Hahaha oh man. Do you guys listen to the radio? Do you listen to the commercials? Well, you ought to. Cuz there was this mattress commercial a couple of days ago. And it was fantastic.

See, there's this announcer guy talking about what "you" could get "her" for Christmas, like "you" always do. He's listing Jewelry She Will Never Wear or Wine That Will Be Gone Soon and Sweaters That Are the Wrong Color - crud like that.

And then - then he's like, "OR, you could give her the gift that keeps on giving! The gift that doesn't only come once a year - it comes again and again and again! GET HER A MATTRESS! She'll thank you again and again and again!"

And I'm thinking, "Holy expletive, Batman! The mattress companies are totally selling sex!! Did they ALWAYS do that??"

(Probably.)

(Oh, so, you get it, right? Cuz, see, he said the gift, he said it comes again and... meaning, over and over, multiple... times... and the girl, she thanks you each... okay, you got it. Okay. Yeah.)

And there were a BUNCH - was a bunch? Were? Was? - there were several commercials like that, but that was my favorite one and now you've heard it too :) I hope it gave you a chuckle also and you don't think too hard about it every time you get into the new bed your fiancee gave you... muhuahahaha.

Too much? Too much.

But hey. It's public radio!

Why is my pen name Nineteen?

People have been asking me. And because my last attempt at an answer was one written in a single sleep-deprived hour and failed miserably I've decided to give it a more logical go.

Well, to start with, nineteen is kind of my favorite number.

As K.M.J.L-T. pointed out, it is the age of somebody very important - has been for a while, actually, and will be for a little while longer. Also, it is a prime number, which hold a certain magic on their own, and it's the last one under twenty.

It's the lowest fraction that can be used for 95%. That's not really a reason I carry around with me, I just think it's sort of interesting for some reason. Maybe it's because 95% is the last integer percentile that can be reduced to so small a fraction. I mean, the next thing that goes cleanly into 100 after 20 is 50, and you can only get 50% of the way to the end using that particular method.

It's the very last of the teen numbers, not quite equidistant between voting and drinking (though that, of course, is an opinion in which you might differ, if you count midnight to be in the afternoon rather than in the morning). Also, it is the last number beginning with the numeral 1 for eighty integers, which I think might have made it rather pompous, but didn't, so let's applaud nineteen for that, shall we? May we all be so humble!

But one reason - so simple, so beautiful, so directly under all our noses - makes nineteen a particularly fantastic number to be.

One need only write seven short words:

I love you

Count the letters . Good night.

IS FACING.

THE WRONG.

DIRECTION.

HOW THE HELL DID THIS GET PAST AN ENTIRE GRAPHICS DEPARTMENT

WITHOUT ANYONE NOTICING

UNTIL IT WAS TOO LATE

AND NOW THE BACKWARDS WAVE IS GOING TO HAUNT ME IN MY DREAMS

MOCKING ME

MOCKING ME

YELLING INCESSANTLY,

"I AM BACKWARDS

"AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT!"

(Bonus points to anyone who knows what movie the title of this post is from!)

This day was very interesting. It started off with me finding the most perfect song ever as an alarm clock. It was loud enough that it woke me, but gentle enough that I could remember my dream a few minutes after I awoke. I blame the fact that I no longer remember the dream on the blaring of the beep alarm, which is supposed to go off after a set number of minutes to get you awake, but actually just goes off whenever the heck it feels like it.

Then I tried to do my English homework and failed. More on that later.

Then, I was in such a hurry to get out of the house that I forgot my gloves, which as you know spells C-E-R-T-A-I-N D-O-O-M for my poor bad-circulation hands.

I was out of my car for all of probably two minutes - tops - but considering how cold it's been, and it was early, and there is wind chill to account for, and I was carrying a box of frozen cookies - considering all of these things, maybe it's sort of forgivable that my fingers have really and truly never hurt so much before in my living memory, and that they basically were about to fall off by the time I got inside -

Which was hard enough in itself, because I have this backpack and this lunchbox hanging off of my arm, right, and my hands are rapidly frostbiting and fusing to the cookie box, and I'm thinking, What kind of fool would ever zip down a hill in this weather? and I was just a few feet behind this girl who opened the door, looked back at me, saw me, and then let the door close behind her.

Cuss. I cussing hate people like that, you know? Anyway.

Anyhow, my hands were a lovely bright red, and then A.R. was a perfect darling and helped me with the cookie box while blood returned oh-so-painfully to my fingers. Yeah. That was fun...

By the time we got to English (ON TIME, THANK YOU VERY MUCH) my hands felt much warmer - which, as you all know, is not very warm at all. They still felt like dry ice, but at least they felt, right? Then C.P.I. was another darling and let me borrow her mittens! We watched a presentation and discussed our essays a bit, and I got a one-period extension on my English homework before the bell rang (short classes today).

So I go to the library and I can move my fingers again - always a nice luxury - and I sit down at the computer and promptly begin the English assignment. Well, you can ask D.S. - no, really, ask him, because he was there - Word just kind of shut down as I was wrapping up the homework. And because I was on a shared computer, I couldn't access recent documents, or even a search for a document, and even though I'd been saving the thing, I didn't know what folder it was. I figure it must have been in Temp, because I got half of it from the version I'd emailed myself this morning before leaving on my gloveless adventure.

But Mr B is a good person and says I've earned merit or something (WOO HOO MERIT) so he's given me a further extension. Also the fact that I was nearly in tears might have helped...

This didn't happen in Spanish, but it is relevant, so: for our final, we are delivering a 3-minute oral presentation on some aspect of Spanish/Latino culture, and I am totally going to ask Sr. C if I can do mine about artistic butts. And no, I do not mean cigarettes, I mean your rear end. Well, not yours specifically, but - because there is this exhibit right now at the Prado museum (which is in Spain, if you didn't know) and is therefore Spanish culture!

In Speech class I made up this totally fantastic joke. Ready?

What did violet light say to red light?
It's not the size of your wavelength, it's how you use it!

Today was quite interesting. So I thought I might as well share many of its aspects with you. Why not? I asked myself. And myself said, I don't know! Might as well! So here we are.

In English, I helped a classmate with a presentation on the book A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. I portrayed the book's narrator, a Mr John Wheelwright, and gave him just a wee bit of PTSD. I don't really understand what it is with me - when I act in Speech and Debate, I'm either a funny creeper or doing something biblical; in Theatre, and other non-speech, choose-your-own character endeavors, whenever I get to have a character choice, it's typically somebody with PTSD. What?

But the PTSD does fit with the character, thank you. And I think it really worked, because people seemed to really get it. So yup.

In Psych, we continued our discussion about racial stereotypes, profiling, and discrimination.

Fifth period.

Ahem.

On the note of the tournament, it is BUBBLE TIME HARDCORE. My man and I have been going steady for six months this Friday! You have basically no idea how excited that makes me. Well, unless you happen to be my man. In which case you probably do...

Back to the school day, I finished all of my Maths homework and some English homework in class. Dance auditions for the Wiz were after school, and I won't bore you with too many details, nor will I draw your attention to it majorly. I'll just say it could have gone better, and it could have gone worse, but I feel alright because I'll probably get into the show someplace. Yes?

(Nate, I am trying your theory of NOT believing in myself. If it fails, so do you. Hardcore.)

But the important thing is always what you take away from an experience, right? Right. And what did I take away from this experience? Well, I have half-knowledge of a pseudo-dance that might or might not be used in our production of the Wiz, and I have some fabulous new blisters!

Who does a kajillion pivots on a wood floor without socks or shoes on? We do!

The moon is supposedly huge and orange tonight, but I can't see it because of clouds, which are bringing in more snow. Totally not fair. I hope you can see it, because it's supposedly spectacular.

Also, I checked out BBC Mundo (Spanish: World) for the noticias (news) of today. Hot international topics include Obama's plan for Afghanistan. (Did you watch that last night? I did. Did you catch Sen. McCain's interview? I did. Did you laugh at the end? I did!) As for news in the science world, apparently researchers at Eindhoven University in Holland have successfully created some laboratory meat. Check it out!

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Just the slightest bit depressed today.



AstroTurf sucks.