Nothing reminds you of all your weird single-person-who-lives-alone quirks like having a guest for an extended period of time. Kelli's here for the holidays and I pity her having to deal with me. I sing. A lot.
Every once in awhile I remember that someone else is here and I feel like this:
On June 6, 2010 it will be 20 years since I graduated high school. You know what that means, right? Yeah, yeah I'm old. I don't fucking care. It also means that this summer is my 20th High School Reunion an auspicious event rendered totally pointless and infinitely more annoying by the advent of Facebook.
Tonight I've put up with the incessant nagging of someone I don't even remember. Apparently this yahoo has scanned in our senior yearbook and was puzzled that he couldn't find my picture. I told him I was too busy designing the yearbook (nerd, I know) to get my picture taken. He was convinced I had a maiden name I was unwilling to reveal.
I never thought I'd be that person, but here I am. The person who has absolutely no desire at all to attend any of their high school reunions. People tell me I'll regret not going that I should totally go, it's so fun. Maybe I'm close-minded but I don't see how hanging out in some godforsaken bar in East Fucking Bethel, MN with people I don't know is going to be fun.
And really wasn't the whole point of the reunion to see who married whom, who got fat and how many kids they had? I know all that already, from Facebook. I like Facebook infinitely more than I liked high school. And thanks to Facebook I won't have to drive to East Fucking Bethel, MN to attend the reunion, I'll can just look at all the pictures and judge people from the comfort of my own home.
Even though I babysit the Tibbles every Friday, I rarely get to see my nephew Cade. He's at school by the time I get there and I leave before he gets home. I spend the time in between talking about bats with Nolan and listening to Liam tell me everything I say is boring and that he likes Katie Lou much better (this, of course, cracks me up and I argue with him incessantly about it).
Yesterday Cade and I passed briefly in the living room.
He stood in front of me wrapped in his snow gear, backpack still affixed to his back. "Did you want really want an electric pencil sharpener for Christmas?" He asked, looking up at me from under the Superman hat.
"Yes."
"Good!" He pointed at the Christmas tree. "That's what we got you."
Sweet!
]]>I like to start my workday (after the coffee & Ellen DeGeneres) by choosing a soundtrack the day. Oftentimes this is either listening to 89.3 The Current or just hitting shuffle. If I'm feeling extra procrastinatey I have to create a playlist for the day. These vary quite a bit. One playlist is just a mashup of Exile on Main Street with Exile in Guyville, alternating the Stones with Liz Phair. Speaking of Phair, she has another playlist dedicated to her. This one alternates the rejected Whitechocolatespaceegg demos with the released versions of the songs.
The latest playlist was quite fun to make and it's just called Duets. I seem unable to resist a duet. I blame this on listening to a lot of Kenny Rogers in my formative years (he loved the duet too). And since we're very nearly hitting the 12 days of Christmas, I thought I'd share four of the more unusual duets in my collection.
Rocket Man, Elton John & Ryan Adams
Even though everyone knows "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" is Elton's best song, I have a soft spot for "Rockt Man" because it brings up fond memories of spending a drunken night on the company dime in a swanky Canadian hotel, where some co-workers and I commandeered the piano in the hotel bar and this song was sung repeatedly with made up lyrics involving Software Man.
This month has been positively shameful. I blame a lot of it on how Await Your Reply totally wrecked me, and made everything else seem boring and unimportant. I only finished two books in November and I didn't like one of them. How sad am I? But, well, this is my last week of class and now the time I've devoted to reading some 425+ student pages a month can be spent on other things.
BOOK ACQUIRED
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Exit Ghost by Philip Roth
BOOKS READ
The Complete Essex County by Jeff Lemire: Sweeping and brilliant graphic novel about hockey, forgiveness, loneliness, and family in Canada.
Totally Killer by Greg Olear: Despite being a sort of homage to American Psycho, a bad choice in point of view ruins what could have been a pretty funny novel about murder, babyboomers, and 1991.
CURRENTLY READING
Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
There are certain pieces of art -- music, books, movies, tv shows -- that click with you in ways that are hard to define. Oftentimes mere words cannot explain the feelings you have for certain things. The heart wants what it wants, right? Though I have tried, I still can't explain what it was about the Wakefield Twins of Sweet Valley that had me entranced for years on end. I can't adequately explain how the music of The Replacements exhilarates me and makes me feel understood and not alone all at the same time.
Nor can I explain why I love Dawson's Creek so much. It's a silly teen drama that I fell in love with when I was much too old to be in the show's target audience. I remember having a great time making fun of my parents who were early-fans of the Dawson's Creek/Felicity night on the WB. Little did I know, three short years later I would be the biggest fan of Dawson's Creek.
It caught me when I was at my weakest. I was working a crap job in Customer Service, living alone for the first time, and fighting a battle with pneumonia where the doctor made me choose between staying in my apartment for 10 days or going to the hospital to rest.
I opted for the home quarantine and it was then I caught my first episode. It was the one where Pacey kissed Joey. That's all it took and I was hooked. I watched the show religiously for the next two years. Then I proceeded to Netflix the hell out of the entire series so I could get the full Dawson's Creek experience.
It didn't end there. Once I moved into Supergenius HQ and had cable, I began to TiVO the show on any time it was shown. I'd watch it every night and it ruled. But then I got laid off in the winter of 08 and by that summer decided that I needed to slash my cable budget. I dropped down a level, saving myself a measly $13 a month (seriously Comcast, are you fucking kidding me?) and thus ended my Dawson's supply. There was much sadness throughout the land.
Over the years I've spent a lot of time debating the merits of purchasing each of the six seasons of Dawson's on DVD. But somehow I always held back, mostly because I am cheap. But then they released the Complete Series as a box set for only $81. I could not resist, and snapped it up immediately.
There was much rejoicing throughout the land when it landed on my doorstep. However, after making my way through 2.5 seasons I've discovered that one of the discs is flawed. It won't play the finale of season 3, which is a very important episode. It is here where Joey makes the decision to ditch whiny, crybaby Dawson and spend the summer sailing to Key West with Pacey.
So, what's a girl to do? I, of course, e-mail customer service at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment whereby I was told to pack up my entire Boxed Set send it to their giant conglomerate and then spend the next three to five weeks with my fingers crossed praying that they return a working set to me.
Perfect solution, huh?
I don't think so. While I am all for sending them a proof of purchase, and even sending back the defective disc for a new one, the idea of just sending something I paid hard-earned money for into the void doesn't sit well with me. And why does it take so long? Three to five weeks? It took Amazon 2-days to get the set to me, apparently it takes the makers of the boxed set a couple of fortnights to get a working product to me.
I call bullshit.
Do you have any idea how much my Thanksgiving was ruined? RUINED! It was ruined by the fact that I am hopelessly, utterly in love with a song that talks about pie in a positive light. I spent the entire holiday breaking singing about pie.
I am so ashamed.
As most of you know, I've been keeping a blog on iwilldare.com for over nine years. It's a lot of content -- 7,193 posts (and that's not included the hundreds of posts I deleted, mostly about sandwiches and what a fuckwit my boss Shakey McDougal was) and 18,198 comments.
In the last year I've noticed a new trend, e-mails from people begging me to delete some asinine comment they made back in 2002. It seems all those annoying teenagers who had a lot to say about Donnie Darko and being bored in study hall have discovered the Internet has a long memory. Now, when they Google themselves (or their e-mail addresses) they're embarrassed to discover that something they said on a website five years ago is the #1 result.
Ha!
I'm of two minds when it comes to deleting the comments. Part of me thinks I should just delete them and be done with it. It doesn't take a lot of time, and most of the time the comment is not a great loss to the Internet. Of course, the other part of me is all, "Suck it up, loser. I refuse to edit my website because you were an obnoxious 15-year-old, let this be a lesson to you!"
What would you do?
On Friday, M-----l posted his whimsical Christmas gift wishlist in red in and book form. I admire a man with a good marketing campaign. For as long as I can remember I have executed extravagant birthday marketing campaigns which were often quite successful. In fact, on my 30th birthday I managed to weasel 30 bouquets of flowers from friends and family. It was a bounty of epic proportions.
This picture shows just a fraction of the flowers I received. In fact, I got so many vases that the following year when we threw my parents a 30th Anniversary party I outfitted every table with a vase (and flowers I bought at the farmer's market).