Good News All Around

I have booked a trip to see Mr. Phizz, so there will be another visit between now and Labor Day.

I have gotten permission to think about setting a date for my defense.

Cheney

I've always believed this, but I'll say it again...Cheney is such a motherfucking douchenozzle.

TdF

Is anyone else enjoying the Tour de France?

Dude, it's so awesome. I'm loving it.

I want to see some fucking hammers dropping as the mountain stages continue. Yeah!!!

Now that I am working....

It alarms me to the degree that today being Friday makes me happen.

Not that I don't like work - I like it, I really do, but it's frightening how glad I am that it's Friday...however, the new cadence of how work is - 5 days of work in a row where I go to this place and work, then come home and chill out/work on thesis, then 2 days of just doing whatever...I kind of like this cadence. I am ready for this to be my new life, as opposed to the academic life where all day, every day, I was thinking about work, or thinking that I should be working.

In the meanwhile, it is fucking not easy to work on your thesis while you are working another job. This is another thing I dont' recommend!

Long Distance is Hard

Mr. Phizz, my own personal Mr. Amazing, as I've blogged about many times before, and I have been having some difficulties with the distance, because it's exacerbated by a number of things:

1. Before, when we had to deal with distance, we both went to new places. This time, I am in the new place and I have left him behind.
2. Before, we were in the same time zone. Now we are not.
3. Before, I did not have a job that demanded a lot of my attention and time. Now I do.
4. Before, we were not married, now we are. This means that a lot of logistical decisions about life affect both of us and merit discussion, whereas before I would just do what I did because it was my life and he was just my boyfriend.

All told, we are holding up well, but I do not recommend doing what we are doing. Fortunately though, in the grand scheme of things we are still good - he supports me and my job and is not blaming me for leaving him behind at all. The difficulties are just artifacts of the circumstances we are in.

I love the guy. But man, I wish he could visit me more.

Insurance and Gender Shiz

So I'm shopping around for car insurance. I'm applying for a bunch of online quotes. And a few websites (though I can't remember who), really really pissed me off.

Several, upon finding that I was married, then asked for the information on my spouse, and auto-filled the spousal last name to be the same as mine. It just struck me as strange, to see Mr. Phizz's first name paired with my last name. It made me just a little bit mad, that they made this assumption that spouses have the same last name.

Then, there was one website that actually HAD NO FIELD AT ALL for putting in the spouse last name. In other words, they had no means for me to indicate that Mr. Phizz and I have different last names. At all. I was like, wtf?

For some reason, this made me really really mad.

Movies and Books

I may feel really busy with work, but I've been managing to sneak in some time to watch movies and read books.

The books I've read have mostly been chick lit - where I just wanted some fluff that I could finish in a few hours so that when I got obsessed (which I always do), I would be able to return as a normal functioning human being quickly.

I've read:

• Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella. My first Kinsella book. Appropriately cute and fluffy.
• The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Anne Brashares. Also a cute book. Very young feeling, but was fine. I enjoyed it for what it was.
• The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. This was a deeper book, definitely not chick lit. And I enjoyed it more deeply than the others, kind of how I would a really great dinner (as opposed to the other books, which I enjoyed the way I enjoy potato chips).

Currently, I'm reading a non-fiction book called "The Survival of Beauty" which assessed beauty in a quasi-scientific manner and what it means to society. I've only just begun, but since it's non-fiction I won't get as obsessed with the storyline and will be able to put it down when I need to.

As for movies, last night I saw "Taken" with Liam Neeson. First of all, Liam Neeson is a first-class actor. I'm not sure he used it so much in this movie, but he was an extremely believable character here. Anyway, the movie was just good. I was literally on the edge of my seat. Sometimes I use that phrase a bit flippantly, but toward the end of the movie I realized I had scooted up from being reclined on the couch to sitting on the edge, all tense and hunched. All in all, I enjoyed it. I'd recommend it for a Netflix rental. Perhaps not a $5 blockbuster rental, but as part of Netflix queue, I'd say, "foshizzle!"

I am trying to catch up on everyone's blogs. I have deeper things to blog but I never seem to have the time to put them to paper anymore. HA! Paper. I mean "the internet".

This was a totally useless post. Have great weekends all!