How are you today? I'm superfantastic.

Part three in what I can apparently parlay into a four part series

Dave had a rather interesting scenario for me:

If you were called upon, Noah-like, to care for two animals of every known species, which would have the best survival rate in your home? Which would you spend the most time with? Which would require the most attention? Which would need to be separated from each other? Etc. Assume space is not an issue since you have ample warning to get that home improvement loan and build to suit your needs.

Wow.  Well, uh, I guess the cute and fuzzy animals would have the best survival rate if I were in charge since they would certainly be my priority.  Particularly really adorable animals such as teacup pigs:

They're like pursedogs, but pigs instead!  I would definitely be keeping these away from all of the carnivores in the house.

I'm not sure I could successfully force myself to keep two of every insect alive in my home.  To that end, I know I should separate animals like geckos and roaches, bats and mosquitoes, but I don't see myself doing that.  Good riddance, creepy crawlies!  I know, I know, food chain and all of that, but Dave said this is my house and I won't have two of every bug in it!

Next up, Sharon, with this request:

Maybe it's just me, but I would love to hear you do more political commentary. Maybe an IR Brief/Wrap every once in a while.

I don't have a political rant in me at the moment, so I thought I'd go ahead and tell you what in heck Sharon is talking about here.  See, I know Sharon from when we were both civic educators back in DC.  We would take our students to various seminars throughout the week, which included International Relations (IR) as well as Judicial, Media, and a Domestic Issues Debate.  One of the responsibilities of the instructors was to do a briefing before the seminar and a wrap afterward, in which the students would be prepared and debriefed, respectively.  This involved leading a discussion or activity in front of up to 200 high school students and there was no getting out of doing them on a regular basis.  Which is why, to this day, I am comfortable in front of as many students as you can find for me to speak to, but still completely seize up in front of only a handful of adults.  I was also able to finely hone my skill for BS as a result of this responsibility.  You try coming up with an interesting activity to engage a bunch of teenagers in judicial issues.  Oh, and you have no idea what the speaker will actually be talking about, but somehow you have to tie in your briefing and what the speaker said during your wrap activity/discussion.  It's six degrees of legislation.

And finally, we get to Madison Friend Katie and her grammar query:

I would really like to know some of your (poor) grammar pet peeves. I know you have them. Maybe you’ve already talked about them on this blog, but if you haven’t, I'd love to hear them. I’ll get you started with mine. Maybe they’re not so much grammar pet peeves as words and phrases that make me cringe when used improperly.

1. The word utilized. It’s used (utilized?) and misused (see what I mean?) way too often. And quite frankly, I think people just use it to try to sound smarter. Please, just use “use”.

2. Facilitated. Maybe I’ve been reading too many resumes lately, but how often do you actually facilitate something? Chances are you led something, you hosted something, you organized something, or a group you belong to sponsored something. Saturday night’s hypnotist is not being facilitated by the student activities committee. It is being sponsored by the student activities committee. They are paying for the hypnotist. They are not making him easier.

3. The phrase “At the end of the day”. If you’re really talking about something that will occur shortly before the day is over, then you have my permission to use this phrase. If you’re using the phrase to summarize a thought similar to “when all is said and done,” please don’t. It’s way too over-used (over-utilized??). I trace its origins back to the first season of The Apprentice. If that show ever airs again, would you like to play a drinking game with me? We’ll take turns drinking any time someone uses the phrase. And at the end of the night, I guarantee that we'll be drunk:)

Well, Katie, I have indeed previously discussed my grammar pet peeves, as have a number of other folks around here.  They share your disdain for the overuse of the word utilize.  I have to say, it never occurred to me to be bothered by this until everybody brought it up. Not to worry though, there are always more grammar pet peeves to be discussed.

One thing that routinely gets under my skin is the use of 's to indicate a plural.  Folks, if it's more than one, it's just s.  Or es.  But no apostrophe!  NO NO NO.  This is particularly common when people are talking about couples or families using last names.  My family, for example, is the Grahams.  Not the Graham's.  Writing the Graham's indicates that one of us is THE Graham and that something belongs to him or her.  But no, we are plural.  Add an s.  Unless your last name already ends with an s, in which case, add es.  It's that easy!

A second pet peeve concerns the misuse of the word myself.  This commonly happens in a sentence like "Brett Favre and myself led the Packers to a win against the Broncos."  No.  I.  Brett Favre and I.  Myself could be properly used in a sentence like "I was proud of myself for staying awake for the entire game, thus enabling the Packers to win."  See how in that sentence, there is a reference to I followed by a reference to myself?  This is the key, people!  Brett Favre outdid himself.  Ann Coulter made an ass of herself.  You are currently giving yourself permission to quit reading this boring grammar lesson.  There's a pattern there.

Ok, then.  I'll stop at just two grammar-related pet peeves.  For now.  (You, however, are free to leave as many as you'd like in the comments.  I promise to share in your outrage, because I am just that geeky.  If TLC ever started a show called How Not to Butcher the English Language, I could be Stacy to your Clinton.)

Tomorrow, we'll round out the week of me not having to come up with my own topics by addressing bad drivers, winter, my suspected vegetarianism, and a particularly egregious example of my gift for procrastination.  Won't you join us?

Oh, and Happy Halloween!  I'm dressed up as Girl Still in Her Pajamas.  Clever, right?  Now gimme some candy!

Continued

Let's see, where did I leave off?  Oh yes, our next post idea comes from Gary, who said:

How about a fantasy write? I've often wonder what it would be like to visit the castles of Scotland or what a typical day for you would be like - as president - in the White House.

Hmmm...me in the White House.  I imagine my day would include a lot of people telling me why all of my liberal do-gooder ideas are too expensive and impractical and will never get me re-elected.  And that I really need to begin taking a leadership role in something that isn't education, health care, or other social policy.  Someone would attempt to explain economics to me.  Unfortunately, I would glaze over roughly one minute into this and still not learn anything about it.  This would be a real liability, I imagine.  The press corps would make fun of my hair.  I would drive my speechwriters insane, wanting to do their job instead of my own.  And that whole throwing out the first pitch in a baseball game thing would be a total non-starter.  Eventually, I would resign.  My Vice President would be doing the real work of running the country anyway.  Let her have all of the stress and decision-making.  I'd just want to write the State of the Union and go to the Christmas party.

Next up, we have Emily:

Dude, I'm always game for someone's most embarrassing moment. Although the best ones were always the ones about tampons in Seventeen magazine. Do you know what I'm talking about? That page devoted to the trauma of adolescence?

First of all, yes, I am familiar with Seventeen's page o' tampon horrors.  Thankfully, I have none of those stories for you. I do, however, have numerous tales of my own embarrassment.  Alan has oh so sweetly referenced one of these in my comments.  Except this one goes past embarrassment straight on through to extreme humiliation and you will therefore only get an abridged version of the story.  And he will be getting a lot more of my cooking.  (Read: Lori's cooking = punishment.)

MOM: PLEASE SKIP THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH.

Here's what happened.  We went to Minnesota to visit his friends.  There was a small party the first night we were there.  You know how I asked you that one time whether at a party it was better to be the socially crippled girl or the really drunk girl?  Well.  The thing was, I was doing ok socially and did not even feel the need to be the really drunk girl.  But when Alan asked me what I wanted to drink and I said I'd have what he was having, except less strong, I did not realize that he was not so much drinking vodka and cranberry juice as Grey Goose with the faintest hint of cranberry.  So the less strong version he made for me was Grey Goose with a splash of cranberry.  I think I had three of those.  Oversharing ensued.  With my fairly new boyfriend's best friends whom I had just met a few hours before.  Also vomiting.  So much vomiting.

And that's really all I'm telling you about that.

Moving right along.  Diane asked some questions.  First, she wants to know what's getting on my nerves these days.  I will never stop having new answers to this question.  What immediately comes to mind is Japanese beetles.  Do you know about these?  They look like ladybugs, but they bite.  And when they get into your apartment, they fling themselves repeatedly against your walls and ceiling making a clacking noise that will make you a little bit crazy.  Also, there are these commercials where Sentry grocery stores claim to be "The Freshperts".  Doesn't the word freshpert sound vaguely creepy to you?  If someone called me a freshpert, I would take that an an insult.  And there are always the bikers.  They're in my way on the road.  They're nearly running me down on the sidewalk.  PICK A PLACE, BIKERS. 

Diane also asked if I have any plans for Halloween.  That would be no, unless by "plans for Halloween" she means buying and consuming an entire bag of Halloween-portioned Peanut Butter M&Ms followed by an entire bag of fun sized Baby Ruths.  Her final question concerned my peanut butter preference.  Well, Diane, when it is not in M&M form, I prefer my peanut butter to be crunchy.  And smeared on Granny Smith apple slices.  Or on a sandwich with blackberry jam.

Coming tomorrow: Me as Noah!  An IR Brief/Wrap explained!  Grammar-related pet peeves!  Oh boy!

Your Questions...Answered! (Vol. 1)

Thank you, Internet, for all of you responses to my request for questions and topics.  It's a good thing that you came through because I'm back to having nothing much to say.  But thanks to you, a post!

Let's start at the beginning, shall we?  It is, after all, a very good place to start.  That's what I hear anyway.

Kicking things off was One Smart Cookie, who asked for photos of my neighborhood, shoe collection, and/or what I made for dinner.  Sadly, I am unable to comply with this request since my camera is busted.  I don't think the can of vegetarian vegetable soup that I "made" for dinner would have been so photogenic anyway, alphabet shaped noodles or no.  My neighborhood and shoes on the other hand...lovely, lovely, lovely.  Ooh, I know!  You can look at a photo of my beautiful new shoes here!  I am a problem solver.  Do you think I can use this as an example in a job interview?

Next up, we have Kara.  She commented:

So, I'm a complete stranger to you and it's absolutely none of my business. . .but since you asked. . .is it my imagination or have there been a couple of references to A Boy in the recent past? Anything interesting happening in that department? If it's not good, you can email me to simply say "not good" and I'll go ahead and slam my foot in the door or something, to make up for any pain the question might cause you.

Well, Kara, there is no need for self-inflicted pain of any kind.  Yes, there is A Boy.  We are still together.  I think this is in large part due to the many important things we have in common.  For instance, we do not believe that entree food items should be sweet.  Pad Thai?  No thanks.  And ham?  Should be salty.  We also are both rather grossed out by feet.  We saw footage on The Soup this weekend of I Love New York 2 where some guy was sucking New York's toes.  We both nearly vomited.  It's true what they say about the importance of shared values in a relationship.

Next!  Amy had three questions/requests.  A) Why are you so darn cute?  I think it mostly has to do with the pink bows that I am always wearing in my pigtails.   B) Why do you live so far away?  I don't live far away.  I live right here.  You, however, live far away from here.  C) Some older pictures that I haven't yet used here.  Let's see...nope, no old photos, but I do have this NEW one.

Raise your hand if you didn't see that coming.  Is there any post into which I cannot work a photo of my nephew?  It sure doesn't look that way.

Tune in tomorrow for even more audience participation.  Kicking yourself for not yet contributing a question or topic idea?  There continues to still be time!  Come on, all of the cool kids are doing it.  The first one's free.  And...uh...the chicks dig it.

Other People's Children

Hello, Internet!  Thanks for all of the questions and topics!  And if you haven't left me a question or topic yet, there is still time.  Head on down to yesterday's post and ask away.  I will get to all of those next week.

Because today there is actually something exciting to tell you.  Now that my sister has announced it on her own blog, I am free to tell you that I'm going to be an aunt!  Again!

I tell you, when it rains nieces and/or nephews, it pours nieces and/or nephews.  This baby is going to be Future Niece or Nephew all the way until he or she is born in May because Lisa and Gary aren't going to find out ahead of time.  Which is fine, since Packers and Badgers onesies are unisex anyway.

It has been suggested to me that now that my brother has a baby and my sister is having a baby, it is my turn to have a baby.  To which I respond THAT IS NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT FUNNY.

Besides, I don't know why anyone would go to all of the trouble of giving birth to a baby when you can just pick one up at Target.

Look at that - Owen is already taking an interest in his Aunt Lori's hobbies.  Clearly he will be an excellent role model for his Future Cousin.

I wouldn't call it writer's block

So much as just a total lack of interesting things happening in my day to day life.  I have really been making an effort recently to post here three times a week, but this week I find that I am all tapped out for content. 

Bringing me to this small request:

I'm begging you, Internet.  Give me something to write about.  PLEASE.  Ask me a question.  Give me a topic.  (If I were you, given that last request, I'd be tempted to respond with something along the lines of "Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island.  Discuss."  But do you see how that is not helpful?)  Surely there's something you'd like to know that maybe I can answer.  I'm not agreeing to Truth or Dare rules here regarding an absolute requirement to answer any question asked of me or anything like that, but within reason, fire away.

Help a blogger out.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Those of you who were around here a year ago may remember me writing some posts about NaNoWriMo. 

For anyone who wasn't here last fall and doesn't know what the heck I'm talking about, NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month.  Every year, tens of thousands of people world-wide sign up here and then attempt to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.  Last year was the first year I'd attempted it and I finished at noon on November 30 with a whopping 50,002 words (I'll leave it up to you to decide whether the two extraneous words were "a novel" written under the title on the cover page or "THE END" typed with great zeal when I finally finished.)

Those of you who were around here, and more notably around ME, last November will also remember that I complained about it.  A LOT.  It is a challenging thing to do, this writing a novel in a month.  You have to average 1,667 words a day.  These words are intended to go together, forming a plot.  With characters.  And dialogue.  And some sort of (although this is in no way enforced) coherence.

Last year's novel was called Nora Stern is No Hero (a novel).  I decided to start with a wordy title, just to get myself going.  I also gave each of my chapters a long, wordy title, despite the fact that I have never before even been tempted to title a chapter.  Because I never knew what was coming next, I couldn't write an accurate chapter title before beginning the chapter, but I felt a need to boost my word count right off the bat.  So several of my chapters were temporarily titled something along the lines of "Will anything happen in Chapter 13?" or "Probably the plot should finally move forward in Chapter 17."  Once something had happened (or not) and the chapter was complete, I would change the title, usually to something involving even more words.

I did it last year in large part because I had an idea for a book and I didn't think I'd ever finish it without some sort of externally imposed deadline.  Also, I had moved to Austin a few months earlier and I wanted to meet some people there.  I remember thinking partway through how insane it was and how I'd never do it again.

I remember my next thought being that I'd probably forget how hard it was and sign up the very next year.

Because, see, I have this idea for a book and I don't think I'll ever finish it without some sort of externally imposed deadline.  And I just moved to Madison a few months ago and this could be an opportunity to meet more people here.

Plus, now there's the whole not having a job thing.  Maybe someone in the Madison NaNo group would like to give me a job.  And, novel procrastination being as powerful as it is, I should actually want to write more cover letters.  And if anybody asks me during November "what do you do?" I can say with total honesty, "I'm writing a novel."  I won't TELL them that I'm getting paid for it, I will just let them THINK that I'm getting paid for it.  See the difference?

So if you didn't enjoy the whining last November, you might want to stick around until the end of October and then rejoin us in December.  It's going to get complainey around here.

Friday Love List

If you're new around here, you should know that this is an idea that I ripped off from Meg Fowler.  Except she allows, nay encourages, everyone to steal this idea so we're ok there.  And I think she's right that it's a good idea to spend some time thinking about the things that make you happy.  So, without further ado, some things I love.

• Small Spaces, Big Style on HGTV.  I love small rooms and houses since I think they're so much cozier than big cavernous ones, so it fascinates me to see the cool ways that people use their particular small spaces.  Especially when it involves cool hidden cabinets and sliding bookcases and that kind of thing.
• Being right.  I don't bring this up for any particular reason right now, it's just something that I enjoy in general.
• Fall.  It's getting pretty around here.
• The way that I feel like I can type ten times faster just after I chop off my fingernails.
• 30 Rock.  Have you seen this show?  I just started watching it last week and it cracks me up.
• Spending a couple of days talking reading disorders and dyslexia with a bunch of literacy geeks.
• Halloween!  What's not to like?  You can dress up.  You can see kids in their costumes.  You can buy way more candy than you'll need so that you get to eat what's left over.  (I do not, however, love all of the scary movie commercials.  Particularly not that one with the girl in the parking garage.  Vampires = meh.  Scary guy in a dark, deserted parking garage = no longer going anywhere alone that is not within walking distance.)
• Soup in a sourdough breadbowl.  Yum.
• Tim Gunn.  Most darling man ever and my #1 non-sexual crush.  Who else could pull off "I'm feeling woeful" with a straight face?
• The Packers at 5-1.
• Not having any mouse poo in my kitchen cabinet.  You don't know how good that is until the opposite has been true.
• That my sister-in-law came up with the idea to take a picture of Owen with Roary every month so I can see how much bigger Owen is getting.  What's that, you want to see his one month old picture?  Well, ok, if you're going to get all demanding about it.

Check out that face!

Now you.  Put a list on your blog and leave us the link or just leave a comment telling us some stuff that you love.  Now, mister!  Or mizz!

Gus-Gus, ever see a trap-trap?

Remember that part of Cinderella where Jacques the head mouse asks Gus the chubby mouse whether he'd ever seen a cat-cat?  Well I have no cat, but I do have two d-CON No View, No Touch mouse traps.

Fortunately, I had just seen a commercial for these yesterday morning, so I was aware that there was an alternative to snap traps and visible mouse carnage.  Also, as we discovered (and by "we" I mean "he" since my part involved staying put and not approaching the scene of the SNAP SQUEAK SQUEAK SQUEAK) at Alan's house, sometimes a snap trap only gets the mouse by the leg and then you are responsible for putting said mouse out of his misery.  I want no part of that.  I want my role in this business to be that of exterminator, not executioner.

I discovered the problem yesterday when I went to put some groceries away in my kitchen cabinet.  I dislike grocery shopping and have to get pretty desperate before I'll go, so the fact that I had gone to the store means that I was seriously out of food.  I assume this is why the mouse went for my bag of flour.  (Seriously, mouse, you couldn't have found an apartment in this building where there was better food to be had?)  I noticed flour on the shelf and assumed that I had just not closed it well or had somehow poked a hole in it.  But no, there were a couple of pretty large holes chewed in it and paper scraps on a lower shelf.  Damn.

So the traps are out and baited (nothing caught overnight) and everything that was in bags is now in sealed containers (I would say Tupperware, but in reality they're old yogurt and cottage cheese containers) or the fridge.  But here's my question: If, instead of killing the mice, I got them tiny shirts and hats, do you think they would make me a dress? 

A girl never knows when she might need a ball gown.  I draw the line at glass shoes though.  Sure, the guys love them, but they don't offer any of the support required for a long night of dancing and fleeing the scene.  And anyway, if the guy can only remember you based on your shoes, chances are, he's not looking for a princess.  He's looking for a queen.

UPDATE: Well, apparently I caught a mouse.  Not that I saw it, of course, but the trap tells me that there's a dead mouse inside and I am taking the trap's word for it.  (Aaaand now a second mouse.  And I am out of traps.  I will see you tomorrow, Walgreens.)

I can't believe I was worried about getting a job, what with these totally realistic opportunities available to me.

A couple of funny stories from last week:

I wrote once before about my friend Vicki, who is also a non-catching person and how we invented a game called Try to Catch.  This way we could work on our catching skills without getting too discouraged.  If you play Catch, you can easily fail.  With Try to Catch, you succeed as long as you make an attempt.

I bring that up because it makes the dream that she recently had all the more hilarious.  She dreamed that she was watching football and she saw my name listed (I played for a New York team, which she thinks was the Jets, but it's hard to say) with a record for...wait for it...most receptions without a dropped pass.  Ha!  A person would have to be either legally blind or completely lacking hands in order to be less likely than me to get this record.  I'm pretty sure the NFL doesn't yet have a position called Try to Receiver.

Not to worry though, if things don't work out for me in the NFL, there's always my budding movie career.  See, my boss from this summer was one of the organizers of a conference this weekend on dyslexia and reading disorders.  She brought in some of the nation's foremost experts on dyslexia, one of whom mentioned that she was hoping or planning or something to make a movie with Robert Redford.  This expert thought this was something that my boss could be a part of.  She (my boss) is very, how do I put this...excitable.  For that reason, I didn't get too many details, but she definitely thinks I need to be in it, what with my photogenic face and all.  Enormous leaps in logic and reality were taken which ended with me starring in an upcoming movie with Robert Redford.  Can my time as Hollywood's it girl be far behind?  And if so, do you think I'm too old for the whole drugs/alcohol/driving without a license/rehab routine?

On a more immediate note, I'm going to have to make room for Robert Redford on my list of five.  You know, just in case.  (Currently: George Clooney, Joaquin Phoenix, Brett Favre, Dermot Mulroney, Goran Visnjic.)  George Clooney was recently in a motorcycle accident, so until further notice, I'm going to have to put him on Injured Reserve.

All set.  I'm ready for my close up, Mr. Redford.

About the twin thing

I have a twin sister.  I know I've mentioned that here before, but I don't generally make a big deal of it.  This is because a lot of people will make a VERY BIG DEAL about it if you tell them, and I'm not into that.

They think it's so neat.  They wish they had a twin.  They hope they have twins.  Do I like being a twin?  Are we identical?  Are we superclose?  Are we exactly alike in every way?  Do we play tricks on people?  Did we have a secret language?  Do we read each other's thoughts/feel each other's pain?  So my sister could come in to work for me some day and no one would even know?

Allow me to address these in order:

The Beaver called - he wants his word back. 
How would you know? 
I believe you'd have to be insane to want to have two infants at once. 
I've never not been a twin, so I have no basis for comparison. 
We look alike, but we haven't had any DNA testing done, so I can't say for sure.   (Allow me to clear up here that boy-girl twins are never identical.  One would think this would be really obvious, but I had a co-worker who got asked about her and her twin brother.  I never met Leslie's brother, but I feel confident assuming that there are some major anatomical differences between them.)
Not freaky twin close, but we like each other ok. 
Ha! 
Just once in second grade. 
No. 
You are an idiot.
Seeing as how I don't live in a sitcom, no.

I'd like to quote an eight year-old here who gave an excellent response to a teacher who was going into full on THAT'S SO NEAT mode about him being a twin.  "I'm not a twin, I'm a brother."  Preach it, eight year-old.

Why bring this up now?  Well, I learned courtesy of Holly and her Secret Bachelor Tuesday Lite that this season's Bachelor has a twin brother, who (completely predictably) impersonated him at a party with the bachelorettes to see if any of them were bright enough to notice.  Which was enough to elicit my ire on the subject.  Because another inane twin question I have repeatedly gotten concerned my ability to send my sister out with a guy I was dating.  I have never understood why anyone would think that a person would ever do that.  If I like a guy, I want to go out with him myself.  If I don't like him, why would I foist him on my sister?  It makes no sense.  Except now The Bachelor has given people a reason to believe that someone would do such a thing.  So allow me to clarify for the Internet that no person who would not pimp himself out on ABC would ever do such a thing.

Have we gotten that cleared up?  Let us continue on to more pet peeves, as long as I've got you here.

#1. Announcing to me that you have no intention of attempting to learn my name and/or tell me apart from my sister.  This takes many forms.  Guessing a name and then telling me "hey, I had a 50/50 chance!"  Using some combination of our names.  Saying "hey, twin!"  Etcetera, etcetera.  You have no idea how insulting that is.  I have yet to meet the twins who can't be told apart given a little bit of mental effort.  If you're not willing to expend that small amount of effort, please keep your mouth shut.

#2. Assuming that I have no identity of my own, separate from my sister and being a twin.  I'll grant you, some twins are like that.  Some twins dress alike all their lives and live next door to each other and marry other freaky twins.  For the record, we are not like that.  I am a person.  She is a totally separate person.  We're crazy like that.  You might think that would be obvious, but you haven't been asked, in reference to your sister, where your other half is.  You didn't have to explain to people in high school that no, you didn't play soccer even though your sister did, because you were uncoordinated and not capable of running and kicking a ball at the same time.  Plus you don't like soccer.  Mindblowing, I know.

#3. Thinking that I find twin jokes funny.  I don't.  They piss me off.  I'm serious.

I think it has something to do with my lifelong aversion to cuteness.  People think that being a twin is just so damn cute.  God forbid my sister and I do anything alike such as, I don't know, breathe oxygen, someone will say "Awwww...that's so cute!  They both like air!"  And then I will punch that person in the throat.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here.  Except to say that I know, despite everything that I have written here, that some of you are formulating cutesy twin jokes for the comments section (I'm looking at you, Gary.)  Please know that if you're not within throat-punching distance, deleting you is a close second.

If someone could remove the tiny gentleman with the pickaxe from behind my left eye, that would be super.

All of that caffeine yesterday turned out to be a pretty big mistake.

The headache started on Sunday.  Then it got bigger on Monday.  By the time I woke up on Tuesday it was a monster.  The kind that pounds pretty steadily right up until you make a sudden movement and feel as if you've just found your forehead in the path of a baseball bat being swung for the fences.  (That's the expression, right?  "Swing for the fences?"  I don't really have personal experience with this.  My approach when I was forced to play baseball in gym class was to hope to God to just make contact with the ball, or at the very least, not to get hit in the face.)

I try to take Advil for the headaches.  Which is what I did on Sunday and Monday.  By yesterday morning, I was out of patience with this headache.  So I went with the nuclear option: three Excedrin and coffee.  Plus a peanut butter sandwich because you want some substantial food in you in this situation or your internal organs will begin to shake.  Which is not as bad as the headache, but disconcerting nonetheless.

There are some downsides to treating your migraine with caffeine (in addition to the organ shivers).  The thing is, it's highly effective for a few hours.  Then the headache comes back and you have to start over.  And maybe you will have two more Excedrin and a Diet Dr Pepper.  And if your body is only accustomed to getting the caffeine content in one Diet Dr Pepper per day and has instead gotten the caffeine content in five Excedrin, a big coffee, and a Diet Dr Pepper, well then you just might find yourself up reading until three a.m. despite the fact that you need to be somewhere before ten the next morning.  You know that you need to be sleeping, and you are powerless to make that happen.  You made your choice hours ago.  Deal with it.

So, I'm back to Advil today and also possibly a nap.

(I really wish I had anything more interesting to tell you about today than my headache, but I don't, so it was this or nothing.  I'm not entirely convinced that nothing wouldn't have been the better option, but it's too late now.  To hell with quality control.  Quantity has officially won the battle.)

Oh, Packers.

It was a weekend of football.  It didn't end so well.

It started out nicely though.  I missed Wisconsin's defeat at the hands of Illinois (a state that was no friend to Wisconsin teams this weekend) because I was back at my alma mater, watching the UW-Whitewater Warhawks rout UW-River Falls 38-12.  The only disappointment was the weather.  Mid-80s?  For football?  In October?  Fortunately, Perkins Stadium is outfitted with some natural shade in the form of those pine trees over there behind the visitor stands.

Which is where we sat to watch the second half of the game.  If you have the lounge-in-the-grass-under-a-tree seating option available to you at your local stadium, I highly recommend it.  Particularly if you are prone to sunburn, not wild about crowds, and attempting to resist the siren song of those Peanut M&Ms you saw at the concession stand.

Of course, there was more college football to watch on Saturday (USC losing!  To Stanford!) and NFL football to watch on Sunday, all leading up to the Sunday night game, Packers vs. Bears.  I was no where near as confident as all of the commentators were about a Packers win.  These commentators have clearly not been lifelong Packers fans.  I find that the only way to get through the season with a reasonable amount of sanity intact is to never, ever assume that the Packers are going to win.  Because they'll break your heart every time.

They started out so well.  It was looking like an easy win.  The Packers even appeared to have a running game, which came as quite a shock after the first four games of all passing all the time.  That was until half-time, at which point I may have accidentally fallen asleep on my couch.  And then I woke up and it was the fourth quarter and the score was tied at 20.  The Bears scored, leaving the Packers with two minutes and one time out remaining to get a touchdown, and folks, Brett Favre is good, but he's no superhero.  (That last statement approaches blasphemy in this state.)

So, flatlanders, you win this round.  Still, this leaves the Badgers at 5-1 and the Packers at 4-1 with a Bears/Packers rematch to come in December.  Not that I'm making any predictions about the outcome of the game or even the season.  I will, however, go so far as to predict no more napping during Packers games on my part.  You know, just in case it was my fault.  One can never be too careful in these situations.

In which I am good and pissed off.

I don't write much about politics here.  (Except this post, which is the one post of mine that I wish everyone would read because it's the one single post that I am entirely happy with.  No really, it's way better than the rest of this blathering.)  Mostly I try not to upset people and since I have pretty strong opinions and I understand that a lot of you probably do as well and they might not totally align with mine, it seems best to keep these things to myself and stick to embarrassing stories of my own stupidity.

But I need to talk about health care for a minute.  Stop reading if you want.

President Bush has vetoed a bill that would extend health care coverage to children of families that are currently making too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to buy decent health coverage.  His argument is that if we start giving health coverage to poor kids, everyone will want some.  That this is a slippery slope toward government-run health care.

I am very nearly rendered speechless by this.  I don't quite know where to begin.  It absolutely blows my mind.  The only thing that helps me begin to be able to wrap my mind around this is the knowledge that President Bush, as well as the members of Congress from both sides of the aisle who voted against the bill, have clearly never had to worry about paying for their health care.

I don't know if you have ever been without insurance or had really shitty insurance with a deductible so high and coverage so spotty that it only really helps you in the case of a catastrophic illness.  I hope not.  But I have and I cannot imagine what it is like to live like this when you have a family.  Because when I get sick, I make very effort to walk it off.  I can't afford for it to be something that requires a doctor visit, and with one notable exception, I've been able to get away with that.  But if your kid has strep throat?  Breaks a leg?  God forbid, something much more serious?  What do you do?

I had to go to an urgent care center after I moved here.  I was, at the time, working a full-time job, but I worked for a very small business that couldn't afford to provide me with health insurance and I sure as hell could not afford to buy it for myself.  Any policy I could have gotten would have had too high of a deductible to actually be helpful anyway.  This urgent care visit cost me $350, plus prescriptions.

Now imagine that you have a kid like I was who has persistent ear infections and you're being charged over $350 a pop.  But you think that parent is getting off cheap if you're the parent of a child with developmental delays who needs physical, occupational, and speech therapy plus pediatrician and specialists.  Something's got to give - is it your mortgage?  Food?  Heat?  Or your child's care?

Shame on you, President Bush.  Shame on anyone who won't vote to override the veto.  What a disgrace.

It's a blog post about blogs. How original.

Carolie tagged me for a meme recently which basically seems to be about pointing out your pet peeves about blogs.  I've been thinking about this and having a hard time because if something irritates me about a blog, I tend to stop reading it.  Yes, there are some things that are irritating and common to a lot of blogs, but I'm unqualified to throw stones in these areas:

• Not posting often enough.
• Conversely, posting boring and/or poorly-written stuff just to be posting regularly.
• Blatant abuse of caps lock and sarcastic exclamation points.
• Putting up photos in order to get out of having to really write things.
• Using bulleted or numbered lists in order to create the illusion of more content.
• Excessive use of parenthesis.
• Begging for comments.

Guilty!  I do not, however, write my posts as if I were writing a text message.  Or, as if someone else were writing a text message I should say, since my texts conform to all laws of the English language, including capitalization and punctuation.  I don't know how the rest of you can stand to do it any other way.  Anyway, I wouldn't read a blog that was written as if it were a non-geeky person's text message.  I don't tend to have the patience for blogs with imperfect grammar, unless you are Melissa and are therefore hilarious anyway.

Mostly, I tend to choose the blogs I read on the basis of how funny/compelling/thought-provoking they are.   Good writing gets me every time.  I haven't spent the time that I ought to looking for new blogs because I know there's a lot of great stuff out there, but there are just so many choices and honestly, WHERE TO START?  As with so many things in life, I am overwhelmed and subsequently paralyzed by indecision.

So I was thinking about all of that stuff, and then I came across this event via Nothing But Bonfires.

Aaaand we're back to begging for comments.  Over on the blog that I swiped the button from, there was a whole discussion going on in the comments about why people do or do not comment.  Some people said they've stopped commenting because they don't get a response to their comments.  This surprised me.

I'm not looking for a response from a blogger when I leave a comment and thus had not realized that this was an expectation that people have.  Sometimes I respond to people's comments, but not that often and honestly, sometimes I think about responding or even begin to and then talk myself out of it because really, how many people want an email from me saying "HA! Good one!"?  So I guess if this is something you're looking for or that you feel is lacking here, let me know.  I do always go and check out the blogs of everyone who comments, if that helps.

Apparently The Great Mofo Delurk came out of a general sense that people are commenting less these days.  I can't say that's been the case around here recently.  Things have been pretty steady, both visit-wise and comment-wise.  Not to say that these numbers are at all close.  Lots and lots of you are reading but not commenting.  LOTS.  Lurkers on every continent!  (Except Antarctica, obviously, but if you know a scientist there and could pass along the URL so I could get one hit from the final remaining continent, I would be far too excited about that.)

Now, I'm something of a hypocrite on this issue.  I comment regularly on a few blogs, but I regularly read quite a few more.  I lurk for the same reason that most lurkers do.  I don't always feel like I have something sufficiently witty or different to contribute.  Or sometimes I am just lazy.

But the truth is, comments are one of the primary reasons why we bloggers write.  If I just wanted a place to record my thoughts or write through what I'm thinking and feeling, I'd write in a spiral notebook.  I want people to read what I write.  And if they want to respond to it too, all the better. 

(See how I made that sound all casual-like?  As if comments did not constitute the entire basis of my self-esteem?) 

(Wait, you understand that the above statement was hyperbole, right?  Because I could foresee some comments about the wrongness of finding one's worth through blog comments, which is really not necessary, thanks.)

Anyway, delurking would be nice.  I promise to respond if that's something that you'd want me to do.  And everyone, lurkers and regular commenters alike, should weigh in on the above topics.  I'm curious.  Meanwhile, in the spirit of not being a big fat hypocrite, I've got some commenting to do elsewhere.

Spoiler Alert: If you're in your twenties and do not want to know what your future holds, stop reading now.

I did not think that the deterioration of my body after my thirtieth birthday would be so immediate.

I have injured my shoulder.  Was I playing tennis?  Swimming, perhaps?  Diving into the bushes in order to escape a biker attempting to run me down on the sidewalk?  Nope.

I was sleeping.

My age is apparently now sufficiently advanced to the extent that I don't even need to be conscious to hurt myself.  I can sustain an injury despite total inactivity.  Inactivity carried out in the most favorable environment possible.  Comfortable mattress, excellent pillow.  I did not fall out of bed or anything.  I got in bed, I slept, I woke up like this.

Thirty is a bitch.