I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.

Apparently, I only write here every six months or so. Remember when I used to write here multiple times a day? Probably not. I'm not even sure if anyone will even see this. Blogs have changed so much. No one has the attention span for them anymore. Everything is Twittered and Tumblred and FOR GOD'S SAKE Snapchatted, which I don't entirely understand because I'm an Old now. When did that happen?

I'm constantly surprised by the passing of time. Which is ridiculous. It's been passing my whole life but I'm still shocked by it. When someone says something happened in 2007, I think, "oh, that was just a couple of years ago," but no. It wasn't. It was eight years ago, actually. Eight years. I could, like, have had an eight-year-old in that time. I mean, I'm glad I don't. Eight-year-olds are little sassmouths. There are already two sassmouths living in this house, we don't need another one.

Anyway. I used to post here so much. I do miss it. The blogging community kind of fell apart in the last few years (and, yes, I realize that by saying "few" years, I could possibly be talking about the last eight years ago...WHO KNOWS). But I also think I used to post here more often because I wasn't happy at work and, probably (who remembers) in other ways. If posting less means I'm happier, then according to my archives, I've been getting steadily happier over the last ten years. I posted over 400 times in 2004 (Jesus, lady, no one needs to hear that many of your thoughts) and a whopping 7 times last year.

Do you guys ever read your archives? I find myself getting lost in mine sometimes, on my most past-obsessed days, trying to figure out where that girl went. Is she still there, somewhere? As we grow and get older, do we always encompass who we once were? It makes me a little sad to think she might be gone completely, but I can't be that sad, because I really have nothing to be unhappy about these days.

I really, really like my job, you guys. It feels weird to say that because it's never been true before. For a long time, two years exactly, I was pretty miserable at work, which made me not want to write anything because misery is exhausting. Then I got a job that I really like and things got really busy and I never wrote anything because work left me exhausted, but in a good way. Because I get to, like, use my brain and stuff. I even get to write sometimes.

I guess what I'm saying is, I don't really have an excuse for not writing here more often. Not a good one, anyway. I find plenty of time to watch TV, and too much of it. Which I suppose means the girl I was talking about up there isn't really gone at all so WHEW BULLET DODGED.

I will tryyyyyyy to fix you

You know how sometimes you wake up and you're just in a shitty mood for no reason? I mean, sure you do. Everyone experiences this every now and then. Or maybe you don't, weirdo, I don't know your life. But for those of us non-robots who do, occasionally, wake up on the wrong side of the bed (that's the left side, right?), how do you combat that? Do you try at all?

I do so love getting a good wallow on. I like to make an occasion of it. (See: WORST. DAY. EVER. Week.) But there are days that I don't WANT to wallow. I want to be happy because who wants to walk around in a constant state of bitchface? (OK, in all honestly, that is sort of fun sometimes BUT WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW.) Anyway. On the days I don't want to devote an entire week to having WORST. DAYS. EVER., I just choose to be happy.

Yeah. That's right. I tell my brain to stop fucking around and start releasing some goddamn endorphins or whatever it is brains spew all over your body so you don't feel like cold-cocking a baby. I don't know, I'm not a brain scientist.

Whatever. Guess how often this works? NOT OFTEN is the answer. You can't just boss your brain, you guys! Your brain is smarter than you! It will not bow down to your iron will, especially if your iron will is like mine, all, "aww, gee, brain, please be happy?" and less like, "KNEEL BEFORE ZOD, FILTHY BRAIN."

So what do you do if your brain won't listen to you? Do you give in, shut your office door, lie on the floor, and listen to Coldplay all day? NO. NEVER EVER DO THAT, YOU GUYS, THAT IS A TERRIBLE IDEA.

Here's what I'd recommend instead of listening to sad bastard FM:

1. Don't go to work. 

(DISCLAIMER: don't play hooky, because you might get fired.)

Take a personal day? If you can? Or you could try to time your shitty days so they only show up on the weekend, but how often does THAT happen? Anyway, my reasoning here is that if you're already in a shitty mood, going to work isn't going to help anything.

2. Put on pajamas. 

Shower first, though! The last thing you want when you're having a shitty day is to wander past a mirror and catch a glimpse of your greasy-haired, pasty-faced self. Another option, I guess, is to cover all of your mirrors with sheets or towels or something but that seems like a lot of tedious work for someone who is already irritated.

3. Make some peanut butter toast. 

Let that shit melt before you eat it, OK? Are you some kind of animal?

4. Open the windows for some fresh air. 

But not if it's 104 (or -4) degrees outside ARE YOU CRAZY?  

5. Pick a favorite TV show to watch. All day. 

Not, like, Buffy or Friday Night Lights. You're trying to make your brain happy, not make it cry forever. Might I suggest comedy? Community, Parks and Rec, The Office (seasons 1-5, anyway), Arrested Development, etc. 

6. Have a pet. 

I mean, don't go out and just buy one (THAT IS IRRESPONSIBLE) but if you have a dog or a cat who will curl up on your lap as you watch your favorite TV shows, that'll go a long way in the happy department. If you don't have a pet, maybe go outside and see if you can coax a squirrel into your house.

7. Take a walk. 

Yeah, I know you have your pajamas on. Who cares?

8. Eat some vegetables, maybe? 

I know, I know! You don't like vegetables! But they'll make you feel awesome and, I mean, stop being such a baby, YOU ARE AN ADULT EAT SOME DAMN BROCCOLI. Or asparagus. It makes your pee smell funny, which is hilarious.

9. Watch the following video DUH WHY DO I KEEP HAVING TO TELL YOU THIS:



There. I fixed your shitty mood. GIVE ME A HUNDRED DOLLARS.

I choose vodka. And Chaka Khan

Last night was pretty much the greatest night of my entire life. OK, I'm exaggerating. Clearly. But it was pretty great. I mean, I got in bed at 9 so I could watch Northanger Abbey AND THEN, when it was over, I stayed up late reading Pride & Prejudice. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Jennie, your life sucks," but NO IT DOESN'T SHUT UP. I'm pretty simple. I don't need much to make me happy. Pajamas and a good book, I imagine would do it, and maybe a drink.

Apparently today is the most depressing day of the whole year, which I find awesome. Not because I particularly enjoy being depressed, but because I'm not really depressed at all today, so if this is the most depressed I am all year then FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC. Sure, it's like 5 degrees outside and I'm making myself work on How To articles all day, but the sun is out and I'm not at work and I'm still in my pajamas. So there.

I made a To Do list a little while ago, but I'm not really expecting to get any of it done. The only thing I want to do today is eventually shower and get dressed and go . . . somewhere, it doesn't matter where, really, but I need to leave the apartment so I can wear my new shoes.

I told you I was simple.

_____

Today on The Collective, Heather explains why Batman is better than you.

sing out loud, sing out strong

Back in June, when Erica and were driving to Chicago, she commented that she never really sees people singing in their cars. I thought, "Surely she is mistaken! People always sing in cars!" but then I started paying attention to the other cars around me. This is probably something I should have already been doing while driving, but better late than never, right? Right.

Anyway, so here is what I learned:

1. People really don't like it when you stare at them
2. They are (most of the time) not singing

I don't understand this. I am ALWAYS singing in my car. I don't see the point of having a radio/CD player in your car if it's not there to help you sing. I cannot tell you how many times I've humiliated myself by belting out Journey or Kelly Clarkson or Boyz II Men (oh yes) and then realized my windows were all open and people were staring. But it happens a lot.

Who ARE you people who don't sing in the car? You are completely missing out on that feeling you get when you're driving down the road on a warm, sunny day, and the windows are all down and the wind is blowing through your hair and the perfect song comes on the radio and you think, "this is it . . . if my life were a movie, this song would be on the soundtrack." How can you not sing along?

if I had a million dollars, I'd build a tree fort in our yard, if I had a million dollars, you could help, it wouldn't be that hard

Sometimes I worry that really small things can have a such a big effect on my mood. Small things like that even though I was an English major, I can never remember the difference between affect and effect. I KNOW the difference, I just always second guess myself. Other little things that can affect (ha!) my mood in good or bad ways? A phone call, an email, lack of a phone call or an email, making a tiny mistake, hearing a good song on the radio, hearing Creed on the radio (that can send me into a murderous rage), or something even less tangible, like getting good or bad news I wasn't expecting. Or, you know, someone calls me "hun" at work and I wonder how much trouble I'd get in if I kicked them square in the nuts. I spent the majority of yesterday on the verge of tears, ready to punch someone (I didn't, though, but if I had, do you think I could have blamed my uterus? Lawyers? A little help?), and didn't start to feel better until I got back from the gym last night. Now, part of this could be because, as Elle Woods says, "Exercise give you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don't shoot their husbands. They just don't," and I did not even have to look that up and I don't know whether to be proud of that fact or not. Anyway, Elle Woods IS right. I always do feel better after working out. Or at least I feel less guilty about eating all the birthday cake at work but OH MY GOD why do people keep having birthdays and making me eat chocolate cake and ice cream all the time? Selfish.

Where was I? Oh yes. Sure, the exercise gave me some endorphins, so I didn't shoot my husband but I wasn't REALLY in a good mood until I walked into the kitchen and saw Heidi packing her lunch. She was putting sour cream in a Ziploc baggie because all of our tiny, plastic containers are dirty, and let me just say . . . it made me giggle a lot because a bag of sour cream looks a lot like a bag of semen which looks NOTHING like a bag of pot. True story. I have pictures. Of the sour cream! Not a bag of semen! I've never put semen in a baggie, I promise.

I felt like I could just fly, but nothing happened every time I tried.

I've had a lot of roommates over the years. OK, not that many, really. And aside from freshman year of college, I was friends with all of them. For some reason my freshman year roommate, the one who only went to Wittenberg because her boyfriend already did and who didn't sleep in our room after Thanksgiving and also who didn't move her textbooks from a towering pile on her desk all of second semester . . . she and I did not become great friends. Probably because one time I accidentally locked her out of our room when she was in the shower. Also, I was always in our room with one friend or another which meant she and her boyfriend had to have sex in his room and I don't know if you remember what the guys dorm floors smelled like, but it is a smell that TO THIS DAY haunts my dreams. Anyway. She and I? Not so much what you'd call close.

My current roommate, however? Freaking kicks ass. I don't want to make you jealous or anything, but when I got home on Sunday she had folded a load of my laundry that I'd left in the dryer all weekend. I have a habit of doing that. And last night she shared her wine with me and I think she even gave me the bigger glass. She is either really generous or was trying to get me drunk so she could take advantage of me. I'm leaning toward the former. I would say out of all of my roommates, Heidi and I get along the best. Which is saying a lot, I think, because all of my other roommates were when I was in college and while there is a lot of stress in college (like, say, choosing between writing a paper or going to the bar and THEN writing a paper), it's nothing to compare to the stress of choosing between paying rent and buying groceries. Not that we've ever had to do that. Yet, anyway.

And also? When I e-mailed her and told her I'd finally gotten the phone call I'd been waiting for, and that it was good news, her response was, "now, of course, we need to go shopping." Because we do. It is necessary. Because I can't keep borrowing Heidi's grown-up clothes. I mean, yeah, we're close, but we're not the Sweet Valley Twins. We don't even look alike.

Well, the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry any more. Cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door.

Right now I'm waiting on a phone call*. So, of course, I keep obsessively checking my cell phone to make sure I haven't missed it and that the ringer is turned up as loudly as it will go. I haven't missed it. And the ringer is turned up so loud that when and if it finally does ring, it will scare the shit out of me. I really should download a less jarring ring, but if I don't have a really loud and annoying ringtone then I never hear my phone when someone calls. And since I'm already really bad about answering my phone, downloading something like . . . I don't know . . . Bob Marley isn't going to work very well.

Anyway, this phone call is either going to be really good or a huge downer. I'm leaning toward really good but I'm trying not to lean too hard so when it turns out to be a huge downer I don't tumble over and hurt myself. It's hard not to get my hopes up, though. Things have been going fairly well for me recently and I'm of the opinion that when good things keep happening it only means something really shitty is coming along. Yes, I realize that's a really depressing outlook on life but Bridget Jones agrees with me and who am I to argue with my role model?

Who am I kidding? I pretend to be cynical and pessimistic but really on the inside I'm just a silly, naive optimist with blinders to the world and an overabundance of rose-colored glasses.

*I can't tell you what it's about, Internets. Not in such a public place, anyway. The walls . . . have ears. I will say, though, that I am not pregnant, planning to elope, going to go pitch-a-tent-on-the-front-lawn crazy and shave my head, or running away to a convent. Hell, I'm not even Catholic. And even if I were, I'm not sure they'd take me.

Well, let’s hit up Yahoo Maps to find the dopest route. I prefer Mapquest. That's a good one, too. Google maps is the best, true that DOUBLE TRUE.

I was all set to get pissed with Punxsutawney Phil and threaten to kill him and punch him in the babymaker and roast him in our fireplace, but he's getting a slight reprieve because I did not have to risk life and limb by trying to make it into work this morning. That's right, friends, I got a snow day. SNOW. DAY. And while as a tiny child I would have immediately run out into the frigid cold snow to build a snowman or snowangel or some other snownonsense, today I plan on spending the day in my pjs, alternating between napping on the couch watching TiVo and napping in my bed "reading" a book. Funny story (not really), I have seven library books and countless books I have purchased that I have not yet read (although I did finally finish Lolita), said library books are rapidly approaching their due date and I have decided to read Bridget Jones's Diary for the 18th time. I have a problem but at least I am not afraid to admit it.

Last night, Heidi and I got stuck in some strange wormhole at the gym and didn't end up getting home until 10:30. PM! Then we spent a good 30 minutes mapquesting different destinations. It's more fun than it sounds. It's kind of like traveling without having to pack or put shoes on or find a rest stop that doesn't look like a scene out of a horror movie when you have to pee so bad you're afraid your bladder is going to explode out of your stomach (or wherever) and you'll never make it to your destination and if you do you'll have urine and pieces of bladder all over you. I'm sorry for that image. ANYWAY. I should tell you . . . this is the longest, most pointless Conversation With My Roommate in the history of Conversations With My Roommate. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Me: Do you know how far away Knoxville is?
Heidi: Not really. I think it's near Nashville.
Me: Hmm.
Heidi: Let's Mapquest it!
Me: OK!
Heidi: 4 hours, 51 minutes, that's not bad.
Me: Let's see how far Nashville is.
Heidi: OK.
Me: 5 hours, 19 minutes.
Heidi: So basically a difference of half an hour.
Me: I thought they were farther away from each other than that.
Heidi: Me too. Ooh, I know, Mapquest how far it is from Nashville to Knoxville.
Me: Oh. 2 hours, 47 minutes.
Heidi: OK, then.
Me: Let's see how far Boston is!
Heidi: OK.
Me: 13 hours, 26 minutes.
Heidi: Damn. What about Atlantic City? I bet it's far.
Me: 9 hours, 52 minutes . . . what about New Orleans?
Heidi: Yeah!
Me: 13 hours, 7 minutes.
Heidi: Washington DC?
Me: I've never been there.
Heidi: It's fun.
Me: 7 hours, 57 minutes.
Heidi: How about the North Pole?
Me: I think we might have a little trouble driving there.
Heidi: OK. How about Juneau, Alaska?
Me: HAHAHA.
Heidi: No, seriously.
Me: Why can't Mapquest find it?
Heidi: Because Alaska's state code is AK, not AL.
Me: Oh man. Don't tell anyone I did that.
Heidi: OK.
Me: It's good to know there's not a Juneau, Alabama, though.
Heidi: Truly.
Me: HA! It takes 63 hours!
Heidi: Let's leave now!
Me: It'd be a beautiful drive.
Heidi: We'd get to go through Canada.
Me: Ooh, speaking of Canada . . .
Heidi: Windsor?
Me: Heck yes!
Heidi: Yessssss!
Me: Holy shit, it's only 3 and a half hours!
Heidi: Let's go!
Me: Yeah, you can drink there when you're 19!
Heidi: Um.
Me: And I know I'm well over age 19 but still . . . it's the principle
Heidi: True. Ooh, Mapquest San Juan, Mexico.
Me: OK. Wait, there's no code for Mexico.
Heidi: Try MX.
Me: Um. It only has codes for Canada, not Mexico.
Heidi: Racists.
Me: Wait, isn't San Juan in Puerto Rico?
Heidi: Yeah.
Me: Oh my god.
Heidi: Yeah.
Me: I think this is veering into Conversations With My Roommate territory.
Heidi: I think you're right.
Me: Geez.
Heidi: Ooh! Mapquest Honolulu, Hawaii.
Me: Um, once again, I think we might have a problem driving there.
Heidi: Just try it, I wanna see what it says!
Me: OK. It says, "We are having trouble finding a route for your locations. Please try modifying the information you entered."
Heidi: Damn, I was hoping it would say something like, "Please vacate your car and start swimming."
Me: Why don't they just build a bridge from Hawaii to the mainland?
Heidi: Yeah! It would help with their tourism.
Me: And if anyone needs help with tourism, it's Hawaii.

If you made it all the way through that, I hope you learned something. Other than how bad at geography Heidi and I are.

Hands, touching hands, reaching out, touching me, touching yoooooouuuu!

I don't know why, but the song "Sweet Caroline" fills me with pure, unadulterated joy each and every time I hear it. It could be that the lyrics are vaguely dirty, but I don't think that's it. Whatever it is, that song reduces me to a swaying, shouting lunatic in a way that only Tina Turner's "Proud Mary," Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'," (shut up) and Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This" (shut up more and also suck it) can usually accomplish.

Dear Internets, what (embarrassing) songs give you that joy, joy, joy, joy down in your heart*?

*where?