Wedding crap

So I've got this wedding thing that will be happening at some point in the future and I've gotta get my shit together in order to make it work.  My idea behind waiting on it is that the more you plan in advance, the cheaper it will be.  I'm hoping that's true but I've hit a bit of a roadblock.

Reception venue.

So here's the run down of how this is going to be happening.  We are going to have a small ceremony, about 20 people or so.  I've never been fond of getting in front of crowds and I want our ceremony to be intimate and have real meaning behind it.  I don't want to be too nervous to cry if I want to and for serious, who loves sitting through a ceremony besides the people that are super involved (as in parents and very close friends).

So ceremony venue has been located.  It's a small wedding chapel in a historic town where my fiance and I spend a lot of our time.  From the chapel we'll be taking the 20 ceremony guests out to dinner.  Probably nothing fancy, just a tasty dinner at one of our favorite spots in our favorite little city.

From there we'll go to the reception (I'm guessing around 8 o'clock or so) where the loads of people will be.  I'm estimating a guest list of about 200 people.  We will serve them desserts and drinks and just party the night away.  No formal sit down dinner with these 200 people.  Just desserts (maybe a small amount of appetizers), flowing alcohol, a comfortable/fun atmosphere and a great time.  Here's my breakdown of what I think of wedding receptions:

Things that I don't give a fuck about:

• Flowers - They are expensive and they die within a day
• Decorations - Who the hell really cares what the centerpiece on a table looks like, or how the drapey fabric looked on a banister?  Seriously.
• a Wedding cake - I don't like cake.  My fiance wants a wedding cake though.  So I plan on just picking up a small one from the grocery store.
• Pomp and circumstance - Eff that.
• a DJ - I have iTunes, who needs a DJ?
• Place cards - Assigned seating seating is lame.  I want everyone to hang out with whomever they want to hang out with.
• a "Wedding party" - I would feel like a heel if I made my good friends drop a wad of cash on a dress they'll never wear more than one day.  
• a Reception photographer - So you pay someone to be at your party and take pictures of people he doesn't know, and consequently he doesn't know your relationship with them.  You may end up with 15,000 pictures of your first cousin twice-removed's boyfriend just because he drank too much Maker's and is making a fool of himself on the dance floor.  Lame.

Things that I give a fuck about:

• Big guest list of the right people - Not just inviting everyone, but inviting everyone that matters
• Fun atmosphere - Kind of like having a theme without the forced idea of it.  I would love to have pool tables and a classy club feel or maybe great music and a dance instructor, or even a playground.  I want something that will give everyone giggles and would make for an awesome night out whether it was a wedding reception or not.
• Keeping it cheap - I'm a cheap bastard.
• Liquor and lots of it - An open bar makes everyone happy...even kids can get their shirley temple fix.
• Good lighting - Even a shitty place with good lighting looks classy.

Those are all the big ones.  Fun and affordable are quickly becoming the two items that are not going well together.  

Wealth makes beauty or beauty makes wealth?

Have you ever seen an extremely ugly rich person?  I'm not talking about people who haven't aged well, I mean imperfect, crooked, unbalanced.  Does money make people look better or do good looking people end up with more money?

If it were up to me, I'd do a big ol' study where participants looked at pictures of both rich and poor and judged them on a scale of ugly to gorgeous and then I would compare that data to the income of each person in the pictures.  Correlation does not imply causation, so it wouldn't prove a damn thing, I'm just curious if my personal interactions with rich and poor are a good sample and have the same correlation.

You see, I was thinking about this because I know a girl whose parents got her cosmetic surgery when she was younger.  I shit you not, she had to be younger than 18, I think.  Both her and brother got some nips and tucks and now there isn't much family resemblance between parents or children.  They're the first people I had ever met that went under the knife for beauty's sake.  I find the idea pretty awful and fascinating.  The mom in this picture always seemed a little vain to me in person, so I wondered if it was her call about the surgical changes.  I can't imagine being a girl and having your mom tell you, "Let's get you fixed."

Of course, that's probably not how any of it happened.  I barely know the family and certainly wouldn't ask for specifics about such a thing.

But back to my original question, are well-off people generally good looking because they can afford to pay to look good?  Plastic surgery certainly isn't cheap and I realize that there are tons of people out there who haven't gone under the knife, but other methods of beautification that are less invasive can still cost a substantial sum.  How about braces?  Not cheap (although much more socially accepted than surgery) and it can't be denied that crooked teeth are generally considered an unattractive feature.  How about dance lessons?  Now these can be cheap in the short term, but if the child sticks with it, it gets progressively more and more expensive.  Dancing gives you a lean figure which is certainly more attractive than the converse.

Next the question that comes to mind is when you look at someone and think they are ugly, do you assume their economical status?  Think back to your school days and think about your unbridled judgment of your classmates.  Who got picked on in your class?  The smelly kid?  The kid that never wore the name brand fads?  Now let's see how we basely judge people now.  Do you zero in on that Coach symbol on their bag or do you make broad assumptions about a person based on their car's make and model?  Do you chuckle to yourself when the disheveled person at the grocery store buys frozen broccoli instead of fresh?  And to tie this all in, have you ever found any of those people attractive?

Of course I haven't even touched upon the fact that rich pretty people seek out other rich pretty people who then make rich pretty babies who grow up to find their rich pretty people.

“Only the discoverer of Tutankhamen’s tomb would know how she felt upon finding this treasure"

I have acquired a time capsule.  It was not made by anyone that I know.  It was given to me by a friend saying, "I know that you like to read blogs, so I thought you would enjoy this non-digital blog."

I started a separate blog about this time capsule:  A Human History.

Random things I have learned

1.  A full keg yields approximately 141 solo cups of beer. (source)

2.  Jewel Staite from Firefly was also on my favorite episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?".

3.  "Typewriter" is the longest word you can type using only the top row on a standard U.S. keyboard.

4.  There is a bone in your skull called the sphenoid bone.  (and it it extremely fun to say 'sphenoid')

5.  Chessboxing is a sport.

6.  Callus razors (typically for a pedicure) are prohibited for licensed cosmetologists in most states. (source)

7.  Teacup pigs exist and are adorable. (source)

8.  The voice actor who does Spongebob Squarepants also does Eduardo from Foster's Home for the Imaginary Friends.  (Tom Kenny)

I made a gif!

Well...I added onto a .gif that already exists:

A little background:  We were watching a Star Wars marathon (as in all 6 of them) with some old and new friends.  Everyone sat there in silence as Yoda kicked some Sith ass.  And then as the last blow fell, a voice cries, "Play that shit I do NOT!" and we all lost it.

Graffito tagging for President

This graffiti inspired so much WTF in me that I can't even think of a good caption for it.

Enjoy.

Y U NO GET HELP

It was two years ago when I threw a party for my friend visiting from California.  Everyone who said they were going to come actually showed up and my house had the fuzzy buzz of beer and laughter.  It had to be the first party where I felt like I did well as a hostess:  clean house, good guest list, fun and plentiful snacks.  And I remember standing there in my hallway, realizing that all that there was left to do was enjoy the party, and instead, all I felt was 'meh'.

For anyone who doesn't understand the term 'meh,' it's basically "I could take it or leave it," "I'm bored," and "I don't care," all rolled into one.  It's best felt when said out loud and shrugging, "meh."

So back to the party that should have put me in a dizzy haze of "Mission accomplished!  I rule!" and instead, it felt like I just unloaded the dishwasher:  an accomplishment, but nothing spectacular.  I hid my "meh" and put on a happy hostess face for the night, hoping it was just PMS or stress causing the emotional aberration.

Let's jump to January of this year.  My wonderful fiancé took me to Walt Disney World where we stayed in the best hotel with the best floor and the best view and ate the best food.  It was mid-way through our week stay and I realized, I still had the "meh."  Sure, running around the theme parks was cool, having free lattes was awesome, but I still didn't have that burst of elation that I was expecting to have in the "happiest place on earth."  For goodness sakes, I was in Disney and still felt emotionally flat-lined.

I'm not suicidal.  I don't want to hurt anyone or myself.  The problem is that I just don't want to do anything.  I still go to work.  I hang out with friends occasionally.  I just completely lack passion.  I'm not constantly frowning, but I always have to force a smile.

So next week I have an appointment to talk with someone professionally.  One of the catalysts would be my 2 hour, 11PM sobbing fit from last night in which, half way through, I realized that I don't have any real problems, which made me feel even worse and selfish.

I've known since January that I should have picked up the phone and called for help, but why the wait?  I was terrified to call.  I don't really have any misconceptions about therapy (at least I don't think so).  Psycholo/Psychia-trists aren't just judgment factories and unless I was really far gone, they wouldn't just cart me off to a mental institution against my will.  I don't feel any stigma against people with mental illnesses.  I think my biggest fear is that maybe I don't actually have a problem.  Maybe this is just what most everyone feels and so there's no fix.  It's like when you're a kid and you completely opt out of kickball so that you don't have the chance to be the last one picked for a team.  You can sit back and let your mind wander about whether you would have been picked 5th or 9th or last.  It's easier to have a shred of hope when you don't even try in the first place.  Basically, what I'm saying is I'm a coward.  Why try and possibly fail when you could just not try at all and never feel the fail?

Everyone has one

Today I found my doppelganger:

To be fair, I only share her maiden name.  But I can't help but be happy that this Beth doesn't bleed skulls and roses and semi-gothic shiny fonts.

If I had to bleed something that wasn't blood, it'd probably be chocolate or coffee...and throw in some cigarettes for good measure.

You know you're an 80's/90's kid when....

You see a cookie jar and 1) you know his name is Grimace, and 2) you wonder how many little McDonalds cookies it would take to fill it up.

*steps onto soapbox*

The Devaluing of Education in America or Why I Blame Guidance Counselors for the State of Our Economy

Let's take a trip about 11 years in the past.  I was a fresh-faced high school senior, ready to take on the world, every opportunity at my fingertips, I'm going to make the world a better place and get lots of money in the process!!  Woohoo!!  So during that extremely impressionable time of my life, every adult said the same things, "What college are you going to?  Where are you going to college?  Well you have to college!"  And being an impressionable, fresh-faced youth, I listened to my elders and spent four years in an institution of higher learning.  Now I can definitely say that those four years were some of the best of my life, but other than being a respite from responsibility, what exactly did it get me?

I can tell you what it got me:  debt.  And a shit ton of it.  By the time I was out of college, society had changed.  When the adults told me to go to college, they saw it as an amazing opportunity to grow my education and have a better chance at getting a good job.  But after those 4 years, it turned out that the adults in everyone's lives told everyone else the same thing and now there's this flood of "educated" 24-year-olds descending upon the job market, expecting to get positions that will outweigh their ridiculous amount of debt.  And when you have 80 bagillion 24-year-olds who have all the same slips of paper, then that little "Education" portion of their resume doesn't mean shit.

And this, my friends, is where we are right now.  Everyone has a bachelors degree and it's become the new high school diploma.  It's assumed that everyone has the education, but the big issue here is that entry-level jobs don't compensate based on the fact that most of the applicants have had to pay out of pocket for their education.   This.  This is why the middle class is going down the tubes.  Because high class?  They don't have SallieMae to deal with, and the lower class?  They probably didn't go to college and don't have the debt.  So it's the middle class schlubs like me that get stuck in retail for entirely too long and are faced with the fact that for the rest of their lives, they will never be able to call their money their own.

I am grateful for my education and I wouldn't trade that time for the world.  But will I ever encourage another starry-eyed high school senior to blindly go to college?  Hell-fucking-no.

Link Love: Super Happy Awesome Fun Time with Sean and Alice!

Wanna have a Super Happy Awesome Fun Time with Sean and Alice?  Because honestly, who wouldn't like to have a Super Happy Awesome Fun Time with Sean and Alice?  Sean and Alice live in Japan and blog about Japanese pop culture, Mc Donalds' offerings, kotatsus and more (don't worry, I didn't know what a kotatsu was until I found their blog, but now I do and I WANT ONE).

I have always been fascinated by Japanese culture.  In fact, when I was little I was so enamored with Big Bird Goes to Japan that I had always hoped I would grow up to be a Japanese woman.  (Hey, no judgment.  So you wanted to be an astronaut?  I wanted to have naturally thick dark hair and beautiful skin!)  What I really love about Sean and Alice's blog is that it gives glimpses into everyday life in Japan.  Sure, you can learn the language and get the textbook history, but that doesn't really tell you how it is to live somewhere else.

And if it weren't for Sean and Alice, I wouldn't know the amazingness that is Kyary Pamyu!

Tips and Tricks: IKEA building

I think I may be one of the few people who absolutely love putting together IKEA furniture.  I understand the pictorial directions and can just follow along without an expletive to be shouted.  I realize that this isn't the case for everyone else in the world, so I thought I would compile my personal tips and tricks to building IKEA furniture.

1)  Use the instructions.  I know, should be a total no brainer, but it's amazing to me how many people wanna just grab an allen wrench and start shoving in wooden pegs.  You have to remember that IKEA furniture is very well engineered and just because peg A would logically go into hole B to you, doesn't mean that the engineers have the same idea (or think it should be done at that time).

Also be sure to use the little diagram that shows you how many of each hardware piece you should have.  Yes, this means making little piles of pegs and screws and counting.  On of the most suck situations to end up in is one where you run out of screws and have to leave a half-finished project in the middle of your living room floor, and then run to the hardware store to find a replacement, only to realize that you already put all of them into the table and that you have no idea what size wood dowel to buy so that you can cut it into a little peg shape, so you have to buy 4 different sizes of dowel and then you come home and see that they're all too big, so you just say "fuck it" and don't put anything in that hole and you have a permanently effed piece of furniture...not that anything like that has ever happened to me. *ahem*

2)  Prep your space to get building.  Clear a space on a carpeted area.  If a carpeted area is not available, throw a blanket down on the surface. It will prevent scratching and extra stress on the materials.

3)  Only use the tools that are recommended.  Which means NO POWER TOOLS.  Although a drill is gonna make those 48 screws go in lots faster, you will inevitably damage the wood/particleboard/etc. in the process.

4)  Easy does it.  If the diagram shows you four screws that need to go in at once, put them all in a little bit at the same time and tighten them at the same time.  Don't put one screw in all the way, then move to the next. 

5)  Simmer.  (simmah dahn nah)  Don't get yourself worked up or rush to get it done.  The more frustrated you are, the more inevitable a mistake.  Remember that most IKEA furniture is meant to be put together once and once only.  Sometimes you really can't go back and fix your mistakes, so be sure to take your time and get it right the first time.

What are your personal tips and tricks for furniture assembly?

Vintage Everyday

Maybe I'm just late to the party but I just found the blog, Vintage Everyday.  It shows just old pictures.  Which may sound boring to some, but what's great about it is that they show just random old pictures.  Something that mainstream culture doesn't really show about the past is what it was like to be a regular ol' guy then.  Roughly before the year 2000 (I am totally guessing on that.  Wait, I'm on those internets, let me find out how wrong I am...ok, so in 2000 the first camera phone came out, and this timeline doesn't really say when digital photography really started to rise, so I'm going to stick with my original guess), yeah so before the years 2000, taking pictures meant spending money.  So when you took a picture, you typically were documenting an occasion of some merit.  This is more true the further back in history you go since film only got cheaper and cheaper.  You're lucky to see an impromptu picture from the 20's unless it's for a new story.

I love being able to see awkward moments from teenagers in the 50's and a bright sunny day at the beach in the 60's.  I feel like the subject-less pictures like these paint such a better picture of life at the time.

IKEA is the cutest

I made a pilgrimage to IKEA today so I can get my craft room in order (some befores and afters to come) and even when they're doing construction, they are still just so precious.

Vacation, all I ever needed...

Who doesn't love a good vacation?  Sitting on a sun-soaked beach, sipping Mai-Tais, sporting a floppy straw hat and oversized sunglasses...not me.

I realized in my old age that, despite the cultural norm, I don't like the beach.  When I was very young, my mom would apparently take us to Ocean City, Maryland often (I say apparently because I honestly don't remember ever going with my family).  I've been to Ocean City, New Jersey a handful of times (thanks to the family of a very dear high school friend) and had an amazing time, but my amazing time never had anything to do with the actual beach.

You see, I'm a very pale person.  So pale that no brand makes makeup that works with my skin tone except the Halloween ones.  And beaches?  You know what they mean?  Sunblock.  My ghost-white complexion of course sunburns easily.  I only use two types of sunblock that exist because I have gotten burned through every single other brand.  And maybe you lovely olive-skinned goddesses out there don't understand this, but sunblock is really, really, REALLY annoying.  It clogs up your skin and makes you feel like you're wearing a trashbag that's suction cupped to your body.  Add sand and you've got your self a gritty trashbag body suit.

Beaches?  I'll pass.  Give me a dark room and some video games and my vacation is set.

The first lie I ever told

Don't ask me what I had to eat yesterday or what the guy at Trader Joe's (where I was about one hour ago) looked like.  I have an awful short term memory, but I have an acute emotional memory.  I can remember the first lie I ever told.

I was in first grade with my favorite-teacher-of-all-time, Miss Rains.  We had to write a funny story.  But I didn't have a single funny story.  As far as I knew, nothing funny had ever happened to me.  So my little brain began to whir and get freaked out that I was going to flunk an assignment!  So I made up a lie, what seemed like an innocent lie.  I lied and said that during a tap dance recital, I kicked off my tap shoe and it hit someone in the audience in the head.  Mind you, at this point, I hadn't even had one recital for dance class.  I remember vividly retelling this story to my best.friend. Shannon and forcing giggles to make the story sound so believable.

Now why is it that I remember that time in first grade, how nervous I was telling that lie, but I could not, for the life of me, tell you the color of my own damn underwear unless I checked.

Do you remember the first lie you told?

just keep walking...just keep walking...

By nature, I'm not exactly an outgoing person which is why I love the Facebook.  I like that I don't have to talk to people over the phone to get updates on them or deal with large emails full of pictures.  I'm sure that you all are reading that and thinking that I'm a) insensitive, b) lazy, or c) a stalker.  I will admit guilt about being lazy, but stalker?  Definitely not.  Facebook wouldn't have a news feed if you weren't supposed to read what people write.  We all know what some guy from high school thought about his lunch and how many pounds our college roommate needs to lost to get to her pre-pregnancy weight.  I hate that there's this stigma in saying, "I saw it on your Facebook."  Everyone needs to get the hell over it.

Anyway, so I've never really been good at talking to strangers.  It kind of makes me have panic attacks.  All the painful small talk, "Hey!  How are you?  What have you been up to?  How's it going?  Good to see you!" it all makes me want to vomit.  Or the king of them all, "We should catch up/hang out/grab a coffee sometime," because when people say that, it's barely ever true.

Today I saw a not-so-stranger walking toward me, an old coworker who is also listed as my friend on Facebook.  This was one of those friend requests that I accepted because I couldn't think of a good reason not to, even though we never talked once outside of work.  At that point, the panic set in.  Do I say hi?  Do I pretend I don't see her and then risk being the ass who didn't acknowledge her first?  I mean, it's not like we have a damn thing to say to each other, and I'd be completely lying if I said I missed her.  I was on my lunch break, so I could have said hi, made an excuse and said I had to get back to work, but then I couldn't do that because I was actually going out to smoke, not back into work, and then I'd have to go into work, hide for a minute and then go out to smoke.  Gah!  Awkward!  Panic rising!

So I did what any lazy introvert would do, I pulled out my phone.  Acted completely engrossed in something and was able to slip away unnoticed.  It's rare times like this that I'm glad I currently have semi-natural, bland, hair coloring.

Why those with overactive imaginations probably shouldn't read

So I'm reading some dooce.com on this lovely, rainy, glorious day off.  I started reading this site a couple weeks ago and I did what any terrible reader does with books:  I read the most recent entry and then jumped all the way back to the beginning to begin reading it in full, which has been taking up most of my online life because dooce has been blogging for 11 years.  It's been a pretty fantastic journey with Heather B. Armstrong so far and I've just completed reading the birth story for her second child.

Now here's where I have some problems.  When I read and become extremely involved with the characters/people involved; I am right there with them and not just in the sense that I can relate, oh no, it all sticks with me even when I'm not reading.  I read "A Series of Unfortunate Events" and then suddenly had people out to get me and the secrets of the sugar bowl.  Seriously, I wandered around my day-to-day life thinking suspicious thoughts about every stranger I saw and that I would find the missing Quagmire triplet while on my lunch break.

So I just got through a birthing story and I find myself thinking, "Maybe I should put on a bra or a robe before my fiance and his friend get back from the gym?  Hell no!  I'm pregnant and I can do whatever I want because I'm growing a real live person in my uterus!"  It wasn't until I started reading dooce that I even entertained the thought of having babies.  Yet here I am, justifying my lazy indecency because I'm incubating an imaginary human.  That, my friends, is what my brain is capable of...and why I do not read scary stories.

Left? Wrong?

The newest exclamation trend that's permeating my news feed sends me into a bit of a tizzy.  Here, let me demonstrate it in context:

Status update:  Oh, how I love tangerines!

Comment:  I know right?!?!?!?!

Or the variant:

Status update:  What the shit is up with this weather?

Comment: right?!?!

The missing comma in the first example makes it at least a little funny.  "Yeah, I know right [AND left!  Even without making an 'L' with my fingers]!"

These exclamations had to come from the television.  Kids these days and their television and hooloos netflickers.  And although I'm sure its use will fade in time, I still have a bit of a twitch when I hear it.  Of course it doesn't help that someone I knew a while back used to say it in place of an umm, uhh or natural silence in a statement in the most awful valley-girl-like accent I've ever heard.  Seriously, she sounded like a 90's pre-teen:

"So I was walking down the street, riiiiiight?! and saw this guy just standing there riiiiiight?! and this other girl saw him too and we both looked at each other like, 'I know riiiiight?!'"

Ugh.

Giggles

Just listen to the introduction...(or the intro and the whole song if you're into that sort of thing)



Maybe I'm the only one, but I was definitely envisioning a naked Thom Yorke to be on stage after that introduction.

Other song titles that would achieve the same standard on the giggle meter:

And now performing "With Diseased Chickens Down Their Pants"...

And here's Radiohead, playing their new single "White Female"...

Let's give a big welcome to Radiohead, and their debut performance of "Naked Twister in a Tub Full of Jell-o"...

Antique Adventure

One of my favorite ways to unwind is to wander around antique shops/malls and explore. See, you thought that I was kidding when I said I'm the most uncool person I know. I spend my free time *looking* at stuff I won't buy.

10 uncool points for me!

Most of the time I just find a lot of junk: boring salt shakers, irons, floral printed crap; but recently I found something else.

Tessie Talk...coming to eat your soul and haunt your dreams!

"Come play with meeeeeeeeeeeee"

Very true

"...but that's what love is, being able to confide in someone that everything isn't okay, and trusting that they will listen."


Well said, Dooce, well said.

Spring Sprang Sprung Springing Springer?

In Maryland, we get to experience all four seasons.  And although I have never lived anywhere that wasn't this basic climate, I am truly thankful that I get to wear gloves sometimes and skirts other times.  But right now?  Right now I want some springtime.  Don't get me wrong, winter can be cool (mainly that I look incredibly dashing in scarves and pea-coats) but if it's cold, then I want snow.  Apocalyptic, shutting-down-highways snow.  My mother instilled in me this love of snow.  For as long as I can remember, every time it ever snows, we have to contact one another and be excited about it.  It didn't matter that while I was in college, we wouldn't have snow at the same time.  I still would call my mom and squeal, "It's snowing!"  I love-love-love snow.

But because it's still not cold enough to snow, then I want Spring.  I want to open the windows to the apartment and spend hours on the porch smoking cigarettes.  I want freshly grilled asparagus and steak.  I want to smile at the forsythia in our yard and sip wine while reading a fluffy novel.  I want to wear shoes without socks.  And the breezes...oh the breezes.

So Old Man Winter, if you're listening, then you need to either put up or shut up.

Ruining everything: Beauty and the Beast

I have this boy that I'm going to marry someday and one of his favorite things to tell me is how I ruin everything.  This should not, in any way, be held against him.  I do ruin things:  childhood memories, bad associations, words, songs, etc.

For example, let's discuss Beauty and the Beast.  Now for the sake of me (and the fact that I know no other version), we're talking about the 90's Disney cartoon with all of its Angela Lansbury glory.  For now, I'm going to ignore the fact that the story is based completely around a serious case of Stockholm Syndrome.  I just want to focus on the secondary characters:  Mrs. Potts, Lumiere, Cogsworth, cute little Chip.  Why does no one feel especially bad for these people/household objects?!

I have no problem with the Beast learning some humility, but due to their profession, these people had banishment thrust upon them for no fault of their own!  And where is Mr. Potts throughout all this?  I like to think that when the enchantress with the rose showed up, he was out to market and then he came back to the house and there was no one there and he ran off to live a life that didn't involve sleeping next to a teapot and cleaning up Beast poop.  And where did the Beast poop, because I'm pretty sure that during this time, indoor plumbing did not exist, and if a Beast poops anything like a Great Dane, it was monumental?  And what did he eat?  Did they edit out the part where Belle finds the creepy basement room that's full of the bones from the previous trespassers?  Cogsworth giving the grand tour, "Here's the West Wing, you should never go there, and here's the dark hole where Beast has his morning damsel-in-distress carcass and cup of tea."

I realize that by the time Belle comes around, Chip and company have all been living as inanimate objects for ten years, but do they really still harbor no ill will for the ass who put them into this situation in the first place?  If I was one of those servants, when that last rose petal fell, you better believe I'd be the animated axe that chopped off his damn head.

Gene Kelly on the big screen and

Beer. Could life be any finer?

Controlling life's impulses

Some time ago, I saw this video of Jim Carrey talking about little impulses that we all feel and I never felt less alone than I did in that instant.

I will just be sitting, sipping my coffee when out of nowhere, my brain says, "You should just pour that sweet caffeinated goodness over the precious keyboard of your laptop."  As we all know, liquid and electronics are not friends and I s-l-o-w-l-y place the cup down.  My problem is that then some irrational recess of my brain lights up and now it's gone from a simple impulse to an all-out fear that somehow my psyche will short circuit and some ridiculous crazy person will leap forth from my head, take control of my body and reenact Singin' in the Rain with my morning cup o'joe.  Then I sit wary of the mug on the table, scared shitless that I don't have the mental control to take a sip and put it back down like a normal person.

I experience thoughts like this daily:  irrational impulse, play out scenario in my head with full cinematic audio and visuals, fear I might actually follow through, avoid initial trigger like the plague.

Driving down the highway like a normal law-abiding citizen
"I wonder how it would play out if I just took up two lanes instead of one."
"Holy shit!  I would get in a crash and then lose the ability to move my right hand, and I haven't learned how to write with my left hand yet and I can't operate my phone with my left hand yet either, and then I won't be able to call for an ambulance and then I'll just die on I-95 and end up being that crazy woman that went and got herself killed during rush hour and every person sitting in the traffic afterwards would curse me and say how glad they were that I died because I made them sit through 20 minutes of extra traffic!"
Now, staying in far right lane, driving white-knuckled, refusing to even switch lanes despite the grandma in front of me going at a steady 30 MPH on the busiest interstate on the East coast

My days pretty much switch between this and thoughts of psycho killers (kiss-kiss-say) plotting my demise.  I still like to believe that at least Jim Carrey understands me.

Thank the lord for the grammar police

FIRST!!!111!!ONE!

I've started many blogs in my day, but they've all fallen by the wayside.  I've had a vacation blog (about the only vacation I've taken in the last 4 years), a blog full of links (that was mostly a regurgitation of what I found on Neatorama.com that day), a fashion blog (what possessed me, one of the least fashionable people I know, to start that?), and a stuff I want blog (somehow it helped me to not get depressed by all the things I couldn't afford by linking to them).

Reasons I shouldn't have an autobiographical blog:
     I am one of the most uncool people I have ever met in my life.
     I over-use parentheses (if you couldn't tell by the above paragraph/sentence).
     I typically go to bed by 10PM every night, including weekends.
     I like to start projects and never finish them.

Why I'm starting another blog:
     Dooce.com
     I go through my day narrating it in my head.
     I can update my blog through my phone.