I’ve had a draft about my new word for 2013 all put together and nearly ready to go since late last week, but I’m just not feeling it 100% – and I’m thinking about whether or not I really want to embody that word for a whole year – so instead, you’re just going to have to deal with a random collection of thoughts for the evening.

I’ve been watching Monday Night Football with Mike tonight as I help him with his homework. Up until recently (a year or so ago), I was convinced that the Washington Redskins were from Washington. Like, Washington the state in the Northwest. Like Oregon, but not. I was shocked to find out that they’re from DC. Who knew that DC had any real sports team? Mike says the Nationals and the Wizards, and now I’m shocked again. I mean, that Nationals are of course going to be from DC. But the Wizards? I’ve always imagined Michael Jordan sitting in a Seattle coffee shop. I’m going to have to change that mental image, I guess.

Huh. I also think of RG3 as the guy with the Superman socks who speaks so highly of his mother. My mom and brother really liked him when he was in college, and that’s all I took away from watching interviews with him. Socks and respect for his mother. I mean, those aren’t bad things in any way, but it’s too bad I couldn’t have walked away with some solid statistical knowledge.

Next, nail polish. I’ve been trying to embrace nail polish. I always have some on my toes (but once it’s on, I wear the same color until it’s chipped off), but I’ve been hesitant to keep my fingers polished. Why? It takes for-ev-er. I’m really great at twitching and painting the entire top of my finger as well as just the nail, and then getting fidgety and scratching the nail polish before it’s dry. It’s frustrating and it makes me feel silly and incapable. So why keep trying?

Well, when the internet gives you a sweet deal on fun colors, you take the fun colors. I just googled them now and found out that the fun colors I got a few weeks ago are vegan. This is sort of awesome. My LVX colors arrived in the mail just before we closed on the house, so I quickly painted my nails a color called “greige,” and then ran to the closing. Of course, later that night and over the course of the coming weekend, I’d dip my hands into paint that was blue, green, gray, and black, so by the end of it, it was less greige and more multi-colored. But tonight, I tried again, this time with a soft gray-green called Avireo. I’ll report back to let you know how successful this endeavor turns out to be.

I went to the library tonight! Using my newly rediscovered library card (still no fines! adulthood and responsibility are awesome!), I ran up to the library to grab a book. The internet lied to me – something that’s never happened before, ever – and the book that I wanted wasn’t on the shelf, but I found another by the same author and then picked up two more. We’ll see. One of my goals now that I’m a bit more settled is to spend more time reading. So I figure that frequent trips to the library will keep me engaged and excited, or at least not bored.

Mike has finals this week, and had to write a current events paper. So, as usual, he defaulted to South Africa and I got to flex my underused journalist regurgitation muscle (not as gross as it sounds) and reconstruct the saga of the South African platinum miners who were massacred by the South African police in August.

I love that Mike has the opportunity to reuse his South African experiences for his classes. It’s one of those things that’s always applicable to studies, whether they’re political, social, economic, etc. Instead, I’m that weird girl at the bar who’s like, “This one time….in South Africa….” It’s disheartening to see that the country seems to be backsliding into chaos, both politically, socially, and mostly, economically. But oh man, I miss it. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of something South African.  I so badly want to go back. I want to take everyone with me. I want to have tea with my host mom and hear her laugh and her threats to hit me with the wooden spoon if I don’t wear socks in the house.

(For the record, the new house is wonderful, but has a very cold basement. How cold? I’m wearing socks.)