More horror! Does it ever end? I feel like my life has been one long chain of auspiciousness lately.

My holely problems have come to a climax. Does anyone remember this terrifying zit of doom? Well, I must TMI you and tell you that it never went away. It got to the point that I was checking out different kinds of acne and backne on the Goog to see what was wrong with me. Did you know that there is a special name for ASS ZITS? I can’t remember it right now, though.

Anyway, so this hole in my back just kept filling up, and I would try to ignore it, thinking that I had just been irritating it. Finally a few nights ago, I had had enough.

I peeled back the remnants of a scab that was still on it. I couldn’t believe that a year later it was still sore. I could see something it there, and I am an optimist, so I thought, “Maybe this will be the end this time.”

I tried to pop it, and the white part would rise to the surface, but it wouldn’t come out.

“That’s it,” I said. “It’s time for some minor home surgery.” I took my tweezers, unsterilized, and went at it. I would pull the white part halfway out and it would sink back into its hole, like some kind of horrible bog. It reminded me of those childbirth videos where the baby’s head is sliding in and out and you want to just gouge out your eyes to make it all go away.

Finally, I got a good grip on whatever it was and gave it a righteous yank. It came out and was the size of a small ball bearing. The hole was evident, but did not bleed. I could see to the bottom of it where it looked kind of…black.

It reminded me of a wart I pulled out of my hand when I was 16. Ever since I have pulled it out I have had no problems or pain, and the hole is healing nicely.

Cripes, who gets a wart on their back?

The End.

Update! 3:58 p.m.

I should also add that as a youth, I got immense pleasure out of pulling my sister’s teeth. All signs lead to me needing to start smoking again regularly, so I can have something else to do with my handses.

That’s it. That’s my number assigned for my study by the Human Subjects Division of the university. They want four more puny documents from me, and then I am on my way to being approved for research. If everything goes as planned, I am going to start research on the first week of November.

This evening, my student org. had a mixer for the first- and second-year library students, to give them a chance to get to know each other. It was very successful, and I suspect it will become an annual affair.

What a great day. I shouldn’t have anything to snark about, but when you get a roomful of future librarians and information professionals together, they are really easy targets.

The cat was let out of the bag about my dive into Drumheller Fountain at the end of the Spring Fling. Everywhere I go, there my reputation is.

Gah.

Dear Everyone,

I said I’d never do this, because it goes all against my blas

My closest friend in library school and I are almost never seen apart. We have been called “The Dynamic Duo” and “The Gruesome Twosome.” When I am without her, people say, “Hey, where’s Scratchy?” and when she’s spotted without me, people want to know where Itchy is.

A few months ago, we decided it would be fun to perpetuate a scandal in which people would believe we were in a huge fight. But the (dumb, and boredom-induced) twist to it all would be that when we were together we would act as if everything was normal. When we were apart, the backbiting would commence.

I have been thinking about the perfect set-up for months, sadly. It had to be perfect: a time when there were just a few people around to hear it, and the kinds of people who might tell others, but were credible enough to be believed. It couldn’t be a party, because I didn’t want to talk about it a ton, like you do when you are standing around shooting the breeze at parties. Today we had our first window of opportunity.

Scratchy and I have the same class together in the morning. Today she was out with a rotten head cold, so I took my opportunity to unleash the very devilish and scandalous gossip right before class started.

The professor was making us draw barns (yes, long story, and I know it’s supposed to be grad school), and we were all drawing and chatting.

Archivist: “Where’s Scratchy? Was this class interfering with her mojo?”

Me: “I think she dropped. At least I hope so. She and I had an altercation, and I’d be very surprised if she showed up in here again.

So, the first official week of work is in the can. I think I will like being the assistant director of the writing center; I say this, of course, without having tutored a single student yet. I did a bunch of stuff and made changes and suggested changes and filled out paperworkand pushed pencils (or is it paper?) and sometimes surfed the Interneck. I knew I was meant to do this and not stand behind a cash register. I just have to watch out for dreaded Librarian Butt, which results in many hours computering and Internecking at work, and then coming home and doing the same.

I now have copy codes so I can perpetute my white-collar crimes, and the code allowing me entry to the breakroom so I can get the good water. But the best part of it is that, four days a week, I can get out of the house and not be yelled at by a three-foot-tall person all day. If any of my tutees wipe their peanut-butter-and-jammy hands on me, I can either call security or punch them. Life is better when your sucker husband, who did not arrange childcare so that you could go to the party tonight, too, is home with the girlie.

Well, if I can’t go, then he’s not going either. Or maybe just I should go? I’m sure his old friend would love to see me at his 30th birthday instead of Mr. Husband.

The first week in the cushy uni job is going well. If you want to know how my second day was, you may read the comments of my previous entry. Hint: it involves nakedness.

I am on a power trip, as usual, because I just found out about the undergraduate writing tutors that I get to supervise and what that entails. I get to put together a syllabus, and I get to demand work from them so they can get credit. And I get to make them do Useful Things when they have nothing else to do.

“Hmm…” I will say. “Why don’t you diagram some sentences from a book I will choose off this shelf, totally at random. Here, Remembrances of Things Past, Volume 7. Go!”

I should not be in charge of people, ever, really. When I was a coffee jerk and got promoted to supervisor, I think I always had way too much fun making the new hires mop.

In the next couple of weeks I have to finish my human subjects application to do research, speak at a couple of orientations, go to four thousand meetings, prepare for the new library students’ mixer, and not lose my mind. Now that I have reached this level of schooling, my life is all about spraying people with information, and then running away again before they can spray me with too much information.

What I would like to be doing in the next couple weeks is to drink gin and Sprite and watch old episodes of “Hooperman.” There should also be oral sex and sambuca involved, also some Jay-Z. Although I am going to a crazy crunkfest on Saturday night, so we’ll see what happens.

A bright spot: my improved health insurance has kicked in, and now I can go get some sexy new evil information scientist glasses, and then all will love and fear me.

“A snake! A snake! Snake! Ooohhh it’s a snaaaake!”

I can’t wait for the remix, featuring Beyonce.

Yesterday I went on a

And here I was all terrified this morning, because my thesis advisor wanted to call me at home and I have Cringy Puppy Syndrome. It turns out that all she wanted was to catch up with me and tell me what to get done while she’s on vacation.

Things are good–Mr. Husband is working for the next three days so we will be able to cover Frannie tuition and food. Sometimes things just work out.

N.B.: You can use money to hire a hot tub full of jiggly bikini girls, or it can get you killed or sent to jail. How can money be so evil, yet so delightful?

I am victorious because I cut my hair without being under the influence of PMS, so I did not end up with a faux-hawk or a bad weave or something. I almost cut my bangs short again, because I had thirty seconds of, “oh wouldn’t it be cute to have widdle bangs with the widdle choppy bob?” but I refrained, thank god. I have always meant to write up a list of about twenty reasons why I shouldn’t have bangs, and then to put it in an envelope marked “Self: open when you have that look in your eye and you are sharpening the hair scissors.”

It is an Okay haircut. I took this picture using my father-in-law’s sexy new Pentax Optio, which indeed fits in an Altoid tin, as the ads promise. You could probably swallow the thing and not realize it.

Now I will begin the wrestling match with the university’s Human Subjects Division. You have to fill out a book-sized application stating your research methodology, partners, purpose, etc. They are notoriously bureaucratic and difficult, but fortunately I have people who have defeated them before. I will be victorious.

This is the part where we cue the theme from Brazil, and I get everything signed in triplicate.