last chance to make me a millionaire

Last month I got a notice from amazon that they were breaking up with me.  Seems the Wal-Mart State has made a new online tax law, and amazon is dumping all of its Arkie associates as a result.  I'm disappointed, but the world won't end.  I'm not going to starve or anything from the loss of that income.  I've made a couple hundred dollars from them (well, really from the imaginary readers who followed links from this site and bought stuff from amazon) in the past year, and I'd be lying if that wasn't nice (especially the $130 I got all at once for the December referrals).  Gosh, isn't it tacky to talk about money?  Sorry.

I really am thankful to those of you who've indulged my little money-making scheme for the past year or so.  You're nice people, and as a result, I know you'll want to do me one last favor:

My last day as an amazon associate is next Saturday the 23rd, so if you're planning a major purchase in the near future, why not get it done this week, so I can rake in one last fat check?

And if you're not planning on a major purchase in the near future, maybe you'll want to buy me something as a consolation gesture for my impending lack of completely unearned and undeserved income.  Might I suggest:

or

or

or

or even

Even if you're not generous enough to reward me for doing nothing, you can follow those links to get to amazon and get your own junk, and I'll settle for my measly 4-15%.

five things

Five things that make me happy:
(About a month ago some fb friend talked of making a list of 50 things to be happy about.  I thought I might try it, got as far as what I ate for lunch, and couldn't finish.  I'm going to do better this time--but 50 is still too ambitious for me.)

5.  Well, to honor the original list:  grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches.  It was a really great lunch.

4.  Rainy days.  Everyone I know seems to suffer from season affective disorder, but I am the opposite.  I love clouds and rain and cold.  I especially like when it rains at work because we're surrounded by windows, and I love the watching the sky drama. And since it's ridiculously hot here now, sweltering, miserable, August-style hot, I'm remembering our storm-riddled, mild-temperatured spring with all sorts of fondness. (Well, not the devastating tornado part of it, obviously.)

3. Singing.  Various factors have kept me from my church lots for the past couple of months, but last Wednesday I managed to be there for an entire service for the first time in forever.  There was this spectacularly transcendent moment when we were singing "How Great Is Our God" that managed to restore my spirit in ways that I didn't even realize were needed.  I'm going to remember not to forget to sing.

2.  FitFlops.  My moma bought me these.  I mentioned to her sometime in passing that I thought I would buy some this summer.  The truth is I'm getting too old to wear cheap shoes all the time, and I have long admired Michelle's FitFlops.  So she bought them for me out of the blue because she's so precious.  They're delightfully comfortable, and I don't even mind that they make me even taller.  Typically I don't like shoes that make me taller, but these are great.  Thanks, Moma!

1.  Family.  I couldn't decide if it was even fair to include the soul-filling, constant-comfort kind of happy that is my family in a list where I talk about sandwiches and footwear, but it would be an insult to omit them and the laughter, the belonging, the delight that people I've known my whole life can still surprise me with their strengths and kindnesses. They are mine, and my cup is full and overflowing just from being theirs.

Five things that make me nervous:

5.  Grad school.  It's happening this fall, I guess, though I haven't been officially accepted yet.

4.  Summer Reading Club. It's the most intense seven weeks of my entire working year--plus the even more than most intense six or eight weeks getting ready for it.  Somehow it always sorts itself out, but in the meantime it slowly sucks my will to live, or at least my will to blog. (Only five and a half more weeks to go!)

3.  Awkward situations in movies.  Have you noticed this thing in every comedy made in the past few years wherein all the humor relies on social awkwardness or characters who create ridiculously embarrassing situations for themselves?  It seriously makes me squirm.  I can't take it.  I'm a mess.  I know I shouldn't get so invested in stories and fake people, but it's a thing I do, and it's nerve-wracking.

2.  Tweeting.  Maybe I haven't told you that I'm on the twitters (@sellensam if you want to follow me), but I've been tweeting with some regularity for a few months, and I still find it intimidating.  I think I need to stop following funny people and that will ease the tension.

1. The state of my DVR.  I started falling behind on tv in April and though I've taken some time here and there to try and catch up, there are still two or three shows that have been over for weeks that I can't seem to finish, and the So You Think You Can Dance episodes are piling up.  That's really not the kind of show one should put off, and yet I can't seem to sit down and watch.  In the meantime, the free space percentage on the DVR shrinks daily.


Five things that aren't going my way: 

5.  FHDM has never been a more appropriate name for him, but sadly he's never going to be my future husband.  Donald Miller is engaged to someone who's not me.  I'm sure she's a lovely person as he recently tweeted that she's going to Africa to help children, so I can't even hate her.  So I'm once again taking applications for my future husband.  Fairly minimum job requirements:  must be funny, literate, a multi-millionaire, and willing to let me have my way always.

4.  My Grams is not doing well.  I've not known whether/how to communicate this to pretty much everyone, but how to deal with it on the blog has been especially confusing.  Ultimately, it's a family matter, and while I'm not hesitant to broadcast family stuff normally, I've just gone back and forth on how much I want to talk about this.  But here's the deal.  She's in liver failure, and she's at home and in hospice care.  And she has good days and bad days, and it's not any fun.  On the other hand, I'm going to see her two or three times a week, and that's been mostly nice.  I'm seeing a lot of my family which I also enjoy.  I have a lot of feelings about it, and for once in my spill-my-guts life, I am doing a terrible job of knowing how to talk about it.  So apparently I'm going to do so awkwardly.  Thanks for not judging me too harshly for the awkward. And thanks for the prayers that have been sent up and will continue to be sent up on behalf of her and my family.

3. My house refuses to be trained to become self-cleaning.  I know it could do this--if only it would apply itself.  But alas, I come home nightly, and the same messes I left that morning are there, taunting me.

2.  I fell off the healthy-eating wagon in April, and I can't seem to find the discipline, energy, or interest to get back on. 

1.  I know this five things was my idea, but now I can't think of a fifth go here, and I've ruined the lists.  I guess that could count as something that's not going my way.


Five things I've learned lately:

5.   You can't force funny.  A couple of weeks ago, cousin, scholar, theologian, #1 blog fan suggested a humorous treatment for a topic I was considering writing.  If I could have pulled it off, it would have been perfection (so perfect that I'm keeping it in reserve for another time), but as I tried to write it, it just wasn't funny, and nothing I did was helpful.  So I stopped throwing good humor after bad.

4.  Don't get a haircut without a plan.  I've been growing my hair out for two and half years.  And then suddenly it was a mess.  I never wanted to fix it, it was so long it didn't even make a cute ponytail anymore, and it was smothering me in the oppressive Arkansas heat.  So I decided to get a haircut last week, but I didn't pick a style or find a picture or make a plan, and as a result, I have a mess on my head.  The official length is pretty much what I wanted, but my usual long layers that I need to thin out the ends and make them lay nicely turned into short layers that pretty much guarantee my hair's going to flip and be insane and never lay nicely.

3.  My tastebuds routinely make a fool of me.  Though I've always claimed to not be a picky eater, there have always been certain foods that I didn't like and would never eat.  Lately, I've had opportunities to re-try some of those foods or go hungry, and what I've found is that I like pretty much everything.  Fish is still iffy, and oatmeal is questionable, but lima beans are my new best friend.  Go figure.

2. Sleep is important.  Okay, I knew this one, but lately I've been forcefully reminded.  My sleep pattern is off, and it makes me constantly late and occasionally irrational.  Boo.


1. I don't know everything.  Yeah, I knew this one too, but you can rarely tell by the way I act.  So recently I've been becoming more okay with not knowing everything, and though it's an adjustment, I think it's a welcome change.  I dare say it might eventually make me a better person.  Keep your eyes peeled for that.

my first foray into saturday confessions

My library friend Melissa does a linky party for her Saturday confessions every week, and today I'm bored and brave enough to join in the fun.







1.  I'm blogging at work.  I shouldn't be.  Shame, guilt, etc. (also no pictures because I'm not on my computer) which leads me to . . .

2.  It doesn't matter that I get a day off during the week when it happens, working on a Saturday puts me in the foulest of moods every time.  I'd like to blame my renegade on-the-clock-blogging to the foul mood, but I'd probably be loafing anyway, which leads me to . . .

3.  I need to think of something more positive.  No more grumbling . . . except for this.  I'm so mad at myself for the giant phone debacle.  I ordered a new phone on ebay on Thursday, but I haven't gotten it in yet.  I know this is a confession post, but I'm not telling you how much I spent on the replacement phone.  It's embarrassing.  Let's just say more than I paid for it the first time. I've been moving my sim card back and forth between the semi-functioning new phone and never-should-have-ditched-it-for-a-smart-phone old phone all week, which is a mess.  My new phone is on a FedEx truck somewhere in North Little Rock today which leads me to . . .

4.  I love tracking packages--or anything--online.  When you order from Domino's, they have an order tracker that tells you when you're pizza goes in the oven, who checks the order, when it gets into the car.  Since we moved, I've occasionally ordered from Domino's because we've had coupons and such, and they're so speedy.

5.  After Thursday, I wanted to take back anything I'd ever said about being good in hospital situations.  I went to see Grams at her rehab place, and she was having a really bad day.  It was so hard.  I fell apart on the way home, and then I didn't go see her last night even though my moma is there.  I had all these really logical excuses for why I didn't go, but I'd be lying if I said that how things were on Thursday didn't factor in to that decision.  I'm heading in that direction when I get off work tonight though.  Time to buck up, little camper.

6.  We're remodeling at the library, and there's a huge office upstairs that I'm coveting.  I don't know how many planets would have to align for me to get that office, but that motivation and the small butt-kicking I got from my Aunt Donna (who is known for her butt-kicking, but she rarely unleashes it on me, so it was some pretty powerful stuff) on Thursday all add up to applying to grad school for the fall, which leads me to . . .

7.  I'm scared of the GRE.  I used to be a standardized text rock star (not that it means anything), but the last standardized test I took was in 1996 (because I'm not counting the Praxis II).  I hear the Miller Analogies Test is easier and cheaper, so maybe I'm going to take that instead.

8.  I've become quite obsessed with twitter this week.  It makes me feel lame, and I've started following some folks this week who are so hilarious that they make me feel decidedly unfunny, but I sort of love it anyway.

9.  I was hungry a minute ago and had the option here at my desk to eat a 90 calorie chocolate chip cereal bar or a Dove truffle egg.  Betcha can't guess which one I chose.

I think that's quite enough keepin' it real for one day.  Pray for my Grams, if that's your sort of thing.  She could use it.

what i might have known if i hadn't quit reading the bible

Friends of the blog will recall that my church was involved in a year-long Bible reading project last year, and faithful readers will still be disappointed that I got behind and quit reading in April, somewhere around the life of David.

Apparently if I'd stuck to project 4:4 long enough to get to Proverbs, I could have saved myself a heap of trouble this week.  Last night I posted a self-congratulatory description of my handiness and a recounting of the disassembling, repair, and reassembling of my phone.  Once I got the phone all back together I received and sent texts, played Angry Birds, and checked my email.  Everything was running in tip-top shape, and I was more than a little smug about my triumph over one more mechanical piece of my life . . . until this morning when my pride went-eth before destruction.

I was trying to call in to work to warn them about how massively I had overslept and how that would affect my arrival time, but every time I hit the speed dial, I couldn't hear the phone ringing or anyone picking up.  A couple of times when I tried, the screen went black.  I was attempting to drive down the road at the time, so I didn't do too careful an examination, but I knew that wasn't a good thing.  I supposed that I had put the internal earpiece in backwards, as it had been a tricky thing last night.  My earpiece didn't look exactly like the one in the video, so when it came time to reassemble, I could figure out which side was up.  The piece fit into the hole in four different ways, so I chose the one that seemed to make the most sense.  Clearly that wasn't it.

I did discover that if I could put the phone on speaker that I was still able to talk on it, but I determined that when I got home tonight, I would take the phone apart once more and flip the earpiece.  This was mildly inconvenient for today, but I was still quite confident in my ability to get everything back in working order.  But my haughty spirit was about to meet its (down)fall.

I don't remember if I mentioned this last night, but a few of those pieces were clearly not intended to be popped in and out of place repeatedly, so I knew doing another invasive procedure on my phone could be dangerous.  I opened the phone (which I can do completely without the instructional video by this point) and flipped the piece in question and had to put the whole phone back together before I could power it up to try a call.  Jess was my lovely assistant for this portion of the project.  Even with the earpiece flipped, I couldn't hear anything, and the screen-going-black thing happened each time I tried to call, making it impossible to turn on the speaker phone. 

So I cracked the phone open once more to try the piece another way.  Same song, third verse.  I took a break (to avoid throwing the phone across the room) and looked up the prices of phones on ebay.  Eventually I attempted to make it work one final time.  At this point, I've cracked one of the plastic pieces near the power button/earpiece area, and I still can't hear anything through the normal earpiece.  Sometimes when I attempt to make a call, it goes to a black screen and only starts to respond again when it feels like it, and other times when I try, the screen acts just as I should, and I can put the phone on speaker. 

Clearly I can't function this way indefinitely.  The point of a phone is still to be able to call people, despite what may or may not be my addiction to Angry Birds.  If everyone in the world would just agree to text-only communication, this would be fine, but I'm related to most of the texting holdouts in the world, so that's just not going to work.  If I hadn't lost my charger to the old phone back in January, none of this would have ever happened.  In the meantime, I guess I'll charge up the old phone in the car and switch the sim card over to it when I'm out and about anyway.  But since my delightful couple of months with new phone has ruined me, I'll probably end up on ebay working on a replacement.

Stupid pride, stupid thinking I can fix things, stupid broken phone.  I know there are problems in the world far greater than the tiny potatoes of my phone, so I'll stop whining about this now.   But I urge my imaginary readers to learn from this cautionary tale.  Don't be dumb enough to think that a couple of tiny screwdrivers and a youtube video can turn you into a phone mechanic.  Nothing but trouble down that road.  Remember Proverbs and save yourself from heartache.

Three final disjointed bits of information:

1.  Someday I'm going to be sorry about wasting this particularly awesome blog title on this whiny, rambling post. 

2.  I had really interesting stuff planned for the blog this week, but the real-time drama of my broken phone has consumed us.  Sorry for that.  Someday soon you're going to see a particularly exciting completed craft project, read an insightful and poignant description of my spiritual growth during the Lenten season, and experience the most perfect batch of poetry ever.  Now I know you're dying for me to shut up about my phone and bring the awesome.

3.  If you need to communicate information to me in the next few days, might I suggest email? I haven't gotten around to dismantling my laptop yet, so it should be safe.

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. 

when you're not here

Imaginary readers, if the infrequency of my posts has you aimlessly wandering the interwebs like a sheep without a shepherd, your lives an empty shell bereft of purpose and meaning and entertainment desperate for even the merest shadow of my wit, humor, or charm, dry your tears on this bit of news.  My second best brother is now blogging. 

I can't promise that he'll be be as funny as me or that his words will fill the void in your soul created by my neglect.  But genetically, he's as close as you're going to get to me in the blogging world, so check him out.

Apparently, today I was pompous.

if my blogger account were a twitter account

Lately it seems all I'm capable of stringing together are brief snippets more suitable to Twitter's 140 character limits rather than the robust and complex posts to which my faithful readers have become accustomed.  I had big plans for a specific Christmas post, but it was fairly time-consuming, and I ran out of Christmas season before I could devote the appropriate amount of time to its completion.  Maybe next year.

And my determination to complete that posting project coupled with a rather hectic holiday season derailed any good intention of taking one of those snippets and developing it into adequate blog fodder.  So since it's a new year and excuses are for losers, I'm going to roll with what I've got.  Today I present a post in tweet-sized chunks: thoughts to close the old year and kick off the new in 140 characters or less.

• I have no idea how I managed to do twelve posts between December 9th and 24th in 2009.  I could barely spell my name  in December 2010.
• Because I'm a shallow selfish girl, all I want to talk about are all the Christmas presents I got, but no one would enjoy that but me.
• I have a twitter account but no inclination to ever tweet.  I blame my stubborn insistence on using my phone only as a phone.
• If I tweeted, I'd retweet FHDM's plug for today's Resolution blog.  Worth the read.
• Speaking of  FHDM, I got my Blue Like Jazz associate producer t-shirt in the mail last week.  First gift from my soulmate.  Score.
• For the first time since 2005, I didn't place in the top two in my girls fantasy football league.  I came in fourth.  Lame.
• My moma's preacher says no one cares about the fantasy teams of others.  People listen so they can talk about their own teams. He's right.
• When I came home tonight, my freezer door was standing wide open.  No idea why.  I'm not blaming Jess.  Throwing away food is depressing.
• I just found an unopened bag of chocolate-covered pretzels.  I'm considering eating only the recommended serving size.  Think I can do it?
• I feel the need to brag about accomplishing mundane tasks that any normal person would be embarrassed to admit they'd left undone.
• My Christmas tree is still up, but I've only been home a day and spent most of it sleeping and at work.  I once took my tree down at Easter.
• I did not make anyone (including myself) cry at work today.  Some days it's the best outcome for which I can hope.
• Michelle got a fancy new camera for Christmas from my brother-in-law.  She's a good sharer.  I like her.
• If Jess reads this post, she will hate it.  She's anti-twitter.  Hey, she just walked by.  Hi, Jess.
• I have a story about my landlord that lots of readers already know.  I can't tell it without being insensitive with these character limits.
• At one point today I had approximately sixteen tabs open in my browser.  I have internet ADD.  Bad.
• I almost wrote about how cold my feet are-then I realized that I was in the tweet trap: talking about what doesn't matter as though it does.

That's when I knew it was time to quit.  And if you were waiting to hear about the pretzel outcome--I did indeed eat only one serving (eight measly--but delicious--pretzels).  It's good to be back.

happy birthday, blog o' mine

Has it really only been a year since my extreme hubris got the better of me, convincing me that people cared about reading my opinions?  Some days it feels like I've been doing this--or not doing this--forever.

And I know it's only been seven or eight posts since I took my imaginary readers down memory lane in my 100th post haikus, but milestones are important.  I'm a girl who loves traditions and nostalgia, and I'm not sure if the term nostalgia can really be applied to such recent events, but it's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

Fans of the blog may be aware that I occasionally post birthday blogs in honor of a random sampling of my friends and family.  There's very little rhyme or reason to who gets picked and who doesn't, which is a pretty shoddy way to do business.  Sorry about that, people who feel left out.

But in true birthday fashion, I'm going to tell you my five favorite things about the blog.  I considered doing my five favorite posts or something commemorating favorite comments, but the five general favorite things fits the birthday blog tradition more fully.  So here you go.

5.  I love the little monetary surprise that comes along with the blog's participation in the amazon associates program.  Faithful fans (or anyone who follows that link) will recall that I enrolled in the program in March, just because I'm greedy, and I think it's been fairly painless for us all.  Several of you, who I assume were going to shop at amazon anyway, follow links from my blog to the amazon site to place your orders.  When you do that, I get anywhere from 4-15% of your purchase price, just for referring you there.  Plus it's one more statistical report for me to pore over on a monthly basis.  In the seven months or so since I put the ads up on my site, I've probably made between $30 and $40 dollars, which seems ridiculously wonderful to me for the tiny amount of work that went into setting it up.  I'm banned from looking at my full Associate report right now because word on the street is that someone bought me a Christmas present from amazon through my site, but I can still go to the general account page to check on my balance for the month.  So far in December alone, I've earned $72 in referral fees.  Thank you!  I'm blown away by that amount, and I promise to do something ever so nice with my windfall in your honor.

4.  And since I mentioned statistics, I'll proclaim Google Analytics and its various measures of site traffic as another blogging favorite.  I know I've said this before, but it's insane how much satisfaction I get from knowing how many people come to the site and where they're from, what pages bring in the most visitors, the methods that folks use to find me, and the keywords searched that lead people to the opinions.  In the past few months, the keyword stats have been compromised because after I mentioned things that people googled to find me in a conversation, a couple of avid readers started testing what they could search to bring up the blog.  But Google Analytics fills up a very nerdy place in my heart.

3.  I love how the blog has often given me a sense of purpose and direction this year.  There have been countless ways in which I've come up short from the big resolutions to missed deadlines to time wasted on frivolities to the general disorganization of my life, but there have also been moments and instances when I've followed through and gotten some crap done just so I could share it here.  In a life severely lacking in motivation, I never guessed that this forum would provide a sense of accountability.  But it has.  I hope that this unexpected blessing continues to push me in the next year as well.  Feel free to help in that regard, imaginary readers.  Speaking of which . . .

2.  You.  Of course, I'm thankful, for you, not-so-imaginary readers, from the loyal fans to the casual readers who pass this way.  Without you, I'd have no Google Analytics to study.  I'd have no comments to read and enjoy and hold to my heart.  Without you, I'd just be talking to myself, and as much as I have and will continue to profess all sorts of self-love, if you weren't here reading what I'm writing, I'd be every kind of a loser.  I love that you're here reading these words, and I love that several of you will post a comment and encourage me to keep doing this.  I can say without hesitation that if my precious family and several close friends hadn't come along and created my little fan-base, I would have hung up my blogging hat months ago.  (Hmmm . . . now I want a blogging hat--maybe I'll use my $72 on that.)  And though I don't really think that any of my repeat readers are strangers, it's been nice for those who don't know me in real life to stop by and stay for a while too.  I feel like most of the time the ellen portrayed here in the blog falls into a neighborhood several miles south of likeable, so the fact that anyone sticks around is amazing and special to me.  My cup is full and running over from the blessing that is your presence here, dear readers.  Thank you.

1.  I love having a collection of my writing from the past year.  I know I've been spotty at times in keeping up with things, and in some ways, I thought that I'd have done something more or different.  But overall, I'm just thrilled that I've stuck around at all--that there are at least a few posts from each of the past twelve months.  I should be embarrassed to admit how often I got back and read older posts, but I feel no shame.  I love having a way to go back and review what's been going on in my life.  Often when I need to find an old post to link to something new I'm doing, I get caught up in reading old favorites.  I know it's painfully and ashamedly obvious that I'm completely self-absorbed already, so I'll go ahead and admit to you, that I think I'm a pretty great writer.  I don't love everything I've written here, and occasionally I'm shocked at how mundane the writing can be, but when I'm firing on all cylinders, I'm witty and eloquent and, dare I say, readable.  I never gave any thought to reading my own blog, but as it turns out, it's kind of a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday, ellen has an opinion!  Your name is still ridiculous, but I love you anyway.

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.

100 haikus (but not really)

Today's poems mark

my centennial blog post.

Let's celebrate me!

 Faithful fans have hit

almost fourteen thousand times

in less than ten months.

Lots of time wasted

on my rambling. Thank you for

stroking my ego.

 No more numbers talk.

Statistics aren't poetry 

though I love them so.

You keep coming back

even when I don't post much
because you love me.

You are good for me.

I need this validation--

whiny narcissist.

I'd hoped to make this
 post one hundred syllables
but I had more words.

I did consider
a hundred lines instead, but
can't divide by three.

A hundred haikus
seems beyond my skills which are
considerable.

But I will forge on
and see how many it takes
'til I've had enough.

I like the sound of
my own voice (or typing hands).
This could be a while.

Topics covered here

seem varied for your pleasure;

but in truth, for mine.

Christmas music to

abandoned project 4:4

to boring diaries,

the open letters
that led to my short-lived brush
with internet fame,

tv obsessions
to vacations with the fam
to crafty projects

to blogging soulmates,
the famous FHDM--
we're getting married.

I cry when I write

my five favorite things in

random birthday posts,

probably because
I devote valuable space
to another soul.

I haven't mentioned
my chocolate-covered pretzel
love lately.  My bad.

They're still my main squeeze,
but they haven't been on sale
since last December.

A little known fact:
I think I'm more interesting
than I truly am.

Maybe you'd learned that
in our time together here.
You're humoring me?


Now here's a shout-out
to some special faithful fans
who keep me going.

To cousin, scholar,
theologian, number one
blog fan, a thank you.

You've been telling me
to write more for years, and I
am glad I listened.

To my sweet moma,
who thinks everything I do
is perfect, thank you.

Because of your faith,
I'm the over-confident
braggart writing here.

For my siblings three
and the in-laws too, a thanks
for laughing with me,

for cheering me on,
and giving me the Handful.
They photograph well.

And to the Handful,
Pointer, Bird, Ring, Pinkie, Thumb,
thanks for being cute.

I know you don't read
the blog--and you still should not.
 I might use bad words.

And to the Popster,
who I once accused of not
reading my blog, thanks.

I'm touched that I rate
with Netflix watch it now and
your other dot coms.

For Rob-Bob, thank you
for pithy comments that make
my favorite lists.

To peeps like Hailey,
Mo and Beck and Martha too
your presence pleases.

Maybe other peeps
read the blog too, but they don't
leave me comments.

So, Peeps, if you are
among my faithful readers
I thank you as well.

To Cory the page,
who thinks I'm hilarious
in person or print,

I appreciate
your laughter though I know that
it is very cheap.

For Lacey who does not
comment but reads avidly,
you should drop a line.

To Bill, who comments
as himself now instead of
some celebrity,

thanks for stopping that.
Now learn to spell opinion.
Google will thank you.

And to Jess, who reads
on her phone and makes no comment
but talks to me live,

you listen to me
when I need a sounding board
and keep me writing.

I know there are more
(thanks, Google Analytics)
who read in silence.

Thank you for coming,

imaginary readers,

blogging for you thrills.

Here's to hundreds more!
I'll keep having opinions
if you'll keep reading.

*****Insecure blogger's
question:  Did I go too far?
Are haikus played out?

This blogger hopes not,
or I've just ruined it all.
Tell me I'm funny.*****

I have done my best
to remind you of the great
moments on the blog.

If I omitted
one of your favorite bits,
please chime in below.

 More talk about me
in the comment section here:
icing on the cake!

For those who don't count,
I made it to fifty-three
including this one.

the vacation diary: days ten through seventeen

Yes, I'm really still doing this.  I need to finish something in my life, and here's where I've taken my stand.  Judge away.  I have taken the liberty of combining the last eight days of vacation because honestly I remember very little at this point.

Highlights:

Day 10:  Most of my nearest and dearest departed for their homes on Labor Day.  Ring got to travel back with Michelle's crew instead of her own and spent a night at Nana's without her parents--the first time she's done that.  Pinkie and Thumb (and Susan) looked sad and uncertain about it all as they drove away without her, but I think it worked out fine (or if it didn't, no one mentioned it to me).  We did a bit more family hanging out on Monday and shared our Christmas cabin research with some of the aunts and cousins, where it was met with excitement.  After the last car had rolled out heading towards Kentucky, I headed home to become a vacation slug once more.  I'm pretty sure the Gilmore Girls were heavily involved.

Day 11:  It's all a blur of tv and internet and living in a cave of laziness, which means it was a successful day. 

Day 12:  I resolved on facebook to do at least one useful thing on Wednesday, but it took a while to get there with my standard morning of sleep, tv, and internet.  Jess was home on Wednesday, but she went somewhere in the afternoon.  I forget where.  I was messing around on facebook and saw that Lisa had posted a photo of the first carpet tiles going down in our department, and I got really excited to see it in person.  I had some holds to pick up anyway, so I went to the library.  I got to see the progress being made on the renovation, and I ended up working for about an hour and a half.  I had also forgotten to fill in my vacation on my timesheet, so it was handy that I had the impulse to go in.  By the time I wrapped things up at work, I had to book it home to pick up Jess to head to church.  That felt like a normal Wednesday.  I continued work on the little baby hat while at church.  Jess had heard at work that Tropical Smoothie was having some sort of special that week in the evenings, so we went there and discovered that the special was in the afternoons, but I enjoyed our time there, nonetheless. 

Day 13:  The night before I made a plan with Jess to go to lunch and then to paint pottery.  Then I overslept because obeying alarms is for people who have to work.  We eventually made it to lunch--and missed any lunch crowd we might have encountered, if I'd gotten up on time--at Senor Tequila.  When we got to Firefly, Jess decided she would just watch me paint instead of painting herself.  I was working on a project that will eventually be a gift for a person who might read this, so I won't say more than that for now.  We didn't really have much of a deadline, but Jess was meeting some folks to go to a boxing class at 6:15, so we just needed to be home in time for her to change and drive back across the river.  Unfortunately, our late start combined with the fact that I'm the slowest pottery painter in the world meant that I really had to hustle at the end, and then various unfortunate traffic patterns around the greater Little Rock area almost made her late again, but she made it eventually.

Day 14:  I don't recall anything that happened early in the day on Friday, but the main event was my triumphant return to the movies.  I hadn't been to see a movie in the theater in forever.  I seriously can't remember the last time, but I'm decently certain it was in 2009.  Rob, Smon, Hailsey, and I went to see The Switch, and it turned out to be pretty good thing.  We had sort of stopped going to the movies for a while because it seemed like we were only seeing really bad ones, so it was kind of special for us all to see one that we didn't hate.  Jason Bateman redeemed himself with Robyn, who was still carrying a grudge from The Ex.  I'm glad they made up because I love Jason Bateman.  We laughed and had a good time and felt delighted that our good movie drought was over.  Everyone came over to my messy house afterward to talk about teaching school and lazy vacations and stuff.

Day 15:  Jess worked most of the day, so I did even less than normal.  At some point either on Thursday or Saturday I watched The Ugly Truth, which I had checked out from the library.  It was okay, I guess.  Nothing to write home about certainly.  I know there was a situation (because it's recorded on facebook) where I was having to choose between hunger and laziness.  I resolved it by venturing out into the world for some drive-through fast food.  I was also hankering something sweet and needed to to buy a birthday card.  I ended up going to Walgreens.  After some aimless wandering from cookies to candy to Halloween candy and back again, I decided that what I really wanted was s'mores, so I gathered up the materials for that.  Buying graham crackers at Walgreens is the least economical decision I made during the whole vacation.

Day 16:  Laziness was put on hold so that I could get to church way early, keep nursery, and teach four-year-olds again.  I fell in love with a beautiful little toddler named Christian, who really wanted his mother but settled for snuggling with me and occasionally crying gorgeous tears.  When I got to Bible class, I discovered that Christian's mother was the lead teacher who'd been out of town the first week.  While I was sitting in the floor with my four-year-olds, telling/reading the story of David and Goliath, I noticed that my back started hurting in a weird spot.  By the time class was over, it was getting difficult to ignore.  By the time we ate lunch at Cracker Barrel, I was in serious need of a bed.  I spent the afternoon alternating between the bed and couch in search of a comfortable position.  Shane had finally given me Gilmore Girls season 6, so I had some distraction from the pain.  I decided to forgo two car rides and an hour in a pew, and after trying every possible position in the floor, I found a relative amount of ease in the recliner.  Eventually I staggered to bed and slept uncomfortably.

Day 17:  Monday was meant to have been my first day back at work, but when I woke up, my back still hated me--though perhaps less than it hated me on Sunday.  I decided to give it one more day of resting to see if it would shape up.  Plus our department was closed for one final day on Monday to put things back in place after the great carpet upheaval.  I might have been able to handle sitting calmly at a desk in a comfortable chair, but I knew my back had no business pushing carts or lifting stacks of books, and I knew if I was mixed up in all that work stuff, I'd do something stupid.  So I stayed at home.  But since the laziness was sanctioned by my sore back, I felt even less guilt about my slug-like tendencies than I did when I was actually on vacation, which is why I finished season 6 of the Gilmore Girls in just over 24 hours and still got a full night's sleep.  At this point in the vacation, there was no more food left in the house--and cooking wasn't high on my list of priorities anyway, so I think I ordered pizza Monday night while Jess was at work.

And on Tuesday, I faced the music and went back to work--with a mostly pain-free back.  I still don't know what was up with that.  I'd like to be able to tell you that I went back to work rested and energized and eager to dive back into satisfying and important work.  But mostly I showed up and survived and started counting down the days to the next vacation.  I know you are too, imaginary readers.

Food consumed:  Aunt Donna made sloppy joes on Monday.  I hadn't tried one in years, as they have always been high on the list of things I don't eat, but I decided to give them another chance--since the reintroduction of sweet potatoes went so well last year, I've known that my taste buds had changed.  I actually enjoyed it, so the official list of foods I hate is down to just three, I think:  fish and cowboy beans and grits.  Actually there are probably more things on the list, but those are the three that I always remember.  At home during the week, I ate leftover spaghetti and leftover brownies and leftover pineapple cheese dip.  I'm pretty sure chips and salsa and pepperonis and crackers were consumed.  I might have eaten ice cream, and I think I made grilled cheese a time or two.  I can't remember what the name of the smoothie was that I had on Wednesday, but it definitely had orange and pineapple and strawberry and maybe banana.  I also had a sandwich there, but I don't remember what kind.  I had my usual fajita nachos with no beans at Senor Tequila and discovered that their fruit punch can't compare to Mexico Chiquito's.  Friday we ate at Great Wraps before the movie, where I reunited with the best curly fries in the world.  We also ate movie popcorn, which is a rare treat for me.  That night I went to Walgreens, I had a hamburger from Hardee's and microwaved s'mores, which were just what I wanted.  At Cracker Barrel on Day 16, they brought me green beans instead of cabbage, and the cabbage was important enough that I had to have it too, so I ended up with an extra vegetable to go along with my chicken tenderloins, so I ate a bunch and still got to take home chicken, green beans, cabbage, hash brown casserole, and biscuits, but I think I ate all the carrots the first go round.  Extra leftovers came in handy during the back drama.  For the second time, I had a spinach, bacon, alfredo pizza from Dominos, and it was a delight.  Please do not consider this an exhaustive list, but you get the idea.

Bright spots:
Day 10:  family time
Day 11:  Gilmore Girls
Day 12:  smoothie
Day 13:  pottery painting
Day 14:  Robyn, Smonica, Hailey (who hasn't earned her place in the middle, even in a list)
Day 15:  s'mores
Day 16:  sweet, pretty little babies who snuggle
Day 17:  Gilmore Girls

Thus ended the chronicle of the least interesting vacation ever taken.  You're welcome.

send help

Please disregard the fact that I never finished my vacation diary.  Day 8 has photos, and my computer and blogger get crabby with each other when there are pictures involved--nothing that can't be overcome, but it's tedious.  And I'm lazy. 

So until the technical difficulties are worked out, let's pretend like you're not still waiting on ten days of my boring life in vivid, painful detail--or a long-promised post about the National Zoo--or five months' worth of project 4:4 posts--because if we think about those things, imaginary readers, we'll begin to feel so inadequate that we won't be able to continue blogging.  Ever.

And I don't think any of us want to live in a world where I'm not free to ramble ad nauseam and publish those ramblings for a group of people with nothing better to do than read them.  Do we?

Yesterday I had a sinking spell at work.  That term might carry some serious connotation for some of you, so let me assure you that I was in no real danger, unless my general grumpiness was the final straw in sending one of my coworkers on a killing spree.  That didn't happen, so don't worry.  But I was tired and grumpy and didn't feel equal to even the smallest tasks that I should have been checking off my list.  So I called Jess and told her that I needed something to look forward to in my miserable existence and demanded that she think of something for us to do when I got off work.  The great thing about Jess is that she always takes my petulance in stride.  She said she wanted to eat Chinese--which was exactly the thing that I wanted to do.  Some days we really are two peas in a multiracial pod.  Renewed by the promise of a good time later (and by the chocolate banana shake that I went and got over at Bookends--the library's cafe that's just across the parking lot), I muddled through the rest of my afternoon.

After dinner, we went to a store to buy a gift for someone who reads this blog, so I cannot divulge any more information about that, but my deliberations wasted a sizable chunk of our night.  When we got home, Jess continued the Carol Burnett Biography that she had started before I got home from work, and I reacquainted myself with the internet after our prolonged three hour separation.  Over dinner we had discussed some of our tv shows that are premiering in the next week or so, so after Carol and a Bio on Russell Crowe, we started checking the DVR settings for our returning shows and started a dialogue about new shows.  We also went through and cleared out the DVR settings for canceled stuff, and I finally gave in and deleted the NCIS-rerun recordings from USA, Sleuth, and Ion.  It was a pretty big deal.  Obviously I'm in a place right now where I don't want to do anything but watch tv--up-to-date readers may recall that I'm currently watching Gilmore Girls on DVD, and I can report officially, though it will spoil a vacation post later, that I'm completely caught up on NCIS now.  My tv obsession is no revelation, but even I was surprised by how appealing I found nearly all of the new show synopses that I read online last night.  The fact that I've been watching more commercials than normal lately and my susceptibility to marketing probably also had a hand in this, but I'm picking up something like forty-seven new shows.  In true tv-obsessed fashion, I made a spreadsheet to organize it all, and then we started adding series recordings to the DVR.

Thank goodness for U-Verse.  We can record up to four shows at one time, but I think we only have more than three for a brief half-hour on Thursdays.  We do push it to three shows at once on several different occasions though.  Several of the new shows I added last night are on a definite trial basis.  I don't think I have the time or energy to devote to this many shows--I'm not Robyn, after all, but until I experience them a little, I couldn't say no to them either.  I'm going to attempt to recreate the list here without benefit of my spreadsheet.  Feel free to try and talk me down from the crazy-obsessed ledge I'm on, but don't be surprised if my commitment to self-indulgence cannot be shaken. 

Mondays:
Returning shows:
Chuck--I adored Chuck when the show first premiered, but season 2 never really sucked me in.  I haven't quit it yet because Adam Baldwin is hilarious and wonderful, but I'm not cartwheeling over this one.

How I Met Your Mother--There have been moments during this show's run when it's been my absolute favorite thing on tv.  But if we don't meet the mother--for real this time--soon, I'm going to slap Ted Mosby like Barney's never been slapped.

Castle--None of the die-hard Nathan Fillion fans I know (except maybe Joshua) are into this show, but I love him and it, and if they'll give Beckett a decent hairstyle this season, I think we'll all be very happy together.

New shows:
Mike & Molly--I don't have high expectations here, but I love Melissa McCarthy enough to endure loads of things.  If Scott Patterson would get a new tv show and I could see Lorelai, Sookie, and Luke on a weekly basis, my cup would be full.

The Event--Blair Underwood is the President.  And I don't know why, but I'm a big Jason Ritter fan.  We'll see how it goes.

Lone Star--This is going to be pure, soapy trash, but I can't stop myself from watching an episode or two.  Stupid FOX and their stupid pervasive marketing.

Shows that I don't watch but my DVR does:
Chase--Actually Jess is only watching it because the Jenny (her sister) is an extra in an episode.  She claims once we see her, she'll quit watching it, but I'll probably get sucked in by then.

Tuesdays:
Returning shows:
Glee--This show is the cautionary tale for why I'm adding so many shows.  As I explained to Jess last night, there have been times in my life when I've unilaterally decided not to add any new shows when the tv season began, so that I could cut down on my devotion to the small screen, but I missed out on some really cool stuff that way--that I later picked up on DVD, so don't cry for me or anything.  If I had had that attitude last season, I would have missed out on being a die-hard Gleek from the beginning, and I never would have felt like a real fan.  And that would be a tragedy of epic proportions.

Parenthood--I've always liked that Steve Martin movie on which this show is loosely based.  Plus Peter Krause who I've loved in Sports Night and Six Feet Under? And Lorelai Gilmore (sorry Lauren Graham, but I can't call you anything else)? And Dax Shepard?  There was no way I wasn't picking this one up last March.  Lucky for me the DVR was trained to remember it because I hadn't bothered to find out when it was premiering until after the first new episode aired on Tuesday.


New shows:
NCIS--I'm calling this a new show only because it's never been in my regular tv season routine before.  My obsession with the very special agents of NCIS is well-documented, so I won't say more.  But trust that I could.

Raising Hope--This is a major trial-only pick.  Recording it means I won't ever miss the end of Glee, so I'm going to give it a shot.

Running Wilde--Two words:  Will Arnett.  I'm excited about this one.

No Ordinary Family--I think this is the moment when I turned into a lunatic.  I was reading about this show and feeling like it definitely wasn't my thing.  And then I read the name Julie Benz, and I can't allow a Buffy/Angel alum to be in a tv show that I don't watch, except that I didn't watch Dollhouse, so don't believe anything I say.  Except that I'm watching No Ordinary Family.  Believe that.

Shows that I don't watch but my DVR does:
The Good Wife--I don't watch this necessarily, but Jess does, and I have sometimes watched it with her.  It's got lots of people that I've loved in other stuff.

Wednesdays:
New (to me) shows:
The Middle--Robyn goes on and on about this show, and I love Janitor.  So I'm going to go against one of my most deeply-held beliefs and pick up a show during the second season without having caught up on the first season.

Modern Family--see above, but change the "Robyn" to "Jess" and the "Janitor" to "Jesse Tyler Ferguson" and the "love" to "enjoyed watching in the terrible 2006 CBS sit-com The Class."  Plus I'm a follower, and I apparently care about Emmy wins now.

Actual new shows:
Undercovers--I was intrigued.  It's JJ Abrams.  Jess wants to watch it too.

The Whole Truth--Maura Tierney ended up being my favorite thing about ER.  I loved Abby more than Carter.  And I have some serious Rob Morrow love, but I have no idea why.

Better with You--I don't have a good reason for watching this show, aside from Kitty Forman.  But it made the list to try out. 

Thursdays:
Returning shows:
Bones--I am still smarting from the betrayals of last season, but Bones remains in my top three shows.  With all the competition, David Boreanaz is going to have to marry me soon if he wants to stay at the top.

30 Rock--Oh, Liz Lemon.  How I've missed you.

The Office--Gotta savor my last season with Michael Scott.  I'm not sure I'll be able to watch if they continue without him next year.  He's not even close to my favorite, but I can't imagine how they'll go on without him.

Private Practice--I'm still so mad at them for [SPOILER ALERT] killing Dell, and it's nothing but soapy trash, but Taye Diggs sure is pretty.

New shows:
My Generation--I've been burned by other takes on this class-reunion-where-are-they-now type theme (the aforementioned The Class and FOX's 2005 Reunion), but I'm still drawn in and eternally optimistic.  Plus I've never seen Mehcad Brooks in a show where I didn't like him.

$#*! My Dad Says--I don't love William Shatner, but I do love cussing.

Outsourced--Well, I'm pretty bummed that Parks and Recreation isn't coming back until mid-season, but I'm not going to hold that against the show taking its place.  NBC Thursday comedies and I go way back, so I'm going to give it a shot.

Shows that I don't watch but my DVR does:
Grey's Anatomy--Meredith is the single most annoying person in the world, and that's why I'll never watch this show.

Community--Despite my Joel McHale/The Soup love, I couldn't get behind this show.  I tried and failed, but Jess likes it.

Fridays:
I promised myself long ago that I would never watch a show that comes on Fridays, but I broke that one a couple of years ago for Moonlight, which got stupid and canceled anyway.  I'm breaking the promise again this season, because as I explained to Jess last night when asked when some show came on, "I don't know, but the DVR does." 

Returning show:
Good Guys--I've only watched a couple of the episodes that aired this summer, but I'm going to catch up one of these days.  I love Bradley Whitford in a totally unprofessional way.

New show:
Blue Bloods--Apparently mustaches are the thing that Friday night tv was missing, but Bradley Whitford and Tom Selleck are doing their part to fix that.  Plus Donny Wahlberg is in this show, and Donny was always my favorite New Kid.

Sundays:
I don't watch anything on Sundays, but my DVR does:
Desperate Housewives--I let Entertainment Weekly convince me to start watching this show in its first season, and I've regretted it ever since.  But Jess watches it.

So forty-seven new shows may have been an exaggeration, but not much of one.  What TV shows are on your must-watch list?  I hope, dear friends, it's not as many as mine.  Someone needs to be out there living while I grow pale and (even more) lethargic in front of the TV.

*****Note to Hailey:  I was already composing this post before your comment giving me permission to keep blogging, but I appreciate the stamp of approval to forge ahead nonetheless.  See you in a bit.*****

the vacation diary: day five

Are you guys sick of these posts yet?  Because I kinda am.  But a promise is a promise, and sometimes when I make irrational blog promises to myself, I keep them.  So after two days of utter laziness and accomplishing nothing of worth, I thought that Wednesday had possibilities.  I could do stuff, accomplish stuff, and not feel as though my brilliant vacation was slipping away with nothing to show for it . . . if I felt like it, anyway.  Apparently a sense of accomplishment is completely relative, but I think Wednesday goes down as a success.

Day 5 stats:

Wake-up time:  9:02  Method:  It's very bright in the living room, and careful readers will recall that I fell asleep on the couch last night so the brightness factored in, and though I had plans to fall back asleep once I crawled into bed, I didn't.  General mood:  I don't exactly remember, but I'm guessing it was all right.

Agenda:  If you've been paying attention, imaginary readers, (and I wouldn't blame you if you weren't) you may have noticed that my days are starting to take on a sameness.  So there was a morning of internet, spider solitaire, perhaps a bit of tv.  Midmorning Jess and I called my moma to sing her a birthday song.  It was a hit.  I didn't talk to my moma long because we're trying to save up our best stories for this weekend when we're together.

Jess got inspired and started cleaning up her room, but I just couldn't find my motivation, so after I ran to the bank, I watched some DVRed gems from the Bio channel.  Apparently Tuesday was some sort of Facts of Life themed day on Bio.  Besides the Kim Fields and The Truth Behind Sitcom Scandals that we watched Tuesday, we also got Cast Confessions about FoL and the Biography for Nancy McKeon.  I've seen Blair, Tootie, Natalie, and Mrs. Garrett with a variety of different hairstyles telling the same anecdotes about the show three or four times, but I'm a bit of an expert now, so that's all right.  I also watched some NCIS eps and some other junk too.

I found the extra needle from the size 4 double-points since the fourth one I had been using went missing weekend before last, so I could start working on the decreases on the baby hat I'm doing right now.  I'll post pictures when I get it finished because it is definitely my best yet.  I took my knitting to church because I always knit during class.  We're doing a book study right now of Simply Christian by N.T. Wright.  I didn't read the first week, so I had every plan to read both chapters yesterday before church, but obviously NCIS reruns and 80s sitcom trivia were more important.  It was a pretty decent class even without having read, but I'm determined to get caught up before chapter 3.  And Bill did bring me a dozen or so movies in a bag with a half-naked man on it.  It got a lot of comments at church.

Shane had one more birthday perk to use up, so we went to Genghis Grill so he could use his free birthday bowl coupon.  Delicious.  On the way home, Jess and I celebrated my vacation with 99 cent sundaes again.  We're getting quite good at that.  When we got home, we watched the DVRed Biography of Bill Murray, which was a huge disappointment.  We also took out the trash because we're not completely irresponsible, but we didn't have the heart to watch anything else after the dismal failure of the Bill Murray bio.  Besides, I had come home with season 5 of Gilmore Girls, and I was ready to reconnect with my Stars Hollow friends, which I foolishly thought I could do while blogging about my moma and delightful aunt.  Multi-tasking was not my friend, but eventually I got it all done so I could go to sleep.

Food consumed:  I skipped breakfast again because it's highly overrated.  I had leftover spaghetti for lunch and a Dr. Pepper float.  The bowl I created at Genghis Grill was a spicy pork/onions/cabbage/celery/rice masterpiece.  And hot fudge is our flavor of sundae choice at Sonic.

Bright spot:  Writing about my sweet moma.

Bedtime:  3:11 a.m. approximately.  Much too stinking late.

the vacation diary: day four

I left out a key part of day three, but since I kept it going throughout day four, I'll just add it in where appropriate here.  For those that want to skip this, day four is just as deliciously boring as day three.  My feelings will not be hurt if you stop reading now.

Day 4 stats:

Wake-up time:  9:07/9:30ish  Method:  My phone rang at 9:07, and I sort of roused and then decided that I didn't care and fell back asleep for another twenty minutes or so.  General mood:  grumpy

Agenda:  I said hello to my internet world and then went to check on Jess.  She was off all day too, so I was a bit nervous that her lazy day off routine would upset my own.  As it turned out, our laziness complemented each other nicely.  I retreated back to my room to work on yesterday's stunning vacation post.  When I checked on Jess at one point in the late morning, she was taking a nap.  I admired her greatly.  I was bored by recounting my own day, so I took frequent breaks to cruise the internet and play spider solitaire.  I've occasionally played spider solitaire in the past, but the last weekend I spent with my family in Lexington, I learned that everyone else was better at it than I, which made me sulkily give it up for a while, but fairly soon my competitive nature kicked in, and I determined that I had to get better.  When I was without home internet for ten whole agonizing days, I had to do something with the computer sitting in my lap, so I devoted scads of time to it.  After 111 straight losses on the four suit difficulty, I finally won the first one a few weeks ago, and I've had a few more successes since then.  My current percentage is 4%, which admittedly doesn't sound good, but trust me that it's a vast improvement.

When Jess woke up from her nap, we flipped channels a bit, and I discovered that we get the Biography channel.  During any other week of my life, I doubt that this would have made quite the impact that it did yesterday, but it was a pretty special discovery.  We tuned in for a Biography of the tv show Home Improvement.  I didn't even know they did biographies of tv shows.  Next up was a bio of Kim Fields, who has definitely aged gracefully.  We looked ahead and DVRed several upcoming episodes.  We flipped off Bio for a while to avoid several episodes of a William Shatner show because even on vacation, I have my limits.  When Jess and I first moved in together, she once made a joke that I wasn't allowed to watch BET, and it's been ongoing for more than a year.  But after we switched off the biographies, we spent some time watching The Game and Everybody Hates Chris reruns on BET, and no one was harmed.  Somewhere in the middle of all this watching, we ate some lunch.  Jess also took an afternoon nap somewhere in there.  That girl can sleep.

My laptop died at some point, and instead of bringing the cord to the living room, I retreated to my room to concentrate more seriously on spider solitaire.  We ordered pizza and in the process debated pizza toppings for longer than strictly necessary.  It probably took us longer to make up our minds than it did for the pizza to arrive.  For the record, Pizza Hut doesn't offer Skittles as a toppings choice.

We watched Gleeruns while we ate and then we took Jess's new crack-free windshield for a spin to Sonic, where after 8 p.m., they have 99 cent sundaes.  Once we got home, we started watching our DVRed shows from the Biography channel.  We saw The Truth Behind Sitcom Scandals, and I now know more about Welcome Back, Kotter, The Facts of Life, and Roseanne than I ever thought I needed to.  We also saw Biography:  Full House, which was an absolute delight.  Candace Cameron has definitely aged well.  Here's the thing I've really learned from watching the Biography channel:  if you are currently remotely successful, you don't agree to be interviewed for the Biography special on a past show.  Just sayin'.  We ended our night with watching Covert Affairs, which I've been watching this summer.  I fell asleep towards the end of the episode and spent the night on the couch.  Jess probably woke me up at some point, but once I've fallen asleep on the couch, I'm impossible to wake up.

Food consumed:  I don't think that I had breakfast--which is not so unusual.  During our marathon block of tv-watching, Jess brought me chips and salsa as a lunch appetizer, and I eventually had some leftover spaghetti.  You'll recall that we had pizza for dinner.  The three toppings we settled on were Italian sausage, ham, and bacon.  There were also breadsticks.  Then there were the hot fudge sundaes, with whipped cream and nuts.  There wasn't supposed to be a cherry, but there was.  I also drank some tea and finished up the last of the good ice.

Bright spot:  Discovering that Kim Fields went to Pepperdine.  Just thought that was nice.

Bedtime:  I'm not sure about the time exactly since there's no clock in our living room.  Jess thinks it was midnight something.  I did wake up once or twice in the night but never enough to consider moving to the bed. 

Here's a spoiler from day five to tide  you over:  I finally found a knitting needle I needed.

the vacation diary: day three

I'm not going to lie.  I've been lazier than I was on Monday.  Lazy is my one truly fine-tuned skill, and if I'd turned on the lazy full-force, I would have spent so much unconscious that I couldn't have fully wallowed in the vacation-y goodness of a lazy Monday.  But as you'll read in too much detail in a moment, laziness was the theme of the day.

Day 3 stats:

Wake-up time:  9:15ish  Method:  naturally  General mood:  surprised to find myself awake and mostly alert

Agenda:  The morning hours were wasted on the internet (writing the day 2 diary post, so it wasn't all a waste, right?) and watching bits of sitcom reruns on BET with Jess.  Apparently, I'm allowed to watch BET these days.  I also finished Gilmore Girls season 4, which ends with one of the best and one of the worst moments ever.  I can remember watching this one live and being in agony to have to wait months to see how it all played out.  I won't have to wait as long this time, but Shane does have season 5 right now.  He's promised me that he'll be done by Wednesday, so perhaps I can handle it.  It's actually been long enough since I've seen the series that I can't remember exactly what comes next, so that'll be a nice surprise later.

By the time I had finished GG, Jess had gone to work, so I had to entertain myself.  I watched 300 and saw a whole other side of Gerard Butler--literally and figuratively.  There was more internet-ing, but absolutely nothing productive occurred.  I remembered to check my work email to see what had gone on in my absence.  That's when I learned that the carpet that was supposed to be here still hasn't come in.  So instead of being closed this week while the carpet is replaced, they decided to reopen until next week when the carpet really might be in.  I am experiencing survivor's guilt over not being at work this week because it's crazy there, but I keep telling myself that I've earned the time off.  I put a few movies and books on hold, so when they come in, I may stop by for a little while to see how things are going first hand.

For dinner, I made a fairly giant batch of spaghetti and watched three or four episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadephia, which I'd never seen before.  It was funny enough.  I think The Daily Show & Colbert Report were reruns, but they were recent, and I hadn't seen them before, so I stayed tuned in for those.  By the time Jess got home Tosh.0 was on.  We have a secret fascination with Daniel Tosh.  I was going to go watch a movie in my room while Jess caught up on some stuff she had DVRed, but we ended up watching the DVRed Emmys instead.  There were some interesting and funny moments, and I was heartbroken by the tribute to all the folks who died this year. 

I did fall asleep with my computer in my lap last night (it was exhausting writing the first sentence of this post since that's all I managed before I fell asleep).

Food consumed:  I had chocolate covered pretzels for breakfast.  I never got around to lunch because I didn't realize when it was lunch-time, but I had plenty of spaghetti.  So I didn't live up to my no-eating promise, but we all knew I wasn't going to.

Bright spot:  It'll prove just how sad my life is, but it was probably when Luke kissed Lorelai.  It's a great moment.

Bedtime:  It was around 1:30 when I fell asleep with the laptop.  I woke up again at 3 and realized that I had fallen asleep that way. 

I'm starting to regret this vacation diary idea since now I have posted proof of just how worthless I am and plan to be for next week or more.  It will get more interesting this weekend when there are cute kiddos and lots of food and birthday celebrations.  So stay tuned for that.

some stuff about dreams

I've been on a mostly successful multi-alarm system for a few years now.  I set first alarm for thirty minutes before I want to get up.  If I get up at first alarm time, I can do things like eat a normal breakfast or spend time on the internet without making myself late, but I never actually get up at first alarm time unless I'm really worried about something.  Second alarm sounds at the time that I really should get up and start getting ready if I want to look semi-decent.  Third alarm is my last chance to show up at work remotely on time with ironed clothes but possibly wet hair.  Sometimes I cut out either first or third alarm and rely on only two.  And though the whole system defies logic, it works for me.  Nearly every morning, my sleep-hazed brain is still capable of hearing each alarm, turning it off and recognizing what it means for my morning.  Very occasionally I turn off first alarm in my sleep which throws off the count, but the subsequent alarms still function to get me out of bed eventually.  And typically I love knowing that I'm getting my last 30 minutes of sleep.  I'm great at going back to sleep after the alarm and treasuring that last bit of sleep.  It used to be the best part of my morning.


But lately--since the time that we moved--that blissful last half-hour of sleep has been plagued by dreams.  I usually don't even remember if I have dreamed, much less any pertinent details, so it's really thrown off my morning routine to wake up with the memory of these uniformly unpleasant dreams.  There have probably only been a couple that were truly nightmarish, but most or all tend to leave me feeling tired or unsettled or disgruntled in some way.  Sometimes it's just that I wake up for what has to be the final time without resolving whatever is going on.  When I wake up in the middle of a dream, I always still feel what I've been feeling there, and that can be awful.  I have a sorta-recurring dream where I need to talk to my moma or need her help for something, but she avoids me and is mean to me. It's not always the exact same scenario, but it follows that theme and is always really intense.  I wake up from that one either really mad at her for how she's treated me or just broken-hearted that she won't help me.  It takes hours to shake off that feeling, and I've spent many a grouchy morning at work snapping and growling at everyone because my dream moma was ugly to me.  (For the record, my moma hates that I have these dreams and will sometimes even apologize to me for them because she's just that sweet and precious in real life--not at all like my dream moma.)

Sometimes if I'm dreaming at first or second alarm, I can rouse up enough to turn it off and fall back asleep fast enough to get back into the same dream, or at least it feels that way.  It's all fairly weird, new territory for me, so I've spent lots of my best thinking time [Do you know, imaginary readers, that I do my best thinking in the shower?  It's true.] recalling details and marveling at how nothing in my dreams is ever normal. Often the more I try to grasp what happened the more the details slip away from me, so that by the end of my shower, I let go of trying to remember the what, but the feelings that the dream evokes are much harder to shake and therefore catch the blame for most of my morning moods. 


The actual details of this morning's dream just wouldn't go away though.  I spent my entire hair-washing process time (which is considerable) remembering random snippets and trying to decipher why my subconscious had pieced together such an odd series of events.  Even many hours later, I can still remember most of the weirdness.  Let me give you an unvarnished glimpse into my dream life:

*******Rambling blogger's note:  I began to confuse myself with the details of the dream versus the background info I was throwing in on the real people, so I color-coded.  Factual background info is now in green, and all the normal blue text is the random dream stuff.  Almost none of it has any basis in fact.*******


So the first part of the dream that I remember is being at a wedding, which was in a big basketball-type arena.  There are chairs down on the floor but folks are also sitting in the stands--a set-up remarkably similar to Harding graduation.  I don't know if we were actually in the GAC.  There's no place attached to the first part of the dream, though I am at Harding later.  I think I was there with Robyn, maybe some other Peeps.  It is the wedding of a girl named Natalie, whose time at Harding overlapped with mine.  Her older sister Shannon was a good friend of mine and her cousin Amy is a Peep.  Natalie did get married within the last couple of years, but I haven't seen her since Amy's wedding back in 2003.  Anyway in the dream it's Natalie's second wedding and, for reasons that donn't make sense even within the dream, they reenact her first wedding, which was a double-wedding with her sister Shannon.  I can't remember if Dream Ellen had been at the first double wedding, but I knew what was going on and certainly thought it odd to bring up the first wedding.  Fairly early on in the ceremony, the raised platform where the wedding part is standing rises up higher, and wedding guests are encouraged to move closer if they want a better view.  I think this is where I lost Robyn and the other folks who had been with me because they're not in the rest of the dream.


I wonder if I woke up a little somewhere in here and then went back to sleep and into the dream.  That usually has the effect of changing up people and places without making it seem weird to Dream Ellen.  The next thing I remember clearly is that it's still a double wedding, but instead of it being Shannon and Natalie's wedding now, it's for this girl Becky, not Peep Becky of Beckypalooza fame, but a girl with whom I attended elementary school and junior high and her younger sister Stephanie.  I haven't seen or thought of either of them in almost fifteen years so I have no idea if they're already married or not, but there they were in my dream, getting married.  I haven't mentioned them at all, but there are grooms, of course.  I know in the first double wedding bit, Shannon was remarrying her real-life husband, but I can't remember any of the other grooms, and I think even in the dream I don't know any of them.

At some point in the ceremony, there's a performance by the 6th grade band that is under the direction of the younger sister, though at that point in the dream, it's not actually Stephanie, but it has turned into another girl from old school days named Linda (who I also haven't talked to in years, but her sister Christy is my fb friend and currently engaged, so maybe that's how she showed up).  They play one song called "Sweet As," which apparently is one of Dream Ellen's favorite songs, and it is quite a talented sixth grade band, as it turns out.  Incidentally the band is seated on some of the bleachers that have moved up closer to the platform where the wedding is happening.  I think that they're going to play another song, and for some reason Linda starts talking to me about the T-shaped seating arrangement of the band and how great it is for their sound, and I argue with her about it because the French horns aren't part of the T, and as it turns out the band doesn't play another song because they're changing out of their uniforms there on the bleachers.

And at that point the wedding part of the dream is just gone though I don't remember the ceremony ending, and when I walk out of the gym--or whatever that original wedding venue room has morphed into, I'm in Becky's house, and we're talking about how she didn't want to get married in the first place, but she did it to make her mother happy.  Her other sister Katie is running around and is still the same age that she was when Becky and I were in junior high though Katie would be in her mid-twenties by now, and Becky's mom is washing dishes and nagging Becky to be more excited about the wedding.  Also in this part of the dream Becky is wearing a vinyl Catwoman-ish type suit--though without the ears.  I don't want to mixed up in the their drama, so I make my excuses and leave, though when I walk out of the house, it's onto this tree-house deck, and at first I think I'm going to have to climb down, but there's a spiral staircase I use instead.

And when I get to the bottom of the stairs, I'm on the Harding campus of my college days.  I'm leaving the student center and heading in the direction of the front lawn when I notice lots of faculty members dressed up, and I realize that it's the day of some formal dinner that I know about because my cousin Mac (cousin, scholar, theologian, and #1 blog fan to you, imaginary readers) is attending.  As I'm thinking this, I see Mac and his wife Jenni walking towards the building.  I want to tell them how nice they look, but they're still very far away, and I'm not dressed appropriately to go mingling among the faculty in the their finery, so I get out my phone to text Mac, and about that time someone yells something super-loud about looking sexy.  In the dream, I know immediately that the person is yelling at Mac, and I see that it is Ashley, who was a friend of mine (and Becky's) all through elementary, junior high, and high school.  She looks exactly like she did in high school although almost everyone else in the dream is their current age.  She's also wearing her prom dress from our junior year, and if you expect me to know how I remember what her prom dress looked like fourteen years ago, you're so, so wrong.  Anyway when I see her, Dream Ellen remembers that her husband is now on faculty at Harding and that she and Mac have this complicated history, wherein she's always liked him and flirted with him and tried to get something going there, and he's always hated her but has been forced to be polite to her for my sake.  Let me reiterate, lest it be insulting to either Ashley or Mac, that this imagined history is completely false, and I'm fairly certain Mac and Ashley have never met.  But after she yells that, everyone is shocked and horrified, but no one else seems to realize who did the yelling, and about that time Mac and I make eye contact.  I'm terrified that he's going to think it was me, so I immediately start texting him about what really happened, but before I can finish it, I wake up to realize that I've slept past second alarm and didn't set third.

At least this one didn't leave me any lingering, terrible feelings--though I did sort of feel like I needed to apologize to all the players for putting them into such ridiculous scenarios, but I was late to work with truly heinous-looking hair.  All this dreaming is about to make me give up on the multi-alarm system, and that's a tragedy I may not be able to endure.