it's the end of the year as we know it (so sorry for that)

Up until just a few years ago, I was fairly certain I'd never reach the day where I'd be completely fine with having no plans on New Years Eve. But here we are, almost completely plan-less, and I couldn't be happier. Our plan for the day, such as it was, included going out to breakfast and...that's pretty much it. We went to Trader Joe's last night to buy wine and snacks for tonight and that's as planned as we've gotten so far. 

I'm not sure if you're aware, but there's a Doctor Who marathon on BBC America today, but since Joe got the entire Doctor Who DVD collection (BE JEALOUS) for Christmas, we're having our own marathon by just picking out random episodes we want to watch. WE ARE FAR SUPERIOR TO YOU, BBC.

This past week or two has been so odd, what with the four day weekend for Christmas then another four day weekend for New Years and a bonus snow day in between. I'm not even sure what day it is anymore, which is going to make going back to work on Wednesday SUPER FUN but such is life, yeah? Such is life.

It's been a strange year. I guess. I say that every year. Today, I'd intended to write about my resolutions from last year and where I stood with them but it turns out I didn't write any resolutions last year. Which is just as well, really, because I'm not sure I'd have made much headway on any of them. Such is life. Did I already say that? Oh well. SUCH IS LIFE, JERKS. 

I'd make some resolutions for next year, but they're pretty much always the same. Write more. Exercise more. Cook healthier food. Watch less TV (PFFT). GET SHIT TOGETHER. I think the problem with these resolutions is that it's not possible, really, to achieve them. How do I know if I've written enough MORE or not quite enough MORE or just the right amount of MORE? SPECIFICITY, that's the key. So here goes:

1. Finish editing the novel I wrote like three years ago. I'm sure it's absolutely dreadful, first draft and all, which is probably why I can't bring myself to look at it OH ALSO editing is awful. But apparently, magical editing elves aren't going to take care of it, so that just leaves me.

2. Participate in Cannonball Read V. It was way fun this past year, even though I didn't make it to 52 reviews. BUT WHO CARES. I still wrote 34 more reviews than I ever have before. If you're at all interested in reading any of them, here they are. It's hard to tell, really, because I haven't gone back to read any of them, but I hope they got better as the year went on. And two of them were published on Pajiba, which is super exciting, so why WOULDN'T I participate again?

3. Run a 5K. Because why not? I'm putting this on here mostly because "run more" is a shitty resolution.

4. Actually use all the cookbooks I have, by cooking AT LEAST one recipe a month from one of them. I mean, come on, Jennie, get it together.

5. Get another dog YEAH JOE, WE'RE TOTALLY GETTING ANOTHER ONE.

6. Continue my FutureMe project. PROJECT makes it sound like I've thought it all out, but really I'm just writing a FutureMe email to myself once a week. I look forward to getting to start reading them this June. 

That's all I can think of. So. You're welcome that there aren't more you have to read. HAPPY NEW YEAR!

this is the way the world ends

The world is supposed to end tomorrow, so I took the day off. If it's my last day on Earth, I don't want to spend it trapped at work. Plus, this week of work has been an absolute waste of time. No one wants to be working. It's like those last few days of school before Christmas break, when all you do is trade cookies and candy and presents and then watch movies for the rest of the day, but it's worse this year because maybe the world is ending? So why bother with anything, right? Joe and I were recently discussing the impending apocalypse BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT WE DO: 

Me: You know, if you and I could still be together afterward, I don't think I'd really mind if the world ended on Friday.
Joe: Me neither.
Me: And I'd want our friends and family to be there, too.
Joe: Well, they probably would be, what with the world ending and all.
Me: Only if we all end up in the same Hell dimension.
Joe: That's true.
Me: I don't really believe in Hell, though.
Joe: No?
Me: No. I'm pretty sure we all just blink out of existence in the end.
Joe: WOW.

I don't really believe that, though. I don't think. I don't know what I believe. I mean, death is so totally weird, right? Like, one minute you're you, in your body, just hanging out like always, the next moment you're just gone? What IS that? Where did you go?

Right after my grandma died, (and I don't remember how this came up) I found out that some people believe that when you go to Heaven, you don't ever see anyone you knew when you were alive. And I was already depressed but that knocked the wind out of me. Why would anyone want to believe something like that? It's so depressing. I have a problem accepting any idea about the afterlife, really, because no one knows for sure. But I have some ideas, I guess? Though, they're less ideas and more, just, what I WANT the afterlife to be like. But first let's start with what I don't want:

1. I don't want to get to Heaven and have it be full of strangers, like some awful party where I don't know anyone and I'm forced to make awkward small talk until the end of eternity (which I think never ends, maybe?) but then again, if I end up in a place like that, it's probably not Heaven.
2. I'd like to not just blink out of existence. I've grown quite fond of existing, so I'd like to continue to do so in some way.
3. I don't mind the idea of reincarnation, though I'd prefer not to be reincarnated as a dung beetle or a Tea Partier or something.

Here is what would be nice:

1. That I get to hang out with all the people (and pets!) I've known in my life who've died.
2. That I get to hang out with all the other people in my life, but only ones I like.
3. That I can fly.
4. TARDIS PARTY.



That's really all I need. I do like the idea of Heaven that's presented in that movie Defending Your Life. Except for the whole "being on trial" thing. And the possibility that you'd miss out on going to Heaven and have to go back to stinky Earth-life.

So anyway, see you all in Heaven on Saturday (FINGERS CROSSED)! I'll bring the tequila because NO HANGOVERS IN THE AFTERLIFE THAT'S WHY.

if I was a robot, I'd say, "SYSTEM MALFUNCTION" but I'm not so I won't

I hate to get on here and just complain and complain and complain but that's all I feel like doing lately and if you think YOU'RE sick of it, think of how I feel. But mostly how Joe feels. Poor Joe. Actually, no, NOT poor Joe. He's off work all this week and next week so HE'S DOING JUST FINE.

It's no secret that I'm jealous of all of Joe's time off but really, I could have done the same, I just didn't. I'm saving my vacation time for...something? I'm always saving my vacation time for something because I'm always afraid I'll run out. It's a very tricksy situation because if I DON'T use it all by the end of the year (which is June 30th for me), I lose it. Not that I'd ever allow that to happen but it's always a possibility. Anyway.

So Joe's off work all week and so are lots of other people and the rest of the people don't feel like working because DUH CHRISTMAS. Did you know it's almost Christmas? It seems to sneak up on me every year but that's especially true this year. I've purchased all of my gifts but not all have arrived yet and I've wrapped exactly NONE of them. Not that I spend all that much time wrapping them anyway, they always end up looking like a 2-year-old with a sugar high got ahold of them, but still. It does take SOME time, no matter how half-assed you wrap everything.

I cannot tell you how many typos I've made writing this post, short as it is so far, but it's been a lot. I feel like lately my brain isn't really functioning on all cylinders. FULL DISCLOSURE: I spelled cylinders wrong my first three tries THANK YOU SPELL CHECK. I'm sure I used to know how to spell cylinders without outside assistance but no longer. I blame smartphones.

Anyway. I'm so bored with everything INCLUDING MYSELF that I started this yesterday and then completely forgot about it which is probably a sign that I shouldn't post it but I won't let THAT stop me because I haven't posted in a while, which means any crap is better than no crap even if it's extra crappy crap.

Speaking of crap, yesterday Max pooped in the house, which is weird because he's been SO GOOD lately about not using our home for a toilet. We were having trouble a while ago with Phoebe pooping in random places (LIKE OUR BED) a couple of times but it turned out her litter box lining just needed to be changed and now she's SUPER HAPPY to poop where she's supposed to. And Max is super happy to eat it. I think if Max could talk (something Joe and I discussed yesterday) my number one question would be something along the lines of, "Max, why did you poop in the hallway?" or "Max, why the fuck do you eat poo poo WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU." Because gross. Also, I've been talking about poop for a really long time. Good talk, team! MERRY CHRISTMAS.

it's the most wonderblah time of the year

I don't know what it is but lately all I want to do is NOTHING. Like, literally nothing. I could sit and stare into space and...that would be fine, I guess? But instead I've been sitting and staring at the computer or the TV, which is almost like staring into space but space is bigger because it's full of...well, space.

This weekend I barely did anything BUT watch TV. And terrible TV! I'm sort of embarrassed about how many episodes of Grey's Anatomy I watched this weekend (and not just because YOU GUYS IT'S SO TERRIBLE) but mostly I can't even remember how many I watched THAT'S HOW MANY THERE WERE. I don't care, though, because I forgot how easy it is to get wrapped up in the goings on of Seattle Grace even though it's COMPLETELY NUTS and they are all terrible doctors. 

Anyway. I hope this urge to do nothing goes away soon because I was doing SO, SO WELL with the whole writing every day thing, and I was eating better and cooking more and exercising...um...sometimes and reading ALL THE TIME but now I can't even get into any books*. Until that happens, though, I guess I'll just be sitting here, doing nothing, and blaming it on the following factors:

1. The weather

It's not even that it's cold, it's that it's GREY ALL THE TIME. What's the sun look like? What's a sun? WHAT IS WARMTH AND HAPPINESS?

2. The time of year

The holiday season, it is upon us, but if it could get offon us anytime soon, that'd be awesome. There are too many plans and too many moneys to spend and not enough free time. BAH HUMBUG.

3. Eating terribly

Seriously, self, stop eating all the junk food. Leave some for everyone else.

4. Not exercising

I really like going for hikes/walks/whatnot but it's dark when I leave for work (basically) and dark when I get home and I don't want to get lost/kidnapped/abducted by aliens. Unless the alien is a specific Time Lord.

5. TV is too awesome

This morning I told Joe that we should get rid of cable and Netflix, because we'd get so much more done. He pointed out that we'd still have the internet because HE IS UNHELPFUL.


*that's kind of a lie because last night I started reading a book I really didn't want to put down but my brain apparently needs to sleep or something...stupid brain

deja vu, forever and ever amen

I've been reflecting recently (and by recently I mean CONSTANTLY) on the passage of time and how it's so slow but also fast which is, though not an original thought (not even a little), totally weird. We just hired someone born in 1994 and, as I was going over her paperwork, I thought, "wait...1994...she's not old enough to work here" because in my head, someone who was born in 1993 should still be in high school BUT NO. She's definitely old enough to work here or there or EVERYWHERE, except as POTUS but who really wants that job anyway?

It was one of many small moments that seem to sneak up on me more and more often, moments when I realize that not only am I not as young as I once was, but that everyone around me is getting older, too. This is not an "oh, woe is me, I'm so OLD" post, not at all, because I don't feel that old (unless, of course, I'm at a career fair at my alma mater because GOOD LORD was that an ongoing revelation that I'm not 20 anymore and THANK YOU BABY JESUS FOR THAT), but I do feel OLDER.

Joe and I went to trivia at a local bar last week, which was great (YOU GUYS, DISNEY TRIVIA) but we were maybe the oldest ones there? I think? We were definitely on the older end of the spectrum, which has been happening more and more frequently, especially at bars, which maybe means we're going to the wrong bars BUT I LIKE THOSE BARS so I'm going to keep going, probably. I don't know. I think it's OK. We're not those people who still hang out at college bars, doing shots until 2am because we want to relive our glory days, no, we're the couple sitting quietly at a table in the corner, nursing beers until the band starts, which I think is better, and not only because when I do shots now, I want to die the next day.

My friends are all getting married and buying houses and having babies and I feel like I talk about this a lot (because I do) but it's just so WEIRD that we're all allowed to be doing any these things. Who would put any of us in charge of another living creature? Crazy people, that's who. But it's happening more and more and those of us who used to drink until 5am AND THEN take a case of beer to Lake Michigan so we could watch the sunrise are now either pregnant (MARY, AHH!) or would rather stay home and watch Lord of the Rings instead of going out to a bar (me, duh). And it's fine! It's more than fine, really, it's natural and good and BARS ARE SO LOUD SOMETIMES. But sometimes I miss the people we all used to be, if that makes sense. I miss the person I used to be, though I like the person I currently am, but I'm a little quieter now, a little more cautious (meaning I'm less prone to illegal nightswimming), and I'm definitely a lot less likely to encourage everyone to do tequila shots at the end of the evening.

I've been writing myself FutureMe emails every week for about six months now and, since I'm sending them all a year ahead, I'll start receiving them sometime next June. I'm not sure what I'm hoping to gain from this experience, other than maybe I'll wonder why I felt the need to write stupid shit to myself every week, but I suppose it'll just be another reminder of how quickly time goes by and how much (how little?) a person can change in a year. It might end up being the most depressing project I've ever undertaken. Or it might be really uplifting and fun and super positive yay hugs! I'm guessing it'll be all of the above, but also a little weird because pretty much everything I do ends up being at least a little weird.

My uncle, when I was in high school, hurt his knee somehow, playing football or baseball or some other kind of ball (who can keep them straight?) and told us he'd hurt it because he was still trying to play like he was 25, since in his head, he WAS still 25. And I thought, at the time, "well, that's just odd," but now I wonder if I'll always feel that way, too. Maybe I'll be writing a similar post in 25 years, provided the world doesn't end in a few weeks or that the internet doesn't collapse in on itself at some point, about how I can't believe my friend just became a grandma or won the Nobel Peace Prize or whatever. Maybe we all stay a certain age in our minds, no matter how many years removed we are from it, which means I'll always be missing that person, so far removed from who I am now, and removing herself further and further each day. Maybe these FutureMe emails will give me a better glimpse of who that person was, that she's not that far away and that, really, I can hang out with her any time I want because HELLO BLOG ARCHIVES.

Though, again, this all hinges on the internet not falling apart in the next 25 years. So, you know. Fingers crossed. 

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."

Do you ever think about how terrible it would be not to know how to read? I mean, maybe you don't think about it all. Maybe you're one of those people who only reads magazines IF THAT and you don't understand why a person would check out 15 books from the library when she knows there's no way she can read that many books in two weeks or why she'd go to a used book sale and buy two giant paper bags worth of books even though she has absolutely no more bookshelves in her house NOT THAT I'M SPEAKING FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OR ANYTHING THIS IS ALL HYPOTHETICAL.

What was I talking about? Oh, right, reading. What if you didn't know how to read? You wouldn't be reading this, for one thing. You probably wouldn't even be on the internet, because the internet is so full of words.

(Oh wait, never mind, the internet is also full of porn and cat pictures. Go about your business, you non-reader, you.)

Say you couldn't read and I typed something like this: Hector the pink elephant was tightrope-walking with Kurt Vonnegut's ghost (who was wearing a tutu because he discovered in his afterlife that he really wanted to be a ballerina) when a 200 pound bee flew in and stung them FIVE TIMES and they both fell off the tightrope but it didn't matter because Hector landed on a giant trampoline and Kurt Vonnegut is a ghost REMEMBER and falling really far doesn't hurt ghosts, no, in fact, THEY LOVE IT and they do it for fun all the time. It's true. Ask any ghost. I'll wait.

YOU WOULD HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT. Aren't you glad you can read? Yes, obviously, you are, OMG do I have to do all the thinking around here?

My grandma used to read all the time before she started having memory problems and then she mostly stopped because she couldn't remember anything she'd read the time before. A lot of things about my grandma's situation made me really sad, on a daily basis, but that was a total gut-punch because who would anticipate that? I'm not trying to get all dark and depressing, not at all, but it was something I'd never considered before it happened to my grandma. That you'd lose that ability. No more flying around with Harry Potter, no daily walks with Elizabeth Bennet or cocktails with Bridget Jones or saving books with Guy Montag, just NOTHING BUT REAL LIFE. And real life is the worst, even if you aren't suffering from dementia, able to remember events from twenty years ago but unable to figure out what happened in the last twenty minutes.

My grandma has been on my mind a lot lately, probably because of all the Christmas music, but I often think of her when I'm reading, about how I might not love books as much as I do if she and my parents hadn't encouraged me to read, hadn't gotten me all the books I wanted, hadn't so often left me alone to just BE with my books. Most days, when I get home from work, I change into pajamas and plop down in what's become my favorite room of the house. We call it the library (because it's where the books live) but my sister calls it The Quiet Room because there's no TV in there, which she thinks is weird. But it is quiet and the afternoon sunlight streams in and I can stretch out on the couch, facing the window, with a book in my hands and a dog in my lap and, once Joe gets home, it's the happiest part of my day. 

So, anyway. Have you hugged your books today?

to boldly go

A few weeks ago, Joe and I took a quick trip to Toledo to see Mike Birbiglia perform. We dropped Max off with my parents on Friday and left earlyish on Saturday to begin the drive. We had plenty of time, since we didn't really need to be anywhere until the show started at 8 that night, but we wanted to leave time to do fun stuff we might run across on the way. To say nothing of the MANDATORY scheduled stop at Bowling Green, so Joe could eat his beloved stuffed breadsticks at Pollyeyes. It sounds like I'm making fun, but I'm really not. Those breadsticks are delicious.

The extra time turned out to be precious, PRECIOUS I TELL YOU, because we randomly decided to stop at the Neil Armstrong museum in Wapokaneta. I think, in the back of my mind, I knew that Neil Armstrong was from Ohio and we've driven by this museum about a million times, but never stopped. We almost didn't stop this time. According to Joe, our decision went something like this:

Joe: Hey, do you want to stop at the Neil Armstrong museum?
Me: UGH BORING.
Joe: It could be fun.
Me: FINE.
[five minutes later, pulling into the parking lot]
Me: OMG I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WOULD BE ALL THIS SPACE STUFF HERE! THIS IS AWESOME.
Joe: You...didn't realize there'd be space stuff...at the Neil Armstrong Air & SPACE Museum.

Which...yeah, is probably accurate. I don't know what I thought would be at the Neil Armstrong museum if NOT space stuff but such is the wonder and non-logic of my mind. Honestly, I would have been happy not even going inside the museum, since this was outside:

I'm in the window...BECAUSE I'M AN ASTRONAUT

The museum itself was interesting, though. Along with learning about Neil Armstrong and becoming super best friends with him (that comes with the ticket price), we discovered that Joe is too tall to be an astronaut and, thanks to a capsule docking video game, we discovered that neither of us is patient or coordinated enough to fly spacecraft. Which. Duh.

The museum went in a giant circle (LIKE THE MOON) and eventually led to a movie theater, where we watched a movie that I'm pretty sure was from the 80s but guess what STILL INTERESTING. I know I take the fact that we walked on the moon (well, not like, we as in you and I, but we as in THE HUMAN RACE) because it happened so long ago and now we're on Mars (sort of) and junk but YOU GUYS it's pretty fantastic that an actual human person has stepped foot on the moon, right? Someone ran around on that giant cheese-filled ball and lived through it. THAT IS SO AWESOME. When can we move there?

Anyway, the movie was great and all, sort of like time traveling back to a time we thought we'd have some sort of space station on the moon by now, but the best part was the hallway leading into the theater. IT WAS FULL OF STARS.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I know it was just all Christmas lights and mirrors, but I didn't care. For a minute or two, it felt like I was walking through space, no suit, no ship, just me. So thanks, Neil. BFF 4EVA!!!