Ballad of the Unfriendly Ridiculous

So, the question of my overexposed negatives may be solved. It looks like something is actually wrong with my lens, which is... not what I expected the problem to be (it's always the last place you think to look). I'm gonna cry to my TA about it tonight anyway, because I already signed up for help, but... looks like I've gotta find myself another 50mm lens. Which is at least less painful than finding myself another camera.

This does not even begin to border on the ridiculousness I've experienced since about 8:00 last night, though, which is when Skirtpants called me and left the vaguest message ever on my voicemail "Um, call me back, I have something to tell you." Which I immediately figured meant "I can't drive you over to pick up sketchyheart on Thursday." And I was right. So it was 8:30 Tuesday night... 48 hours before I need to rescue the poor girl from a rest stop on I-294 because whatever nutter designed our bus system here also got a hold of MU's.

So I catch the bus and get back to the dorm at about 8:50 and grab myself some food because I basically haven't eaten in 24 hours. Unfortunately, this food requires heating in the oven, and as soon as I turn the oven on, it hit 9:00 and the fire alarm went off. And the lovely thing about the Shoreland fire alarm is that the noise it makes automatically shuts off any higher brain functions and induces a form of animal panic more effectively than any other noise on earth, so it took a lot of effort to find my shoes, coat, and turn the oven back off. Especially while starving. So I went outside and yelled at my RA, and threatened to go back inside posing as staff (I am staff, goshdarnit, I was wearing my Rescom t-shirt and everything). And when we finally got in I ate, and told my camera woes to my mom while finding new and exciting ways to maim my thumb with a binder.

Then I had to figure out how to save sketchyheart, which involved getting over my horrid embarrassment at having such a short-notice and bizarre question for my RHs. They agreed to pick her up until they found out it was a rest-stop on 294, which is like, 30 miles out of town and also, as I expounded upon at great length to Sketchy when this adventure was at its beginnings, very very ridiculous. Ridiculous, apparently, to the point that anyone over approximately 22 is no longer able to understand it, so I retreated to the computer lab rather desperate and embarrassed and, on the whole, very unwilling to try harder to talk the RHs into giving me a ride, because the Illinois Tollway... thing-people aren't kind enough to give the addresses for any of their goshforsaken rest stop "Oasis" things, so explaining in great detail was totally out of the question. So we reached a tentative conclusion and I went to bed, because I intended to get everything sorted out this morning.

4:30 this morning, the fire alarm goes off again. Suffice it to say it's even harder to get the brain working in that situation, so I don't really remember much of it, aside from somehow grabbing two coats at once, and joking about the police arresting everyone for being in the park across the street after dark. Oh, and the massive injustice of someone pulling the fire alarm at 4:30 when there were not FLAMES shooting out of the building. When, in fact, there was no fire at all. Not even someone too incompetant to make popcorn in a microwave, no. No fire. No smoke. Just someone with a freaking awful sense of humor. And hopefully soon a criminal record, or a lot of bruises.

And, as we've learned from fiction and real life, everyone has a breaking point. When finally the world and its myriad trials and tribulations throw that last paralyzing straw onto the camel.

My solution to this? I am renting a car and picking her up myself. Screw this. I'm also skipping class on Friday so we can go to the Japanese grocery store on the north side, and possibly the Zoo. I don't care that the world is still taking digs at me, because it's going to snow tomorrow night. When? 9:00, of course. Right when I need to be on the road. In October. But whatever, world. Whatever. I don't care what you do to me. I'm just going to continue on my merry way and enjoy my weekend, even if it is bitterly cold and computerless and without a proper 50mm lens for my camera or sleep or food or higher brain functions. I have a car reserved for tomorrow, gas prices are still below $3.00 a gallon, and goshdarnit I'm not abandoning anyone at rest stops, even if the countless hordes of Chicago drivers will be 300% worse with any sign of snow. You will not win, world! You will not win!