Memery Glands

Well, let's see. Any good anecdotes to tell this week? Anything funny happen on the way to the forum, or the library, or wherever? Anything at all? Anything?

I got nothing. Really. Zippola.

Hence, you get a meme. As you may recall, I sort of stink at memes. That's ok though. It's my blog and I'll stink if I want to.

THE 99 THINGS MEME (or as many as I feel like before I peter out, which will probably be only half)
How many of these have you done?

1. Started your own blog.
Duh.

2. Slept under the stars.
Technically, aren't we always sleeping under the stars? Does this mean, like, sleeping so we can see the stars? But if we are sleeping, how can we see the stars, you know, with our eyes closed? This kind of overthinking is why I suck at memes. I'm just going to say YES on this one.

3. Played in a band.
I had almost forgotten the idiocy, but I have totally done this! In college! I was THE LEAD SINGER. We did covers of 10,000 Maniacs songs and the like. Who was that girl?

4. Visited Hawaii.
Technically I have only been in the airport a bunch of times on layovers to get back and forth from here to Fiji. Still. I have visited. I am counting it.

5. Watched a meteor shower.
Hope it uses soap! HAR HAR HAAAAR.

6. Given more than you can afford to charity.
I went through a phase, when I got first got a grown up job, where I was giving away everything to anyone that looked at me funny, just because I COULD. But then, oops, where's the grocery money? I learned my lesson fast on that one.

7. Been to Disneyland/world.
I know that I'm not supposed to say this because the hipsters will hate me, but I LOVED IT THERE. I was 10 at the time though, so maybe that explains it.

8. Climbed a mountain.
Depends on your definition of "climbed." I have walked up the side of a steep trail that eventually goes up into true climbing to get to the top. I was lightheaded from the air getting thin. That counts, right? I'm counting it.

9. Held a praying mantis.
My brother went through a phase when we were kids where he was obsessed with praying mantises. So, yes, I held one. I was like four. And I was scared shitless. Which was part of the entertainment for my brother, I am sure.

10. Sang a solo.
Yes. Many times. This meme is making me sound like a big singer or something. Don't believe the hype.

11. Bungee jumped.
Hell to the N-O.

12. Visited Paris.
Nopesy doodle.

13. Watched a lightning storm at sea.
So, like, while I was at sea? Or watching the storm, which was at sea, but when I was on land? CLARITY, MEME WRITER.

14. Taught yourself an art from scratch.
Yeps.

15. Adopted a child.
No. I thought about it for a while though.

16. Had food poisoning.
Nope. I have a stomach of steel. (TMI?)

17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty.
I was carried to the top of the Statue of Liberty when I was a baby, with my parents. I don't remember it though, and technically I didn't WALK, so I'm not counting it.

18. Grown your own vegetables.
Nope, but my parents always did, so I got put to work on that shit quite a lot as a child. And Nordic Boy has, so I have been near a lot of gardeners. Near enough to where I can probably claim credit. But I won't.

19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France.
No. This meme writer is kind of focused on France.

20. Slept on an overnight train.
I have always wanted to do this. I think that's common when you are a classic movie lover. It probably sucks in real life though so I should just leave it a dream.

21. Had a pillow fight.
Well, I'm a girl and according to pop culture, we are all about pillow fights in our underwear, so yeah. Obviously.

22. Hitch hiked.
My mom would have killed me with her own bare hands had I ever done that.

23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill.
Man, when I worked at the Job From Hell, I did this like it was going out of style. That job sort of did make me feel sick though. It makes me sick just thinking about it now, actually.

24. Built a snow fort.
Hello? Born and raised in Michigan? Snow fort construction is in my DNA.

25. Held a lamb.
Petted, yes. Held? I am not sure I can with confidence say that I HELD one.

26. Gone skinny dipping.
Yes indeed, I dipped my skinny right in the water. I think the first time I did that I was in high school, and it was at Map's house. And there were boys there. Scandal! (Map, do you remember this?)

27. Run a marathon.
Remember what I said about bungee jumping? That goes double for marathon running.

28. Ridden a gondola in Venice.
Nope. I've ridden a canoe in Lake Washington though. Same thing? Sort of? A little?

29. Seen a total eclipse.
OF THE HEART. Come on, you knew I was gonna say that.

30. Watched a sunrise or sunset.
Yes, both. Who hasn't done this? This one must be a freebie so that meme takers won't feel bad if they haven't done any of the other things.

31. Hit a home run.
Oh baby.

32. Been on a cruise.
Nope, and don't want to. Ever. I have a bonafide THING about cruises.

33. Seen Niagara Falls in person.
Yes. That town in the gaudiest mothershanker of a place, and I loved it.

34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors.
Some of them. Not all of them. Who has been to the birthplace of ALL of their ancestors? I mean, that's a lot of people, no matter who you are.

35. Seen an Amish community.
No.

36. Taught yourself a new language.
Any languages I've learned have been taught to me. I can't imagine learning a language by myself.

37.Had enough money to be truly satisfied.
Ever since I became a librarian, I have joined the middle class, and I gotta say, it doesn't suck. I worry a lot less than ever before, and I don't really even make a whole lot relatively speaking.

38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person.
Nope.

39. Gone rock climbing.
Nope. Unless you count those fake rock climbing walls. Which, hey, let's count that.

40. Seen Michelangelo's David in person.
Nope.

41. Sung Karaoke.
Yes indeed, but not very often. People I know are way too cool to do shit like that, which is kind of a drag.

42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt.
Oh baby. (Too much?)

43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant.
Nope. That seems like a recipe for getting hit on, don't it?

44. Visited Africa.
Nope. And meme writer, it bugs me when people just say Africa like it's one monolithic place instead of a continent with a jillion different countries. In case you were wanting my feedback.

45. Walked on a beach by moonlight.
Yes. It was even better than a Massengil commercial.

46. Been transported in an ambulance.
Yeah, it was really scary. I was not the patient, I was with the patient. But still, not nice.

47. Had your portrait painted.
Yes. The artist was an assmunch. But the painting was good. Isn't that just the way?

48. Gone deep sea fishing.
Nope, no kind of fishing, thanks.

49. Seen the Sistine chapel in person.
Nope.

50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Oh my god, no, ok?

51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling.
No, but if you're from Fiji you kind of don't have to. You bump into crazy sea creatures no matter what you do.

52. Kissed in the rain.
Again, this seems like a freebie.

53. Played in the mud.
Ok, now the meme is just getting stupid.

54. Gone to a drive-in theater.
Yes, lots of times. The first one I ever went to was Grease.

55. Been in a movie.
Like, what? A feature film blockbuster? Or a home movie? Or a Kim Kardashian sexy time movie? Or a film student project? I'm totally counting this one too.

56. Started a business.
Nope. But if I did, I would call it a bidnass.

57. Taken a martial arts class.
I took a self defense class that was martial arts-ish. We got to kick the balls of the dude in the giant padded suit, grasshopper.

58. Sold Girl Scout cookies.
No. I was kicked out of Brownies before I could graduate to Girl Scouts. Long story.

59. Gone whale watching.
Not on purpose, but I have seen whales in the water just like, on accident.

60. Gotten flowers for no reason.
Well, flowers are always for a reason, aren't they? Like, even if it's just an ordinary day of "I love you" or "thanks for dinner" or whatever? I am being difficult.

61. Gone sky diving.
I'm from Flint, I grew up facing death. Sky diving? Whatevs.

62. Toured the Everglades.
No. I am actually fairly well-traveled, but this meme makes me sound like I have missed EVERYTHING.

63. Seen the Changing of the Guard in London.
Yes. It was actually more exciting than it seems like it would be.

64. Broken a bone.
Yes, in 5th grade. And I kept going to ballet classes with a big old cast on my arm because I was a 5th grade badass.

65. Been on a speeding motorcycle.
Yes. Clutching a hot dude all the while. At least I thought he was hot at the time. I can't vouch for my 17-year-old taste.

66. Published a book.
No, but I have been published in a book. Counting it.

67. Bought a brand new car.
Yes. It's a royal pain in the hoohah.

68. Had your picture in the newspaper.
Yes, I did a lot when I was a kid.

69. Visited the White House.
Nope. I think I did every touristy thing in DC except the White House. That's sort of weird.

70. Killed and prepared an animal for eating.
No, but I have been up close and personal on it being done. It smells weird, and there is a lot of blood involved. A whole lot a lot. Is that obvious? Shut up, I'm from the city.

71. Met someone famous.
Yes, plenty. Famous people aren't so special. In fact, many are assholes.

72. Joined a book club.
Yes. I think my librarian papers would be revoked if I hadn't.

73. Lost a loved one.
Yes.

74. Had a baby.
In the same category as running a marathon or bungee jumping.

Ok I am bored now, and if you aren't catching some serious z's reading this, you must be an android or something.

I quit.

The end.

I think I blinded the contractor dude

This weekend I...

...slept until I woke up, without the use of alarm clocks or a jostle from early bird extraordinaire, aka Nordic Boy.
...celebrated an anniversary with Nordic Boy. It was a secondary anniversary (you know, like the day you first kiss your honey, or the day you get engaged, or the day you move in together), so we didn't have a big hootenanny about it or anything. Just a teensy hootenanny. More like a hooten, without the nanny.
...saw the Informant and realized that they could pretty much just put a picture of Matt Damon looking like that on the screen and I would laugh at it. I am easily amused, tis true.
...went almost wild with jealousy that PQK got to meet Bunk Moreland. WILD with jealousy, I tell you. WILD. First she gets an internship with Stephen Colbert and now this. If she writes me next week and tells me she has met Dolly Parton or Tina Fey or Eddie Izzard or some shit like that, I will bust a nut, I swear it right now.
...met a new friend, A. And when I say new, I mean brand spanking new. She was born 5 weeks ago to my gorgeous friends H and J. I hereby declare her a sweet little pumpkin of the highest order.
...started my annual freak out about the fact that I don't own any non-summer clothes.
...stayed up until 2am watching Dirty Dancing on tv. I hadn't seen it in its entirety for a long ass time. I have discovered that for all my love of cheese, there is a scene in Dirty Dancing that exceeds my cheese-tolerance level. I knew it was coming and I literally had to leave the room because I could not bear to watch it with Nordic Boy because I was just too embarrassed for the both of us to be witnessing it together. Maybe it was the lateness of the hour and my cheese immune system was down, but the cringey-ness was TOO MUCH. It's the moment at the very end, during the final dance, when Swayze lip synchs the "Time of Your Life" song to Baby Francis. I just couldn't do it. I had to walk away.
...re-appreciated the "pickle on everybody's plate" line from Dirty Dancing. This made up for the lip synch trauma.
...was in my house minding my own business one morning when the contractors who are working on our deck showed up and knocked on our door (Nordic Boy was out and had assured me that I wouldn't have to interact with the contractors). I had to answer the door wearing what Nordic Boy calls my "pajama tuxedo" because it is a flannel number that renders me in full-body garishness (light blue with neon green and blue polka dots all the heck over it from head to toe). What we failed to realize is that contractors sometimes need to pee and will therefore knock on one's door to ask to use the bathroom. I am all mortified that a non-Nordic-Boy human has seen me in my pajama tuxedo. The horror.

A Big Peeth!

Across the street from our house are a row of houses, all inhabited by families with little kids. There are a lot of kiddie sounds wafting through our open windows when it's nice out, and it is a bonafide ruckus a lot of the time, but as I grew up in a neighborhood where there were always rugrats running the streets, I love this sound.

One family across the street from us is a family of folks we like to call the Weasleys. The reason we call them that is that there is a neverending string of little red-haired boys from teeny tiny to teenage, with a tousled-looking red-haired dad and a tired-looking auburn haired mom. The only thing they are missing is a Ginny. (And by the way, I was telling this whole thing to a friend of mine who had no idea who the Weasleys are and what kind of planet are they on, can I ask you? How did I manage to collect such a non-geeky friend?) The Weasleys are always doing things that crack my shit up. Yesterday? I came home from work and as I was walking up the sidewalk, a little Weasley boy (about 8 years old) was challenging his older Weasley brother (about 13) with a toy light saber. As he did, he was yelling out, with full lisp: "DO YOU WANT A PEETH OF ME? DO YOU WANT A PEETH OF ME????"

So. Awesome.

In other neighborhood news, we have this gigantic deck outside of our front door which we can't use, because (a) Nordic Boy has had to strip it so that it can be waterproofed which took all summer, (b) it overlooks the next door neighbor's house from hell and so Nordic Boy has to build a trellis to block the hideous view, and (c) the deck is of lower home renovation priority and so Nordic Boy uses it to rig up all his tools and materials for more important projects which means there isn't any room for me to put out patio furniture or anything. At any rate (wow, that was a long preface for the small point I am about to make), as part of the waterproofing process, Nordic Boy stripped off these rubber strips that were glued to the deck floor by the previous owners (because nothing says "let's have a barbecue!" like hot black rubber strips as a flooring), leaving bits of tar on the cement floor. We can't put any new decking on that cement without getting rid of all the tar bits, which Nordic Boy could do himself (because god forbid anyone else touch our house but him) but he figured out that this is one of those rare cases where having someone else do it is actually cheaper than him doing it (due to the cost of renting the equipment needed). So, GASP, we have hired contractors to clean the tar off the deck! ACTUAL OTHER PEOPLE WILL TOUCH OUR HOME.

This gives Nordic Boy such a rash, I can't even tell you.

I am sort of expecting that if they mess anything up (Nordic Boy is the pickiest, most perfectionist mothereffer you will ever meet in your life) that he might need a light saber. YOU WANT A PEETH OF ME? DO YOU???

Make Out Mania

Allison and Map came to visit me last weekend. And there were moments where I laughed so hard that I could have DIED.

Do you have any friends in your life that have known you your whole life? The friends where you can say anything about your life, and I mean ANYTHING, from your first day of kindergarten to your worst day of driver's ed to your First Time, and they will know every person you refer to, every teacher you ever had, every embarrassing thing you ever did? It is sort of awesome.

Can I ask you this in all honesty? Was there a lot of making out when you were in high school? Because there was a lot of making out when we were in high school. I mean, left and right. Sometimes when we talk about high school now, I wonder if we and our friends ever did anything else except for make out with boys. It's like we were in a permanent liplock for four straight years. Hormonal much? Yes, very, very much.

The upside of this now is that there are some FUNNY ASS STORIES that come out of the whole thing. Some of which we didn't share with each other at the time because we were Playing It Cool back then, dontchaknow. But now we know that we were not cool and were never cool and so why shouldn't we get some entertainment value out of the whole mess? Result: awesome stories. I shall tell you some now, shall I? I won't go into whether these stories are mine, or Alli's, or Map's. Because maybe they might not want a particular one attributed to them (in case one of us wants to still Play It Cool just a teensy bit) so I'll leave that a bit hazy. I'll just meld us all into one person and call us Liballimap, cool? Cool. Enjoy the teen madness.

One time, Liballimap went on a double date to the movies. Her date was Sam. The other couple was Mike and Jen. It was Liballimap's firstish date with Sam, and she was a bit nervous. And do you know that during this date, Mike and Jen were making out (or "mashing" as we used to call it) non-stop the entire time, right in front of Liballimap, and Sam, and whoever else happened to be loitering around them? This seems bad enough, but it was not just regular kissing that Mike and Jen were engaged in. Nope. Rather, every time they got a chance, Jen would CLIMB ONTO MIKE'S LAP and straddle him to make out. Right out there, BAM. Every two seconds! She did this at the movies, she did this every time Mike was sitting down, anywhere. Mike sits down, and whammo, Jen is friggin' mounting him. Sam and Liballimap were horrified, but didn't say anything. Because when you are in high school and Playing It Cool, then why would you say anything? Just turn red and don't make eye contact. It's in the Playing It Cool handbook. On the way home from the double date with the Sitter and the Straddler, they stop at a red light. Guess what? Jen hops on Mike for a full frontal make out AT THE LIGHT. Poor Sam and Liballimap cower against their respective doors in the back seat. And Liballimap happens to look out the window, and who is in the next car over? Her grandma of course. Nice. Liballimap scrunches way down in her seat and her grandma never had to know that Liballimap was in a car with the Sitter and the Straddler.

Liballimap, after a party, is kissed by her crush, Malcolm. It is a surprise-attack kiss where he sort of jumps on her the way PeeWee Herman did to Penelope in Big Top Peewee. After the kiss, which was pretty long and just might qualify as mashing, he disentangles himself and runs away. He actually, literally, runs away. Fast. They never speak of the kiss again and pretty much act like they don't know each other when they get back to school.

Another time, in 10th grade, Liballimap spent the night with her friend. After the friend's parents went to bed, they sneaked out of the house and went to a party. At the party, Liballimap meets up with a boy named Luke who makes the big move. They make out on a couch in some random room of this party. While making out, he blows his wad right through his pants. Only, it wasn't on his pants. Rather, it was all over his shirt. As no clothing was undone, Liballimap is confused about the physics of this scenario to this very day.

Maybe you have to know all of the players involved in these stories to think they are funny, but I keep thinking about them all week and giggling at the most inopportune moments. I don't know if having them here last weekend has just made me more giggly in general (which is quite a feat), but lots of things are making me crack up. Among them:

1. The 5 million stories we told akin to the ones above.
2. President Obama calling Kanye West a jackass.
3. A bumper sticker I saw this week that said "Nice Truck. Sorry about your small pee-pee."
4. Nordic Boy and I yelling "YOU LIE!" at each other every time something goes awry in our lives.
5. These earrings the Allison's husband found and told her I had to have. She brought them all the way from Chicago and I LOVE THEM.

My Pops is the Tops

Today is my dad's 80th birthday. Eighty, people. EIGHT TEE. To all his health issues, the fuckers that they are, I say this: EAT THAT.

This is where I flip the everloving bird at all of his incurable illnesses. With both hands.

In honor of my dad, here are some daddish anecdotes.

1. My dad thinks that story problems are fun. I think it was because when he was growing up they didn't have tv or radio or no shit like that so apparently they would sit around at night and do brain teasers with each other, those party animals. There were times when we were growing up that we would be sitting around our living room and my dad would start in with "a train leaves New York City at 64 miles an hour and another leaves Philadelphia at 72 miles an hour..." This would be met with a round of kiddie groans and that was usually the end of that. He never stopped trying to get us excited about it though, bless his heart. And he never succeeded.

2. My dad can only be described as a little old man. He is small, wizened and weighs about a buck twenty. However, when he sneezes? He scares people with the sheer loudness. And causes walls and floors to shake a little bit.

3. My dad got me a complete set of Alice Walker books for my 13th birthday and a subscription to Ms. Magazine on my 14th birthday. Feminist dads rock.

4. When my parents were growing up in Fiji, it was a British colony. At that time, the whities in charge picked one person from the whole country to go off and get educated overseas. They picked the one (male) kid annually who had the best grades and test scores. My dad was that kid. Out of his whole friggin' country you get one shot per year, and my dad got it. Pretty cool, right? Except try and bring home a report card from school to that guy when you get a D in Chemistry. Not that I did that or anything. Cough cough.

5. No matter what is going on with my dad with all his crazy scary health issues, he always asks me how I am doing and really listens to the answer. I have called him when he is lying in a hospital bed and it won't take long for him to say "how is your day going?" This sort of amazes me each time, no matter how consistently he does it.

6. My dad mixes food in a most disturbing way. I have seen him eating spaghetti sandwiches, or putting cold salad into his lentil soup. It's just not right. He is also the loudest cruncher in the history of North America. God forbid you give him a carrot- you better put on your earplugs.

7. My dad wore ties to work every day. I used to sit on the edge of the bathroom counter and watch him tie them. When he retired and didn't wear ties anymore, I took them. I have about 20 in my closet. I don't know what I will do with them, but I love those ties.

8. My dad, more than anything else I can say about him, is kind. To everyone. I aspire to that. Maybe by the time I am 80 I will get there.

Yay, pappa! As I wrote in a card when I was 6 years old: I love you way big.

Hair Apparent

My beloved friends are gone, I am totally wiped, and will regale you soon. While they were here, many childhood stories were told. Whenever this happens, names come up in conversation and then yearbooks must be consulted in order to remind ourselves who was who. Simultaneously, gems like this are found in said yearbooks.



You're welcome.

Septembah

Oh internets, where have you been? I have missed the feeling of your pixels on my eyeballs. So many things to say to you; shall we catch up? Let's shall.

1. I have been watching "My Antonio" on vh1. I know it is shameful so I thought I would confess it right up front. For those of you who don't know, Antonio was a semi-famous underwear model from the 90s whose main claim to fame besides filling out a pair of tighty whiteys was that he was on General Hospital for a minute and also in a Janet Jackson video with Djimon Hounsou. And now, he is looking for love. On vh1. And he takes himself very, very seriously. And he has a group of ladies on the show and he kicks them off, one by one, each week. What would reality tv be like if there was no kicking people off week by week? It's like, the law of the universe that someone must be eliminated every 7 days or the world will end. I have discovered that I need to have one tv show in my life at a time that causes me to hurl enraged epithets at the screen and then wonder why I just wasted 30 minutes of my time doing so. This month, it is Antonio who will incur my wrath. What this says about me as a person I don't know and if you know I am sure I don't want you to tell me.

2. I was in Portland last week, and I really should have told all of you that before I went, instead of posting hastily about it in a Portland hotel room 2 minutes before walking out the door. I returned only to find lots of comments and emails with all sorts of suggestions on what I should have seen and done instead of what I actually did do, which was wander the streets in an aimless manner, drifting in and out of shopping and eating establishments. At least I have this list for next time. You guys are awesome, it is once again proven.

3. This week, Nordic Boy is in Portland yet again and now that I have seen the swank in which he is bathed when he goes there, I am even more jealous than ever before. Sigh.

4. I bet all of you non-Pacific-Northwesterners are wondering why I keep talking about Portland. I know that before I moved to Seattle, I didn't know shit about Portland. Who cares about Portland? Let me tell you something, YOU SHOULD. It is such a fun city, people. So many cool things about it, it is hard for me to list. Seattle, yeah yeah, San Francisco, sure ok, but Portland? It's all kinds of awesome. Trust me on this.

5. My two girlie pals who I have known since I was spawned are coming to town tomorrow and I am trying to act all nonchalant about it today but I am so excited that I fear my brains might pop out of my skull, or my guts may pop out of my belly, or something equally disgusting.

6. Three shout-outs today. Yes, I just said "shout-outs." That makes me feel like the incredibly unhip teacher that I had in high school that used to call us "cats" sometimes when he wanted to seem cool. At any rate. Shout-outs. One, to Pop Quiz Kid, who is a newbie in the Big Apple and will soon be running a city wide empire to rival the Trumpster that includes her own tv show, real estate developing, telling people they are fired, and marketing her own line of steak meat. Two, to the Lovechild, who is hightailing it out of the Midwest to make her way on the West Coast (hmm, that sounds like something I would do) which means that between her and the Pop Quiz Kid they can have a Tupac/Biggie style East Coast West Coast rivalry with each other except without the murder and stuff like that. And three, to Josh and the Metallurgist, who moved on up to the lower east side to finally get a piece of the pie. I hope that you have your very own Mr. Bentley who will come over and let you walk on his back, because don't we all need a neighbor like that?

7. We bought some storage bins this week. They had this sticker on them as a reminder that we should not enclose our babies in plastic bins for they are our future and they can't lead the way if they are in bins.





8. Summer in Seattle is pretty much over. Phhhhhhhhbbbbbt.

Maybe I'll Meet Bill Murray in the Hotel Bar

Furlough Day 3 started in much the same manner as the rest of the days, full of regular day-off activities. I took Nordic Boy to work.



I ate breakfast with Ellen.



I went and got my hairs cutted.



I forgot to eat breakfast so I ate entirely too much for lunch with BioGirl.



Then, I went home and packed a little bag and Nordic Boy picked me up for a business trip to Portland.


Only I really have no business in Portland other than to eat the most delicious zuccini/mint/peanu/pecorino salad ever made.



Now, I am sitting in the hotel room and toying with the idea of just soaking up the swank all day eating bon bons or whatever it is people do when they lie about in swanky hotel rooms. But the sunny skies outside are beckoning.

Any thoughts from Portland experts on where to go and what to do? I am overly well-acquainted with the shopping possibilities already (Imelda's shoes, I have my eye on you) so I have that aspect covered. Other ideas? I'm open! Where do they serve the best bon bons?

Do They Take Teams on Project Runway?

Lately, I have been thinking about the concept of uniforms. They came up in conversation a week ago, and since then I have been thinking about them. As a concept. What do they say? Why are they relevant? Who wears them? Who doesn't?

I think about clothes a lot, y'all. In all forms.

All of this thinking about uniforms made me a little sarcastic about the whole thing. Who would go with me in my sarcasm? Oh, hmmm, let me think.

Me: You know what I think? I think we should have a uniform.
Him: Who we?
Me: Us, we. You and me.
Him: For what?
Me: For like, us. Our Family Uniform. We need to make a statement. About who we are as a family.
Him: Ok.
Me: It would denote that we are together, right?
Him: Because dressing alike is always a good look for a couple.
Me: Always.
Him: Good. Agreed. I'm in.
Me: What should it look like?
Him: Well, we are all about laid back chic.
Me: Wow.
Him: Plus, we are a hetero couple, who has been together for a long time. So I think we do a play on the jogging suit. Because nothing says hetero old couple like matching jogging suits, right?
Me: I like it.
Him: Velour for winter and satin for summer.
Me: Obviously.
Him: Stripes down the sides of the arms and legs.
Me: Ok.
Him: Only, the stripes are bedazzled.
Me: Rhinestones?
Him: Pssh. DIAMONDS.
Me: Classy!
Him: Sewn onto the stripes, which are in turn sewn on by metallic gold thread.
Me: Love! It!
Him: We need to have our names embroidered on the chest, also in metallic gold thread.
Me: Not just our names, but pet names.
Him: I'll be Icy, and you be Hottie.
Me: You are a genius.
Him: And then, embroidered across the back of the jacket, it says "Friends and Lovers."
Me: In curly lettering, of course.
Him: Of course.
Me: Shoes?
Him: I'm thinking moon boots.
Me: Wow.
Him: What's more romantic than the moon? Nothing!
Me: So why not have boots that remind one of the moon?
Him: Exactly.
Me: Accessories?
Him: Sunglasses in the shape of stars.
Me: Still going with the romantic sky theme.
Him: And a Crocodile Dundee style hat, with a string under the chin.
Me: Because?
Him: We are wild and untamed.
Me: Nice. This all came rolling out of you so easily.
Him: I was inspired.
Me: We didn't talk color palette.
Him: What do you think?
Me: How about a lavender suit with the stripes in orange?
Him: Whoa. No way.
Me: Why not?
Him: I mean, I don't want it to look WEIRD or anything.
Me: Right. Sorry.

Furlough, Low, Low, Low, Low, Low, Low

The weekend was a big fat blur, and not the good kind. It was the last weekend before the week-long furlough that my library system has to take and shutting down some libraries is not as straightforward as one might think. That is assuming that you're thinking about shutting down libraries for a week, which I know that you're not. But I was. And it sucked my weekend into a pre-furlough hole.

Everything went swimmingly and now, here I am, twiddling my thumbs all week with no library-ing to do and no paycheck to be had. On Sunday night I really thought that I would spend the week in my jam-jams, watching movies and reading books and doing a whole lot of nothing. Then I woke up on Monday and remembered that I am me and that it really doesn't take much for me to fill up some days.

First off, I attended a rally to raise awareness about the library budget. The mayor was there, and shook all of our hands (ok, maybe not all of us, but lots of us). Working for the library, I have had many a chance to be in the same room as the Mayor and shake his hand, and I am going to admit right now that I always feel HELLA IMPORTANT when it happens. Never mind that being in the same room with the Mayor is not really an accomplishment in life as much as it is just, well, standing within a ten yard radius of someone, but you forget that I have very little in the way of fancy achievements in life so I am counting this one. The other notable thing about the rally was that at my house, which is less than 4 miles from the heart of downtown Seattle, it was sunny and 75 degrees at 10am. Downtown, where the rally was, felt like 50 degrees. We aren't smoggy like LA, and we aren't usually foggy like San Francisco, but this Monday? The fog was clinging tightly to my city.


And it was freezing fog.

After the rally I went home and met up with Nordic Boy and an arborist, who was checking on the health of the trees in our yard. Yes, we are hippy-dippy tree-lovers who hire tree doctors to make sure our trees are happy. Before you judge us, I don't know if you remember this, but in our old place there was a tree that tried to MURDER US so we take tree health serious. The good news is that the trees are healthy and strong (albeit way too large for our teeny yard), and a bonus was that the arborist left us with these tree-trunk readings that look like EKG printouts. I don't know why, but I think they're cool looking.


Just when you think there aren't any new ways to be geeky, I can find another one!

Then I went to the art supply store and to Michael's Craft Madhouse and got some supplies for my next diabolical art project. I asked the lady at Michael's for 3-D paper art stuff, and she took me to an aisle that was labeled "Bridal Bells." Can someone explain to me what went wrong in the translation there?

Then I took myself on a walk near one of the many lakes around here with the sweet sounds of Ira Glass in my ears as I went. The combination of my iPod and my pedometer taught me that I walk 3 miles in about an hour. Which, wow, could I be any slower?

After which I walked to the corner cafe near my house and met up with a friend, who kindly brought me various tomatoes from her garden. I wrapped up the day by getting Chinese take-out for me and Nordic Boy and then watching tivo'd episodes of Project Runway (second viewing for me, first viewing for him) and arguing about whether Mitchell should have gone home for the shorts or Malvin should have gone home for the hen-egg-sling. I am accepting your votes in the comments, if you please.

I have to say that I will miss my paycheck this week, but so far the furlough isn't so bad if the days keep going like this.

Twitterific

Even though I am on Twitter, there is a part of me that has never really embraced it. I sort of don't get it.

I have about 10 people that I follow on Twitter, and they are all people I know. I can't get behind celebrity twittering (even you my beloved John Hodgman) and I haven't found any people who I don't know already that seem Twitter-worthy in my life.

Until today.

Shit My Dad Says

Granted, I just discovered this today, and it may get old by the end of the week, but for now? I am finding it pretty dang entertaining.

Scaredy Cat

Although I live far away from my parents, and I miss them dearly as they are two of my favorite people ever, I honestly don't feel that far away from them. We talk a lot on the phone, and we even write snail mail letters to each other, and they just feel close. Would I like it if they lived closer? Definitely. But I think that, in my family, with our generations-old migratory history, being far away from loved ones is something that has become programmed in. My parents had to move far away from their loved ones. And my great grandparents had to move far away from their loved ones. Thusly, (yes I said THUSLY), we know how to deal. We have strategies to keep ourselves close to each other.

One of the strategies we have is that we have long conversations on the phone a couple of times a week, but then we have these short, abbreviated calls almost daily. Oh, I just had to tell you that Aunt so-and-so called and she wants you to call her. Hey, just calling because I am making a batch of pumpkin curry and I can't remember how many tablespoons of mustard seeds to put in. Stuff like that.

Because my parents are...my parents, they often have bits of information to give me. Books to read, movies to check out, articles to peruse. They also don't have a computer so sometimes they ask me to do things like order them the latest Ikea catalog or something. I often have to grab a pen to write down whatever citation they are giving me so that I remember. This morning, I found a piece of paper that said the following, thanks to my parents. And I quote:

AprilAir Automatic humidifier- order hose for model #700 online
Martha Stewart gardening article March 09 issue
Fareed Zakaria "The American Encounter"
Nordic Boy's mom's address
The Mayor of Casterbridge
Crate and Barrel gift card
Couch photo
A-Rod's Juice

A-Rod's JUICE?? What the hell did my parents tell me that caused me to write down the words "A-Rod's Juice"????

This disturbs me to no end.

In other news, Nordic Boy has started, whenever he can't hear me say something, to cup his hand behind his ear and say "Dolly Pardon?" I think this is hilarious, even after the nine jillionth time. It's things like that that make me realize that it's a good thing we found each other because no one else would put up with crap like this.

Lastly, my body has decided, without my consent, that I am to be awake from 3am to 5am every morning. It all started last week when Nordic Boy was on a business trip (does that sound like I am blaming him? That's maybe because I TOTALLY AM). When he is gone, I can sometimes convince myself that someone is going to creep into my house in the middle of the night to hack me to death with a ginsu. This has less to do with the fact that if someone were to do such a thing I think that Nordic Boy would save me (I mean, he would try, I'm sure, but we are equal parts badass on this type of thing) and more to do with the fact that him being gone causes me to have really weird dreams (again, totally blaming him!) which then turn into knifal fears. I don't ever really think about this kind of stuff when I am wide awake and thinking clearly. Mostly I think about it when I wake up in the middle of the night, and he's not there, and I am all groggy and out of it. It doesn't help that our yard is full of oversized trees that already think that it's autumn out there while the rest of Seattle sits squarely in summer. My trees think it is November, and have started to shed leaves like crazy. These leaves, when walked on, sound loud and crunchy. Our neighborhood also has its fair share of cats. When a cat tromps through our back yard early in the morning, it can sound like a knife-wielding maniac in a hockey mask creeping up to the window. And yes, I can hear the hockey mask. So last week, when Nordic Boy was gone, I woke up after a bad dream and convinced myself that dismemberment was imminent. I got up out of bed and walked around in one of those half-asleep stupors, listening to some cat who was purposefully scaring the doodoo out of me just for the hell of it. It was probably even wearing a hockey mask. I remember I went into my kitchen and looked out my window. I swear to you, the sky looked this weird shade of orangey-brown. I am 5% certain that I didn't dream that color. I remember looking at it in the sort of confusion that Raymond Cappomaggi had in Moonstruck. Then I went back to bed. Ever since then, I wake up at 3am. Not 2:59, not 3:01. Exactly 3am. And I listen for a cat in a hockey mask to walk through my leaves with some sort of serrated blade with my name all over it.

Wow, that was a freaky image. Almost as scary as A-Rod Juice.

Dolly Pardon?

Everything's Coming Up Dahlias

Photo at Seattle's Dahlia Gardens, where I went this weekend with BioGirl. This place has been known, in the past, to bring me good luck.

As you know, lately things have kind of sucked moose dingus around here. Besides the things already mentioned on the bloggie so far, there has been scary hospitalization in the fam (my brother, but he's on the mend now we think), a someone who I thought was nice turning out to be a maggot-pie, a person I know being held up at gunpoint (for serious!), among many other happenings that I can't let you in on because it would make me the Asshole Who Blabs About Her Friends Private Biznazz On The Blog.

I have to say that I haven't felt particularly depressed or anything, despite all that's been going on. Rather, my mood has been one that can only be described as "huh? whut?" It is as if I have been dipped in a vat of stupid and it has hardened into a shiny crust all around me. I have had neither the patience nor inclination to read a thing for the past couple of weeks (sorry Goodreads, you are sort of dead to me right now) which for a librarian is a sure sign that something has gone haywire. No books, no newspaper, no interwebs, nothing. I have kept up with some of ya'lls blogs, but only if the entries were short enough for the "huh? whut?" attention span. The only news I have consumed about the outside world has been from Mr. Stewart and Mr. Colbert, which, let's face it, is probably ok.

However! This is a new week, and I am only accepting tidings of the good sort from here on out. Bad tidings, be gone with you! If I get any stupider, I might start going to town hall meetings and shouting ooga booga nonsense at my elected officials. And we have enough of that sort of thing going on these days, do we not?

The weekend did some major repair to the hole in my brainmeats, and I do believe things just might be looking up around here. When I went into work this morning, the length and girth of my to-do list for the week was enough to make me feel just a little bit nauseated. It started to make me doubt. Were the stupid tidings really over? YES THEY WAS.

Did I tell you that my library system is going on furlough for a week in September? That means no pay for a week, in case you don't know what a furlough is. Some people seem to think it is a free vacation. Anyhoo, I had taken a week's vacation after the furlough and had planned to take this chunk of time to go visit my folks, but before I could tell them that that was my plan, they went ahead and made other plans without me. THE NERVE. It's like my parents have their own lives or something. Sheesh. Since Nordic Boy can't take that length of time off, I though I was going to be kicking it by myself at home, which isn't the worst thing in the world by any means. But after the hallowed and glorious Midwest Trip of '09 that I took in July, and now with the August Depressing Events That Made Me Stupid, I did feel like I wanted to spend time with someone really near and dear to me. Family, either of the blood relations kind or the friends-who-are-family kind. I thought it was not to be.

THEN!

I gave a little Facebook whine about this to my friend Alli. And before you know it, she is spending an entire day of her life looking for a deal on a plane ticket to come see me. And when I say a day, I mean a whole day. She and I texted back and forth from morning until evening looking for a cheap ticket for her to come help me sit on my ass in Seattle. And after hours and hours and hours of looking, she found a ticket that was not really very cheap. But she bought it ANYWAY. I love that girl.

And also the news of her ticket-purchase may have made me squeal like a little piglet in a way that scared Nordic Boy. Maybe.

Then, I emailed our other friend, Map. Do you think you could make it too? I asked, half-heartedly because I had already seen via Allison that the tickets were not cheap and the notice was short. She said she would try, but we both kind of knew it was a long shot at best. She looked for tickets and was smacked in the kisser by the prices. And she was sad about it, and I was sad about it.

THEN!

Her husband noted the sad face on our dear Map for a few days. And last night, when they were out to dinner, he up and handed her an already-bought, super-surprise, mighty delicious plane ticket to Seattle! This act, it might not surprise you to hear, made her fall ever more in love with her husband. What might be more surprising is that I think I might have a thing for him too, acting all awesome like that. YAY MR. MAP! YAY YAY YAY.

This news may have made me get up, close the door to my office, and do a happy dance all around my desk.

I get to see my girls! In two weeks!!!

Halle-friggin'-lujah.

Only funny to me, but it's my blog

Ok, so I am going to talk about the imaginary town thing again. Last time for a while, I promise.

I am warning you that if you know a little bit about dance, this post may be slightly funny to you. If you know a lot about dance, it might be more so. If you know nothing about dance, please feel free to stop reading now.

I have a close friend who is a ballroom dancer. Like, he does the competitions and everything. He has never had any training in anything that I have had training in, and vice versa. A lot of the time that we get together, we talk for hours about dance- his styles and my styles, the similarities and the differences, the theory and the practice. I am quite sure you would fall over dead with boredom if you were around us when we do this.

That is, unless we get really inspired by our conversation and push away all the furniture in the room and start actually comparing styles instead of just talking about them. This happens oh, about once a month these days, and I am sure it would be quite entertaining to see. Me, knowing nothing about no salsa or cha cha or shit like that, trying to hammerlock outside turn (hello, crashing and burning). And him, knowing nothing about ballet and modern, trying to cabriole or figure out a mixed meter phrase. Nordic Boy has been known to pull up a chair when this gets going and guffaw his heart's delight at us.

A few months ago, I was going over some ballet basics with my friend. One of the steps is called a developpe. If you have never done one before, it can be sort of painful. As my friend tried this, this is what he said.

Him: Wow. This hurts.
Me: Remember to keep your hips square.
Him: Ouch.
Me: Don't wobble your standing leg.
Him: OW.
Me: Yeah.
Him: (breathing hard) You know what? I hate Dave LaPay. Dave LaPay is a total bastard!

DAVE LAPAY. This almost busted my gut with the funny. Because that is indeed how you pronounce developpe. (Some Americans say "Dave L. O'Pay" so that would work too). I have known Dave LaPay since I was 4 years old! How did I never realize he was a character for our town?

Weeks later, my friend said that he wanted me to take him to a super traditional classical ballet performance. I took him to see Swan Lake. Later, we discussed the show, and he had a question for me.

Him: That jester character in the royal court. There was a move that he was doing that was pretty cool. What is that called?
Me: What move? Can you recreate it, even a little?
Him: Kind of like this...(mangled up ballet step)
Me: Oh, that's a temps de cuisse.
Him: That move was interesting to me. I really like Tom.
Me: Tom?
Him: Tom DeQuees. He's much nicer than Dave LaPay.

TOM DEQUEES!!!

You have no idea how much this has made my month.

Based on the discovery of Dave and Tom, we also discovered a sassy young lady named Rhonda Zsamb, based on, of course, the ront de jambe.

Dave is the effer of the group, Tom is happy-go-lucky, and Rhonda is a sultry tamale. Again, this may only be funny to you if you know what these moves are. And really, maybe not even then. But to me, they are comedy gold.

These are the types of things that keep me going in life.

We The Peeble

Remember the town that BioGirl and I populated? Wow, that sounds like she and I are spawning or something. Let me re-phrase. Remember those two posts I wrote a long while ago about the imaginary town that we have created where we have characters whose names are sayings or phrases? Like Dot Matrix, the owner of the local print shop? Or Jen Teal, the charm school teacher?

Our town has been on a bit of a hiatus lately, ever since we created a sister-town based on an entirely different rubric. It all started with the fact that she and I have a nickname for each other. "Peeble." I won't get into how this nickname began, but just know that I call her Peeble and she calls me Peeble. We also call other folks our peeble, if they are a good sort of person. I guess you could say that the literal translation of peeble has come to be something along the lines of a mensch. If you're a good sort, then you're part of the peeble population. At any rate, that's what we call each other. And I don't know what it says about us that we have the same nickname. Perhaps it shows a distinct inability to differentiate ourselves one from the other. Come to think of it, another friend-who-is-like-family of mine, Neighbor J, and I also have the same nickname for each other. We call each other Neighbor. The more I think about it the more I realize that this is a weird pattern in my life.

But I digress. BioGirl and I started making up characters based on our nickname for each other. I think it started with emails that we would write to each other. Instead of signing our names, we would just sign them "peeble." Then we started to get creative with this. Writing an email about baking cookies later? Sign it the Peebler Elf. Talking about taking a leadership role at work? Sign it Captain Jean-Luc Peeblard. Talking about doing a painting this weekend? Sign it Peeblo Picasso. How about if you're feeling cheesily melancholy? Peeblo Bryson, of course. We have a million of them.

Simultaneous to this, BioGirl and I had discovered an eyeglass frame store in Seattle called Mr. Peepers. We thought this was a slightly dirty name for an eyeglass store, and we used to joke that it was a front for a mob-run strip club or something. And although Mr. Peepers is not exactly a peeble-name, we sort of conflated him into our peeble-mania.

It wasn't long before we decided that all the Peebles needed to have a town of their own. And because he was a little different than the rest of the Peebles, we deemed Mr. Peepers the founder of the town. Well, him and his brother, Dr. Pepper. Pepper and Peepers forged a sort of colony for the Peebles (in order to follow their new age spiritual leader, Peeblak Chopra).

Alas, just as we started to populate this new colony, BioGirl and I ran into an impasse. She decided that she didn't want Mr. Peepers to be too dirty, because it would corrupt the innocence of the rest of the Peebles. If a peeble is a mensch, then how could Mr. Peepers be an old dirty bastard? I on the other hand, maintained that with a name like Mr. Peepers he had to be a nasty old coot and there was no getting around that. We never came to a conclusion on this, and our second attempt at town-creation had to be left undone. It's like the boom and bust in the construction market, with our second town abandoned in the middle of the process.

Sad.

And yes, weird. That goes without saying.

But now, I think we need to get back to doing what we do. Forget the health care debate, forget Seattle's mayoral race, forget the presidential race in Iraq. I want to know: do you vote that Mr. Peepers be a nasty effer? Or do you vote for a kinder, gentler Peeper? Or do you see a way for us to compromise on this point?

We need your help, peebles.

Parental Perfection

Ok, I will stop bellyaching about all the shit that has gone on around here and focus a little bit on the shinola.

My friends H and J just had a baby!

I don't have any photographic evidence of this occurrence at this point, but when I do see photos of mama, dad, and baby, I am sure they will be beautiful. And when I say beautiful? I don't mean it in that "my friend had a baby and afterwards she looked like a train ran her over and the baby looks like a mini-Gorbachev but they look happy so that makes it beautiful" sort of beautiful. Don't get me wrong, that sort of beauty is, well, a beautiful thing. But in this case I am talking about more of a "are you kidding me that this is a real birthing type situation because you look like you are in an ad or something" sort of beautiful.

The last time H had a baby, there was a photo taken that has since become legend in our circle. It is a photo of H, lying on the birthing table (the photo is from the shoulders up), with a shower cap on her head. Like, we are not talking a few hours after the baby is born. We are talking a few minutes. She is completely flat on the table, with all the accoutrements around her. Her hubby J is there, holding the baby for her to see (she's not even at a place where she can hold the baby herself at this point, or really hold her own head up very well), and whoever was taking the photo must have said "hey, guys, I am taking a photo!" because H and J are looking back at the camera, and THEY LOOK LIKE MODELS.

H has a calm, relaxed, super happy smile on her face. And J looks the same. Both of them fresh as friggin' daisies. I believe H still has mascara and lip gloss on. Or if she doesn't, she looks like she does.

At any rate, it is a gorgeous photo that anyone in their right mind would think was staged, unless you know H and J, and then you know it's not because they are gorgeous no matter what they do. Every single person I know that has ever seen that photo has been like, seriously? No, come on. SERIOUSLY?

And I am like, yeah. Seriously. And the even more amazing thing about this family is that no matter how ridonk the facial frontispieces are on these folks, the inner awesomeness is even more radiant.

Congrats H and J. Can't wait to meet the newest member of the crew!

Ticket for One

Before I get into my usual inane banter, may I just say the following?

Loved ones of mine need to stop getting hurt. Physically, mentally, all of it. IMMEDIATELY. All of these lovely, beautiful people I love keep getting crushed. Just CRUSHED. It's horrible. I feel like there are bombs going off all around me. If any of you out there can make this stop happening to my peeps, that would be most helpful.

Now back to our regularly scheduled stupidness.

I had a day off on Friday, and I didn't make any plans for the day. Because of all the aforementioned stuff, I really, really wanted to just stay home all day in pajamas and watch movies. I also knew that if I did that, I would just feel crap by the end of the day. So I stayed in my pajamas for most of the morning (Adventures in Babysitting was on, so obviously I had to), and then I got myself together and took myself on a date to the SciFi Museum.

Who takes a perfectly free Friday and goes on a one-person date to the SciFi Museum? Geek alert!

These are among the things I saw on my date with yours truly.

1. Ernie and Bert. And they looked sort of huge in person. I think that if I had met them when I was a kid, they would have scared me. And yes, I realize that I just said "met" like I actually had a conversation with them. I just want to believe that they are real because the sight of them in a glass box was sort of sad. Oh shut up, I know it's weird.
2. Kermit the Frog. He looked old and tired.
3. At the part of the exhibit that had stuff from The Dark Crystal, there were two hipsters around my age that were rolling their eyes and saying "What the fuck is this? I have never even HEARD of this movie!" which sort of galled me.
4. The Mah-na Mah-na muppets. I was way too excited about seeing them.
5. Really cool experimental short films by Jim Henson. That dude was wacky, way beyond puppetry, and I love it.
6. Awesome sketches and drawings.
7. Everyone in the entire place taking photos of everything while standing among nine billion signs that said "No Photography Please." No one got busted. I wanted to take photos too, but I obeyed the signs despite everyone around me. This just proves that if I am ever in a looting mob, I am not getting a tv or anything.
8. Michael Jackson's sequined glove.

Wait a minute, I bet you're wondering why that last one is in there. Although the thought of Michael Jackson paraphenalia being on display in the SciFi Museum is awesome, and to think of him as actually being a muppet is even more so, it wasn't in that museum. The Seattle SciFi Museum is connected to the EMP (the Experience Music Project), which is a music museum. If you pay admission to one, you get to go in the other if you want. Listen, I know it doesn't makes sense that these two things are connected. I just report the facts, I don't make them.

After the museum, I went to the Seattle Center fountain and watched the kids go apeshit. I highly recommend that.





My date with myself was pretty successful, I think. Except for the fact that no one on the date got felt up or anything.

Never Gonna Give! Never Gonna Give!

It's no secret by now that I have a love of cheez. Give me something that has a little bit of corny in it and it makes me happy. Granted, most of the cheezy stuff I love has a dose of irony mixed in there somewhere, but the level of irony can be hard to parse out sometimes, you know?

Take, for example, my love of Doris Day. CORNBALL. She is just cheez, cheez, cheez, with more grated cheez on top. But I love her. I could watch a Doris Day movie until the cows come home, and really I would not want the cows to come home. Yes, I laugh at her and realize the full extent of the corny. But still. I just love it. I remember telling a co-worker about my love of Doris Day and he said to me, "Really?? Why? She is so...plastic." And I said, "yes, but that's the beauty of it. That's the whole point of Doris. To be plastic." To which he responded "Ah, I get it. You love her in an ironic way." And to tell you the truth, I felt like that wasn't it. There really isn't a whole lot of cynicism in my love for cheezy things a lot of the time. It's not a sort of hipsterish trucker-hat-wearing thing, you know what I mean? Like the privileged hipster white kids who wear trucker hats? I could be wrong, but they don't exactly exude respect for truckers. Or the ironic mustache dudes. At that point, the ironicness has taken over and the love of the cheez is not really there any more. Am I making sense? I don't know, but it makes sense in my head. The way I love Doris Day is a way that acknowledges all the things about what she represents that I know aren't the best things in the world, but that acknowledgment doesn't corrupt the love.

That said, sometimes I will, for the sake of the conversation, let comments like that of my co-worker pass. I don't need to get into all that, you know? And besides, sometimes my love for cheez is a little embarrassing. Liking Doris Day at least has some currency in that I can frame it within my love for classic cinema. And that sort of gets me out of looking like too much of a doof, which is fine with me. Believe me, I need as many ways as possible to shave off doof points.

Other things, however, are harder to couch in an aura of sophistication. For instance, my unabashed love for Rick Astley.

I have nothing to add to that love. No qualifiers, no way of making it seem cooler. Nothing. All I can say is that there was a period of my life when I was a kid in the 80s and I went to England, and Rick Astley was the Royal Shit when I was there and I loved him then and I love him now. And it's not like I don't know that he's the Earl of Fromage. I know it, I accept it, and I adore it. I have threatened, on many occasions, that if Nordic Boy and I were to ever have a wedding, that "Never Gonna Give You Up" would be what I would walk down the aisle to. And I'm not kidding. Part of it is because I know it's hilarious and I think that would be entertaining. But part of it is because I truly feel like that song expresses my deep and abiding love for my man and his love for me. And when I sing along to the song, I feel it deep down and I know in my heart of hearts that I will never GIVE HIM UP! LET HIM DOWN! RUN AROUND AND! DESERT HIM!

I told you I wasn't kidding.

Still, it's not like I advertise my love for Rick. Nordic Boy knows about it, and maybe Biogirl has an inkling, but other than that it's not like I play it when people come over for dinner parties. It's on my iPod and I listen to it in the privacy of my own earbuds.

The other day, I had a friend in my car with me, and I put my iPod on and just did a shuffle. Putting your entire iPod on shuffle in front of other people is, to me, kind of like showing someone your underwear drawer. Pretty private. Of course, during the course of this drive, Rick Astley happened to pop up. And my friend didn't say anything, as we were talking, but unbeknownst to me, as we were driving along, I was head bobbing along to the song. With shoulders. And maybe with full upper-body. I COULD NOT HELP IT.

Friend: You are totally rocking out over there.
Me: Oh. Yes, I suppose I am. I sort of love this song.
(I stopped head-bobbing and we continued the conversation)
(a minute goes by)
Friend: You are rocking out again!
Me: (catching myself in mid-shimmy) Oh my god, I totally am.
Friend: It's like you can't stop yourself!
Me: I can't!
Friend: Wow, who knew Rick Astley could move a person like that?

I knew, that's who. Good thing we got out of the car before 90s Mandy Moore started playing.

For Steve

There has been lots of bad news in my world this past couple of weeks. One of the things that has happened recently is that my childhood friend Steve passed away this week. It's weird when stuff like this happens- I always think, do I blog about it? Do I not blog about it? The purpose of my blog is to put something out into the world that makes me laugh and maybe will make you laugh too. There's enough crap we all go through on a daily basis, is what I'm thinking, and so why not carve out a nice little internet space where I talk about only the goofy? Really, that's what my blog should be called, instead of The Pop Culture Librarian. It should be called Only the Goofy. And usually, no matter what my day looks like, I can think of some little conversation, some moment, some thought I had that day, that was pure silliness. And then I write about it. Granted, my life is pretty dang lovely and finding those moments is easy peasy, mostly. But every once in a while, I am thrown. And this week, with all that's going on, I'm a little thrown.

So I am going to write about Steve. Because I'm thinking about him. And besides, our friendship was full of only the goofy.

When I was a kid, I didn't really have a clique. That is not to say that I was an outsider, either. Rather, I was a kid who was part of pretty much every group, but also not fully part of any group. I don't know why. When I was in middle school and high school, one of the groups I was friends with was this group of 5 boys. They all lived in my neighborhood, and they all were friends with each other their whole lives, and for some reason, they let me hang out with them too. I had many afternoons after school hanging out with this group, the only girl in a gaggle of dudes. One of them was Steve. I had known Steve pretty much my whole life, or at the very least since kindergarten. I have a memory of him in a boy scout uniform, sitting in the seat in front of me on the school bus in elementary school. There's a part of me that always sort of thinks of him as a teeny kid in a boy scout uniform.

When we were in fifth grade, Steve and I were sitting in the cafeteria together and for some reason, he was telling me about his ancestry. Because 5th graders are all about the genealogy, or some shit like that? I don't know, but that's what we were talking about. He told me that he was English and French, and for some reason it sort of blew my 5th grade mind to think that my friend Steve was French. It seemed very cosmopolitan to me. So I said, "wow, you're French?" and he said, in total seriousness, "Si!" We sat there for a second and blinked at each other, and then I said, "Shouldn't that be 'oui'"? And that made him laugh so hard that he sprayed pieces of chewed up bologna sandwich across the table. From that day forward, it was one of those jokes that never got old. As we grew up, went to middle school, then high school, all I would have to do is ask Steve any question that had an affirmative answer, and he would grin at me and say "Si!" and we would laugh until we cried. I know it's not really that funny unless you're in 5th grade, but that was the thing. There was a part of Steve and I and how we were around each other that never got past the 5th grade.

Well, that's not entirely true. This group of dudes that I used to hang out with? When we were in middle school, they were a group of dirty, nasty, trashtalking boys. Which at that age is totally the thing to be, I suppose. And because I was the girl that hung out with them and that they sort of considered a girl, but didn't really, they used to talk all kinds of shit in front of me. Some of it helpful to my very curious 14-year-old self, some of it not. One of the things that used to get talked about was the subject of boners. Especially calling each other out when one of them got one at an inappropriate time. This was a favorite topic in the summers, when lots of swimsuits were worn. "Dude, you totally had a BONER when Jennifer went up on the diving board!" one of them would say. "I DID NOT!" the other person would retort, with a face so red that it was pretty much a guarantee that he DID TOO. After being around this for a while, my shyness around the subject of hard ons totally dissipated. I started just asking them questions about how the mechanics really worked, and they totally told me. "So like, it can just happen any time?"..."Does it hurt?"..."What if you have to pee and you have one?" and so on. It's all thanks to Steve and his friends that I was completely educated on boy-puberty without ever having to, you know, actually touch a penis or anything. I'm sure that if my parents knew the amount of talking about boners that I was doing with this group of boys, that they would have gone spontaneously gray. But it was innocent, and funny, and they treated me with a whole lot of respect, especially for 14-year-old boys. Not to knock 14-year-old boys, but you know what I'm saying.

Steve was also the first boy that I ever remember who told me I was beautiful. And it wasn't even a ploy to get in my knickers or anything. It was in 9th grade, and we were sitting in the backstage area of the middle school auditorium. I had a crush on one of Steve's friends, who wasn't giving me the time of day. And Steve said to me: "I don't think it's that he doesn't like you back. I just don't think that he knows how to react to a beautiful girl who has a crush on him, that's all." Just like that. Matter of fact. Sweet as can be, that Steve.

And before this gets too mushy and you think Steve was not really a true teen boy, I also remember the time that we were on a choir retreat and someone had the brilliant idea that Steve should chug a Vernor's ginger ale as fast as he could. Or maybe it was even multiple cans of Vernors. And maybe it was Steve's idea in the first place, I don't know. All I know is that Stevie boy did the deed. And he followed it up by opening his mouth and geyser-vomiting Vernor's in the most convincing Linda Blair style I have ever seen. And he seemed really proud of that later, like he had totally accomplished something, with both the chugging and the spectacular aftermath.

I went through this period of time, when I was in college, where I kind of withdrew from everything related to my childhood. When I would go back to my hometown for breaks, I pretty much only saw a few high school friends and avoided everyone else. I felt really different than my friends then (I wasn't), and I felt like our paths and interests didn't cross at all any more (they totally did). I went to a party at a high school friend's house reluctantly one New Year, and felt estranged from everyone there the entire time. I remember people kept telling me that I seemed different, and I secretly loved hearing that because that's totally what I was going for. During this party, I was sitting on a couch, and Steve came over to sit next to me. We chatted for a bit, and I was being really quiet, only giving short responses, and kind of being a dick, to be honest. Finally, for some reason, I had to blurt out something about how different I felt, how this party was so lame, dude, and that I just didn't get these people any more. Steve just shrugged his shoulders (did I mention that Steve was a big shrugger? He shrugged in response to a lot of things) and said something like "Eh, you seem the same to me." And for some reason, I didn't mind hearing that from him.

Anyhow, that was my friend Steve. He's one of those types of people in life that you always think you're going to go have a beer with some day, even if you've been out of touch for a while. So it sucks that I know that won't happen now. Just...sucks.

If you're wondering what I'm thinking about these days, is it likely that I'm thinking about Steve?

Si.

It sounds even better if you say "alky-hall."

Friday listy loo, Friday listy la....

1. Nordic Boy and I witnessed a drunken conversation this week where a man kept saying, in response to his friend's drunken behavior: "I don't know why she was acting that way! I think it's just because she was doin' the alcohol! She was just doin' the alcohol!" This has quickly become the phrase of the week. You can use it in many situations. If you see someone trip, you can say "what'sa matter with you? Have you been doin' the alcohol?" Or if you want to meet your friends for a beer, you can say "would you ladies like to join me in doin' the alcohol?" I advise you all to adopt this phrase, for me, please.

2. This phrase also makes me think of the song "Doin' the Pigeon," which was sung by Bert from Sesame Street on a disco album from my youth. Oh my god, did I just make that up? Because that don't sound right, but I am positive that I have heard this song. Hold on...

Oh, youtube, how I love thee.

I had that song in disco version on a little album I owned as a child called "Sesame Street Fever." Jellus?

3. Seattle has gone back to gloomy gray skies, and people are all skippety doo dah about it. I live in a weird place, you guys.

4. I have some time off coming up in September, and I was going to use it to go visit my folks again in Michigan. But I forgot to tell them that was my plan and so they went and made some other plans without me, so now I am not going anywhere. DANG. I really, really, really want to take a trip somewhere, or have someone come visit me. I don't think anyone is coming to visit me (hint, hint, friends who are reading this), and now I don't know if I have time to plan a trip to see them. PHOOEY.

5. Are the Jonas Brothers like, 12 years old? They seem 12. For a long time now.

6. John Hughes died, and I am stating right now that I cannot go through another retrospective this year, ok? I am done with dying famous people and clip shows and commentaries about them. Until 2010. I need a break.

7. Have a great weekend. Beware your behavior if you are doin' the alcohol.