baby katie gets the hiccups

okay, the obligatory katie picture:

she is pissed because she has the hiccups.

also, i got fired this week, which on one level sucks because it's like, hmm, how do i pay my rent? but it's also fantastically liberating, because my boss was a holy nightmare. so, the tremendous relief at not having to work for her anymore is pretty much outweighing my money anxiety at this point. i'm going to start temping next week when i get back from my trip home to see katie (um, and the rest of my family too). the worst part is that my coworker chris, who's one of my best friends, is on vacation in australia this week, and when he gets back, i'll be gone already. i do feel bad about that, but there's not much i can do at this point.

but, at any rate, i watched waking life with brian tonight and even after having seen that movie a few times, i'm not quite sure what to make of it. i mean, sometimes the visuals are so earnest and literal that they border on painful - in one scene, a woman is talking about how words are dead and inert and ultimately unable to express elements of our internal lives, and she says, "so, i speak a word, and it reaches the other person's ear" and then as she said it, a visible puff of air comes out of her mouth, and then a little cartoon ear appears and the "word" disappears into the ear. i mean, really, guys. it's like in garden state when zach braff is all fucked up at that party and the song in the background is lebanese blonde - too low to find my way, too high to wonder why - and you just wince a little. so literal! but, beyond that, there are some very smart and very interesting ideas in that movie. the most interesting: to what extent is our behavior determined by the fact that our neurons, like any other bits of matter, are subject to the laws of physics? and, does that fact make our experience more predictable, or more random? anyway.

and, yesterday was flunk day. sigh!