Brad,
I thought about posting that video I took of you the other night, the one where you’re shaking your ass in the kitchen to some serious techno beats. But since I’m supposed to be nice to you today, I’ll just post this picture instead. Because I love it. And I love you.
Happy birthday sweet sugary love muffin.
Andrea made me promise I’d post some of these pictures here. My family, as I’ve mentioned numerous times, is very non-technological. My mom just got an ipod (huh?) to take with her on a trip, and I had to ask her how in the world she figured out how to put music on it. I didn’t even use the world ‘upload’ because I thought that might confuse her. She’s a smart gal, but technological she ain’t. Neither is anybody else in my family really, so I think they’re all a little captivated by the very idea of a blog. And even though they don’t read it much, they like to be a part of it. I’m more than happy to oblige.
My sister is a clean freak, as evidenced by the fact that she thought nothing of grabbing the broom and dustpan that was sitting in the fabric section of Walmart to, you know, clean the place up a bit. The other one was our “big smiles” photo taken while we patiently waited for our fabric to be cut. See how happy I can be when I’m surrounded by loved ones? I need to get out of this friendless town.
Thanks for the visit girls, I really needed a dose of family.
I started to write my much-anticipated (see how vain I am right there?) (I’m not really vain) (usually) “Last Names” post last night, and I was going to attempt to finish it tonight because Brad is going out with his friends and leaving me home alone to drown myself in self-loathing. Actually, it’s his birthday tomorrow and he totally deserves a night out with the boys because he’s spending all of Saturday and Sunday doing birthday stuff with me.
Anyway, my intentions were good, but it turns out I can’t write tonight. Why, you wonder, disappointedly. Well because I’m having visitors! On a whim my dad’s wife (who is so much more a friend and an integral part of our family than she is a stepmom, so I avoid that terminology regarding her) and my sister decided to come visit for the evening.
Nobody EVER comes to see me, or at least very rarely, so this is a big deal. Which means I have to get my ass home, get the clothes off the floor, the dishes off the counter and the scum out of the bathroom sink. No writing tonight.
But I really loved your comments, and I’m very eager to write out my thoughts and respond to yours. But it’ll have to wait till after I entertain my peeps (I never say peeps) (okay once in awhile).
I’ve been wanting to write a post about last names for awhile, but the subject matter just keeps growing and growing, and I’ve been intimidated to even get started on one. Basically I have a lot to say about last names, all of which I’ve said before, but not much of which I’ve attempted to write. So I’m going to keep working on that. But first, I want to hear from other people. You especially, I’m really curious what you have to say about this.
Tell me, all you married people out there, what did you do with your last name when you got married? What did your husband or wife do?
And do tell, all you single people out there, what do you plan to do with your last name when (if) you get married? What do you hope your husband or wife will do?
You don’t have to actually share your last name(s), just share if/how it/they was/were changed. Here, to help fight against identity theft, I’ll provide you with fake names to manipulate as needed. Let’s say your last name is Schlopp and your future/current spouse’s last name is Dinger. What did you do with these names, or what will you do with them, upon marriage?
Will you be a Schlopp-Dinger? A Dinger-Schlopp? Just a Dinger? Just a Schlopp? Or maybe a Schlinger or Dopp?
If you share this with me, I promise I’ll work on an official “last names” post to share with you. It promises to be chock-full of all kinds of interesting and thought-provoking stuff. Maybe.
I have to do this tonight because I’ll be at a conference all day tomorrow. And I have to do it now because the time that I need to be up in the morning is an ungodly hour that I’m not even familiar with. 4:30am? Have you guys heard of this? Which means I need to at least try to get in bed before my usual midnight-ish sleep time. Okay, first, Idol time:
Lakisha: yep good
Chris S: a little boring I’d say
Gina: I actually liked it (sorry Robin!)
Sanjaya: The hair? Come on, that’s a little ridiculous. And like Simon said, he’s in his own little universe now.
Haley: I found myself more interested in an article about the Republican party than her performance.
Phil: really liked it (of course I did have a crush on Sting for quite some time)
Melinda: no complaints here
Blake: a little dull this week, but good
Jordin: I don’t know why, but she bugged me tonight
Chris R: pretty good
I missed the beginning… does anyone know what the theme was? I heard a lot of Sting/Police and Gwen Stefani/No Doubt. How do they go together other than the group to solo artist thing?
Predictions. Why do I even bother? I obviously have no idea what I’m talking about. So I’m going with Brad’s random guess. “Who do you think will get voted off?” “Off what?” “Uh… American Idol.” “Um, I don’t know, Justin Timberlake?” I take that to mean Chris Richardson.
Sunday was the perfect day. If every day could be like Sunday, I think I could be a happier person. I got to sleep in and eat breakfast in the sun that was streaming through the windows. While Brad continued to sleep, I laced up my shoes, grabbed my camera and went for a walk. It was gorgeous. I kept walking and walking, and I never wanted to go home. I walked for an hour and a a half, through our neighborhood and around the park. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the temperature was warm, the birds were chirping, and I was thrilled to be part of it.
After my walk, Brad and I gathered up our new cheap-o Walmart tennis gear and lobbed the ball around for awhile at the local courts. Actually, it was balls, lots of balls that we had almost no control over. We had to have the people two courts down return a few to us, and we even picked one up off the road on our way out (that one was Brad’s power serve.) So we’re amateurs, who cares, it was fun. And healthy!
After tennis, Brad went to play some basketball. I considered joining him, but my under-exercised body had had enough for one day. Instead I read for an hour on the couch, right where the spring breeze was blowing in through the open windows and the warm sun was shining through.
But at about 10pm, I started slipping into a funk. It had been such a perfect day, the kind of day that I dream about all year, and now it was over. And not only was it over, but the next day I had to return to work. To my windowless office that people tell me is so dark! and how do you stand working back here? The very thought of that caused me to go from elated, happy, smiling, light and free to glum, sad, weighed down and defeated. It definitely wasn’t the best way to end a perfect day.
I guess I just hope I can enjoy as many days like Sunday as possible to make up for the rest of it. Life…
Because I was having trouble writing recently, my dear internet friends came to the rescue. The first, daisies, unofficially tagged me for this meme, which I thought sounded pretty fun (Look for the second, coming soon):
1. Go to Wikipedia and type in your Birthday Month and day only.
2. List 3 Events that occurred that day.
3. List 2 important Birth days.
4. List 1 Death.
5. List a Holiday or Observance. (if any)
6. Tag 5 other bloggers.
Birthday: December 8
Events:
1. 1854 - Pope Pius IX proclaims the dogma of Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was born free of original sin.
2. 1941 - World War II: After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the US Congress and Great Britain pass a declaration of war against Japan.
3. 1976 - The Eagles release the album Hotel California.
Important Birth days:
1. 1542 - Mary Queen of Scots
2. 1765 - Eli Whitney, American inventor (hello, the cotton gin?)
Bonus birthdays:
1925 - Sammy Davis Jr., American actor and singer
1943 - Jim Morrison of The Doors
1951 - Bill Bryson, American author
1953 - Kim Basinger, American actress
1961 - Ann Coulter, American author, political commentator, and attorney
1964 - Teri Hatcher, American actress
1966 - Sinead O’Connor, Irish musician
I had no idea I shared a birthday with so many cool people. Except for Ann Coulter, that’s unfortunate.
Death:
1. 1980 - John Lennon
The same day, same year and only a few hours after I was born.
Holiday or Observance:
1. France - Fête des Lumières (Festival of Lights) held in Lyon to honor the Virgin Mary.
Tags:
I’ll tag a few people, but no pressure if you’re not really a meme kind of person.
Tripping Daisy (long time, no blog)
Quarter Life Crisis (back at ya)
Shannon (great name!)
Yesterday a friend and I were discussing what a pain in the ass it is to buy new clothes, mentioning jeans as one of the most difficult items to purchase. I was thinking about how I only have three pairs of jeans, but that’s enough because I only really wear one of them anyway. My favorite pair. The perfect jeans for me. Great fit, great wash, and they make my butt look pretty good too.
About a year ago a coworker and I sort of implemented a Jeans Friday in our department. We didn’t ask permission or try to start a trend; we just started wearing jeans every Friday because we wanted to. As today is yet another Friday, I of course pulled on my favorite jeans this morning, per usual. I finished my morning routine, drove to work, walked all through the halls of the building. And once I was safely inside my office, I quickly shoved my hand down the back of my pants to adjust a severe wedgie. Come on, you know you do these things too when you’re alone.
Except, hmm, something was wrong. Why are my fingers sticking out through the back of my jeans? You see where this is going.
I had a huge hole in the ass of my pants. My favorite jeans! I suppose that’s what I get for wearing them almost every day for the last two years. But there I am at work, standing in my office, hand down my pants, and a giant hole in my jeans. Fifteen minutes after I arrived, I left work to go change, awkwardly tugging my coat down to cover the peep show of my pale yellow underwear.
Now I’m wearing a much less loved pair of jeans and dreading the search for a replacement perfect pair. Because those babies sure aren’t patchable.*
*Which reminds me of another embarrassing story about holey clothes at work. I’ll save that for another time.
Something’s going on. I can’t write anymore. Each time I think I have a brilliant idea, I start to write it out and after about ten painful paragraphs I quit, delete the whole thing and write something stupid about American Idol.
Ever since I returned from vacation, I’ve lost my writing mojo. I usually hate when people write about how they can’t write and when they threaten to close down this blog everytime they hit a rough patch of writer’s block. I’m not pitying myself enough to proclaim the end of Doahleigh, but I’m really peeved that I can’t write these days. I’ve written and deleted posts so many times in the last couple weeks, not because the ideas are boring, but because nobody would get past the first paragraph without killing themselves. Or closing the browser.
I haven’t decided if the solution is to walk away for awhile or if I should just write through the pain. Ha, look at that, it seems I’m writing through the pain today. Maybe I should just stop. I will, right after I pose this completely unrelated question:
Should inmates be allowed to smoke while incarcerated?*
I say yes, this is a ridiculous question and why is anyone worrying about it when there are genocides and wars and what did Hilary say about Obama to worry about? Brad says no because we are trying to rehabilitate these inmates and how are we doing that by allowing them to destroy their health with cigarettes?
I’m curious what everyone else thinks.
*We saw a news story on this subject recently, and even though we both agree smoking is vile, this particular question quickly turned into a major disagreement.
Do you all realize that I actually sit down in front of the tv Tuesday nights with a little pad of paper and a pencil? I write down all the contestants’ names, then after each performance I jot down a few words of praise. Or disgust. So what you see in my analysis below is what I thought immediately after they sang.
Haley: cute song, but still not one of my favorite contestants
Chris R: aww, so sweet (mostly I was distracted though)
Stephanie: not very dynamic
Blake: he’s so captivating!
Lakisha: in the words of Randy, it was only aight
Phil: didn’t exactly love it (I like him but I wish he sang better)
Jordin: this is the first week I’ve really noticed her
Sanjaya: he’ll be getting a lot of votes this week
Gina: eh, okay
Chris S: yeah, decent
Melinda: beautiful!
My best guess for eliminations this week is Phil, Gina or Haley. Who knows, who cares, as long as Sanjaya doesn’t win.
Also, that crying girl? What the hell? Okay cute, a little girl in the audience is overcome with emotion at an American Idol show. She’s bawling her eyes out for two hours straight, and oh look now she’s cowering away as Sanjaya sings in her face. Yeah wow great, this show has so much impact on the lives of others, let’s give it frickin’ Nobel Peace Prize already. Definitely. Now let’s just show the crying girl one more time. Great, that’s great, we are so IN with the American public.
Oddly, I’ve read a few times this week, in various places, about what is often called a “free pass” amongst couples. In case you’ve lived in a cave and just today followed the light to the wide world of freedom and the first thing you did was discover the internet and somehow stumbled upon this blog of all things, the “free pass” basically means that each member of a couple is allowed to select one celebrity (for you cave-dwellers, those are people that we pay millions of dollars to live luxurious lives so that we can ogle and hate them) with whom, if the fate’s allow, they can have sex, sans guilt or repercussions. Chances of these encounters ever happening are virtually non-existent, so mostly it’s just a silly way for couples to fantasize about adultery without really committing it.
I will never meet a celebrity, even from the D-list, in real life. And even if I did, the idea that they’d be interested in having sex with me is absurd. So I guess I should feel pretty safe joking about the “free pass” with Brad. But the truth is, I feel a little disgusting about it. It doesn’t really have anything to do with feeling filthy about adulterous fantasies; we both know that part is all in fun. It has more to do with not wanting to feed into celebrity egos.
I think that no matter how famous or hot someone is, they don’t get to have sex with me just because they’re famous or hot. I’m not an ego feeder. Even though I would love to lick chocolate off of John Stamos’ eyelids, I’d like to think that I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction even if he begged.
With that said, Brad and I decided to play the game anyway. Mostly because we know it’ll never happen and because we feel an insatiable desire to always fit in with the main stream. The main stream plays the “free pass” game and so shall we. Obviously, I’ve selected John Stamos:
Even as Uncle Jesse with a mullet, I found him desirable. I was so happy when he came back to tv and started showing up in People and Us Weekly again. His eyes pierce my heart and render me useless. drool…
Brad’s pick, after some contemplation (neither of us really gets that involved in celebrity crushes), is Selma Hayek:
Which I am completely okay with because girl’s got curves! I like that my man likes curves because boy have I got some.
Of course, both of these selections are subjet to change at any time. Even at the last minute, because you never know when either one of us might run into Johnny Depp on the street.
(Upon rereading this post, I couldn’t figure out what the point was. Why had I decided to write about this? I can’t seem to remember now, but oh oops, I just hit Publish.)
Edit: The Internet really needs to decide if they want her to spell her name Salma or Selma. I got thousands of results for both, but I’m now thinking it’s Salma Hayek. Whatever.
My friend told me a story about her weekend in Chicago. It involved lots of drinking and crowds of drunk people and being stuck at a bar until that place in time when you’re not sure if it’s yet considered morning or if it’s still the night before. Since the bars in big cities stay open until 5am, there’s really no such thing as time after a certain point. Also it involved falling asleep on a pile of coats until a bouncer informed her that this isn’t a hotel and she’ll have to take her slumber somewhere else. At which point she finally convinced her ride to leave.
Basically this is my idea of a nightmare. Crowds, drunks, fatigue, late night/early morning hours, being at the mercy of someone else’s decision to leave. I, personally, was more than content to spend my St. Patrick’s Day trying a sip of Brad’s green beer at Applebee’s then helping him study for a test and watching two episodes of Sopranos with a big bowl of microwave popcorn. I’m an introverted wallflower, nothing wrong with that. But somehow I think Brad would have preferred to find a happy medium somewhere between the lackluster way we spent our evening and the way my friend celebrated. Poor guy.
Of course, the other thing we did was regularly update our ESPN Tournament Challenge brackets. This is the first time I’ve ever taken any interest in March Madness, but since Brad convinced me to fill out a bracket and join his group, I find myself obsessed with the outcome of games. I still don’t give a shit about who’s who in college basketball, but it brings me a little joy everytime I get to use the yellow highlighter (yellow means a correct prediction, pink means you suck at this game).
My selection method was very scientific, involving in-depth comparisons of various team mascots, color schemes, logos and website designs. Throughout the first round, my method appeared nearly full-proof as I held fast to second place, and at the end of round two, I’m sitting comfortably in third. No need to mention there are only six people competing in the group. However I should mention, since it may not last much longer, that I am kicking a certain someone’s ass. No names necessary. (Love you baby!)
Oh yeah, hey. By the way. I bought a new car. Didn’t I mention that? The last few weeks have been such a whirlwind, I kind of forgot to tell ya that little bit of information. Probably wouldn’t matter except for all the times I’ve mentioned how much I needed a new one.
For comparison’s sake:
Old car (Greta)
She looks pretty good, but beauty is only skin deep here. Greta was falling apart inside, and since I can’t handle that stress in my life anymore, it was time to upgrade.
New car (still unnamed)
It’s a 2007 Hyundai Elantra, 5-speed manual in Carbon Grey (as you can see). The story of how it came under my ownership is long and boring, but suffice it to say that it was one of the most stressful and intense events I’ve experienced in a long time.
However, I think I got a good deal in the end. I looked at dozens of cars and a myriad of loan options, and even with my good credit and low standards, I couldn’t find any combination that allowed for payments that my budget could afford. But this car is better than anything else I looked at, and my monthly payments are right where I need them. PLUS! The warranty is way better than anything I compared it to. Which means this car is affordable and reliable (and if ever it’s not, they have to fix it for me!), my two primary criteria.
I say it’s a better car because it comes standard with a gazillion features that other cars in its class offer only optionally. Between the standards and an additional package that came on my car, I got AC, ABS, power locks, power windows, power mirrors, lighted vanity mirrors, an auxillary port, fog lights, and cruise control for a lesser monthly payment than I would have on the offers I got for cars that often didn’t come with those features.
Basically, I’m happy with my new purchase. With the additional expense, my budget is pretty strapped, but I don’t have to worry about my car anymore. Just to have this matter settled is such a burden off my mind. Between that and taking a vacation two days later, I feel noticeably less stressed this week. Haven’t been sleeping worth a damn and most of the rest of my life is still a confusing mess, but at least I now have a beautiful new reliable car!
I bought this book because it was on clearance, and I thought maybe it would be an interesting peek into the Amish lifestyle. Yes, it was, and I was glad. But more than that, this story is a heart-wrenching account of how rape so completely changes the lives of its victims. After the attack (Chapter 1), the rapist is never again mentioned in the story, except in the victim’s fears of seeing him again. It is presumed that he moves on, never giving the interaction a second thought.
But Hannah, the girl attacked, is never the same. Those five awful minutes changed everything for her. I don’t just mean her personal thoughts and the way she views the world and other people. It changed all her relationships with family, friends, neighbors. It changed her plans, it changed the way she was looked upon, it changed everything.
It seems almost everything I read anymore has some reference to rape, so this is not the first time it has affected me. But this book was so much more than I had expected. The writing seemed forced much of the time and parts of the plot didn’t deliver the way I hoped they would. But because I felt so connected to Hannah, I often found myself wanting to crawl inside the story, which I think is usually a good testimony to the quality of a novel.
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What’s with everyone being married or engaged or madly in love on this season of American Idol? All the contestants ever do is swoon over their husbands or wives or fiances or boyfriends or girlfriends. Or lovers or mistresses or secret crushes. Or boy toys. Or sugar daddies. Or best friends for whom they have feelings but have never been able to tell. Or their baby mamas. Okay done. Anyway, what’s up with that?
As usual, here’s what I thought about last night…
Brandon: missed it, out of the room
Melinda: sing it girl! (she’s so precious)
Chris S: didn’t love it, but I still like him
Gina: pretty dull
Sanjaya: still adorable, but wow, not up to par
Haley: this is the last remaining clone girl and she made me snore (I was paying so little attention I didn’t even notice she forgot some words), but I still don’t hate her
Phil: I like this guy
Lakisha: she’s so natural (plus we call my sister Kiki (her name is Kelli) only we spell it Keekee because we think Kiki looks like it should be pronounced “kie-kie”)
Blake: my fingers were tapping and I actually liked this arrangement, but I want to hear his voice more
Stephanie: decent
Chris R: I like it (and I want him to date my friend Robin, I think they’d be really good together)
Jordin: I love The Land Before Time, but I didn’t love her version of this song
I won’t even venture a guess as to who will be voted off. I, myself, don’t vote at all, and the record shows that my opinions usually aren’t in sync with those that do. I used to get frustrated with how stupid people can be when they vote on this show (hello, Antonella making it beyond round one?), but in the end a deserving contestant always wins. Often it takes awhile to weed out the amateurs (Sanjaya), but it always gets done eventually.
Okay fine, I’ll guess. Um, either Brandon or Stephanie.
