A brief history of Linda

If you were to start working at uncommon grounds anytime after January or February of 2007, our introductions would go something like this:

You: "Hi, I'm Bill."

Me: "Hi, I'm Linda."

Those of you who know me IRL (which, in myRL, is anywhere outside of UG) might wonder why someone named Lindsay would introduce themselves as Linda. And if you come looking for "Lindsay", you might wonder why nobody will acknowledge that a person with that name exists.

I can give you the answer in two words: Bob Carlton.

In January or February '07, I was planning my big move to Minneapolis. It was probably all I talked about because I was really excited. Bob and I had a bit that my or may not have played into this, where we would pretend to be breaking up or to have recently broken up while ringing up customers at the register. I don't remember the entire thing, but I declared one day that everyone at work would miss me so much they would cry. To this, Bob replied, "No we wont! We won't even remember your name when you leave! In fact, I've already forgotten it. What's your name again? Linda?" And the Linda was born.

This bit caught on like nothing I've ever seen. I was Linda (or any other name that started with the letter "L", but mostly Linda) until the day I moved. This blasphemy was created on my last day and posted on my myspace :

When I called to give my boss my new address to send my tax form, I said, "Hey, it's Lindsay." and he said, "Who?" and I said, "Linda." and he said, "Oh, hey!"

When I came back, some other nicknames were tried out (we're big on nicknames at UG) such as "Dan's girlfriend." but it always went back to Linda.

And so, I am now Linda at work. I sometimes almost say "Hey, it's Linda" on people's voice mails. I almost introduced myself as Linda in one class. But the greatest thing of all happened tonight at Yom Kippur dinner with Dan's elderly grandfather. Dan said to him "You remember Lindsay, right?" and....

He. Called. Me. Linda.

let's talk about sex

I am taking college health this semester because...well, I don't really know why. It's an easy credit and fulfills a requirement, in theory. However, it's a 3 hour class that runs until 9:30 p.m., there is a quiz every week, next week we have a big stupid test, and I had to sign up for a day to present my research paper today, the main problem being that I haven't even chosen a topic yet.

To compound my doubt over choosing this course, tonight's topic was S-E-X. Perhaps the weirdest thing about it is that today I stumbled upon a blog on the Glamour magazine website (I don't want to talk about it) with a category "Your Most Awkward Sex Experiences!!!!11!" Because I've never had a particularly awkward sex experience (unless you count the whole hey,-that's-my-roommate-I'm-having-sex-with thing), so I was quite intrigued. I found an entry about a 5th grade teacher who made a end of the year video for her class, only to discover after having sent out a copy to each child that there was an 8 second clip of her nekkid, doing god knows what, on the DVD. This led Dan and I to a discussion of our experiences with sex education. I was listening to a Genius playlist on my iPod off of "Push It" by S&P, and I kid you not, the song that came on as I was parking at school was "let's talk about sex." I then went to class and got some sex education. I chalk this up to synchronicity, which I learned from Ally's blog.

Anyhow, in my class, hilarity ensued. He's this 49 year old big, macho guy from with a heavy downstate accent, and he's always saying the funniest shit. I should really start tape recording the classes for my later amusement. Our preview to sexuality came a few weeks ago when we were talking about psychological health, and he was talking about hormones. He told us that "Women have estrogen, and that's the main hormone that comes from...you know...down there." Today's class included such classic gems as: "You will all experience break-ups. Probably a lot of them. Some of yous guys are probably sluts, right? You know, tramps?" And when a slide came up listing the types of sex (oral, anal, etc.) and he goes, "I don't really have anything to say about this. Know how to do these things." All in all, it felt like getting a sex ed lesson from your dad.

Ramblings of a mad-woman

I knew as I was scooping that coffee into my coffee maker that it was a baaad idea. 5pm might not seem that late, but I have been diligent for years about not drinking coffee too late, lest it keep me up at night. But I'm in a weird phase right now, transitioning away from being a super-early morning person, and damn it, i like coffee. So I brewed myself 4 cups (c'mon, we all know those "cups" are only 5 or 6oz. Pshaw!) of delicious coffee and guzzled it down as fast as my little throat would let me. After all, I had a class at 6:30 and wanted to be alert!
BIG MISTAKE. Almost as bad as the time the French backed the US during the American Revolution just to spite Britain, thus causing the French economy to tank and sparking, in part, the French Revolution (I'm taking Western Civ). It is now 11:30, and I'm insane! I'm not even a little tired, and I have no outlet for my energy. Dan went to bed HOURS ago. I got lonely and called a red plum "little guy" and invited him to get in my mouth. I then nearly choked on said plum, which triggered a fantasy-sequence in which I was actually choking and ran into the bedroom to try to get Dan to do the Heimlich maneuver on me, which caused me to wonder if he'd figure out what was wrong in time, what with me not being able to talk and all. Lesson learned? No coffee after 3pm for me.
What I should be doing right now is either reading the rest of my western civ chapter (which would put me to sleep for sure) or re-writing this poorly written super boring article about grade retention into a fabulous speech, or my Spanish homework. I just don't have the motivation. Instead, I'll probably watch more YouTube videos of cats putting their heads under running water and Obama calling Kanye West a jackass.
WILL I EVER SLEEP???

Tired

I got in bed around 11, completly exhausted, but couldn't sleep. I got up to watch some tv on the internet, but this seems to have given me a second wind of sorts. I don't feel alert enough to do anything useful (i.e. homework).
There are skidmore kids in the little pathway between my house and the neighbors. Needless to say, they are drunk and noisy. It's annoying me.
I am crabby.
Hmmph.

happy happy happy

Hey, guess who's glass is half full? I am so happy to be back in school. It's so bizarre to be going to a regular college instead of doing mostly 0n-line classes. I'm like, "you want me to sit at a desk?" I am taking classes at night because we only have one car and Dan works during the day. It works out quite well because so far there's a good mix of ages in my classes. It's not all dumb 18 year olds.

It feels really weird to be only working 2 days a week (which is sponsored by all the "Oops I don't have money for rent" coupons I've been collecting from Dan over the years, and his desire to help me live an awesome life). To be able to spend the majority of my time doing something I really enjoy is completely foreign. High school felt like an obligation, and after that came work, so I've always been doing stuff that I have to do, even if I hate it. I'm choosing to go to school now, and I love it. Specifically, I am thrilled to be taking Spanish (my first class was tonight!) which is what I want to do with my life. I'm doing something I love and it's getting me from here to my desired career. My life has purpose. I'm a real human.

This also means I get to sleep in 5 days a week and stay up until a normal-person time at night. I hadn't realized how stressful getting up at 5am is until I stopped having to do it. I know some people can function with little sleep, but I'm not that person. I am miserable with anything less than 7 hours. Which means that I have to be asleep by 10pm every night. Which rarely happens. Not to mention I'm a light sleeper, so throw noisy neighbors or Dan waking me up into the mix, and fuggitaboutit.

Long story short: My life is suddenly really awesome.

There is this nagging sense of guilt, however. Like, shouldn't my life suck at least a little? I know once school picks up, I'll be really busy, but I don't mind writing papers and studying.

Either way, I'm disgustingly excited and uncharacteristically optimistic.

Oh, on a completely unrelated topic, I'm trying to decide whether or not to change my last name when I get married. I know, I know, I shouted "I'M NEVER CHANGING MY NAME!" from the rooftops, but I've been thinking about it lately, and think it could be nice. But it's my name. How do you even make a decision like that? Yikes.

March, April, May, September

I'm not really sure what happened to all those months that fall between May and September, but here I am about to start classes again. Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic. I really like being in school, and this year being in school translates to me working very part time. And I did a lot this summer, it was pretty awesome. I just can't believe how quickly it flew by. I somehow managed to not only not save any money, but to have $300 less in my savings account than I did in May. This is quite unlike me, and leaves me feeling anxious if I think about it too much. So I try not to.

I'm not terribly excited about 3/4 of my classes this year. Western Civ (puke), Speech, and College Health are just holes on my gen-ed punch card. I'm excited but unsure about the Spanish class I'm taking, because I chose Spanish 1, even though I could have taken Spanish 2. I'm just worried that because it's been so long since I've been in a Spanish class, there is much I can't remember. I'm also worried that because I'm actually quite good at Spanish (or will be once I get a little practice to brush up), I'll be bored out of my mind.

It just hit me that today is my last day off of summer. The last day I'll be able to just lay around and do nothing. Instead, I'm trying to clean the apartment from top to bottom because who knows when I'll have time to do it again. I'm also trying to finish season 4 of Felicity ASAP.

I can't wait for fall weather to stick. I have a closet full of fall clothes, and these sweet boots that I had to search endlessly for are on the way:

I am ready.