joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea

Saturday morning (and, OK, early afternoon), Joe and I were catching up on our stories (The Office, Archer, etc) and in the middle of my grousing about Brian the Boom Mike Guy, I declared that we should go on an adventure. Not an outdoor adventure, mind you, because it's been below freezing pretty much every day for the past million and a half years, and I couldn't think of any outdoor activities that wouldn't involve me whining a lot or one or both of us losing a body part to frostbite. I did some quiet Googling and thinking (it was hard, you guys) and decided that we should definitely go to Newport Aquarium, which I was PRETTY sure was all or mostly indoors. I didn't verify this before I bought tickets, though. I just bought them. BECAUSE PLANNING IS FOR LOSERS.

[Note: This is so untrue. I plan things like crazy. I plan them so much that it annoys even ME and so one of my goals is to be more spontaneous and not worry if, say, we get to an aquarium and it turns out to be all outdoors and it's 20 degrees and snowing CARPE DIEM SEIZE THE DAY THANK YOU MR KEATING.]

My gamble paid off, luckily, because we only had to be outdoors during the walk from the parking garage to the aquarium. And, I don't know, maybe during the warmer months, they have stuff going on outside (dolphins? manatees? SHAMU?) but just the inside was fine, really. There were, like, probably at least 100 fish inside. MAYBE EVEN 200.

I'm kidding. I'm sure there were more than that. Unfortunately, it seemed like there were as many children running around as there were fish in tanks. I wouldn't have minded the kids so much if they were in tanks, too (ZING!), but really the majority of the children were either well-behaved and/or adorably excited, which I couldn't fault them for BECAUSE OMG PENGUINS OMG SEA TURTLE OMG GIANT ALLIGAAAAATOOOOOOOOOR AHHHHHHHHHHH!! If anything, I was mad because these excitable children were all up in my business while I was trying to get my face as close to the glass without either A) smearing it or B) scaring the fish.

While we were there, not only did I get to watch penguins frolic for half an hour, but I also had the opportunity to A) scare a small child who I thought was lost by asking him if he knew where his mom was and B) bond with with another kid over spider crabs. This is a spider crab and, even if you're not Ron Weasley, I think you'll agree that it's the creepiest fucking things you've ever seen:

Oh my god! Expecto patronum EXPECTO PATRONUM!

On the way home, we stopped and had dinner with Joe's brother and sister-in-law and our adorable nephews, which was the perfect way to end our adventure, mostly because there were no spider crabs at their house.

Joe and I tend to be hermit-like (LIKE HERMIT CRABS) most of the time, though Joe is slightly more prone to leaving the house than I am. I consider sitting at home in my pajamas and not talking to anyone to be one of the most enjoyable things a person can do, but sometimes I have to make myself put on pants and leave the house like a normal person might, if only so I don't turn into Nell. And anyway, I made up for all my pants-wearing on Saturday by sitting in pajamas all day Sunday, binging on TV and junk food while I waited for the Super Bowl Puppy Bowl to start. AMERICA!

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!