bullet, dodged

I had my boobasound (™ Peefer) this morning and all is well. Apparently, I have a small cyst which they told me is no BFD, actually. So, you know, whew.

This place is a tomb. I'm going to the nut shop where it's fun.

When I was a kid, I read all the time. Like, ALL THE TIME. A few months ago, my mom was telling me a story about how she was in a waiting room, quite obviously deeply involved with her book (dirty), and someone wouldn't stop trying to have a conversation with her. I was all, "MOM. You used to do that to me all the time!" and she was like, "Well, JENNIE, if I didn't talk to you while you were reading, I'D NEVER HAVE GOTTEN TO TALK TO YOU," because that's how much I read, you guys. TRUTH.

Anyway, I also had this problem in that I thought everything I read was true. I mean, I think I knew that I couldn't really travel to Narnia through a wardrobe and that Ramona Quimby (age 8) was not actually a real person. It was more like I wanted the real world to be more like books, all the time. I wanted to write to Mr. Henshaw and I wanted to run around with Maniac McGee and I dearly, dearly wanted to go to Wayside School, even though it was falling down.

Mostly, though, I wanted to be in The Baby-sitters Club. I went back and forth between which character I wanted to be. Sometimes it was Claudia, with her "keen" fashion sense, but I didn't want to have her mean sister. I did try that thing she did, where she hid food all over her room so she could have fun snacks any time she wanted, but it turns out if you do that in real life, your parents catch you and get mad at you because when they asked you where all the snacks were going, you told them your sister was probably eating them and that, my friends, is called lying and I guess parents don't really like lying or something. But I digress.

Sometimes I wanted to be Mary Anne, but I was already desperately shy and bookish, so that was no good. And sometimes I wanted to be Stacey, but not really because man, she was a Grade-A beeyotch if there ever was one, right? Mostly, I wanted to be Dawn, but only because of her beautiful, long hair and the fact that she lived in a house with SECRET PASSAGEWAYS. I knew our house wasn't anywhere near as old as Dawn's house, but that didn't stop me from searching for secret tunnels in the basement.

But the Club sounded fun, no matter which member you were. Probably because there was absolutely no adult supervision and parents had no problem sending ALL the neighborhood kids off on adventures with 13-year-olds, like remember that one time they all got shipwrecked on an island? I mean, they weren't there long enough for it to get all Lord of the Flies, but still...who sends their kid off on a boat with a 13-YEAR-OLD?!

Unfortunately, I didn't have a boat, but I still thought I'd be a good member. Screw that Red Cross Baby-sitting class I took, I learned way more from The Baby-sitters Club. True story. OK, not really, but they did have those super awesome Kid Kits, full of all sorts of fun stuff to keep little ones occupied. I COVETED those Kid Kits, which I know is a sin or something but there are worse sins so just be glad I'm not out there murdering people or building shrines to the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever.

I still sometimes wish that real life was more like books. Less work, more play. Adventures that last pages and pages. Kid Kits. But last night, as I was getting my bag ready for volunteering, I rummaged through some of the stuff I'd collected for it. Stickers. Markers. Play-Doh. Bubbles. And wouldn't you know it? It turns out I'd made my very own Kid Kit, albeit about 15 years late. Maybe this real life thing isn't so bad after all.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going OK, another falls spectacularly to pieces.

You guys, I have had such a good couple of days that now I'm kind of waiting for something really bad to happen. In fact, I'm a little afraid of getting too excited about anything, when really all I want to do is run around screaming, "OH MY GOD YOU GUYS, THIS IS SO AWESOME YAAAAAAAY." I've never been a very excitable person (that would require too much energy), but I get even worse as I get older, expecting the good news to be snatched away at any moment. What's that about?

Anyway. On Friday, Heidi and I went to Cincinnati to celebrate Nancy's brother's birthday, and while there we ALSO got to hang out with Lampl and Jon, which always = GOOD TIMES. Nancy's brother made it to 9 before he had to go home and pass out, and once a really bad cover band started playing, the rest of us went to a different bar. This one had ping-pong. PING-PONG! I love ping-pong and, while my skills are rusty, they are still somewhat there. All those hours of playing against my dad (and his far superior skills) amounted to something besides just honing my cursing skills, I guess. We weren't keeping score, though, and after a while started smacking the ball any which way as hard as we could. I think the people playing pool next to us tried to murder us with their eyes, and I can't really say I blame them since half the time our balls were bouncing across the pool table just as they were taking their shot.

Once we tired of ping-pong, we went back to Lampl and Jon's to giggle over a bunch of YouTube videos and then watch The Soup. In that order. The next morning, Heidi and I got pancakes and then found our new apartment. In that order. That is the only productive thing I did that day. Once we got home, I took a nap, then showered, then went and got Papa Murphy's and took it to Joe's, where we proceeded to do nothing but sit on the sofa and watch TV all night. It was awesome.

YESTERDAY, I went out to breakfast with Joe and his family, AND THEN went running, AND THEN sold some books, AND THEN went to my parents' house to hang out with my sister. So I was a bit more productive than Saturday. I need to start being way more productive on the weekend since we're moving soon. I have a lot of crap I need to get rid of, is what I'm saying. I hope Goodwill is ready.

And today! Today, I accepted a new job. It's with the same company (sort of) but different. Does that make sense? I don't care. I start in April. I get to drive past Giant Jesus twice a day. That has to be good luck of some kind. And tonight! Heidi and I are having dinner at Nancy's, and there will be wine and good food and excellent conversation. PLUS ALSO the weather is getting better and better. On Sunday, I was driving down a twisty, back road with the windows down, squinting into the sun and listening to Oasis, and when I heard, "you and I are gonna live forever," I almost believed it. Still. Better to be cautious. I'll be over here, waiting for the bottom to drop out.

We start with the dummy, and we learn from our mistakes, and now Dwight knows not to cut the face off of a real person.

Good morning, Internets! I have two good pieces of news. 1! My grandma's surgery went very well, so thank you for all of your good thoughts. She's still in the hospital recovering, but they're really hopeful that this surgery will help her.

And 2! It's Friday. FINALLY. Longest week ever, am I right? Am I right or am I right? Or am I right? Sorry, I still have Groundhog Day stuck in my head. It's weird to have a whole movie stuck in your head, you know? Like, I should probably go home and watch it RIGHT NOW because otherwise I'll just be distracted all day and we can't have that, even though that's pretty standard for, um, any day.

So, I've had to have someone from IT come to my office TWICE this week because once my backup battery blew up or something and also the plug in the wall stopped working and it was not good. The other time, I needed to have them install something so I could run a program blah blah blah, this is why I need administrative authority, because I shouldn't have to BEG someone to install iTunes. OK, that's not what they were installing but it SHOULD have been.

Anyway. I hate calling IT because they treat me like an idiot. I mean, I get why they have to, because they have people calling because their mouse isn't working and it's because it's not plugged in or their computer isn't turned on or something ridiculous. But, while I'm not a computer expert of any sort, I at least try to fix the problem myself before I call them. Because the first thing they tell me to do whenever I call is restart my computer. So I do that before I call them. And then! They make me do it anyway! Because they don't believe me! Assholes. And when my battery blew up, this is the conversation I had with the guy on the phone:

Me: Hi, this is Jennie in HR. Um, my computer just turned off for no raisin.
IT: What?
Me: I think the battery blew. The computer turned off, the battery beeped like crazy, and then it just stopped.
IT: Your battery shouldn't have done that.
Me: ...I know.
IT: Did it come unplugged?
Me: Excuse me?
IT: Did the battery come unplugged for some reason?
Me: No. It's not unplugged. I can see it right now and it's plugged in.
IT: Could you lean down there and check?
Me: ...SURE.
IT: ...
Me: It's still plugged into the wall.
IT: OK, can you press the power button.
Me: Okaaaaaaay. Well, the power light flashes green for a second, then a big red X flashes, and then everything goes dark.
IT: Weird.
Me: Yeah.
IT: And it's plugged in?
Me: YES.
IT: OK. I'll be up to take a look at it.
Me: Can't wait.

I feel kind of bad, because I think employees like me are even worse than the employees who don't know how to find the toolbar (heh, toolbar) because we THINK we could fix it ourselves if only we had administrative rights. This time, though, was a complete fluke. It turns out some sort of fuse blew and the outlet the battery was plugged into stopped working. So the IT guy moved it and plugged it into another outlet and my computer was working fine. Unfortunately. I always hope that they won't be able to fix my computer and my boss will just send me home for the day. Sigh. Dream big, Jennie. Dream big.

this morning I hit myself in the face with my car door

Yesterday morning, I woke up to my cell phone vibrating away on my nightstand. Weird, I thought, I wonder what that's all about. Then I realized that OH someone was calling me. Really early. I squinted at the phone and saw it was one of my parents calling. OH NO OH NO OH NO, my brain screamed, because NOT ONLY do my parents never call me in the morning, but my grandma is having surgery ON HER BRAIN today. I almost didn't want to pick up the phone, because everyone knows if you just ignore problems or bad things they go away forever.

Me: Hello?
Mom: Hi, Jen, NOTHING'S WRONG DON'T WORRY.
Me: Jesus.
Mom: Did you know Joe's dad is on the news?
Me: ...what?
Mom: Joe's dad. He's on the news with his barbershop quartet.
Me: Oh, yeah. He told me.
Mom: ...I thought you might be watching it.
Me: No.
Mom: ...
Me: I'm gonna go back to sleep now.
Mom: OK!

Geez, Mom. Give a girl a heart attack, why don't you? So, yes, my grandma is having brain surgery today. I don't think it's SUPER SUPER serious, and it's similar to the one she had last year, but it's a bit more invasive and, you know, they're poking around in her brain. That never seems quite right to me. Anyway, my point is, please think good thoughts today. That is all. I hope everyone is having a super Thursday. I keep thinking it's Friday. That has happened to me every day this week since TUESDAY. I blame the groundhog BECAUSE I CAN.