holy random, batman.

i was bored today. now we all know that a bored pio is a pissy pio, and a hungry one at that. i ate two of those salty and sweet granola bars while i was watching the season finale of the oc from last week and now the tums is upset with me. yargh, i say.

it's two am, and i suppose i should go to bed so that i can get up and have treadmill time at a decent hour tomorrow. since we all know it's much better to get whipped off the treadmill with people around instead of having no one there and saving your dignity. at least the ipod was safe so that i didn't meet my end at the hands of the midge.

sidenote: i miss my free newspaper. how can i read the eat section on thursdays if i have to pay for both the trib and the pioneer press? bah.

yeah, this was kinda boring, but sweetpeas...i never promised one a rose garden. more exciting things are in the offing.

oh, the things i've learned.

today i graduated. it took me five years, but i, yours truly, got to wear an itchy hat that did not look cute while the dean of students missed pronounced my name, not once, but twice.

for the record, "piotraschke" is pronounced PIE-O-TRASH(but without the "h")-KEY. it's really not that hard. many people have mastered it. if my sister learned how to spell it eventually, people can say when given phonetic guides.

but my point today is something more than academic. my point today is that this week i learned that the physical world hates me. yup, that's right.

my ass got kicked this week...and not because i've been rumbling in the parking lot like usual. i give you three examples:

evidence piece A.) the ginormous blister that i got HELPING people. yup, that's right. i walked 6.2 miles on sunday to help people with aids and what happened?...my puma kicks gave me a blister that looked like my heel was infected with some ucky disease found in a third world country. it later popped during the debacle that gave us evidence piece c. i didn't take a picture because that's beyond nast. even i know that.

evidence piece B.)

the highlighted area would be what happened on tuesday..when the laundry basket in my room fell and hit the door while i was coming in from my shower, which then shoved the doorknob into my tum. granted that picture was taken yesterday, so the bruise (yup, i said bruise) has faded considerably. however, i felt that it was bad news since it was tardedly close to the scar from the hernia that almost was. plus, i swear i bruised an ovary. ew.

evidence piece c.)


this was the grandaddy of the world kicking my butt. apparently i burned the candle at 8 ends this week. who knew that not sleeping more than 3 hours for a whole week, when mixed with smoke inhalation and moving indoors (mixed with two martinis perhaps) would cause...yes, that's right...a bruise on my head. evidence c here appeared when i fainted...yes, fainted...outside the bathroom at the independent. not only did i hit my head on a tile wall, but an entire bathroom thought that i was passed out drunk in the bathroom stall. luckily by then, i had regained my vision and the ability to tell them such was not the case. what's even greater was the fact that girls were actually whispering about me outside the bathroom, causing bill-paying compton to think "i wonder if that's pio?". sure enough....

for the record, i would like to state that i did not pass out. passing out requires one to be incapacitated. i was completely lucid through this whole event...i just could see...or apparently stand for that matter.

but all that is inconsequential...because this girl is now endowed with all the knowledge a college degree can give:


...doesn't she look smarter already...she can tie her shoes and talk bullshit about art...wow...

nope, i'm still here.

but you wouldn't know it from the amount of postage i've given the world in the week past.

to put it lamely, i've been busy...and while there's not a lack of exciting things in the life of the pio, there certainly hasn't been anything that's been post-worthy, so most of my writing has either been of the academic sort or the journaly kind, which i don't really feel like subjecting my reading public to. that would just be boring.

in theory, i really shouldn't even be writing this right now, as i have an art history final that needed to be written three days ago. see? that's how much dedication i have...sacrificing my education for everyone's...um, entertainment?

but fear not, in less than a week, i - amanda elizabeth piotraschke, will be a college graduate and will be using it to do nothing else than to wait tables at the illustrious somerset country club...so that means a.) lots of free time which translates into b.) time to dink around and post more. (andi may or may not also be tranlating to option c.) finally teaching myself italian like i've been trying to do for the past two summers, but that's a different conversation.)

so in the meantime, poodles...sit tight (until roughly thursday) and you know, sending the coolest blond art history grad one knows a lil' something in the mail in honor of her graduation never hurt anyone...

back in my day.

does anyone remember this guy?...he's not the same worm you once knew...

in case you don't, his name is slimey and if he looks vaguely familiar, its because he was oscar's buddy on sesame street. he sat right on the ledge by oscar's can. he was the only person oscar wasn't mean to and dangnabit, i found him adorable. slimey made me wish that all worms outside were that cute and cuddly...instead of being wet, pink and often smushed on the sidewalk.

now, you're all probably wondering why i'm waxing about a felt worm...it's because i'm outraged.

friday morning i was eating breakfast and channel surfing when i happen to come across sesame street. it was a pretty darn cute sketch. since sesame street's new goal is to promote healthy eating habits in children, they're making cookie monster eat things other than cookies. so on this particular morning, he was trying to go to the moon because it was the last cookie he could find. but how could he get there? slimey could help a brother out, since he went to space apparently and called WASA (yes, WASA.) and asked for them to send a rocket.

what was wrong with that sentence?...yup, that's right...slimey spoke...on a cell phone, nonetheless.

in my day, slimey was silent. he just wiggled around. sometimes you could see his wires. oscar talked to him and you, the viewer, were to infer that slimey was responding.

now he's all talking to him and his other worm friends.

i feel like i was witness to a bygone era. first they mess with slimey, next thing you know, they'll mess with prairie dawn. i think i might be bereft with a smidge of grief.

stupid disney. had to go and buy the muppets. now you've made slimey talk. i'm less than pleased.

at least i can say i've taken a drug test.

it's official. i hate big corporations. not enough to stop shopping, at say, target, but at least enough to never attempt to work for one again. here's why (and give me a minute or four, because we're in for a long one.):

we all know i'm taking a year off to apply to shool. well, this next 365 days also has the theme of "make as much money as freakingly possible". i'm thinking the best way to get this done is to combine a schedule of part-time somerset working (i know...i say the same thing every august and still go back every may.) and some other job that has decent hours that i can still work come september when the good ol' scc closes. my ace in the hole to this equation seemed to be marshall field's. so i apply. i mean, i like shopping and i like marshall field's and when you combine those two with the discount i'd be getting, it didn't seem like it could be beat.

so last wednesday, as soon as i finish my application, i get to go up to human resources to sign my application, where i'm interviewed by three people, the third being the manager from the shoe department, who didn't seem to dig me much. (i've never had someone look at me like i was a moron when i told them i read vogue until now.) despite my increasing feeling of "warning! danger amanda pio!", when they come in and offer me a job in shoes on comission, i sheepishly agree and i also uneasily agree to hustle back downtown tomorrow to take a drug test, being that before they can formally offer me a position, i have to pass (this is an important aspect to remember...this whole offering business) and i have to do it before 4:30 pm the following day. by this time, i know i'm somewhere i don't want to be.

by 10 o'clock that night, when i was informed that due to activities that previous week, i might not pass this lil' test, i was a-okay and perhaps looking forward to being able to be crowned "the girl no one expected to fail a drug test" because working for marshall field's seemed to be the equivalent to slowly removing my eyeballs with a fork.

so i wake up the next morning and i make the most fatal mistake...i go to the bathroom.

this later screws me big time because am then only able to give the nice technician at quant biomedical services 15 of the requested 30 militers of "test material" (yup, that's what they called my tinkle...made me feel like i was an experiment in a weird way.)

at this point i am informed of a number of things: a.) that i'm limited in the amount of water i can drink to re-hydrate myself so that we can start all over, but i can drink as much pop as i want. and b.) if i don't begin to rehydrate in FIVE minutes, it is company policy to call marshall field's. at this point they will assume that i am going to fail my test and i will not be offered my job.

complete crap. i should have walked out, but instead i hauled ass to the little store down the block where the person working was attempting to lock up his store to go on break. luckily, i convince him not to do so and i soon am back in the office just as my five minutes were up, downing a record 48 ounces of diet coke in 20 minutes (which is more than i ever drank in that amount of time in my life.) i finish my test and am on my merry way, thinking that this is a bunch of burecractic who-ha and that, once again, i hope i failed the damn thing. let the record also state that i had a beeotch of a stomach ache for the rest of the day due to the 48 ounces. gross.

the finale of the story is that i got a two phone calls yesterday while i was in class, asking me to call back to make an appointment to fill out my paperwork to get me started. no chance to think about it...no formal offer..for a job where the manager didn't even seem to like me? they just asssumed i was going to take it. so due to their arrogance and their ridiculous company policies (like the fact that you have to wear at least three pieces of clothing at all times...ie: you can't wear just a sweater and pants...you have to wear a sweater, pants AND a shirt...even i don't have that energy every day.) i said no thanks. i think there's a reason why i majored in art history and it could possibly be so that i don't have to depend on yahoos like this for a paycheck.


so, for now, until my other options pan out (like bread and chocolate...good hours AND chocolate croissants...sounds decent) i'm back at somerset full time, specializing in explaining to old people that my name is not andrea (yeah, i know...they look similiar on the nametag.)

ps: yes, that is the nametag i'm wearing in the picture and to those who asked, no it does not mean that i hand out sexual favors...unless serving beer and chicken salad suddenly has fallen under that category. and i know that i promised pictures...but i couldn't get them to work...at it's late. so those who are antsy for them are going to have to wait until i admit to the appropriate outlets that i need help. which will be shortly, so hang on.

work in progress.

bear with me, folks...i'm trying an experiment. if you happen to read this right now, you're probably thinking i'm a little challenged. be patient, it will be fixed by 10:30 cdt (gotta include watching the daily show in the eta completion time.)

ah...somerset nametag...how i thought we were done.

eh, because it's tuesday.

i could write something big and epic today, but it would just end up being soapboxy. I've had leon too much this week, which means that i listen to too much air america while i drive around st. paul. now, while i find this concept delightful and AP-like squeals of joy can probably be heard outside my car when i realize that it's 11 o'clock in the morning, i have a good 20 minutes of car time and the al franken show is on. however, it just gets me fired up and then i just end up preaching to the choir, since the only real conservatives i know are my parents...and that's just counterproductive...especially when i start screeching.

this evening was especially screechy due to the fact that the trib ran a lovely lil' article about some nimrods who worked at two snyder's locations in the twin cities and refused to fill birth control prescriptions because they felt that it was morally wrong.

don't even get me started. i thought that only happened in the bible belt. sheesh. these folks need to understand that one medication can be used for a multitude of uses.

okay. i have to stop before i ramble. it's one thing to screech in person, but on paper is just to ramble.

on the plus side...i'm happy to announce that the marshall field's saga is complete...which means that tomorrow is drug test story day! complete with visuals! so...see, there is something to look forward to.

now i leave with a parting interesting fact to think about: apparently some dude who had been mute for 9 years started speaking yesterday. i thought about it and realized that i can't even be quiet for 30 minutes, let alone 9 entire years. that's some friggin' perseverance, i tell you what.

technology bites. hard.

i had a glorious post planned. glorious, i tell you. all about my adventures with marshall fields and drug tests, wonderous tales of what i found out i didn't learn in high school. but now they all have to wait.

why?, you ask?...

because apparently i'm technologically challenged.

maybe i knew this all along. i'm not one for reading directions. i tend to forge ahead on my own until i have to read the directions in order to "troubleshoot". i think it's inventive. others tend to think it's dangerous (especially since it normally involves electronics or gadgets or some combination of the two, and things like my dad's digital camera.)

anywho, even after i went back and read the directions, i still couldn't figure out why it changed my file from a jpeg to whatever the heck it was and now all i'm left with is that stupid square on the side of this blog where my picture should be. it bums me out. big time. plus, i forgot to tape family guy AND it snowed today...which is may 1st, and that, my friends, is the exact opposite of cool.
(sidenote: now, i love minnesota as much as the next girl who has lived here for 22 out of the 23 years of her life, but it's getting old. i'm tired of being cold...and my sweaters are beginning to bore me.)

now, it wasn't the lack of pictures that kept me from actually writing about something interesting. no, no. it's merely that the amount of energy i exerted in the hour i spent figuring out left me feeling less than jovial and instead left me with the urge to bitch about how technology is keeping me from being the aforementioned jovial. don't worry though, i'll fight. i'll figure it out and i'll have the coooolest pictures a blog ever saw. and never fear, the tale of the drug test is coming shortly.