from a mighty wind
2. david st. hubbins and janine from spinal tap
3. the dude and maude from the big lebowski
so far none of these has gained any substantial favor with either of us, with possible exception of #3 because josh really likes that movie and quotes it all the time. i personally like #1 because i think it's the most doable. if anyone has suggestions, they will certainly be taken into consideration- the more obscure the better.

*interesting side note- the green thing with wings behind me is parley- dressed as tinkerbell. i sewed his dress myself. we attached little tinsle pom poms to his chucks- it was cute.

"well.....i guess i'll have to develop a sense of humor."

last thursday my friend jon invited me to go to an artist lecture on campus, because i 'like art and stuff'. he wanted to go because his art appreciation class would give him extra credit for writing a short paper over it. i asked 'who's the artist', and he said, 'i'm not really sure, but i think he's kind of controversial...'. that was enough to pique my interest, and i agreed to go. turns out that this particular artist became quite notorious in the late 80's/early 90's for this photograph:

when i first saw this photograph, i thought it was quite beautiful- i like the lighting, the way the crucifix glows against the darker background. 'what about this is so controversial?', a casual observer might wonder. and to be honest, at face value there is nothing controversial about it. upon further investigation, however, one will learn that this is a photograph of a crucifix in a large tub of urine, aptly named piss christ. the artist (mary ann probably already knew this one): andres serrano. this photograph caused an uproar in congress in 1989 and all kinds of censorship debates ensued. people argued that it was offensive to christians, sacrilegious, and profane. what i have to wonder is, if it didnt have such a 'descriptive' title, would there have been any controversy at all?

i really enjoyed his lecture because he was nothing like i expected. i though he would drone on and on about the underlying themes of his work or the responses he was trying to provoke from people...but he was very casual and down-to-earth about it all. why piss christ? all the titles of his work are that frank- they describe what's in the picture. why urine? his early photographs were of fluids- mostly blood, urine, and milk. he did all kinds of 'immersion' photographs, in either water or urine. he claimed that he had no idea that piss christ would cause such a stir. throughout the lecture he allowed the audience to ask questions, and one of my favorites was a woman who asked in a rather haughty tone, 'surely you must have realized that the combination of 'piss' and 'christ' would've upset people...'. he kind of chuckled and replied 'surely, i did not.'

anyway, i was glad that i went because i had always heard about andres' work, but never really looked at it before. i had heard about all the piss christ controversy, but had never taken the time to look at the work itself. perhaps it's naive of me, but i believe the artist when he says that it was not his intent to be inflammatory- he just thought it would look good. and i think it does.