Friday, March 02, 2007

Hello? Is this thing on?

Hello, Internets! Remember me? Frankly I am not sure what is going on with me, but for some reason, I just decided to take a little impromptu hiatus from writing or reading blogs. Have you ever done that? If so, when you decided to re-emerge, did you actually read all the things you missed while you were gone? This is my dilemma, because after ignoring Bloglines for several days, it now says I have 220 unread posts waiting for me. 220! Poppy alone has published 40 of those. 40! Good lord, woman; take a break, I say. Anyway, so this is my dilemma: to read all or not to read all. I suppose if this is my biggest concern for the day, my life is going OK.

I surely don't fancy myself any sort of Internet celebrity, so perhaps many of you didn't even notice that I was neither posting to my own blog nor reading and commenting on yours. If you did, in fact, notice, however, and were even maybe considering sending out a search party, then I feel I owe you some explanation for my absence. Since it is Friday, my explanation will be in five-point form and serve as my Friday Five for the week.

Five possible answers for where I've been lately:

  1. I was kidnapped by one of the two dates I had this week, and had to use all of the escape and survival skills I've gleaned from five summers of Girl Scout camp and 32 years of television viewing to rescue myself from the depths of this horrible man's basement, where I was chained to a radiator ala Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci and guarded by a surprisingly ferocious toy poodle for a full five days and nights.

  2. I won the lottery, quit my job, and took off for Costa Rica for a week, where I had a lovely and exciting fling with Manuel the windsurfing instructor, until his mother discovered us sipping drinks in a cabana and reminded him it was time for school. To this I say only that I swear he looked at least 22, but obviously I should have asked. (Perhaps I was just taking some tips from -R- and testing out the benefits of dating a younger man.)

  3. I ran into Sarah Vowell on Hennepin Avenue after the This American Life show on Wednesday night and invited her to join me for a drink at nearby MacKenzie's pub. The two of us became instant best friends, and we thereafter took off on a fun and educational road trip together, touring all of the Puritan tourist attractions in New England.

  4. I was out shoveling some of the 127 inches of snow that Minneapolis has received this week when a City snowplow made one of its passes through my neighborhood and buried me under the massive spray of snow left in its wake. After burrowing for days, I have only recently dug my way out. Incidentally, Charles Schultz was wrong: you can survive by sucking the juice from a wet mitten. It's not pleasant, but it'll get you through.

  5. What, you didn't believe that last one either? Well how about that I suffered a heart attack while shoveling those 127 inches of snow and have been recovering in a hospital bed with no Internet access ever since?

No? You don't believe any of those? Well OK; you're right. I am, in fact, just lazy, and really have no good excuse for where I've been. Here are a few things I have done in the past week, however. No lies at all this time, OK?

  • Went on two mostly fine dates with two seemingly perfectly nice men. It's remotely possible I may even actually go out with one of them again, but just because that is a rarity does not mean it's time to start checking the Target gift registry for me. All it means is that they were mostly normal dates, which means I've got no particularly amusing or aggravating stories to share from either of them.

  • Re-wore an old bridesmaid dress, complete with the elbow-length gloves and Payless Dyeables shoes that were part of the original cornflower blue crepe-and-satin dream of an outfit six years ago. No, I didn't go to prom with my new teenaged boyfriend (though, again, -R- does make some fine points on that). I wore this ensemble to a fancy-dress Oscars party hosted by my friend Amy. A fine time was had by all. Or, a fine time was had by the six or seven people who actually made it. Damn Blizzard 1.0 did a bit of thwarting of those plans.

  • Actually WON the "most guesses correct" prize at the aforementioned Oscars party (despite having not seen half the movies on the ballot). The prize for this title was a lovely miniature trophy... a trophy that came without a label but that I'm considering modifying slightly to benefit a blog-friend who I think needs this trophy more than I do. Liz, I do not know where you live, so I cannot send this award to you, but I suggest you print out this artist's rendering and post it somewhere prominent as a reminder that 2007 is your year!

    Year of Liz!

  • Spent several hours shoveling my way out of Blizzard 1.0 (which arrived last Saturday) and Blizzard 2.0 (which is still on its last legs now, as I type). I was actually just planning to head outside in a few minutes to shovel the latest six or seven inches that have fallen (I am playing hooky from work due to the snow and therefore have all day to get that done), but I just looked out my window and saw that it is snowing yet again. Again! My street already looks like this; haven't we had enough?

    Snow... LOTS of snow.


And that about wraps up the highlights and lowlights of my week. I hope all of you are well and none of you are buried under 127 inches of snow nor chained to a radiator nor being arrested for statutory rape. Now if you'll excuse me, I have 220 unread blog posts to get through and eight more inches of snow to shovel from my walk. Happy Friday!

12 comments:

Unknown said...

Wearing a bridemaid outfit from six years ago! That is impressive enough that you don't need and other excuses.

Poppy said...

Congratulations on the award!

I have taken a hiatus. I did not go back and read every post on all blogs when I returned. It only resulted in me being very lost on one blog (Heather got divorced and began dating Darren got together while I was on break) and I ended up losing touch with a couple bloggers. But, my break was off and on for four months. (Did you notice? :)

Please don't read my 40 posts. I'll tell you right now the only one I think is worth checking out, because I'm so proud of it, is my handwriting post. And if you're into robot figurines and cupcakes then I also recommend this one. And, maybe submit your story on my typing post?

I guess that's it. :)

Poppy said...

(Please omit "got together" from above. Then the sentence makes sense. Sorry, I obviously edited the words after I wrote them, and didn't clean up after.)

Anniina said...

Congrats on your trophy, and welcome back (^_^)/

lizgwiz said...

Of course we noticed you were gone! I was becoming concerned that you HAD been kidnapped by one of your dates, and would have called the police/FBI, except I didn't think they'd take me too seriously if I called the suspect "Index Card Guy" and insisted that your last name was "Says."

A trophy! How delightful for us both. I'd give you my address if you actually wanted to send it, but I am also happy to print out the picture and display it prominently. ;)

If you and Sarah Vowell DO become best friends and go road-tripping, you must promise to stop by Oklahoma and say hello. She's from here--she'll know the way.

-R- said...

Woo hoo for some younger man action!

We just finished shoveling our driveway. H shoveled it yesterday too. But in our case, "shoveled" means "used the South American freedom fighter/snowblower," which I am sooo glad we have.

If you meet Sarah Vowell and become friends with her, I will be pissed if you don't call and invite me to come hang out! I bet she would be a great rollerskater.

Stefanie said...

BK--Um, OK, if you say so... Thanks!

Poppy--I did, in fact, notice that you hadn't stopped by my blog in a while, but considering you have about 742 blogs in your "Blogs you read" list, I tried not to take it too personally. ;-) I will take your advice and read those posts in particular when I start making my way through the list.

Anniina--Thanks!

Liz--Ha. You're right; those sketchy and incomplete details likely wouldn't prompt too serious a police search. And if you email me your address I will totally send you a trophy. :-)

R--Do you guys actually refer to your snowblower by that name routinely amongst yourselves, or do you just pull out that reference on the blogs? Either way, I love that I started that. :-) I still say I can totally see a face in that picture. Oh, and if I ever do become friends with Sarah Vowell, I am definitely asking her to go roller-skating. And I will surely invite you along.

don't call me MA'AM said...

I totally thought you had taken -r- up on the young guy advice, and then had run off with him to some place where your love wouldn't be illegal. Not sure where that would be... ;-)

On a very sad note, I DO know someone who died after snowblowing... he was older, but in such good health that it was a complete shock.

Sorry to leave on such a bummer note.

Noelle said...

How is anyone supposed to blog in this weather? Hands... frozen... can't... type... words...

metalia said...

Ooh, you're back; yay!

I adore the fancy, dress-up Oscar party thing...I went to one of those once many years ago and it was awesome; glad you had fun, AND won a prize. ;)

Stefanie said...

DCMM--Yikes; that IS a bummer story. Glad my heart handled the snow-shoveling this time.

Noelle--Excellent point. Thanks.

Metalia--I loved the party idea, too. I'd thought about hosting one of those myself several times and never actually went through with it, so I'm glad someone I know finally did!

steve said...

Hey! I was away from blog (AFB) for almost the exact same time period you were. I'm just now catching up on old posts - 289 unread!

You're big in Ohio, somehow I'm big in Finland. No clue how that happened.

I'm tired of the snow. Enough already.