It can't possibly be noon already. I don't even know where the morning went. I went to Home Depot and Kinko's (excuse me, FedEx Office, formerly FedEx Kinko's, formerly Kinko's). Yesterday afternoon, the three of us who are here this week (all two days of it) on the finance side of corporate spent pretty much the whole afternoon working on this one girl's chair. But then when I looked up and realized it was 4:16 and I hadn't done anything since I got back from lunch, at least I knew where all that time went (lest you think we are stupid or something, we were trying to replace the casters on her chair, but the ones from Home Depot were not quite right and then a trip to Lowe's solved that dilemma except that two of the screw holes in the chair were kind of stripped and we didn't have any pliers or a wrench large enough to help us. Take my word for it, it took forever, and even then it only got done when a lady from the other end of the hall came down and tackled it with our computer guy who happened to drop by, plus the aid of some tools I borrowed from the construction company across the road. It was better than that morning when it took three people to change the fluorescent lights down the hall. I was not one of those three people because I had a migraine and the flashing was making me feel quite ill.). Wow, ok. Anyway, I really don't know where the morning went. At all. Wait, I spent a while talking to Rachel on Gmail. Other than that, who knows?

So...Christmas happened. It was pretty nice. I got some monies. And my parents gave me some necklaces. Guess I have to start wearing jewelry more than once every couple of weeks. I just always forget, unless it seems like there's something missing because my neckline is low. Anyway, spent some time with families. Nothing spectacular, but nothing horrendous happened either. At least, not that I can recall, although I am exceptionally good at repression and self-delusion.

Last night at shortly before 11, I heard lots of sirens and could see lights flashing my bedroom window, which is a trick since it's not at the front of the house. I didn't get up to check right away because I am a jerk, but I checked at like 11:30 and a house across the street was aflame. Not directly across the street, but across and over one. There were lots of neighbors standing in the street and milling around. I didn't go outside because it was 11:30 and cold and I was wearing pajamas and I am a bad neighbor. Also, it wasn't a ton of fire. This morning there was just a sign on the front door that said not to enter. You could see where it was blackened in the back and they had boarded it up, but the front looks totally normal. Weird.

I am going to Boston again in about a week. Want to join? I fear that this time, the weather will be wintry and I will be frozen.

So, I get the migraines. They suck. What's weird is that I used to get them most of the time on trips(not solely on trips, but I could count on trips to lead to at least one, usually more), especially family trips. Really for as long as I've been getting them, so maybe 8 years. Awesome. Now I get them when I'm home. I went to Boston-not a migraine in sight until the awesome aura popped up on my flight home. Thanksgiving-not a problem! Came home, problem. Perhaps it's good that I've been travelling so freaking much lately. On a related note, I can also eat when I am travelling. Which is good, since Thanksgiving is the home of awesome food and I would have been super sad not to be able to partake. So, not hungry at home, mostly nauseated after a few bites of things. Hungry when away, like this weekend, when I ate meals and desserts. My grandma had the most awesome things that were like chewable crack. They were mint chocolate covered cashews. Mmmm. Also good-cheesecake and peppermint bark. Also weird is how many migraines I've been getting lately that are all textbook-like, complete with auras. A couple of times I even just got the aura part and then it didn't start hurting like the dickens-more like just a sinus headache, or maybe even a regular people headache! I know, my syntax leaves something to be desired. Sorry.

Since my mom is still sick, I wound up going to Owensboro in my parents' stead on Friday. I had a lovely time and Ashley and I made some peppermint bark, and it was really good. While Mark and Ashley were at a wedding, my grandma and I took naps and then somehow ended up talking about gay people (apparently my mom had a cousin who was gay and lived in San Francisco in the eighties) and then HPV. I love my grandma, but I don't know how that happened, as I had no conscious desire to talk to her about STDs. And then we took pictures of Sarah, sans diaper and clothes. I think Mark wanted her to pee on me, since I was holding her with no diaper, but she did not. It's really awesome how easy it is to make my grandma happy. It takes so little (like a chubby naked baby). And then I felt bad about missing Thanksgiving because she kept asking me if I was sure I would be there on Friday, and right before I left, she said, "Do you promise?" I promised. And then she was upset that I put away all the clean dishes because she said there was no evidence that we'd been there. I was just trying to save her like 12 trips into the dining room, since she can't carry them all at once. But then she remembered that there was photographic evidence of our stay.

And it turns out that I made a good case for not going to Louisville on Christmas Eve, because my dad told me he told my grandfather that we aren't coming until Christmas morning. So now we only have to stay one night, but it's worse than two nights in a hotel, because it is at the house. My uncle can't be there for Christmas and my dad said if no one stays there my grandfather will be really hurt, so we're going to stay there on Christmas night. Ugh. His house makes my house look immaculate. I know! We will manage, though.

some people suck hard

I just read an article about how three cats were removed from the home of a woman who was marketing kittens as "goth kittens" on the internet after she pierced their necks, tails, and ears. That's just so cruel. I hope they scratched the crap out of her while she was trying to do it, and then everytime they saw her afterwards.

just bugging

So, I can't remember if I've mentioned this before on here, but I don't like bugs. Not that, but I won't kill them. They scare me, and I don't want any of them flying around my house, or any spiders hanging around, but I can't kill them. I am too afraid that it will hurt them, and not kill them and then they'll have a mortal wound and be in pain. Yeah, I know it's stupid. Rachel told me she doesn't think spiders can feel pain. Not being an etymologist, I really don't know. Insects and arachnoids are not something I have ever studied closely, because I don't care for them and I don't want to know about more than I have to on that front. Anyway, do you think that spiders or insects are sentient beings? Or better yet, do you actually know because you are a science nerd?

social distortion

Saturday night, Shannon and I went to a bar. I hadn't been to a bar since I was 21. And even then, I only went to The Little Brown Jug a couple times. Well, and that one time we went to Buffalo Wild Wings, but I don't really count that. And that time we went to the Deuce, but we didn't stay long at all. It was creepier than The Jug. Anyway, we went because some friends of Shannon's sister had a band that was playing. The story we heard was that they were going to play Weezer covers. So we had some drinks, and then they started playing. There was no Weezer. Only Pink Floyd, a Beatles medley, some Yeah Yeah Yeahs and some other stuff I didn't recognize. Not that I recognized Pink Floyd, but Shannon knew it. Also, it was super loud. I was like, this must be why I don't go out. It was so loud it was all distorted, and this dude ran up on the stage to tinker with the mix. I was like, that's not going to help, buttnut. Had I been drunker, I might have told someone that. But I wasn't. I was just blotto enough to not really care that it was disturbingly loud. It was the kind of loud where, after it goes away, you can't hear anything for a few seconds because it's all so much quieter. Weird. After we'd been there for a few minutes, I was like, is this what bars are like? Shannon laughed and her sister was like, I don't know, I don't go to them either. I was like, man are we ever bad at this. Also, before we left, I was looking for something, and while I didn't find what I wanted, I found the soundtrack to Romeo and Juliet. Shannon and I were both pumped, because we remembered it as being pretty good. We weren't wrong. Although I had forgotten all about that ridiculous LoveFool song. Anyway, be impressed that I went out. On a Saturday night and everything. Even if I didn't know what was supposed to happen.

rampant douchebaggery alert

So, this story about a kid's birthday cake made me sad for a minute, until I realized the kid's parents were total ass chapels. Seriously? They named their kid Adolf Hitler! And then their other kid's middle names are Aryan Nation! And then their last kid is named Hinler after the SS chief Himmler. Because bigots are bad at spelling. Oh, and this other article includes more about their home and some quotes from the parents. Apparently the dad thinks swastikas are symbols of peace, which was once pretty true, since they used to be a symbol of good luck and success, but there's no denying that no one thinks that when they see one now (unless they're thinking of how successful the Nazis were at killing people). And the mom thinks that it doesn't mean anything. Wow. The parents also think that the kids' names are not going to be a problem for them later, when they're not toddlers. Also, in the second picture in the first article, it would appear that that child has a mullet. Also, who puts their kid's first and middle names on their birthday cake? Anyone else thinking they were hoping for some attention, no matter what they say about how they're just names?

Justice?

This story, about an Iranian woman who was blinded when her stalker dumped a bucket of sulfuric acid on her head, is so terrible. Obviously, what he did to her was horrifying, horrifying enough that a liberal court ruled that five drops of the same acid be put in each of her attacker's eyes, but...five drops of acid! In each eye! It seems that he is at least somewhat unstable, given his behavior before the attack, and the fact that he can stand there and look at what he did to her and his comment is that he thinks she might be able to see, so they must clean out her eye sockets before they blind him. I am torn between thinking he deserves it, and thinking he needs psychiatric help and a prison sentence. Also, where does one procure sulfuric acid?

During the 24 trip to the AL Benzes, I popped in a random old cd that said May 2001 and now I can't stop singing Teenage Dirtbag. Seriously, for three days now, I've been wandering around work humming it to myself. And at home, I alternate it with Edelweiss. Yes, I am a winner. Also, I learned that Mark does not remember the words to much of anything that's not hymns. Poor Mark.

Orgasmic birth seems unlikely...

So, I was going about my business this morning, checking things I always check, when I happened across this. I have never had a child, but I have surmised that it's not generally a cakewalk. Also, the comments on the original article are disturbing, but the Jezebel comments are hilarious.

Do you want boring and mundane?

OK, so I was really going to stop talking about this, because, much like I am not actually a crazy cat lady, I am also not actually a crazed teenager (thank the Lord!). But this Target: Women is too awesome to not share.

I think my favorite part is when that girl tells her hypothetical future daughter that she can't date a drug dealer because their family is straight-edge. Or maybe when Sarah tells that other girl she is going to have a great high school experience. And the dude who reads-his lipstick is scary.

OK, I just heard a lady down the hall say that the earrings she bought for some outfit were inappropriate for work. How is that possible? Are they shaped like penises? Weird.

So, last night I wrote a post that was all weird because I was having a sad, scared evening. I think it was after people went to bed and then I took it down when I got to work. It contained what I must admit was, even for me, a strange and seemingly unrelated anecdote. Anyway, I thought better of it, especially since it painted me with the crazy brush more than usual. And now I think that the older I get, the more certain things click for me. Now I am a much better judge of people, much faster than I was when I was young. And it's funny to me how certain things turn out to be pretty much the opposite of how you thought they might. And people, too. Sometimes in surprisingly good ways. But still. I was telling Shannon how I try not to have expectations at all, because then they won't be unmet, leaving me disappointed. She was like, foul! Not true. Which, fine. I guess we all have expectations, whether they are based in reality or fantasy, whether we would admit to them or not.

So, I don't mind flying. It doesn't bother me. What bothered me about this trip was that I drove my car to and from the airport. It was an exercise for my nerves. I texted Shannon when I left the airport that I was now beginning the perilous part of my journey. She told me when she got home from work that she had been waiting all afternoon for a call from me to come get her because my car fell apart or exploded. Fortunately, it did not. It's just weird because it shakes if I go between 55 and 70, but doesn't shake from 70-79. Eighty shakes, though. ;)

I had to go to the U-Haul place to buy a box on my way back to work at lunch because we adopted some kids of our students in GA, like we always do for Christmas, and we needed a giant box to put the packages we spent most of the morning wrapping in to send. There were two people in front of me and the lady at the counter was discussing with them the sad state of the work ethics of young people today. They were all like, we don't like to hire anyone under 40 to work for us. Then the lady who worked there looked at me and was like, oh, I'm sorry, you can't be more than twenty. I laughed and told her my age, and that I was not offended because in so many cases, it is true. They still didn't believe me that I was 26, though. That almost makes up for all the times I have not been carded lately. Or maybe not.

Also, to keep up my streak of pointing out a proliferation of a random store or restaurant whenever I go somewhere: there were no fewer than seven Dunkin' Donuts within a five minute walk of my hotel. In fact, there was one right next door to the hotel. And then another one right around the corner. I'm really not sure why Boston needs that many Dunkin' Donuts that close to each other. But, then, Bowling Green has zero Dunkin' Donuts stores.

Catching up

So, Thanksgiving was nice. Thanks Dave and Rachel, and Rachel's parents! Remind me to get Mom's springform pan from you this weekend. Also, remind me to bring Dave's suit. Boston was also fun. I left Sunday morning, but my first flight was delayed because as we were taxiing to the runway, the girl next to me started having a seizure. So that was new and different and scary. She was an epileptic and she was ok, although they did have to deplane her eventually. The airline did get us all on new flights very quickly for those of us who missed our connections in Charlotte. It was remarkably warm in Boston yesterday-like 45 and sunny. I didn't even need my coat and scarf. It was great weather for wandering around looking at old stuff. I forgot to take a camera, although I'm pretty sure I have some pictures of the same old buildings from that time I went to Boston ten years ago. Oh, look at that! That is a picture I took with my cell phone of the view from my hotel room balcony.

And apparently Shannon was storing up her weirdness to share with me while I was away. She got home from work today and we talked for a while, then watched 17 Kids and Counting, and then got to the weirdness. I was telling her my theory about how I should get my top front teeth filed down to make my face more symmetrical-like. And then somehow we wound up measuring the space on each of us from hip bone to hip bone in the front and from navel to the bottom of the ribs. We don't have a measuring tape, so we were using a tape measure, and I had to get into the semantic bizarreness of that. Anyway, the point is, are your shoulders a few inches shorter width-wise than your hips? Also, if you put your thumb on the bottom of your ribs below your boobs, is your belly button really close? Mine is far enough away that I have to use my middle finger to reach it, but Shannon doesn't believe me that that's just because I have a long torso and is now convinced she has a midget torso. But my long torso was the bane of my existence for a while. Now I have bigger problems. Anyway, help us settle this. I won't even tell you about the nose-measuring argument. I think we need help.

One might think that I am not working hard today. One might be wrong. I have gotten a lot done, I just need to do more since I am leaving for Boston Sunday morning and won't be back in the office until Wednesday. But I'm all antsy now. And I need to find my scarves, as I think I might need one in Boston. Here is where I am staying. I went to Boston once about ten years ago on a mission trip. It was in the summer and it was grossly hot. And I can't stop singing The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything right now. I think I am excited. I also think I'm going to be exhausted when I return. And my mom was trying to guilt trip me about not spending Thanksgiving with she and my dad and her mom. I was like, whatever, I told you this was my pan. It's not my fault that you didn't actually listen to me until this week. And I called my grandma (about the cheesecake) and she said I was lucky to be spending Thanksgiving with our beautiful girls. I was like, right, and Dave and Rachel aren't too bad, either. She didn't really seem to be offended; it's not like her house isn't going to be full of people. So I don't know why my mom is being all weird. And she won't go to Louisville with my dad Saturday. He was standing right next to me and she goes, "I don't know why David wants to go there." I was like, hello, David is right here. He was just like, I want to go so I can see my dad. It was weird. I would be mad if I were him. But I think we established I'm not him a long time ago. Also, established: coffee makes me jittery and random.

So apparently the president isn't allowed to have e-mail. I feel like this is probably one of those obvious things that I've just never given any thought to, but man, that sucks. No work e-mail, no personal e-mail, so therefore, no smartphones. Sucks for them. "The nature of the president's job is that others can use e-mail for him." Fine. What about texting? No? Harsh.

I made two pumpkin cheesecakes last night. Sans recipe. I just pretended that I knew what I was doing. They look good and smelled right, but they might still be funky. Who knows? I made them at my parents' house, so I wouldn't have to buy nutmeg and ginger and cinnamon, and also I have no mixer. Anyway, that's how I learned they are trying to get rid of Jack! Jack is awesome. I am fully against it. But I can't take him because he doesn't like other cats, only dogs. And he's way too inside/outside for my area of town. The street is too busy. Some lady who came to do the closets said she would take him, but she does already have two cats and a dog. I really don't think Jack would want to live with other cats. And really, everyone who comes to their house to do work loves Jack because he's friendly and super cool and he blends in with all the carpet quite awesomely. Although, I think if Jack came to my house, he would put the smack down on Kazoo, who is being remarkably evil lately. He ate most of a (closed) container of candy corn Sunday and then threw it up, and then yesterday he ate a loaf of bread that was left on the table. Stupid dog.

I was just shredding something and it got stuck and when I bent over to futz with it, some of my hair fell into the little thing. It didn't go so far into it as to get caught, but still. Scared me for a second. That must be why my old shredder had picture of a ponytail with a line through it on the top. This one just has a hand with a line through it, a tie with a line through it, and some sort of liquid drops with a line. Apparently they don't care about my hair. I maybe shouldn't have had cake for breakfast. I think it's made me weirder than usual...

Apropos of nothing...

I was thinking about how I call Dave and Rachel dude pretty often. I don't call very many other people dude, mostly because people make fun of me because...it's very dated? I think with them, it's more like a term of endearment than anything else. Like I call Dave dude, where I might call someone else dear or honey. Also, I realized this last week, although I'm sure it doesn't matter: in just under one month, Rachel will have been around for more than half of my life. She's long past being around more than half of Mark's, but she and Dave have a few more years until they hit half of each other's lives. Yay for their strength, restraint, patience, and tenacity.

From Meg's blog by way of Rachel's blog..

Three names you go by:
1. Andrea
2. Miss Benz
3. Ohndrea (mispronunciation)

Three things you are wearing right now:
1. Gray pants
2. Green tee shirt
3. Socks

Two things you want very badly at the moment:
1. To figure out what I can eat for dinner
2. To find something on TV today that doesn't make me feel dumber (seriously, the number of things I have watched today that somehow involve krumping is embarrassing)

Three people who will probably fill this out:
1. Maybe Christina
2. Yeah, that's probably it.
3.

Two things you did last night:
1. Watched a bunch of The Learning Channel
2. Wondered if the girls in the Duggar family are allowed to shave their legs (they always wear skirts! What do you think?)

Two things you ate today:
1. Granola bar
2. Chicken Caesar salad

Two people you last talked to on the phone:
1. Dave
2. Shannon

Two things you are going to do tomorrow:
1. Go to work
2. Go to the store

Two longest rides you have taken:
1. From Bowling Green, KY to Missouri
2. From Bowling Green, KY to Orlando, FL.

Two favorite beverages:
1. Raspberry lemonade
2. Dr. Pepper

In which my train of thought gets handily derailed quite quickly...

So, I took Shannon to UrgentCare today and the lady who came in behind us was carrying a copy of Twilight. I was like, hey, I just read that. She said her thirteen year old daughter told her she had to read it. I wanted to say, well, it's definitely a book for teenage girls, ripe with obvious metaphors about sex/abstinence and much discussion of Bella's thanatophilia, which is something that those teens who realize they are not invincible often have (although to be honest, I never really agreed with the whole, teenagers as a breed think they are invincible thing, so do with that what you will...). I stuck with just it's certainly for teenagers. From everything I've read about the movie, it's the sort of absurdly self-serious tripe that lends itself to a good time at the movies if you enjoy laughing at melodramatic outbursts coupled with shaky dialogue. I completely realize that I keep talking about the same two things this week. I'm not sure what that's about, but beyond saying, "Hah! I called it first!" on the first three sentences of this Jezebel post, I am so finished torturing Rachel about one of them. Also, hearkening back to where I started, Shannon is still having severe back pain that multiple doctors remain unable to explain, and thusly, are unable to treat the cause of. It's going on about 6 weeks on and off, but very much on this weekend and I know she is getting very frustrated and disheartened. So please pray for her.

Apparently my grandfather inadvertently made the acquaintance of a grief counselor (inadvertent on his part, and he never used the words grief counselor) while at the funeral home this week. She went to high school with my dad and Granddaddy wound up talking to her for quite a while and found it very helpful. So helpful, in fact, that he made an appointment to meet with her again. I think that's really great and I'm glad he's talking it through with someone.

At least they didn't go with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

Oh, dear. It would seem that Ashleeeeeee Simpson and Pete Wentz named their new son Bronx Mowgli Wentz. Now that's just mean. Not to bring up that awful Jungle Book for the second time this week or anything, but maybe she had a crush on Mowgli like Zoe did. Or maybe she's just weird...

Anyone have an extra $600-$1000 laying around and want to go to Boston with me the Saturday/Sunday after Thanksgiving? Hotel room's on me! Or rather on my work. But still. Why don't I know any rich people?

Ohhh, I can't wait.

So, I think I've mentioned how I have a bunch of One Tree Hill on my DVR for a rainy day. Thanks to this post on Go Fug Yourself, I think I may have to play catch-up on that this weekend (I know they talk about Gossip Girl first, but they get to the awful/awesomeness that is One Tree Hill). I must know why Dawson appears to be laying on a table shirtless in a recording studio or radio station with someone turning his head for him. And the back in time episode does appear to be extremely awful even for that show. I accidentally saw tiny bits of last night between picking things to watch from the DVR. I didn't realize it was a back in time episode though; I thought maybe it was like, a themed night at that club or whatever that is so very Peach Pit After Dark of them. You know what I'm talking about, Christina. :)

Absurdity

Last night when I got home from work, I ranted at Shannon about something for a few minutes and she was like, dude, that's bad. She thought we should toilet paper the offending party's house. I'm sure we could be far more creative than that, right Benzes? Anyway, then she was like, ok, that sucks, but I just got to the part in Twilight where things finally happen. So she finished the book before she had to go to class. And we agreed that pretty much nothing happens for the first 400 pages or so. It's not even like, a big reveal when she figures out he's a vampire, because you already know that going into the book (even if you didn't read anything about it anywhere else, it's on the back cover of the book). But again, she said she would totally read the other three. What is wrong with us?!

Hah! I am so timely.

According to the comments on this post on Jezebel today, I am not alone in thinking Twilight was kind of absurd, but also wanting to read the other books. We just can't help it...
For the record, when Ashley gave me the book, I looked rather askance at the ridiculous quotes about it being one of the year's best books and a timeless love story, as well as some other crap, and she totally was like, no it's not one of the best books of any year, nor is it an awesome love story. So I'm not like, bashing on someone's favorite book or anything. Also, I freely admit that I want to read more. So I'm just ridiculous myself.

Folkloric masterpiece? I think not.

So I finished the book Ashley lent me last night. I handed it off to Shannon, because that's how we do and told her it was the book that we've been seeing all the ads for the movie based on it lately, with Cedric Diggory and whatnot. She asked me if it was bad or spectacular. Oh, it's both, my friend. One might say it is spectacularly bad. Although I have to say, I want to read the others now. I just read a review of it by a Paperbackswap member who claims that Bella has the verbal skills of a 35 year-old MENSA member. I think maybe she read a different book. Or she has the verbal skills of a 3 year-old. The dialogue was definitely not something to write home about. Of course, that review was preceded by a review wherein the writer claimed she would be defiantly dragging her husband to see the movie. Oh, people who cannot type the word definitely. You definitely crack me up.

Also, the cover of the book reminds me of nothing so much as Snow White. What does an apple have to do with anything? Is it a reference to temptation? Man's thirst for things he should not want and should not know? Or is it just there because the people are all pale and it's red like the blood the vampires drink? Maybe I'm reading too much into this. And if any of you are former viewers of Buffy the Vampire Slayer,(I used to watch it while I was getting ready in the mornings because it came on at 6) their vampire canon deviates rather a lot from Joss Whedon's vampire canon. Interesting. Pretty much the only thing that is the same is the paleness and the blooddrinking. All the other rules are different (like what can kill them, special abilities, the whole sunlight thing, the invitation to enter a house, etc.).

I am such a nerd. I just looked up the movie on IMDB so I could put a link to Cedric, for clarity, and was all excited by things I saw in the cast list. Also, it's directed by Catherine Hardwicke. So of course, Nikki Reed is in it and Luke from Joan of Arcadia (remind me to lend that to you, Rachel-I really think you'll like it)and, on a less awesome note, Sharkboy from the worst movie ever made, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl in 3D. Although, he was just a kid, so maybe that's not entirely his fault. But still, completely terrible. Worse than that live-action sequel to The Jungle Book that Zoe used to watch all the time.

I know Rachel and Ashley posted about the funeral and whatnot, but I have things to say too. It was a lovely funeral, although everytime I looked at my dad, it made me cry. And as Ashley said, our whole row lost it when Mark finished singing and then turned his head and sobbed. Shannon came and sat in the back and she said she cried when, after the funeral was over and everyone was leaving, she was trying to make her way to the front and saw us all clinging to each other. She said Dave and Rachel and I hugging took her over the edge and she didn't even know my grandma. I was mostly thankful that no one asked all of us to sing again, like at my grandfather's funeral, which Shannon said was completely heartbreaking. But we did it because my grandma asked us to. Just like this go-round, I was a pallbearer because they said my grandfather wanted the granddaughters to do it too. So that was new and different. Rachel and Ashley kept talking about how she wasn't even their grandma, so Rachel was like, I don't know why I'm crying so hard. But really, just because you didn't grow up with her, doesn't mean you don't have the right to be upset. What got me again yesterday was that while were at the house with all the family, my grandfather said that she mentioned she wanted to get me a mixer for Christmas. She and I made a cake together last weekend while we were there and I told her about how I tried to make meringue, but it didn't turn out so hot because I don't have a mixer so I had to whisk it by hand. I'm just so worried about my grandfather and what he's going to do now. Regardless of whether he stays at his house for a while or moves in with someone else, he's just going to be so lost...

OK, now that all the relevant persons have been notified, please pray for our grandma. She had a stroke (not her first) this morning and is in the hospital in Louisville. I don't have a lot of details, but please keep her and our grandfather in your prayers.

8 things

8 Favorite TV shows:
1: House
2: Pushing Daisies
3: 30 Rock
4: The Office
5: America's Next Top Model
6: Gossip Girl
7: How I Met Your Mother
8: What Not To Wear (or most any show on TLC)

8 Favorite Restaurants:
1: Panera
2: Whitt's (I love the turkey baked potato!)
3: Kyoto
4: Royal Thai
5: Linzie's
6: Mancino's
7: The Cheesecake Factory
8: Edgar's Bakery

8 things that happened yesterday:
1: Got up late
2: Had a caramel latte from Sonic-it was good
3: Got two books in the mail!
4: Watched last week's Gossip Girl since apparently we forgot about it in all the election excitement last week
5: Took Shannon to school, read a book, picked Shannon up from school
6: Went to Subway
7: Got a really terrible sandwich at said Subway-the bread was so hard I couldn't make indentations with my fingers, and it had been toasted (not by request) to try to disguise the fact that the bread was so old, but it really didn't help
8: Went back to Subway with my sub-par sandwich and got a better one, plus a free cookie for my trouble. Way to make it right, Subway chick who seemed horrified by her co-worker's folly

8 things to look forward to:
1: 6 people at work are gone this week, so the four of us remaining will hopefully have a quiet week
2: Hopefully lower gas bills than last winter due to our awesome job of insulating the windows
3: Christmas
4: Thanksgiving
5: Figuring out what's happening at Thanksgiving and Christmas
6: Not having to pay someone to mow the lawn for a while
7: It's supposed to be raining here thru Friday. I love rain.
8: Christmas music!

8 things I love about fall:
1: Colder weather
2: Blankets!
3: Cuddling with the animals when it's cold and dreary
4: Christmas shopping
5: STUFFING!
6: Getting to wear my awesome pink coat again!
7: Making desserts for holidays-I'm better at baking than cooking
8: Tights! I love getting to wear tights with skirts and dresses, because then I don't feel like I'm blinding people with my paleness.

8 things on my wish list:
1: New lamps
2: New brown shoes
3: New books (always)
4: New sheets
5: New clothes
6: Snuggies-what? It's cold at our house, and I think then we would look like cloaked members of some sort of cult or secret society. Also, buy one, get one free! Or just the cold thing...
7: New phone
8: New music. I haven't bought in music in ages. I did copy some cds a dude lent me at the beginning of this year, but nothing since then. I should look into that. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. And if you are really awesome, you should send me some music that is good.

I'm not tagging anyone because everyone else did this like 2 weeks ago. I am slow. Christina, if you want to, that's cool, but I don't expect it.

It would seem everything is about to change. Time pushes us inexorably into the future. I guess I'm about to make a change that I'm still uncertain about, but since I don't have any better options or even any other ideas, here I go. I'm just afraid that I won't be able to do it. Or I'll be able to do it, but not very well. Wish me luck! I can only assume that since this opportunity dropped into my lap, and nothing else has, this must be what I'm supposed to do...

Glasnost?

I just learned something about The Sound of Music, which I love. I sing Edelweiss at least once a week. In fact, Sunday I was singing it to Kazoo (when he's being a punk, if I start singing he'll stop and come sit on me with his face all up in mine and stare lovingly at me-it's funny)and somehow it morphed into me singing America from West Side Story and then This Land Is Your Land, This Is My Country, Faith of Our Fathers, and finally Fifty Nifty United States which led into My Favorite Things, oddly enough. Shannon just laughed at me. Anyway, what I learned was that during the Cold War, BBC planned to air The Sound of Music in the event of a nuclear attack because it would 'reassure' the public. That's so awesome.

So, now that Lynn told me she thinks I'm occasionally funny, I feel the need to be entertaining more often. That will inevitably be a losing venture. Anyway, you know the other day when I said I was working on something funny? Yeah, I couldn't do what I wanted to do because the computer hates me, and rather than do it all subpar, I didn't do it. But what it was was that Shannon's five year old twin nephews were Obama and McCain for Halloween and their mom took some video of it. Shannon and I were there, and thusly she asked us to do something with the footage she shot. I wanted to put it either Ebony and Ivory or So Happy Together, as the audio is somewhat less that thrilling. She had coached Obama to say, "Share the wealth!" and McCain to say, "Friends, we need to end this war now!" But since they were five and were wearing masks, it was mostly garbled. Still funny, but not the most compelling thing you've ever seen. Also, the McCain mask was weirdly a darker color than the Obama mask. It looked like McCain had spent a little too much time in the tanning booth. Sadly, it just didn't work out, because I could see it in my head and it was awesome. And now it's no longer topical, so what's the point?

So, about church last night. That was...interesting. My dad, our tech minister and the tech/music assistant were all in Houston at a conference. The light guy didn't show, so I was doing lights and graphics, so I just played with the lights when it seemed appropriate. The sound guy had a head cold and told me right before the service started that he could barely hear, which explained the practice. Benny kept adding extra choruses at the end of songs. Seriously, he added at least one extra chorus to the end of 3 out of four songs. But that's fine. It was just that I was trying to help the sound guy mix it and the vocal team wasn't the strongest and one of the altos was making a valiant attempt to sing soprano. I'm not ragging on her because...well, if you've ever heard me try to hit high notes, it was like that. And the dude listened to me when I told him which vocalists to turn up and down, but he didn't seem to believe me about the piano or percussion. From the booth, on the whole, the music didn't sound so hot. Maybe it sounded better downstairs...Yeah, I'll go with that.

Dude. McCain's concession speech was probably the best speech he's ever given. It wasn't just well-written, he delivered it well. With feelings and everything. Had he been delivering things like that during his campaign, I think last night would've been much closer. Also, I have never seen so many awesome ties. There seems to be a profusion of purple ties lately. And the Silver Fox's silver tie was cool. I love that Obama hired an actual orchestra for his speech. Nice touch, dude. And is it wrong that I love James Carville, mostly because of that episode of 30 Rock he was on? And on a CNN note, what was up with that stupid hologram thing? Really? Oh, she's not here with you? I couldn't tell, since you and she spent like five minutes explaining how the holographic thing worked! Also, she didn't look at all strangely outlined or anything. Whatever, CNN.

I just voted! I feel like that time I was talking about my latent patriotism, only now it is bubbling up something fierce, rather than dissipating. Someone told me the other day that if you're a Republican when you're young, you have no heart, and if you're a Democrat when you're old, you have no brain. Apparently people say that. I don't know about that. I do know that I am ridiculously fired up right at this minute and I just got a little misty-eyed. I'm so excited that I feel like if I don't go to this other girl's office and grin foolishly at her without saying anything because the people in the offices around hers don't feel the same way we do, then I shall simply burst. Or type more overly dramatic, awful, nonsensical, poorly constructed crap on my blog. Whatever. Seriously. Also, I love you and if you don't vote today, I'm coming to your house to prattle on nonsensically at you in person about how you should be ashamed and if you don't respect yourself then you can't respect anyone else (apparently when I get all worked up I throw in random phrases from my mom's speeches-although the ashamed part is all me and I mean it!). Keep that in mind. I have clearly lost mine. Therefore, I'm not going to tell you whose side I voted for, so as not to unduly influence your opinion of supporters of ________. I schooled some people at my polling place about how Starbucks is not allowed to ask you for proof that you voted when you tell them you want your free cup of coffee. Eeeww. But it is illegal and now you know. I'm just excited. Like the kind of excited where you're not sure what's going to happen but you can't wait because you think it's going to be good, whatever it is. Yeah, like that.

More odds and ends

I hemmed some pants this weekend, so pants that were previously three and a half inches longer, now just barely skim the ground when I am standing barefoot. I like this length because they don't get all short when I sit down.

Pouring vegetable or olive oil on the dog's food(every week or two) makes his coarse fur silky and helps his skin.

Fall means pumpkin spice and cinnamon dolce lattes are back at Starbucks. Mmmm. Even if it is not cold this week...

I had my very first panic attack, I think. The other night my chest hurt and my heart was racing and I couldn't catch my breath and was all shaky. It was disturbing. I was thinking, am I having a heart attack? No, surely that would hurt more than this. And I know those things can indicate panic attacks, but I've never had one. Shannon was like, what were you doing? I was getting ready for bed. Nothing stressful or difficult about it. So that was new and different.

There is a commercial for the 21st District State Representative Democratic candidate Charlene Rabold that is completely bizarre. They say that the Republican candidate, Jim DeCesare, supports the legalization of marijuana and then this dude climbs out of the back of a smoke-filled van and says, "Thanks, Desiree!" Really, he mispronounces his name. I'm not sure if that part was accidental or if they are saying pot makes you suck at names. Regardless, it's a hilarious commercial. It's also ridiculous because when he asked her about it at their debate, she said she found that out via Google. And even that information she based it on was really a stretch. Which, really? Strong work, lady. Sadly, I cannot find that commercial anywhere for your viewing pleasure, so you'll just have to believe me.

Also, I'm working on something that will hopefully turn out to be funny. Don't hold your breath, though.

I just figured out what I want to be for Hallowe'en next year, so I'd better get crackin' on finding some friends so I can show someone...

Also, yesterday I told this girl at work that I was thinking about being my grandma in the '70s because I had a paisley dress and a short curly black wig, so she said she was disappointed this morning when I didn't wear it to work. Sorry. So I told her about the time when I was working at the refugee center and one of the other teachers and I decided to dress like old ladies one random work-day. We wore awesome old lady dresses and orthopedic shoes and the students thought we were nuts. I think Missy was pretty much like, yeah that sounds like something you'd do. I don't even remember what I was telling them the other day, but she was just like, you're so weird. Yeah, sounds about right. But I aim to please.

And finally, apparently the other day, when my head hurt so badly that I thought my eyeball was going to explode(old school migraine for me), that when I was pressing on my brow bone to make it feel moderately better, I pressed so hard that I have a bruise there today. Good job, self.

Since it's been nice this week, I've been taking Kazoo on run-walks(we alternate fast walking with sprinting) after I take Shannon to school. Not to sound like a baby or anything, but dude, running on asphalt makes my shins hurt. In fact, all week it's just been hurting while I do it, but now my shins just hurt. Way to go, oldness.

Things I learned today

If I don't eat anything until 2:30 in the afternoon, I get shaky and it won't go away for a long time after I eat something. Fun times. Also, if I am working on a thing pertaining to KY(but not Bowling Green) and another thing pertaining to NY, I can get incredibly confused when I'm working on NY stuff and people call me about KY. I have to shuffle all my papers around to find the pertinent information and then people think you're stupid or insane and it's just not cool. Way to be confused, self.

Odds and ends

Sealing our windows is pretty much the best thing we've ever spent a few hours on, as it has gotten close to freezing the past couple nights and we still haven't even turned our heat about 65 degrees and it has not been super freezing in the house at any point. Yay, plastic! {jazz hands}


OK, so fellow House fans, I'd like to give last night's episode a giant "What the...?!" Seriously, House writers? After what, five seasons? Now you're going to go there? Also, the way that was shot made Hugh Laurie's balding spot on his crown stand out. And I could really tell it was a Deran Sarafian-directed episode. It was kind of a strange episode anyway. I just tried to find this clip, but was unsuccessful, but right before I watcher House last night, I watched Greek and there was this part where this girl was talking to a dude she used to date and she kept getting closer and closer, until she was all up in his personal space and I was like, nooo, don't have her cheat on the awesome dude! Seriously, she was as close to him as House was to Cuddy right before they kissed. But at least Greek didn't go all the way with their invasion of personal bubbles. At least House and Cuddy didn't have sex, though.

I realized yesterday that reading my blog must be a lot like having a conversation with me: occasionally serious, mostly random. I mean, I don't think carrying a conversation with me is like one with my mom, who is always changing the subject really abruptly and you have to get used to it in order to keep up. But I know I am sometimes random, but it's more like a free association kind of thing than jumping backwards to things we already covered. Most of the time anyway. It's just all, serious talk about life and God, random excerpt from conversations at my house, me babbling about unimportant stuff...

Another play in one act

Parental guidance is suggested. This play contains some language and mild references to violence, as well as some truly terrible plays-on-words.

Andrea: So, did I tell you what I decided we need to do?

Shannon: Nooo...

Andrea: We need to join a roller derby team! There isn't one in town, but there's one in Nashville, or if you'd prefer, both Louisville and Lexington have teams.

Shannon: But I bruise easily and you are prone to migraines.

Andrea: Yes, well, we all have our crosses to bear. But you get to pick names and there's a registry and you know how I love paranomasias and also dirty stuff, so combining those two awesome things would make me ecstatic! So, the names should be like, dirty and/or violent and/or puns.

Shannon: Right. I can make a name for you...

Andrea: And I will pick yours! This could take a while, because you cannot have the same pun-tastic name as someone else on the national registry. Also, there's the problem that I looked into like, the rules of roller derby and it totally seems hard. Like, you have to be able to stop, which is something I was never able to master on anything wheeled except a bike (and cars!).

Shannon: Uhh...

Andrea: I know, you're wondering why I decided we need to do it, if I don't even know the rules or the point of the derby. That's an excellent inquiry, although you are the person who's been telling me for like 10 years now about how much repressed anger I have. I don't really know, but it sounded like a good idea to me this morning, so I spent an hour learning about it. So let's just make ridiculous names and forget the whole team-joining part. Sadly, Pirate's Booty is taken.

Later, in the car...

Andrea: Poke-Her-Hot-Ass!

Shannon: Bwa-ha ha! ...Well, if it matters, I am partial to alliteration...

Andrea: I can try to work with that. Horton Hires A Ho? Bloodbathsheba? A.C. Slay-Her?...This one's too obvious, but Violent Femme?

Shannon: Ha ha! There's something wrong with you...

A few minutes pass and we are back at home...

Andrea: Warring Piece! Leif Garrote? ...Esther the Molester? Latter-day Taint! ...Rufus Painwright? Ohhhh, this would so be Dave's roller derby name if he had one: Revenge of the Turd!

Shannon: (laughs and shakes head) (continues to humor me)

Andrea: Obsessive Compulsive Destroyer!

Shannon: Oh, I think that's it!

Andrea: OK, now you have to think of something! It's not so much fun when it's just me shouting random things at you. Or maybe it is for you. And heaven knows I'm keeping myself entertained.

Shannon: I really think yours needs to contain a reference to you being German.

Andrea: Fine, as long as there's no Sexicans about it, as neither of us is sufficiently lacking in caucasian-ocity to pull it off.

Editor's note: I did come up with more that I did not include in this post and if you care to hear them, I will share. :) Also, there were a couple periods where I was like, throw names at me. Throw words at me. It wasn't actually all that helpful, because Shannon would say, "Ruth" and I would say, "oh! Esther the Molester!" Or Haman's Curse, which we deemed too obscure for most.

Abortion Steals Your Literacy!

and your powers of reason. I am officially pro-life, I can't afford to get any dumber. We are having a political discussion involving jazz hands and abortion when I suddenly find myself unable to create an appropriately witty roller-derby name for Andrea. Boo.

The places that used to fit me cannot hold the things I've learned

So, not too long ago, Shannon planted a bug in my ear about leaving. At first, I was like, eh, not so much. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea, until I got to where I am now, which is ready to leave. Now. We just reupped our lease, so I can't. Also I don't know where I would go or what I would do. But I want to get out. And those of you who know me well, or at least for a long time, know that I will stay in a less than ideal situation (any sort: work, home, people) for eons because, well, probably mostly because I don't think I deserve better, but also because it's easier than changing things, or a bad ___ is better than no ___. Maybe not. Or maybe I decided I'm ready to leave because I can't right now and I'm really just deluding myself. That sounds like something I would do.

Now is definitely a really bad time to be looking for a job of any sort, especially when I have a good one, with good benefits, good people, and bosses who treat us all really well. And I don't know what I want to do. I don't want to go back to school because I hated it, and it's stupid to keep spending money when I don't have an endgame in mind. I talked to some people whose opinions I trust recently, and while most of them were encouraging and whatnot, one of them made me really sad. It was just that I didn't realize what I wanted the answers to be until after they gave me the wrong ones. I don't want someone to tell me to do the safe thing. I've been doing the safe thing all my life! What are my interests? What am I decent at that I could conceivably parlay into a career, or at the very least, some fun supplemental income? Yeah, not much. I want someone to tell me to be happy and do something I love. Or is that too much to ask? Apparently so.

I've been listening to Sara Groves' Conversations CD lately. I started to use part of the lyrics to "Painting Pictures of Egypt" for the title of this post, but I went to check them just to be sure, and discovered the chorus isn't what I thought. I thought the piece I wanted to use was "the future feels so hard, but I don't want to go back." Apparently it is actually "the future feels so hard, I want to go back." I realize my version of it is somewhat contradictory, but I guess I heard it that way because that's how I feel. Also, it still sounds like that's what she's saying to me.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I think You are telling me to wait, and I will wait to hear from You

I just found this post I started about a week and a half ago. I think I need the goggles to prevent me from posting ridiculousness (like this, except it seems I did decide to post later at the time, and just decided to post it now because I feel like it)on the internet, rather than e-mailing ridiculousness to people. Also, it's never because I am drunk. I did not realize that drunk e-mailing was such an issue for some people.

Last night at church our pastor was talking about how we should listen to God and wait for him before we react to things. He went into some detail about waiting and, rather than write his lengthy bit down, I wrote in my notes that we should use Gmail Goggles in all situations. Except of course, instead of being about e-mailing, it's about doing anything, and instead of having math problems stopping you, you have God. What can I say? I'm not a good note-taker. The other day during a conference call at work, my notes stated that this one dude complained for like 5 minutes about having to do work at his job. Gasp!

Bring it on, winter!

Today Shannon's mom and step-dad and her sister came over and helped us winterize The Paneled Palace, just in time for a really lovely day. We sealed plastic over all of our windows (on the inside) except for the ones in my room, as the heat grate is right outside my bedroom door. We even did the ones in the kitchen, although I think we're going to get a curtain and a tension rod so we can kind of seal it off, since we don't spend a ton of time in there and it would be cheaper to not heat it (but not let it get so cold the pipes freeze!). Ahh, the joys of an old house and a floor unit heater. But we knocked it out and even got all the blinds back up and you can't even see the edges of the plastic on the sides of most of the sheers. So now we are ready for it to be cold. And I got some shorter layers cut into my hair yesterday, but I got up at 6:20 this morning, when I had to be at church at 7:00, so I didn't have a chance to futz with them.

Well, for reasons that are absurd, I would up spending my lunch hour running around all crazy-like instead of going to the airport. So no one has to tell my grandma that I have shamed her. ;)

More ridiculousness

So I read Christina's post that mentioned my post (this is so meta) and I wanted to mention something else. Not about abortion, because I think I already went over where I stand on that a couple weeks ago. Anyway, the other day, I read this article where they talk about the four best-informed news audiences. And despite the way US News and World Report spins the data, the answer is the viewers of conservative shows like Rush and Hannity. Which strikes me as likely. My grandma is incredibly well-informed and she spends most of her days watching FOX News. And she has listened to Rush for as far back as I can remember. That doesn't mean I agree with her on everything, but there's no doubt in my mind as to how much she knows about things. Anyway, I think it's really sad and telling about our country that so many people don't even know who the PM of Britain is or the PM of Canada or the President of Mexico. Not that I knew who the PM of Canada was, but I did know Britain's. How many Canadians do you think don't know who is in charge down here?

Shhh...

So Bill Clinton is supposed to be in town later today, campaigning for Bruce Lunsford. They really want to get rid of Mitch McConnell. I really want Mitch McConnell to stop Botoxing his face so much, whether he wins or loses. The man can only move his chin when he talks. It's creepy. At rehearsal at church the other night, I was talking to this dude about politics, because we had a previous conversation about it last time I was on graphics. He said that McConnell's campaign manager made a statement about how they weren't worried that Clinton was coming because the last time Clinton came around campaigning for McConnell's opponent(1996?), McConnell still won by a landslide. I said that that was because people in this area liked Clinton a whole lot less in 1996 than they do now and he was like, it was before the affair stuff. That wasn't even what I meant, because I think people in this area disliked him long before that. Now it's more removed and he is less polarizing than he was back then. Rather like his wife is now. But that's neither here nor there. Am I really far off? Also, I totally want to go hear him speak. It's going to be at the airport, which is really close to my work. And it's going to be at my lunch time, so I wouldn't even have to move things around. It just seems likely to be the only opportunity I'll ever have to hear a former President speak. But don't tell my grandma, as she would be horrified!

Eh...

This weekend was fun. Thanks for having me, guys! Now, if you are a member of my family and you feel you haven't seen enough of me lately, tough luck. Get in your car and come see me. The Paneled Palace is open for visitors, but only if you give us at least 20 minutes of warning. ;)

Anyway, you know how sometimes I like to read garbage? (see Shannon's post-I prefer my trash to be less trashy, and more ridiculous, with cringeworthy dialogue-hey, the same goes for my TV garbage!) I also like to watch mindless garbage on TV sometimes. Tonight I turned to One Tree Hill for that frivolous pleasure. I have been recording the episodes and saving them for a day such as this, but the episode I turned on wound up being all morbid and depressing. I guess lately my guilty pleasures have not been turning out the way I want them to. Nuts... Although this evening, I did find something eminently more entertaining than trashy romance novels. If you're lucky, maybe I'll share it with you at a later date. Let's just say Shannon and I could hardly breathe it was so funny.

Also, Shannon gets to be a contributing author because last night she was catching up on my blog, although I don't know why, since she's always either there for things I write about, or she hears about them, and she said she had things to say. She wants to correct my revisionist history. Namely, where in the post about books, I said I spilled daiquiri on The Kite Runner one slightly tipsy day at the pool. Honestly, it was more than slightly tipsy. ;)

ANDREA BOUGHT PORN!!!

This is Shannon, I'm gonna start adding my own thoughts here from time to time.

So Andrea and I were eating our standard dinner of fries and burgers from McDonalds( yeah!!!) and she tells me that she "accidentally" bought some erotica from the used bookstore. Now we all know that is college talk for porn, so picture with me--- Our sweet little Andrea perusing the romance section when she comes across a volume with exceptionally lovely cover art that she decides to buy. She takes the smut novel to the nice octagenarian working the register and pays her $2.00 while the grandmother smirks at her. Later that evening, she sits down to read about a nubile young virgin and the rakish English Lord who loves her when, to her shock, she realizes that SHE BOUGHT PORN!!! Who here thinks she continued reading?

Obviously, the first word that comes to mind is sophisticated

I have the day off tomorrow. I'm going to Birmingham to see the peeps. And Greenwood Wine and Spirits Shoppe called to tell me my case of Tott's is in. So I will be taking a half case of champagne to Birmingham. I don't know why no one sells it anymore, but they said they can order it. Awesome. Rachel and I found some at a liquor store in Owensboro once, but we're not sure which store it was. Oops. Obviously I am a lush. Or not, since I rarely drink. It's just that when I do, I would rather have Tott's than Korbel. And I don't branch out into anything more than $20 a bottle because I am cheap. And seriously, a half case of sparkling wine means I can store it in the dungeon and call it a wine cellar! Classy! See you AL Benz 'dolts' at lunchtime. :)

A play in one act

Inspired by Monday's episode of How I Met Your Mother.

Shannon: They have an intervention banner! We should have interventions. We can have two interventions for Jack, two weeks in a row and then he will kill us, so we'll have to hold off. And we can do 'yay, interventions! {jazz hands}'

Andrea: Only if we can have a banner! And it should have exclamation points before and after the word 'intervention.' And the ones before it should be upside down! And there should be {jazz hands} on the banner! And we can have interventions for everything. For the 'yay, ________ {jazz hands},' for watching too much Keeping Up With the Kardashians, reading too much garbage, for having too much actual garbage in here... We would get to the point where we needed an intervention because we have too many interventions really quickly. Saturation point, we're on our way!

Shannon: Yeah...

Andrea: I got way too excited and specific about that, didn't I?

Shannon: Umm...

Andrea: Yeah, we just shouldn't even start having interventions. It can only end in heartache.

So I joined a website called paperbackswap yesterday. I posted 17 books and I already have two requests. It's kind of neat because you only pay for mailing the books, so there are no fees. So when someone requests a book you have, you send it and pay for it because when you request a book the person who sends it to you will pay. It's kind of awesome for those books you know you're never going to read again, like mysteries and bestseller stuff. And they do swap hardbacks as well as audio and of course, paperbacks.

I had been going to the used book store here in town, but I believe I mentioned once before that 75% of their inventory is romance novels. You can occasionally find something you really want, but it's still half of the original price. I did manage to find a copy of "The Kite Runner" there, but then while Shannon was reading it, I spilled strawberry daiquiri on it one slightly tipsy day at the pool. Oops. I still intend to read it, as it isn't ruined, it's just pinker than it was when I purchased it. I also found a copy of "Midwives" on the bargain table, so that was only 50 cents. But I read that book back when it came out years ago, although that didn't stop me from taking advantage of that awesome bargain. Also, I thought Shannon might read it, as she's been reading everything I have. You get half of the original price on things you take in to the used book store, but they don't take hardbacks and you can only use your store credits for half of each purchase total. The two requests I've already gotten from paperbackswap are for two books I didn't even like much anyway ("A Live Coal in the Sea" by Madeleine L'engle and "A Better Woman: A Memoir of Motherhood" by Susan Johnson). So, all in all, yay book swapping! {jazz hands}

My whole world is the pain inside me, the best I can do is just get through the day

Yes, Superchick, that song is just about right if you're talking migraines. So, I've been seeing commercials for the new Treximet, and I finally remembered to look up exactly how it differs from Imitrex. Apparently it is just Imitrex with Naproxen. Which is fine, but not really helpful, as if I wanted to take naproxen with my Imitrex, I would. I do not, however, as I've yet to have a migraine that over-the-counter meds can even touch. It seems that GSK is releasing Treximet because their exclusive patent on Imitrex is almost up. So there will soon be a generic Imitrex distributed by Ranbaxy! Yay! I love sumatriptan! {jazz hands!} Shannon asked me the other day how I function with the head and I was like, well, you know how sometimes I stare blankly at the TV or a book? Yeah, that's me concentrating on the pain. I generally try to concentrate on things other than the pain, not because it makes it feel better, but because I would never get anything done and also because at least then I feel less like crying, although no less frustrated with my body's betrayal. Urgh. Anyway, why, yes, I am still having head problems right now. Thanks for asking! Sorry for whining about this, but it's getting to me again. I do not enjoy the searing agony each day; it begins to wear on my spirit. Lucky me.

In which I talk about things I have zero experience in

This morning I was reading a post on Gawker about the cover shot of W magazine where Angelina Jolie is breastfeeding and make-up free. It seems as though most people are OMG-ing more about the lack of make-up than the fact that she's breastfeeding, which is cool, although she's so naturally pretty that her skin looks better sans make-up than many women's skin looks with it. But there was a link in that piece to an article about Maggie Gyllenhaall breastfeeding in public where I read the following comment, "Sure, it's her right, but in all seriousness, I plan on having LOTS of sex with my husband after having a child. Baby feeding machine and sex kitten are essentially mutually exclusive images. It's possible to be the former without giving up the latter, so I shall breastfeed indoors without my husband present. I don't care if this is a politically correct or feminist-approved method of thinking. My body. My choice." Now, I 've never given it much thought, not having a husband or a child, but I really don't think those two images are mutually exclusive and I feel sorry for that woman for thinking that doing what her body was meant to do in front of anyone will make her less desirable. And if she really thinks she couldn't breastfeed in front of her husband, is she going to ban him from the room during the birth, too? It just smacks of a very dated mode of thinking, and possibly some body image issues. I mean, boobs can be both purposeful and pleasurable, so why would one thing cancel out the other? That would be sad. So this lady thinks if her husband sees her breastfeeding, he won't ever want to have another baby with her? Poor, mistaken lady.

P.S. I just tried to type something about a turnaround, but I typed Turner Student instead. I have typed that set of words together pretty much everyday, at least one, for the past three and half years. Apparently I can no longer type the word turn without automatically typing Turner Student. :)

Strangers, waiting, up and down the boulevard...

I don't know if I've mentioned this on here, but I take Shannon to and from her classes (so she doesn't have to buy a ridiculous parking pass). She calls me when she gets out to come pick her up and most of the time I'll let Kazoo ride along because he gets so excited. Lately I've noticed that anytime I am home and Shannon is not and then she calls me, Kazoo gets really excited and runs to the door. He knows her ringtone means we're going to get in the car! Her ringtone is Don't Stop Believing by Journey for the same reason that Rachel's ringtone is No Scrubs and well, most all my specific caller ringtones are chosen entirely because they make me laugh when the phone rings (my dad's is the Law and Order theme song, but I tried to get Video Killed the Radio Star and it wasn't available; neither was Television, Television by OK Go). So Shannon has started playing that song on the computer and Kazoo gets all excited when it gets to the refrain. He cracks me up. He is apparently smarter than I give him credit for.

Scary things that make me laugh...

Hearkening back to my post last week about how much I love HSM3 for merely existing, this post on Gawker made me laugh until I clicked on it and saw the photo not in thumbnail. It's totally scary and somehow even more dead-eyed than the real Zac Efron! Ahhhh! Real monsters! I also really don't think that any commenter can beat the Gawker caption. Chucky indeed.

You know a word I really don't care for? Akimbo. I know what it means and that's all well and good, but it sounds ridiculous. Which may be part of the reason people rarely actually put their hands on their hips. They don't want someone to describe them as being akimbo, as it is so undignified. ;)

I am losing my mind lately. I cannot find like, simple words in there. Last week I was trying to talk about a fundraising thing, and I could not think of the word fundraising! It's getting annoying. I was trying to talk about someone who was not doing something everyone else was doing, because they felt it was wrong, but they weren't being all in your face about it to the people who were doing it. I could only come up with not proselytizing. But I don't think that was the word I was looking for. I feel like the word I am looking for does start with a p, so not being a self-righteous prick is out. It might be pharasaic, but I am not sure. It fits, but I think it's still not the word I was looking for. Help to ease my troubled mind?

J'aime le fromage!

On Sunday afternoon Shannon and I watched some LA Ink because it was on. This dude got a tattoo of cheese. Not just a tattoo, but a memorial tattoo for cheese! He can no longer eat cheese because of an accident, but he loved it so much he wanted to memorialize it. My favorite part, I think, is that he has the dates 1981-2006 for cheese. It is dead to him. Sad! So freaking funny. I love cheese and I would be sad if I couldn't eat it anymore (I had pepperoni and Colby cheese on Ritz crackers for dinner last night...mmmm), but dude. He was so sad about it that he thought the cheese should be in black and grey. That is pretty sad. I wanted to share the joy of this man's tattoo with you. It made us giggle and dream of the day we might meet men who so ardently, earnestly love cheese...

Quandary!

So, I don't know if I've said this lately, but I love amitriptyline. It's my friend. But we've (we being me, but on my doctor's orders-so no one thinks I'm self-medicating) had to up my dose twice since I started, and that may be an issue. I love it; it's great that I discovered what real sleep was supposed to be like. I was always such a light sleeper that I didn't even realize how poor the quality of my sleep was until I started taking Elavil and experienced real sleep. I sound like Lindsay Wagner on those Sleep Number bed commercials. But seriously, good sleep! The problem is that now that it's a lot higher dose, I am knocked out within about an hour and a half of taking it. I was taking it by nine o'clock, because that way I could still get up in the morning without much trouble. But if I take this dose at nine o'clock I have issues getting up at seven. So I started taking it at like 5:30 or 6:30 and being in bed by nine. The only day last week I stayed up past nine was Thursday, for the debate, and that was pushing it. Shannon didn't know I was taking my medicine that early, so I think she thought I was massively depressed or dying or something. She said it was like I was just gone. If I take it that early, I even wake up before my alarm goes off, but I really don't like being dead on my feet at 8 o'clock. I don't know if I should call the doctor and try something different or just suck it up and sleep a lot. It's just weird because I have always been able to function very well on small amounts of sleep (small being maybe five hours, not like 2 hours). I don't like sleep cutting into my activity time...

Also, I doubt this is a side effect or anything, probably just my insanity, but lately I keep hearing a ringing when I turn my head to the left, but only around ten in the morning. I thought it must have been something in my office, but it happened to me on Saturday and Sunday too. As my father would say, then don't turn your head to the left, dummy! A side effect that isn't very fun, but does help me to remember to drink enough water is the dry mouth business. Yesterday I saw commercials that lead me to believe that Imitrex is going to have a generic soon! Yay! I totally got a pack of nine on September 28th and I'm already down to two. Oops. I've been having the head issues of late, again. The insurance only lets me get one pack of nine each month. Some months they decide I can only have eight or seven, and once, six, so then the pharmacy cuts some out and I don't see it until I get home and open it. That always makes me grouchy. It's the same price whether they give me seven or nine. I totally thought I was doing ok, at least not complaining about the pain, because that gets boring. But today my supervisor was like, I've been meaning to see if you're ok because I can tell you've been having head problems lately. Like, aww, crap, pull it together! But then she told me how well I was doing something or other, so I guess I've been managing acceptably. Maybe she can just tell. I know some people who can tell by looking at my face if I'm trying to function. Maybe that's where the lovely vertical wrinkle between my brows comes from...

Scary stuff

So, Shannon and I watched the debate last night. We only had to pause it discuss a couple times. I like how no one in any debates will just answer the questions that are asked, not that that is anything new. This girl at work wore a Palin shirt in one day and we asked her about it and she was like, well, I guess we're voting for her. Her family gave her the shirt, so she was just going to go along with it. That really frightens and upsets me. People who don't inform themselves and decide what they think and who they like and why.

Confession

Every time I see a trailer for High School Musical 3, I laugh. The first time I saw one of those giant cardboard things at the theater and realized it was going to be a theatrical release, I laughed. That movie has brought me so much joy without me even needing to see it. Just the thought that it's out there, a giant candy-colored confection that is a 90 minute music video a la Disney, is enough. Also, the one part in the trailer where Zac Efron throws his head up and his hair is all wet, is so reminiscent of Justin Timberlake throwing his head up (although his hair is not all wet from sweat-eww)after he drops to the ground in the NSYNC video for Bye Bye Bye. Wow, I feel old. That song totally came out my senior year of high school. OK, I totally looked that video up and that made me laugh too. I forgot about his curly hair. So, gentle readers, here is my present to you on this fine afternoon.

Question, followed by some ranting

Is it acceptable to give part of your tithe money to charities instead of the church? Also, can you count time spent volunteering as part of your tithe(let's pretend for just a second that my time is valuable or matters to anyone)? I feel like the answer to both is no, but I want to donate to a Donors Choose project and I already donated money to Komen (October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, in addition to being Domestic Violence Awareness month. Bowling Green doesn't have a Komen run, so I just gave money.) and now that I am volunteering to do camera every other Saturday instead of getting paid to do the same, I am a little more strapped for cash. You know how it goes... It ebbs and flows.

I went to Sunday school for the first time in years this past summer. It is now called ABF (Adult Bible Fellowship) at Living Hope. I feel old. Anyway, that was not the point. The point is that the 20-somethings class was discussing submission and service. Which happen to be things I have been thinking about a lot recently. My church is fairly large, one of the larger churches in town, which is all well and good, except that in a church where more than 2,000 people come through three services each Sunday, it should not be the same 20 people doing all the work. I'm not even talking about the children's ministry because I know that they likely have the same problem and when our pastor Jason entreats people to serve, he generally talks about the children's ministry.

But the worship ministry remains the same. There are two guys at church who run lights. Just two. It's not like it's hard. I've done lights a few times, although I didn't read the handbook about the board and learn to program it so you can just press go to go the next light cue. We actually have more than two capable men who can do sound for the first time in memory, although it is still my dad more often than not (which is how he prefers it anyway). We do have more than enough graphics people too, although that is the thing that requires the most attention, but the least knowledge. There are only two people who do monitor board and the same maybe 7 people help reset the stage each weekend that that is necessary. We do not have enough camera people. Not even close. I was on for a month and a half straight this summer because we don't have enough. My dad has been on the list for camera recently because there aren't enough. I'm on five times this month, although two of them are for graphics (yay! I love being on graphics because then I get to sing all the songs three times. Also, I do better when something requires all of my attention, because if it's only some, I get distracted, so graphics inspires me to pay attention, since any mistakes made are obvious to all and sundry.). Really the only actually difficult tech crew job that would require more than one Sunday of demonstration would be sound. The same two people switch off doing monitor board on Sundays. It's just inconceivable to me that in a church as large as ours, more people don't volunteer to help. Our pastor wants to get three good cameras and actually make more use of the video aspect than just piping it into the lobby and nursing mothers' room as we do now. But I can't see that happening when we barely have enough people for one camera. For three we would need at least three per service and one director. And when I say I've been thinking about this lately, I mean ranting to several people about it. Ask around. Anyway, when the ABF leader asked at the end where people should serve I was like, hello! I doubt any of them will act on it, but at least I was there to offer the suggestion. I don't even remember how I wound up on the tech crew, although I'm sure it was about my dad. But we are more backstage kind of people, and I can't remember a time when my dad wasn't serving a church. Or a time when my mom wasn't serving by being in the choir. It's just how they roll and thusly, how the Benz spawn roll. When they sent out the tech schedule for August, they sent me an extra e-mail asking if they were overusing me because they didn't want to burn me out. I do sometimes get irritated about camera at church, but that's mostly because the situation is not ideal. The lighting on our stage is terrible, so that people on the right side are in the dark and people on the left side are overexposed. It's not cool and there's nothing you can do to make wide shots look good and you have to adjust the iris constantly as you pan. But I wouldn't quit, because it's something I can do and someone has to do it, and apparently no one else is going to volunteer. And I think it will be more fun after we get the lights fixed and have three cameras and a director. Sometimes I have fun doing it, if there's a lot going on that I have to stay on point for. Like I said, I'm easily distracted when something does not require my full attention. I've been on something so much this summer that now I feel weird when I go to church and don't have anything to do.

I was just telling Mark yesterday that I am all about Amazon, for books and other things. Today their gold box deal is the BBC Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth for only $15.99! It makes me sad that everyone I know who likes it already has that. Except me. I just have the recent one with Keira Knightley, which is not as awesome, although admittedly less time-consuming. Maybe I can justify buying it for myself if it's only $16. Also, Amazon wants me to buy a book called The Leopard Prince. Fret not, for I will not purchase it. The product description reads as follows: "Wealthy Lady Georgina Maitland doesn't want a husband, though she could use a good steward to run her estates. One look at Harry Pye, and Georgina knows she's not just dealing with a servant, but a man. Harry has known many aristocrats-including one particular nobleman who is his sworn enemy. But Harry has never met a beautiful lady so independent, uninhibited, and eager to be in his arms. Still, it's impossible to conduct a discreet liaison when poisoned sheep, murdered villagers, and an enraged magistrate have the county in an uproar." I'm not sure how I can manage to resist buying it after reading that, but there we are. Seriously? Poisoned sheep are on the same level as murdered villagers? Oh, wait, I forgot, only rich people mattered in old-school England. Also, is the magistrate enraged about the sheep or the people, or something completely unrelated? I always try to make all my liaisons discreet. ;) This makes less sense than the day Amazon wanted me to buy a table tennis set. Or maybe it makes more sense, given that I do read far more often than I play tennis of any sort...

Bon anniversaire, mon frere!

This uno's an obeisance to Mark, for his birthday; the onus is on me for his insufficient interest in marvelous words (e.g., vituperative). I happen to own a superfluity of interest in awesome words, but there's a marked dearth of utilization in my daily lexicon. I ken Mark knows words I do not; he has learned much adscititious of my tutelage. I generally will not fain affirm my inferiority, but as it's his anniversaire heute and Wednesday is the day I set aside for my hebdomadal confession(it's not - I just wanted to work in that fun word), I admit that a person of my antediluvian age cannot know all the patois of the puerile generation. And Mark's place in the musical province allows him a degree of habituation with words even the most sanguine ordinary auditor(such as myself) cannot ever hope to evince. He too, is somewhat of an autodidact, but his metier being not coeval to my own, we have disparate levels of vernacular.

*This is just a joke, much like the time we made that fake blog for Mark. He is apparently just super inspiring. Anyway, I know this is mostly nonsensical, but it was fun. I know lots of words, but not exactly how to use them, as I am not actually smart.

I know this isn't going to seem funny to everyone, but it kind of is, in a sad kind of way. This lady called me on Saturday and was like, did you ever find the cat on the flyers? Then she proceeded to tell me about a cat that had been living in her woodpile. She was like, she's a pretty good size cat (most of the people who have called have been talking about cats that are smaller in stature and under 8 pounds), she's been out there a while. She tells me she's pretty sure it's my cat and then says, "It's dead and I put it in the garbage." She said there's a parking lot for the apartments next door that backs up to her yard and it looks like a kid hit it and then threw it in her yard. She said she put it in some garbage bags and threw it away because she couldn't bury it, as she broke some of her fingers. Then she asks her husband how long it had been living in their woodpile and he says three months. She was like, well he says three, but I think it's only been two and the flyer says missing since September 4th, so that's two months. Yeah, two months. Her husband is talking steadily in the background but I can't make it out and she starts arguing with him, but maintains that it has been two months since September 4th and that she thinks it was my cat and she just wanted to let me know if I never find it, that that's what happened. I thanked her and got off the phone.

I started telling Shannon and when I mentioned living in a woodpile, Shannon emphatically stated that Fuzzy Tail would not deign to live in a woodpile. I think she's right. She's probably in someone's house, being cool. At any rate, I don't think the cat that lady had living in her woodpile for two or three months was my cat. It's still sad that it died, but it was most likely not mine. I kind of felt like she should have lead off with the dead part, so as not to get my hopes up. But what do I know? I've only told two people that a cat was dead and Marie was not lost before that. Anyway, Grace has been gone almost a month, so, short of her new owners losing her, I don't think I'll ever find her. I keep dreaming that she shows up on the porch, talking loudly and being adorable. But unless she slips out the door at her new house unexpectedly, that's not likely to happen. The first couple of times I had that dream, it made me really sad when I woke up. I've stopped reading on the porch, hoping she'll wander by, instead of reading inside. I've stopped walking around the neighborhood, peering closely at all bushes and under porches. The lack of walks also means that Kazoo has gained back all the weight he lost when the search was fresh. Oops.

The price we pay...

You know what's bad about generally being right? That when you are wrong, people seem to get more upset about it than if you were just wrong all the time. Same goes for being mostly nice and occasionally somewhat vituperative or generally being good and doing something naughty every once in a while. I'm not trying to say I'm nice, or always right or good; I try not to lie. :) I'm just saying, it seems to be unfair. I know, I know, life's not fair and no one ever said it was. But still. You can't make a small mistake without people getting all in a tizzy about it. I think we all know that humor in the Benz family tends to be rather mordant, but that doesn't mean we are actually intentionally cruel (most of the time). I'm not entirely sure what one thing has to do with the other now...

Oh Kentucky, part vingt-et-un

I walked into my kitchen earlier and nearly burst into tears. There's a corner cabinet that Grace would always open (because the door doesn't hang quite straight, it never is completely closed) and go sit in(there were no real dishes in there-only stuff we never use). It was open and the Stygian recesses of my mind decided to throw that little gem at me. I'm adjusting to her not being there and that makes me sad too. People keep offering me kittens, to which piece of news Rachel was like, if you lost a child would they offer you a new one? Which is doubtful. At any rate, it is definitely too soon for kittens, if ever I will get one.

Anyway, this is very disturbing. Rachel and I had a rather long and alarmingly detailed conversation about it this morning. Loss of enjoyment of life, indeed. Also, Kentucky again! If we keep this up, I may have to make an 'oh, Kentucky' tag.

Scientists explain why people vote right...except not

I know that pretty much everyone who reads this is fairly conservative, with a few notable exceptions, because they are family. And boy is my family conservative. Anyway, regardless of your political leanings, you should find this funny. I am still giggling. And I showed both my uber-conservative dad and my uber-liberal roommate and they both found it funny. Just do me a favor and read the first two paragraphs. Everything after "...as Newsweek puts it.." cracks me up. I haven't read Newsweek in years, but "illegal immigrants may = spiders"...?? Wow. I read Newsweek when I was a kid, until we stopped getting it when I was like 15. I can't tell you how much I learned from Newsweek and Reader's Digest when I was small. Anyway, we need more science!

I don't know how many people I kept trying to make watch Heroes, but it came back this week and I haven't even watched it yet. I'm not all that excited about it. I'm excited that Kristen Bell is getting work beyond her Gossip Girl narrating and that Francis Capra (Weevil, Rach.)is getting work too. I miss Veronica Mars. Apparently I did not convince enough people that that show was totally awesome in time. That show had the single coolest first season ever. You do not understand unless you watched it. Anyway, Heroes is back (and also had a pretty cool first season) and is not receiving accolades. In fact, everything I've read thus far has been far less than complimentary. I think I will watch the season premiere and if it does suck like last season, I will take it off my series recordings list. There is so much crap sitting on my DVR and I just keep not watching any of it because I'm still reading a book a day. That cuts into my non-essential TV watching time. So far this week I've only watched Gossip Girl and How I Met Your Mother. I guess tonight will be House and America's Next Top Model. The only show I watched this weekend was The Secret Life of the American Teenager. I had a huge chunk of the marathon left to watch, so I got some of that done. It's kind of funny, and kind of sweet, and the kid who is not Molly Ringwald's daughter's babydaddy, but is her boyfriend, is so Randall Batinkoff-lite(Molly Ringwald's babydaddy from For Keeps). Some of the acting is truly terrible, as is some of the writing, but you kind of have to love a show that has a fifteen year old kid indignantly telling the guidance counselor, "They're talking about my woman!" Heh.

Fun with learning

Yesterday Shannon had a project for her old people class. She had to walk around with cotton balls in her ears to simulate hearing loss and petroleum jelly over her glasses to simulate cataracts. I wanted to just go all out and tie a scarf over her eyes, but no. It was funny because I was trying to revise her English paper at the time and I kept going, "That sentence doesn't look right, don't you think...?" And Shannon would be like, "I don't know. There's a cloud over half the words!" Oops. I eventually remembered to just read it to her instead of telling her to look at things. But some of it I really felt needed looking at, because it was all convoluted. We muddled through it and she managed to finish both the assignments.

Oh, also, I felt really not old because I got carded buying cigarettes on Friday. I know, I'm such an enabler, but I felt bad because she was all sickly. And then I felt just a little bit good about getting carded. But today I bought some snuff for a guy at work who is also sickly right now and requested it, and I did not get carded. I am apparently a sucker for sick people.

Kazoo is evil

I bought Kazoo some shiny bat wings at Target the other day and I have to say they were totally worth $10 in entertainment. They reminded me of these capes Dave and I had when we were little and were devils one Halloween. We already discovered the most fun part is to throw a toy to the otehr end of the house so that he runs and then they kind of flap. It was awesome. My parents came over to bring me a bookcase and we put the wings on because when I told my dad about it, he didn't think it was funny. When he saw it in person, he said we were sad. I did not manage to take a good photo with my phone, but you get the idea.

Speaking of things that are evil...every
time that I try to open Google Reader on the computer at home, it locks up Internet Explorer and I have to close it all. I can't help but think this is Vista related problem because I never had that problem before. And it doesn't happen to me at work. It will let me do Gmail and Blogger and whatnot, just no Reader. Any thoughts, Dave?

I wrote this post last Monday, but failed to finish it. It still holds true.

Church was good last Sunday. I cried, as per usual lately. At the beginning of the sermon, Jason was talking about hope. He said that, by virtue of the fact that we were present, we had hope. Because people who don't have hope don't get out of bed because they can't face the world. And there I was thinking that I didn't have any hope left. Apparently I had enough to get up and shower and go to church. Yeah, I teared up when he said that, in addition to during the singing and then again at the invitational. I haven't been at my church without being on camera or graphics in at least a couple months. I don't even know what to do with myself anymore. I sat down front near where people I know sit, but I rarely see them and I am so socially awkward that I just sat on the end of a row behind them. Way to join in. It would seem that I like to hide behind tech crew stuff. Which I totally wrote a rant about a couple weeks ago, but I don't think I ever actually posted it. The rant was about the tech crew, not about me hiding behind it. I don't even know why I went to church because I knew I would be alone. I don't know why I wouldn't go with my parents to Louisville Saturday, because I knew I would be home alone until Shannon got back Sunday evening. When you're sad about being alone and, well, a plethora of other reasons, scant few of which I have attempted to articulate here, apparently my cure is to stay home alone for a day and a half. Good thinking, slick. Although I did clean the house something fierce. That was good. And I had lunch with Jennie and Chad after church. It was nice and distracting. I just wish I knew what I should be doing. And I think church keeps making me cry lately because God is trying to tell me something that I don't want to hear. And we all know I deal with things that are unpleasant or scary by ignoring them. I am so mature. Although, I cried like, all the way through the invitational and the closing prayer and final song and when I went to the bathroom to wipe my face, I had no mascara running down my face. It stayed put-so at least I have some awesome mascara.
New this week: So...in the interest of facing some things, I had a discussion with Shannon last night and I feel a little better. No crying at church this Sunday. Although I still don't want to hear what God has been trying tell me, I admitted it to someone and I think I might do something. If I can work up some courage. I am just so afraid of failing that I have always just not even tried. And that's really worked out well for me...