approximate rhyme is disgusting and other disproportionately strong reactions

I was thinking today about the crushing guilt I feel over my lack of blogging, and then I considered all the things that are wrong in the world that I'm not fixing and even the things that are wrong in my own life that I overlook with very little consequence, and I decided it was stupid to feel guilty over something so trivial as blogging.  My blogging doesn't save the world, and it's foolishness and wasted time to expend energy or prolonged thought or worry on my lack of posts in the last quarter of 2011.  No one cares, and even if a few imaginary readers have given passing thought to what has become of my work dramas or burger hunts or haikus or even the long-lost open letters, their worlds kept spinning without those crucial updates from me--and will continue to do so even if I never post again.

So I'm no longer allowed to shoulder the burden of entertaining you all.  I'll write or I won't, but I refuse to allow what is a small concern to a very limited number of people be blown out of all proportion because of my own sense of self-importance and secret need for martyrdom.

And with that giant imaginary weight lifted from my shoulders, I can give attention to other ridiculous reactions that I have to things.

• Approximate rhyme is disgusting.  
• Combining chocolate and peanut butter is an evil plot to ruin my life.
• Someone touching my ears will literally kill me.
• Grown people who use chat or text language on facebook are dead to me.

No, really, I feel this strongly about all these things.  Why?  Because reacting strongly is so fashionable right now.  Have you noticed this?  No one can just have an ordinary like or dislike or preference or mild annoyance.  Everyone reacts in superlatives, and I'm just as bad as anyone, but sometimes at least I catch myself at it and attempt to dial back the manufactured drama of every little thing being the absolute worst or best.  Because honestly?  One two things in the world can be the absolute worst and best, and assigning disproportionate reactions to marginally important things diminishes the value of everything.  Plus it's the most annoying thing in the world--so stop doing it.

things about which i'm not blogging (a list)

• stress-induced eyebrow twitching--it's like hiccups for your eye
• graduate school--doing homework is just as unpleasant as I remembered, but I might be secretly good at this whole library school business
• at least three interesting and blog-worthy recent craft projects
• my internet-crush on Pinterest which led to the aforementioned recent craftiness
• staving off illness through sheer force of will--because I certainly haven't been taking good enough care of myself to have had only the tiniest brush with that cold
• Harry Potter haikus--the most recent addition to my "things I wish I hadn't quit" blogging list
• work insanity (because if I let myself start, I'll never stop)
• 6 a.m. womens' bible study at PV--because I love Jesus enough to iron my clothes at night and wake up before dawn
• getting to see my moma all the time (or every two weeks) and it still not being enough
• manufactured drama that might have made you laugh

and a brief list of things about which I shall blog (or die trying):

• a Holy Grail-style quest to find the best burger in Central Arkansas starring many of your favorite blog characters (and CST#1BF)

oh bless my heart

The Southern sayin' backstory:
I know the overriding characteristic of my writing here is sophistication, so this may come as a surprise to friends of the blog, but I come from a rural background.  I grew up living eight miles outside of a town of roughly 1700 people.  We had one county school, and I graduated in a class of about fifty-two.  Not only is my hometown as podunk as they come, I come from an ancestry that is a mixture of Kentucky hill people and Tennessee dirt farmers.  Because education has been a fairly high priority in my family for two or three generations now, I can largely pass for a mostly normal, non-hick person.  Much of the time I'm even allowed to forget about this ridiculously country accent I have.  But every so often, I find myself in a situation that can only be summed up in the dialect of my youth; some quaint, down home saying comes out of my mouth, and I embrace my true self.  Today is one of those days:


oh bless my heart


I know this should actually be "bless his/her heart" or "bless your heart," but what will follow is a story of how I am the sad and pathetic entity requiring all the heart-blessing.  Perhaps, imaginary reader, you're unfamiliar with this expression, so you don't yet grasp just how deserving of your sympathy I should be.  There are two common usages:  Primarily bless (appropriate third-person possessive pronoun) heart is Southern-girl code for "that poor, unfortunate soul . . . let me use my seeming concern to gossip about problems faced and dramas encountered in the life of said individual."  Southern girls could make an Olympic sport out of gossip, but their momas raised them better than to do it overtly--avoiding tackiness being a required course at SEC schools.  So bless whomever's heart is the magic word, the get out of tacky-gossip-jail free card.  For the record the malicious spirit is optional.  Sometimes Southern girl gossip isn't as bad as I'm making it sound . . . I think.  Bless your heart is a slightly different thing . . . when you're blessing someone's heart to his/her face, it's not gossip, but it's still a mild put-down in the vein of "oh you poor, dumb thing."  It's that sort of condescending sympathy of which I am in need today.


I normally don't leave work at midday.  Even if I don't bring my lunch, I eat at one of the many fine downtown dining establishments.  Because I have to park in a parking deck more than half a block away, it's just sort of inconvenient (and for most of the year uncomfortably hot or cold), but sometimes I have to deal with the inconvenience.  The problem with leaving at midday is that I typically don't pack up all my stuff if I'm not leaving for the day, so it's not altogether uncommon for me to arrive at my car and realize that I've left my keys in their designated pocket of my bag which is sitting under my desk.  I always feel beyond stupid when this happens, and as luck would have it, I am almost always caught walking in circles to retrieve them by someone who's only too happy to give me crap about it.  So when that happened to me this afternoon as I was trying to leave, it was scarcely noteworthy.  Sure I wasted ten minutes round trip due to my own frustrating stupidity, but it certainly wasn't breaking news.


Lucky for you and blog fodder, my key drama continued.  Tonight at closing, we had a couple of underagers who were waiting for a ride, so I ended up waiting with a couple of my security buddies for the parents to arrive, so it was already 8:15ish when we hiked over to the parking deck.  Just as the elevator was nearing the third floor, I began to dig fruitlessly through the key pocket and the rest of my bag for my keys.  Marquis, the best security guard in the history of security guards, walked me back over to the library to get the forgotten keys.  I foraged through the upper strata of my desk with no luck.  I retraced all the steps I made in our department after my return.  By this point, I was not only moderately frantic but also painfully aware that I was keeping my pal Marquis from going home thanks to my ridiculous inability to keep track of my possessions.  So I gave up.  I called in the cavalry, and when allegedly helpful roommate Jess screened me in my hour of need, my superhero of a brother came to my rescue to pick me up.  Lots of cuss words ensued (mine, not Shane's--he was nothing but pleasant and patient).  I got home for the first time at nine, and rather than follow the original plan of getting copies made of Jess's house keys (which was likely impossible at that time of night), I finally confirmed that the extra key that's been hanging out at our house for the past fifteen months does indeed unlock the knob of the kitchen door, so I can enter and leave my house at will.  My run of improved luck held when I realized that I hadn't yet lost the spare key (and extra clicker) to my car.  So a penitent Jess took me to liberate my car from the parking deck, and after a quick stop back at the house to pick up my wallet (because of course, I'd left that at home), I tracked down some dinner and made it home before ten, but not by much.


So bless my heart . . .


It did sort of end up better than it began, and I've calmed down considerably about how my life will play out if I don't find them, but I was deserving of the most sincerely contemptuous bless your hearts ever just a few hours ago.  Lucky for me, Jess isn't a real Southern girl, so I didn't actually have to endure any.

17 reasons why i haven't blogged lately (in random order)

1.  I spent exactly thirty minutes at my desk today.  Granted I came to work an hour late and took a longer-than-normal lunch.  but I also left somewhere between fifteen and forty-five minutes late.  I didn't work the public service desk at all.  I'm not saying I usually blog at work, but I do type out quick ideas as I have them sometimes, and I typically take all my "breaks" and lunch at my desk which gives me time to work on my informative and entertaining posts.  And if I work the public service desk at a slow time, I do sometimes indulge in more personal internet pursuits (a category into which blogging falls) while I'm waiting around on someone to assist.

2.  I ate lunch today with Peeps Monica and Martha and the tweeps.  It was a thousand times better than lunch at my desk with the internet.  I was having way too good a time to blog--plus I spent a decent fraction of the meal baby juggling with Martha, and I can't feed myself, hold babies and blog all at once.  I'm no super woman.  P.S. My storytime wooing of the tweeps has not yet won them over to adoration of me, but I shall not be daunted.

3.  Often lately I've been eating lunch and taking breaks in our staff lounge (despite what I said to the contrary in the previous two excuses).  My library friend Philip gave up going out to lunch for Lent, so he's been bringing his lunch, and I've been bringing my lunch almost daily since the beginning of the year, so we've been eating together upstairs more.  Sometimes Bob comes too.  We bring our handwork (they're both knitting hats at the moment) and work on our various projects.

4.  It's spring break round these parts, and we're doing alliterative programs for school kids every day this week.  On Movie Monday, I passed out popcorn and showed How to Train Your Dragon to fifty-one library friends.  On Tie-Dye Tuesday, I calmly dealt with fifty-three library friends and the rainbow-hued carnage they left on the tables, floor, and my hands.  Today on Wii Wednesday I played and supervised and refereed twenty-two library friends through multiple games for three hours.  These unexpected well-attended pursuits have pushed me much closer to exhaustion than I should be, and while that's embarrassing, the fact remains that sitting down and stringing clever words together just wasn't in me (still isn't, but here you go anyway).

5.  As I previously mentioned I've been working on balance and moderation in my personal interests and pursuits, so at home I've been reading and cooking and keeping all the dishes washed and watching tv as a family with Jess, and I've been trying to spend less time glued to my laptop.  Providing intellectually stimulating blog fodder is the unintended casualty of moderation--though those unfinished home projects as yet remain unfinished.

6.  I mentioned in #3 that I'm bringing my handwork to lounge lunches and breaks with Philip and Bob, but I haven't told you about what I'm doing.  I'm actually working on a post all about it, so I'm not going to tell you until that's ready, but my steady work on this undisclosed craft project has given me something to do with my hands besides typing out blogs for you, and I am really excited about showing you someday.

7.  I had an interesting and busy weekend.  Our church is doing some painting and cleaning at an elementary school while they're out on spring break, and I went to help clean and tape for the paint crews on Saturday.  One of the areas we painted was the cafeteria where they had to work around a mural depicting Carson-Dellosa kiddos following the posted cafeteria rules.  It was a mostly really cute except that it was unfinished.  I thought it a shame that our freshening and sprucing would still be overshadowed by the half-finished people (that weren't on our list of approved fixes).  I asked if I could come back the next day and finish them, so our man in charge called someone from the school, and I got permission to do it.  I went back on Sunday to finish the job and recruited some help, and we almost got it done.  My sidekicks completed the mural on Monday while I was at work slinging popcorn for the movie-goers.  Jess went and took pictures, and it turned out beautifully. 

8.  I would have liked to be able to blog about the successful selection of a winning NCAA tournament bracket, but alas, my hopes have been dashed for another year.  I'm currently tied for last place in a pool of ten friends and family members.  It shouldn't surprise me any longer that I'm terrible at these picks, but it's always disheartening.  All of my Final Four teams are still in the running, so although I still have a higher-than-some points potential, I've missed many, many significant picks.  I suspect that this week's games will drive the final nail in my bracket's coffin.  It doesn't help that cousin, scholar, theologian and #1 blog fan, who admitted to making mostly arbitrary picks is in first place.

9.  Laziness.

10.  A lack of task commitment.

11.  A stronger than normal tendency to ramble senselessly.  Seriously, every time I try to post something lately, it turns into a torrent of messy words, and I abandon the effort.

12.  A short attention span.

13.  An almost unreasonable desire to do nothing but eat Dove truffle eggs.  Until Saturday I hadn't found them at a store this Easter candy season, but now I know that Walgreens has them, and the desire to purchase and consume them is a constant presence in my life.  In the spirit of balance and moderation (not to mention my healthy-eating choices), I'm trying to keep this from becoming an obsession, but it's a near thing.

14.  Time seems to be passing at a fairly high rate these days.  I don't mean to let days (or weeks) go by between posts, but somehow even when I have ideas at the ready for my next posts, days pass in a blur with no writing to show for it.  I'm sure this is just one more sign of my increasing age.  It goes nicely with my flights of nostalgia, the giant gray streak in my hair, and my geriatric tendency to be set in my ways.

15.  I've been spending more time talking to Jess.  She's nice, but sometimes I get too busy or cranky or in my head to talk to her.  That's being a loser-y sort of friend, and I'm working on that.  I like talking to her when I'm not being too much of a jerk to do so.

16.  A sense of guilt that because of the increasingly significant time elapsing between posts, I need to bring my A-game for the imaginary readers lurking here, desperately hoping for some new communication from me.  When all I can produce is pointless drivel (for instance:  more than a dozen lame and needy excuses for my lack of posts), I have a difficult time allowing myself to post such substandard fare . . . usually (though obviously not tonight).

17.  I have become overwhelmed with my clear  and unhealthy dependence on the adverb.  What if I use more than my allotment of adverbs while blogging, and I'm forced to go on without them?  It boggles the mind and cripples my productivity.  Please reassure me that this is not my fate, faithful readers.  For my sake, for the sake of the blog, for all of us. 

little known fact #2

Little Known Fact Background: I'm 98% certain that everyone who regularly reads this blog actually knows me.  But sometimes I like to dream of a time when I'm famous for these ramblings and folks will flock here and pore over the archives of my early days.  So I'm starting a new series (maybe) that will help those future fans (who truly are the imaginary readers I reference so often) get to know the real ellen--because you know, I've been doing such a first-rate job of not talking about myself up until now.  And perhaps, some of you who are actually acquainted with me will still learn something from these "little known facts."

LKF2:  I feel morally superior about most aspects of my driving.

Maybe you already know this about me, but I'm considering this a little known fact because I didn't know it about myself until today maybe.  I was sitting at a stop sign at River Market Avenue & 2nd Street lamenting, as I've done millions of times in the past fourteen years, that Arkansans don't understand the basic principles of the four-way stop, and I realized just how condescending I am about other drivers. 

Four-way stops are not rocket science, but through my years as an Arkansas transplant, I've been shown time and again that no one in Arkansas really wants to follow the rules.  Arkansas drivers love to wave people on ahead of them instead of taking their turns.  I guess they're trying to be nice, but it's just stupid.  I have watched cars try to out-wave each other to the point that the fourth car at the intersection will get fed up and take their turn.  This behavior also breeds the sort of driver that assumes you're going to wave him on so he'll pause briefly and then take his turn no matter who got there first.  Years of experiencing that has made me extra-careful, so I generally give my stop an extra second or two just to be sure that others are going to stop which leads to my absolute least favorite four-way stop driver:  the guy who gets there after me and still feels the need to wave me on--as though he's allowing me the opportunity to take the turn that was mine all along.  And because I do go ahead--because it was my turn--it seems as though I'm playing along with his little game.  And then I want to hit someone.  The rules of the four-way stop are logical and work for a reason.  They represent one of those instances in life that I love--when following the rules is simple and expedient and beneficial to all. So when I witness Arkansans behaving badly at four-way stops, I don't just think they're too stupid to figure it out, I think they're breaking the rules because they can't be bothered to see the logic and benefit behind it.  Essentially, I judge them all over the place.

My feelings of moral superiority don't stop at there.  I judge speeders, folks who cut recklessly across multiple lanes of traffic, people who pass on the right, drivers who brag about their drivings skills as though that gives them permission to disobey the rules of the road.  People who behave implicitly as though rules don't apply to them make me crazy in all situations, and since I follow the rules, clearly I'm a better person.  Right?  Aren't I? 

I never claim to be a good driver.  But I've always maintained that being aware that I'm not an excellent driver has made me more cautious, more attentive, more willing to submit to traffic laws, etc.  In essence, believing I'm not a good driver makes me a better driver.  So I get to experience another sense of superiority for acknowledging that I'm not in complete control of what happens out on the road and driving with that more realistic mindset.

Plus since I got the hybrid, I get to relish the fact that the choices I make while driving  result in a better fuel economy and probably preserve the earth for the children and grandchildren of all those gas-guzzling reckless drivers out there.  You're welcome, ingrates. 

*****Jerky blogger's note:  I had no idea I was going to use this series as a forum for so much complaining.  But I'm discovering that so much of my life is an open book that it's difficult to find little known facts that aren't about the secret ways that I hate everyone and everything.  Oh, well.  I'm still optimistic that someday I'll find an LFK  of which I can actually be proud.*****

trying to have a come apart

I know the overriding characteristic of my writing here is sophistication, so this may come as a surprise to friends of the blog, but I come from a rural background.  I grew up living eight miles outside of a town of roughly 1700 people.  We had one county school, and I graduated in a class of about fifty-two.  Not only is my hometown as podunk as they come, I come from an ancestry that is a mixture of Kentucky hill people and Tennessee dirt farmers.  Because education has been a fairly high priority in my family for two or three generations now, I can largely pass for a mostly normal, non-hick person.  Most of the time I'm even allowed to forget about this ridiculously country accent I have.  But every so often, I find myself in a situation that can only be summed up in the dialect of my youth; some quaint, down home saying comes out of my mouth, and I embrace my true self.  Yesterday was one of those days:

I'm trying to have a come apart.

My moma says this, and I have no idea where she learned it, but it basically means that someone is losing it or falling all to pieces.  Typically when she says it, she means that the person is overreacting to whatever particular circumstances are causing the "come apart."  It's the sort of behavior that Jess would describe as being dramatic.  One who is "trying to have a come apart" is upset or frustrated or tired or sick or feeling put upon and wants everyone to know about it and feel sorry.  There is nothing shy or retiring or unassuming about trying to have a come apart.  In short, I was made for trying to have a come apart.

But yesterday's come apart was so big that it was in my head all day.  I've been completely aware through the whole ordeal that I'm overreacting, but that seemed to have absolutely no bearing on the come apart.  And now I want to relive the whole mess so you all can sympathize with me, imaginary readers.  It's just the sort of thing we come-aparters like to do.  Bear with me in my attention-starved, persecuted existence.

You know those people who have managed to make it to adulthood with no major dental work:  they get their check-ups every six months, have never had a cavity, never wore braces, and can leap tall buildings in a single bound?  Well, I'm not one of those people.  The six to eight teeth you can see when I smile are the best I've got and worth at least half of what my long-suffering moma paid my orthodontist, but the rest of my mouth is big ol' mess.  My bottom teeth stayed straight until I lost my second set of retainers at about the same time my lower wisdom teeth began pushing diagonally through my gums.  I've got fillings galore, and one crown that replaced a cracked tooth.  I've never had a root canal, but I suspect it's just a matter of time.  So going to the dentist to have two small cavities filled as I did first thing Monday morning is barely a blip on my radar.  A couple of weeks ago, I had to go to the dentist to get a filling replaced because I had an old one that just fell out.  They discovered these two new cavities then and a third on the other side that we'll deal with next week.  (Apparently I hadn't been to the dentist in nearly three years.  Oops).  When I was there for that, he had to drill just a tiny bit to smooth things out where he was going to put the new filling.  He gave me the shot, which is always a little unpleasant and left me to go numb for a few minutes.  When he came back to drill, I wasn't deadened enough, but by the time I could communicate that, he was done with the drilling.

So fast forward to today when he gives me one shot on top and one on bottom that makes my eyes water like a faucet.  He goes away for a few minutes, and comes back to start drilling.  Again, I can feel what's going on, and it's not pleasant.  He stops pretty quickly this time and remembers that he's had to give me extra shots before and gives me another shot up top and another in the bottom for good measure.  Then he starts back to drilling immediately without giving them any time to take affect.  I'm no expert, so maybe that's not necessary for everyone, but I think it would have helped because I could still feel it.  By the time I get him stopped the second time, he's done drilling on top.  So I take a deep breath and get myself under control while he does the filling up top.

Then he starts drilling on the bottom, and surprise!  I can feel it too.  So he gives me shot #3 on the bottom (#5 overall).  I try to toughen up a little, but by this point my whole body is clenched, and once he starts drilling, the ongoing pain causes me to start sobbing, not crying.  The fact that I've got tears streaming down my face and I'm snubbing like a newborn doesn't get him to stop all at once, but when I start kicking my feet against the chair, he finally realizes that I'm serious.  I can't guarantee that I didn't reflexively bite him during this part either.  We had to stop for a minute while I mopped myself up with a tissue, and that's when I actually apologize for falling apart.  I was so embarrassed by myself.  So then he assures me that we're almost done, gives me shot #4 on the bottom and starts right back to drilling.  It was better at that point, but I could still feel way more than I think I should have.  Luckily, we were almost finished with drilling by that point, and I was able to keep my breathing under control though I continued to cry mostly silently until he was almost finished putting in the filling.  And of course, with six doses of numbing medicine in me, I had serious stroke victim face going on for several hours after.

Of course, as soon as I left I called my moma because I'm a giant baby--and because she too is no stranger to needing time for dental numbing shots to take effect.  When I'm trying to explain to her what happened, the horror of it comes back on me, and I cry like the giant baby I am in the Kroger parking lot (where I'd gone to buy ponytail holders because I left the house without one, and there was no way I was going to make it until eight p.m. with my hair just hanging around being annoying).  So I let Kroger soothe me until I realized that it was making me hungry, and I was afraid if I ate anything I'd bit my tongue off and not feel it because of how numb I finally was.  So after an errand at the bank, I went to work.  I gave Lisa only the very briefest summation of my dental trauma (you're jealous that she got the short version, aren't ya?) and went to my desk to start work and take my mind off the whole ordeal.

And that's when I had my third meltdown of the day.  I had an email waiting on me where a person in another department chastised me for something that I still maintain wasn't wrong, and she copied the email to my entire department, my two most immediate supervisors and two other unrelated departments, in effect scolding me in front of a couple dozen colleagues and blowing a very minor joke out of proportion.  Now on a normal day this might have been worthy of a couple minutes stewing and complaining about the misunderstanding to my lovely supportive coworkers who were all mad on my behalf, but if you'll recall, I'm trying to have a come apart.  So I was completely mortified.  I'm still embarrassed when I think about it these many hours later.  And thanks to the remaining built-up dental tension, I called a work friend, cussed at him a little for the stupidity of the whole mess, and had my third crying jag.

The remainder of the day was tear-free, but it was still touch and go at a few odd moments along the way.  For those keeping score, my mouth started aching as soon as feeling started coming back, and it's still store on Tuesday morning as I put the finishing touches on my completely self-indulgent rant.

But that, my friends, is what's known as trying to have a come apart.  While I don't wish a similar situation on you, I hope you get the chance to use it in a sentence one day soon.

little known fact #1

I'm 98% certain that everyone who regularly reads this blog actually knows me.  But sometimes I like to dream of a time when I'm famous for these ramblings and folks will flock here and pore over the archives of my early days.  So I'm starting a new series (maybe) that will help those future fans (who truly are the imaginary readers I reference so often) get to know the real ellen--because you know, I've been doing such a first-rate job of not talking about myself up until now.  And perhaps, some of you who are actually acquainted with me will still learn something from these "little known facts."

LKF1:  It makes me crazy when speakers, writers, preachers, etc. define a word as a part of their speech/essay/sermon.  Serious pet peeve. (Also I hate the term pet peeve--you can consider that a little known fact bonus.)

You know what I"m talking about, don't you, imaginary readers?  Someone starts with a line such as
"Webster's Dictionary defines dog as 'a highly variable domestic mammal closely related to the gray wolf ' . . ." and then spends the next twenty minutes explaining that there's so much more to dogs than that.  Of course, there's more to a dog--or any thing, concept, idea, emotion, or action--than a definition can contain.  Words and what they represent don't exist in a vacuum.  Everything exists in context--every word, or every important word has a connotation.

And no one ever defines words that actually need a definition.  No one's out there giving speeches that begin with the definition of propinquity (in fact, I find the lack of use of propinquity to be a real tragedy). Unless one's central point revolves around a word which is outside the regular vocabulary of one's listeners/readers, defining a word is patronizing. 

This device just seems like a cop-out to me, as though the writer/speaker doesn't know how to begin.  When that's due to inexperience, I am much more forgiving than when it's someone who should know better.  It feels so formulaic--like a example introduction that someone picked off a list in the fifth-grade and has been using ever since.  It might work for an eleven-year-old, but it's just not okay for an adult. 

I have a blog post in me right now that I can't get started.  I've worked with a few different openings, and I haven't found a smooth transition yet, so yesterday I decided I could do that defining the word thing that people sometimes do.  I got as far as looking up the word, and that's when I realized how pompous and annoying I find it.  So you won't see that type of intro around here any time soon.

******Possibly offensive and definitely insecure blogger's note:  If any of my faithful friends/fellow bloggers have done this before, I promise I haven't judged you as harshly as it may seem.  I didn't have anyone in mind when I wrote this, and I still love you, even if you do this.  Additionally, I'll make sure that my next little known fact is not so negative.******

So . . . did you know that about me?

haikus

From the workplace:

Too busy with talk,

TV and cooking but no work

Quack-a-teria

 Am I just touchy

Or is the world full of punks?

Stop being needy.

Construction sounds like

building eating itself. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh!

It's a library.

Playing on Webkinz

It's for a program, honest.

Makes me love my job.

Cutest kids ever

pass by the desk but parents . . .

They make me crazy.

blogligations

Sometimes I like to talk about the history of my blog like it's been around forever.  But mostly I realize that I'm just some upstart who hasn't been doing anything for very long and who doesn't do anything with enough consistency to talk about the history of this blog.  So if I stumble into talking that kind of nonsense, please ignore me.  You probably already were.

So in my vast blogging experience, I've learned that the process of starting and maintaining a blog is not as simple as registering a blogger account and spouting off a few opinions (later I'm going to devote a paragraph or seven to the whole "opinion" thing).  For me, the decision to blog is primarily very personal.  I need an outlet.  I've got lots of thoughts in my head.  Better out than in, I (and Shrek) always say.  I have this tendency to narrate my life, probably because I'm a fiction reader, and when things around me are moving slowly, I edit the previously narrated bits.  And it's not just straight narration, which is not the sort of thing that would carry over into a blog anyway . . . It's exposition about thoughts I'm having or experiences or memories.  Long before I started posting here, I was writing something in my head.  I can't believe I just admitted that.  Freak flag:  check.

So a lot of the stuff that goes on here is really just for me--to get it out of my head or to give me a place for some true editing of all these words.  That's why I have so many drafts of posts that never actually show up for public consumption.  Some things don't pan out, but so far, I'm keeping them in case they grow up to be something better later.  But if all I was looking for was an outlet, I could keep a journal.  That does appeal to me in some ways because I love physically writing things.  Add a mild handwriting obsession to the crazy that is me.  And journaling vs. blogging would give me more freedom to let out all my thoughts.  Because no matter how real I keep it or how transparent I claim to be, this blog o'mine is far from the unvarnished truth.  There's a ton of censoring that goes into everyday communication, and that's true of what goes on here as well.  Quite a lot is going unsaid because it's better or safer or something.  And really, no one would want to read me unfiltered.  Potentially, I can see that an open forum for my every rant isn't necessarily what's best for me anyway.  Better out than in, yes, but often better to not give anger and negativity such a foothold that a rant is necessary.

Clearly, I've made my point that I'm neurotic and self-centered, so before this turns into a love song to Ellen, let me tell you that blogging is also about you, imaginary reader.  Because I didn't choose to keep a journal . . . I chose to write to you.  Now I'll be honest and tell you that part of that is conceit, assuming that anything I want to say is worth reading to other people, and part of it is the voyeuristic nature of society.  But having an audience, imaginary or otherwise, takes blogging out of my head.  I have someone to consider, which streamlines my rambling occasionally and directs my thoughts often.  I'm writing for me, but I want you to be here too.  And I want to do something that will bring you back.  My Google Analytics addiction is proof enough that I care that you're here and what you're doing here.

The point I'm belaboring here is that blogging is a thumbs-up kind of experience for me.  I get to write, and I feel like I'm providing an occasional amusing diversion to the teeming masses.  Go me(at)!  But (and you know there was a but coming, right?) sometimes the pressure of blogging is really more than I bargained for.  Stupid, self-inflicted pressure, but pretty real, nonetheless.  Yesterday I realized that I'd only done ten posts in March, and a couple of those were short little duds anyway.  I felt guilty about that.  I haven't done a project 4:4 post all month (primarily because I haven't read my dailies all month).  I can't decide if I should feel more guilty about being so behind on the Bible or the fact that my behind-ness deprives my loyal fans here of some blog-fodder.  I'm not reading books and continuing the "year in books" series, but I've already expressed enough guilt over that.  And my slow trickle of other ideas is fairly dry.  I'm feeling like a failure.  Whoever had three and a half months in the pool should collect.  I'm not saying that this is the end of the opinions.  But at this point, it's feeling much more like an obligation than a joy.  And that stinks for all of us.

And since I mentioned "opinions" again, let me tell you that I hate the name of this blog.  Why did I pick it?  It sounds like I'm some know-it-all jerk who's going to choose a topic that doesn't really concern me in the real world and tell you all what to think about it.  Well, I am a know-it-all jerk, but I tend to stay away from hot topics or telling people what to think about things that matter.  On the other hand, I do have a lot of opinions and ideas and rules about silly stuff, things that don't matter, and I feel like this blog is chock-full of those ridiculous opinions.  So maybe it's appropriate. 

Any direction that this post had was lost long ago.  Apologies, imaginary readers.  Let me sum up for those still searching through the mire of my thoughts for a point:  today blogging gives me a frowny face.  But I have hope in my own narcissism, and so should you. 

*****Uncertain blog author's dilemma:  Should I have called this post "blobligations" instead of "blogligations."  Is it even clear what I'm trying to say?  I want to be cool and confident enough to let it stand and have you get it or feel inadequate because you don't get it, but my inadequacies rule the day.*****

mission accomplished

Lately I've been having trouble accomplishing things.  It's come through here in the blog, as my post frequency has slowed, and I've got something like five drafts of partial posts that I can't seem to finish.  It's come through in my reading life, as one of those post drafts will recount in too much detail if I ever get it finished.  I haven't knitted much since the snow days when I finished that baby hat.  My house is a mess, perhaps even more than usual.  And even though I'm moving all my possessions to a new place later this month, I've done almost nothing to prepare for that. 

The one thing that I have been accomplishing lately has been mentioned a couple times here, and I'm proud to report to you today, imaginary readers, that I can cross it off my list.  After countless hours wasted in front of my laptop, I got caught up on Lost.

*******SPOILER ALERT: If you continue reading, you may encounter plot points from the first five seasons and the first few eps of season six.  I won't even begin to put myself through figuring out how to write this spoiler-free.********

Honestly, I'm still not sure exactly how I feel.  This past weekend, when I was only a couple of episodes into season 5, I was at work which meant I could only think about Lost instead of watching it.  I tried to really pin myself down about why I had gotten so tired of it and quit watching.  The only thing I've ever been able to articulate about it is that the show got stupid.  I still stand by that.  The crazy physicist and the temporal displacement and the island-moving just took things too far.  My suspension of disbelief was stuck back in Jacob's cabin with Jack's dead dad and the smoke monster, and I couldn't take any more ridiculous.  When I forced myself past the ridiculous this time, I found more crazy waiting for me, but maybe, just maybe, it did redeem itself a bit.

My favorite thing about the show has always been the characters, their backstories, their personal agendas, and all the "coincidences" of their pre-island lives.  Sayid and Jack are my faves, but I love nearly everyone.  And even with those that aren't my favorites, I can appreciate all the work that the show has done creating these people and showing us their lives and flaws and motivations.  They're seriously well-drawn characters--they make me care, perhaps more than is strictly healthy when we're talking about fictitious folk here.  So the more the show moved towards the island as a character, the less interested I have become.  Plus my innate nosiness could only survive so many years without answers before I had to make a break.  And Ben Linus irks me, though I appreciate that someone has to be the antagonist.


But I realized something more on Saturday before I was caught up, and perhaps it's the real reason I got so fed up.  Everyone's miserable, always.  Perhaps more accurately, Sayid's miserable always, and Jack's miserable, except for those two or three scenes in a season four flash forward when he and Kate and Aaron are playing house, before she does the favor for Sawyer and he gets hopped up on pills.  And I guess I could only tolerate three and a half seasons of abject misery before I got tired of it all, and I had to quit watching to save myself from being miserable too.  Rewatching it this time has been easier because I haven't had to wait a week or through an eight month hiatus to find out if these characters that I learned to love back in 2005 ever catch a break.

Now that I'm caught up again and have seen the twenty-four episodes that aired since I quit the show, I still don't know exactly how I feel about it.  I think the focus has shifted back to the characters more, which is good.  But the misery is still alive and well and beating everyone up all the time.  Poor John Locke.  Poor Sayid.  Poor Sawyer (who, by the way, I'm never going to call James).  They make my heart hurt.  And I have questions streaming from my pores about the "flash sideways." 


I know I'll be able to finish out this final season now.  But let me promise you now that if the ending is as vague and hopeless as I am afraid it may be, I will be so sorry I ever let myself care, and I'll think twice before trusting J.J. Abrams again.

On the bright side, now that this catch-up session is complete, maybe I can accomplish things in my life once more--but perhaps only after I kick the stupid cold that decided to attack me on Sunday.

too cold for responsible journalism

I had a brilliant plan for tonight.  Jess is gone to be in a wedding in Searcy this weekend, so I had decided to put off kitchen cleaning and de-Christmasing the apartment until tomorrow or Saturday in favor of starting either of the two books I need to crack open, being online and ready to take Pioneer Woman's 90s movie quiz when it went live, doing today's project 4:4 reading, and maybe watching Ugly Betty and Scrubs episodes from earlier in the week.  I had a fast dinner mapped out in my head, so that I wouldn't lose the whole night to being in the kitchen, and nothing was going to keep me at work past six.  And if all those things went as planned, I'd have some time at the end of the evening to blog about my reading project progress.

Things started to head south at work.  I did a Wii game day this afternoon and instead of packing it in at 5 when the kiddos left, I tried out a couple of the sports on our brand-new copy of Wii Sports Resort.  That wasn't frivolous or selfish.  I have to help kids with games all the time, and I needed to know how some of them worked.  Plus there's an unlocking element to some of the game features.  I was playing for the kids.  I also managed to have a mostly intelligent, big decision-making conversation while I was learning to throw a frisbee.  And it's not like I played for hours, maybe 20 minutes.  But then a couple of our teen volunteers came in, and I let them play for a while because I'm a sucker for courteous teenage boys.  Then after I finally kicked them out and with the competent help of Cory the page (whose pagely awesomeness deserves a blog post all its own--in a totally professional way), I decided on a new Wii storage schematic that will eventually simplify my life, but just took up time today.  And there was a fair amount of gathering of personal belongings once I made it back to the workroom, since I was deciding what to leave and what to take of the decorate-your-own-cupcake supplies from Lisa's birthday celebration today (a complete success, in case you were wondering).  So I guess it's actually borderline amazing that I got all of that accomplished by 6:45.  Those 45 minutes shouldn't have broken down the plan anyway.  Leaving work late is not my problem.

I realized when I got home that I hadn't factored in some time spent figuring out if I could fix the non-working dryer that Jess reported before she left.  The answer, curious reader, is of course not.  I did follow over-the-phone instructions from the Popster enough to know that it's not a breaker problem, and I'm quite certain it's plugged in.  The rest is beyond me.  Good thing doing laundry tonight was just a good idea rather than a desperate need.  And at this point in my evening I'm too tired, grumpy, and cold to feel guilty about not cleaning my kitchen, so the rest of my evening was salvageable.  A broken dryer, while frustrating, is not my problem.

Then the cold set in.  Perhaps, unless you've been living in a cave, you've heard that it's a bit chilly here (and lots of other places too).  And though the no-heat challenge has ended in our house, we've been keeping the thermostat set right around 60 and layering.  It is officially too cold for that.

Here are some other things for which it is too cold:
1.  reading--holding a book and turning pages means uncovered hands
2.  fast-forwarding through dvr-ed commercials--again with the uncovered hands
3.  computer usage--I never thought I'd live to see the day that physical discomfort could overcome my internet addiction, but that's the world we live in now.
4.  remembering stuff--I might have convinced myself to stay on the computer longer if the mind-numbing cold hadn't made me completely forget about that 90s movie quiz.
5.  staying awake--I finally lost the bone-deep chill that set in during my walk from the library to the far-away parking garage, and once I was cozy, sleep was too powerful to fight.  I would eventually wake up around eleven feeling too alert to switch from warm and snuggly on the couch to warm and snuggly in bed, which is why you're reaping the benefits of this rambling rant tonight.  You're welcome.

But that brief stint in alertness is fading fast, and my uncovered fingers aren't nearly so toasty as they were when I woke up, so (count your blessings, dear reader) the self-pity and incoherent mutterings end here for tonight.

meet my lost christmas album: christmas with bing crosby & frank sinatra

This album is "lost" in a couple of ways.  It's the missing college-era cd that I couldn't blog about on Monday.  I still haven't found it, which makes me worry that I discarded it in the last cd purge I did.  Don't think me heartless--there are very solid reasons for not owning it.  Plus I realized today at work that I had the songs on my old computer, so they're not completely lost (Until a few minutes ago when I fired it up to listen to Bing & Frank, my old computer had been sitting unused and ignored since I got my laptop a month ago).  Eventually the music on the old computer is going to need to come off it and onto the new computer or that external hard-drive I've been eying with my amazon gift certificate in hand. (Do you know the part where I won a $75 amazon gift certificate in a contest on thePioneerWoman.com?  Because I did, and it was awesomely timed, in that I won it the week after I'd placed a huge amazon order of Christmas presents, so now I have to use it on myself.  Score.)
So what was I talking about?  Christmas music?  Hmmm . . .
Oh, the other reason this cd is lost is that I can't find accurate cover art for it anywhere.  I found a couple cds online with the same creative title, but the art isn't just right, and for the ones with track lists, they're not the right ones in that respect either.  I can describe the cover, if you want.  It's white with a red border and individual pictures of Bing & Frank, and has the name of the cd on it somewhere.  I'm amazed I can remember that much detail.  But I can't direct you to a website for you to purchase your own copy, once you're inspired by my insightful song critiques because I can't find it.  Sorry.
It had been a while since I listened to this one, so it's been playing while I've typed the above paragraphs, and I'm still not feeling too guilty for misplacing this one.  It's not that the songs are bad--it's a standard mix of Santa songs and Jesus songs, mostly songs I've got in some form or other on other cds.  The problem with this cd has always been the sound quality.  I didn't buy this one--although based on the artists involved and the song selection, I would have, so I can't fault the person who gave it to me.  Did you ever record songs from the radio onto cassettes back in the day?  It sounds kinda like that, only maybe it sounds more like you had a handheld tape recorder that you were holding up to a record player.  It's a shame.  But given the top-notch quality of my other Christmas albums, it's just not worth it to me usually to listen to this one, though it does contain the only recording I possess of the ultimate version of "White Christmas."
Anyway, I'm not going to go too in-depth on the track-by-track here.  I've discussed most of these songs before--or I will be on future albums.  I've covered my feelings for Sinatra singing Christmas songs.  I've made no secret of my adoration of Bing and a certain snow-themed Christmas tune.  This won't be the last time I have occasion to talk about these two in relation to my Christmas soundtrack.  So I'm going to run through the playlist here, lament the sound quality once or twice more, and call this one finished.
1.  "The Snowman" This is the one unfamiliar song on the album.  It's less than two minutes long and not noteworthy in any particular way. (Speaking of "noteworthy," is anyone else watching the show The Sing-Off on NBC this week?  Noteworthy is/was one of my favorite groups on there.)
2.  "Jingle Bells" Brief and tinny-sounding, though the song itself is charming and lively, just as it should be.
3.  "Deck the Halls" blah, blah, blah, bad sound, some background singers here.  Nothing special.
4.  "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" I used to absolutely hate this song because of some childhood trauma.  I don't mind it as much anymore, but it'll never be a favorite.  I can't think of another cd I own that has this song.  That doesn't break my heart.
5.  "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" I may not have this one anywhere else either.  I kinda like it--makes me think of It's a Wonderful Life, especially this version that has a group singing it--not just Bing & Frank.  I haven't watched George Bailey yet this year.  Maybe if I ever get around to wrapping presents, I can take care of that.  I should watch White Christmas while I'm at it.  Then it will really be Christmas.
6. "O Come All Ye Faithful"  Mac loves for Bing to sing this song in Latin.  It's all English here.  Not bad, but for the sound quality.
7.  "It Came upon a Midnight Clear"  I like this one.  Very slow and stately, but man, it's practically static-y, and that part's not so cool.
8.  "Away in a Manger"  I like this song better than this normally. 
9.  "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town"  It's definitely not a Springsteen version--it's not even a Michael Bolton version.  This song is going to appear at least twice more on my Christmas soundtrack.  Better not waste all my words on it here.
10.  "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"  I only have two versions of this song in my collection, and I can't wait to talk about the other one--which means I don't need to talk about this one, though if I could just briefly mention the poor sound quality on this album once again, I'd feel like you were getting your money's worth.
11.  "The Christmas Song"  There's something annoying going on with this version.  I can't even talk about it because it makes me not even like Frank & Bing, and I don't need those thoughts in my head.
12.  "White Christmas" Oh, Bing.  It's your song.  Sing your song.  I guess on the second time through, you can even let Frank sing too.  Then you can wish us all a merry Christmas at the end.  And I can die happy--or I could, except for the sound.  Too bad about that sound quality.
 
The end.  You're welcome.  See you tomorrow or whenever.