There is no "Amber" in "Not Boyfriend"

I think my new motto is "there is no 'i' in 'i hate you.'" Even though there is. One of my favorite things is Joe's rendition of therapist talk -- therapists talk about using 'I' messages: "when you do x, I feel y." Crap like that. Instead of saying "when you do x, you're an ass." So what Joe says is "I you make me feel like shit." I love it.

Now why, you may ask, am I using such strong words as hate? And about who? It's Not Boyfriend. Ok, I don't hate him, but I he makes me feel like shit. So perhaps I hate that he makes me feel that way. Let's go with that. For some bizarre and unknown reason, I decided to call him last night, even though he hasn't returned my once monthly calls for the past 3 months. Clearly, I can't take a hint. He answered because he didn't recognize my number, which to me says "erased from phone." In my defense, I had to look up his number to call him because I actually HAVE erased his number from my phone. Now that I think about it though, it kinda makes it worse because I had to put some effort into the whole thing. If only I had been drunk, I probably would have lost interest before finding the number and all of this could have been averted. Note to self...

Anyhoo, it was a really awkward conversation. REALLY AWKWARD. Like this:
Him: "What's new?"
Me: "oh, you know, the usual -- work and school (But see how I left out the part about my funny cats?). What's new with you?"
Him: "Oh, just working a lot. So what else have you been doing, just school?"
Me: "Um, yep. Just school." As I'm thinking "for real dude? Because I just said that." And I'm also thinking "Why, WHY did I call him?"

Seriously, this went on for what felt like an eternity. ONES of MINUTES. This was not small talk. It was excruciating to an as yet unreached level. And the first time EVER that we've struggled for conversation. I think that part of that stemmed from the fact that when I said I would let him go (after the sheer agony of the above alleged "conversation," I just couldn't take it anymore), he's like "yeah, since I'm in the car with 5 guys and they're probably having a hard time keeping quiet" and then there was boy giggling in the background. Because god knows you can't have a decent conversation with a GIRL when your BOYS are in the car. And then he said "I'll give you a call" to which I responded in a "Ok, yeah, I'll BET you will" sort of tone "Yeah. Take Care." And I hung up. And maybe I cried for a minute. Because yes, I still sorta miss him. Ass. Assity ass ass ass. I'm pissed that he thinks it's fine to just totally stop calling with no explanation and I'm pissed that I still miss him and I'm pissed that I let those things bother me.

One thing I totally miss is that whenever he'd call, my phone would play the first part of "Regulators" by Warren G, because it had lines from "Young Guns" in it and that's one of his favorite movies. He used to tell me that he wasn't sure if I was happy that he called me because I wanted to talk to him or because I loved the ring tone. I did love that ring tone...but I guess it's pretty obvious that I was actually really happy to hear from him. And so a while back, the girls and I were talking about how I needed to get back on the dating horse. It was actually one of our more amusing and memorable conversations. Anyway, when I told Karen today about the "conversation" with DEFINITELY Not Boyfriend, she said "well, I guess you just have to find a new horse." Ok. So I will, using what I can call my NEW new motto, which I think Warren G really summed up best when he sampled Emilio Estevez saying "Regulators! Mount up."

See how I brought that all together? I'll bet you were wondering how it all related. That's just how we roll here at Stream of Consciousness Central.

Could I BE any more boring?

I don't know, but apparently I'm trying REALLY HARD. At least now when people ask me what I'm up to, I can say "oh you know, work, school, the usual" instead of my previous answer, which was "oh, you know, work, the usual" and then I would launch into what would inevitably be a hilarious story about something the cats did. If by hilarious you mean "only remotely interesting to solely me and perhaps my mom." I need a hobby. I need TIME for a hobby. Mentally calculating when you can reasonably go to bed while still managing to sleep through the night and secretly taping reruns of Dawson's Creek to watch on Saturdays probably does not fall under the heading of "hobby," though I may have to check on that. I'm pretty sure that both of those things fall under the heading of "oh so pathetic," and I do NOT have to double check that.

So what's new, you ask me? Seriously, nothing. Work. School. Service Learning (read: volunteer) projects for school. I'm telling you, when school assignments start cutting into Sunday nap times, that's just not right. It happened this weekend when I was doing some service learning instead of my usual out of service napping. But the cats -- man those cats are FUNNY. I've got a story (or 85) if you're interested...

Don't worry -- I'm not going to post a story about the cats. I am however going to re-read this entry and marvel that in the short span of time between typing in the title and finishing this entry, I have indeed, surpassed my own boring record. So the answer to the question is YES, I COULD be more boring. The cats, though. The cats are never boring.

The Luck O' the Jewish

So last night, some of us went to the Meade St. Station after class to celebrate St. Patrick's Day and also really it was just a good excuse to go out for beer. So we're there for all of five minutes before they're going to do a drawing for the super cool Guinness jersey that Seth has on in the picture above, and so we all signed up real quick. When they're drawing for it, Seth's like "give it to the good Jewish boy!" And lo and behold, they drew his name. Random people kept coming up and congratulating him all night. It was cool. And I was only slightly jealous that I, being the Irish lass that I am, didn't win. But I told him I'd be borrowing it next year. And I think if we go out drinking to celebrate Purim, and they're giving out Mordecai jerseys and I win, well, maybe we'd have a good trade situation going.

Seth's Big Win!! 

Crack that whip!

Hi! It’s me – Amber. Yes, I KNOW I haven’t written for a while, but this FASCINATING blog entry will tell you why. Here’s why:

My issue is that suddenly, I have no time. After completing my first class in grad school with a whopping 98% (oh yes, you read it correctly – I will NOT be in graduate school for 7 years. Not that I was in undergrad for 7 years. I’m just saying. Hypothetically.) I have begun my second term, and because I must have some sort of death wish, I decided that this would be a good time to take two classes.

You see, my program is a non-thesis program. That was one of the attractive features. So in lieu of a thesis, I am required to do either a Professional Project OR a Service Oriented Field Experience (SOFE). Every other year, the SOFE class goes out of the country, and this fall, they’re traveling to South Africa. This sounds awesome to me. I’m thinking it’ll be kind of a work trip, not unlike the mission trips I take with the kids in the summer. So I’m totally looking forward to it – I’ve signed up, and I think that if I keep telling my dad that I’m going, he’ll be lulled into a sense of complacency and not bat an eye by the time it’s time to pay for it. I can hope, right? Anyway, the only prerequisite for the trip is that you must have 18 credits. I did some math (I tell you, I’m on FIRE!) and realized that in order to have 18 credits by then, I have to double up on classes once. And given my rather un-stellar scholarly history (you know, back BEFORE the 98%) I decided that I should double up as soon as possible in case I can’t handle it and have to try again later. So I am now enrolled in one in-class class, and one online class.

Keep in mind that the purpose of the 8-week terms is so that students who work full time won’t be overloaded and so it is assumed that you are only taking one class at a time. Therefore, I have an online class where we have about four or five mini-assignments per week, and an in-class class where the teacher scares me and we have four large projects and mountains – MOUNTAINS – of reading. I’ve decided that I’m going to have to start reimbursing my office for all of the paper I use printing out assignments, articles, etc.

So what finally happened? I had to break down and get the internet at home. I didn’t want to – I never needed it before because I’m online all day at work. But I realized the other day that it is not humanly possible to get all my schoolwork AND my regular work done in an 8 hour day. Not. Possible.

So I spent about 3 hours on Saturday doing all of the assignments for my online class and I brought my laptop to work to get it configured by our tech guy so I could install my internet at home. Long story short, when he configured it for me, he trashed the account of the person who the laptop USED to belong to, and what went out with that trash? ALL of my COMPLETED homework for the week. I almost cried. There was a shaky lip. But I just went back and recreated it.

So what am I saying? I’m saying that maybe the blog will be updated more now that I have the evenings and weekends to be online as well. Maybe I’ll have time to talk on the phone – I haven’t been doing much of that at all because I don’t have time at work and by the time I get home, I’ve used up all my brainpower on reading and responding to discussion questions in my class forum. Don’t give up on me though. It’s only seven more weeks until I have to focus on something else.

But right now, I have to stop procrastinating and go read about creating caring and capable boards. No no, don't be jealous.

I'm so Blue

Brace yourselves, people. Because we're coming to the end of an era -- my all-time favorite show is going off the air after 12 awesome years. After tonight, NYPD Blue will be no more. Well, except for on cable.

Ok, so I've been trying forever to write a coherent blog about how utterly incredible this show is. I can honestly say I've seen every episode at least once -- between the days when I used to tape the two concurrent episodes every day on TNT, and the marathons on Court TV on holiday weekends, and of course the weekly new episodes. I love this show. I love everything about it. I KNOW everything about it. Ask me anything and I can probably give you the answer in such a way that you wished you'd never asked. I'm sorry, there's just a lot of backstory involved and if you want a good answer, well, you'll have to hear it all. The writing is incredible, because it lets you in on the characters' lives without it becoming cheesy. The characters grow and change and perhaps the very best example of this Andy Sipowicz. At the beginning of the series, Sipowicz was a vulgar, bigoted, closeminded drunk who was supposed to be killed off after a few episodes. Instead, he became the center of the 15th Precinct Detective Squad, and the center of the show.

He's had 4 partners in 12 years -- John Kelly (David Caruso) -- who I didn't like that much then and cannot STAND as Horatio in "CSI:Miami" -- Bobby Simone (Jimmy Smits), who died of a quick moving illness that affected his brain; Danny Sorenson (Ricky Schroder) who was like a son to Andy but you knew nothing good could come for him because he was such a tortured soul -- he was killed by the mob, wrapped in a rug and buried near the East River; and John Clark (Mark Paul Gosselaar) who has also become like a son to Sipowicz, especially after Clark's dad committed suicide. He's had 3 bosses -- Lt. Arthur Fancy (James McDaniel), who gave Sipowicz more chances than he deserved, especially since early Sipowicz was incredibly bigoted and resented having an African-American boss; Lt. Tony Rodriguez (Esai Morales) who understood, like Lt. Fancy, that underneath the gruff exterior was a great cop and an even better man; and Lt. Thomas Bale (Currie Graham) a by-the-book guy with whom Sipowicz had a stormy relationship until he found out that Bale was in the closet and Bale realized that he was a friend and would keep that secret. He's had 3 wives -- Katie, with whom he had Andy Jr. and who he helped through dealing with the muder of their son and her resulting battle with alcoholism; Sylvia, the Assistant District Attorney with whom he had Theo and who was murdered outside of a courtroom; and Connie, a fellow cop who started out helping Andy with Theo and they eventually fell in love.

Through all of the monumental loss he's experienced, Sipowicz has remained a good man. His bigotry has diminished considerably, especially in the realm of homosexuals. John Irwin (Bill Brochtrup) is the civilian administrator for the squad, and is openly gay, which made Sipowicz uncomfortable. But as time passed, he and John became great friends, with Sipowicz trusting John so implicitly as to let him babysit Theo. He no longer drinks, even though there have been many times when he could have, and he has sponsored other detectives who struggled with alcohol. Sipowicz is a great father to his little boy and is the father figure, the mentor and the friend to every detective in the squad.

Things are changing at the 15th Squad -- Andy was recently promoted to Sergeant, but in the course of a case, Lt. Bale was shot and permanently disabled, so Andy is now the squad commander. Greg Medavoy (Gordon Clapp), the only other detective to have been in the squad as long as Andy, is retiring. Producers of the show say that there won't be a big bang ending, that it's better that "NYPD Blue" depart in a way that lets viewers know that life in the 15th goes on, even through all the changes.

No matter what happens, I know that come 10:00 tonight, I'll be bawling my eyes out because I'll miss my friend Sipowicz.