pseudostoops

It seems in my life that there are two kinds of weekends.  Type 1 is filled with vast stretches of nothingness, no plans, plenty of opportunity for lazing and laundry and cooking dishes that require hours of stove time, like osso bucco.  (You know, if osso bucco didn’t gross me out.)  Type 2 is the polar opposite, filled with social engagements and parties and plans, dashing from thing to thing, and waking up on Monday only to realize that you have no (a) clean underpants; (b) clean dishes, and (c) groceries.  Stale graham crackers for breakfast it is!

This weekend fell decidedly, deliciously in the Type 2 column, and as I sit here munching on a leftover third of a burrito from lunch (see “no groceries,” supra), I can’t really believe what-all I crammed into the hours between 5pm on Friday and 6:30 frickin am this morning.  (Why yes I DID go to work at 6:30 am! How did you guess?  And no, I’m not in the least bitter about it, thanks for asking!)  There was happy hour and brunch with friends and a coffee date and another brunch with friends and a superbowl party featuring homemade wings and gumbo and soft pretzels, plus a cutie 3 month old baby.  Not too shabby.

But the highlight, unsurprisingly, was the lovely day and night I spent with a truly, astonishingly fun group of women who’d come in from ALL OVER THE WORLD (what, we had a canadian, that makes us international) to hang out.  Being a total moron I forgot my camera, and being a totally exhausted space case I’m forgetting all the nice things I wanted to say about them but suffice it to say that hanging out with these women was the kind of experience I used to daydream about when I was a teenager- a smart, racaously funny group of women who can talk about things both silly and serious for hours and hours while drinking wine and enjoying cheese fondue.  A little cliche and predictable for a girls weekend, you say, with the wine and the fondue?  DO NOT CARE.  WAS BLISS.

Making friends as an adult is hard, yo, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have found these ladies.

Then, after an evening where I mixed beer, whiskey, baileys (ew), wine, tequila (not my idea) and more beer, I somehow woke up with a headache.  I cannot fathom why.

You know what is an awesome way to start out the new year?  Accidentally posting your end of year review doo-hickey to your old blog and having to repost it to your current one!   I blame jetlag.  (Story of our hellacious trip back from LA to follow! You’re in the edge of your seat!)

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I always really enjoy reading these, so I figured this year I’d try writing one out myself.  Via Sundry.

1. What did you do this year that you’d never done before?

Ran a 5K and a 10K. Rode a camel. Cut bangs. Hosted a birthday party for myself.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t really do resolutions, typically, but I think it was something about being more fit and drinking less diet coke.  Both kept.  Not making any for this year.  Perhaps I’m unambitious.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Several- with more to come in 2010.  It’s a friend baby boom up in here.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Yes, also several.  Closest was one of John’s best friends from high school.  He was 27.

5. What countries did you visit?

Egypt, Croatia, Italy, Canada

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

A job without a defined end date.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

I’m not great with dates, honestly.  I started my new job on October 12.  John started grad school on August 31.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Becoming a runner.

9. What was your biggest failure?

Not getting a project off the ground at work that I really, really wanted to see happen.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Swine flu, but nothing serious.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Plane tickets.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

John’s, for being generally awesome.  A very close friend from childhood, who spent the better part of this year caring for her terminally illmother.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Politicians who have tried to torpedo health care reform without offering a single alternative idea.  Keep it classy, GOP leadership.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Mortgage, loans, travel, savings.  And food.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Training for a half marathon, perversely.  John’s admission to the grad program he really wanted to go to.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

“Say Hey” by Michael Frenti. Not because it was my favorite (although I like it) but because it seems like the kind of song, like “mmmbop” or “Good Riddance” by Green Day that will burn hot and fast and then seem dated in a few years.  See also: “I Gotta Feeling” by Black Eyed Peas.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
 a) happier or sadder? 
b) thinner or fatter? 
c) richer or poorer?

Happier, thinner, poorer.  Grad school ain’t cheap, yo. But I did also get a 100% raise (not exaggerating) so that’s nice.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

I wish I’d hosted more casual dinner parties.  Also, paradoxically, I wish we’d eaten out at more new restaurants- neighborhood places, not fancy joints.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Moving without the assistance of movers.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

At my parents’ house.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?

More in love, maybe, but no new loves.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Mad Men

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Don’t think so.

24. What was the best book you read?

American Wife

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Let’s be honest: I don’t discover music.  I let others do the discovering and then I follow them in their good taste.  I was awfully fond of Fanfarlo this year.  And the Avett Brothers.

26. What did you want and get?

The chance to travel abroad.

27. What did you want and not get?

Job security.

28. What was your favorite film of this year?

Not sure I can say definitively which was my favorite, but I just saw Up In The Air yesterday and LOVED it.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

John and I went out to dinner and drinks at our favorite bar.  I turned 30.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

This may sound like a copout, but a lot of my friends had really rough years.  A lot of tragedy, a lot of struggle.  2009 would have been better for me if it had been kinder to those close to me.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

It seems I have somehow come to own a pair of skinny jeans.  I feel lost and disoriented.  Who have I become?

32. What kept you sane?

Work.  (I wasn’t working for 6 weeks, and it was not good for my mental stability.)  John. Running.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Robert Downey Junior.  Real me may have moved on to loving real grown ups, but apparently fantasy me still is drawn to bad boys.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Health care reform.

35. Who did you miss?

My best friend Pookie, who is kicking ass and taking names at her new job in Denver.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

The people we went to Egypt with are pretty awesome.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

When you feel like you can’t do something, you’re often selling yourself short.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

I used a song lyric as my senior quote in my high school yearbook.  It ended badly.  Since then I’ve tried to avoid describing my life via song lyrics.

I spent yesterday afternoon here:

It’s a lousy cameraphone picture, but trust me, it was gorgeous.  It was a nice tonic after spending all weekend here:

Don’t get me wrong, the Sheraton is a lovely hotel, but even in lovely hotels the conference rooms tend to look like this:

As in:  rooms where one cannot fully appreciate the fact that it is finally, mercifully, GORGEOUS in Chicago,  after weeks of asshole rainy weather.

So. BlogHer: I’m tremendously glad I went, though I enjoyed it differently than I had  expected to.   I thought I’d attend and enjoy panels with topics like “who’s reading you?” and “lifeblogging outside the lines,” but I went to exactly one of those panels before I started looking around frantically for a paper bag to breathe into as people heatedly debated why “certain segments of this community get all the advertising dollars” and how “BlogHer ads won’t let you do xyz” and all I could think was “abort abort abort find friends and glass of wine, stat!”

I found it disorienting that Ragu wanted to sponsor our lunch, and Pepsi wanted to sponsor all of my liquid consumption for the weekend, and Degree wanted to give me samples of a deodorant called “Sexy Intrigue.”  (Thank God I’d gotten a heads up on the existence of this awesomely-named personal anti-sweating device, thanks to Amalah, or I would have laughed right in the poor product rep’s face when she did her “big reveal” of the new scent’s name.  As it was, I  made sort of a trying-not-to-laugh grimace.)  It just wasn’t doing much for me.

So instead of learning how to read my stats better, or do SEO, or get sponsorship dollars thrown my way, I started ditching stuff.  I coerced Alice into skipping morning sessions so we could go get the best french toast in the world.  Six hours later, I stuffed myself into a cab driven by a man with a death wish to have a carbo-loading dinner with five lovely ladies.  I sat for hours on the floor of their hotel room as tears rolled down our faces from laughing (mostly at Sam’s accent).  I took deep breaths to overcome my profound feelings of moron-ness and introduced myself to people whose writing I admire.  I made Linda tell me which P90x videos to order.  (She counseled against the one with all the pull ups; probably wise given the state of my arms.)  I drank gin.  I ate pop rocks:

(Photo courtesy of Alice: I did not take one single picture because I am awesome.)

I’ve noticed something about other BlogHer posts: they’re not filled with raves about the content of a particular panel, or how well the conference prepared someone to “get her piece of the monetization pie.”  Instead, people are talking about the people they met, the reconnecting with friends, the laughing until incontinence.

That’s why we do this, right? That’s what this is about.  That’s why I’m glad I went.

Administrative note:  I was so tired this morning that I accidentally posted this to my old site, and didn’t notice until JUST NOW.  Because I am AWESOME and ORGANIZED.  Sheesh.  Sorry about that.

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Dear creepy crawly thing who crawled up the leg of my pajamas last night,

Are you particularly dim, creepy crawly thing?  Did you get lost and panic when you could not find your way out? That is the only explanation I can come up with for why you did this:

It might not look that bad in the photo, but let’s examine it more closely, shall we?

EIGHT BITES?  What gives, creepy crawly?  Were you not sated after one long draught of my tasty blood?  Or did you get stuck and, in a fit of rage at your predicament, decide that the best way to solve the problem was to bite me EIGHT TIMES within a 3 inch radius?

Helpful hint: if you crawl up someone’s pajama leg and get stuck, you can turn right back around to get out.  No need to bite eight times!  No need to then be so tired/lost/confused that you give up and DIE in the leg of my pjs, so that when I wake up in the morning and stand up, a dead creepy crawly falls out of my pant leg and nearly causes me a heart attack!

Truly, we both would have been happier had this situation ended differently.

Yours in Benadryl,

pseudo

It being Monday, I could update you on my weekend, which featured:

• a Friday night happy hour that somehow extended itself to 1am;
• a great play at the Steppenwolf, where I spilled a glass of wine on myself at intermission and then promptly ran into my boss as I pawed at my chestal region trying to mop it up;
• and a lazy Sunday made even lazier when I went out to the car to run errands and discovered the battery had died, so instead of going on errands I sat in my jammies in our apartment waiting for AAA to arrive.

But the weekend ended on a truly high note with the return of the Golden Globes. I have no shame. I love awards shows. I don’t love the SPEECHES, per se, but I love the fashions and the ridiculous red carpet specials and the delicious, ever-present possibility that someone famous will do something tremendously stupid/clumsy/awkward/totally inappropriate.

I also truly adore Go Fug Yourself, and was delighted to learn that the Fug girls would be liveblogging the Globes red carpet. So even though I had to do some work last night, it was made so much better by the fact that I could put the tv on in the background, crack a beer, and enjoyed comedy gold such as this, from the Fug girls talking about Kate Winslet and Leonardo DeCaprio’s interview with Ryan Seacrest:

It’s a big ol’ lovefest here. He adores her, she cherishes him, they both value working together, etc. Thank God they’re not actually dating, because what the hell could you call them? Kato? Lete? No. Doesn’t work.

And this gem:

It’s the Disney-friendly segment of the show: Ryan talks to the Jonas Brothers, and then gets the entire Cyrus family. Miley looks very cute and much more age-appropriate than she did at the Oscars, but then complains that she only got a HAND-ME-DOWN Porsche for her sixteenth birthday and we lose all feelings of goodwill for her. Stop complaining, you spoiled brat. Some people only get hand-me-down floor mats. America’s collective broke asses aren’t going to have much sympathy for your struggles with your mildly used luxury sports car.

In lieu of a clever transition, I’m going to completely jump topics now.    As you may have heard, today is Delurking Day!

Complete with vaguely creepy flasher-man logo! So hey, if you’re out there and reading and perhaps have not said hello before, do so today!

Maybe you could tell me your favorite Golden Globes outfit trainwreck (my nominee: a tie between Renee Zellweger’s mountain of crazy:

and Drew Barrymore’s insane hairdo):

Or tell me why I’m a big loser for watching the Golden Globes at all. Or just, you know, say hi.

…because I am a liar. I actually realized I didn’t want to quit blogging, I was just uninspired and feeling in the mood to do something dramatic at New Year’s. What I DID want to do, however, was leave Blogger, which has been driving me nuts ever since it sort-of-merged-without-much-explanation with Google. Ugh. Buggy and annoying. (For those of us who write with pseudonyms, but also have non-pseudonymous Google accounts, it would do this fun thing where every once in a while it would recognize “real” you as opposed to “blogger” you and then post your posts or comments under your real name instead of your blogger name which caused me great consternation. Not that I’m all that special and anonymous, but come ON.)

What really convinced me to come back, though, was this little tidbit from our plane flight home from L.A. on New Year’s Day: sitting in front of me was an unaccompanied minor, maybe 10 or 11 years old. As we are about to land, she wriggles around in her chair, then stretches and reaches her arm way up above her and flicks something behind her from off her fingernail. It lands in my lap. It is a BOOGER. She flicked a BOOGER onto me! I’m all for stealthy booger removal generally, and that whole stretch-yawn-flick move was pretty stealthy, but when you’re on a PLANE, and there is someone sitting BEHIND YOU, you DO NOT FLICK YOUR BOOGERS BACKWARDS ONTO THEIR LAPS, YOUNG LADY! And I realized that without a blog I would have no where to express my righteous indignation and my small rant on “kids today and how they have no manners.”

And so I joined wordpress. Archives might make their way over here at some point. Hope any old readers find their way over, and forgive me for being that worst of blogging cliches: she who tries to make a dramatic exit, and fails.

The end.