Let's hope they don't come back

Today, in the shower, I started thinking about a trivia game we played a while back. One of the questions was which of these words means handsome or attractive. The answer was toothsome, and I was so sad that our team didn’t get that question. Toothsome is one of my favorite words. Then, still in the shower, I started thinking about other words that end in some that I like: winsome, handsome, lonesome. Then, I started thinking about words and phrases that ended in the same sound: martyrdom, kingdom come, broken thumb. Finally, I wrote this little verse.

Try not to look too winsome
As you skate towards martyrdom
It might appear to chatty somes
That it isn’t just for the other ones

I was much more awake and alert than I am most days, but even I was unsure of why all these words were bouncing around in my head today.

I hope you enjoyed your trip through my brain. Don’t forget to experience the fury of…our gift shop

Convicts with perfect diction

Lost in Translation was a movie I just didn’t get and not in an “I assume this is over my head” highbrow sort of way. I just thought it was pointless. I didn’t think it said anything interesting about loneliness, isolation, or alienation. I certainly didn’t understand any of the critical acclaim surrounding the film. Juno is my new Lost in Translation.

Juno had some funny lines and some interesting scenes. I thought Jennifer Gardner’s role was beautiful and understate and Michael Cera was actually believable as a human being, but the movie was hollow and false to me. Elmore Leonard says, “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” Diablo Cody didn’t get the message. Juno didn’t feel like dialogue; it felt like a series of punch lines and one-ups. Note: the dialogue between the couple in the chemistry class was especially painful. I’ve said it to everyone; Diablo Cody isn’t going anywhere that Kevin Williamson hasn’t been with Dawson’s Creek. Putting adult words into teenage mouths may inspire nostalgia in some people, but it is for a childhood that never existed. So, I am having a hard time understanding the nominations for actress, director, screenplay, and movie. I guess to each their own, but I like Villi and I’s version better: to ours is right.

However, I did like the lyrics to Kimya Dawson's song "So Nice So Smart." Or at least the line about convicts and diction.

the challenging world of bare-midriffs

Another sign of impending adulthood? I desperately want to be a home-owner. Desperately. Having lived in an actual house, I don't think I want an actual house. I think I want a town home - an end unit if at all possible. I don't want people living over me, but I would like people to shovel my walks. That is my trade off. Buying houses takes money, so I am having to be more fiscally minded (starting the day after I bought my purse and a new laptop).

I got a mailer for an Ing savings account with a $25 bonus coupon. Leslie has commented on her Ing account, and since most of her cons were to do with checking, which I don't want to use, I felt okay with setting up my 4.10 %APR interest savings account. I'm going to try putting away about $100 a month towards a down payment on a house. I'm still really far away from home ownership. But home-buying is like running a marathon; the preparation has to start way in advance or you'll get a stitch in your side on mile two and never finish. Maybe they aren't exactly the same.

Stuff...continued

I love Margaret Atwood. I am about 100 pages into The Blind Assassin, and I have to read it slowly and really enjoy it. I love her books because instead of culminating with something universally profound, she writes books of small truths. On nearly every page there is something that just knocks me over. I wish I had started reading her earlier in life, but I don't know if I would have liked her as much.

Everywhere I go now, I see boys with layered haircuts, strange back-side parts, and flipped edges. Why does every guy under 25 look like James Spader circa Pretty in Pink? I blame you Zac Efron. Haven't we learned that feathered hair is always a bad idea?

I bought a Polar sports watch that keeps track of my pulse, my time working out, and my calories burned. I bought it as a way to bribe myself to go more regularly to the gym. I thought if I made some sort of game of it, I would last longer. So far it is working. Gadgets = motivation = sad state of affairs.

Mark Morford wrote this very interesting column stating, basically, that if we have to ask ourselves if America is ready for a black or a woman president that we aren't. I'm willing to go him one better. I bet that if Hillary or Obama gets the nomination, they will have low returns in their respective minority group. Knowing what they know, blacks and women, about the inherit bigotry in this country, I guess they will be even less inclined to vote. My two cents.

School starts next week, and I am bummed. I am not ready to go back to class. I just want to play WoW and watch basketball. Sigh.

I think that was about it. Tomorrow is Friday. Yay! Happy Friday, all. Unless it isn't your Friday, in which case, never stop a rockin'.

Stuff

I can’t seem to keep a train of thought for more than a few sentences recently. I have all these ideas of stuff to right about, but I don’t have the patience for it. Instead, I will just be satisfied with many blurbs, like a gossip column in a small-town newspaper. What ‘News at 6’ anchor was seen cozying up to a beautiful blonde at the bar in TGIFridays?

Cable is lovely, but there is nothing more embarrassing than turning off the TV on channel 567, Cinemax East, while something innocuous, like Harry Potter, is on and then turning it back on later, in front of your assembled Christmas party, and seeing the three-way scene in Bikini Pirates. Damn you, cable TV!

When I was a nanny in New York, and had Saturdays and Sundays off, I didn’t like to go into the kitchen because I didn’t like to see the family. Instead, I bought cases of water and granola bars and kept them in my closet. I did something similar in my only (failed) semester at school. This time, though, I kept the quaker low fat chocolate chunk granola bars and added the hunts chocolate pudding (the kind that didn’t have to be refrigerated.) Right now, I eat oatmeal twice a day. I would never think of myself as utilitarian when it comes to food, but I realize that I am very capable of that behavior. It’s one of the weirder things I have realized during my recent period of self-discovery.

Darnell Jackson is my hero. I want to marry him. I will be his most improved girlfriend.

There was more stuff, but I forgot it. I will update it soon. I think.

but i forebear

Last night I bought age-defying body wash. I looked at vita-therapy eye serum. I’m 28. I’m too young to need serums and potions, right? Aging is such an odd thing.

Before Christmas, I bought a pair of shoes to match a brown dress I have. They are brown patent leather pumps with stripes of suede and gold flecked leather along the side. 10 years ago, I would have called them matronly and avoided them like the plague. Now, I think them lovely and sophisticated. I was grasping for a label for this when describing it to Villi last night. She said it was “the material evidence of maturity.” I think that is about right.

I had more to write. I was going to dissect the differences in clothing and shoe choices from high school to now, but I couldn’t find a picture of the swatch wallet with belt chain that I used to carry. So, I scrapped the show and tell.

Passive-aggressive ringtones

I can't bring myself to read the real news any more. I go to CNN, and I intend to read about nuclear talks with Iran or Clinton's plan for education reform, but I can't. The news is always bad and it always leads to more bad news and I don't seem to have the strength for it lately. I know what I know about the world from what I glean from the headlines. Instead, I choose to read the wacky headlines and stories from small towns in America. It doesn't pass for real news but oh well.

Today, while ignoring the real news, I found an article on CNN about a guy who was charged with disorderly conduct because he wrote something obscene in the memo line of his check when he paid a parking ticket. I had no idea you could be fined for something like that! I assume that he made some specific reference to the city parking institutions, but it got me thinking about all of the strange things that have been written in the memo lines of my checks. I'm sure sexual favors is at the top of the list, since that was a long standing joke, but I am sure I must have used an obscenity at one point. Hmmm, for the first time in my life, I wish I had boxes of cancelled checks to go through.

As to the rant title, Villi and I were discussing how the easy of recording and transferring ringtones to a phone makes ringtones an untapped form of passive-aggressive office behavior. You can use your ringtones to express displeasure with someone else's ringtones, or food choices, or hygiene habits. I predict big things in this area.

I'm going to take this time to fold some laundry. Happy Sunday everyone!

Papa don't preach; I'm in trouble deep

The purse arrived, and it’s a beaut. I have likened it, both in my head and out loud, to having a child. The purse is financially ruinous and prevents me from going out to eat or drink like a normal adult for a while. I also faced a Madonna dilemma about keeping the baby. I have better ways to spend the money, but when I look into its eyes (my eyes reflected back in the patent leather goodness), I know I made the right choice.

There have been many things I wanted to write about in the last week or so: Darnell Jackson, the primaries/caucuses, possibly Britney Spears, my fears about the future, and self discoveries I have made from watching other people. I find now, that most of the clever or insightful things I would say have floated to the top and evaporated. I will try to be better about updating going forward. I hate when I read back over my blog and find gaps in my life.

Another one bites the dust

Huzzah! Hangover free on New Year's Day. Happily, the lack of a hangover this morning is in no way indicative of the fun had last evening. It started out slowly with everyone drinking and watching the Flight of the Conchords marathon on HBO. At midnight, we counted down to the new year and popped all of the little party favors we had. The only thing missing? A tiara for me to wear. One that has the year in pink rhinestones or something.

I was having a great time with my friends even before the karaoke started, but that is when the party really got kicking. Mostly, we sang 80s songs. We knew that around three, people were going to head out, so we decided to finish the disk in the player. The last song - That's What Friends Are For. It is sappy, but on New Year's Eve (Day) that song does make you realize that you should keep smiling, keep shining, because you do have people in your life that you can count on. And that IS what friends are for. To them, and to everyone else - Happy New Year.

Going to go kinda light on the resolutions, since I want to try to stick to them. First of all, it will be back to the vegetarian for me this year. I'm a reluctant vegetarian and will probably always have allowances and exceptions in my diet, but I want to take as little from the icky meat industry as possible this year and hope, wistfully, for change.

I have also decided not to drink any calories until my birthday. This includes: juice, soda, milkshakes, sweetened tea, coffee drinks, and, most notably, alcohol. I hope this cuts down on my alcohol consumption, ups my fruit consumption, and eases me from my dependence of foreign Pepsi. I'm curious to see how this goes.

Again, Happy New Year everyone!