last post of November PLUS 10 on Tuesday

So. I won NaNoWriMo. I finished writing 50,000 words yesterday, verified it on the NaNo site, and was proclaimed a winner, but I didn't feel like one. I actually felt very meh about it and I think it's because I didn't really care about my story at all. I only finished it out of spite, really, because I wanted to say I won. It's finished in that it's more than 50,000 words long, but it's not finished in that it comes to a satisfying ending. And it probably never will because it's SO BAD that I never want to think about it again. Note to self: don't start knocking up characters and having others make out and letting people get kidnapped by bad guys JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN. Anyway. NaNo is over and, once I post this, NaBlo is also over so I'm left feeling all, "now what?"

Well, right now, "now what" means 10 on Tuesday so...that's something, I guess. Wah wah waaaaaah.

1. Where are you from? Have you lived there your whole life?

I am from Narnia or Hogwarts or Terabithia, which really means I live inside my head and, yes, I've lived there my whole life.

2. How would you classify your clothing style?

Half-assed.

3. What kind of car do you drive?

A blue one.

4. What would your dream home look like if you could have it (or already do!)?

It would look like Hogwarts, obviously. And it would have a time machine (with a clear titanium bubble) in the garage.

5. Do you have kids, and if so, how many and how old were you when you had them?

I don't have any that I know of.

6. What is your favorite hobby?

I would say reading, but reading is more of a necessity to me than a hobby in that I NEED IT TO LIVE.

7. Are you going to have any New Year’s resolutions for 2011?

Probably.

8. What is something, if anything, that you’d want to change about yourself?

Well, I wish I could fly, if that's what you mean.

9. What is something that you love about yourself?

I hate these questions.

10. Pick one of the following: Someone to cook for you, someone to do your laundry, or someone to do your dishes.

All of the above, duh.

Jennie Baxla and the Severe Tire Damage

Here is how last night was supposed to go: leave work, go to volunteering, go home, eat a nutritious dinner, read Harry Potter, go to sleep.

Here is how it happened instead: left work, ran into something hella crazy in the road, got a flat tire, called AAA, waiting in rainy parking lot, drove car to (closed) Tire Discounters, ate Donatos for dinner instead of healthy chicken, read Harry Potter, stayed up too late, went to sleep.

The tire damage part of it happened like this:



I had to draw a picture because I'm having trouble explaining to people exactly what happened. But I'll try. For what are we without words? Animals, I guess. Except some animals can talk. Like parrots. And gorillas. They talk with their hands sometimes. Anyway.

I was seriously five minutes away from volunteering and not late or anything, so I wasn't even speeding (for once). It was raining pretty hard and the road was all shiny. Not good shiny like in Firefly, but bad shiny as in POOR VISIBILITY. And I was driving through construction and the lane kept going all topsy turvy and different directions so sometimes I don't think I was even in a lane, and as I went through the intersection all of the sudden there was this cement curb island thing RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME and so I swerved but not enough and I totally ran over it AND THEN MY CAR FLIPPED OVER AND OVER BUT I LANDED RIGHT SIDE UP AND PULLED INTO AN ALLSTATE PARKING LOT OH YEAH FIRE FIRE EXPLOSION GRYFFINDOR! Oh wait, the Gryffindor thing...I will that explain later.

It all happened just like that except for the fire and explosion. I sat in the parking lot for a moment, all shaky, and then called the cavalry (Joe and AAA). In my heart, I hoped that AAA could fix the tire but in my head I knew it was effed. Sure enough, when the tow truck arrived and he took the tire off, the wheel was all bent and shit and apparently wheels are never, ever supposed to be bent and shit. So the AAA guy put my spare on and then put air in the spare because why wouldn't my spare be almost flat, too? What, like I'm suppose to be prepared? Eff that, you guys. Then the AAA guy told me how much money he'd made in six months and how he was excited for it to snow because it meant he'd make even more money and I was like, "Dude, I know your job depends on the misfortune of others but could you try not to sport so much wood when you talk about it? Especially next to my poor, poor car? She's already traumatized enough."

But. OK. So as I was waiting for AAA to get there, a van pulled into a parking spot near me. I spied on them (obviously) and they got out of the car to look at their front passenger side tire and I was like, "huh," but I stayed in my car because it was raining and cold outside. Then the tow truck got there and the Van Guy came over to my car and this happened:

Van Guy: Is there something wrong with your car?
Jennie's Brain: Um, there's a tow truck here, wtf do you think?
Jennie Out Loud: Yeah, I got a flat tire.
Van Guy: Did you run over that thing in the road back there by the gas station?
Jennie's Brain: HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT, ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME?
Jennie Out Loud: Yes! Did that happen to you, too?
Van Guy: Sure did.

Then he started talking to my tow truck driver and I was all, "THAT'S MY TOW TRUCK DRIVER! STOP BOGARTING MY TOW TRUCK GUY!" and then the tow truck driver told us that whatever we'd both hit had caused an accident last week. Way to go, Dayton. Anyway, around this time, I noticed that the Van Guy was wearing a Gryffindor shirt.

Jennie's Brain: OMG, he's wearing a Gryffindor shirt!
Jennie Out Loud: I like your shirt, guy.
Jennie's Brain: BETTER BE...GRYFFINDOR!

The end.

my eyes, MY EYES

I went to the eye doctor this morning, which I don't really mind, because the eye doctor is my favorite of all of the doctors. Eye appointments are the only medical appointments that I can go to and not feel like I've been molested in some way afterward. I mean, at the dentist, they poke at your tender, pink gums with sharp, metal objects and at the gyno they...well, let's just say it's similar to the dentist but they poke you in a different part of the body. And WHO KNOWS what might happen to you at the regular doctor. First they get you in that paper gown and then you are at their mercy.

So anyway, the eye doctor. The only thing I hate about going to the eye doctor is that there's a test. And as a former overachiever, who had to NOT ONLY get the best grade in the class but also finish her test before anyone else, I find this stressful. A or B? One or two? Is the first one better, or the last one? I DON'T KNOW LEAVE ME ALONE. Sometimes I think the doctor is totally messing with me, too. Like, she'll flip between two different lenses and be like, "is the first one better or the second?" and THEY ARE TOTALLY THE SAME. And then she'll make some comment like, "I bet the last one is pretty blurry," and I think, "OMG I FAIL I FAIL I NEED TO START OVER," and then I freak out and start Hulk-smashing all of the equipment and they ask me to put my credit card on the counter and back slowly out of the building.

Just kidding, that only happened once.

I decided to go to the eye doctor, even though I was pretty sure my prescription hadn't changed, so I could get contacts for the wedding. I've had contacts in the past, but the last time they ran out I just...didn't go get more. I figured I'd get them soon and that was, um, two or three years ago. OOPS. My eyesight is not that bad, so I really only wear my glasses at the movies, while driving, and sometimes while watching TV. However. I do not want to wear my glasses all day for the wedding, because eventually I get sick of them and want to rip them off of my face and stomp on them. And if I don't wear them, well, everything will be sort of pleasantly fuzzy but I figured I might want to be able to see Joe's face from the other end of the aisle so CONTACTS IT IS.

I felt a great disturbance in The Force

I have some bad news. Really bad. You should probably sit down. I got to work today at the same time I always do, checked my work email, and then went to see if it was my turn on Scrabulous. And . . . oh god . . . it was GONE. JUST GONE. NO MORE SCRABULOUS. I guess it's because Hasbro hates me and wants me to cry all day long.

You guys, I am a mess and not just because of the Scrabulous loss. I came back from Put-in-Bay with a wicked sunburn, a huge bruise on my knee and no recollection of obtaining it, and a blister on my hand from burning it on the oven. This is why I shouldn't try to cook. People only get hurt, and by people, I mean ME. Also all the people who get food poisoning. Then yesterday, I tried to tune my guitar and a string broke and whipped me on the wrist. It hurt. You may be asking yourself, "why is Jennie tuning a guitar?" or maybe even, "Jennie has a guitar?" and the answers are, "because an out of tune guitar sounds like shit," and, "yes, I do have a guitar." I bought it my senior year of high school because I thought teaching myself to play would be easier than it was. Also because it was blue. It turns out, teaching yourself how to play the guitar is NOT easy. I think I was hoping I would just pick up the guitar and magically know how to play. Like I'd be the Rainman of singer-songwriting. Alas, I am not. So, recently, I got a book to help teach me and yesterday was the first day I actually TRIED to do anything and then a stupid string broke. AND THEN (no and then!) I realized that I haven't changed the strings since I got the guitar. I know that sounds ridiculous, but it wasn't like I was playing it or anything. So. Moral of the story? I need new strings.

After I broke my guitar, I decided to go running and I almost died. I know I say that every time, but a combination of very little sleep this weekend, spending too much time in the sun, the HOT HOT HEAT and HUMID HUMID, um, HUMIDITY, and the fact that I haven't run in weeks meant I seriously for real almost fell on the sidewalk and died. I know this means I need to start running in the morning before work, but waking up that early makes me die, too. This is really a losing situation any way you look at it.

can you tell me why you have been so-o-o-o-o saa-aaa-aaad?

Today sucks, you guys. Remember a long time ago (on a blog far, far away) when I explained why Tuesday was the worst day of the week? Well. Allow me to explain again, because I'm too lazy to go back and find that post. See, Monday automatically blows, because it's Monday and you're tired (well, I'm tired) and cranky and busy catching up on work, but you EXPECT that from a Monday. Where do you think "looks like somebody's got a case of the Mondays," came from? Also, has anyone ever said that to you? Someone said it to me once and I punched them in the babymaker.

Anyway. Wednesday is sort of awesome because it's Hump Day, meaning the week is half over and also you get to say "hump" a lot. Thursday is almost Friday, which makes it easier to get through PLUS ALSO The Office is on. Friday IS Friday and most of the time I'm so happy on Friday, I'm all, "I want to have your babies, Friday." True story. Saturday and Sunday are self-explanatory, although Sunday sort of sucks because right around 6 o'clock is when the end-of-the-weekend depression starts sinking in. But it's still not enough to ruin the ENTIRE day.

Tuesday, however, oh Tuesday. Tuesday is just there. It's too blah to hate it with any real sort of passion and it drags on and on until I have to poke myself in the eyeballs just to stay awake.

Today sucks particularly hard, because not ONLY is it Tuesday, but I didn't work yesterday so it feels like Monday and so it's sort of like Monday and Tuesday have formed an unholy alliance and their main objective is to make me jump out the window. I did accomplish a lot this weekend, though. I wrote some articles, helped my grandma and great-aunt turn 70 (they didn't need much help, it turns out), drank a lot of beer and wine, ate my weight in cookout food, read two books and ONE OF THEM I read in less than 24 hours (my skills, do they frighten you?), made some new friends, and Heidi and I finally beat Rayman. When we finished it, I wandered around the apartment for a while, wondering what to do with myself because it felt like my life's goal had finally been reached. I considered making a new life goal, like climbing Mt. Everest or something, but instead I just started another book. I'm trying to push this other book out of my mind, partly because I HATED IT but mostly because, between that book and a conversation I had over the weekend, I have not been able to turn off my brain. Seriously, it won't shut up. Which meant I couldn't sleep last night which means I'm way tired and all THIS means that today sucks. And now we have come full circle. The circle of suck. It's beautiful, yes?