Much Ado About Matts

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.)

Swingers

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

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

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

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

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

What's going on

Okay, so I know I haven't been the best blogger lately (although traffic on my site is way up, which I find both exciting and sort of creepy), but since it's Sunday, and I'm home alone and sitting on top of the washing machine, as is my custom, I thought I'd redeem myself with a short recount of my latest activities (or non-activities, as the case may be).

1. Remember a few weeks ago, when I was called for jury duty? And how I was totally panicked about having to drive downtown, and made Ben do like three trial runs with me to the courthouse, and became convinced that I was going to be gunned down by a rogue defendant, like I saw in this one episode of "American Justice"? And wept openly over it at work, because I was so freaked out that I would get called for some sort of OJ case, and be sequestered for months and months, and then everyone would expect me to write a book about it, only I was afraid the book would be totally boring and no one would buy it?

Anyway, if you can forget all that, I would appreciate it, because I never got summoned. I called the jury hotline today, and was thanked by a recording for completing my jury service. And I have to admit, I was totally bummed. Mainly because I had worked myself into such a retarded frenzy over it for no apparent reason, but then also because that meant that I myself would never actually get to appear on "American Justice," which (when not documenting cases of gunned down jurors) often features them as key performers.

2. On Friday, our dog pooped herself. This was not acceptable, as all of our furniture and carpets are white or beige. (Not that it would have been acceptable had the furniture all been brown, but I admit, it might have eased my worry a little.) Nine pre-wetted paper towels and a day-long confinement to the basement later, Che is now socially acceptable again, only now she has pronounced dingleberries, which makes me wonder if the people in the neighborhood think I'm a bad dog mom when we're out on walks.

3. Fed up with my horribly librarianish wardrobe, I went on a shopping spree and am now very fashionably dressed (except right now, with my unshaven legs and "What Up, Dog?" t-shirt, but I feel that I can afford to be poorly dressed in my own basement). My favorite purchase-- a pair of footless lime green tights, which I don't actually think I'll ever be able to bring myself to wear in public, but which are really fun to run around the house in.

4. Ben and I met with the florist and picked out our wedding flowers, which are totally awesome (my bouquet will have wheat in it!). I never thought I would be the kind of person who would care at all about flowers of any kind (other than a heartfelt hatred of carnations, especially in unnatural colors), but apparently, I do. Next weekend, we're meeting with our minister for our first marital counseling session, which will most likely reveal that I am tired of walking the dog all the time, Ben is tired of doing the dishes, and neither of us really wanted to go to premarital counseling in the first place.

So as you can see, I have been very, very busy

• worrying needlessly about things that didn't happen
• chasing the dog with scissors to remove the offending dingleberry
• running around in footless tights
• being wedding-y

I hope you will forgive my lapse of blog activity, and I do hereby solemnly swear to be a better blogger. Keep in mind that I could have posted dinglebery pictures, but I didn't, because I have that kind of restraint.

Behold my sword and scales

About a week ago, I received a very angry letter from the government informing me that I was a wanton hussy who had refused to fill out my jury selection questionnaire and that if I did not do so within ten days of receipt of said questionnaire, Scooter Libby would come to my house himself and beat the crap out of me.

This was highly upsetting to me, as I had not received any of the supposed previous attempts to get me to fill out this questionnaire because the government had my wrong address (which is so weird, since they knew exactly where to mail my income tax forms), and even this one was late-- the deadline for filling out the forms pre-ass-kicking had already passed.

So, like the good citizen I am, I filled them out immediately and returned them.

And was almost instantaneously called for jury duty, about eight days later.

I mean, I knew filling out the forms might meant they might want me to be on a jury someday. I didn't realize it meant before the hiatus of The Office was even over.

After overcoming my initial shock-- I don't know if any of you have ever been called for jury duty, but just getting the letter made me feel like I had dome something really wrong, like this was all an elaborate trick to get me to go down there so they could bust me on some trumped up littering charges-- I am now actually quite excited about doing my civic duty and serving on a jury. I am also excited about the $40/day I could potentially earn as a juror, which I plan on putting toward a sweet new bike... of justice.

Seriously, though, I honestly am kind of excited about it now. Which means that my jury pool will most likely not be chosen, and I'll never get the chance to actually be a part of a jury. Which is too bad, because Ben and I watch a lot of American Justice, so I would probably be quite the worthy candidate.

Dancing With the Pundits

Ben is an election junkie, and, having decided that finding out if the democrats will seize control is more important than the Cavs game, I am now stuck watching the talking heads on CNN. Which is when I noticed something of great interest-- in the background, behind the Heads' heads, is a big screen with four smaller screens in it, and the one on the lower left is playing-- I shit you not-- Dancing With the Stars. I know this, because as we were flipping to a local channel to see how our issues were fairing (note: local channels DO NOT CARE AT ALL how the issues are fairing, it turns out) I saw Mario Lopez dancing with his shiny hoochie woman, and when we flipped back to CNN, I saw Mario Lopez again, this time with his arm around the shiny hoochie.

This is why America is the greatest country on earth.