Tiiiiiiiired.

I had a dream last night that I gave birth to a ginger baby. Like, the hair color, not a candy man baby. The memory hit me like a freight train at about 1:00 PM this afternoon while working. So. Random. I was super excited about it in my dream, too. Not like an "awww a baby boy with beautiful auburn hair!" excited, but like an "OMG I have a ginger baby. This is high-lair-ee-ous." type of excited. Also in my dream, I had this baby at home and then went to the hospital and had an argument with the nurse. It went like this:

Me: I just had a baby.
Nurse: You're having a baby now??
Me: No, I already had it. *waves baby around* See?
Nurse: But you can't have a baby outside the hospital!
Me: Well. I did.

Needless to say, I was snickering at work while remembering this, but outwardly trying to look serious and contemplative while I searched the archives of Delaware's state legislature website.

I work in the a place called "workspace." This is what the placard near the door opening says. It's also a quasi storage room with printers, copiers, and hole punchers. People meander in and out, but I'm always way too awkward to say something. My mom and stepfather gave me a pep talk about it today, saying that I need to at least smile and nod at people when they come in, or else I come off as stand-offish. I wish I could just type a sign that says, "Hi, I'm just socially awkward and inept at small talk, not actually frigid and pretentious" and tape it to my back. That might make it easier (probably not).

But this morning I frantically threw this into the crock pot, and when I got home it smelled deeeeeelicious.



I normally spoon it over couscous, but the only type that we have in the pantry is "Wild Herb and Mushroom" flavor. No thanks, boo. So, since I was too lazy to make rice or orzo or something, I just put it into a bowl by itself. Yep, still delicious. I ate it outside with the parentals, and even got a visit from the queen herself, Skittles.



The moroccan chicken dinner definitely made up for the Healthy Choice Steamer that I had for lunch. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't spectacular. It was kind of spicy too, and nothing is more annoying than having a runny nose and hoping that people won't walk in and catch you clearing out your sinuses. Note to self: no ethnic food at work until I've met everyone.

I started reading Love in the Time of Cholera during my break, too. Thanks, Faison, for lending your copy to me!! It's pretty good so far, but I'm only like, ten pages in. As is the case with most great lit, the opening scenes don't actually deal with the main characters, so I was really confused until I wikied it. Yeah, I'll admit that I've been on a YA kick lately, so the elevated prose threw me for a bit. But now I'm back in the saddle! Y'all are going to hate me when I start quoting poetry. I already subjected Faison to a reading of one of my favorite poems, "Ulysses," by Wordsworth. #bougie, duh.

I was going to paint my nails tonight, buuuut I got too lazy to do it, and too afraid that I would mess them up. Meh.

np: "Georgia on my Mind," Alicia Keys + Jamie Foxx; "All You Wanted," Sounds Underneath; "Bloodstream," Stateless.

tea: Sleepytime by Celestial Seasons with cardamom pods. I work a double shift tomorrow at Newk's (8:00 to 4:00; 5:00 to 10:00) so I need to make sure that I sleep!

Bye, y'all!

Is this what being an adult feels like?

I've been watching NCIS on USA for, like, four hours now. I find Tony DiNozzo simultaneously irritating and attractive. Why is it always the smarmy guyz?

But yeah. Four hours. Like, since I got home from work/the grocery and I decided that HGTV didn't have anything interesting on. (Sorry, Leigh, but unless it's a couger moving to FL, I really can't get into House Hunters.) And this isn't the type of TV marathon that usually accompanies a tense feeling of procrastination, which has been the case almost my entire life. No, this is the type of TV marathon that accompanies being sprawled out after a long day. It's a nice feeling, actually.

I made a sweet potato and baked chicken sprinkled with salt, garlic salt, cumin, chili powder, cinnamon, and nutmeg. It's actually a really good combination and it smelled heavenly. However, the bone disappeared from my plate--I suspect a certain Boxer mix as the culprit. Of course, we just paid an ungodly amount of money on an exploratory surgery for our other dog that most likely came about from eating questionable objects, so now I'm freaking out and hoping that Aryx doesn't end up with some sort of blockage because he's a fatty that can't turn down people food.

I started my internship today. Not horribly exciting. Because I'm in consumer protection and because the legislative session starts in January, I've been assigned the task of researching consumer protection legislation in the other 49 states passed within the last two years. So from 11 AM to 4 PM, I sat in the "work area" and skimmed through the titles of every. bill. introduced to state legislatures in the last two years in Virginia, California, and North Carolina. In California, more than 1,000 bills were proposed in 2011. My eyes were burning by 2:30 PM.

What I've learned so far:
-Lawyers like to keep their doors closed.
-When you go to the breakroom, that lady reading her book and eating will definitely ignore you while you eat your apple and granola bar and awkwardly read CNN on your iPhone because you didn't bring your own reading material.
-I really like the sound of typing. I might hit the keys harder than necessary because it adds a certain...authority. (And because I'm bored.)
-I need invisible sweats to go on under my dresses. It was freezing.
-I should have broken in my new flats before wearing them today. Ouchie.
-Don't live-stream on the internet. Because if you're that guy who live-streams world cup football and it interferes with your work, HR will make a special page for new people to sign saying that they won't live stream. Seriously. It was an empty page except for "DO NOT LIVE STREAM ON GOVERNMENT COMPUTERS" in huge block letters in the middle. Lolz.
-Words will start swimming if you stare at them too long.
-Sentences actually can run for ten lines. But halfway through, you forget what the actual subjects and verbs were, so you have to start over again.
-Someone needs to make cliffnotes for state legislatures.

I had to get an ID badge, but it doesn't open any doors. So I still have to go through security every day. Also, my picture looks like my mom. I wish I could understand why my hair always looks so poofy in pictures. It's annoying to where I want to grow it out because I look like I have a Bump It somewhere in there. (I don't.) I felt a bit like I was playing dress up, though this was probably because my dress is a bit too long and the cardigan I picked out didn't have a cropped waist to make up for the extra length.

I'm compensating for all of this ~adultness by painting my toenails purple: Rumple's Wiggin by OPI. At some point I'm going to put Hong Kong Sunrise by OPI onto my fingers, as it's my go-to pink-orange-gold color, but not tonight. I did file them down, though. I've been taking a multivitamin with keratin and they're like, shooting out of their nail beds these days. Crazy! I just want strong nails, not secretary-lady nails!!!

Tonight's tea: Plantation Mint with some green cardamom pods. Yummmm.