They're heeeeeeeeere...

Perhaps writing about my dog’s stomach issues the other day made my own stomach jealous that it didn’t get to participate in all the gastrotechnics, I don’t know for sure, but what I do know is that my body is rebelling against me and I’m not OK with it.

I’m feeling much better today than I have the past two days, which is good, because I’m not sure I could have taken another day of sitting uncomfortably on the sofa while watching Roseanne reruns and Marriage Boot Camp: Bridezillas WHICH IS A THING I HAVE NOW SEEN PLEASE BURN MY EYEBALLS.

Yesterday I managed to put in a DVD, which was a major improvement on the day before but that could have just been my choice of DVD which was Casper. As in the friendly ghost. As in the movie that introduced the star of my teenage dreams, Devon Sawa.

Devon Sawa’s picture, torn carefully from the pages of BOP magazine, held valuable real estate on my wall when I was a tween. I didn’t love him as much as I loved JTT but WHO COULD COMPARE I MEAN REALLY.

Pretty sure I had this exact picture on my wall.

By the time Idle Hands and Final Destination rolled around, I was all, “stop trying to make Devon Sawa happen, he’s not going to happen,” but the mid-90s were the Devon Sawa sweet spot (ew). Now & Then and Casper came out in 1995 and I was fairly obsessed with both of them, mostly because of Devon Sawa. Sawa. Saaaawaaaaa. I really wanted to watch Now & Then yesterday but Netflix took it away and for some reason I don't own it on DVD. WHO AM I?

Luckily, Joe and I were at Target a few weekends ago and when saw Casper in the $5 spot I picked it up without even quite knowing what I was doing. Anyway, my point is, here is my Casper recap:

The movie begins with two young boys breaking into Whipstaff Manor, a creepy ass mansion that’s supposedly haunted, because all creepy ass mansions are haunted. Are these our heroes, who will bravely lead us through a tale of ghouls and restless spirits?

No. We won’t ever see them again, which is a shame, because one of them is Squints from The Sandlot.

Anyway, a ghost shows up and offers to take their picture. Very polite ghost! But the boys are still scared so they run away screaming.

Cut to...Carrigan Crittendon. Carrigan is the terrible human being who has inherited Whipstaff and she is NOT pleased to find out that it’s haunted. She and her assistant, Eric Idle (what are you doing, Eric Idle) call in various people to do some ghostbusting, including an actual Ghostbuster, but none of them can get rid of the ghosts.

That night Casper is watching TV (sure) and sees a story about a ghost psychologist, Professor Harvey, and his daughter, Kat, on Inside Edition. He falls in love with Kat through MOVIE MAGIC so he manipulates Carrigan into calling the ghost psychologist and I can’t believe I just typed “ghost psychologist” twice in the same paragraph. Three times. Whatever.

This is fucking creepy, Casper.

Professor Harvey and Kat are soon on their way to Maine. Kat doesn’t want to go because TEENAGE ENNUI. We learned earlier through EXPOSITION that Harvey’s wife died unexpectedly, and that’s why he has such a hard on for ghosts. LITERALLY (probably). But Kat doesn't believe in ghosts, not even the ghost of her dead mom.

They arrive at Whipstaff and soon find out that, this time, the ghosts are really, really real, specifically Casper and his uncles, Stinky, Stretch, and Fatso. Yes, really. Harvey battles the uncles that night and, even though he sucks them up into a vacuum cleaner, they eventually come to a sort of peace later on because Casper is super nice and the uncles are disgusting and dangerous, sure, but also mostly just rascals. Rascals, I say!

The next day, Kat meets the requisite cute boy at school, who is attached to the requisite bitchy girl who hates Kat for pretty much no reason. STANDARD. When Kat’s class finds out she lives at Whipstaff, they decide to have the school Halloween dance there because SURE. This makes the bitchy girl hate Kat even MORE because now everyone likes Kat.

Meanwhile, Harvey is obsessed with getting Stinky, Stretch, and Fatso to “move on” so the house will be clear and he can get paid, but the uncles would rather fart and burp and mess with Harvey and can you blame them? Eventually, though, they realize they like Harvey and, thinking he needs to have some fun, they take him out to get drunk with the intention of killing him so he can be a ghost, too. OK SURE. They change their mind but wait OH NO he dies anyway. Don’t worry, it’ll be OK. I SAID DON’T WORRY THIS IS A MOVIE ABOUT A CARTOON GHOST.

A REALLY CREEPY CARTOON GHOST.

While this is all happening, Kat is helping Casper remember who he is because I guess when you die, you forget everything about your life? Bummer. He remembers that his dad had a secret underground laboratory that can only be reached by chair-roller-coaster, which I was super jealous of when I watched this as a kid.

They find the Lazarus Machine in the lab which, you guessed it, brings the dead back to life but there’s only enough life-juice (not semen) left for one person. There’s a lot of convoluted stuff about Carrigan trying to kill Eric Idle so he can become a ghost and fly through a vault door in order to get some treasure, but she dies instead and steals the life-juice. Casper and Kat trick her into crossing over, leaving the life-juice for Casper, yay! But no, then Kat’s dead dad shows up and Casper gives HIM the potion because Casper is such a good guy. Kat's really grateful, so maybe this is part of Casper's master plan?

While all of THIS was happening, Kat’s classmates arrived for the dance. Kat goes to join the party and Casper goes to his room to pout, where he is visited by the ghost of Kat’s dead mom, Judge Amy. Judge Amy gives him a “Cinderella deal” and turns him into Devon Sawa, but only until 10 o’clock. He uses this time to ask Kat to dance and then make out (OK just kiss) with her on the dance floor, before turning back into a ghost and scaring the party away. UGH I’M EXHAUSTED.

I know this is a kid’s movie but the plot really started zooming out of control right around the time Casper remembers who he is. Kat’s dad dies super suddenly and I don’t remember being as horrified by this as a child as I was yesterday because poor kid SEES HER DAD AS A GHOST AND HE DOESN’T REMEMBER HER. That's some Arya Stark level trauma right there. Also, why does Judge Amy only give Casper, like, 10 minutes as a real boy? What a bitch. Also also, are Kat and Casper going to have a relationship now? I have a lot of questions about where this whole thing is going. Do you think there’s Casper fanfic? OMG THERE IS CASPER FANFIC. STOP. YOU STOP IT RIGHT NOW, INTERNET, YOU ARE TOO BEAUTIFUL.

Ahem.

This movie was the most romantic shit I'd ever seen when I was but a sweet, innocent tweenager. Come on! A poor dead boy falls in love with a lovely live girl and because he is pure of heart, he gets to become alive again for one special night while the cheesiest song ever plays in the background. I’m pretty sure if I’d recapped this when I was 13, it would read: Haunted house, ghosts, Bill Paxton Pullman, a lot of boring shit happens, DEVON SAWA KISSING.

Seriously, you guys. I can’t even with this:

once upon a time

This is the final week of the writing class I've been taking for the past month or so. I got a bit off track last week, something I'm blaming on wedding-weekend recovery but really it was just because I was tired and a bit sick and I gave myself some time to just...be. (See also: I'm lazy.)

The class provides prompts each day and, though I haven't done all of them yet, it's comforting to know they're there when I need them. Because, you see, the point of this class was not to write a masterpiece in five weeks, but to get into a habit of writing every day. And I'm almost there. I don't know if anyone has noticed (or, you know, cared), but I've been posting here more often, and between that and working on the writing class prompts, I believe I've written something almost every day WHICH IS CRAZY. I don't remember the last time I did that.

I've always loved writing and telling stories, from the time I learned how to write more than a sentence, but somewhere between The Evil Summer and now, I turned it into a chore. And that's ridiculous because I actually really love to write! But I stopped doing it because I felt like I HAD to. WHICH IS ALSO RIDICULOUS. No one is holding a gun to my head. Where was all this pressure coming from? Oh, right, from myself, because I kept coming up with new projects and blogs and I started like five novels but never finished any of them, which all obviously means that I SUCK AND AM TERRIBLE AND DON'T EVEN DESERVE TO HAVE THESE TYPING FINGERS.

Anyway. One good thing about this class is that it's reminded me how much fun writing can be. It's probably the most fun I've had writing since the 4th grade, when our teacher gave us free time to not only write stories, but to illustrate them and make actual books out of them. I found one of these books a few months ago, when I took home an old scrapbook of mine from my parents' house.

It's called Benny the Bored Bunny and, though I didn't remember the story I'd written until I recently reread it, I remember the act of making it. Sitting quietly at my desk in Mrs. Castrejon's class, my head resting on my arm as I wrote the story, taking my story into the small room that served as the book-making factory, painstakingly putting the book together, and holding it proudly in my hands once it was finished.

Alliteration is fun!

I remember how excited I was to show it to my parents, as if I'd written and published a New York Times bestseller, not that I knew what the New York Times was at that point but shut up this is my story. And, really, that's how you should feel after you write something. After you've put that much work into it, you should want to show it to everyone, until they get sick of it and tell you to go away and find something else to do OMG WHY DON'T YOU EVER GO OUTSIDE.

Ahem.

So, once I finish this writing class, my goal isn't to immediately write some bestseller. I mean, OBVIOUSLY, right? Instead, it's to write something I'm proud of. Something I've worked hard on. Something I'm excited to show to anyone who might be paying attention. That's all, really, and right now it seems like just enough.

Some people wait a lifetime...

Halloweentime is almost over and it's finally sinking in that, once again, I hardly took advantage of it. I mean, I watched a couple of horror movies but nowhere NEAR the number I wanted to. For those interested, I watched: Cabin in the Woods, Village of the Damned, and Slither. THREE MOVIES. THAT'S IT? Who am I?

I feel like this always happens around holidays, especially Halloween and Christmas. I really MEAN to celebrate them but I never feel like I celebrated them as well as I could have. And WHO CARES. No one. No one cares that I forgot to listen to Christmas carols until the day before Christmas or that I didn't carve a pumpkin or that I didn't dress up AT ALL.

OK, I care about that last one. Luckily, even though I was sick for the Halloween party we were invited to, I was able to dress up for work today. Sure, I'm dressed in a costume I've worn twice before but it's the best costume I've ever worn so I feel no shame. Why shouldn't I get as much mileage out of it as possible?

Anyway, so that's why I'm dressed as Velma today. AT WORK. This is my favorite costume ever and I'll tell you why:

1. I can utilize the glasses I already wear as part of my costume.
2. I already have similar hair to Velma, so I don't have to wear a wig or really do anything different to it.
3. The costume is basically regular clothes, so I'm pretty comfortable.

All of these reasons revolve around my ever-present laziness. I'm too lazy to put in contacts in the morning, I'm too lazy to do anything crazy to my hair, and I'm too lazy to really MAKE a costume, so I just wear normal clothes. This is my idea of a perfect Halloween! Which is why, in the past, I've dressed up as the following:

1. Kelly Clarkson (this mostly consisted of me walking around all night screaming, "FOR A MOMENT LIKE THIS!")
2. Lucy van Pelt
3. Adam Sandler
4. Um, that's all I remember.

I feel like my costumes were more elaborate when I was a child. One year, my mom made me this awesome playing card costume. I think I was the Ace of Spades or something. I don't remember. But it was so great! Only I couldn't sit down all night, so that was kind of a problem only not really because who ever sits down when they're a kid? Especially when they're trick-or-treating?

Speaking of, can we institute some kind of adult trick-or-treating? Like, I don't have kids, but I still want free candy, so can I take Max out trick-or-treating or something? I mean, HE ALREADY HAS A COSTUME.

Wiener on wiener action

I'm not a gamer, I just play a lot

I'm absolutely terrible at most video games, unless all you have to do is pretend to play fake instruments or answer multiple choice questions. I get really excited about new video games when I get them, but the excitement usually wears off after I play a couple of times and realize I'm not getting any better so then I quit.

[INSERT STORY-OF-MY-LIFE EXAMPLE HERE]

I've only ever made it to the end of one video game. I was in middle school, on summer break, and we'd just gotten a Super Nintendo. I liked playing Super Mario Brothers, but only the level where you find Yoshi, which wasn't even really a level because you couldn't die in that world, all you could do was make friends with a weirdo dinosaur I MEAN WHY WOULDN'T THAT BE MY FAVORITE WORLD YOU GUYS COME ON.

So I'd play Super Mario Brothers for a while, until I died in the ghost world fifty times and got frustrated enough to throw the controller at the TV. Then my parents bought Zelda. AND I WAS OBSESSED.

I loved everything about Zelda. The music. The teeny, tiny people with their teeny, tiny legs and teeny, tiny weapons. Yeah, those soldiers were trying to kill me BUT LOOK HOW ADORABLE. I mean, until like four of them were coming after me at once and then it was all, "shitshitshit run away to the next screen are they gone, oh god, no, now some weirdo squid thing is shooting fireballs at me wtf wtf oh god, Link, RUN FUCKING FASTER," because apparently I had a filthy mouth even as a 12-year-old.

My dad was playing the game, too, which means most evenings would find him sitting in front of the TV on the floor LIKE A CHILD while my sister and I sat on the couch behind him. I'm not sure why my sister was sitting there, but I was studying. See, Dad was way farther in the game than I was, so I'd watch him play so I'd know what to do once I finally got to that point.

Dad was at work the first time I came across the first boss. I tried to beat it on my own, but after I got killed by the stomping bull things a couple of times, I called him. We were NOT supposed to call my dad at work. It was usually fine to call Mom (unless you were calling to tell her that you found a dog wandering around the neighborhood so you put him in the garage and named him Fluffy, OK BYE) but Dad did not have time for that shit. So when I called him about Zelda, I thought for sure he'd sigh heavily and hang up on me.

But no! He told me how to beat it! And it worked! Even though I had to try it several more times and every time I'd get super nervous, all sweaty palms and racing heart, just like I used to whenever we had timed multiplication tests in school but like WHAT WAS UP WITH THOSE? Those were way worse than any of the monsters inside of Zelda.



(This video is crazeballs to me, because WHY AREN'T YOU USING THE ARROWS, GUY?)

Anyway, so I kept playing and every time I had a question, I'd call Dad and he'd walk me through it, no matter how busy he was at work except for those times when I'd ask a question and he'd be all, "...I'm in a meeting, can you call back in half an hour?" and I'd be all, "NO I'M ABOUT TO DIE FOR REAL DAD!" True story.

[INSERT TOUCHING REALIZATION ABOUT DAD TEACHING ME ABOUT LIFE AND NOT JUST VIDEO GAMES HERE]

But, OK, just because I beat Zelda eventually does NOT mean I wasn't a total wuss monster while doing it. If I got too stressed out in any of the castles, I'd go back to the village, where it was nice and quiet and the music was really soothing.



Also, no one there would try to kill you unless you chopped down a bush and a soldier came out. Or worse, A BEE.

[INSERT BEES ARE SCARY AND EVIL STORY HERE] 

(Unnecessary. Everyone already knows bees are scary and evil.)

I'd have to get off the freeway. I HATE that.

When I got my drivers license, my parents were surprised. I was, as you can imagine, a bit offended.

"Tim told us he didn't think you'd pass on the first try," my mom explained.

Tim was my driving instructor. And, apparently, a total asshole.

Maybe that’s not fair. I've never performed well under pressure, especially in front of an authority figure. I don’t rise to the occasion, no, instead I get very anxious and worry about not doing everything perfectly. Which. OK. That's ridiculous, right? I can’t remember the last time I did anything perfectly. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying. OBVIOUSLY. I worry so much about not doing something perfectly that instead I do it horribly, which is what I was worrying about in the first place.

Note: this does not apply to tests. I kick ass at taking tests. But things like giving speeches or performing at a piano recital? These things make me want to poop my pants. Also, I don't play piano so that might be part of the problem. Obviously, I can do things like taking tests without anyone watching, whereas if I'm giving a speech, um, duh, everyone is watching.

So, yeah, back to Tim, my asshole driving instructor who wasn’t really an asshole. He was actually very patient, as all driving instructors should be, and I can't say that I made the greatest impression during my first driving lesson.

I'd already started taking the official driving classes (the ones where you sit in a classroom and watch terribly sad videos about what happens when you drink and drive...I imagine now they also include terribly sad videos about what happens when you drive and text) and my dad had taken me out driving a few times in parking lots and such, so I was familiar with things like, oh, turning the key in the ignition and putting on my seatbelt. And, aside from the time I mixed up drive and reverse and drove onto a sidewalk instead of backing out of a parking spot, I'd done fairly well. Still, I’d never driven on an actual road with, like, other cars and stuff.

With Tim, though, we were going to be driving on real roads RIGHT AWAY. I was so nervous. Why couldn’t we just drive in circles around a parking lot for a couple hours? You know? Just to warm up! Alas, no, Tim wanted to turn me into a responsible driver, not someone who could execute beautiful figure eights in front of a deserted Best Buy.

Everything went well at first. I successfully pulled the car out of the driveway and out onto a main road. Things started going downhill when I realized there were all these other cars on the road with us! What if I hit one?! I started to feel a little vomity. Then we approached a red light and, in my terror, I asked, "um...do I have to stop?"

Now. Tim's reaction (a patient YES) was pretty good. He didn't make any snide remarks, he didn't DUH me, and he didn't do what I would have done, which was yell, "YES YOU HAVE TO FUCKING STOP, PULL OVER RIGHT THE HELL NOW."

[sidenote: this is why I'm not a driving instructor DUH]

Not my finest moment NOT EVEN A LITTLE. I didn't fare much better with maneuverability, annihilating cone after cone, because it just seemed like nonsense to me. I’d nod and smile as Tim explained what I needed to do, but in my head, I was all, “Stop talking crazy, you crazy car sorcerer! Take your dark magic out of my face!”

I feel like we don’t even need to talk about driving on the highway for the first time, right? I mean, it was basically this:



I wish I performed better under pressure. I’m not sure how to fix it or if it’s something that’s even fixable. Some people thrive under pressure and some don’t, yeah? Some like conflict (oh, I’m sure of it) and some, like me, avoid conflict at all costs because WHY WOULD ANYONE LIKE CONFLICT?

I do wish I could make myself stop worrying so much about fucking up in these situations, because it feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’m afraid I’ll fuck up, so I do. It’s not even that I’m not confident I can do these things, it’s that once I’m in the moment, I start doubting everything I’ve ever learned.

For instance, on the last day of middle school, I forgot the combination to my locker. The combination I’d been using all year. It was just gone. I told the janitor that my locker was stuck so he would open it for me. Now I feel like maybe the pressure of high school was starting to loom over me, causing me to fuck up before I’d even started.

Or, you know, I had brain damage.

Now, 13 years later, I can totally see why Tim didn't think I would pass my driving test on the first try. I could barely control a locker, let alone a car. Still. It hurt. And I'm glad I didn't know about it before I took my test, otherwise I probably would have psyched myself out and not passed. But pass I did, and with (almost) flying colors. Conveniently, I didn't have to drive on a road with any stoplights, so that probably helped.

FYI, I started this post in 2006, HOW'S THAT FOR NEVER FINISHING ANYTHING

In elementary school, my favorite gym days were the ones in which I didn't participate. Maybe I was sick. Or I'd hurt myself in some way WHO KNOWS. Whatever it was, and only those with timey-wimey machines can tell us for sure, my mom would write a note saying I was excused from gym class that day.

On those gym-free days, where my mom's signature dismissed me from dodgeball or matball or that game we played where two kids got to terrorize the rest of the class by chasing them around and beating them mercilessly with foam bats, I sat against the gym wall and stared at my sneakers. But on very special days, usually those days when another kid was sickly or injured, we were sent to the gym teacher's office.

I think this was meant to be punishment, but we all thought of it as the ultimate reward. The gym teacher's office was where all the gym equipment was kept, including the giant parachute we got to play with on the last day of gym class every year. This office was deceptively large, almost cave-like, filled with floor mats and hula hoops and those scooty-rolly-cart things and cones and wiffle ball bats and scores of bouncy balls. When I picture Filch's office from Harry Potter, I picture my elementary school gym teacher's cluttered space. Truly, it was her own personal Room of Requirement and on sick days, it was ours, too.

This magical room housed, along with all the necessary gym equipment, one ancient record player and every Beach Boys record ever recorded. I knew about The Beach Boys from Full House, obviously, and also, you know, my parents owned all the albums on cassette or whatever, but there was something special about listening to them on that old record player. The Beach Boys records, I believe, were our teachers way of saying, "sorry you have to clean up all my shit, but at least you can listen to these sweet, sweet beach melodies."

The teacher, before leaving to deal with the rest of our classmates, would give us our assignments, stacking cones or some such nonsense, but instead we'd put on Endless Summer and lie on a stack of floor mats until we heard the teacher coming to check on us. Sometimes we'd get caught and have to go back to gym class. Those were dark times, there is no denying.

This may surprise you, but I did not so much excel at gym class. I mean, sure, I was fine in elementary school. I was one of the faster kids, so although my hand-eye coordination wasn't the best, I could pretty easily dodge most balls (heh) or careen around a matball court with the best of them. You know. If I ever actually made contact with the ball. I mostly just got hit in the face with them AND JUST SHUT UP WITH YOUR DIRTY JOKES RIGHT NOW BECAUSE GROSS I WAS LIKE 10.

I once broke my glasses and got a bloody nose because we were playing soccer and some kid kicked the ball directly into my face. I think he felt bad, but earlier that year I'd broken my own glasses when I fell, face first, off of the monkey bars so, you know, I was used to the embarrassment.

Still, that's nothing compared to the humiliation of high school gym class. The only thing I liked was running, even though it meant I'd be sweaty and disgusting for the rest of the day, because running was not a team sport. But anything else, basketball, softball, even an unfortunate game of football, made my stomach sink. My high school gym teacher didn't have an office full of Beach Boys records, not that I knew of. He was a retired army something or other, prone to screaming fits when we didn't perform to his expectations. He seemed to forget that it was gym class, not boot camp, not even football practice and even if it was, Coach Taylor he was not.

I even had a gym class bully. Nick Mullins. I would sit in the locker room before class, changing into my gym clothes, and wonder what fresh Hell Nick had in store for me that day. Would he throw a basketball at my head, as he'd done the week before? Would he mock me relentlessly every time I struck out at softball, as he'd done EVERY TIME WE PLAYED SOFTBALL? Could I fit in my gym locker, I'd wonder, and hide there until class was over?

I never hid, no, because then I would have gotten in TROUBLE and getting in TROUBLE was not something I did in high school. Instead, I'd go to class, humiliate myself in some brand new way, and risk losing an eye or causing serious injury to someone else. The possibilities were endless, really. So yeah, you could say that I was bad at gym class. It was actually safer for me, my self-esteem, and everyone else if I just stayed in the gym teacher's office and lounged on some floormats, listening to Good Vibrations over and over and daydreaming of a day when no one would care whether or not I shoot a jump shot.

True story: when we watch Fringe, I spend most of the time talking about how dreamy Joshua Jackson is.

When I was a tween, one of my most serious hobbies was collecting BOP and Tiger Beat magazines. My friends and I would go to the drug store and sit in the magazine aisle, leaf through these bubblegum rags, and agonize over our purchases. My weekly allowance would only support my habit up to a point, so I had to be careful if I wanted to get my money’s worth. Sometimes the magazines had only so-so heartthrobs on the cover, but if there was a magazine with a full-size pullout poster of Jonathan Taylor Thomas (JTT!!!), well, obviously that was money well spent.

Some of my friends were already starting to go on dates around this time, even though most of us hadn’t even started our periods. I was shy and socially awkward around most people, and even more so around boys. I had no interest in them and didn’t anticipate ever wanting to have anything to do with them. I mean...I had books, I had my friends, I had my bike, honestly, what else did I need?

Maybe I wasn’t maturing as quickly as my friends, I don’t know, but I didn’t see the appeal of dating. Frankly, what little dating information I’d been able to gather (mostly from old episodes of Saved by the Bell) terrified me. My friends and I often discussed the perfect age to start dating. Most of my friends insisted that, at 12, we were the perfect age to date all we wanted, and you wouldn’t believe the heavy silence that fell when I suggested that maybe 18 was a better age.

I had no real interest in any of the boys in my life but was obsessed with collecting glossy pictures of my favorite teen actors. My room was plastered with the posters and pages I’d torn from teen magazines. I taped them on my bedroom walls like wallpaper. I lived in my head and my head was full of these Hollywood pretty boys. It was easier to pretend that if I should ever meet one of these actors, they’d fall deeply in love with me, and I’d never need to go through the painful dating process. I weaved intricate fantasies around these meetings, based on information gleaned from all the generic magazine articles I’d read about them. JTT liked ice cream. I liked ice cream! Joshua Jackson liked animals! I LOVED animals! Andrew Keegan liked to hike and, well, I liked to walk? Oh the fun we’d have, JTT, Andrew, Josh (yeah, I call him Josh) and I, eating our double-decker ice cream cones while we hiked through the woods and tried to catch wild animals WITH OUR BARE HANDS.

Obviously, these fantasies never became reality, and I (sort of) overcame my fear of boys and dipped my toe into the dating scene. I still spend most of my time in my head, but I eventually outgrew these magazine heartthrobs. Although, if I didn't think Joe would mind, I might still plaster the walls of our house with pictures of Joshua Jackson.

PACEY 4EVA!!1!!11!

You know, you CAN say it backwards, which is "docious-ali-expi-istic-fragil-cali-rupus," but that's going a bit too far, don't you think?

Fictional characters I wanted to be when I was a child (aged 5 - 12ish):

1. Red Fraggle

She had pigtails. I had pigtails. It was totally meant to be.

2. Punky Brewster

See above, re: pigtails.

3. Rainbow Brite

I actually had a rainbow belt when I was little. I'd wear it with my red suspenders and my red, heart-shaped sunglasses. The belt had a heart clasp and, when I wore it, I'd pretend I was Rainbow Brite and wish that my belt could shoot a rainbow out of it, but I must have run out of Star Sprinkles because it never did.

4. Princess Leia

Except I was always jealous that she never got a light saber.

5. Vada Sultenfuss (My Girl)

OK, so I didn't really want to live above a funeral parlor and I DEFINITELY didn't want my BFF to die of bee stings OH MY GOD, MOVIE, BE SADDER, NO I DARE YOU. Ahem. But Vada was sassy and quirky and also had an awesome mood ring that I coveted. I don't know why, maybe I wanted to wear it with my Rainbow Brite belt.

6. Belle from Beauty & the Beast

Have you SEEN that library? SWOON.

7. Mary Poppins

Um, she could fly. And she had a magic bag that she could hide tons of shit in, very much like the bag Hermione enchants in Deathly Hallows. When you think about it, Mary Poppins is kind of like a witch without a magic wand.

8. Meg Murry (A Wrinkle in Time)

She seemed so unsure of herself, like, all the time and DUH, of course I identified with that, but then she goes on a wicked awesome adventure to save her father, which is totally brave and awesome. Plus, we both wore really awkward glasses and yet a boy still liked her, so it gave me hope that maybe someday a boy would like me, too. OMG, I just made myself totally sad, oops. Poor, awkward, little Jennie.

9. Dorothy Gale

I think I wanted to be her most of all. The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie when I was a kid ('cept for maybe E.T.) and I thought Oz was probably the most magical place in the world. Maybe I hadn't seen Willy Wonka yet, I don't know, but still. My dad even made me my own pair of ruby slippers. They were my most prized possession, until my feet grew too big for them, but I hung onto them for a long time even though they didn't fit. Even as an adult, I've often wished for some ruby slippers. I have some red shoes, but I've tried, and they never send me home when I click my heels three times.

10. Marion Ravenwood (Raiders of the Lost Ark)

SHE IS SO BADASS, YOU GUYS.

NaNoWhatNow?

I'm trying to decide whether to do NaNoWriMo again, but I don't know why I'm even questioning it because I have absolutely no reason NOT to do it. I'm not planning a wedding anymore, so that excuse is out, although my version of wedding planning didn't really take up that much of my time. We're talking about taking Max to some obedience classes, but that wouldn't really use up much of my free time either. Honestly, the only thing that might eat into any writing time is TV or my Kindle. Neither is a good excuse so I think what I'm saying is, I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year. And also NaBloPoMo because I think doing that last year is why I finished NaNoWriMo. So. Yeah. Don't let me forget by the time November rolls around.

I'm considering posting it all on A Story a Day, but the thought of doing that terrifies me with a capital T that rhymes with P that stands for Pool. As in, I'm so terrified of that idea that I will soon be standing in a pool of my own urine. But I'm beginning to realize that I write more consistently if I have an audience, especially if said audience is nicer to me than it should be because I need constant validation, people, CONSTANT VALIDATION.

I've always been this way. I wrote The Evil Summer to send to my friend Erica (Chris, in the actual story) so she could write back and tell me how awesome it was. Erica is the daughter of my dad's BFF Larry. My dad and Larry have known each other since, like, birth and at our wedding reception, they danced to Sonny and Cher's I've Got You, Babe. I think they invented the bromance, I really do. Anyway, Larry and his wife and my parents have been friends since the beginning of time, so my sister and I spent much of our childhood with their kids.

We used to spend weekends at their house in the country, making up games and roller blading around their unfinished basement. There was a wooded area across the field by their house that we called The Swamp. We spent many hours there, trying to catch snakes and frogs, or "fishing" in the two inch deep puddle of stagnant water that made up The Swamp when it rained. And. AND. I cannot believe I'm about to share this, but Erica and I would tape record ourselves singing Wilson Phillips songs, play them back, and congratulate each other on how AWESOME we sounded. The Swamp is where we practiced.

So my point is, maybe I should write a story about The Swamp for NaNo. Actually, that's a lie. I didn't have a point.

If Harry Potter had come out when I was 12 instead of 16, I would be way more obsessed. That's a lot of obsessed, but this is not about Harry Potter.

A few weeks ago, someone referenced Flowers in the Attic on their blog, and this led me down a rabbit hole. First I had to look up Flowers in the Attic on Wackopedia, because I'd forgotten some of the effed up details, which led me to looking up all the other VC Andrews books I read as a child (sidenote: VC Andrews should not be read by children), which led me to looking up OTHER books I read as a child, which led me to realize that just because I was an advanced reader for my age, that did not mean I should have been reading a lot of the books I read. Second grade is far too young to read Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret.

I devoured books (mmm, books) as a child, many times in one sitting, and I read my favorites over and over. Not much has changed, except I no longer usually have time to read an entire book in one sitting because being an adult comes with responsibilities, which is STUPID AND I HATE IT. Anyway. I made up a list of the books I read over and over, what I remember about each one, and other comments that are probably full of exclamation marks and all caps.

The previously mentioned Flowers in the Attic: OK. This might be the most fucked up book I've ever read. There are four kids, all blond and beautiful. The two older children are teenagers, I think, and the two younger are twins (one boy, one girl). Their father dies and because their mother is a waste of space, she takes the kids to her childhood home so she can beg her father for money. The kids are locked in an attic by their mother and grandmother because they are Satan's spawn (according to the grandmother) because GET THIS, the kids' parents were uncle and niece (I think). Although, in a later book it's revealed that they're really half brother and sister. Gross. Anyway, the grandmother is a total see you next tuesday and is really mean to them. At one point, she pours tar in the older girl's hair while she's sleeping and I think whips her with a belt. Also, the mother feeds the kids arsenic because her father's will says she'll only get any money if she didn't have any two headed incest children. Also, the older brother rapes the older sister. I KNOW.

I don't know why I was allowed to read any of these books. And I read almost all of them. There is a TON of incest in every single one, WHAT THE HELL?

IT, by Stephen King: Yes. I read this book as a child. I can't remember how old I was, but it might have been around the time I wrote The Evil Summer, which explains a lot, yes? Yes. This book is about...shit, you guys, it's so messed up. There's a scary clown, a big ass spider, dead kids, IT IS NOT FOR CHILDREN. But I specifically remember my dad giving me this book to read. When I was like 12.

The Secret Circle: This is the first trilogy I read by LJ Smith, and probably my favorite. Hokay, so. What happens is, this girl named Cassie moves to Salem or something. I think she goes to live with her grandparents, maybe? I don't remember why, but her mom never told her who her father was, so that's a big mystery. Somehow she ends up BFF with this girl named Diana, who is part of a secret witch coven (I know) and they recruit Cassie. Cassie is totally in love with Diana's boyfriend Adam (I am making up names at this point) and at one point they make out and it's a big thing. The whole coven gets in a big fight, and there's this dark evil hovering over everything in the form of, some dark dude. The dark dude ends up being Cassie's real father and he's evil and wants her to join the dark side and then they have this big fight and he cuts of her hand, oh wait, that's something else. My point is, I don't remember anything else about these.

Dark Visions: This was my second favorite of the trilogies and it was about all these psychic kids. They go to some institute, which turns out to be evil (of course), and they run away and there are psychic shenanigans. I feel like there was some big deal with crystals...like light or dark crystals? And people linking minds? And a love triangle! Like Jack and Kate and Sawyer, but not lame! Except, it was totally lame. I don't remember much about this one. Sorry. Or you're welcome.

The Forbidden Game: I remember even less about this trilogy, but I think the protagonist's name was Jenny (score!) and her friends got her a game (a FORBIDDEN game) for her birthday or something. They all play it and get sucked into it, sort of like Jumangi. There's some guy in the game who keeps fucking with them and he's in love with Jenny. I think his name is Julian and in my mind, he looks like Spike from Buffy, so...hot. I have no idea what else happens or how it ends. Sorry. Or you're welcome.

I was going to write more but now I'm tired. If I find any cheap copies of these books or any other authors (RL Stine! Christopher Pike! Judy Blume! Caroline Cooney! Lois Lowry! Ann M Martin!) I read a lot as a kid, I might do some reviews. Or I might forget I ever said that. Whatever.

speaking of Tool Time...

Today I want to talk to you guys about something very important. Something that was once very, very close to my heart.

Today I want to talk to you about...Jonathan Taylor Thomas. OH, YEEAAAAAAAAAAH. JTT 4 EVA!!1!!1!

Ahem. Jonathan Taylor Thomas was my first love, the personification of all of my tween dreams, and it's only fitting that I give him a proper send off as I will soon pledge my heart to another blah blah blah.

I fell in love with Jonathan Taylor Thomas in the early 90s, when he appeared on a little show called Home Improvement. MAYBE YOU'VE HEARD OF IT. (I don't know.) Anyway. He was perfect, in my young eyes, and I knew that if only I could meet him, we'd fall deeply in (12-year-old) love because...um, we were almost the same age? I don't know, I'm pretty sure that when I was 12, I thought that was all it took. Same age.

Whatever, the case, I was in love and obsessed. Perhaps my obsessions with The X-Files and Mr. Darcy and Pam and Jim should have come as no surprise given my love for all things JTT.

When I was in sixth grade, my bedroom walls were PLASTERED with posters and pictures from such fine periodicals as: Tiger Beat and BOP and BBOP or whatever the hell they were all called. I used to buy them all whenever my mom would take me with her to Kroger. I'd stand in the magazine aisle, digging through them, searching for the best one. They were always on the bottom shelf, lined up together, tween boy faces gazing out at me between the coloring books and the crossword puzzles.

I'd flip through each magazine unless JTT was on the cover, then (OBVIOUSLY) I'd buy that one. He usually was on the cover, right next to Jonathan Brandis (RIP), Andrew Keegan (meh), and Rider Strong (double meh). Sometimes, OH SOMETIMES, the magazine would have a giant, fold-out poster inside of it. That was like finding a pot of gold and digging through that pot of gold to find, like, CHOCOLATE-COVERED GOLD.

My love did not stop at magazines, oh no. I would tape episodes of Home Improvement, new and syndicated, so I could watch the best Randy moments (heh) over and over. My favorite was the episode where there was something wrong with Randy (like, medically) because JTT was all, "I AM AN AC-TOR," in it and I was like, whoa, dreeeeamy. Randy was always my favorite of the Taylor brothers because Brad was, well, a moron and the little one was too young for me and also kind of weird. But Randy was the smart brother and so I was IN. LOVE.

I watched The Lion King over and over because JTT was the voice of Young Simba. I saw Man of the House in the theater and whenever we'd go to Blockbuster, I'd beg my parents to rent it. IT'S SO BAD, YOU GUYS. But I loved it, mostly because of JTT but also because they were in Indian Guides in the movie and I was totally an Indian Princess when I was a kid (Jennie + JTT = MFEO). My name was Little Star. I was in the Fox tribe. I...I'm going to stop talking now.

I don't know what happened to JTT or his career (other than a random episode of Veronica Mars) but my love has obviously faded. (LUCKY FOR JOE.) But I have to admit, I will 4-EVA have a Tiger Beat fold-out poster hanging deep in my heart for Randy Taylor.

paul is dead

Every time I take a road trip, I think of this movie I saw when I was a kid. I have no idea what the movie was and, based on the only part I remember, I'm pretty sure that I should not have been watching it at such a young age.

The part I remember is of this family in a car and they're stuck in a traffic jam. At night. Of course it's at night. Anyway, there are two or three little girls sitting in the backseat and the one sitting in the middle is asleep. The other little girl(s) are all giggly and play a prank on the sleeping girl by tying her shoelaces together.

Well, then they get in a terrible car accident and the sleeping girl (whose name might have been Jennifer, now that I think about it) can't get out of the car in time (because of her shoelaces being tied together) and the car like explodes and she dies, and the other little girl feels guilty forever the end.

See? Traumatic, right? To this day, I don't take my shoes off in the car (unless they're flip flops) because what if we get in a horrible car accident and I can't leave the car because I don't have shoes on? This makes no sense, I know, because duh, Jennie, get out of the car barefoot but WHAT IF IT'S WINTER? My feet will fall off.

Other movies I saw as a child that traumatized me forever:

Gremlins: For years I was convinced that Gremlins lived under my bed but only at night. If I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I'd stand in the middle of my bed and jump as far into the room as I could because I imagined if I put my feet on the ground right by the bed, little Gremlin claws would grab my ankles and pull me under.

Cat's Eye: In which a young Drew Barrymore is terrorized by a gremlin in her sleep. Um. Yeah. So, Drew Barrymore gets a cat and her mom hates cats because I guess her mom is a giant bitch who doesn't like fun because have you ever seen a cat chase its tail? Comedy gold. Anyway, so she doesn't want Drew to have a cat because cats steal your breath when you're asleep. Drew's mom is crazy. Drew isn't allowed to have the cat in her bedroom at night because OBVIOUSLY the cat will steal her breath while she's sleeping OH OF COURSE YOU CRAZY MOTHER. But wait! Guess what happens? This little gremlin burrows into her room each night. He has tiny armor and a tiny sword because...sure, of course. And guess what he does? HE STEALS DREW'S BREATH WHILE SHE'S ASLEEP. Well, the cat won't stand for that so he breaks into the room and fights the gremlin. All I remember is that the gremlin had scary teeth and poked the cat with his sword and hurt that cat and I was like, "oh hell no, I'm out."

Twilight Zone THERE'S SOMETHING ON THE WING OF THE PLANE!: When I saw this, I had never been on a plane. I was terrified to get on a plane and TO THIS DAY, the first thing I think when I fly anywhere is, "I hope there's not a weird gremlin thing that effs up our plane." Which I think is totally valid even without having seen this Twilight Zone.

The Gate: You guys. This is the scariest movie I ever saw as a child. It might be the scariest movie I've ever seen EVER only I don't remember because I haven't seen it since I was like 8. WHO LET ME WATCH THIS? What happens is, these kids are allowed to stay home alone while their parents are on vacation. That never ends well. So of course, they play records backwards to see if they can hear Satan and they also dig a big hole in the backyard...for a pool or something. They put a gate over the hole (OK?) but it's too late! The combination of the backwards-record and the hole to hell (Hellmouth?) makes all these scary gremlin-demons come out and they are so creepy. They're little, but there's a lot of them, so they can totally eff you up. Also, there's this part where one of the kids has an eye growing in the middle of the palm of his hand and he stabs it with a piece of glass. Again, I ask, WHO LET ME WATCH THIS?

Apparently gremlins were as terrifying to me as a child as zombies are to me now. Good to know.

find a happy place FIND A HAPPY PLACE

My teacher in fifth grade was named Mrs. Wolfe. It was Mrs. Castrejon the year before who nurtured my love of writing, but it was Mrs. Wolfe who nurtured my love of storytelling. I loved Mrs. Wolfe, idolized her, really, and to this day she remains one of my favorite teachers. I think of her every now and then, usually when I read a book that makes me cry, and I realize that sounds INSANE but hold your horses, I'll explain.

Every day, after lunch and recess, Mrs. Wolfe would pull out an old stool and place it smack dab in the front of our desks. She'd then pull out a book and read to us. I don't remember how long she used to read, sometimes it seemed longer than others, but I always wanted it to last longer, especially if we were in the middle of a good book. At the time, I couldn't understand how some people could just STOP reading in the middle of a book. I couldn't think of much else when I was reading a good book and so would race to finish it so my brain could rest. Not much has changed since then.

I always knew we were in for it if Mrs. Wolfe put a box of tissues near her. She'd cry through the sad parts, even though she'd read most of these books to all of her many classes in years past. And I'd sit in my chair, struggling not to cry with her, because what if no one else was crying OMG SRSLY. This is why I still read books I think might make me cry in the privacy of my own home, which is why when I read the end of The Dealthy Hallows, I found myself alone in bed, working my way through a box of tissues and putting the book down every few minutes because I COULDN'T SEE THE WORDS THROUGH MY TEARS. But I digress.

I don't remember the names of all the books she read over the course of the year, but I do remember the saddest moment in all of those books. For the life of me, I cannot remember the name of the book, and for once, Google was of absolutely no help. But I have faith that one of you might have read the same book as a kid and, who knows, maybe it stuck in your mind as well.

WARNING: this is like the saddest thing ever. What I'm saying is, Heather Anne, you might not want to read this.

OK. So. There's this boy, I think he's 12, and he wants to join a big dog sledding race in Alaska. I think he needs to win money or something to keep the family home or farm or igloo or whatever. So he joins this sledding race with his trusty pet dog who is the best and smartest and bravest dog ever and all the other people in the race are these grown ass men with their grown ass sledding dogs and they all make fun of the little boy because they are all big meanie poopheads.

The race is really hard and the boy and his dog have many adventures and problems but they make it to the end of the race. It's them against this other guy who wins like ALL the races and the boy and his dog are in the lead! They're going to win! AND THEN THE DOG FUCKING DIES RIGHT BEFORE THE FINISH LINE.

It is the MEANEST! STORY! EVER! you guys. What the shit is that? So of course, in class, we're all crying because THE DOG DIED and stories where the dog dies are the saddest stories of all. But it gets worse. The man who was about to come in second to the boy and the dog before THE DOG DIED, the man who wins all the races all the time, stops his sled, picks up the dead dog and carries him over the finish line and then I DROWN IN MY OWN TEARS.

I hope I didn't just traumatize you. I think I traumatized myself all over again. Anyway, does anyone know what that book was? Because I want to write a mean letter to the author.

But the thing that makes Woody special is he'll never give up on you...ever. He'll be there for you, no matter what. [CUE SOBBING]

(this contains Toy Story 3 spoilers)

I don't have many childhood toys still in my possession, but I do still have some of my old stuffed animals, my favorite being the ratty, green stuffed bear that I've had since I was a baby. I call it my Dabbledoo, a name given to it when I started talking because I couldn't say "bear." But Dabbledoo, that I could say.

I took that bear everywhere with me. I took it to sleepovers, I took it to college, and I've taken it with me every time I've moved since then. I would take it on trips if I wasn't so terrified of losing it.

We took my sister to see Toy Story 3 last weekend. We loaded up with popcorn and soda, found the perfect seats (right in the middle of the theater) and waited through the previews. A family came in and sat a few rows in front of us. They had a little girl with them, she couldn't have been more than three or four, and she was wearing a Woody cowboy (cowgirl?) outfit and carrying a Woody doll that was half as big as she was. A man I assumed was her grandfather took her picture. When asked why, he exclaimed, "It's her first movie!" as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Which, I suppose it was.

The previews soon ended, and as the lamp came out and smooshed the 'i' in Pixar, the little girl shouted, "oh no!" I looked at Joe and giggled. I hate it when people talk during movies (who doesn't?), but small children are exempt from that. I love that they get so wrapped up in the story that they can't help but shout out in excitement. In any case, she settled down when the short started and was quiet for most of the movie.

I'd heard Toy Story 3 was a tearjerker but I had no idea what was in store for me. Surely it wouldn't cause me to cry as much as Up, I'd (foolishly) thought. No movie has ever made me cry as much as Up. Up makes me cry if I even THINK about it too much.

But when the tears started, they wouldn't stop. And where did the tears start? Oh, you know, just when all the toys clasped hands and closed their eyes and WAITED FOR DEATH. That is heavy for any movie, let alone a movie made primarily for children, but never let it be said that Pixar pulls any punches. What made it worse was the little girl in front of us shouting, "Oh, no! Woody!" and I kept wishing I was three years old so I could shout the same thing.

Soon that disaster was behind us, however, and I thought the tears were over until Woody said good-bye to all of his toy friends. I was so wrong. The tears were not over. Not even close. I cried through all the good-byes, I cried through Andy's mom's tears, and I struggled not to sob AUDIBLY as Andy brought his box of toys to Bonnie and I almost gave up when he let go of Woody. Damn you, Pixar, why do you do this to me?

The movie ended and I was glad that they showed clips during the credits so I'd have time to compose myself but it STILL wasn't enough time. The little girl in front of us fared much better, she had Woody there to comfort her, but all I wanted to do was go home, hug my Dabbledoo, and beg forgiveness for all the times I'd ignored him.

also, why is the Baroness such a see you next tuesday?

I woke up this morning with that Do Re Mi song from The Sound of Music stuck in my head. I don't know why. I've stopped questioning these things. I have a different song stuck in my head almost every morning, as soon as I wake up, and it could be anything from Old McDonald (I KNOW) to Lisztomania.

But this morning my head was full of the vocal styling of Nunny Maria and like eighteen adorable moppets. There were eighteen of them, right? Whatever. So the whole time I'm getting ready, it's running through my head and at first I couldn't remember the order it went in. I was all Do Re Mi La Fa So Ti Do Bleep Bloop Blah Blerg. Which isn't how it goes, if you've never seen the movie. Why haven't you seen that movie, though? I love it with all my heart, I do, it's my favorite Julie Andrews movie aside from Mary Poppins (I typed Poopins before Poppins, I don't know what that says about me but I don't think it's good).

I finally got it right, though, and then I concentrated on remembering what each of the notes stood for which was difficult because I kept mixing it up with Homer Simpson's version. (I hope that's the right link. It's blocked at work so I have no idea. I'm sorry if I just took you to some video of, like, cats playing baseball except no, I'm really not, because that sounds awesome.)

Anyway. I finally remembered that it goes like this: Do, a deer, a female deer. Re, a drop of golden sun. Mi, a name I call myself. Fa, a long long way to run. So, a needle pulling thread. La, a note to follow So. Ti, a drink with jam and bread. And that brings us back to DO DO DO DO.

And La is totally the red-headed stepchild of that song. Poor La. Right, so then I got to thinking about the movie and how Maria is all, "when you read you begin with ABC, when you sing you begin with Do Re Mi," and she teaches the kids the song and all of the sudden they just know how to sing. POOF. Magic. But I'm pretty sure there was no magic in that movie, other than like looooove magic between Captain von Trapp and Maria, which you can see every time they look all googly eyed at one another because they are bathed in the soft light of WANTING TO GET. IT. ON.

I wish they'd had real magic in the movie, though. If they'd had magic, they could have turned that nasty a-hole Rolf into a toad and then stomped on him until he was nothing but toad guts and then flown away in their magical flying car instead of traipsing through the mountains to Switzerland or whatever. Is that where they were going? Switzerland? I don't remember. I'm also really bad at geography.

I know it's a musical and all and bursting into spontaneous song I can totally accept, but when they just are like SO GOOD at singing right off the bat? Bullshit. That would be like me learning the ABCs and then moving right along to reading Proust or something. Like, I think they skipped a couple hundred steps.

But whatever. I don't care, I still love the movie, don't get me wrong. I used to watch it practically every weekend when I was a tiny little child, and I'd also sing along to all the songs but I'd get mad at my sister if SHE tried to sing along and my god, my parents must have been so very, very patient. And then we'd switch to Mary Poppins and I'd sing all those songs, too, imitating Dick Van Dyke's cockney accent in my tiny little child voice and I'd wish my parents would hire Mary Poppins as a babysitter the next time they went out. Governess Maria von Nun would have been OK, too, but I think when I was little I thought that a governess was an ex-nun who moved in with you if your mother died and then married your dad and made you clothes out of curtains and stuff, sort of like Scarlett O'Hara but way less selfish and so my definition of governess wouldn't have worked in my situation. Which is fine, but my parents couldn't have hired an flying nanny JUST ONCE? I tried flying with an umbrella myself but I must have had the wrong kind of umbrella so it didn't work. I also tried jumping into my sidewalk chalk drawings but I guess I had the wrong kind of chalk, too? I don't know, maybe magic sidewalk chalk only works in Britain. Britain gets all the magic, it's not fair.

this is what happens when you feed yourself nothing but caffeine and junk food for a week straight

Guess what, y'all? Yes, I just said y'all. Sometimes I pretend I'm from the South because accents are fun. Anyway, guess what? I'M MOVING TOMORROW. I keep switching from rabid excitement that I get to live with Joe (JEALOUS?) and crippling sadness that Heidi and I won't be roommates anymore (SAD FACE) and it's exhausting, y'all. EXHAUSTING. I'm so tired! It's making me not make much sense. I will show you. Here is an excerpt from the email I sent Joe this morning:

I'm just responding to your email from yesterday because I'm lazy, that's why! Hee. I've had a tense morning so far. I got up late (naturally) so I was running late (what is wrong with me?) and then I couldn't find my badge in my purse. So I was freaking out because I need it to get into the parking lot AND the building. Anyway, I grabbed my coat on the way out the door as an afterthought, because it was already pretty warm out, and good thing I did because about halfway to work, I thought, "Hmm, I wonder if I put my badge in my coat pocket yesterday at work," and wouldn't you know it? I did. Whew. Crisis averted. But then I got an eyelash in my eye! While I was driving! And I couldn't get it out! Because of the driving! It was so dangerous. Don't worry, though, when I got to work, I got it out. With a twisted up corner of a tissue because I AM A GENIUS. Also, that's what my grandma used to do when I'd get an eyelash in my eye when I was little. Which happened a lot for some reason. And she'd come at me with the tissue and I'd freak out like she was trying to get the eyelash out with a machete instead of a tissue. I was a little pussy when I was a kid.

It's true, though, I was totally a little pussy when I was a kid. There is video evidence. I graduated from Safety Village when I was 5. Did you guys have Safety Village? Safety Village was so awesome, you guys, way better than Oregon Trail even. Basically, you learned about traffic lights and how to cross the street safely and I know that sounds boring but this one day they brought in a real life traffic light and put it on a desk and we got to play with it. It was bigger than I am now, I'm pretty sure.

But the best part was the actual SAFETY VILLAGE that was outside on the playground. Like, it was this tiny city with crosswalks and streets and sidewalks and it was all little child sized. AND THERE WERE CARS! Little cars you could drive around the tiny village! I mean, they didn't have little engines, they were like Flintstones cars and you had to propel them forward with your feet but WHO CARES it was still awesome because the difference between me and the Flintstones is that (most of the time) I wear shoes.

Anyway, the video evidence was from my Safety Village graduation, and my mom was recording me looking both ways before crossing the tiny fake streets because that is obviously something you want to document. What if you're at a job interview someday and they're all, "she's great, but can she obey traffic laws?" and then you can be like, "BOOM! Check this shit out, btw, do you have a VCR up in this bitch?" and then they'll hire you in spite of the cursing because you are SO GOOD at looking both ways and that's what this country needs right now! People who can look both ways, not just ONLY left or ONLY right. See what I did there?

OK, now that we've covered how to ace an interview, let's move on. So I finished crossing all the streets in the village and decided to get in one of the little cars. But as I was waiting my turn some other kid raced right in front of me and got in my car! That's when I started crying and my mom was all, "Jenny (cause that's how I spelled my name back then), there's another car right there." I'm a little ashamed that my reaction at that time was to run away crying to my mommy (um, Jennie, you were 5) but I guess it taught me a valuable lesson about standing up for yourself because now if that happened I'd straight up PUNCH THAT LITTLE KID IN THE FACE.

This place is a tomb. I'm going to the nut shop where it's fun.

When I was a kid, I read all the time. Like, ALL THE TIME. A few months ago, my mom was telling me a story about how she was in a waiting room, quite obviously deeply involved with her book (dirty), and someone wouldn't stop trying to have a conversation with her. I was all, "MOM. You used to do that to me all the time!" and she was like, "Well, JENNIE, if I didn't talk to you while you were reading, I'D NEVER HAVE GOTTEN TO TALK TO YOU," because that's how much I read, you guys. TRUTH.

Anyway, I also had this problem in that I thought everything I read was true. I mean, I think I knew that I couldn't really travel to Narnia through a wardrobe and that Ramona Quimby (age 8) was not actually a real person. It was more like I wanted the real world to be more like books, all the time. I wanted to write to Mr. Henshaw and I wanted to run around with Maniac McGee and I dearly, dearly wanted to go to Wayside School, even though it was falling down.

Mostly, though, I wanted to be in The Baby-sitters Club. I went back and forth between which character I wanted to be. Sometimes it was Claudia, with her "keen" fashion sense, but I didn't want to have her mean sister. I did try that thing she did, where she hid food all over her room so she could have fun snacks any time she wanted, but it turns out if you do that in real life, your parents catch you and get mad at you because when they asked you where all the snacks were going, you told them your sister was probably eating them and that, my friends, is called lying and I guess parents don't really like lying or something. But I digress.

Sometimes I wanted to be Mary Anne, but I was already desperately shy and bookish, so that was no good. And sometimes I wanted to be Stacey, but not really because man, she was a Grade-A beeyotch if there ever was one, right? Mostly, I wanted to be Dawn, but only because of her beautiful, long hair and the fact that she lived in a house with SECRET PASSAGEWAYS. I knew our house wasn't anywhere near as old as Dawn's house, but that didn't stop me from searching for secret tunnels in the basement.

But the Club sounded fun, no matter which member you were. Probably because there was absolutely no adult supervision and parents had no problem sending ALL the neighborhood kids off on adventures with 13-year-olds, like remember that one time they all got shipwrecked on an island? I mean, they weren't there long enough for it to get all Lord of the Flies, but still...who sends their kid off on a boat with a 13-YEAR-OLD?!

Unfortunately, I didn't have a boat, but I still thought I'd be a good member. Screw that Red Cross Baby-sitting class I took, I learned way more from The Baby-sitters Club. True story. OK, not really, but they did have those super awesome Kid Kits, full of all sorts of fun stuff to keep little ones occupied. I COVETED those Kid Kits, which I know is a sin or something but there are worse sins so just be glad I'm not out there murdering people or building shrines to the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever.

I still sometimes wish that real life was more like books. Less work, more play. Adventures that last pages and pages. Kid Kits. But last night, as I was getting my bag ready for volunteering, I rummaged through some of the stuff I'd collected for it. Stickers. Markers. Play-Doh. Bubbles. And wouldn't you know it? It turns out I'd made my very own Kid Kit, albeit about 15 years late. Maybe this real life thing isn't so bad after all.

I also idolized Pippi Longstocking, if only because she had her own monkey

This morning, when I left for work, I was all, "booo, it's cloudy and looks somewhat thunderstormy!" I like thunderstorms, but not when I'm driving to work because once it starts to rain EVEN A LITTLE BIT everyone forgets how to drive. Thunderstorms are OK once I'm AT work, though, because the power might go out and the last time all the power went out I didn't have to work for two days.

It didn't end up thunderstorming on the way to work and EVEN BETTER there was the best rainbow. I'm assuming that seeing a rainbow means good luck. Which is good because Joe bought a lottery ticket (hey, why not?) although I'm happy to report he didn't play Hurley's numbers. I don't need any bad juju. Don't worry, I won't forget about you when we win (do you like how HE bought the ticket, but WE get the money?) because obviously I'll quit my job right away and have loads of time to blog. Or sleep. One of those.

Even if we don't win the lottery, rainbows are still pretty, right? I've always had a fondness for them on account of one of my two childhood idols was Rainbow Brite. The other? Punky Brewster. My mom insists that I dressed myself like Punky when I was little, complete with rainbow suspenders, a rainbow belt (this also doubled as a Rainbow Brite belt when I played Rainbow Brite), pigtails, freckles (those never came off), and red, heart-shaped sunglasses. I've never seen photographic evidence of this, so I'm not sure I believe her. I've also been told that I inexplicably spoke with a Southern accent as a tiny child, but I don't know if that's true and I have no idea where the accent went.

Anyway. Here is a picture of the rainbow I saw. It looked way awesomer than that IRL, I promise.

Five Movie Monsters That Have Given Me Nightmares

1. Reavers from Firefly/Serenity

I had a nightmare about them last night, actually. They are sort of like zombies, except they're still alive and they can fly spaceships and also they rape you. Basically, they're really fucking scary. Here is an explanation. WARNING: clip contains spoilers.

2. Gremlins from, duh, Gremlins

I realize this is not a particularly scary movie, but when it was released, I was two years old. My parents rented it at some point when I was very, very young and for some reason let me watch it and it gave me nightmares for years. Like, I was convinced they lived under my bed, but only when the lights were turned off.

3. gremlin thingie from Cat's Eye

Again, this movie isn't scary, but I saw it when I was really young and it warped me for life. I think that, basically, this family takes in a cat and the mom hates it because she thinks cats steal your breath (what?) and she thinks this cat is stealing her daughter's breath or something (again, huh?) BUT it turns out that what's really happening is that this gremlin thing comes in through the wall and steals the girl's breath. The cat fights it, though, proving that cats are not, in fact, always evil.

4. Zombies from, um, any zombie movie

You know this. I mean LOOK.

5. tiny gremlin things from The Gate

I don't remember much about this movie, except these kids dig a huge hole or something in their backyard and evil things from the Hellmouth come out and try and sacrifice them or something. I don't know where the parents are. The only other thing I remember is that, at one point, an eyeball grows in this kid's hand and he stabs it with a piece of glass. That whole movie fucked me up. I saw it when I was like 8 WHY I DON'T KNOW. Hey LOOK, here's a clip. Wow, that movie looks awful. I kind of want to see it again.

BONUS: This isn't from a movie, but I used to have nightmares about pandas. They lived under my bed and would reach up from under, and they had glowing red eyes and long, sharp claws. Yeah, I don't know why.

So, basically, it seems like I mostly have a problem with zombies, zombie-like creatures, and gremlins. Good to know.

I don't know how this turned into a therapy session about my elementary teachers. These things just happen.

Work is devouring me whole. It feels funny. I don't like it. I worked all day Saturday, which everyone knows is meant for sleeping in and lounging around in your pajamas watching America's Next Top Model marathons. Geez. And I've actually been working really hard during the weekdays, too, even DURING LUNCH, which everyone knows is meant for surfing the Internets while you eat your PB&J. I don't have PB&J sandwiches every day, though, because that wouldn't be healthy. Otherwise, I'd totally do it. I'm all about being healthy. Which is why Heidi and I are going to play a VP debate drinking game on Thursday. If you never hear from me again, it's because she-who-shall-not-be-named killed me with The Stupid.

Aaaaanywho. In college, sometimes I'd have PB&J for lunch, and also some potato chips and a glass of milk, and Nancy would make fun of me because I was having a kindergarten lunch but WHATEVER. Obviously kindergartners know what they're doing. Once in kindergarten I squirted glue at this girl because she was annoying the shit out of me. I got in trouble and wasn't allowed to make a Mother's Day card. This other kid spilled glue all over his chair ON PURPOSE and sat in it (moron) but he didn't get in trouble. I sort of just realized it, but I think my kindergarten teacher was a bitch.

I don't remember much about my first grade teacher, except that once we had to draw pictures of our families and this led to her calling my parents and telling them I might be retarded. Why do I say retarded? It's so not a good thing to say, but I say it all the time. I'm sorry. Anyway, it was because I drew this picture of my dad and I drew this big, giant bald head with giant eyes (glasses?) and apparently the picture was an indication that I might be special. Then my parents came in for parent-teacher conferences and she saw that that's what my dad really looked like. Also, her name was Mrs. Wetzel, and she'd be like "Wetzel like PRETZEL," which . . . duh.

My second grade teacher made us keep a journal every day. This is where I came up with Figment. And I think this was the year I dressed up like Dorothy and my dad made me my own pair of ruby slippers and I never ever wanted to take them off.

I had Mr. Counts for third grade and I'm pretty sure he was gay. I didn't know at the time, of course, because I didn't know what gay was. I got into an argument with him once about whether men or women were stronger and I was all, "CLEARLY women are stronger because they have to have BABIES and I don't know much about BABIES because I'm only in 3rd grade, but whenever women are having them on TV, they scream a lot THEREFORE they must be strong to deal with all the pain."

My fourth grade teacher's name was Mrs. Castrejon, pronounced "Castra-HONE" but my dad was always like, "How is Mrs. Castra-John," and then I'd get all huffy and pissed. She used to put us in spelling test groups, and if your group won, you got to go out to dinner with her and her husband. When my group won, we went to The Ground Round, where they served vanilla ice cream in tiny, plastic baseball caps and it was AWESOME. OH MY GOD ALSO! She used to let us write stories and she had this whole room devoted to making actual BOOKS to write our stories in.

In fifth grade, I had my favorite teacher EVER. Mrs. Wolfe. She was awesome. After lunch and recess, she'd read to us and sometimes, if the book was sad (Bridge to Terabithia, what?), she'd have to have a box of tissues sitting next to her. This was the year of a presidential election and our class was on the news because of that whole Kids Vote thing, and also because George Bush (the first) was coming to Dayton and we were going to the rally. Only three kids were allowed to talk on the news broadcast, one for each candidate. I really wanted to be one of those kids, so when Bill Clinton was claimed by someone else (I think I've always been a Democrat), I was all, "yeah, Ross Perot would be awesome," just so I could get on TV.

My sixth grade teacher went to my church (back when I, you know, went to church), which I thought was totally awkward. We had to make castles for a project once, and my dad helped me make this castle out of Popsicle sticks that HAD A WORKING DRAWBRIDGE. It was the best thing I've ever made and Mrs. Morgan must have thought so, too, because she totally kept it and never gave it back. Rude.