Groove is in the Heart

I've been tagged by VBG with a music meme in which I have to list seven albums or tracks which have featured in my life recently.

This is a hard meme for me because my musical taste is either a. ancient or b. ridiculous. My musical development came to a grinding halt in the early 80's when my friend Ingrid Yan (are you out there, Ingrid?) gave me a mixed tape featuring The Smiths, Erasure, Depeche Mode, The Sugar Cubes, The Housemartins and the like. Henceforth, I have worshipped at the altar of synthy-euro-pop.

However, I do love hip-hop. And to make sure that I'm catching what's new without having to listen to R&B (retch) I keep my car radio on the top 40 station. So, you can pretty much bet on my knowing all the lyrics to anything by Fergie, Avril, Gwen, etc. And I'm not saying I don't rock out sometimes to these things. I'm just ashamed later.

Also, as I am very, very poor, I cannot buy new music. I can really like a song, but how can I possibly spend $20 on something when I might not like every single note on the whole album? This is also exacerbated by the fact that I didn't own my own CD player for years and years and so I don't buy CDs out of habit.

So here we go.

This week, Thomas was record hunting and found me Louder than Bombs by The Smiths. I almost peed myself. And then, he rather sheepishly admitted to me that he liked it. Muhahahaha. I shall convert you all!



This album now holds the distinction of being the only album I have ever owned on tape, on CD and on vinyl.



Also, he brought home Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by the Cure. My husband loves me so.



Just Like Heaven holds sad, old connotations for me, but I love it anyway.

And now, because that's all I've listened to this week, we enter the "always in rotation" portion of this post.


Isola by Kent. Kent is the most awesome Swedish band ever. They released 2 albums in English which rule, but I listen to the Swedish albums as well because they are just. that. good.



This is a kind of long and mellow song; I'd have prefered to share something else, but one must operate in the confines of the very cool RadioBlogClub. Whoops! Didn't know this was the Swedish version. Oh well.

Flood by They Might Be Giants. I will never, ever get over this album. It's my favorite for painting/building furniture/things I need jollying through. For our anniversary, Thomas got us Birdhouse In Your Soul for the jukebox. I can't wait to sing it drunkenly at the top of my lungs some Friday night.



Fear by Toad the Wet Sprocket. I have loved this since I was a senior in high school. It's one of the few albums I've ever purchased. Thomas and I discovered our shared passion for it, and now it keeps me company when I garden.



Again, not the song I would have chosen, but lovely nonetheless.

Dummy by Portishead. When asked to define sex music, this is always my pick. However, oddly and somewhat grotesquely, it is also my "I'm having a dinner party" album.




OK Computer by Radiohead. When Radiohead still had melody, they were, to borrow a phrase from Kim Shable, my "2nd only to the Beatles" favorite band. OK Computer, to me, is one of those amazing albums that demands listening all the way through. It likes to keep me company while I grade papers.



Yum.

Tagging: Kim, Joshua, Kathy (ha!) and anyone else who wants to play.

Ich Bin Ein Cicelian

Last night, Thomas and I watched the last episode of season 5 of Northern Exposure. I never watched the show in its original run; I was a Twin Peaks fan. So for the last 3 years, I've been taking in the show in seasons as it has been released to box set. There's one left to go.

Season 5 was a particularly strong batch of episodes, many of which moved me to tears. I sat and wept continuously for almost the entire half an hour leading up to the birth of Miranda Bliss Tamboe Vincoeur. Thomas and I often finish an episode by talking about how much we'd love to live in Cicely, Alaska, despite the cold, the bears and the dark.

Last night, Joel finished the episode by saying, "I'm one of you now. I'm Cicelian." And I thought, ultimately, that's the message and the draw of this show, that every single person, whether from New York or Grosse Point, Seattle or Topeka, looks at that place and finds a part of his or her self there. Maybe it's also that we all have some pioneer spirit left, or a desire to leave it all behind and find a simpler world, or one in which everyone fits in because there is nothing to do but pull together during the long, dark, frozen winters.

Today, in light of the Virginia Tech shootings, all of those options seem pretty appealing.

Welcome Oscar Peterson

Yesterday, Thomas found Gonzo trying to eat a tiny turtle. What is his problem with the wildlife? You'd think I don't feed the damn dog.

Thomas was quick and he got the turtle in time; no punctures or anything. He's only about the size of a 50 cent piece. We're thinking of keeping him. Thomas named him Oscar Peterson. I think he has a very grumpy face.

Rollin' With Lord Vader

Not So Much

After my "awesome sense of peace" yesterday, I had a big, fat panic attack. Apparently, I wasn't as peaceful as I thought.

The Week in Review

Sorry for the sudden quiet over here: life was in full force this week. School started back up, which was actually pretty great. I feel, for the first time, that my vacation actually did what it was supposed to do. I went back refreshed and calm and patient. If I were a sim, the diamond over my head would be totally green. I added a student this week, bringing my total up to 26, same as last year at this time. Except last year I wanted to inflict bodily harm on the administration or perhaps myself, and this year, I just feel like, Oh well! The more the merrier! Which is, perhaps, an indication that the early daylight savings time has done me a lot of good, or that someone is drugging my diet pepsi.

My dad had a minor heart proceedure yesterday, which was scary, but he is ok. In fact, when I spoke to my mom about an hour after the surgery, he was already awake and eating hotdogs and right now he and my mom are en route to a toga party. I'm kind of jealous. I've never been to a toga party.

My stellar friend Michelle had a birthday and I ate Mexican food for the first time in almost 4 years. It ruled. I'm going to put a flickr photo up of her celebration some time this weekend. Happy Birthday, Michelle!

My dog, Gertie, who, since her tooth surgery, never stops chewing up sticks and things that she finds in the yard, ate part of citronella candle yesterday, nearly giving me heart failure and causing the vet to advise me to make her throw up by feeding her hydrogen peroxide.

Now it's Friday and despite all the action, I'm still filled with this awesome sense of peace. Hurray!

How to Build a Glowing Space Pod in Your Backyard

Or, you know, how to protect your plants from freezing.



First, dig your Christmas lights out of storage after discovering that all your strings of white outdoor lights will not light. Spend 10 minutes swearing and untangling the lights that you so carefully wound up in January. Lay around the bases of all new growth, bulbs and newly planted seedlings.

Next, send your saintly husband to the liquor store for all the boxes his van will hold. Put the boxes over the plants to hold in warmth from the ground. This will have the added effect of protecting them from crushing when you...

Thirdly, cover up the whole kit and caboodle with sheets. This will add an insular layer and protect anything not covered by boxes.

Then, cover up everything with sheets of plastic. You have to put this on top of the blankets, because frozen plastic will burn any leaves it touches.

Lastly, pray.

Remember that you need to rip all this off as soon as the temperature becomes tenable in the morning so as not to cook all of your plants in this nice oven you have wrought. Rejoice upon finding everyone alive. Then discover that there's another freeze warning in effect. Swear profusely and return to step one.

Toad in a Hole

Yesterday, Gonzo dug up a hibernating toad and ate it.
So, far, he seems none the worse for wear. Gonzo, that is. Not the toad.

Obsession

I've been tagged by Pen to reveal 5 things I'm currently obsessed with.

1. LibraryThing This awesome site allows you to create your own personal library by cataloging the books that you own. You can add up to 200 books for free. That's where I got my cool new sidebar widget that displays random books from my collection. It lets me see other people who have a lot of the same books as I do, and by browsing their collections, I can see other things I might enjoy. Very useful, as the library booksale begins April 21st. Also, it appeals to the collector in me to see all my book covers in a row like that.

2. Badger Badger Badger This little bit of hilariousness was found in Velocibadgergirl's sidebar the other day while I was bored. I also visited Footy Footy Footy and from there found Mango and Giraffe. Now I wander around the house (grocery store, yard, restaurants) singing, "Snaaaake...it's a snaaaake...ooohhhh it's a snake!"

3. Amy's Diary This one I found in Bite the Rabbit's sidebar and it has kept me giggling and showing it to anyone who would look for days. (Can you tell I've had a lot of time on my hands?) And p.s., why do I never think of things like this?

4. You guys already know about the Tenacious D song Classico with which I am currently obsessed. I try not to sing that one in the grocery store. But sometimes it slips out.

5. My garden. We're due for a hard freeze on Saturday night and I am losing my mind about it. Why, God? Why? All my seedlings are in the ground now and I am looking at creating a warming tent out of christmas lights, blankets, stakes and plastic sheeting. I will not lose the last two months of work to one cold night. I just won't. And some of my beautiful seedlings are budding! NOOOOO!

I don't feel like tagging, as most of the bloggers I know have already been tagged with this one. So, I will just say, if you want to do this meme, consider yourself tagged.

Hoo-Rah! It's my Blogiversary!!

Ok, so I just made horrible montages of pictures of me from 1980 to the present. But I think I've decided that they are better saved for my 30th birthday, which is in a scant two months, and will be, more properly, a celebration of the 30 humiliating years of my life.

But, Fear Not. I will, today, provide you with evidence of the child prodigy who would later create this blog. Or else I will post some really, really embarrassing poetry from when I was 17.


However, first, some thanks to those of you who have kept me blogging, lo these 12 long months. Thanks first to my MFA peeps, who got me started on this thing and who keep reading, even when I am a slack-ass fool: Cue, Pen and M, Kim, Tom, Ashley, HAT, Duck, Growler, Eli, and Daisy. And thanks to the real-life blogging friends I've picked up along the way: Slater and JoshUA, that's you.

Huge, mindblowing, fireworks-like thanks to Velocibadgergirl, Gina, Lauren and Amanda, who read even though they don't know me from Adam. That makes all the difference in the world.

Whew! That was a lot of linkage. Thanks to my lurkers, who I know are out there but who never say hi and please feel free to chime in anytime. I know you will want to berate me for what I'm about to share with you.

Early works of literary genius (elementary school):
All punctuation and spelling left intact.

City and Onion (essay)

A city and an onion are alike because they probobly manufacture smelly pens and an onion smells. They are also alike because there is alot of traffic and when someone is run over everyone cries and when you peel onions you crie. There are citys of all sises and onions of all sises. Onions can be a reddish color and some signs in a city can be a reddish color. When onions are cut they can be stringy and maybe Italian people live in a city and eat spagetti.

Journal Entries

Today we were putting soup on my dog's food but it had jelled. I showed it to her and she backed away like it was an enemy. She sniffed it and ate up the jelled soup. Yuck!
***
In four days are chicks will hach. I cant wait!
***
Some chicks hached! They were supesd to hactch tomoro. I was surprised.
***
There are 4 more pages in my journal. I am excited!

A Story About One Time I Got Very Angry

When I lose my temper I end up huring sombody (probuly my sister).Once I was swinging on my swing, I was playing Traffic Jam. After you crash 3 times you get to swing and I did not even hit her one time and she said it was time for her turn. I felt like punching her. I walked away.

Surrender Pretender (poem) (interesting that I'm already employing line-breaks)

Surrender Pretender
I know you remember
that I'm not your maid I'm
your mother.
So do not shout and pout and shout,
or shouting back will wear my
voice out;
And how great it will be
when you Social Studee
and find out that
the world is free of slavery.
But 'till then I say--
Surrender Pretender!

Further staggering works (Middle School):

Poem

Its night and I am terified
I see a ghost that is 3 eyed
Help Help it is a scary sight
Oh no Oh no where is the
light?
My mom is coming what does
she want or is it another
ghostly haunt?
I'm very scared, worried,
confused.
Maybe the lights are all
defused.
I think I will lay and make
myself flat.
What!!--that ghost is only
my hat.

Journal Entry (apparent exercise in stream-of-conciousness)

We are now going on vacation. We will be in the car 6-7 hours. Yuck. We are at Ms. Jones house to give her the silver and the mink. Ali if you are reading this quit it. I am bringing Bomby his new baby and 2 of his old babys and Bop. I can't wait 'till school starts. I've gotten all new school stuff I'm glad. Mommy and Daddy just started the car. Im going to quit writing now We are in Penna. I can't wait till we get there. I just had a cheeseburger, chips and fries. I got to hear turn the radio up for that sweet sound. I adore that song. We were at Granma's for 10 minutes. We are not staying here we are going 2 tawanda I adore that name. The place was the pits. Mommy is laughing her head off. Now we are going to find something to eat. My favorite book is Anne of green gables. It is so, so good. Hi!! I don't know why I wrote hi. The dog is panting loudly. I miss Julie.

Diary Entries

Dear Diary,

I have had a fun day but I have a ton of homework. Poor Christy Mr. Patti called her sir. She doesn't look like a boy that much. Gosh.

Meg Wittig

Dear Diary,

Little Raven is sososososososososoossoossoosososos CUTE. He has a tantalizing smile. He is in my English class.

Meg

Heart (an unfinished story)

"Once upon a time" nope to fairy talish for this romance.

Love at its best remains undisturbed until the right circumstances take place. It is like Melissa and Steve. They knew each other since Mel was in third and Steve was in fourth grade. Mel is turned on by polite guys. This one seemed pretty polite--but nothing serious happened then. Years went by before they really thought 4 a minute about each other.
At the end of 4the grade, Mel decided that she liked Steve. I mean, just as a cute guy. But then it happened!!!

3 Way Tie, or Triple Knot (story with pictures!!)

Diary--
Danni, I saw him today.
--Eva

DIARY--
CUTE BOY ALERT
--RITA

Rita and Eva, picture perfect best friends. You could never separate them. They did everything together. They sang, danced, spent weekends and nights together the even rode their ten speeds together. Rita and Eva normally shared even their opinions. They used each other as motivation for things. They agreed on everything untill one subject--who got Danni.
It was a never ending argument causing hatred and hurt feelings. But it was Danni who had the problem. I'll show you what it was.



Yes Danni's problem was choosing. Two beautiful girls they adored him and they were his for the taking but whitch one-wich one should he pick.
"He likes me better" shouted Rita. "He does not he adores me and Im prettyer" said eva.
...
Mean while Danni was pondering over he problem Brains or looks brains or looks.



All right. Here's the part I've been really dreading. High school poetry. Feel the angst, baby. (All poems here were written following the same breakup. Thanks, Matthew!)

Stages

In the first few moments
there is nothing but stunned
disbelief;

It slowly fades into a sort of
endless agony
as one ponders the ramifications
of such an event;

People make light of it,
thinking that they are helping you
in some way,
Cheer up! Calm down!
(yeahmakeupyourmind)

And in the end it is acceptance.
The pain doesn't die, you just
become tolerant of it.
You live through it.
And you are never the same.


Lonely Time

There is a time, each day
Between seven and nine.
When living becomes a struggle...
When each breath seems to catch
in my throat.
When each tear seems to travel a mile before
dropping,
silently,
from the tip of my nose.
When my hands reach upward,
outward,
and find no one.
when it is too late
and too early
at the same time.


Immortality

And I can just recall
loving you on that 10 hour trip
Wishing almost, that the car
would
spin out
and crush our fragile mortality
crush my female belief that
love is forever
before we fell out of it
(You fell out of it)

Silence

I once knew a girl whose jet black hair provided her wiht a shield from the world, but not really. She loved with a ferocity that frightened the others, but she did not trust. To trust is to hand people the instrument with which to beat you, she reasoned. And so her love was silent, but not really. I once knew a boy, wholehearted in his belief that he could not love, but not really. He said that he watched his life from afar. I do not understand love, he reasoned, and I cannot accept what I do not understand. And so, he shunned feeling, but not always. And when they met, it was like a silence breaking. And when they kissed their carefully built walls came tumbling down. I love you she said, you have set me free. But in his mind he doubted, do I love? He questioned: What is love? And so he retreated, leaving her lost and without trust.



OH MY GOD, have you had enough? Can you even believe that I have a degree in Creative Writing? Can you believe I didn't beat up that guy? Aren't you glad you read the ramblings of the mind that produced all that?

Rocking and Fucking Rolling

This is my favorite part of Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny. Sometimes I think I love Jack Black because he's the only person in the world who swears more than I do. Sadly, not safe for work.

Day 6: Shop Til U Drop

I shopped with my mother and sister in law today for 8 hours. 8 hours! That's, like, equal to a full day at work! Let me just say that my in-laws can shop. But that's what makes them the best for going to places like Rugged Warehouse and Goodwill--they are willing to inspect every single item of clothing in the store, which is necessary to a successful bargain hunt. I bought 7 shirts, a pair of shoes and a headband for 57 dollars. I really shouldn't have spent 57 dollars, but I am happy with my new wardrobe.

So, I'm planning for my blogiversary and I'm thinking about doing a humiliation retrospective: pictures of me in the sixth grade, horrifying poetry that I wrote in high school, etc. I want to do this; I'm just not sure I'm brave enough.

However, you know how many blogs have a tagline? I always think of my imaginary tagline as "Making fun of myself on a semi-daily basis." So I feel like it would be inkeeping with the mood around here to just all-out destroy any image you might have had of me as a relatively normal-looking, reasonably smart person.

Thoughts?

Day 5:

Seriously wondering how it is possible that I still have a week left to go. Do I want to go back to work? No. But I keep having the insidious feeling that I should be back at work. I'm often plagued, on my days off, with the feeling that I've been somehow mistaken and that I don't really have the day off.

Today I went to the beach for the first time this year. It's strange: when I was getting ready to move here, I thought of myself as "moving to the beach." I would ask the dogs, "Would you like to be beach-doggies?" And now I probably go 3-4 times a year. Maybe. I suppose that everyone takes where they live for granted.

Happy Birthday to my best friend Kasey. It seems like just yesterday that we celebrated your 21st birthday at Outback, drank to many Wallaby-Darneds and fell asleep before midnight.

V-Day 4: My Bra

Ha ha! I bet you thought I was going to forget to post today!

But no, here I am with more inanity. My friend Jina arrived from Maryland today, and so we've spent this lovely day sitting on the porch drinking beer.

Yesterday, Thomas and I went to Circa and ate the most delicious chocolate cake in the whole world, seriously. And no, I am not supposed to eat chocolate cake, but I think an exception could be made for the best chocolate cake in the world. Also, I learned a fine tip from this little girl called Allie: she told me that when her bra gets all smoky from the bar, she just sprays it with perfume. That way, she's wearing her perfume, but not overwhelmingly so, and not smelling like smoky bar at the same time. Excellent.

Once, when Thomas and I were eating the delectable Golden Corral breakfast during the wintertime, we accidentally left his cell phone in the car and it froze. When we got back, the screen wasn't working at all. So, I reasoned, the warmest part of my body is in my bra, so that's where I put the phone. It was totally revived when we got home. I think my bra has magical powers.

Day 3

Happy Birthday to my friend Bernie, with whom I raucously celebrated last evening. We all went out for Cuban food and then to Lula's where I really should learn to behave myself.

This morning I got up and planted about 100-150 of the seeds that I started in February--I'll probably do the rest tomorrow, weather permitting. Good luck, seeds!

Thomas and I watched Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny on Thursday night and I have to say that I love, love, loved it. Jack Black has been so dissapointing lately--I was not impressed with the Holiday, etc. But Tenacious D was hilarious, which is saying a lot, because I usually don't go in for that type of movie. It made me think that Kevin Smith and Jack Black need to team up and make something.

Vacay Day 2

I've been so slack this month. Here I am, approaching my blogiversary, and I've posted a measly 9 posts this month. Depression be damned! I shall try to post each day of this vacation! If only to show you....
This picture of me with almost no hair!

I realized recently that in all my lists of strange things about me, I never mentioned that I shaved my head in college.

The reasons behind it are almost painfully embarrassing now (yes, yes, a boy wanted me to. And also the girls in my dorm had just dyed my hair a rather alarming shade of orange). But I've never been sorry that I did it. No matter how distressing the haircut or dye job I've suffered since then, I always know unequivocally that my hair? It will grow back.

I wish I had better pictures to show you. I spent a good part of today organizing our desk drawers in the hopes of coming across some of the better pictures, which have, of course, been taken out of albums and paraded around countless times. It was actually very cute when it was freshly done. I looked kind of like Annie Lennox. But as it grew in, I began to feel sort of permanently deshevled, as if I had gone out in my pajamas without showering every single day of my life. It was more than a year until I had enough length to get a real haircut.

When I did it, I had no intention of seeing my parents for several months as I was not going home for spring break. However, my mom called me in mid-January to tell me that it seemed likely that my grandfather would die soon and could I please be ready to come home. So, that was a fun conversation. Ok, mom. But there's something you should know...

To give my parents credit, my mom didn't even hesitate. She just said, "Well, you can wear a hat." When my dad first saw me, he said, "It's so nice to be able to see more of your face." My parents are so good to me.

Vacation: Day 1

So, I've begun my vacation as I always do: by going to Lula's and staying out too late and drinking too much beer. It was glorious. I watched a little bit of LOST while it was on, remembered why I hate that show, played touch-the-boobie on Megatouch and played the strange newfangled jukebox. This jukebox (forgive my wonder, I'm sure the rest of you all have already seen these) talks to some enormous (internet?) database and for the princely sum of 1 dollar, you can play pretty much any song in the world. I took advantage of this by playing Eminem's Square Dance to a captive audience of about 20 people. I think it's safe to say, no one was as pleased as I was.

However thrilling it was to play Eminem and Portishead in the bar, I must say that I miss the old jukebox and its songs, which I had come to feel were the soundtrack to certain parts of my life. I wish it would come back. And PS? No one wants to pay a dollar a song. It's highway robbery.

I have declared this day a lazy one, as it is cold and rainy outside so I've been luxuriating in bed, reading the Fortean Times (I've learned about Corpse Roads and Spoon Benders today). Just now I broke out the Biore Nose Strips.

Dude, those things are gross. And yet, there is nothing more satisfying to me in the world than seeing all that crud standing straight up from the paper like a forest of trees and thinking, that used to be in my FACE.

Meme me baby, One more time

This here is a meme I stole from Velocibadgergirl over at Pardon the Egg Salad. I'm feeling brain dead due to this being my first day of Spring Break (12 Days OFF!!!!! BLALALREAJAHRFA BRAIN TURNING TO MUSH AT THE THOUGHT) so I thought I'd steal this book-related meme, as I will probably spend most of those 12 days reading.

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback? I like trade paperbacks best (probably some snotty holdover from grad school)

Amazon or brick and mortar? Brick and mortar, naturally, but sometimes our B&N is just too far a drive.

Barnes & Noble or Borders? Barnes & Noble

Bookmark or dogear? Dogear, unless the book is borrowed, in which case I try to remember not to do it. I'm tough on my books. They're always dog-eared and often dog-chewed. I try to think of them like the Velveteen Rabbit: well-loved.

Alphabetise by author, or by title, or random? Ha. That's really funny. I do recognize my books by spine color, though, which helps with all the fruitless searching.

Keep, throw away or sell? Keep. I'm a total book hoarder. If I borrowed a book and loved it, I'll go out and buy it just to have it for myself. I reread almost everything I have though, so it's not a waste.

Keep dust jacket or toss it? Keep, if not consumed by animals.

Read with dust jacket on or remove it? I often use them for bookmarks if I'm at the beginning of a book...but then ususally I take it off near the middle of the book when it is no longer useful in that regard.

Short story or novel? Heh. I write short stories, so you'd think I would prefer them. But I don't. I love a great novel more than anything else.

Collection of short stories or anthology? Doesn't matter. I love the Best of the South and the yearly Best of anthologies, but I'm just as willing to read one author at a time.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? Harry Potter! Though I'll probably get around to reading Lemony Snicket one of these days.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? Usually, I just read until I pass out. But if it's an up-all-nighter kind of a book, I'll make myself stop at a chapter break.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”? Dude, my degree is in fiction. Also I hate books that start with the character's entire first name, i.e., "Darcy Ann McCraken was a strange girl."

Buy or borrow? I'm poor. But as I said, if I loved the book enough, I'll buy. Go Library Book Sale!

New or used? I don't care. Money is the only concern here. I don't mind if my books get around.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? At the library book sale, I'll buy anything that looks interesting, because they're a dollar or less. If I'm buying at B&N, I go with what I know: books by authors I love. Otherwise, I take lots of friend and sister recommendations.

Morning, afternoon or nighttime reading? Yes, thank you.

Favourite series? I'm not a big series reader, so I'll have to go with Harry Potter. Ooh, no wait, Lord of the Rings. Or, Harry Potter.


Favourite children’s book? Gah, how could I choose? I love the classics like Where the Red Fern Grows and Bridge to Terebithia, Tuck Everlasting, all the Madeleine L'Engles....And of course Laura Ingalls Wilder...Narnia
And then of course Ramona Quimby and the Judy Bloom ones...oh, hell, I love them all.

Favourite book of which no-one has heard? The Temple of Gold by William Goldman

Favourite books read last year? I did a post about this, but The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, The Time Traveler's Wife, Life of Pi

Least favourite book finished last year? Eh. Stephen King's Cell was not good. I'm sure there were way more. I read A LOT. I did not love Endless Love, though I still think of it often.

What are you reading now? Just finished Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld and started Empire Falls by Richard Russo

What are you reading next? my sister rented the new Amy Tan for me from the library. I'm picking it up this afternoon.

2 years

Every once in a while, something comes out of nowhere and changes your life. It could be a job offer, a dog with great big eyes looking at you from a cage on a Sunday morning, a new friend. For me, it was Thomas, who came when I wasn't looking for him, and who has taught me every day that love has a million faces and a million moods and that I don't need to be any one thing for him to love me.

Two years ago on this date, I married the best man that I have ever known. A man with so much drive and motivation, so much interest in the world--he brings success to everything he touches. Thomas's passions are so varied and so intense and it makes everything interesting. From Jazz to Forteana, he's taught me so many things, and while some of those things became passions for me and some didn't, it's always a fun ride. Thomas has the greatest sense of humor--and he gets my totally weird one. One of the best things I can say for us as a couple is that we have always laughed well together.

This anniversary is important to me because my first marriage didn't make it this far. We split up 2 weeks before making it to the 2 year mark. By that point, daily living was difficult and a future was impossible to imagine. My greatest fear in marrying again was that I would find it just as hard, that there was something in the institution that squashed and mutilated love into a tool that quickly wore out its usefulness. Yet, as Thomas and I have approached this anniversary, I've felt somehow easier with myself and him and our life than ever before. Yesterday morning I woke up early and paced the house in the morning sunshine thinking in total pleasure and amazement, this is my couch. This is my rug. This is my dog and my wafflemaker and that is my handbag. This is my life here in this house with this man and there is nothing I ever hoped for that was better than this.

Happy Anniversary, Thomas.

Good Things

IN the spirit of continuing to post about things that make me happy, here are a few things that have made me smile.

Faux Kate Spade handbag purchased at Goodwill for 1.99





My garden in bloom again.


I'm still on-again off-again, as I'm sure my infrequent and weird posting reflects. Spring is here and I'm loving the good weather and long days. I'm less than a week from an 11 day vacation, and Thomas's and my 2 year wedding anniversary is this coming Monday. I've got plenty to smile about.

Still, I'm struggling to stay on an even keel. The kids are always particularly trying during the week before a vacation, and my gas bill came and it's 300 dollars, because you know, excellent.

It's weird: in the spring I get these crazy urges to do chores. Like, right now, I just really want to mix a big tub of OxyClean and go out and wash the cement in front of the house. Seriously. And I think I'm going to indulge myself in that today. I also crave giving the dogs a bath. And I'm finally feeling ready to tackle the music room wall that has been waiting for a revamp since November. Maybe spring cleaning is a real and actual urge, instead of just something mom's say to get everyone to pitch in once and a while.

Today I Touched An Alligator

You may not know this about me, but I really like to touch wildlife. I have some kind of running inner list of all the things I've touched and today I added several entries: hedgehog, ball python and baby alligator!

Today Animal Planet came to our local Time Warner Cable store with an white bengal tiger, a baby black bear, a small bobcat type thing that I forget the name of, an alligator, hedgehog, skunk, ball python and tarantula. I did not touch the tarantula. I don't know if I'm sorry about that or not.

Last summer, we went with our friends Tom and Christa to the Ripley's Aquarium in Myrtle Beach, which seems dumb but is totally NOT. It is a really cool aquarium. And they had a touch tank where you could touch rays, just like all aquariums. And I touched the rays and it was cool. They feel like velvet. And then a baby hammerhead shark swam up. I didn't know whether or not I was supposed to touch the shark, so I didn't. Then I found out that I was TOTALLY allowed to touch that shark and I waited and waited for it to come back and it never did. I'm very sad that I had the opportunity to touch a hammerhead shark and did not.

I did once ride an elephant. It was an old, sad elephant at a renaissance fair who had a rug on his back and walked in a circle, but I rode him nonetheless and I'm very glad that I can always say I rode an elephant.

5 Things You Should Check Out

I've spent so much time in the last couple of months blogging about what makes me miserable. So here is a list of things that have made me very happy this week:

Mental_Floss I cannot get over this magazine. I'm on my 3rd issue and I keep wandering around the house saying to Thomas, "Did you know that quarantine literally means 40 days?" "Did you know that Patton was in the Olympics?" "Did you know that Japanese tourists get so depressed when Paris isn't all they'd hoped that their embassy provides counselling services?"

Fortean Times If you like Mental_Floss, you must check out its weird UK brother, the Fortean Times. I've been reading this for 4 years now--Thomas carries it in his store and brings it home for me every month. Filled with strange facts and phenomena, Fortean celebrates the strange and occult in the news, zoology and UFOlogy.

This Film is Not Yet Rated I saw this last night. Fascinating! I love documentaries and just watched the Academy Award winning Jesus Camp last weekend. Jesus Camp was really good--but this was flat out awesome.

James Kochalka Another awesome find from Thomas's store. James Kochalka is an indie comic artist turned musician who sings hilarious, hilarious songs that are catchy and fun and sometimes bear only a vague familiarity with the right key, but who cares. My favorite album is Danger Force Five, which is actually not on this website (nor is the awesome Don't Trust Whitey--this seems to be a website of his latest projects). We got his new albums on Wednesday and had a James Kochalka listening party on Friday.

Lisey's Story I've been reading Stephen King since I was 11 years old and while there have been a few missteps in the last 20 years, he is my favorite author. (I had to really consider that statement for a few minutes. There are a lot of authors I could claim as my favorite and a lot of authors that would make me look more literary. But I have loved King and wanted to be like him almost all my life. I read all his books before they go to paperback because I can't wait. Yes, he's my favorite). And in Lisey's Story, he's still got it. I was thrown off by the language initially, but by page 100, it was under my skin.

And that wraps up this week's edition of Things I Love.

Good, Bad, Ugly

The Good:

A week ago, my really nice dad sent me flowers to help me out of my horrible depression. My dad rules. Sadly, I was very, very allergic to the flowers and had to put them out on the back porch. They had a big helium balloon attached to them, and the other day I went outside and the balloon was gone. I asked Thomas about it, and he said he had set it free. It made me remember those balloon launches from elementary school and how one day, as I walked home from the bus stop, I actually found someone's balloon. Someone from St. Louis. And so, for like a minute, I had a penpal. It was pretty cool. I don't know anyone else who ever found one.

The Bad:

The allergies seem to be settling in. I would think it was too soon, but then I look back at last year's blog...and no, it's not too soon.

The Ugly:

Ok, I've debated whether or not to post about this, but since Alexa was cool enough to post about it, I'll try. As pretty much all of you know, I've struggled with my weight for a long time. I found out several years ago that I was developing diabetes, and I have a great low-blood-sugar diet that works wonderfully and I started exercising and now I walk 4 miles a day, with my friends Kimberley and Kathy and with my sister . I consider myself a very healthy person. Which is not to say that we don't all also know about my pizza weakness, etc. Well, anyway, last year I lost 35-40 pounds. And I was feeling really good, and I noticed that weird obsessive behaviors that I've always had, like immediately sizing up everyone in the room to decide if I'm the fattest person there had stopped. I didn't get on the scale once during the horrorshow of February. I just felt like, well, I'm not skinny but I'm not horribly overweight any more and I feel good so I just don't care.

But lately I've been feeling like I've been cutting too many corners--I ate bread while I was sick a couple of weekends ago, and things like that. I've been having "bites" of things. And I can feel a difference. So this morning I stepped on the scale to check out the damage.

I've put on 20 pounds.

20! I'm not exaggerating. I've almost totally undone last year in the space of a month. And what's worse is that I just saw my mother. (Every time I think of this the inner hysterics start and I totally fly off the handle).

So, I keep giving myself these stern lectures. NO MORE WINE, I tell myself. EAT MORE REASONABLE PORTIONS. But I'm freaked nonetheless that I could do so much damage without even thinking about it. I kind of just want to hide under the bed.

You May Be Right. I May Be Crazy.

On Saturday, I traveled to Raleigh with my sister to meet my mom and see a Billy Joel show. After some difficulty actually arriving at the RBC Stadium, we found we had awesome floor seats and the show was excellent. And I'm not even that big a Billy Joel fan. You know how sometimes you see someone and you think, "Dude. Time to retire"? Well, not so for Mr. Joel who was in fine voice and sang all the good ones, including We Didn't Start the Fire, which I memorized in the 6th grade because that was just so cool then.

My inner 6th grader was very proud that I could still shout 87% of the lyrics.

As I stood there in the darkness, I realized that I have only been to 6 concerts in my life and 3 of them were with my parents.

Prepare to be absolutely bowled over by how cool I am:

1. NKOTB with Mom
2. Extreme with Dad (yes, my dad took me to see Extreme. ZZ Top opened, if you can believe such a thing. Probably I owe my dad some sort of terrible debt for this.)
3. Violent Femmes (hoping for partial redemption there. They played my college. 700 kids in a field with the Violent Femmes. Someone stepped on my face. It was one of the best nights of my life.)
4. Tracy Chapman
5. Tori Amos
6. Billy Joel with Mom

Yes, folks, I am the most bad-ass person ever. My first time giving Devil Points at a show was seeing Billy Joel with my mom.

Happy Birthday, Mom and Ali!

Thursday: My Second Favorite Day

aka Welcome March! or Get Lost February!

Right, so, Little House on the Prairie.

Why do I never feel like it's the right time to blog about Little House on the Prairie, when Thomas (I'm sure) feels like I ALWAYS think it's time to talk about Little House on the Prairie?

When I was a kid, I hated those books. Boring! Boring! BBBOOOOORRRRINNNG. Seriously.
The only thing I remembered about them from being a kid was when the little boy got stung by all those bees. Cause that kind of freaked me out.

But two years ago I was having trouble finding something to read to my class in the afternoons that would be appropriate for all ages between 4 and 12. So it seemed long and educational, and not too freaky for my little guys, so I started reading it. And totally fell in love. Now it's a staple of my year. I plan it around the pioneers unit and the kids love it. They call it "Mary and Laura Time."

I'm just so fascinated by all that the Ingalls had to endure. And I'm not talking about farming or sleeping on straw ticks. I'm talking about blizzards that last 7 months when you have no food. I'm talking about crossing the country in a wagon having no real idea where you're going or how to know when you've gotten there. Lost crops. Tornados. Malaria. Diptheria. Scarlet Fever. Tell me, how did these people survive? And it makes me proud, in a way, at the ferociousness of those early Americans, that they were brave enough and sure enough of their own abilities to try to go and live where no one else was, to carve what is now our country out of open prairie.

But it's weird too for me as a teacher and as an American to remember that they did so by stealing all that land from the Native Americans. And I try to make my class aware of that. There's a lot of confused sentiment about the Indians in Little House on the Prairie and I try not to gloss over it.

Did you all play Oregon Trail in school? It was this really early computer game in which you picked your family and pretended to be on the Oregon Trail, but you'd be plagued by disaster the whole way. Members of your family would die of sickness and starvation. Your horses would go lame; your wagon would throw a wheel. It's partly that, I guess, that makes me so crazy about LHOTP, just the unlikelihood that they could make it at all, let alone record it so beautifully.

I hope that if there's any kind of afterlife, that Laura Ingalls Wilder knows that a class full of students in 2007 looks forward every day to hearing about her life and that their crazy teacher goes home to marvel at her on the internet.

Good Wishes

Just wanted to say thanks again to all of you who commented or emailed about Gert. I really, really appreciate it. It's one of those precious few signs to me that the world is good; February will soon be over; These feelings will lift.

Gert is very well, and in my honest opinion, no longer remembers that anything unusual occurred. (Gert has never been known for her mental prowess). She is sleeping comfortably in her chair right now, having woken me at 6:04 to demand food and outside time. These needs satisfied, she has returned to bed, whereas I am up for the duration of the day. Oh well. I'm glad things are getting back to normal.

Happy Belated Birthday to my sister, Ali, who turned 27 yesterday. She came over for a nice birthday dinner of my husband's awesome pork chops (Ali and I both thought we hated pork chops until we met Thomas) and acorn squash. YUM! (Even if I did struggle with the squash and we sort of had to eat it for dessert. Sorry, Ali.)

And so another week begins. A week in which I will no longer use this blog like a diary but will actually post about things that matter. Like Little House on the Prairie.

Gert is OK

Not that anyone was waiting on quite the pins and needles that I was, but I just wanted to let the general public know that Gert came through her surgery just fine. She had 5 small teeth removed (none that make her tongue hang out the side--Yay!) and her bloodwork was "excellent for a dog her age."

She's totally doped up and asleep in her chair right now.

Yeah, I love her a little bit.

S.A.D.

Depression's got me bad, y'all.

Too much melatonin, too little Vitamin D, PMS, Post Drinking Depression...I don't know what all. I've got blog posts stored up, a little list beside the computer, but I just cannot snap out of it. If I had money (reason #347 to be depressed) I'd be going back on the Paxil right now.

Gert's having her tooth surgery on Friday and I'm unreasonably frightened about it. Gert is 14 years old and when she was little, she was so sickly that we never did her teeth because we were afraid to sedate her. Now I'm even more afraid to sedate her. I feel like maybe I love those dogs too much. I feel like if you asked for my kidneys...one for each...or my feet...one for each...if they could just live forever--Well, consider it done. Consider it not even a decision. Those dogs are my heart. I shouldn't love things so much that will die so far before me. I know that seems crazy.

So, Idol's back on. One more sign of spring. And I'm glad because, like the seeds, it let's me know that the winter will end. One of my very first blog posts was about Idol last year and so I also know that I'm about to hit the first anniversary of this awesomeness being a part of my life. Thanks for bearing with me while I hibernate and try to get through February.

When Seagulls Attack

So, Thomas was watching The Birds the other day and it reminded me of my first spring break from college.

For some reason, a huge proportion of Guilford College students come from suburban Maryland and hence I knew and traveled with a group of 5 people from my dorm. We took turns driving home for breaks, and our first spring break, we all decided that we'd go to the beach in Delaware together. We piled into my friend Kim's tiny (two door, even?) car, all 5 of us and all our luggage.

I should pause to note how much luggage first-year college students travel with. And then I'll also pause to note that that winter we'd had a horrible blizzard in DC and were all snowed in from Christmas break. We were two days late for Spring semester when our parents were so collectively tired of hearing us bitch about how badly we wanted to go back to college that they paid a guy to pick us all up, take us to Union Station and put us on a train back to North Carolina. The train took 12 hours to get to Greensboro. At around midnight, when we arrived in freezing, ice-coated Greensboro, I called a cab to come get us and take us to school. And then I called another cab, because my roommate (hi Kim!) brought so much luggage that we couldn't fit it in the cab. Seriously.

So it was a herculean effort to fit Kim, another Kim, Becki, Chris and me into this tiny car with every single thing that any of us had ever owned.

Kim's mom used to buy food in bulk from Sam's Club, and when I say food, I mean the most amazing quantity of junk food that you have ever seen in your life. Kim's pantry at home was like walking into a convenience store and hence we all slept over at her house a lot. So for this trip, she had sent us the motherlode of all Girl Scout cookies. They were crammed in between us on the seats, shoved into the rear window, piled onto the floor boards. Yum.

So, naturally, we decided that we would stop at the outlets on the way to Rehobeth. Cause we needed more stuff to put in the car.

We all shopped and then climbed over one another trying to get back in the car with all our new parcels, when someone kicked an open box of Girl Scout cookies out of the car and they spilled all over the parking lot. Within seconds, a humongous flock of seagulls was on us. They were everywhere! In the car! Snatching Girl Scout cookies!

And then, just like that, the cookies were gone and so were they.

Too bad they didn't take some of our luggage with them.

Successful Valentine's Day!

So, I should have remembered to take a picture of this before we totally devoured it, because it was actually quite pretty. It was a lightly breaded and roasted pork loin, cooked in shallots, sherry and broth with a cream sauce and almonds. Seriously, probably the best thing I've ever cooked. Finally! Some success! And I didn't even burn anything down, which would have been par for the course this month.


By popular demand, I cooked the torte. It was all we dreamed of and more. Strawberries were very good this week, so I could have made the other, but I'm glad we had this, though it is rich as hell and sits in my stomach like a devilish chocolate brick while insisting that I go eat some more, because, after all, it's low carb.


See my seeds? Yeah, I know you do.

Bad Luck February

My friend, Jennifer, believes that bad luck comes from puking before the ball drops on New Year's Eve. This theory was born last year when she had perhaps the worst string of luck ever to befall a human. Needless to say, she had visited the Porcelain Lord at around 11 pm.

Both Thomas and I remained relatively sober on New Years, but somehow this was not enough to appease the Gods for this has been the most damage-ridden February of my life. The TV in our bedroom broke; Thomas' van's brakes started squealing; The dog requires tooth surgery; The heat went out; I had ovary and wrist difficulty; Thomas broke his glasses. DUDE! We just cannot catch a break!

I'm exhausted.

I want to blog but I'm preoccupied with what could break next.

Stay Tuned for:
How I am Obsessed with The Little House on the Prairie
Never Wanting to Leave the House
and
Pictures of the Valentine's Day Dessert

Craft Extravaganza

So, yesterday I planted my seeds for the spring. Last year I did it in March and I felt my plants were a little later-blooming than I would have liked, so I started earlier this year. I'm also hopeful that all this activity will alleviate my depression of late. Planting seeds means spring is coming.
Here are 3 of the many trays of seeds currently taking over our mudroom (Sorry Thomas!)



As I mentioned previously, I rely heavily on crafts to get me through the winter season. So Friday, Jennifer and I did a practice run for this month's stitch and bitch: Mod Podge. Also, Jenn is a great beader, so we made bracelets, which made me very happy.



This is Jennifer's mod podge cigar box


and my (slightly blurry) mod podge box top

Finally, Thomas and I decided to stay in for V-day this week and I'm going to cook us something shmancy. Please help me choose between these two (low-carb!) desserts:
Dessert A: Strawberry Shortcake

Dessert B: Flourless Chocolate Hazelnut Torte

Soon, You're Just Going to Think I'm a Wild Animal

Ok, so the heat still isn't fixed. The poor repairmen have been trying all week, which I guess is what you get for living in a 95 year old house. When we first moved in, the stove was broken and it took almost 2 months for anyone to figure out how to fix it.

Oh, my wonderous landlord, though you deal with my issues promptly and thoroughly, if you sold me this house these things would be my problems.

See, despite the seeming 2 weeks it takes to fix anything around here, I love this house with a fiery passion. To me, this house just speaks my name. But sometimes it tries my patience, none the less. Last night, while waiting for Jennifer to come over for dinner (and oh, we'd bought beads and mod podge and all our spring seeds to start in trays! I'll blog about that tomorrow) Thomas tried to plug in one of the space heaters left for us by the repairmen and we blew a fuse.

And in our house, that's literal. Thomas was driving all the way across town to buy a fuse while I searched the house with a flashlight for a phone that wasn't cordless so I could call my guests and tell them to wait.

In slightly unrelated news, I seem to be developing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in my left hand. Having it is sort of like have allergies for the first time. I used to disdain allergies and consider them to be wussie. Now I feel the pain.
Quite literally.

And so, it seems as if everything around me is just slowly disintigrating. First my ovary and now my left hand. The heat and then the power. DAMMIT!

It all reminded me of the house we lived in before we moved here. The city line running into that house often got blocked--it wasn't our fault, there was just something wrong with it--so periodically we'd have to call out the city to dig out the pipe and leave raw sewage in our yard to deal with. YAY! One day that happened on our birthdays! And we were giving a party! In the backyard!

But I digress.

We got used to that situation and began to be able to sense it coming and call the city before the sinks stopped draining and the toilets stopped flushing. But one Friday at 5 o'clock it caught us completely off guard. There was nothing to be done; the city was closed. So we went to our friends' houses and to the bar a lot so as to be in proximity to bathrooms while we waited for Monday to arrive. But at night, right before we went to bed...

all four Gilberts: Thomas, Meg, Gertie and Gonzo, would go outside to pee.

Unfit for Human Life

My best friend, Kasey, lives where it is very, very cold. So cold that when I asked her on the phone the other day what the weather was like there, she answered, casually, oh, it's 2.

2.

And that's pretty warm for there. I check her weather every morning along side my own (as if I need to verify for myself daily that someone I hold dear was crazy enough to leave the state of North Carolina for the frozen wilds of Northern Maine) and it's not unusual to see -13.

Dude.

A couple of years ago, I sent her a down-filled robe for Christmas. Her husband asked her why I felt the need to ship her that monstrosity and she said, "Meg thinks I'm cold." And I'm like, Kase, I don't think you're cold, I know it for a fucking fact. Because that is just not fit for human life. If you stayed outside too long, you would die.

And that's just not ok to me. Much like the temperature of my house right now.

Last night at 1:30 am, Thomas woke me to tell me that there was something grievously wrong with the heating system and he was going to have to turn it off. I sat there, totally unable to comprehend this for a moment. I said, "Um, you know it's 22 out there, right?" And drat his responsible self, he pointed out that it is better to be cold than to burn the house down. I just don't need to hear that kind of logic at 1:30 am.

So, now it is 30 something outside and 52 in my house and I think my hands are seriously going to fall off.

What I wouldn't give for that down-filled robe right now.

Suprise!

So, I am no longer a surprise party virgin. Yes, it's true, I attended my very first surprise party on Saturday night for my friend Mary's 30th birthday and I didn't even wreck the surprise!

Here are some great pictures of Mary freaking out:





Happy Birthday, Mary!


Here is my favorite video ever of surprise parties:

Yes, I Eat Out of the Trashcan

So I've been enjoying this post by Lauren about dropping the love bomb.

I wanted to reply with a story of my own, but I actually don't remember the first time that Thomas and I said "I love you." We discussed it last night, but all we could come up with was, "Maybe it was at Lula's?" Sad.

(P.S. I just ate fake chocolate. It took 17 minutes for my body to figure it out. Uh oh.)

What we did remember was a very funny incident from the first couple of months that we were dating:

I eat a lot. I mean A LOT. I really think I could enter food eating contests and win. This is not something that I generally like to reveal to my significant other right off the bat. It does not seem feminine to reveal that you could eat 3 times the meal that he just put away.

So one night, Thomas brought home food from Checkers. To the best of our recollection, it was chicken fingers and fries. I ate my portion nicely (or at the speed of light, depending on your perspective) and waited while Thomas picked at his food in a leisurely manner. Finally, it appeared he would eat no more. Would I reach over and eat the food? Should I request the leftover food? Should I clear the table and eat it on the way to the kitchen? These and other options I pondered while Thomas put his uneaten food back in the Checkers' bag and threw it away. THREW IT AWAY!

So I did what any self-respecting person would do. I waited until he left the room, got it out of the trash and ate it.

Except he came back and caught me at it.

Thereafter, we were at a gas station and Thomas was going in. He asked me if I needed anything and I said no. He asked if I was sure. Yes, I said, I'm sure. He walked toward the gas station and stopped at the trashcan, pointing at it and looking at me as if to say, "Anything from in there you want?" Bastard.

To this day he'll still tease me about it.

Stitch N Bitch

So, this cuff bracelet is what I made this weekend at the home of my awesome friend, Michelle, who hosted the very first Stitch and Bitch. We were at Edge of Urge, just browsing around when she saw one and said, "We could totally make that!" We'd already been talking about having a once-a-month, all-girls craft night, and this was her chosen project. I left my camera over at her house, or I'd have more pictures to show.

I had a great time hanging out with the ladies, drinking more than my fair share of wine and attempting to operate a sewing machine.

I'm suffering right now from a bit of seasonal affective disorder and crafts have always been my number one solution to that problem. For an entire winter, several years ago, I made custom "bars in boxes," you know, those train cases from the 40's and 50's that were designed to hold liquor bottles? I'd buy them and paint them, lacquer them, or generally trick them out for whoever came to mind or had requested one. I did an Elmo one for my mom, a Fight Club one for a friend of mine who specially requested it and a whole bunch of different girly ones. (Laura, I'm sorry if you're reading this. I know I never did the Moonpie one I promised you). My obsession with doing it lasted until the spring and then I felt so much better that I abandoned a whole bunch half finished. This is why if you want me to crochet you something, you'd better ask me in November.

I'm looking forward to further stitching and bitching and am also very open to craft ideas right now. Last week I was feeling happy and full of hobbies. Right now I'm prone to the nagging feeling that life sucks and that everyone is talking about me behind my back. Give me a project so I'll know you love me.

Five Things About Me (Which Will All Be Weird, Because, Well, It's Me)

Tagged Again! by the awesome Velocibadgergirl, who is my long lost sister from another mister.

So this meme is technically just 5 facts, so it might be a tad bit more boring than the list of 55 things that make me just left of normal.

And just let me say, as well, that I am tickled to death to see that she has actually physically written my name on a piece of paper and scanned it into the computer. I love that someone I have never met wrote my name down on a piece of paper. Don't ask me why that's so thrilling. It just is.

1. I have no tattoos and no piercings (except the standard earring holes that I agreed to at age 9). If I could go back and do it all again, I wouldn't even have those. I kind of like being perfectly intact. Wait, I have no tonsils. So that would be imperfectly intact.

2. I can't drink coffee. It's not the caffeine, per se--I drink enough Diet Pepsi to fuel a rocket--but something about coffee as the delivery system makes me very jittery and crazy. Also, if I drink coffee, I smell very strange afterward. There's sort of a stale, dark smell about me. It lasts for days and is highly unpleasant.

3. About once every year for the last 3 years, I have a week where my sleep cycle becomes abnormal. I start sleeping very deeply and dreaming strange and vivid dreams that I have trouble waking up from. Several years ago, I dreamt that I was being chased by huge chessmen. I woke Thomas, telling him that we had to climb out the bedroom window, that they were just behind the door! It took about 30 seconds for me to realize that my arguments made no sense. I kept saying, "There's no time to explain!"
Once I walked into the living room, waved enthusiastically and yelled, "Hi, guys!" It's not sleepwalking exactly, because I am awake...just confused.

4. These fine dinosaur heads stare at us while we pee.


5. Last, but not least, I have extreme difficulty keeping up with my shoes and my beer. Those who have been to parties at our house know that I spend about 65% percent of my time chasing down one or the other. My constant refrains are, "I've lost my beer again", "I have to pee", and "Has anyone seen my shoes?"

Oddly, in our household, I am the "finder." I have a semi-photographic memory and have powers of recall for the mundane that are somewhat astounding. Where did we put the snap machine? I'm all over it. Track down a costume from 4 years ago? No problem. 80's song lyrics? I'm your girl. But where did I leave my beer?

I'm tagging:

Andrea
Josh
Gina
Ashley
Pen and M

Further Proof that Thomas Loves Me and Wants Me to be Happy

I will have them all. Oh yes, I will have them all.

I'll Take Fame However it Comes

As we watch the US Sergeant at Arms present the President of the United States tonight, let's just all remember, that dude read my blog.

Status: Ovary OK

So this week was mostly spent in contemplation of my left ovary, which did NOT feel good. Mostly, I feel you should not even notice that you have ovaries.

Of course, the ovary stopped hurting two days before my doctor's appointment, which made me feel like a car that obstinately refuses to start until it is towed to the mechanic's.

The doctor (and please, whoever is in charge of blessing, bless Planned Parenthood, for they are the harbingers of all that is good in the world) says I'm fine. The pain and weirdness exactly corresponded with my ovulation this month, so she says it's just some random weirdness.

And so now I'm free to think and blog about things besides my left ovary. I'm sure my male readers are pleased to hear that.

So, comparing myself to a car made me realize that I've never blogged about good old Christine, my car of yore, who is now driven by my fine friend, Katie.

Christine was a 95 Saturn SC2 and so named because she turned on by herself. No kidding. No one around her, no remote entry or ignition, nothing. Just sometimes you'd come out and the car would be locked and running.

The first time it happened, I was so baffled that I actually thought I might have somehow been so absent minded that I left the car running when I went into TJMaxx. Then I realized that if that were true, the keys wouldn't have been in my hand, they'd have been in the ignition.

The best, or at least most dramatic, of the times that Christine christined, was, in fact, the only time she did it in front of other people (pretty much all of whom thought I was crazy). It was late and Thomas, Mary and I were coming home from Lula's in a cab. We pulled up in front of the house, and my car was turning on and off, flashing her lights, locking and unlocking the doors, her windows were going up and down and the windshield wipers were going. "Look at that!" we were all screaming. Thomas went to touch the car and I was like, "NOOOOOOO!"

I think I seriously thought it would eat him.

I always wanted to call Click and Clack about it, but figured that either no one would believe me, or there would be a perfectly simple explanation and I would prefer to believe that my car was possessed by the devil.

The only other really bizarre thing that she did (and really, she was a wonderful, reliable, long suffering car) was that once, for a two week period of time, she would only turn on once a day. And once was a hard and fast rule. You could go as far as you wanted once the car was on, but once it was off it would not turn on again until tomorrow.

I drove it to the mechanic's and parked outside and went in to tell my tale of woe. The mechanics all laughed at me. This stupid girl, you could hear them thinking. "Fine," I said, "Laugh. And then go try to move my car into the bay."

They came back. One looked at me, almost angrily. "Your car won't start," he said.

"I know," I said. "Try again tomorrow."

To be fair, they could have totally hosed me. They could have said ANYTHING and I would have believed them, because their initial assessment was right, when it comes to the car, I AM a stupid girl. But it turned out that it was just the sensor that tells when the car is overheating. The sensor was broken and it wouldn't let the car turn on because every time the car was driven, it thought it was overheating. Hughs Brothers only charged me $75.

Sensor shmensor. That car was possessed by the devil.

Game On

I don't play games; this is just a thing about me. Oh, I play some games, but they are few and select and generally involve things I already know how to do and a minimum of competition.

This was a big issue when Thomas and I first started dating and I was inducted into the ranks of they who must play games at all times, aka his friends. The people we knew and hung out with played cards, they played drinking games, they played board games, they played Jenga. They played games loudly and with enthusiasm.

I didn't grow up playing a lot of games. My parents didn't teach me to play poker or hearts or rummy. In fact, once we were past the Chutes and Ladders/Candyland stages, I can remember only two games I ever played with my parents: Scattergories and Win, Lose or Draw. Also bear in mind that I didn't have my first beer until I was in college and safely 3 states away. So when I arrived at said college, I knew no drinking games and no card games. And I didn't find a great deal of opportunity to play Win, Lose or Draw.

So that's the first reason. I hate to be the person in the room who has to be taught to play, who can never remember the rules. I hate to have to have practice runs and slow everyone down. It's too much pressure.

And then the second thing is that I was once married to someone incredibly competitive, someone who once didn't speak to me for two days because my team beat his team at Mario Party. And so I don't like to win, and who likes to lose? So generally I find no enjoyment in the whole process.

However

There are some games SO FUN and low pressure and easy to understand that I love to play them and would do so all the time if anyone would play with me and these include

Taboo
Best word game ever. I have two copies, one that displays all the words in French on the underside of the cards, you know, just in case you want to up the stakes a little. I love this game because perfectly literate and polite people suddenly find, when playing this game, that they know no adjectives except dirty ones. Typical delivery of the person reading the card, "This is uh, This is uh, This is a fucking thing that you use when you're fucking...uh...in the car, fucking going someplace. SHIT!"

Apples to Apples
I played this for the first time last night. Thomas bought it because it sounded like something I would play. And boy was he RIGHT. In this game you're given a catagory and have to look in your hand to find the closest match. So maybe the category is "Chewy" and you have Goldie Hawn, Spit, Nuclear Power Plants, The 1960's, My Boyfriend, Grass, and Rednecks. You have decide which is the most chewy and play that card. Then the judge chooses whose card was best described by "Chewy." It is great fun. Wanna come over and play?

Five Shot Friday!

Look out! Last night was 5 Shot Friday.

Earlier this week, Thomas and I were watching an episode of How I Met Your Mother in which Ted takes five shots in a row. Instead of feeling like, Oh God, What a Horrible Idea! We felt like, Hey, That Looks Like Fun. Hence, Five Shot Friday.

No one was actually brave enough to slam five shots in a row (the shots being offered were tequila, after all) except Thomas who completed the whole mission and did not vomit, pass out, or behave strangely afterward.

I did manage to wreck my New Year's Resolution on Five Shot Friday, which was "don't eat anything you are not supposed to eat for 30 days." I don't think there's any way that I can spin the pizza and a half I ate last night as something I was supposed to eat. However, it did nicely to combat the tequila.

Random Thoughts for January 10

Ok, so, first off: Where the hell is the Wrightsville Avenue cow?? We drove by on Sunday and its stall stood empty. Thomas revealed that he had ACTUALLY SEEN some guys loading it into a van. To refurbish the cow? Perform atrocities on the cow? Dude.

Secondly, I am still crying from watching the 1st season finale of How I Met Your Mother. Why did no one tell me about this show before? We started watching because of Jason Segal from Freaks and Geeks (clearly the best show EVER) and it is just so great and funny. Like Friends, but younger and drunker. SUIT UP!

Thirdly, the oppossum is BACK!

Fourthly, earlier, I did my daily four mile walk with my sister, Ali. We were chugging down front street, which, for those who are not Wilmingtonian, is lined in tall brick walls that mask the rich from the pedestrians. Every once in a while, there's a break in the wall where a driveway comes out. So, Al and I were walking, talking about whatever it is sisters talk about for four miles, when all of a sudden a car came speeding out of a hidden driveway and seriously nearly took my sister out.

I made a noise that was not unlike the seal-shriek that my beagle makes if you step on her foot. Ali stepped back. Was she ok? Yes, she's ok. We, all of us, Ali, the driver and I, all stopped there for a second. Did we need to do anything? No, we're all ok. Then Ali and I just went on our way. The driver called out, "I'm sorry!" We waved. "It's ok! I'm not dead!"

Fifthly, thank God for my dogs, who came jingling to my bedroom door this morning as if to say, "Woman! Can we get some service?" because without them, I would have woken an hour late instead of just 20 minutes. Perhaps that was the beginning of all this madness.

UPDATE: Sixthly, I just discovered that the US Senate Sergeant at Arms visited my humble blog today by googling the words, "Hummingbirds Attack." 1. How much do I love SiteMeter? 2. Is there going to be a hummingbird attack???

Savages.

So, today some people decided to relieve me of some of my car's polka dots.

Um, thanks. I really appreciate it.

Savages.

What is wrong with people, seriously. Why? What is the point of wrecking something, just for the sake of wrecking it? I'm sure that whoever took the dots isn't intending to use them on their own car. I'm sure they are not starving and eating the dots for sustenance. The dots are not worth the big bucks. They just took them to take them, to destroy my enjoyment of something whimsical. Hey, that person has something neat and different! Let's wreck it! Yeah!

Excellent.

The Glasses Are Here!

How much am I loving my $20 glasses???

So much.