Heart of Darkness

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.

What you missed

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.