it's kind of lovely, isn't it?

i'll pay extra for the magic... that's what she said?

2009-11-30T23:33:00.005-05:00

hopefully i will be driving that car within the week. and yes, i think i'm getting the magic SYNC system where i can talk to my car and it listens and responds. score. until then, i'm living on a hope and a prayer that the buick will start every morning because i'm out of relatives cars to borrow. booooo.

you know what actually works that i thought was a crock of shit? head-on. like, apply directly to the forehead, head-on. i bought it over the summer but never used it and then tonight i had a massive killer headache. it looks like a glue stick and you just rub it all over your forehead and give it some time and it makes your forehead cold and tingly but magically, relieved my headache. maybe i was just distracted by the cold tingly forehead and worried that i was going to break out into some kind of rash. but either way, my headache is gone and i was impressed.

i love this commercial right now because it reminds me of a lot of good times with friends packed into a car, singing at the top of our lungs to songs like "the reason" by hoobastank, "pieces of me" by ashlee simpson, and "dare you to move" by switchfoot.

"Just a Friend"

Other youtube videos I've enjoyed lately --

"Puke In My Mouth" (a "Jizz in my Pants" parody, female perspective):

I'm not going to lie, I like that Justin Beiber kid. He's adorable with all that sweepy emo hair and his catchy little pop songs. He samples the jam, "Lovefool", on this track.

May Poppins is on Conan! This was a great show on Broadway. It was magical and I was like a little kid, in awe of how they did it all. Harley gets to go on her NYC trip in a few weeks and see some Broadway shows and I'm excited for her :) Wish I could go again but alas, my money is to be spent on other things. Like a car.

my polka face, my polka face.

2009-11-15T18:35:00.005-05:00

I watch “The Soup” on E! and sometimes they’ll feature clips from a show called “I Love Toy Trains!” and I laugh hysterically and think, that can’t be real. What station would ever air such a show?

The Soup: I Love Toy Trains 4/17/09
Uploaded by Jason6385

I found it. And it’s my grandma’s favorite station. And it’s AMAZING how ridiculous it is. RFD. It's been self appointed Rural America's Most Important Network.

Last night, I came into the living room and found my Grandma and Aunt Sue watching what looked like it was a home movie from the 80s. Upon further inspection, realizing that I didn’t recognize anyone and noticing the look of pure glee in my aunt’s eyes, I realized that in fact, this was not a home movie, this was supposed to be a serious television program. The show was called “Big Joe’s Super Show” and featured various polka acts playing polka music… which all sounds the same… and couples dancing.

The first act I caught was Moostash Joe. Yes, that is his name. Moo-stash. Fantastic. The host was a large man (Big Joe, I’m guessing) who had on a silky pink ruffled shirt, a cumberbund, and a vest with an accordion on it. Like the keys on one side and the buttons on the other side. I wish I owned that vest. So, Big Joe would come out and announce the acts and talk about all the people watching out there in the United States, Canada, and Mex-hee-co, as he pronounced it. He also gave a special hello to the firemen watching but quickly amended so that he could include "fire ladies" as well...and I quote, "Those sweet young things driving the fire trucks". Yes. I could not make this up if I tried. The end credits ran over footage of hands clapping. Like, a blue backdrop and just a close shot of hands clapping in time. The credits revealed that it was taped in a dance hall in Nebraska in 1989. Twenty years ago. And RFD aired this as a new program. Their schedule says it's a first run show. Did they buy the tape off a Nebraska community access TV station and just decide to start airing it? I don't understand. But you know what? My grandma loves it. She tries to watch Big Joe's Super Show every Saturday night. She likes watching the dancers and likes the music.

Just to give you a handle on the type of programs that RFD airs, check out this week’s schedule, which includes the following winners:
*Little Britches Rodeo
*Training Mules and Donkeys
*Honeybees and Beekeeping
*Cowboy Church
*Postcards from Nebraska
*Successful Farming Machinery Show
and, of course... *I Love Toy Trains

What does RFD stand for? Well, if like me, you fall into the demographic of “younger folks or city slickers” who don’t know, RFD stands for Rural Free Delivery. (That’s a direct quote from their website. City slickers.) Seriously, click on that link and read the history. Here are some highlights from that spectacular piece:

"Younger folks and city slickers... don’t know their history, that’s all. But rural folks do. RFD – Rural Free Delivery – by the U.S. Postal Service is one of the most important developments in American rural history. It’s even commemorated by a special stamp... Historians say Rural Free Delivery not only improved communications for rural residents, but was a shot in the arm for the U.S. economy, stimulating road and bridge development, and all kinds of economic growth. Postal officials laud RFD as an important symbol of unity for the nation, saying that universal mail service at uniform cost was a turning point in American history and culture. Funny — that’s just like RFD-TV."

I like how they not only declared that they are rural america's MOST IMPORTANT network (although does rural america have another specific genre network that RFD beats out?)... but they also have compared their network in importance to a turning point in American history. It's "just like" that. Except not really at all.

Yes! Thank you, youtube. I found a sample of Big Joe and the polka awesomeness. Enjoy. :)

And my own videos of the magic I captured, with my family commentary in the background. I love life.

when i'm driving in the car with you, i hope for all the red lights

2009-11-07T23:34:00.009-05:00

my horoscope for yesterday: Transportation issues are a fairly big deal for you today, though they aren't anywhere near catastrophic. In fact, you may get a deal on a car or find some way to cut time off of your commute.

seriously, how does it know? how does it know about my car? and that i went car shopping? i test drove two cars: a ford focus and a toyota yaris. i liked both of them. i'm looking to lease a reliable vehicle... one that won't break down every couple of months for no apparent reason. you know. not a lot to ask. i'd rather know that i'm paying a set amount every month for a nice, new working car than not having a car payment but every once in awhile, with no warning, a car that will break down and i'll have to pay an undetermined amount that may or may not fix the problem and then continue driving a ten year old vehicle with dents and scratches, and that could break down at any moment. so yes.

the focus was cool because it had SYNC which is Jetsons style magic where it hooks up with your cell and you can talk and text hands free. it also does directions and music controls and telling you about your car (like running car diagnostics). seriously, i was amazed by that magic but i don't really NEED that so i probably wouldn't pay for it. it was ridiculously cool though and if they offered me a deal i could work with, i'd go for it just because of the magic. but i don't think they will.

the yaris was cute and small and simple. it was nice driving a smaller car - it was easier for me to get a sense of where i was on the road and in terms of parking. i have a hard time with perception in the tank that is the buick and in the vans i've been borrowing. the yaris hasn't gotten amazing reviews but not really bad either. it has awesome fuel economy - like 35 mpg highway. the only thing i didn't really like was well, it didn't have the magic (even though i know i don't need it) and i didn't really like the dashboard. the speedometer and the gas gauge and everything is in the middle of the dash, not right in front of the steering wheel, so i don't notice it as much and i'd like to be able to keep an eye on it while driving... it makes it more difficult to do that.

i still want to check out a few more dealerships and see what they have to offer. it seems like not as many places are leasing any more but that's what i want to do. i'd rather lease a brand new car that i know is reliable for a few years and give it back then worry about financing and buying a car right now. i don't drive that many miles (usually 12,000/yr is the leasing standard and that sounds about right for how i drive) and you can put down less and have smaller monthly payments with a lease then you do when you buy. whatever.

oh, my poor buick. this time they think it's a fuel pump that's causing all the problems. that's an expensive project. i'm not taking it on. i've already thrown more money into that car than it's worth - i'm not spending another dime on it. i'm pretty sure it was purchased for $2500 or so. i've spent over $2000 on repairs and maintenance, and that doesn't include registration, license, insurance, or gas. the kelley blue book trade in value of the car (which i'd say is in "fair" condition) is $663. even if it were in good condition, which it's honestly not with the body damage, rust, and mechanical problems, it would only be at $1150. whatever. in memorium of the car, which is now in the hands of my parents at a repair shop, while i drive my grandparents minivan around town, an ode to my poor buick - a really bad poem:

it was a sunny day in may
parked in my parents driveway
washed and waxed until it shined
a '99 lesabre... and it was all mine.

the side mirror held together by glue
every dent and scratch hard earned
the sound of the door popping a siren
recalling the memories and lessons learned

spilled ice cream from my sisters in the backseat
stones and dirt from a camping trip by the drivers feet
receipts from fast food and gas stations on the turnpike
many miles driven, many roads so alike

all throughout the midwest
down south and through canada, too
florida, maine, new york, PA
the buick has been faithful and true

okay... maybe not so reliable or great.
every few months, a new bad circuit, filter, or brakes
$200 here, $400 there
you never know when it would break down or where

let's remember the good times....
the road trips and laughter
that lasted for 3 and a half years.
now the repairs will be on someone else's dime.

fin.

anyway... enough about cars. i had a dream recently that i went to visit my cousin Lauren in Austin and went to the south by southwest festival. random. it would definitely be something i would like to experience eventually. first of all, i want to check out the whole music festival scene. plus, SXSW is more than just music - it's this huge event. i haven't seen Lauren in forever. i really can't remember the last time i saw her. high school? anyway, it would be good to see her and i've never been to texas - it would be a cool trip. all good reasons to think about checking it out. hmmmm. definitely not a 2010 trip but maybe by 2011 i could swing it.

flight of the conchords on south by southwest...hilarious, as always.

not related but worth noting: there is a fine line between harmless and douchebag. seriously, there are so many types of d-bag but the guys who don't realize that they're douching it up... sometimes i feel kind of bad and want to educate them, like, listen. you're being a dick. you went from nice, good person doing a kind hearted thing to tool. like, i know you aren't wearing an ed hardy/affliction shirt and a cz earring but enough with the jon gosslein act, buddy. i'm thinking of one person in particular who i won't specify because that's rude but i just need to vent. the worst part is the sense of superiority, i think, and the underhanded digs. the more i think about it, it's not that he doesn't realize what he's doing... instead, he thinks he's so cool and so much more smart and smooth that he thinks he's masking his backhanded remarks. and he doesn't see anything wrong with it. he thinks that the person he's talking to needs to hear his hidden message. his lessons of how much working out has kept him young and made him feel better and kept him healthy is such a thin veil for the judgment about whoever he's speaking to own body and workout habits. when he says, "man, when i don't work out, i just start feeling awful and i can tell when i look in the mirror", he means "you should work out. i think you are chubby and you don't fit into my idea of what i find attractive so you should hit the gym. that way, i'll find you sexually attractive and i can have yet another person to inappropriately hit on." yeahhhh. it's just douchey and gross.

on a happier note, taylor swift on SNL this weekend was pretty entertaining. i don't think acting is her calling but she was a good sidekick in terms of helping to compliment the cast. she tweeted tonight about a cool cover of her song "you belong with me" by butch walker - ignore the first 2 minutes and 50 seconds, which is useless. the actual cover starts at 2:50:

speaking of covers, here are 32 songs covered and mashed up in 8 minutes:

dude, mad men's finale tonight was CRAZY. i hope that next season they decide to bring Sal back in to join Sterling, Cooper, Draper, and Price. (and Campbell? If Pete has his way, it'll be a five person named company...) i freaked out about Joan and Harry Crane and i'm glad that Pete and Peggy came, even though Duck is still going to try and lead them away. i'm definitely hooked, wondering what will happen next season. of course, next season isn't until next summer. ! that's forever and a day away. oh man.

the swell season is coming to ann arbor december 2nd and i'd really like to go because they put on an amazing live show but i don't know who would want to go with me... if it weren't a wednesday, i could see if anyone would want to come in from out of town but i can't ask people to miss work or school so i think i'm missing them this time around. too bad they aren't in town around the holidays when people would be around who might want to join me. :/

i also found out that this guy kevin lehman who i saw put on a show at EMU my freshman year and really liked is playing in cleveland 11/20. my friends and i all bought his CD and we listened to it all the time. i still listen to his songs and know all the words - they remind me of college so much... ladybug, motorbike, redlights and greenlights. it's just one of those things that i know other people don't know who he is but that was our soundtrack. i don't know. it'd be cool to go see him. however, without a working vehicle of my own at the moment that's not really an option right now. plus, i'll be "grandma sitting" while my grandpa goes deer hunting at that time. a week and a half straight of staying at my grandma's house and making sure she's ok - cooking, cleaning, taking care of things around the house and running errands for her (shopping, appointments, etc...) we'll see how that goes. i love my grandma but i'm a little nervous about going crazy.

back to work in the morning. a new week, new beginnings. hopefully this week will be an improvement over last week, in which i literally took off my shoes and threw them on the floor in frustration, screamed bloody murder in the car on the way home one day out of anger, and cried in the office, due to my stupid broken vehicle. this week has got to be better than last week. here's hoping.

happy halloween.

2009-11-01T15:43:00.002-05:00

yes, I am the popular social networking site known as book face.

2009-10-29T00:26:00.009-04:00

halloween costume decided.

i'm digging the song "maggie may" by rod stewart right now. i love the name maggie and think maggie may sounds good together but wouldn't want to name a child after that song. "all you did was wreck my bed, and in the morning kick me in the head"? no thanks, rod.

i had a dream that i met someone who named their kids after her favorite real world cast members. no joke. i said, "oh, your kids are so cute! what are their names?" and she said, "amaya, trishelle, and puck." ridic.

tonight, on community, there was an acid trip that featured a sequence of dancing skeletons (including a girl in a skeleton costume). for some reason, that made me laugh so hysterically i was crying. i have not laughed that hard in a long time. i think what made me laugh so much was the funny dancing and then, the first thought that popped into my head was, "what if all skeletons danced like that?" and of course, i laughed at how ridiculous my brain is. and laughed and laughed. and my sister looked at me like i was crazy and that made me laugh harder.

nbc had a strong theme tonight: "gay halloween". seriously, parks and rec and 30 rock both had references to how gay halloween parties are way more awesome than straight halloween parties. you think there's someone who reads the scripts ahead of time and says "hey guys, you're repeating jokes on the same night"? i volunteer for that job if someone at NBC wants to pay me for it. i'm all about doing that.

so, my favorite basketball team is the washington generals... which shows how much i care about sports. i wish i had the kind of passion for it that some people do but i just don't. i can't muster up the interest. maybe because i'm not athletically inclined myself and i'm not competitive. that whole not playing sports things is probably why i have never broken a bone.

i am easily amused, however there are certain comedians that a lot of people seem to love that i don't think are funny at all - like jeff dunham or carlos mencia. i give all stand up comedians credit because i couldn't do it; being judged and stared at and responsible for making everyone else laugh... plus, i'd make myself laugh. when i say something funny, i can't help but giggle.

sometimes when i'm bored at work, rosanna and i will play the wikipedia game... like, get from appalachian mountains to waffles. go! and then we see what we can click to get from one thing to the other. another example was tugboats to sarah jessica parker. that was a great one. i found out so much. like did you know that edward hermann (aka richard gilmore) played FDR in the TV movie version of 'Annie'? he did. and sarah jessica parker once played Annie on Broadway. thanks, wikipedia.

rivers cuomo, i love the camera love you have happening on letterman right now. i also liked the arm motion indicating archery. again, love this song. any songs about archery and meatloaf get the thumbs up from me. plus, the late show band is playing along so there's awesome horn action. WINNERS!

advertising is based on one thing: happiness.

2009-10-27T20:41:00.005-04:00

the palm pre girl creeps me out. she's like an alien.

the jim beam puppy commercial makes me laugh. "yeah, he's my first mate."

there are two hilarious local commercials that i can't find anywhere online - one is for platinum showgirls, a strip club in town. the ad has a guy looking wistfully at a pole, another at a dollar bill, and another gazing at buildings that are shaped slightly like boobs and the whole idea is "we know you miss being here". It's great. then there's one against issue 3 on Ohio's ballot for casinos in the state of Ohio. it's crazy. it begins with the statement that casinos in Ohio will not show preference to hiring solely people from Ohio. yeah, no shit. they can't discriminate based on where people live. just like people from Ohio could easily go and work at the casinos in other states. the commercial than escalates into ridiculous land when it says that casinos cause suicide and lead to prostitution. no joke. i feel like it's prohibition. i don't understand how casinos are any worse than racetracks or slots, which we already have in ohio. the theme of the ad is "the devil is in the details". it's so bad it's great.

this makes me want a drink:

i hated everybody loves raymond but that ad with brad garrett, where he sings a song to the tune of "windy" and it includes the line, "who's reaching out to tickle a horsey?" i do enjoy that.

i wish i could find the pepsi lime commercial where the limes say "oh, the limanity!" that still makes me giggle just thinking about it. pepsi lime was gross though. they stopped making that, right?

oh, the lime-anity.

songs for sunday

2009-10-25T19:23:00.005-04:00

two beautiful songs that i am obsessed with right now, both by van morrison. i love the poetry of moondance (fantabulous!) and the romance of crazy love ("when I come to her, that's where I belong")... amazing.

Well, it's a marvelous night for a Moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
'Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I'm trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night's magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush

Chorus:
Can I just have one a' more Moondance with you, my love
Can I just make some more romance with a-you, my love

Well, I wanna make love to you tonight
I can't wait 'til the morning has come
And I know that the time is just right
And straight into my arms you will run
And when you come my heart will be waiting
To make sure that you're never alone
There and then all my dreams will come true, dear
There and then I will make you my own
And every time I touch you, you just tremble inside
And I know how much you want me that you can't hide

Chorus

Repeat 1st Verse

One more Moondance with you in the moonlight
On a magic night
La, la, la, la in the moonlight
On a magic night
Can I just have one more moon dance with a-you
My love.

--------

I can hear her heart beat for a thousand miles
And the heavens open every time she smiles
And when I come to her that's where I belong
Yet I'm running to her like a river's song

Chorus:
She give me love, love, love, love, crazy love
She give me love, love, love, love, crazy love

She's got a fine sense of humor when I'm feeling low down
And when I come to her when the sun goes down
Take away my trouble, take away my grief
Take away my heartache, in the night like a thief

Chorus:
Yes I need her in the daytime
Yes I need her in the night
Yes I want to throw my arms around her
Kiss her hug her kiss her hug her tight

And when I'm returning from so far away
She gives me some sweet lovin' brighten up my day
Yes it makes me righteous, yes it makes me feel whole
Yes it makes me mellow down in to my soul

-------

happy sunday.

under (sinus) pressure

2009-10-12T19:55:00.004-04:00

oh man. my face hurts. i hate sinus headaches.

"I'm kind of thinking I want to do my record like a mesh between 'Lovefool' by the Cardigans and ['The Sign'] by Ace of Base," she said. "I want to make songs that people want to hold hands and roller-skate to." - Katy Perry, about her new album

YES. I am all over that idea.

I love when TV shows or movies mention a website and then they follow through and buy the rights to it. How I Met Your Mother is awesome and really plays into this. Tonight, they introduced: itwasthebestnightever.com. Check it out. (See also tedmosbyisajerk.com) Such a great show.

Gossip Girl has lost it's touch this season. I don't really care what's going on. For the most part, I feel like the writing has gotten sloppy and now that they're not in high school, meh. I don't care. I've tried. Not into it.

I'm looking forward to the next few weekends. I'm heading to Cleveland and Detroit this weekend and the Ypsi/Ann Arbor area next weekend. Still looking for Halloween plans. Can't believe how quickly time goes that it's almost Halloween... wasn't it just New Years?

the massive headache continues so I'm planning on cuddling up under some warm blankets and watching mindless tv until I fall asleep. good night. :)

sylvio.

2009-10-10T00:41:00.003-04:00

there was a cute boy in my office today. this is always exciting news, of course. he's the son of one of the awesome women i work with and apparently, we're the same age. hmmmm. so, i might have a new, little, no big deal, five minute crush on this guy i know nothing about and saw for two seconds today. ha. i liked his curly hair.

i've been hearing a few songs in heavy rotation lately on the radio that are not new releases and i don't know why they got picked back up into the system, like jojo's "too little too late" and all saints:

random.

time to pick a netflix on demand movie to watch in bed (i'm leaning towards the commitments right now). i've got to get up and hip hop hustle with the ladies at lifestyles tomorrow :)

¿Dónde esta la biblioteca? Me llamo T-Bone, la araña discoteca.

2009-10-08T21:39:00.008-04:00

my last two posts have been serious and depressing. this post will be neither of those things. my day at work was mostly awful and i felt like wanting to just physically shake people to try and knock some sense in them. but then things started looking up when my boss suggested buying his young daughter a cheetah. fantastic. so, i'm choosing to focus on the positive. here we go:

1. i'm going to see 'legally blonde: the musical' with my mom, sarah, and harley next weekend. i'm seriously excited. we're in the first row of one of the lower balconies and it'll be a lot of fun.

2. i'm watching the pb&j wedding on the office right now and laughing hysterically. meredith is a great robot dancer and totally burned ryan. michael's painting. kevin's tissue box shoes and hair. oh my god, i love jim and pam. so much. the falls... maid of the mist... the dance line. great tv.

3. i'm enjoying a very classy mike's harder cranberry lemonade in a can that i bought at the gas station. sophisticated lady. that's me. classy all the way.

4. on saturday, i'm going over to hang out with alison and watch movie classics like "the babysitter's club movie". can't wait. i will rap claudia's science rap.
i went to youtube to search it out and couldn't find it but i found the theme song to the babysitter's club tv show and somehow i know all the words. how does my brain remember these things? seriously? what part of my brain recalls the lyrics to the babysitter's club tv show theme song? still no luck on claudia's science rap but i did find the amazing opening song from the movie:

5. i am now bff with yvette nicole brown. and my bff, i mean, she and i have spoken on twitter, which makes me feel special. she is hilarious on "community" and i tweeted about it tonight and she responded. pretty awesome. she's also been on "drake & josh" and "the office" (remember when dwight worked at staples? she was the coworker who was so funny and did the talking head where she said: "I don't like him, his giant head, or his beady little eyes. That's all I got to say on the matter") and she's in a million commercials - she's one of those people who's in everything and now that we've talked, i'm totally using her in every game of six degrees of separation i ever play. :)

check her out in action, if youtube hasn't already pulled the video:

and some more hilarity from "community"... seriously, when a show makes me laugh out loud, it's worth watching:

Troy: Dónde está la biblioteca? / Me llamo T-bone, la araña discoteca
Abed: Discoteca, muñeca, la biblioteca / Es en bigote grande, perro, manteca
Troy: Manteca, bigote, gigante, pequeño / Cabeza es nieve, cerveza es bueno
Abed: Buenos días, me gusta papas frías / Bigote de la cabra es cameron diaz. (Yeah, boy, boy.)
Troy: (What?!)
Abed: (It's 2009.)
Troy: (Word.)

I hope this is used in high school Spanish classes across the country - even though the on screen translation is not 100% accurate:

Where is the library?
My name is T-bone, the disco spider.
Disco, doll, the library
Is in big mustache, dog, lard.
Lard, mustache, huge, little
Head is ice cream,
Beer is good.
Good day, I like cold potatoes,
The goat’s mustache
Is Cameron Diaz.

*Nieve means snow, not ice cream. It should read "Head is snow, beer is good."*

:) hasta luego.

sometimes things make me angry.

2009-10-06T19:49:00.006-04:00

here's something that makes me irrationally angry, considering it does not directly affect me: the faction of people in this country, specifically those with children, who refuse to vaccinate their kids because "vaccines cause autism".

i don't know what part of being a parent makes you think you're smarter than medicine, science, federal agencies, and many years of experience of success with vaccines... but you're not.

claiming that the autism rate is growing so rapidly and the only viable thing that could cause it are vaccines is ridiculous.

things to think about, perhaps:

1. you are selfish. by not vaccinating your children, it does not affect solely just your family. not only are you putting your children at risk by not protecting them from disease and illness (such as polio, smallpox, and other potentially life threatening health conditions) but you are putting everyone else's kids at risk, too. if you want to risk your kids health - fine. then you keep your kids locked up in a commune, away from the rest of the world, who are then also at risk for becoming horribly sick. what about babies or the elderly or those with weakened immune systems (like AIDS patients), who can't fight off these diseases which were almost totally extinct in this country until you crazies stopped getting your kids vaccinated and started bringing measles back into our communities? it's selfish. most parents who choose not to vaccinate say it's because they don't want their child to be autistic. oh really? you'd rather take the chance to have them get the measles then for them to have a 1% chance to get a social disorder that does not medically harm them in any way? really?

2. looking beyond the fact that it's socially irresponsible, the information out there is flawed. these "studies" and statistics come out and claim that 1 in every 100 children has autism. REALLY? really? and people read that shit and freak out and say, "oh, kids never used to have autism, this is a new disease and it's spread because of the over vaccination of our children". bullshit.

a) Autism is not a new disorder. People just didn't know what it was before and now that there has been more study done on the topic and people know more about it, they are much quicker to claim that any quirk in a social behavior in a child falls somewhere on the autism spectrum. Believing that autism is new or rapidly growing is like believing that homosexuality is new and rapidly growing... I say that not to mean that homosexuality is a disorder (because I'm not a crazy person and I know that it's not). I recognize that I'm not comparing apples to apples here. What I'm saying is that homosexuality seems more widespread than it did, say, 30 years ago because people are more open about their orientation. More people allow themselves to live the way they were meant to live, instead of pretending to be something else. Likewise, with autism, it's not that it's NEW - it's that it's more recognized. More people recognize potentially autistic behavior and have a word to label it as such, instead of saying, "oh, that child is odd."

b) the studies that claim that 1 in every 100 kids is autistic are not based on medical records. no, in fact, the last study that was published (that i saw someone cite as "proof" of why they're against vaccines) was conducted this way:

"The findings are based on the results of a national telephone survey of more than 78,000 parents of children ages 3 to 17. The survey dealt with many health issues and included two questions on autism."

A phone survey, not based on actual medical records - no, just asking 2 questions about autism, like, "Has anyone ever suggested that your kid might be autistic?" A disorder which can't be tested for... Huh. Honestly, parents claiming that their kids might be autistic is the new parents claiming that their kid is gifted or special. Autism and gifted are synonyms now. Any odd character traits or phases a kid goes through, any social awkwardness is quickly labeled by some as somehow falling along the autism spectrum. I feel like this is incredibly overdiagnosed. In fact, "In another finding, nearly 40 percent of the children ever diagnosed with autism disorders didn't currently have autism."

No way! People claimed their kids were autistic and then they actually weren't? Shocking. I don't know. Considering that it does not physically harm anyone that has it - it's a social disorder - I don't think it's as serious as everyone makes it out to be. I'm not trying to say that autism isn't real or difficult to live with and some people have a very hard time functioning and interacting in the world. I get that. And I know that in some extreme cases, autism has been linked to seizures and things of that nature, which yes, is physical. But I don't think that it in any way outweighs the serious threat of conditions that could hospitalize people that you risk by not vaccinating.

Official word on autism/vaccines from https://www.google.com/health/ref/Autism

"Some parents have heard that the MMR vaccine children receive may cause autism. This theory was based, in part, on two facts. First, the incidence of autism has increased steadily since around the same time the MMR vaccine was introduced. Second, children with the regressive form of autism (a type of autism that develops after a period of normal development) tend to start to show symptoms around the time the MMR vaccine is given. This is likely a coincidence due to the age of children at the time they receive this vaccine.

Several major studies have found NO connection between the vaccine and autism. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention report that there is no proven link between autism and the MMR vaccine, or any other vaccine.

Some doctors believe the increased incidence in autism is due to newer definitions of autism. The term "autism" now includes a wider spectrum of children. For example, a child who is diagnosed with high-functioning autism today may have been thought to simply be odd or strange 30 years ago."

I know that people feel strongly about this on the other end of the spectrum as well and I don't mean to diminish the importance or the seriousness of autism. I mostly just take offense to those who rail against vaccination, due to the supposed links to autism and it makes me mad.

I had been hearing about this issue for years but it really got me riled up after listening to this particular episode of "This American Life" last year: Ruining It For the Rest of Us.

I recommend checking it out. You know. And reading the actual research, not the hyped up not medically based research. The truth is pretty powerful.

(/end of rant)

detroit: beautiful/horrible

2009-10-04T01:36:00.010-04:00

The Michigan Theatre
Built in 1926, this glorious building functioned as a performance space until 1976, when it was converted into a parking garage.

on NPR the other day, i heard an interview with writer daniel okrent about his article in TIME about the city of Detroit. reading the article at the gym today almost brought me to tears. the plight of the city is tough and there are so many obstacles to making any real change or improvements. years of corruption and bad decisions have led to a ghost town. more than a quarter of the city's dwindled population is unemployed - 28.9%. people who live within detroit proper live amongst the remains and ruins of what once was a great and thriving metropolis. downtown detroit tries to build itself up, attempting to draw in money via sports and gambling or the occasional concert. detroit still rings true to musicians as a sacred place - motown, detroit rock city... people still want to come and play in detroit. but what does it say that you can't walk within a few blocks of the concert venue without running into the reality of the city - buildings abandoned, windows broken, shattered glass strewn about vast empty parking lots? peeling paint and faded signs, not to mention the plethora of the homeless? improving just a few blocks isn't going to change everything.

United Artists Theater
This spectacular Spanish Gothic theater, built in 1928, was closed in the 1970s.

looking past the empty facades and the physical decay and even looking past the problem of the homeless (a problem that every city faces, obviously), there's the issue of safety and quality of life for the residents of the city. detroit has a reputation as being rough and i feel it's one that has been earned. my friend Paul is living in the city right now and in less than a month, his friend's car has been broken into - twice. according to the Time article, "the murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved." that's truly scary. violent crime and a city's complete descent into nothingness and it's largely been ignored. if not ignored, then at least seen as something unfixable and dismissed.

but what can be done? okrent suggests somehow reshaping the city lines to accomodate the much smaller population and attempt to rebuild:

"For its part, Detroit must address the fact that a 138-sq.-mi. city that once accommodated 1.85 million people is way too large for the 912,000 who remain. The fire, police and sanitation departments couldn't efficiently service the yawning stretches of barely inhabited areas even if the city could afford to maintain those operations at their former size. Detroit has to shrink its footprint, even if it means condemning decent houses in the gap-toothed areas and moving their occupants to compact neighborhoods where they might find a modicum of security and service. Build greenbelts, which are a lot cheaper to maintain than untraveled streets. Encourage urban farming. Let the barren areas revert to nature."

i feel like this may be a good idea but doubt it will happen or happen efficiently. while i want to have hope and optimism about bringing this city back up and trying to start fresh, the cynic within me keeps popping up. you can't force people to change and you can't do things overnight. things have been in decline for detroit for decades. no one living there wants people from the suburbs to come in and tell them how to clean things up.

reading back through time's past articles about the D, i found this piece from march, which cites detroit's unemployment rate as 13%: "At 13%, Detroit's unemployment rate is the worst in the country among major metropolitan areas." in just 6 months, the numbers for umemployment in one city, already the worst in the country, more than doubled. that's unacceptable and insane. in that article, alex altman suggests that there's hope in the midst of the squalor: "The approximately one-third of the city lying empty or unused--an area about the size of San Francisco--is not just an emblem of its corrosion but also the blank slate on which to chart a path to renewal." sure, there's room to build new things or turn old buildings into parking lots, as some have suggested, but that's not going to repair the damage done. that's not going to help the people there now.

Lee Plaza Hotel
Once one of the most luxurious residential hotels in Detroit, Lee Plaza closed in the 1990s.

what these particular articles haven't truly touched upon and what i have yet to mention is the horror that is Detroit's school system. if the landscape is a wasteland, then the schools are a black hole. detroit leads the nation in high school dropouts. those who make it through generally aren't prepared for higher ed - and i'm being generous by saying generally. i had kids in my classes at EMU who came out of detroit's public schools who didn't know how to properly form sentences. they couldn't structure paragraphs or write essays. their skills were remedial and at a level that hindered them in college level classes because they never learned basic educational foundations. the public school system has a defecit, that's been estimated to be anywhere between $150 million to $303 million dollars, depending on what you read - teachers are asking kids to bring in toilet paper and light bulbs because the schools can't afford them. to solve this defecit, the state wants to continue making cuts and keep diminishing the quality of education and resources available to potentially improve the system. meanwhile, things go to waste and rot, vandalized, in the schools that have been shut down. Here are some examples from a photo editorial in Vice:

A school art classroom ransacked by vandals has cupboards and a closet still well-stocked with art supplies; the closet still had a six-foot pile of unused paper. Art programmes have been among the first cut by Detroit Public Schools under its current budget shortfall.

it's breathtaking and devastating.

other cities, also in decline, take solace in the idea that "at least we're not Detroit!"

p.s. this video was in michael moore's fabulous capitalism: a love story, which i saw tonight and really moved me. i highly recommend that everyone check it out and start to re-evaluate our values in this society. anyway, onto the hilarity:

to love's eternal glory.

2009-10-01T22:56:00.006-04:00

whoa, it's october. i love the fall.

the office tonight was wonderful. thank you, jen celotta. i thought last week's episode was kind of lame but this week brought redemption. last week, it kind of felt like a parody of an office episode... kelly and ryan, especially, were like characterizations of themselves. and michael on the cheese cart. i don't know. not memorable. but this week made me laugh. i am so excited for the big jam wedding next week :)

the national book fest was amazing and seriously, one of the best days ever. it rained but i got to wear my galoshes. rock. met mo willems and hung out with judy blume and stalked out paula deen and nicholas sparks - good times all around.

pigeon and his creator:

we got to see 'whip it' through an early sneak preview deal (and got a free tshirt out of it) and it lived up to all of my expectations - i highly recommend it when it opens up to everyone tomorrow. very strong women - it's all about empowerment and friendship and realistic looking human beings and the boy not always sweeping in and saving the day. i loved it. alia shawkat kicks ass.

...and i may have freaked out a little when they were driving down the street on michigan ave in ypsi, right past the library and i was like WHAT UP YPSILANTI! yes.

I went and saw Blink 182 last night. I was so excited to go and see them but... well, let me create a pro's and con's list to explain my experience:

Pro: Blink 182 is one of my favorite bands. I am so glad they got back together and I'm thrilled that I got to see them play again because Blink is a big band for me and was a big part of my high school musical experience and they put on a fun show and I laughed and danced. I got to go with Harley. There were some funny people at the concert, including someone dressed as a banana. On the way there, 95% of the people at the turnpike rest stop were under the age of 25 and on their way to the show and saw my Blink shirt and did the head nod of acknowledgment. That was cool.

Con: Wow, everything else about the experience was a huge suckfest. Let's start with the fact that when I bought tickets, I purposely chose to go to the show at Blossom, which is nearly 3 hrs away, instead of the show in Detroit, less than an hour away, due to the line-up. The original promised line-up: Chester French, Taking Back Sunday, Weezer, and Blink 182. Amazing. I love Weezer and enjoy TBS and I've never seen them and really wanted to so I decided it was worth the drive. The show in Detroit had Fall Out Boy, who I just saw in Detroit in December, so I was going to drive. The show was 9/2/09. DJ AM died 8/29/09. Our show was postponed because the band needed time to mourn. I get that. I respect that. I have no problem with that and I was just thankful that it wasn't totally cancelled. However, when I learned about it being rescheduled, I was told it was the same line-up... because, you know, that's what I paid for. It wasn't until I dug up information on my own a few weeks ago and found out that in fact, none of the original openers were going to be at our show and instead, it was Asher Roth, All American Rejects, and Fall Out Boy. I have seen FOB and AAR before and felt a little pissed that I was going to be driving all the way out to the Akron area to see a show I could have seen in Detroit. But fine. I like those bands and that's ok.

So, Harley and I left Toledo at 3 pm. We didn't get into the concert until after 8 pm. We were making good time and then suddenly, the exit before we were supposed to get off the expressway, we came to a complete stop. No traffic moving. Just stuck. For over an hour and a half. Inching along. Good thing my car didn't stall out. Seriously, that's another pro. My car made it. Back to the bitching for a moment - so, Blossom Music Center is located in the middle of fucking nowhere. Seriously, it's down a one lane road with many stop lights and intersections and no clear traffic pattern that allows movement. We were stuck in a line of cars from 6 pm to around 7:30. Meanwhile, while stuck in traffic, we were both on our phones and I checked twitter to have @petewentz inform me that there were no other opening bands. It was just Fall Out Boy and Blink. And FOB was going on early, at 7 pm. Great. So, we're stuck in traffic while the only other band besides the headliner is starting. Once you finally get anywhere near the venue and on the grounds, finding parking is another matter altogether. I paid extra to get a parking pass so I could park presumably closer and easier - of course, no one knew where to direct us and we drove in circles in dark wooded areas trying to find the proper parking lot. Just dumb and time wasting.

We finally get up to the gates, with our bag of blankets and mittens (because, oh I forgot to mention, it was in the 40s last night in the great state of Ohio and we had lawn seats) and we're told that no blankets are allowed in. WHY? What harm could blankets do on a cold Ohio night on muddy, wet grass? No harm. Only good could come of that. But no. And no heads up from the many people working for Blossom in the parking lot who clearly saw us walking with blankets. Nothing on the ticket. Nothing on ticketmaster's website saying no blankets allowed. Whatever. So, we had to leave our blankets by some trees before the entrance - I wish Harley had gotten a picture of that sad, wooded area, home of the abandoned blankets. All shapes, colors, sizes, strewn about; their owners left cold and empty handed. Totally lame and not logical. So, we completely missed Fall Out Boy's set. We heard later that they only played for like 40 minutes. On the gross lawn, couldn't sit because it'd be nasty and you'd have no chance of even seeing the screens, let alone the stage so we tried to stand and the view wasn't bad itself. It was definitely chilly. And some people are dumb and drink too much and smoke pot and have to be escorted away by security but at least they didn't really bother us directly.

I have decided that I am too old for lawn seats. I am too old for most outdoor venues. I don't have fun that way. And that venue just sucks, hands down. Never again. I couldn't even find decent youtube videos, including from people who were in the pit down front - that highlights how crappy this place was. I did find this moment from the end of the show:

Still love you, Blink. Just getting too old to put up with shit like that. Not worth my time or money. just a waste.

So, that was a big thumbs down. Also a big huge thumbs down - I am sick. basic cold - coughing, congestion, lost my voice for a bit, stuffed up nose, headache, hot and cold chills... not fun. Took off yesterday to rest and try to feel better before the concert (no luck) but worked today which was fine. Not great trying to answer the phones sounding like a dork nor was it great trying to get through 2 hr meetings that made me start clawing at my own skin (no joke) but you know. Whatever. this too shall pass.

and while i'm venting - oh hey, life lesson: if you have to preface what you're saying with "i'm not trying to be a dick but..." then you are probably being a dick. just saying. also, you know what you shouldn't do? walk in a kitchen and condescendingly ask a girl if she's snacking again, then when you're told that no, in fact, she wasn't snacking at all, she hadn't even eaten lunch yet, say, "oh, good girl". wow. shut the fuck up. there are so many things wrong with that I won't even get into it.

ok, more positive. i hopped back on board the twitter bandwagon (see the sidebar) after a hiatus for some of the summer. it's been fun, just timewasting. plus, carson daly started following me. i mean, i think he follows everyone that follows him but still, the preteen within my soul got super pumped.

i am going to a "networking" event next week. dawesome. we'll see what that is all about and what not... it's at 7:30 in the morning so i won't be my best and brightest but with some NDA ladies. i'll be all networked in.

my eyes want to close. so, i'm going to follow that motion and get some sleep.

roller coaster, favorite ride. let me kiss you one last time...
good night good night

texts from last night.

2009-09-22T00:01:00.002-04:00

(201): "romantic friends" sounds more classy then friends with benfits

(914): Imagine if sharks could walk on land...scary.

(678): All she gave me for breakfast was raw toast. How can she expect me to eat raw toast?
(404): You mean bread?

(443): shhh. i hid the ranch dip behind the rooster. don't tell anyone that way you can find it in the morning and it won't be all eaten.
(610): wrong number but thanks

(212): lets start a swedish sibling band together

(407): I hate myself for knowing the words to party in the USA.

(404): You took all of my sister's dolls and threw them out the window and then you started talking to her etcha sketch and mr. potato head. I later found you passed out in front of Toy Story and it all made sense.

(203): I asked a girl to buy her a drink, she had I have a boyfriend, so I said, well i have a goldfish, she said what? I replied, oh I'm sorry I thought we were talking about shit that doesnt matter.

(330): First off: I'm drunk so fuck you. Second: you weren't a bad girlfriend. Tres: thats 3 in spanish. Number 4: fuck 3 Doors Down

(720): o shit let me call u back theres a hamburger in my pocket

(419): Just try to make good decisions...remember our convo we had about morals the other day?
(216): Turn them off?

take a look, it's in a book

2009-09-19T16:55:00.010-04:00

YES!

so, i hate it when shoes are all deceiving, all "oh, look at me, i'm cute and flat and made of canvas so i must be comfortable" when really, they're just monsters, ready to bite the skin off your heels and blister up your toes if you try to walk in them for more than one block. that's totally lame. stop being a poser, shoes! i will send you to plato's closet if you aren't careful. i'll give you one more chance ... and then i'll turn you into a goon! (yeah, i went there.)

i walked to the library - safer than driving, since my car has decided to play this fun game where sometimes it'll start and sometimes it won't... i mean, i think i've beaten it into submission by breaking down and purchasing a new battery last night (goodbye $86) but it still makes me nervous so since the library is walking distance, i walked. plus, it's gorgeous outside weather wise, walking is good health wise, and i enjoy going on walks - that is, when my shoes aren't ripping my feet to shreds. at least this pair of shoes didn't do this to my feet:

gross, right? yeah, that happened last year right around this time when i was living in chicago and wore an adorable pair of pink wedges that i bought on sale for $6. I walked all around the city all day in those shoes and at first, my ankles and heels were just sore. Then they started throbbing ... and then I was limping ... but it wasn't until I got on the bus home and crossed my legs that I noticed the copious amounts of blood and raw skin that had literally stained my jeans. i know, oversharing, but people don't really read this anyway so i don't care.

moral of the story: beauty is pain but cute shoes are not made for walking.

ok, back to the library: i recently finished the abstinence teacher by tom perrotta and i made it through about half of the almost moon by alice sebold. i like tom perrota's writing style and the story was ok but it didn't feel like it had a lot of momentum. i've been seeing previews for the movie version of the lovely bones lately (which i want to see) and thought, oh, i should check out her other stuff since i enjoyed "the lovely bones" when i read it in high school. yeah, not a fan of "the almost moon". it's weird. a woman kills her mother. i don't know. i couldn't get into it. the times review put it best when they said: "... the novel is annoying, unconvincing and deeply perplexing." agreed.

today, i picked up:
-john steinbeck "of mice and men"
-a.j. jacobs "the guinea pig diaries"
-jodi picoult "nineteen minutes"
-frank bruni "born round"

i've never read "of mice and men" and it's a classic so i am remedying that situation. i like what i've read from a.j. jacobs (check out "the year of living biblically" - awesome). i'm hopefully going to meet jodi picoult next weekend... well, one week from today (!) at the national book festival in DC and i'm super stoked for it. i've only read "my sister's keeper" so i wanted to try another one of her books. i found "my sister's keeper" good but verbose. i think it could have been edited down quite a bit and all of her books are super thick so i'm feeling that this one will be the same way but i'm going to try it. frank bruni was on the colbert report this week and i've read some reviews about his memoirs that were positive so i'm hoping it'll be interesting.

i can't wait for the national book festival. i'm most excited to meet mo willems, the author of the pigeon books. I LOVE PIGEON!

here is pigeon in chicago last year:

here he is at a touch and go chess party:

here he is as a fireman:

clearly, i love pigeon.

nicholas sparks, paula deen, judy blume, tim o'brien, sue monk kidd, jodi picoult (like i mentioned), james patterson, and all of these other authors will be there, making appearances and probably doing readings and signing things. being the book nerd that i am, i cannot wait. plus, i'm really looking forward to spending the weekend with my best friend :)

i'll miss you, johnny castle.

2009-09-14T20:46:00.004-04:00

Patrick Swayze died.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/movies/15swayze.html?hp

I am heartbroken. There goes my dream of having a Dirty Dancing themed bachelorette party where Patrick Swayze comes and teaches me the "Time of My Life" dance. I will have to settle for one day having my future husband sing to me the way Johnny sings to Baby at the end...

Dirty Dancing is such a huge part of my childhood and I love everything about it - I love the music, I love Frances Houseman and her awkwardness, I love Jerry Orbach and Emily Gilmore as her parents, and how simultaneously glamorous and trashy Penny is, telling Baby to go back to the playpen and the underground staff nightclub and "I carried a watermelon" and the Kellerman's anthem and dance space and spaghetti arms and walking on the log and "women are stuffing diamonds in my pocket!" and the lift and the nickname Baby and most of all, Patrick Swayze.

(404): i hope kanye doesn't show up to patrick swayze's funeral. "i'll let you get back to your funeral in a minute...but michael jackson had the best death of the year. just sayinnn".

life's lovely when you're a woman like me

2009-09-13T01:05:00.005-04:00

if i went to cornell, i'd rock a shirt that just said "ever heard of it?"

mattell has finally made use of "barbie girl" in their commercial for a new barbie where you can dye her hair pink. of course, they've changed the lyrics so they're not so sexually suggestive and there's no Ken saying "come on barbie, let's go party" (totally lame choice on the part of the advertising team - that deep Ken voice was the best part).

"imagination, life is your creation." that'd be great! maybe aqua wouldn't let them use the same lyrics.

how did i see the new barbie commercial? because i spent my saturday night watching iCarly. what up! who's cool, who's cool? i'm a grown woman but i can't deny that i love iCarly. it's a great show.

i had a good day. actually went grocery shopping, like hardcore grocery shopping, and i did some light cleaning and organizing, read half of my library book, watched some iCarly and a special on msnbc hosted by the guy from "to catch a predator" about identity theft and that stupid owen wilson movie "drillbit taylor". it actually wasn't AS stupid as i thought it was going to be - it wasn't painful. just kind of boring.

a recent mad men episode inspired me to watch bye bye birdie because i've never seen it (the movie or a stage version, even though it's a high school musical favorite). it was on my "watch instantly" list on netflix so i watched it this morning - it's pretty cheesy but i dig it.

the title song:

mad men's take on ann-margret:

back to the real ann-margret: "how lovely to be a woman"

i liked being able to fast forward through a good portion of it - the movie is kind of long and drags at parts but the songs are great.

watching old style musicals like that makes reality slap me so much harder when i have to face facts about what's going on around me on a day to day basis. there's a lot of weird things that come up now that i'm older and the circle of who i associate with has widened - it really opens my eyes to how different everyone's worlds are and how difficult it is for me to understand it all. there are some things i will just never get about the way people live their lives and i guess i have to accept that. maybe at one point when i was younger, i felt like things were more black and white - like right and wrong was obvious. adult life tends to lean more on the morally ambigous side of the fence for me... there are many things i don't have control over but some things i definitely do. that doesn't mean i have a clear answer on whether or not the decision i'm making is the 'right' one.

it's hard playing devil's advocate and seeing both sides of the argument so often that you lose which side you want to take.

i was on the orange team.

2009-09-10T00:32:00.002-04:00

SYTYCD and Glee premiered tonight. I missed them both. :(

I was hanging with the grandparents.... because it's Wednesday and Wednesday night is the night I visit the grandparents. For some it's business time, for me it's grandparent time. We watched Obama's speech on health care, which I think was awesome. I love listening to him speak. I've been really upset and impassioned lately about the ridiculousness of people not wanting their children to listen to the President of this country speak to kids about staying in school, getting a good education, and following their dreams - oh no! It's so controversial. I'm not going to sign the PERMISSION SLIP to let my child listen to the leader of our country.... or the people who didn't send their kids to school on Tuesday? C'MON. I can go on and on about the hypocrisy and ignorance of things like that and the blatant partisan nature of Republicans who don't want to allow health care reform, even though they will readily admit that they agree with the basic principals of the platform. How can you agree with it but then do everything in your power to stop it from ever happening? Just....... perhaps another day I'll vent it all out but I'm too tired tonight.

I got The Office Season 5 on DVD and I've been enjoying watching the bonus features and skimming through this seasons episodes. After years of telling my family how amazing the show is, my 15 year old sister Alison has finally hopped on board The Office train so I lent her Seasons 1-4 on DVD to catch up and get hooked on it, like I am. :) I'm also hoping I win the golden ticket sweepstakes where you can win a trip to the set of the show - that'd be amazing. Seriously, that needs to happen.

Tomorrow/today (sept 10) is a big day for two of my friends: Kurt is taking the MCAT and Melissa starts her practicum at the Library of Congress. I'm sending good thoughts out and can only imagine how nervewracking it must be. What am I doing tomorrow? .... working. Think that's about it. Working and going to the gym and watching Project Runway. That about sums it up. woooooo hoooooo. Thursday!

currently reading: The Abstinence Teacher - Tom Perrotta
currently listening to: the features - lions

sweet dreams. :)

idolizing americans.

2009-09-07T23:43:00.005-04:00

meeting one of our AI favorites from this season, matt giraud. originally from Ypsi -what what - and then moved to K-Zoo so the crowd was full of local fans.

Linda got this shot of him talking to me, while i tried to get a pic of him signing kate's iPod... and he signed the paper i was holding for her twice. when i tried to say, "oh, it's ok - you already signed it for her", he looked at it, smiled at me, and said, "oh, well, that one's no good. you can't read it." so, he signed it twice.

the picture i ended up taking of him and kate - high quality stuff. i got kate's sleeve. haha

he was a sweetheart and adorable. :)

so yeah, i went to the american idol show yesterday with the fam. good times. didn't feel like the biggest dork there because there are OLD ladies who are obsessed with that ridiculousness - like out there before and after the show by the buses, being creepers, telling kids half their age that they love them and drool over them and freak out about getting their autographs... for what? to hang on their walls? weird. seriously creepy old ladies. like, the kind of old lady that makes shit at home and brings it to give to them. awkward. if i were those AI kids, i'd never want to go out and interact with anyone because there were crazies like that who overwhelm any cute kid fans or age appropriate people who genuinely enjoy the music you make. anyway, some sample youtube videos of the show because my video is not great:

check out around the 3 minute mark where adam makes some hilarious, but inappropriate motions with the mic stand. good thing that didn't happen on idol. the producers would have had a heart attack.

during idol, i was not an adam fan. and i'm still not, overall. i won't buy his CD and i'd never go see him solo. but he's a damn good performer. and a dancer - check out the awesome club style, way too much hip action for a man moves during a david bowie medley:

matt giraud "georgia on my mind" and a little convo about how he's from west michigan:

the closing number - "don't stop believing":

back to work tomorrow. back to life, back to reality.

self portrait.

2009-09-01T23:30:00.007-04:00

playing dress up and messing around with the settings on my camera on a lonely tuesday night...

happy september.

are you so rich that you smell like cupcakes?

2009-08-31T23:06:00.006-04:00

i've started watching 'samantha who' on DVD... of course, now that it's been cancelled. it makes me laugh. next on my tv shows on dvd list? california dreams. YES.

look, it's me. i got my hair trimmed. it's curly today.

tomorrow is september. that's crazy.

blink didn't play their show tonight and i'm nervous that they're going to pull out of the show on wednesday too. that would stink. i totally understand and respect why they needed time off- i'd just be bummed if harley and i drive 2.5 hours to go see them and then they don't play.

a little pre-travis blink action... mark hoppus with purple hair, lyrics about mexican food, and alyssa milano. awesome.

i'm psyched for this movie:

part of it was filmed in Ypsi. REPRESENT!

rosanna and i accidentally walked 6.22 miles yesterday. you may ask, "how does one accidentally walk over 6 miles?" well, we were on university trail and got to talking and it's such a straight shot with very few cut off points that we got caught up in the walk and realized we made it from UT's campus to central and reynolds. that's over 3 miles. so, we had to turn around and make our way back - it was a journey. i loved it, though. i love long walks, although today my left ankle is killing me. i messed it up somehow.

while walking, Ro suggested that I read "The Five Love Languages". she read it in portland during her JVC year with her housemates and she said it helped them learn more about each other and she learned more about herself. so, i stopped at the library today and picked it up. i think it's geared towards already married couples and i am neither married or in a couple so i'm not in the chosen demographic but so far, it's interesting. perhaps I'll learn "how to express heartfelt commitment", like the cover promises.

we shall see.

a funeral, a wedding, and dreams about peacocks

2009-08-29T12:00:00.004-04:00

Why do I cry for strangers? Why do I tear up at Ted Kennedy's funeral mass that I’m watching televised with play by play commentary, as if it were a football game or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade? Charlie Gibson and a "Catholic expert" explaining the parts of the mass, breaking down what the Liturgy of the Eucharist means, while Yo Yo Ma plays on the cello and my eyes swell up. A church packed with presidents and history - to quote the homily, “a family whose narrative is woven throughout the pages of history.” I look at his 15 year old nieces and nephews, talking about their Uncle Teddy. How strange to think that your uncle’s funeral is being broadcast on ABC; that as you read the prayers of the faithful, you look out at the pews and see the Obamas; that people, like me, are mourning your uncle, a man they never knew; that your family’s tragedies and losses are shared by a nation.

I don't know. It must be odd to be a part of that family, although I suppose if that's what your whole life has been like, it wouldn't seem that strange.

I'm going to a wedding in a few hours for my stepcousin. I don't really know him at all but my whole family is going and I bought a new dress for the occasion so I'm there. Here's hoping there's an open bar....

I had a dream last night that I went on a walk with Alison and Kate. We were across the street from Flower Hospital and we saw 3 or 4 peacocks. I warned Kate not to get too close but we kept walking towards them and they let us touch their feathers. Later, at my grandparents house, my Aunt Sue showed me a bracelet she had for me that she was keeping stored in a large block of ice. That's all I remember.

"To see a peacock in your dream, represents spring, birth, new growth, longevity, and love. It is a good omen, signaling prestige, success and contentment in your relationship and career. Alternatively, the peacock signifies pride, confidence and vanity. You may be showing off too much or are overly arrogant with your success and achievements."

Hmmm. Couldn't find anything about the meaning of dreams about jewelry in blocks of ice. I guess it shall remain a mystery.

daryl frank dragon.

2009-08-27T20:44:00.006-04:00

there was an announcement at work that we'd have a surprise this afternoon. melissa d guessed cake. i guessed alcohol. guess who won?

another day of drinking rum in the office.

i do love captain morgan. he's my favorite captain. i'd say, if i had to list my favorite captain's, it would be:

1. captain morgan

2. captain planet

3. captain backfire

4. the old sea captain from spongebob

5. captain (and tennille)

did you know the captain's real name is Daryl Frank Dragon? why would you ever have a stage name of "captain" with a name like Daryl Frank Dragon?! and i didn't know that the captain and tennille were married. thank you, internet.

both 30 Rock and The Proposal have recently repped love for the jam, "It Takes Two" by Rob Base and EZ Rock. youtubing uncovered a fantastic homemade early 90s dance video - enjoy:

project runway time! i love project runway season. it's the most wonderful time of the year.

cankerous malady

2009-08-23T16:21:00.007-04:00

Word of the day: amortize
Pronunciation: \ˈa-mər-ˌtīz also ə-ˈmȯr-\
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): am·or·tized; am·or·tiz·ing
Etymology: Middle English amortisen to kill, alienate in mortmain, from Anglo-French amorteser, alteration of amortir, from Vulgar Latin *admortire to kill, from Latin ad- + mort-, mors death — more at murder
Date: 1867
1 : to pay off (as a mortgage) gradually usually by periodic payments of principal and interest or by payments to a sinking fund
2 : to gradually reduce or write off the cost or value of (as an asset)

— am·or·tiz·able \-ˌtī-zə-bəl\ adjective

This was used in an email I got at work and I had to google it because I've never heard of it before. So, there you go. Vocab word for grown ups.

My mouth right now is a mess of cankerous malady. Multiple canker sores and the inside of my bottom lip is partially swollen from being accidentally bitten. At least no one can see it - that's a benefit. I'm glad I don't look like I've got the herp.

I want to cook but the last time I attempted to use my oven, it sparked out at me and threatened to explode. That seems dangerous. So, it's the stove, microwave, toaster, and George Foreman. And leftovers.

My dad and stepmom got a new puppy, Layla. She is adorable. See?

I'm looking forward to September. I've got a busy schedule and I'm excited about the fall. September 6th will be exactly one year since I moved to Chicago and spent a month in one of the greatest cities on Earth. Time goes by quickly.

poke.

2009-08-18T12:40:00.008-04:00

if i had this dress, my dance card would always be full.

i love that expression - dance card. i looked it up because it's just one of those things i've always heard and have no idea where it came from or what it meant. did you know that there used to be actual physical dance cards? where girls wrote down the names of all the boys they danced with to keep them all straight. ha. my grandparents, who are celebrating their 60th anniversary in October, met at a dance around valentine's day in Detroit 1949.

other old time expressions and synonyms for "cool" that i enjoy - the bee's knees and the cat's pajamas. aren't those fantastic? i think they're spectacular. i wish people still said stuff like that.

the two best things i read in the ny times yesterday: an article about how hipster dudes think it's cool to have potbellies now. yes. that's for real. and this little john hughes tribute because i do love john hughes movies. rip.

the new weezer song was leaked this week. i dig it. i like catchy handclap kind of songs. and songs that reference meatloaf. the food, not the singer. although i'd like songs that referenced Meat Loaf too. i'm going to see weezer with blink 182 in a few weeks :) can't wait!