In review

It's been an odd couple of days.

Against my better judgment, I joined Facebook, and though it's been neat to reconnect with NYU, Grinnell, & HHS friends, I'm not altogether sure the site is healthy.

Tuesday night, Neil & I went to "Mark Twain Tonight!", which I was really looking forward to. Hal Holbrook is such a cute old man. It was a good show--folksy and amusing--and we had seats right behind a separating aisle so we could stretch our legs out.

Then about halfway through the first act, I began noticing the stench. It reminded me of unwashed human and something I couldn't put my finger on--something the really big, nasty-haired guy who used to come to the ARC smelled like. The smell would come in waves, right when the ventilation system blew over our way, every five minutes or so, so it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. Moving seats really wasn't an option, since the show was just about sold out. I asked Neil if he smelled it, and he had just started noticing it, too.

I tried breathing only through my mouth, but the nature of the show is such that you have to really think about what Holbrook is saying to get it--and when I got lost in his narrative, I'd relax and start breathing normally. Then the stench would arise again. It was awful.

At intermission, I asked Neil what he wanted to do. He reluctantly admitted he'd prefer to leave, and I was glad he did. Holbrook is 83, but maybe he has another tour left in him that we can catch.

As soon as we were outside, Neil explained what I couldn't figure out--it smelled like whoever the person was lived in a house where they let their cats run wild without doing much cleaning up. It was cat urine and poop smells that had seeped into clothes--one of the worst, subtle smells ever. And since you can't really tell that from just looking at people, we couldn't see who it was.

It was a bummer. We visited Dad after for a few minutes and took a walk around his side garden, then went to Subway to pick up dinner to watch in front of the "Idol" I recorded while we were gone. But Subway was out of bread. It would have been easy to get a healthy-ish meal there, but instead we went to Taco Bell, where they only gave me like 7 mild sauce packets.

"Idol" was Neil Diamond week, a night I figured would be awesome, but...it wasn't, really. No one stood out or blew me away, and I'm wondering what it takes to do this now. Shouldn't they be getting better? Archuleta's "Imagine" and David Cook's "Hello" seem so far in the past. I'm even losing most of my affection for David A. The judges, of course, see no wrong in him.

At least we got NKOTB tour information this week. October 4th in Chicago.
Em--are you in????? How much fun would a girly road trip be?!

This wintry week

I'm wearing a coat over my shirt in the office this morning. I think it's so crazy how big institutions turn on the heat and A/C the same time every year, and leave them on constantly no matter the weather. I feel like there has to be something more energy efficient and crowd-pleasing.

Something I thought about trying to get to sleep last night:

We may need to rent chairs for both the ceremony and the week-after reception in October, preferably from Lindsey Rentals. I remember going in there with Dad when I was a little girl, getting some yard implement or something he needed temporarily. I was enthralled with all the stuff they had to rent in there, and was especially taken with the huge Bingo wheel set out--though I don't think I'd ever played Bingo outside of little doohickey games at Ridgeway using composers or something in choir. I wanted so bad to someday have an occasion where I could rent that huge shiny golden Bingo wheel.

Anyway...this week, I'm going to do some accomplishin'!

1. Hal Holbrook in "Mark Twain Tonight!" on Tuesday (set DVD to record "Idol" before we go)

2. Finish Undeclared Netflix DVD (just the 2 commentaries to go!)

3. Finish 1st "Fry & Laurie" DVD (& take to Dad's)--2 eps to go!

4. Still need to watch "The Office" online!

5. Swim at the very least 4 times this week (Swam so far: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday)

6. Work out with Bun Roller at least 4 times

7. Finish Scraps library book

8. Fill in wedding information into planner

9. Look at Figure magazine/Real Weddings

10. Finish taping at least one deck of cards (Finished two. New goal: another deck!)

11. Have at least 3 clementines daily (Had so far: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday)

12. Send (or just wrap) Neil's fossil (paid. E-check needs to clear.)

13. Macy's/Lane Bryant to look at dresses (sale @ Macy's starting Apr. 30)

14. Get rid of more newspapers (Sections so far: 3)

15. Watch "Rushmore" Netflix

16. Find new energy drink option--Wal-Mart?

17. Visit shop on Delmar this weekend?

18. Watch "Desperate" online

19. Watch "Bachelor" online

20. Watch "Hills" & Aftershow online

21. Read recaps on EW & TWoP

A look back

The weekend is over. It's officially Monday morning, and the best thing about today is that I got a good time on the Monday NYTX (6:15). And I'm sure that will be the best thing about today.

Things I liked about the past two days:

1. Friday night was the kind of fun I haven't had often--an hours-long evening visiting/giggling with Amanda about her dog Oscar (who is so like Lily it's uncanny--yeah, my sister), Kathy Griffin (she talks about Dateline: To Catch a Predator! Boy Do I LOVE HER!!!), her friends' weddings (both good and bad), and old times. She signed me up for TheKnot and went through the checklist with me, unearthing dozens and dozens of things I had not even thought about. Boutonnieres for the men! Reception decorations! Cake for the week-after gathering! Videographers! A guest book! Parent gifts! For a small wedding, there is still a lot of stuff to think about.

2. Saturday I cleaned up the house good, which always feels satisfying. SarahBethJC was coming that evening, and I don't think I'd seen her since before Valentine's Day. We went first to Sophia's, but didn't feel like waiting 45 minutes for a table because the stupid bitches from RBHS were promming it up. (Plus, Sophia's always exaggerates their wait time. Everybody knows that.) We drove over to Macaroni Grill, waited like 15 minutes, and were sat in a cozy romantic 2-person booth. But we're comfortable in our sexuality so it was fine. We ordered a bottle of Asti Spumante, and while the waitress brought it over and was opening it, I said "When I served, I always hated when people ordered the bottle. I could never open it smoothly." And the chick was like "It's not so bad," and I mused "Yeah, my Mormon friend who doesn't drink, I think she got really used to it too from working at a Macaroni Grill" and the server was all "Dude, Beckie?" And I said "No, but her sister!" And she goes "Oh, I know Emily, and Noah!" It was so cute.

ANYWAY. SB was very good to answer all my questions about her wedding, and got down to business with her little pad and pen, asking me lots and lots of things about more I hadn't thought about. Candles in the schoolhouse, if we have the ceremony there! Flowers for the ceremony as decoration! Lingerie for the wedding night! A surprisingly good review of a local hotel, Stoney Creek, I thought was only known for the animal heads on its walls! What the weather would be that time of year (her wedding was 10/16)! That she'd seen plus-size models trying on dresses in the wedding shop she went to in Lebanon!

After, a little toasted, we went back to the apartment and played Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit with Neil until Sarah's Dylan got done with the Blue Man Group. So good to see dear Sarah.

3. Sunday was fairly uneventful. I got a few to-dos done, and went to visit Dad for a little while in the evening. I miss not seeing him all the time. We had a good chat over bean soup, and I left him to his PBS Life-in-an-airplane-carrier show. I stopped at Schnucks for some cutie clementines and Pudding Pops, and it was home again, home again, jiggity-jog.

Sean shed so much today--his whole back piece! He had a skin-cape almost all day long (I realize this sounds disgusting, but it was actually amusing).

Also, the weather was super weird. It was too cold for April 27th, but everything is getting in bloom so it looked normal for spring. When I went out at 6:30, the air had more of an autumn crispness about it, without the smoky, woodsy feel of fall. If someone were to plop me down in today's weather, blindfolded, after storing me in a windowless box for an unknown number of months, I would have no idea what season it was today.
Which is just a long way of saying that, again, it was weird weather.

Way past my bedtime now. I'm back on track tomorrow, with a vengeance!

Drowsy.

"Drowsy"...such a perfect word. It looks drowsy. The 'd' seems tired, and the 'dr' drawwwls into the rest of the word, which just falls at your feet. You could say it asleep. The word makes me sleepy and kind of hot. Same with 'lull,' only that one's more pleasant.

Anyway. That's what I am. Alone at work, with a diet coke replacing my morning OJ/energy drink combo, wondering if I'll be in the mood to swim in 3.5 hours. The morning didn't begin that well--I was good yesterday, with exercise and diet, yet the scale didn't reflect it. Always a cruddy moment there. And soooo easy to fall off the Healthy Eating Wagon when it doesn't appear to be doing any good. What's the point of torturing yourself if you're not losing weight anyway? For me, it's another vicious cycle--I go on some kind of diet plan, and lose five or so pounds right away. Then it stops, even if I follow the same eating pattern I did from the beginning. I get discouraged and gain the weight back, only it's easier than it ever was when I was at that lower weight in the first place, because I dieted to get there. So I lose, then gain it back super-fast, and gain more besides that--even if my eating habits hadn't changed from what they were before the diet. It makes me never want to diet again, because it makes gaining faster when I fail (and I always do).

Ugh. I'm just down today. And I don't like diet coke. But I have to finish it, because I am soooo sleepy.

This weekend, I hope to accomplish the following:

1. Check Martha Graham DVD for closed-captioning
2. Finish Undeclared Netflix DVD (or 90210)...well, we finished the episodes and deleted scenes, anyway...
3. Finish Harrison Ford EW
4. Watch another Fry & Laurie episode
5. Watch The Office online
6. Read a library book, or at least half of one
7. Fill in wedding information Friday afternoon into planner
8. Work out with Bun Roller
9. Look at Figure magazine/Real Weddings
10. Finish taping at least one deck of cards
11. Finish clementines (2 left!)
12. Get crickets
13. Try to fit in swimming? (The prob. with weekend swimming is that I think there's only one hour of lap swim, Sundays at 11 a.m.)
14. Financials
15. Wrap Neil's fossil
16. Macy's/Lane Bryant for swim shorts & look at dresses
17. Look online for paper storage solutions/look @ scrap org. book

Hmm. All in all, not a terrific weekend. No good for dieting, no good for progress. Oh, well. At least I was social!

There's a bright golden haze on the meaderr...

We have this cute little window alcove in our bedroom, and most mornings I block out the sun as much as possible trying to get every ounce of sleep I can. But this week, we had a singular sunny morning that I opened the window to. The view was so pretty and glittery and springy--I'm not usually one for sunny mornings (as you might have seen, I am a rainy-morning type o' gal), but our little window tree has sprouted with little greenies and now, recently, bloomed with tiny white flowers. They're not easily captured; they just look like little brightnesses on the tree from the sun. But I tried to get it:


I'm so charmed by the world this time of year. It only happens like 15 days annually, so I have to learn to appreciate it more by taking walks and opening windows. In 2007, we had a really late winter, and when I left for England in the beginning of May we hadn't had many really nice days yet. Then when I got back three weeks later--bam!--it was summer. I totally skipped spring. I was ticked.

So I was looking today at some Twilight movie info. I'm not sure I'll see it, but I'm interested to know its development and things. Anyway, the Cedric-Diggory/Edward dude talked about Meyer's work-in-progress, Midnight Sun, as if it were this well-known thing. 'Wha-huh??' I thought. They described it as Twilight from Edward's point of view--exactly what I hadn't known I wanted!! I read the 20-page sampler chapter on Meyer's website immejitly.

I must say it didn't exactly fulfill all my (admittedly short-lived) expectations. Maybe it's better left a mystery, for me. Don't get me wrong--I'll read it as soon as it comes out, and I'm glad she's doing it. But I was disappointed by a few elements (for example, that Edward's attraction to Bella is not felt when he first encounters her--the love part, not the bloodlust part). It would be like getting all the HP books from Dumbledore's point of view, sort of. I don't need to know it, to understand the story, and perhaps part of the delicious torture of these books is imagining Edward's state of mind rather than having it all spelled out.

Off to tackle the Friday NYTX. Normally this doesn't go well.

Let's hear it for hump day. Woot woot!

Man, today's (tomorrow, Thursday's) NYTX was a bitch. ONIONY bagels? UIE as a slang for turnabout? I liked the theme okay, but the fill was stupid. Well...the fill was stupid, with the exception of 41-across:

Hamilton who wrote "Mythology"

Behold...F O E returns!! What good memories of the very beginning of sophomore Block class. I was in the first one, with Jamie and Mike and Laura and Katie, and I'd never been in that unique of a class environment before, nor since. When we finished our unit on Ms. Hamilton's tome, I liked it so much that instead of doing some boring 'myth of my own' for the project due, I wrote an Ode to Edith. It was awesome. I also started the organization F O E (Friends of Edith). I believe Brian Gerke, in a rare moment of solidarity, was a charter member. I wrote F O E on people's hands, even if they didn't have Block.


So let's take a moment. Let's take some time to remember Mmes. Rahm & Grupe; their innovative ideas about how classes should be run; to be in such a large class in a new big scary high school that friends were inevitably present even on the first day (and yes, enemies like Sarah/Devon Wright); even though the research paper sucked, doing research for it in the media center during class time was fun and felt like I was getting away with something; having Quiz Bowl practice in the Block room after school, where Chris Housh would just answer everything...

These are quite random.

On to business:

The good things about today

• I was having a major Dress/Idol/Bachelor conversation with Lily when Em called--two social events at the very same time! And a long message to listen to at the end! (Em, you make me laugh. You're such a cute grump.)
  
• I swam and worked out with the new Roller deal. That thing burns!
• Idol was Awe-SOME!!! Carly, the has-been from effing Ireland who thinks that she is sooooo beautiful and sooooo delicious to listen to and works as a barmaid at a nearby Irish pub because OF COURSE she does, and wears black leggings that make her legs look about two feet stubbier, and Constant tank-toppage to show off her ugly, ugly tats on her milky-white skin (skin that should be preserved in its beauty, gosh dang it!), is G-O-N-E. Hallelujah. I hate that she made it further than Michael Johns, but I don't even care that Syesha's still there. It's a worthy sacrifice. And a total shocker, because she fairly kicked ass last night on Andrew Lloyd Webber week.
  
• "A Bit of Fry & Laurie" is totally cute. I didn't know it was a sketch show, but I adore them both so much that I don't mind. It was funny to see Hugh all quirky and happy this afternoon, then see ads throughout Idol for "House."
  
• Nick Andopolis played a major role in the "Undeclared" episode we watched tonight. I wonder if he's as cute in Sarah Marshall?
• Sean is getting mondo-colorful. His front legs are almost all orange-striped now and his lips are yellow. I know, it's weird that he has yellow lips.
  
• I told my boss about our wedding plans earlier this week and she was so excited! It's neat to see that in people--I never expected anyone but us to really care about this day, so I'm always surprised when folks (like you, Em, or Lily) get enthused about the prospect. I guess I figure the excitement was when we got engaged, and that was about it for outside viewers (maybe because that's how I've always sort of viewed weddings and this whole process). Neil and I were killing time watching Entertainment Tonight or something yesterday, and the big news was that Bush girl's wedding at the White House. Then the whole next segment was spent on recapping prior girly weddings the White House has hosted. It was dull, dull, dull as dishwater, but I knew that in all probability, thousands of women around the country loved it. I just don't have that gene or something. I mean, I want things to be pretty, and will treasure the day and the mementos it leaves behind, and I do have to admit that there are some really formal dresses online that take my breath away. But I don't need them; I like looking at them, and wonder if I'd look pretty in them. I'm not, however, going to spend a thousand dollars on a dress for one freaking day of my life--this is not a moment I've dreamt of (walking down the aisle, I mean...not the getting-hitched part) or worn curtain-veils in preparation for. I'm glad to be getting married, for damned sure, but I'm just not a dream-wedding type of person.
• I'm tired. Maybe I should go to bed at a reasonable hour.

Atari

I found this (okay, I didn't *find* it. My daily "Unshelved" library e-mailed comic artist told us about it) and was totally fooled for the first few. It reminds me of a lot of the artwork I'm dealing with as we throw out box after box after box of all the old 1970s-1980s Educational materials...I never owned an Atari 2600 (I don't think, anyway...we had one but it didn't have games like this. Just Frogger and Q-Bert and stuff. We also had a Bally, which I won in the Big Mystery Surprise Box at Ridgeway Funday one year), but I get the gist of these. A few of my favorites:

This dude is h-o-t. The glasses, the almost-combover, the head-in-hands confidence...it's all working for him.

Didn't we all have this joyous of expressions playing that weird "Turtle" command game on the Apple during summer school 1985?

Love the flowy head-scarf. Everyone in our elementary-school level textbook illustrations had long hippy hair flowing perfectly in the breeze, animated to appear as if it were only one piece of a big flow of hair. And perfect lips.

Warning: Profanity ahead. I don't usually use this word here, but I'm making an exception because it made me laugh.

Good stuff. Makes me want to find "Lemonade Stand," or "Oregon Trail," or "Carmen Sandiago." Or just Pong.