Today's Metro Highlights

-Transfers want to stay: Some New Orleans college students don't want to return

This article is about how five of the seven students who were transferred from some random school in New Orleans to Harvard University after Katrina are talking about just... not going back. Gee, I wonder why that could be? I wonder if maybe Harvard is a little better than their random school? I wonder if maybe this seems like a huge step up they might ordinarily never have gotten? You don't have to be Harvard quality to recognize that a Harvard degree would be nice. Nobody asked the kids who transferred from the New Orleans Prestige University into Boston Community College if they're planning on staying.

-Teenagers rejecting stereotypes

This is about teenagers claiming that the're not "self-absorbed slackers, materialistic and media-saturated, apathetic and aloof in their iPod bubbles". Now, I'm most of those things and I'm not even a teen anymore. But I also answer to idealistic and wanting to change things. What really gets me is the accompanying photo, the caption of which reads "Teens taking part in a meeting of student council members in Marshfield break into impromptu dance during a lunch break." Only the teens appear to be just standing around clapping, and the woman photographed dancing is like 60 years old and dressed like a teen. Creepy.

-If you had the money, you'd put your girlfriend's uterus under surveillance, too

Tom Cruise bought a sonogram machine so he can stare into Katie Holmes' biology whenever he feels like it. Enough said.

-Quoted

A Senator from Wisconsin was quoted saying, "But I do think one thing we can all agree on is that this country is overdue for a cheesehead president. We've never had one." He's talking, evidently, about a president from the state of Wisconsin. But all I can think is, our current president is a cheesehead.

-Not from the Metro, but from another certain publication that stalks me in the mail

Warning: Boobies!

For the holidays, evidently Victoria's Secret is offering this uncomfortable little number, made entirely out of white gold, rubies, and diamonds. For the low low price of only twelve and a half million dollars! (solid diamond dangly thing not included)

Lazy Fairy, thy name is Stop and Shop

So, one of the things that went right this past holiday was that many people asked me curiously if I was losing weight. Now, I'm not the trendy sister. I'm not the one who diets and would be vindicated by the comment. They wouldn't ask me this unless I actually looked like I'd been losing weight. And it's not some conspiracy, because my mother and my aunt Diane don't talk to each other.

I haven't changed my eating habits, per se. I've eaten little more than junk since I got here. I have an everlasting supply of ramen, Sprite, and ready-made dinners either microwaveable or stove-assembled with no more than fifteen minutes of preparation time each. The most "homey" my meals get is when I make instant mashed potatoes to go with my microwaveable buffalo-chicken bits. (To my credit, I make my instant mashed potatoes on the stove.) (Once I made corn with it, but there's too much corn in one container for just me! The rest of it moldered in the fridge until I threw it out.)

I am, however,
A) walking a lot more, as there's at least fifteen minutes of walking in each of my daily commutes,
B) eating only twice a day, and
C) never having any worthwhile foods in the house.

Like the one time I bought ice cream -- it was gone in like three days. I ate it. Then I didn't go shopping for the next month. I sustained myself off dwindling supplies of soups. This is because I have no method of transportation. It's impossible to do an efficient grocery shopping trip when I only have two hands to move bags with, and I have to navigate the T on my way home with those same hands. (I suppose I could put my bus pass in my teeth and bend over to swipe...) This makes me not motivated to grocery shop. Ever. Unless the girls were also going, but the girls are never home in a reasonable amount of time -- frequently getting in at 10pm or later -- and don't always tell me when they're going shopping.

In an effort to avoid further malnourishment, I investigated the signs all over my city that claim that Stop and Shop delivers. Today they brought an entire efficient grocery shopping trip to my front doorstep. I haven't had this much food in the apartment since I moved in.

Oh baby, the lazy fairy likes me.