I would walk 500 miles

I learned today (something that should have been obvious, but, well, wasn’t to me) that my phone will die if it spends an entire day underground.  For the second day in a row, my cell phone started the day fully charged, but by 4ish, when I leave the underground room I’m spending every day in, it has already turned itself off because the battery died.  You’d think I would have figured it out after the first day, but no.  How hard is it to figure out that if a phone spends nine hours searching for a signal, it might run out of battery power and die?  At least it’s not as final as that.  That’s why we have cell phone chargers.  But I’ve learned my lesson and I’ll turn off my phone when I get there tomorrow.  Problem solved.

I watched part of Benny & Joon tonight.  I really like that movie.  And Aidan Quinn looked good in it.  Big blue eyes.  Early morning tomorrow (that’s going to be an unfortunate habit before long), so I’m off.

How NOT to waste a Sunday afternoon

Hmm.  Well, that really depends on what you consider a waste of a Sunday.  And I think that entirely depends on what sort of weekend you’ve had or what kind of week is coming up.  For me, this Sunday, wasting the day would have meant doing nothing.  If you know me, you know that I consider doing nothing on a Sunday (or any day) to be one of the best ways to spend a day.  Normally.  But I have a very busy, somewhat stressful week coming up, with a long commute at either end of the work day and very little time to get stuff done.  Today, not wasting my Sunday meant being productive.  So I went to the grocery store (Wegman’s, of course) to stock up for the week ahead, went to Staples to buy a laptop bag for work, got my car cleaned out, paid the bills, filled out the census form, and did what little picking up was required to put the house back into the shape it was yesterday morning.  That part was easy; Jess and Chuck aren’t that messy.  And now I’m done with all of that and I can spend the rest of the day doing whatever I want.  I think.  And what is that?  I think it’s reading.

But first, I’ve seen a few movies recently.  John and I watched District 9 last weekend.  It was not at all what I expected, but that could have been because I didn’t see any previews or read anything about it before I saw it.  It was interesting, certainly, and gory enough for three movies, but I can’t say I want to see it again.  We watched Dean Spanley and then Stardust with Jess and Chuck last night.  I think I really liked Dean Spanley (it was not at all what I expected – took me completely by surprise when I started to see where it was going), and I think I’ll like it more when I can see it again.  Jess performed her magic to get our DVD player to play her Region 2 DVD, and we’re very impressed.  Stardust is one I already knew I loved.

I’m a little chilly, so I off to take a nice warm bath, read my book, and…I feel like there should be a third thing to keep the rhythm of the sentence going, but I can’t think of anything.  🙂  My goal for the evening is to not stress out about tomorrow.  I’m as prepared as I can be.

Late night, short post

That’s been happening a lot lately (short posts).  Sorry.  I spent my evening watching Gosford Park instead of playing on the internet.  I had a much easier time following what was happening (and who all the characters were) this time, and I liked it.  The first time I saw it, I was SO confused when it was over.  John remembers it as the most boring 4 hours he ever spent.  Clive Owen doesn’t do it for him, I guess.  I don’t always like him, but I do in this movie.

And here.

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is fine, but Clive is all rumpled and scruffy and HOT.  I like.

Someday I should be prepared for the Oscars

It’s Oscar Night, so I might as well talk about it, right?  But first, I have to see who’s nominated and find out if I even saw any of these movies.  Last year, I hadn’t seen a single Oscar-nominated movie by the time the awards rolled around.

Okay, I’ve checked.  Of movies that were either nominated for themselves or had an actor nominated, I’ve seen Avatar (liked it, but for a technical category, not Best Picture.  I mean, come on, it was a 3D remake of Ferngully: The Last Rainforest!), Julie & Julia, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Soooo, none of the really good ones.

We’ll watch the beginning for Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, but that’s about it.  I’ll check out the highlights online tomorrow.  We’re going to spend our evening finishing Batman Begins (we got too sleepy to finish it last night) with pizza (and maybe wine – classy, I know).

Oh, we caught up on Lost this morning over breakfast, so Mom, Dad, Mindy, call me tomorrow and we’ll chat.

A bunch of links and a song

You go, Roger EbertThis article moves along really quickly (short, to-the-point sentences, unlike most of mine), and the pictures of scary weather patterns add to the sense of urgency.  I flew through this article and it set my pulse a-pounding.  A little bit.

I love these drawings/paintings by Rob Gonsalves.  They’re all optical illusions and they all hold up after multiple viewings.  I like the theme of the third one (of course I do), but some of the ones further down the page are amazing.

If you have ever watched a major dog show in TV (or Best In Show on DVD), you will probably find this as funny as I did.

Not a video this time, just pictures, but check out some of these rooms!  I’m not crazy about the antlers hanging from the ceiling, but check out the kitchen at the bottom of the post!  Love it.

John’s midterm was tonight.  He didn’t feel all that confident about it this morning, but he just called and, except for one question that everyone in the class seemed to have issues with, he thinks he did okay.  (That looks oddly punctuated.  I’m leaving it.)    And he’s on his way home early.  I said something to that effect last night, that he might be able to come early, but I totally meant that he takes tests quickly.  Not that it wouldn’t take him very long to write down everything he knows.  🙂  But that’s how it sounded.

Okay, one more link and then I’m done for the night.  I’m watching West Side Story on TCM.  I love everything about “America” (the opening lines get stuck in my head for days), but my favorite favorite part is at 3:52 in the video here when Anita and her friend sort of flounce over to the guys to sing the next part.  The flouncing cracks me up.

Failure of a ponytail

Complete and utter failure.  Worst ponytail EVER.  I took the dogs for a short jog this afternoon, and for the first time in months, I put my hair into a normal ponytail instead of the double-decker thing I’ve been doing (which has been working just fine).  Because the ponytail wasn’t tight enough, it slid down the back of my head, freeing all the shorter hair in front to flop around in my face.  I couldn’t just tuck it behind my ears (over and over and over) like I usually would because I was wearing my ear grips to keep my wittle ears warm, so I didn’t have ears behind which to tuck the hair.  Behind which.

John has been in the driveway all morning replacing the rear brakes on the mustang.  It’s not supposed to be this hard.  That’s true of EVerything he does to this car.  Except when he replaced the drive belt a couple of weeks ago.  That one went pretty well.  He got the driver’s side done, but he’s having trouble compressing the piston back into the caliper on the passenger side.  I’ve been googling the problem, but he’s got the right tool and he seems to be doing all the right things.  He’s not ready to assume the caliper has seized yet, but if he can’t fit the new brake pad in, he may have to replace the caliper.  And that will mean he won’t be going to his cousin’s new baby’s christening.  Because it will take the rest of the weekend (bleeding brake lines, replacing parts, adding fluid, etc) and he won’t have a car to drive until it’s done.  So we’ll see.  But if he does go, he’ll leave for PA tonight to spend the evening with his family and then drive to Long Island with them Sunday morning for the christening.  He’ll stay with his parents in PA Sunday night and go to work from their house Monday morning.  So I won’t see him again until after work on Monday.  On the plus side, I’ll have Indian for dinner and watch movies he’s not interested in.  But that’s only fun for one night, not two.  Oh!  Speaking of movies, we watched 500 Days of Summer last night.  We both really liked it.  Joseph Gordan-Levitt was fantastic, and while we didn’t like Zooey Deschanel’s character as much, she was really good.  John couldn’t decide if he thought she was really attractive or not.  He said he wasn’t sure if he’d call her beautiful, or even pretty, but he wants to keep looking at her.  So at least he thinks she’s interesting.  I think she’s very pretty.  She’s got that blue eyes with dark hair thing I’ve always liked.  Like Liesl in The Sound of Music.  🙂  And I will watch the musical number (from 500 Days) at least three more times before I put the movie back in the mail.

Should a post have just one subject?

My day didn’t quite live up to its promising start, but how could it have?  I had to go to work.  Not that work is a bad place.  But it’s work, so it can’t compete with anything that’s not work.  No, that’s too big of a generalization.  There are lots of things not-work that are worse than work.  LOTS of things.

It rained today!  That’s the first non-snow precipitation we’ve had since early December.  Well, maybe not, but it’s the first I’ve noticed, and it made a big difference in the amount of snow left on the ground.  I’m SO glad.

I finished The Pillars of the Earth a few days ago.  The last third was much better than the rest, starting just before the (very quick – really, I was surprised)  grand tour of France and Spain.  But I’m not in a hurry to pick up the sequel.  I started a Stuart Woods mystery/thriller instead.  Actually, I read the first Dresden Files novel first (it was okay).  Almost forgot about it.

I haven’t mentioned yet how nicely John planned my birthday.  We got up early to go to Ikea for the shelves, but not before waiting half an hour or so for this woman who answered the craiglist ad to show up to take the old dining room table.  She didn’t show, so we left.  In the car, John said, “I got you this for the ride to Ikea,” and handed me a card and the new Michael Buble CD.  At least half of the songs are standards, with a couple of new originals, and another couple of covers.  I really like it.  We went to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast (yay bagels and boo coffee), and then we shopped at Ikea, which is always fun.  When we got home, John put all the shelves together, and sometime in the middle of that, the other woman who answered the craigslist ad showed up for the dining room table.  So it’s gone.  We went out to dinner at the  Woo Lae Oak in Tysons Corner (it was really good), and as we were leaving, John said, “I didn’t bake you a cake, but we can’t let your birthday go by without dessert, so what do you want?”  I decided we should go to Wegman’s and visit the bakery ’cause they were likely to have chocolate-covered strawberries.  They actually didn’t, but when I asked them if they knew where else I might find some, they said they’d make some for me.  🙂  They did, and they were yummy.  So we got home (with the chocolate-covered strawberries and some peanut butter fudge for John) and I found another card and another present on the coffee table.  John planned our evening, too, and bought me a copy of the movie Clue, which neither of us had seen in I don’t know how long.  So we sat on the couch with our chocolate-covered strawberries and fudge, opened a bottle of the dessert wine we bought in Charlottesville when we were there for Jess and Chuck’s wedding, and watched Clue.  Pretty much until we fell asleep.  I couldn’t have been happier.  And that’s why my birthday was so wonderful.  John planned it.

Changes

I spent several  hours today setting up 6 new versions of my website.  You’re looking at version #1 right now.  And I’m including a screen shot of it at the bottom of this post so we can all still see it when I switch to the next one.  I’m not even really tired of the original version, but I thought I’d test a few new ones and see if I (or we – you have some input) like them better.

So this is what I’ve been doing for the last 5 hours or so.  We slept in (’til about 10:30) ’cause we stayed up late.  We watched Adaptation and then had to follow it with Modern Family ’cause the movie was so weird we needed to cleanse our mental palates with something light and funny.  And easily understandable.  It was after one before we went to bed.  We got up late, watched the first two-hour episode of Caprica while eating breakfast, and then we set up on the dining room table with our laptops again.

I was supposed to go to the grocery store today, and when I have to stop there on my way home from work tomorrow, I’m going to be really annoyed I didn’t do it this afternoon.  But right now, I’m very happy I didn’t go.  All we have to have before dinner tomorrow is stuff for breakfast (we have plenty for lunch), so when I go out to pick up dinner for tonight (yeah, we don’t have tonight’s dinner here, either, so I guess what we really have to have is breakfast AND dinner), I’ll swing by the Giant right next to the Indian place (’cause we’re having Indian for dinner – yay!) and pick up some cereal.

Then we’re in for the night.  And I’m getting pretty hungry, so all of that is happening very soon.  After I shower.  We did one of those lazy Sunday things and rolled from bed to couch and breakfast, and from there to the dining room and our laptops.  Didn’t shower, didn’t get dressed.

And Roxy just threw herself at the sliding glass door, so I should go let her in.  Enjoy the new site (and let me know if something doesn’t work)!  I’ll leave it this way for a day or two and then switch to the next one.

I’m a sap

I watched the last half of Sense and Sensibility tonight and totally cried my eyes out at the end (when Edward shows up, and then Elinor starts crying, and then everyone else hilariously rushes out of the room, and then they watch from outside, and he kneels…kills me).  All by myself in front of the TV.

But I’m okay now.  Office Space is on (yay!) and John just called to say he’s on his way home (also yay!).  Tonight was his first class of the semester, and it ended early.

I think I’ll continue that trend and end early, too.  Good night.

Catching up with myself

Some things I meant to talk about and kept forgetting about:

  1. I finished Pope Joan a couple of days ago.  Really liked it.  It was one of those books Mom sent me.  She usually sends good ones (there have only been a couple bad ones), but for some reason, I resisted this one.  I’ve had it for several years, but never wanted to read it.  Never had a reason not to read it.  I wasn’t being rational.  It’s good historical fiction.
  2. I started reading Anathem, by Neal Stephenson.  This is another one I was putting off.  Partly because it’s huge and in hardcover.  Huge is never a turn-off for me, but huge and hardcover makes it hard to carry around (and I do tend to carry my books wherever I go).  Now that I have a short commute and absolutely no possibility of reading at work (not that I ever did that…), I won’t be as tempted to carry it around and I can just read it at home.  I’ve really liked everything else Neal Stephenson has written, and I’m enjoying this one, too.  Except for one small thing.  It really is a small thing, ’cause it’s not keeping me from enjoying the book.  It’s just a minor annoyance.  Science fiction and fantasy authors, fantasy in particular, have a tendency to make up words.  They think it’ll help the reader immerse herself in this alien/fantasy world.  Sometimes they’re right.  When it’s done well.  Often, they’re wrong.  Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg, in their introduction to the novel Nightfall (a book I LOVE), addressed this directly.  They pointed out that this story takes place on an alien world, and while they could make up terms in an alien language to use when referring to hands, shoes, dogs, etc, they’d rather just write hands, shoes, dogs, etc and save the reader the confusion.  That’s the way I prefer it be done.  Make up a word (or merge a couple of words to make a new one) when you need to refer to something that doesn’t have an equivalent in the real world, but otherwise, stick to English.  Makes sense.  And it makes for some really good writing.  (I wish I could have met Isaac Asimov.)  Neal Stephenson, in Anathem, seems to be going too far the other way.  He seems to have made up words where it’s not really necessary to make them up.  It makes me work harder to figure out what’s going on.  I shouldn’t be confused.  I’m sure (really, I am) that once I get past the learning curve here, I won’t notice it, and I’m equally sure that the payoff for all this work will be worth it ’cause I’ve read his other books and they’re always good.  But generally, don’t make me work so hard to decipher what should be English!  Last I checked, English is my first (and only, but I’m working on that) language, and I’m pretty good at it.  Carol Berg, in the two books I just read by her (Flesh and Spirit and Breath and Bone) is in the middle.  She made up a few words where necessary, and they worked in the story, but then she’d make something up completely when referring to units of measurement.  Why?  I don’t know.  But I’d be reading along, everything’s fine, and I’d stumble across “quellae” when she mean inch or mile or something.  (Yes, I’m aware there’s a big difference between an inch and a mile, and in context, there was no confusion.)  Why would she do that?  She said horse when she meant horse, wagon when she meant wagon, monk when she meant monk.  Why not mile when she meant mile?  Or league?  Why those words and not other basic words?  But again, I really liked those books.  The stories and characterization were well worth the occasional stumble.  But it could have been better!
  3. Apparently, I was just itching to talk about that.
  4. We watched Grace is Gone Saturday night.  What a depressing movie.  John Cusack is in it, which is why I DVR’ed it in the first place, without really looking to see what it was about.  John (my John) warned me that it was sad, but Saturday was kind of a sad day for me anyway (no particular reason – I was just blue), so I figured it was better to watch a sad movie when I’m already sad rather than make myself sad on a happy day.  Oh, I cried.  And then I cried some more.  And then I was like, “Why are you doing that, John Cusack?”  And then I cried some more.  And then I made John (my John) promise he wouldn’t die.  Did I just give something away?  Nah.  That’s in the description of the movie.  Stupid movie.

Salmon tonight, with horseradish cream sauce (courtesy of Wegman’s, naturally), broccoli, and mashed potatoes.  Apple noodle kugel for dessert.  Unless I have a banana nut muffin instead.  Tough choices.

Well…

…my mind is blank.  Seriously.  Also, we’re kinda half-watching Sixteen Candles, and I think I’ve mentioned before how hard it is to write anything when I’m distracted by the TV.

So, um, yeah.  Half-assed post tonight.  Less than half.  Sorry.

Asleep on my feet

Here’s my thinking: I know I should write something, but I’m so tired.  We just watched Julie and Julia, which I watched last week with Mom and Dad and liked very much, and three of the four people in the room who hadn’t seen it already slept through the second half.  Not a good response.  But I love watching movies here.  The basement is set up like a theater, with a big screen and great recliners (SIX recliners!) (and I keep trying to spell it “reclinders”), and with the lights out, it’s really cool.

Exhaustion is setting in, though, and I’m ready to go home.  We’ve had lots of fun and lots of late nights in a row, and I just can’t keep that up for this many days in a row.  And I miss the dogs.  And my bed.  And the dogs.  Sometime tomorrow we’ll hit the road.  I hope the traffic won’t be too bad.

This isn’t supposed to happen here!

It’s 3:40pm, we have over a foot of snow (judging by the undisturbed pile on top of the table on the deck), and it’s still coming down.  This is nuts.  We could probably leave the house if we really needed to, in the Tucson with 4-wheel drive on, but the roads haven’t been plowed (not in the neighborhood, at least) and we have everything we need here.  I got home last night right about 5pm, let the dogs out, unloaded the car, and went back right back out to Wegman’s.  We have plenty of food.  Good stuff, too.

The snow started before we went to bed last night, and we had 4-6 inches when we woke up.  John went out front to shovel (we figured it would be easier to shovel at the end if we made a dent in the beginning), and I played in the back with the dogs.  We shoveled the deck, too, but that was three and a half hours ago and it’s like we were never outside, front or back.  I just let the dogs out again, and Riley didn’t even bother to leave the deck at first.  He just peed on a pile of snow.  ON the deck.  I can’t blame him.  It doesn’t really matter.  But they love the snow.  Riley more than Roxy.

We didn’t eat breakfast until about noon (since we shoveled and played first).  We have a fire, we’re watching TV, John is doing some programming stuff, and I’ve been reading during the commercials.  We’ll probably switch to movies (other than those that happen to be on right now) soon, like White Christmas.  Seems appropriate.  🙂  We were watching Keeping the Faith earlier.  I love that movie.  It was on TBS or USA or something, so it was edited a bit, but I love it anyway.

And here are the pictures.

View of the deck table around 9:30am:

View of the bench around 9:30am:

View of the deck table after we let the dogs out:

View of the deck table about 5 hours later:

View of the bench around 3:30pm:

Sister Mary Riley:

Obi-wan Riley:

A good (normal) picture of Riley:

And Riley’s warning look: “Back off, buddy, I’d had about enough of you and that camera.”

Cold in Kentucky

Well, the weather outside is chilly (not very frightful), but inside is nice and toasty, made more so by the Yuletide Fire DVD Mom got.

I had a very weird few moments at the Canadian Brass concert (where they played only a couple of Christmas songs) Saturday night.  They played Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, which I know from their Greatest Hits album.  I listened to that album on repeat while reading The Mirror of Her Dreams and A Man Rides Through, by Stephen R. Donaldson, years and years ago, and ever since then, whenever I hear that album, I’m returned to that story.  That’s never happened to me with a live performance before, but it did Saturday night.  For the length of the song, scenes from the books were shuffling through my memory.  Strange.  But cool.

Then Jess and I stayed up to watch Love Actually and drink champagne.  🙂  Until 2am.

I wimped out on my run this morning.  I took Howdy with me, but I left my ear muffs and gloves behind.  We only made it three blocks before I decided I was too cold.  That was dumb, ’cause it’s going to be even colder tomorrow.  I won’t forget my ear muffs and gloves again, but I don’t know how much that’ll help.

I expected more from these movies

WARNING: If you haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain, don’t read that part of this post.  I give stuff away.

John and I watched two movies this weekend, fully expecting to really like them both.  Neither of them really did it for us, though.  We didn’t dislike either of them, but I guess we were expecting more.

We were really disappointed in Dan in Real Life.  We just kept coming up with different (maybe better, but definitely preferable) ways to handle the situations he found himself in.  It was still enjoyable, but it was a little frustrating to watch.  We decided to watch Dan in Real Life Saturday night because John wasn’t in the mood for gay cowboys.

We watched Brokeback Mountain Sunday night.  You know, I really did like that movie.  My only complaint (John’s, too) is that I didn’t see the point where their friendship turned into love.  I liked the friendship, I liked how it was developing, but then one night because it was cold they decided to have sex?  It didn’t feel like they developed those feelings.  The plot needed it, so it had to happen right then.  We had the same complaint about the short story.  And some of the early tenderness felt underdeveloped.  These are tough, taciturn cowboys.  It doesn’t feel right to have one of them reach out to stroke the other’s cheek right away.  Later, sure.  Not at first.  So the beginning of the relationship felt rushed, I guess is what I’m saying.  By the time they reunited after four years, I was invested in it and I didn’t have any more problems with the movie.  And I loved what they did with the shirts.  When Ennis takes the shirts from Jack’s parents’ house, his shirt is inside Jack’s.  When we see the shirts at the end, Jack’s shirt is on the inside.  It’s like all those years that Jack had the shirts, he was hugging Ennis, and now that Jack is gone, Ennis is hugging him.  LOVE it.  And apparently (’cause I read the trivia section at imdb.com), switching the order of the shirts was Heath Ledger’s idea.  Man, he was really good.  I couldn’t always see Jack past Jake Gyllenhaal, but Heath Ledger completely disappeared.

Worrying won’t do me any good.

Nothing happened today.  I have to post something without the crutch of actually having an event to write about.

How about this?  I am super excited about our day in Annapolis this weekend.  Hmm.  That doesn’t sound like me.  I mean, yes, I’m excited, but I don’t usually say I’m “super excited” about anything.  🙂  “I’m very much looking forward to it” sounds stilted.  But the sentiment is the same.  I get to hang out with Jess and Chuck for a few hours, go on a tour of the Naval Academy, see Annapolis all decked out for Christmas, and have yummy fish and chips.  Oh, and I get to see this mysterious bookstore with a dragon in it.  What could be better?

I’m hoping to have all holiday shopping (what little we’re doing) done by then.  John and I will probably try to go to the mall Thursday after work.  We only have a couple of things left to get.  I ordered as many things as possible online so I could avoid going to the mall.  I don’t mind the crowds, but parking is a pain.  And it drives John crazy.  🙂  He hates circling for a parking spot.

Well.  Mom just called.  Mindy is in the ER for an emergency appendectomy.  I started to get upset, but this is not a life-threatening surgical procedure.  She’s been there for a few hours already this evening (for tests), so at least she was in the right place when the doctors determined this was necessary.  Mom says the doctors promised Mark they’d be able to tell him something in less than an hour.  I’m not sure what that means, exactly.  Does it mean they’ll be done that quickly?  Or that they’ll know about how long it will take by then?  Or that they’ll know how long she’ll have to be in the hospital recovering?  I have no idea.  But when Mark calls Mom, Mom will call me.  So I will try not to worry.

In other news, if you haven’t seen Keeping the Faith (and you like romantic comedies), you should see it.  It’s actually funny, which is something you can’t say about many romantic comedies.  Ed Norton, Ben Stiller, Jenna Elfman.  Good movie.  That’s one I always watch if it’s on TV (I just caught the end), and I never feel sullied (to steal Chuck’s term) afterward.  It’s just a good movie.

Yeah, I can’t keep babbling about random things right now.  Mindy in the hospital, Mindy in surgery trumps everything else I can think of.  So I’m going to post this and fret offline.

[On a side note, the spell-checker suggest Elvina as a replacement for Elfman.  How is that more of a word than Elfman?]

I will watch just about anything on TV. Pathetic.

John is braving the great outdoors to go to class tonight.  He met Greg before class to work out some issues with their project, so hopefully he won’t have to stay late.  He was considering skipping class, but I know he feels like he needs the review. He told me this morning that he felt like he’d been beat up.  I don’t think he really improved much today.  So he’ll stay home again tomorrow.

This morning was kind of a disaster.  Last night, when John decided he was probably staying home today, he said he didn’t think he had a shift, but he wasn’t sure.  I told him that I had looked at the schedule (I did, I swear) and that he definitely didn’t have a shift, but I would doublecheck.  Then I forgot to doublecheck.  So naturally, shortly after I left the house this morning,  I got a phone call from Dan (coworker) wondering where John was.  Apparently, he had the morning email shift.  Oops.  It’s so unusual for him to have the morning shift!  I covered it for him, but he’s still kind of in the doghouse with the boss since it’s really bad form to skip out on a shift without arranging for someone to cover.  I tried to take full responsibility for it by explaining to our boss how I essentially (but unknowingly) lied to him last night.  It may have helped.  Not sure.

People in toothpaste and mouthwash commercials have the whitest teeth.  Totally unrealistic.  How many people do you know with really white teeth?

I’m watching a dumb movie.  Just because it’s on TV.  I just can’t help it.  I mean, if there was a show on that  I liked, I would watch that instead.  But even Law & Order has abandoned me.  And I think my Tuesday night shows are done until after the New Year.  What movie am I watching?  Ten Things I Hate About You. No, wait, I actually like that movie.  It’s that other movie with the number 10 in it.  How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days. Not a good movie.  But Kate Hudson is likable (in other movies), and Matthew McConaughey is nice to look at (in all movies).  The movie is near the end, and I’m supposed to feel sorry for her?  She did every annoying thing she could think of to make the guy dump her, and then her feelings are hurt when she finds out he didn’t really care about her?  Please.  Except, of course, they both fell in love while during the hellish week they spent together.  Whatever.  And yet, I’m watching it.

It’s over.  I feel dumber.

Barely coherent nothings

I had the morning shift at work today (meaning I had to be there by 8am, instead of my normal 9:30 to 10).  I spent most of the day really annoyed.  It messed with my schedule (no snoozing, no running) and it was just TOO EARLY.  My perspective changed when 4 o’clock rolled around and I could go home.  🙂

I’m forcing myself to write something.  I said I would post every day.  (Yes, I know I’ve already broken that rule, but I didn’t do it on purpose.)  I guess I could post what I have, but that feels like not enough.  On the other hand, whatever crap I’m writing right now won’t be much fun for anyone to read.  Of course, I didn’t promise quality stuff when I started this blog.  So if I’m boring you, feel free to skip this post.

I think we need to replace our thermostat.  It says it’s 70 degrees in the house, but I’m shivering.

I’m watching Happy Feet and deciding that I’m not all that crazy about it.  I like the tapdancing and I like the singing (and I like the penguin sidekicks), but the plot starts out kinda stupid and then just gets weird.

Okay, I think I’m done babbling about nothing.  I can’t even call that babbling.  That’s just filling space.  Sorry, guys.  Nothing much happened today.  I’m going to have some hot chocolate and read my book for a while and go to bed early.  I HAVE to run tomorrow morning.  Have to, have to, have to.  And then go to the dentist.  Again.  I’m just really tired and that doesn’t lead to writing.  I’m sure I’ll feel better, more alert, once I start running regularly again.  I’ve been really bad about it lately, 5Ks aside.