Dance about it.

You've seen this, right? I just want to make sure that everyone in the entire universe has seen this. Its too good to be missed through an internet hiccup.

What will be your Space Jam?

Pop. Obsessive.

We watched 11 hours of House of Cards on Sunday. Not by accident, but because that was what I wanted. Actually, I wanted to watch the whole gee-dee thing, but we both had early Monday mornings.  So we'll watch the last two episodes tonight.

I've listened to the Book of Mormon soundtrack no less than 10 times all the way through in the last four days. Its my cooking music, my writing music, my get all-your-shit-off-the-floor-let's-live-like-grown-ups music.

Last Monday, I was having a pity-me day and found X-Files on Netflix. And immediately watched 6 episodes in a row, despite the fact that I've seen them all and I quickly realized they were not as amazing as I remember, and I had started watching them on the kitchen TV but was too enthralled to move into the living room, so just sat on a dining room chair until my thighs were near-permanently marked with their wicker design.

I now read books by the gallon and an entire New Yorker in a single day.

When I was little (and by little I mean, between the ages of 3 and 16), I would watch movies and TV shows over and over and over again until someone (my Mom) told me to knock it the eff off. Which would mean it was time to go up to my room and pick up a book I had read no less than five times and read it all over again.

When I imbibe pop culture, I do it to excess. Since childhood, I've had this real strange compulsion to over dose on my favorite things. And strangely, after I've gotten my fill, my feelings about them don't change. I still love the book Wise Child, even though I've read it no less than 50 times. When Twister comes on I'll still sit down and watch it, despite the summer where I watched it twice a day for over a week.

I am trying to figure out why. Why I live like this. Instead of savoring Lost, I gulped it up in enormous up-all-night bites. While I have Netflix to blame for being my easy access to the good stuff, there is still a missing reason. How come I couldn't just watch a few episodes of Kevin Spacey being all priggish and Southern and then move onto something else? I let myself get drunk on Downton Abbey not just the first time, but any time I am left to my own devices for more than a day or so. Shouldn't I just want a sip now and a sip later?

I know I'm not the only one who is like this, in fact, the advent of this modern age of technology-fueled hedonism has only made more people just like me. But why? Why do we live like this? Is it because we're confident that something else just as good will come along soon enough, so no need to treasure this one? Is because we're afraid that someone might take this one away, so snatch it up before it goes? Is it because we're bored? Because our lives lack their own excitement?

While I continue to have some free time on my hands, I will ponder why we all take giant bites before we're done chewing what is already in our mouths. But first, I have a hot date to figure out whats going to happen in the last two episodes of House of Cards.

Fruit. Cake.

Sometimes, when you're unemployed, you think up some brilliantly stupid ideas.

At Becky's birthday potluck, I put myself in charge of dessert. With one of our good friends up the spout and craving fruity goodness non-stop, I thought I shouldn't just make a fruit salad, I should make fruit art.

Some notes if you want to make your own fruit art:

Use the biggest cookie sheet you have. Letters take up way more room than you think. I used one that was 19" across - it might have made more sense to use a standard rectangular one, but it wasn't as aesthetically pleasing as the round one. Dumb, but pretty (just like me).

Use the smallest fruit you're working with to craft the letters - blueberries were so much easier to manipulate than the pineapple or the grapes. On a lighter colored cookie sheet/platter they would have stood out stunningly.

Blackberries/raspberries are a waste of time for anything except decoration, they fall apart too easily and are too hard to manipulate.

Cut stuff to make it work for you. I'm not sure why I insisted for most of the process to use fruit as it naturally appears, but once I started cutting grapes in half and quarters they filled the spaces exactly how I wanted them to and didn't roll around which made things so much easier.

Be patient. Its a frustrating process the first time you do it. Guess and check. Next time I want to use cantaloupe and other melons cubed as the borders around the letters. And I'll probably take a better picture before my friends destroyed it in the name of being hungry.

type, judge, type

I am in the midst of my first legit (paying) writing gig in years. The first writing job that isn't journalistic or completely self serving. And this is the first time that I am writing about things that I do not understand (business analytics. what the whuuuut?).

I am terrified. Terrified. I've never been this scared about failing at something that I always considered myself pretty dang good at doing.

I needed to take a break and write about myself for thirty seconds so I could feel the accomplishment of having words come easy, of knowing the definition of everything I am typing, of knowing I am saying the things I want to say.

I've never taken such a giant shot in the dark. Despite all my swagger, I am completely doubtful of my technical writing ability.

In other news: musicals are the best writing music, Dunkin's pumpkin spice coffee is no joke, and I now have a clementine tree growing in my belly.

All the things.

I talked about this girl a few months back in a TBIF. And now she has a fancy new blog and a dynamite giveaway.




This blog is practically meaningless. Why wouldn't I use it to potentially score myself some sweet.sweet stuff? Guys, a cookbook? Etsy swag? You KNOW I love Etsy swag.

Kristen's blog is here. Read it. Oogle at her pictures. Give her a virtual belly rub.

So this is me entering her contest. If you go and you enter and you win. Ugh, I'll be so mad, but I'll still love you...but I'll be mad.

Adventures in Messy

Apparently, there's this thing in cooking called "cleaning as you go."

This is not a methodology I ascribe to, clearly.

In other news, the cookies I made were ah-maaaazing.

teej bone marrow

T-Bone got half a blog post back in August celebrating what an amazing and life charging friend she has been (that was supposed to be life changing but my phone autocorrected it to charging and I have to agree. She tied a turbo booster to my 19 year-old social self and stepped on the gas) - but it didn't even mention what a crazy-awesome human being she is in the grand scheme of the entire world.

Today (on what will now be known as T-bone day), she donated bone marrow so that a little boy she has never met will get a second chance at a full, happy, healthy life. She was his 1 UP, his little green mushroom, his 100 coins.

I like to think that when put in the same position any number of people I know would do the exact same thing. My late teens-early 20's were full of self-serving assbuckets, but as I round the bend towards social security, I surround myself with do-gooders and well-wishers and people who write thank you notes and call you when they say they're going to call.

But here's the thing, none of them have given up parts of their insides. No one I know is even in the bone marrow registry (and if you are, let a sister know so I can sing your praises too). I know I'm not. Here's why: I am terrified. Straight scared shitless that my number will come up and it'll be my turn to be the bravest little toaster.

Boyfriend and I have been talking about giving blood for a couple months now and we manage to keep putting it off. Every time the opportunity arises we manage to be busy. One of us is working out for the first time in 3 months (him) or suddenly feels like they really need to focus on the job hunt (me). We cannot even manage to get over our fear of needles enough to do this very basic thing that most people I know have done a bazillion times. My brother practically majored in it.

So the idea of having a surgery, a real honest to god, under the knife surgery is about an ocean away from my comfort level.

And yet T-bone did it. Like it ain't no thang. I am knocked on my ass by how selfless and inspiring she has been. She wins at T-bone Day.

In want of an Obstinate, Headstrong Girl

"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?"

Today is Pride and Prejudice's 200th birthday. And let me tell you, Lizzie Bennett looks good for 200. Still all sharp and sassy. If they had said it in those times, I feel like this book would have been full of, "you go girl's" (but sadly people only said that 100 years ago, except my Dad, who continually insists its on the verge of a comeback).

I didn't fall in love with Austen until my 20's, when I needed her. I needed beautiful words that made me think and strong women and a few good fairy tales. Now our love affair is serious business, especially with P&P and so: Happy Birthday Charlotte Lucas Collins! And Miss Kitty Bennett! And the Gardeners!

I celebrated by listening to a live reading of Pride & Prejudice (thank you JASNA!), getting there just in time for Lydia and Wickham to run off and ruin everything (per usual).

If this important event didn't make it onto your google calendar, here are some ways you can celebrate Pride and Prejudice all year long.

Get the book. I guarantee you can find it at your local book store for anywhere from $2 - $50, depending on just how fancy your pants are.

And read it. Fall in love with Mr. Darcy all over again/for the first time.

Get real drunk, and then the next day nurse your hangover with Colin Firth jumping in a pond.

Read my blogs on P&P and some junk.

Read people who write better than me (and P.D. James). Like this. 

Watch this Wishbone episode:

(Side Note: holy shit! I didn't really think this was going to exist when I started writing this blog but it DOES. The internet is the BEST.)

Then come see the Ladies of Improvised Jane Austen do it up all proper and ladylike, except when we play dudes, then watch us put one foot up on a chair so our balls can hang out.

Get one of these iphone chargers. I'm obsessed, I want one so badly. How classy can your bedside table get? Seriously, everyone go buy one and tell them you heard about it from me so I can get one for free (that's how blogging works, right?).

Wear this shirt, or this scarf (which I own and love) or some other random etsy doo-dads  and show off your lit nerd love with pride.

Finally, if you want to your lady friend to do....whatever - one night, when she's feeling all moody and sad (so, like, every night amIright?!) lean over and whisper,

"My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." 

Oooooh, you're gonna be giving out high fives tomorrow.

And remember, as Lady Jane herself said, "The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."

Stop and Tell

After observing their behavior for over five years, I have really gotten to know the midwesterners as a people.

I've discovered a new favorite tell that 60% of the time, works every time.

When a midwesterner gets on a train or a bus (and I am talking about a corn-fed, directional-college-educated, cell-phone-holder-on-his-belt real Midwesterner, not one of those big-city-livin' Chicago types) - they will sit down and look around, not with the quick glance of "is there a goddamned pigeon on this train," but the slow and easy gaze of someone surveying the surrounding prairie, or soy bean fields or whatever you have out here.

I used to think they were scanning the train for any sort of unsavory characters who might give them a one way ticket to pick-pocket town. But, now I'm realizing that is the East Coast skeptic in me. What these people are eyeing for is some one to chat with.

They want someone to talk about the weather (here versus there), how noisy/bright/crowded/expensive things are, how proud they are of their son/niece/grandbaby for moving out to this big old city and how they just ate Ethiopian food for the first time (imagine that! with your hands and everything!).

Occasionally they'll catch the eye of someone who has a "kind soul" or who forgot their headphones at home and strike up this predictable dialogue other times, they'll just wait patiently with their companion (these folks never travel alone, that'd be asking for trouble) and eventually, if the fish aren't biting, they'll just spend the rest of their ride talking about at what stop they're getting off and how people in Chicago sure do keep to themselves.

Where have you been, Young Lady?

Ugh! I was doing so good with the once-a-day blog posting and then I tumbled off that wagon and into the waiting arms of some real bad shit.

So far 2013 has been less than spectacular on the things-to-get-amped-about scale. In fact, there hasn't really been a day when I haven't been forced to imbibe some bad news with a chaser of red wine and left over Christmas biscotti (the shining light in this crappy ocean).

The problem is - none of the bad things have happened to me, per se (except the broken toes. I'll talk about them at some point). They've all happened to people I love or people who are loved by people I love. Whatever. The point is - its not my right to put their business out there. So I won't. But let me tell you, if God is real, he is kind of a dick.

Even though I wasn't going to write about these bad things, it felt stupid and shallow to prance about writing about...whatever it is this blog is about (nothing, basically). So I struggled with that, and then I ate too much (as you do).

So now, I am saying - my bad, for ducking out on you like that - it was uncool of me. I just can't promise every day blogs anymore, because some days this year will be too full of sadness.

...AND! Some days will be too full of happiness because while life is straight-up garbage right now, I KNOW of some amazing events coming down the lane that are going to change liiiives. Seriously (again, not my business to talk about but, good things!). And on those days I am going to savor the everyloving stuffing out of the happiness and love that will be in the air and I'll get back to talking about pigeons and my inadequacies in the kitchen the next day.

Gone Girl

Oh Shit, Gone Girl, Oh Shit.

That was what I said, out loud, in text messages, and in my head, no less than 80 times while reading Gone Girl.

Some of the times (while babysitting) when I couldn't contain myself, were less appropriate than others (in bed at 2 in the morning, loud enough to freak out the cat at my feet).

In conclusion. I should read thrillers more. I remember learning at some point the "tricks" that go into making a thriller one of those page turner, couldn't-put-it-down books and then I judged thrillers. While I am humbled to admit that I got played like a teenage boy's acoustic guitar...I did. And I'll admit it. And it was awesome. 

One of the best parts of being unemployed is that I have had the time to inhale books. I'll sit down at 4 PM and won't get up until I am good and finished with a book. It's so satisfying to have enough time to read all the words I want every day. I am so spoiled. Ugh.

Gone Girl, while a thriller in every sense of the word, was so fun to read (although, as an unemployed woman in the midwest, also sliiiightly terrifying). It was also an interesting book to read right after The Light Between Oceans, so many different ways of dealing with marriage. Yikes. Best to stay away from that shit show.

Apparently Gillian Flynn (who wrote Gone Girl) lives in Chicago. I wonder how often she saw people like me on the red line, my face buried in the book, occasionally looking up to mouth,

"Oh Shit, Gone Girl. Oh shit."

Two- nip

Oh! And I dealt with a turnip for the first time. It would have been way less stressful if the Internet had just told me that a turnip is basically a carrot playing Turtle from Entourage.

Doughy

Phyllo dough is a completely unfamiliar art form. We've had it in the freezer for ages and I finally found a recipe that sounded delicious and healthy.

Turns out I did it wrong as the dough is uncooked in some places, and apparently twice as thick as it needed to be.

Lesson learned, leave the fancy business to the Greeks. Though, as an Italian - I would say I made it look good.

Cup of Change

Sometimes, nowadays, this is what Sunday Funday looks like.

With six friends, and a bucket of catching up to do. It's a nice change of pace.

Nameste

"eff you in the mouth, crow pose."

This thought came into my head in yoga class after a pretty bad crow-pose related tumble and it stayed there, right up until final nap-time pose.

Inversion poses (ie - poses where my head is below my heart) make me incredibly dizzy, and combining slight vertigo with a suckerpunch to the pride was enough to make me the most vulgar yogi.

My goal this year is to do 100 yoga practices (so far, I'm at 4. Trucking right along). If I make it, I get to buy myself overpriced yoga pants. This is pretty much all the motivation I need to do anything - excuses to spend money I don't have.

We'll see how I feel later in the year, but right now - yoga makes me frustrated and sweaty. I hate being bad at things, but being bad at things while teeny-tiny women tell me that its not about being good or bad, its about being at peace (or whatever) is WAY, WAY worse.

(so why are you doing it, dummy?)

Because, I cannot get myself to run and gym memberships are dumb expensive. Its too cold to bike and I'm out of options. Also, because despite how it turns my inner-monologue into that of a sailor - it's the only thing I can make myself keep going to. Maybe it's because of the free nap at the end - but when class is over, I want to do it again.

Anyway, 100 yoga practices in 365 days is resolution two for 2013. Let's do it for the pants.

A Latter Day

On January 26, 2012, I put the following query out to the world of Facebook:

 

A little less than one year later, I saw the Book of Mormon sitting with 26 friends and +1's.

While, it was not the ideal way to ensure that I would be able to see the show, it worked out perfectly. If only because I rarely get so many hugs on a Thursday night. 

And like my facebook blog from earlier, literally, it was so crazy to see all these people from my past five years sitting together getting their musical on.

If you get a chance to see Book of Mormon (and really, you should). I highly, HIGHLY encourage you to do whatever you can to go into it without hearing any of the music of knowing any of the plot specifics before hand.

As someone said to one of my friends before the show, "I would kill to be hearing the soundtrack for the first time live."

Which is pretty much how I feel about all theater all the time. Seriously folks, just spend $50 and go see the show. I promise it will be worth it.

If you remember that this show is written by the same guys who did South Park who are no longer confined by FCC regulations, you will not be too shocked by the things that are said on stage.

Happy is a girl who gets to witness song & dance created in front of her eyes.

Birds

I have been using public transportation as my sole way of getting from heretothere for over 10 years. And if you include the years that I was a proud Metro Bus baby in DC, we're looking at almost half my life spent trusting civil servants to get me from place to place and the general public to not screw it up too much.

I very rarely have complaints about this way of life. Its much cheaper than owning a car. I could not care less what gas costs and so make much more interesting dinner party conversation. And what with all of the folks I see on a day to day basis, I have plenty of fodder for said dinner party conversation.

And while I have seen quite the cast of characters - nothing has ever really affected me. I've watched people get sick, use the train as their bathroom, use the train as their crack den, make out, break up, I've had people eye my wallet and my cellphone, I've been stuck due to a fire, a person on the tracks, a derailed train. People have said things, done things, and brought things on to trains and buses without me doing much more than momentarily lifting one eye from my New Yorker.

Until Yesterday.

Yesterday, I was on the brown line. I got off at Belmont and immediately onto the red line training waiting for us.

As the train left the station I was suddenly aware of unfamiliar movement. It took a second longer than it should have for me to realize that there were two pigeons on this train with me and the 15-or so other CTA riders. And in the next second, after I realized what was happening, I flipped my shit.

The woman next to me said in a calm voice that indicated that she had recently taken some sort of mood stabilizer that the birds were, "much more afraid of us than we were of them."

"Well, since I can go ahead and guarantee that no human is going to poop on a birds head on this train, I am going to have to disagree with you."

And then I was left with the Sofie's choice of what am I going to let this bird poop on? My hair? No. My favorite scarf. Hell No. I ended up going with my purse which I figured would probably be the easiest to clean and disinfect.

The scariest thing was that occasionally they would stop flying towards you. Like they would just stand on the floor and you would think that they had figured out how to ride the train like normal people. But then they would freak out again and come raging down the corridor.

The distance from Belmont to Addison has never felt so far. Finally we got to the station and everyone got up to the exit. I was standing with three other women, our faces pressed against the door. When, of course, there was that extra moment of the doors being closed when the panic renewed itself as we were now sitting ducks. Or whatever it is that pigeons hunt. So we all screamed and cursed and for that extra second, I felt closer to my Chicago brethren.

The doors opened, I raced to the adjacent car and sat down, thankful that the bird-poop-on-my-stuff scare had abated. I was catching my breath and running my hands over my head, trying to ensure that I really and truly was not covered in bird crap when the man next to me rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly at the crazy girl next to him.

These 7 days

I should have known on Monday at noon,  when the 7-month-pregnant woman next to me kicked my ass in headed yoga...

... And there were two pigeons in my train car this afternoon...

that this was going to be a really bad week.

It's Tuesday and so far all my premonitions have been right on the money.

If I don't get a Wednesday or Thursday snuggle fest or dance party this week will be the first worst one of 2013.

Laces Up

How do you prepare for a football game you've been hoping and waiting to watch since you were three?

By making shamrock candy and oreo pops way past your bedtime the night before. Obviously.

Poke nation

I have been told that I have a serious facebook problem. And while I like to think that I spend a healthy amount of time browsing the lives of close friends, random acquaintances and people I used to hate in high school - its probably healthy like only smoking Capri 100's is a healthy smoking habit.

But! I think there is something amazing about facebook (and all social media) that will keep me on it for far longer than necessary.

On Saturday night, Boyfriend and I were at the grocery store getting necessaries for the most important night of Boyfriend's life (also known as the BCS National Championship game) and while he searched for the perfect crackers, I stumbled across these gems.

So I put this picture on facebook and asked the universe if anyone had ever heard of or experienced such an amazing feat of modern technology.

I got answers from people from 5 different states: one family member (hi Mom!), one ex-roommate, one good friend from high school, two people I've done theater with, my current favorite neighbor, a guy I baby sit for, and my best friend's husband.

That, to me, is the coolest thing about social media (mostly facebook). All these people just came together and explained that my attraction to these comes from my mildly white trash roots and affinity for salmon dip. That never would have happened. Even if I had bought them and asked just my close-all-the-time friends, I probably would have gotten a positive response, but not one that showed that clearly these crackers live in grocery stores all over the world and everyone thinks they're awesome.

Thanks global connectivity for the excellent cracker hook-up.