Today I watched myself have heart surgery. It was EPIC!

Whenever you have a surgery, even if it's a minor one, there is a set of forms you're supposed to fill out. Basically, if something horrible goes wrong during the surgery, the doctors want to know what I want people to do with my body. It's not very pleasant to think about, but it's good to be prepared.

The Ponderer - view from the back shows the exposed nervous system, including the spinal cord, which  is normally enclosed in vertebrae.

I saw Body Worlds in March for the first time. It's a display of tastefully and artistically preserved cadavers arranged in ways that enable people to have a deeper understanding of the human anatomy.

Leo and Jill and I went together. They were the perfect people to go with. Jill works in a blood analyzing lab in a hospital and Leo is an anatomy geek. Human Anatomy is one of the hardest classes our college offers, and he took it for fun. And he didn't sell back his textbook. Once during a party I saw him get so excited about the muscles in our arms that he interrupted himself mid sentence to run back to his room and grab his anatomy text book so he could show us the diagrams. ^_^

We planned on spending a good long time in the Body Worlds exhibit... You know, 2-3 hours. Well, the exhibit was a lot cooler than I had expected. It was positively unreal. I didn't personally know much about anatomy so I had lots of questions, and my travel buddies were extremely knowledgeable. The cadavers were beautiful, and I felt a connection with the donors who had consented to this sacrifice so that I could understand better. 5 1/2 hours later we finally decided to go. I wanted to stick around, but I was starting to feel dizzy because I hadn't eaten in a while. XD I figured it would be a good idea to not fall over onto the displays.

So when the nurses handed me forms that asked me what I wanted to do with my body, I got excited. Body Worlds, of course! It probably sounds creepy, but I would make an excellent specimen. I'm young and healthy and aside from the Atrial Septal Defect they are going in to fix, my body is in phenomenal condition. I have good muscles and I've never done drugs. Plastinization doesn't keep you from being a tissue and organ donor either.

Sadly, my parents are extremely opposed to the idea. The topic is stressful enough that they don't want to talk to me about it at all, which I understand. Out of respect for their feelings and love for them, the donor registration forms have gone in the trash.

Still... There is definitely a part of me that is excited by the idea that if I get detached from my body, it could still be used to help people. I would prefer this method of preservation while I look forward to the resurrection.

After an abundance of shenanigans with my sea creature friends, I finally decided to fulfill the purpose for which I originally bought them: To prank Leo.

Background Story:



A couple years ago, Leo went on a business trip. While he was gone, I missed him, and as a token of this sentiment, I decided to leave 3 lbs of dry pinto beans in his bed.

When he got home around midnight, awww… someone had made his bed up all nicely! He felt fuzzy inside, dumped his stuff, goofed off on his computer for a while, and finally headed to bed at 2AM. At which point he discovered the beans.

He was amused, but apparently too tired to do anything about it at the time, so he slept on them that night. He said it was strangely comfortable. After 2 or 3 nights of sleeping on the beans, he finally decided it was time to clean them out… So he washed them and fed them to his dinner group.

From time to time I threaten to put beans in his bed again. Every time I do, he feels a need to check, just to be sure... ^_^

So Leo found the octopodes in his bed last night. After a long journey, they have arrived at a new home of love and happiness.

The other night, my Nathan brother wanted to come spend time with me. Quality time, so movies weren't an option. So we decided to go play pranks on people.

My supervisor’s supervisor walked by my cubicle while I was assembling this one.

“CLEARLY, Laura, since you don’t have enough to do, we need to find some more work for you…” *walks off laughing*

I'm attracted to foreign textiles. Both the cloth itself and the people who wear it tend to be a little rougher, more colorful, and more homemade. Although this particular girl comes with all the graces of an Indian princess, the fact remains: people who wear foreign textiles always have an interesting story to tell.

You make a million octopuses from a mold, you'd think they'd all be the same.

Not so! After hours of fiddling with the bath toys (no child ever played with their bath toys as much as I play with mine), I've noticed the flexibility of the plastic varies. I can put some of the 'podes in positions that the others can't hold. Their personalities are starting to emerge. ^_^

This is Parky doing his best horseshoe crab imitation:

AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!! I would rather deal with angry customers all day long than selfish sales representatives. *angry face*. When I get a data entry call from a Rep and I recognize that something they are doing is not in the best interest of the customer, I want to hang up on them or report them to my supervisor. Except my supervisor is also in on the conspiracy.

I’ve always been a quiet person, so suddenly talking for 8+ hours a day is a stretch for my vocal cords. I started losing my voice my first week, and had to make an emergency errand for salt. I have since learned the value of a constant supply of cold water. ^_^ My Octopodes like the water bottle too, see?

Stackable friends

Snackable friends...

And hide-and-go seek! Can you find them all?

Friend Mandy helped me name my octopodes. They are now officially:

Snarky = yellow
Barky = red
Parky = green
Diddle Doo = Blue
Inky = Purple

I always thought the sophisticated plural for octopus was octopi. Apparently that is incorrect. The correct term is “Octopodes”.  Thank you Google, for having 746,000 results to answer to my meaningless question.




Why yes, I love this movie.

Oh man… The discount shopping cart loves me back. I found a set of octopus bath toys for 99 cents. ^_^
Normally I wouldn’t, but these were unfathomably cute… I got them originally for pranking a friend, but somehow they ended up in my backpack and I brought them to work today. ; ) Besides, lots of people have office toys. Mine are just a little extra perky.
I looked at my phone stats today: LITERALLY 2/3rds of my time I’m sitting around doing nothing, waiting for people to call. That means I spent 6 hours arranging the octopuses and taking pictures of them. Haha…. I’m getting paid like $50/day to play with bath toys.
They’re pretty helpful little suckers too. ^_^ I’m telepathically teaching them how to type.

The yellow one hasn’t quite gotten the idea yet though. He just clicks incessantly.

So I work in a cubicle.

Bottom of the food chain too: It’s in a call center for a home security company. I swore I’d never do a desk job again, but even the graveyard janitorial crew wouldn’t hire me, so it was time to swallow my pride.

Besides, after months of eating my roommate’s stale leftover desserts because I couldn’t afford my own calories, any job was a relief.

Last week several family members each spent over 45 minutes questioning every major decision I’ve made in the last 6 months: Why did I break up with my boyfriend? He was such a great young man! Why did I date him if I was just going to break up with him? (Really.) Why wasn’t I in school? Why hadn’t I worked harder to find a job? Why did I need heart surgery NOW? Couldn’ t it wait until I was in a better financial situation? Why hadn’t I taken care of housing earlier? Why wasn’t I living with my parents instead of on my own if I was struggling so much? (There were other more personal complaints… These are just the ones I think you’d relate to.)

After a particularly bad phone call, I was angry and fried and needed to cry, so my friend Leo came to the rescue. At the time, I didn’t have any job prospects, I was about to be homeless, and I had five dollars to my name. No one in my family was both willing and able to help out… I felt broken and alone. The prognosis was dismal, but Leo helped me realize that I’d done my best so I could be at peace about whatever came next.

So I made peace, and tried again, and this job suddenly fell in my lap. At last, an employer that doesn’t require heavy lifting or mind the fact that I’m moving in 3 months! (Ask your doctor if a cubicle is right for you.) So I will spend this gorgeous summer in a 4′x4′, waiting for heart surgery, working off student loans and trying to make customers feel better without actually having the power to solve their problems. =P It’s a humble pill, but I guess it’s where I’m supposed to be.

I’ll be free soon, freer than I have ever been. Soon I’ll be in Cambodia cuddling orphans, or photo-documenting the post-revolutionary development in Egypt.

Or in Taiwan teaching people about Christianity. Or doing wilderness therapy counseling in the boondocks. At very least, I’ll be in school working towards those dreams. If I hold onto that thought, I can keep going.

Initial impression? The natives are friendly, even if the customers aren’t. They finally gave me my very own cubicle. It doesn’t have a name plate yet, so I made my own:

I am armed with imagination and a camera phone. All things are yet possible.