I don't know how this turned into a therapy session about my elementary teachers. These things just happen.

Work is devouring me whole. It feels funny. I don't like it. I worked all day Saturday, which everyone knows is meant for sleeping in and lounging around in your pajamas watching America's Next Top Model marathons. Geez. And I've actually been working really hard during the weekdays, too, even DURING LUNCH, which everyone knows is meant for surfing the Internets while you eat your PB&J. I don't have PB&J sandwiches every day, though, because that wouldn't be healthy. Otherwise, I'd totally do it. I'm all about being healthy. Which is why Heidi and I are going to play a VP debate drinking game on Thursday. If you never hear from me again, it's because she-who-shall-not-be-named killed me with The Stupid.

Aaaaanywho. In college, sometimes I'd have PB&J for lunch, and also some potato chips and a glass of milk, and Nancy would make fun of me because I was having a kindergarten lunch but WHATEVER. Obviously kindergartners know what they're doing. Once in kindergarten I squirted glue at this girl because she was annoying the shit out of me. I got in trouble and wasn't allowed to make a Mother's Day card. This other kid spilled glue all over his chair ON PURPOSE and sat in it (moron) but he didn't get in trouble. I sort of just realized it, but I think my kindergarten teacher was a bitch.

I don't remember much about my first grade teacher, except that once we had to draw pictures of our families and this led to her calling my parents and telling them I might be retarded. Why do I say retarded? It's so not a good thing to say, but I say it all the time. I'm sorry. Anyway, it was because I drew this picture of my dad and I drew this big, giant bald head with giant eyes (glasses?) and apparently the picture was an indication that I might be special. Then my parents came in for parent-teacher conferences and she saw that that's what my dad really looked like. Also, her name was Mrs. Wetzel, and she'd be like "Wetzel like PRETZEL," which . . . duh.

My second grade teacher made us keep a journal every day. This is where I came up with Figment. And I think this was the year I dressed up like Dorothy and my dad made me my own pair of ruby slippers and I never ever wanted to take them off.

I had Mr. Counts for third grade and I'm pretty sure he was gay. I didn't know at the time, of course, because I didn't know what gay was. I got into an argument with him once about whether men or women were stronger and I was all, "CLEARLY women are stronger because they have to have BABIES and I don't know much about BABIES because I'm only in 3rd grade, but whenever women are having them on TV, they scream a lot THEREFORE they must be strong to deal with all the pain."

My fourth grade teacher's name was Mrs. Castrejon, pronounced "Castra-HONE" but my dad was always like, "How is Mrs. Castra-John," and then I'd get all huffy and pissed. She used to put us in spelling test groups, and if your group won, you got to go out to dinner with her and her husband. When my group won, we went to The Ground Round, where they served vanilla ice cream in tiny, plastic baseball caps and it was AWESOME. OH MY GOD ALSO! She used to let us write stories and she had this whole room devoted to making actual BOOKS to write our stories in.

In fifth grade, I had my favorite teacher EVER. Mrs. Wolfe. She was awesome. After lunch and recess, she'd read to us and sometimes, if the book was sad (Bridge to Terabithia, what?), she'd have to have a box of tissues sitting next to her. This was the year of a presidential election and our class was on the news because of that whole Kids Vote thing, and also because George Bush (the first) was coming to Dayton and we were going to the rally. Only three kids were allowed to talk on the news broadcast, one for each candidate. I really wanted to be one of those kids, so when Bill Clinton was claimed by someone else (I think I've always been a Democrat), I was all, "yeah, Ross Perot would be awesome," just so I could get on TV.

My sixth grade teacher went to my church (back when I, you know, went to church), which I thought was totally awkward. We had to make castles for a project once, and my dad helped me make this castle out of Popsicle sticks that HAD A WORKING DRAWBRIDGE. It was the best thing I've ever made and Mrs. Morgan must have thought so, too, because she totally kept it and never gave it back. Rude.

wicka wicka wicka WHAAAAAAAT

The other day, I finally got my free Obama button from Moveon.org. Not like . . ."Free Obama," like he's being held captive somewhere, but an Obama button that I got for FREE for doing . . . something, I'm not sure what.

I put it right next to the Dwight bobblehead, which started a conversation about whether or not Dwight was a Republican. At first I thought, oh, hell yes, he is, but now I'm not so sure. I think he would like the whole "get the evil-doers" angle, but I don't see Dwight supporting any traditional candidate. Even though John McCain tried to make Dwight his running mate at first. And, you know, even though he's fictional and all, I think he might have made a better possible Assistant (to the) President than someone else who shall remain nameless. I mean, McCain only picked Dwight to shamelessly pander to the youth vote, which . . . HEY, that's sort of why he picked what's-her-face! Only replace youth vote with vagina vote! OK, I'm done.

Ahem. SPEAKING of Dwight, did you guys know this little show called . . . um . . . THE OFFICE, starts tonight? BECAUSE IT DOES AND I AM EXCITED. Is it just me or is this the longest week ever? I think it's just me. Plus, I say it's the longest week ever every week, even weeks when I only have to work four days on account of something awesome like Columbus Day which IN FACT is coming up in a couple of weeks so yay and also look for me to start complaining about having to squeeze five days worth of work into four oh my god Jennie breathe.

I think the reason this week went so slowly is because I spent most of Tuesday wishing it was 5, so I could leave work and head down to Newport with Joe to see STARS. Yay, Stars! They played with Bell X1, who I had never heard of, which is crazy because A) they had a song on The O.C. and B) they have delicious, Irish accents. Anyway, the show was amazing, and Stars was really entertaining, mostly because the lady singer (I know I could look up her name on Wackopedia, but I don't feel like it, so I'll call her Lorraine) . . . anyway, Lorraine had to be on drugs of some kind, and I don't know what, but I want some. She spent most of the first song bent over her guitar and walking all slow motiony in a circle. And later, she was . . . dancing (?) and holding her hands up in front of her face like she was blocking evil mind rays. Or maybe she was just being blinded by all the flashing lights on stage because I KNOW I WAS. Whatever, being able to see doesn't stop me from running into things and falling down, so I don't think I needed my eyes anyway.

the devil went down to Georgia and then made me his bitch

I spent the majority of this weekend enjoying the electricity that I did without for half of last week and WAH WAH WAH don't you feel sorry for me? I hope not. Feel sorry for the people who still don't have power, even a week after the Windicane (trademark: Joe) that struck Ohio. It's true! My boss is one of those people. I think she's handling it really well, because if it were me? At this point I would have started at least 3.5 riots.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say I spent at least a third of my waking hours playing Guitar Hero. Friday night, Steve and Joe came over and helped Heidi and I beat the game on Easy for our band: DONKEY! So on Saturday, I started to play it on Medium, but I was all, "this is hard," that's what she said, so I finished my own band on Easy. Not the whole thing, just like half, cause I'd started my band last week. Then I tried my hand at Medium again and, after a few embarrassments (but no failures, THANK YOU VERY MUCH), I sort of got the hang of the blue button. But, ouch, my hand. Yesterday, Joe and I tried to beat the game on Medium, but Lou the Devil guy totally kicked both of our asses, so instead we went and got Chinese food, which turned out to be a much better decision because Chinese food doesn't make me want to throw fake guitars through the television.

We also watched Once last night, because I hadn't seen it in months and months. I'd been afraid to watch it again because of the crippling depression that came after my first viewing, but things were much better this time. I mean, it was still soul-crushing and everything, so much so that I threatened to write my own sequel called Twice, but I didn't go through a box of tissues like I did last time. I'm pretty sure the only reason I wanted to watch it is because we toyed with the idea of going to see The Swell Season in Columbus tonight, but as we are already going to a concert tomorrow night, I couldn't justify both. Actually, we were going to buy tickets on Saturday, but there weren't any good seats left. So I didn't even make a good decision, the seats made it for me. WHATEVER.

I did make at least one good decision this weekend, and that was to not go see My Best Friend's Girl's Wedding or whatever the hell it's called. I heard it actually wasn't that bad, even with the Dane Cook factor, because he played Jerkface McDouchebag, which is the perfect role for him. But, in the end, I decided I cannot willingly provide money to Dane Cook, unless I'm paying him for the honor of kicking him in the nutsack.

Anyway. Things are pretty damn good at the moment, especially because last night when we played Scrabble, I totally spelled "spermy." How are you, Internets?

ARRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, dear Internets.

And now . . . pirate jokes:

Q: What does a pirate say when he has a heart attack?
A: Arrr! Me heartie!

Q: What's really a pirate's favorite letter?
A: P! Because it's an R, but it's missing a leg!

Also:

A pirate walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. What happened, you look terrible!"

"What do you mean?" the pirate replies. "I'm fine."

The bartender says, "But what about that wooden leg? You didn't have that before."

"Well," says the pirate. "We were in a battle at sea and a cannon ball hit my leg but the surgeon fixed me up and I'm fine, really."

"Yeah," says the bartender. "But what about that hook? Last time I saw you, you had both hands."

"Well," says the pirate. "We were in another battle and we boarded the enemy ship. I was in a sword fight and my hand was cut off but the surgeon fixed me up with this hook. I feel great, really."

"Oh," says the bartender. "What about that eye patch? Last time you were in here you had both eyes."

"Well," says the pirate. "One day when we were at sea, some birds were flying over the ship. I looked up and one of them shat in my eye."

"So?" replied the bartender. "What happened? You couldn't have lost an eye just from some bird shit!"

"Well," says the pirate, "It was the first day with me hook."

Finale:

So a pirate walks into a bar, okay, and swaggers up to the barkeep and demands a glass of rum. I believe his exact words were "Your rum or your life, dog, what'll it be?"

And so the bartender, being a reasonable fellow, makes no complaint but simply grabs a large glass, a bottle of fine dark rum, and begins to pour. And while he's waiting for the glass to fill, he sizes up the pirate, having never seen a real honest-to-God pirate before.This pirate is in full pirate gear. Gold earrings, patch over the eye, a big filthy white blouse covering his swarthy chest, tattoos everywhere, all of it. But protruding from his pirate trousers is the unmistakable form of a steering wheel.

Well, the bartender sees that the glass of rum is just about topped off, so he passes the glass across the bar to the pirate, who nods curtly and takes a huge swig of the rum. Slapping a dubloon on the bartop, he turns to walk away, when our bartender's curiousity gets the best of him."

Wait, one second. What's up with the steering wheel?"And the pirate turns back and fixes him with a beady glare from his lone eye. "Arrr, I don't know, but it's drivin' me nuts!"

With win-win-win, we all win. Me too.

GUESS. WHAT.

Our power is back. Thank you, sweet baby Jesus. I went over to my aunt and uncle's last night, because there was a bunch of leftover food from my parents' cookout, and also THEY HAD POWER (and Rock Band). When I got home, I noticed that the parking lot was no longer a black hole of scary darkness and when I looked in other apartments . . . there was light. LIGHT LIGHT BEAUTIFUL LIGHT.

I got inside and started flipping lightswitches on and off, WHOOHOOing in the makeshift strobe lights, and then ran around the apartment turning on every electrical appliance I could get my hands on.

I'm not kidding, you guys, it's a damn good thing the power came back on because I desperately need to do laundry. Heidi and I had the following email conversation yesterday. At work, because that was the only place we could go that actually had, you know, power.

Me: I wish it would come back on so I could do laundry. I'm going to be the smelly kid soon.
Heidi: I did laundry right before that so I have clothes. You'll just have to start wearing party dresses to work! haha
Me: Ha! And I'm down one party dress because it has rum and coke all over it!

Because, oh yeah! Did I tell you guys I spilled an entire rum and coke all over myself at the wedding reception on Saturday? No. No, I did not. I didn't tell you anything about the wedding because when we got back to Dayton, the world was ending, so I completely forgot about it.

Um. Anyway. I spilled a rum and coke on myself at the wedding reception. Luckily, I was sitting down and no one noticed but Joe. I was able to casually sweep my lapful of ice and coke onto the floor with my arm while Joe ran and got me a napkin. I didn't mind being a somewhat sticky mess for the rest of the night. I mean, why would I? There was an open bar, so I could easily get another drink. Plus, there were cupcakes. CUPCAKES. So. Win win (win).

In Whoville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day

I still don't have power but it's OK [cue hysterical laughter] because who needs power? Not me. I don't need power at all. I'll just read by candlelight for the rest of my life UNTIL I GO BLIND IN FIVE DAYS BECAUSE DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO READ BY CANDLELIGHT? IT'S HARD THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.

Ahem. At least people I know have power. If I couldn't get out of our dark apartment, I'd have jumped off the balcony by now, which wouldn't have even killed me. I'd have just broken my leg or something and sat there in the dark crying about my stupid, broken leg. Wah wah waaaaaaaaah.

Last night, we went over to my parents' powerless house because they had a lot of meat they wanted to get rid of on account of it would soon be rancid. My dad grilled steak, chicken, hot dogs, cheesy brauts, and hamburgers while my uncle made this potato-cheese-casserole stuff on a camping stove. At one point, I walked by my dad, who hadn't eaten yet because he'd been grilling 96 pounds of meat, and he was all, "I'm having fun!" and my uncle (who also hadn't eaten) added, "We'll all look back on this someday and laugh." But as I stood there, listening to all the conversation and giggling (mostly due to one cousin in particular, who shall remain nameless), it was nice to know we wouldn't have to wait until someday to start laughing.

UPDATE: wind still blows

Heidi and I are still without power, as is much of Dayton. I came to work this morning and the only department that had power was IT, so I worked down there today. Well. This morning. My boss asked some of us to come in and take care of anything pressing and then we could leave. But then! Wouldn't you know it! The power for the rest of the building came on. Dammit. Although, what am I going to do at home? Sit in the dark by myself and cry? Probably. Also, read. But mostly cry.

Things could be much, much worse. I know I'm being whiny. We have hot water, so at least we can shower. I can go to Joe's to steal his internet or in case there's something really important I need to watch on TV. And my parents, who do not have power either, invited us over tonight to grill steaks so they don't go bad. They also have many, many bottles of wine and, while they won't go bad because of the power outage, we should probably drink them anyway. You know. Just in cases.

This just in: wind blows

Hi, guys. Did you know the world is ending? Because it is. The good thing is, because of the whole world ending thing, I didn't have to work today.

I don't know if you know this, but Hurricane Ike hit Ohio. Or something. What happened was, there was wind. Windy wind. Windy wind full of wind. And the windy wind full of wind blew and blew and blew my house in. Not really, but almost. We drove back from Cleveland yesterday afternoon and around Columbus we noticed that Joe's car was almost being blown off of the road. Which isn't normal, you know. Once we got to Dayton, the majority of the traffic lights were all out and it turns out no one in Dayton knows what to do when the traffic lights are out.

So, we went to my apartment and Heidi told me that the panel in my bedroom that leads to an attic or crawlspace or whatever had blown out AND SHE SHUT MY DOOR IN CASE BATS FLEW IN. After I recovered from my mini-heart attack, Joe fixed the panel because he could reach it, as he is freakishly tall.

Since the power was out, we had nothing to do but talk to each other. Which we did. And then around 6:30 we realized that A) we were hungry and B) we had no way to cook food. We met Heidi's friend Alicia at El Toro and wouldn't you know it? CLOSED. I guess they can't cook food without power and so everyone went home. Booooo! We got in Heidi's car to see if we could find somewhere, anywhere, we could get some food BECAUSE WE WERE STARVING TO DEATH. True story.

After driving around for 18 hours, we finally found another Mexican restaurant that had power. It was right next to a Wendy's that was also open, and the drive thru line was wrapped twice around the restaurant. We decided we wanted some chips and salsa more than a single with cheese, so we ventured into El Rancho Grande (Spanish for . . . the Rancho Grande). We were seated right away but we were there for about two hours, eating our way through three baskets of chips and 98 chimichangas.

Then, when we got home, the power still wasn't on. And Heidi and I don't have any flashlights, really, so we were using our cell phones to light the way through the apartment. But, no worries, Heidi found her Dr. Seuss fish flashlight and that helped.

Our power is still out and so is the power at work. I even tried to go to work today. How's that for dedication? It really had nothing to do with dedication, I was just hoping they'd have power so I could make coffee and check my email. When they told us the power wouldn't be on for the rest of the day, I decided to run through McDonald's really quick (see: coffee) and I called my parents to see if they wanted anything. An hour later, I finally made it up to the window to get my food, which went something like this:

Frazzled McDonald's Employee: Here's your food, but we had to brew more coffee. I'm sorry. It'll be a couple more minutes. I'm sorry.
Me: It's OK, I understand.
FME: I'm sorry. Can you pull over there and we'll bring you your coffee when it's ready? I'm sorry.
Me: Yeah! No problem.
FME: I'm sorry.
Me: No, it's fine, you guys are slammed.

[three minutes later]

FME: I'm really sorry.
Me: Um . . .
FME: We're out of coffee packets so we can't make anymore.
Me: . . . it's OK.

And then, for realsies, you guys, I almost burst into tears. It was OK, though, because I found a UDF that was open and got a ginormous coffee for only 99 cents. Now I am at Joe's mooching off of his electricity and internet and crossing my fingers that when I do make it home, I can turn on the lights.

Here's a fun picture of what the fun wind did:

this is what they actually believe

In case anyone is interested, there is a copy of The Book of Mormon in our hotel room. There's no wireless internet (wtf?), but there's a copy of The Book of Mormon.

Let me know if you have any questions.

even old New York was once New Amsterdam, why they changed it I can't say, people just liked it better that WAAAAAAAAY

I got the nicest email today. It was from some company/website called Beinggirl.com offering me free samples of pads and tampons. How kind! Nothing says "being a girl" like pads and tampons. I was really confused, though. Either some spam slipped into my Inbox or someone registered me for free tampons. So . . . thanks?

I'm headed to Cleveland again this weekend, this time for Amy's wedding. I am so prepared. I'm already (mostly) packed and I've printed directions from my apartment to the hotel, from the hotel to the church, from the church back to the hotel, from the hotel to the reception, from the reception to the hotel, and from the hotel to my apartment. And there's a shuttle from the hotel to the reception and back, so I don't even know why I printed those directions. Oh, right, because I'm A) a control freak and B) crazy. I know I don't need all those directions (because I do, in fact, know how to reverse them), but the thought that I have them JUST IN CASES gives me great comfort. Because I'm A) a control freak and B) crazy. But, um, what if our shuttle breaks down on the way back to the hotel after the reception? And our shuttle driver gets amnesia? People are going to be glad I have the directions.

Last night, as a result of a fender-bender (Joe) and random-nonsensical-sleep-deprived-slaphappery (me), Joe and I had the following conversation, or some version thereof, and NO, I don't remember how it started:

Joe [singing]: Darkwing Duck! When there's trouble you call DW.
Me: I always hated Darkwing Duck.
Joe: WHAT?!
Me: Whatever. What did you like better? Ducktales or Rescue Rangers?
Joe: Oooh, that's a hard one. I don't know.
Me: Did you ever notice that Rescue Rangers is just like Wings?
Joe: Um . . .
Me: Because there are two pilot brothers . . . and one is goofy and wears funny shirts and the other one is really uptight and straight-laced.
Joe: Right.
Me: And the mouse with the long, blond hair is Helen.
Joe: Oh my god!
Me: And the big, fat rat is Roy.
Joe: Yeah . . .
Me: And the little fly thing is either Lowell or Antonio, I can't decide.
Joe: That's amazing.
Me: Yeah. It's just a theory I've been working on.
Joe: It's pretty good.
Me [singing]: Darkwing Duck! Let's. Get. Dangerous.
Joe: Wow, if you hated the show, why do you know the song?
Me: Just because I hated it doesn't mean I didn't watch it.
Joe: I loved that show. Because it was about superheroes.
Me: Of course. My favorite was Tiny Toons. I used to imitate Babs on the playground.
Joe: Why does that not surprise me?
Me: Plus, there were those They Might Be Giants videos they made.
Joe: What?!
Me: Yeah. Istanbul. And Particle Man.
Joe: Hmm. Maybe that's the reason those are the only They Might Be Giants songs I know.
Me [singing]: Particle man. Particle man. Doing the things a particle can.
Joe [singing]: So take me back to Constantinople, no, you can't go back to Constantinople, been a long time gone, Constantinople, why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks . . .
Me: Whooooooaaaaa--whooaaa-oooaaa-oaaaaaa! Whoaaa-oooaaa-ooaaa! Whoaaaa-aaa-oooaaa!

True story. There was some talk of Launchpad from Ducktales but I don't remember that part. Wow, good story, Jennie.

overheard in the office

Normally, I don't talk too much on here about work because I don't want to accidentally post something that will get me fired. However, my job will probably be obsolete by January 1st anyway, so maybe it's better to get it out of the way (you know, the getting fired) now.

I have this one coworker, Norma (not her real name), who is in her sixties and sometimes gets up BEFORE the asscrack of dawn to bake things. Like, this morning, she brought in banana bread, which is my favorite bread of all the breads. I totally ate a million pieces of it and it was delicious. Later this morning I heard Coworker (the one who listens to conservative talk radio ALL. FUCKING. DAY) ask her about it.

Coworker: Norma, did you bring in this banana bread?
Norma: I did. I made it last night.
Coworker: It's really good!
Norma: Thanks. You know, I was stuck here until 7:30 last night, and when I got home, I made myself a martini. And then I saw bananas on my counter that were starting to turn brown so I thought I'd better make something with them.
Coworker: Well, that's the way to make them, isn't it?
Norma: With a martini? Hell, yes.
Coworker: Um. I meant with the old bananas.
Norma: Oh.

You guys, aside from the baking, I think I might be exactly like Norma in 40 years. Because, this one time? The new overlords -- I mean, the people who took over our company came to visit, and we were told that we all had to have this meeting and go around the room to introduce ourselves and explain our job functions. PLUS we had to give them an interesting fact about ourselves. Because apparently we're still in high school. Anyway, before the meeting, we were all standing around practicing what we were going to say. I decided against, "my name is Jennie and I volunteer with grieving children," because I didn't want people to throw things at me, and I bypassed, "my name is Jennie and I'm an alcoholic," because I didn't think the new overlords would think that was funny, so finally I landed on, "my name is Jennie and I write How To articles," but I decided not to talk about the time I wrote one about condoms. Anyway. There was a quiet moment where we all contemplated our interesting facts and then Norma grinned and said, "my name is Norma and I can suck start a Harley," and then I laughed so hard that my face fell off, even though I'm pretty sure she wasn't really talking about motorcycles.

Dear someone,

I would like a pet squirrel, please. Just like this one, which I would like to name Henry:



Did you see them chasing Henry with rakes?! Bastards.

Oh, Friday. Hello, lover.

Weather and work-wise, it's been a spectacularly shit-tastic day, and if it weren't for the fact that I heard a new Oasis song on the radio today (SQUEEEEE!!!) AND that my plans tonight consist of eating my weight in pizza and breadsticks and vegging out in front of a couple movies, I might have thrown myself out the window hours ago.

As it is, I have no real commitments this weekend, except maybe to gorge myself on Italian and Greek food (and wine . . . and beer) at various festivals, and that's perfectly fine with me.

The longest four-day week in history is over . . . YAY! Happy Friday, Internets.

The Big Brain am winning again! I am the greetest!

You guys, sometimes I am for realsies a bitch FOR NO RAISIN. It just happens. I like to think the people I'm a bitch to bring it on themselves, which was totally true yesterday when I made that old man flip me off.

See, there's this intersection near our apartment. And going one direction, the right lane quickly ends as soon as you drive THROUGH the intersection. People know this. But. Instead of being polite and getting in the left lane, which is almost always much longer BECAUSE EVERYONE KNOWS THE RIGHT LANE ENDS, there are those who bypass the politeness system and get in the right lane, so they can speed around everyone in the left lane before we get through the intersection. Whenever I can, I make sure not to let these people in front of me because they are assholes. And I can't let assholes in front of me because then I'd be staring at an asshole for the rest of the drive to work and who wants to do that?

Yesterday I was sitting in the left lane, waiting for the light to turn green and fuming at the line of cars appearing in the right lane. There was an old man in an old man car next to me and right then and there I was all, "He's not getting in front of me! He's old! He'll drive slow and I'll be late!" So the light turned green. I stepped on the accelerator and so did the old man. He was right next to me and I knew he wanted over but I didn't let him. And then he had to get behind me or, you know, drive off of the road, which I believe, I BELIEVE, is something most people try to avoid. And then I said, "HAHAHA! TAKE THAT, OLD MAN!" and then he said, "HONK HONK HONK HOOOOOOONK!" and I said, "Hon't you blow your horn at me, you old fart! You did this to yourself!" and then HE said, "HONK HONK HONK HOOOOOOOONK!" and that's when I flipped him off and then that's when he flipped me off and YES I flipped off an old man but he totally deserved it the end.

they call me 'quiet girl', but I'm a riot, Mary, Jo, Lisa, always the same, THAT'S NOT MY NAME

Dear people (mostly MEN) I work with,

My name is Jennie. Not any of the following:

Amy
Claudia
Little lady
Young'un
Girl
Kid

Thank you.

In other news, I totally got up early this morning and went running. I KNOW. I had to, though. Well, I didn't HAVE to. When the alarm went off, my first thought was, "if I just turn it off, I could sleep for another hour and a half . . . that's a lot of sleep." But I did get up. And I ran. I ran so far away. I just ran. Oh my god, Amy Jennie, shut up. Anyway, the reason I got up and ran this morning instead of running after work is because I, um, DON'T run after work. Instead, I just . . . don't run. Because it's hot. So hot. And also I'm all tired after work and don't feel like moving, let alone running. Wow, this is a good story. I should tell it again, yes?

I totally got up early this morning and went running. I KNOW. I had to, though. Well, I didn't HAVE to. When the alarm went off, my first thought was, "if I just turn it off, I could sleep for another hour and a half . . . that's a lot of sleep." But I did get up. And I ran. I ran so far away. I just ran. Oh my god, Amy Jennie, shut up. Anyway, the reason I got up and ran this morning instead of running after work is because I, um, DON'T run after work. Instead, I just . . . don't run. Because it's hot. So hot. And also I'm all tired after work and don't feel like moving, let alone running.

HAHAHAHAHA. Wow. I think I got too much oxygen this morning or something. Yikes.

So. I had volunteering last night, and there are three different age groups, and I lead the group of the wee, little ones. Which is fine, but some of these wee, little ones tend to have about a ten minute attention span (at best), so that means I'd better bring a lot of activities for them. I was so, so prepared last night. I'd gone to the library to get picture books about dead people (or picture books about GRIEVING, whatever), and I'd come up with this sweet activity BASED on one of the books, and I even ran out on my lunch hour yesterday to pick up extra supplies so it'd be super awesome. And then I got to volunteering early and set everything up in my room so it was all ready when the kids got there.

And then none of the wee, little ones showed up. Bastards. Just kidding. But seriously! I had so much fun stuff, plus M&Ms, because I'm always afraid the kids won't like me, so I bribe them with candy. Sigh.

And now I have deja vu. GREAT. That's going to throw off my whole day.