before anyone asks, NO, I have not been smoking anything

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Beatrice. Beatrice was British (naturally) and hated her name, except for when her father called her "Sweet Bea."

Beatrice wished she had a lovely, normal name, like her new pet Bill. Bill was a time traveling dinosaur and lived under her bed. Obviously, he was not a fully grown dinosaur. Not yet anyway. Beatrice assumed that a fully grown brontosaurus would eventually present some problems, especially since her parents didn't yet know about Bill, but for now he was perfectly happy squeezing his bulky body under her bed.

Beatrice went to the kitchen and made wheat toast with blackberry jam for herself and white toast with butter and honey for Bill. She carried her tray of toast and juice (orange for her, grape for Bill) to her room, tiptoeing past her slumbering parents' room. They'd thrown a loud party last night and sometimes her mother got the flu after parties like that, so Beatrice wanted to be extra quiet.

"Morning, Bill!" she said when she got to her room. He was stretched out on her bed so she shut her bedroom door.

"Morning, Princess Fiona," Bill said.

"Hmm, I'm not sure I want to be Princess Fiona today," said Beatrice. "After all, I was Princess Fiona all day yesterday."

"Alright, then, who shall it be today?" Bill asked.

"I think . . . Amelia."

"Bedelia?"

"No, silly, EARHART," she said.

"Oh, of course." Bill yawned and rolled off of the bed to do his morning jumping jacks. Beatrice winced every time he landed and the whole house shook.

"Bill, I wish you'd do your jumping jacks outside," Beatrice said.

"I know, Amelia, but it's raining again." Bill wasn't used to England's cold, rainy weather, since he was originally from Utah. Of course, it wasn't called Utah back then.

"Bill, where should we go today?" Beatrice asked.

"It's up to you. I've been everywhere."

"Well," Beatrice pondered. "We could go back to the African safari."

"We could. Although, last time we were almost eaten by a pack of lions," Bill said. He stretched and yawned.

"I know, it was so exciting!"

"Can we go somewhere we're not on the menu, please?"

"OK," Beatrice sighed. "How about London?"

"Darling, we're in London."

"I KNOOOOW we're in London, I meant FUTURE London," Beatrice said and rolled her eyes.

"Circa?"

"Um . . . 2067?"

"OK, let's go," Bill said and put on his favorite vest. It was green and fuzzy and had huge purple buttons.

"Brilliant! Just a second, though, I need my time traveling goggles."

"You realize those are really swimming goggles, don't you?" he asked.

"Not when I'm wearing them to TIME TRAVEL, they're not."

"Of course, how silly of me."


To be continued. Maybe. If I don't forget about it.

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Today on The Collective, Heather gets the shit kicked out of her by love.

I wish my real life was half as interesting as the life I'm leading in my head

Some weekday mornings, I walk to my car and I wonder what I'm doing. Where I'm going. I mean, I know I'm going to work, but I think, "Why? Who ARE you? Why are you all dressed up? Where are your jeans?"

So, imagine my delight when I found a genie lamp sitting next to my car this morning! I picked it up, rubbed the side, and the genie came out. His name was Gene. I told him that wasn't very imaginative and he told me to take it up with his parents and also to make my wishes already, because he was right in the middle of watching Grey's Anatomy on DVR (Gene told me prefers DVR when I asked why he didn't have TiVo; apparently with all the flashes and smoke that come with being a genie, he doesn't feel the need for the fun blee-bloop noises that TiVo provides) and he really wanted to see if Bailey's son was going to be OK. I told him that yes, Bailey's son is fine, but her marriage? Maybe not. And then he got so mad at me for spoiling him that he tried to climb back in his lamp and I was all, "Nuh-uh, Gene, give me my wishes!" and he was like, "Fine, Jennie, what do you want?"

I thought for a moment and said, "I would like 100 more wishes," and he said, "Nice try . . . that is cheating and HURRY UP because I still have 13 episodes of What Not to Wear to watch." So then I decided to wish for my bank account to never empty, no matter how much I spent.

"Hmm," Gene said. "That's a good one."

I thanked him and THEN wished for a time machine. One with a clear, titanium bubble around it so I would be protected. At first he was all, "Um, didn't you ever see Back to the Future? Maybe you, who can barely manage to do a load of laundry without setting the apartment on fire, should not be in charge of a device such as a time machine," but then I told him all I wanted it for was to go back in time and see the dinosaurs. And I wouldn't even get out of my time machine. That's what the clear titanium bubble was for. That, and I'm pretty sure a T-Rex can't bite through titanium.

"OK, Jennie," he said. "That's two. What's your last wish?"

"Well, Gene, I've thought a lot about this," I lied, having thought very little about what my third and final wish might be. "I would like to be able to fly and also to become invisible whenever I wanted and none of that nonsense about my clothes not being invisible because I'm not all about getting naked EVERY TIME I want to spy on someone."

"Jennie. That is totally two wishes."

"Nuh-uh, Gene, cause I asked for it in one sentence."

"Touche."

So then he gave me the ability to fly and ALSO to become invisible (along with my clothing) whenever I wanted. And, I mean, what would you do with these new abilities? Would you go to work? No. You would not. I flew to DC and broke into the Pentagon. Only, when I got there, I realized that being invisible didn't do a whole lot of good because everyone at the Pentagon locks their doors. I mean, where's the trust? LUCKILY, I know how to pick locks with just a hairpin. Can you believe doors at the Pentagon are that easy to unlock? I was shocked and appalled. Also, you'd think there'd be shit tons of government secrets in there, but NO. They're all just sitting around watching Gossip Girl on their computers.

After that, I was all "eff this BS," and I flew to Antarctica to get myself a pet penguin. It's so cold there, you guys, I almost lost a finger.

_____

Today on The Collective, Heather brings us life lessons from Gossip Girl.

and Wednesday, too

I had trouble sleeping last night on account of the wind was blowing so hard I was sort of afraid I'd wake up in Oz. Like, the Oz with all the munchkins, not the Oz where ass-rapes happen. Although, maybe ass-raping is one of munchkin-Oz's dirty little secrets. It's not that I'd mind going to Oz. I think the Scarecrow and I would be BFF. Not the Cowardly Lion, though. I'd slap that whiny bitch right in the face.

Seriously, it was way windy. So windy, in fact, that I switched the channel from a rerun of Sex & the City to the news to make sure a tornado wasn't on top of the city at the moment. It wasn't. Apparently, though, it was windy enough to cause Heidi to freak out a tiny bit about what would happen if there was a tornado. Because, you see, our bedrooms are on the second floor and there IS no third floor so if the roof got blown off we'd be so dead. We talked about it today, and it turned out we were thinking the same thing about what to do if there WAS a tornado, providing she actually WOKE UP for it because I bet you anything she'd sleep right through it. Lucky bitch. Anyway, I told her not to worry, because sometimes when I'm bored (read: at work), I make up disaster plans for all sorts of things, such as fire or flash flood or Godzilla. These plans can include anything from making a torch out of a floor lamp, a pillowcase, and lighter fluid (zombie attack) to parachuting off of the balcony with bedsheets (fire that blocks the front door) to turning the fridge door into a raft (flood, duh).

I'm either the very best or very worst person to have with you when disaster strikes. Best, because I have all these plans already so you don't have to think and ALSO I don't panic very easily. Worst, because . . . I don't panic very easily AND have a very strong sense of denial, so if a T-Rex was attacking the neighborhood and his giant eye peeked in the window, I'd probably be all, "just ignore it, it'll go away eventually."

Or I'd throw Gerard at it.

I went for a walk and look what followed me home*

A dinosaur! I haven't settled on a name, but I'm leaning toward, "Roary." Get it? Get it?!

*I have too much time on my hands. I know this. You don't have to tell me.

My fellow nerds and I will retire to the nerdery with our calculators.

Earlier this morning, Heidi threatened to punch me in the babymaker because I told her I was declaring it WORST. DAY. EVER. Week again and she said she couldn't deal with me being mopey and "woe is me." But I'm mostly just declaring it WORST. DAY. EVER. Week because my uterus is starting a revolution and I'm pretty sure the ovaries and fallopian tubes are thinking about joining, so I really hope Heidi does NOT punch me in the babymaker because my babymaker? Already hurts.

Anyway, not the point. Today I am here to tell you all about Nashville because I'll bet y'all (I learned that there) are just DYING to know. When Nancy and I left on Friday, it was a beautiful spring day that quickly turned rainy and shitty as we drove south. But the fact that we gained an hour made up for it. I love gaining hours! More time to waste! Whahoo! Everyone else was picking people up at the airport when Nancy and I got to the hotel, so we changed and displayed the penis cake in the best light possible.

Oh my god, this is so boring, I cannot continue. Just . . . here is a list of stuff that happened and stuff that was said. Please remember that you are hearing the stuff that was said completely out of context. Not that it would have made a whole lot more sense in context, but whatever.

• Bridal shower - no games (!!!), delicious food, I accidentally drank half of a bottle of wine (oops)
• Back to the hotel to change and then shopping, although I didn't buy anything
• At the shoe store, Mary, Katie, and I took pictures of ourselves wearing HIDEOUS HIDEOUS CROCS
• "Help me follow her! It's hard when you only have one eye!"
• We brought the sexy back every time we got in the car . . . sometimes twice
• "Have I mentioned I love Justin Timberlake?"
• Dinner at the Bound'ry. SO GOOD. Also! They played the entire Amy Winehouse CD while we were there!
• Irish pub - drank cider, listened to the band, played I Never, even though we all already know everything anyway
• I invented the term "sexual repertoire" and no, I will not tell you the conversation that led up to THAT
• "You can't be naked in Ohio without alcohol!"
• "What's the name of that movie? Batman Retires?"
• Mary and I made friends with some German guys. They told us they were from Germany and the first words out of my mouth were, "No, you're not!"
• I slept in a chair because all the beds were taken. My neck still hurts.
• The next day at lunch, Mary and I were oversharing until Nancy told us to stop because she kept hearing bits and pieces of our conversation and she was trying to eat.

OK, and this was the best part and gets more than a bullet because it is SO paragraph-worthy. On the way home, Nancy and I stopped . . . at DINOSAUR WORLD.

We had seen it on our way to Nashville on Friday and vowed to stop on our way back to Ohio. I am so glad we did. You guys! There were dinosaurs everywhere! Not real ones, unfortunately, but statues. Lots of statues. Even baby dinosaur statues! Of course, I wanted to get my picture taken on top of one of them, but unfortunately there were signs up that said "Please do not sit on the dinosaurs." See:
Well, OK, you can't really see it but that's what it said. Luckily, there was a playground, so I could do this:ROOOOOAAAAAARRRRRR!

Alright. I'm gonna go now. Nerd, out.