doahleigh - Holy Waste of Teabags!

I want to do this. Quit everything and travel around the world for a year. I know everyone wants to do that, but I really do. In a year when I finish my graduate program I could totally quit everything I’ve got going on right now and just go. That gives me a year to save up money and make plans. I know it’s not exactly spontaneous, but it’s better than nothing.

There are so many places I want to go, and it seems like there are never enough vacation days to do it all. And of course there’s never even kind of enough money. I’m always yearning to go go go. Somewhere, anywhere, everywhere. But it’s not very often that I actually go. So I want to do this.

Problem is, I don’t want to do it alone. I know I could. I could travel the world alone and it would be fine. But I don’t want to. I want to make plans and make decisions and experience it all with someone else (or more than one someone, that’s cool too). Wouldn’t it be fun if a small group of bloggers who became friends online all decided to get together and travel the world for a year? Even six months, I could handle six months. I think that’s a great story. I really want to do this!

So who’s with me? Who’s gonna do this with me?

(If you’re not a blogger friend but someone I know in real life, I’d love to do this with you too. Feel free to speak up.)

Things are a little wacky around here right now. This website I mean, not my life. Well that too, but I don’t want to talk about that right now. So the website… Brad is moving me over to a new host (or something, I don’t know) and for some reason the header reverted back to an old design. Sorry about the reminder of snow and ice in the middle of summer.

My email isn’t working right now either, and who knows what will happen with comments and links and all that. We are Brad is working diligently to get it all straightened out, and hopefully everything will look and act normal soon. Maybe even better!

Last month Brad helped me discover a new website for avid readers. If you like to read but hating spending a lot of money on books, you might appreciate this. If you don’t like to read but enjoy watching movies (and again don’t like spending a lot on DVDs), you might also appreicate this. If you don’t read and don’t care much for movies, then feel free to, I don’t know, check your myspace or something.

It’s called PaperBackSwap, and it’s basically a way to get free very cheap books. Here’s what you do:

1. Sign up for an account.

2. Go rummage through your bookshelves and closets and such and dig up any books you’re willing to part with.

3. Enter all the books into your account (it’s simple - they walk you through it).

4. If you enter 10 books right away, you get two free credits.

5. Think of some books you’ve been wanting to read, but haven’t wanted to spend $12-30 on.

6. Search for those books on the website.

7. Order those books.

8. A couple weeks later, the books come in the mail. FREE!

Now it’s not totally free, don’t be deceived. Whenever someone decides they want one of your books, you have to ship it to them. On your dime. But you get to pay media mail prices, so it’s about $2.50. And every time you send a book, you get a credit to order another one for yourself. Basically you’re paying about $2.50 for each book, which is better than almost any used book store. Plus, less work! Shipping books is easy too. When you get ready to send it out, PBS gives you a label to print. You wrap the book in the sheet of paper, add postage and send it off. If you use stamps or if you pay a small fee for PBS to add postage, you can just drop it in the mailbox. Otherwise you have to go to the post office. Which, yuck. I used stamps.

When your book is received, the receiver has to let PBS know, and then you get your credit. Ta-da! Just like that. It really does work.

If you do decide to sign up, let me know and I’ll give you my email address so you can list me as your referrer. That way I get free credits. Yes, I’m greedy. But I’m using a different email address than the one listed on my contact page, so if you just want to sign up and not list a referrer, I totally don’t blame you.

I’ll just hate you forever.

No I won’t.

Now go swap some paperbacks already!

So tell me, what the hell does this mean: I’m sitting at my desk at work today and somebody hands me a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking.

If you haven’t been keeping track, I started reading that book on Sunday. Then yesterday I officially gave up on it because it was frustrating and basically unhelpful to me. And then today it shows up on my desk again.

Now the logistics of the thing really aren’t that odd, don’t let me fool you. I work for a library and even though I don’t work in an actual library branch, we get this special service where you simply select a book you want in the online catalog and a couple days later, voila! it shows up on your desk. Plus no late fees, so for a book lover, it’s a big perk of the job. I put practically no effort into getting books these days. I think what happened is I accidentally ordered the same book twice: the first one got to me at the end of last week, the second one took a little longer to travel here.

But you have to admit it’s a little weird that I publicly denounced this book, and the very next day it shows up again. What does that mean? Should I just walk over and return the book again, or should I interpret this as a sign that there really is a gem in there that I need to discover?

It might be a little bit like torture trying to read through the book in search of this gem, but I’m going to choose to take this as a sign and at least hold on to the book for awhile. Maybe I’ll pick it up someday when I’m bored, flip to a random page, skim a few paragraphs and stumble upon something that’s not totally gag-worthy. Maybe it will even be inspiring.

Probably not, but hey, think positive right?

God I can’t believe I’ve dedicated three fucking blog posts to this damn book now!

I really did try to give this book a chance, but it’s just not for me. I can’t relate to any of the anecdotes, nothing resonates with me and I can’t take the advice seriously. I really wanted to finish it though. It felt wrong to pick up a book about being more positive just to criticize and discard it. I thought if I just kept reading, surely I could take something away from it.

And don’t get me wrong, it’s not all bullshit. It did get me thinking about thinking more positively, but the way it’s written has really turned me off. Even Brad has told me to give up and look for something else because I think I scowl when I’m reading it. Yet I was still determined to plow through, determined that I was going to learn from this book damn it. Somewhere in here there’s a gem that’s going to change my life!

But I was in the middle of chapter five (of seventeen) last night when I had to give up. Here’s the passage that made me quit:

“Ma’am, if you don’t mind my saying so, that is a mighty pretty hat* you are wearing.”
She looked up at him and said, “Thank you.”
“And I might add,” he said, “that sure is a pretty dress you have on. I like it so much.”
Being a woman, this appealed to her, and despite the fact that she was not feeling well, she brightened up and asked, “Why in the world did you say those nice things to me? It is very thoughtful of you.”
“Well,” he said, “I saw how unhappy you were. I saw that you were crying, and I just asked the Lord how I could help you. The Lord said, ‘Speak to her about her hat.’ The mention of the dress,” he added, “was my own idea.” Ralston Young and the Lord together knew how to get a woman’s mind off her troubles. [emphasis mine]

Oh really? Just compliment a woman on her clothes and all her troubles leave her mind? This woman later admits she is in constant pain, which is why she looked down and in need of help when Ralston met her. Years and years of constant pain, but Ralston and the Lord knew that all you gotta do is tell a woman she looks pretty and TA-DA! her mind is clear of troubles. Why don’t we just go around complimenting women on their outfits all day and nobody (at least the women) will feel sad again. Just one compliment after another. Nice hat! Nice dress! Nice shoes! Nice purse! Nice belt! Nice earrings! Nice jacket! Oh look I’m so distracted with fashion compliments, which appeal to me so much because I’m a woman, obviously, that I completely forgot I have no job, two broken arms, a chronic disease and my family has abandoned me.

If the above passage was an isolated ocurrence I wouldn’t be so bothered, but the majority of the author’s examples are about men, and the few women are people I have nothing in common with. I’m not in dire straits, I’m not at the end of my rope, none of those clichés. I just want to learn to have a better outlook. Like I said, this book wasn’t written for me. I can see how a lot of people would get good things from it, but I’m ready to give up and find something better for me.

Any recommendations?

*When I was reading over this before publishing, I realized I had written ‘hate’ instead of ‘hat.’ Coincidence? I think not.

What do you know, I was right all along. Tomatoes are the enemy.

At least for awhile I don’t have to worry that when I ask for no tomato I’ll be completely ignored. Is it bad that I kind of hope they never solve the tomato salmonella problem?

Believe it or not, I do manage make a little time for the tv in between the work and the school. Sadly, none of what I watch is even remotely educational or good for the brain. It’s kind of embarrassing really, but I’m gonna tell it anyway. Because I like tv and I don’t care what you think. So here’s what I’ve been watching:

Monday nights: Gossip Girl
I never had even the smallest interest in this show—I even scoffed at friends’ suggestions to check it out. But somehow I ended up seeing the final two episodes of season one and I as intrigued. Well lo and behold, they’re replaying the whole season this summer, and I’ve been tuning in. I actually kind of hate the show because come on. Ridiculous. But it’s a loving kind of hatred. And also I really want to see how we get from where all the characters are now to where I saw them in the finale. Fill in the blanks!

Tuesday nights: A Shot at Love 2 with Tila Tequila
Yeah yeah, shut up. I watched the last half of the first time she “fell in love” so why not watch her do it again? In case you too are watching, here is my take on the final four:
Bo: I see how he’s trying really hard and all that, but he strikes me as the kind of guy who would try hard for anyone in that situation. I don’t think he has any strong feelings for Tila in particular, he just likes to be romantic. Please don’t pick Bo.
Jay: I will never understand what she sees in guys like this. He is one of the last people I would want to be near, let alone hang out with, let alone date! Please don’t pick Jay.
Brittany: She’s cute, but Brittany and Tila together remind me of two girls at a party who get drunk and think it’d be fun to hook up. They don’t really go together, but making out is fun. You can pick Brittany, but we all know it won’t last.
Kristy: I didn’t see it coming, but of the remaining four, I think Tila has the most chemistry with Kristy. It’s actually believable when they’re together. Maybe it’s not love, but they could date for awhile. Go ahead, pick Kristy.

Wednesday nights: Real World XX: Hollywood
But you already knew that… I will add though that Sarah has redeemed herself ever so slightly because she is the ONLY one who gave a damn about Joey when he came back from rehab.

After this month I will no longer have extended cable, so I’ll be saying goodbye to most of my tv watching. Hopefully we can wait until Tila and RW are done, then Gossip Girl will just have to get me through the summer.

Anything else I should be watching this summer?

Stole this idea from Schmutzie.

The concept:
1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page of results, pick one image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into Big Huge Lab’s Mosaic Maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

The questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food? right now?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. What is your favourite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favourite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. What is one word that describes you?
12. What is your flickr name?

What did I do with my friday night you ask? Well, I played two hours of Dr. Mario, then ate dinner, read three chapters for class and wrote two short papers, then played more Dr. Mario until my eyes bled. But hey at least I did the homework right?

And this morning, what’s the first thing I did when I woke up? Ate a bowl of cereal. But then I played more Dr. Mario.

Such a fulfilling life I lead.

I hate how much time I spent on homework this weekend. Far too much.

Friday I worked until 12, then I read six chapters and wrote six short papers for class. I took time to eat dinner, get ice cream with Brad and do a few other tasks, but I didn’t finish the last paper until 10:30 that night. Ugh. So yeah, that was my Friday.

Saturday I worked 10:30 to 3, then my sister Kelli and I drove up to my sister Emily’s new house to help her move in. Andrea (other sister) and Mom were aleady up there. On of my sisters kinda sorta backed into a truck when she was trying to move my dad’s truck, which we had borrowed. Um oops. So that caused a little drama for awhile, but we managed to help Em and Drew (her boyfriend) unpack before settling in to watch a movie. Oh did I say watch a movie? I meant walk around and talk loudly while a movie was playing because that’s what almost everyone did. So annoying. Despite the lack of furniture, we all stayed the night - couple in the bed, couple on the couch, couple on the floor.

I had to leave soon after getting up on Sunday. More homework, what else? This week I have to do this short presentation in class, but because of the requirements of the presentation, it took me ALL DAY to prepare it! It was so ridiculous and I hate it. It’s basically all I did Sunday besides laundry, grocery shopping and a desperately needed nap. Have I mentioned I’m ready for this class to be done?

Also, last night two of my sisters and mom dropped by to drop off one of these. As you can see, they are on major sale, and with my sister’s employee discount… 40 bucks! For a chair I have been coveting since last summer. Seems like everyone in my family has two or three, and they’re so perfect for chillin’ or reading in the sun. I can’t wait to put it on my deck. I like to sit out there and do my class reading whenever it’s nice enough, but currently I sit awkardly in a camping chair. From now on? I just might fall asleep instead of reading. Wait, maybe the chair wasn’t such a great idea…

I’ve always kind of thought of myself as unmemorable. Not distinct enough to lodge in anyone’s memory without having a significant interaction first. I almost always remember when I’ve met someone before, even if it was only for a second, and even if I can’t come up with their name. I always remember having met them. But I often pretend like I don’t remember to avoid seeming too eager. Because frankly, they usually don’t remember that they ever laid eyes on me. Unmemorable.

One time when I was about 11, I was at a friend of my mom’s house for some reason. Mom was visiting and I was tagging along I guess, and while they were chatting and I was getting bored, in walked this girl a couple years older than me (who turned out to be the friend’s niece). I recognized her immediately from the halls of school. I braced myself for the awkwardness that would come when the adults introduced us and asked if we knew each other. I’d remember her, she wouldn’t remember ever having seen me. I admitted that yes, I had seen her around school, and when the adults looked at her to see if she too recognized me, the girl smiled politely and nodded her head. I knew she was lying, she didn’t remember me. Unmemorable.

So it came as no surprise last night in class that the professor went around the room and recited everyone’s name from memory. Except mine. He had just met most of us two nights before in our first class, so I was impressed as he flew through the class with no mistakes. But somehow I knew, I could just tell that he wasn’t going to remember me. On Tuesday we had even had a conversation about my last name because he pronounced it right on the first try (nobody does!) and he wondered if I was related to a Ron he knew with the same last name (I’m not). But on Thursday, before he even got to me, I started to feel ashamed. I knew he’d slip up on me, and I knew that people would notice that I’m the only forgettable one.

Sure enough, he rattled off name after name without a problem, then he looked at me and paused. He scowled a little, pensively. Gosh I can’t remember your name, he said. Were you here on Tuesday? Am I really that forgettable? I teased, embarrassed. Is it Laurie? He wasn’t even close. I don’t even look like a Laurie. Shannon [Blank], I said, not related to Ron [Blank], remember? Oh that’s right, for some reason I didn’t remember you.

Unmemorable.

You kind of forget how invested you are in the lives of the people behind the blogs you read until one day you click on their link in your feed reader and BAM! Rejected, blocked out. “This blog is open to invited readers only” and you weren’t invited somehow.

Dude, Kelly, what’s up? I get a little behind on my blog reading, and suddenly you’ve gone all private on me. I don’t even have your email address to tell you how desperate I am to be invited. I can see that you’ve posted twice since I last stopped by, and one of them is titled “TOTAL DISBELIEF” in all caps. What? What is total belief? Why? What happened? I must know!

Good thing I’ve got this little tool called my own blog to write a public statement that says: I’m pretty sure we’re friends. Right? Can I be an invited reader or what? Help me out girl.

As for the rest of you, if I find a similar message on your blog with no warning, I’ll either cry or punch you in the thigh. Depends on my mood that day. So just don’t okay?

Nanette recently rocked my world and honored me with an award of excellence. I didn’t get a trophy or anything, but I was thrilled nonetheless because Nanette is pretty much awesome and I’m happy she enjoys what I got goin’ on here. Now it’s my turn to bestow the honor on a few of my faves. I get to pick ten, per the rules, so I scoured through my feed reader and managed to narrow it down. It was made easier by the fact that some of my contenders were already recognized by others—no double dipping folks, that’s greedy—but it was still no easy task.

In no particular order, I present the following bloggers with this stamp of excellency.

Ordinary Art - I see a lot of me in the way she describes herself, and I hope if I ever have children, I’ll be the wonderful mother she is.

Quarter Life Crisis - You gotta love Jen, what with the mad cooking skills and the ever-changing hairdo!

Strongly Worded - Her upDATEs alone are reason enough to keep reading. The rest is pretty awesome too.

Ex-Everything - With a shiny new tagline!

Memoir - Okay so she talks about her dogs a lot, and I’m no dog person, but I’m hooked anyway because she takes great pictures and is crazy in love with her fiancé.

Babs in Blogland - This is one girl who’s not afraid to tell it how it is.

The Collective - This is a group of way cool chicas who, each week, write their own take on a topic. This week they wrote about the top five people they want to punch in the face. Why would you not want to read that?

Breathingfire -Maybe it’s cheating because he’s my boyfriend, and maybe the site isn’t looking its best these days (he’s busy and he’s sorry), but he’s been doing this blog thing since the beginning so I gotta give him props. Props? What the fuck?

Taste the World - She hasn’t exactly posted in over a month, but I miss her and hold out hope she’ll come back. I want to see how her wedding goes!

djkreutzer - There’s so much beauty in the world. Don’t believe me? Check out this blog-she proves it.

I have this problem with acronyms—I hate when they’re forced. It’s really cool when an acronym just works out or falls into place. Like MADD: Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Some mother lost her child to a drunk driver, and she was not only devastated, but pretty fucking pissed, so she started a nonprofit to fight back. MADD. It’s great.

Then there are some acronyms that are pretty inoccuous, but still seem a little unnecessary. Take VISTA: Volunteers in Service to America. Kind of nice right? That’s what a VISTA is, a volunteer in service to America, makes sense. And calling someone a VISTA is a lot easier than rattling off that long title. But is it really necessary? There are a lot of other ways to describe what these people do, yet they picked this one because it allowed for a catchy name.

GREEN is another good example. Gathering Resources to be Educated about our Environment and Nature. Come on, that’s just stupid. Green is a great name for an environmental group or program, but the acronym is unnecessary. Just call yourself Green; people will get it. Your mission statement can reflect the stuff about resources and environment and education, just in case anyone needs a little more information. Drop the ridiculous acronym.

But what really bugs me is when the acronym is not only ridiculous and unnecessary, but just plain stupid. A couple of my favorites (if ‘favorite’ means it makes my skin crawl with annoyance) are VISION: Volunteers Incorporating Service Into Our Neighborhoods, and COOKIES: Creating Optimistic Outlooks and Keeping Interest in Educational Success. People, it is not a requirement that the name of your program be an acronym. Just a catchy name is fine and totally acceptable. And if the first letters of the words in the name don’t spell an actual word, it’s okay. Like you could just be Volunteers Serving Neighbors, and then when you’re lazy call yourself VSN. Perfectly acceptable and even preferred.

But wait, I’m not done. I’ve come across a lot of irksome acronyms, but so far the one that most makes me want to shoot the creator in the thigh is…

SPARKLE: Service Produces A Rich Knowledge-Based Learning Environment

Are you kidding me? SPARKLE? That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen. Sparkle. Okay I’m guessing you’re like a service group that ties volunteerism with education or something. But Sparkle? Is that really working for you? Do you sprinkle everyone with glitter when they walk in the door? Do you incorporate sequins into all your activities? Does everyone who joins get a free diamond ring? With all the possibilities for a name, how do you end up at SPARKLE?

Okay we need a name, so let’s think about what exaclty we do here. We do service, okay, and education. Learning, knowledge, can we work with any of that? S, L, K…slink! No, um, skull. But no that doesn’t make sense. We need something jazzy, something noticeable and exciting. Something that sparkles. Sparkle! That’s it! We can work with that, let’s see. Service People Are Really Kinky Lovers Everywhere. Uh yeah, that didn’t quite work. How about Service P-P-P-Produces! Service Produces A something, that part was easy. A what though? Something before Knowledge. Rank, rapid, rotund, risqué, rich. Rich is good. A Rich Knowledge for Learning? No, A Rich Knowledged-based Learning. Oh that’s good. Service Produces A Rich Knowledge-Based Learning Experiment? Experience? Environment? Environment yes, perfect. Service Produces A Rich Knowledge-Based Learning Enviroment. That’s it, SPARKLE. That’s a sweet acronym dude. I’m awesome. Put it on the letterhead.

What obnoxious acronyms make your skin crawl?

I finally got around to updating my blogroll, something I’ve been meaning to do for oh, I don’t know, six months? Check it out, maybe you’re there! And if you’re not but should be, kick me in the neck and let me know. Especially if you comment a lot or if you link to me, then I definitely want to include you. And the fact that I didn’t does not say anything about the depth and meaning of our friendship, I promise, it just means I have a lot going on okay, so get off my back already.

For real though, let me know. Mutual love.