My Business is Your Business

My business is closed.

2008-12-20T11:50:00.004-05:00

So, I think it's time to retire from the blogging world.

I've been actually wanting to do this for awhile, but haven't, for various reasons:

1. "My Business is Your Business" is the single greatest blog name of all time, and if I decide to come back later and start a new one, I'll get stuck with a really lame blog name, because I am notoriously bad at naming stuff, so it'll probably be called "Kim's Wacky Words of Wisdom" or "Oja-pus's Garden"

2. This is my Aunt Kathy's primary way of learning about what's going on in my life (Hi, Aunt Kathy!)

3. I actually did some pretty funny writing here, back in the day.

However, my blogging gene seems to have gone fallow, at least for the moment, and I'm getting pretty tired of making myself feel guilty every time I don't write anything on here for awhile. And also, now that I'm actually writing on a semi-regular basis again (thank you, John Boston Story-- yet another stellar title thought up by Kim Oja!), I should probably put most of my writing time towards that.

So I'm saying goodbye for now-- thanks for reading for the last three years, it's been a blast! And for now, at least, please don't remove me from your blogrolls-- you never know when the Awesome Blogging gene will flicker back to life and I will be inspired to share stories about my sad vagina or my vitriolic hatred of Mark Harmon (which this whole John Boston thing has TOTALLY stirred up again).

From me, Crunchy, vulvodynia, the guys who stole my Garmin, Ricky Martin, Guitar Hero and all the other major players here at "My Business is your Business", we wish you all a fond farewell!

All the Young Dudes

2008-12-09T19:24:00.002-05:00

Okay, this seems like the most fun meme of all time, and so I thought I'd share it with all of you (also, because I haven't posted on my blog in a million years and need something to distract you all from the fact that I live quite possibly the most boring life of all time.

I'm going to tag some Facebook friends on this beeotch, but I urge all of you to play along, because seriously, this is the coolest thing EVER. Special thanks to Randy for passing it along!

Oh, and also? Please forgive the lameness of some of these songs. Remember that I lost my super cool music collection in the Great Crash of '08. Although these songs were a part of that collection, too. So I guess I should just shut up.

RULES:

A. Put your music player on shuffle.
B. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
C. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!
D. Tag 10 friends who might enjoy doing the game as well as the person you got the game from.

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY?
"Minimum Wage" by They Might be Giants (I guess that could be an acceptable answer)

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?
"Oops... I Did It Again" by Britney Spears

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
"Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY?
"Creep" by Radiohead (I do feel rather skeevy today...)

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
"We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?
"Ready to Go" by Republica

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
"We Built This City" by Jefferson Starship

8.WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
"My Doorbell" by The White Stripes (which is so untrue, because I was trained at a very young age that anyone who would ring my doorbell without calling first was probably there to rape and/or kill me, so I would throw myself on the ground and lay there for like a half an hour every time my doorbell would ring in the time between when I got out of school and when my parents got home, which happened a lot, because my parents are avid catalog shoppers. To this day, when the doorbell rings and I don't expect it, I have to fight the urge to lay prone on the ground for long periods of time.)

9. WHAT IS 2 + 2?
"That'll Be the Day" by Buddy Holly and the Crickets

10 WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
"He Got Game" by Public Enemy (SO TRUE!)

11.WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Vampire" by Antsy Pants (that can't be good)

12. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
"Uptight (Everything's All Right)" by Stevie Wonder

13. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?
"I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" by The Beatles

14. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
"Here Comes Santa Claus" by Elvis Presley (Ew.)

15. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
"The Distance" by Cake

16. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
"Sunshine of Your Love" by Cream (This song has a creepy stalker feeling to it, though, like someone creeping up on you. Which isn't super romantic.)

17 What will they play at your funeral?
"All Apologies" by Nirvana (Ouch.)

18. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
"Tiny Dancer" by Elton John

19. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?
"The Jean Genie" by David Bowie

20. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?
"Shame For You" by Lily Allen (again, ouch.)

21. WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?
"Money Talks" by AC/DC (That WOULD be effing weird)

22. HOW WILL YOU DIE?
"Hot For Teacher" by Van Halen

23. WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?
"Dude (Looks Like a Lady" by Aerosmith (I do regret all those men's XXL t-shirts of my youth...)

24. WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?
"Why Don't We Do It In the Road" by The Beatles

25. WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?
"I've Got an Ape Drape" by The Vandals

26. WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?
"Brian Wilson" by Barenaked Ladies (does this mean I have to marry Brian Wilson? Because I am not down with that.)

27. DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?
"Let My Love Open the Door" by Pete Townshend

28. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?
"Friend is a Four Letter Word" by Cake

29. WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?
"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" by Michael Jackson (you're a buffet, you're a vegetable)

30. WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?
"All the Young Dudes" by Jill Sobule

I am the champion

2008-11-28T19:44:00.003-05:00

I. Did. It.

I actually completed NaNoWriMo. I wrote 50,000 words. In one month. In 28 days, to be specific. And I wrote the final words wearing a Santa hat. Which just makes it that much cooler.

Is it dorky that I'm so insanely proud of myself right now? Before I decided to do NaNoWriMo, I had literally written nothing besides my blog and a few columns for the Columbus Dispatch in four years. And in one month, I wrote something that was longer than my entire graduate thesis. Which means I can totally still do it. Whether it's any good or not remains to be seen. But still. I totally did it.

The only bad thing: the novel isn't actually finished yet. Which is actually a good thing, because it gives me something to keep working towards. And then the revision process, and then, who knows? Maybe try to find an agent? I don't know. The world might not be ready for the John Boston story yet. But when it is, kapow, watch out, America.

All I know is that I totally did it. And I am totally going to Cracker Barrel right now to celebrate. Because that's the way that we high-velocity novelists roll. Awwww, yeah.

A week in the life

2008-11-22T14:00:00.005-05:00

As much as I was enjoying studying those photos from Martha's (I MUST find that woman and ask where she got her matching beret/tank top ensemble), I just wanted to stop by and fill you in quickly on the haps, since I've been MIA for so long. It's just that the haps are sort of boring:

1. Am now only 9,996 from my goal of 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo, although I'm now pretty sure that this book won't be wrapped up in 10,000 words or less, so I will need some cajoling to get the rest done after the contest is over. Please place all threats in the comment box.

2. I have decided that this guy will play John Boston in the inevitable movie adaptation of my sure-to-be-a-bestselling blockbuster:

Apparently his name is Jon Hamm, and he is in the show Mad Men, which I have never seen because I don't know what channel AMC is on my cable and am too lazy to find out. But he will be pleased to know that he has been added to the short list of past JB candidates, which included George Clooney, Colin Firth, and of course, the infamous Mark Harmon. Who can now cry his bitter tears of defeat on the set of his stupid Navy SEAL show, or whatever it is they're carrying on about over there.

3. A big, giant, hairy spider has taken up residence in the drain in my basement, and sometimes he comes lunging out at me when I come down to feed the cat. I would squash him, but he's so big that he would both crunch and explode with some sort of goo, which I am not willing to clean up, so for now, I let him live.

4. I am extremely unhappy with the outcome of America's Next Top Model. I feel that the model who won (I won't give names, for those of you who are still waiting to catch this on TiVo) is extremely weird-looking, and I don't care for the quasi-British accent she decided to adopt upon arriving in Holland.

5. On the other hand, I am most pleased with the proceedings on The Office, and am happy to have Jim and Pam once again reunited.

6. Ben went hunting last weekend? Which was weird? And now there are three dead pheasants in my freezer. Which is even weirder.

Sadly, you are now completely caught up with everything that has happened to me during the last week. Oh, and I ate some stuff, and used the bathroom several times. Now you literally know EVERYTHING that happened.

RIP, Martha's

2008-11-12T20:29:00.010-05:00

The world was shocked and saddened today by the loss of the world's greatest lesbian and redneck karaoke bar, where the UNCW MFA class of 2004 spent probably way too much of its time during its brief and tenuous tenure in Wilmington. Where the crazy black guy in the wicker hat will spend the remainder of his Prince-performing days is still unknown, but please take a moment to enjoy this photographic retrospective in honor of our fallen friend.

NaNoWriMo Update: Week 1

2008-11-07T18:56:00.004-05:00

My stupid toolbar won't update itself for some reason, but as of three minutes ago, I had written 11,730 words.

I would like some accolades now, please!

Rebuilding Music-con One

2008-11-06T22:37:00.003-05:00

Now, as many of you know, I lost my mega awesome music collection in the Great Hard Drive Crash of '08; I have been slowly reassembling, but the going is rough (do I really need to search out another copy of "My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison? I probably do, right?).

What you may not know is that for the last ten months, I've been collecting approximately seven million Pepsi points and redeeming them for MP3 downloads on Amazon. As a full-on Diet Pepsi addict, I've managed to score at least 40 songs this way (as well as three CDs, a Pepsi t-shirt, and Home Movies season four on DVD-- I drink a LOT of Pepsi), but I still have enough for 20 more songs, and I have to admit, I'm totally running out of ideas. For instance, today I just downloaded the 1985 classic "Dog Eat Dog" by Weird Al Yankovic. So, I'm tapped out.

Any suggestions for cool songs I should be looking for? Keeping in mind my strict evaluation criteria:

1. Must not be snobby people music (no Radiohead or anything with an artfully illustrated pen-and-ink drawing on its cover)

2. Repetitive chorus preferred; na-na chorus a BIG plus

3. Oldies always welcome (but no Neil Young, as Neil Young just sort of sucks. Sorry.)

4. If I played it in marching band or Guitar Hero, I'll probably like it

5. Also, I go nuts for songs where there's instruments? And then all the sudden it's just singing and drums. That's the best.

So please, help me out here-- I have to use these points up by the end of next week, and if I can't think of anything, I have to use them on a Tom Morello CD for Ben, and really, there's only so much accoustic anarchy pop one can listen to on a daily basis.

Heart of Darkness

2008-11-05T22:16:00.003-05:00

I've been so busy diligently writing the world's shittiest novel and celebrating the election of not Sarah Palin that I didn't really get a chance to give a shout-out to the return of my old pal, the Darkness.

Because unlike most people, who seem to feel that the shortening of days is like time theft on par with the hours of your life that are regularly stolen by the Lifetime Movie Network, I very much welcome the long evenings, for several reasons:

1. I am more attractive at dusk.

2. I have always equated night time with farting around time-- the longer it is until sundown, the longer I'm obligated to remain active, because you just look sort of fascist if you choose to sit inside while the sun is still out. The end of daylight savings time means pretty much unlimited farting around time, and this, in summary, is why my Guitar Hero skills are so much better than yours.

3. The cover of darkness allows me to sing really loudly in my car on the freeway on the way home without being seen.

4. Ditto emergency mobile nose-picking.

The only major problem that I can see with the end of DST is that it is followed by the sacred Ohio holiday Drive Like an Asshole Because Apparently Your Car Functions Differently in the Dark Week, during which Ohio's drivers compensate for the new commute conditions by either driving stupidly slowly, ramming themselves into guard rails, or pretending that the darkness has rendered their car invisible, thus enabling them to weave in and out of traffic at will.

Soon, though, we will adjust, and I'll be able to spend my darkness time in a glut of leisure-time bliss, until phase two of the driving holiday, Ohio Holy Crap It's Snowing and My Car is Made of Spun Sugar Week, begins in earnest in a few weeks' time.

I voted today!

2008-11-04T18:21:00.002-05:00

...so, I deserve a break. No NaNoWriMo for me tonight-- I'm settling in with some burgers, beer, neighbors, and eight hours of uninterrupted election coverage.

I'm so curious to know how voting went around the country-- anyone have any good horror stories? I was in and out in twenty minutes this morning, but I also live in the smallest town ever, unless there's a town of midgets out there somewhere...

NaNoWriMo Update: Day 1

2008-11-01T15:20:00.004-04:00

Hey, I promise not to turn this into a you-go-girl NaNoWriMo blog, but their website is down right now, so I have nowhere to brag-- so far today, I've logged 1,707 words, which is slightly over my daily goal. Which, of course, means that I am THE GREATEST NOVELIST THAT EVER LIVED!

What's the deal?

2008-10-29T22:36:00.002-04:00

I am officially banned from watching all game shows, as tonight I began to openly sob watching some woman named Tomorrow Rodriguez attempt to win a million dollars on Deal or No Deal. This is particularly vexing as I am not a regular watcher of Deal or No Deal, and am sort of grossed out by Howie Mandel's shaved head and weird lady parts goatee. But as Tomorrow got closer to her million dollar case, I completely lost my shit.

I don't know how I end up getting sucked into situations like this; I had a very similar situation once with an episode of the Family Feud, which ended with me bawling on my couch at twelve in the afternoon after the family won the big prize. Which I guess justifies my Deal or No Deal breakdown a bit-- if I get choked up when five people have to split $10,000, imagine how moved I would be by one woman getting a million.

I was, in fact, so upset by the whole thing that I had to leave the room and go take a shower, and subsequently missed the end. Did she win? Does anyone know? I kind of have to know now.

(Okay, I just looked it up on Google. She did win. Which is good. Because I would have felt like a supertard, crying over a woman that eventually won $400.)

You know, I just thought of something-- I think the Family Feud family was also named Rodriguez. So maybe I just have to limit myself to shows featuring non-Rodriguezes? Which will totally suck for me if A-Rod ever decides to go on Celebrity Jeopardy.

I'm going novelist on your asses

2008-10-27T21:28:00.002-04:00

This morning, Jeremy sent me a cryptic and vaguely ominous-seeming e-mail that contained nothing but the link to NaNoWriMo, the write-a-novel-in-a-month website that I always mean to join, but never do, because I'm lazy and possibly, at this point, no longer talented, and would prefer it if I didn't have to do anything to draw attention to that very real possibility.

I don't know what it was, but something in that e-mail-- just the sight of the link in the body, or possibly the fact that Jeremy has Vulcan mind control skills that can manifest themselves in the form of a simple weblink-- made me say, you know what? It's time. I'm going for it.

I'm going to write an effing novel.

Or I'm going to try to, anyway. I don't know what it's going to be about (although please note: I know there's going to be a scene in which the main character hits and kills a deer with her car, so if any of you have first-hand knowledge about this, I would really appreciate some details, as I've never hit anything larger than a cat, over which I cried for days and days, but which did minimal damage to my car and did not prevent me from making it to the convenience store where I had been headed to buy a candy bar), and I don't know how far I'll make it, but I figure if I make it to day three, and write 20 pages, that's 20 more pages than I've written in the last four years.

Is there anyone out there that wants to do this with me, or that's already planning on doing it? If so, please let me know, so we can be writing buddies and I can write to you to complain about how I'd really rather be playing Guitar Hero and not doing anything with the seven years of education I spent learning how to write a novel in the first place.

Now of course, everyone must suffer for their art, and in this case you're going to have to suffer, too, because my blog postery will likely diminish as I get more involved in this (assuming, that is, that I make it past day three, which I judge to be the biggest stumbling block of all, since by day three I'm really going to need a plot, and I don't really have one of those in mind just yet). But in the meantime, you can check on me here, and I can always use some encouragement, so feel free to drop me a line reinforcing your belief in my awesomeness.

And if I do puss out and don't finish, I'll let you know-- I'm not going to be one of those people who just poops out on something and never acknowledges it again (see: Swing State-- thanks for saving my ass there, Matt!). But hopefully I'll be able to pull it off-- and who knows, maybe I'll get back some of my writing mojo and get back in the groove for good. And if nothing else, all this typing will really limber up my fingers for Guitar Hero solos on hard.

Name this tune:

2008-10-22T16:24:00.002-04:00

Okay. So there's this song that I hear maybe once a year-- always somewhere totally unacceptable to jump up and down in, let alone to start quizzing people about their musical knowledge. Like the grocery store, or a bar in Canada once (they frown on jumping in Canada). I have no idea what this song is, or who sings it, but I love it so much. But every time I try to get to the bottom of the situation, the same scenario plays out:

Me: Oh, my God! It's the Cut the Bone to Me song! Do you hear it?

Whoever I'm With: The what to what song?

Me: "Cut the bone to me! Cut the bone to me!" That's what he's saying in the chorus. I think?

WIW: That doesn't even make any sense. How do you cut a bone to someone?

Me: I guess I don't know.

WIW: That sounds dirty.

Me: For real, it's going to be over soon, just listen.

WIW: I don't even hear anything.

Me: It's on the PA system! Just listen! Shut your gob and listen for five seconds and then you will tell me who sings this song!

WIW: This song sucks.

Me: No, it does not! It is awesome and elusive, like a monarch butterfly or El Chupacabra!

WIW: Isn't this just "Collide" by Howie Day?

Me: NO, IT ISN'T EFFING "COLLIDE" BY HOWIE DAY! I WILL KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T TELL ME WHO SINGS THIS SONG RIGHT NOW! KILL YOU WHERE YOU STAND!

WIW: I think it's over.

Me: Mother effer.

I had this exact conversation with Ben in the Chesterland Giant Eagle on Sunday, when the song emerged for its annual peek-a-boo while we were in the checkout line. I was actually on my way back to produce to buy some pepitas (which is apparently what you call pumpkin seeds when they are naked and shell-less), and I came careening back up to the front of the store when I heard it, only to be shut down again (but to be fair, Ben doesn't recognize any songs, including many beloved children's rhymes and also "Proud to Be an American" by Lee Greenwood).

So I beseech you, if you are aware of this song, please put me out of my misery and tell me what it is, so I can buy it, listen to it seven hundred times, and then never have to be driven half-mad by it again. Here's what I know about it:

1. The chorus at least sounds like the phrase "cut the bone to me, cut the bone to me," although that admittedly does sound really dirty

2. It does sound like Howie Day singing, but it's definitely not "Collide". Who else sings like Howie Day?

3. It came out no later than July 2005, because the first time I officially remember hearing it was at the aforementioned very calm bar in Canada, and that's the last time I ventured up north

Please help me! The "cut the bone to me" part will be in my head for at least the next six weeks if no one can come up with the name...

Give us your sick

2008-10-21T21:55:00.003-04:00

I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to get sick for the last three or four months. My reasoning is simple: I want a day off work. But there is some sort of compulsion inside me that will not allow me to take a day off for no reason (and sadly, playing Rock Band in my underpants all day while Ben is at work apparently does not qualify as a "reason" in my muddled chain of thought), and so my only option is to become sick-- not death flu sick, but just sick enough to allow myself to remain on the couch all day, reading old Entertainment Weeklys and watching "A Real Chance at Love" on VH1.

But apparently, I have developed the immune system of some sort of invincible god, as nothing-- not hand-shaking, not standing too close to someone who is apparently about to cough up their liquefied innards, not glass-sharing with a confirmed tuberculosis sufferer-- can penetrate its defenses.

There are several explanations for this:

1. I am an invincible god!

2. It's the effing vitamins!

3. Too much salad?

But whatever the reason, it's keeping me from my end goal of lying about all day in a low-level state of crappiness. And this has to end, now, because I simply can't continue going to work and sitting among the throng of totally viral co-workers with their sneezing and their tissues and their raspy coughs without getting to experience any of the benefits!

So if you are sick right now, I ask that you please breathe into an envelope and mail it to me, stat. I promise you, if this works, I will thank you from the bottom of my achy, couch-supported, legally earned day off bones.

Words I have decided to use less often as a part of my lifestyle improvement program:

2008-10-20T21:06:00.002-04:00

Awesome
Dude
Gay
Retarded
Janky
Douchebag
Fucking

I have not yet decided, however, what I will do if I encounter an fucking awesome gay retarded dude carrying a janky douchebag.

Catwoman Begins

2008-10-16T22:57:00.002-04:00

My cat Mamie, perhaps sensing my impending transformation to Fit and Healthy Thirtysomething and fearing that my days of sloth-- and therefore my days of allowing her to lie on my chest for hours on end while I shovel fistfulls of Cheez-Its down my gullet-- are coming to a close, has decided to attempt to sabotage me the only way she knows how-- by peeing on everything.

I take that back-- she has, in the past, broken out what must be considered the Fat Man and Little Boy of the cat arsenal, the Giant Flying Boogery Ear Stink, which afflicted her for about a year in Wilmington. While a successful surgery was performed to eliminate this scourge on my personal life ("Hey, want to come over and sit on my furniture, which is covered with gelatinous wads of goo that smell like a homeless man's belly button?"), I think Mamie sort of realized that with great suffering came great amounts of petting, and filed that away in her brain.

And I have to say, the Random Pee Bomb is nearly as effective as the Boogery Ear Stink-- it certainly smells worse, although this time Mamie has been civil enough to contain the battle to the basement, specifically to a woven rug that Ben put under the laundry table. And since it's so centrally located, it doesn't have the visual wallop of the B.E.S., which could be flung in a six foot arc in any direction (which was really, really hard to explain to my landlord upon relocating). But the R.P.B. is more of a psychological weapon-- every whiff penetrates straight into your brain with the ominous message "Say goodbye to your friends, kemosabe. You're the cat lady now."

Especially horrifying about this is that the woman who lived in our house before us was a cat lady; according to our neighbor Frank, who somehow knows everything about everyone in our neighborhood, there were, at one time, thirteen cats living in our house. Some might say that this could be the cause of Mamie's problems-- that she's simply retaliating against the ghosts of Pee Bombs past.

But I have a more terrifying theory: what if the house makes you a cat lady? What if, when she moved in, the old owner was a young, vibrant, vitamin-taking hipster? And the the house mugged her with its cat ladyness, and all the sudden her clothes all had a vague funk and she wanted to prop cross stitched pillows on every available surface?

If this happens to me, consider this my will. You will know what has become of me. And do not destroy Mamie-- she's but a mindless pawn in the house's deadly game. But I beseech you, please, before anyone comes over to mourn me as I stare at them from behind bifocals and a fur-smeared, teddy-bear appliqued sweatshirt with mock turtleneck underneath, please at least destink my basement. And scan it for signs of Boogery Ear Stink. Just in case.

A million strong and growing

2008-10-15T22:52:00.003-04:00

As part of my new Stop Getting Old and Fat at an Alarming Rate routine, I've begun taking vitamins every day-- specifically, a B vitamin in the morning (for energy), a multi-vitamin at mid-day and calcium at night, so I don't end up like Sally Field in my early sixties, vaguely famous and hawking Boniva. Because vitamins are so widely praised, I figured I would immediately become invincible and probably be able to see through walls.

Sadly, though, all they've really done thus far is turn my pee a brilliant chartreuse color (which is interesting, because the ONLY thing I remember about health class in high school? Is the health teacher, a Russian-looking, perm-wearing man-woman, telling us that vitamins were just "expensive pee," because anyone who was living a decent life was getting all the vitamins they needed from their food. I remember this pronouncement coming on the same day that we watched the slides of people with diseased privates on a screen in the home-ec room, but I don't really see how those two topics could be related). While the neon pee is certainly interesting, I'm feeling a little let down by the whole vitamin industry-- was I really getting enough vitamins through my food after all? Are there that many vitamins in a plain Burger King hamburger?

Maybe it's too late for the whole vitamin scene. I'm aging at a rapid and disconcerting pace, despite my latest attempts to camouflage it with bold eye makeup (note: people with poop brown eyes? Aren't really good candidates for bold eye makeup), and there might be nothing I can do about it. The fact of the matter is, soon I will be thirty, at which point the people on my street will stop categorizing me as young, which means I'll probably lose the privilege of letting my dog poop wherever I want in their front yards.

I guess I thought the vitamins would counteract this somehow, and I would wake up young-looking and scary toned, like Madonna (who clearly got where she is today because of Target brand multi-vitamins). But I'm getting puffier and wrinklier by the day, with no possible recourse but to embrace it and start shopping in the Cherokee section at Target.

I don't think I'm going to stop taking the vitamins, though. The freaky pee is like a portable version of a laser light show.

Because being friends in real life is simply not enough...

2008-10-14T22:56:00.003-04:00

...come be my Facebook friend! Because never looking at my MySpace page was getting to be too much work.

Seriously, though, I've only been on it for a few minutes, but it seems weirdly... fun? Whereas MySpace made me feel old and dried up inside.

So anyway, search me on there and let's buddy up! And if you're not on there, you should join. Every second you don't join is a second that a kitten's cries pierce the night on a sludgy moonlit river bank.

(Look, people pressured me into joining, and I'm here to do you the same kindness. So DO IT!)

Gateway to Fame

2008-10-12T21:59:00.002-04:00

This is my very first blog post from my brand new Gateway computer, which I just assembled (myself! Because I'm a can-do kind of gal) and which, for the first time ever in my long and storied history of hooking up computers (as opposed to hooking up with computers, which would be weird and sort of dirty) had Internet access immediately upon start-up. Normally, I have to fist fight the computer to make this happen, or perform a series of tasks like building a small fire in my living room and burning one of my favorite stuffed animals as a sacrifice.

And I have to tell you, I have high hopes for this computer. Because I have decided to pretend that the only reason I have not written the great American essay collection since leaving grad school is because of my old laptop, which I was given by my parents upon graduation. I never really got used to writing on the laptop, and therefore used it pretty much for listening to music and playing ridiculous amounts of Tumble Bees.

But things are different now. Now, I've got the whole desktop thing going on (with a stupidly large flat screen monitor in HD, which seems sort of unneccessary when typing out blog posts that are rapidly turning out to be mundane), with the keyboard where it should be and the mouse and the speakers and the whatnot.

Point is, I now officially have no excuse not to write. So please, if I haven't pumped something out by Christmas, someone come after me. Because this computer is too nice to waste on Tumble Bees.

Farewell, sweet Pentium

2008-10-08T17:12:00.004-04:00

Just to explain the bitter, nuke-u-lar winter type silence that has fallen over my blog of late-- this past Monday, around one in the morning, my computer began making a sort of wheezing noise that I normally associate with our dog when it has a particularly vigorous booger infestation. So I got out of bed and put it in sleep mode, and... and... it never woke up.

I've been futzing around with it for the last few days, trying to coax one more evening worth of life out of it before I consign myself to the bitter task of computer searching so that I can rescue my (you all must admit) insanely awesome collection of one-hit wonders from my hard drive so that they can live to craft another decade of mega CDs. (Because where, I ask you, where, am I going to get another copy of "Brand New Pair of Rollerskates" by Melanie Safka? Answer? Effing nowhere.) But I can't even get it to go into safe mode-- it just keeps taking me back to this scary black screen that looks vaguely DOS-y.

So anyway, until I get that situation resolved, my blog might be MIA-- again. Those of you who are particularly interested in seeing it up and running can feel free to send donations to my Pay Pal account, so that I can save up and get the super sweet computer that can burn pictures right onto the CDs I make. Because nothing accentuates a CD full of crap like an awesome picture of me making guns with my fingers!

Okay, for real...

2008-10-02T22:55:00.002-04:00

...am I alone in my paralyzing fear of Sarah Palin?

2008-09-22T19:41:00.002-04:00

This post might be more suited for Swing State, but since the venerable (and much more knowledgeable) Matt has taken over, I figure I'll leave the podium to him. But I have to tell you, I'm just a wee bit freaked out by what's going on in this country right now.

As many of you know, I'm freaked out easily, and by a lot of things-- bees, for one. Really freaked out by bees. And clowns. And the continued success of TV's Two and a Half Men. The price of gas-- Ashley in particular may remember one memorable phone conversation in which I completely melted down when gas hit $2 a gallon after Katrina ("What will we do? How will we get anywhere? We'll have to buy horses! Fucking horses!"). The threat of nuclear war-- thanks, 3rd grade gifted teacher who thought nine-year-olds could handle a viewing of The Day After!

Right now, for instance, I'm coming out of a fear-session based on the impending end of the world, thanks to my brush with the Mayans on my honeymoon last year, and heading into a full-blown panic over the possibility of an impending depression.

Let me just say this right now, for the record-- I don't fully understand what's going on with all this buying-out and subsidizing the government is doing. And I don't recommend that you try to explain it to me-- Ben has already done so, and I kind of glazed over and started thinking about what sorts of fabrics I had around the house that I could fashion into smocks if we were to go bankrupt. All I know is, I feel like we're about two steps away from being forced onto the dusty road with our collective retarded brothers, sleeping in barns and accidentally killing baby bunnies as we search desperately for food and work.

I guess I was just not mentally prepared for this as a kid-- I was led to believe that one day, I could ride around my house on a miniature train, like Ricky Shroeder in Silver Spoons. Which would be awesome, but is looking less and less feasible as I groan over my latest 401k statement. (Perhaps there's some sort of miniature transport train system fund I should be looking into). Now, instead of light-hearted comedies about rich children, TV keeps bombarding me with these scary commercials about how everyone should really, really buy a house-- please, please, PLEASE buy a house, the commercial says, or Realtors will have to start eating each other, and soon we'll all live in mud huts like the Slestaks from The Time Machine.

My biggest worry-- alert, by the way, because this is where I get dorkily patriotic-- is that America is declining at such a rapid rate that soon we won't be... well, what we once were. And I'm afraid we won't even notice it, because we'll be too busy watching the premiere of Dancing With the Stars.

Because I kind of feel like as a country, we just don't really care anymore-- I mean, we care about Heidi and Spencer, which is all fine and good if you like caring about attractive people who are famous for no reason. But I don't know, doesn't it seem like we should be doing something? I don't know what, because I'm not exactly the most visionary when it comes to change-- keep in mind that I wore my hair in a scary, poofed-out style for 21 years just because I was too lazy to figure out how to use gel in my hair. But something?

Powerless

2008-09-16T17:06:00.002-04:00

Check it out-- Ben and I are two of the hundreds of thousands without power in Ohio! We knew we were in for it when we saw six guys out in the middle of the street cutting up a felled tree on our way home Sunday night.

"Do those guys work for the city or something?" Megan asked from the back seat.

"No, they're just, like, regular guys," I told her. "They're vigilantes."

"Really, really helpful vigilantes," she agreed.

Upon pulling into our freakishly darkened driveway, our neighbor Frank came running out with a lantern for us, simultaneously being helpful and rubbing in our face that he has a generator and we don't. And now, two nights later, Frank's generator continues to taunt us by allowing Frank to keep a full-on spotlight on the front of his house, which I basically use as ambient light to pee by (and then not flush the toilet, because our water pump is also electric).

I'm at work right now (obviously), and sort of dreading finding out if I'm spending night three with no power-- if I am, then I need to work out a way to make distilled water jug baths more pleasant. Because this shit is not pleasant.

And this article casts the ominous shadow of the fact that this might not be resolved until the weekend, which I find wholly unacceptable. I am, in fact, a huge proponent of power outages-- I pretty much love any event that causes your evening to not go the way you thought it was going to, like a forced adventure-- but I've kind of had enough adventure right now, and want a frozen pizza dinner, which I can eat while watching Intervention under a 100 watt bulb.

Before and After: Septic Edition

2008-09-10T20:49:00.005-04:00

Our beautiful backyard before septic tank installation:

Our somewhat less beautiful backyard after septic tank installation:

Doesn't this seem like a lot-- a lot-- of devastation just so two people can take a shit that's up to code with the Geauga County health department?

So now Ben and I are trying to rake this mess out so we can spread grass seed before winter-- to be fair, this shot is obviously from before the project was fully complete, but there's still a lot of raking to be done. And it's not fun, cozy, "whee, I'm raking leaves so I can jump in them while wearing a cozy knit sweater!" raking. It's backbreaking Grapes of Wrath raking.

But still, nothing is without its upside. For instance:

1. We were able to use every dollar that the previous owners escrowed us for this illustrious project, thus ensuring that they would not get one cent of their bitterly complained over money back.

2. This project was chiefly overseen by an Amish guy, which allowed me to engage in one of my favorite pastimes, which happens to be gawking at the Amish.

3. Once we get the grass seed down and the hay spread, it will be technically impossible to rake when the leaves fall!

4. All this raking is making me buff and sexy, albeit in more of a female bodybuilder way than an Anna Kournikova way.

So thanks for the escrow money, former owners! Please take comfort in the fact that although your $17,000 is now firmly buried in our backyard, we can now crap without fear of reprisal from the local government.

Chesterland's Happy Ending

2008-08-28T20:14:00.004-04:00

One of the first things I noticed upon moving to Chesterland is that there were a lot of spas. Like, a ridiculous number of them. Because after a day of shooting coyotes and burning large piles of rubbish in your backyard, who doesn't want a facial?

But one spa in particular, the Silver Spa, always stood out to me. It didn't look like much-- just a white house with a sign in front that said "All are welcome." About three minutes from my house, I drive by it constantly. But there was one thing that always bothered me about it.

"Why do you think that place is always open?" I'd ask Ben whenever we drove by. Because it was always open-- when I took the cat to the vet at seven a.m. on a Wednesday, when I drove to Drug Mart for a last-minute beer run at ten p.m. on a Sunday-- always.

"I don't think it is open," Ben would say. "I think they just don't turn off the sign."

"I think it's a whore house," I said.

And I was right!

Please feel free to congratulate me on my Columbo-like powers of deduction now.

Requiem for a Dying Computer

2008-08-26T20:26:00.002-04:00

I came home to find the black screen of death on my computer today-- even more ominous than the blue screen of death, which at least has writing on it, the black screen just stares at you, a yawping maw of desolation and emptiness. "I ate your thesis," it says. "And all your pictures, and that live recording of Barenaked Ladies performing 'McDonald's Girl' that you worked so hard to find."

Luckily, Ben was able to resurrect the computer through a complex process of unplugging and plugging the power cord and hitting random buttons-- apparently, the escape key is now somehow imperative to the start-up of the computer for some reason, as is that weird Spanish squiggly button. But I know this laptop isn't long for this earth, so the time for harvesting its bounty has begun.

I actually discovered the black screen of death right before I had to drive to my parents' house to pick up a chainsaw, which isn't as interesting of a story as it sounds, so I'll omit it here. But on the way there, I found myself musing over what I really would have lost if I came back and the computer couldn't be saved. In the past, this concept has driven me to insane, panicky tears-- what if I never get to hear "Oh Sherry" again? But tonight, it didn't seem so bad.

After all, I did the smart thing and saved all my digital pictures to CDs the last time the black screen of death darkened my door, along with all my important word documents, including the fragments of the fabled John Boston Story, which is the worst novel ever written, and which I've been working on since I was thirteen, so at least that would be saved for the ages. And maybe it was time to admit that I never, ever wanted to hear "You Spin Me Right Round" ever again. I could rebuild my music collection, make it bigger, better, far less embarrassing ("Pray," by MC Hammer? Really?).

But thanks to the random button poking of my computer savvy husband, I have been given a second chance. Maybe now I can finally use this computer to write something of substance-- my entire thesis was actually composed on my old computer, and the John Boston story was from the computer before that. Maybe, in its dying days, this computer can become home to my masterpiece.

And then, just to be a dick, it will eat it.

I'm all that.

2008-08-20T19:07:00.002-04:00

Today I found out that someone hates me.

This, in and of itself, does not really phase me; I have been the object of hatred from time to time, mainly because of my awesome good looks and obvious modesty. The actual problem I had was with the reason given for said hatred: apparently, I believe myself to be "all that."

This struck me as bizarre on many levels-- mainly, I was unaware that people were still considering themselves "all that," since that particular statement has gone the way of "talk to the hand" and my least favorite, "don't go there, girlfriend." (On a side note, please don't ever refer to me as "girlfriend;" I can be considered a girlfriend, as in "My girlfriend Kim thinks she's all that," but I do not accept being called "girlfriend" without a proper article attached. Perhaps this is one of the symptoms of considering oneself "all that.")

Secondly, as a person who pretty much made a career out of explaining my lameness and serious personality flaws to anyone who would listen, I resent being considered one who thinks of themselves as "all that." I'm kind of the opposite of all that-- I'm like the least threatening person on the face of the planet. I posed with a dead stuffed lion in my senior pictures! That is the exact antithesis of "all that"!

So please, if you must hate me (which you really shouldn't, because I'm totally really nice!), please don't do it because you think I think I'm "all that." If anything, hate me for my wicked Guitar Hero skills. Those really are all that.

Oh, grow up

2008-08-18T22:05:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, at a cookout at my Aunt Emily's house, I caught myself being an adult.

Somewhere between discussing home decor with my cousin Jennifer and trying to determine if my new prescription for Flonase (to aid in my attempts to reduce my new, scary slack-jawed mouth breathing habit) was going to give me a nosebleed, I found myself sitting on the cement patio, watching my cousin Anthony's baby crawl around, saying "You know what's weird, is that we crawled around on this exact same patio when we were babies."

And it is weird-- not just because it's actually probably not a good idea to let babies crawl around on cement pads. It's because it's time. We're it. We're the new babymakers.

This is something that I just kind of assumed was not going to happen-- I figured Anthony, Jennifer and I would just continue to be relegated to the basement, play Root Beer Tapper on their Commodore 64 and do tumbling routines on that old piece of foam furniture that I discovered years later was actually universally described as a Flip and Fuck.

But then one year for Christmas I began receiving underwear (which I still stubbornly choose to call underpants in secret) in my Christmas stocking instead of My Little Pony accessories. This should have been a major hint at what was to come. The Grownupification of the Shable family children.

In what I choose now to view as a desperate attempt to stave off this process, and not so much a testament to my supremely annoying personality, I managed to hold out the longest, wearing my Simpsons t-shirts and watching professional wrestling far beyond what is actually socially acceptable. But now even I'm married, and one day in the not-too-distant future, an Oja baby will be scraping its not-yet-fully-formed kneecaps across that patio.

This doesn't mean I'm not looking forward to it by any means-- if Anthony's kids are any indication of how fun mine will be, it will definitely be a blast. But I'm going to ask Aunt Emily to hold off on the gifting of underpants for as long as she can, because the slow realization that I am, in fact, an adult, is sort of freaking me out in a way that makes me want to call Anthony and Jennifer and see if they want to play Scooby Doo one more time before we all have to get accountants and open mutual funds and worry about our lawns. I won't even fight to be Daphne, that's how serious I am about this whole endeavor.

2008-08-13T21:10:00.003-04:00

I spotted this fake fingernail outside the women's restroom at work after lunch today. I wanted desperately to stop and take a picture of it, because it's not everyday you see an appendage, fake or otherwise, just lying on the floor somewhere, but I was with a bunch of girls from my department and didn't want to appear macabre.

So I had to launch a recon mission later in the day to return and capture it with my camera phone, which was harder than it seems, because our main reception area looks out on the bathrooms, which I imagine provides no end of enjoyment for our receptionist.

Disgustingly, but not surprisingly, the nail was still there-- I suppose no one wants the job of squatting down in front of the ladies' bathroom and, with their bare hands, picking up and discarding a Lee press-on. After loitering nonchalantly for a few moments as several people wandered through the entranceway, I was able to snap this stunner.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm so fascinated by the presence of this nail-- I suppose it has something to do with the questions it dregs up, namely:

1. Who still wears Lee press-on nails?

2. Who could lose one and not notice?

3. If they did notice, why did they not pick it up? It did, after all, come unstuck from their own hand, which means that they of all people should feel the obligation to pick up after themselves.

The real test will be to see if the nail is still there tomorrow morning (it was still present at 5:05, when I left this evening). If it's not, I'm going to pretend that our cleaning lady spotted it and, finding it chic, affixed it to her own pinkie, ensuring that her pimp hand would be strong.

The Very Hungry Kimmerpillar

2008-08-11T19:54:00.003-04:00

In an effort to get back on track with my life after months of house-based neglect, I decided to go to my doctor and get a physical, because:

a) My body is a finely honed machine that needs maintenance like any other other superbly-crafted apparatus

b) Secretly, I constantly believe that I have contracted some sort of horrible disease, like typhoid fever or lupus

c) I've been having a lot of trouble breathing through my nose lately, which is turning me into a slack-jawed yokel.

So since I was going in for a battery of tests anyways, I figured it would be a good idea to have some bloodwork done to ensure that my cholesterol and sugar levels were okay (and that my blood had not been replaced with concentrated amounts of Hawaiian Punch, which would be disgusting, but tasty).

Blood work, of course, requires you to fast for twelve hours to ensure that your tests aren't tainted by any of the sugars or fats from food that you eat (and since my diet consists almost entirely of sugar and fat, this seemed especially important in my case). So while a normal human being would schedule their physical for eight in the morning, requiring very little actual fasting, I chose to go at 4:15 p.m.

Why? Partially because I wanted to be able to leave work early, because a little blood-letting is always preferable to suffering through late Monday afternoon at an insurance company. But partially, I imagine it was also because I enjoy constantly informing people of any agony I may be in, and fasting offers a multitude of opportunities to remind people that you haven't eaten in fourteen hours. You're going to Chipotle for lunch? Sorry, I can't-- I'm fasting.

You'll note that I never actually tell anyone why I'm fasting, thus giving off the false impression that I am on a hunger strike for the people of Tibet. Not that I am particularly known for my symbolic acts of dissension, although I have successfully managed to never see an episode of Navy NCIS in protest of the fact that it stars my arch nemesis, Mark Harmon.

Ultimately, though, the fasting was less impressive to my co-workers and more of just a giant pain in the ass for me, as I apparently require food every thirty-seven minutes in order to remain functional, like a rusted-out car with a gas leak. At one point I attempted to fill my stomach with water in an effort to feel full, but this merely resulted in me being really, really cold and full of pee. I also worry that I might have incurred a mild case of water intoxication, as I have never really found auditing so funny before.

But I persevered and made it through to the blood-letting, after which I crammed my face full of crackers to hold me over until I made it to McDonald's, where I ate enough food to tide the US ladies' gymnastics team over until the closing ceremonies. Full of chicken and soda and potato-esque product, I drove home, a crumb-covered testament to good health.

Dear Evil Cable Corporation,

2008-08-04T17:03:00.000-04:00

First off, please just let me apologize for writing this on the back of a Burger King bag; I have been unable to order my favorite stationary for the last week or so, because our Internet is out, and I believe it to be all your fault.

Okay, maybe it was our fault at first. Maybe we spliced a cable we shouldn’t have in an effort to supply precious, life-giving cable television to another room of our house, so Ben would no longer be forced to sit through countless episodes of I Love Money on VHI. We did that, and then the Internet didn’t work. Okay. Our bad.

Then we had to call you for help, which really means talking to The Demonic Machine—one of those recorded ladies that asks you questions like “Did you turn off your computer?” and then, when you scream at her, “YES, I TURNED OFF THE FUCKING COMPUTER, YOU PRERECORDED RETARD!”, she says, “sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”

And when we finally got to a real person, we were informed that no one was coming to fix the Internet until at least Saturday. Thus, an entire week passed with Ben and I falling further and further into Internet-deprived depression and despair, until finally our house was like the last few days in Lord of the Flies, with an old computer monitor stuck in our front yard with a crudely shaved stake.

But then—salvation! In the form of Randy, the Perfectly Acceptable Cable Repairman, who had the whole problem fixed within ten minutes, giving us a full day of glorious, glorious Internet access. Thank you, Randy! If you ever return to my home, you will be greeted at the door by several comely virgins, as a mere “thanks” can’t possibly explain our gratitude.

Sadly, though, it was not to be.

Yesterday evening, I returned to my computer after a long day of painting Ben’s basement office only to find the ominous absence of the “online” button from the front of the modem. No service!

And so I ask you, Evil Cable Corporation, what you intend to do to make this right. Merely fixing our Internet is no longer enough—I have spent so long without it that I have become feral, getting my gossip fix by following the exploits of Lucky on the back of my Lucky Charms box and crafting e-mails from leaves and twigs I find in my backyard. It may be too late for me—I might actually have to go back to living off the Internet grid, a terrifying prospect that I haven’t had to look in the face since 1996.

Look at me! I’m even having to blog from work. FROM WORK! Every blogger’s nightmare—what if the boss catches me? Or that weird coworker that always peers at my computer as if she’s trying to see into my soul? I cannot allow this to continue!

My first request is the hearts of each of your children brought to me on a platter made of the deeds to all your homes. I will stick a leaf in your mailbox once I have come up with a second request.

All best,
Kim

Blog, Interrupted

2008-07-28T08:34:00.003-04:00

Just when I thought I was in, they pull me back out-- the internets are down at my house for the foreseeable future, and (other than this emergency posting), I don't like to blog at work. I'll be back as soon as I can, but to tide you over, here is a brief tidbit-- last night, I had a dream that I lived with Michael and LaToya Jackson, and LaToya had to drive me to work because I couldn't get my car to turn off, and I didn't want it to die in the work parking lot, and Michael was super mad that I had broken my car again.

Life with the Jacksons, man. It's wacky.

Whatever Works

2008-07-24T22:15:00.008-04:00

One thing that you are told when you move: your catalogs are not coming with you. (So long, Crate and Barrel, Gump's and Victoria's Secret!) What you don't realize is that that means you inherit all the catalogs that the previous owners of your house had forfeited upon vacating (Hellooooo, Lillian Vernon!).

And apparently, the people who lived here before us accumulated quite a few mail-order friends during their 30+ years of living here-- about seventy percent of the mail we've received thus far has included glossy pages picturing birdbath cleansers, pet stairs and sassy fashions for voluptuous ladies. But my new favorite catalog of all time is one that arrived yesterday, called "Whatever Works: Garden - Home - Pest Control."

While it, too, included pet stairs (because you never want your pets feeling excluded from the events in your house that take place at a height of about two feet), it also featured a variety of items that I had no idea existed, and now cannot live without, including:

1. Onion Goggles-- safety eyewear for those who fall victim to the evil stink rays of the nefarious onion. For contact lens wearers only, apparently.

2. The Super Kegel (tm) Exerciser-- which is sort of gross? Because I thought this was a sex exercise? And I'm really disturbed, because I can't tell if we're looking at this lady's butt, or her front. But apparently, aside from giving you awesome sex skills, it also has the added benefit of improving your bladder control!

3. The Escape Hammer-- which I can't believe my dad doesn't know about, because as Safety Man, it makes no sense that he would have allowed me to go all these years without a method of breaking my car window from the inside should I be caught in quicksand or trapped with a really aggressive bee. I'm particularly enamored of the man in the illustration, who so calmly wields the hammer and uses its sharpened indentation to cut his seat belt, all while thrusting his cheekbones out.

I think my favorite thing in the world would be to encounter a situation in which all three of these implements was necessary at once-- your bladder's about to fail while trapped in a car full of half-cut onions.

SoLong TiVo

2008-07-23T19:35:00.003-04:00

In an effort to conserve cash and not become the kinds of homeowners who live in one room of their home, spending their free time sewing sock monkeys and watching cassette tapes of The Mikado on their VCRs by the light of a single, unshaded lamp (as I actually did spend one harrowing month in Wilmington back in 2001), we have had to make some cuts, and sadly, TiVo found itself on the chopping block this week.

This was depressing to Ben and particularly to me, as I had developed an almost gross love for the machine itself, with its happy glowing be-legged television icon and its Wonka-esque booping noises. After a rocky start, in which TiVo became convinced that we were middle-aged black people who enjoyed reruns of Martin and Amen (where are they still showing Amen? Does anyone even remember this show besides me? And TiVo?), we have gotten along famously. By the end, TiVo had introduced us to some of our favorite friends-- Bill Kurtis of American Justice; the guy who does all the voice-overs for the various Battle Against Nature shows on the History Channel ("Chase doesn't know it yet, but this could be the very tree that kills him"); the plucky interventionists of Intervention (my favorite: the one who always tells the drug addicts that they have a family "that loves them like crazy").

But Evil Empire Cable offers a vaguely similar, sort-of adequate faux TiVo (FoVo) for ten dollars less a month, and for some reason, adding it to our list of services somehow lowered our cable bill, not even counting TiVo, by another fourteen, so we had to let it go.

Not, however, without a fight-- Ben did some of the most strenuous flirting I have ever witnessed with the TiVo representative in an attempt to get the far superior Two-Shows-at-Once TiVo receiver out of her-- our logic being that if TiVo could out perform FoVo, we could keep it. The exchange went something like this:

Ben: Hey, baby.

TiVo Rep: I hear you want to cancel your TiVo service? That makes me sad.

Ben: I don't want you to be sad, Sugar Tits. Daddy wants you to be happy. And you know how you could make Daddy happy? With the Two-Shows-at-Once TiVo.

TiVo Rep: Aw, baby, you know I can't just give away the Two-Vo.

Ben: For me you could. Because if you do, we could make sweet love all night long. And I'll even scratch your back after. Awww, yeah.

TiVo Rep: Your offer intrigues me, as I enjoy making sweet love with TiVo fans. Let me see what I can do.

But sadly, in the end she could do nothing for us, even after Ben promised to wash her car in the nude and buy her the rights to the photos of Brad and Angelina's newest babies. (At which point, he called her a Tease-Vo and hung up on her.) (Also, please note: this conversation may not have actually occurred in this way.) So our TiVo box moulders, unplugged and dusty, on a shelf in our basement, while FoVo usurps its glory and spits in our faces by recording the same episode of Intervention four times for no reason. I loved the episode like crazy, but still.

Shaby's back-- back again

2008-07-22T22:36:00.003-04:00

I. Am. Officially. Back.

Because as you may have noticed? I've kind of been maybe? A bad blog owner. Not just in my lack of postings, but rather in the quality of the postings that have gone up in the last, oh, say, year. Or so.

But get this-- I'm married. I did it. We bought a house. We did it. And until I have a baby, I can officially go back to being a normal human being. Of outrageously awesome hilariousness.

Throughout this whole getting married, buying a house process, I found myself really wanting to post on my blog, but not really having anything interesting to say. I contemplated deleting it, and just succumbing altogether to my life of audit manager-ness. But I could never bring myself to do it-- my blog is as close as I come-- right now, anyway-- to being an actual writer, as opposed to a relatively funny but mostly indistinguishable insurance drone.

That guy at work, that always tells the jokes, that comes to your cube and then won't leave and you kind of want to kill yourself? I was becoming that guy.

So once the move was complete, I decided-- the blog was back in action. And as evidenced by my severely awesome new background, you can see I totally mean business.

Since readership has dwindled to pretty much Ashley, Alan and my Aunt Kathy (hi, Aunt Kathy!), I realize I'll have to work pretty hard to regain your interest. But please, give me a chance-- I promise not to disappoint. And if I do disappoint? I promise to turn in my MFA and start studying for my CPCU (which, for those of you who don't know, is an insurance designation-- which means I just made an insurance joke, which means I have to go kill myself now, if you'll excuse me).

So please, if I promise not to talk about getting married, or buying a house, ever again? Will you please read this? Because I'm totally all about talking about anything but that, and if you're into it, too, you will be granted one ticket onto Battleship Awesome. For reals.

Ojas Versus Euclid: The Score So Far

2008-07-09T23:12:00.002-04:00

Euclid:

1. Brown-out (one point)
2. Water stoppage (one point)
3. Garmin stolen (five points)
4. Recent citation demanding that we cut our grass, or pay a $150 fine (one point)
5. Sudden appearance of new crazy man named Pete living down the street who won't stop talking to me when I walk the dog (one point)

Total: Nine points

Ojas:

1. Acquired new Garmin, which will be carefully hidden, more than likely in one of my bodily cavities, until we have officially vacated the premises (one point)
2. Kim's Euclid city tax bill was inexplicably only $9.06 (one point)
3. Moved to a much nicer community with no grass-mowing related laws, where Garmin will remain safe forever (one bazillion points)

Total: One bazillion and two points

So HA! In your FACE, Euclid! You have been powned by our superior level of awesomeness

And don't forget...

2008-07-06T23:54:00.005-04:00

...there are still six minutes left in Ashley's birthday, so wish her a happy one!

Happy birthday, man! I love you!

Casa De Los Ojas

2008-07-06T23:42:00.003-04:00

...if this were the 1800s, and I were a man, I would be able to vote, because I am now a property owner! (And so is Ben. So I guess he WOULD be able to vote. Lame.)

Check out more pictures at our Snapfish site-- Snapfish gets no end of plugs from me, so some free pictures would be nice (ahem). We're in the process of moving in right now, so I may be gone again for awhile, but once we're in for good, I'll be back to blogging, so please don't leave, because without your comments, I die. Literally.

2008-06-22T21:31:00.005-04:00

Clearly, God is angry that I haven't left Euclid yet-- ever since we started Operation: Get Out of Dodge, He has been inflicting us with a multitude of plagues, including the theft of my beloved Garmin (still pissed about that, by the way-- I've been wanting to drive by my new house all week, and without Garmin, I am incapable of finding my way there-- screw Mapquest, I'm done with that garbage!). Recently He decided to up the ante with a brownout, and tonight, I am without water due to a massive water main break about five houses down from mine-- a different water main, mind you, than the one that exploded on my street last year. Why are there two water mains on my street? Because Euclid sucks. That's why.

Even more distressingly, I was in the middle of a crucial load of laundry when the water was shut off, so now my outfits for this week are wet and soapy and no doubt forming some sort of crud crust down in my stinky filthhole of a basement. So now I have to break into my junior varsity clothes, which include a lot of polo shirts and ridiculously cuffed jean capris.

And more distressing still was the fact that I spent the whole day cleaning the house, and so was a disgusting smelly wreck-- "this is okay," I thought, "because once the house is clean I will shower and be a fresh morning lily!" Not so! Filthed up and sticky with cleaning residue, I drove the forty minutes to my parents' house, showered, and drove back, thus killing the evening I had planned to spend watching The Nanny Diaries, which I will most certainly not be allowed to watch once Ben is back in town.

So at least now I'm clean, and I have a gallon of water for teeth-brushing and hair-refreshing in the morning, should water not be restored. And I'm doing my best to avoid the inevitable situation that will develop when I need to use the bathroom. I think I can hold it for the next twelve hours, until I get to work. Right?

Robbed!

2008-06-10T19:55:00.003-04:00

Dear Asshole That Stole My Garmin,

You're really lucky you got that when you did, because I'm about to move away. So I hope you enjoy the drugs that its pawning afforded you, unless you're actually using it to plot routes to some other, unrelated drug score, in which case I hope you enjoy the pleasant Englishman voice I programmed into it for you.

I do appreciate that you didn't take my CDs, and also that you very gently shut the car door so that I wouldn't wake up to a dead battery. That was really nice of you, really.

Since I will be leaving town in a few short weeks here, I would appreciate it if you didn't come back and try to take any of our other shit, although I imagine that I will likely spend most of my remaining evenings here hiding in the bed of Ben's truck with a baseball bat. You know, just in case.

In conclusion, I hate Euclid, and I hate you, and I hope your face is eaten off by vicious dogs (which are also abundant in this neighborhood, just to warn you). I would also like to give a special shout-out to the Euclid Police Department, who always stop patrolling our street as soon as school lets out (which would explain why we were robbed DURING THIS EXACT SAME MONTH two years ago).

All best,
Kim

The most heinous woman EVER

2008-06-09T20:43:00.002-04:00

Today, driving home from work, Jeni, Erin and I encountered a woman driving a Rav-4 who was somehow driving, smoking a cigarette and PLUCKING HER MUSTACHE, all at the same time. It was both the most freakishly hideous display I had ever seen, and also one of the most deft.

Psych!

2008-06-08T22:32:00.002-04:00

In an effort to thoroughly confuse everyone we know, we are currently in negotiations to buy that same house again. Yes, the exact same one. Because we are lazy, and looking for other houses is just too hard.

(Note: not really. Really, it's because I was so mad that we didn't get that house the first time that I had several satisfying dreams about burning it down, just so no one else could have it. So if dreams of arson aren't enough proof as to how bad I wanted that house, then you know what? I don't know what would be.)

This time around, negotiations seem to be going a lot more smoothly-- thus far, no one has threatened to auction the house off, and the new bank that we're working with actually returns our phone calls, which is an exceptional service that I feel more banks should provide.

I realize that I'm probably jinxing the entire thing by telling all of you about it-- I mean, I don't want to cast blame on any of you, but all I know is, I told you about the house, and then it fell through. So don't blow it for me this time, okay?

Hey, um, never mind

2008-05-22T21:35:00.004-04:00

We ended up walking away from the house-- I think it was when they threatened to just put it up for auction even though we had a contract signed that really did me in. All in all, this all went quite possibly as badly as it could possibly have gone, short of the ghoulish corpses of Indian burial ground zombies rising from the earth, coated in shit from the bad septic system, to ensnare us and drag us back into their hellish abode.

Anyway. I'll tell you more about it when my eyes aren't so puffy, or my contacts seared to my eyelids. In the meantime, if you know of any houses for sale in the area with no fucking septic system, please call me. We're interested.

Indeed: Movin' on up!

2008-05-18T20:56:00.002-04:00

We got the house! Pending inspections, mortgage applications, etc., that mo-fo is OURS. I'm still trying not get too excited, in case things still fall through, but secretly I'm redecorating the whole place in bold blues and greens in my head.

And also? Ben's going to be out of town when the house goes into escrow, so I might get to have power of attorney. Which means I'll have a superpower of sorts. Rad.

Movin' On Up?

2008-05-16T13:02:00.002-04:00

Ben and I just put in a bid on a house in Chesterland this morning-- I don't want to say too much, because I don't want to jinx it, and also talking about it makes me want to throw up. But wish us luck!

Much Ado About Matts

2008-05-11T15:57:00.005-04:00

While I am out gadding about in a world of non-creative endeavors (although I DID just beat Slash on Hard at Guitar Hero last night-- on the first try!), please take a moment to honor two of my friends and fellow bloggers, who have made great strides in balancing out my current lameness in the cosmic scheme of things:

Matt Tullis, a fellow MFA from the Wilmington brood, has been appointed to a full-time position teaching journalism and overseeing the Collegian at our alma mater, Ashland University. In his new role, he will get to spend a great deal of time hanging out with our shared mentor and totally all-around awesome guy, Joe Mackall, which makes me supremely jealous. However, since Matt was the one who first gave me a chance to strut my stuff on the comedy column state when he gave me my first column in the Collegian back in 1998, I think I can let the jealousy slide, because I know what a kick-ass job he will do, and what kind of life he can bring back to the campus paper. (And if the Collegian ever needs a guest columnist, you know where to find me. Ahem.)

Matt Rowe, meanwhile, has continued to bring it hardcore to Swing State, and has exciting news for all y'all-- he will be on the ballot at the Virginia 1st District convention to be a national convention alternate. The election is May 17, so keep an eye on Swing State to follow him through the process and see if someone we know will actually be on the floor at the DNC. Also, if you're attending this convention, vote for Matt. Or suffer the consequences. (Note: there are no actual consequences. But I will be really, really mad at you.)

You must know...

2008-05-05T23:09:00.002-04:00

That I am about to crap my pants over this:

It comes out June 3. Don't bother calling my house for a few days.

A new and better me

2008-04-29T19:54:00.004-04:00

About once every four years, I am struck by a strong Self Improvement urge that I am powerless against, and must act on, even if it causes me to do insanely retarded things in the name of a new and better me. These bouts are usually preceded by a longish period of depression, which causes me to stay in, eat copious amounts of microwave pizza, and cry at game shows, such as the time I wept openly for nearly an hour when the Rodriguez family won the big prize at the end of Family Feud. It was only once I realized that the $10,000 prize would have to be split between the five of them, and that after taxes each one would only receive roughly $1,000, that I managed to calm myself down.

After awhile, being depressed gets boring and I get fat after months of bizarre eating sprees that involve crafting the Perfect Fast Food Meal (Burger King hamburger, McDonald's fries, Arby's Jamoca shake, Pizza Hut breadsticks), and that's when the Self Improvement urge strikes. It usually begins when a certain piece of music, one that I have never had much interest in before, suddenly seems to have been written just for me, such as Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler," or James Taylor's "Steamroller."

It's usually a pretty lame song.

Anyway, it's about at this time that I am compelled by forces larger than myself to buy a new notebook, usually orange, that I intend to fill with notes on how to find myself and become happy with the New Me. In the past, this notebook has been decoupaged with inspirational sayings cut from magazines; now I tend towards a minimalist look, with maybe just a sticker to cover the Five Star brand name.

No matter what the intention, the notebook is inevitably half-filled with hilarious screeds against the things and people that I find annoying. In the past, the notebooks have featured such targets as my old school counselor Etta, the country of Australia, every boy I ever liked that didn't like me back, and music snobs.

I also become compelled to read books that I would normally classify as SUPER LAME (the most notable example: Women Who Run With the Wolves. I spent a great amount of time underlining the passages that were about me, which were all of them, until I suddenly realized how totally queer I was and stopped). I listen to my lame empowerment song and make my Better Me lists and read my self-help books and become insufferable until I finally realize that I am once again acting like a dorkwad and shake it off.

I only tell you all of this because I am about to enter one of those phases right now, and I can't stop it from happening. I'm like Bruce Banner, turning into the Hulk, except instead of being green and super strong, I want to talk about my feelings in a totally earnest, non-sarcastic way.

I already have my orange Five Star notebook (although it is currently blank), and my empowerment song is Poison's "Nothing But a Good Time," which I blare pretty much incessantly throughout the day. I have yet to find my upsettingly lame self-help book, but I imagine that's coming down the pike here shortly.

One of the things on my mental New and Better Me list (which will be rendered real only when it is entered into the Orange Notebook of Enlightenment) is to blog more, and not worry so much about upsetting people with my posts (in other words, I have decided to use the word "retarded" a lot more). So I apologize now if I come on here and explain how I have a lot to learn from the gentle manatee, that does not hold its anger in but rather releases it peacefully to be lost in the vastness of mother ocean.

If that does happen, please don't stop reading. Because another one of my Better Me goals is to rebuild my self-esteem, and losing readers by the boatload is not going to help.

The Secret Lives of Auditors

2008-04-22T21:58:00.003-04:00

One might think that my lack of blog entries is indicative of a totally boring life, dry and tasteless as Cracklin' Oat Bran, and just as regular. But in actuality, my life has been extremely interesting over the last two weeks-- I just can't tell you why.

Specifically, I can't tell you why because every interesting thing that has happened to me involves my job-- and yes, I mean interesting in a universal sense, not interesting in a only-interesting-to-insurance-people sense. But I don't really like to talk about my job on my blog for two reasons: I don't want anyone from work to find it and read it and come to my desk and quote it to me mockingly before they have me escorted out by security, and also, most of you pass out and begin drooling if I even so much as interject a word that sounds like "insurance" into a sentence.

But I can tell you, without fear of reprisal, the following short list of things I did at work today:

1. Jabbed myself pretty hard in the back with the pointy end of an exposed screw while scrambling around under my desk, attempting to plug in my jump drive so I could listen to "Sister Christian" on my computer.

2. Ate a horrendous sandwich.

3. Sent like a thousand people to collections-- take THAT, you non-paying a-holes! You'd best step off next time you make fun of ME for ordering tacos with just meat at Chipotle, because you don't even KNOW what kind of power I got.

4. Listened to "Sister Christian" a bazillion times; each time it got to the "Motorin'" chorus, imagined myself in the car with the windows down driving across a bridge while my hair whipped dramatically around me, like I was in a po-mo Zach Braff movie (side note: I feel that Zach Braff's voice is far too high for his physique)

5. Entertained co-workers with a story about a doll I used to have named Gorilla Ann

I also did a multitude of other things, but they were not funny things, unless you think writing e-mails to the Virginia Board of Insurance is funny, which I wager you do not.

Salon of the Damned

2008-04-17T19:32:00.002-04:00

The women at my salon hate me.

No matter how hard I try to impress them, they are resistant to my natural charm, and consider me a hairy, unkempt beast who comes in solely to ruin their otherwise blissful day of snipping, dyeing, and ripping hair from the faces (and backs) of men and women who are willing to pay for the privilege of having hot wax applied to their bodies and torn asunder from their unsuspecting flesh.

Maybe I'm just tainted by the women at the old day spa where I used to work who used to greet everyone with enthusiasm, even the woman whose coat smelled like dead dogs. (Note: this did not apply to People With Gift Certificates, whom they all generally perceived to be one-time-visit succubi.) Or maybe it was just because they each had their own rooms, so I only saw them when they were in the lobby-- maybe they were just as cruel and heartless towards their customers behind closed doors.

But the women at my salon, which I would prefer not to name just because they might find this blog and hate me even more, visibly frown upon entering a ten-foot space around my body, and make me feel like an awkward, shaking crack addict, willing to push myself that extra mile to get that high-- or, rather, that haircut or eyebrow wax.

Today? I went in for an eyebrow wax (because if left untended, my brows grow to a creepy Andy Rooney shape, and stake out new territories far too north on my forehead), and the eyebrow wax lady didn't speak to me except to ask me how thin I wanted to go. And every time she did speak to me, she used my name at the end of every sentence-- "How does that look, Kim? You have a nice, you know, night or whatever, Kim"-- which, for some reason, I have always taken as an act of hostility.

And while I was there I saw the woman who cut my hair, whom in a desperate effort to impress I practically shouted at in ecstasy that I had done as she advised and bought a straightening iron and was practicing using it weekly. She nodded, and then asked if I was "at least liking my new haircut more than I liked the last one" she had given me, and then went back to chatting up the girl whose hair she was shampooing.

The bad news is, I will continue to patronize this salon because they are the only people I have found that give good haircuts (except for that last one, which I really did hate) and decent waxing at competitive prices; the only other salon in town, Ladies and Gentlemen, charges roughly eight bazillion dollars per hair cut (and I mean each individual hair cut from your head), although they do throw in a relaxing facial shampoo and arm massage while you get your hair washed, so I suppose that might be worth it.

The good news is, I won't live here forever, and when I move and find a new salon-- a salon where they appreciate me, and laugh at my witticisms about how my eyebrows have become Sasquatch-esque-- the women at my salon will find their lives a little colder and a little drier, and they won't know why.

But it's because they'll miss me. And also because I'm an awesome tipper.

2008-04-07T20:47:00.004-04:00

I was shocked to learn yesterday morning that Charlton Heston had passed away the day before-- shocked, mostly, because I had had an Eerie Feeling that Elizabeth Taylor was going to die that weekend, and didn't, meaning my Celebrity Death Detector isn't the mad prognosticator that I had believed it to be.

To be honest, I was not that big of a Charlton Heston fan, mostly because I was already madly in love with Gregory Peck, and to spread my teenage geek love between two octogenarians seemed a little gross. But I do have two fond memories of the Omega Man, which I would be loathe not to share, considering how valuable my opinion on dead celebrities is in this whimsical world of ours.

1. My whole life, my family has celebrated Easter by watching Heston in The Ten Commandments, not because we value its religious message, but rather because we enjoy making fun of the acting. If you've never seen the movie (I can lend it to you-- I have it on VHS and DVD), please find the scene in which Heston, as Moses, realizes the folly of ordering up a plague to kill all of Egypt's first-borns, and witness the stunning display that is his delivery of the line "Turn from my fierce wrath, o Lord!" I personally have performed my own interpretation of this line thousands of times, and every-- single-- time, I find it funny. (Though this does not involve Charlton Heston at all, please also take a moment to check out the reaction of the women to the parting of the red sea. Hilarity!)

2. When he was in college, my friend Rich was a member of the Ashbrook program, an elite group of politically-minded students who were invited to meet many luminaries of the Republican party. On one outing in particular-- the day that Bob Dole came to campaign there-- Bob Dole was accompanied by NRA president Charlton Heston, with whom Rich had the opportunity to ride the elevator to the top floor of the library, where the Ashbrook scholars met. The ride was long, as the elevators at the Ashland University library are powered by donkeys pulling long strings with their teeth, and to pass the time, Charlton Heston turned to Rich, who was wearing combat boots, and said "Those are fine boots, young man. A good pair of boots will get you far in life."

Not unlike "Turn from my fierce wrath, o Lord!", I cannot resist saying this phrase whenever the opportunity arises.

So farewell, Mr. Heston. Please be assured that you will live on in multiple viewings of The Ten Commandments at the Shable and Oja houses, during which we will mock you. But in a loving way.

2008-04-06T15:09:00.003-04:00

After a long day of yardwork at my parents' house yesterday, Ben and I were treated to a rousing game of "Who Can Find the Most Embarrassing Picture of Kim From Her Youth?" My mom was the winner, with this stunner.

Please note that the brown sweater I'm wearing is the infamous Afro Bathrobe, a gift from my grandmother that inflicted upon me a life-long fear of sweater coats and a firm belief that all of my clothes, no matter how cute or expensive, will earn me a horrible nickname. The rest of my wardrobe appears to have been plucked from the closet of a 1930's librarian, except for the long-strapped denim purse, a nod to the plucky, can-do attitude of Blossom.

In that purse, I carried paperback books of "Herman" cartoons. I was the lamest kid ever.

2008-03-29T11:00:00.004-04:00

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to my uncle, Tony Shable, who passed away yesterday afternoon. Uncle Tony, you will be missed by us all. We love you.

Confession

2008-03-27T22:35:00.003-04:00

Every time I watch America's Next Top Model, I spend at least ten minutes afterward practicing poses in the mirror.

I'm really bad at it.

Japan, I thank you for George Takei and this.

2008-03-27T02:34:00.004-04:00

This video is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Remembrances of Things Past

2008-03-25T19:21:00.003-04:00

I just thought I'd update you on Situation: Nothing-- the on-going travails of my suddenly totally uninteresting life. While I was once the kind of person who could constantly enthrall you with my tales of The Time the Nurse Told Me That I Should Be in an Internment Camp Because of my Ethnicity, or The Time I Shared a Cigarette With a Homeless Guy Who Was Carrying a Stolen Ladder, I am now the kind of person whose everyday routine is pretty much the same, and sans racist nurses and ladder-toting homeless guys.

This is vexing to me, because I have always prided myself as the kind of person to whom interesting things often happened. This may be because I am cosmically preordained to have such interactions, or simply because I am too naive to avoid situations in which I may be forced into contact with, say, a speed-popping neighbor that tricked me into driving him to an acquaintance's house in order to beat the crap out of him (I thought we were just going to cash his tax refund!).

But as of late, the only interesting character with whom I have come into contact is Mark, a nice-enough guy with a three-legged dog that often accompanies me on walks with Che. I really don't know anything about him except that he seems nice, and his dog has three legs. I like to think that he's really some kind of drug kingpin, and that Pitch, the three-legged dog, turns into a battle-armored warrior dog at night. But really, I imagine Mark and Pitch just spend their evenings watching reruns of Evening Shade.

I guess the sad truth is that as you get older, you're less likely to run into zany situations. A stolen ladder becomes a three-legged dog. A racially insensitive, chain-smoking nurse becomes a guy that's maybe just a bit too into said three-legged dog. And an inadvertent evening spent as an accessory to a petty crime becomes an evening spent with Burt Reynolds in the shade.

Hair Apparent

2008-03-20T21:56:00.002-04:00

Triumph! After three months of what I considered to be the worst haircut ever (no matter what everyone else had to say-- it was a reverse effing mullet!), I finally rectified the situation with this stunner. Admittedly, I have no idea how it will look when I wear it curly, but this look alone has me rushing out for a straight iron tomorrow morning.

Check me, dude. I am so hot.

Pardon our dust

2008-03-17T20:18:00.003-04:00

As you may have noticed, my blog is looking a bit different-- this is mostly due to the fact that I spent about three hours yesterday searching in vain for a less lame blog template, and ended up wiping out all my links. I was able to recreate most of them, but if I've forgotten your link, please contact me so I can readd it-- I swear that this is not a roundabout way of booting people from the blogroll, but rather just further proof of my internet-based ineptitude.

I am still planning an overhaul, but should probably attempt it when I have more than a Sunday afternoon to unveil it. So if anyone has any suggestions for that, I'm all ears.

Basically, Frisby, I'm looking to you for both of these things, since your blog link was obliterated and you know everything there is to know about the internet and all things awesome.

In the meantime, please enjoy the somewhat ominous picture of my eyes burning into your soul as you read each new post. Please note that new Swing State author (and super hilarious dude) Matt is featured in the background! I think he's a little tired of me using this picture for everything from MySpace to Twitter, so I like to give him a little shout-out.

The Hair That Would Not Dye

2008-03-16T15:29:00.002-04:00

I just got done dying my hair the exact same color for the three hundredth time in a row. That is not to say that I picked a hair dye that was the same color as my natural hair-- in fact, I picked something called "Caramel Latte," which promised to give me shiny light brown hair with reddish undertones. Instead, my hair is a shade I like to call "No One Pay Attention to Me Brown"-- still medium brown, no reddish undertones, with the dull finish and wispy flyaways of a homeless street preacher.

This is the same color I got when I tried Dark Mocha, Camel (which was a men's hair dye, not that that has anything to do with why it didn't work, but it might explain why it is the only one not named after food), Butterscotch Dream, and Espresso.

In fact, the last hair dye I can remember that actually changed the color of my hair in a noticeable way (other than those effing AWESOME highlights that I got from Pen during the season finale of the first season of The Apprentice) is one called Copper Penny, which turned my hair a seasick version of Ronald McDonald Red, thus highlighting the weird green undertone of my skin, and making me look like a sitcom star on a television with a color imbalance.

Now obviously, I don't stray too far from my natural hair color, mostly due to the Copper Penny incident (although just to let you know how fashion backward I was in college? I actually dyed it that color three times). I would never go platinum blonde (a color that I don't think works for Claire on ANTM, by the way), or black (which I also did once, in high school-- apparently, brown is the only hair color that WILL mask the alien green undertone of my skin). But I figure, come on, there is a DIFFERENCE between dark brown and light brown, or even dark blond, which I have also tried. But my hair is apparently like network TV-- you get red, black or brown, not the delicate shades in between. In short, I wanted my hair to be VH1-- it came out CBS.

To write or not to write?

2008-03-12T21:48:00.003-04:00

I went out with my friend Denise tonight, which is fantastic, because Denise is one of the few people with whom I can have truly melodramatic conversations without later feeling like a retard. The conversation in question: is it time for me to give up writing?

The reason I asked is this: I spend a lot of time at work looking around and thinking-- this was not supposed to happen. Don't get me wrong, I do actually love my job-- as much as one can love auditing, not an inherently lovable profession-- but it's not exactly what I spent $13,000 (and my parents spent significantly more) for me to study. There is at least one moment a day in which I think-- I should be writing. And I'm not. Ergo, I am a failure.

So back to the original question: should I give up writing, even the possibility of writing, so that I can stop beating myself up about not doing it?

Denise, thankfully, thinks not. And I put a large stock in what Denise thinks, so I'm hoping to give it another try, even though

I have no good ideas
The good ideas I do have revolve around people I know, and they're not exactly flattering ideas that they might want shared with the general public
I am very, very tired of staring at a computer after a long day of auditing
Writing would take away from valuable time that could be spent playing Guitar Hero, which I am also very good at

But I think I need a jump start. Denise had a really good idea: write a sizable check to an organization that I don't want to receive my money-- say, the Church of Scientology-- and give it to a friend. If I don't produce some writing by a predetermined deadline, said friend puts the check in the mail.

That might be a bit extreme, especially since I don't want Tom Cruise dancing on any couches with my money, considering he still owes me for Vanilla Sky. But something along those lines. Anyone have any suggestions?

2008-03-11T19:48:00.002-04:00

People are talking on the loudspeaker at the elementary school across the street from my house, and it's giving the whole neighborhood a sort of creepy, V For Vendetta type feeling. A few minutes ago, two women were singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" for the whole neighborhood to hear, which has vastly confused my notion about what could be going on-- talent show? But why would grown women be participating in an elementary school talent show? And do they not have any way to keep the announcements inside the building, rather than blasting from the air raid siren speakers on top of the building? As a former member of the Aurora High School announcement crew (until my fellow announcers and myself were forced to leave in a bloodless but still highly upsetting coup), I would have been mortified to know that stay-at-home moms in the surrounding neighborhood were woken every morning by my rendition of the Pledge of Allegiance.

After the blizzard

2008-03-09T11:51:00.003-04:00

I have always loved extreme weather, no matter what the sort-- heat waves, hurricanes, endless rainstorms and face-melting wind. But for my money, nothing beats a good blizzard: the most peaceful destructive force there is. Blizzards like the one we had yesterday actually sometimes make me feel bad for people who live where there isn't any snow, because they never get to see the color of the sky as it's thick with snow, how bright it all is, even with no sun, and they don't get to see the way it shifts like sand, pooling, drifting, alive and on the move.

I was actually disappointed when I came outside at eleven o'clock last night and it had stopped-- only 37 hours? That's not nearly long enough for a blizzard in my opinion. Of course, my opinions may have been tainted because it was a Saturday, and I didn't have to go anywhere. Or rather I had to, but I couldn't. Another good thing about a blizzard-- it gives you an excuse to stay home and get your life back in order.

Anatomy of a Fall

2008-03-05T21:14:00.004-05:00

I slipped and fell on the ice again this morning, marking the second such incident of the year thus far. Thankfully, the only person around to see it this time was Ben, who was much more sympathetic than The Asshole That Was Shoveling His Driveway and Did Nothing to Help when I fell last month.

As a person who slips and falls on ice more often than is strictly necessary, I have discovered that the incident is pretty much the same each go-round. It begins with The Shouting of an Expletive-- generally the F-Bomb-- at super-slow-motion speeds, sort of like when Ralphie spills the bolts in A Christmas Story. It then transitions into A Prolonged Period of Falling, which again, in slow motion, takes far longer than one would think. Then comes The Impact, followed quickly by A Short Period of Silence When the Realization That One Has Fallen and Is On The Ground, Cold and Wet, which is followed even more quickly by The Sobbing.

The Sobbing generally goes on far longer than needed-- this morning it accompanied me all the way to work, until I finally got bored with it and turned on Howard Stern.

The good news, though, is that all day, you are given permission to Act Sorer Than You Are and Relive the Fall, and everyone treats you nice and gives you things that they wouldn't normally give you, like their leftover Valentine's Day candy and their last Mike and Ike (which I guess would be either a Mike or an Ike).

Still, though, it is not a prospect I generally look forward to, which is why I received my crampons for Christmas (because nothing says "festive!" like crampons). It is important to note, however, that you cannot wear crampons all day, because they cause you to slip and fall if you're not wearing them outside, and it is equally important to note that my two falls have come on days when I felt the crampons unnecessary, thus rendering them pretty much useless at preventing slip-and-fall misery.

I've Been Everywhere

2008-03-03T22:24:00.002-05:00

I'm back.

States visited in the last six days: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana

Sporting events in which I sat in the front row: one

Funerals attended: one

Visits to Walgreen's: four

Number of bags of cheese curds purchased: two

Snowball fights had: one

Alpacas petted: one

Visits to Lambeau Field: one

All in all, a totally weird week.

Short Break: a Haiku

2008-02-26T21:07:00.002-05:00

Going out of town
Please don't bump me off your list
Back on Monday night

Sick puppy

2008-02-24T17:32:00.002-05:00

Ben has had the worst cold for about a week now-- probably the worst cold he's had in years. Which is interesting, because whenever I get a really bad cold, he gets one that seems way less intense, but which he firmly believes is just as bad as mine. Bad enough, in fact, that he should be allowed to watch copious amounts of golf all day, even though I'm the one that just hacked up a small but probably necessary portion of my lung.

This always used to make me kind of mad, because I am the type of person who once had bronchitis for over a month and still managed to live a totally normal life, despite the fact that my voice inexplicably went up two octaves and that I was expelling custardy-looking globulets of phlegm from various holes in my head, so I don't like it when other people try to steal my sickness thunder.

But now that he is so sick, I find myself waiting for even the slightest onset of a sore throat, or an errant sneeze, and with every passing moment that it doesn't come, I'm just a little disappointed. I still don't know what it means, but I'm starting to see where he's coming from-- it's kind of no fun being healthy when your husband and best friend is sick. And, you have to give up your rights to the couch for an indefinite period of time, which is enough to make anyone wish for a tickly throat.

Traders!

2008-02-21T18:42:00.006-05:00

Because I know dudes think it's hot when I discuss sports (okay, so Ben does, anyway), I feel compelled to share with you the news that the Cavs have entered into a mamoo three-way trade, just before the trade deadline, that has us saying goodbye to Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall, Ira Newble, and Two Guys I've Never Heard Of. In exchange, we will be getting Ben Wallace, Joe Smith, Delonte West, and Wally Szczerbiak.

I consider myself to be more educated in Cavs basketball than most girls, but I still don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, so I'm not sure how this trade will affect the team as a whole. (According to three different, totally unrelated guys in my office, we have "traded garbage for garbage," a phrase I feel must have been issued to them in their Meaningless Things That Guys Say Handbook.)

My own thoughts on the trade are varied.

Bad For Cavs:

1. I totally love Drew Gooden, even though most of the time he looks like he just escaped from an asylum for the mentally deranged. See above. In general, I become overly attached to sports figures, and nearly wept at the news that Drew was leaving town.

2. I do a really, really good impression of Donyell Marshall. Which would be impressive, if anyone had ever heard Donyell Marshall talk,but it turns out no one has. No one I know, anyway.

3. Ben Wallace plays center, and we already have a really good center in Zydrunas Ilgauskas. (See, I had to bust some actual sports knowledge on you there for a second.

Good For Cavs:

1. Wally Szczerbiak? Smoking hot. See left. And also, he went to Miami of Ohio for college, and it's always nice to have some hometown guys on your team. Word on the street is that Ben Wallace is from here, too.

2. We now have two players that could inspire a Wig Night at the Quicken Loans Arena, and a Ben Wallace wig would be even cooler than an Anderson Varejao wig.

3. Even though he hasn't played for Detroit in awhile, it might be nice to rub Ben Wallace in the Pistons' face.

So really, I guess my reasoning about the trade is more about what's good and bad for me, rather than for the Cavs. But no matter what the outcome, I would like to bid a fond farewell to Drew and Donyell-- you will be missed. Some people might miss Larry. But those people are idiots.

The girls in my neighborhood are unacceptable.

2008-02-20T18:36:00.002-05:00

Why, for instance, do the girls in my neighborhood travel in packs down the sidewalk in the dead of winter, talking so loudly that I can hear their entire conversation from a block away? Because you know what? I am not even slightly interested in what happened to Lakeisha in Mr. Palmer's third period today. But I know what happened. And it wasn't even interesting. Why talk so loudly about such boring things, Lakeisha? Perhaps, just perhaps, this is why Mr. Palmer has not taken a liking to you.

Also, why do I develop a paranoid fear of having to talk to these girls, to the point where I will yank my dog at a breakneck pace down an icy sidewalk for a whole block just to avoid having to interact with them? I don't have this problem with the boys in my neighborhood. Of course, the boys in my neighborhood, in general, are not interested in talking to a weirdly-dressed woman with a big, crazed dog.

(As a side note, I always feel poorly dressed when I'm walking the dog, mainly because of every episode of What Not to Wear, where Stacey and Clinton made it REAL OBVIOUS that they feel that you should still wear heels and an expensive scarf and a tightly tailored black blazer while walking the dog, even in the dead of winter.)

But I will totally go out of my way to avoid talking to the girls. One, because they talk too loudly, and I'm afraid if I'm right up next to them they might actually burst my eardrum. But two, because they scare the crap out of me.

I don't know if this is a leftover from middle school, where interactions with big groups of girls usually ended in tears, or what.

Point is, they are unacceptable. Or I'm unacceptable. Or something. I don't really know what the point is. I just got back from walking the dog, and ran into these girls, and now I'm in here, blogging. Quietly. Mr. Palmer would be proud.

Dear C Store Owner/Proprietor,

2008-02-19T18:47:00.003-05:00

I don't know if you're aware, but the dictionary definition of "convenient" (which, I can only assume, is what the "C" in "C Store" stands for) is as follows:

1.	Suitable or agreeable to the needs or purpose; well-suited with respect to facility or ease in use; favorable, easy, or comfortable for use.

2.	At hand; easily accessible

That have been established, I feel that your store does not lend itself to this word in any respect, considering that you are always closed when I walk the dog in the morning (and I am not one of those freakishly-early dog-walkers-- no, C Store Man, I walk the dog at the perilously late time of 7:00 a.m. every morning-- even later on weekends, and you are still not open), and you are already closed by the time I get back from work at the relatively early time of 6:00 p.m.

For whom, exactly, are these hours "convenient?" Are there many people in my neighborhood who find themselves in need of cigarettes, soda or lottery tickets (which is, I assume, all that you sell, since I have never actually been able to make it inside to check out your wares) between the hours of eleven and three in the afternoon? Even the convenient store I used to frequent in Wilmington, which turned out to be a front for a heroin ring, was open from six a.m. to midnight!

Therefore, I am afraid that I must insist that the "C" in "C Store" be changed to stand for "Crap-ass", or "Clearly Unacceptable." Because you are never open when I need candy, or soda, or more candy, or bread, which you may or may not sell. And this forces me to drive all the way to Willowick (I could stop at Euclid Mart, but it also a Clearly Unacceptable store, in that it does not take credit cards, and as any decent shopkeep should know, the only good way to buy candy is on credit), which, though it is only six minutes away, it about five minutes too many, since you are located directly across the street from my house, next to The Overly Doughy Pizza Shop and the Intermittently Open But Otherwise Very Satisfying Custard Stand.

In closing, I hate you.

All best,
Kim

What's the frequency, readers?

2008-02-18T18:37:00.002-05:00

Okay, let's not beat around the bush-- I am not blogging as much as I should be. I understand that, but as of late, I have also come to understand a terrible truth:

I'm just not as in to blogging as I used to be.

I don't know why-- part of me thinks that (downer alert) I might be having a little bit of a depression problem again (which might be great, because as everyone knows, I'm at least 30% more hilarious when depressed, although 90% of you aren't actually around me to witness it). But then, it might be that The Part That Wants to Start Writing a Book is becoming more aggressive, and wants more time for that. Although if that's the case, I wish it would just Get Started, as opposed to stranding me on the couch for hours a night either reading books by other people or, even worse, honing my Guitar Hero skills.

But either way, I've either got to shut the blog down, or get off my ass, because my posts just aren't good enough to sustain a twice-a-month posting schedule.

So here's what I propose-- from now until April 1, I will attempt to blog every day (barring times that I go out of town, which should only be once or twice), but the blog posts will probably only be a paragraph long, max.

Is this something you guys would be interested in? Or is the twice-monthly post sufficient? Or is it just time for me to hang up my spurs completely? Wait, don't answer that one. Because it's never really been a dream of mine to hear the phrase, "Yeah, it's probably better if you just quit writing now." If I want to hear that, I'll check in with my old poetry professor.

Please advise.

Scared: straight?

2008-02-05T19:53:00.000-05:00

As hard as I try to focus on the upcoming presidential election, I cannot escape the demon that has been chasing me around every corner, greeting me every morning in the mirror, staring back at me from countless photographs:

I think my hair is turning straight.

This, I believe, is totally unfair, as it took me until the age of 21 to even embrace the fact that I had curly hair; until this point, I wore my hair in a puffy haystack configuration, seen below:

(I got the idea for the parted bangs from Madonna's Immaculate Collection liner art, and stuck with it for far too long.)

Upon finally understanding that, like being left-handed or severely awesome, both of which I am, curly hair can be a major attribute in life, particularly in Attaining a Dude, I began to wear it that way all the time, thus ushering in a seven-year golden age the likes of which few hair-wearers have ever had the chance to experience.

But lately-- specifically since one week after my wedding, when I got my hair cut short again-- I have noticed a terrifying de-curled trend in my hair. Witness the artfully-crafted before and after shot below:

The photo on the left, taken at my cousin Jennifer's wedding in 2006, shows a shiny, sassy head full of super springy curls. The photo on the right, taken just a few weeks ago on my trip to Richmond with Megan and Matt, tells a much bleaker, limper tale.

So what has caused this grim transformation? A few theories:

1. After wearing my hair long for so long, it was not prepared to shrink back up into curls upon this, my most dramatic cut in a few years. However, I have had this cut since October now, and it is clearly Still Horrible.

2. My hair is turning gray at an alarming rate, and gray hair has a different texture than straight hair. Unacceptable.

3. Now that I have a super-sexy husband, my hair has given up the fight needed for Dude Attaining, and is taking a much-needed break.

4. The price of gas has uncurled it.

I could go on and on. But now is not a time for words, it is a time for action. And for spending lots of money I don't have on expensive conditioners and gels that I found on the Internet (they should be here next Wednesday!). In the meantime, I ask that you keep my curls in your thoughts, that they may recover from this malaise and return to their peppy selves, before they give up the fight completely, and I end up looking like Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria.

Thank you, and God bless.

Buyer's Market

2008-01-31T19:05:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-26T20:08:00.001-05:00

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

2008-01-24T18:22:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-22T18:35:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-08T20:07:00.001-05:00

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!

2008-01-02T20:42:00.000-05:00

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

2008-01-01T20:38:00.001-05:00

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.

It Ain't Christmas if You Don't Rock Out Loud

2007-12-27T18:16:00.000-05:00

Another Christmas has come and gone-- I had a lot of trouble getting in the spirit this year, mostly because in the wake of all the wedding hub-bub, I kind of forgot that I had to continue on with the remainder of life's tasks (what? I had to organize a wedding and pick out presents for every member of my family? This excuse also works well with getting your teeth cleaned, paying your bills, and vacuuming your carpet).

But around one o'clock on Christmas afternoon, my cousin Katie broke out her newest game-- Guitar Hero II for the PS2-- and the Christmas Spirit struck. And it turns out the Christmas Spirit is remarkably like the basist for Foghat.

All I know is, this game is the video equivalent of crack-- I would gladly have remained at my parents' house for up to eighty hours, helping Katie promote our new band, Grubmonkey, to new levels of success. Sadly, I was actually kind of a hindrance to Grubmonkey, as I routinely forgot to actually strum the guitar, or got confused between red and yellow, or realized that "Surrender" is not actually the song I thought it was. But I think she was still all right with me being in the band, as kind of a Ringo character, only without the awesome haircut.

Luckily for me, there's a version for the Wii, and it includes two of my all-time favorite songs: "My Name is Jonas," by Weezer, and "Rock and Roll All Nite" by KISS (which I played in marching band, so that's bound to give me a leg up on the competition). However, this game is not available ANYWHERE in the nation, except maybe at K-Mart, and, having solemnly vowed to let K-Mart die with dignity, I cannot spend any more money there, at least until they get wise to Sears' soul-crushing succubus nature.

So it's officially on my birthday list, but I was kind of hoping we could pretend that my birthday is today, and that I would magically find a copy lying in the bushes outside my house, so that I could turn it into the rock temple that it deserves to be.

In the meantime, I suppose I could go and get the ACTUAL guitar my parents gave me out of the basement and play that to take some of the edge off. But it seems like kind of a downer if I can't use it to interpret "Heart Shaped Box," which I can't, because I never learned to play it, and there may or may not be mice living in the guitar case.

A Very Crunchy Christmas

2007-12-20T20:30:00.000-05:00

Dear Friends of Kim,

It is I, Crunchy! The angry Christmas nutcracker. Bask in my return to cyber-typing!

Some of you may not know me, Crunchy, because Kim was infected with the so-called "Christmas Spirit" last year at this time, leaving me, Crunchy, silent on the writing desk, surrounded by pictures of black-and-white old timey people of which Crunchy does not approve. Even though they do not move, Crunchy can see that their jaws are capable of free movement, and their legs are not really one big, non-working wooden leg with roundish planks for feet.

But this year Crunchy is back with a very special Christmas message, which is this: your Kim is a bad person! Because does she write you Christmas cards? No, she does not! I can see her right now, from my old-timey people perch-- she is playing Nintendo Wii! And not sitting in her chair writing you cards of good will wishes.

She claims that this is because she is tired out of writing cards, because of her thank you card writing debacle. But if she is so tired, how has she managed to become a pro at the Wii Tennis, with so much limb flailing and the cursing of small animated computer tennis players?

The truth of the matter is, only Crunchy loves you. And by loves you, I mean does not like you at all, again because of your working jaws and non-conjoined legs.

So rise up in your unhappiness at the Kim-not-writing-cards fooferau! Adopt the Crunchy as your new favorite Oja! You will be most satisfied, as Crunchy was built for loving you.

All best,

Crunchy

The Angry Christmas Nutcracker

What follows is a list of all the words I have added to my e-mail dictionary at work:

2007-12-17T18:34:00.000-05:00

ACCS
Acord
Argh
ain't
argh
awesomest
BFD
Boobie
babearoo
bachelorette
bizarro
bleah
blizzarding
blog
blogged
Cavs
CC'ed
Che
Chex
COI
COIs
Cyn
convincingjohn
cystoscopy
d'oh
dammit
EMFH
effing
eHarmony
ew
Fatone
Favre
Fazoli's
fraggle
Goulet
Grr
gangsta
gangstas
gonna
gotta
gushies
Hee
Itza
Itzen
insureds
journazine
Lambeau
LPR
Maimo
Mamie
Marita
Marklar
Mmm
microsite
mojo
monoline
mopey
moreso
mostest
NARM
Netflix
Ow
Paychex
pooing
poopy
punked
RIU
Ric
rad
Sasha
SIF
Stix
Superdude
sads
sammich
snarky
sorta
TiVo
veg
Whatcha
Wii
WriMeBaMoFo
wanna
weirded
wuss
Xtreme
Yay
Yo

PS:

2007-12-16T16:48:00.000-05:00

In addition to accomplishing all the tasks listed below, I would also like to add that I managed to fall down a flight of stairs and cut my palm with a bread knife in a two-hour window this morning. I'm really just waiting to slip and bruise my tailbone while walking the dog in this white-out blizzard to really complete the trifecta.

Busybody

2007-12-16T16:33:00.000-05:00

I don't know what, exactly, prompted this change, but while I used to be perfectly happy to wallow in my own filth, ignoring my e-mails in favor of lying on the couch with an open box of Pizza Hut breadsticks resting on my chest while watching old episodes of The Family Feud, I have now become some sort of taskaholic, running from to-do list to to-do list with the fervent obsessiveness of an Ethel Merman fan.

Not that I want to go back to living in a pet-hair-clogged super toilet, but really, I think I'm starting to take things a little far. For example, Ben is out of town this weekend. Instead of relaxing and enjoying a few hours to myself, I accomplished the following things:

Finished thank you cards (praise whatever deity controls thankfulness-related endeavors!)

Went to lunch with a good friend

Bought a Christmas present for my mom (on behalf of my dad, which sucks, but it's all the costliness of buying a present with none of the glory)

Cleaned every room of my house, including the bathroom, which still smells chlorine-fresh 24 hours later

Vacuumed-- twice

Emptied the trash, which is no easy feat, because we have one of those metal horseshoe garbage cans with the impossible-to-remove bags

Did two loads of laundry

Wrapped remaining Christmas presents

Went to the grocery store, narrowly avoiding the blizzard that has settled over Cleveland (and which, annoyingly, prevented me from going to the Browns game today, which is what I was actually supposed to be doing instead of all this)

Answered all my e-mails

Made a CD (using a burner; I did not actually go to a studio and make a CD, although I think the world would really clamor for a copy of Kim Oja Sings Neil Diamond in the Voice of Tom Jones)

And now I'm writing my blog, which was the last thing on a long list of to-dos I had amassed for myself. There are still a few more things that need to be accomplished today, such as walking the dog and packing my lunch, but then I think I'll finally have accomplished my entire list.

I guess I've been trying to catch up ever since the wedding, but really ever since I got engaged, and with the latest flurry of to-do activity I am pleased to announce that I am finally, blissfully left without anything to do. The possibilities are endless-- do I work on a novel? Organize my file cabinet? Reread the entire Harry Potter series? Stage a Clue marathon?

All I know is, my chest is in for some major table duty tonight! Watch out, arteries, because the Pizza Hut breadsticks are back in the picture!

You're welcome

2007-12-12T21:23:00.000-05:00

Number of thank you cards written tonight: 26

Number of thank you cards sealed into envelopes with this error: 25

This! This is what I get for wanting to be cute and have Ben sign the cards in his own hand-writing! Twenty-five cards going out saying "Love, Kim & "!

People who will be receiving this limited edition fuck-up card include:

1. The minister

2. The DJ

3. My boss

4. My mom's boss

Oh, my God. Please kill me now. Because there is no effing way I'm opening those envelopes and fixing this. Not tonight. Probably not ever. Because I don't have enough sticky labels left to redo the addresses, and by God, I am not doing them by hand!

Maybe? People will think my fancy ampersand is, like, a fancy, fucked-up letter O? And that I just decided to sign all my cards "Kim O," like in a fun, familial way?

Okay. If you're one of the people who receives this particular card, I apologize. If you really want, I'll have Ben stop by your house and sign your card next time we're in town.

Love,

Kim O

My optometrist speaks*

2007-12-11T22:06:00.000-05:00

*This monologue was actually performed by my optometrist at my eye exam this afternoon. While I may not have gotten it down verbatim, there is no embellishment on my part.

"I like your sweater. I like green things. I have so much green-- green sweaters, green pants, green shoes-- wait, I take that back. No green shoes.

"What size shoes do you wear? Sevens? Oh. My. God. You must go to the Clarks store. At Beachwood Mall? The Clarks store? They have the greatest shoes there. Green shoes. With lambskin insides. They're the kind of shoes with the little foothole? That you just have to kind of dig your foot into? Well, I was wearing really loose socks when I tried them on, and the foothole pulled the socks too tight, and I was like, these shoes make my socks tight! Anyway, my mom bought some shoes there, but not the green ones, which I wanted, but they didn't come in my size-- that's why I asked you what size you were, so you could go buy them, because you seem like the kind of person that would like green shoes. So you must go buy them.

"And then? My mom and I went to Sephora-- at Beachwood Mall, you know? I love Sephora. I bought $150-- $156, I mean-- I bought $156 worth of stuff there. My husband is going to go nuts! But I was out of face cream-- I haven't bought a face cream since 2002-- and I was like, why not, right? But the one I wanted, it was a milk-based one, I think, I can't remember now, but it was the one I really wanted, anyway-- they were out of it, so I bought this one that has a little clay in it. Cambrian clay? Have you heard of this? Oh, my God. They make it into everything. They make the moisturizer, and they make this shampoo that is so good... I have an itchy head-- no dandruff, but itchy, right?-- and this stuff just worked wonders. And they make this clay toothpaste, with is naturally flavored with lemon and mint, and my gums bleed when I get my period? So I use the clay toothpaste and that doesn't happen.

"Anyway, some of that shit I'm going to wrap up and put in my own stocking and say Santa put it there, because what's my husband going to do, yell at me in front of his parents? Although it kind of sucks, because I already know what I'm getting for Christmas, mostly... my mom bought me some Clarks, but not the green Clarks, because they didn't have my size, and this shearling coat from Lands' End, but it's faux shearling, so it's washable, which is good, because I tend to wreck my coats. And then the stuff from Sephora, which is really from me, but I have to put it in my stocking so my husband can't get mad that I spent $156 on face shit from Sephora.

"But really, it's so unfair, because he does like nothing to his skin, and it's perfect. He washes it with bar soap and then puts Curel on it. Curel! Like the hand cream! On his face! If I use shit like that, it gives me hives. Or something. Some kind of itchy welt. I think that's hives, right? And I have such greasy skin. It's like, I could wipe my fingers on my face and grease a cookie pan.

"Okay, anyway. What did you come in for again?"

Rabid!

2007-12-05T19:00:00.000-05:00

Rabies has been popping up far too often for my taste lately. First, in the season premiere of my (sadly cut short by the writers' strike) all-time favorite show, The Office, in which Michael staged a fun run to raise rabies awareness; then in Rant, Chuck Palahniuk's newest book, in which the main character starts a rabies epidemic. But most disturbingly in a show that our TiVo thought we would enjoy, "The Girl Who Survived Rabies," the title of which is pretty much self-explanatory.

My previous encounters with rabies were pretty much limited to Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, in which the main character is forced to kill her beloved Tea Cake (who is a human, and not a lap dog, despite the connotations of his name) when he is infected with the disease. Rabies is something that happens to characters in 20th Century Literature Class novels, not to me!

But now, surrounded by this glut of rabies mania, I am forced to assume my fallback position, which is, if everyone is talking about it, then I probably have it. Which is why, at two o'clock today when I cut my finger on the bathroom paper towel dispenser, a danger sign flashed: RABIES!

I am completely and totally aware that paper towel dispensers are not alive, and thus incapable of carrying the rabies virus. But at that moment, I fully expected to begin foaming at the mouth and develop an irrational fear of water, and figured by the end of the night, Ben would have dispatched me neatly with a shotgun.

What is the lesson in this? Has my rabies awareness been raised too much? Should I stop trusting TiVo? Am I, maybe, a bit too paranoid? Are the terror segments on local news channels meant for me?

I don't know. But all this talk of tea cakes is making me hungry.

Please and Thank You

2007-12-03T21:10:00.000-05:00

The wedding has been over for almost two months, but I'm still struggling with getting my thank you cards out. Not that I'm not thankful-- really I'm nothing but thankful-- but the idea of writing 67 thank you cards makes my stomach clench up in the most unpleasant way.

There's also the added stress of being known as "the writer of the family," which is hilarious since I haven't written anything longer than a humor column on my insane urge to pee in like three years; but still, having this moniker comes with some expectations-- that you'll eventually write a best-seller and buy your dad a Ferrari; that Oprah may pick your book and yell excitedly about it in her weird baritone and millions of women will buy it and it will be made into a mini-series starring Kirstie Alley; and that you will write unique, one-of-a-kind thank you cards that accurately convey the true warmth and appreciation that one's contribution of a Deluxe Downy Ball Fabric Softener Gift Pack has afforded you.

So far, I have written ten of the aforementioned 67, but at least two need to be rewritten in light of recent developments (developments I could probably have avoided addressing in my already difficult thank you letters if I had gotten them done in October, as I had originally planned). And I am unsure when any more will be gotten to in light of the holiday season, which has T-boned me like a drunken Santa on a souped-up sleigh-- if I don't get my butt in gear, I'll have to add a sizeable amount of Christmas thank you cards to the pack.

To those of you whom I owe a thank you card, please rest assured that I am extremely thankful, not only for your gifts, but more importantly for your well-wishes and for daring to come to Cleveland in the first place (we have a lake!). The cards will be in the mail posthaste-- right after I make up my Christmas list, clean up my house, decorate for the holidays, get rid of the thirty pounds of wedding-related reading materials that I have acquired in the past year, attend a free showing of The Golden Compass, rearrange my Netflix list, make several batches of Chex Mix, and finish the three library books I started reading before Thanksgiving.

I promise.

I hate this.

2007-11-29T18:48:00.000-05:00

I've begun to realize that I say the phrase "I hate" far too much. I think I've always said it a little too often, using it to denote things that annoyed me, rather than things I truly hated. And that's still the way I use it, but I hear it coming from my mouth with alarming frequency, and, as an addendum to my New Year's Resolution to be less angry, would like to curb it.

So, in an effort to direct my attention away from the things that I hate, allow me to list some things that I love:

My husband
My family
My friends
My pets
The Office
The new Kanye West CD, which I know I gave only a middling grade to before, but with which I am now totally obsessed. As a side note, I would love to be as confident as Kanye, with lines like "I think it's time you should get behind me but my head's so big you can't sit behind me."
LeBron James
Ric Flair (yes, I still love Ric Flair)
Winter
Cake (the band, not the food-- I don't actually really like cake very much)
Bacon bits
Babies
David Sedaris
Sloppy Joes
Target
Mix CDs
Post Secret

And many more!

So there's still a lot of love to go around, even if I kind of hate the way I've been feeling lately...

You won't like me when I'm angry.

2007-11-28T18:40:00.001-05:00

When I was in graduate school (which is a phrase I very much enjoy saying, because it reminds me of a time when I was actually a writer, as opposed to an auditor, which is still fine, but not quite as impressive), I went to a counselor named Etta who diagnosed me with an anger problem, which fucking pissed me off.

Because at the time, I did not see myself as particularly angry. It would make me mad, yes, when I would go to visit Etta and tell her I was doing very well that particular week, and she would say, "Okay, great! Let's talk about when you were nine and you were ugly and no one liked you." So maybe she got a skewed view of the situation. But that was more of an Etta problem than an anger problem.

But now I'm starting to wonder if maybe I really sort of do have an anger problem, at least lately.

At first I was just taking it out on passing traffic. Normally, I am a very friendly driver, and don't get stressed much if I'm running late or the traffic flow is moving slowly. But lately, I find myself leaning forward in my seat, kept in place only by my strap, ready to leap through my windshield and throttle those people who do not feel it necessary to abide by the speed limit, or who turn without their signals on. I also get angry at cute license plates and cars with ribbon magnets on them, because I feel if they really cared about their particular causes, they would man up and put a sticker on their car, rather than a removable magnet.

I've also become more of an angry person at work-- that person that you don't really want to go near, because they might launch into a diatribe about how it might be wise to give employees more than four days' notice that they're going to change the health insurance.

And Ashley got an earful of something I was angry about the other day-- I don't remember what it was, but I was pretty super pissed.

So one of my New Years' Resolutions this year (and I do make them early, in order to get used to the idea of sticking to them) is to become less of an angry person. Since I don't know how I got angry in the first place, this might be sort of difficult, but I'm definitely going to try, because I don't particularly enjoy it, and it certainly doesn't make me the best party guest for the holidays.

Perhaps I should call Etta and find out what she thinks about it. But she'd probably just refer me to her feeling wheel and then tell me to buy myself something nice, which generally seemed to be her approach to mental healing.

2007-11-20T21:51:00.000-05:00

See this cat? She shat in three separate places in my car on the way to my parents' house tonight. Now my nose if full of cat crap smell, and my head hurts, and my hands are all itchy from upholstery cleaner.

I must find something more pleasant to be thankful for.

Tuffy love

2007-11-19T21:55:00.000-05:00

I am not generally the kind of person who mopes about being "old"-- in fact, I find this behavior irksome in anyone under the age of 67, which is the age I have officially deemed as being the start of actual oldness. But I went to visit my college campus yesterday with my friends Denise and Melinda, and if anything can make you feel old, it's that.

Because it really still feels like I just left college. I still know all the words to the fight song and the alma mater and everything (which I realize is actually more of an old person thing to do, considering a young, cooler person than myself would have forgotten the words to those songs immediately, or, more likely, would never have learned them in the first place). I even remember the combination to my mailbox (so watch your back, box 678).

But I found myself, while checking out the campus, noting with disapproval all the changes that had been made. How dare they build a new gym? The old gym was perfectly fine, except for that one part over the pool that was caving in a little. And as Melinda pointed out, the new education building looks a little Hogwarts-y, which again, I do not condone.

At least my old building, the Arts and Humanities building, remains blockily stolid and antiseptic (the perfect setting for all creative writing workshops!). Of course, I didn't go inside, because my student ID is long gone, and something tells me they might not honor one that was issued in the previous millennium, so the whole building might be reconfigured in there, with rocket jet packs on the chairs and walls made of spun sugar candy.

All in all, even with the weird unsettled feeling of maybe not quite belonging as much as I once did, it was a highly satisfactory trip to good old Ashland University (up on the hill above the town/seen from miles around). And whenever I start to feel bad about my college days receding in the mirror behind me, I can at least console myself with the fact that I am way hotter now.

Dig my tiara and creepy Geisha-esque too-light foundation, yall!

This week in reviews

2007-11-17T15:15:00.000-05:00

For some reason, perhaps pity, or perhaps just to shut my whining maw, the fates visited me with loads of free awesomeness-- a friend from work gave me tickets to an advance preview of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, and I was able to find both Britney Spears' Blackout AND Kanye West's Graduation at the award-winning Euclid Public Library (gooooo, library!). And so, in an effort to pay it forward, I will provide you all with my reviews of each, something I know you've been waiting for, because no one buys a Britney Spears album without checking with me first.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium: This movie got a scathingly horrible review from Entertainment Weekly, which is pretty much the bible by which I live my daily life, but we went anyway, because it was free, and because my arm was sore from Wii-overuse and I needed a break. But actually, I really, really enjoyed this movie a lot-- I thought it was funny, and smart, and it made me cry, which was super embarassing because the aforementioned friend from work is super grossed out by human emotion. I would very much recommend this movie, and not just because I have a weird Arrested Development crush on Jason Bateman (I love your cutie nose freckles, Teen Wolf Too!).

Thumbs down, however, to the crazy woman in the row in front of us who, after buying one of those industrial-sized tubs of popcorn that were designed solely in the off-chance that an actual elephant decided to spend $8.50 to watch In the Valley of Elah, dumped the entire thing into a plastic grocery bag and sent her five-year-old son out to the lobby to get it refilled (because apparently, if you have the tenacity to plow through one of those tubs, they reward you by giving you another tub). She repeated this action no less than three times, all the time smugly and loudly proclaiming how she slipped popcorn's stranglehold on the US economy. She also passed out ten cans of soda to the busload of children she had brought (which I am totally baffled by, because upon entrance to the advance screening, my purse was searched AND I had to walk through a metal detector), and produced a bag of candy as large as Brazil. Way to go, Lady Cheapington! You brought the movie theater snack industry to its knees.

Blackout: Conversely, Blackout got pretty good reviews, which is really the only reason I picked it up, and not because I still secretly enjoy listening to "Hit Me Baby One More Time" and pretending to slam my locker in a coy, come-hither fashion. However, I found this album shockingly unlistenable-- the last third of it might be totally awesome, but I will never know, as I had to turn it off somewhere in the middle of a song called "Get Naked (I Got a Plan)."

Graduation: I ain't saying it's a bad stinker/I'm just saying it's no "Golddigger." (Yes! I am an awesome rapper. Someone bring me some Louis Vuitton clothes now.) My favorite song on it so far is "Can't Tell Me Nothing," but "Stronger" is also fun. I was a bit perplexed by "Drunk and Hot Girls," but see an awesome opportunity for a collabo between he and Spears on "Drunk and Hot Girls Get Naked (I Got a Plan)."

Birdman Speaks

2007-11-13T22:05:00.000-05:00

I hope you enjoy this footage of the Birdman, the super fanscot of the Philadelphia Eagles. Please note that I know this guy personally, and that makes me super mega awesome.

Kiim and Benjamiin get a Wii

2007-11-08T18:34:00.000-05:00

In what will likely prove to be the stupidest idea ever in terms of ever getting our thank you notes out, Ben and I purchased a Nintendo Wii last night, and I must say, without qualifiers, that it is the coolest video game system ever. So far, I have defeated Ben at Wii Baseball, Wii Golf, Wii Bowling and Wii Shooting Range, thus proving once and for all that, at least on some level, I am good at sports.

The only major side effect has been that my Wii arm is very sore, and tends to pulse with muscle tics. This, after only one night of play, is slightly alarming. Alhtough I must admit that we repeatedly ignored the Wii's warnings that we should probably take a break and relax for a minute (That Wii, always thinking of our well-being!).

I will attempt not to let the Wii curtail my blogging habits, but it's really hard, knowing that every second that passes is a second that I am not working on my Wii backhand for Wii tennis, or further improving me Wii avatar, which looks a lot like me, only with this weird Rastafarian haircut, as apparently the Wii creators do not believe in offering curly hair as a hairstyle option.

WIBD?

2007-11-06T21:25:00.000-05:00

Increasingly, I find myself asking the question, "What is Britney Spears doing right now?" I have kind of become obsessed with this-- I think, perhaps, because at work we are forced to watch Fox News during our lunch hour, and Fox News appears to be about 80% dedicated to the comings and goings of Ms. Spears. I generally know what she is wearing each day, what she looks like when she's sobbing uncontrollably, how she changes her hats to fit her moods, and what shapes the acne on her face is making from one day to the next.

But, I wonder, what is Britney doing during the hours of her day that are not covered by Fox News (which, weirdly, seems to have inked a deal with TMZ.com, which seems sort of odd for a news channel whose only other extensive coverage appears to be on Why the President Is Doing a Super Awesome Job!).

I mean, think about it-- it's 9:29 p.m. here in Cleveland right now, and I am wearing a big gray sweater and typing on my blog. That means it is 6:29 p.m. where Britney is (presumably) right now-- and what is she doing? Right now? Is she eating? Is she in some sort of yoga class? Right this minute, is she scratching her ass?

This concept can also be applied to pretty much anyone-- somewhere out in the world right now, the Pope is doing something. My mom is doing something. It's actually kind of mind-boggling, if you think about it-- all around the world, people that you know in real life and in TMZ life are doing things that you're not a part of, that you can only conjecture about.

This is, really, a concept that sometimes tends to overload my synapses, which is why I choose to focus more on the Britney situation.

So, if you had to hazard a guess, what would you think Britney is doing right now? My guess: buying a new hat. With a lollipop in her mouth. Holding a small dog. Without her children.

I'm willing to bet I'm right.

2007-11-05T19:58:00.001-05:00

Okay, so clearly I haven't exactly done anything to make this writing group happen yet. I think I was hoping that I would wake up one day and be some sort of writing group starting guru, or that woodland creatures would have just set the whole thing up for me, so I could just log on and look like a hero. Lest I appear to be an Indian-giver of writing group promises, I will get this thing up and running. I just need to overcome some general malaise, which mainly seems to stem from the fact that, now that the wedding is over, I have so much free time that I literally don't know what to do with it, so I do absolutely nothing.

This is not strictly true; Ben was out of town this weekend, so on my first weekend of alone time since long before the wedding, I accomplished the following things:

1. Bought speakers for my laptop, whose own internal speakers had died long ago.

2. Listened to the shitty music I have on my laptop through my new speakers (for instance, right this very second I am listening to the "Strongbad Techno" song from Homestar Runner, and I just got done listening to "P.I.M.P." Oh, and Genesis' "No Son of Mine" just came on, so I'm going to have to skip it so that I don't fall to the ground in a gelatinous goo of total gaywadness).

3. Packed away my summer clothes, so my closet is now capri-free.

4. Thought about writing thank you cards, a little.

5. Watched season 7 of The Simpsons, arguably among the best of the seasons. Actually, I like season 7 of the season better than I like the actual, real-life season of spring. So that's saying a lot.

6. Pretended like I was going to work on my craptastic novel that I've been working on since high school, but didn't fool anyone, so went and watched reruns of I Love New York II.

7. Made the best Chex Mix, like, fucking, ever.

Oh, and, Becki's boyfriend Joe, who just happens to be the Philadelphia Eagles Birdman, was in a promo spot during the third quarter of the Eagles game yesterday, so I watched that about seventeen times. God, I wish he had been at the wedding, so he could have done that squawk.

(Note: I forgot to skip "No Son of Mine," and I just noticed it's still playing. Why do I have this? Of all the Genesis songs I could have, why this one? I wonder if I have that one about the homeless people that was on this same album. God, I was obsessed with this album when I was in the fifth grade. That's why I grew up to be such a lameass.)

So this week, Ben and I are rededicating ourselves to doing post-wedding wrap-up stuff (which is not nearly as much fun as pre-wedding stuff, because I know there's not going to be a big party after I finally buy the stamps for the as-yet-unwritten thank you cards), and then maybe I'll be ready to start the writing group. Those of you who expressed interest, do not despair! I promise it is just over the horizon.

Although it appears I'm going to have to go through and delete some of my mp3s first.

The time is (almost) now

2007-10-29T21:16:00.000-04:00

Just in the last couple weeks, I've been feeling compelled to start writing again. Not just blogging writing (becaue as I've proven, my blogging is a bit sub-par of late), but actual writing writing.

This is a big deal-- I know a lot of you out there left the MFA program and your day to day life changed very little. I, on the other hand, left school and immediately proceeded to not write anything for the last three and a half years. Essentially, I figured, I had written a (very short) book, and was now entitled to list my name as "Kim Shable, MFA" on my TV Guide subscription.

I think I was just burned out-- kind of the way a greyhound doesn't really feel the need to run after a few years chasing the rabbit. And I also met a sexy dude, and moved into his house, and so writing took a back burner to being a sexy beast.

But just lately, I've been thinking, "maybe I could write something." I don't even know for sure if I could anymore-- I might have too much insurance knowledge in my head right now to make room for anything made up.

So I was wondering-- if I were to start some sort of informal writing group, would anyone be interested in allying themselves to it? I might have to start slow, with prompts and word limits and the whole deal, so I can ease back into it (if I try to write a novel right now, my brain might get tired and give up and go watch reruns of Just Shoot Me).

Any interest? If not, no big. I can continue with my unchecked TV viewing alllll night.

Power of the Pen

2007-10-24T19:29:00.000-04:00

If you could, please take a moment to wish my fabulous cousin Katie good luck on her Power of the Pen try-outs tomorrow-- I will attempt to hide my jealousy that I am no longer the best writer in the family!

For those of you who aren't from 'round these parts (although Power of the Pen might be a national thing? But I don't know, because I got my ass kicked at the state level, so I didn't really progress much beyond that), Power of the Pen is a writing competition open to seventh and eighth graders, in which the writers have a limited amount of time to write a short piece based on a prompt given at the start of the session.

My own Power of the Pen story is a tragic one-- in seventh grade, I was felled the evening before the local round of competition by a vicious stomach flu that left me unable to compete. On a side note, that same night I ate a homemade pizza, and, convinced that it had poisoned me and robbed me of my one chance to finally kick ass at a (admittedly nerdily academic) team "sport," I swore off pizza for the next four years.

In the eighth grade I made it to the aforementioned state level, only to be positively crushed, leaving me embittered. Oh, I still wrote-- most famously, I went on to complete the infamous John Boston novel, quite possibly The Worst Novel Ever Written By Anyone, Ever-- but it wasn't really until college that my urge to use writing as a form of ass-kicking-ness returned.

Based on the story that Katie read me tonight, though, I have no doubts that, if such a thing exists, she will make it to the nationals. And I will ride on her coat tails to glory!

Good luck, Katie!

2007-10-23T19:10:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to come up with something interesting to blog about for the past few days-- I promised that, upon my return, I would be a blogging machine, right? But thus far, nothing really of note has occurred. I did get a really bitchin' haircut (only one day after returning from my honeymoon, which prompted my boss to announce that "pretty soon, I would be going on an All-McDonald's Diet and going to sleep in flannel pajamas with a chastity belt underneath," because apparently cutting one's hair is tantamount to Giving Up Entirely), but hesitate to comment on it further until I can get a decent picture of it to share with you.

But other than the new 'do, there just hasn't been much happening. Or maybe there has, but because the wedding was such a gigantic event, it makes all other events in my life seem insanely small and lame? Possibly.

Either way, I'm beginning to worry that I have become boring. What's worse, I fear that I may have been boring for some time now, but had the crutch of Discussing the Wedding to fall back on.

I guess it's kind of like when you go on an amazing vacation, and take tons of pictures, but as soon as you return and people start asking you about the trip, you can't think of anything to say, other than, "it was really, really fun." Also: "We went putt-putt golfing," because you always go putt-putt golfing on vacation. We would have gone in Mexico, but such a thing did not seem to exist there. Which is silly, since the whole thing could have been Mayan-themed, which would have been awesome.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get my Person of Interest Mojo back shortly. Actually, I just thought of something way better to blog about than what I just wrote, but I think I'll save it for tomorrow-- I can't blow all my interestingness at once.

Will post more as soon as...

2007-10-22T22:43:00.000-04:00

1. Office where computer is kept is reverted back to its normal state, away from its current state of Giant Messy Wedding Present Holding Pen

2. I get tired of my new shredder, or run out of things to shred

3. I work up the nerve to call my very nice but still somewhat intimidating photographer to find out how, exactly, we go about building our album

4. I find a way to re-enter society as Kim Oja, Married Girl, rather than Kim Shable, wedding-obsessed engaged girl who can talk about nothing other than her wedding

Until then, please enjoy this picture of Mexico, and please, don't be shy about goading me into posting, as I will likely recline in my living room under my souvenir Mexican blanket watching reruns of "The First 48" until the end of time.

PS: This picture was taken at Xel-Ha, which is where they filmed the movie Blue Lagoon, which means that I have gone swimming in the same water as Brooke Shields. I find that sort of gross.