this poem

"Separation" by W.S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color

-------------

Ahhhh, beautiful. Isn't it the truth?

i've never had more non-perishable food in my possession.

After last year's Hurricane Irene ended up being not much more than a missed day of church and a walk to see the swollen Schuylkill River for us, we weren't too worried about Frankenstorm Sandy. Until for no apparent reason I did get worried and two trips to grocery stores later we had a new propane tank, five cases of bottled water, flashlights, a full tank of gas, and so much canned food and boxes of cereal. (and candy corn!) I even got interviewed by a news guy at Lowe's about my hurricane preparations. It was really awkward, and now I know I have no career in television. Thank you Sandy!

On today's preparedness agenda: buy flashlights + batteries (check), bake pumpkin bread (same idea as candy corn: if we must suffer through no electricity, we might as well eat something delicious), clean the bathtub.

Tomorrow's agenda: turn the temperature down on the fridge and freezer to their lowest settings, fill up water bottles and tupperware with water and put in freezer, fill bathtub with water.

Monday's agenda: SURVIVE. 

Any awesome monster storm survival tips you have that you want to share with the Utah girl who can only deal with snow? 

grad school: I think I'm doing it wrong

The other week I went to a de-stressing seminar sponsored by the Women in Chemistry club. As I listened to everyone talk about how stressed out they are, and how they feel the need to constantly be in the lab and feel guilty when they're not, I realized maybe my grad school experience so far has been an anomaly.

I don't think I'm stressed enough. I get to lab between 8 and 9 in the morning, and leave around 6 every day, plus a few hours on Saturdays. When I get home, I do nothing related to chemistry. I don't read papers or ponder my data. And up until that seminar, I didn't even feel guilty about it. BUT, now I'm stressed out that I'm not stressed out enough, which I guess is simultaneously solving the problem and yet making my life a lot less enjoyable.

I think I would be able to brush it off and go back to my low stress level grad school style because I wasn't planning on having a career in chemistry (or any career at all really), UNTIL. Aaron ran some numbers and saw that we would have some pretty serious money problems if we tried to live on his residency salary with kids and $200,000 in debt. So...post doc? Does that mean I have to write 15 papers now? CAUSE NOW I'M STRESSED BECAUSE EVERYONE'S MORE STRESSED THAN ME AND DOES MORE WORK THAN ME AND I JUST WANTED TO HAVE BABIES POST-PhD AND NOW MAYBE I NEED TO ACTUALLY GET A JOB, AND THANKS A LOT DE-STRESSING SEMINAR.

I did get a little yellow smiley face stress ball out of it, though, so it wasn't a total loss.

better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt

REPUBLICANS. Let's just stop talking about rape, okay?

ummm...

watching this debate is making me uncomfortable

Fall in Philadelphia has been pretty glorious. I've been wearing boots and cardigans and eating 3 loaves of pumpkin bread in three days. I think these sweatshirts from Everlane would be the final thing to make my fall complete:

How is it even possible to look so comfy and put together at the same time? This sweatshirt must be magical.

Also, I listened to this video three times today:

Isn't it epic? I'm really sad because a) this show is too scandalous to watch and b) I still haven't found anyone in Philadelphia with whom to discuss Game of Thrones. 

c) Aaron and I watched The Walking Dead last night and now I'm irrationally afraid to turn on my blowdryer because it'll make too much noise and alert the zombies to my presence. Awesome. 

Edit: apparently my new favorite adjective is magical, having used it in three of my last five posts. I don't remember the last time I actually used this adjective while talking in real life.

the only thing we didn't do was get our hair braided at that sketch salon in south philly

This weekend my roommate from freshman year, Kristen, came with her husband and baby boy and stayed with us. It was a wonderfully low key weekend. They went historical sightseeing while Aaron and I worked/studied in the morning, and then I met up with them for wandering through Reading Terminal Market (and eating the best pretzels I've ever had. Miller's, everyone, you must buy a pretzel from Miller's when you are at Reading Terminal. I'm crying on the inside about all the times I've been there and not eaten one of these), getting cheesesteaks at Jim's, wandering around Old City and checking out the water front, randomly happening upon a house where James Madison used to live, meeting up with Aaron for dinner at Han Dynasty (only 3 hours post cheesesteak-kind of a bad idea), and getting gelato at Capogiro. Philly's been having some really magical weather lately, so it was the perfect temperature for doing a ton of walking around outside.

Can I talk about how cute Kristen's baby is without sounding like a creeper? Because that baby is CUTE. When he smiles, he opens his mouth as wide as he can, and it is super adorable. In fact, I was really baby gung-ho and sad I can't have babies because they'd probably be born with horrible birth defects due to currently working in a lab, thanks to little William, right up until Primary (Church organization for kids) on Sunday. Then that baby hunger got squashed right out of me! Whew! Good job Primary!

Anyway, it was lovely to have Kristen and co. come visit. Some of my fondest BYU memories are with Kristen (one of my favorites being the late night refashioning of the Orlando Bloom posters). In addition to being an excellent partner in breaking into boys' apartments during priesthood session sort of crime, she also has the gift of always knowing the exact right thing to say in basically every situation. No one can make you feel better than Kristen when things are not happy. Thanks for visiting, Kbob! (and for being a gem of a friend)

well this is awkward

I took Bing's Google versus Bing challenge, and it didn't go so well for them.

This is the only time I have acted upon a Hulu commercial. And yes, I did search for my own name. Vanity, vanity.

just missing a bow and arrow and a mockingjay pin

I have a new reason to put off getting my hair cut (yep, still haven't done it yet):

Katniss Halloween costume needs a long braid!

Aaron pointed out that we don't actually have any Halloween plans yet, but I don't care if all I'm doing is sitting at my house eating candy corn, come the 31st, I am rocking that Katniss outfit. Now all I have to do is convince Aaron to dress up with me. His current costume plan is three hole punch Jim from The Office for the second year in a row. COME ON MAN.