How are you today? I'm superfantastic.

And the winner is...

Oh, look.  I made it sound like there would only be one winner.  As if I were capable of running a contest the way some sort of...decisive person would.  Right.

So, there are two winners.  Because I couldn't pick between them.  Meaning that not one, but two lame and gently used prizes will go out in the mail at some indeterminate date in the future.

Our first winner, Kerri Anne submitted three minutes that would be formative no matter when they happened to a person and she did it with admirable brevity: 

My dad drove into an icy river in April and didn't make it to the other side.  I was suddenly "special" in a way I never wanted to be.

To be fair though, I may have had a pre-existing bias here since I've read Kerri Anne's posts about loss on her blog and they are beautifully-written and heartbreaking.

Our second winner though can only have won me over entirely with her Three Minutes from Junior High stories since she de-lurked with her comment and if she has a blog at all, I am not aware of it.  That's right, Katrina, you went from lurker to winner in one fell swoop!  Katrina charmed and intrigued me with her two entries:

Best friends passed me a note. Sorry, but you can't sing.  You're out of the band.

Mentor singled out a quiet kindness I had done and held it up to me with his clear admiration.

It sounds like a lot of us had a similar experience to that first one. Mine differs in that I was never in a band and never needed anyone to inform me that I couldn't sing because that fact is painfully obvious to me and everyone.  No, my friend informed me in a note that we could no longer be friends in large part, I shit you not, because my love for the New Kids on the Block was not pure enough.

I thought Katrina's second entry was really nice.  Almost startling in its, well, goodness.  I hope you've all had this sort of experience as well.

So congratulations Keri Anne and Katrina!  And thanks everybody else for playing.  You didn't make it easy to pick just two winners.  There really would have been even more, had I not been determined to improve upon my three winners performance in the last contest.  

Maybe next time I'll manage to just pick one.  Then again, I can hardly be trusted to follow through.  I am, after all, a person who couldn't even produce better than half-hearted devotion to the New Kids on the Block.

In keeping with the theme of awkwardness: a junior high memory contest!

In the latest You Look Nice Today podcast, Merlin Mann posits that "three minutes from junior high will explain why most people are the way they are."

TJ introduced this as a meme on Twitter and got quite a few interesting responses. I think, like the six-word memoirs that we did here before, part of the beauty of these was in the forced brevity of Twitter's 140 character limit. Actually, if we included the tag (#MY_3_MIN_FROM_JR_HIGH) so that others could find them, we were down to just 117. I know because I used them all. If there were some sort of award for the person on Twitter who most often uses all 140 characters, I feel confident I would win it. Brevity is not my strong suit.

Anyway, I thought this could be an interesting challenge for all of you. And since the six-word memoir thing was so fun and so well-participated, I have decided to sweeten the pot by making this Superfantastic Contest Number Two. Since I'm unemployed and all, the prize will have to be something I already own. Who knows what it could be? Not me.

Now, I'm not going to require that you count your characters, although a word processing program will do it for you if you type it there first. Just know that brevity will be an important factor in deciding the winner. Also, remember this shouldn't be just something that's funny or that sucked or that reminds us all of what stupid things we wore/watched/listened to back in the day. It doesn't even have to be something that most people would consider hugely significant, but it does have to be a moment that has helped shape who you became.

If you're like me, you may not have to think very hard at all. I swear, this isn't something that I think about often or really at all, but when I read the challenge, one memory popped into my head. Here's my tweet:

Boy I like who likes me explains that he has to take a different girl to the dance because she's popular and I'm not.

Ooh, a clue to my twisted psyche! Intentionally offered up to the whole internet! If I really thought about it, I'm sure I could come up with something that seemed more formative, but this was the first one to come to mind and usually that means something, so there you have it.

Rules: You have until midnight, central time, on Sunday (Oct. 5) to submit your three minutes from junior high in the comments. Keep it short, please. The winner will be selected by me, possibly in consultation with any of my friends and/or acquaintances I strong-arm into giving their opinions. I'm going to shoot for just one winner, but who knows with these things? The prize, selected by me, will be mailed at such a time as I get around to going to the post office. Should you win, you should not get your hopes up about the fabulousness of your prize or the timeliness of its arrival. But I'll announce your name and link to your blog if you have one. That will probably happen on Monday. Most likely.

If you have questions, leave a comment or email me, but otherwise get thinking back to junior high. Maybe wait until you're at home though, just in case that reminiscing should end with you crying and rocking yourself in a dark corner. A lot of workplaces frown on that. I hear.

Unless you consider middle school a "moment" in which case, that clearly beats this

Today you are in luck, dear readers, because today I am going to tell you the story of the most horribly awkward moment I've experienced in my thirty-one years. The shocking part: I did not cause it. I know!

I'll change the names of the people involved for their protection. Let's call the girl Susie. Now, Susie is an actual real-life sweet person. You are wondering what such a person was doing hanging around with me, aren't you? It's ok, I've wondered the same thing. I think perhaps I was some sort of aversion therapy for Susie.

We'll call the guy Bob. Bob seemed like a nice enough guy but was really socially inept. You are thinking that's the pot calling the kettle black, aren't you? It's ok, I am indeed pretty socially awkward. But Bob? Bob makes me look like a gifted schmoozer. I am Bill Clinton compared to Bob. It is even possible that Bob may have fallen somewhere on the high-functioning end of the autism spectrum.

So, on the night in question, Bob, Susie, and I were out to dinner with probably about ten other people. We were all seated at a long table. The important part of the seating arrangement to this story is that I was seated between Susie and Bob. Keep that in mind.

Everybody was pretty well finished eating, as I recall, and there had been a couple of different conversations going on. Then, as happens in these situations, there was a moment of complete quiet, which Bob seized, as follows:

Bob (leans around me toward Susie): So! As long as there's a lull in the conversation, Susie, would you like to have dinner sometime?

Susie is so shocked by this that she does an involuntary head-shake. Bob takes this as an instantaneous rejection and leans back so I'm directly between him and Susie again. I don't remember Susie's exact words (unlike Bob's which are burned into my memory) but after taking a moment to compose herself, Susie does thank him for the offer and let him down easy.

Here's the kicker: Bob doesn't leave! He stays and everyone attempts to make conversation and pretend it didn't happen. The only person who doesn't seem phased is Bob. Which is either really disturbing or really impressive, depending on how you look at it.

So there you have it, the most awkward moment in my experience. Surely you can compete. Write it in a comment or post on your own blog and leave a comment with the link. I think this is going to be fun.

Quirky is such a nice way of putting it

I've been tagged by Danielle over at Door of Second Chances for a meme wherein I'm required to tell you about six quirks that I have. Oh, just six? Let's see...

1. When I have to figure out whether I need to take a road east or west, I usually have to picture the entire United States in order to do it. Pathetic, I know.

2. I don't know if this is something I've always done, but I've noticed in the past few months that I tend to tuck the inside of my bottom lip between my top and bottom canine teeth on the right side. That, along with the stress-induced chewing on the inside of my mouth and a tendency to play with my bottom lip when deep in thought lead me to believe that, had I ever started, I would have been a very prolific smoker.

3. If I'm going to write very much in a birthday or other card, I will write it on my computer first. I want to get the wording of the whole thing right before I start writing willy nilly directly in the card in ink which is final and cannot be edited. I mentioned this to a writer friend of mine who said of course he does the same thing. Because what if you use a word in one sentence except you need it more in the next one but now you can't use it because you already wasted it? WHAT THEN?

4. I don't like to sit with my feet on the floor. I am typically curled up to some extent, whenever possible. This has included various office cubicle desk chairs, which is, you know, probably not technically considered very professional.

5. I had friends in high school who, if they asked you where something was, would phrase it, "If I were the _____, where would I be?" I still think the beginning part of this every time I look for something. Which means that I spend a fair amount of time thinking "If I were my phone..."

6. I don't like feet. I wouldn't even wear open-toed shoes until probably late high school. I'm impressed that some of you can just go and put your feet in the lap of a person who cares about you in order to get a foot rub. I could never do that, nor respond favorably to anyone doing such a thing to me. Keep your feet to yourself and I will do the same and we will get along just fine.

So there you have the first six of my quirks that popped into my head. The rules state that I must now tag six bloggers, but I have decided as I am wont to do, to ignore the rules and just tag all of you instead. Either leave your quirks in the comments or post on your own blog and leave the link in the comments. I'm looking forward to finding out just how odd you people are.

Friday Love List: Peter Pan Syndrome Edition

I've been having a bit of the mean reds this week, so I thought we could cheer the place up with some Friday Love List goodness.  (I grow weary of linking to the previous love list posts.  If you're interested, just click on the category at the bottom of the post and you'll find them.)  But this time, we don't even have to think of things we love right now.  No, we do not.  We think back to things we used to love.  That's right, we're going all the way back (that's waaaaaaaaay back for some of us you) to our childhoods.

This one is a Love List/Pop Quiz hybrid.  Name one or more things that you loved as a kid from these categories:

Toys

TV Shows

Music

Movies

Books

As always, I'll get us started.  Then you'll come along with all of the answers that I didn't think of, but wish I had.

Toys: The aforementioned Cabbage Patch Kid, Aindrea Sherry; my Tenderheart Bear; various and assorted Barbies; Raspberry Tart of the Strawberry Shortcake family, who my brother used to call Raspberry Fart, which I found not only unfunny but just BEYOND CRUEL; and my teddy bear Cindy and stuffed yellow dog Carl (No, I do not know what the deal was with my childhood naming practices.)

Cartoons: Jem (Truly Outrageous!), GI Joe, Transformers, Shirt Tales, Get Along Gang, Heathcliff and Riff Raff, Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Muppet Babies, and good old-fashioned Loony Toons

TV Shows: The Muppet Show, Dukes of Hazzard, Cosby Show, The A-Team, Sesame Street, Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact, You Can't Do That on Television, Miami Vice

Music: Wham!; Michael Jackson (you know, from the pre-Thriller and Thriller era, back when he was a black guy); Prince; The Bangles; Bon Jovi; and if we'll include the middle school years, then of course we have the New Kids

Movies: As far as actual childhood went, it was Mary Poppins, hands down.  Then came Girls Just Want to Have Fun, Top Gun, and The Princess Bride.

Books: I have one title for you and it is Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum.

If I let myself get any farther than that in the book category I will be up all night and I am no longer a child.  The love of my grown-up life: sleep.

Things I Absolutely Refuse to Do

Buy greeting cards that rhyme

Eat mushrooms

Use the word "alrighty"

Care more about how flat my hair will get if I wear a hat than how cold my ears will get if I don't

Play volleyball.  It's a waking nightmare.

Try baked beans.  I don't care how good you say they are.  They look slimy and mealy and I WON'T PUT THAT IN MY MOUTH.

Refer to Madison as Mad-town

Wear pants or shorts with anything written across the butt

Believe that a little caffeine addiction is really that big of a thing

Use baby talk.  Even when talking to a baby.

Feel bad about not giving you a "little help" with that ball you didn't catch in the park.  You signed up for this game.  I didn't.  Go get your own damn ball.

Completely rule out attending a New Kids reunion concert

And now for a little audience participation.  What won't you do?

Think about the place where you live, wonder why you have it.

Yes, it's a Friday Love List.  Perhaps you are on to me by now.  I try to post three times a week and when I run out of stuff to say after two posts, you get a Friday Love List.  For I am lame and do not do that many interesting things.

This is a different kind of Love List though!  This one has a THEME.  Sure, Meg Fowler has been doing themed Love Lists for a while now, but I opted not to follow her lead earlier because random just suits me so much better.  Now that I'm getting ready to move though, I thought it could be nice to do lists of what I love about Madison and San Antonio.  And then all of you can tell me what you love about where you live.  (This will worry my mother, by the way, who is hoping that I will not become intrigued enough by any other place to consider moving there.)

Ten things I love about Madison:

• State St. and all of the restaurants, shops, and crazy people there
• H&M.  Oh, how I will miss you.  Not that I've had much of a clothes shopping budget since moving here, but even just knowing you were there was a comfort to me.
• All of the wonderful crazy that comes from living in a big college football town
• Fall.  I do love a real fall.
• James Madison Park
• The farmers market on the Capitol Square
• Ignoring all of the healthy produce at the farmers market in favor of a stop at Cafe Soleil for the pain au chocolat that I swear are as good as the ones I had in Paris
• Access to: Cousins Subs, Perkins, Toppers cheesy breadsticks, Leinenkugel, and cheese curds (OF COURSE cheese curds have their own Wikipedia entry) as well as easy access to Culver's.  Sure, there's one in San Antonio, but it is not nearly so conveniently located for me.
• All of the Packers games on TV.
• Other liberals.  Lots and lots of other liberals.

Ten things I love about San Antonio:

• No snow.
• Casa Rio, El Mirasol, and countless other places for good margaritas and queso
• SuperTarget
• Being able to fit my little car into the small parking spots that no one can get their giant trucks or SUVs into.
• Diet Dr Pepper served almost everywhere
• Including Chick-fil-A (Who needs Culver's fries when you have waffle fries?) (Oh Culver's, you know I don't mean it.) and Sonic.  I have been tortured for almost a year by Sonic commercials on my TV and yet THERE IS NO SONIC HERE.
• Flip flops are appropriate not only to the weather most of the year but also to almost any occasion or venue.
• I assume it won't be standing room only in all bars in town, should the Packers play on NFL Network.
• Laughing at the freak out over a day or two of below-freezing temperatures.
• More sunshine.  Which includes not only no long, gray winter, but also longer days in general.

Of course, there are the people in both places as well. 

So now you tell us ten things you love about where you live.  Or where you used to live, if where you currently live isn't so lovable.  Whatever.  You San Antonio people should feel free to play as well and especially to remind me of what I missed or tell me about cool stuff there that I never even knew about.  Alright now, get to work.

Maybe I should have stretched first

I thought I'd give this love list thing a try again.  It's been a while, but as always I think Meg Fowler is right that we can all stand to spend more time thinking about what we love.  So I'll start us out and then you either write your list in the comments or write it on your own blog and leave us the link in a comment.  And here we go:

Thunderstorms.  We had a bit of one last night.

The nice rainy smell outside this morning

Getting to wake up on the weekends whenever I'm ready with no alarm going off

Jon Stewart

Really cold milk

Now that I got the new wheel, my teeth no longer rattle when I drive above 50 mph.

Casual Fridays (although I do still miss the Casual Everydays that I used to have)

Zillions of daffodils for sale at the grocery store

Gnocci with just the right fall-apart-in-your-mouth texture

Reading something that is so smart and well-written that it challenges my ideas on the topic

Reading something only because it makes me laugh, such as the Heather Wells books by Meg Cabot.  Yes, they're chick lit, but in the best possible sense.

Twitter.  How ever did I make it through long, boring temp workdays without it?

Certain babies who are related to me

The Accidental Shower Nap.  I accidentally invented this when I lived with Amy and we'd go to the dog park or something on the weekends and then I'd take a long hot shower and then accidentally lay down on my bed and accidentally fall asleep.  Eventually I would just tell Amy that I was going to take a shower and then an Accidental Shower Nap.  Whoops!  Not as good as the football nap, but it's all that is available to me during this long, brutal off-season.

String cheese

New Scrubs last night!  Which featured brinner (breakfast for dinner) at the same time that I was eating pancakes.  Pancakes as big as my head since I get impatient toward the end of the batter and just start making them huger and huger so I can get finished with the pancake making already.

Classic Melissa Go.  Read.  Laugh.  Thank me later.

But not until after you've written your own love list.

The least original post idea ever. You were warned.

I am enjoying this thing where I write almost nothing and yet get a bunch of comments to entertain me through my long and boring day of data entry.  And then I heard something on the radio yesterday that made me think "I can write almost nothing on that topic and then get a bunch of comments to entertain me." 

They were talking about the whole stripper name thing, which I'm sure you already know all about because everyone does and it's been around forever, except the radio people were getting it ALL WRONG.  So while we will copy their idea here, we will be correct about it.

First, the DJ's said that your stripper name was the first street where you lived, followed by the name of your first pet.  Which is, of course, backward.  It's the pet name followed by the street name.  Right?

Then the girl who does the news said she thought it was your middle name followed by the street name.  But no, news girl, that is your soap opera character name.  I can't believe they let you do the news with the kind of inaccurate information you spread all over the central Wisconsin and state-line listening area.

So here we have a Pop Quiz that requires so little actual thought that everybody can participate.  We will just tell each other our stripper names and soap opera names.  And Star Wars names!  See, because I heard once that your Star Wars name is the first syllable of your first name followed by the model of your car.  And the planet you're from is the name of the last medicine you took.

To recap, all you have to do is:

Stripper name = Name of your first pet + Street name where you first lived

Soap opera name = Your middle name + Let's go with the second street you lived on, just to mix it up

Star Wars = First syllable of your first name + Model of your car from the planet last medicine you took (Use your discretion here, folks.  If it will tell us more than we want to know about you, go with a different one.)

I'll start:

Stripper: Ginger Myra

Soap Opera: Anne Prairie

Star Wars: Lor Focus from the planet Zyrtec

Alright, folks, it's an All Play and the skill level has been set to Easy.  Let's hear 'em.

Talk Amongst Yourselves

Thanks everybody for all of the nice comments.  I especially appreciate how you completely avoided any mention of pots, lids, fish, the sea, or frogs to be kissed.

I've still really got nothing for you.  So how about if you all get to know each other better while simultaneously entertaining me?  Yes, let's do that.

Please answer any or all:

1. What is the worst job you ever had?

2. What, if any, exercise equipment do you own that you never use?

3. Briefly describe the contents of your fridge.

4. Read any good books lately?

Distract me, Internet.  I'm begging you.

Oh, and say Happy Birthday to Amy while you're at it.

Strong Dislike Monday: It's still Monday for three more hours edition

I meant to get this posted much earlier today, but then I didn't write it until now.

But I've been wanting for a while now to do one of these posts so I could express my white-hot hatred for a song called Stay by Sugarland that I am subjected to multiple times a day by Q106, via my cube neighbor's radio.  Even with my iPod cranked up, I can't fully drown out the caterwauling.  Strong dislike doesn't really begin to cover it.  I believe I would willingly listen to All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You by Heart AND Hold On by Wilson Phillips every day if only it could make that song go away.  Ok, maybe not that Heart crap, but definitely Hold On and Angry All the Time by Tim McGraw, which would be SACRIFICE ENOUGH.

What should be annoying me at the moment, but isn't, is the way that the rain has apparently kicked my body's snot production into overdrive.  My body was already overachieving in that department and has been for months, but this is just a whole new level of snotty. 

Nor can I be upset with what the rain did to me on Sunday.  See, the warmer weather and rain have been melting the snow.  Yay!  But then the pool of melted snow in my parking lot froze overnight into a solid sheet of ice.  And then on Sunday the snow started melting again on top of it.  So what we had was a sheet of ice that was also wet.  I think you see where this is heading.  My feet went out from under me, my hands were full, and I landed on the side of my right thigh.  And then hobbled back inside to change out of my now-wet jeans while cursing under my breath and attempting not to cry in front of I DON'T KNOW WHO.  Hypothetical people watching out of their windows or something.  Ok, yes, I am clumsy, but it was ICE that was WET.  I'll have you know that I did not spill my Diet Dr Pepper.  But I'm pretty sure I have a contusion.

Even so, I am not annoyed with the rain for the pure and simple reason that it is not snow.  Amen.

I'd come up with a list of categories for you, except there is football on and a fire hazard dried-out Christmas tree to take out to the curb before pick up begins tomorrow.  So you're on your own.  You can tell us anything that you strongly dislike.  Movies, TV shows, songs, people's annoying habits, your job, the holidays, traffic...why, the annoyance possibilities are endless!

In addition to snow and that abomination of a song, here's what really burns my toast at the moment:

Icing the kicker.  I think it's poor sportsmanship.

Airline passengers who carry on their clearly too large bags and then hold everybody up trying to cram it into the overhead bin.  Or whose bags are so heavy they can't lift them that high without assistance.  JUST CHECK IT.

Being out of Nasonex and not having insurance to get any more.  I tried Vicks nasal spray and it will clear your sinuses, but only for an hour or two and you're not supposed to use it for more than three days in a row.  Also, it's...brisk.  It's sort of the Listerine of nasal sprays.  Actually, what it is is exactly what you'd think shooting Vicks up your nose would be like.  Yeow.

Hayden Christensen and the people who keep putting him in movies.  He is a terrible, terrible actor.  Terrible.

People whose data I must enter who cannot be bothered to fill out forms legibly and who just ignore clearly-written directions.  Some people cannot be bothered to even write the entirety of their own last names.  I have seen letters and entire syllables just left off.  And if you live in Albuquerque, sure I'll know what Albuq, NM means.  But if you live in Podunksville, writing P-ville does not help me.

Grocery store savings club cards.  I haven't come across these in a long time, but it seems like all of the stores here have them.  You already have my money, Copps.  I do not think you need my email address as well.  Plus I never remember about it until I'm at the check out and then I don't want to stand in line at Customer Service with my groceries afterward just to get another stupid card to carry around.  Just give me the fifty cents off on the Lean Cuisine pizzas, I'll pay you the difference, and everybody wins.

That's probably more than enough from me.  Your turn.

No, thank you.

Things that I would not like to do:

Be a punt returner.

Stay in an ice hotel.

Spend time with anyone who has ever been a host of The View.  (Exception: Lisa Ling, who left voluntarily to host National Geographic Explorer, which sounds like a pretty awesome job to me.)

Ever wait tables again.

Wear panty hose on any kind of regular basis. Or at all if I can help it.

Watch boxing.

Participate in boxing.

Participate in ice fishing.

Get any more piercings.

Reduce my intake of chocolate, cheese, or bread.

Spelunking.

Work in a salon.  I don't deal well with hair that is not attached to a head.  Even my own when cleaning my bathroom.  Ick.

Eat bratwurst.

Write science fiction.

Go to a Celine Dion concert.

Do one of those polar bear swim things. Those people are messed up.

Quit caffeine.

Appear on a reality show.

Square dance.

Have a pet bird.

Go on Jeopardy! only to be in the hole after Double Jeopardy! and have to miss Final Jeopardy!  (This is my prediction of what would happen, by the way.  I guess a lot and am frequently wrong.)

Undertake any sort of hard core camping experience.

Get any more papercuts on my hands than I already have. Which is six.

This is by no means an exhaustive list.  Just what has occurred to me in the time since I watched a football player return a punt and thought "I would NEVER want that job."

Enlighten us, Internet.  What wouldn't you want to do?  Or ever do again?

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.

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!

Love Thursday: I have no other post ideas Edition

Yeah, I did this once before.  But then I limited me (and you) to ten items, which made us all think that we needed to think of ten really significant/most important things.  And yet, Meg Fowler has been doing this Friday Love List thing and she lists as many things as she wants, which leads to including littler things, which makes her lists far more interesting. 

In fact, forget that I included those links because her terribly interesting lists are going to make mine look mundane.  Since you won't be going over there, I'll explain that it works this way: I tell you some stuff that I love and then you write a similar post on your own blog and put the link in my comments or you just go ahead and leave a comment for us with a bunch of stuff that you love.  Maybe we love it too.  Or maybe we would love it but we don't even know about it yet.  You'd be doing us a service.

So here we go, some things I love, in no particular order:

When a kid I'm teaching really gets something
Sour blackberries
Coming home and changing into my crazy soft yoga pants, which yes, have a hole in the leg, but it's ok since I never wear them out of the house
Sunny and 75
Daydreaming
Throw-your-head back, silent shaking laughter.  Or the even rarer (for me) right-out-loud laugh.
Iced mochas
Big goofy puppy smiles
Sheets on skin
My Reefs
Margaritas.  Boy howdy, do I love a good margarita.
Sleeping in
Football season!
And with it, the return of Brett Favre, Kirk Herbstreit, and Howie Long to my television.
The smell of basil
Long, (almost scaldingly) hot showers
The lovely, lovely woodwork in my new apartment
All of the lots of different kinds of flowers down at the farmers market
Sourdough bread
Yoplait Whips orange creme flavor.  It tastes sort of...fizzy.
Maps.  They're mesmerizing, aren't they?  Maybe it's my wanderlust, maybe it's my total lack of innate sense of direction, but I could stare at maps for hours.
New book smell
Good, soft, barefoot-quality grass to walk around and sit in
Digital cable - God help me, I'm not sure I can ever go back.

I could go on and on, but tomorrow is not a sleep-in day as I've got to get my car in to the shop since this was the first appointment I could get after that whole AC not working thing started.  Let's all think inexpensive thoughts.

And comment!  LET'S ALL COMMENT.

Strong Dislike Monday returns!

Because I have nothing interesting to tell you, and because the increased number of comments on these survey-type posts makes me feel popular, and because I feel certain that we all have plenty more things to bitch about, I bring you the return of Strong Dislike Monday.

1. What's irritating you these days?

2. Is there a commercial that you find more annoying than most?

3. Do you have a least favorite cliche or other tired, overused phrase?

4. What current reality show do you feel represents the most significant scourge on mankind?

5. What daily and/or household task do you most dread?

6. I bet we can all think of more terrible songs.  I know I can.

Let's kick things off with my own personal annoyances:

1. Mosquitoes.  Bills.  Other drivers.  Tyra Banks.  The total lack of magically appearing groceries in my kitchen.  The way that chocolate has so damn many calories.

2. I think it is Kotex that is urging me to have a happy period.  I don't even have to be PMSing to be irritated by that slogan.  I have also been shocked to see that they even show the happy cow commercials here in Wisconsin.  Bold move, California.

3. "Just be yourself."  I think this has got to be the least helpful piece of advice ever.

4. The Girls Next Door

5. Hmmmm...I despise cleaning the bathtub, but now I only have a shower stall.  I do hate to clean mirrors.  I never used to mind until I worked at Ann Taylor and had to clean THIRTY THREE of them every time I opened the store.  Also, I refuse to dry dishes, but that is only because they can accomplish this entirely on their own if left unattended.  It is the only household task that does itself.

6. I forgot before about Angry All the Time by Tim McGraw and what I do feel is surely my least favorite song, Heart's All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You.  You will never see me move so fast as I do to change the station when that song begins.

Ok, now you.

You're it. No tag-backs.

Tracy tagged me for this meme, which, because I have no other ideas of what to write, I am completing in a (somewhat) timely manner.  The meme involves listing seven songs that you are into right now.  Let us bear in mind that the fact that I live in Austin should not be interpreted to mean that I have my finger on the pulse of the indie music scene.  Quite the contrary.  Pretty much the only time I have right now to listen to music is when I'm in my car driving to or from one job or another, so mostly I listen to whatever is on the radio (which is almost always something by The Fray).  Particularly since I took my CD case inside a few weeks back because it still had Christmas CDs in it and I have neglected to ever switch them and put it back in the car.  So it's been either the radio or No Name Face by Lifehouse for quite some time.  Disclaimer ended.

1. Superstition by Stevie Wonder - Not only is this one of my all-time favorite songs, but it is also now my ring tone.  Meaning that I don't really want to answer the phone when it rings.

2. Everlong by the Foo Fighters - Tracy, you were so right.  This song not only holds up, it seems to get better all the time.   There was a time when this was not even my favorite Foo Fighters song.  Then I came to my senses.

3. You Don't Know Me by Ray Charles - I have always loved this song, and have had it in my head on and off for the past couple of weeks since I finally got around to watching Ray.

4. It's Alright by Third Day - I fell a little bit in love with this song when I ripped it from my sister's CD legally purchased the CD and put it on my crappy old mp3 player before I went to Europe.

5. Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol - I know.  It's trendy and all, but how am I not going to like a song that advocates both wasting time and just laying here?

6. Fade into You by Mazzy Star - This song is on fairly continuous radio play around here.  Which is weird, but fine by me.

7. Nothing on but the Radio by Gary Allan - Yes, country.  What can I say?  I'm eclectic.

And now, I tag all of you.  You can post on your blog and leave the link in the comments or just put your answer in a comment.  There are, as ever, no actual rules around here, so do seven, do more or less...whatever.  Totally up to you.

Because surely you have something more interesting to say today than I do.

I recently had to write an essay (for a job application) on the topic, "Tell about books and authors that have been especially meaningful to you."  This was a challenge for me.  Not because I couldn't think of any.  No sir or ma'am, there were just far too many to pick from and to then make into a cohesive essay.  And believe you me, four weeks into this test scoring job, I KNOW incohesive writing.  Far be it from me to add to the massive volumes of it that I know to be in existence.  So I toiled greatly over my essay.

But this being the Internet, cohesion be damned!  I figured that since I seem to have a lot of written word geeks hanging around here, you might have some really fascinating answers.  And YOU don't even have to worry about how to phrase your answer (Superfantastic is not currently hiring.)  So have at it, reader people.  Inquiring geeky minds want to know.

Because it seemed time to post something

I am thinking that you would rather I didn't expound on my cold and how the cold medicine is making me feel as if there is a small weight sitting on the front of my brain.  Not in an "ow!" kind of way, but just enough to be distracting.  Or the random lower back pain that I am blaming on my crappy, crappy desk chair.

But perhaps you would also not like me to go on at full post length about the things currently making me happy, such as the total lack of runniness I've been experiencing in the past couple of hours or how I did my taxes last night and discovered that the Federal Government will be sending me a pile of money soon!  Yes, it is my own money to begin with, and yes, maybe "pile" is misleading, but it's darn near enough to pay my rent and I will thank Uncle Sam to return it to me in a timely manner.

So then I thought: a survey!  That doesn't require me to have done or thought anything particularly noteworthy or comical of late!  But what will I ask?  And then Katie's emails about getting through her current sickness through squishy white bread in the forms of French toast and grilled cheese made me think about comfort food and all of the little things that make life better.  So here it is:

-Name some favorite comfort foods.

-Name a song that makes you smile and turn up the volume.

-Is there a place that you go, a la Holly Golightly to Tiffany's, that makes you feel better just walking in the door and possibly you sigh with the renewed well-being of it all?

-Can you think of a silly or stupid thing that recently made you laugh?

-What are some random and assorted small things that make you happy?

I'll go first:

-Mashed potatoes.  Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.  Also bread in its many forms, most recently a sourdough breadbowl that I bought at the grocery store last night along with some really good soup.   Can't beat that.

-This morning it was Kiss by Prince.

-Libraries and bookstores.  Big ones.  Ahhhh...  (Target also has this effect for the first minute or two until it occurs to me that Target will suck my wallet dry with its discounted goodness.  Then the well-being sort of slowly drains.)

-The name Dr. Harry Sidebottom.  (If you are reading, Dr. Sidebottom, I apologize.  And giggle.)

-Getting the Final Jeopardy question right; writing a really good sentence; actual personal mail, whether of the e- or postal variety.

Now you go!  Seriously.  It's your turn.

Personality: Do You Have One?

Well of course you do.  And chances are, you have taken some sort of "test", "inventory" or "eHarmony Personality Profile" to determine what kind of personality you have.  It is also likely that this test was quite lengthy and required rather a lot of thought on your part.  Well no more!  I can now test your personality using one and only one question.  A question that will probably provoke a knee-jerk response and require no thought whatsoever.  Which is how we like things here at Superfantastic.

Here is the scenario:

You and a friend have rented a cabin.  You want to go hiking but it is pouring down rain, so you start a large jigsaw puzzle instead.  You go to sleep that night, intending to finish the puzzle in the morning.  But the morning dawns bright and beautiful, perfect for hiking.  You have to check out of the cabin before you leave to hike, which means that you must now pack up and put away the puzzle.  Unfinished.

Does this bother you?  Just answer yes or no and you are finished!  Read on...

Personality One: No, this does not bother you.

The puzzle served its purpose.  It gave you something to do, allowed you to interact with your friend without staring blankly at each other, and it challenged your mind and fine motor skills.  Moreover, each piece that you successfully connected was a victory in and of itself.  Life is a journey, man, not a destination.

You are one easy-going and laid-back individual.  You don't let the little things bother you.  The process is more important to you than the outcome in many cases.  You take life as it comes, live in the moment, and can be easily diverted from a task by a friend in need, a great idea, or something shiny.  People really like your ability to go with the flow, get along with everyone, and generally enjoy life.  Unfortunately, they hate that you are never on time and always forget their birthdays, anniversaries, and names.  Probably you don't finish a lot of things.  Maybe you live in your parents' basement.  Grow up already, you lazy good-for-nothing slacker.

Personality Two: Yes, this bothers you.

The goal of doing the puzzle was to finish it, thus completing the picture.  Each piece successfully placed was a means to that end.  The result of this puzzle experience was failure.  Quitters never win and winners never quit.  You like to be, nay MUST BE a winner and your friend and Mother Nature herself have robbed you of your victory.

You set goals for yourself and do whatever it takes to achieve them.  You make small goals along the way, checking them off as you make steady progress toward ultimate success.  You are driven and successful, a leader who does things right.  People like that you can be counted on to come through and respect your dogged determination.  Unfortunately, they hate that you are rigid and unable to deviate from the plan, even if the plan exists only within the hyper-organized filing system that is your brain.  Probably they also wish that you'd stop yelling at them to use a coaster.  Take the giant stick out of your butt already, you uptight know-it-all.

Personality Three: You wouldn't have done the puzzle in the first place.

You are a party pooper.  This is why you have no friends.

So have we all learned some valuable lessons about our personalities today?  I certainly hope so!  Because I had to rewrite this entire post after Typepad ate the first version!

Also, many thanks to Lisa and Holly (personalities one and two, respectively) for the scenario.  I promise to give each of you an equal share of the proceeds of this free personality assessment!

Love Thursday: Getting this one in under the wire

I intended to write this post much earlier in the day.  But see, there's this novel that I'm writing.  (I had a dream last night where I started getting angry comments demanding that I stop writing about NaNoWriMo already gosh we are so sick of hearing about it!  Which may be coming eventually, but I don't think we've quite hit that wall yet, have we?)  I do feel that I should point out, lest you overestimate my ambition, that while 1,667 words is what you get when you divide 50,000 words equally by 30 days, it is recommended that you shoot for 2,000 or 2,500 per day in the first week.  Apparently week two really crushes your spirit, so they suggest that you take advantage of the first week enthusiasm.  So really by shooting for 2,000 words a day this week, I am still really putting in the least amount of effort possible to get by.  (If this novel were flair, I would SO be wearing the minimum required amount.)

On to non-novel-related things!  I figured that since I had already asked you about your strong dislikes that one Monday, I should find out what we all love.    So here is your assignment: list ten things that you love.  Anything you want.  (I am limiting it to 10 since when some friends and I discussed this question it was terribly interesting and we really came to learn a lot about each other, but it took quite a long time.  So ten it is.  No cheating.)

I will start by listing the first ten things that come to mind in an effort to keep from staying up all night trying to come up with the ten most important things.

1. Good conversation.

2. Dark chocolate.

3. Thunderstorms.

4. Things of beauty, particularly beautifully-written things.

5. Kids.

6. Christmas.

7. Fall.  Real fall though, not South Texas fall.

8. Comments.   (Really, this is not a desperate cry for comments.  It's just true.  Comments make me really irrationally happy.)

9. Driving fast with the windows down and the sunroof open.

10. Traveling.  Also staying home.

I'm off to bed now to rest my weary hands and will make every effort not to get up and log back in once I think of better things to put on my list.  But promise that you all will not think too hard about this either, ok?  I don't want to be the only one half-assing this assignment.

Wish you were a Sunday.

Someone out there (what do you want from me people, research?) started this Love Thursday thing in which bloggers write love related things on Thursdays.  Well, good for Thursdays.  But we've got to get out our bitterness, angst, and frustration at some point, so I have decided to create Strong Dislike Monday.  Come, let us be grumpy, crabby, and curmudgeonly together.  In survey form.

1. What song (or songs) do you hate with a burning passion?

2. Name your least favorite movie.

3. What are your pet peeves (rational or otherwise)?

4. List some words you despise.  No one is allowed to use this knowledge against you.

5. Which celebrity would you most like to kick in the shins?

6. What food makes you gag, even just thinking about it?

7. What TV show would you willingly claw your eyes out before watching?

Want me to go first?  Ok.

1. Finally by Ce Ce Peniston.  Why are they still playing this song on the radio?  No really, I WANT TO KNOW.  Also Closing Time, since it sounds like it was written in about 2 minutes, which for some reason really irritates me.  And anything by Ace of Base.  (I always thought it was Ace of Bass.  Now, in addition to despising their music, I dislike them even more for their nonsensical name.)

2. Dumb and Dumber.  Hate me if you must; I dislike this movie.

3. People saying they're going to do something and then bailing.  This pisses me off.  People who laugh at their own jokes and look at me to make sure I'm laughing too.  Being talked to as if I were an idiot. (This means you, Person At Work!)  Also loud, open-mouthed eating.  Keep it to yourselves, folks.

4. Ointment, chunk, slacks, gristle, boobies (If you are not 12 or under, this is not a word you should continue to use.  Thank you.)

5. Ann Coulter.  You thought I was going to say Jennifer Love Hewitt, didn't you?

6. Mushrooms.  Ack.

7. Family Matters.  Why would you watch this?  Why?

Ok, readers, your turn to spread the Strong Dislike.  Let it all out...

Because Honestly Don't You Think It's High Time You Started Pitching In Around Here?

So the whole "no problem, a great job will definitely fall into my lap any day now" attitude has begun to fade and I have started to freak out a little in a "hmmm...perhaps this might not work out in so stellar a fashion as I had hoped" sort of low-grade freak out.  So in this particular post, the burden falls on you, dear readers, to take on some of the writing duties.

Today we'll be completing sort of a reverse-meme in which I tag all of you to answer a series of questions.  And yes, I ripped this idea off from Nothing But Bonfires, but I have written my own questions, thank you very much.

Actually, I wrote these questions in a boredom-induced email to my then-roommate Vicki when we were both cut loose by the same employer after September 11 and I was temping and she was home, emailing me.  I wrote a fake employment application for the fake business I was starting.  See, I had spent many many hours typing meeting minutes from dictation and so I emailed Vicki to say that when I had my own multinational corporation, the minutes would read: We had a meeting.  You kind of had to be there.  She expressed interest in working for such a corporation and thus, the application.  (And if anyone from that particular office is reading, I'm pretty sure I did this on my lunch hour.  Yeah, that's right.  Definitely not company time.)

The real fun began when Vicki and I printed out these applications and had people fill them out at our Christmas party.  Some people even filled out a second copy as the liquid refreshments rendered them even wittier (at least as far as they were concerned.)

So now, I present four of those questions:

1.) Who, in your opinion, was the most admirable puppet to appear on television?

2.) Name the three prepositions that most accurately describe you.  Explain.

3.) Easy Bake or Lite Brite?  Why?

4.) Would you rather be a) a bowling ball, b) Swiss cheese, or c) Mickey Rooney?  Please give two reasons for your choice, only one of which may be "because."

You may choose to answer any or all.  You could even angrily explain why one of these questions is the most ridiculous question in the entire history of questions, as my friend Don Holmes did at the party with the preposition question.  Which he then proceeded to answer with "Under - I am undereducated to answer this question, Over - this question is over my head."

Why don't I get us started with some answers of my own?

1. Kermit the Frog, obviously.  Kermit blazed a trail for the multi-tasking television journalists of today by reporting the fairytale news for Sesame Street while simultaneously running the whole operation over at the Muppet Show.  He kept his cool while dealing with numerous chickens, monsters, hecklers, and one randy pig.  Sort of makes Katie Couric look like a giant slacker.  And she never had to face discrimination over being green which, as we know, is not easy.

2. Out - I'm about to be out of a job.  Toward - I am moving toward a new career or maybe just a lot of debt.  To - I would like to go back to bed now.

3. Due to health concerns regarding food cooked by a light bulb, I'm sticking with Lite Brite.  Not every Easy Bake creation is edible, but every Lite Brite creation is art.

4. Swiss cheese because: a) Just like Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias, I would rather have five minutes of wonderful than a whole lifetime of nothing special (no offense, Mickey Rooney) and as we all know, cheese is wonderful yet short-lived.  b) Because.

Ok, your turn.