Buyer's Market

In an effort to follow the Blueprint of Happiness as close as humanly possible (because I'm the kind of person that can really fuck a thing up if I don't follow the directions), Ben and I have decided to take the plunge into the homeowner's pool (figuratively. We're not literally planning on jumping into some homeowner's pool, which would probably really mess up their homeowner's insurance and cause a whole mess of problems for everyone).

Technically, we're not even suppose to start looking at places until April, but secretly, each of us looks at probably a million houses a day online, all in the name of research. But really, we have already decorated the insides of each and every one of these houses in our mind, him with Rothko paintings and tasteful golf paraphernalia, and me with Ric Flair action figures and my Tintin en Amerique poster.

I don't know why Ben is doing it, but my reasoning is perfectly clear: my boss is about to buy a house, and by God, I can't let him have something that I don't have.

But really, I'm not sure why I'm getting so worked up over this, considering how hectic our last house-hunting experience was-- the house we were living in sold, and we had three weeks to find a place, pack our shit, and be gone. Our lowest point during this turbulent time found us screaming Fuck You! a lot at the top of our lungs, and weeping bitterly during the song "Wake Me Up When September Ends." Okay, both of those things were really just me.

But then again, that was also the magical time that we met Hans, a jolly landlord of a property in Concord, who invited us onto his yacht for beer and a spin around Lake Erie. Hans let me drive the boat (although he called it navigating) and also told a guy on a Ski-Doo that he should take me for a ride on it, because, and I quote, "She's not wearing any underwear." Which I totally was, by the way.

We didn't end up taking Hans' condo, but we did drop some beer off at his house as a thank you for our time on the yacht, which prompted him to call us and invite us over to drink it with him. (I saved that voicemail for, like, three years.) We never did go help him drink it, and I still wonder sometimes what would have happened if we had.

Probably we would be chained up in his basement right now like dogs. But doesn't a yacht make everything seem that much more magical?

Drama in Real Life

For the past week or so, I have been suffering from extremely achy joints-- particularly my lower back and knees. While most people would attribute this to the mild flu I caught last week, and to the fact that we keep our house at 60 degrees to avoid a repeat of the Dreaded $255 Gas Bill, I fear that there is a more sinister plot in action.

When I was little, I read an installment of "Drama in Real Life" in my parents' copy of Reader's Digest that described a woman that woke up with some aches and pains-- like me!-- that got progressively worse over the course of several days-- like me!-- and then her body shut down completely, the only warning being her achy joints, and she remained in a locked-in state for over three years, forced to communicate only by blinking her eye-- her one non-locked-up eye-- a certain number of times to indicate a letter on a chart. Eventually she recovered, but she was never quite the same. I believe she wrote a book about the experience. But I didn't read the book. I only read "Drama in Real Life," and internalized the fact that if my joints ache, there is a very good chance that I will be confined to a hospital bed, being wiped off with sponges by indifferent nurses every few days and blinking furiously to spell out things like "If only I had gone to the doctor to treat my achy joints before it was too late!"

And that is why parents of nervous children should not subscribe to Reader's Digest.

Swingers

How many of you lay awake at night, wondering exactly how Ashley and I are going to vote? Show of hands?

Okay, put 'em down. Because your prayers have been answered.

It is with great pomp and circumstance that Ashley and I are proud to introduce our newest blog, Swing State, into the national consciousness.

We don't know who we're voting for, and we don't have a clue what we're talking about (yet), but we want to share the whole schmiel with you-- we invite your comments, your ideologies, your rants and your raves, as long as the last two are directed at actual candidates, and not at us.

If we wanted to be ranted at, we'd run for office ourselves. Except we can't, because we're not old enough. And our platform would be built entirely of candy.

My name is Richard Henry Lee

In an effort to keep hidden what is obviously a deathly character flaw, I have managed, until now, to keep quiet about my insane love for the musical 1776, which I was introduced to in the seventh grade by the venerable Mrs. Balbach, social studies teacher extraordinaire. Ostensibly a teaching tool to help seventh-grade Aurorans learn more about the goings-on leading up to the writing of the Declaration of Independence, I saw it more as The World's Greatest Thing Ever, and proceeded to tape it (but where? Where in God's name were they showing this on television in 1991?) and watch it approximately seven bazillion times, to the point where I knew where the main characters took a breath between lines.

While other kids were listening to Pearl Jam and C & C Music Factory (the first one I am ashamed to have missed; the second, not so much), I was sitting one inch from the television, holding up a tape recorder so I could make recordings of the songs that I liked best, and then listen to them in my room like the social pariah that I was. I also transcribed the lyrics-- poorly, it turns out, as I appear to have just made up several words entirely in my transcription-- and memorized large portions of the dialogue, which I then unleashed upon the unsuspecting teachers behind the drama club, who no doubt thought it whimsical (or totally, creepily disgusting) that a then-fourteen-year-old girl would know John Adams' opening monologue (which I still know, by the way).

In my free time, which I had a lot of, I carefully choreographed how I would act out each scene, on the off-chance that William Daniels, who played John Adams in the movie (and was also, incidentally, the voice of KITT and Mr. Feeney on Boy Meets World) would show up at my house, frantically crying "Dear God, is Kim home? Because we have an off-Broadway showing in half an hour, and there's no one who can play Richard Henry Lee quite like her!" Because in specific, I was going to be Richard Henry Lee, whose song, "The Lees of Old Virginia," is quite possibly the greatest song ever recorded in the annals of human history.

Luckily, I grew up and got hot and met a man despite this obvious mental problem, and was able to shove my love for 1776 and Richard Henry Lee to the back of my mind (although did you know that Richard Henry Lee and I share a birthday? Which is an obvious sign that I am meant to play him at at least the community theater level). That is, until just a few days ago, when I returned from a trip to Richmond to visit Megan, Matt and Madelyn-- a fateful trip that involved a side stop at the Virginia Capitol Building, and a tour prominently featuring the architect of the Declaration himself, Thomas Jefferson (and a passing reference to Richard Henry Lee, which caused me to get all crazy and poke Megan furiously in the side until she made me stop).

So last night, Ben and I popped in my DVD of 1776 (where did I get a DVD of 1776? Did the nerd side of me bludgeon the cool side and drag my body to That's Entertainment to pick up a copy while I was in a comatose state?) and watched it up to the point where they sing "Mama, Look Sharp," which is, as everyone knows, where all the good songs end, and it really just becomes a boring movie about the Declaration of Indendence instead of a rousing good-time musical romp. And this morning, I dragged out my original Broadway cast recording and made Jeni listen to it, much the same way I forced my high school friends to listen to the bootleg tape I had made from the television.

Then I Googled Ron Holgate, the guy who played Richard Henry Lee. And then I stopped, because I felt way, way lame for even remembering his name after all these years.

What you missed

So I know I've been away awhile, and that this is not a good start to my New Year's Resolution to Blog More. And I haven't really been doing all that much interesting, but in case anyone needs a quick catch-up:

*I have decided that I really don't like my new haircut. This was preceded by a few days in which I tried really hard to like it. But I just don't. It frizzes out easily, returning to the dreaded Vanessa Cosby Affair, after only a few hours. Also, it makes my face look weird.

*I'm about to finish reading Joe Perotta's The Abstinence Teacher, which is really good, but which I fear is about to come to a very abrupt end. I'm starting to notice a theme in Perotta's books, which I'm not too pleased with, because I never like writers who write the same thing again and again. Which is funny, since my entire thesis really should have been called Look At Me, I'm Ugly and Patently Uncool.

*Ben got my Guitar Hero III for my birthday, which I have already defeated on easy, because I rock hard. I'm now attempting to conquer it on medium, which is proving slightly more difficult, because apparently my pinky finger operates totally independently of the rest of my fingers, and just flails wildly between buttons.

*I've also been playing a lot of Brain Age on my Nintendo DS (I am a Nintendo loyalist, something that perhaps would make a great addition to Look At Me, I'm Patently Uncool Part 2: Slightly Better Looking. I have a brain age of 28, which is pretty impressive for someone who spends most of her time looking at Postsecret.com and reading the National Enquirer.

The biggest news I have is that I'm getting really close to getting back into writing. Not that I have any concrete ideas yet (sorry, those of you holding out for another incarnation of The John Boston Story), but I've been feeling compelled to write down all the weird crap I'm seeing every day, in hopes of sandwiching it into a book. I'm not sure where I'm planning on going, but I'm leaning towards a cubicle-based work drama (too bad for me, since the book Then We Came to the End did just that, and made the top 10 book list in several places). All I know is, I have procured the perfect journal pen, and am now in search of the perfect journal, which generally is either an orange spiral bound college ruled notebook, or a composition book. Both easily acquired at your friendly neighborhood Target, but I'm a little too mired in the Guitar Hero realm to work up the energy to score one.

So wish me luck-- if I do get into writing more, I might have to lay off the blog a bit, but my Write Something, Dammit resolution will generally trump my Blog More resolution if I can ever get up the nerve to get back on the horse.

By horse I mean writing. Not heroin, which I have never been on. Just to make myself clear. Although it might help with my rocking abilities.

Cute or horrible? You decide!

I don't mean to alarm you, but I just had a horrible crime committed against me, out in full view of many onlookers, who stood by and did nothing, some--yes, some-- even standing by with a bemused look of pity on their faces.

That's right. I got a shitty haircut.

And not just any shitty haircut-- I got The Dreaded Reverse Mullet. Something that, about once every five years, some horrible, freak-headed maven perpetrates against me, assuring me that this time it will be different. This one totally tricked me by pointing out another girl in the salon, with curly hair like mine, and saying "See how nice Denise's hair is? I'll give you the same cut as Denise."

But she didn't give me the same cut as Denise. She gave me Satan's Cut-- about an inch long in the back, five inches long in the front, with big poufy spaniel-ear wings.

Now, to be fair, I have come home and washed it, and it looks yards better than it did in the salon, when she proceeded to blow dry it (this may not sound like much of an assault to those of you with straight hair, but my curly-headed brethren will gasp at the horror of being blown dry without a diffuser), giving me roughly the same hairdo that Vanessa sported in the middle years of The Cosby Show. The awkward middle years.

So now I can't decide if it looks funky cute or funky horrible. I am posting a picture here for your input, although I must warn you that the picture is, I think, an unfair representation of the cut as a whole, in that it makes it look shiny and defined, something that will fade after about twenty minutes of being exposed to such rough elements as direct light, oxygen and the gentle breeze of my heating system.

Also be aware, before you accuse me of overreacting, that it is dramatically, and inexplicably, shorter in the back. I tried to get a picture of that, but I'm home alone, and my arms just don't bend that way.

Okay, the more I look at it, it might be funky cute, rather than funky horrible. But my neck is cold, and I'm feeling sort of exposed, like I put my slip on backwards.

Kimbo's Snowy New Year

I will be back tomorrow with more in-depth reporting on all things year-change related-- best and worst, my Probably Not Going to Happen resolutions, et cetera. But I thought I would help you ring in the new year with this exceptionally awesome shot of myself, after returning from a walk with the dog into a blizzard:




I am so super-hot.