You can do it. We can help... you load it into your car, at least.

OK, this just in, in case you weren't aware. It is now a mere FIVE DAYS until Christmas. I'm not exactly sure how that happened, but I remain convinced that my house is riddled with worm holes or some such thing. Frequent stumbles into time warps are the only explanation for what on earth happened to large chunks of 2009. On a related note, it seems the Internet does not stop just because I'm too busy working, making Christmas treats, or obsessing about bathroom tile. No, I just clicked over to Bloglines for the first time in over a week, and the rest of you have still been busy writing away... It reminds me of that episode of Growing Pains where Mike stayed home from school for a day and had a really obvious epiphany that the programming on television goes on even when he turns the set off, and the day at school went on as normal even though he was not there. It's an obscure reference, I realize, but the Internet taught me that I'm not the only one who thinks of Tom Hanks as Elyse Keaton's alcoholic brother every time I use vanilla extract, so you never know, I guess. Incidentally, I also think of Mike Seaver seeing his dead relative jogging through the kitchen in the middle of the night every time I need to buy buttermilk. (Anyone? No? Moving on then.) My point is I will catch up eventually. I have very little planned socially in the week following Christmas, so I suspect it will be me cozied up with the Internet for at least a few nights there. See you then.

So. What have I been up to lately? Well, I successfully finished on time all but two of the hand-made gifts I'd planned for friends this Christmas. Here are three of them, modeled by their lovely recipients last night.



That picture was taken at my pal Lisa's Christmas party, for which she promised prizes in various holiday spirit categories, much like the Ugly Sweater parties that have become so popular in recent years. Lisa added a similar challenge to the Evite for her last Christmas party, in 2007, and several attendees stepped up to the plate. If you're the sort of person who somehow manages to remember everything I write, perhaps that rings a bell. If not, again, here is the photographic evidence from that event. Me in a ridiculous outfit? Check. But alone in the ridiculousness? Hardly.



(I hate that picture of myself, by the way. Unfortunately, it's the only one I have that serves the purpose at hand.) 

This year, however? This year I was THE ONLY ONE TO PARTICIPATE. Apparently in two short years my friends have all gotten too busy or dignified for such nonsense. People, I was just following instructions. The invitation called for holiday flair, and I brought it. I planned ahead, even. I went to freaking eBay, and I bought these silly, festive tights from a shop that I'm pretty sure deals mostly in stripper wear and "I'm a sexy [insert any occupation or person-noun here]" supplies. I bought those tights, and I wore this ridiculous outfit, like I was bound directly for my part-time job at Santa's photo booth at the mall.



I wore that outfit, and I went to the party, and I was THE ONLY ONE not in normal Saturday night gathering attire. (No, red and white striped tights do not fall under the category of "Normal Saturday Night Gathering Attire" for me. Thanks for wondering, though.) It was not unlike the year in college when my friend Sarah had a Halloween party on November 1. It was a mere DAY after Halloween, which was presumably a very logical night for a Halloween party, given that it was a Friday, and Halloween itself did not fall on a weekend. And yet, when we went out to the bars, all the usual Friday night bar-goers in their usual Friday night outfits looked at us as confused and appalled as if we had walked in wearing Halloween costumes in the middle of May. I am prone to finding myself unknowingly inappropriately dressed and out of place, it seems. Perhaps that explains a lot. On the upside, obviously I won a prize last night, given that the competition was so slim. I now have two pretty new bottles of lovely-smelling hand soap to eventually use in my soon-to-be lovely remodeled bathroom. So there is that, anyway.

Speaking of my bathroom, I bought tile today! Lots of tile. So much tile that the helpful young man loading it into my car asked, "How far are you driving with this? I'm thinking maybe you should make two trips." It turns out it's not enough to know confidently that everything you're piling onto the wheeled flatbed cart will easily fit in your compact Saturn SL2. Apparently one needs to consider the total weight of what you're piling on the flatbed cart as well. And apparently a small bathroom's worth of wall and floor tile weighs significantly more than I anticipated, because as we loaded it up, my car was riding lower than if I'd had Gilbert Grape's mother and two clones of her riding in all my passenger seats. Live and learn. Load capacity matters. Who knew? (Well, most of you, I presume.)

Incidentally, can I just say, since I fear I mention companies by name only when I have an angry bone to pick with them (I'm looking at YOU, TCF Bank; you're still ON NOTICE, as our friend Stephen Colbert would say!!) that in my humble experience, the orange-aproned personnel at Home Depot have been a bit unfairly maligned? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the Home Depot off Johnson in Minneapolis is a rare bastion of friendliness in an otherwise cold, cruel, orange-aproned world. Still. I have never gone there and not had at least two employees ask me, in a strangely sincere and earnest tone, if there was anything they could help me figure out or find. True, half the time it is a male employee who is hovering precariously on the delicate line between congenial customer service and creepy, inappropriate and awkward flirting. But today it was a 20-something woman who went above and beyond what I would ever expect an orange-aproned employee to do for me. She was the one who crawled into the cave of scaffolding to retrieve 13 packages of white ceramic subway tile for me, and she was the one to whom I first asked, "Do you think this is too much to try to haul in my car?" And instead of giving me a blank look that said, "Why are you asking me that? My job is to sell you the tile; how you get it home is your business," she replied, "What kind of car do you have? I could go Google the load capacity to find out..." Unfortunately, for once Google wasn't all-knowing, and the call she put out on her walkie-talkie ("Does anyone know the load capacity of a Saturn sedan?") didn't yield any solid answers either, and our seemingly sound math of "That's probably not more than 800 pounds of tile, and surely you could cart around four 200-pound humans without any worries" didn't exactly pan out, so I ended up leaving half my tile at the service counter and making a second trip to pick it up. But still! Helpful employees! At Home Depot! In this day and age! You may say it's a Christmas miracle, but I'm telling you, strangely it's somehow par for the course for me.

I would like to think that pleasant experiences like this bode well for the overall spirit of this project and serve as a sign that all will go fast and smooth, according to plan. I am sticking my fingers in my ears and saying "La-la-la, I can't hear you!" every time anyone tells me about their bathroom remodeling nightmares, because I am already dreading the period during which I'll be bathroom-less and I am possibly in denial, truly hoping that period will last for no longer than a week. The end result will be worth the inconvenience, and perhaps living like a resident of a third-world country will be a valuable, humbling experience for me. The baby Jesus didn't have a shower either, did he, but did that stop him from carrying out his duties as Son of Man? It's been a while since Catholic school, but I'm gonna say no.

Three quick things

1. I finally got my car's air conditioner fixed... and immediately thereafter, the temperature dropped and has stayed below 72 degrees since. To everyone in the Twin Cities who was tired of that heat wave, you're welcome.
   
   
2. I got a hundred bucks knocked off that AC repair bill pretty much just by asking if they could do better than their seemingly unreasonable labor rate. Who knew I was a master negotiator? Not me! I already bragged about this on Facebook, but I am proud enough that I feel the need to mention it again anyway.
   
   And finally,
   
   
3. I have a post up at Allie's Answers today. You should go read it.
   

That is all. Carry on. Happy long weekend, if you've got one coming. (My condolences to you if you don't.)

If I could just get a paid endorsement from NBC for this post, maybe I could afford even MORE shoes!

At the risk of being that girl who quotes lines from a TV show even when that TV show has been off the air for nearly half a decade, I have a Friends reference for you. Oh, who am I kidding? I am totally that girl. And I maintain that there is an appropriate Friends reference for nearly every situation in life, so I'm not even going to feel lame about this.

Anyway, do you remember the episode where Phoebe decided to play the field and date two men at once? One was a fireman whom she liked because he was strong and burly, and the other was a school teacher who was all sensitive and gentle. And she couldn't decide between the two of them, particularly because they both just kept getting better and better (the fireman actually wrote poetry, and the teacher... oh, I don't remember anymore). But then eventually, the two guys found out about each other and it all blew up in her face?

I am totally just like Phoebe right now. Well, except that the two men in question actually do the same thing for a living (and neither is a fireman or a teacher). Oh, and that neither one is particularly buff and burly nor endearingly sensitive and arty. And neither really has me at all excited enough to rave about him, so I'm more in "trying to keep an open mind and not run away immediately like I usually do" mode than "how long can I pull this off?" mode. Also, neither has found out about the other yet, and I'm not sure either one would even particularly care (or have any right to care) if they did.

So actually I guess I'm nothing like Phoebe at all, save for the fact that I am dating two men and I don't know how long I can (or want to) keep doing so. Television is obviously JUST LIKE REAL LIFE, however, so what I really want to know is how Phoebe had TIME to date two men, while still going to work and playing guitar and hanging out at the coffee shop for three hours every day. I mean, I can skip the guitar and the coffee shop parts, but when am I supposed to get my blog time in? How am I supposed to (finally) finish that damn still-overdue third Twilight book? This is seriously cutting into my very important sitting-around time. I remember now one more reason I hate dating. Even when you're temporarily past that phase of fielding mundane, small-talky emails from multiple date candidates at once, the actual dating part takes too damn much time.

In other news, I did decide on a pair of red shoes. Thank you all for your very serious input on that. I went with Pair #1, which I was leaning towards from the start. Unfortunately, every online review I read was correct and there is something wrong with the workmanship of that shoe, because just as those reviewers reported, the soles on both of my brand-new red shoes were peeling away from the shoe within a mere three hours of wear. It's nothing a little shoe glue won't fix, but it's annoying nonetheless. Hence, I have taken a cue from Lara and fired off an email to the vice president of Steve Madden shoes (or rather, to whichever assistant to the vice president answers mail at the supposed V.P.'s address posted on their web site). If I'm lucky, perhaps he will send me a heartfelt apology and a coupon for some large percentage off another pair of cute but poorly constructed shoes. Fingers crossed.

Because one new pair of shoes clearly wasn't enough, I also bought a pair of brown flats, a pair of mary janes, and a new pair of brown boots, all in the same week. Apparently I've suddenly decided to pretend I have copious amounts of expendable income. (Disclaimer/Clarification: I do NOT.)

Perhaps I am just doing my own small part to keep the Global Financial System from crumbling. What's that? Oh. Perhaps you haven't heard about that. Apparently the world economy is in a state of ruin. Here's a tip from my friend Plump: Start stocking up on Beanie Babies now.

I thought perhaps I would give you a virtual fashion show of my new possibly economy-stabilizing purchases, but unfortunately I am nowhere near my camera nor its related photo uploading software (or, for that matter, the actual shoes in question to be photographed) at the moment, so that shallow and self-indulgent little project won't be happening. (Translation: I am blogging at work, though doing so on my lunch break, which I feel makes it only mildly unscrupulous.) And now that I've mentioned both "fashion show" and "lunch break" in the same paragraph, I suddenly hear Kelly Kapoor in my head, chanting "Fashion show! Fashion show! Fashion show at lunch!"

My apologies if you're hearing her now as well.

Even Garrison Keillor wears red shoes, and I should be at LEAST as hip as he is, right?

You guys, I am totally famous. Remember back when -R- and I went to see Crazy Aunt Purl, and -R- was totally a blogging rock star because Crazy Aunt Purl totally knew who she was? (Also, remember when I could come up with exclamatory adjectives other than "totally"? Yeah, I'll work on that.) ANYWAY, today I have -R- beat, because while Crazy Aunt Purl may read -R-'s blog, guess who reads mine? Go ahead, guess. I'll wait. Give up? Oh, no one special, really. Just PAULA POUNDSTONE. And not only is she reading, but she sent me an e-mail to tell me to keep up the good work!

OK, so really the e-mail came from Paula's manager, and it was intended for my lovely guest-poster, Nabbalicious. Also, in this age of Google alerts and Technorati, it shouldn't be so surprising that if you write about a celebrity, even in the giant cloud of anonymity that is the Internet, there's a reasonably good chance that celebrity (or someone hired by that celebrity) might read what you wrote. Still, I managed to forget this fact of modern life momentarily, because seeing Paula Poundstone's name in my Inbox with the subject line "Your post about 'Wait, Wait'" still caught me completely off guard. And now that I've gone and written about her twice, she'll probably see this as well. (If so, hi, Paula's manager! How's it going today?) I have to wonder, though... if celebrities really DO read everything we write about them, then Ethan, why haven't you called me?? Sigh.

All right; that's really all I had to talk about tonight. Yep; e-mail from Paula Poundstone is about the most exciting thing I have going on, and it wasn't even an e-mail directed towards me. Yes, yes, I could talk about last night's debate, or about how I watched the portions of it that I watched with a boy, and how that boy looked at me at one point during the event to ask, "So... are you watching this or not?" because he didn't want to interrupt my very important and serious civic-mindedness by trying to kiss me (which is more than I can say for The Neighborhood Giant during Michael Clayton, the result of which being that I still have no idea what the hell was going on in that movie). But if I wrote about that, it might either jinx the portions of that situation that I feel semi-good about, or force me to dwell on and subsequently weird myself out over the parts of that situation I feel not-so-good about. So I fear I need to be annoyingly vague and uncharacteristically secretive about that. Sorry.

Instead, then, let's talk about shoes! What? I wouldn't be a female blogger if I didn't blog about shoes at least once a year, and I can't recall any shoe-related posts thus far in '08. To my male readers, I do apologize. You can just skip to the next post in your feed reader right now if you prefer.

Still with me? Great. I'm following Abbersnail's lead and deciding that it really is high time I just bought a pair of red shoes already. I am woefully inadequately accessorized most days, and I do think red shoes would be just the thing to point me in the right direction in that respect. The question is, which red shoes? I think I finally have it narrowed down. The choices are thus. Weigh in, if you will.

#1 - I think I like these best. However, the reviews thus far lead me to believe I'll need to buy some shoe glue almost immediately if I purchase them. Steve Madden makes a cute shoe, but apparently his workmanship is shoddy. Is it worth it? Glue is easy enough to apply... So cute, though, aren't they??



#2 - Nearly the same shoe (and the same brand), but mysteriously eight dollars cheaper. Also, are they really such a bright red, or is the photography just misleading here? Tough call.



#3 - Perhaps a bit more versatile, in that they'd go with dresses as well as jeans and pants, but how often do I actually wear dresses in the fall and winter? (Answer: Not often.) Still, how cute is the kitten heel?



And finally, #s 4 and 5 - both excellently versatile and tactful choices, as you can see.





OK, so I am kidding about those last two, although I sort of secretly love the thigh-highs and nearly wish I had some absurd costume-related excuse to purchase them. Aaannnddd, now you're picturing me in red pleather thigh-high boots with whatever outfit would accompany such a thing. I do like to keep people guessing and put myself out of my comfort zone now and then, but that's not really an image I meant to conjure up.

Back to the point, then. #1, #2, or #3?

In which I draw perhaps the first comparison ever between a successful modern author and Top Ramen

Back when I was still dating my last boyfriend, I had a dream about him one night in which he told me he'd taken up smoking. In the dream, I was not so much angry as baffled. "Who takes up smoking at 34?!?" I asked (ever the logical realist that I am). Smoking is something you try out in high school or college, and if you're still doing it at 34, it's because of a habit formed long, long ago. Nobody starts smoking at 34, right?

I feel like I'm in a similar spot myself at the moment. Tonight, at age 34, I had Ramen noodles for the first time.

Don't ask me how I got through four+ years of college and all of my 20s without ever dropping ten-cent packets of Top Ramen in my grocery cart. Apparently I was far too fixated on 69-cent Kraft Macaroni & Cheese or the delicacy that were the English Muffin pizzas my senior year roommate introduced into my life. In any case, for whatever reason (Fear of poverty? Devil-may-care attitude toward my slightly elevated blood pressure? Fondness for Noelle?), I bought Ramen for the first time ever last week.

Newsflash, in case you weren't aware: a valid student ID is not required to purchase Ramen noodles. Who knew? Oh, right. Most of you, I guess.

I know there are a hundred different ways to eat Ramen, and maybe I need to look into them to understand all the hype. Because to me, it was just noodles in a salty broth. Tasty enough, sure, and well worth the mere 20 cents I paid for that meal, but frankly, nothing special, I have to say. Either people speak so highly of Ramen because of their long-term emotional attachment to it, or I am doing something very wrong. If you've got any suggestions, feel free to weigh in, because I've still got forty cents worth of noodles in my cupboard to experiment with.

Let's see. What else have I been up to lately, aside from experimenting with mundane groceries? It has been a stupidly busy couple of weeks, and I considered compiling a bulleted list of everything I've done post-work-hours in the past 15 days or so, but I fall back on the bulleted list post of laziness far too often, so let's just fast forward to this weekend, shall we?

This weekend, I went to the fourth annual Twin Cities-area Lebowskifest, which is not so much a full-blown "fest" as a modest gathering of fewer than 20 people in a west suburban home, but it was a fun time anyway. I will probably eventually post my photos from the night on Flickr, though I'm uncertain whether I should make them all public or not. It was a The Big Lebowski-themed costume party, of course, and I decided to go as a White Russian, which means I showed up in white pants and a white t-shirt on which I used iron-on transfer paper to affix bright red and gold hammer and sickle symbols that were appropriate enough for the evening's festivities but might be taken out of context if posted on these here interwebs. I'd hate to have my hopes for public office dashed by the unfortunate surfacing of photos of me in Communist garb. Then again, the likelihood of my running for public office is probably just about as high as the likelihood of my becoming a card-carrying Communist, so I suppose I'm probably safe. My late-night costume change into a t-shirt bearing Jackie Treehorn's obscene doodle (the hostess's boyfriend brought a stack of said shirts to distribute to anyone willing to wear them) might actually conflict with Flickr's terms of use, however, so maybe at least that photo should remain private.

Today I finally saw the much-hyped Sex & the City movie, and, formulaic and predictable as it was, I still enjoyed it more than this evening's Top Ramen. People, I actually teared up no fewer than three times in the course of that movie. Please tell me I'm not the only one who did so, OK?

Oh, and in far more notable news, I finally finished the book that has been sitting in my sidebar for no fewer than two months. Long ago, I started (and then just as suddenly stopped) doing this thing where I posted less-than-ten-word reviews of the books I had read. I think I'll pick that up again for Bel Canto, except I'll provide my review in just one word:

Meh.

It may have won an Orange Prize and a Pen/Faulkner Award, but I still don't understand all the fuss. I suppose you could say Bel Canto is like Ramen noodles: beloved by many; misunderstood and underappreciated by me.

And finally, I'd be much remiss in failing to follow up on that quasi-contest I held last week. Thank you all for sharing your tales of kindred spirit-esque ineptitude and alarming gracelessness. It is a tough call which one of you had the best injury to beat my balloon-incident and bathroom-cleaning woes. So many of you had such very excellent stories, but I'm going to have to say the three-way-tie prize goes to the following:

1. Liz, who tripped on her lawn mower and ended up with $16,000 worth of surgery to insert a plate into her arm,
2. Poppy, who set herself on fire while making tea (apparently not even using a gas burner with an open flame),
   and
3. Metalia, who recently gashed her leg with a vegetable. (Note to self: Consider this one more reason you've never actually had an artichoke.)
   

Unfortunately, there are no real prizes in this little contest, aside from my sincere amusement and gratitude. So thanks for that, friends. So nice to know we klutzes aren't alone.

Not even Whiskeymarie uses the word "whiskey" this many times in a single post.

I had a Friday Five in mind for today, but if you'll forgive me, I have more pressing matters on my mind. Namely, whisky (or whiskey). I do not drink whisky (or whiskey). I do not buy whisky (or whiskey). So when I needed to acquire whisky (or whiskey) for my retro cocktail party, I stood staring at the row of whiskys and whiskeys in the liquor store near my house and ended up choosing Dewar's, solely because I remembered it's what Meg Ryan drank in Prelude to a Kiss, and I figured if it was good enough for Meg Ryan circa 1992, it was good enough for me.

Yesterday I found myself chatting with a coworker about this retro cocktail party scheme of mine, explaining my dilemma with the whisky/ey and relaying the very sophisticated and sound decision-making method behind my purchase.

His reply? "But Dewar's is Scotch, isn't it?" And I replied, all smug and confident, "No, it said 'blended whisky,' and that's what I need: blended whisky." He shrugged, trying to be agreeable even though he was clearly suspicious and knew I was wrong.

I just looked at that label again. It does indeed say "blended whisky," but in between those words is one other word: Scotch. Blended Scotch Whisky. Dammit.

You'd think I just started drinking (or hell, reading) yesterday. What is wrong with me? But moreover, is that what was wrong with my drinks? Is that why the prototype Manhattan I made the other night tasted like battery acid? Or is a Manhattan supposed to taste like battery acid, no matter what type of whisky is involved? People, I need help on this. Do I have to go out and buy more liquor, or is shopping for whisky like shopping for so many other things, and the multiple choices for seemingly identical products are just meant to overwhelm and incapacitate us and really it's all a big conspiracy to deaden our senses so that the government can keep us from rising up?

Ahem. I may be getting away from the point. Back to it. Can I make retro drinks with Scotch whisky, or will I be mocked mercilessly by my guests if I don't remedy this? As usual, I'm sure the Internet has the answer for me.

On an unrelated note, I just whacked my skull full force into my kitchen cabinet while cleaning. First the bathroom incident and now this. Clearly I should have been born with some sort of warning label. Ouch. There is no hope for me.

No zombies were harmed in the making of this post. Unfortunately, none were written about, either.

So have you all heard about this Choose Your Own Blogventure thing? It is the brainchild of the terribly clever NPW (Special Agent NPW to some), and I am supposed to be writing my portion of it right now. It shouldn't be terribly hard, of course, but at the moment I can't seem to decide just where to go from "imminent zombie attack," and hence, I am stalling a bit. (Yes. Zombie attack. Anyone want to take a wild, shot-in-the-dark guess as to whose story segment precedes mine? And also, have I revealed too much? Was that against the rules? I hope not.)

Meanwhile, I thought maybe I'd warm myself up for my first zombie story by writing about something equally frightening, but when I tried to think of scary things, all that came to mind immediately were the Nutrisystem meals that have been sitting in the kitchen at work for the past three weeks or more. I have no idea who attempted to donate them--who had the nerve to leave the saddest prepackaged meals I have ever seen in that altar-like spot on the counter normally reserved for proper willpower-tempting offerings such as donuts and leftover Christmas cookies. Whoever it was, though, should win some sort of prize. They've just blown apart my theory that people will eat anything if it's left in the office kitchen. Also, note to the Nutrisystem people: hire a photographer. A professional one, I mean. The worst of the worst packaged meals in the freezer case still look delicious in the photo labeled "Serving suggestion," and mad photo skillz and tricks of deception have everything to do with that. I suppose there's something to be said for truth in advertising, but personally, I'm used to reserving my disappointment over my lunch until after I've peeled back the plastic film.

Shifting gears to the equally trivial (and decidedly girly--boys, feel free to think about basketball or zombies for the next paragraph or so), do you know what I am not currently disappointed about? My new hair dryer. I have always been of the opinion that, within certain important parameters, a hair dryer is a hair dryer. I'm like a guy that way: simpler is better. Too many choices overwhelm me. It's not my fault I can't make a decision: present me with seventeen seemingly indistinguishable options and it's no wonder I feel my head might explode. Hence, my Saturday afternoon trip to Ulta to replace my recently deceased hair dryer was entirely more stressful than it probably should have been. I might actually be embarrassed to admit how long I stood in front of the veritable wall of hair dryers, carefully considering the differences between each one, had there not been two other women directly beside me presumably running the exact same inner monologue: This one's red and has a retractable cord, but I don't really like its shape... This one is only $17, but it's also hot pink with polka dots... What's the difference between "ceramic" and "ceramic tourmaline"?... Do I really need adjustable ion levels??

As it turns out, apparently I do need adjustable ion levels (and tourmaline technology, too), because my hair is suddenly softer and less static-prone than it's been at any time in recent memory. I have not switched any other products, and the weather is not decidedly different from the weather a week ago, so I can only assume I have my pretty new light blue Revlon Total Styler to thank. (It's obviously the "Total" part that sold me, by the way. No one wants to be only partially styled, after all.) So yay, Revlon Total Styler! Your "super-quiet, lightweight design" may not be any more silent or more wieldy than my rattly old dryer, but I am pleased with you anyway.

I have no idea why I just decided to bore the entire Internet (or, more realistically, my tiny corner of it) by talking about abandoned diet meals and hair dryer shopping, but apparently this is what happens when I've got not a lot going on. I could relay the content of the flurry of emails between Lara, NPW, Noelle, and me earlier today, but it's probably best that we reel in our anticipation about that blogger meetup until after we've discovered if we can all actually stand each other. Besides that, we mostly just trash-talked about board games anyway. That's right, people. A group of bloggers are getting together in a city most of them don't live in, and the thing we're most excited about is Boggle, Balderdash, and Bananagrams. I have said it before and I'll say it again: this is what I love about the Internet. I may be a huge nerd, but I am among friends. Kindred spirits abound. East coast, here I come. Well, here I come on Friday, anyway. Meanwhile, that zombie story isn't writing itself. Best get cracking.

Santa's got nothin' on me

As you know, I was on a plane last week. Well, two planes, actually, if we're going to be precise. Do you know what that means? Lots of things, I'm sure, but the one I have in mind is that I got to peruse the Skymall catalog. Usually this is a fun diversion for me. This time, however, it didn't really hold my interest. Maybe the creepy animatronic Elvis on the cover irrevocably put me off. Or maybe the fact that I now regularly receive catalogs in my own home that are filled with items easily rivaling Skymall's fabulously unnecessary wares sort of dimmed the novelty of Skymall in my mind. Last year, I listed several such items in a probably not-too-helpful holiday gift guide for all of you. This year, how about I list some things people you know might actually want? That is, if the people you know are anything like people like me. Because personally, I think all of these are excellent ideas. I could put plenty of things on this list, but since it is Friday, I shall stop at only five of them.


Five fine gifts for the nerd/girly-girl/wino on your list:

1. My friend Carrie has often commented on what she calls my "animated hand gestures." If I do talk with my hands more often than the average person, perhaps that is why I always feel I am one hand short when circulating about parties. More likely, though, I think it's that if you have a drink in one hand and a plate of snacks in the other, it's generally frowned upon to lean forward and retrieve those snacks from the plate using only your mouth. Clearly we need a third hand. OR! Or, we need cocktail plates cleverly designed to hold your wine or martini glass while you gesture madly or recover appetizers from your plate. Problem solved! Amen.
   
   
   Note: These are currently ON SALE, and at this price, you should really buy at least two sets. If there are only four people at your party, they'll probably have no trouble finding a flat surface on which to set their wine while they snack. Get eight or twelve people in the room, though, and look out! Lassoing your glass on your plate becomes much more useful at that point.
   
   
2. Last week, I looked down at my keyboard and decided it was high time I did something about the layer of dust between all the keys. Unfortunately, since the supplies I had on hand were minimal and my attention span was short, this means what I did about it was run the edge of a damp cleaning rag between each row in a haphazard and half-assed fashion. I'm looking down at my keyboard now and realizing my efforts really didn't do a whole lot of good at all. But if I had THIS! If I had this, then I'd have no excuse for messy and revolting keys. Generally I am opposed to single-purpose gadgets and gimmicks. The fact that this item is sold out, however, tells me I'm not the only one who thinks this one's a fine idea.
   
   
   
   
3. Strange as this sounds, I am often envious of girls with perfect, medium-sized breasts who can wear cheapo sports bras and can don low v-neck shirts and wrap tops without hazard. Me, I've got to layer sports bras or pony up for a pricey, genuinely supportive one, and I have to spend ten minutes wrangling a safety pin across a wrap neck if I want to avoid looking like a tramp. That's why the Bosom Button is such a fabulous idea. This surely falls into the "Why didn't I think of that??" category, which means that if I just wait a few years for the patent to expire, equally useful knockoffs will be everywhere for a fraction of the price. Meanwhile, I wonder if Craftster has some ideas for a make-your-own version for me.
   
   
   
   
4. Despite possible evidence to the contrary, I maintain some modicum of confidence that I am a catch, dammit, and should I ever actually get a boyfriend again, he will be lucky to have me. I base this statement on several points of proof, only one of which is that although I would very much like some new jewelry, the diamond "Journey" pendant I keep seeing on TV is really not for me. I'm a girl with somewhat quirkier and less conventional tastes, and while I'll admit that someday I actually would like a genuine diamond on my ring finger, until then, I'd actually much prefer something like one of these.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. And finally, a gift that is maybe more a good idea in theory than in practice... You know how all of us library-loving nerds smile fondly at the mere thought of the scent of books? Well, apparently someone's captured that in a perfume. And while I have to question whether I truly want to smell like musty old paper, I still definitely love the romantic ideal of this product. Too bad Macy's likely doesn't have a tester I can try.
   
   
   
   

So I hope that helps you all with your holiday shopping dilemmas. In addition, in case you hadn't yet noticed, Blogger's got a Christmas present for us, too! It looks like my friends with WordPress blogs can comment with a link again! How about you test that out right now by leaving a note to say hello, OK?

Hey there, strangers

Woo! Two hours after I first sat down to "just take a quick skim through Bloglines," and finally I am all caught up! Unfortunately, that means the time I had allotted to write a post on my own blog was instead spent reading everyone else's blog, but such is the life of an Internet addict. It's all take and no give some days; am I right?

In any case, I had a lovely time in Seattle... It was a brief trip, and I don't really feel like I fully experienced Seattle by any means, but I did very much enjoy getting to know a friend-of-a-friend better... she's a friend-of-a-friend who's actually moving here next month, and I can certainly see her becoming a full-fledged friend (with no hyphens attaching that word to other words) quite shortly. So yay for that.

Unfortunately, I did probably a worse job photo-documenting this trip than any other in recent memory, but if you're interested in the not-so-interesting photos anyway, you can find them in this Flickr set. Try not to get too excited, if uneventful and craptastic photos aren't exactly your thing.

In addition to gallivanting about Seattle and Seattle-adjacent, I've been busy with various other things lately. Things like getting damn-near all of my Christmas shopping done in three hours flat (at only two stores plus the Internet... God bless you, dear, sweet friend the Internet), and having dinner with friends both near and far (dinner that included lobster macaroni & cheese TWO nights in the same week! Check out me and my decadent rock star life...). I also had Guinness ice cream, which bears mentioning if we're talking decadent and unnecessary food indulgences. Me = not a fan of Guinness (or any beer, really... I know--if I hadn't moved out of Wisconsin on my own volition, they'd have excommunicated me by now for sure), but that stuff was damn tasty anyway.

And on an entirely unrelated note that I mention only because I've gotten a few e-mails asking about it, my grandma is still hanging in there like the invincible and fabulous old biddy that she is. Judging from the video my little sister sent me earlier, she's looking worse for wear and it breaks my heart more than a little bit, but she's still charmingly ornery as always, and I'm still convinced that woman is going to outlive all of us, despite all her sad hopes and best intentions. Thanks for all your kind thoughts for her well-being. I do appreciate it, more than you know.

And that about catches you up, I guess. I'm still in catch-up mode myself after a few days mostly offline. More of a "real" post to follow eventually, I'm sure. Meanwhile, what have all of you been up to (what that I haven't already read and possibly not commented on due to speed feed-reading, I mean)?

It's like a sickness at this point

For some reason, I actually felt compelled to stop in today to say, "I don't have to post today!!"

Also, it is snowing. The weather people are getting everyone riled up as though it will be the storm of the century. I am pretty sure people are running out for supplies and then changing all plans so they can stay holed up in their homes all weekend. Me? I'm going out. Because I throw caution to the wind like that. Oh, and because No Coast is today. I didn't get my picture in the paper before it this year, but I intend to stop in anyway. If you are a "real life" friend, there's a good chance you're getting a clever little hand-made gift for Christmas that I shall be purchasing today. Hope you like it!

Buy local; buy often, as they say.

Sometimes, I think heaven will be kind of like a Target store, and then other times, I pray to God it's not.

So I went to Target yesterday. News flash, I know. I'm sure you people probably think that I go there often enough and with such enthusiasm that my shopping jaunts might actually be considered a hobby, but the truth is, it had been so long since I'd been to Target that I actually had a list of eleven specific items that I legitimately needed. Eleven! Usually I make a stop in there at least once a week for the few assorted items I remember needing or wanting and then have to return a few days later with proper list in hand to pick up the rest. For whatever reason, though, I haven't made any impulse trips over there lately, and with only half a roll of toilet paper and possibly two showers' worth of shampoo left, it was nearing a Code Red situation, so to speak. So off to the big bullseye I went.

I am pleased to report that I purchased ten of the eleven items on my list* and bought only one item that was not on the list. That one item is actually something that's been on my "get someday" list for a while now, though, so I'm going to count it as Not-an-Impulse-Buy anyway. So then. Responsible Target shopping. It's a bit of a foreign concept, I know. This is progress. Yay me.

I didn't really start this post intending to talk about what I bought or didn't buy at Target, however. What I wanted to do was point out the two things I cannot believe I saw at Target (and yet, that I saw there anyway). What were those two things?

1. Dove Pro-Age Deodorant. So now it is not enough that we have to worry about fighting the effects of aging with special face creams and hair products and body lotions and vitamins? You are telling me my old lady armpits will have special needs, too? Man, getting old is entirely more complicated and depressing than I thought.
   
   and...
   
   
2. Adam from meMarmony. AGAIN! Honestly, people, what the fuck. I don't run into my real friends unexpectedly in public on any sort of even arguably regular basis. Again, Minneapolis is not Stars Hollow. I am not trying to plan my Doose's Market trips around the brief moments when I won't need to dart into the cereal aisle to avoid CuteDean.** This is a major metropolitan area, with at least 35 separate Target stores. Why is Adam from meMarmony always at mine?
   

I was so thrown off by that second item that I had to tell someone about it immediately. I texted my friend Carrie from the health and beauty aisles...

Me: I just saw Adam from meMarmony at Target AGAIN!
Carrie: Wow! You must be meant for each other. Was it a specific aisle?
Me: No. I was on my way in as he was on his way out, just like last time. What aisle would mean we are made for each other?***
Carrie: Archer Farms?

Heh. The woman has a point, I suppose. I do dig that cranberry nut trail mix, after all...

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* Doesn't Target sell hand towels that you can tie or loop to your drawer pulls anymore? I am sure that is where I got the frayed one I've been using for the past six years that finally bit the dust in my dryer last week, and yet, no such thing exists in the towel aisles right now.

** You thought that just because Gilmore Girls had been canceled the references would stop, right? Obviously you thought wrong.

*** Yes, I really text in complete words and complete sentences. This is why I rarely text. It is also why I am so very glad Malia and Darren finally taught me how to use T9.

All your base are belong to us

Something very frightening and unfortunate happened to a friend of mine a few weeks ago. On her way home from a club after a Thursday night out, she was pulled over on suspicion of DUI. I say "suspicion of" because she did not actually take a breathalyzer test that evening, so I have no idea how inebriated (if at all) she really was. I won't go into the details (because I'm not entirely clear on them myself and also because it's not my story to tell), but I will say that she ended up missing that party I hosted recently not because she flaked out, fell asleep, or got a better offer, but because while I was mixing mojitos with my new muddler, she was bonding with prostitutes and drunkards in a city jail. Good times.

Hearing that my friend, a respectable, responsible, home-owning, proper job-holding grown-up with her head screwed on mostly straight was suddenly draining her savings to cover bail money and lawyer fees and having to get up at 5:00 a.m. to catch the first of her three-leg bus journey to work instilled a bit of fear in me. And in light of that fear, I did what any sensible girl (read: huge nerd with an Internet connection) would do: I ordered a personal breathalyzer.

You didn't even know you could buy such a thing, did you? Well, you can. And you can spend anywhere from $20 to $120 (or more) on it. I opted for a lower-end model, and I am quickly coming to realize that perhaps, as with so many things in life, you get what you pay for. More on that in a minute. First, I want to clarify something. I feel a wave of backlash brewing, and I would like to stop for a moment to explain that I did not buy a personal breathalyzer because I routinely get myself all liquored up and then casually slide behind the wheel hoping for the best. I did it because frankly, I have no idea what .08 feels like. I suspect most of you don't, either. Clearly this would be useful information to have in mind. If nothing else, I figured it might make a fun party game. You know, in a bizarre frat house sort of way.

I've tried out my little white breathalyzer a few times now, and each time it has met with mixed results. So I thought tonight I might do a sort of hour-by-hour study to see just how well this new toy works. (I'm here to help, people. It's all in the name of science and public service.) I opened a bottle of Riesling as I made my dinner*, and I've been taking periodic swigs and readings ever since. At last check, I had about 3/4 of the bottle downed and was feeling a wee bit wobbly, and yet, this is what my ever-so-helpful Safe Mate(R) personal breathalyzer had to say.



.02! After 3+ glasses of wine! Either I am obese and a lush and my blood is impervious to the effects of alcohol or this little tool is a tiny piece of crap. I am well aware that my weight is running a bit heavier these days, but I'm still going to go with the latter.

Of course, there's always the possibility of operator error. The instructions weren't terribly thorough, after all. Sure, my hairdryer came with detailed and careful instructions documenting each step of use and care. But my personal breathalyzer? Never mind that it's not the sort of gadget most of us have used a thousand times; apparently "you'll figure it out" is good enough in this case.

The instructions aren't just unclear and incomplete, however. They're also poorly translated. This is the silver lining in a possibly pointless purchase, of course. I love an amusingly bad translation. Just check out the features of the Safe Mate Personal Alcohol Tester, as listed in my tiny and near-useless owner's manual...

• This unit is designed to detect the percentage of the alcohol in your breath, so you may know how much you are drunken!
  
  
• Although tiny in size, it has the feature of much larger (and more expensive) unit. You can also use the unit as a gas leakage tester.
  

Note that the manual doesn't tell me how to use the unit as a gas leakage tester. Nor does it explain the cryptic string of letters that often scroll across the screen when I try to get a reading. Apparently these aren't details worth mentioning. Hmm.

So. Twenty-four bucks and a bottle of wine later, and I still don't know just how "drunken" I am. Perhaps I should stroll down Central Avenue and seek out a police officer willing to help me with a comparison study? Somehow I doubt Minneapolis's finest would be amused by that proposition. Some other time, maybe.




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* Honey mustard chicken (recipe courtesy of Metalia) and parmesan mashed potatoes (like Nabbalicious made). Yum.

Flying pigs and other miscellany

My deepest apologies to anyone who read Monday's post and thereafter heard the little voice in their head singing The Violent Femmes' "Kiss off" on constant repeat for the remainder of the day. Nabbalicious in particular was apparently a bit peeved. Can't say I blame her, though I do maintain that there are plenty of far worse songs I could have embedded in your brains instead. (See GG today if you don't believe me.) Still, if I had simply added another bullet or two to the list, the whole incident could have been avoided, as I can't really imagine myself ever writing the sort of post that would warrant the title Nine for a lost god. Incidentally, I had to look that line up. I have never had any idea just what they were singing there. (Did you?)

By the way, I do realize I have probably just successfully planted the chorus of "Kiss off" right back in your brain again. Terribly sorry about that. I'll move on now, OK?

As it turns out, if I had included a ninth bullet in my weekend recap post the other night, it might perhaps have been a snack food review for your consideration. Frito-Lay has a new brand of "healthy" snacks that they deem so "Impossibly Good," they've chosen a flying pig as the snack's logo. (After perusing the ingredients list on the bag, I am actually not entirely sure just how "healthy" these snacks really are, but that is not the point of this paragraph.) Anyway, they are called Flat Earth crisps, and a team of smiling Frito-Lay representatives in matching t-shirts was handing them out at the Stone Arch arts festival on Saturday. I took a bag of the Wild Berry Patch flavor and examined the description and ingredients. I am not sure exactly what I expected a chip made from "a blend of rice, potato, and fruit" to taste like, but I definitely did not expect it to taste like Pop-Rocks. Do you remember Pop-Rocks? I have not had that weird fake-fruity, bubbly, exploding candy in years, but upon my first bite of Wild Berry Patch Flat Earth crisps, I said--out loud, I might add, because I am inappropriate like that, and I apparently want people in public places to see me talking to myself and deem me a lunatic (Is it really any wonder I rarely meet prospective dates in my normal day-to-day life anymore? I guess not.)--Anyway, I said (out loud), upon my first bite, "These taste like Pop-Rocks!" And then I smiled to myself and continued snacking on the chips because, hello, a rice-and-potato-based snack chip that tastes like an absurd candy from your youth? Tell me that doesn't sound weirdly delicious to you.

When I went to the grocery store last night, I saw that Frito-Lay's marketing efforts are in force there as well. The outskirts of the Natural and Organic Foods section featured a tremendous pallet of all six flavors. I decided to stay away from the veggie ones for now, because while they might be differently but equally tasty, I could not imagine anything but disappointment when compared to Pop-Rock Candy fruit chips. I bought the Apple Cinnamon instead. (They are reasonably tasty as well, though likely wouldn't have warranted any review or mention on their own.)

Incidentally, if you happen to try these and decide that the absurd berry flavor is anything but delightful, I do apologize. Many of us take blogger recommendations fairly seriously, but not every recommendation can be a hit with everyone. As an example, let's talk about Miss Peach (or, not Miss Peach herself, but a thing or two that she has recommended). By my assessment, Miss Peach is, in all ways, quite awesome. She is lovely and whip-smart and wrote some damn amusing blog entries before real life clearly interfered and took her away from all of us. I even met Peach last fall, and I can vouch for her being a charming and affable dinner companion off the blog as well.

So. Big fan of Peach. That's what I'm saying. Unfortunately, not everything that Miss Peach loves is really for me. College football, for instance. Couldn't give half a damn about that. And Lifetime made-for-TV movies. I thought I could enjoy the occasional guilty pleasure of a dreadfully contrived drama. I have, after all, sat with semi-rapt attention through both She Fought Alone (starring both Tiffani Amber Thiessen and Brian Austin Green, in an awesome pre-90210 pairing) and A Friend to Die For (also known as Death of a Cheerleader, starring Kellie Martin and the always-talented Tori Spelling). This past weekend, however, while I was immobilized in the heat coma on my living room couch, I decided to see just how many Lifetime movies I could sit through before I started wanting to make terrible things happen to the women in the movies myself. (Answer: two and a half. Likely less if they'd been consecutive.)

All of this round-about rambling is my way of getting to the explanation of why I had to abandon Richard Ford's The Sportswriter, despite my long-standing and rarely broken "when I start a book, I must finish it" rule. (Did you all read Metalia's cautionary tale about how writing a little outline before you start a post might be helpful? Yeah, apparently I am not taking that advice.)

Anyway, Miss Peach raved about The Sportswriter a few months back, and because I trust the woman's opinion (and I enjoyed the excerpts she included), I added it to my ever-growing "Get at the library some day" list. Shortly before my Austin trip, I went to the library in search of an on-deck book to start after Prep, and I found The Sportswriter met my requirements. (My requirements, by the way, were three-fold: I needed a book (A) whose title and author I could recall, (B) that the library actually had on the shelf at that moment, and (C) that was small and light enough to fit in my mid-sized messenger bag.)

Don't get me wrong. This book is well written. Unfortunately, it's well-written the same way The Corrections was well written. It contains some beautifully crafted prose, some passages that are awe-inspiring in their spot-on capturing of ordinary life in not-so-ordinary detail. But I didn't care one whip about any of the characters, and 80 pages in, I still had no idea when any sort of interesting or engrossing story might actually start.

I did make it past the point where the famous Nancy Pearl would say I could stop. Her Rule-of-50 (described at the end of this post, which I wrote after seeing her speak in Minneapolis last year) says I should give every book at least 50 pages before deciding if it's worth the effort. If you're over 50, you get to subtract your age from 100 and read that many pages instead. I actually stuck it out past page 67, which, at age 33, is the point I'd have to reach if following that alternate rule. On page 80, though, I read this line:

But that is not so much the point as a way of getting around to it.

And at that moment, I nearly hurled the book at the wall because it so aptly described the entire novel up to that page. I was tired of waiting for Ford to get around to the point, so I will be taking Nancy Pearl's wise advice and not finishing this one. Life's too short and there are far too many better books out there to read. Like The Time Traveler's Wife, which I am fully enjoying even if I can't really accurately describe why. Or Prep, which I might have enjoyed more had I not read it immediately after my favorite so far this year but which I thought was well-written and enjoyable anyway. I still want to write some sort of recap of that for my own records (and those of anyone else who finds that sort of thing at all interesting), and I realize I said I was going to be chronological and not mention The Sportswriter until I'd posted that last one. I just want to get The Sportswriter out of my house, however, so out-of-order will have to do.

Know what else will have to do? This abrupt and non-conclusitory* end to one of my most meandering posts to date. "Kiss off," Pop Rocks chips, Lifetime television, and aggravating novels. How else would you sum all of that up?

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* So totally a word. Or, not, really, but I am tired, so it's a word for now at least.

Mid-marathon update

Blogging is, by its nature, at least somewhat self-indulgent, and yet somehow it still surprises me when I write about the idle, trivial goings-on in my life and people actually seem to want a follow-up. Today, for example, I received four e-mail messages (some of which were from people I have never met in person) asking me how my marathon date week is going. You guys want updates, apparently. It's not more fun just to wonder?

I do hate to disappoint, so if it's an update you want, an update you shall have. I'm here for you, after all. I may be here for you mainly because ABC decided to air Celebrity In-Style Weddings tonight instead of What about Brian, leaving me with an extra hour I wasn't planning to have, but I'm here for you nonetheless. Therefore I might as well fill you in.

Friday night's dinner with Index Card Guy went fine. On a first-date scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it about a 7.5. It had its awkward moments, of course, but considering I'm someone who frequently says unintentionally inappropriate and awkward things myself, I feel I could maybe cut him some slack. I should, for example, just forget about that moment when I offered to split the check and he actually pointed out that I'd had one more glass of wine than he did*. I should also probably forget about the point where he said that the reason he's still single might be that he has a bit of a problem with commitment. Those were, after all, really the only two noticeably low points of the evening, so it's not really fair to focus on those. (Incidentally, if it somehow turns out that against whatever odds this guy actually stays in the picture, I will, of course, have to edit those details out of this entry at some time in the next month or so. Someone remind me to do that, OK?) In any case, aside from a few minor hiccups, it was for the most part, a reasonably good date, and I am therefore in a "maybe-proceed-with-caution" mindset with this guy.

Sunday was my coffee date with the first of the meMarmony guys to click that "Start Communication" button this time around. Somehow I found it very hard to get through the whole date without mentioning that my pal Guinness Girl had seen his profile and dubbed him a shorter, slightly doughier version of Lance Bass,** but I managed to restrain myself nonetheless. In truth, this guy was perfectly nice and smart and reasonably attractive, and we had a completely comfortable and normal conversation. I felt not one smidge of chemistry, but that is neither his fault nor mine. It is what it is; that's all. (Next!)

After the coffee date, I apparently decided it was time to converse with someone who already knows I am a babbling idiot and a socially incompetent fool seemingly most of the time, so I met up with The Magical Boy for a lovely lunch in Uptown, followed by my third in-theater movie in six months.*** This fake-date was, I think, actually more fun than any of my real dates this weekend, so maybe I should give up on meMarmony and just start dating my friends instead. Since most of my friends are women, that could be an interesting plan. Surely there's a lesbian blog-ring I could join, isn't there?

So that is the ElimiDATE update as it stands this far. In the next three days, I have two more meMarmony dates, but I am hesitant to tell you anything about either of these men, as I have a sneaking hunch that one of them has been resourceful and has already found this blog and all of its potentially incriminating info on his own. A recent highly suspicious hit in my Sitemeter log has me thinking I'm not the only one who does some research before a date, and while I can't fault him for the investigative work, I also can't help but feel a bit violated nonetheless. Not because now I can't freely tell you that one of these guys is a terrible speller and the other looks sort of uncomfortably similar to my ex-boyfriend, but because if a prospective date has found this site, he's found essentially a manual to what makes me tick, and that's not only unfair, but actually takes away some of the fun of the early dates. It is my own fault, of course, for not writing under an alias all along (or for using the same semi-anonymous e-mail address for blog correspondence as I do for meMarmony messages), but I'm kicking myself anyway.

All right. I don't want to end on some ominous low note, so while I haven't found the love of my life online just yet, let me tell you about something new that I do love, OK? My friend Amy recently told me how excited she was about her new yoga/lounging pants from Target, and since she is a tall girl like me with approximately the same build and what-not, I decided to look into this recommendation. People, she was not kidding. I. Love. These. Pants. I may not actually need a new boyfriend, as I think me and these pants are going to be really quite happy together. It was approximately -20 degrees here for much of the weekend, and the whole time I was foolishly out gallivanting around town, going on dates and getting psychic readings and running errands at the strip mall with the most infuriatingly crowded parking lot ever, all I could think about was how excited I was going to be to get home and change into my fabulously comfortable new lounge pants. Short girls, these pants are not for you, as the main draw of them for me (aside from the impossibly soft and just-stretchy-enough fabric from which they're made) was the fact that the hems actually graze the bottoms of my heels, instead of hovering somewhere mid-ankle. But if you're tall like me, I highly recommend you head to Target and seek out the Pro-Spirit yoga pants with the wide-band waist and the drawstring bottoms. You will not be disappointed. That is, unless, like me, you have not vacuumed or swept your floors in some time and you realize, like me, that the trailing bottoms of your pants are actually Swiffering your floors as you move about your home, picking up masses of hair and dust in a way that might be helpful and multi-functional if it weren't also pretty damn disgusting. So. Vacuum your floors. Then buy these pants. I assure you, you will be pleased.


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* This was particularly egregious since I had already paid for my first glass of wine at the bar myself, before he arrived. The smooth way I handled this, however (wherein I said, "Actually, I paid for my first glass at the bar, but big points to you for bringing that up"), was possibly just as blunt and awkward, so maybe we sort of came out even here.

** OK, in all fairness, she said "Lance Bass," and I pointed out that he's a bit shorter and doughier than any N'Sync boy, but I'd prefer to shirk the blame anyway. (Sorry, GG!) ;-)

*** I am really behind in my current-movie viewing. Lisa, if you're reading this, I blame you. You are my favorite movie-going friend, but we have not been keeping up like we should the past few months! We need to get on that, OK?