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Showing posts from December, 2006

Weird Al Yankovic-White and Nerdy

What is scary about this video is how true it is. And how many men I have dated that encompass some, if not all, of these characteristics. You gotta love Donny Osmond. I love people who can laugh at themselves. And notice the Star Wars Holiday Special Al purchases at the end. Friendster Guy pointed it out to me.

My (half) year of books

In July I created a file, ok, ok, a database (I love those things. Filemaker rules!) wherein I could record both the books I've read and the ones I want to read in the future. Here, for your edification and perusal are the 27 books I read, or listened to during my short lived obsession with books on tape, between July 2006 and today, December 29. The South Beach Diet, Agatston Which Brings Me To You, Almond and Baggott The Secret Garden, Burnett I have chosen to stay and fight, Cho, Margaret State of Fear, Crighton Standing in the Rainbow, Flagg The Brethren, Grisham Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein The Ice Queen, Hoffman, Alice A Very Long Engagement, Japrisot A Girl Named Zippy, Kimmel She got up off the couch, Kimmel The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, Lencioni The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni Not Buying It, Levine Life of Pi, Martel The Color of Water, McBride, James Hidden Shadow, Parker, Robert Night Passage, Parker, Robert Chance, Parker, Robert B

Can I have some cheese with my whine?

To be read with the most whiny, obnoxious voice you can muster: "I don't waaaanna work on my thesis!" "I don't waaaanna be a grown-up!" "Why can't I just sit on my ass for the next few days and do nothing? Whyyyyyy?" Harumph. I have managed to accomplish some things while home on vacation this week (My employer shuts down from Christmas to New Years. God bless 'em!") I updated my license so I am back to my maiden name and my new address. I've gone to the gym a couple of times. I even took my first ever ski lesson. Tonight I'm going bowling - and then to a wake (yippee!). In the intervening hours before I have anything scheduled however I may be stuck in procrastination guilt land. You know that place where you know you have to do something but don't want to but don't really have anything better to be doing so feel guilty not doing anything at all especially the thing you know you're supposed to be doing but aren'

The Theme for 2007

A lot of people don't do New Years resolutions for whatever reason but in the last few years I've embraced them with wild abandon. (I've also wildly abandoned a few but that's another story.) I've been blogging recently about the grandiose lists of things I'd like to accomplish - big, small, probable, impossible. Those lists, for the most part, are not to be turned into resolutions. They are way too long and involved for that. However, I have stumbled upon an underlying thread connecting several things I would like to do in 2007. Since I know you've all been waiting with baited breath for my New Years Resolution theme for 2007, here it is: Git 'er done Short. Simple. To the point. This is not some lofty mission statement that means nothing in the real world. Oh no. I have some honest to goodness projects that I have been carting from place to place both physically and psychically that I need to move on with and, well, git done. Below, in full technicolor

Baggage

I tripped over some proverbial baggage the other day. It took me a little bit of self-reflection before I figured out that this particular luggage was labeled "Fear of rejection - subcategory: the sexual variety." There was a long period of time in my former marriage where I would initiate an intimate event and be turned down flat. Or I would do things to get the X to potentially initiate an intimate act (trying to be sexy or whatever.) only to not have it work. I was literally at the point where I could walk around the house naked for three days and not even be noticed. Yeah, good times. Makes a girl feel wanted and loved. So, based on my previous history, I'm not exactly that willing to start the process. It hasn't been a problem since Friendster Guy would definitely not let me walk around naked without noticing and taking action. But I haven't even had to so that's a good thing. The other night, however, without even a thought about my history, I decided i

Towel-napping

First, Merry Christmas Eve Day! I'm doing a little blogging before I head off to my sister's house for a family sleep over. And I do mean sleep over - sleeping bags and the whole shebang. Tonight we're going to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner. Should be a good time. Poor Friendster Guy has to work but we'll exchange gifts tomorrow night when he's off and I'm back. But on to the title of this post - Towel-napping. I was in the gym on Friday and I decided to go swimming. I brought my towel into the pool area so I could go straight to the showers without having to go back to my locker dripping wet. They discourage such behavior. So there are two indoor pools - one for laps, one for aqua aerobics. I pass the empty aqua aerobics pool and go to the lap pool. There is one other person in the pool and her stuff is on a chair by her lane. I go to the thrid and furthest lane, put my towel on the chair at that lane and begin my swim. I don't know why but I'm mildl

You know what I did the other day?

While driving home from work I was having a conversation with myself about how great it is that my commute is half the length it was before my move while at the EXACT SAME TIME turning onto the highway I no longer need to go on to get home. That's right, I was thinking about the new route while unconsciously taking the old. Doh! Luckily, I only had one exit and about 2 miles to go before I could get off the highway and work my way back to my actual home. I say luckily because around here it's not uncommon for there to be 10-20 miles between exits. That could have been one long and stupid drive.

Deny thy father

I was reading Time magazine this morning and came across an editarticle? artitorial? (It's hard to distinguish sometimes if it's an article or an editorial) by James C. Dobson talking about how he really hopes Mary Cheney and her partner having a baby doesn't catch on as a trend. As a self-proclaimed "social conservative" he has a problem with the mother/mother and father/father households replacing the more traditional mother/father parental units. His concern is that a child in those families won't get enough of the masculine or feminine whatevermabob because they are missing a role model of a certain gender. Let's ignore for the moment the children of single parents, extended families, and crappy rolemodels of either gender because lord knows I could go on about that. But I won't. In truth, the underlying premise of Mr. Dobson's article is his fear that boys being brought up in a single gender (female) household will not grow up to be boys. I qu

True love?

My friend NPapaya and I were in a jewelry store the other day and she was pointing out engagement rings she liked because, well, that's what women often find themselves doing when in jewelry stores. Today she sent me a link to a ring saying, "I changed my mind- this is the engagement ring I want..." If you go to that link you will discover that it is a replica of the ring given to Laura Webber by Luke Spencer, more commonly known just as Luke and Laura, on General Hospital. If you have no idea who I'm talking about let's suffice it to say that Luke and Laura's wedding episode was the highest-rated hour in soap opera history with $30 million viewers tuning in. Their story line was what is called a BIG DEAL. However, does anyone else out there know why starting your marriage with this particular ring may be a bad idea? It's a little bit of trivia people seem to have forgotten in the furvor over "the perfect couple." You may be surprised to discover

Revisiting my 43 Things

A week or so ago I posted about the 43 Things I have listed over at the 43 Things website. I have revamped and refurbished it a little and will continue to do so as we count down to the end of the year. One of the things on my list was to "identify 100 things that make me happy (besides money)" Since that seemed pretty doable I decided to do it. (It helped that I already wrote 70 of them about a year ago.) Let me know if you discover any duplicates. 1) sleeping in my own bed after a trip 2) lazy Saturdays 3) Having organized closets 4) meeting new people 5) reconnecting with people I already know 6) trying new things 7) making people smile 8) making people laugh 9) inside jokes 10) being with my 4 year old niece. 11) unsolicited hugs from my niece 12) connecting with a child 13) playing hookie from work for an hour 14) my flowers actually growing 15) getting things done before the deadline 16) getting compliments from an ex-boyfriend who is an ex because he gave me the oppos

Class, please turn to page 123.

Is it wrong to do a Meme without being tagged? Eh, I don't care. I saw this over at I Blame the Patriarchy who got it from Second Waver . Here's what you gotta do: 1. Go to the nearest book in your reach and turn to page 123. 2. Go to the fifth sentence of the book. 3. Copy the next three sentences, then tag someone else. Since I happened to have just acquired the book, In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner, from NPapaya I thought I'd see if anything interesting happened. Here's the lines I get: "Fuck you. I'm leaving." Maggie said, throwing down her napkin. "Sit down," said Rose wearily. "Eat your breakfast. I'm going to the bathroom." I kinda like that. Short. Simple. To the point. I'm looking forward to reading the rest. Feel free to tag yourself if you'd like. It's the holidays and I don't want to add stress to anyone's lives by tagging them inconveniently.

We now interupt your regularly scheduled programming...

I figure I'll take a break from providing you with the highest quality holiday programming to chit chat about my life a little. After all, that's sort of what a blog is for. At least this one. I had a busy weekend. I cooked lunch for my Dad and stepmother on Saturday. My niece and my sister were supposed to come too but poor Elbow (that's what I call my niece) didn't come because she has pink eye. Then Friendster Guy and I went to LLBean to buy my Christmas presents (a coat, mittens, and long underwear). Between that stuff and the ski pants I got from my Dad I should be all outfitted to learn how to ski - or at least sit in the lodge in style sweating my ass off. You don't know this about me but in addition to being a fabulous college administrator, an awesome abs class instructor, a procrastinating thesis writer and a prolific blogger, I am also what can be defined as a professional organizer. If you've ever seen Clean Sweep or Mission: Organization, that's

Star Wars Holiday Special

I am SO sorry to do this to you. I didn't know this existed (probably because I was 2 at the time) but this needs to be shared. It is bad - very, very bad. I honestly have not watched the whole thing. But now you can. If you can stand it. Bea Arthur, Art Carney, Jefferson Starship. Oh man it's bad.

Star Wars Holiday Special Part9/10

If you let this load while on pause, and then scroll over to minute 8:30, you'll be rewarded with Wookies in red robes walking into a white light. Well, rewarded may not be the word I'm looking for. Han Solo is in here for a little bit too. Not that that really makes it worth it. Did I mention that this is bad?

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

Continuing with my trend to provide you with the highest quality holiday entertainment, here's one of my favorites. If you're anything like me you grew up with Sesame Street and probably saw this special.* Raise your hand if you remember Mr. Hooper (look for him in the subway scene around 2 minutes 30 seconds). We had this taped on VHS and when my little brother was about 4 he would literally watch it and rewind it and watch it again over and over. That and Ghostbusters. To each their own. I watched it so many times with him I can still do the sign language to the song Keep Christmas With You. *It is out on DVD if you're interested. I'm still waiting for A Christmas Together with John Denver and the Muppets . My absolute favorite**. I have the CD. ** I just found clips on YouTube!!! Stay tuned for your next installment of superb Christmas entertainment!

Somewhere else or Bust!

These are places I have actually visited, not just travelled through. create your own personalized map of the USA create your own visited country map I definitely need to explore the world a little more. That's a whole lot of grey. But 3 continents! Thanks Queen Geek for the link.

What a difference a day makes

I started reading a book called the Book of Kehl's last night. It's a memoir by a woman, Christine Kehl O'Hagan, who's brother and son both die from Duchenne muscular dystrophy. What I found interesting, profound, deep...something that I can't find the words for...was that the book starts with an introduction describing her son's last day on earth, May 19, 1998. This date also happens to be my wedding day. It's therefore one of the few dates I can actually picture in my mind. It's very odd to be reading a play by play of the author's last day with her son in the hospital while I can recall dancing the night away with my friends and family. It's amazing how different the same day can be to two people.

Tower of Babble

I am currently editing the interview I did with my mother for my thesis (an oral history of our home town) and oh my f'ing god I want to tell her interview to put an f'ing cork in it. Apparently I either have PMS or I'm not really that interested in working on my thesis because I'm being annoyed to death. It feels like 11 pages of asinine information. It's not really - although it sort of is - because now that I have some sort of clue how my thesis is going to unfold I'm realizing how much of her interview I'm not going to be using. I also discovered that the interviews I edited earlier aren't as crisp and formatted as the more recent ones so I have to go back through and edit them a little again before I get to my next step which is taking all the pieces and parts from all the interviews and grouping them together to tell a story. I don't feel like I can do that until I've labeled sections in each interview since otherwise I'll be scrolling

I am a domestic goddess

I was on a serious tear this weekend. I got so much done. Including one of the things on my list of 43 Things! In a nutshell: I went to my sister's on Friday night and babysat my niece. I left there Sat at 9:30am, picked up my old engagement ring in VT (it was on consignment and they couldn't sell it. Grr.), put up my new curtains, wrapped presents, worked on my thesis, baked banana bread, cleaned my apartment/unpacked more, and had dinner with Friendster Guy. Then Sunday I baked a flourless chocolate cake [from my list of 43 Things - now replaced with "Update my address book".], wrapped the presents that I had to put together before wrapping, did groceries, worked on my thesis, took a nap, cooked dinner and went to bed. Phew! P.S. I also tried posting something from YouTube yesterday but they don't yet seem to accept Blogger Beta. Dang it. I guess that's the Beta part of Beta.

Resolutions

At this time of year, besides thinking about all the food we're eating and money we're spending, we also start to think about resolutions - like diets and debt reduction. To help you keep track of your resolutions, or just your list of things to do with your life, there's a website called 43 Things where you can create a list of 43 things you'd like to do, from the mundane to pie in the sky. Every so often I revisit and update my list. You can also check off what you've done, write entries about your goals, and see who else is working on the same goal. My Mom is on there (and on Friendster, and she recently joined MySpace - much to my sister's chagrine because now we sort of have to tone down our comments and such.) She has goals ranging from "clean the basement" to "Kiss Johnny Depp." She's got a little bit of a thing for that man. Actually, quite a thing for the man. To the point where she is going to be getting a heck of a lot of Ja

Dinah who?

To be sung to the tune of " I've been workin' on the railroad" I've been working on my thesis All the live long day. I've been working on my thesis Just to make it go awaaay Can't you see my gray hairs show-in' Give up before I am forelorn Can't you hear me scream'n, shouting Why was I ever born? Ok, so it's not that bad - the working on the thesis part, not the song, because obviously that's horrible. But I got the words "I've been working on my thesis" stuck in my head to that tune so I had to follow it through to the end. Eh voila, a song is born.

Add Frankincense to cart.

You know what is a total racket? Amazon's free shipping if you spend $25. Do you know how many extraneous things I have purchased simply because I wanted free shipping? I just spent $50 extra dollars on something to save about $2.99. That's right, $50! (Although it was on a gift for someone who I was having difficulty finding a gift for so in this case it all worked out for the best.) The problem then becomes the slowness of the shipping (as my friend Npapaya says, "it's on a slow boat from Australia") and my new addiction to the tracking feature. If I'd paid the shipping, I'd already have a previous package I ordered. Instead, I'm checking the tracking every half hour to see if my package has arrived or departed from anywhere new lately. The most recent update was two days ago when my package left someplace called New Earth, MO or some other big square state in the middle of the country (Sorry to those of you in the mid-west. My U.S. geography knowle

Dead On

When it's true, it's true. (Thanks for the inspiration Jen !) What type of person do you attract? Your Result: You attract geeks! Your stunning intellect and love of sci-fi and video games allures the geeks like nothing else. Maybe it is the sparkle in your eye that makes them want to text you, who knows. Geeks make good partners, but tend to be arguementative. If you are a TRUE geek magnet, you will know if that was spelled correctly, and actually care. If it is a bad-boy/bad-girl you are seeking, you are barking up the wrong tree, unless they are just 'bad' behind a PS2 console. You attract Yuppies! You attract artsy people! You attract models! You attract unstable people! You attract rednecks! What type of person do you attract? Quizzes for MySpace It's funny that it says I attract rednecks the least because they sure as hell were pouring out of Match.com when I was on there.
Inspired by Heather over at This Fish Needs a Bicycle , here are 10 things I've learned from my relationships with men. Caution: Severe cynicism ahead... (I took it in a different direction than she did.) 1. It is possible to be perfectly content with the status quo of a bad relationship until the other person points out that they are not happy and are leaving. (My X) 2. There is no moral dilemma in dating one person while being in love with someone else. (Several former boyfriends) 3. Throwing yourself down a flight of stairs face first multiple times is a perfectly acceptable way to behave the first time you meet her father (you know who you are.) 4. It's ok to unfavorably compare your girlfriend's body to that of an overly developed 14 years old's - outloud no less. 5. Work is WAY more important than a relationship. 6. Dungeons and Dragons is WAY more important than a relationship. 7. As long as you write and sing songs that seem deep you don't actually have to c

Under Construction

Don't worry. I'm just playing with Blogger Beta and new templates.

Mars and Venus strike again

Me - (Internal monologue while putting on flannel pajamas the other night) I wonder what FG thinks of these pajamas? They aren't exactly flattering. In fact, they could be considered downright unflattering. And I've worn them a lot. Maybe he thinks I look fat. Or dowdy. I've been feeling dowdy lately. Or maybe he thinks they are unsexy? Maybe he hates them and wishes I'd wear something more revealing. Screw it. Just put them on and go to bed. Friendster Guy - Are those new pajamas? Clearly, I need to chill.

Eh

Can't seem to find bloggy, or really much of any, motivation today. Luckily, the one thing I am motivated to do is a work project. Of course it is a work project that is unnecessary for me to work on at this point and I have other things much more pressing but hey, I do what I can. At least it's something. Otherwise I'd be sitting here surfing the internet all day or wishing I could crawl under my deask and take a nap. Now THAT would be a killer way to spend the afternoon.

Being a fairy tale parent is hazardous to your health

You ever notice how many children's/fairy tale characters are either orphans, being raised by non-parents, are abandoned, or have only one parent? I guess it's pretty hard to write a story when pesky parents and rules keep getting in the way. I suppose the worst thing a kid can think of that could happen is their parents no longer being there for them. But still, that's heck of a lot of dead parents. Here's a list of the fairy tales and other stories involving parentless or partially parentless characters that I could think of off the top of my head. Orphans Aladdin Sleeping Beauty ( Her parents are asleep her whole life) Harry Potter The kids from Lemony Snickets Series of Unfortunate Events Eragon Cinderella Hansel and Gretel The kid from the Jungle Book The 101 Dalmations (give or take a couple) Hunchback of Notre Dame Pete from Pete's Dragon Arthur from The Sword in the Stone The girl in The Rescuers Tarzan Peter Pan and the Lost Boys One Parent Ariel, the littl