March 2003 Archives

cirque du soleil was awesome, as expected. i have been asking everyone what their favorite act was; mine was definitely the trampoline acrobats in the first act. ever since i was a kid, i've thought it would be cool to be able to do that type of gymnastics and acrobatics, and so i always love watching other people do it.

the stage slid back to reveal trampolines in the shape of an x, with pads on one end of the x. acrobats in sparkly gold costumes did all sorts of flips, handsprings, and other tricks up and down the trampolines, culminating in these huge spins and flips onto the pads. it was awesome. my other favorite, a close second to the trampoline acrobats, was another group of acrobats who flipped up, down, to and from these bendy, balance beam-like bars. the acrobats were cool, but it was also fun to watch the guys who were holding the beams, as they were the ones who had to make slight adjustments to make sure the flipper landed on the beam, and they had to absorb the force of the landing as well.

all in all very impressive. maybe i will run off and join the circus...

i did manage to make the first two hours of the fantasy baseball draft yesterday, and was pleased with the players i was able to draft in that time. i'm not so pleased with the players that were drafted for me after i left to go to cirque du soleil, but that's life. we'll see what happens.

anyway, there are more important things than the fantasy draft, primarily the fact that baseball season has finally begun! hooray! i managed to survive another long winter. :)

i had a great run yesterday, after the morning clouds disappeared to reveal bright sunshine and a near-perfect running temperature of 60 degrees. the only bad thing was the wind--it was very windy--but i survived. i ran a new route that took me out of the apartment complex, down nasa road 1, up saturn past the space center and the middle school, back down hercules to el camino and home. it was a big long loop that turned out to be a little over 4 miles. it was only the second time i've been running since i got back from atlanta, so my shins are doing pretty well.

i am so excited about cirque du soleil this afternoon. turns out our seats are on the second row! not as good as the seats carter and lynne got after some kid threw up that time...hee hee...but still really good. fun fun fun.

i have a new obsessive song, off the sister hazel cd i've been listening to for the past few days. favorite line from it: "every dawn split another day / and in another day we weren't so restless..."

off i go.

what the heck? thursday it was 70 degress outside and today it's 50. i woke up to a 60 degree apartment and had to turn the heat on for the first time in a month. blah.

we're going back to the cheesecake factory tonight, not for my birthday this time, but just because there were people that wanted to go on wednesday but couldn't make it. mmm...cheesecake twice in one week. i'm a lucky girl. but before we go i have a bunch of errands to run, and i need to vacuum. sigh. i hate cleaning. i need someone to live with me and just be the person who cleans. perhaps i could train my fish to do it...

now that's a funny mental image. a fish pushing a vacuum cleaner.

last night becca and cari and debbie came over and we had a girl's night watching two truly awful movies. first was maid in manhattan, which we decided would have been better had the leading man been better looking and the leading woman been someone other than jlo (don't be fooled by the rocks that i got, i'm still i'm still jenny from the block). second was blue crush, which i actually bought on pvdvd. the movie plot is truly horrible and the dialogue is the worst i have ever heard in any movie, but i love all the surfing scenes and will watch it just for those, so i consider it a good purchase. :)

i got two cds from two different people for my birthday, and i am loving them both. one is the norah jones cd, which is too slow to listen to at work but is just right for winding down in the evening. the other is the newest sister hazel cd that i never would have discovered for myself but is totally my kind of cd. i dunno if it's intentional or not, but she definitely knows my taste in music.

there is a verse that goes "i'm not right / i'm not fine / i wanna be rain that tastes like wine / i wanna be good / i wanna be great / i wanna be anything except for your mistake"... i love the line about rain that tastes like wine. i dunno why. it's probably because i just like the music. i had this conversation over the weekend. a lot of people listen to songs for the lyrics, and i do sometimes. but often i find myself singing either depressing or downright dumb lyrics, and realize that i never paid attention to the words at all and that i'm just singing it because i like the tune. i think it's a byproduct of being in band forever, and not chorus, but who knows.

speaking of cds and stuff, i just remembered the fact that john mayer and counting crows are going to tour together this summer. ah, i'm in heaven.

we had our first softball game of the season last night and i am so excited because i played really well! i went 2-for-3 with two doubles, two rbis, and two runs scored!! i was so excited; i never play that well. both my hits were legitimate hits too, not errors on the other team--both hits went straight down the third base line just beyond the reach of the third baseman. woohoo! maybe i am starting to have some athletic talent after all. yay.

becca's computer just went haywire in a way unlike anything i've ever seen before. it started flashing alternately green and yellow screens. very weird.

i am sort of unsure about what to write today. logically, i recognize that i am a moody person, and that my ups and downs tend to be more dramatic than most. and so logically, i realize that i've just been in one of my dramatic down periods recently.

sometimes i love the way that logic never seems to triumph over pure emotion. but sometimes i really hate it.

i go through these phases where i think i've missed my calling. i love being an engineer, don't get me wrong. and every time i think i'm burned out on the space program, i find myself staring at the stars one night and realize the fire is still there. but there are so many other things i really enjoy doing, or have enjoyed in the past and miss. laying out my section at the paper every week...i love doing layout/design-type things. writing my weekly column for the daily. developing my own photos, just for fun. i think if i were independently wealthy, i would start some sort of magazine or journal. i know that something like 99 out of 100 magazines fold within a year, but i'd still do it. the thing is, if i had unlimited funds, i don't know if i'd do engineering, even though i like it.

i was doing so well here in houston, i was content, and that was good. somehow, the columbia accident changed all that. since february 1, i've felt sad and lonely a lot. i've been ignoring some of my friends. i've been tired all the time. i suppose these are all entirely normal things to feel and do after a traumatic event, and the accident was one of the more traumatic things i've experienced in my 25 years. it's good that this is one of the few upsetting things; it's good that i've never had serious injuries, or been uprooted from my childhood home, or had to deal with deaths or serious disease in the family (both grandfathers died before i could remember them, both grandmothers and all my other relatives are still alive and generally very healthy). but it's bad that i don't know how to deal with it, and that my reaction has been simply to sort of shut down.

often i wonder if i really do think too much, more than normal people. and i wonder if it's natural to have the types of regrets that i seem to, and the types of years-old questions that i still wrestle with. i've done a lot of talking to a few people in the past couple days in an attempt to work this out of my system, and i can never decide if everyone has these types of anxieties or not. anyway. i will work my way out of it. i have in the past, and i have to trust that i will again.

anyway.

my birthday was lovely. i went to the cheesecake factory last night with becca, cari, gavin, jen, buzz, and chris and in some divine stroke of luck, they had just started selling a godiva dark chocolate cheesecake. i used to work at godiva, and i absolutely love their chocolate. ohhhhhhh, this cheesecake is absolute heaven. sooo good.

anyway, the waiter brought out the cheesecake and hadn't been informed by the hostess that it was my birthday, so becca told him again, and he took my cheesecake! sure, he took it to go put a birthday candle in it, but still, he put the cheesecake down in front of me, gave me time to get exactly one bite on my fork, and then he took it away!! according to the other, i had a look of absolute horror on my face. thankfully, he brought it back quickly. let this be a lesson to you: don't mess with my cheesecake!

it was a good birthday. i can't believe i'm 25.

defensivedriving.com sent me a happy birthday email. you know, just in case i need their services in the future, like i did about four months ago. greeeeeeat.

so it's my birthday! i love my birthday. i always try to pretend otherwise and keep it quiet, but i never can. i always let it slip that my birthday is coming up because truth is, i really look forward to it. i don't really care about getting presents or not, but i have to admit that i do love it when i hear "happy birthday." it just makes me happy.

i mean, really, it's impossible to be unhappy on your birthday, even if it's overcast (which it is), and you're periodically restless in your life (which i am), and you have both cirque du soleil and a fantasy baseball draft scheduled for the same time block on sunday (which i do), and your bathroom needs to be cleaned (which it does), and...

but screw all that, because it's my birthday! hooray! :) i am having a great day so far, and it can only get better tonight because we're going to the cheesecake factory, mmmmmmm, my favorite. and nick called me this morning at work! (i wonder why whenever he calls it looks like it's a call coming from houston.) and my group took me out to double dave's for lunch. and jason and chris sent me emails with happy birthday in big font.

happy happy.

i have many things to say today. on many different subjects.

on running: i was thinking about this last night as i went running for the first time in 5 days, and had decided to post about it. coincidentally, carter touched on the subject this morning, as if he read my mind. anyway. my shin splints have really been bothering me lately despite my best efforts of streching them, icing them, and generally trying to be nice to them. a few people have asked me why i keep running if they bother me, and well, i realized last night that i have a lot of reasons.

1) i've always wanted to be athletic, and maybe it's just not in my genes. but i run because i want to be good at (or at least able to stick with) doing something athletic.
2) since i started running, i've lost weight and gained muscle. i look better and i have more endurance. i like that.
3) since i started running, i sleep better. i like that too.
4) since i started running, i deal with stress better. i really like that.
5) i do want to get married someday, and i don't want the man i marry to have to settle for the overweight, out-of-shape version of sarah.
6) i don't want to settle for the overweight, out-of-shape version of sarah.

so that is that.

on crazy professors: this is for karen. on friday while i was back at tech for the day, i stopped in to visit one of my old professors. dr. kamat is a tiny indian man who is very exciteable and generally amusing. i knocked and poked me head in his office and he exclained for a while over what a surprise it was to see me and how i looked really good (oooook, bit strange). anyway, we chatted for a few minutes and he asked about ron.

me: "oh, ron's great, actually he's getting married in two weeks!"
dr. kamat: "ohhhhh, really, that is wonderful, when are you getting married?"
me: "uh...not anytime soon."
dr. kamat: "nooooo?"
me: "no."

conversation ensues. kent, who had been out putting up a poster, comes into the office.

dr. kamat: "kent, when are you getting married?"
kent: (laughing) "not anytime soon."
dr. kamat: "ohhhhh. sarah, you?"
me: (laughing) "i already said not soon, i mean, i have to find a guy first!"
dr. kamat: "oh, but that is not hard, you can find one on the internet!"
kent and me: (rolling on the floor with laughter)
dr. kamat: (innocently) "whaaat?"

on the internet. sheesh.

then dr. sankar and dr. jagoda, hearing all the commotion, poked their heads in the door and asked if they could join the party. and dr. jagoda commenced an attempt to lure me back to tech for grad school. that man is always recruiting. i tried to see dr. seitzman, but he was busy.

on unflattering pictures: i don't think i ever posted these, but the photographers at the rodeo run a month ago got pictures of becca and me during the race. here is becca, and here is me. i don't quite know why races hire photographers, if for no other reason than to capture people in amusing and/or painful positions.

on love, life, and jobs: i've always thought that i hated change. this stance was based simply on the vehemence i have felt toward such things as graduating from college, having a good friendship fade, and watching a relationship suffer. i thought change was bad. but recently i have realized that i secretly ache for change. i like my job, and i like my life, and in general i am happy, but i am so restless. going out of town, as i did this past weekend, does nothing but amplify this feeling. the worst times are when my restlessness is accompanied by loneliness, as it has been in the past couple months.

i forget how much i miss things and people and scents and feelings until i have them again, if only for a few days. it's like it all comes crashing back. for better and for worse. we have our tiffs just like we always did, and they still bother me, but then...

it's not everywhere that does this to me. it's just where my friends are. perhaps i became too emotionally involved in those friendships, and those people, even the ones i didn't get to see this weekend. maybe i invested too much. but i can't help it now. i like them too much.

and then my mini-vacation ends, and i am on the plane back to houston and as it lands i think "it's so nice to be home...wait, this is home?" it's a feeling of both relief and...i don't know, disappointment? maybe just uncertainty.

and then i wonder where i'm going, and i wonder if i'll ever find where i belong.

on airports: i have become indifferent to flying, to the part that involves actually being on the plane and waiting patiently to get to your destination. i mean, the magic of getting in a metal tube in one city and exiting in another city still excites me but it's the airports themselves that i find i like more and more. as long as i'm not late for a flight and have the time to stroll, i like walking around, stopping at the magazine rack, watching the people. all the chaos has exactly the opposite effect you'd expect--instead of stressing me out, it sort of calms me down. and airports are great for people-watching. i like to guess where they're going, or coming from. the guy in the business suit with the cell phone permanently attached to his ear is obviously stressing out over some deal or meeting, and so i don't spend more than a glance or two on them. but the girl in the orange t-shirt and flip flops with the headphones...where is she going? the cute guy with the 5 o'clock shadow and the ragged khaki shorts...what's he thinking? i dunno. maybe i am weird. but i like to wonder.

new day. it is still beautiful outside. the weather was supposed to be overcast and slightly rainy this weekend, but turned out to be about 70 and sunny most of the time instead, making me not quite so sad about missing the weekend in houston...as if i could really miss houston when i am with my sister and friends.

i fly back to houston tonight and it's back to work tomorrow. i hope rich and gavin have done ok without me. yes, i know that's a sort of egotistical attitude (of course they're ok without me, they've been doing it longer than me), but i hope they could figure out my stuff if they needed to.

off to campus for lunch with katie before i leave.

(11::57 a.m.)

stolen from christina, but quite applicable to me over the past couple days. "I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing." -Agatha Christie

well, i messed up. i should have gone to stay with katie tonight. i didn't stay with her, so i missed spending more time with her, and instead i am here at kent's, which messes up everyone's sleeping plans. sigh. sometimes i feel like i'm doomed to repeat the same mistakes and to cause the same stresses, even when i don't mean to or want to. it's like the inevitable: given enough time, you can be sure that sarah will do something dumb.

one of these days i'll get over that.

watched the oscars tonight, all the way through as is my own little tradition. i always watch them all the way through, even last year in houston when becca had gone to bed and i was left up by myself. liked chicago, felt lord of the rings got shafted, was surprised by the pianist. will have to go see it.

like i said yesterday. i never remember how much i miss my friends here until they are in front of me again.

good night moon.

i've been in atlanta for two days now. all day thursday, i had half a quote running through my head: "contentment in a routine." it was in the back of my mind during the whole flight, and it wasn't until i was on the train, riding from d terminal up to baggage claim, that i remembered the rest. "happiness is just contentment in a routine." coming to atlanta always makes me think. it is returning to a life that i fall into so easily and yet i can sense that something is off. that i don't fit into this picture, this memento, anymore.

it is nice to see friends. it's not until i see them that i remember how much i miss them.

i spent thursday night at kent's. he is headed to washington soon to begin a new job, and i'm really excited for him. i haven't seen kent since september, and then only shortly. he is comforting.

i spent last night here at carter's, my home away from home these days when i make it here for a visit. we went to waffle house this morning for breakfast, and there was some perfect about it.

this afternoon we played frisbee golf, horse, and ping pong. i lost every time. i wish i were better at sports and games. i'm not even really any good at running. in my head, i am really athletic and not competitive. in reality, it's somehow reversed.

tomorrow i am spending the night with katie. she came down tonight for dinner and ping pong and risk. with joel. i like joel.

jumbled thoughts. atlanta does that to me. bedtime.

there have been three times in the past two years when i've had serious trouble sleeping because of external things: the first few nights following september 11, the first couple weeks after columbia fell apart almost two months ago, and last night.

i went out for a run and the news channels were supposing this and supposing that and talking about bush's 48 hour deadline that had just expired. a mere 45 minutes later, i came home to find that bush had just addressed the country and we had just started bombing iraq. how quickly things happen.

in 1991 i was only in middle school. i remember the first conflict with iraq through the haze of having been a kid. it didn't affect me; in fact, it sort of fascinated me because i didn't realize the reality of it. i remember clipping news articles to make a scrapbook. i remember the patriotic songs on the radio, "proud to be an american" and such. i even became pen pals with a soldier who was in saudi arabia, and we traded four or five letters. one sheet of stationary he wrote on had pictures of the desert and camels all down the side. but i didn't really understand the reality.

this time it's different. maybe because i'm older, because i'm adult. maybe because i live alone, and watching cnn show pictures of tracer fire in the air freaks me out, and makes me wish there were someone else in my apartment, for comfort, safety in numbers. i dunno.

i'm off to atlanta this afternoon.

as soon as i got up this morning, i started making plans to leave early this afternoon. yes, i'm already leaving early tomorrow and missing friday entirely because i'm going to atlanta for the weekend. but i have so many credit hours, and when you wake up to sunshine streaming through the blinds and an expected high of 76 degrees... well, you just don't get that kind of weather perfection every day, folks. hopefully by 2:00 i'll be lounging in the sun by the pool.

gavin insulted my hair. grr. dork.

in other news, i think my shins have gone from mildly disliking me to outright hating me. last night i ran 3.5 miles (the farthest i've run since the 10k a month ago), and when i got back to my apartment my stupid shins were in full rebellion. i mean, i could have continued running more easily than i could walk, er, hobble. stupid legs. stupid shins. they have been bugging me since the 10k, so i probably overdid it with the rapid increase to 6.2 miles, and i probably should take a week off or something. maybe switch to swimming for a couple weeks. i dunno. i won't be running this weekend in atlanta anyway, so maybe that will be enough downtime.

stupid shins.

i am TIRED.

i had a lovely evening yesterday. it's amazing what a difference it makes leaving work at 4:30 instead of 6:00. it's only a difference of an hour and half, but it feels like much more. i went home and changed into shorts and a tank top and sat by the pool for 45 minutes as the sun sank lower and lower. it finally fell behind the clouds, so i headed back inside. at 6:30 i went for a run, and was completely mesmerized by the moon, which was rising full and orange. it looked like a halloween moon, half covered in clouds--it was gorgeous. at 7:00 i was back to watch bushie's speech, and after that it was time for dinner. lovely.

so we are going to war. saddam ain't gonna leave his country, so we have to go get him. i don't know how i feel about the whole thing, but i think my current state of mind about the now-inevitable war could be best described as a combination of resignation and fear. resignation to the fact that unless the u.s. takes military action, saddam will never leave iraq, and fear of the repercussions of attacking them. are there options we still haven't tried that don't involve war? probably. are we wrong to not have tried them? i don't know. should we be going to war? i don't know.

my sister reminded me last night that i never did post pictures from my week in france with nick back in january. i had completely forgotten. in any case, here they are. not all of them (since i took well over 200 shots), but still plenty. if you get through them all in one sitting, i'll be impressed.

yesterday i had my five minutes of fame, but unfortunately it was connected to a tragedy. the chair of the sightings team testified before the caib (columbia accident investigation board) about our work on pinpointing times, characteristics, and possible locations of all the debris that we have seen coming off the orbiter early, i.e. before main breakup over texas. and he showed them my footprints! the ones that were made with my data! i created the data, gavin plotted it, rich checked it and gave it to paul hill, and paul hill presented it to admiral gehmen and company. the chain of command at work. how cool. despite the circumstances, it was exciting to see my work being used at the highest level of the accident investigation, and nice to be reminded that i'm not busting my butt for nothing.

the most interesting thing to me has been the support from random joes across the southwest. we've seen this debris in videos given to us by members of the general public who happened to be watching that morning; without them, we'd be at a loss. it's really amazing to see how many people out there do still care about the space program, enough to get up at or before the crack of dawn just to watch 3 minutes of the shuttle streaking past.

another monday. i am sleepy after staying up later than usual (for a sunday, anyway) for the fantasy draft last night. and still less than thrilled with my team. ah well.

it was a quiet weekend, which was nice. yesterday i was almost bored, but ended up cleaning, doing laundry, etc. i'm actually starting to be able to see the floor in my study, which ever since i moved in has been my catch-all room. those of you who know what my bedrooms were like in college (i utilize the "pile method" of organization, as becca calls it) can imagine what my study has looked like for 9 months. piles. :) but it's starting to get cleaned up and thrown out and put away.

i almost forgot to wear green today. happy st. patrick's day. matt informs me that st. patrick is the patron saint of engineers, which i never knew before, but hey, in that case, i have a newfound appreciation of the day.

i drafted my first of two fantasy baseball teams just now. last year, i was really happy after the draft because i thought i'd gotten a great team. and i had, and probably could have won the league if i hadn't gone out of town or driven cross-country and abandoned them at a few key times. this year i am less thrilled. i don't think i did too well in the draft.

i was going to post my team here, but am afraid the greens would just laugh at me pitifully if they saw it. ;)

the weekends have begun to mock me. today was gorgeous and sunny and the perfect temperature (70 degrees), and as i drove around with the windows down and the radio blaring, i could almost hear the breeze whisper "enjoy it while you can, because you live in houston, and you know what's coming..." i am so NOT looking forward to it getting any hotter than it is right now. though i am gearing myself up for it in spurts, and acclimating my body to running in warmer weather. i'll need it come july.

today was nice. i played soccer this morning, and though we lost (as usual), i played well. i have definitely improved since i joined the team back in october, and that makes me happy. i had a few good stops and steals today. this afternoon i got my hair cut and the color redone, and this evening i had dinner and saw chicago for the second time with becca and jen.

this guy who is now doing my hair amuses me greatly. the salon is a trendy sort of place and plays a lot of techno/dance remix type stuff, and he dances along to the music as he does my hair. he also likes to try to freak me out by saying "oops" a lot, or just looking at me with an "uh oh" expression on his face. his name is adamn, and he is probably only a few years older than me...probably 27 or 28. he looks like some sort of punk skateboarder, with a scraggly goatee bleached blonde at the tips, and spikey blonde hair. i couldn't actually see his hair today because he was wearing this funky black knitted hat that almost covered his eyes. he was also wearing black chuck taylors. if you ignore the weird goatee dye job, and take away the hat, he is actually incredibly cute. (hurrah) nonetheless, he definitely does not look like someone i would trust with my hair.

but he does an utterly fantastic job. when i left the salon today, i swear my hair looked better than it ever has. ever. it had no frizz, was perfectly smooth and straight, curled under in just the right way, everything. amazing. i mean, man, i was one sexy mama.

next time, i'm asking him to marry me.

debbie and jason totally missed their flight from paris after air france was late and the bus driver decided to take a smoke break. last night they were stuck in newark. i am amused. they don't get back until this afternoon, theoretically, so i recommended they spend the day in new york. i love new york.

it's been foggy every morning this week, but today it was worse than ever. i couldn't see more than 50 feet ahead of me. creepy.

(10:44 p.m.)

it's been a weird night. jason and debbie finally made it back to houston, and stopped by along with chris in an attempt to kidnap me for dinner. i didn't want to go to dinner. i'm afraid they felt like i was ignoring them, when really it was just, well, i didn't feel like going out to dinner. one, i had a huge lunch and two, i didn't feel like going anywhere.

i come home on fridays now and i'm just exhausted, and i don't feel like doing anything with anyone. and yet i'm lonely.

tonight, i came home and laid on the couch while the sun set, and the sky turned pink, then a pale purple, a shade of gray (or something in between) and finally to black. i ate just a little of the tapenade jason and debbie were kind enough to bring me from france, and drank a coke, and watched the sky. i watched some bad tv, and finally popped in "ten things i hate about you," which is somehow, completely inexplicably, a comfort movie. and now i'm about to put in "mulan"...which always makes me think of the two boys who gave it to me, and how it was wrapped in moon paper. full moons. it still makes me laugh.

soccer in the morning.

every day since february 1, i have walked from the parking lot to my building with my eyes inexplicably but always finding their way to the flag pole atop mission control. it's been at half-staff for 40 long days. today it was flying at full staff, after the last member of the columbia crew was buried yesterday.

it was a sobering reminder. my work for the past 40 days has been both awful and important, bad and good at the same time. it has been mentally and physically exhausting, but somehow therapeutic. what right do i have to complain about working long hours recently, when my sacrifice is so small? i'm still here.

i'm glad the flag is back at full staff. we all have to move on eventually, even though it's hard, and even though we will never forget. may the crew rest in peace.

so.

no real update on the ants this morning. the dirt mound is still there, but it's quiet now, the scene of a disaster, covered with little fire ant carcasses. oh, and a fresh dog pawprint in the middle. glad you all enjoyed my touching story of life and death. my life, their death. ha.

my friends carter and kent are big on movie quotes, and they are always stumping me with obscure quotes that i recognize, but can't trace back to the movie. it's maddening, to have the answer somewhere in your brain and just not be able to come up with it. this morning on the radio, the two dj's were letting people call in and try to stump them with movie quotes (mainstream pop culture movies only, but still, that's a lot of movies). i got every single quote! i think carter and kent are just really good at picking the most obscure quotes ever, because i know all the rest. :)

"a touching story," by sarah.

once upon a time, two days ago, i noticed the beginning of an ant mound--a fire ant mound--in the sidewalk crack immediately next to my front door. at least i thought it was an ant mound. it looked like an ant mound, felt like an ant mound, smelled like an ant mound (ok, i didn't actually feel it or smell it, but i imagined it would feel and smell like an ant mount), but i couldn't really be sure because i didn't actually see any ants. and thus my immediate impulse to spray the dirt crumbs with insect killer was overcome by my basic curiosity and desire to find out if this was indeed the first stage of ant mound construction or if it was something else even more intriguing being cleverly disguised as an ant mound.

monday night passed. yesterday morning i awoke to find that the previous night's purported ant mound had apparently been abandoned in favor of a somehow more suitable site about a foot away from the old construction site. the new site was located along the edge of the sidewalk and flower bed. this mound was obviously being constructed under stealth tactics, as the dirt used for the mound was nearly the same color as the dirt already in the flower bed. camouflage! the source of these mounds was still unknown, as i spotted no insects or ants, but i was impressed with their survival tactics.

tuesday passed. i came home last night and nothing had changed. i wondered if the unknown builders had moved elsewhere.

tuesday night passed.

i awoke this morning and walked out the door, only to nearly step right in the middle of a huge pile of dirt. overnight, a third mound had sprung up in a third location. my cute little mystery builders had finally shown their faces.

swarming fire ants constructed a 1.5-feet long by 6-inch wide radioactive vampire fire ant mountain of DOOM!!!

ok, maybe not radioactive and vampire, but it felt like it.

i yelped. i was blinded with visions of jen's bandaged hand from last fall when, unbeknownst to her, fire ants stealthily crept up her arm and all bit on command, leaving her with at least a hundred stinging welts and a swollen hand. aaaaaah!

recovering my composure, i stepped back and bent down long enough to confirm that yes, they were fire ants, and no, there weren't any crawling up my legs. i calmly went back into my apartment and straight to the cabinet under the sink, where i extracted a large orange spray can and went back outside.

"say your prayers, ants," i muttered under my breath as i popped the plastic top off the can. my finger moved in slow motion toward the trigger as a tumbleweed blew across the sidewalk. somewhere, a door slammed. in an instant, the ants were doused in a rain of all-purpose ant/roach/spider killer. i continued to spray their enormous mound of dirt for a good 30 seconds, until every ant (and a roly poly who had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) was writhing in apparent pain on the sidewalk. they never knew what hit them.

"ha HA," i crowed. and i put the ant killer back inside and went to work.

the end.

this astronaut i am working with is very amusing. yesterday around mid-day, he asked for some trajectory curves to take up to lufkin, and later that afternoon i had a voicemail from him saying he was in lufkin and using the curves and thanks. then today he asked to meet this afternoon or tomorrow morning to show some of his results, and i wondered out loud "i thought he was in lufkin??" becca laughed and said "when you have a t-38 at your disposal, you can be in lufkin and then back in houston an hour later."

silly me. the perks of being an astronaut. ;)

i'm becoming convinced that houston experiences just as much fog as san francisco. only houston isn't famous for it, because we have no hills, and thus no ability to watch it "roll in."

anyway.

i'm hoping to be able to take off at 3:30 or 4 this afternoon, but somehow i don't see that happening. i have lots more to do, and it doesn't help that i stupidly erased a few sims. how much of an idiot can i possibly be? ugh.

is it friday yet?

just checking. last night i went for a run for the first time in a week. it felt pretty good, although there is this odd thing happening with my fourth toe. (speaking of which, what do you call the fourth toe? ring finger...ring toe? hmm.) ever since the 10k i ran a few weeks ago, my fourth toe on my left foot has been acting up. it aches, but not enough to bother me, and is swollen, but ever-so-slightly. it's not enough to keep me from running, but i find it strange. my body is giving out at the ripe old age of 24. on saturday i didn't stretch enough or something before soccer, and my quads stung the rest of the day. sheesh.

so recently, becca has taken to freaking me out to the best of her ability. she walks into the office and makes these sweeping statements like "rich said all the footprints will be done by noon" and makes my heart stop momentarily. i walk into rich's office to ask him what kind of crack he's been smoking, and then i realize that becca didn't mean all. she meant one particular case. not all sixteen of them. and my heart starts beating again. becca, you have to stop this, it's bad for my health!

though i did like her comments this morning on how rich is like captain kirk and i'm scotty, the ever-toiling and underappreciated engineer. it's a good analogy, except she's wrong about one thing. i do realize the benefits of telling people it will take twice as long as it really will, and thus appearing like a miracle worker. i try to follow that rule, but have quickly discovered that it only works if people take the time to actually ask you how long it will take. when they come to you telling you how long they want it to take, all bets are off.

it is really beautiful outside today. blue sky, slight breeze, 75 degrees. i met becca and her mom and aunt diane for lunch on the boardwalk, and drove there with the windows down, sunglasses on, hair flying, music loud. i've fallen in love with the jimmy eat world cd i bought at the big kmart clearance sale last week, and it's great driving music. so i sang, and drove, and basked in the sun, and in my mind i was gone not to carolina but to california.

i miss california.

last night i joined the mobile bachelor squad of ron and company for some fun. it was a bachelor party, yes, but a few girls were invited. we had dinner at goode company bbq (yum) and then headed to dave and buster's. between all of us, we racked up 2600 tickets with the idea of getting a big stuffed m&m doll for ron.

the best source of tickets was the strong man game like they have at carnivals, where you hit the block with a mallet and see how high the lights go. highest among the guys was 124, while mary clocked in with 135, and i made the thing light up crazily with a top score of 150. (ok, so mary and i got to hit on the "women and kids" scale...on the "big guy" scale i could only muster a 92.) every time i got 150 though, we got 70 tickets!

when we finally had our 2600 tickets, we told ron to pick an m&m color..but he didn't want it! so instead, we spent all the tickets on smaller things. mary and i both got smaller stuffed m&ms, while all the guys got d&b pint glasses.

i got home, fell soundly into bed, and awoke at 9:00 to the ending of a perfect dream. do you ever have those? a dream where exactly what you want to happen actually happens? there was a point in the middle this morning when i became conscious that i was dreaming, but didn't open my eyes for fear of waking up completely. instead, i laid in bed for forever, just enjoying the dream and hoping that it would never end. when i finally opened my eyes, the final image stuck with me for a moment before it started to dissolve. i don't know if i've ever been so disappointed to wake up. i went back to sleep for another 2 hours hoping to return to dreamland, but it wasn't meant to be.

i wonder if i'm the only one who does this...

i was at work until 7:00 last night. then i transferred the matlab script to my home computer, and worked on it for another 3 hours here at home, and i will probably finish it up with an hour today. i know, i know. leave work at work.

but i couldn't. you ever get on a roll? i was on a roll with this crossrange script, and with the weekend coming, i knew if i dropped things for two days, i'd never be able to remember exactly where i was or what i was thinking my next step should be. so i worked on it at home.

the good news is that i added the thing to the script that gavin wanted. the bad news is that in going through the structure of the script (since i wasn't the one who wrote it), i'm 99% sure that i've discovered an error in the way it has been calculating crossrange for the entire 5 weeks since columbia that we've been using it. an error that doesn't cause hugely significant amounts of wrong-ness, but an error that does need to be fixed and will have a slight effect on everything we've done up to this point.

ugh. i'm going to have to tell the coder that it is wrong. i don't really want to, because i'm afraid he'll think i was second-guessing his ability to do the work.

well, that's that.

last night i instigated a spontaneous trip downtown to see the music man. i had been trying to organize a group to go this weekend, but it just was not working...people's schedules didn't complement each other, our soccer game conflicted with our original plans to go to a saturday matinee, etc etc. people kept dropping out or making other plans until there was really no one left anyway. but i really wanted to see the musical! it's made this odd sort of presence in my life since january. nick played me songs from it, then it was on tv, then carter's mom did a production of it with her kids...so i was set on finally seeing it. and after everyone backed out on me for the weekend, i was just going to go by myself.

but then i remembered that becca had wanted to go during the week. so we decided to spontaneously go last night, and even got jen to come along. girls night out. and the show was great! i'm so glad we went, because i absolutely loved it. the songs have been in my head all morning. "76 trombones in the big parade"..."gary indiana, gary indiana, gary indiana let me say it once again"..."that's trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for pool!"

anyway. i thoroughly enjoyed the show. there are two more shows coming to houston this spring that i also plan to see--aida in june, and mamma mia (to much excitement on my part, yay sweden) in april.

anyway. tonight is a huge party to kick off a weekend of pseudo bachelor party craziness for ron, while buzz is out of town. i think i'll skip the strip club, but hang out for most of the rest of the activities. ;)

(10:38 a.m.)

i just realized that i missed my 500th entry. this is diaryland entry #521. not bad for 20 months. and to think it all started with me being horribly depressed about leaving georgia tech, and wanting some way to chronicle the last days...

(6:01 p.m.)

sigh. i have no illusions. alas, i do not own work. no, work owns me. i am work's slave, and i am afraid work has started to take perverse pleasure in slapping me around.

work: "it's so nice outside, would you like to take the afternoon off?"
me: "yes, please, that would be great, and i've given you so many credit hours already."
work: "ok, i think we could do that."
me: "wow, that's great, i love you, work."
work: "HAHAHAHA i lied." {slap} "not only can you not leave early, but you have to stay past 6:00..."
me: "but...."
work: "on a FRIDAY!!"
me: ... {whimper}

happy birthday to my brother david. and happy birthday to my friend james.

becca has taken the afternoon off work, using some of the bazillions of credit hours that she (like the rest of us) has built up in the past 5 weeks. i'm jealous. i want an afternoon off. {sigh} i suppose i'll wait until i can actually afford to be gone, and not affect everyone's work. maybe it will even be a sunny day!

the sun was trying to show itself this morning, but it's a tough fight against the clouds that have been here for weeks now, with the exception of one glorious weekend. i'm tired of clouds. the only good thing is that it's still cool outside, which i can appreciate because i remind myself that the obnoxious heat of a houston summer will inevitably arrive.

last night i went over to becca's for dinner. she fixed salmon and mashed potatoes and salad. it was delicious. she makes much more impressive meals than i do. more amusing was that gavin and jen and cari all came over as well, and brought their dogs. four rambunctious dogs. they were quite a sight. i am actually going to be pet-sitting for all four dogs at the beginning of april when becca, gavin and jen, and cari all go to colorado...a trip that i was also supposed to be on. :( oh well. i am enjoying threatening them about what i'll do to their pets, since they all seem to think i hate dogs. mwa ha ha.

big news all around...ok, well, for two people. karen has decided to finish up her m.phil. in england and then go back to georgia tech for her ph.d., so she will be back in the country by the end of the year. and i'll get to see her when i visit people in atlanta! that's nice. and carter got a job yesterday! it's a company in atlanta that does software for pda's (at least i think that's an accurate statement), and he starts as soon as he can transition from his current job at tech.

hooray for both.

it is really foggy today, to the point of being eerie. i just went in to get coffee, and it's even foggier now than it was when i drove in. isn't that opposite of what is supposed to happen? isn't it supposed to burn off? i mean, it's been gray for days on end. there was even an article in the chronicle this morning about it: "it's almost as if someone took the pacific northwest and dropped it on top of houston, sans the towering pines and ocean vistas." yuck. it would be bearable if we did somehow get the towering pines and ocean vistas, but (begin sarcasm) somehow i don't see that happening.

la la la. i'm going to atlanta in two weeks for a few days, so i'm looking forward to that. it is always nice to have a trip on the calendar, as it gives me something to be excited about. carter and i realized last night that now he won't be free on friday, when we had planned to hang out, but i'm sure i'll find something to do. i'll make katie and kent skip class and entertain me. ;)

last week becca and jason and i got into a debate about whether the houston rodeo (which is the largest in the country, i believe) is something that could be classified as "quintessentially houston." the basic question was what do non-houstonians and non-texans associated with our city. becca argued that the rodeo is the biggest thing, while jason and i argued that houston is much more likely to trigger images of the space program or the oil industry. jason and i felt like we were on firm ground, having lived in houston longer and having actually been to the rodeo before.

however, after last night, i may have to change my stance. i still think that people from far away will think of the space program and oil if they're asked to name something about houston, but after getting reacquainted with the rodeo last night, i have to admit that there is nothing that says "houston" like the spectacle that takes place for three weeks every march. sadly, i can't even really explain it. you just have to go.

we headed up after work for the rodeo portion that started at 7:00. i feel lucky to have been the person who got to sit next to becca as she watched her first rodeo, because the experience was nothing short of hilarious. she alternated between "this is so awesome, i love houston" and "oh my god, he's going to break the cow's neck!" i laughed very hard, as of course in the end, the steer is much stronger than any of the cowboys, and it would take more than a good yank to hurt the steer. ;)

anyway, we watched all the events. they started with tie-down roping, followed by bareback bronco, team roping, saddle bronco, steer wrestling, barrel racing, bull riding, wagon racing and finally the always-entertaining kid's calf scramble. about 9:00, they hauled the rotating stage out into the middle of the arena and tim mcgraw walked out amid much screaming and waving from the female portion of the crowd. he played for about two hours, which ended with fireworks and him driving away in a ford. how appropriate.

it's a fact of life that people act and feel irrationally sometimes. we feel unloved when we're not, we feel lonely when we shouldn't, we get jealous when there's no reason to be, we worry when there is nothing to worry about, or when things beyond our control anyway. i accepted these truths a long time ago, and recently i like to think that i've even gotten good at recognizing when i'm being dumb. and at the least, i figured, the issues i think about change with time...or so i thought.

i mean, isn't there a point where we should be able to stop worrying about things from the past? a point where if i recognize that i'm being dumb, i can stop thinking that way in the first place? i'm tired of the same issues from the past 8 years of my life coming back to haunt me. i've rehashed them so many times that i feel like i should be able to beat my own brain by now, but i never do.

well some things in this world you just can't change, some things you can't see until it gets too late... on another note, related only if you really stretch, i've decided i'm not a fan of being couple-ish.

we're going to the rodeo tonight to see tim mcgraw. i'm looking forward to it, but i'm also really tired.

at heart, i am a homebody. i love going out and having fun, but in the end, nothing makes me happier than coming home to my own place with my own bed, and just spending quality time in my apartment. last night was one of those nights where i was just glad to get home and fall into bed.

yesterday was busy. i ran, played soccer, had a late lunch with becca, then went to dinner for sara's birthday and to dave and buster's after that. in between all those things, i found a quiet moment to finally pay a visit to the sign in front of the space center, and take in the cards, flowers, and other tokens that have been left there over the past month in memory of columbia. from the sign, you can also see through the fence to the astronaut memorial grove, where a tree is planted for each astronauts and other space pioneers that die. there are seven fresh holes in the ground surrounded by plastic fencing, waiting for seven new seedlings.

yesterday was not only the first day of march, but marked one month since we lost the shuttle and its crew. it is hard for me to comprehend that an entire month has passed since that awful saturday morning. the phone call from becca telling me to turn on the tv, the moment of confusion in my groggy just-awakened state, the flicker of recognition in the back of my head as the television popped to life and i watched the video of an event i've seen many times before, but never involving a manned vehicle, never involving a craft that isn't supposed to create that kind of firework. the feelings of absolute shock followed closely by horror and then grief. the images and sounds of that day are burned into my head.

and yet it has already been a month. february passed in a blur of work and sleep. long work weeks, chaotic at first, but calming as the days passed and our role in the investigation became more clear. the memorial service, ending with a lone t-38 pulling away high into a clear blue sky. the stress of being at the bottom of the chain, and feeling in the dark about decisions at work, along with the reassuring knowledge that i have an important role, and that many people are depending on me to do my job, do it efficiently, and do it well. the nights when, lying in my bed with a chance to relax, i tossed and turned and couldn't erase the images. images from the presses, and images created in my own head.

at work, sitting at my desk and looking at a screen of numbers and inputs, it is easy to forget the gravity of what happened. through my simulations and the maps that they create, it is easy to forget that this wasn't just another falling satellite. it is easy to forget, or simply put out of mind, that there were seven people up there. forgetting is the easy part. remembering is painful and hard.

i was reflecting on all of these thoughts friday night, and decided visiting the makeshift memorial by the front gate would be a nice way to mark the day. it was. i guess in a way i was hoping for closure, though it didn't turn out that way. as i read the signs and prayers, written in magic marker that has begun to run and fade in the rain, i realized that i may never find closure. i think the accident is something that will always weigh heavily on my mind, whether i stay with nasa until the end of my career or not. because i was living in houston, because i was working for nasa. because i was involved, and because i experienced it personally. seeing the shuttle disappear ripped a hole in my life in a way that even september 11 couldn't.

so i think closure will elude me. but visiting the gate did help me find some peace. and in the end, i think maybe that's how it should be.