Wonder Killer

follow me or perish, sweater monkeys

2011-08-31T12:42:00.000-04:00

Some of you may remember that this isn't my first ~~rodeo~~ blog, but that I used to have a blog in another corner of the internet called Long Story Short. Even fewer of you might still be subscribed to the feed so you may have noticed new posts popping up in your Greaders today. Which I imagine was confusing. Or you just marked them all as read and went about your business, I really don't know.

Anyway. I decided last night that, for a couple of reasons (but mostly because I have started and abandoned about 15 blogs in the past few years), I wanted to put all (or at least most) of my blog-spew in one place. So this morning I imported all of my Wonder Killer posts to Long Story Short, which is where I'll be posting from now on. I may even import posts from some of my other forgotten blogs, I can't decide yet. I'm not sure it's worth the mess, but then again, I do love me some organizing.

If you please, update your links, your feeds, your what-have-you, and follow me back to Long Story Short. I promise I won't move again for at least another few years, until I decide what I really need to do is start another blog. Wheeeeeeee.

Dear Fancy Nancy: Happy Baby Shower! PS: Thank you for not making us play games, especially that gross melted-candy-bar-in-the-diaper one.

2011-08-30T21:43:00.000-04:00

One of my best friends is having a baby in October, which is weird for several reasons...one is that I think the whole pregnancy process is just plain weird. Right? I mean, you have this thing inside of you, stealing your nutrients and your energy and growing larger and larger until finally it rips its way out of you and we're all strangely OK with this. Have you ever seen the imprint of a fetus foot in a pregnant woman's belly? That shit is creepy.

(SIDEBAR: I've never actually seen that but I've heard about it. OK, actually, I think that's kind of cool. But still creepy. Hey, things can be creepy and cool at the same time. Case in point: CHRISTOPHER WALKEN I REST MY CASE.)

Two, it's crazy that any of my friends are even allowed to have babies. I've known them too long. I've gotten in too much trouble with them. How are we allowed to be in charge of a tiny baby? I've heard that they're pretty demanding. And, unlike a dog, you can't leave it alone with some food and water for a few hours if you want to go out to dinner. You really have to draw the line at like an hour, tops, and that's barely time to get through the line at Chipotle.

Three, when I'm with my friends, the friends I've had for the past decade, I feel like absolutely no time has passed, and that none of us have changed at all. So we can't be getting married or buying houses or HAVING BABIES because we are 19 years old and yes, I realize that you can do all those things when you're 19 but when we were 19, we weren't thinking about those things, we were thinking about more trivial things, like can you ride a mattress down the stairwell and the answer to that question is YES WE CAN.

Other things you can ride down the stairwell on: an inner tube, a pillow, and a bathroom stall door. Well. That last one makes a better slide, you can't really ride it down the stairs.

But seriously (folks), I feel like we can't have babies because when we're together I feel like I've time traveled to a time when none of us even wanted babies. Or if we did, we figured we'd have them when we were old. You know. Like 25.

Even though I have all of those reasons none of us can be having babies yet, my friend is pregnant so I guess I'm wrong. THERE'S A FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING, AMIRITE? But you know what? Just because we're "grown ups" now, doesn't mean we have to grow up. In fact, she emailed Heidi and I the other day because she was 69 (heehahaha) days from her due date, and she wondered if she had to stop being immature because soon she's going to be a mom. We told her no, she was absolutely not allowed to stop being immature, both for our sakes and her daughter's.

And to prove my point, for her baby shower I got her (and the baby, I guess) Go the Fuck to Sleep, a That's What She Said onesie, and this:

Why, hello, I am a Wienermobile.

Because no. We never ever have to mature. And we won't. Not if I have anything to say about it and what I have to say about it is POOP BUTT BOOGERFACE.

if my brain could throw up, this is what it would look like

2011-08-23T20:38:00.000-04:00

Did you know that you can only listen to 40 hours of Pandora a month? I didn't. Until I apparently reached my limit, which I did today. I thought at first that 40 hours was really impressive but I don't think it is. I have Pandora on most of the time at work, so that's an easy 40 hours right there. In a week, even.

At first I was really worried because WHAT WOULD I DO FOR MUSIC? I found out that we can hear the music from shows in our offices during rehearsals and showtime but there aren't any shows right now. And I always forget my iPod at home, or if I do remember it, it's not charged and don't ask me where my charger is because I DON'T KNOW I DON'T EVER KNOW. But whatever, don't worry (I know you were worried), I paid 99 cents and now I can listen to Pandora for the rest of the month and my limit starts over in September. Can you imagine, though? No music at work? To miss out on the joy that is Part of Your World popping up after, like, Radiohead or something? No thank you.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Who knows. How many times have I typed "what am I talking about?" on my blog might be a better question only probably not really because the answer is DUH A LOT. Guess what we did last night? Guess. I SAID GUESS. No, but seriously, folks, we put an offer on a house last night. I wasn't going to say anything because I was afraid of jinxing it but we didn't say anything LAST time we put an offer on a house and we still didn't get it so I am throwing caution to the wind. Here, wind! Take it! Take all the caution! I don't even want it anyway!

So, yeah, we met our realtor after work to sign all the paperwork and did you know putting on offer on a house is kind of a big deal? Because I guess it is. There's a contract and you have to hand over a check and everything. I signed my name a bunch of times and didn't even hyperventilate once! That will happen when and if we end up getting the house and I then realize we just bought this giant thing where millions of things could go wrong and we won't have a landlord to call anymore. OMG WHAT HAVE WE DONE.

No, seriously, it's fine. It'll be really nice if we get it because there's a giant backyard, all for Max, which is great because he refuses to use the litter box, unless he's sneaking into it to steal cat poop. We mentioned the cat-poop-thievery to the vet when she suggested putting Max on a diet (he's packed on a few pounds...don't mention it to him, he's sensitive) and I was all, "I think he's hungry because he got in the litter box the other day and hardly ever does that," and she was like, "Oh, yeah, he's not hungry, he's just stealing Kitty Cookies, lol. Cat poop is like dessert to dogs." It was an informative visit, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, there was an earthquake today, too, so that's weird. I mean, it wasn't IN Ohio but I certainly felt it in Ohio. We don't usually get earthquakes here but this one time when I was in 3rd grade they were worried about some giant earthquake that was supposed to hit (I don't know the details because I was 9, but it probably had something to do with the Hellmouth being in Cleveland) BUT ANYWAY we had to have earthquake drills and that consisted of sitting under our desks, which doesn't really seem that safe but whatever, I don't know about surviving an earthquake, only about surviving tornadoes and MORE IMPORTANTLY zombies. Did you know this entire paragraph was only two sentences? Well, three now. Four. Five. Shit.

You guys, WHAT is this post even about? You know what the problem is? I started it yesterday morning and now it is today evening and guess what I don't even care, I'm posting it anyway, non-sensicalness and all. For what is life without a little non-sensicalness? Besides more sensical and stuff. But who wants that? I can't decide how to end this but I need to go watch some Mad Men reruns until it's time to go to bed so BYE.

I think maybe Dexter used to live in Dayton, Ohio.

2011-08-13T16:12:00.001-04:00

You know what? Weekends seem a lot shorter when you have a job to go to Monday morning. For like three months, weekends only felt different to me because Joe was home, which meant I (usually) showered before five o'clock. But this working thing? Working full-time, I mean? It's really cutting into my free time. For instance, I started writing this post LAST weekend and this is the first chance I've had to finish it. Although, that's not really true because I watched like three hours of Mad Men the other night but whatever I digress.

We've been filling a lot of our non-work free time with hunting houses. We found one that we loved and put an offer on but...didn't get it. Someone beat us. I would like to beat them. Jerks. But whatever, we'll just keep looking and I'm sure we'll find something. I keep going back to one of the first houses we saw that was built in like 1920 and had hidden little nooks and an awesome basement we could finish and WAS FREAKING BEAUTIFUL and just, you guys, we could not stop gushing about it. But the backyard is small, the garage looks like a strong wind might knock it down, and it's right on a busy street. This is what I keep reminding myself. Plus, we saw the electricity bills for the summer and the gas bills for the winter and HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD were they high. SIGH.

We looked at eight houses this morning and I have to admit, I'm feeling a bit discouraged because we weren't really wild about any of them. Two were OK but we had reservations about both. And my notes on the houses? The notes that started out really detailed with stuff like...I don't even remember, something about the taxes and the size of the rooms and whatever, house stuff? Those have devolved into this:

Which is not altogether helpful but, you guys, this house TOTALLY HAD A MURDER ROOM. I'm almost positive I saw blood on the walls but I don't know, I'm not a blood spatter expert.

"Now, the reason they do that, we think, is because poop stinks."

2011-07-27T11:10:00.002-04:00

I think a lot of people resist listening to NPR because they think it's inaccessible or too liberal or, well, boring. And yeah, sometimes, if I try to listen to it on the way to work, I nod off a little bit but WHATEVER maybe I shouldn't listen to quiet-talking when I'm driving if I haven't had any coffee yet.

Anyway. I feel sorry for the people who resist NPR because they think it's boring. Because, duh, it's not. You can tell me it is, but you'd be wrong, and I can prove it.

The other day, I was in the car, listening to Excursions and they took a break from the music to talk about SCIENCE. Science is hardly ever boring, you guys. Science is messy and disgusting and AWESOME. For instance, I give you THIS. I highly recommend you listen to the audio.

In case you're thinking about not clicking that link, I'll give you a SPOILER. It's about caterpillars who can shoot poop out of their butts, sort of like a poop cannon.

Poop! Out of their butts! COME ON.

Here lies Walter Fielding. He bought a house and it killed him.

2011-07-25T11:20:00.000-04:00

When I was laid off in April, I wasn't that discouraged. I hadn't liked my job in a very long time. I was driving almost an hour to and from work every day and, once I got to work, had very little to do. No one really paid attention to what I was doing, the company was in constant upheaval, and there were so many layoffs every week that everyone was all negative, all the time, no exceptions.

So I welcomed my unemployment, really, and I vowed that I wasn't going to take another job just to have a job. I was really lucky that I had that luxury. Really, really lucky. Joe was super supportive and was more adamant that I was, even, that I not take a job I wasn't sure I'd love. Probably because he didn't want to listen to me complain about work anymore. Hee.

I accepted a job offer a couple of weeks ago and start a week from today. I really think it's going to be a good fit. I'm so excited to work for this company, a local non-profit, housed in a beautiful building downtown. When I started my job search, I had this vague idea of what I wanted to be doing, based realistically on my experience, as well as my volunteer work, but I wasn't sure exactly what I'd end up doing. And instead of just applying wily-nily to any job I was qualified for, I sought out the companies I thought I'd like to work for, stalked their websites, and applied for jobs there whenever they came up. Guess what, it worked! Whoo!

So anyway, now that I have a job, Joe and I can start house hunting. We looked at approximately 10 million houses this past weekend and found a few that I wanted to make out with, and even more that I wanted to barf on. Because they were so gross that barfing on them would make them better. That's not really true. Duh. Then I joined Pinterest and am now obsessed with decorating a house that I DON'T EVEN HAVE YET. Yep, that sounds about right.

“If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”

2011-07-21T10:03:00.001-04:00

So remember all that hail we got during the tornado? OMG REMEMBER THE TORNADO? Ahem. Joe's car was damaged, obviously, because it was pelted by about a billion golf ball-sized pieces of ice, so it's in the shop being fixed right now. It's good timing, because I have another week or so of blissful unemployment, so I can drive him to and from work. It's really cutting into my sleeping in schedule, as well as my sitting around, doing nothing schedule, because I know I have to be showered and dressed by 4:30 so I can go pick him up. Those of you who have been unemployed for an extended period of time understand how it can be difficult to accomplish such a small feat as SHOWERING before 4:30 in the afternoon, especially when you have a bunch of episodes of Friday Night Lights to watch. ANYWAY.

It's been kind of nice, because we're stuck in the car together for at least forty minutes a day, with no internet or TV or ADORABLE PUPPY to distract us, so it's prime talking time. Except that, in the morning anyway, he's still half-asleep and I haven't had any coffee yet, so our conversations are less than stellar. Like, this morning, we had a conversation (I...actually I wouldn't even call it a conversation) that consisted of each of us saying "WHAT?" over and over in different ways.

Allow me to explain. Do you watch Mad Men? Why don't you watch Mad Men? Anyway, Don Draper, he says "what" a lot. See:

Now. Do you watch Doctor Who? WHY THE HELL DON'T YOU WATCH DOCTOR WHO? Anyway. The 10th Doctor? He of The Tennant? He also says "what" a lot, in funny ways. Unfortunately, no one has put all of them together in one video so here:

and

So, right, our conversation went something like this:

Jennie: [babbling about something stupid]
Joe in Don Draper voice: WHAT.
Jennie in Don Draper voice: What?
Joe in Doctor voice: WHAAAT?
Jennie in Doctor voice: WHAT.
Both: WHAT? OKAAAAAY.

And so on and so forth. For like five minutes.

We found out yesterday that, even though his car was supposed to be done by now, it might be another week or so. At first I was all, "WHAAAAAAAT? NO MORE GETTING UP EARLY FOR NO RAISIN!" but I do enjoy our nonsensical conversations first thing in the morning. So maybe it's good that we'll have another week of them. WHAT.

Happy Nudie Magazine Day Harry Potter Day!

2011-07-14T11:06:00.002-04:00

I got a text message first thing this morning from my sister, brimming with excitement for the Harry Potter premiere tonight because A) it's her first midnight showing and B) it's Harry Potter, duh. Just for shits and giggles, I decided to go through my blog(s) to see what I'd written about Harry Potter in the past. Here are some of my favorite posts, which I understand might be really boring for you to read, but it's not like I'm MAKING you read them, so stop complaining already. IT'S HARRY POTTER DAY.

These three are my DOUBLE PLUS favorites:

1. Harry Potter vs. Twilight
2. Harry Potter with my sister
3. How I (kinda) stole my (own, paid-for) copy of Deathly Hallows

and these are just weird, but still HP related:

1. the one where I talk about my patronus
2. the one where I eff up my tires (this is only slightly related)
3. the one where I wear hogwarts colors
4. the one where I (sort of) review DHP1
5. oh, the places we'll go!
6. hogwarts, a history
7. worrying about Harry's safety
8. remember right before the last book came out, how worried we all were about being spoiled? good times

You know what, though? You should read these, by Heather Anne, instead. She talks about Harry Potter better than anyone has talked about Harry Potter in the history of the world.

1. I'm worth twelve of you, Malfoy
2. Neville!
3. Fictional Playlists: Neville Longbottom

(The best part of compiling these lists was that I got to go through Collective Archives, which is a place more magical to me than Hogwarts.)

Do you like scary movies?

2011-07-11T12:36:00.000-04:00

Did I tell you guys about the awesome people who made our wedding cupcakes? I feel like I might have mentioned them, but I'm not sure I talked about how, after we met with them for the initial cupcake tasting, Joe and I left with a total Couples Crush on them. I mean, they came up with THIS. Look at that and tell me YOU don't have a crush on them.

Anyway. They invited us over to their house this past weekend so we could watch movies. IN THEIR BACKYARD. It was great, aside from the bug bites, of which I now have A GAJILLION even though I was wearing bug spray, but apparently applying bug spray was just like the bug equivalent of marinating myself so I was even tastier or something.

Whatever, my point is, I've watched a lot of movies lately, so here are the movies and BONUS also my thoughts about them. I put them in order of how much I enjoyed them:

1. Dinner for Schmucks

Wow, this was pretty terrible, yeah? There were so many funny people in it, including my boyfriend Paul Rudd, so even though I'd heard it was bad, I was expecting it to be at least a little bit good. So, right, this movie is called Dinner for Schmucks, yeah? Well, the dinner isn't until, like, the very end and I think it lasts about fifteen minutes but it feels like eternity, so maybe that's what they were going for? I don't know.

Bright spots: Jemaine Clement, obviously. Chris O'Dowd as the blind swordsman. Paul Rudd wears a suit a lot. This exchange:

Marco the Blind Swordsman: I love to paint.
Davenport: Oh wow, are you any good?
Marco the Blind Swordsman: I don't know.

2. Greenberg

Ugh. You guys. UGH. When this movie, which mostly consisted of Ben Stiller's character trying to win first place in the WORLD'S BIGGEST SELFISH ASSHOLE contest (the prize is a swift kick to the balls), was over, I treated Joe with a ten minute diatribe on how tired I am of all these man-baby movies and, what? Was I supposed to feel sorry for Greenberg? I'm not really sure. I spent most of the movie worried that he was going to accidentally kill the dog because the dog almost accidentally died in his care because he's a stupid, whiny, selfish asshole, which I know I already said but YOU GUYS HE WAS SUCH AN ASSHOLE.

Bright spots: The dog was really cute. Um...

3. Morning Glory

Rachel McAdams is working HARD here, you guys. The movie is pretty bad, but she's so adorable that I didn't even mind.

Bright spots: Rachel McAdams.

4. There Will Be Blood

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...oh, I'm sorry, I fell asleep just thinking about this movie.

Bright spots: Daniel Day Lewis is fascinating. I enjoy watching him do whatever, even if it's beating someone's head in with a bowling pin (oops, spoilers).

5. Cedar Rapids

Cute, if a bit forgettable. I only watched it a week ago but can't remember much about it. Ed Helms is almost stuck in the same man-baby category as Ben Stiller's Greenberg, but he's sweet and he means well, so he's charming instead of insufferable.

Bright spots: Ed Helms. Maeby Funke as a hooker.

6. Black Swan

This was really good but, much like every other Darren Aronofsky movie I've ever seen, I'll probably never watch it again. Also, I couldn't help but compare it to Center Stage the entire time, which I'm sure Joe enjoyed immensely.

Bright spots: Crazy costumes! Dancing! A skeevy Frenchman!

7. Horrible Bosses

This was not a good movie, really, but I still enjoyed it. The three leads are so fun to watch, and I could watch Charlie Day rage-scream all day long. Still, I thought it would be a lot funnier than it was. I only LOLed a few times.

Bright spots: The cast was pretty spot-on. Charlie Day. There's a character named Motherfucker Jones, which I cannot stop saying.

8. Scream

Joe had never seen this, so I made him watch it. Scream came out when I was in high school and I've seen it at least 900 times NO JOKE OK maybe a little joke. It's kind of hilarious to watch now because they keep talking about "cellular phones" and how it's weird for a HS kid to have one.

Bright spots: I unironically love this movie so ALL OF IT. Plus, Joe now keeps walking around saying, "DO YOU LIKE SCARY MOVIES?" and it makes me giggle every time.

9. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

I'd never seen this, so Joe made me watch it. Except, he didn't really MAKE me watch it because HELLO, Robert Downey Jr. is in it, so of course I'm going to watch it. I recently pointed out that I will watch anything RDJ is in, which is why I've seen both Due Date and Only You. Anyway. THIS MOVIE IS DELIGHTFUL. I need to own it so I can watch it whenever I need a RDJ fix because he is at his Robert Downey Jr.-est in this movie.

Bright spots: RDJ, obviously. Val Kilmer sometimes annoys me, but he's pretty great in this.

10. Midnight in Paris

If I could jump into movies, I would jump straight into this one. I want to full on make out with this movie, then buy it some ice cream, and then some beer, and maybe also a pony. As soon as it was over, I wanted to watch it again, which is pretty much the highest praise I can give a movie.

Bright spots: YOU GUYS SERIOUSLY ALL OF IT, GO SEE THIS RIGHT NOW

We also watched some really shitty Netflix Instant movies, such as The Hole (for shits) and American Psycho 2 (for giggles) and they were both very terrible in different ways.

I keep wishing there was something like Goodreads, but for movies. Does such a thing exist? Or is this a thing I can invent and then subsequently make like a billion dollars? Please let me know ASAP.

The next movie on the agenda is Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows 2.

:( :( :( :( ALL OF THE SAD FACES EVER, BASICALLY

The birds, the bees and the monkey babies, Mulder.

2011-07-08T18:27:00.000-04:00

You guys, I think Max might have PTSD. See, he's terrified of thunderstorms, right? I feel like this is well-documented...on this blog. But anyway. We didn't have him last year during the July 4th festivities but we assumed that he'd be afraid of fireworks since they make even bigger BOOM FUN noises than thunderstorms.

We discovered that, yes, he is just as terrified of firecracker booms as thunder booms when we were out walking one night (Independence Day Eve Eve or something) and someone set off some amateur fireworks because of course they did. Max stopped for a moment, looked at us in abject terror, and then took off as fast as his little legs could carry him. But he was mostly fine after a bit because they had been far away so they were just little booms.

We decided to walk him around before ten on July 4th, because the real fireworks started at ten and we knew we would never get him outside at that time. We thought we were safe. We were wrong. Because some jackhole in the block of condos next to us set off a huge, esplodey firework just as we had Max to that point. Oh my god, you guys, I thought he was going to reach light speed, such was his haste to get back inside. We couldn't even get him to pee, which was a problem, because we have him on a very strict pee and poo schedule. We talk about Max's poop (or lack thereof) at least five times a day. It's weird. Such is the joy of pet ownership. Anyway.

I tried to take him on another walk that night, after the fireworks were over, but he would barely come out the front door. He went out long enough to pee and then he raced back inside like there were bombs falling outside, which I guess maybe he thought there were? I felt so bad, though! He looked so sad and pathetic so I just gave him extra treats and cuddles.

I thought that would be the end of it, but every night we walk him around nine o'clock, which is the same time he almost got blown up in a firecracker. We try to take him on the usual path, and it happens to be the same path we took him on the night of July 4th. I thought this would be no problem. I mean, dogs don't really have long memories, right? But he won't even go that way! He will during the day, he's fine, but he refuses to walk that way at night. Do you think he thinks there will be another FIRECRACKER BOOM EXPLOSION? But yeah, that's how he got PTSD.

This is (very) slightly related, but I'm trying to convince Joe that we need to get a pet pig. He was all, "we can get a pet pig after we have a baby," but I think he's just saying that because he hopes that if I have a cute baby, I won't want a cute pig but that's not true at all because I'll probably just want a cute pig even MORE because a pig (probably) won't pee and poop on me, PLUS BONUS it will make adorable oinking noises AND will have a curly tail. If I get a baby with a tail, I'm gonna be pissed.

But my point is (I guess) that it should go: Dog, Pig, Baby. Like, obviously, you get a dog before you have a baby because you have to make sure you can keep another living thing (besides yourself) alive. But I think you should get a pig between the dog and the baby because a pig is a pet like a dog but it's pink and hairless like a baby so it's the perfect transition between a dog and baby. I mean, it's practically a baby. It's a practice baby! Anyway, I think Joe's just worried that if I get a pig, why would I want a baby? Actually, that's a really valid point.

Whatever. Did you know you can adopt pigs from Petfinder? Don't tell Joe.

My own personal Avengers

2011-06-13T12:11:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I feel like I spent most of my day wishing I was best friends with some fictional person or another. I spend the rest of the day wondering which fictional characters I would want on my side in a fight. Not just a fight fight, like with general fisticuffs and whatnot, but a fight with an alien or a vampire or GOD FORBID a battle with a rising zombie army. I mean, sure, I would love to hang out with Bridget Jones or Jo March but I don't think either one of them is going to be that great at helping me kill a werewolf. I think Jo would be game and would probably put a lot of effort into it, but I'm not sure that, between the two of us (Bridget, obviously, would be cowering under a table somewhere, clutching a bottle of vodka), we'd be able to overpower and defeat a werewolf. Maybe a regular wolf, a wereless wolf, but a werewolf? We'd get out throats ripped out.

That's why I've been gathering fictional fighters for my own personal protection squad. These are not necessarily people I'd want to hang out with in my spare time (ahemBUFFY), although I would LOVE to hang out with some of them in, like, all of my spare time (ahemTHE DOCTOR) but ANYWAY, my point is, I think all of them would be able to protect me from zombies, and really, isn't that all you want out of your ~~friends~~ bodyguards? Yes. Besides, despite even my most logical arguments, Joe won't let me get a gun so I can protect us during the inevitable zombie apocalypse that is probably going to happen any second now, so this personal protection squad is totally necessary until Joe caves.

Starbuck

Pros: Is a badass, knows how to use a lot of different weapons, can come back from the dead (or something)

Cons: Is drunk all the time

Hermione Granger

Pros: Knows all the magic, cool under pressure

Cons: Is usually pretty busy saving Ron and Harry

Buffy Summers

Pros: Can protect against vampires and other demony things

Cons: So whiny

Ellen Ripley

Pros: Will come in handy if the scariest aliens ever attack Earth

Cons: Is dead, I think? I can't remember what happened in the last movie(s).

Batman

Pros: Has lots of gadgets, cool car, own sidekick, is a self-made superhero TAKE THAT SUPERMAN

Cons: Has that weird, growly voice thing going on right now

Fox Mulder

Pros: Has seen a lot of crazy shit, knows about paranormally things, I would probably get to hang out with Scully, too

Cons: Drops his gun all the time, has tendency to die a lot

The Doctor

Pros: has a sonic screwdriver, comes with a variety of companions PLUS sexy TARDIS, can regenerate if necessary
Cons: NONE

DEAR SELF, STOP NOT-BLOGGING ALL THE DAMN TIME

2011-06-06T18:33:00.000-04:00

Oh hi! So I see I forgot to blog again for a bajillion years. Oopsies. It's just that I feel like I shouldn't be blogging about nothing which is stupid because THAT'S ALL THIS BLOG IS, also sometimes I feel like all I do is complain but I don't want to complain all the time which is a problem because these are the only things I can think to blog about:

1. Job Searching = SOUL CRUSHING, which, no, actually it hasn't been all that bad but I think I'm only saying that because I'm not job searching right now. If I had been job searching in the last five minutes, I probably wouldn't be able to write this because I would have ripped my eyeballs out, is all I'm saying.

2. IT'S SO DAMN HOT. How hot is it? SO DAMN HOT, I JUST SAID THAT PAY ATTENTION.

3. I'm siiiiiiiiiick. The jury is still out on whether I have/had strep throat but the doctor gave me yummy antibiotics anyway and they only cost $5! That's $25 less than what my old birth control used to cost me A MONTH! I don't think there's any correlation there* but that was my first thought.

Um, OK, so that's it. What else have I been doing, you might ask if you're polite. Well. I can tell you that I've watched a lot of TV. We finished Battlestar Galactica, which I enjoyed but didn't Lost-love. Or Doctor-Who-love. Anyway. I was slightly underwhelmed by the finale but that may have had something to do with the fact that I felt like complete and utter ass when we watched it. Also, I have this theory about watching shows all at once on Netflix or DVD or whatever versus watching them live as the show airs. There's something special about having to wait an entire summer to find out what happens to all of your ~~BFFs~~ favorite TV characters that just cannot be recaptured by watching a show on DVD.

I've also been watching a shitload of Friday Night Lights because did you know that show is awesome? Pajiba pretty much fellates this show ON THE REGULAR but I'd never watched it because...I can't remember why now. Maybe because I don't like football? I don't know. I blame Dawson. I'm almost done with the first season and I cannot stop watching it. Like, I will lose hours to this show, which is awesome because there are a lot of hours in the day when you don't have a job, did you know that?

Unfortunately, I haven't had a TON of time to watch it because I've been keeping myself pretty busy with various errands, volunteering, cleaning, and WRITING. That's right, I said WRITING. I'm in this ~~secret society~~ writing group that's KIND OF a big deal. If anyone is still interested, let me know. I think we'll welcome pretty much anyone who isn't a big meanie poophead.

*Although when I told my mom I was going to the doctor because I'd had a sore throat and a fever for a few days, her first words were, "you don't think there's a chance you're pregnant, right?" WHAT.

Auntie Em, Auntie Em!

2011-05-27T10:55:00.000-04:00

Sometimes when I haven't written here in a while, I feel like I can't write until something BIG happens because what's the point of me writing another, "I did nothing all day today other than watch a full season of Party Down" post because YOU GUYS I'm unemployed (sort of) so that is pretty much what I'd be writing.

That said, I'm writing today because I was in a tornado on Wednesday. I know. I KNOW. I actually didn't know it was a tornado until we saw it on the news last night. We just thought it was a really, really bad (hail) storm, and as it was, it was a category 0 tornado so it was just a not-so-bad tornado (although my aunt insists that there's no such thing as a not-so-bad tornado).

Anyway, so we had just settled down to watch Battlestar Galactica (ASHLEY!) while we ate dinner (SPAGHETTI!) when I looked outside to see it was getting super windy and dark and, well, just very end-of-the-worldish. We turned on the news to see we were under a tornado warning and everyone in our area was being advised to take shelter. Normally I scoff at these warnings (scoff, I tell you!) because tornado warnings around here ('cept for Xenia) usually end up being nothing. My dad and I, when I lived at home, would run to the back porch to watch the storms whenever we were under a tornado warning, until my mom would yell at us to get our stupid asses back in the basement.

But I took one look outside on Wednesday to see the wind whipping the trees back and forth (I WHIP MY TREES BACK AND FORTH!) and was all, "um, maybe we should, like, not be sitting next to this giant window."

So we dragged a very freaked out Max to one of the innermost points of the condo, which happens to be Joe's closet. I was really worried about Phoebe because I had no idea where she was, but I figured she was OK since she's got all that cat-instinct and was probably hiding somewhere safe. We sat in the closet and called our parents and then just listened to the storm blow around us. At one point, Joe was like, "My parents were in a tornado once. They said it sounded like a train going by overhead," and I was all, "You mean, like it sounds right now?" and he was like, "Yeah, pretty much." But eventually the wind died down and we went to look out the window. There was hail EVERYWHERE.

And it was huge:

Once the storm was over, we decided to walk Max because there was another storm on the way. There were trees down all over and the street was flooded. I walked around a bit more yesterday and they had boarded up a bunch of windows that had been busted in the ~~storm~~ tornado.

I cannot stress enough that, for a tornado, this was the weakest possible, and there was minimal damage for a tornado coming through. Sure, there were trees uprooted and windows busted and a chimney destroyed, but no one was hurt and everyone still has a place to live, so I'm not trying to be all dramatic where there is no drama, but HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS A TORNADO. So scary. I'm so glad I didn't know it was a tornado when it was happening because I would have done one of two things:

1. Pooped myself and passed out.
2. Stood outside with my fingers crossed, hoping to be carried away to The Emerald City.

But you guys, the poor trees. :(

And I don't know, but I think someone might be trying to smite Ohio because the new Dinosaur Park (DINOSAURS ALIVE!) at Kings Island caught on fire the other day. Is this because I got so much enjoyment from Giant Jesus burning down? If so, I'M SORRY BUT LEAVE THE DINOSAURS ALONE.

"Baby step onto the elevator...baby step into the elevator...I'm IN the elevator."

2011-05-18T10:16:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I have to trick myself into writing. It makes no sense, really, I love to write. Even when I feel like everything I'm writing is complete shit, I can keep going because it's pretty easy to write complete shit, you know? And, I don't know, maybe my shit will turn into pretty flowers some day. That is the weirdest thing I've ever typed. But you know what I mean...flowers come from shit. Everything comes from shit. Shit shit shit. Just keep shitting.

ANYWAY. Joe and I have been having "writing time" some nights, partly because it's more productive than watching hours of TV after dinner but also because we're both writing stories for THIS. You should, too. It's funsies. And if you get published, then I can say I know you and I'll be, like, Famous Once Removed.

We are learning to work together, and by that, I mean, in the same room at the same time. It's difficult because it means we just cannot talk to each other, or it will soon devolve into a gigglefest about poop and butts and who can say the most inappropriate thing that will make the other almost die from all the laughter. That's fun and all, but it's hard to write when you're lying passed out on the floor.

There's something I've been thinking about for a while, something that I hope at least some of you wonderful writers would be interested in, and that something is INTERNET WRITING GROUP. By that, I mean, hey, let's write stuff and pass it around and critique it and praise it but mostly LET'S JUST WRITE. We can have set topics or write WHATEVER, we can write short stories, sonnets, haikus, dirty limericks, I DON'T CARE, except no, wait, I really don't want to write any sonnets.

In any case, email if you're interested.

I changed my name on Windows

2011-05-11T22:25:00.000-04:00

I changed my name on Windows, a photo by Jenlala on Flickr.

I had to reinstall Windows because of a virus or something WHO KNOWS THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT what's important is that my name is now officially (well, computer officially) Poohead Buttshits.

Whoever wields this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor. (ATTENTION: SPOILERS AHEAD)

2011-05-11T11:02:00.003-04:00

It is a truth universally acknowledged (um, in our house anyway), that I know little to nothing about comic book stuff and Joe knows, well, everything. We saw Thor last and I had some follow up questions regarding Thor, The Avengers, and the previews for X-Men: First Class. And I thought HEY! Maybe other people have the same questions! Or maybe they want to laugh at how little I know about comics. Win win win!

Anyway, read on and be educated:

1. The Cosmic Cube

Jennie: So, what was that thing at the end of the credits?

Joe: The Cosmic Cube. It’s basically a source of unlimited power, I’m not sure how it works, and the Red Skull is always after it.

2. Where my bitches at?

Jennie: I was expecting an Avengery person to be in Thor but I didn't remember that Jeremy Renner was an Avenger.

Joe: Yeah, I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to spoil it.

Jennie: And he's...The Green Arrow?

Joe: No, Hawkeye. The Green Arrow is DC, Hawkeye is like Marvel's answer to The Green Arrow.

Jennie: Oh. I get all the Green people mixed up. Hornet, Lantern, Arrow, IT'S CONFUSING.

Joe: Haha.

Jennie: OK, so the Avengers are Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Hawkeye but not Hawkeye from MASH, Captain America...

Joe: You said Captain America already.

Jennie: Oh...um, who are the rest?

Joe: You forgot Thor.

Jennie: Ha, oh yeah, duh. Are there any girl Avengers?

Joe: Well, there's Black Widow.

Jennie: UGH. Scarlett Johanssen.

Joe: Yeah. There's also The Wasp and Scarlet Witch. Scarlet Witch is Magneto's daughter.

Jennie: But they don't get their own movies.

Joe: Well...probably not.

Jennie: THAT'S BULLSHIT.

Joe: I agree.

Jennie: So what you're telling me is that the most high profile female Avenger right now is played by Scarlett Johanssen. Who cannot act.

Joe: I know, it's unfortunate.

Jennie: But she looks really good in the outfit, so I suppose that's all that matters.

3. Captain America is an old man

Jennie: OK, so, Captain America is in the new Avengers movie, right?

Joe: Yes.

Jennie: But in his movie, it's the 1940s?

Joe: True.

Jennie: Does he not age, or what?

Joe: Well...OK, this is kind of spoilery.

Jennie: I don't care.

Joe: At the end of World War II, Captain America and his partner get blown up by a bomb and Captain America is encased in ice.

Jennie: Oh yeah! Isn't there a scene in one of the other movies where they show him in Antarctica or something.

Joe: Yeah, at the end of The Hulk, Edward Norton goes to Antarctica to kill himself--

Jennie: Downer.

Joe: And the camera swings quickly over Captain America frozen in ice.

4. Nicholas Hoult is totally old now

Jennie: So, that one X-Men character from one of the old movies, I don't remember what he was called, but he was played by Kelsey Grammar?

Joe: Yeah, Henry McCoy aka Beast.

Jennie: Is he in the new movie?

Joe: I think so?

Jennie: Is he played by the kid from About a Boy?

Joe: Yes! That's who it is...he plays Henry McCoy.

Jennie: Cool, I liked that guy.

5. Mystique's mothering skills

Jennie: And Mystique is in the new movie? But she's good?

Joe: Mystique was always bad, at least in the comics. Rogue, on the other hand, started off bad then turned good.

Jennie: Did you know Mystique is Nightcrawler's MOM?! WTF?

Joe: Yes.

Jennie: Why wasn't that in the movie, that's awesome!

Joe: I don't know. Mystique is also Rogue's mom.

Jennie: But adopted mom, right?

Joe: Right.

6. HULK SMASH

Jennie: So, The Incredible Hulk...he's an Avenger, but goes all crazy and is kind of bad, right, when he changes into The Hulk?

Joe: Well...yeah, sort of.

Jennie: How does that work?

Joe: They sort of...time his freakouts for when they need a bunch of stuff to be smashed.

Jennie: And then what, they have to like reign him in?

Joe: Pretty much. The Hulk has always more or less been a force of nature. He’s usually a mindless, rampaging monster. In the early issues of The Avengers, Hulk was on their side during the big battles, but the team also spent a lot of time just trying to keep him under control.

7. Me Thor, You Jane

Jennie: Jane and Thor are kind of like Tarzan and Jane, huh?

Joe: Um...sure.

Other fun facts (from Joe)!

1. There’s also Ant-Man, who was a founding Avenger, but he’s had his own movie in development for a while (by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright!)

2. Captain America was not a founding Avenger. He joined in issue 4 when he was found frozen in ice and revived by The Avengers.

3. Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch’s brother, all started off as villains before they joined The Avengers. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are twins and the children of Magneto.

I'm sure he has more fun facts than that but those are the only ones I know about. I hope you have found today's Avengers lesson beneficial.

"Black Rider, It's Jeff Winger. I know you've heard of me by now!"

2011-05-06T17:49:00.000-04:00

Here are some things that have happened since I last blogged:

I lost my job
I went to Charleston for a wedding
I brought back two cases of Yuengling and all but four of the beers are gone
I've cleaned the entire condo
I turned 29
I don't know, some other stuff

I'm not sure why I haven't been blogging other than PURE LAZINESS but I realized today that it's been almost a month since I've blogged, which is like 12 months in Me Years. What I'm saying is, I used to blog several times a day WHAT HAPPENED? And now here I am talking about how I haven't been blogging so let's move on, shall we?

So, I lost my job, which is weird. Last week sort of just felt like vacation, probably because I would get up late, eat some chocolate pop-tarts and watch Doctor Who and The X-Files reruns until I decided I should probably shower and get dressed. You know, around 3 o'clock or so.

ANYWHO, this week I decided I should probably be somewhat productive, so I cleaned a different room of the condo every day. I KNOW. My life without work is super exciting. Not that it was much more exciting when I WAS working, but whatever. The cleaning is mostly done now, which means I have to concentrate mostly on job searching which, as I'm sure you're all aware, is absolutely soul crushing and I DON'T WANT TO DO IT ANYMORE, especially since I don't even know what to search for most of the time, as my old job made me want to jab sharp objects in my eyes at least two times a day.

I mean, it hasn't been that bad, really, not yet anyway. I'm sure that after a few weeks, I will be dying for more human contact. I think Joe's already getting sick of coming home to me acting like a COMPLETE PSYCHO, babbling at a speed greater than light (or...whatever) because the only person I had to talk to all day was Max, and he's not a great conversationalist. Not because he's a dog, but because he sleeps all day.

So here I am, blogging about nothing, which I'm going to try to do more of except maybe I'll try blogging about SOMETHING sometimes, who knows? There's a first time for everything, yeah? Yeah.

Anyway, if anyone hears of any job openings at Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, please let me know.

People had come to see Wilbur when he was "Some Pig" and came back again now that he was "Terrific."

2011-04-13T10:58:00.000-04:00

The other day, I was walking Max and he tried to eat an earthworm that was crawling across the sidewalk. It had rained recently, so they were everywhere and they were active. You know, active for earthworms. Which means they were kind of moving instead of just lying there, waiting to be stepped on.

Did you guys ever have to dissect earthworms in science class? I seem to remember doing this several times, and each time I spent the entire class completely befuddled because I had no idea what I was looking at. We were supposed to diagram all the little wormy inside parts but they all looked the same to me. This is around the time I realized I'd never be a doctor. Aside from not being able to identify even an earthworm's vital organs, I was not-so-handy with a scalpel. Instead of gently cutting one side of the worm open, I usually ended up slicing the worm in half lengthwise, which is not what we were supposed to do. I mean, MAYBE that'd be OK for Hogwarts Potions class, but it was not OK at Kettering Middle School.

Plus, we'd always have to draw pictures of the worm-insides and, while I was above average in art classes, my science diagrams usually ended up looking like I'd just drawn a bunch of blobby things that were supposed to be earthworm organs and labeled each blob with things like, "heart, maybe?" and "front...end?" because I couldn't even tell the front end of the worm from the back end. I mean, WHO CAN? Other than worm scientists or whatever.

We moved past earthworms and onto starfish. Sure. I mean, what? This is a thing kids dissect? I don't know. We had to use little scissors to cut them open instead of a scalpel and I thought that would be easier, but no, I completely mutilated my starfish. Sorry, Patrick. We also dissected a sheep's eyeball at some point and I do not gross out easily, but eyeballs give me the heebie-jeebies, especially when I'm stabbing at one sitting in front of me with sharp objects.

We didn't dissect frogs until my Bio II class in high school, and even then, only a few of us did the dissection and the rest had to just watch. Did the price on frogs go up around that time or something? I'm not sure what I was even doing in a Bio II class, other than it was an advanced class and I used to be smart, but I loved the teacher, Mr. Williams, who made the subject matter exciting no matter what it was. He also had what he called "half-times" in the middle of class, right around the time everyone's eyes would start to glaze over, where he would tell us stories like how he once painted his little brother green or he would bet someone that they couldn't eat a package of crackers in a certain amount of time.

Unfortunately, the most memorable part of his class was the quarter (yes, an entire quarter) that we dissected fetal pigs. You guys, it was so disgusting. Not so much the actual dissection itself, because for some reason that I don't want to think too much about, I have no problem slicing dead animals open (in a classroom environment...not, like, out in the wild), but the smell. Oh, the smell. Think of how disgusting a fetal pig might smell. Now think about how it might smell at the end of nine weeks. In the springtime. YEAH. Once it started to get really warm, toward the end of the quarter, it got pretty bad. Like, so bad that people would avoid that end of the building. And you know how sometimes when you go to Subway, you can still smell Subway on your clothes for the rest of the day? Well, it was the same with this classroom, except worse because, to my knowledge, Subway doesn't serve fetal pigs.

We dissected our fetal pigs a few times a week, working our way through each system, diagramming the organs and coloring them in with pretty colors. When class was over, we'd put our pigs back in their Ziploc bags (which had some sort of juice in it to keep the pigs...juicy) and keep them in the fetal pig fridge that Mr. Williams kept in his office.

Now, you might be wondering how we could tell our pigs apart from all the other pigs. Especially once they were all thrown into a fridge. It's not like fetal pigs have distinguishing marks, although some were bigger than others. But no, we could easily tell them apart and that's because, when Mr. Williams passed out our pigs on the first day, each nestled into its own comfy Ziploc home, he told us to name them. We wrote our pig's name on the bag and that's how we knew which pig to work on all quarter. And that's the story of how I dissected a pig named Wilbur for nine weeks straight.

P90X: Days 3 and 4 and my abs, oh my god

2011-04-13T09:17:00.000-04:00

So. I've completed P90X, days 3 and 4, and so far, so good. The weight-lifting stuff wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, mainly because you get to rest a lot, which is nice, but the Ab Ripper HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD. What in the what? That's, like, impossible, right? There were a few times I had to stop and just stare at the TV in disbelief because HOW WERE THEY DOING THAT?

Anyway. I did the yoga workout yesterday and it was definitely tough. I haven't done much yoga, other than a class or two in college and a half-assed attempt to do a yoga DVD a handful of times, and that's mostly because I am not coordinated or flexible AT ALL. That said, I did enjoy the yoga workout. I have a lot of respect for people who are good at yoga (AHEM mysterygirl!, hee) because they make it look so effortless. And it is the opposite of effortless. My only complaint about the yoga workout is that it's an hour and a half long. I'm sure that, as I continue on through this program, I'm going to want to either skip it entirely or do something else in its place, but I'm going to try and stick with it. It can only help my (lack of) balance issues, so maybe I'll trip and fall down less often.

In other news, I have to do the Ab Ripper workout again tonight. DO NOT WANT.

Dear Brain, Ryan Baby Goose should not be used for evil, only for good. Love, Jennie

2011-04-12T08:50:00.000-04:00

Last night, I had a dream that someone was trying to kill me. I don't know why he was trying to kill me, he just was. I actually wasn't that concerned about it. Maybe I was immortal in my dream WHO KNOWS but I DID know that the killer could shapeshift (thanks, Fringe). At some point I was standing in front of Ryan Gosling and I was like, "Awwwww yeah, Ryan Gosling, LET'S DO THIS," but then he said something weird and I realized he was the killer. You have never known such disappointment. Anyway, then I threw Ryan FakeFace off of a balcony or something but the killer still didn't die! And he was killing people left and right! Like, straight up slitting throats and shooting people and it was GRAPHIC. My point is, I need to stop watching Dexter before bed.

fitness-y (read: boring) talk ahead

2011-04-11T11:44:00.000-04:00

I completed the first two days of P90X over the weekend (only 88 to go...whoohoo?) and so far, I'm a fan. I'm doing the Lean Program, which, as I understand it, is less weight-lifty stuff and more jump-around-until-you-feel-like-you're-going-to-pass-out stuff.

The first day was called Core Synergistics and, if you're smarter than I am which I assume you are, you will have already guessed that this involved a lot of exercises that work your core. Duh. I didn't think too much about it at the time, though, and was surprised to find that the next day my abs felt like they were going to fall off. I even modified some of the moves because, well, they were hard and I am whiny. There was this one thing where you were supposed to (from a standing position), sit down really fast, roll backwards, push your feet up to the ceiling, and then roll back up, and I was like, "um, no," and so I did my own version. There are also these things called Superman Bananas which are just torture. Look them up on YouTube or something and then try it and you will know true evil, I swear. Here, I found a video for you and the guy even has an accent YOU'RE WELCOME.

Day 2 was a cardio workout called, wait for it...CARDIO. Right. It actually wasn't too bad. I mean, it was still challenging and I was definitely working hard, but I didn't feel like I was going to die until it was time to do the damn Superman Bananas again WTF NO. Anyway. I actually really liked this workout, specifically the exercise called Wacky Jacks. I'm not really sure how to explain them. But, like, if Phoebe Buffay did jumping jacks before she went running, I think they'd look like Wacky Jacks.

Today I was supposed to get up before work and do Day 3 but if you know me at all, you know that didn't happen, so now I have to do it after work. It's the first weight-trainy day so expect a lot of whining tomorrow about how sore I am. Although, yesterday when I woke up, my first thought was, "oh, my, I am just sore all over," and I'm still sore today, but slightly less so, so maybe it will get better? Yes? People who've done this before? Lie to me.

Deja vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix.

2011-04-07T12:36:00.000-04:00

So yesterday I exercised for the first time in, oh, let's say FOREVER. I wish I had a dollar for every time I've said something like that. I have started and then quit exercising SO MANY TIMES. My point is, get ready to read a post that is just like a bunch of other posts you've already read! Whoo!

Anyway, so I did this workout DVD even though it was really nice outside, because it was really windy, too, like so windy that when I was walking Max, he would stop every time there was a huge gust of wind, I mean just PLANT HIS FEET like he was afraid he was going to be carried away. And I only like to run outside when it's not too hot, not to cold, not too sunny, and not too windy, and since there are like three of those days a year in Ohio, I hardly ever run outside.

What was I talking about? Oh, right, I was about to tell you that Jillian Michaels is evil, but you already know that because I've already told you that five billion times AT LEAST but oh well, I'm going to tell you again. I thought about doing the 30 Day Shred DVD yesterday, because even though it's pretty much HELL, it's only like 25 minutes worth of HELL, but I was feeling extra motivated so I did one of her longer DVDs. This one is about an hour long, with warm up and cool down and everything, and is all cardio, no weights, so I thought it would be fine. I'd just jump around for an hour, no big deal, right?

No. This DVD is TERRIBLE. So terrible that my brain must block out how terrible it is after I finish it, otherwise I'd never do the DVD again. And when I say terrible, I don't mean that it's not effective. Judging by how sore I am today, it MUST be effective but I never, ever want to do it again. And I even half-assed a lot of it because I was pretty sure I was going to pass out and the last thing I wanted was for Joe to come home and find me lying in the middle of the floor in too tight workout gear while Phoebe crawled all over me, probably puking on my back just for good measure BECAUSE THAT'S THE KIND OF ~~PERSON~~ CAT SHE IS.

I guess I'm not all THAT sore today, though, if I'm being completely honest. I can still walk up the stairs, but my abs hurt when I, you know, laugh or cough or move. Here's how I know I'm crazy...I have another Jillian DVD, similar to the one I did yesterday, that is also about an hour long and the last time I did it, I thought I might really die, but I'm thinking of doing it after work today. Also, I ordered P90X and it's supposed to be delivered tomorrow. I'm sort of scared to try it, judging by what my friends who have tried it have said, but I'll probably do the first workout tomorrow. I think I'm going to teach Max how to dial 911 first, though.

You're not who you are, you're only what other people think you are. Fishism.

2011-04-05T12:16:00.001-04:00

Netflix recently announced that it was releasing several new (well, old) TV shows on Netflix Instant, which is awesome because every season of Bones, Ugly Betty, Doctor Who, The X-Files, Lois & Clark, Grey's Anatomy, Futurama, and Better Off Ted were getting really lonely in our queue.

The two shows I was most excited about were Ally McBeal and The Wonder Years. I mean, I've been wishing for them to put The Wonder Years back on TV for years, possibly since they took it off of the air, oh, whenever that was. I used to come home from school and watch The Wonder Years reruns alongside The Fresh Prince of Bel-air and Saved by the Bell. Unfortunately, the last time I looked, it still hadn't been released on Netflix Instant. I'M WAITING, NETFLIX. And I'm hoping that The Wonder Years won't send me spiraling into an existential crisis and if you're wondering what I'm talking about then PLEASE READ AHEAD.

Ally McBeal was available on Netflix Instant last week, so I added every season to our queue, much to Joe's chagrin. But whatever, I've only been watching it when he's not home. I watched this show back when it was first on and LOVED it, so I was interested to see if and how my opinion had changed. The first season aired when I was but a wee high school sophomore (yikes) and, at the time, I loved the whimsy and the singing and the, I don't know, the BALLS OUT CRAZY.

But, if I'm being completely honest, I find it a bit cringe-worthy to watch now. Almost like I feel when I read my journal from high school. That dancing baby thing totally creeps me out. I find Ally to be extremely annoying and I spend most of the time hoping a strong gust of wind blows her into oncoming traffic. But, I mean, Robert Downey Jr. shows up in a later season and, if I remember correctly, he sings at least once, so that's something to look forward to.

The thing that freaks me out the most, though, is that Ally is supposed to be 27 in the first season. WHICH IS WEIRD. I thought she was so old when I watched this show in high school and I thought that, surely, by the time I was her age, I would have all my shit figured out.

Well, I'm two years past the age she is on the show and I most definitely do not have my shit figured out. In fact, I often wonder at which point I will have my all of my ducks in a row, at least career-wise. I don't even have any ducks! WHERE ARE MY DUCKS?

This troubles me. I need to take a moment.

Let's all go to the movies and then gouge our eyes out because that's how bad Due Date was

2011-03-31T10:19:00.007-04:00

My love for Robert Downey Jr. runs deep, so deep that I have seen Only You MORE THAN ONCE. In fact, when I saw that Only You was available for Netflix Instant, I might have actually squeed aloud. I watched it almost immediately and I was almost able to ignore how absolutely terrible it is. Such is the power of RDJ's charm.

I've been swooning over RDJ for years now, through his stint in rehab AND on Ally McBeal, all the way to, well, today. I saw Iron Man because he was in it, I loved him in Wonder Boys, my sides ached with laughter during his bits in Tropic Thunder, and I watched Sherlock Holmes just to see the magic of the budding bromance between RDJ and Jude Law.

But this past weekend, Robert Downey Jr. almost lost my love FOREVER and I will tell you why: DUE DATE.

Oh, I was all set to love it, despite the poor reviews I'd read back when it came out, because his character's name in the movie is Peter Highman. Just...just say it out loud. See? It immediately pandered to my 13-year-old-boy level of maturity, so I was on board. But you guys, this movie is terrible. I don't know what happened. I love stupid movies as much as the next person (I own Zoolander) but there is almost nothing redeeming about this movie.

Here is the premise: Peter (RDJ) is on his way home, and needs to be there by Friday, because his wife is getting a C-section that day and I guess it's, like, important to meet your baby right away, I don't know. He meets Zach Galificleurlduskjerudl's character, Ethan, at the airport and there is some nonsense about their bags getting mixed up. Then they get in a fight on the airplane and, of course, get kicked off. Peter has this problem, I guess, that when he gets mad, he "sees red," so he never remembers the yelling and the punching or whatever, but really I think his problem is that he's just an asshole.

Anyway, so they get kicked off the plane and Peter's wallet is still ON the plane because for some reason, he put it in the seat pocket in front of him? Or something? Do people do this? So he can't rent a car because he has no money or ID. Also, he's now on the no-fly list on account of the fighting and the mixed up baggage.

Ethan, however, still has money and his ID, so he is able to rent a car and convinces Peter to come with him. Thus begins their tragic journey across the country. Oh yeah, I forgot, but Ethan is carrying his dead father's ashes around in a coffee can. This will be important later but it's gross so prepare yourselves. Also, Ethan wants to be an actor because he was inspired by Two and a Half Men. This will be important later but it's gross so prepare yourselves.

Along the way, Ethan stops to buy pot and, while there, Peter punches a child in the stomach. I mean, the kid was annoying, but you just can't punch a child. I'm pretty sure that's like a rule. Ethan spends all their money on pot, then Peter insults a war veteran at Western Union so they can't even get the money Peter's wife wired to them, so they are pretty much screwed. I think this is when they sleep at a rest stop and Peter tries to ditch Ethan there but, in his only redeeming scene in the movie, feels guilty and goes back to get him. Later, Ethan falls asleep while he's driving and DRIVES OFF OF AN OVERPASS, so maybe Peter had the right idea, what with the ditching, but don't worry, the only bad things that happen are that Peter breaks an arm and the dog now has to wear a cone of shame.

At this point, Jamie Foxx rescues them and takes them to his house. He lends them a car, but not before making them coffee out of Ethan's father's ashes. Yep, sure, why not.

I think it's soon after they leave Jamie Foxx that Ethan accidentally drives them to Mexico. Yeah. Peter gets arrested by border patrol because...I don't remember why, and is locked up in a trailer, which Ethan then STEALS and then they are in the most ridiculous car chase ever and it was at this point that I wondered why I was still watching the movie.

They become friends at this point, sort of, even though Peter is still a total asshole. They go to the Grand Canyon and I wish Ethan would push Peter over the side. They OBVIOUSLY make it to California in time for Peter to see his baby's birth...well, sort of, because I forgot that Ethan accidentally shoots Peter at some point so I think Peter passes out during the actual birth but who cares because he was an asshole anyway and assholes shouldn't get to see their babies get borned. Actually, wait, scratch that, the birthing process is way disgusting so assholes should have to watch that shit, like, 24/7, right? Right.

OK, but here is where I felt completely betrayed. Ethan and Peter apparently become BFF, although reluctantly on Peter's part because of the asshole thing. Peter and his wife and baby are lying in bed one night, watching TV, and you guys, THEY ARE WATCHING TWO AND A HALF MEN. Because Ethan was a guest actor on it or something. But WHATEVER WHO CARES. The point is, this movie tricked me into watching part of Two and a Half Men and I don't care that it was maybe only a minute or two, it was still a minute or two of Two and a Half Men that I never, ever wanted to see. And, I don't know, you guys, as much as I hate to say it, I think it's going to take a lot of shirtless wrestling before I can ever trust RDJ again.

True story: when we watch Fringe, I spend most of the time talking about how dreamy Joshua Jackson is.

2011-03-25T09:10:00.003-04:00

When I was a tween, one of my most serious hobbies was collecting BOP and Tiger Beat magazines. My friends and I would go to the drug store and sit in the magazine aisle, leaf through these bubblegum rags, and agonize over our purchases. My weekly allowance would only support my habit up to a point, so I had to be careful if I wanted to get my money’s worth. Sometimes the magazines had only so-so heartthrobs on the cover, but if there was a magazine with a full-size pullout poster of Jonathan Taylor Thomas (JTT!!!), well, obviously that was money well spent.

Some of my friends were already starting to go on dates around this time, even though most of us hadn’t even started our periods. I was shy and socially awkward around most people, and even more so around boys. I had no interest in them and didn’t anticipate ever wanting to have anything to do with them. I mean...I had books, I had my friends, I had my bike, honestly, what else did I need?

Maybe I wasn’t maturing as quickly as my friends, I don’t know, but I didn’t see the appeal of dating. Frankly, what little dating information I’d been able to gather (mostly from old episodes of Saved by the Bell) terrified me. My friends and I often discussed the perfect age to start dating. Most of my friends insisted that, at 12, we were the perfect age to date all we wanted, and you wouldn’t believe the heavy silence that fell when I suggested that maybe 18 was a better age.

I had no real interest in any of the boys in my life but was obsessed with collecting glossy pictures of my favorite teen actors. My room was plastered with the posters and pages I’d torn from teen magazines. I taped them on my bedroom walls like wallpaper. I lived in my head and my head was full of these Hollywood pretty boys. It was easier to pretend that if I should ever meet one of these actors, they’d fall deeply in love with me, and I’d never need to go through the painful dating process. I weaved intricate fantasies around these meetings, based on information gleaned from all the generic magazine articles I’d read about them. JTT liked ice cream. I liked ice cream! Joshua Jackson liked animals! I LOVED animals! Andrew Keegan liked to hike and, well, I liked to walk? Oh the fun we’d have, JTT, Andrew, Josh (yeah, I call him Josh) and I, eating our double-decker ice cream cones while we hiked through the woods and tried to catch wild animals WITH OUR BARE HANDS.

Obviously, these fantasies never became reality, and I (sort of) overcame my fear of boys and dipped my toe into the dating scene. I still spend most of my time in my head, but I eventually outgrew these magazine heartthrobs. Although, if I didn't think Joe would mind, I might still plaster the walls of our house with pictures of Joshua Jackson.

PACEY 4EVA!!1!!11!

Testes

2011-03-19T18:10:00.001-04:00

TESTING TESTING I am posting this WITH MAAAAAGIC.

you pinch me, I choke you

2011-03-17T09:00:00.002-04:00

I'm not wearing green today. In fact, I'm wearing red. It's not that I don't like St. Patrick's Day, it's just FUCK YOU DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO WEAR. Also, I always look for excuses to get mad at people, so if anyone tries to pinch me I WILL CHOKE THEM. Of course, choking a coworker might get me fired, but according to this study, that might be a good thing. But seriously, coworkers, DO NOT TOUCH ME. Or, like, even talk to me.

I have the day off tomorrow and I was talking to Joe last night about how, just a few years ago, I would have been so excited that I could celebrate St. Patrick's Day without having to work the next day. Hell, even if I DID have to work the next day, I probably would have celebrated. I think it was three years ago that Steve, Heidi, and I got my dad (my dad: "Does this make me an enabler?) to drop us off at Harrigan's on St. Patrick's Day in the middle of the week. We had my dad drop us off because A) we assumed the parking lot would be full and B) we all had to work the next day, so we needed our cars, like, at home. It was brilliant, right? We'd just take a taxi home!

We did not take into account that everyone in Dayton would be taking taxis home, and so when we called for one, there were none available. Like, as in, they told us they might be able to pick us up...at 5 AM. At that point, it was too late to call anyone to pick us up because, duh, they all had to work the next day, too, so we walked. It was only like two and a half miles, so it wasn't THAT crazy, except that Steve had recently had knee surgery and still had a brace, I think? And some weird guys kept trying to convince us to come to their apartment? We were all really hungry, too, because beer needs feeding after a while, and I was getting bored because walking was taking too long, so I ran the last mile ahead of Heidi and Steve, I guess to make food? And to get home faster. Sure.

Heidi and Steve got home to find the front door open and me running around the apartment brushing my teeth. I had also dumped a box of granola bars on top of the stove for them. That was me cooking, I guess? Probably safer than me actually using the oven in that state, so they should be happy they didn't come home to find the apartment on fire.

Anyway, Happy St. Patrick's Day!

this blog is about to reach a new low

2011-03-08T16:32:00.000-05:00

Last night, while Joe and I were sleeping, Max woke up, went to the living room, threw up, and then dragged his bed over the puke. Like he was hiding it.

WHAT.

That might sound boring, but I think the boring stuff is the stuff I remember the most.

2011-03-07T09:37:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't blogged in like a million years and this is totally phoning it in BUT OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT THIS:

go directly to heaven, collect two adorable mastiffs

2011-03-01T15:26:00.005-05:00

So I just got this email that there are two mastiffs available for foster/adoption in the Dayton area. Here they are:

and

LOOK AT HOW CUTE THEY ARE.

Here is the what the email said:

These two young mastiffs are super sweet and friendly. They were due to
be put down today, but thanks to a mastiff lover who went and picked
them up (thanks Lindsey) we got them into boarding last night. They are
getting their shots, wormed, and baths. The owner didn't give much info
on them. If you know of anyone willing to foster one or both of them
(they are very attached to each other), please let me know!! HART has
offered placement in their rescue if I can find fosters. I do have 54"
crates I can lend to someone and I can furnish the dog food. Thanks!

The Clinton Co. (Wilmington, OH) Dog Warden just picked up a male and
female English Mastiff who was surrendered to the county because the
owner is moving. The owner has not supplied names, medical history or
any info about the dogs. I do know that they have mostly lived outdoors
or in the garage. The Warden says they are nice dogs -- just huge!

Clinton Co. is a very rural and depressed community. The Pound has 20
kennels to house dogs. Currently, dogs are doubled, and in some cases,
tripled up in kennels. The Warden is forced to euthanize due to lack of
space and already has the vet scheduled to come in on Wednesday to have
relief on the quantity of animals.... he will be housing the Mastiffs in
an outdoor kennel tonight.

SUPER SAD FACE. If you would like to adopt/foster these dogs or know of someone who might, please EMAIL ME and I will forward you the foster lady's contact information.

Seriously, though, if you adopt them you will get so many karma points for heaven. Is that how heaven works? Being nice to animals?

Also, if you could please share this with others, that'd be great, because I think approximately 20 people read my blog and only a handful of those people actually live in Ohio.

Mr. Darcy is the hit of my pants*

2011-02-28T10:54:00.004-05:00

I woke up early this morning to Max crawling ACROSS JOE'S FACE so he could hide his face between our pillows. Normally these kinds of shenanigans would get Max kicked off the bed POST HASTE but it was thunderstorming and he was scared and COME ON, how could I possibly force him off the bed when his sad little scared face was trembling nose-to-nose with mine. Joe and I tried to go back to sleep, but it didn't really work because Joe was pretty much forced to the very edge of the bed and the only way I could make myself comfortable was to spoon Max but he kept hitting me in the chin with his head whenever there was thunder and OW.

So my point is, I'm tired today. I mean, I had already stayed up past my bedtime because I wanted to watch Mr. Darcy win an Oscar, so I wasn't planning on waking up an hour and a half earlier than my alarm. YAWN.

In other news, I got this love letter the other day:

Dear Beloved,

This letter may come to you as a surprise due to the fact that we have not yet met. Firstly, I have to say that I have no intentions of causing you any pain. My name is Mr. Moore Edwards, a European merchant. I have been diagnosed with Prostate and Esophageal cancer that was discovered very late due to lack of caring for my health. It has defiled all form of medicine and right now, I have only about a few months to live according to medical experts. I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone not even myself but my business.Though I am very rich, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focus on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world. I use to say to my self that if God should give me a second chance I would live differently from how I have lived. I was meditating on my hospital bed and something told me that Go

Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be content with what I have left for them.The last of my money which is a huge cash deposit that I have with a security firm will be put in your care if only you will agree and are capable of seeing this through. I want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatched it to charity organizations of your choice and let them know that it is I Mr.Moore Edwards that is making this generous donation. I am writing this from my laptop computer in my hospital bed where I wait for my time to come. I pray for you to support and assist me with a good heart. I hope we can build a relationship based on trust because I want to do this by all means possible before I die.But the choice is yours Please you can contact me through this email address: mooreedwards1@aol.co.uk

Be blessed my beloved,
Mr.Moore Edwards

For some reason, it was delivered to my spam folder. Which is weird because why would my beloved send me spam? In any case, feel free to email him. It sounds like he could use a pick-me-up.

*When my friend Amy and I were but wee little college freshman, we read Bridget Jones's Dairy and Pride & Prejudice, like, a million times, and then saw BJD in the theater, like, a million times, and went on an epic journey to, like, a million stores just to find the P&P mini-series that made Colin Firth such an object of DEEP, DEEP DESIRE. To say we were merely obsessed with Mr. Darcy is an insult to our level of obsession.

Anyway, one night, after drinking too much, we sent emails to practically everyone we knew (drunk emailing is way more entertaining than drunk dialing, trust me) and in one email, we said both "Mr. Darcy is a hearthrap," and "Mr. Darcy is the hit of my pants." Thank you, Stephanie, for reminding me of this. GOOD TIMES.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOE!

2011-02-15T08:35:00.004-05:00

I'm glad you were borned. You take care of me when I'm sick AND you didn't let me tumble into the ocean (or off of the balcony) that time I had too much tequila on our honeymoon. Our games of Scrabble always ALWAYS devolve into seeing who can spell the dirtiest words. You completely indulge me when I'm giggling over absolutely nothing (which is often) or just plain being weird (which is even more often) and then you totally outweird ME and it's awesome. You act like a total girl whenever Max does something cute (I mean that in a nice way) and you're nicer to Phoebe than I am.

You help me through scary stuff and won't let me get away with saying I'm not angry even though I obviously am, which pretty much makes you the more mature one in this relationship (duh).

The future may be uncertain but at least we can wander around all confused together.

PLUS ALSO, you let me (nay, ENCOURAGE ME to) post pictures like this on the internet:

What more could I ask for? HAAAAAAAAAPPY BIRTHDAY!

won't you be my neighbor

2011-02-14T12:51:00.002-05:00

I find it somewhat comforting to realize that I care as much about Valentine's Day now that I'm married as I did when I was single, which is to say, very little.

I do, however, care very much about these Doctor Who Valentine's Day cards. So there's that.

A funny thing happened yesterday in Ohio and that thing was that it wasn't absolutely frigid outside. It was maybe, MAYBE, 45, but that didn't stop some silly Ohioans from running around in shorts and t-shirts. Because that's what people do on the first semi-warm day of the year and I sort of love it. I mean, I'm not going to start running around in a sundress just because it's above freezing, but it was nice to walk Max IN THE SUNSHINE and not have to wear two pairs of pants, a scarf, gloves, and a hat and yet still worry about whether the tip of my nose is going to fall off because OMG I CAN'T FEEL MY NOSE ANYMORE.

I think the warm weather made me more productive, too, because NOT ONLY did I go to the grocery, but Joe and I ran all sorts of boring errands and didn't complain about them ONCE, plus I chopped up a million vegetables so the Crock Pot could make some beef stew for us to have for dinner tonight. I love when the Crock Pot cooks for us, especially on nights when I'm not going to be home until 7:30.

Oh! I forgot to tell you guys something really important about our neighbor, who we call Poltergeist Lady, because, well, she looks like this lady. In fact, when we first moved in, she knocked on our door to introduce herself and when she left, this happened:

Me: Oh, man. I'm having really mean thoughts.
Joe: Ooh, what are they?
Me: I don't wanna say.
Joe: Is it this? "Carol Anne, Carol Anne!"
Me: OK, so at least we're both going to hell.

So that's how she got the name Poltergeist Lady. She's very nice, but we always thought her a little odd, and the other night I upgraded her status from "a little odd," to "I'm not answering the door anymore."

We had a pretty bad ice storm a couple of weeks ago, and because of this, Joe and I both worked from home. This meant I didn't shower until I "left" work, so I had just gotten out of the shower when there was a knock on the door. Joe answered (in his Superman pajama pants) and I hid in the bathroom and listened. This is what I heard:

Poltergeist Lady: Hiiiiiiii.
Joe: Hi.
PL: [lots of mumbly words]
Joe: Um...
PL: [more mumbly words]
Joe: OK?

Then I heard Joe go into the kitchen, get something out of a cabinet, and go back to the front door.

Joe: Here you go.
PL: THANK YOU!

"What was that?" I shouted once the front door was closed.

"Oh, Poltergeist Lady wanted to borrow some taco seasoning," Joe answered.

Naturally, I was all, "um, WHAT," and it turns out she'd gone to the grocery to buy stuff to make tacos, but had forgotten taco seasoning, and so OF COURSE she went knocking on doors until she found some. Sure, OK. Maybe I'm just unfriendly, but I try to avoid my neighbors at all costs, because there's nothing I hate more than small talk. I'm so bad at it. I don't want to tell you how my day was, I don't care how your day was, and I can't talk with you about the weather anymore or I'll have to stab myself in the eardrum.

Anyway, so if I realized I'd forgotten ANYTHING at the grocery, I would either go back and get it or do without it. Especially if it was something like TACO SEASONING.

But, fine, she's obviously different than me AND THAT'S OK. You know what's not OK? That she came back five minutes later and asked for more.

Joe's way nicer than I am because I would have lied and said we didn't have any taco seasoning the first time she knocked on the door. So it's good that he answered the door instead of me. We want to remain on her good side, you know, in case our TV ever starts talking to us.

show me that smile again

2011-01-31T12:20:00.004-05:00

I went to Zumba (yes, ZUMBA) on Saturday for the first time. While I spent several songs marching in the wrong direction and flailing my arms about wildly, I enjoyed it and I'm going back tonight. It tricks you into exercising and it turns out exercising is good for you. Who knew? Anyway, the plus side of going to this Zumba class is that there's no set cost, it's all just donations to the instructor, AND it's really close to my house. The negative is that it's at a church, not that that's bad, but there are some churchy elements. Like scripture reading before the class starts (but it's short) and I'm pretty sure there were one or two Christian rock songs played during the class, but I was too busy trying not to run into people or fall down to really notice. This said, I don't really care because while I am not churchy, I do not begrudge others their churchiness (I don't know).

AND. The instructor told us before the class started that Kirk Cameron was coming to give a talk about marriage or preparing for the End Times or something, I don't know, I wasn't really listening because I was too busy mouthing, "OMG MIKE SEAVER MIKE SEAVER!" to Nancy while my 18-year-old cousin just stared at us blankly because I'm pretty sure she doesn't know who Mike Seaver is. The shame, the shame.

Anyway, I'm trying to decide if it's worth the price of the ticket to possibly ~~accost~~ see Mike Seaver in person. Probably not.

So, yeah, since I went to Zumba, it meant getting up early (on Saturday!) and regretting my decision to drink coffee beforehand. It was fun, though, and the fact that I keep telling people I'll meet them there means I can't flake out unless I have a really good excuse. Wanting to stay home and watch The Soup is not a good (enough) excuse.

After Zumba, I went home and was faced with this tough decision: Do I continue being productive since I'm already up and aboot? Or do I reward myself for getting up early with TV and loafing? The answer was a little of both, because Joe and I finally went to the bank to begin the long, arduous process of merging our moneys, but when we got home, I watched an episode of Doctor Who and two episodes of Grey's Anatomy (from season 2, when it was still good...ish).

I was about to start the next episode when Joe called and was all, "...um...so...I found a dog," and it was one of those times where I just wasn't sure how to react. I thought he was calling to tell me he was on his way home, not that Max might soon have a new friend. But, no, this dog was wearing tags, so we couldn't in good conscience keep her forever and hug her and squeeze her and call her George.

At first I was like, "take her to SICSA, maybe?" hoping they'd know what to do and then I remembered that I had a computer in front of me, and everyone knows that Google can solve anything. I got on SICSA's website, which led me here in a matter of CLICKS. Apparently, if you find a lost dog, you can find the owner's address and phone number just by entering the dog's tag number. I had no idea our county did this. I'd imagine your county does the same.

I plugged in the tag number and luckily the owner's current information was in there. I called them and a little girl answered the phone. I told her my name and that my husband had found a dog and that's when she squealed, "THEY FOUND CHRISTY!" and my heart melted. They didn't live far from us so I called Joe and told him where he could return the dog, and he said the whole family was outside in the front yard, waiting for him to bring their dog back. I want to cry a little, you guys, WHAT THE HELL. Anyway, I think our Dog Karma is really high now, so hopefully if Max ever gets lost (NOOOOOO), he'll find his way back to us, or someone will find his way back to us FOR him.

"Smart" Kids: new Lois & Clark review

2011-01-31T09:06:00.002-05:00

New review on Joe & Jennie in the Morning! Lois and Clark investigate some super smart kids who are trying to take over Metropolis, but they don't really seem all that smart. Sure, they outsmart Lois, but how hard is that, really?

i am totally bogarting delurking day II

2011-01-27T09:56:00.005-05:00

Sometimes when I find a new blog, I get really annoyed if there's not an "About" page somewhere, because I'm nosy and I like to learn everything about that person RIGHT AWAY, rather than, I don't know, just reading through their archives or something. Who has that kind of time? Wikipedia has ruined me forever.

Anyway, my point is that I'm a big hypocrite because I didn't even have an "About" page! WTF? I've fixed that, though, mainly because I recently discovered how to add Pages in Blogger. I know. I KNOW. So if you look under the header, you will see an "About Me" page and it's all about me, although I'm not sure how informative it is.

There's also a Links! page because did you know that Blogrolling went away? I guess it's been gone since November but I only recently noticed because ALL MY LINKS DISAPPEARED. It was good, though, because I've discovered a lot of new blogs since I last updated my Blogroll, so now those have been added. Please let me know if I forgot you.

BTW, I mostly stole this whole idea from Kate over at Effing the Ineffable, who has declared her own Delurking Day. So if you're a lurker, DELURK, because I am a whore for comments. Also, if you delurk, then I can add your link to my Links! page. Win win win! Also also, I really want to add a FAQ page but no one ever asks me any questions, let alone FREQUENTLY, so if you could delurk AND ask a question, I will send you a virtual hug WHATEVER THAT MEANS.

Also! Here are some recent posts at Joe and Jennie in the Morning! that you may have missed:

1. Joe is going to be recapping Sports Night. Here's the first episode!
2. I recapped episode 3 of The X-Files AKA Squeeze AKA the greatest episode ever (until, you know, the next one)
3. Joe recapped episode 6 of Lois & Clark...Lois dresses up in a chicken suit. Yeah.

let's talk about gym etiquette

2011-01-26T11:31:00.003-05:00

I know I was just complaining about the movies but now I'm going to complain about the gym and I'll tell you why. Our condo complex has a fitness room and, as far as I can tell, it's hardly ever used. I have seen other people in there maybe one or two of the times I've managed to drag myself to the treadmill, so whenever I walk in the room and see other people, I feel like they're trespassing in MY gym.

When Joe and I walked into the gym a few days ago and there were two (TWO) people already there, working on their fitness, I was perturbed. But, you know, whatever, it's their gym, too (HARRUMPH) so I couldn't really complain. Or throw them out, even though I totally wanted to. BUT. Then! They were gross. And here's why:

The guy on the treadmill who I usually see running outside no matter what the temperature had decided to move his workout indoors that day and was running super fast, was really sweaty, smelled bad enough that I could smell his BO from two machines away, and ran for at least 40 minutes, getting his sweaty-stinky-man-hands all OVER the treadmill. He finished his workout soon after Joe and I started ours, went to get a drink at the water fountain, put on his jacket, and left. Joe and I looked at one another in complete horror.

"Did he clean off his treadmill?" I asked.

"NO!" Joe exclaimed.

GROSS. YOU GUYS. THAT IS GROSS.

So meanwhile, there's this lady riding a bike in front of us. She's not wearing earphones or anything, so I know she heard us talking about how gross it was that that guy was sweating all over a machine and didn't clean it off. But what does she do? Finishes her workout, gets a drink of water, puts on her jacket, and leaves! WHAT THE HELL?

The craziest thing is that there are antibacterial wipes provided RIGHT THERE in the gym. You don't have to bring your own towel. You don't even have to go get paper towels out of the bathroom and then spray them with cleaning solution before you wipe down the machines. No. You just have to pull a wet wipe out of the container. It's so easy. I don't understand people who don't clean off their machines. If you don't clean your machine when you're done with it, YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.

Gym Rules:

1. CLEAN YOUR SHIT

The most important rule of the gym is to clean up after yourself. If you sweat all over a machine, CLEAN IT OFF. How is this a difficult thing to understand?

2. GET OUT OF MY WAY

Don't stand in front of a machine or just, like, hang out on a switched-off treadmill and have a conversation with someone. Get out of the way so someone else can use it. I HATE YOU.

3. DON'T BE GROSS

When Heidi and I were members at Fitworks, we would often note that working-out-noises were eerily similar to having-sex-noises. Please be aware of the noises you are making and, um, stop making them. I should not have to give you a side-look to make sure you're not pleasuring yourself over at the bench press.

4. WTF, I WAS WATCHING THAT

If you go in the gym and someone is already there and the TV is on a certain channel/show/whatever, DO NOT CHANGE IT. Not without asking. That's rude. I don't want to watch real athletes on ESPN while I work out, I want to watch models fall off a runway on America's Next Top Model.

5. NO SERIOUSLY, CLEAN YOUR SHIT

Hi. Did you just finish your workout? Yeah? Cool. Did you clean off your machine? No? Oh. GO CLEAN YOUR SHIT.

Let's all go to the movies and STFU.

2011-01-19T14:09:00.002-05:00

We went to the movies last weekend and not the giant movie theater that has a billion screens, but the teeny tiny one downtown that only has, I think, three? Joe, how many screens does The Neon have? I don't know. I do know the theater we were in had the smallest screen ever, which was fine, because we were seeing The King's Speech and not, like, Tron.

There were maybe like fifty seats (I really have no idea) in the theater, which is teeny tiny, but it wasn't even full during our show. I don't understand why every showing at this theater isn't standing room only because The Neon serves beer. And wine, I think. Maybe people just don't know.

The couple sitting next to us, in the innermost seats of the aisle, knew this because the guy left in the middle of the movie to get more beer. Which, fine, but he also got up before the movie started to get beer and that meant climbing over four other pairs of legs on his way out. There were plenty of seats on the ends of the aisles, so I'm not sure why they didn't sit there. Whatever, I could have overlooked that had they not been so annoying. The lady kept getting on her iPhone to...I don't know, maybe update Facebook that Colin Firth is still a damn good-looking man? What is that? Get off your phone! And the guy...I don't know what his deal was, but he kept sort of talking to the screen. I think? I mean, he'd just randomly be like, "Ohhhhhh," or, "Uh-huh" and he wasn't even whispering, he was talking louder than the movie.

And he wasn't the only one! There was a guy in the aisle across from ours, sitting in the corner with his companion, and he was SO LOUD. Like, he was almost yelling, I'm totally serious. Joe eventually shushed him and then the beer-getting guy sitting next to me LAUGHED. I chose to believe he was laughing because shushing movie-talkers is hilarious, not because it's funny to talk during movies, otherwise I would have karate chopped his face off.

There are a lot of people in this world that I don't understand, but, Teabaggers aside, movie-talkers are the most mysterious to me. I'm of the belief that once the previews start, you should not say anything unless you're on fire. And even then, you should calmly make your way to one of the exits and wait to start screaming until you're safely out of the theater. That's called being considerate.

So the person who totally disregards the fact that he is not actually sitting at home in his living room? He completely baffles me. What goes on in his head? Anything? Does he think we can't hear him? Or that his comment is so witty that the room will erupt with laughter? Or maybe he just doesn't give a shit...being considerate to others is for commie liberal pussies anyway.

I have been known to shush a person, but only if they're sitting near me. I would actually get up, find an usher, and TOTALLY TATTLE ON THEM if it didn't mean I'd miss part of the movie. I once told the teenage girl in front of me to "get off her fucking phone," during a showing of Mean Girls, after shushing her twice to no avail. I shushed the people behind me during The X-Files movie (the new one) because even though I was BORED OUT OF MY MIND, it's the principle of the thing, you know? And I openly rejoiced when a group of teenagers was publicly shamed by the usher for being obnoxious during Half-Blood Prince BECAUSE YOU DON'T TALK DURING HARRY POTTER.

That said, if you have something really important to say, it's OK to WHISPER it to someone sitting next to you. And when I say "whisper," I mean even the person you're whispering to should BARELY be able to hear you. Like, during The King's Speech, it was obviously really important that I lean over to Joe and tell him that the actress playing Myrtle Logue played Elizabeth Bennet opposite Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy*. But you know what? When Bertie and Myrtle finally meet in the movie? In my head I was all, "MR DARCY AND ELIZABETH BENNET REUNITED," but I squeed in silence, OK? SO SHUT UP.

*I waited until the movie was over to tell him that Mr. Collins was also in it

The latest on Joe and Jennie in the morning!

2011-01-14T09:09:00.003-05:00

1. Joe reviews Lois & Clark: episode 4!

2. I review Lois & Clark: episode 5!

3. I review The X-Files: Pilot! and! Deep Throat! (as Joe said, The X-Files episode, not the porno)

big ball of wibbly-wobbly...timey-wimey...stuff

2011-01-13T09:22:00.004-05:00

I changed my ringtone to the Doctor Who theme and waited and waited for someone to call me so I could hear it and guess what? Not a lot of people call me. Or if they do, they somehow wait until I'm sleeping or in the bathroom or whatever.

Also! My text alert noise is now that VROP noise that the Tardis makes when it appears. Or disappears. Whatever. I forgot about it until Monday, when I was sitting on the sofa and SUDDENLY THE TARDIS WAS LANDING IN MY LIVING ROOM. Except not. Because it was just a text. I may have gotten excited and this conversation may have happened:

Me: I heard my new Tardis text message noise today for the first time.
Joe: Um, OK.
Me: I forgot I changed it, though, and for a minute I thought the Tardis was landing.
Joe: Sigh.

It could happen, you guys, I swear.

So I started writing this yesterday and totally forgot about it. I blame the drugs. For real, the drugs. It's cough medicine, sure, but I still think it's a valid excuse. I was home sick on Monday and took an actual sick day, rather than trying to get work done from home which is what I normally do. Instead, I finished season 5 of Weeds and watched The Office (British version) Christmas special because I wanted to see Tim and Dawn get together. Yeah, that's pretty much the only reason I watched it. Anyway, I was home again on Tuesday because of all the weather and by weather I mean COLD AND SNOW. There are some perks to working so far from home, and being able to work from home because the roads are too snowy/icy is one of them. If I had an SUV or something, I could probably make it in easily but I don't, I have a car that is basically a glorified sled and while I don't mind sliding around all lanes of the highway, the other drivers do. I can't imagine why. My car is bright green, JUST GET OUT OF MY WAY.

I totally forgot to tell you guys something really important, probably because I was too busy talking about Jack Black the time traveler and cat poop, but Heidi (and Nicole!) got engaged over Christmas. You may remember Heidi from such entries as Upside Down Oven Knob and inappropriate conversations about Full House. Sometimes I wonder how we turned into people who get married and adopt animals and buy houses and remodel bathrooms and I get a little sad remembering our crazy days of drinking until 5 in the morning and eat cupcakes for dinner. Then I remember that I spent New Years Eve running around the beach acting like a dinosaur AND I legitimately thought that a time traveling police box might be landing in my living room and I realize not so very much has changed.

GOALS, GOALS, GOALS!

2011-01-06T11:41:00.000-05:00

It's that time of year when you're supposed to vow to be a better person, even though last year you vowed the same thing and how did you do? Did you do as terribly as I did? I was going to post my resolutions from last year to see how I did, but when I looked back at what they were and saw that I'd accomplished very few of them, it sent me into a spiral of depression and self-doubt and that's good for no one. Except for people who like it when I'm sad but those people sound like assholes. Anyway.

I think I really just hate the word "resolution." It's stupid. So these aren't my resolutions for the year, they're my GOALS. Let's go with that.

1. Write with purpose

Not that I don't find it enjoyable to spout complete nonsense on my blog, um, all the time, but my blog is not so much what I'd call "publishable." And I'd very much like to be "publishable" so when people ask me what I do for a living, I can answer with something like "such and sucha writer" instead of how I normally answer, which is with an anguished cry, followed by me bashing my face into a wall until I pass out.

This means less internet time, I think. Not necessarily less blogging time, but less time falling down Wackopedia rabbit holes and watching weepy videos on YouTube. This is probably not specific enough, so I'd like to commit to writing for at least 30 minutes a day. That's about the same amount of time it takes to watch an episode of Weeds, and I've been watching like two or three of those a day. I can probably, PROBABLY, give up at least one episode.

2. Be more active

I have a tendency to become hermit-like, especially in the winter, because it's cold outside and also? My home is awesome, why would I ever want to leave it? But I can't use the cold as an excuse forever because it's cold for like four months here and that's a long time to wait to start having a life.

When I say be more active, I mean physically, of course, but also more active in the community. I volunteer but I'd like to get involved a bit more with that, as well as finding more stuff to do in Dayton. I realize that sounds crazy, because I always complain about how there's nothing to do in Dayton, but that's really not true at all. Whenever we look for stuff to do, there are always a lot of options, but I'm so indecisive that I usually end up doing, um, nothing.

But not tonight! Tonight we're going to a bar! On a school night! To play trivia! Because we are nerds!

3. Cook more, cook healthier

This is always one of my goals, and I think I've been getting better but there's definitely still room for improvement. I got a shitload of cookbooks for Christmas, so I have no excuse for not accomplishing this one. Things are going well so far because I've eaten pretty well since we got back from Florida. The other night I made some yummy raspberry glazed grilled chicken OMG IT WAS SO GOOD. And healthy. Win win win. I don't know.

4. Save more money

Ugh, I'm so bad at this one. Admittedly, I've gotten a lot better than I used to be, but still...the amount of money I blow on crap I don't need is just, well, stupid. I think this will be a lot easier once Joe and I get a joint account (joint checking and savings account, not like an account where we save money to buy joints) because we'll have to have a budget and blah blah blah money stuff is boring. I would like to have more money saved in case we want to ever buy a house or move somewhere awesome or just go on more trips.

5. Figure out how to get Max to stop eating Phoebe's poop

Seriously, dog? Gross. Why are you doing that? We feed you plenty. We play with you. We take you on walks. WHY ARE YOU EATING POOP?

I am taking suggestions on number 5. Like, please, hurry. And nothing obvious like, "clean the litter box more often," because I'm already doing that. I would like to be able to leave it, though, for more than 12 hours, depending on Phoebe's poo schedule. Yes, I just said poo schedule. This post went downhill really quickly. STANDARD.

WHOA

2011-01-05T18:30:00.000-05:00

YOU GUYS. Look at the picture of Paul Revere on his Wackopedia page and tell me that Jack Black is not a time traveler. GO AHEAD. TELL ME.

gonna fly this boat to the moon somehow

2011-01-04T11:26:00.000-05:00

I have sand in my shoes. Sarasota sand, to be specific, and it's such a tease because it's about 30 degrees outside right now. I was wearing these shoes on New Years Eve, which I suppose still doesn't explain why they have sand in them SO HERE GOES.

Joe and I went to Florida last week to visit Lampl and Jon, who moved down there last year to live by the ocean and get away from the Ohio winters. I can't say that I blame them, all the warm weather would be nice, although I think I might miss watching Max play in the snow. But, really, their move was our win, too, because we now have somewhere to stay that's within walking distance to the beach.

We ended up driving down because plane tickets were waaaaaay more expensive than gas, which is kind of sad, really, considering gas is at least three bucks a gallon at the moment. We drove over two days, which ended up working really well because we got to stay in two different hotels, which meant I had two different ice machines to find and play with. Mmm, ice.

We stopped to get gas at some point once we got into Florida and when we got out of the car, it was too hot for a jacket. TOO HOT FOR A JACKET. IN DECEMBER. You would have thought that we'd just witnessed some Harry Potter magic or, like, a band of pixies lift up our car and fly away with it, such was our wonderment. And EVEN BETTER, when we got to Jon and Lampl's, we discovered they had stocked their fridge FULL of Yuengling.

(Sidenote: Guess who forgot to buy any Yuengling on her way out of Florida? THIS KID. Sigh.)

Anyway, when we got there, Lampl was all, "We booked a sunset cruise for all of us on New Year's Eve...it's free...and we get free drinks...but we don't have to do it if you guys don't want to," and I was all, "Lampl, what about that sentence leads you to believe we wouldn't want to do that?" So we did that. And despite all the free drinks and the rocking of the boat, none of us fell overboard. Whoo! We still had a few hours to kill until midnight once we got off the boat, so we hung out at Jon and Lampl's for a bit (after restocking their fridge with beer), ate some pizza, and then went to the beach for midnight festivities.

Once there, we plugged in an iPod, blasted some Girl Talk, and rolled up our jeans so we could frolic in the ocean. The frigid, frigid ocean. I don't know what happened, but I think that beach was some kind of time machine or was blasting immaturity rays or SOMETHING, because we spent most of our time there running around like tiny children hopped up on sugar and caffeine AND CRAZY PILLS. I have been told that I'm like a belligerent (and energetic) four year old when I'm drunk, so maybe it was catching? I don't know. I DO know that when we got there, I started running around in circles, and then we asked for some fireworks from some people down the beach (which we couldn't light on account of the wind), and then Danielle's bra fell off, and then we ran some more, and then we all pretended to be velociraptors and T-Rexes (with teeny little arms) BECAUSE OF COURSE WE DID. We gathered around someone's phone at midnight and I think we celebrated a minute early but whatever, that just meant we got an extra minute of celebration.

We got lost trying to find our way off of the beach, Lampl dropped five beers, and we played a bit of Beatles Rock Band before everyone fell asleep. I got super sad face when we left, not just because it meant I would have to go back to the cold and my job and, you know, REALITY, but because I was leaving behind the warmth and the fun and my BFFs, all of whom were headed in different directions, ALL HOURS AND HOURS AWAY from each other.

But I still have some sand in my shoes, the same shoes I was wearing to ring in the new year (well...they were sitting on the blanket while I ran like a crazy person through the surf, but I think it counts), so I'd like to think a part of me is still on that beach, shouting with laughter (and dinosaur roars), just happy to be with people I love.

Joe and Jennie in the morning

2010-12-27T15:25:00.000-05:00

NOT ONLY did Joe and I watch the entire first season of Community this past weekend, but we also started a new blog. It's HERE. We'll be reviewing TV shows and whatnot. We started with Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman because we were both obsessed with it as tiny children. Come play with us!

Okay, this is ridiculous, I can't believe those two are still bagpiping.

2010-12-21T08:41:00.002-05:00

Context: On How I Met Your Mother, when Old Ted/Bob Saget tells his kids about when he used to smoke the marijuana, he calls it "eating sandwiches" instead. I guess his kids are really dumb and think that eating sandwiches makes you giggle a lot and...eat more sandwiches, but whatever.

More context: We babysat Maddie (two-year-old daughter of some friends) on Saturday. She calls people "silly" sometimes in such a way that her mom says she thinks it sounds like she's really saying "dumbass."

Even more context: This conversation happened while walking Max last night. We met a dog (and owner, I suppose) that was Max's twin. They did not like each other.

This is way too much context for this conversation. Prepare to be underwhelmed.

Me: Max didn't like his evil twin.
Joe: I think he just wanted to say hello. The other dog was mean.
Me: That's SILLY.
Joe: Haha, what a SILLY.
Me: Heh. Let's eat some SANDWICHES.
Joe: Hahaha. Yum.
Me: I mean, who would turn down a sandwich? If someone passes you a sandwich, are you going to say no to a bite?
Joe: No. No, I would not.
Me: BTW, I'm talking about real sandwiches, not pot.
Joe: I know, Liz Lemon. I know.

Anyway. We celebrated Christmas with my dad's side of the family on Saturday and did chocolate martini shots and ate Happy Birthday, Jesus cake in honor of my Grandma. She would have been so proud.

Guess what shoes are completely inappropriate for (snowy/icy) December in Ohio!

2010-12-17T11:59:00.001-05:00

These:

So I will probably wear them again tomorrow.

In honor of Pride and Prejudice week over on Cowbirds in Love*

2010-12-15T08:54:00.002-05:00

Me: I read that Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy are in talks to play Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Joe: Oh, yeah?
Me: ...yeah.
Joe: Is that bad?
Me: I just...I don't know if James McAvoy is right to play Mr. Darcy.
Joe: No?
Me: I don't think he's tall enough.
Joe: Wha?
Me: In my head, Mr. Darcy is really tall and I think James McAvoy is kind of short.
Joe: Haha, is he?
Me: Maybe he could stand on a box or something.

I think James McAvoy is totally dreamy but I don't know if he's Darcy dreamy. Mr. Bingley dreamy, maybe.

*thank you, srah, for introducing me to Cowbirds in Love

Welcome to Fluffytown. No smoking, no farting, no pillow fights.

2010-12-08T04:28:00.000-05:00

Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?

Why are things so heavy in the future? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?

2010-12-07T11:35:00.002-05:00

Prompt: Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors).

Two things happened this year that made me feel alive, two things that are opposite sides of the same coin, really. I got married in September, a day full of happiness and fun and love, and then my grandma died in October and there were days of sadness and family and, you guessed it, love again.

When I think about both events, spending time with friends in the days before the wedding, the rehearsal dinner, the day itself, and a month later, the last time I saw Grandma, the visitation, the funeral, the days of confusion, I tend to focus on specific moments, the most important flashing through my mind in quick succession.

My grandma couldn't come to the wedding, but she was present that day. The pastor surprised us all by taking a moment to remember her during the ceremony, and I concentrated on blinking away the tears that quickly formed in my eyes. I sat next to my great-aunt, my Grandma's twin sister, after the ceremony and she held my hand, told me how the pastor's words had touched her, and we sat for a quiet moment together.

The wedding ceremony itself was a blur. My feet hurt, my arm was tired from holding the bouquet, and my cheeks already ached from smiling and laughing. We were so happy, walking out into the church foyer after the ceremony, holding hands, hugging friends and family, taking a giddy ride to the reception.

The reception was...I don't even know. There was Twister and dancing and there were fake mustaches EVERYWHERE, there were cupcakes and soft pretzels, and a bottle of wine and Hogwarts being passed around on the dance floor. I danced with my family and old friends and new friends and did I mention Hogwarts? I walked arm in arm to the bar (naturally) with my dad to get a drink, grinned at my parents dancing with their best friends, delighted in seeing my sister dance with mine. If the wedding ceremony was a blur, the reception was even hazier, a crazy whirligig of fun, if you will (™ Xander Harris), a funhouse ride swirling us about in an uncontrollable dance, finally spitting us back out at my parents' house for more celebration.

There was a moment, though, at my parents' house, that my dad and his brother and sister and I stood in a huddle in the kitchen, arms around shoulders, friends and family eddying around us. I don't remember who said it or how it was said, but someone made reference to how much fun Grandma would have had and how much she'd been missed that day, and we stood there, all bittersweet smiles and aching hearts, until we were swept away by the general merriment of the night. We didn't know she would be gone in a month. How could we?

The days of her visitation and funeral passed in a similar blur, but with more tears. My eyes were swollen from a week of crying and still my body had more tears, my high-heeled feet hurt, my heart hurt, and all I wanted to do was hide. But, as always seems to happen, those times when you want to run and hide are exactly the times you can't, and so I went to the visitation, made small talk with almost-strangers and kept my eye on my family, gravitating to whoever might need me most. I went to the funeral, jumped up to read when it was my turn, and spent the rest of it with my eyes forward, tears streaming down my face, holding Joe's hand, my other arm around my sister's shoulders.

It was a sunny autumn day, brisk but not cold, as we gathered around the graveside to say our final goodbyes. I tried not to stumble in my heels. I smiled at my sister, put a rose on other family plots, hugged a crying cousin as we walked away from Grandma one last time. I felt too alive that day and all too human.

We went to my parents' house after both the wedding reception and the funeral, my entire family gathered, joyous to be together, missing those not there, and all of us grinning and crying and laughing, just grateful to be alive and loving each other.

Breakin' the law, breakin' the law!

2010-12-06T08:46:00.005-05:00

I'm going out of order, so there: Make. What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it? (Author: Gretchen Rubin)

This may not sound like any big whoop but Joe and I didn't go out to dinner at all this past weekend. AND. We didn't order pizza or Chinese or any other food deliverables, either. No. We cooked. Like, using real recipes and everything. This is weird because, in my mind, the weekend = going out to dinner. I don't know why. That's just how it is. So, in order to break the habit, we didn't go out to eat all weekend.

This is in an effort to eat healthier and, just as important, save some money. Plus, as it turns out, I actually enjoy cooking. I know. I KNOW. Who am I? I made banana bread on Saturday and then spent I don't know how long grilling and skinning (ew) red peppers to make a red pepper sauce to have with dinner (chicken) and just...what? But it was so good! And I got to use some wedding gifts, so win win win.

Yesterday, I finally dislodged the stand mixer from the pile of wedding gifts we haven't unpacked yet (because we have nowhere to put them and so they sit, unused and depressed, just like all the enchanted crap in the Beast's castle) and found a place for it in the kitchen. I flipped through the recipes that came with it and decided to try the brownies, mostly because I wanted an excuse to eat some brownie batter. This is kind of embarrassing, but I was totally intimidated by this mixer, like, I don't know, maybe because it's so heavy? Heavy machines tend to be the most dangerous (LOGIC) and that means the stand mixer is the kitchen appliance most likely to hurt me. Unless, like, the refrigerator falls on me or something WHICH COULD TOTALLY HAPPEN. The brownies were good (but not as good as these) and BONUS the mixer did not kill me or hurt me at all. At least not yet. I'm keeping my eye on it. Anyway. I think I'm going to try some chocolate chip cookies next. Yes, mostly to eat chocolate chip cookie dough, WHAT OF IT?

I’m cool dad, that’s my thang. I’m hip, I surf the web, I text. LOL: laugh out loud, OMG: oh my god, WTF: why the face?

2010-12-03T14:11:00.004-05:00

Day 2 – Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it? (Author: Leo Babauta)

(Right now, Doctor Who is keeping me from writing but I don't think that counts.)

This is easy, really, because the thing I do each day that doesn't contribute to my writing is, well, this. You're looking at it. Kind of, I mean, the internet is this huge, intangible thing, but if I'm completely honest with myself, it's really the thing that keeps me from doing all of the other productive things I could theoretically be doing if I wasn't busy trying to get my unread items in Google Reader down to a reasonable number.

I wouldn't change it for the world, though. It's given me friendships and a husband and countless hours of entertainment. If it weren't for the internet, I would never have tried NaNo and written two (sort of) novels. I would never have seen this. I would never have experienced the Thanksgiving Miracle.

I thought about trying to calculate the number of words I've spewed all over these here internets, but it seemed like a lot of math so...I didn't. But between Long Story Short and Wonder Killer and The Collective, not to mention various other long-forgotten, infrequently-updated projects, I'd put the number close to 89 GAJILLION.

Might my time have been better spent doing something else? Maybe. But this (and this and this) is what I did and what's did is done. And you know what? I wouldn't do a damn thing differently.

So, no, I guess. I can't eliminate it. And I think maybe that's OK.

WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE PUPPIES?!

2010-12-02T10:09:00.006-05:00

I've decided to participate in Reverb 10 because...well, why not? Also! FREE BLOG TOPICS that I don't even have to think up myself. I'm a day behind (naturally) so I might skip a day if I don't like the topic because you wanna know why? It's a free country, so there.

Anyway. Here's the first prompt:

December 1: One Word. Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?(Author: Gwen Bell)

2010: Change

This year I lost a roommate of four years (sniff) but gained a roommate who I'll hopefully live with for way more than four years (hee). I got married and got a dog, only not in that order. I gained some amazing new family members and lost a beloved grandmother.

I've never been good with change and this year was chock-full of it. I think I've handled it all rather well, especially considering how much I pissed and moaned a few years ago over teeny baby changes like getting a new car. Is this growing up? (I wish there was a word for "shrugging shoulders." Meh? I don't know.)

2011: Challenge

Maybe it sounds weird to say that I'd like next year to be a challenge. I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I'd like to be challenged more next year, creatively and professionally and dare I say physically? I'd like to run more, even when I don't feel like it. I'd like to write more, especially when I don't feel like it. And I'd like to have a job that doesn't make me want to stab puppies on a regular basis. So if you'd like to give me one of those jobs, that'd be great. I mean, think of the puppies, you heartless bastards.

last post of November PLUS 10 on Tuesday

2010-11-30T11:21:00.002-05:00

So. I won NaNoWriMo. I finished writing 50,000 words yesterday, verified it on the NaNo site, and was proclaimed a winner, but I didn't feel like one. I actually felt very meh about it and I think it's because I didn't really care about my story at all. I only finished it out of spite, really, because I wanted to say I won. It's finished in that it's more than 50,000 words long, but it's not finished in that it comes to a satisfying ending. And it probably never will because it's SO BAD that I never want to think about it again. Note to self: don't start knocking up characters and having others make out and letting people get kidnapped by bad guys JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN. Anyway. NaNo is over and, once I post this, NaBlo is also over so I'm left feeling all, "now what?"

Well, right now, "now what" means 10 on Tuesday so...that's something, I guess. Wah wah waaaaaah.

1. Where are you from? Have you lived there your whole life?

I am from Narnia or Hogwarts or Terabithia, which really means I live inside my head and, yes, I've lived there my whole life.

2. How would you classify your clothing style?

Half-assed.

3. What kind of car do you drive?

A blue one.

4. What would your dream home look like if you could have it (or already do!)?

It would look like Hogwarts, obviously. And it would have a time machine (with a clear titanium bubble) in the garage.

5. Do you have kids, and if so, how many and how old were you when you had them?

I don't have any that I know of.

6. What is your favorite hobby?

I would say reading, but reading is more of a necessity to me than a hobby in that I NEED IT TO LIVE.

7. Are you going to have any New Year’s resolutions for 2011?

Probably.

8. What is something, if anything, that you’d want to change about yourself?

Well, I wish I could fly, if that's what you mean.

9. What is something that you love about yourself?

I hate these questions.

10. Pick one of the following: Someone to cook for you, someone to do your laundry, or someone to do your dishes.

All of the above, duh.

YOU GUYS

2010-11-29T08:25:00.000-05:00

I would like to share with you the funniest thing I have ever seen, courtesy of The Soup. You're welcome. Trust me...just...you're welcome.

Buddy the elf, what's your favorite color?

2010-11-28T17:08:00.001-05:00

Decorating, DONE.

this is me blogging

2010-11-27T20:35:00.003-05:00

Because I almost forgot to blog today. Blog blog blog blogging blog blog.

PS: the peppermint Joe Joe's ARE THE GREATEST COOKIE EVER MADE. I want to buy them for everyone I know.

Black Friday

2010-11-26T18:21:00.002-05:00

So it's like the number one shopping day of the entire year or whatever and here is what I've purchased:

a case of wine
salsa
tortilla chips
a wedge of cheese
crackers
peppermint Joe-Joes
a cafe mocha

I'm pretty pleased with all of it.

Happy Slapsgiving, everybody!

2010-11-25T07:06:00.000-05:00

I don't want to freak anyone out but I think my superpowers might be coming in, because last night, Joe and I were sitting on the couch and reading and I started whistling this:

And then Joe left and I turned on the TV and Aladdin was on and THAT EXACTLY SONG WAS ABOUT TO START YOU GUYS I'M TOTALLY PSYCHIC! I wonder if my new psychic powers will ever start telling me anything important. Not that finding Aladdin on TV isn't important. If I hadn't found Aladdin on TV then I wouldn't have looked at the TiVo guide and seen that Beauty & the Beast was on after Aladdin. That's totally important.

So, today I am thankful for my psychic powers. Because it's Thanksgiving. See what I did there?

I was on that island for what seems like an eternity. I want to enjoy things on the other side.

2010-11-24T15:01:00.004-05:00

OK, so I pretty much still have no idea what to write about for NaBloMe but I have about 10,000 words left to NaNo so I'm calling today a win. Anyway, apparently there's this thing called Ten on Tuesday and I don't even care that it's Wednesday, I'm doing it today SO THERE, INTERNET, HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM APPLES?

Before I get to the questions, I do have some thoughts about recent pop culture events.

1. Hurley was on How I Met Your Mother and IT. WAS. AWESOME.

2. I've been reading The Walking Dead graphic novels but I have to take frequent breaks because the dialogue, you guys...the dialogue is so bad that it's distracting and I hate it because it's ruining the story. The way the characters talk is, like, not how real people talk or have ever talked in the history of humanity. Also! The female characters are just awful. Actually, most of the male characters aren't that great, either. I know it sounds like I'm not enjoying the series and...that's just because I'm not sure I am.

3. Speaking of The Walking Dead, I love the TV show. Like, a lot, even though watching it makes me all tense and sometimes also like I want to vomit. But wtf, why are all of these survivors CAMPING?! Tents don't even keep out bears, why would they think they might keep out zombies? I don't care how far away from the city they are, they are OUTSIDE. Zombies are outside. Go inside, dumbasses, and lock the doors! It's like no one in zombie movies (...TV shows, whatever) has ever seen a zombie movie before.

Anyway, Ten on Tuesday stolen from here.

1. If you won the lottery, what would be your one random, off-the-wall purchase?

Penguin. And penguin habitat.

2. What is popular now that you just don’t get?

Two and a Half Men (duh). Taylor Swift. Jersey Shore. Dancing with the Stars. Sarah Palin. Mind-boggling stupidity.

3. What would your last meal, you know, if you were ever about to be executed and you got to choose that sort of thing?

Chimichangas with quacamole and rice and chips and salsa and margarita. Side of mashed potatoes. What, it's my last meal, I DO WHAT I WANT.

4. When is it okay to start listening to Christmas music?

I used to say after Thanksgiving, but I started listening to it a few days ago so clearly the week of Thanksgiving is now OK.

5. How do you feel about facial hair on men?

Big fan.

6. McDonald’s or Burger King? Those are the only two options.

Fuck you, I pick Wendy's.

7. What kind of soap do you use?

Whatever's on sale?

8. What movie can you watch over and over and never get tired of?

SO MANY. Bridget Jones's Diary. Pride and Prejudice. You've Got Mail. The Princess Bride. Shaun of the Dead. Mary Poppins. Goonies.

9. Favorite beverage?

Dude, I don't care.

10. What do you want for Christmas?

I already got a puppy. WHAT ELSE COULD I POSSIBLY WANT?

I am a bathroom martian. Beep. Boop. Boop. I am from the nebula of the great toilet.

2010-11-23T13:33:00.002-05:00

Hypothetically, which is worse: putting on your underwear inside out or not noticing that your underwear is on inside out for like, the whole day?

I'm not asking for any specific reason OH NO I'M NOT. I'm definitely not asking because I put my underwear on inside out yesterday and even if I did, it's definitely the first time that's ever happened I'VE NEVER EVER DONE THAT BEFORE SHUT UP YOU CAN'T PROVE ANYTHING.

Why am I writing about my underwear, right-side-out or inside-out, you might ask? It's because I have NOTHING ELSE TO WRITE ABOUT. NaNoWriMo is taking up all of my words, all the words that I've ever had in my head, and they're not even good words! Seriously! I sort of hate my novel (IT'S SO BAD) and the only reason I'm still writing it is because I said I would win and so win I shall.

I am eating the biggest grapes right now, you guys. THEY ARE SO BIG THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.

Last night, Max did a funny dog thing (hahaha funny dogs are funny) only it wasn't really funny, it was annoying because I was trying to sleep. Want to know why I was trying to sleep? Cause it was 2 in the morning. Anyway, I don't know if the storm woke him up or what but I got up to go to the bathroom, and when I came back, he was standing by my side of the bed, wiggling his little body to and fro as if it were time to get up for the day. And I was all, "IT IS NOT TIME TO GET UP FOR THE DAY GET IN YOUR BED!" but all he heard was, "I AM SAYING WORDS TO YOU SO YOU WAG YOUR TAIL HARDER SO PLEASE WAG YOUR TAIL HARDER AND MAYBE HOP UP AND DOWN A FEW TIMES SO I CAN SEE HOW CUTE YOU ARE!"

This, plus Phoebe's nightly attempts to curl up in the small space above my head on my pillow (THERE IS NO ROOM FOR YOU, CAT) and also all the windy windy rain, meant I did not sleep very well last night. But I don't care because it's almost that special time of year where it's totally acceptable for me to eat three heaping platefuls of mashed potatoes which, coincidentally, is why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

BLEEEEEEEEEH

2010-11-22T12:19:00.001-05:00

You guys! I don't wanna blog or write anymore this month! I don't wanna! I want to quit so hard right now.

Does this count as blogging? Yes, yes it does. I'm still winning. So THERE, November.

I've got a theory...it could be bunnies!

2010-11-21T18:30:00.002-05:00

Hey. Here are some pictures that Joe and I drew on napkins at a restaurant one time. YOU'RE WELCOME.

Phoning it in, before I forget to post (SPOILERS, AHOY)

2010-11-20T16:51:00.003-05:00

Parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) that made me cry:

1. Hedwig! It was even sadder than the book HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?
2. Hermione wiping her parents' memories...good lord.
3. Everyone fretting over (St.) George.
4. Harry finding his parents' graves.
5. Dobby. Effing Dobby.

Parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) that made my heart melt:

1. Ron's face as Hermione taught him how to play the piano.
2. Hermione's face when Ron told them how he found them.
3. These will actually all just be Hermione and Ron related, so I'll stop now.

Parts of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) that made me feel icky:

1. Harry and Hermione dancing, until it got goofy.
2. Harry and Hermione topless-making-out in Ron's scary waking nightmare thing. Gross. I need to wash my eyes with bleach.

We mustn't dwell. No, not today. We CAN'T. Not on Rex Manning day!

2010-11-19T10:20:00.001-05:00

Most evenings, I spend a little time picking out what I'm going to wear the following day. It saves time in the morning, it really does, which is awesome because A) it means I'm on time for work (...most of the time) and B) it means I get to sleep as long as possible.

I forget sometimes, though, and on those days I think about what I'm going to wear while I'm getting ready because then, by the time I'm about to get dressed, I know exactly what clothes I need to rip out of my closet. This morning, I thought I knew what I was going to wear and I was like, "oh, hell yeah, snooze button!" but when I woke up, I realized in horror that I couldn't possibly wear what I was planning to wear because DUN DUN DUUUUUN the shirt I was planning on wearing was way too close to Slytherin colors! I can't wear Slytherin colors today! Not on Harry Potter Day!

So instead, I'm wearing a maroon shirt because obviously I need to show my support for Gryffindor and I didn't have time to make a Luna-Lovegood-Lion-Head. I told Joe about this when I woke up, and it went something like this, "I almost wore this green shirt today but then I realized it was Slytherin colors! SLYTHERIN! So I had to change it real fast and wear this shirt so I was wearing Gryffindor colors! GRYFFINDOR! IT'S HARRY POTTER DAY!" and he looked at me like I was nusto bananas (standard) and I was like, "You collect toys and comics LET ME HAVE THIS ONE THING," and he was all, "calm down, psycho," because he wasn't really looking at me like I'm nusto bananas (much), it was that he had just woken up and I was all awake and talking REALLYREALLYFAST like the micromachine guy. Remember the micromachine guy? He was on Saved by the Bell one time. True story.

Also, in other Harry Potter news, I totally won the bet. I finished Deathly Hallows around 9 last night, and that was even after I had to take a break because I was crying. That book gives me so much sad, especially toward the end, and I usually get to a certain point where I can't read anymore because of all the tears. Stupid feelings.

GRYFFINDOR!!!!11!!1!!!!1!

We're having a FIRE!!! ...(sale)

2010-11-18T15:14:00.005-05:00

Oh, man, check it out, you guys. I found the beginning of my NaNo story from 2005. That year, I wrote for two days. I am doing way better this year. At least as far as wordcount. I can't speak to the quality but WHATEVER. NaNo will soon be my bitch. And so will Harry Potter (the books, not the person). I just can't help thinking how nice it'll be next week when I've won the bet and have all this extra time to write while Joe is making me dinner. Hee.

Anyway, here's my 2005 story, all...like, one chapter of it. This totally counts as blogging today because you guys have never read it before. I WIN. WARNING: the following is pretty bad but what else are you going to do? Work? I don't think so.

The worst part about my car accident, and I do mean this, was the unfortunate fact that I was listening to The Backstreet Boys when it happened. I have a hazy memory of paramedics lifting me out of the driver’s seat while “I Want it That Way,” blasted from the car stereo. The part of the memory that I’m hoping did not happen was me singing along. Unfortunately, since the paramedics kept referring to me as “Backstreet Girl,” I have a feeling I did not make that up. Par for the course.

Most people don’t think that’s the worst thing that happened to me. When I told my brother that, Mike surreptitiously glanced at the wheelchair I’d been tethered to since the accident.

“I know,” I said. “I can’t move my legs, blah, blah, but come on. THE BACKSTREET BOYS.”

He sighed and shook his head. “You’re right, that is pretty bad.”

“I mean, N’Sync would have been a little bit less embarrassing. At least Justin Timberlake turned out not to be just some no-talent, bloated, singing douchebag --,” I started.

“Nice,” Mike interrupted.

“But Nick Carter? Howie D? That’s just sad. And why do I know their names?”

“That is an intriguing question.”

“Jesus.”

“Yep, pretty much,” Mike said. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, but closed it. He did this a few more times before he noticed I’d seen him.

“Hey, FishBoy, what’s up?”

“I’m not supposed to tell you. Mom told me it would embarrass you,” he said.

“Is it more embarrassing than The Backstreet Boys?” I asked.

“Alex. I am telling you. You don’t want to know.”

“Oh, just tell me! I can handle it,” I said, and straightened the blanket over my legs.

“Well,” he looked down. “Apparently you confessed your love to one of the paramedics.”

“Oh shut up! I did not,” I could feel my face redden.

“You so did. He was quite smitten, I think. He came to visit you when you were . . . out.”

“Oh, damn. That’s hot,” I said.

“Ok, Paris. So are you embarrassed?”

“I’m so not,” I contended, trying to will my face to return to a normal color.

“You’re face is pretty red and --”

“Shut it, I’m not.”

“Ok, Ok. Listen,” he said. “I’ve gotta go to work but I’ll come back tomorrow.”

“Sure, no problem,” I said. “Have they said when I can leave yet?”

“Alex . . .”

“I’m just so sick of this place,” I said, blinking away tears. “Ha, get it? Sick of it?”

“Hilarious,” Mike said and grasped my hand. “They want to keep you here for physical therapy, at least at first. They think it will help.”

“Right, I know,” I said and wiped my eyes. “Go! Go to work or you’ll be late and get fired and end up unemployed like me.”

“Oh, shut up,” he laughed. “See you later. Love you.”

“Love you, too, sissy.”

His laughter followed him out of my room and then I was left in silence. Well, kind of. The hospital is freaking loud. I mean, when you think about the last time you visited someone in the hospital, you were probably only there for a couple of hours, at most. It wasn’t that loud, was it? But when you live here, loudness takes a different form. It’s relative. Sure, there aren’t fire alarms and air horns going off in the hallway, but when a place is that quiet even the softest noise is jarring. The beeping of the machines, the rattle of the food carts, nurses laughing, it all gets very annoying eventually.

Luckily, I don’t hear many people crying. I’m not on that floor, not anymore, and when I was I wasn’t aware of much of anything so the most sadness I’ve had to deal with are the looks of pain and guilt in my mother’s eyes. Which makes me feel guilty. Which makes me sad, which makes her sad and it’s all just a vicious, annoying cycle of sadness.

At least I’ve gotten to catch up on my reading. You know that list of the 100 books you’re supposed to read before you die? I’m on number 57. Also, I haven’t had to shave my legs in like, forever. It’s kind of disgusting, sure, but if anyone stares or says anything it makes them the bad guy because I’ve got bigger problems. Ha. Jerks.

This hospital does have a pretty sweet entertainment hookup. What I mean is, they have a TV and they let my brother bring in a DVD player to hook to it. I can quote the entire first season of Arrested Development, which I’m sure is a talent I can add to my resume.

My favorite pastime here, though, has to be sleeping. If you do it during the day you can say you’re napping. But, you can also go to bed at 7:30 and not get up until noon the next day. Then you can take a nap after lunch. Really, if you think about it, you can spend the entire day sleeping and no one would really know. Or care, because, hey, you’re in a hospital, what else are you supposed to do. Maybe I can get a candy striper uniform so I’ll have something to do.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think it’s naptime.

Jennie Baxla and the Severe Tire Damage

2010-11-17T09:28:00.005-05:00

Here is how last night was supposed to go: leave work, go to volunteering, go home, eat a nutritious dinner, read Harry Potter, go to sleep.

Here is how it happened instead: left work, ran into something hella crazy in the road, got a flat tire, called AAA, waiting in rainy parking lot, drove car to (closed) Tire Discounters, ate Donatos for dinner instead of healthy chicken, read Harry Potter, stayed up to late, went to sleep.

The tire damage part of it happened like this:

I had to draw a picture because I'm having trouble explaining to people exactly what happened. But I'll try. For what are we without words? Animals, I guess. Except some animals can talk. Like parrots. And gorillas. They talk with their hands sometimes. Anyway.

I was seriously five minutes away from volunteering and not late or anything, so I wasn't even speeding (for once). It was raining pretty hard and the road was all shiny. Not good shiny like in Firefly, but bad shiny as in POOR VISIBILITY. And I was driving through construction and the lane kept going all topsy turvy and different directions so sometimes I don't think I was even in a lane, and as I went through the intersection all of the sudden there was this cement curb island thing RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME and so I swerved but not enough and I totally ran over it AND THEN MY CAR FLIPPED OVER AND OVER BUT I LANDED RIGHT SIDE UP AND PULLED INTO AN ALLSTATE PARKING LOT OH YEAH FIRE FIRE EXPLOSION GRYFFINDOR! Oh wait, the Gryffindor thing...I will that explain later.

It all happened just like that except for the fire and explosion. I sat in the parking lot for a moment, all shaky, and then called the cavalry (Joe and AAA). In my heart, I hoped that AAA could fix the tire but in my head I knew it was effed. Sure enough, when the tow truck arrived and he took the tire off, the wheel was all bent and shit and apparently wheels are never, ever supposed to be bent and shit. So the AAA guy put my spare on and then put air in the spare because why wouldn't my spare be almost flat, too? What, like I'm suppose to be prepared? Eff that, you guys. Then the AAA guy told me how much money he'd made in six months and how he was excited for it to snow because it meant he'd make even more money and I was like, "Dude, I know your job depends on the misfortune of others but could you try not to sport so much wood when you talk about it? Especially next to my poor, poor car? She's already traumatized enough."

But. OK. So as I was waiting for AAA to get there, a van pulled into a parking spot near me. I spied on them (obviously) and they got out of the car to look at their front passenger side tire and I was like, "huh," but I stayed in my car because it was raining and cold outside. Then the tow truck got there and the Van Guy came over to my car and this happened:

Van Guy: Is there something wrong with your car?
Jennie's Brain: Um, there's a tow truck here, wtf do you think?
Jennie Out Loud: Yeah, I got a flat tire.
Van Guy: Did you run over that thing in the road back there by the gas station?
Jennie's Brain: HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT, ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME?
Jennie Out Loud: Yes! Did that happen to you, too?
Van Guy: Sure did.

Then he started talking to my tow truck driver and I was all, "THAT'S MY TOW TRUCK DRIVER! STOP BOGARTING MY TOW TRUCK GUY!" and then the tow truck driver told us that whatever we'd both hit had caused an accident last week. Way to go, Dayton. Anyway, around this time, I noticed that the Van Guy was wearing a Gryffindor shirt.

Jennie's Brain: OMG, he's wearing a Gryffindor shirt!
Jennie Out Loud: I like your shirt, guy.
Jennie's Brain: BETTER BE...GRYFFINDOR!

The end.

The worst thing about prison was the dementors.

2010-11-16T10:51:00.002-05:00

1. It is misty and gloomy today, I think probably because there are dementors around or something. As I do not (yet) have a magic wand, I cannot produce a Patronus to get rid of them. Sorry. I will work on this.

2. When I was on my way home from work yesterday, I pulled up behind a car with the following bumper stickers: "JUST BE NICE" and "If only those with closed minds also had closed mouths." Then a truck pulled up next to that car. The truck had the following bumper stickers: "OBUMMA," "YOU LIE" (with the O being, of course, the Obama O), and "Undocumented Worker" next to a picture of Obama. CHARMING. It made me sigh a lot.

3. Slightly related to #2 (heh), I would like to start a religion based on the JUST BE NICE bumper sticker. Because, OMG people, JUST BE FUCKING NICE TO EACH OTHER.

project(s) update = yaaaaawn

2010-11-15T13:23:00.003-05:00

Hey, look at that, it's November 15th, which means the month is HALF OVER. How did that happen? November seems to be the month of projects or something and I figured since the month is half over, I'd report on my progress. STAY TUNED FOR EXCITEMENT, EVERYONE. And by excitement, I mean this will be really boring, probably, but try and stay awake, will you? Thanks.

NaBloPoMo: Well, I've posted every day, so technically it's going fine but I feel like I'm cheating because the quality of my posts...well...let's just say there have been a lot of Youtube videos.

Harry Potter Read-a-thon: I am so gonna win. I'm about halfway done with Half-Blood Prince. I don't anticipate Dealthy Hallows taking very long because once I get to a certain point, I am physically unable to put the book down.

NaNoWriMo: I am almost to the halfway point. I think I'm a couple thousand words away from 25,000, so I'm hopeful that I can write a little extra each day and finish on time. Once I'm done with Harry Potter, I should have a lot more time to write.

30 Days of Harry Potter: Um, I've missed a ton of days on this. So here, really quick, are my answers to the questions I've missed so far. Oopsies.

Favorite magical creature

Buckbeak!

Favorite professor

Loony Loopy Lupin!

Who would you want to be friends with at Hogwarts?

Luna Lovegood!

What pet would you want to have? (owl, cat, rat or toad)

Owl!

Favorite spell

Accio all my crap! I'm lazy so this one would be perfect.

Top 3 least favorite characters

I hate Umbridge enough to count for three people, so Umbridge, Umbridge, Umbridge!

Max hoped Mary would write again. He'd always wanted a friend. A friend that wasn't invisible, a pet, or rubber figurine.

2010-11-14T16:32:00.000-05:00

You guys. Joe and I watched this movie last night and it gave me Pixar-level FEELINGS. I thought it was just going to be, like, funny and cute but IT MADE ME CRY. How dare you, movie. Anyway, I highly recommend it, if you're looking to cry...like, in a good way.

Nobody reads blogs on the weekend so here are some baby otters

2010-11-13T13:42:00.000-05:00

that's why her blog is so big, it's full of youtube

2010-11-12T10:25:00.005-05:00

Joe and his brother, Mike, got all of us tickets to see Straight No Chaser for their dad's birthday. And so, last night, after rushing home from work and a scarfed-down-dinner at Arby's, we met Joe's parents, Mike, and Mike's wife (hi, Julie!) in Cincinnati.

The only reason I'd ever heard of Straight No Chaser was because the All Christmas Radio Station played the shit out of their Christmas medley last year. Like, I couldn't NOT hear it because it was all over the place. This is it:

So yes, they are an a cappella group, and, as I have a secret love of a cappella groups (which explains my love for Andy Bernard), I was cautiously excited about the concert. They opened by singing Joy to the World by Three Dog Night and I was all, "meh." Luckily, the show got better throughout the first half of the concert and when the second half came around, I sort of thought maybe it was tailored just for me because they sang a Lady Gaga medley:

Coldplay:

JOURNEY! I couldn't find a good video of them singing it, so here:

Oasis (!!!EXCLAMATION POINT TIMES A MILLION):

And you guys. Then this happened:

The only thing that could have made that better is if someone had done the Turk dance. But they didn't, so here you go:

They also did a kid cartoon theme song medley, but it was kind of a disappointment because they included Family Guy and The Simpsons, which are NOT for kids. And they didn't include Ducktales. Or Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers. Or Muppet Babies. Or Fraggle Rock, which isn't a cartoon, but still would have been perfect. But they said they do a sitcom medley. I just looked it up, though, and it's still not better than this one (you know it has to be good, because he sings the Two and a Half Men theme song and I'm still sharing it):

Note: They sound better in person than in the live videos. I don't know why that is.

Anyway. I was sort of hoping they'd sing this:

But alas...it was not to be.

You know, you CAN say it backwards, which is "docious-ali-expi-istic-fragil-cali-rupus," but that's going a bit too far, don't you think?

2010-11-11T10:37:00.006-05:00

Fictional characters I wanted to be when I was a child (aged 5 - 12ish):

1. Red Fraggle

She had pigtails. I had pigtails. It was totally meant to be.

2. Punky Brewster

See above, re: pigtails.

3. Rainbow Brite

I actually had a rainbow belt when I was little. I'd wear it with my red suspenders and my red, heart-shaped sunglasses. The belt had a heart clasp and, when I wore it, I'd pretend I was Rainbow Brite and wish that my belt could shoot a rainbow out of it, but I must have run out of Star Sprinkles because it never did.

4. Princess Leia

Except I was always jealous that she never got a light saber.

5. Vada Sultenfuss (My Girl)

OK, so I didn't really want to live above a funeral parlor and I DEFINITELY didn't want my BFF to die of bee stings OH MY GOD, MOVIE, BE SADDER, NO I DARE YOU. Ahem. But Vada was sassy and quirky and also had an awesome mood ring that I coveted. I don't know why, maybe I wanted to wear it with my Rainbow Brite belt.

6. Belle from Beauty & the Beast

Have you SEEN that library? SWOON.

7. Mary Poppins

Um, she could fly. And she had a magic bag that she could hide tons of shit in, very much like the bag Hermione enchants in Deathly Hallows. When you think about it, Mary Poppins is kind of like a witch without a magic wand.

8. Meg Murry (A Wrinkle in Time)

She seemed so unsure of herself, like, all the time and DUH, of course I identified with that, but then she goes on a wicked awesome adventure to save her father, which is totally brave and awesome. Plus, we both wore really awkward glasses and yet a boy still liked her, so it gave me hope that maybe someday a boy would like me, too. OMG, I just made myself totally sad, oops. Poor, awkward, little Jennie.

9. Dorothy Gale

I think I wanted to be her most of all. The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie when I was a kid ('cept for maybe E.T.) and I thought Oz was probably the most magical place in the world. Maybe I hadn't seen Willy Wonka yet, I don't know, but still. My dad even made me my own pair of ruby slippers. They were my most prized possession, until my feet grew too big for them, but I hung onto them for a long time even though they didn't fit. Even as an adult, I've often wished for some ruby slippers. I have some red shoes, but I've tried, and they never send me home when I click my heels three times.

10. Marion Ravenwood (Raiders of the Lost Ark)

SHE IS SO BADASS, YOU GUYS.

Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky are like shooting stars?

2010-11-09T15:43:00.005-05:00

If you don't live in Ohio or North Carolina, you probably don't realize that the states totally hate each other. Want to know why? It's because of airplanes. And all the license plates. Allow me to explain.

Ohio license plates say, "Birthplace of Aviation."

North Carolina plates say, "First in Flight."

I say, "North Carolina can suck it."

When Heather and Abigail came to Ohio for the wedding, we were driving around one afternoon and the subject of flight came up. No, I don't remember how that happened, but it did. One of them mentioned something about North Carolina license plates saying "first in flight" and THEN they wondered why Ohio got all bent out of shape about it and that is when I HAD TO DROP SOME KNOWLEDGE ALL OVER THEIR ASSES.

I very rationally explained that North Carolina is wrong. It used to be cute that they thought flight was all theirs, but it's not funny anymore. Then I explained about the Wright Brothers and it soon became clear to me that this was not common knowledge unless maybe you grew up in Dayton and took yearly school field trips to the Air Force Museum. (The only other thing I remember from those field trips is that there is a plane at the museum named Strawberry Bitch, which we all thought was hilarious...probably because it's hilarious.)

So here, dear internet, is a faithful narrative of all things Wright Brothers. Well, maybe not all things. But some things! Things I could remember! Or that I found on Wackopedia. Anyway.

Once upon a time there were two brothers, Wilbur and Orville Wright. Neither technically graduated from high school, so think of that the next time you're on a plane. Wilbur was supposed to go to Yale, but he got his front teeth knocked out by a hockey puck so he stayed home because he was afraid none of the Yale ladies would want to make out with him. Ha. Just kidding, there were no ladies at Yale, it was 1885.

Anyway, instead of going to Yale, Wilbur stayed in Dayton and went to work with Orville at his print shop. Interesting (?) sidenote: Paul Laurence Dunbar was one of their customers, and had also been a classmate of Orville's. I like to imagine that they were BFFs. Also, that they invented a time machine so they could go to the future and find out if they ever became famous, which THEY TOTALLY DID. Well, Dayton-famous. Wah wah.

Later, the Wrights opened a bicycle shop called the Wright Cycle Exchange, and used all the crazy cash money they made to pay for their silly flight endeavors. They were mostly focused on how to control an aircraft, so the pilot wouldn't go careening off of a cliff and, like, die and stuff. Other flight-inventing-wannabes were more focused on strapping the biggest engines they could find on planes but the Wrights were all, "size isn't everything, duh."

Then Wilbur and Orville did a bunch of science to figure out how to make an awesome plane that wouldn't kill people. They did this and in 1903, they took the Wright Flyer I to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and flew the shit out of it. The only reason the first flight took place in North Carolina was because the winds there were more conducive to flying than the winds in Dayton (plus it was December, which equals ice and snow in Ohio). Also, going to North Carolina was cheaper than going to California or Florida. So, congratulations, North Carolina! You get the bronze medal in wind.

But seriously. Stay away from The Wright Brothers. THEY'RE OURS.

(Indiana tries to butt in sometimes, too, just because Wilbur Wright was born there, which is sort of adorable but no, Indiana. Just...no. You get to claim Vonnegut and Letterman, WHY ISN'T THAT ENOUGH FOR YOU?)

PS: If you're ever in Dayton and you have some time to kill, I highly recommend going to Carillon Park. You can see a replica of the Wright bicycle shop (whoo?) and the Wright Flyer III, which is, I think, three times as awesome as the Wright Flyer I. Plus! There is a little replica schoolhouse from the olden days and you get to sit at the desks or in the corner and wear the Dunce hat. It's awesome. Or at least I thought it was awesome when we went there on field trips. You know, when I was 10.

9. What would your Boggart be?

2010-11-09T11:01:00.002-05:00

My boggart would be someone telling me that I had to plan a wedding again. Oh, zing! Just kidding, it really wasn't that terrible. But seriously (folks), I had a really good time planning certain things (mustaches!) and even the not-so-fun things (assembling the invites!) weren't that bad because I got to watch terrible movies while doing it. WIN WIN WIN.

Anyway, I don't know if anyone has any interest in this BUT it might be helpful if you ever plan on planning a wedding and you're lazy like I am. So, here is what we did and how we planned (I would like to apologize for the length...that's what he said) and I'm sorry if it's really boring because OMG how boring is talking about wedding planning? Also, how long was that sentence? Damn, Gina.

1. Ceremony Venue

We almost got married in a tiny park that has a dinosaur in it, surrounded by immediate family and wedding party only. Then we almost got married in a tiny church, surrounded by immediate family and wedding party only. In the end, we got married in the tiny church, surrounded by EFFING EVERYONE, because we obviously loved everyone we invited and wanted them to be there for the ceremony. I still don't know how we squeezed so many people in such a teeny tiny church. It was sort of like how the Weasleys and Harry and Hermione all fit in a teeny tiny tent when they went to the Quidditch World Cup.

2. Reception Venue

We vacillated on the reception hall for a while, but eventually settled on the only place we visited, which is where almost everyone in Dayton has their wedding reception. Which...whatever, we probably could have tried harder to find somewhere a bit more creative, but in the end, I didn't really care so much about the where, I was more interested in the who (as in, WHO would be there) and the what (as in, WHAT food/drinks will we serve and WHAT will we do to make this a super crazy awesome fun time).

3. Food/Drinks/Cake

We served an appetizer buffet instead of a sit down dinner, thinking it would be faster. I'm not sure it was, but I was so happy we went that route because appetizers are my favorite food group (what?) and the jalapeno poppers were SO GOOD. Also, there were teeny pie things that had pizza toppings inside and OMG. My parents had everyone over after the reception and they served the leftover reception food, and I have a very fuzzy memory of standing next to all the food, shoving the pizza pie things in my mouth, like, until they were gone.

Since we didn't serve a big dinner, we worried that people would be feeling peckish toward the end of the night, so we served a soft pretzel bar (with nacho cheese and various mustards) as a late night snack. I didn't eat any (sad face) because I was too busy dancing around Hogwarts on the dance floor, but they sure looked good.

In the early planning stages, I think we were most excited to go cake tasting, but we only ended up going to one place because THAT WAS ALL IT TOOK. Seriously. We got our cupcakes from The Bombshell Bakeshop, which is a local Dayton business, and the proprietors couldn't have been nicer. Joe and I totally have a couple crush on them (whatever that means). We got about 200 cupcakes, in various flavors, and left the rest up to them. I can safely say that they went above and beyond and if you're getting married in Dayton, please hire them. You will not be disappointed.

4. Flowers

I honestly did not give two shits about the flowers, but my mom (hi, Mom!) really wanted us to have real bouquets because they smell nice. And they did smell nice. We got them from The Flowerman, another local business. My only complaint is that my bouquet was so heavy that I thought my arm was going to fall off during the ceremony, but that's not their fault, that's my fault for being such a wuss.

5. Favors

MUSTACHES! I ordered the mustaches from MaroDesigns on etsy. I almost didn't, because I thought it would be way too expensive to order 160 mustaches at something like $3 each. I ended up emailing her, though, and I'm so glad I did because she gave me a much cheaper price for ordering them in bulk.

You guys. This was the best wedding purchase I made. Way better than the flowers, better than my dress, better than EVERYTHING. Joe was a little worried that I became so fixated on getting fake mustaches for the reception, but that's because he had no idea I'd found such awesome mustaches. I am so, so glad I got them, if only for the pictures. OH THE PICTURES.

6. Photographer

Speaking of pictures, my cousin, Dana, is a wedding photographer and she gave us a great deal. Which is awesome, otherwise we never would have been able to afford her. Heh. Her website is here: Dana Grant Photography and some of our wedding photos are here: Joe and Jennie's DAY OF FUN.

7. Music/DJ

Joe's friend DJed for us, which was awesome because she took care of getting the equipment and everything. Our first/mother/father songs were:

First Dance: Falling Slowly by The Swell Season
Father/Daughter: Gracie by Ben Folds
Mother/Son: Let it Be by The Beatles

8. Centerpieces

BOARD GAMES. Seriously, it was so easy and fun and no one I talked to had ever been to a wedding with board game centerpieces. What made it even better was that the reception hall took care of setting all of them up at the tables. Even Twister, which was set up right next to the dance floor. Plus, it was cheap since we already had a lot of the games.

9. Invites

This was another thing I didn't really care about. I mean, I wanted them to look nice but I didn't want to spend a bajillion dollars on them. So, Joe drew the design and I figured out what they should say and we printed and assembled them ourselves.

10. Dress

This was my biggest headache, I think, but it wasn't even that bad. It's just that I hate shopping and there's so much pressure for your wedding dress to be, like, the prettiest dress you'll ever own. To which I say BULLSHIT because I plan on buying lots of pretty dresses for the rest of my life, so suck it.

That's not to say I didn't like my wedding dress. I loved it. It was way more comfortable than any dress has a right to be and I got it for only $200 (SCORE). Joe's mom used to alter wedding dresses for a living, so did all of my alterations. The dress came with a long train, which she hemmed completely off so I wouldn't trip over it. The biggest pain in the ass, really, was finding a strapless bra that was supportive but that didn't cut off my air supply.

11. Thank You Notes

Um, we are still working on these. Sorry, everyone who sent us gifts, but we are both procrastinators. So, those will hopefully go out before the end of the year. Or before our first wedding anniversary. Heh.

this is the laziest post ever...and it's really poorly written...I mean, way worse than usual...dot dot dot

2010-11-08T11:40:00.005-05:00

I might give up on this HP question extravaganza because I think it's making me lazy. Well, lazier.

I do have to say that I am really enjoying the Great Harry Potter Reread of 2010. It's been a while since I've read them all. Usually when I reread them, I skip the first two books because...well, duh. It's strange, though, I find myself getting weepy at the oddest moments, moments that didn't cause tears the first time I read the books but now that I've read all of them, I spend most of my time all, "THIS IS SO EMOTIONALLY SIGNIFICANT AND I WANT TO CRY" because yeah, you guys, I want to cry. I got teary the first time I saw chubby, little Neville when I was watching The Sorcerer's Stone yesterday. WTF, you guys, WTF?

Not much is going on, which is kind of weird after the past month or two of crazy hellaciousness, and I would probably be spending a lot of time wondering what to do with myself were it not for NaNo and the GHPR2010 and NaBloMe.

In other news, I took Max for a walk yesterday and two things happened:

1) I lost his poop in a pile of leaves, because it was a HUGE pile of leaves and his poops are little. When I told Joe about it, he was all, "WHY DID YOU LET HIM WALK IN A PILE OF LEAVES? and I will explain more about that in a moment

and 2) Someone had their dog off of his leash, which is fine if your dog is well-behaved, I suppose. Anyway, so suddenly this giant German Shepherd is running straight at me and instead of having a normal person reaction and being, I don't know, cautious around the 90 pound stranger-dog, I was all, "LOOK AT YOU!" and bent down so I could hug him and love him and call him George. Only his name was Buddy. Anyway, he didn't rip my face off, so that's awesome.

Yeah, so the pile of leaves thing. Joe and I were walking Max a while ago and I was letting Max frolic in leaf piles and Joe was like, "I wish you wouldn't do that," and I was all, "why not?" and he was like, "because he'll get bugs all over him," and I was like, "...um, WHAT." Apparently Joe wasn't allowed to play in leaf piles when he was a kid because his parents told him he'd get bugs all over him. And I was all, "GO AHEAD MAX YOU PLAY IN ALL THE LEAVES." Then I tried to push Joe in a leaf pile but it didn't work because he's way taller than me so really all that happened is that I almost fell over. True story.

Anyway, today's HP question is something about what character you'd be if you lived in HP-land and my answer is I DON'T KNOW, YOU TELL ME. So...you tell me, please.

a study in non-productivity

2010-11-07T14:27:00.002-05:00

Right now I am:

Watching The Sorcerer's Stone while alternately:

Reading Goblet of Fire and working on my NaNo novel, which means:

I'm not really getting anything done. I did manage to shower, so that's a big win, I guess. But whatever, I suppose you're using your extra hour in a more productive fashion? GOOD FOR YOU.

I can at least answer today's Harry Potter question, which is: What class you most want to take?

Transfiguration, obviously, because McGonagall is the shit. Or maybe Defense Against the Dark Arts as taught by Professor Lupin.

6. Favorite villain

2010-11-06T09:19:00.001-04:00

Remember when Sirius Black was a villain? That was awesome. But he was a good villain, all crazy and screamy and murdery. I mean, I liked him more when he was Harry's irresponsible godfather but then he went and got himself killed by my other favorite villain, Bellatrix LeCRAZYASSFACE.

Anyway, have you guys seen this? It's pretty old, but I think you should see it:

5. Favorite pairing

2010-11-05T09:18:00.002-04:00

HermiRONe all the way. Duh.

Lupin and Tonks also warmed my cold, cold heart, but I can't think about them without getting verklempt DAMN YOU, JK ROWLING.

Also, did Neville and Luna end up together? Or did I make that up because it was my heart's secret wish?

30 Days of Harry Potter: Top 3 favorite characters

2010-11-04T10:56:00.003-04:00

THIS IS SO HARD (twss). I'm changing the topic a bit and making it top 3 favorite characters who are not Harry, Hermione, or Ron because...well, because it just makes things easier for me. And, in the end, isn't that what really matters?

1. Hagrid (alternate: Neville)
2. Ginny Weasley (alternate: Hedwig)
3. Lupin (alternate: Tonks, duh)

Again, my answer really depends on the day. I'm sure as soon as I hit publish, I'll have changed my mind.

30 Days of Harry Potter DAY 3: What would your Patronus be?

2010-11-03T10:02:00.003-04:00

The other night at dinner, Joe told me that he was talking to one of the neighbors one morning while he was walking Max and the neighbor warned him to WATCH OUT FOR COYOTES. Apparently, several people had spotted a coyote by the pond (the one Heather got in trouble for throwing rocks into) and along the edges of the parking lots, where there are lots of trees. The guy was all, "just be careful walking at night," and advised us to stay in the well-lit areas and to shine a flashlight in the coyote's face if it approached. Luckily, we have a flashlight. We had to get one because it's hard to see Max's poops in the grass when it's all dark outside, and since it gets dark at 3:30 now, we usually end up walking him all blind and shit.

So, Joe is telling me this, and I'm all, "and all this time I was worried about ZOMBIES attacking us while we're out for a walk, and not coyotes," and Joe was all, "...yeah...anyway, be careful." And I was like, NO WAIT because here:

Me: Don't worry, if I see a coyote, I'll just tell it to go away.
Joe: Yeah, I don't know if that will work.
Me: Hahahaha, remember that time everyone thought I saw a coyote?
Joe: You mean the time you lied to everyone on your blog?
Me: ...You're going to have to be more specific.
Joe: People thought you saw a coyote because YOU SAID YOU SAW A COYOTE.
Me: Yeah, but I also said I talked to it, I thought people would realize it was fake. I mean, I had a conversation with a coyote.
Joe: Jennie, you have conversations like that with ducks ALL THE TIME.
Me: Oh, right.

So, long story short, my patronus would totally be a duck. QUACK.

ETA: Or an otter, since Joe won't let me get a real one.

NaBloMe: Day 2

2010-11-02T10:21:00.002-04:00

30 Days of Harry Potter, stolen shamelessly from here:

Order the books from favorite to least favorite:

1. Prizoner of Azkaban
2. Goblet of Fire
3. Deathly Hallows
4. Half Blood Prince
5. Order of the Phoenix
6. Sorcerer's Stone
7. Chamber of Secrets

Order the movies from favorite to least favorite

1. Prizoner of Azkaban
2. Half Blood Prince
3. Order of the Phoenix
4. Goblet of Fire
5. Sorcerer's Stone
6. Chamber of Secrets

These lists are completely arbitrary. You could ask me again tomorrow and my answers might be totally different. Oh, well, the point is that I posted today, half-assed though it was.

Here comes the funcooker!

2010-11-01T11:42:00.002-04:00

I'm posting today because I haven't quite decided NOT to do NaBloPoMo. I'm definitely doing NaNoWriMo, if only because I told both Ashley and Joe I would do it BUT ALSO because I got an email from my past self (via FutureMe) that simply said:

Subject: NaNoWriMo

DO IT.

So I'm doing it. You can't back out on something your past self told you to do, you just can't.

In any case, last year it really helped me to post on my blog every day, even if I was just posting my word count because A) it kept me honest and B) you all could yell at me if I didn't write my daily word count. BUT. This year is a bit different because Joe and I also have a bet going, which is going to take up a lot of my non-NaNo-writing time until November 18th. Here is how the bet happened:

Me: I kind of want to read Deathly Hallows again before the movie comes out.
Joe: Do you have time?
Me: Oh, totally. I could read it twice before the movie comes out.
Joe: Why would you do that?
Me: THREE TIMES. I COULD READ IT THREE TIMES BEFORE THE MOVIE COMES OUT.
Joe: O...K?
Me: What, I could do it.
Joe: Wanna bet?
Me: YES.
Joe: Um. OK.
Me: I don't really want to read Deathly Hallows three times in a row, though.*
Joe: Hmm. OK. Let me think.
Me: Sure...
Joe: OK, I bet that you can't read all seven books before the movie comes out.
Me: That's it?
Joe: ...
Me: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

So that's the bet, whether or not I can read all seven books before midnight on November 18th. The loser (Joe) will have to make dinner for the winner (me) for a full week. The winner (me) gets to pick what the loser (Joe) makes. Any menu suggestions? Joe might need time to prepare.

*not because I don't love it, but because my eyes might dry up and fall out from all the crying

It'll be my first pah-ty, Fah-tha!

2010-10-28T15:44:00.002-04:00

Me: The hills are aliiiiiiive...with the sound of muuuuuusiiiiiic...
Joe: Have you been watching Moulin Rouge?

I've been walking around singing songs from The Sound of Music for the past few days and WITH GOOD REASON. For, you see, there was a Sound of Music sing-a-long at a nearby movie theater on Tuesday and I went (DUH) even though it was on a school night and I'd be up past my bedtime.

I saw an advertisement for this sing-a-long a few weeks ago when Joe and I went to see The Social Network. When I saw the preview for it, I believe my exact words were, "OMFG OMFG I HAVE TO GO TO THAT OMFG," and Joe was all, "...eff," because he was afraid he'd have to go with me. But. I posted something about it on (the) Facebook and soon had tentative plans to go with some of my family members, because they're awesome like that. And really, I told Joe that the only reason he wasn't excited about it at all was because he's never seen the movie, something that is GROSS AND WRONG, but not quite as gross and wrong as never having seen The Goonies.

So last week was total shit, right? Right. And I've been pretty Debbie Downer lately as a result. Anyway, it turns out that Julie Andrews works kind of like anti-depressants. Like, I cannot be in a bad mood if Julie Andrews is singing, I just can't. I love her.

You know what else I love? When crowds sing along to songs at concerts. Not, like, one really loud guy who is singing so loud that I can't hear the artist (JOE) but when the whole crowd sings and you can't make out one voice from another. The sing-a-long was like that plus Julie Andrews, which equals NOW WE ARE SO HAPPY, WE DO THE DANCE OF JOY. Truly. I did the math just now and it totally worked.

I went with two of my cousins and two of my aunts, and everyone had such a good time, which is really what everyone needed. I highly recommend going to one of these if you have the chance. Obviously, you should go if you love The Sound of Music, but who doesn't love The Sound of Music? I'll tell you who...NAZIS.

It'd been years since I'd seen the movie all the way through. Especially considering that, when I was younger, I used to fast forward to my favorite parts, which were: the nuns singing about how terrible Maria is, Maria singing about how she's all confident and shit, Rolf being all patronizing and telling Liesl she needs someone to take care of her (I was young, I didn't know that Rolf was a big turdface until he blew his stupid whistle), Do Re Mi, the creepy puppet show, the party where Maria and Captain von Trapp dance and have all the UST, Baronness Bitchface getting dumped so Captain von Trapp can go dance and sing and make out with Maria, and, OK, all the singing parts, especially Captain von Trapp singing because he is dreamy with a capital D that stands for DAMN which rhymes with BAM I JUST PASSED OUT BECAUSE HE'S SO DREAMY.

The only singing part I didn't like was when the Boss Nun sings about climbing mountains because it was boring and I wanted to get back to watching Maria and Captain von Trapp make googly eyes at each other. Now that I think about it, they might be the first couple I ever shipped, except for maybe Red and Gobo on Fraggle Rock which is TOTALLY NORMAL SHUT UP.

one more sad

2010-10-26T12:36:00.003-04:00

Last week was a weird one, I must say. I worked Monday and Tuesday and had the rest of the week off. My company does a lot of things wrong but they do bereavement leave right. Not sure what to make of that.

I went to volunteering on Tuesday night, something I was more than a little worried about, as it is a group for grieving children. I worried about bursting into tears as soon as I walked in, but it was actually the perfect place for me to be. Which in hindsight is a big, fat DUH but my foresight is absolute shit.

I saw my family almost every day last week, which was good, but also cried a lot, which was not so fun, actually. I held it together for most of the viewing, even though I had to go hide in the kitchen (under pretense of water-getting) a few times, and I held it together not at all on Friday at the funeral. I did manage to read this:

The thing about having a grandma is that you think she’ll always be there, because she’s always been there. From the moment you’re born, she’s with you, cheering you on and letting you stay up too late and pretending not to notice when you swipe a peppermint from the candy jar when your parents aren’t looking. She’s just as proud of you for graduating as she is that you didn’t fall down while walking across the stage. So when your grandma dies, you feel it instantly. That person who used to let you win at board games and who totally believed you when you said you were going to grow up to be Mary Poppins is gone.
The hardest thing about losing someone you love is the realization that you’ll never see them again. That all of the memories you have of that person are it, there will never be more. You realize how very little time we actually get and you wish, desperately, for more.
We must remember that the memories we have of Grandma are ours forever. We might feel like we’re losing them or that we don’t have enough of them, but the memories we have of her are like puzzle pieces and each person in this family holds different pieces of the puzzle. Late night card games and camping trips, watching Disney movies over and over and sleepovers on New Years Eve, walking up to Lincoln Park and feeding ducks at the pond, chocolate martinis and Happy Birthday Jesus cakes. We all hold these memories and when we tell stories about Grandma, we’re putting the puzzle pieces together. We’re a family of storytellers, a family that can’t get together without telling stories of times past, and as long as we can share our memories of Grandma, she’ll always be with us.

But only because the eulogies were first and especially only because I ran up to the mic before anyone else got a chance to make me cry. After I sat back down, though, all bets were off. TEARS. EVERYWHERE. But I suppose that's what funerals are for, really, so...whatever.

I feel very whatever lately. Very blah. Very other words for depressed. Things are getting back to normal, I suppose. We watched Chuck last night and walked Max and laughed about stupid things and I read my book and went to sleep and had crazy, crazy dreams.

Which I expected, as I have been having some wicked crazy dreams lately. I've dreamt of zombies at least four out of the past seven nights. The other night, I dreamt that I was in that movie Skyline. Have you seen the preview? It looks pretty run of the mill alien-movie until the last shot, which is of lots and lots of screaming people being pulled into spaceships by a beam of light. Freaked my shit out, that did. Anyway, some other people and I were running from this light, obviously, and we took shelter in a house. Someone realized that the light couldn't pull up people with dyed hair (what?) so we all dyed our hair. Mine was dark, dark black, like Evil!Willow black. We went outside to test it but mine didn't work, the light still came and I started getting pulled away and that's when Robert Downey, Jr. flew over in his Iron Man suit (minus the helmet) and saved me, which was pretty awesome because Robert Downey, Jr. is totally on my list, only I woke up before I could dream-cheat on Joe. Oh well, maybe next time.

(I love you, Joe!)

Anyway. I don't know what all the zombie/alien dreams say about my psyche right now and I don't want to know, thank you very much, I just wish they'd stop.

I am, however, totally OK with the Robert Downey, Jr. dreams. HINT HINT, UNIVERSE.

10/15/2010

2010-10-17T17:22:00.004-04:00

On the first day of training to be a volunteer with Oak Tree Corner, we did an exercise where we had to come up with different ways to say someone died. Passed on, passed away, went to Heaven, pushing up daisies, sleeping with the fishes...these are all examples of things people say instead of, "so and so died." Obviously, ones like "passed on" are used more often than "sleeping with the fishes," unless, of course, you're living in some sort of Sopranos world, in which case you might say that a lot. But I digress.

There's a point to the exercise. Kids find death just as confusing as adults, but the difference is, kids are very literal. If you tell a kid that someone who died went to Heaven, the kid might think they're coming back some day. Like Heaven is just somewhere people go on vacation. So we're taught to say someone died, not someone passed away.

After I did this exercise, I began to notice more and more that no one ever wants to say died or dead. It sounds too harsh. Too final. If you look at the obituary page, it's full of "passed aways."

I don't know why I'm talking about all that. Stalling, maybe. What I'm trying to say is that my grandma died on Friday, but I don't want to say died because dead is forever and that, well, that totally sucks.

My mom called me at work on Thursday to tell me my grandma had a fever and they thought she might have pneumonia. Later on, I found out that they might soon be calling hospice in. And I spent the majority of that afternoon running to the bathroom to cry in the stall.

My parents picked Joe and I up Thursday evening so we could go to the nursing home. My aunt and uncle were waiting for us. They'd already been in to see grandma, and since their eyes were red-rimmed from crying, I knew things weren't good. We went back to her room. She was lying in her bed, propped up by pillows so she wouldn't fall out, and she wouldn't wake up at all. She looked so small.

My dad spoke to her nurse and then we met back up with my aunt and uncle. The words, "end of life," were used. My mom called my other aunt, told her to come see grandma, but not by herself. Still, we thought we had days yet, to say goodbye.

Mom called me Friday morning. I already had the day off of work, so I was still lying in bed. She told me that she and Dad were meeting hospice people at the nursing home because Grandma still had a fever and wasn't getting any better.

I got up, got dressed, and was about to take Max out when my phone rang again. My heart jumped into my throat when I saw it was my mom calling. I choked out a hello and knew, knew before my mom even said it, that she had died.

I tried Joe's cell phone, but he was at work so he didn't see it, and I was getting angrier and angrier with myself because I couldn't find his work number. "Idiot," I thought. "Why isn't it in your cell phone?"

Finally, I emailed him and asked him to call me. My phone rang almost instantly and I wondered if I'd even be able to talk. I didn't know how to say the words: Grandma died. But when I answered, all he said was, "Do I need to come home?" and I managed to squeak out a "yeah," and he was on his way.

It was a strange day. I mean, obviously. What a stupid thing to say. Of course it was strange. But Joe came home and I cried. He made me eat breakfast. I cried. We watched The Daily Show. I cried. I talked to my mom and cried and showered and cried and did I mention I cried? My head ached from crying, but by the time we went to my parents', I had mostly composed myself. We met with the pastor to go over the funeral service and we looked through pictures of my grandma. We told stories and drank wine and ate pizza.

Yesterday, I walked in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk and we took my sister to dinner and watched football and drank beer and ate junk food and it was almost like I was a normal person again. Look at me, I'm joking with the waitress and reading my Google Reader and cooking banana bread and watching Jurassic Park and you'd never know my heart broke wide open just two days ago. Don't worry, though, I found all the pieces and I think I remember how they go together. Just might take me some time, is all.

thank you!

2010-10-14T10:15:00.004-04:00

Thank you to all who donated! You are my most favorite people, right up there with Joe and Mr. Darcy and Hermione Granger and don't start on how two of those people are imaginary because in my head they are as real as you SO THERE.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is thank you very much. Hee.

I need your good thoughts. Also, your money.

2010-10-12T10:46:00.002-04:00

We lived next door to my dad's mom until right before I started third grade, when we moved into a bigger house across town. While we lived next door (which was a street away from where Joe grew up, btw), she used to baby-sit me after school. At some point, I don't remember when because I'm old now and those memories are fuzzy, my Granny moved in. Granny was not blood-related to any of us, but had raised my Grandpa and so she was family. I think that's how family works.

Granny died a few years after we moved, and my grandma moved into the condo that Joe and I are now renting. Life hasn't been very fair to Grandma, and yeah, yeah, I know life's not fair but that's not going to stop me from being pissed off about it. Her husband, my grandfather, died before I was born. He was only 46. When I was in college, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She beat that and was diagnosed with diabetes. And a few years ago, doctors found a cyst that was pushing on her brain, causing confusion and other physical problems.

I remember being relieved when I found out that it was a cyst and not a tumor. But now I think, "fuck that cyst," because it has been nothing but a pain in the ass (brain?) ever since it turned up. It's required two of the same surgery, a shunt, and a temporary-turned-permanent stay in a variety of nursing homes. And the surgeries? They seemed to work at the time but she's been in a spiraling state of confusion ever since. She became paranoid and was sometimes mean. Sometimes funny mean, like when she threatened to punch my dad in the gonads, but other times mean mean. Mostly she was just confused. She sometimes thought she was back in her childhood home. She thought she had more than one room at the nursing home and always insisted that we take her to it.

She did have moments of complete lucidity, where she was all there, all Grandma again, and she'd make a joke or tell a story from when my dad was a kid. My sister and I visited once, and I spent the majority of the visit pushing Grandma's wheelchair up and down the hallways of the nursing home because she insisted that we go to her "other" room and no amount of me telling her that there WAS no other room was going to dissuade her. We spent a good hour exploring the halls and we never found it, of course, but when we got back to Grandma's room, she looked me square in the eye, all there, and said, "You're a good kid." I laughed it off, as I do whenever anything gets too serious, and made a comment about how I hadn't been a kid in a very long time. Then we talked about the new Where the Wild Things movie.

That's the last time I remember seeing the Grandma I grew up with. Since then, she's only gotten worse. She was recently moved to a home that specializes in Alzheimer's and dementia patients. I won't go into details, but she's been a handful, to put it mildly, and this was primarily the reason she couldn't come to the wedding.

Last weekend it reached epically bad proportions, as her doctors try to find a balance in her medication. They need to keep her calm without over-medicating her. I haven't seen her yet in the new home but I imagine it's not good, as my parents have forbidden me or any of the other grandkids to go see her without one of our parents. She's not eating. My parents couldn't wake her up when they visited last, she was so over-medicated. So. It's bad. I feel stupid and naive for thinking it would ever get better.

This coming Saturday, I'm walking in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 5K Walk in honor of both my Grandma and Aunt Kathy, both breast cancer survivors. I've done a pretty piss-poor job raising money, so if you can find it in your hearts (and wallets) to make a donation, I'll be your best friend. Or say really nice things about you on the internets. Or write a post about anything you want. Hopefully not one as sad face as this one, though, I had to take a lot of DON'TYOUCRYRIGHTNOW breaks.

Who knows where thoughts come from, they just appear!

2010-10-07T09:11:00.003-04:00

I think weird thoughts, like, all the time. And after I think these thoughts, I wonder what's wrong with me. Like, sometimes I'll be having a crazy thought and be all, "STOP THINKING THIS RIGHT NOW...WTH IS WRONG WITH YOU? STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT," like if I'm home alone and trying to go to sleep and suddenly I'm imagining someone lurking into the dark room and when I open my eyes, I know I'll see someone standing over me, swinging an axe over my head, I just know it, but can I stop thinking about it? No, I cannot. I can never stop my brain from thinking a thought it's already started thinking.

Like, every morning, since I get up first, I take Max out so his bladder doesn't explode all over the house because that would probably be messy, and I already have to clean up Phoebe's barf so I'm not cleaning up exploded bladder, too. And since I have to get up super early so my corporate overlords don't fire me, it's still dark out when I walk him. I also usually forget to put on my glasses, so everything is all blurry around the edges, but blurrier than it would normally be when I'm not wearing glasses because I'm all half asleep. And bra-less. That has nothing to do with this story, but in the spirit of full disclosure, I thought I'd share it.

ANYWAY. We're walking and it's dark and blurry and I'm stumbling over my flip flops and shivering because I'm wearing pajama pants and when did it get so cold, Ohio? And every time I hear a noise, my mind immediately goes to zombies. I don't know why. It just does. I mean, sure, I've been reading World War Z every night before bed, but I think that's irrelevant because I've had this zombie-phobia for YEARS now. So then I start imagining what I would do if a zombie ran up behind me. I'd have to protect Max, obviously, but I'd need to find a weapon and THERE ARE NO WEAPONS OUTSIDE. I'd have to rip a branch off of a tree but I'm pretty sure that by the time I managed that, the zombie would have already ripped off an ear or something. PLUS. Since everything is all no-glasses-blurry, I might not even notice that the person approaching me is a zombie until it's too late. My point is, I'm screwed if zombies attack in the morning unless I start remembering to put on my glasses before I go outside.

I have a lot of these weird (ok, crazy) thoughts while I'm walking Max. Last night, I was walking him and listening to my iPod and this little girl was playing with a giant stick in her yard. And as I passed her, I thought, "What if she hits me in the head with that stick and goes all Lord of the Flies on me or tries to steal my iPod? I'd have to kick her or something. Would I get arrested? I'd just be defending myself. But she's like 8." Luckily, I'm really short so we were almost the same height and I think the police might have let me off with just a warning.

Last week, I was walking Max at night through a neighboring neighborhood and he totally pooped in someone's bushes! When he did it, I was all, "Are you KIDDING me?" and no, he was not kidding me, but it was so dark that I couldn't find the poo to pick it up and I'm not proud of this but we had to run away. And since we did that, we couldn't walk back to our house the same way or we would have passed the scene of the crime, so I had to cut through the wooded/pond area that is TOTALLY SCARY IN THE DARK. And I kept picturing the headlines, "WOMAN DISAPPEARS FROM PARK, DOG FOUND CHASING DUCKS AT POND" and hoping that if any serial killers were roaming the woods that night, that they would stay away because of my vicious, 25 pound dog. Sigh. Or. OR! That if they attacked me, I'd like, tap into some previously unknown Slayer powers that are lying dormant inside me. IT COULD HAPPEN, SHUT UP.

Also, the other day as I was driving home from work, I wondered what I would do if I turned into some sort of fish mutant while I was driving and could no longer breathe oxygen. I'd have to just drive my car into some water, right? But, like, how would I call Joe and tell him I'd turned into a fish mutant? Do cell phones work underwater? Or would I have to drive into a lake, let the car fill up with water, and then drive home and hope the water didn't leak out during the drive? And, I don't know, live in the bathtub for the rest of my life. You have to prepare for these things, you guys, I'm serious. You'll thank me if you ever turn into a fish mutant.

the Ken Doll

2010-10-05T13:37:00.008-04:00

I first heard of the Kindle back in 2007 from one Heather Anne Hogan. It was the Thanksgiving that I drove to DC to meet The Collective and when I'd finally found my way and parked and lugged all of my stuff into Kat's adorable apartment, Heather Anne told us all of a magical device called the Kindle.

She'd been sitting next to a woman with a Kindle on her flight to DC. And, being Heather Anne Hogan, she became best friends with this stranger and learned all about the wonder of the Kindle. How it was magic and could hold practically a million books inside and also how it cost a lot. We were all amazed, if not slightly suspicious, because who doesn't love the feel of a real book in their hands? In any case, I filed this information away because I didn't even have an iPod at that point, so it wasn't like I was going to go run out and buy this mysterious Kindle. (At the time, I thought everyone was saying Ken Doll instead of Kindle and I was all, "How do you read off of a Ken Doll?" but don't worry, I eventually figured it out.)

Last year, Joe started a new job. Since he started when everyone was getting their Christmas bonuses, he wasn't going to get one. So his boss gave him a Kindle. Yeah. No bonus for you, but here's SOME MAGIC instead. I'm not going to lie to you. I was jealous. And not JUST because my Christmas bonus consisted of a booklet about the history of the company and two movie tickets. But, I was also happy for him because I love him blah blah blah and anyway, he let me read books on it sometimes.

The brand new tiny Kindle came out right before we got married. My coworkers gave me a gift card to Target that was JUST ENOUGH for a Kindle, so we tried to find one before the honeymoon. Unfortunately, we weren't successful so, AS PER USUAL, I ended up packing five books in my carry-on, oh, and buying two others over the course of the trip.

But when we got home, we found a faraway(ish) Target (around Hoover Heights, Heather) and soon I had a Kindle. It was like POOF here's your Kindle, that's how easy it was. I soon had it loaded with a couple of books, but it's so hard to stop at a couple of books. Especially when it's so easy to buy them. You only have to click ONE BUTTON on Amazon's website and then it's loaded onto your Kindle. I had no idea books could disapparate, but they keep doing it! From Amazon, straight to my Kindle! IT IS MAGIC, YOU GUYS, DON'T TRY AND TELL ME DIFFERENTLY.

I need to stop, though. I am exceeding my book budget by, like, a lot. Luckily, there are a lot of free books for the Kindle, classics like Pride & Prejudice and Gulliver's Travels. So I loaded all the free books I could find onto my Kindle. I found about 40 of them. I'll be taking all of them with me to DC this weekend and I just hope it's enough.

NaNoWhatNow?

2010-10-04T10:41:00.003-04:00

I'm trying to decide whether to do NaNoWriMo again, but I don't know why I'm even questioning it because I have absolutely no reason NOT to do it. I'm not planning a wedding anymore, so that excuse is out, although my version of wedding planning didn't really take up that much of my time. We're talking about taking Max to some obedience classes, but that wouldn't really use up much of my free time either. Honestly, the only thing that might eat into any writing time is TV or my Kindle. Neither is a good excuse so I think what I'm saying is, I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year. And also NaBloPoMo because I think doing that last year is why I finished NaNoWriMo. So. Yeah. Don't let me forget by the time November rolls around.

I'm considering posting it all on A Story a Day, but the thought of doing that terrifies me with a capital T that rhymes with P that stands for Pool. As in, I'm so terrified of that idea that I will soon be standing in a pool of my own urine. But I'm beginning to realize that I write more consistently if I have an audience, especially if said audience is nicer to me than it should be because I need constant validation, people, CONSTANT VALIDATION.

I've always been this way. I wrote The Evil Summer to send to my friend Erica (Chris, in the actual story) so she could write back and tell me how awesome it was. Erica is the daughter of my dad's BFF Larry. My dad and Larry have known each other since, like, birth and at our wedding reception, they danced to Sonny and Cher's I've Got You, Babe. I think they invented the bromance, I really do. Anyway, Larry and his wife and my parents have been friends since the beginning of time, so my sister and I spent much of our childhood with their kids.

We used to spend weekends at their house in the country, making up games and roller blading around their unfinished basement. There was a wooded area across the field by their house that we called The Swamp. We spent many hours there, trying to catch snakes and frogs, or "fishing" in the two inch deep puddle of stagnant water that made up The Swamp when it rained. And. AND. I cannot believe I'm about to share this, but Erica and I would tape record ourselves singing Wilson Phillips songs, play them back, and congratulate each other on how AWESOME we sounded. The Swamp is where we practiced.

So my point is, maybe I should write a story about The Swamp for NaNo. Actually, that's a lie. I didn't have a point.

I feel like I'm supposed to write about this, but I don't know how

2010-09-29T10:11:00.002-04:00

So. The wedding is over. The honeymoon is over (heh). The presents are all opened, if not put away, but the thank you note process has only just begun. I feel like I'm coming out of some fugue state, honestly, like I've been living some other life for the past two weeks. Part of that, I think, is that I didn't work for two weeks (OMG AWESOME) and ALSO we were in paradise, I'm pretty sure, for a week, where all we had to do was remember to eat. And eat we did! You know who makes good Mexican food? Mexico. True story. ASHLEY. I tried Huevos Rancheros and I died for real. I had no idea Mexican breakfast was so magical. When I took the first bite, I was like, "I can't wait to tell Ashley I tried Mexican breakfast." It's true. You can ask Joe. Anyway.

I want to say so much about our wedding but I don't even know where to start. If I started listing all of my favorite moments, I'd never stop writing. The celebration actually started the Wednesday before the wedding, when I left work that afternoon with a SO LONG, SUCKERS and headed home for a blissful two week reprieve. Half of the Collective got in on Thursday, and there were shenanigans, but I'm not going to talk about them now because I might be talking about them later. ANYWAY.

It sort of all feels like it was a million years ago, but it's only been about a week and a half. I spent all day getting ready for the wedding, but I wasn't stressed at all. Joe's coworkers told him that I was going to have at least one freakout before the wedding because, well, they don't know me at all. At one point, Joe offered to do something for me and I was all, "Yes!" and he was all, "Well, I wouldn't want you to have a freakout," and I was like, "So all I have to do to get you to do stuff I don't want to do is say I might freak out?" and he was like, "Um, no," and I was like, "Too late I didn't hear that part!" and that is a true story. But yeah, I was pretty calm all day. Without the aid of alcohol, I might add, aside from the small glass of champagne I drank with lunch.

Joe and I saw each other before the ceremony, since we did First Look pictures right away (while we looked as good as possible, heh) and wedding party pictures afterward. Then we all hung out in the back of the church together before the ceremony started, which was great, it was like we were waiting for guests to arrive for a party. Which...I guess we kind of were. I think I'm still processing the actual wedding ceremony, it was such a blur. I remember all the important stuff, of course, like the vows and the readings and the MUSIC* but I also remember the not-so-important things, like how damn hot it was in there and how much my damn feet hurt and OH MY GOD who knew bouquets of flowers could be so damn heavy?

I'm really struggling with how to write about all of this, you guys. I think I'm too close** or it's too soon or something...I don't know, but I'm having trouble not just being all, "OMG IT WAS SO FUN," because OMG IT WAS SO FUN. Except for the part where my dad made everyone cry, but that didn't last very long. Heh. We served trashy bar food for the "meal," which was really just appetizers, and I ate a plateful of jalapeno poppers and am not ashamed. Our cupcake display was...oh, you guys. Just...just here:

The people responsible for this magnificence, KT and Sam Jackson, have a bakery called Bombshell Bakeshop and, you know? They deserve their own post so I'll save all my gushing for later. Well, most of my gushing. I'm still sad that I only ate one cupcake that night, but it was the Choclatron, which looks like a Hostess cupcake and tastes ten times better. Sadly, there were none of those leftover.

Also! I think the mustaches were a hit:

As well as some of the games. I know Twister was put to good use:

As was the Scrabble game on our table, although unfortunately I don't have pictures of all the dirty words my friends spelled out on the board.

Best of all, I think, was the Hogwarts game that was sitting, of course, on The Collective table.

I think Heather! Anne! might be in love and one of my favorite moments was when someone (gee, I wonder who) brought Hogwarts out on the dance floor and everyone danced in a circle around it. I can't find a picture of this but I'm almost sure it happened. Granted, this was about the time that they closed the bar but that I remembered there was an entire bottle of wine on our table, and so obviously I grabbed it, took a swig directly from it, and proceeded to pass it around the dance floor. CLASSY.

The whole day was just so great, you guys, I get warm fuzzies whenever I think about it. There's only one thing that I would have changed. My grandma was unfortunately not able to make it, and she was most definitely missed. During the ceremony, I pretty easily held back any tears about to break through until the pastor mentioned my grandma, something none of us knew he was going to do, and I had to do, like, Lamaze breathing so I wouldn't start sobbing in front of everyone because DUDE.

I think my favorite part of the day, at least the reception, was just standing back at times and watching all of my favorite people have fun. And I'm so glad so many people took so many pictures (and that things like Flickr and Facebook exist), because it gave me a chance to see all the fun that I missed while I was having other fun.

Also, if your self-esteem is even close to the low side, I highly recommend having a wedding. It's like a rule that people have to say nice things to and about you ALL DAY LONG. Like, people told me I was pretty and funny the whole day, it was awesome. And it was really great for my ego. Or really bad for my ego. Probably the last one.

*which included music from Star Wars, Love Actually, Ben Folds, Jurassic Park, and Indiana Jones OBVIOUSLY
**Any takers for a guest post? Anyone? Hello?

the situation is serious

2010-09-18T07:45:00.000-04:00

I was going to try and express my feelings on getting married through the power of dance, but since I'm a horrible dancer, I thought I'd let Turk do it for me:

Have a good week, Internets!

still breezy

2010-09-13T13:43:00.002-04:00

Firstlies, I would like to say thank you to everyone who said nice things about Joe and I (or to Joe and I) last week on The Collective. AND I would like to say thank you to whoever is responsible for the internet and also blogging because my life would be so, so completely different without both of those things. Like, stupid different, not good different.

I started blogging in 2003 (on Diaryland...yes, Diaryland) and if you had told me then that A) I'd be getting married in 7 years and B) I would be marrying someone I met on the internet and C) I would meet some of my BFFs on said internet AND they'd be coming to my wedding, I would have told you to back up your crazy face before I punched it. Which is rude, yes, but I am much more polite now than I used to be.

I have to admit, I feel ahead of the game when it comes to the whole "meeting people on the internet" thing. I became good friends with someone on the internet in high school, because of a TV show of all things, and we met each other back when everyone thought it was dangerous to meet anyone you met online, on account of YOU WILL GET MURDERED IN THE FACE WITH A SHARP, SHARP AXE. Well. I did not get murdered in the face, obviously, which is maybe why I had no worries whatsoever the first time I met The Collective on that Thanksgiving of miracles a few years ago.

I think my attitude toward meeting internet peoples is pretty cavalier. I never worried (much) about being axe murdered, as much as I joked about it. I even took my life into my own hands and tried internet dating, multiple times, in different mediums, but I think I can safely say at this point (after much reflection, believe you me) that my heart wasn't really in it until I met Joe.

We're getting married on Saturday and I'm trying my best to concentrate on the task(s) at hand, all work-related, until Wednesday at 5 when I leave work and don't come back for a week and a half. I'm almost as excited about that as I am to marry Joe. Almost. Mostly I'm just glad he didn't bring an axe on our first date, otherwise I think my life would look very different right now.

If Harry Potter had come out when I was 12 instead of 16, I would be way more obsessed. That's a lot of obsessed, but this is not about Harry Potter.

2010-09-10T11:06:00.007-04:00

A few weeks ago, someone referenced Flowers in the Attic on their blog, and this led me down a rabbit hole. First I had to look up Flowers in the Attic on Wackopedia, because I'd forgotten some of the effed up details, which led me to looking up all the other VC Andrews books I read as a child (sidenote: VC Andrews should not be read by children), which led me to looking up OTHER books I read as a child, which led me to realize that just because I was an advanced reader for my age, that did not mean I should have been reading a lot of the books I read. Second grade is far too young to read Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret.

I devoured books (mmm, books) as a child, many times in one sitting, and I read my favorites over and over. Not much has changed, except I no longer usually have time to read an entire book in one sitting because being an adult comes with responsibilities, which is STUPID AND I HATE IT. Anyway. I made up a list of the books I read over and over, what I remember about each one, and other comments that are probably full of exclamation marks and all caps.

The previously mentioned Flowers in the Attic: OK. This might be the most fucked up book I've ever read. There are four kids, all blond and beautiful. The two older children are teenagers, I think, and the two younger are twins (one boy, one girl). Their father dies and because their mother is a waste of space, she takes the kids to her childhood home so she can beg her father for money. The kids are locked in an attic by their mother and grandmother because they are Satan's spawn (according to the grandmother) because GET THIS, the kids' parents were uncle and niece (I think). Although, in a later book it's revealed that they're really half brother and sister. Gross. Anyway, the grandmother is a total see you next tuesday and is really mean to them. At one point, she pours tar in the older girl's hair while she's sleeping and I think whips her with a belt. Also, the mother feeds the kids arsenic because her father's will says she'll only get any money if she didn't have any two headed incest children. Also, the older brother rapes the older sister. I KNOW.

I don't know why I was allowed to read any of these books. And I read almost all of them. There is a TON of incest in every single one, WHAT THE HELL?

IT, by Stephen King: Yes. I read this book as a child. I can't remember how old I was, but it might have been around the time I wrote The Evil Summer, which explains a lot, yes? Yes. This book is about...shit, you guys, it's so messed up. There's a scary clown, a big ass spider, dead kids, IT IS NOT FOR CHILDREN. But I specifically remember my dad giving me this book to read. When I was like 12.

The Secret Circle: This is the first trilogy I read by LJ Smith, and probably my favorite. Hokay, so. What happens is, this girl named Cassie moves to Salem or something. I think she goes to live with her grandparents, maybe? I don't remember why, but her mom never told her who her father was, so that's a big mystery. Somehow she ends up BFF with this girl named Diana, who is part of a secret witch coven (I know) and they recruit Cassie. Cassie is totally in love with Diana's boyfriend Adam (I am making up names at this point) and at one point they make out and it's a big thing. The whole coven gets in a big fight, and there's this dark evil hovering over everything in the form of, some dark dude. The dark dude ends up being Cassie's real father and he's evil and wants her to join the dark side and then they have this big fight and he cuts of her hand, oh wait, that's something else. My point is, I don't remember anything else about these.

Dark Visions: This was my second favorite of the trilogies and it was about all these psychic kids. They go to some institute, which turns out to be evil (of course), and they run away and there are psychic shenanigans. I feel like there was some big deal with crystals...like light or dark crystals? And people linking minds? And a love triangle! Like Jack and Kate and Sawyer, but not lame! Except, it was totally lame. I don't remember much about this one. Sorry. Or you're welcome.

The Forbidden Game: I remember even less about this trilogy, but I think the protagonist's name was Jenny (score!) and her friends got her a game (a FORBIDDEN game) for her birthday or something. They all play it and get sucked into it, sort of like Jumangi. There's some guy in the game who keeps fucking with them and he's in love with Jenny. I think his name is Julian and in my mind, he looks like Spike from Buffy, so...hot. I have no idea what else happens or how it ends. Sorry. Or you're welcome.

I was going to write more but now I'm tired. If I find any cheap copies of these books or any other authors (RL Stine! Christopher Pike! Judy Blume! Caroline Cooney! Lois Lowry! Ann M Martin!) I read a lot as a kid, I might do some reviews. Or I might forget I ever said that. Whatever.

speaking of Tool Time...

2010-09-08T15:04:00.003-04:00

Today I want to talk to you guys about something very important. Something that was once very, very close to my heart.

Today I want to talk to you about...Jonathan Taylor Thomas. OH, YEEAAAAAAAAAAH. JTT 4 EVA!!1!!1!

Ahem. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was my first love, the personification of all of my tween dreams, and it's only fitting that I give him a proper send off as I will soon pledge my heart to another blah blah blah.

I fell in love with Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the early 90s, when he appeared on a little show called Home Improvement. MAYBE YOU'VE HEARD OF IT. (I don't know.) Anyway. He was perfect, in my young eyes, and I knew that if only I could meet him, we'd fall deeply in (12-year-old) love because...um, we were almost the same age? I don't know, I'm pretty sure that when I was 12, I thought that was all it took. Same age.

Whatever, the case, I was in love and obsessed. Perhaps my obsessions with The X-Files and Mr. Darcy and Pam and Jim should have come as no surprise given my love for all things JTT.

When I was in sixth grade, my bedroom walls were PLASTERED with posters and pictures from such fine periodicals as: Tiger Beat and BOP and BBOP or whatever the hell they were all called. I used to buy them all whenever my mom would take me with her to Kroger. I'd stand in the magazine aisle, digging through them, searching for the best one. They were always on the bottom shelf, lined up together, tween boy faces gazing out at me between the coloring books and the crossword puzzles.

I'd flip through each magazine unless JTT was on the cover, then (OBVIOUSLY) I'd buy that one. He usually was on the cover, right next to Jonathan Brandis (RIP), Andrew Keegan (meh), and Rider Strong (double meh). Sometimes, OH SOMETIMES, the magazine would have a giant, fold-out poster inside of it. That was like finding a pot of gold and digging through that pot of gold to find, like, CHOCOLATE-COVERED GOLD.

My love did not stop at magazines, oh no. I would tape episodes of Home Improvement, new and syndicated, so I could watch the best Randy moments (heh) over and over. My favorite was the episode where there was something wrong with Randy (like, medically) because JTT was all, "I AM AN AC-TOR," in it and I was like, whoa, dreeeeamy. Randy was always my favorite of the Taylor brothers because Brad was, well, a moron and the little one was too young for me and also kind of weird. But Randy was the smart brother and so I was IN. LOVE.

I watched The Lion King over and over because JTT was the voice of Young Simba. I saw Man of the House in the theater and whenever we'd go to Blockbuster, I'd beg my parents to rent it. IT'S SO BAD, YOU GUYS. But I loved it, mostly because of JTT but also because they were in Indian Guides in the movie and I was totally an Indian Princess when I was a kid (Jennie + JTT = MFEO). My name was Little Star. I was in the Fox tribe. I...I'm going to stop talking now.

I don't know what happened to JTT or his career (other than a random episode of Veronica Mars) but my love has obviously faded. (LUCKY FOR JOE.) But I have to admit, I will 4-EVA have a Tiger Beat fold-out poster hanging deep in my heart for Randy Taylor.

You can't say you're breezy, that totally negates the breezy!

2010-09-01T10:06:00.004-04:00

DUDES. You guys. It's September. That means I am getting married this month, which makes me happier than Heather Anne Hogan with a hoverboard, if that's possible, and I'm not sure it is.

(Speaking of Heather Anne Hogan, she's blogging again. I know. I KNOW. I peed my pants, too.)

So, anyway, it's September 1st, which means I'm getting married in 17 days, which is AWESOME because it means I can stop talking and thinking about wedding stuff soon. HELL YES. Soon I will be able to concentrate on more important things, like Max. And Joe, I suppose. Heh.

This morning as I flipped the calendar to September, I asked Joe at what point I was supposed to start getting really stressed.

"Now?" he said and I laughed because, you guys, I'M TOTALLY BREEZY. I mean, I'm excited, of course, but I cannot think of one detail that I'm really worried about because you know what? It's out of my hands. I can't control the weather. I can't control the airlines. I'm not worried about whether the napkins perfectly match the...whatever, I don't even know what they need to match. I'm not worried about the flowers or the centerpieces or whether the church looks perfect or even whether I look perfect. SUCK IT, WEDDING INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.

Sure, there are some things I can control, but I'm not worried about them. My dress is fine, my hair appointment is booked, and all of our stuff is gathered. Stuff like board games and magnetized Scrabble tiles and fake mustaches and GUESS WHAT BITCHES? We have all of it. I don't want to brag, but we are so ready. I'm sure that will come back and bite me in the ass at some point, but I don't care. TAKE A BIG BITE, UNIVERSE, because in three weeks I will be somewhere tropical, sipping a cocktail, and laughing with MY HUSBAND JOE over a poop joke one of us made.

Last night, I started half-assing the placecards because if there's anything to half-ass, it's the placecards. We bought some at Target and I'm writing all the names because, I don't know, I like handwriting stuff? Does that make sense? Sometimes I miss being in school because I don't get to take notes much anymore (not even in meetings because nothing important ever happens in meetings where I work) and I LOVE taking notes. I should start handwriting my first drafts of everything but that sounds like a lot of work so I probably won't do it.

Anyway, let's talk about more interesting things LIKE MAX. He's still being SO GOOD even though he really doesn't like going in his cage. But that could be because we have to put this inflatable donut thing around his neck so he doesn't lick his ball-removal stitches all day long while we're not home. I'm sure he'll get over it. Right? Please say yes.

He and Phoebe are still getting along, if you can call it that. She is a tiny bit braver around him, meaning she waits 10 seconds to run away from him instead of 5 seconds, and he still just walks right by her without noticing her. Maybe he is cat blind. Or maybe Phoebe knows how to invisible herself! PHOEBE IS A SUPERHERO. I wonder if she has a cape and if so, if she'd let me borrow it. Or if it would even fit. She has a tiny neck. Tinier than Max's and I know my neck is just slightly bigger than Max's because I tried on his e-collar and it didn't fit but only barely.

Um. Yeah. Maybe the wedding planning is good for me, because without it, I apparently have way too much time on my hands.

Max Update

2010-08-28T10:10:00.003-04:00

I don't want to brag, you guys, but Max might be the BEST. DOG. EVER. He's so good! Like, we don't even have to tell him to be good HE JUST IS. Which is good because he doesn't really understand words like sit or lie down or stay. He pretty much just stands there looking up at us and wagging his tail while we say "sit" over and over, holding a treat in one hand. But he's learning. Sloooooowly.

He loves going on walks, obviously, I mean what dog doesn't? We took him for a long walk last night and he trotted along in front of us, until he saw a bunny or a bird, then he would try to go make friends with them. At least that's what I'm assuming he was doing, such was his intensity. I'm sure that's it. Yes, definitely.

Phoebe is, well, Phoebe has made herself scarce the past couple of days but honestly that's all going much better than I'd anticipated. Max pretty much ignores her, something she hasn't really noticed, I don't think, because every time she sees him she acts like Max is trying to murder her. I mean, Max has spent most of his time like this:

And Phoebe has spent most of her time like this:

She is such a drama queen.

But yeah. They're ignoring each other, for the most part, which is far better than them trying to fight and fight and fight fight fight fight fight.

I think Max likes us and maybe even knows we're his people now. He wags his tail and starts hopping up and down when we approach him and will sometimes flop on his back so we can rub his tummy. And when I came out of the bathroom this morning, he was lying on the floor outside like he was waiting for me. I don't want to get all Holly Hunter in Raising Arizona but I LOVE HIM SOOO-OOO MUUUUCH.

It's only a day away.

2010-08-25T12:33:00.003-04:00

You guys. OH, YOU GUYS. I was going to try and hold this in until tomorrow, because tomorrow is THE DAY, but I can't anymore. I just can't. I'M SO EXCITED. And not Jessie-Spano-caffeine-pill excited, but FOR REAL EXCITED with no stimulants involved whatsoever.

Because tomorrow, you guys, TOMORROW we pick up our dog. WE GOT A DOG. A real one! He wags his tail and everything!

A couple of weeks ago, Heidi found a sweet, little wiener dog on the side of the road. She texted me a picture and I was immediately all, "GIVE HIM TO ME," but she was responsible and took him to a couple of vets in the area to see if anyone recognized him. No one did, so she dropped him off at the Humane Society so they could put out word and see if anyone would claim him. They told her that if no one came in to get him, they'd call her and she'd get, like, first dibs on him or something.

My bridal shower was that weekend, and I asked about the dog almost as soon as I got there. No one had claimed him yet, and I told Heidi to let me know if no one ever did, because the whole thing was making my heart sad.

Fast forward to last Friday. Joe and I were out running errands before going to see Scott Pilgrim again (shut up), and Joe was all, "What ever happened to that wiener dog?" and I was like, "I don't know," and he was like, "TEXT HEIDI TEXT HEIDI," so I did and guess what? No one had claimed him or adopted him. And I was sad face again because POOR SWEET PUPPY.

Then, you guys, something magical happened. You see, Joe and I were waiting until after the wedding and honeymoon to adopt a dog because I didn't want to get a dog and then up and put him in a kennel or something while we were gone. Because it might get sad, you know? But Heidi is a much better person than I am, and when she offered to watch the wiener dog while we were on our honeymoon, there was nothing holding us back. This poor little dog needed a home, we had one, and so we decided that we'd go to the shelter the next day to meet him.

All Friday night long, we tried to reign in our excitement and remind each other that he wasn't our dog. "We might not even like him," we said (yeah right) and, "He might bite our faces off!" we exclaimed. Or WORSE YET, what if someone swooped in and adopted him right out from under our noses? Can you imagine that scene? I would have thrown a tantrum but not before bursting into tears right in front of everyone.

The shelter didn't open until 1 on Saturday and we were impatient, oh were we impatient. Well. Mostly me. I spent most of the morning shouting things like, "I WANT TO GO GET OUR DOG!" and then reminding myself that he wasn't ours. Yet.

Finally, FINALLY, it was time to meet him. We drove to the shelter (which is over an hour away, such was our love) and stood in the lobby for a bit when we got there. There were tiny boxer puppies in cages right next to us and barking dogs in a room next door. A lady in scrubs asked if we'd been helped, I said no, and then explained that we were there to see a dachshund that my friend had brought in.

She took us back to a small room and, when she opened the door, I saw four occupied crates. All but one dog started barking maniacally, that dog, our dog, was a black and tan wiener dog who just looked right at us and wagged his tail.

They'd given him the name "Freddie," because, even though he'd only been there a short time, they didn't want him to be just a number. We took him outside and he plodded along next to us, wagging his tail, only stopping to, well, pee on things. We took him back inside and found someone who worked there. I said something along the lines of, "Soooo, how do we make this happen?" and she explained the process. She asked if we were thinking about adopting him and I didn't tell her that when we'd gone outside, I told Joe we should just throw him in the car and go.

We talked for a good bit about his health and behavior, and how to introduce a dog to a cat (wish us luck on that one) and the whole time our soon-to-be dog just stood or sat there, looking around with interest. HE'S SO GOOD, I kept thinking, while I tried to pay attention to everything the lady was telling us, but I couldn't help but be distracted by his soft, floppy ears or his tail that curls up ever so slightly.

"I have good news and bad news," the lady told us. "The good news is, he's available for adoption. The bad news is, he's not getting fixed until Tuesday so you can't pick him up until after that." I wanted to cry.

We spent some more time with him and finally pried ourselves away, making plans to come back on Thursday (TOMORROW) to pick him up and take him home. We left, excited but a bit sad that we didn't have our dog with us, and immediately went to Petsmart to stock up on dog supplies. I'm pretty proud of us for being so frugal in the toy department. I wanted to buy EVERYTHING but we didn't because A) um, that would have been expensive and B) we don't even know what he LIKES yet, obviously.

We pick him up tomorrow after work and we are so ready. His crate is assembled. We've talked walking and eating schedules. We bought a baby gate in case Phoebe is less than welcoming. We both took Friday off so we could take him to the vet and hang out with him together. Joe wasn't going to, but he said he was afraid the dog would like me more if he wasn't home on his first day there.

We named him Max Fischer after much thought, passing over Captain Malcolm Reynolds and Charlie and Richard (get it?) because obviously if Max Fischer was a dog, he would totally be a wiener dog. I mean that in a good way, I swear.

We're so, so ready for tomorrow. I just hope Phoebe is nice to her new brother. You know. Eventually. Maybe?

heh, penal code

2010-08-23T10:48:00.005-04:00

Joe and I applied for our marriage license on Friday. Since I am always extremely suspicious of authority figures and ALSO afraid they will question me about something innocuous that will end with me landing in jail, I made sure we were prepared. We had all of our documents, which turned out to be far fewer documents than I thought we'd need, and I knew what time we had to be there and how much everything cost (highway robbery, btw).

We had to go downtown, to the county courts building, which seemed easy enough because downtown Dayton? It's not that big. However. They are doing construction EVERYWHERE right now, so when we finally found the street we needed, it just ended. Like, BOOM, no more street. But it continued a bit farther up so we scooted around the block and found the street again AND THEN IT ENDED. AGAIN. At this point, I was struggling not to freak out because we had to be there by 4, it was 3:45, and we had to have time to park AND find the right office AND THE BUILDING IS HUGE AND OH MY GOD WHAT IF WE RAN OUT OF TIME AHHHHHH.

We finally found it, thanks to Google Maps, and I did not melt into a puddle of anxiety right there in the passenger seat, which I hear is hell on car upholstery. The Universe took pity on us and there was an open parking spot right across the street from the court house AND we had about ten minutes to find the right office, which turned out to be more difficult than anticipated because apparently neither of us can follow simple instructions.

We walked into the building and up to the metal detector because of course there's a metal detector. As soon as we walked in, the guard said, "second floor," and we were all, "huh," and he was all, "trust me, we can tell." Apparently we had The Look of soon-to-be-marrieds. The other guard waved us through and told us where to find the elevator, and then we walked right by the elevator because, as I said above, simple instructions, THEY ARE HARD, YOU GUYS.

We took the elevator to the second floor and found the right office with minutes to spare. They gave us one of those buzzy things that you get in restaurants that tell you when your table is available and pointed us to a waiting room. I busied myself with triple-checking all of the necessary documents I'd brought while Joe made jokes about penal codes or something I DON'T REMEMBER because I was too busy worrying about what would happen if they refused to give us a marriage license. I have no idea why I was worried about this. It's just what I do -- I worry.

"I hope it's our turn soon," I said and then the buzzy thing did its buzzy thing and we were up. We sat down across from the only person standing between us and marriage. Luckily, she was very nice.

"Marriage license?" she asked. We nodded. "I have to ask you a few questions, are you ready?"
BUT FIRST we had to raise our right hands and take an oath. We had to promise not to lie about anything important, so I couldn't like joke around and say my name was Princess Consuela Banana-Hammock, which is a shame because I really like to lead with a joke. Anyway, she asked if we were over 18 or if we'd been married before. She asked if we had picture ID and if we lived in the county. Then she asked if we had a social disease. In my head, I was all, "what, like being awkward at parties?" but it turns out she meant syphilis.

We gave her all of our information and $55, which is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a piece of paper, yes? She did stamp it, though, with this big fancy stamping contraption, so maybe that's why it cost so much. And those little buzzy things they give waiting couples don't just pay for themselves, you know.

a question for the girls...about the girls

2010-08-18T13:30:00.004-04:00

So I need a really, really supportive strapless bra to wear under my wedding dress. Well, strapless bra or like a bustier thingie. Bustier sounds so douchey. Anyway. HALP.

When I say I want it to be really supportive, I mean REALLY supportive. I'm trying to think of a tasteful way to say I have big boobs but I can't so SOOOOORRYYYYYY.

Also, bonus points if it's actually comfortable.

Thank you in advance. I am bad at being a girl.