This Will Literally Knock Your Socks Off

Of the three of you who read this, if you have not checked out the Literally blog on the side of this page, you must. It makes my heart swell with happiness. My only complaint is that it’s not updated hourly.

I tried explaining the website to Matt, who just kind of gave me a funny look and then spaced out. He apparently didn’t see the hilariousness of it all. Or I did a lousy job explaining, which I highly doubt. But! The other day we experienced an excellent ride to work, which helped Matt understand.

Our morning commute goes like this:
rush out the door and into the car
drive two blocks
turn around to grab Matt’s phone, laptop, or breakfast
either park at the train or hop on 26
IF we drive in on 26:
gripe about the traffic
promise to ride the train tomorrow
turn on the news
flip between CNN, CNN headlines, FOX, and ABC News to avoid the awful commercials XM chooses to air
gripe about the construction downtown
throw Nicole out of the car (Quick! There’s a bus behind!)

So the other day, we were listening to FOX (which let me tell you why I hate FOX – not because of their political stance [although that too can be bothersome], but because of how much they talk about Paris stinkin’ Hilton.)

(I changed stinkin’ from freakin’ because my daddio reads this, and although I can get away with saying nearly anything to my papa, it makes him shudder when I say freaking. So I will vow never to say freaking on this again.)

Man! I should not have had that last latte! I can barely write straight.

Back to FOX. After some update on Paris, the newsperson said, “And when we return, a story that will literally stun you.” I looked at Matt and said, “Quick! Change the station! I don’t want to be stunned!” The rest of the way in to work, Matt and I took turns pretending to be stunned in various poses. And let me tell you, Matt rocks at stunned poses. He’s like my very own mannequin.

Thank you, FOX. It was the best commute to work ever.

(p.s I know stunned can mean to shock or astonish someone, but it can also mean to make unconscious. Which clearly that's what FOX meant. the end. )

A Story of a Table

At the end of my sophomore year of college, I bought a kitchen table from Wal-Mart for $100. Mel and I found it and thought it’d be perfect for our skanky little duplex we were going to live in the next year. I decided I’d splurge and purchase it; after all, $100 was A LOT for an unemployed college girl to spend at one time. But I was proud of it, and it felt like my first big furniture purchase.

The table was cute. It served its purpose in the duplex and moved with Mel, Natalie, and me to the triplex. We spent lots of time talking, eating, and laughing around the table. Most of the time it was covered in homework and books.

Then the table moved with Matt and me to our first apartment in Fayetteville. We just got married, so the table was always set with placemats and flowers and dinner at 5:30. Before long, we decided to move across the country. When the movers came, the table went with them. And it actually showed up in our Portland apartment in one piece. In that apartment, it started looking kind of frumpy. I was getting tired of it, but we didn’t have any room for a nicer, bigger table.

When we moved to our house a year ago, the table came, once again. Matt and I really began to loathe it. It became super wobbly – anything that had to be cut with a steak knife was out of the question for dinner. We couldn’t have many people over for dinner because we only had room for four. And it didn’t look right; we had this great living room with this awful, cheap ass table off to the side. The table hit rock bottom when our friends carried it into our kitchen for Flip Cup, a relay race beer chugging game that made our kitchen sticky for weeks. The fact that our table was perfect for Flip Cup was the final straw. We decided it was time to find a new table, and in January we bought a lovely modern dining room table from West Elm. This table was sturdy and big and pretty and Could Not Be Used For Beer Games.

The new table didn’t come with chairs, though. We wanted some sleek leather chairs to match, and we found some at a local Ross. But we only found two. So our quest for chairs began, and during that time we used the chairs from the old table to occupy our new table, ghetto fabulous style. We hit up every Ross in the Portland metro area weekly for months. We found one. Then we found another. And then we got stuck. With only 4 chairs.

And I don’t know if people know this about Ross, but they’re bitches when it comes to returning things. So we were truly stuck with four chairs.

But finally, finally, we found some lovely leather chairs that ended our search! And the table is just perfect. And this meant we could now sell our old Wal-Mart table on Craigslist. We posted the ad on Sunday evening, and by morning we had 10 offers.

And folks, I am unbelievably proud to say we sold the Wal-Mart table to two college girls.

They came to check it out and discussed re-upholstering the chairs. When those girls asked me where I bought the table, I told them Target. Because hello! They ban Wal-Marts out here! And I wanted the table gone!

The girls took it. And I hope they brag about their great Target find on Craigslist to all their college girlfriends.

The best part? We sold it for $80. BOOYAH!

The Good Attitude Initiative

I’m not sure I slept last night. I know I went to bed, but this morning I feel like I was up all night cramming for a final or something. Coffee didn’t help. Of course, I’m sure it doesn’t work as well when I’m slurping it down while curling my hair and getting dressed because I refused to get out of bed on time. Coffee is meant to be enjoyed, right?

I had a pretty lousy day at work yesterday. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. But I went into work yesterday with every intention of having a good attitude. This meant no complaining, griping, rolling of the eyes, cussing under my breath, and using sarcasm as my only tone. I even went so far as to ask Jesus for help. And yes, I was sincere. I really did want to change my attitude. But by 12:45, I gave up. I couldn’t take it anymore, and frankly, I’m proud I made it to lunchtime.

I realized I used my sarcastic jokes and witty complaints to get me through the day. And when I tried to have a good freaking attitude, I depressed myself. So at 4:55, I left (my phone is 5 minutes fast, so I go by its time), got on the train, called Matt and said, “I need pizza and beer.” It helped. And then when we got home, we played some air band -- nothing makes me feel better than pretend-rocking to “Cold Hard Bitch.”

The evening turned into a game night with Bryan and Laura, and I didn’t crawl into bed until 11:30. I can handle staying up late, and I realize 11:30 isn’t that late, but I was exhausted after my failed attempt at The Good Attitude Initiative.

And now it’s another day, and I’m barely awake, but at least I have my sarcasm to keep me going. Screw The Good Attitude Initiative.

But you know what? Today is Matt’s birthday, which means it is a happy day. Because if he had not been born 26 years ago, I would have never had such an amazing lead guitarist for my air band.

Reason Number ONE BILLON Why I Need A New Gig

A very important person in the office asked me to proof a letter he wrote. Now this person has notoriously awful grammar. I understand grammar mistakes happen – you make them, I make them, we all make them. Sometimes I even make them on purpose. Like fragmenting a sentence to convey a thought. But people – you’re not supposed to embrace grammar errors.

This person embraces all things wrong.

First sentence of the letter: Welcome back, hope your vacation was enjoyed and relaxing.

And my take: Welcome back -- I hope your vacation was enjoyable and relaxing.

I know there’s some passive voice going on that probably should have been fixed, but I know this person would have disagreed with me, demanded a change, and hit me with a chair. I had to be super conservative in my mark-ups. I mean, I am at the very bottom of the totem pole here. Beneath the surface of it, in fact. (I know that’s a fragment. It’s my style, yo.) I’ve lost my point.

Oh. So this very important person read the first sentence with my changes and said:

“You changed enjoyed. I liked it better enjoyed.”

And I just stood there. No response. Waiting for my cue to get the hell out of the office.

Later, I told my co-worker this story. I said, "When I'm boss, I'm going to demand all my employees use proper grammar." And then I realized I just described being an English teacher.

Won't you be my neighbor?

When I was in kindergarten, I had a super-cool way of meeting friends. I still remember the first time I used my friend-making system. We were getting ready to do our round robin stations as a class. I scoped out a girl that was pretty and had nice shoes (some qualities in a friend never change, do they?). After choosing the soon-to-be friend, I went and stood near her, but I didn’t say or do anything else. I waited. And then when she looked at me, I looked back with a confused do I know you? kind of look. You know, tilted head, eyebrows scrunched, lips twitched to the side. And then, here’s how it all goes down: I said, “Um, I can’t remember. Are we friends?” Hell, yeah.

And we became friends. Because when opportunity knocks, mama always said to seize it.

Twenty years later, I’m not sure I could get away with the same method, as foolproof as it once was. I guess you could say people are smarter or something. We finally met our new neighbors across the street. Matt and I think we’re a great match (obviously), but really I just want to know if they’re on board with us or not. Are they willing to play games, eat our ice cream, and let me borrow sugar or not? Let’s just get to the point – are we friends?

It’s not that we’re desperate for friends; we’re not. I just really hate that ambiguous time in a relationship when you have no idea what kind of relationship you’re in. And maybe I’m just really excited about our neighbors. Because neighbor friends are some of the best, don’t you think?

Maybe we'll even rally a game of Hide & Seek with the other neighbors. Excluding our elderly neighbor -- she can just bake us a pie.

Blah Blah Blah

Look at me! I’m writing again! Big whoop.

Doesn’t everybody blog now? I think so. My dog probably freaking blogs. Wait – no, she doesn’t. Our computer at home is broken. It’s for the best; she’d probably just bitch about how we never give her enough water or something. Well, Taylor! I don’t want to hear it!

So once upon a time I hung out on xanga. It was cool for a wee bit of time. But then it’s all about comments! comments! I need more comments! And that became lame. So my daily posts became weekly and then monthly and then never again. But then at work I went from kind of bored to poking my eyes out with the nearest sharp object might be fun bored. I decided for my own sanity (and for the sake of my pretty little eyes) I’d just goof around a bit more in this whole writing thing.

And really, one of my favorite people in all the planets finally created a blog, and I want to be just like her. So there you go – Alabamber is to blame.

p.s. Did you know that Unabomber is in the spell check system?