this....

..is not how i wanted to spend the night. i'm typing from the internet station at the sheraton near the atlanta airport.....because the plane that needed to pull out of the gate we were going into didn't, and after sitting for half an hour in the plane parking area, i missed my connection to phoenix by ten freaking minutes. (and oh yes, there's more to it than that, but i have 4 hours to sleep before my wakeup call, and am too tired and hungry (one bag of nuts????) to elaborate.

why i should never, ever wind up on a desert island

i woke up next to trent reznor this morning.

no need to worry- i'm not fooling around while SO is out of town or anything like that. i got sick of waking up to def leppard each morning, so i swapped out the cd in the alarm clock for "pretty hate machine" by nine inch nails.

jenny gilbert, who i hung out with constantly for about a year in high school, introduced me to the cd my sophomore year. as i recall, i was over at her house one day after summer school (math and i were not the best of friends, and it probably didn't help too much that i was too busy passing notes in class to actually focus on geometry, which i never really understood anyway. i mean what was with all those "proofs"? why did i have to prove something was true, if it had obviously already been proven? they never put unproven proofs in the books- why make us prove something was untrue? so, if the proof had already been proven true by someone else, why did i need to prove it as well? but i digress......)

anyway, i was over at jenny's house, dancing around in her basement while watching mtv, which i obviously didn't have at home (and this was back in the good ol' days, when mtv actually lived up to its name and played (brace yourself, kids) music. anyway, the first time "down in it" came on, i was mesmerized. who was the hunk with the longish hair walking down the street and jumping off of ledges and stuff while singing/rapping/whatever the heck you want to call it and lo and behold, jenny whipped out the pretty hate machine cd shortly thereafter.

i became hooked rather quickly, and that was before i started dating andy, who was pretty obsessed with nine inch nails himself.

anyway, i was laying in bed this morning, hesitant to turn off the cd, as it's been awhile since i last listened to it, and i started thinking about how this would definitely make my list (oh no! cliche alert!) of "desert island discs".

i've been asked to compile such a list before, and i always have a hard time with it. i inevitably wind up with greatest hits collections on the list, because otherwise i'd need at least twenty desert island discs to allow for multiple releases by depeche mode, duran duran, and inxs.

i don't know if the problem is my indecisiveness or if it's simply a cruel question to ask a dj. either way, here's my current list, which surely will take me at least a good half an hour to narrow down:

ten discs i would need on a desert island to keep me from losing my marbles, in no particular order*

1. nine inch nails "pretty hate machine"
2. inxs "kick" "shabooh shoobah" "listen like theives" "x" "shine like it does: the anthology"
3. the soundtrack to "threesome"
4. duran duran "seven and the ragged tiger"
5. u2 "actung baby"
6. the cult "high octane hits" (too bad i currently have no clue as to the whereabouts of the cd...i really should dig it up before my next trip....on wednesday.)
7. the monkees greatest hits
8. the soundtrack to "the saint"
9. depeche mode "singles 1986-1998"
10. the cure "galore"

that wasn't so bad...though i'm going to have to smuggle "ready sex go" by the marvelous 3 inside one of the cds cases, and i might be in the mood for the moody blues at some point, so i guess their greatest hits cd might have to accidentally wind up piggybacked in one of the cases and i really like "hunting high and low" by aha- it's good for when i'm in a mellow mood....

*the cds, not my marbles

hey! pick on someone your own size!

it seems i have fallen behind when it comes to keeping up with current events. i was too busy trying to figure out how to get past blogger's new login setup ("click here to continue" you're kidding, right? i'm clicking like a four year old computer nerd on mountain dew and pixy stix, but i don't seem to be getting anywhere) to notice that my favorite planet is, well, no longer a full-fledged planet.

i am distressed, to say the least.

since i've always been little ("petite" sounds too delicate for a klutz like myself), when i had to write research papers in elementary school, i tended to gravitate (sorry- couldn't resist) toward smaller subjects. when we had to design tourism posters for the state of our choice, i picked rhode island. space travel pamphlets? pluto was the obvious choice.

originally, pluto's status was the basis for a campaign to add three new planets to the solar system: pluto's moon, charon, the asteroid ceres, and a new body bigger than pluto, 2003 ub313.

(i'm still not entirely convinced that this last entry wasn't just a smudge on the lens or a moth flying in front of the telescope, but hey- what do i know?)

however, the scientific bullies...err....the international astronomical union have instead stripped pluto of its status as one of the big 9, reducing it to a "dwarf" planet.

(which reminds me of the british comedy series "red dwarf", which i'm sure you have never seen. pity.)

this is terrible news. (the dwarf status- not the fact that you haven't seen "red dwarf". i mean, the latter is quite a loss, but can easily be remedied with dvds. i'm afraid pluto's not going to get off that lucky.)

i've read multiple articles in the newspaper this morning, which makes me as big of an expert on the subject as anyone. unfortunately, the articles i read presented this story as if it weren't really such a big deal, which couldn't be further from the truth.

~what's going to happen to "my very excellent mother just sat under new pines"? is she going to have to change positions and sit under noodles? nectarines? or dare she bare it all and sit around "unquestionably nude"?

~bullying of the roman god of the underworld by the other deities. in roman mythology, jupiter, neptune, and pluto are sort of the big three deities. jupiter is the king of the gods, neptune rules the seas, and pluto's left with the underworld which, let's face it, isn't exactly prime real estate. this new demotion of the planet named for pluto is sure to have a negative effect on his self-esteem. should we secure that zoloft prescription for him now, or later?

~ditto for goofy's pup. (or is he mickey's dog? i can never remember.)

~finally, and most importantly to me personally, what happens to the "a" i got on my space travel pamphlet? am i going to have to redo the project? thank goodness that particular teacher's not on myspace, greatly reducing her chances of being able to chase me down and force me to pick another planet.

excuse #351, courtesy of tom jones

i was all set to sit down and finally finish posting pictures from the big reunion weekend, but i spent so long trying to find this


that i ran out of time to post.

on the bright side, however, i've got a babysitting date with the little woman tomorrow night, so i should have copious amounts of time to post pictures and ramble incessantly on my blogs. (i know, i know- you're already planning your evening around this, aren't you?)

who are you again?

coming up with titles for these posts is always the hardest part. i had this problem when i was on the newspaper staff in high school (as the school's humor columnist- perhaps one of my bigger accomplishments), and i still find myself at a loss for words when i get around to coming up with a line compelling enough to make you actually read my ramblings.

speaking of high school, you may have heard a tiny little rumor or two about saturday's ten-year reunion*. let me set a few things straight:

1. while a couple of my former classmates were three sheets to the wind by 11:00, none of them were spotted dancing on tables with lampshades on their heads. (the fact that there weren't any lamps at this event is just a coincidence.)

2. it appears that none of my former classmates have grown up and become elvis impersonators. (then again, only about half of my graduating class showed up at this shindig.)

(i said two, right?)

the reunion went well, despite the lack of elvises. pre-reunion, i met up with a good friend i hadn't seen in, well, ten years, for dinner (just because you never know what sort of cuisine will be served at these shindigs). we caught each other up on the past decade over salad (me) and a chicken sandwich (her). initially, she'd mentioned wanting to steel herself for the reunion with a cocktail or two, but she wound up waiting until we got to the actual reunion. (i'm guessing she didn't want to be the first one up on a table, lampshade or not.)

upon entering the building, we were presented with our name tags.

before i go any further, a word to my young readers: when the time comes to take your senior picture for your high school yearbook, make sure you're having a good hair day, as that picture will haunt you for the rest of your freaking life.

my senior picture was not exactly flattering, as my hair has always had a mind of its own, and that day, it felt like doing some weird wavyish thing, except where it was straight, and don't worry folks, because i will never, ever get that jacked-up short haircut again. (hear that? it's my dad and SO cheering, because they just skipped over a few words and read that i was never going to get a short haircut again.)

anyway, naturally, my senior picture was on the nametag, which i promptly folded, not just because i never actually resembled my senior picture, which sucked, but because i figure i look almost exactly the same as i did in high school (well, maybe i'm an inch taller, give or take and inch) and anyone who knew me then would recognize me now....unlike one of my former classmates, who used to be a wee bit geeky but has spent the past ten years growing up and becoming downright hot.)

but i digress.

in addition to a little nametag origami (which wound up being pretty pointless by the end of the night, since the nametags were those cheap plastic sleeves and somehow my tag, dreadful picture and all, flipped out of said plastic toward the end of the evening, as i walked through a crowd of people who never gave me the time of day even back in high school), i also borrowed a marker and did a little editing as far as my name was concerned. (props for putting "duff", but ten years hasn't been long enough to convince me i should capitalize it.)

while i didn't run into everyone i'd hoped, i did manage to run into a couple of unexpected folks, including a girl who was my best friend for several months my sophomore year before one of us (not sure which, but probably me) fell off the face of the earth. even more interestingly, she recognized me first, which, quite honestly blew me away. we'd dated brothers during our brief but close friendship, and she's still in contact with them, which is how she knows that the one i dated (andy the first, as opposed to andy the second, who's the one i usually reminisce about on here) is now married with almost enough offspring for his own basketball team. (in retrospect, i'm kind of glad things between us didn't work out- i shudder to think what it's be like to have six kids at my age. i mean, sometimes, you just have to say, "no, honey, not tonight.")

i tended not to seek out people during the evening- figured they could come to me. i'd blame this sort of approach for my lack of dates in high school, but i think it was actually more a problem of not being able to subtly harbor a crush on just about anyone at the time. (i've since gotten better about this, believe it or not, though the dates still aren't exactly pouring in.)

oh- that's another reason i stayed (fairly) put. i mean, how could the hordes of men wishing to apologize for never asking me out find me if i were running all over the place? i mean, i'm small and quick and easy to miss, despite the turquoise and orange outfit i'd worn that evening. after sensing that my horde wasn't coming, i came to the conclusion that i'm not yet rich, famous, or gorgeous enough yet to inspire serious regrets. however, by the 20th reunion, i'll be there....and perhaps by then, i will have learned to walk in girly shoes. (for the record, i wore my bouncy adidas. after all, i haven't changed that much. well, maybe i have a little- otherwise i would've packed my plaid doc martens and worn those to the reunion, but i suppose in some small way, i wanted to sort of attempt to fit in a little....and i'm just not willing to sport jewelry of significance and pop out a few kids to do it.)

i could ramble on and on for a bit about the reunion, but i'll spare you the bulk of the details. however, i should note that i'm still trying to figure out how the guy who swore i was in his ceramics class new me, since i never took any art classes. i also would be remiss if i didn't compliment the other class clown on his clothing choices for the evening. (lack of orange chuck taylors was a downer, but i really liked the "sex, drugs, and dungeons & dragons" t shirt.) oh, and i finally got to meet the boyfriend of one of my best friends from high school. we spent most of the evening hanging out, and i'm quite excited about the prospect of meeting up with them the next time i'm in phoenix.

ok, i'll shut up now so i'll have time to post a few reunion photos over on random photos before bed.

*i know, i know, since the reunion was on saturday, i'm actually a day late writing this post. however, i have an excuse- it's taken me awhile to come up with the perfect title.

the eagle has landed...with a thud

actually, i flew us airways today- do they have a mascot?

i know it's been awhile since i last posted here (or on random photos, for that matter), but, well, sometimes blogging isn't my highest priority. in fact, it falls somewhere between obsessively checking my list of friends on myspace to see if i'm "popular" yet and trying to keep the puppy at work out of my underwear. (yeah- let's come back to that in a moment, shall we?)

at any rate, i'm actually operating on central time at the moment, though i'm too lazy to change the setting in the upper right hand corner. as you may have figured out, i'm in town for the big reunion.

in case you're wondering, no, i still haven't figured out what "bar attire" means. i packed a pair of jeans, my favorite skirt/short things (see profile picture with stitch), and i think the jean shorts i sported today will be put to use again during my stay.i haven't worked out exactly which ensemble to go with, though i'm leaning toward the outfit at left, mostly because the shirt matches my favorite pair of tennis shoes, which i've been wearing in an effort to protect my broken toe.

(yes- you read that right. i wiped out my fourth toe on my right foot last night when, as i was wandering around the apartment barefoot while packing, i walked straight into one of SO's cast iron dumbbells, which i seriously doubt get touched except by my dainty, delicate toes. surprisingly, for possibly the first time ever, "fuck" was not uttered, screamed, or even mumbled.)

however, the downside of the skirt/short plan is that the battle wound on my right knee would be fully visible.

ah yes- i never got around to blogging about that on monday, did i? well, i suppose i should get you caught up while i'm at it.

monday morning, i had to pry my butt out of bed at a rather obscene hour so i could keep my hot date (not really, but it's fun to pretend) with my hunky orthodontist. after a couple of hours of quality time, albeit mostly with the hygienist, as well as six brackets, a new top wire, and (brace yourself) a set of "chains", i headed off to work. however, it was not long before i realized that i wasn't going to get back over to the right side of town without some gas. normally, this would not be an issue, i'd just whip out the credit card, and be on my merry way.

however, the credit card is still cooling off after the trip to disneyworld, so i'd taken it out of my wallet, leaving me with...well....approximately 45 cents in change. given the current gas prices, i think i could have bought half a whiff of fumes with that money.

fortunately, SO was at work, mere minutes from HO (hunky orthodontist), so i made a little detour so i could bat the baby blues and sweet talk him out of a couple of bucks.

five minutes later, hamilton in hand, i pulled into the nearest, most reasonably priced gas station. i scampered in to prepay for my gas, and then scampered back out to my car, where i inserted the nozzle and then started to make my way toward the windshield washing station.

unfortunately, the most direct way to get from my car to said window washing station involved stepping over the hose i'd just inserted into my car. for most people, this isn't a problem. however, i am not most people. i am short. i am less than coordinated. most of all, i was overdue for some sort of klutzy incident.

i'm sure the gas station's video cameras captured my moment of grace. i half stepped, half tripped over the hose, and fluttered to the ground like a leaf. well, maybe "fluttered" isn't quite the word for it. however, the bruise is faint and the knee-skinning wounds camouflage the fact that i totally missed my knee the last time i shaved, so i suppose it worked out okay after all.

i'm pleased to report that this evening's landing was far smoother, but perhaps that was because i was in no way responsible for it.

giving back

so there i was, ready to post something cheerful and uplifting to cheer up a friend who's currently lamenting the lack of..uh...coed physical activity in their life.

since it's widely known that i'm a music geek, and it's also widely known that i've been harboring a slight youtube habit lately, i figured i'd cheer them up with the perfect music video- "touch me (all night long)" by cathy dennis.

a word to the wise: do not search for "touch me" on youtube while sitting at work. i'm sure three red flags were thrown up in the time it took me to realize what i'd done and then furiously click the "back" button about twelve times.

unfortunately, that left me on the page where i searched for a certain quiet riot tune, the title of which features a couple of misspellings, the first of which left me looking at, well, let's just say that only added to my collection of red flags.

i mean, seriously, kind folks over at youtube- if i type in "cum on feel the noize", i am searching only for the song by that name. there's simply no need to be helpful and throw up several options involving only the first portion of that title. if i wanted to watch three minutes of amateur porn, i'd try to figure out where that bootleg clip of the pam anderson/bret michaels video went.

anyway, after hastily closing the window, i reopened youtube on a fresh page, and searched in a different direction for the perfect thing to cheer up my friend, and since i know you need cheering up, too, i'll share it with you:

call me.....

leave it to kal to give me something to write about:

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet and current street name)

sherman parklane

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your mom's side, your favorite candy)

margaret caramel kisses

3. YOUR "FLY GIRL/GUY" NAME: (first initial of first name, first two or three letters of your middle name)

d kar

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)

blue koala

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)

karen ft. collins

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom's maiden name and first 3 letters of the town you grew up in.)

paudu stwoo

7. Terrorist Name: (middle name spelled backwards, your mom's maiden name spelled backwards) -

jeez- that's an awful lot to try to spell backwards, especially at this hour.

8. SUPERHERO NAME: (your favorite color, favorite drink)
blue lemonade

now for the tagging: how about callie, osbasso, martha, kristi, and stef?

imperfect

yesterday morning, i woke up and stumbled to the computer to find this in my inbox:



not only was the image in my inbox, but kal was kind enought to leave me a message on my last post calling my attention to a picture that might be of interest over on his blog.

you guessed it:



*sigh*

i know exactly why SO sent the picture- he's poking fun at the val kilmer clause again.

for the new readers in the crowd, let me explain the val kilmer clause:

from the beginning of our relationship, the val kilmer clause has been one of those unwritten rules. while i undoubtedly love SO, if val kilmer shows up at our front door and asks me to spend some clothing-optional quality time with him, i am allowed to go.

(please note: while it is the "val kilmer clause", i have also reserved the right to add a couple of additional celebrities to the clause. unfortunately, matthew mc conaughey seems to have misplaced the directions to my apartment.)

in exchange for a night/week/month/couple of years with val, SO is allowed equal priviliges with his list of dream women: denise richards, sheryl crow, shannon elizabeth, elizabeth hurley, and just about any other leggy, long-haired brunette who walks across the tv screen, especially if she happens to be clad in a sun devils cheerleading uniform (because of course we all have one of those in our closets).

anyway, it seems that there's a movement afoot to dissaude me from including val in the val kilmer clause.

in one corner, my dear sibling has been campaigning against val, citing his current age (46- admittedly, a veritable relic from the days before the discovery of the wheel) and girth. i also get to hear weekly mumblings about val playing a gay cop a little too well (he's a hell of an actor- what can i say?), and kal has been echoing my sibling's sentiments lately, trying to replace val with younger, hunkier actors.

and then there's SO. when pictures surfaced showing val supposedly "making out" with paris hilton, SO was kind enough to forward me the link before our morning show covered it. any time val makes the news for some reason that might potentially make him less attractive, i'm the second to know, thanks to SO. so, i suppose his sending the picture my way is an attempt to convince me that val is now old and unsexy and should he show up at our front door, i should recoil in horror and slam the door in his face.

here's the flaw in his cruel and devious plan:

i actually like imperfections.

i mean, who wants to be with a veritable adonis? no, really. i'm afraid that if the val kilmer of 21 years ago (shit- has it really been that long since "real genius?") were to show up at my door, i'd be too obsessed with my bodily imperfections to speak, let alone shed some clothing. so, in a way, val's actually more appealing now that he's imperfect, because he's no longer a god- he's a flawed human.....who surely is going to be too busy thinking about his stomach to give my mildish cellulite issues a second thought.

kal and SO: 0 val kilmer (gut and all): 1

back to school

first, let me say that i'm totally cheating tonight by turning a myspace bulletin into a meme, because i'm too lazy to think of something deep, meaningful, and entertaining to write about.

feel free to swipe this, if you wish:

Body: Fill this out about your SENIOR year of high school! The longer ago it was, the more fun the answers will be.

1. Who was your best friend(s)?
heather maddox, sara small, kevin dickerson, andy simpson

2.What sports did u play?
senior year? tennis.

3. What kind of car did you drive?
drive? drive? yeah...that's a good one. even if i'd bothered to get my license by that point, i wouldn't have had a car to drive.

4. It's Friday night, where were you at?:
most likely with heather- the trouble we got into varied week to week.

5. Were you a party animal?
by my parents' standards, yes. by anyone else's....probably not so much.

6. Were you a considered a flirt?
only if i was considered one who didn't actually get any dates.

7. Ever skip school?
senior skip day....and i think i only skipped part of a day, at that.

8. Were you a nerd?
senior year? nah.....yet for some reason, the guys weren't exactly falling all over themselves to ask me out, either.

10. Did you get suspended/expelled?
do you think my parents would have allowed me to live if i had?

11. Can you sing the fight song?
it'll probably come back to me at the reunion. i've got my elementary school song totally covered, though.

12. Who was your favorite teacher?
i had several- mr. ballard, mr. packett, mrs. mccarthy......

13. Favorite class?
any of mr. packett's history classes

14. What was your school's full name?:
Park Hill Senior High

15. School mascot?
Trojan!!

16. Did you go to Prom?
nope...but my little sister did.

17. If you could go back and do it over, would you?
yes.....would i do some things differently? maybe.

18. What do you remember most about graduation?
a. i seriously considered not wearing anything under my gown.
b. i dyed my hair one of the school colors.
c. i seriously regretted a few of the screwdrivers i'd consumed the night before, at scott venable's house.

19. Favorite memory of your Senior Year?
being named class clown.

20. Were you ever posted up on the senior wall?
did we have one of those?

21. Did you have a job your senior year?
athletic attic

23. Where did you go most often for lunch?
during school? uh...the cafeteria

24. Have you gained weight since then?
i think i'm about 7 lbs over my school weight, give or take a couple

25. What did you do after graduation?
worked the whole summer, and then on weekends when i went away to college at nwmsu

26. When did you graduate?
1996

27. Where are most of your classmates?
judging from the sample on myspace, i think most are still in missouri, though several of us managed to flee.

28. Ten year reunion, are you going?
am i going? yes.
will i be staying all night? probably not.

29. Who was your home room teacher?
i can't remember her name without hauling out a yearbook. older social studies teacher downstairs in barry hall, next to mr. packett's room.

30. Who will repost this after you?
whoever's got time on their hands and wants to look busy. (i'm guessing jamie harris......)

getting predictable in my old age

i am totally procrastinating.

i just thought you should know that.

i have the usual pile of avon stuff that i'm ignoring (i'll have to bite the bullet and do something about the pile befopre bedtime, though), as well as a mountain of laundry that i should hang, since SO's only getting four three hours of sleep tonight before he goes back into work, and i think i've finally hit that point where the random piles of (admittedly, my) stuff all over the apartment could trigger some sort of late-night cleaning binge.

instead of tackling the multiple matters at hand, i'm sitting here, trying to work out why my mental jukebox is playing "get ready".....assuming that's the title....which naturally leads to a few guesses about the artist (temptations? four tops? crap- if only i weren't too lazy to get up off the couch and look).....which for some strange reason leads to the four seasons, which makes me want to check youtube for the video for "december 1963 (oh what a night)"...unless it's actually "oh what a night (december 1963)", and once again, i'm too lazy to look it up.

anyway, i know that once i get on youtube, i'll be tied up for like an hour or so, and then i'll have to get the avon pile taken care of, which will leave me no time to deal with the mountain of laundry, which means i'll just pile the colored load on top of the white load and the other colored load already on top of the dryer, and naturally some of the pile will fall over the back of the dryer, not to be seen again until we move or the articles of clothing tire of our little game of "hide and seek" and wander back out into the middle of the floor, bringing a couple of hangers with them, which i will, naturally, step on while barefoot, which will undoubtedly lead to the exclamation on my part of several new and unusual sequences of off-color words, some of which may be among the seven that george carlin advises us not to say on television and.....

where was i? oh, yes, youtube.

on sundays, i babysit the kim komando show on our talk radio station. this past weekend, she informed her listening audience that youtube actually surpassed myspace trafficwise recently. this doesn't surprise me in the least. i mean, once you click on one video, it's not hard to find yourself watching tawny kitaen rolling around on the hood of david coverdale's car several hours later.

the surprising part is that no matter what music video you start off with, be it "talk dirty to me" by poison, phil collins' "sussudio", or even "broken hearted savior", by big head todd and the monsters, you will always, at some point, be offered the chance to watch ms. kitaen writhe around.

seriously- go try it. and while you're at it, how about figuring the mystery artist out for me, because quite frankly, if i get up off this couch, i may wind up doing actual work.....and we simply can't have that, now can we?

what's good enough for gene......

i'm not particularly tired at the moment, and i've got half an hour to kill before bed, and it seems it'd be in my best interest to not spend it trying to convince blogger to upload a couple of new photos, as i will only become more frustrated and, quite frankly, my laptop was just a little too expensive to be thrown across the room as i yell new and interesting combinations of expletives which, given the late hour, would undoubtedly wake the neighbors.

*sigh*

so, instead, my six readers will have to suffer through my babblings about gene simmons, his thoughts on marriage, and i'll even bore you with a point-by point comparison between his thoughts on the subject and mine.

nah- not really. that'd bore even me, and i'd hate to fall asleep, drool on the keyboard, and wind up shorting it out/electrocuting myself.

however, in the premiere episode of his new show this evening, he wound up attending a wedding. when asked if anyone had any objections, gene raised his hand and asked the grrom if he was sure he wanted to get hitched, pointing out that that meant he could be with only one woman for the rest of his life.....a thought that makes gene visibly pale. the groom answered in the affirmative, and gene wished him luck.

i imagine that shade of pale was akin to the color i turned last night when i mentioned something to SO about eloping and he said, half jokingly, "when?"

something to play with

why, oh why, has meat loaf's mid-90s tune "i would do anything for love (but i won't do that)"* been stuck in my head all day?

no, wait- i can totally pin this one on kal.

i have a certain fondness for bizarre musical trivia and i can't resist any sort of challenge to connect two seemingly dissimilar artists using such trivia, so the first thing i did this morning after getting to work was try to link prince to anthony hopkins, with a stop at meat loaf somewhere in the middle.

as my six readers already know (six! six! this is fantastic....and a great deal of pressure to post more often), my mind works in mysterious ways sometimes.

.....which leads me to a little challenge, which i'm going to post both here and over on myspace: can you connect david hasselhoff


and steven tyler


in six steps or less?

*or is it "(i would do anything for love) but i won't do that"? i'm too lazy to google it right now- let alone get up out of this chair and dig out my copy of bat out of hell II.

so much to write about, so little time......

hi.

i didn't hide out at the haunted mansion so i could take up residence with the "999 happy haunts" (all together now: "but there's room for a thousand"*)

i've been back from the happiest place on earth since tuesday night, but i've been so busy catching up with myself that this is the first time i've logged onto blogger since my return.

sorry to keep my two readers hanging. my bad.

(for the record, i'll try to finish off the dizz knee land series this weekend, but i'm going to backdate the entries, so feel free to scroll down and see if i've gotten caught up yet.)

topics other than disneyworld have my attention this evening, however.

first order of business:

what have you folks been drinking lately? i just opened up statcounter, and it seems i'm the go-to girl when it comes to duff cakes baltimore, "which of the seven dwarves is last alphabetically?" (sneezy, isn't it?), sesame street terror alert myspace, lyrics of bryan adams' "please forgive me" (the spelling/grammar was just too much- i had to adjust it), how to make a pinuta (no really- that's how it was spelled), virtual map prince edward island - crapaud, and i'm number one for "random place in morocco". (i assume my certificate is in the mail.)

people also recently visited in search of the phone number for my radio station (that'd be (803) 978-1047, for you folks playing along at home), "puncture wound sexy foot" (thank goodness that foot wasn't mine, for once. then again, while my feet are rather cute, i'm not sure they can be considered "sexy" if i still haven't learned how to walk in heels yet.)....and while we're at it, i am honored (no, not really) to report that the amanda peet and hilary duff foot fetishists are alive and well. on a more aromatic note, someone in france searched for "mini caramellos", which reminds me- i still have an unopened bag of hershey's caramel kisses at home......for right after my high school reunion, since between now and then i need to lose the weight i gained during multiple trips to multiple buffets down in disneyworld.

finally, i've saved the best for last. i'm not quite sure how it led to me, but somehow, someone in czechoslovakia wound up here after googling "miss kendra" girdle.

in an odd sort of way, that leads me into my

second order of business:

i'm not quite sure how these things happen to me, but somehow i've managed to get myself into not one, not two, but three different conversations about underwear in the past two days. (i swear i don't normally talk about underwear, at least not a majority of the time, but i am afraid it is slightly more interesting a topic than most of the mindless drivel i constantly babble about.)

so, i figured, why not make it a fourth time? since you probably haven't had a conversation about underwear lately, i figure i might as well include you in this one. (after all, that's what the comments section is for, isn't it? unless of course, you are a proud tidy-whitey wearer, in which case, feel free to keep that little tidbit to yourself.)

recent topics for discussion:

1. "i need underwear. go upstairs and get me some."

....to which i replied, "i have underwear on. you're the one who needs it, so you should be the one to get it. everyone gets their own underwear around here."

2. "commando?"

most nearly-five-year-olds know what that means, right? right? ok, fine. maybe my sidekick is now ahead of the pack.....as she should be.

3. "tidy whities? noooooooooooo"

am i the only one who feels the need to convert my significant others' choices in underwear? i'm trying to scroll through my current instant messenger conversation to see how eloquently i phrased it.....

ah, yes- here it is:

"i will not get naked with anyone wearing tidy whities.
in fact, seeing them only makes me want to put more clothes on...including running shoes, so i can scamper away very quickly....."

discuss.

*for the record, i only went through four times this time. i know, i know- i'm slipping.

lost? no i'm not- i'm right here, wherever that is.

we've just finished dragging everything up from the car (i hadn't realized i'd had so much fun with my credit card while down at disneyworld- oops. perhaps i should get some stock or something.), and i'm currently avoiding the whole, painful unpacking process.

after a quickstop at our resort's gift shop (souvenirs for SO's niece and nephew), the penny squishing machine (i had six spaces left in my little squished penny album), and the food court (we weren't about to let those last 4 snack credits go to waste), we pulled out of the parking lot around 11:15.

"but, duff," you ask, "how come the trip only took you seven hours heading south, but it took you a full 12 hours to return?"

perhaps it was the weak tropical storm off the florida coast.....or the pull of mars, which is surprisingly close to us right now (what's that date i'm supposed to mark on my calendar? august 27th?).....or the apprehension about coming back to work (riiiiight- unlike this time last year, i have a job i like and bosses i adore- i was perfectly okay with coming back to work....and i'm sure my credit card company is, too.).

actually, we had a slight detour on the way back.

scratch that- we had a series of slight detours- some intentional, some not so much.

i can't remember whether i mentioned it in an earlier post or not, but when we went down to disneyworld for the first time, when i was seven (crap- when did i get so damned old?), we stopped at st. augustine on our way back up the coast. as you already know, i'm a big fan of the national park passport program, and the combination of that little fact and a bit of nostalgia (not to mention SO's fondness of st. augustine) led to our first, planned, detour.


ft. matanzas national monument, where we (literally) missed the boat, but not the informative 8-minute video, which described how the spaniards here massacred a bunch of frenchmen who came down from nearby ft. caroline. according to the video, the fort got its name from the spanish word for "massacre".

after wandering around the grounds for half an hour, we got back into the car and headed north to castillo de san marcos, located in downtown st. augustine.



naturally, i took some of the best photos i've ever taken here, but sadly, blogger does not feel inclined to let me share any more of them with you. it's too bad, really, as these pictures are friggin' spectacular. really, they are. museum worthy, as a matter of fact.

please hold- it's getting a little deep in here, and i'm having trouble locating a shovel.

anyway, as easy as it was to find our desired targets (3 new cancellations in my passport, by the way), it was equally tough to get to our desired destination just outside of jacksonville. (not that it really mattered, as there was no way for us to make it to fort caroline before the gates closed at 5:00.)

we didn't get lost, mind you, we were merely "exploring the area".

i mean really exploring the area. though we only added about 30 extra miles to our trip, i think we were uh....charting new territory not covered on my atlas....for somewhere between half an hour and an hour.

if there's blame to be placed anywhere, i'm throwing it on armando. clearly, it's all his fault.

(sorry- no picture to upload, even if blogger were feeling cooperative, which it still isn't.)

you see, after wandering around the castillo de san marcos for around an hour in the blazing heat (though i understand it was about 10 degrees warmer up here in south carolina), we worked up an appetite. one of the gift shop employees suggested a restaurant in town, but there was a mexican restaurant across the street from the national monument, and we were too hungry to walk any further.

we seated ourselves upstairs, and were immediately tended to by armando, who looked a bit like billy zane and had a voice equally as deep, if not maybe even a little more so.

normally, that would be enough, but armando also had a bit of an accent.

actually, that's a huge understatement. armando's accent was thicker than molasses- so thick, in fact, that i had a hard time figuring out what he was saying half the time.

it was one of those setups that could potentially lead to illicit fantasies involving unknown spanish phrases being uttered in candlelight and i'm thinking maybe silk sheets and perhaps some really expensive chocolates and....

so as i was saying, perhaps i became a little sidetracked and lost all of my map reading abilities because i was preoccupied with working out whether those silk sheets should be a deep shade of green....or purple.....or sort of a wine color, because even though i'm not a huge fan of the maroon color family, that color seems to appear a lot in those cliched latin-lover scenarios.....

anyway, we're back, not yet unpacked, and if you'll excuse me, there's a cold shower i've been meaning to take.