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Marvin <3

12 Dec

Meet Marve.

Yesterday I sat in my brand new (used) car for the first time and found it difficult to contain my raging joy.

I freaked out.  About everything.  Dave, who had a few days to bond with the car (let’s call him Marvin), smiled amusingly while I tinkered with all the bells and whistles and peed my pants. 

In order to put this in perspective, you have to understand that never, in my entire life, have I owned a car where everything in it worked as intended.  There have been leaky oil tanks, falling fabric ceilings, windows that couldn’t be rolled down for fear they never go back up, sunroofs that wouldn’t shut,  doors that could not be exited through, trunks that could not be opened, and broken gas gauges – which made for many a problematic outing.   

That doesn’t even take into account issues with body rust, major dents, color mismatches, or the car actually running. 

The struggle of the poor commuter is both arduous and exciting.  I remember one of the cars my family had growing up spontaneously caught on fire.  It caught on fire. I spent most of my life in fear that a trip in the car to get groceries was willfully plunging toward my death.

But now I have Marvin.  Marvin has working windows.  And lights and a horn and a fuel gauge and a rear defrost and a ceiling that isn’t falling down and a trunk that opens and closes and a sunroof that works and plastic parts that stay in place and I cannot contain my raging, raging joy.

When I turned around to check out the row of back seats, I noticed the middle one had a big kid seat belt instead of just a lap belt and tried to abstain from peeing with glee all over the beautiful, relatively unstained interior.  Marvin has no major dents, is all the same color, and turns on when I want him to.  It’s like I’ve won the Showcase Showdown.

There’s a part of me that can’t shake the feeling that something awful is going to reveal itself soon.  I’ll be driving it around, singing Pumped Up Kicks, feelin’ like a fly little white girl, and then my front bumper will fall off, or my ceiling will fall and encase me in its flowy fabric, or the entire car will just spontaneously burst into flame.

I suppose until I die in that fiery, tragic death I’ll just have to distract myself from fear by playing with my power windows and sunroof. ♣

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The Reveal

11 Dec

Oh. Em. Jee.  I changed my header image.

I’ve talked of this moment for a very long time, excited to release my web page from the chains of Yo Gabba Gabba.  To be honest, I’ve never watched it.  I actually didn’t even know what it was until a reader pointed it out to me.   Hey, when you’re wading through the strange, murky seas of building a webpage (regardless of whether it’s noob friendly or not), you’ll do anything to look like you’re put together.

I’m pretty sure that having a children’s cartoon image at the top of my page has lost me some potential subscribers.  Then again, now so might the D&D dice.

I could have unveiled this on a weekday, when everyone is reading and not out living their awesome lives, but I wanted to be sneaky.  Also, I’ve spent all my time since last night barfing out some kind of awful hell demon and it works in my favor to not have to come up with a topic today.  

Seriously.  Hell demon.

So from the comfort of my couch, buried beneath 10,000 blankets and with a box full of mini wheat thin crackers by my side, I present to you my new header.  It’s brought to you by Unillu, the art company brainchild of Megan Prior-Pfeifer, which strives to create unique illustrations and is not afraid to push boundaries.  You can check out more work from Unillu by clicking these hyperlinks I keep slyly inserting into our little talk here.  Or you can scroll to the bottom of this very page and click the pretty green box. 

Feel free to give feedback, leave comments, tell me you miss Yo Gabba Gabba – whatever your heart desires.  Thank you for reading, for subscribing, for liking me on Facebook, and following me on Twitter.  It’s that kind of pressure that leads someone to feel the need to change their header image.  If you don’t do any of the things I just listed, consider them.  Browse around.  Be ye warned: I talk about cats a lot.  

Click, browse, subscribe, like.  I’m gonna go work on that hell demon. ♣

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Feline Battalion: Report!

10 Dec

My cat has launched a war.  I am without ample defense.

I was sitting in the living room when the first strike hit.  It was earlier this week and Dave left town in search of a dream (read: car).  Hobbes lashed out with unhappiness by knocking everything off the top of the fridge.  When I got up to find the cause of the clatter he had disappeared, leaving boxes of cereal and pill bottles in his wake.  He promptly followed up by standing at the front door and caterwauling.  

I should note here that Hobbes gets walks.  Yes, Dave takes him on walks.  I do not.  I refuse to walk a cat and things being as they were, Hobbes was devastated that the human who clearly loved him more was gone from his life.  

I tried talking sense into him.  I tried petting and loving and distractions of all kinds.  I tried meowing back.  But when none of those things worked and his cries grew stronger for my efforts, I thought I might harm him in some deep and violent way.  So instead I grabbed our bottle of catnip spray and soaked him.  He dripped with joy, rolled around, and promptly fell asleep.

Human: 1.  Cat: 0.

But the war didn’t stop there.  When I came home from work yesterday, a box of food that is normally well-guarded and out of reach was blatantly strewn across the kitchen tile.  The food wasn’t even devoured, which shows that it was a display of power rather than a desperate act of hunger.  Without damning evidence, I was unable to determine which cat was responsible and held my wrath for a later opportunity.

Human: 1.  Cat: 1.

In an attempt to wind down from carrying the burden of my corporate chains, I set up my laptop, got some food, and invited the cats to come share in my cozy couch contraptions by the light of the Christmas tree.  When I finally got everything just right I breathed a huge sigh of relief, slouched back into the couch cushion and grabbed my fleece throw made of boiled baby lambs.  But instead of warm, fluffy goodness, my hand plunged into a pile of cat gak.  Hairball. And I had just washed that blanket.

Human: 1. Cat: 2.

Since throwing up on my cat’s belongings wouldn’t do much to even the score, I was without ideas for effective retaliation.   I had given up hope and resolved to hiding in my domicile, terrorized by my bully cat and his gak until Dave could come save me.

Dave returned yesterday with glad tidings of great joy (read: car).  And as he opened the door to greet me, Hellcat darted out the door and into the cavernous halls of our apartment building, never to willfully return again.  Dave, seeing this as an opportunity to exercise good parenting, retrieved him and told him that if he had just waited until Dave was ready, he would have happily taken Hobbes outside.  But since he had to have things on his own terms and be so inconsiderate, he would now have to wait.

Human: 2.  Cat: 2

I’m worried about where this may go.  There are even numbers on both sides now that Dave has returned but he and Lola have yet to officially join the war.  There’s also a high possibility that if Dave expresses support for the humans, Hobbes will obey while he’s around and then take out his wrath on me when Dave’s not here to police him.

This is the next step in my transition to crazy cat lady: the suspicion of mutiny in the ranks.  Last night I heard a cold, lonely cat wailing in the wind and per Dave’s issued protocol, told myself that cats were never intended to be domesticated and that it is only us that makes it such, that it will survive without my assistance, and that Dave will kill me dead if I bring another cat in the apartment.  It was effective after fervent repetition  But when Hobbes gave me the stink eye later on in the evening, I thought of that cold, lonely cat and how it would undoubtedly be on my side if I took it in.

This is how it starts. ♣

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Cracking the Fit Club Code

9 Dec

 

I tried to make this image smaller but it was being rude. So I relented out of frustration. All hail the enormous stick figure runner. DIE IN A FIRE, PICTURE.

I’m having a hard time gathering enough stomach fat to hold it in my hands in front of me now.

That’s radical.

There were really only two times in my life that I’ve been able to say that.  The first is when I was a vegetarian (8 months, Thanksgiving turkey got me), and the second is when I had mono.  So unless I’m starving myself or my body is starving itself, I’ve been fat.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m still totally fat.  But yesterday I put on a pair of pants I haven’t worn in forever because I feel distinctly like I have two sausage link for legs when I’m in them.  And when I sat in my office chair, the waist of the pants didn’t even cut into my stomach and make me feel like I was being stabbed to death by a rubber knife.

I’ve only been running for two weeks, so I’m not really sure how I can lose so much in so little time but that’s pretty darn exciting.  I did three weeks of P90X and didn’t notice any change at all.  This seems strange to me – as if I’ve entered some sort of dimensional fold that is quickly rewarding me for doing something I absolutely hate.  How is it that working out for 1.5 hours 6 days a week got me nowhere fast and interval running for 30 minutes 3 days a week is beginning to make my body stop jiggling furiously while I brush my teeth?

That’s a serious fat girl problem, people.  No joke.

Now, I don’t want to go all life lesson preacher on you because it’s only been two weeks and I seriously can’t even imagine graduating to the 3rd, 4th, and 5th weeks of this program, let alone ever actually running a 5K.  That sounds like crazy talk to me.  But right now, at this point in time, I’m succeeding.  And I think I’m having an epiphany.  My entire life, I assumed that there were people who liked to work out and people who didn’t like to work out and I was one of the latter which is why it never stuck.  And while I’m sure there may be people in this world who like to work out, I think it’s only a very small percentage of humans.  I don’t think they’re doing it because they like it.  I think they’re doing it because they like it more than the alternative.  It feels better to wreck yourself for an hour or less than spend an entire day feeling like a fat turd.

I think I cracked the code.   Listen: I don’t like running.  I’ve been very honest about the fact that I’m doing this as an experiment on how far I can take this whole “no excuses” psychology by doing something I absolutely hate.  But what I do like is finally shaking that feeling that “I should really try to get healthy”.  I’m not walking around with this huge sack of shoulds on my shoulders and it’s awesome.  If I hate myself and what I’m doing for 30 minutes straight, I can spend the other 23.5 hours in the day not thinking about how out of shape I am, how bad my skin looks, or how I should make more of an effort.

Is this obvious? I don’t feel like it’s obvious.  I feel like things are presented to us in terms of people who enjoy working out and people who enjoy sitting on their pillowy bottoms, eating comfort food, and watching television.  You figure out which one you are, and you stay there.  Or you spend all your time trying to jump from one bowl to the other.  

Listen: it’s a myth.  No one likes exercising.  They just like it more than not exercising.  

Now: let’s hope that stays crystal clear when I’m halfway through Couch to 5K and I want to kill myself. ♣

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Kevin Bacon Owes Me a Coffee

8 Dec

No sleep for the Jackie.

I got a lot done last night (still running – 1/2 way through week 2, still alive).  I did not, however get any sleep.  Instead, I was jolting in and out of a dream that included the death of my father, and Kevin Bacon.

The Baconator didn’t do anything to my father.  In fact, it was a friend from my childhood who I haven’t talked to in years.  I have, however, stalked them on Facebook.  Then she killed my father.  Then I checked out Kevin Bacon’s twitter feed, and he got in a hot tub with me after my father died.

It wasn’t, like, romantic.  It was this super awesome hot tub/pool thing that was enormous and had about 20 people there – all folks I only somewhat knew- but the pool wasn’t filled with water.  So the Baconator and I were filling it up for them with the sprayer hose on my kitchen sink.

It took a while.

No one at my workplace will understand this or accept is as a valid reason not to come to work.  I would argue that I’m a better worker when I’m sick than I am when I’ve spent the evening bereaving my father’s passing and filling a giant hot tub with a kitchen sprayer, assisted only by Kevin Bacon.  But unfortunately it’s not socially acceptable for me to skip work because of a taxing dream.

I’ve attempted lucid dreaming before, but haven’t succeeded.  It’s happened a few times on accident and those moments are so super awesome that I would prefer to hang out in dream world than be in reality.  Because naturally, I can fly there.  And breathe underwater.  And play Mario levels in real life.  But the moment I don’t want to be lucid dreaming for is the one where I gain a sense of my own consciousness right beside the Baconator while he’s holding my kitchen hose.

So I’ve resolved to stalk more people online that I actually want to dream about.  Maybe I could focus a lot of it on cartoon characters, because I’m sure that’d be a swell adventure.  I could check out Donald Trump’s twitter feed and see if when I dream about him, he gives me a bunch of money so I can pretend to accomplish fiscal goals and buy schools for third world countries and things.  Or maybe I should just browse a bunch of food blogs and stare at the food porn so that at night I dream of food.  Suddenly kicking in to lucid dreaming when I’m right beside the world’s largest vat of Jell-O sounds pretty splendiferous if you ask me.

Anyway I’m super tired today and the way I see it, Kevin Bacon owes me a coffee.  Perhaps instead of accomplishing real work tasks today, I’ll begin composing documents in support of Paid Time Off following particularly strenuous dreams.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress. ♣

 

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How to Discreetly and Effectively Share Your Wish List

7 Dec

I’ve been so excited about particular products in the past (hefty trash bags, dyson vacuums) that I have been suspected of working for the companies that produce them.  Last night I entered the wonderful world of Pinterest and though I don’t work for them, I can’t help but share my enthusiasm with you.   Partly because it took over my entire night and is thus the only thing that happened to me yesterday, and partly because I have a beautiful plan for it. 

Well, it’s not the only thing that happened to me yesterday, but I don’t think making jokes about the holiday HR party for work is the best idea with regards to financial sustainability.

Anyway, here’s the deal.  Pinterest is a website that allows you to ‘pin’ your favorite things onto a virtual pinboard (essentially, like a profile page with just pictures and links but no personal information).  You can drag a little hot button into your toolbar while you browse and when you see something you like (ZOMG that kitten wearing armor and fighting a dog is sooooo cute!!!111!!!) you can click ‘pin’.  It will populate a few images you can use to represent that page/interest (select picture of kitten with mouth wide open, charging dog) and connects a URL to it.  So when I go to your Pinterest page, I see a bunch of pictures spread out on the page that link to the original sites and I’m all like oh man, that kitten is so cute. And I click it.  And see what you saw.

On the surface, it’s just another way to share things with people on the Interwebz that may or may not give a hoot about the sock bunny tutorial you thought was fantastically awesome or the failblog you read that morning.  But (and this is where my genius comes in) when you dig deeper, it’s a way to log all your desires into a wish list that you discreetly make available to family and friends.

Yeah, I’m going there.

Listen, everyone’s having babies and getting engaged and married and such (not necessarily in that order).  All of those life events are opportunities to have gifts given to you.  Now, I’m in my mid-20’s and at prime marrying/showering/engaging age, but I’m pretty happy and comfortable at the moment and in no rush whatsoever.  And by the time I do get around to any of those things, I’ll have already supplied myself with the items that one would deem appropriate for registries and general gift-giving.  Since I don’t have a socially acceptable reason to publicize a list of my product lusts, Pinterest can do it for me.

It’s a beautiful plan, folks.  Stay with me.  

On Pinterest, you can choose what to name the different pages in your profile.  That is, you can pin all your craft findings to a page called “ILOVEKRAFTSHAHAHA” and all your armored kittens to one called “Renaissance Cats Unite”.  So you make one called “Wish List” or “Product Lust” or “oh em jee buy me things” and pin your favorite products to that page.

Now, Pinterest is an invitation only community right now.  So you have to send an email invitation for someone to get a unique link allowing them to create a profile.  Which means that you will make yourself a page with your deepest desires on it, and out of the kindness of you heart, invite others to join the community (and also come check out all the things you really want).

No guilt, no pressure, no awkwardness.  Just a “hey, by the way if you want to get me something for just being in my mid-20’s, you can check out this page”.  Or a “hey if you don’t know what to get me for my birthday, I happen to have a constantly updated wish list available online”.   And because the pages are so pretty and well-organized, it’s almost like a treat for that person to browse and look through the things you pinned. Plus they get an invitation to a site they can’t join without your help.

It’s called a win-win, my friends, and it’s fantastic.

So go ahead; put out a request on your social media poison site of choice for a Pinterest invitation.  Make your Wish List, and spread the love and joy.  You might just find that the gifts you receive this year are beautifully tailored to your interests.   Or someone might get confused with which page is which and deliver a fully armored kitten to your doorstep.

Like I said: win – win. ♣

click image for original source/credits

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Enraged Knitting for Beginners

6 Dec

Good luck with that, buddy.

I’m genuinely upset.  My blood is boiling with frustration and I want nothing more than to throw this ball of yarn against the wall but I know it’s soft and malleable and will bring me  no satisfaction on impact.

Happy Lollipop Tuesday, boys and girls.  I’m angry.

If you don’t know what Lollipop Tuesday is, please know that it’s not often something enraging.  Usually, it’s a nice mind-opening experience that makes me grow somehow as a person – sometimes from epic new undertakings and sometimes from minute challenges. To read about more pleasant adventures, check out the archive at “What’s Lollipop Tuesday?” at the top of this page.  To mock my pain, stay put.

I have always wanted to knit.  I don’t know why.  Something about it seems so soothing.  I’ve seen people knit while they watch television as if their hands have minds of their own and their brain can take a vacation.  I’ve seen people knit entire scarves that come snaking out of their bags during class in college.  I’ve seen beautiful little craft tutorials online that seem so easy…if only you know how to knit.

I lack this basic pioneer skill.

For some stupid reason this week, I thought it would be great if I could teach myself how to acquire it.  But instead of relying on YouTube tutorials (which lovingly taught me how to solve a Rubik’s cube and how to make origami this year), I thought I’d go old school like the craft itself and learn from a book.

Why? Why did I do that?

As it turns out, I’m apparently an imbecile and have no ability to decipher diagrams or make sense of instructions. I’m really disappointed in myself.  Hours of attempting to ‘cast on’.  That’s right: I spent HOURS just trying to cast on.  It kept spiraling around and I couldn’t figure out why.  Then when I finally did, I realized my stitches were too tight.  There was always a reason to start over.  And when I finally sang a weak, forlorn Hallelujah for my accomplishment, it occurred to me that I hadn’t actually begun to knit yet.  I’d just prepared to begin to knit.  If I could have worked faster, I’d have fashioned myself a very soft, very colorful noose.  When I sought out the section of the booklet that actually delved into knitting, my mind was a flurry of despair.

 “Wrap the yarn around the right needle from back to front, so that it rests between the two needles (reference Diagram 32).  Slide the right needle down, then bring the point forward through the stitch, bringing the yarn with it (Reference Diagrams 33 and 34).”  

-excerpt from “Knit Yourself a Noose” by Jackie.

First of all, what the hell does any of that mean? Honestly.  It’s not clear enough for me.  And referencing the diagrams doesn’t help, because they’re in 2D and my life is in 3.  Three.  I need three D’s.  I don’t see any clear difference between the diagrams so I have to flit my eyes back and forth from one to the other until I can spot the difference like some sort of children’s activity book and then once I do, I’ve completely forgotten what I’m doing and my hands are in a mess that looks a lot like when I played Cat’s Cradle in elementary school. Blame it on my generation, but there was no way I was knitting a scarf from a book’s instructions.  Maybe if I were trapped in a cabin with a full supply of food and water, but nothing to entertain myself but a ball of yarn, two needles, and this incredibly vague book – then maybe I might be able to fashion myself a scarf wide enough to warm a kitten.  But it would probably still be spirally and misshapen and sad.

After hours of attempts and painfully slow progress, I stopped.  I told myself I’d given it the good ol’ college try and simply gave up.  I thought through the list of incredibly stupid people I know that somehow managed to learn to knit and got very, very angry.  I thought of all the old women to hum and rock and stare into a vast void while their hands make beautiful clothes and crafts and blankets and wonders of all kinds.  I was enraged.

Then I remembered that YouTube exists and did what I should have just resorted to in the first place: finding the most basic video with the most views.  As it turns out, it taught me how to cast on in a beautifully straight, incredibly clear line in only three minutes.  Yeah. Three minutes.    Then I moved on to attempting to actually knit a row.  And wouldn’t you know: it’s all actually quite straightforward.  There’s some messiness with all the fingers and string involved, but once you figure out what you’re looking at it’s really no big deal.  That being said, I’m not knitting Christmas presents any time soon, but I can at least not write off an entire bag of newfound knitting supplies.  And that’s pretty stellar because before I watched the YouTube video, I had resolved to burn them in a hot, blazing hellfire.

End result? Nothing actually knitted.  Various, undocumented attempts.  Overwhelming frustration.

Tonight, I go 2011 on it and go full-fledged YouTube.  I’ll knit you yet, scarf of rage. ♣

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My Plan for World Domination

5 Dec

My butt hurts.

And my thighs.  And my arms.  And my lack of abs.

Yeah, I didn’t think that a lack of something could hurt either, but that was until I started running.

For those of you not pumping my blog posts right into your veins every day, I should probably note here my most recent undertaking: Couch to 5K.  That’s a term for transforming one’s self from a sad, flabby couch potato into a lean, mean running machine.  This is an experiment for me in whether the psychology lesson I learned from blogging every day is applicable to other areas of life.  Areas I really hate that make me want to die.  Like exercising.  

Specifically, running.

The concept is simply no excuses.  I decided to do something, so I’m doing it.  One day at a time, without looking at the end product.  

I'm sorry but it was really hard to tell the search engine the difference between domination, and well, "domination". So you get the latter. Maybe it will inspire you to do Couch to 5K too. Or vomit. Sorry if it's just vomit.

This is the ultimate test of the postaday psychology because every time I think about running a 5K, I vomit in my mouth a little bit from fear.  So it’s important to focus on one day at a time.

I’m doing all right so far.  I mean, I’m only one week two.  But I’m still doing it-  I still run when the voice on my iPod tells me to run, and I (gladly and with much thanks to God in Heaven) walk when it tells me to walk.  But oh my good grief my fat does not take kindly to the flogging.  I went up a flight of stairs today and my thighs questioned me.  I had to talk them into it.  The sad part is that I’m not really even running yet. I’m just, like, jogging for a bit and then walking for a bit.  Interval stuff.  It’s just that I haven’t done anything active whatsoever with my body in so long that telling me to run for a minute and a half straight, giving me two minutes to question if I want to end my life or keep going, and then telling me to run for another minute and a half again is. so. hard. 

I’d like to mention here that I have asthma, so as to help the judging ease itself ever so slightly.  That’s right: I’m pulling the asthma card *pushes up glasses*.  Actually, I make Dave go with me so he can coach the breathing part.  Left to my own devices, I will haunch over and hyperventilate myself into an all out wheeze-fest.  It’s more like an exercise in breathing than an exercise in running.  

I’m hanging in there.  Ever so slightly.  I have to admit that the knowledge that in two weeks I will be expected to run for five minutes straight has me approaching paralysis.  I haven’t run for five minutes straight since I was in 9th grade soccer.  Even then it wasn’t pretty.

You know what I really can’t get over? That I do this crap at 6 in the morning.  SIX IN THE MORNING.  Because if I don’t get up and do it then, I’ll dread it all day.  It’s like knowing I have to get punched in the face eventually.  I can either spend my day working myself up to it and freaking out, or I can just take a slug right at the top of the morning. So far it’s been effective.

What if I unlock a whole key to psychology here? What if I begin to take on one unfathomable concept at a time until I have become a guru at life-changing and mind-altering? That’s my claim to fame, folks.  And you saw it all start here, on the Jackie Blog.

Now go share my Facebook page and Twitter with all your friends so you can be a cool hipster and say you read me when I was fat and unmotivated. ♣

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The Thrills of Adulthood Part II: My Palace of Filth

4 Dec

I’m protesting adulthood right now. 

My sink is absolutely chock full of dishes that have actually begun to take on a distinct smell, which I don’t like so I have a large Yankee candle lit in my kitchen to help me forget about it.  There are papers on the floor in my living room, evidence of a recently-rehearsed monologue, which my cats have deemed important and have therefore sprawled themselves across.  At one point yesterday there were so many cups on my coffee table in the living room that I began to think I was actually in the kitchen.

I just simply don’t feel like doing anything.

Sometimes I like to embrace being a grown-up in strange ways.  No one can tell me to clean my house, and that’s awesome.  No one can tell me whether or not I can blow a bunch of money on something completely stupid, and that’s awesome too.  I can make a blanket fort any time I like in any corner of the house I please, and I can blast music and dance around in my pajamas until 3 in the afternoon if it’s what tickles my fancy.

And lately, doing nothing at all has tickled my fancy quite fine.

I keep telling myself I’ll come out of it.  Either that, or Dave will get so tired of it that he takes over the entire house with adult sparkle magic one day.  That would be totally awesome.  I’ll promptly make a blanket fort in the newly cleaned domicile.

If he doesn’t give in soon, I’m going to have to eventually buck up because it’s highly likely that my parents will be in town next weekend and I’d hate for them to think I’ve given up on life or something (hi mom – thanks for reading).  Not even running out of dishes can stop me – I’ve already given up drinking anything except water from the bathroom faucet (because I keep a cup in the cupboard, constantly clean and ready for such an occasion), and I’ve taken to eating things that don’t require pots, pans, or anything more than a paper towel to handle.

I don’t know what happened to me.  I took off work on a bit of whim last Friday, had a 3-day weekend right on the heels of the 4-day weekend from the Thanksgiving holiday, and now I’m stuck in ‘off’ mode.  Which, relative to where I’ve been the rest of the year is a pretty excellent place to be.  I noticed that I’m a day behind on blogs (I used to post early in the morning and now I post late at night, to be read the next morning), that all I do when I have free time is watch movies and that going to work is just what I have to do until I can come back home and watch more movies.

Maybe it’s a December thing.  I decorated for the holidays, decided to not be so uptight about taking time away from the job, and now I’m so in love with it that my brain has found a permanent setting here.  I can’t bring myself to be bothered with the frivolties of adulthood.  I’d rather roll around in filth like a little baby piglet.  

Well, hopefully it’s more of a semi-permanent setting.  Eventually, I might have need of a clean dish. ♣

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MISSING: Ten Dollars (and My Dignity)

3 Dec

I’m mortified by what I’ve done.  I’ve hidden it from you all this week, and I feel awful about that.  It’s time to come clean.

I watched all the Twilight movies.

I did – every single one.   I even paid genuine American dollars to see the most recent installment in the theater.  I don’t even go to the movies anymore.  I have Netflix and use Redbox for a quick fix.  And when I don’t want to do either of those, I use Amazon instant download to rent something. All of that is far less expensive than nursing my movie habit in the theater.  Not to mention less dangerous, because every time I spent into the movie theater, a chatty teenager of the female persuasion giggles, talks to her friends, makes comments out loud throughout to the movie, and texts and plays on her phone.  That kind of behavior makes me want to slaughter people.

But I paid ten dollars to see this movie and was sad and disappointed.  Sickened even.  I feel dirty inside.  

This was all a sort of accident, really.  I started out by forcing myself to watch the first movie for my Lollipop Tuesday this week.  I found it to be awkward, poorly written, and not at all well done overall.  I really honestly felt like they had all the trappings for a good storyline but did a terrible job of throwing it together.  Then a few nights later, Dave and I were joking about what to do with some free time and bantered that we should watch the next Twilight movie.  I laughed, he laughed, and then we both realized that the other was kind of not joking.  Like we were curious if it got any better and still wondering what the hype was with everyone.  But when I pushed play, the storyline didn’t make any sense.  It was like we jumped in the middle of things and didn’t know how we got there.

Turned out I downloaded the 3rd, not the 2nd.

And we couldn’t just go right to the 3rd without having seen the 2nd.  That’s preposterous.  And since I didn’t want to watch it out of context but didn’t want to waste the money by not ever watching it at all, I downloaded the second.  Naturally.

So that’s how one through three happened.  I’m still kind of embarrassed by the whole thing.  But here’s the kicker: the third one was

I've endured your terrible acting and your unwillingness to open your mouth when you speak far too long. You owe me ten dollars. And my dignity.

actually kind of good.  Not like, a good movie.  But it followed all the rules of good movie-making (sans finding good actors, but they’ve stuck themselves there) and there were lots of awesome vampire fight scenes.  

They might sparkle like little fairies, but they fight a fast, gory fight. 

So I was left with the third movie, thinking that maybe the third one was what had everyone excited.  It was a lot less about Bella’s relationships and a lot more about killing stuff.  Then tonight, Dave and I decided to take a long walk.  Well, really, we started looking for a bus that took us to a different part of town and never found it – so we just started walking toward where we wanted to go.  About 6 miles later, we ended up there.  I was tired, I wanted to rest my feet, and I thought a movie would do us both good.  But looking down the list, I got to choose from Arthur Christmas, Happy Feet Two, Puss in Boots, Jack and Jill, Twilight, and the Muppets.  Oh, and 3 of those also came with their 3D counterparts.

I should have chosen the Muppets, I know.  But I feel strange paying to see a Muppets movie.  I feel like you rent Muppets movies.  There are no actions scenes, there are no awesome graphics.  I can see the Muppets on my own television and be just as satisfied.  I know now that this was a mistake from which I can never recover.

So that left Twilight.  And hey, I’d already seen the other three.  I could just see this fourth one and then be able to actually argue with people about why Twilight isn’t worth all the hoopla because I’m no longer ignorant.

It sucked.  Sucked in the kind of way that made me sad that I ever started it all or thought that I saw a glimpse of hope in the third movie.  Sucked in the kind of way that made me wish I’d seen something else on the list, even if it wasn’t Muppets.  I kept hoping something awesome would happen and that they’d embrace the almost-cool parts from the third installment.  But they didn’t.  Ever.

It ruined all its potential, and that’s the only thing I was holding out for.  I thought that maybe after four movies, they could realize what they have the ability to do and whip up something acceptable.  But they trashed the storyline, made half the movie a wedding and honeymoon (You get to see a nipple in a PG-13 movie.  Nipple! PG-13!), and made me want to strangle the writers and director even more than I wanted to strangle the teenage girl in front of me, chatting with her friend and flashing her phone around the front row like a torch lamp.

I don’t know what came over me this past week.  I’m really quite mortified.  I was going to try to keep it a secret from everyone I know, but I don’t think I’d be able to sleep.  I have fallen, my friends.  I searched and searched for some redeemable quality to a terrible movie saga, and came up empty and feeling foul.  I’ve made a huge mistake and I fear I’ll never be the same.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go take a shower and try to wash away the dirt that can never come clean. ♣

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