You heard the news and you broke the White House.

Joe and I have been watching The West Wing because we finished every other TV show in existence.  So far, my favorite Bartlet speech is this one:

Hey, look at that.  November and NaBloMe are over.  Whoo!  

NaBloMe

I have been a complete waste of space today. Even though I managed to get out of bed around 9 (not bad), I did nothing but eat waffles and watch The West Wing. And then I accidentally took a two hour nap. I haven't showered or gone running or anything. I have, however, done a load of laundry. And I ate a turkey sandwich I made out of a sweet roll, provolone cheese, and Thanksgiving leftovers. YUM.

In fact, I haven't eaten much but Thanksgiving food since, um, Thanksgiving. Last night, Joe and I pooled our leftovers and had a mini-Thanksgiving. Not only were there mashed potatoes, there was Guitar Hero AND WALL-E. I just love that movie so much. It makes my heart melt all over the place, which sounds uncomfortable, but it's really not.

NaBloMe is sort of kicking my ass. I don't like feeling like I HAVE to blog. Who is November to tell me I have to blog every day? Eff you, November! Don't tell me my business!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go wrap some Christmas presents. I may need to watch Elf while I do so. I'll keep you updated.

Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, GOOD!

Yawn. I'm at work and I'm wicked bored. So wicked bored that I've decided to pretend I'm from Boston. No. That's not true at all. I'm sorry for lying, but I'm bored, so what else do you expect me to do? I think even my boss is bored. She popped into my office earlier to tell me about some documentary she watched last night (that I totally want to see now) about how long it will take, once the humans are dead, for all evidence of humanity to disappear. Like roads and buildings and stuff. I tried to tell her that WALL-E will stick around and clean the place up, but she didn't know what I was talking about. While she was talking, I kept thinking, "Oh, shit, Jennie, pay attention, maybe this has something to do with a project she wants you to work on," and then I realized that I don't, in fact, have anything to do with cleaning up after humanity (that's Kat's job), and that my boss was just bored and wanted to tell me about a wicked cool (yeah, I need to stop that) TV show she'd watched.

Then she left. And five minutes later she came back to tell me about this OTHER thing she'd seen at the Smithsonian about how, if all of time was 24 hours or something, humans have only been around for a minute. Only she used more words and it sounded better than what I just said. Then we talked about how thinking about that kind of thing makes us feel tiny and insignificant and I was all, "Kind of makes you wonder why we have to go to work every day," because I was hoping she'd say, "You're right, Jennie. You go home. Watch some TV. Read some books. Take some naps. Enjoy your day." That didn't happen, though.

So, that is why I'm still at work. Although, I have to say I'd rather be at work than out shopping. That's where Heidi is. She went with her mom at 5 AM and they are sure to find billions of deals, but Black Friday scares me. Plus, you can find a lot of deals online, so if you want to spend some money without the bother of talking to people, just head on over to Amazon. Earlier Joe went to Toys (backwards) R Us to look for Guitar Hero guitars and I got the following text messages about his quest:

The line just to get into electronics is sooooooo long.

They sold out! Cries.

Disappointment.

Wait! Wait! They have them!

I have two in my hands.

I'm hoping the "two" he's talking about are guitars and he's not having to perform sexual favors for video games. Actually, no, I don't care either way, as long as we get to play Guitar Hero later. Hee.

I'm actually fighting the urge to take advantage of the SUPER DUPER deals on Threadless and Amazon. I'm mostly done with Christmas shopping, so I'd just be buying stuff for myself but I made a rule that I'm not allowed to buy myself anything until after Christmas. I made this rule last week when I saw Threadless was having a $5 shirt sale and I was all, "OH MY GOD MUST BUY ALL SHIRTS BLAAARG!" Once I calmed down I realized that this is the time of year for buying gifts for OTHERS, not myself, and that Threadless will have another sale in a couple months and I can buy myself all the shirts I want, provided I still have money/a job. Fingers crossed!

I wish turkey only cost a nickel

Linus is so full of shit.

Happy Thanksgiving, Internets. I hope you eat turkey until your stomach explodes.

Not really. That'd be messy. And gross. See (WARNING: do not watch while eating):

now is the time when I babble about TV

Last night, I caught up on some Grey's Anatomy and . . . yeah. Um. Show? What are you doing? I tried to explain part of one episode to Joe and it went something like this:

Me: So I was watching Grey's Anatomy?
Him: Why?
Me: Shut up. And guess who was on it?
Him: Who?
Me: Jeremy! From Sports Night!
Him: No way!
Me: Yeah. But it was not a very good storyline.
Him: Oh yeah?
Me: Yeah. His wife had a pimple and thought it was a Staph infection . . .
Him: Sure.
Me: And so she bought these antibiotics from the internet and the antibiotics killed off all the good bacteria in her body or something and Jeremy was her husband.
Him: OK.
Me: And so she could get back some of the good bacteria she had to have a poop transplant.
Him: A poop transplant?
Me: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
Him: A POOP transplant?!
Me: AHAHAHAHAHA.
Him: Um.
Me: Ahahahahahahah poop.

And then I tried to explain what was going on with Izzy, because she's banging her dead fiance, which is totally rude because she's dating Alex now. Kat tells me that General Hospital did the exact same storyline and Izzy has a brain tumor. I assume this is for the writer-bashing Katherine Heigl did during the last Emmy season. I'm also guessing that the writers have no idea what to do with her character anymore. Remember when Izzy was likable? Before she went crazy and started killing her fiance and stealing hearts and sleeping with her gay BFF? Yeah, me neither.

ALSO. The interns tried to take out Vaughn's evil wife's appendix. I don't really have an opinion of her on Grey's because of Alias. I keep expecting her to go rogue, put on some black eyeliner, bang Sark, and start torturing the other doctors. That hasn't happened, though. YET. She's still recovering from almost dying so she can't get up to any shenanigans at the moment.

It turns out that's all I have to say about TV right now. Carry on.

Pills?! Jessie, you really are taking drugs?

I had a mini-freakout earlier when I realized THERE'S NO TIME THERE'S NEVER ANY TIME I DON'T HAVE TIME TO STUDY I'LL NEVER GET INTO STANFORD because OH MY GOD THERE'S NO TIME THERE'S NEVER ANY TIME I DON'T HAVE TIME TO STUDY I'LL NEVER GET INTO STANFORD. Then I made a To Do list and I calmed down. That always helps. When I'm particularly stressed, my purse and desk are littered with half-completed To Do lists.

The scariest To Do list I ever saw belonged to Tamara. It was the one she made right before her wedding of everything she had left to do. It was on a piece of computer paper with the tiniest handwriting you've ever seen and she'd written a billion things on it. No lie. There were a billion. I counted.

My To Do lists are not that scary, and all the tasks are relatively easy, but they'd be a lot easier if I could do them all during work hours. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to pack from the office, because I haven't fully utilized my mind powers yet, so I can't. Also, it's far too early to pack, but if I could just get that out of the way, I'd feel so much better.

The packing is for a work trip and then a fun trip, which happen to be separated by fewer than 12 hours. Why I think this is possible and that I no longer need to sleep, um, at all, is beyond me. I actually think it will work out fine, but whenever I try to tell my brain that, it FREAKS THE FUCK OUT and then I have to spend precious time killing it softly with alcohol.

Add all of this to the stupid NaBloMe blog-every-single-day thing and even the alcohol wasn't working. Then I remembered that next week isn't November anymore, so I could totally quit my blog for all of December like I did last year. I'm not saying I will, but I'm saying I could. I could do a lot of things. Like, I could build a teleporter to bypass all my traveling woes, but it's not on my To Do list so I'm afraid that will have to wait.

Beatrice, Part 4

I was going to write a proper entry, but I'm still pretty tired from The Weekend of Awesome, so you'll just have to live with more fictional babbling about time-traveling dinosaurs. Also, I didn't edit this and really have no idea what it says. Sorrrrrrryyyyyyyyyy!

[Part 1, Part 2, Part 3]

The pair continued down the sidewalk, skipping around adults in their path. Beatrice hoped Bill could keep up. She also hoped he wouldn't get angry and leave her here by herself. Although, she supposed she wasn't technically by herself, since she was with Georgina and soon to be with Georgina's brother, but still. She didn't fancy being left in the future without any money or a place to stay. She didn't really think Bill would leave her alone here, but he had threatened before. It was so easy to get him cross with her. Even she didn't know how she did it on such a regular basis. Luckily, it was fairly easy to calm him down. Usually it just took some Earl Grey tea and a couple of biscuits.

"Oh, there's my brother!" shouted Georgina, as they approached a bright pink building. "Bernard! Bernard, over here!"

She ran toward the building, waving her arms wildly and tripping over her own feet. A small boy of about six was walking carefully down the giant steps in front of the building, clutching the handrail for dear life. He held a small, green lunchbox in one hand and his backpack appeared to be almost as big as he was. His skinny legs stuck out from his knee-length shorts and his white button-down shirt hung almost as long. His eyebrows were narrowed in concentration as he watched the number of steps left decrease, and when he got to the bottom, he heaved a sigh of relief and readjusted his backpack. He finally looked up and glimpsed his sister, running haphazardly toward him, and his face broke into a huge smile.

"Georgina!" he yelled, and ran toward her, also tripping over his own feet. "I'm so glad you're here." Beatrice and Bill brought up the rear and when they'd gotten to the reuniting siblings, Bernard gave them (ok, just Beatrice) a quizzical look. "Who are you?"

"Bernard, this is Beatrice, Beatrice, this is Bernard," said Georgina.

"What is she doing here?" Bernard asked Georgina.

"Bernard, don't be rude," she answered.

"Hey, Bernie!" shouted Beatrice. She grabbed his hand and shook with such might that the poor boy almost toppled over. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," said Bernard. "But my name is Bernard."

"Oh, but that's so stuffy," said Beatrice. "Bernie suits you much better." Bernard scowled at Beatrice and turned back to Georgina.

"Georgina. Guess what we did at school today?" said Bernard.

"What's that?" asked Georgina.

"We got to write our own stories!" he shouted, pulling out a wad of papers from his bag.

"Oh, my!" cried Georgina. "Whatever did you write about?"

"Time travel!" shouted Bernard, and Beatrice thought she heard an audible dinosaur gulp from behind her.

"Time travel again?" asked Georgina. She scrunched up her face and bit her lip. "What's with you and time travel?"

"Oh, Georgie," said Bernard. He tapped his foot and readjusted his bookbag again. "You KNOW I'm inventing a time machine."

"Oh, of COURSE, how silly of me to forget." Georgina reached out a slim hand and tussled Bernard's mop of dirty blond hair. He swatted her hand away and crossed his arms defiantly, scowling at his sister. She tickled him in one armpit and before he squirmed away, Beatrice saw one side of his mouth reach up for a smile. Georgina must have noticed it too, because she lunged after Bernard and started tickling him even more. He started laughing and fell back against the step railing, trying to fight off his sister's long arms, to no avail.

"Geor --," he gasped. "Georgina, STOP IT." His face was red with laughter. He looked almost angry, but anyone looking in his eyes could tell he was having a good time.

"OK, OK," said Georgina. "But don't be such a sourpuss."

"I am not a sourpuss," said Bernard. "I just get cross sometimes."

"Sourpuss."

"Puke brain!" Bernard shouted, and started running down the sidewalk.

"Oh, now you've done it," shouted Georgina, and took off after him. Bernard put his whole body into the run, stretching his skinny legs and pumping his arms vigorously. His backpack lifted in the air with each step he took, then slammed back down on his lower back. He grasped one of the straps with one hand and the other arm started pumping even harder. His shoelaces, untied, flopped against the sidewalk as each shoe slapped the ground. Beatrice was afraid he was going to trip over his runaway shoelaces, but her fear lifted when she realized he was running so fast he actually appeared to be floating above the ground. She'd never seen anyone run so fast, or so gracefully.

Until she looked at Georgina, and she realized that Georgina seemed to be putting no effort into her running. Her willowy arms barely moved from their crooked position at her sides, and her long legs ate up the sidewalk. Her auburn hair floated behind her like a cape and if Beatrice was completely honest with herself, Georgina did resemble a bit of a superhero. Faster than a speeding bullet, indeed.

"Perhaps you want to catch up," whispered Bill from her. Bill nudged her with his snout (she thought) and she took off. She wasn't nearly as fast, or as graceful, as Bernard and Georgina, but she caught up with them once they stopped for breath. Actually, they weren't breathing that hard for having just run full-out for so long. She couldn't help but be a bit jealous of their superior running skills, but she was fairly certain they didn't have their own time-traveling dinosaur.

"You guys are so fast!" said Beatrice, once she'd caught her breath. "I'm glad you stopped, I'd have never caught up."

"Yeah, you're pretty slow," said Bernard.

"Bernard!" scolded Georgina. "Don't be rude to our new friend."

"YOUR new friend," Bernard muttered. Georgina shook her head and smiled.

"He's a bit grumpy because we haven't had our snacks yet," she explained. "Would you like to come over? And we can go to the London Eye after tea?" Beatrice frowned. Bill was not going to be happy, but she couldn't discuss this with him at the moment, and her new friends would think it odd if she decided not to go with them.

"Sure, I'd love to," said Beatrice. She felt Bill stomp the ground behind her. She knew he wasn't angry that she was going to tea, but that he wouldn't be able to partake in the biscuits they'd probably be eating. She thought that was probably a good thing. He'd been getting a little chunky on his nearly-all-biscuit diet, so chunky that his vest didn't button and every time they time-traveled, she was afraid he wouldn't be able to work up the momentum.

"Do you live far from here?" asked Beatrice. It wasn't that she didn't want to go to tea with her new friends, but she was worried that they wouldn't have time to go to the London Eye before she and Bill had to go back home. If she wasn't home by supper, her parents would worry. They were going out tonight, of course, but they thought it important that she eat at the same time each day, even though they rarely ate with her.

"Not far," said Georgina. She motioned toward a grove of trees. "We live just beyond that park up there."

"Of course, if you don't have time to come over, we understand," said Bernard. "We'll be sad, but we'll get over it."

"Bernard!" shouted Georgina. "Stop being such a little butthead."

"I'm not!" Bernard glared up at his sister. "But why do you always invite random strangers over to our house? You know mum and dad don't like it."

"Well, mum and dad aren't home, now are they?" Georgina crossed her arms. "Please be nice."

"Are you sure it's alright for me to come over?" asked Beatrice. "Your parents won't be angry?"

"Oh, don't worry," said Georgina. "They're out of town. Our nanny is the only one home right now and she doesn't mind visitors. She loves them, actually."

"Great!" Beatrice smiled. "Shall we go, then? I hope we have time for the London Eye, still."

"Oh, we do," said Beatrice. "Don't you worry about that."

The trio (and an invisible Bill) began walking at a casual pace. The wind was blowing gently and Beatrice pulled her long hair back into a ponytail, fastening it all together with the hair tie she always had on her wrist for just such occasions. Her hair was always in her face and it drove her mother bonkers. She often threatened to cut it all off, but Beatrice got her to relent and let her hair stay long by crying about how she didn't want to look like a boy. Her mother never had the energy to argue with her for long.

Soon Bernard tired of their casual pace and picked up speed. This time Georgina, instead of running after him to catch up, hung back with Beatrice. Beatrice was glad, because (and she would never admit this to Bill) time travel tired her quite a bit more than she'd like. She always intended to stay awake for days and days on their time traveling trips, but she tired after just a few hours. She was happy to be taking a break at Georgina's, even if it meant eating up precious London Eye time.

"I don't know why he always insists on running everywhere," said Georgina. "He always gets so tired afterward. I swear, if we'd let him to go bed right after school, he would go willingly."

"That's so funny . . . Georgina?" Beatrice began.

"Yes, Beatrice?"

"Why weren't you in school today? You picked Bernard up from school, but why weren't you already there?" Beatrice asked.

"Well, why weren't you in school, Beatrice?" Georgina asked. Beatrice gulped. She had no good answer for this, not even knowing the name of the schools here in the future, or what time they released students.

"I asked you first," said Beatrice.

"OK, fine. The reason I wasn't in school was because I needed to meet you on your way into town," she said.

"But . . . you didn't even know me before I met you this afternoon," said Beatrice.

"Oh, Beatrice. My nanny told me you were coming," she said.

"But how could she possibly know that?" asked Beatrice.

"Because she's Bill's sister."

Beatrice stopped right there in the middle of the sidewalk. Bill bumped into her and she almost fell over, but she regained her footing. She was ready to run the opposite direction and she could tell Bill was, too.

"Calm down, Beatrice, it's not a big deal. Tell Bill not to uninvisible himself yet, though . . . don't want to cause a scene here in the middle of the street," said Georgina.

"Hang on a second!" shouted Beatrice. "I have some questions, you know."

"I know you do, Beatrice, but they'll have to wait until we get to my house," said Georgina. "Betty is waiting and she gets very cross when we're late. Especially since she knows you and Bill are on the way."

"What if Bill doesn't want to see Betty? Did you ever think of that?" asked Beatrice.

"I do want to see Betty," said Bill from behind her. It was always strange to hear a voice come from nowhere, no matter how many times she heard it. "It's been so long."

"Hello, Bill," said Georgina. "Nice to meet you sort of."

"Likewise, dear," said Bill, and Beatrice just bet he was bowing. "Shall we get moving? Your charming little brother must be there already."

"Good idea," said Georgina. "Let's get going."