grief and high delight

San Diego dreams

2012-02-13T18:21:00.001-07:00

So it's Monday. It was my first day back in the office after being gone last week. Actually, my first day back in society since I spent the weekend in my bed with a cold and seasonal affective disorder.In case you forgot where I was or weren't following my somewhat live-tweet of my trip to San Diego last week, I thought I'd relive it for you here. Just the bare bones. And the pictures.

First of all, WHY DON'T I LIVE IN SAN DIEGO?? No, seriously you guys. As soon as Ana and I got off the plane I about died. It was so sunny and warm, I felt like I had forgotten what that felt like. I can't fully describe it to you, but in my mind San Diego is like a bright and happy blue or a warm yellow and Salt Lake City is a perennial dark and cold gray. That is just me being really dramatic, but seriously, San Diego is magical.

One of my favorite things was Ana in the airport with her roller suitcase that was almost as big as she is.

And also matches her hair.

The view from our hotel room:

I SERIOUSLY DIED

So, let me give you some deets. So we arrived on Sunday afternoon and had the day to kind of realize that we were in freaking paradise and just gear up for the week ahead. After we died in our hotel room (at the Hyatt Manchester Grand...I KNOW) for a bit, we went down to Seaport Village to walk around and eat. Now, it must be said that when I was a kid we used to frequent Seaport Village all the time and it was like the most magical place on the earth to me. Revisiting it as an almost-26-year-old was actually pretty equally magical! Mainly because it was encroaching on 80 degrees. The village did seem a bit smaller, though, if I'm being honest.

Anyway, we ate lunch at Buster's Beach Club or some junk. It was the most relaxing lunch I've had in my whole life.

Plus a good hair day. Who could ask for anything more??

Except of course a boat:

So anyway, Sunday we had lunch then watched the Super Bowl in the bar/lounge situation at the hotel which was awesomesauce. (Madonna's half-time performance???? amazeballs) Then we went back to our room to just chill and eat hot wings in bed. WHAT.

Monday was the start of the conference, which was the actual whole reason for being in San Diego but I am not going to talk about that at all because BORING. Monday night my mom drove down to have dinner with me and Ana! Thus started our nightly feastings at the hands of Ana's foodie amazingness. (These sentences are redic.) We went to Searsucker, the restaurant of Brian Malarkey of Top Chef fame. It is pretty much the coolest restaurant I have ever been to in my life. I want to take its style and design and copy it in my future kitchen. Check out pics. I had the filet mignon with lobster butter and cognac. YEAH I KNOW. It was insanely good.

Me and my Ma

Tuesday: more conference, then a big group dinner at this amazing Spanish restaurant, Sevilla.

I had the meat paella which was DELISH, but this picture of it is terrible due to the mood lighting:

I also shared this with a senior exec, as he gave me some of his filet. Don't ask.

This is Greg and his hanging shrimp entree:

This was moments before he pointed to the lemons and asked Ana and I what they were.

We laughed and laughed.

Wednesday: We had a meeting on the sun deck.

I was all:

And Ana was like:

"Too Asian for all this sun."

Wednesday night we went to The Crab Hut for dinner. I, a hater of seafood, did NOT have crab. But I did have some tasty hot wings and onion rings and ALL THE HUSHPUPPIES IN THE WORLD. Drowned in ranch dressing. I love California. Plus we wore bibs.

The damage.

Thursday night I got to have dinner with my old friend Danielle. We used to work together at AARP Nevada like a billion years ago and I love her to death. She lives in San Diego because she is a GENIUS so I had dinner with her and her boyfriend and she bought my dinner because she is a doll and my birthday is in two weeks. I have no photos of this event because I am a d-bag.

Other random pics of the SD glory:

The view from the deck at the Hilton Bayfront where the conference was being held.

random picture as I wander around at lunch during the conference

Seaport Village at night

Our hotel room view at night

Our hotel room view early in the morning with the giant moon still out.

The view from the pool at sunset

Me, at the pool, nearly as happy as I can be.

Thanks to Ana for finagling me onto this trip. Friday we went home and I cried.

The end.

TGIF: no, seriously edition

2012-02-03T20:56:00.000-07:00

LONGEST WEEK OF MY LIFE.

I say that a lot, I know. Thanks for pointing it out.

First of all, I'm writing this using a ghetto loaner laptop from work since the hard drive on my beloved black MacBook is officially fried. I don't like thinking about it because it makes me want to cry. But if any of you know how I can get the music off my iPod and onto a new computer (when I get one), that would be pretty helpful. I can't tell you how much time and money has gone into curating my iTunes account, because it would be awkward for everyone, but let's just say that is the only important thing I stand to lose from that hard drive and I can't have that.

Anyway.

I just wrapped up two days working a conference for work and I am effing exhausted. The good news is, I don't have to work tomorrow (which I thought I was going to but I don't because my boss is a rock star and got us out of it) and the second good news is that I'm going to San Diego on Sunday morning for the Online Marketing Summit. We're going to be there ALL WEEK. Have you ever been more jealous of anyone in your whole life?

The bad news is I'm so behind in my TV shows that it makes me sick.

Highlights from today:

- For a good five minutes I thought I had lost my iPhone and I almost died. I legitimately freaked out and had to slow my heart when I found it. Don't worry, it was in my bag the entire time. One of my co-workers said I was losing my mind and another told my boss she better take me to get something to eat because I had a crazed look in my eye.

- We did get something to eat. We got a lot of somethings to eat, actually. First we went to a very late lunch at Caffe' Molise where I ate my weight in bread and gnochii. Then like two hours later we went to Settebello Pizzeria Napoletana for dinner where I ate two slices of Diabla pizza and a bowl of NUTELLA GELATO THAT CHANGED MY LIFE. I was so full on the way home that I literally almost threw up. Literally.

- At dinner we learned that one of our co-workers grew up in Louisiana and is a legit closet red neck. As in like, catfish-noodling, frog-hunting red neck. I wish I had live-tweeted our dinner conversation. The best quotes included but not limited to the following:

Paul: We were just standing there like a couple of red necks....which we were.

Ana: What does raccoon taste like??
Paul: Squirrel

Paul: I never went skinny dipping in that lake again!

Me: So like did you wear overalls with no shirt like the guy in Swamp People??
Paul: Mainly just cut off jeans.

Paul: My wife is totally traumatized. The first six months of our marriage we were living in a mobile home on my parents' property.

Paul: We would stick our buddies in quick sand and then try to pull them out. It was pretty funny.

I die. (Related: look up "noodling" videos on YouTube and then you will also die.)

- I took a picture with this guy:

I don't know what he is dressed up as, but I like it.

Don't worry, now that the conference is over, I fully plan on burning that polo shirt.

Other highlights from this week: I got new glasses that are pretty cute and I got contacts. YEAH I GOT CONTACTS. They are totes the worst. Mainly because I'm not used to wearing them obviously and I'm not 100 percent sure they are the right prescription but whatevs. So far I've only worn them for a few hours each day and those few hours are usually incredibly blurry. But my glasses are pretty cute (see above photo for reference). I also went to the Jazz-Clippers game and - full disclosure - rooted for the Clippers.

Also a highlight from my week, the Headwear Association named Kate Middleton Hat Person of the Year. Who knew that was a thing???? Kate did. That's who.

I can't handle how much I die for her.

I will also remind you that one of the hats Kate wore last year was a cowboy hat. And she rocked it.

Check out The Daily Beast for even more picture of Kate being perfect in hats.

Aaaaaaaand, PUBLISH.

presented without comment of the day

2012-02-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks, Ashley.

YouTube Tuesday: Every Newsie Shufflin'

2012-01-31T08:59:00.001-07:00

Remember when I changed all of our lives by finding and posting a bunch of YouTube videos of Newsies' "Seize The Day" dance sequence set to all the songs? If you don't, or you weren't around back in the glorious days of November 2010, go back and watch them all right now.

Are you back? Cool. So, there's more. So many more. You are welcome. Also, people are my best friend.

I'm warning you: there is a lot of awesome packed into this one post. But I think you can handle it.

I KNOW RIGHT?? I've watched it like 50 times since I first saw it, 10 of those times were just now while writing this post.

But then, as would naturally happen, this video led to a YouTube binge of delightful proportions,and this next video is the best thing that's ever happened to me:

I die. For obvious reasons.

And then, a little 'N Sync to cure what ails ya.....

Did sexy go away? If it did.....

I think it's safe to say that Christian Bale brought sexy back IFYAKNOWWHATIMEAN.

Oh what's that? You'd like to see another?? If you insist!

So freaking awesome.

We all know that Ke$ha totes would have tried to hook it up with Jack, amiright?

I think we can all agree our lives are exponentially better for having seen these. What makes me the happiest is that there will always be songs that people can set to the "Seize The Day" dance sequence and post on YouTube. Which just means that nothing can ever be that bad.

TGIF: just for fun edition

2012-01-27T16:30:00.000-07:00

presented without comment.

"ILIKEYOUALOT."

I live my life in chevron. And black and white.

2012-01-26T16:58:00.001-07:00

Oh, you noticed that I have a completely ROCKIN' new blog design? How kind.

Thanks to the best bestie in the whole world, my blog looks pretty legit right now. It represents how I live my life: in chevron. And black and white.

Really, I just like opportunities to give shout outs to my BFF Shannon. Just she is pretty much the business and I love her like a fat kid loves cake.

And I like excuses to show this picture to people because I think it's hilarious. Shannon happens to hate it, but WHATEVS it makes me LOL.

Enjoy looking at how awesome we are.

idk what this post is even about

2012-01-25T17:52:00.000-07:00

When you totally neglect your blog, it's cool to blog in lists.

1. SCOTT SPEEDMAN IS IN THE VOW. You know, that movie with Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams and the Taylor Swift "Enchanted" song that is obs going to be my new favorite movie??? YEAH HE'S IN IT. He must have gotten my letter!!! (I think he might be a bad guy in the movie, BUT I DO NOT CARE.)

2. My MacBook won't do anything but flash me a file folder with a question mark on it. Which means I have no computer at home. Which is why I never blog. Kind of.

3. My apartment is straight out of a horror movie. I've been saying I was going to clean it for like five days, but you know, meh. My weekend house guests cancelled so why bother?

4. Saturday night I went to the Zac Brown Band concert courtesy of my boss/friend Ana. IT WAS EFFING AWESOME. I'm basically obsessed with them at this point. Also, country concerts are the best because there are billions of drunk white people AND I LOVE IT.

5. It finally decided to be winter in Utah. I'm not amused. Also, WHY DO I HAVE ZERO JACKETS WITH HOODS?

6. I can't disclose how many days in a row I've eaten McDonald's for lunch, but let's just say it's shame spiral material. But today I ate it while reading Vogue, so I think that classes it up a bit, no?

7. Last weekend was the first weekend I've been in Utah (you know, where I live) since before Christmas. Related: I've driven four different cars and used my AAA Card at least five times in the last month. Not cute. Also related: Chandler is terminally ill. I'll tell you all about it some other time. I'm still in denial/grieving.

8. Work is psychotic. I don't really know what else to say about it.

9. I'm addicted to the Bejeweled game on my iPhone. There's just something about it that makes me want to quit my job and play a million games in a row.

10. Cougar Town is coming back on February 14. I now have plans for Valentine's Day. (Last year I saw the Biebs' movie for the second of fifth time with Sam and Kristin, so this will be a race for best V-day ever.)

11. I have an appointment with the optometrist on Friday morning. The glasses I'm wearing now are from FOUR YEARS AGO and I can't read street signs even when I'm wearing them, so it's time. I'm also probs going to get contacts. I'm scared.

12. One of my oldest friends (who shall remain nameless) deleted me on Facebook a few months ago and just recently requested me again. For now, I am denying him. Word on the street is that he deleted everyone except like 11 people, so I shouldn't be offended. But I am because I SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THAT 11. I went to homecoming with you before you had braces. You don't delete me on Facebook. (OMG NO ONE SHOW HIM THIS.)

13. I found my new favorite salsa made fresh at Sunflower Market. Salsa counts as vegetables right?

14. I went to a Utah Jazz game last week and am going to another one next week. BUT I AM NOT A JAZZ FAN.

15. Heidi Klum and Seal are getting divorced. Love is dead. If Beyonce' and Jay-Z don't make it, I'll never believe in love again.

16. Ana and I went to lunch at this Vietnamese place last week and I got a boba smoothie that basically changed my life. I drank it in like three seconds and have dreamed about it ever since then.

17. Every time I hear this song, I cry. Without fail. It gets pretty embarrassing at work, trust me.

18. For some reason, Spotify found it appropriate to suggest I listen to "The Best of Ja Rule." My reaction: ummmmmmm no thanks? Ana's reaction: "Best of Ja Rule? Isn't that an oxymoron?"

19. I have an understanding with the cute Mexican that works at the Cafe Rio downtown: I flirt with him and he gives me extra pork on my nachos.

20. My new life motto is WWJD. What Would J.Lo Do? (probably not eat pork nachos from Cafe Rio)

21. I've been driving for ten years, but yesterday I drove all over Salt Lake City with the parking break on. Totes went to college.

.......................Let's just forget this ever happened, agreed?

miscellaneous things of high import

2012-01-18T10:42:00.000-07:00

This just in, you guys: Justin Bieber DYED HIS HAIR. Like, darker.

via Fame Pictures

via Blogger-index.com

via eonline.com

How did he know I prefer brunettes??? I LOVES it because it makes him look older, which makes me seem like less of a pedophile. Good call, Biebs. Good call.

In other more serious news, today is the big anti-SOPA/PIPA internet movement. If you don't know what that is, or you don't understand it, don't ask me, I'm dumb. All I know is that if this legislation passes, a post just like this, where I'm like, POST ALL THE PICTURES OF THE BIEBS could get my entire blog shut down by the government. Not to mention all my favorite internets could get shut down too, without warning and without due process. I KNOW RIGHT? WTF? Anyway, you should educate yourself and then write a letter to your state representative to make sure this doesn't pass. If it does, the internet will be sad panda. And if you need help understanding what's going on, try out The Oatmeal's explanation, or this article, or the video below. I'm serious you guys - this would be a disaster. I don't get too political on my blog because that would mean less room to talk about Justin Bieber and Kate Middleton, but these pieces of legislation are completely unconstitutional and makes me want to light something on fire. But I won't. Yet.

Coming soon: a new and long overdue edition of What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday, featuring our workspace remodel. GET EXCITED. (Just kidding, don't. You will be grossly let down.)

Also, if you were wondering if I was ever going to address the reports that Justin Timberlake proposed to Jessica Biel, I'm choosing to ignore it. kthxbai

YouTube Tuesday: motherfather!

2012-01-17T11:28:00.000-07:00

I feel like I should present this without comment. But I rarely ever do that, so I WILL comment and say this video is FREAKING hilarious and so applicable to this blog since I am famous for coming up with creative exclamations.

"Appreciate your blinker you shiz!" - LOLOLOLOL

Eff, I have to go back to work now.....

YouTube...Wednesday?? (admittedly not as catchy but oddly applicable)

2012-01-11T11:57:00.001-07:00

It's been a century since I did a YouTube Tuesday post. And I thought, well it's been this long and I wasted the opportunity yesterday by blogging about nonsense instead, so I might as well wait until next week. But then I saw this video and I simply couldn't wait.

I don't know if you've heard of this whole "Sh*t Girls Say" thing that's going around that has spawned like a million spin-offs of "Sh*t so-and-so says" or whatever, but it doesn't matter. You can fully enjoy this video with literally zero background. It's on point. And magically hilarious.

I present to you: "Sh*t Nobody Says"

RIGHT?? I can't even pick a favorite. Maybe the Nickleback CD part? Or faxing. I effing hate faxing.

I blog because Kate is 30 and an old man paid for my lunch today.

2012-01-10T16:38:00.000-07:00

YOU GUYS REMEMBER HOW I AM TERRIBLE AT BLOGGING AND THEREFORE LIFE?

Yesterday was Kate Middleton's 30th birthday and I didn't even write a tribute to her. WHO AM I?

To justify my absence and total disregard for keeping promises (I now have a draft of a blog with pictures of gifts that seems incredibly untimely) I will sum up my last few weeks with a poetic analogy: It feels like someone took the table of my life and said, "Let's flip this B!" As in they flipped over the table of my life and its contents are spread all over the floor. Do you get it? Do I need to continue? It's like when Teresa flipped the table in Real Housewives of New Jersey. I know - it's pretty advanced symbolism. Let's move on.

So today I go to the cafeteria at work to pick up lunch for my boss and I so we could eat it at our desks like sad little office people under sad florescent lights. My tray is piled high with styrofoam to-go containers when I get to the cashier and start digging frantically through my purse. Yep, my wallet is definitely back in the office, sitting on my desk. EFFING PERFECT. I honestly didn't know what to do, but before I could think about it for too long the old gentleman behind me said, "I'll get it!" REALLY?? He said he didn't know what he would do if he forgot his wallet and he would want someone to buy lunch for his daughter if she had forgotten hers. PRESH! I seriously almost cried. (Also, he probably thought I was a serious heifer since my bill was about $6 and in the world of our cafeteria that is like a fortune. I wanted to explain that I was buying for TWO people, and please don't think this is all for me OMG EMBARRASSING. But I just thanked him and walked away.)

Add nice old men to the top reasons why I love my job. Also, little old ladies in dresses and tennis shoes that walk laps during lunch. I sit in front of my computer and blog or work or zone out during my lunch. These ladies exercise.

Anyway, I just had to spread the love. The next time I do have my wallet and someone needs me, hopefully I will be there to pay it forward.

I will get back to regular blogging. SWEARSIES. In the meantime.....

Happy Belated Birthday to my number one lady crush, Kate. If I look this good when I'm 30....then I probably had work done. Check out In Style UK's "30 Reasons We Love Kate Middleton" and worship her immediately.

I swear on my life that me and my future boyfriend/husband are going to dress up as Kate and Wills for Halloween one year, I don't care how irrelevant it is at that point.

livin' on the edge

2012-01-04T10:15:00.000-07:00

Well peeps - I finally made it back to Salt Lake City. I drove all day yesterday in my rental TRUCK that I may or may not have driven to Utah against my rental agreement. Livin' on the edge, you guys.

Big takeaways from my trip home: my mother actually thinks she may never have grandchildren, and I can survive on almost exclusively breakfast sandwiches, chips and salsa and diet coke.

Speaking of diet coke, that is literally the only thing I currently have to eat in my apartment. Unless you consider rock-hard Red Vines "something to eat," which I personally don't.

By the way, I didn't mean to make my first post of the new year so curmudgeonly and non New Year optimistic-y. (That sentence was terrible, but I'm very tired.) I am actually really excited for the new year and once I get past this little hump of weird, I think it might actually be kind of great.

B-Dub out.

overrun with street cats

2012-01-03T07:22:00.001-07:00

So, I was kind of supposed to be back at work today. But I'm kind of still in California.

I can't really go into details about why my car still isn't fixed after a week, mainly because my knowledge of cars can best be described as, "meh." But it's not, and at some point I really do have to go back to Salt Lake and back to work. As much as I love being with my parents and my brother, I just don't live here anymore. SO, this morning I am renting a car (because I'm 25 and I can do these types of things) and driving it the nine hours back to Utah so I can be back to work tomorrow and FML FML FML.

Sorry, just had to get that out. These last two weeks have been interesting.

Oh yeah, for those of you that saw my kind of cryptic but kind of "hospitaly" tweets and were wondering WTF, my brother got an infection from a cut on his foot last week and was in the hospital for three days. Yeah, it was a BLAST. Not to mention he was admitted into the MOST GHETTO HOSPITAL IN THE WORLD. There was graffiti on the entrance sign and the parking lot was overrun with street cats. Need I say more?

So that's why the last time you heard from me was a week ago when I was all, "Christmas is over." At that point I had no idea how over it really was. (He's fine and home now, btw. We got him home in time for New Year's Eve where we spent a semi-quiet night at home with me bugging everyone to turn the TV back to Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve so I didn't miss Justin Bieber's performance.)

Anyway.

That is the B-Dub update. My blog has really suffered from my recent plight, but we'll get back on track, I promise. I still plan to give you a rundown of my Christmas gifts and also I have a Walgreens story to tell you. Because, why wouldn't I?

Until we meet again....

put away your Neil Diamond Christmas album...it's December 26.

2011-12-26T13:40:00.000-07:00

Well, the Dumpster is full, Chandler's guts are all over the drive way, I'm watching Hoarders, and there's a drunk wandering up and down the street with a bottle of vodka. I think it's safe to say Christmas is over.

In the last two days our house went from beautiful and clean, to trashed, to clean, to trashed, to clean, to trashed again. That's just how Christmas works around here. And it was awesome.

We had a beautiful, wonderful, crazy, whirlwind Christmas and I hope you did too. I was too busy playing Santa so I have zero photos to document the occasion, but oh wellsies.

Coming soon: a run down of some of the amazing gifts I received WITH photos. Get excited slash jealous. I am one spoiled lady.

Three words: Justin Bieber pillowcases.

Just call me Clark Griswald....

2011-12-23T12:30:00.001-07:00

I finally made it home. So did the car. (I'm super pissed at him right now, so all affectionate first names that I assigned him are temporarily revoked.)

Soon after I published my last "the blog is coming from inside the car" post, the tow truck arrived. The driver was not single OR hot, but he was nice enough and to my knowledge did not try to murder me, so it wasn't the worst two hours I've ever spent. Then, yesterday we had another tow truck take It the rest of the way to California, which I did not have to accompany because I rode with Shannon and Ronnie, bless them.

For anyone who cares to know what is wrong with Chandler - I mean, It - it's the timing belt. Which is ironic because we knew it needed to be replaced and had plans to have my cousin Michael replace is next week while I was home for Christmas. Couldn't just hold on for a few hundred more miles?? Not cool, guy. Not cool.

It's been a really stressful couple of days! SOME PEOPLE might say that all my stress is self-induced, and there isn't really anything I needed to be stressed about. I had a ride home and a free tow truck thanks to Triple A, so what could go wrong? I don't know, besides the tow truck with all my clothes, Christmas gifts, etc. taking FIVE HOURS to make a trip that normally takes 2.5, or the lady at the tow company sassing me when I tried to call and find out where he is, I guess nothing. (Don't worry, I basically ripped her a new one.) But the next time your car breaks down three days before Christmas, call me and tell me if you're stressed.

But I'm home now. My parents' house looks beautiful, I hung out with my besties last night, my bed is comfy and I took an extremely long and extremely hot shower this morning, which you know I needed if I was willing do it because we all know I don't like my hands to be wet. (Oh, did we not all know that?? Story for another time, trust me.) Also during my shower I came to terms with the fact that my rockin' summer tan has faded in to a pasty white disaster. For Christmas I am definitely getting myself either a massage or a month of tanning bed sessions. Or both. Or a trip to a warm, sunny place.

Happy Christmas Eve Eve. I'm going to lunch at Burger Depot now. BE JEALOUS.

I do not even know what to say

2011-12-21T19:33:00.001-07:00

I'm writing this on my iPhone. Inside my car. On the side of the freeway. Balls.

Chandler, my Mitsubishi, broke down just outside of St. George, Utah. I'm waiting for the Triple A tow truck, and the heat that I had stored up while the car was still running has run out. So half of me is looking forward to the tow truck getting here and the other half is not looking forward to the inevitably awkward two-hour ride to Las Vegas with a male stranger.

Ideally, this driver will be a young, hot single guy with a knack for road-trip conversation. Otherwise, I will just pretend I am asleep while I really keep one eye open to make sure he doesn't violate or kill me.

I told my dad I would stay off my phone unless necessary so the battery won't die. I consider blogging to keep from crying necessary, but that could be just me. So I better bounce.

I can't believe Chandler did this to me. We had an agreement he would only break down in convenient times and places. This is just rude.

I opened my heart to Jane Seymour

2011-12-19T10:27:00.001-07:00

I was going to blog about this last night but then I fell asleep on the couch watching Real Housewives and had a dream that I was best friends with Justin Bieber and his brother. It is what it is.

Let me tell you about Saturday night. My friend Jason took me to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert featuring Nathan Gunn and Jane Seymour. It was wondrous.

Before I get to how Jane Seymour opened my heart, and Nathan Gunn is my new favorite person, I should tell you how we scored seats in the SECOND ROW. It's a pretty short story actually. We were supposed to be in our seats by 7:30, but because parking was a nightmare, we didn't get into the Conference Center until about 7:50. Show starts at 8:00, people. As we were rushing inside, Jason joked, "Make sure you ask if there are any front row seats still available." HAHA, JASON VERY FUNNY THE SHOW IS STARTING WE'RE GOING TO MISS IT, was my general attitude.

But everything happens for a reason, even us being late. Because as were making our way through the lobby, trying to figure out where our seats were, an usher approached. "Are you two together?" Yes. "Just you two?" Yes. (Kind of a lie because we had been separated from Jason's roommate and his date, but I hate them so we were fine not seeing them for the rest of the night.) "You don't have seats yet?" No. "Come with me." And then, we just kept walking down and down and down until we were seated in two spare seats in the second row. We tried to be cool about it, like yeah, we belong down here, we are super important. But really we were smiling and fist pumping and looking like we definitely did NOT belong here.

The show was, in a word, magical. Jane Seymour had three costume changes and looked more amazing every time she came out. Nathan Gunn is HOT (it needed to be said) and has the voice of a baritone god. He really should consider playing the Phantom in a production of POTO. Nothing could make me happier. And, as always, the MoTab was perfection. My favorite part was any part with Nathan Gunn or the part where Jane shared the story of Good King Wenceslas and the choir sang the carol. I had never heard the story or knew what the carol was really about and it was really moving and Christmas spirity. When all of this comes out on DVD you should totes watch it.

Jane is a glowing golden angel. You can't even look directly at her. She's almost painfully ageless. And as someone who watched Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman with my grandmother on a religious basis, seeing her in the radiant flesh was a dream come true.

So, I guess, moral of the story: pays to be late. Or, in our case - right on time.

Afterward, we walked around Temple Square to look at Christmas lights and shoved it in people's faces that we were in the second row. It was pretty boss.

This guy plays Christmas songs on bagpipes outside Temple Square. He is the coolest.

Pretty easy to get into the Christmas spirit after a night like that! Also when you see this every morning when you get to work:

This has absolutely nothing to do with the concert or Saturday night in general, except that I've been wanting to show it to you all month. This is the lobby of my building. I WORK HERE. It's pretty sensational. I should have gotten the piano player in the shot. Cest la vie.

Also easy to get into the spirit when this is on your desk:

I won't tell you what's inside yet, even though I OBS already opened it. Hint: it's a Nordstrom box. Another hint: BEST BOSS EVER.

Less than a week until the big day, guys. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? Still not done with my shopping, if you were wondering. But I'm very close. And today is my last day of work until 2012. And THAT is something to celebrate.

Oh, did I mention that when we were rushing to get from our car to the Conference Center, I stepped on a jaggedy bit of road in heels, blew out my knee and fell straight in the road? Totally wasn't embarrassing or painful at all. Wish I had a Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman right about now.

so how've you been?

2011-12-15T21:56:00.001-07:00

Thanks for asking. Here's what you need to know:

- The Christmas shopping is progressing slowly but surely. I realize at this point, it needs to be just progressing as quickly as possible, but I'm doing what I can.

- My kitchen is getting dirtier and dirtier and somehow I find it surprisingly easy to ignore it and sit here in my living room, watching Conan and waiting for the season finale of It's Always Sunny to start.

- There's been a lot of empty murder-suicide pacts around the office this week. At least some people think they were empty. I was actually quite serious.

- I've gotten good at Hanging With Friends. Sometimes when I'm playing with my friend Justin, whose last name starts with a B, I pretend like I'm playing with Justin Bieber.

- I posted an article on my Facebook page and started a political argument sort of situation?? I don't know, it was annoying. I have smart friends and infuriatingly dumb friends. I'm just going to stick to posting news about the Arrested Development movie and weird quotes from my life. They invoke far less controversy. (Unless it's about Justin Bieber's status as a baby daddy. People have definite opinions about that.)

- Speaking of weird quotes from my life.....
Me: I like that song. I like when Clay Aiken sings it.
Ana: I like you less every day.

- I'm going to hire a teenage boy to come take care of my leaf situation. I realize now that I never told you about my leaf situation and you probably have no idea what that means. Maybe once I get it taken care of, I will tell you about it. (It's nothing weird.)

- I realized that while my true allegiance will always be to Rachel Zoe, I'm going to watch Brad's new show on Bravo. I'm NOT going to be able to stop myself.

- I started stressing out because I remembered that Christmas is on Sunday this year and I don't have any festive red church clothes. WHAT WILL I DO? But then I figured if I get a red cardi and wear it with a black dress, I'm all set. RIGHT?

- My friend Mark moved to New York City and before he left I bought him an NFT guide. He sent me this picture from a Manhattan subway station on Saturday morning:

It's pretty much the funniest/best thing I've ever seen in my entire life.

- I bought a pair of snakeskin print legging jeans. I know. I was scared of them but also mesmerized by them. I got emergency approval from my resident male fashion adviser and long-time Gap employee, so I feel pretty good about it.

- No, seriously, you guys. I'm lactose intolerant. I don't know how many times I have to prove it to myself.

I'm glad we had this talk.

YouTube Tuesday: it makes me furious

2011-12-13T11:44:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling better today, thanks for asking. I think it has to do with watching two hours of new Fear Factor episodes last night. But I'm no doctor. Then again, someone at work said I look pale, so maybe I'm not as better as I thought.

Honestly, I think I put too much pressure on myself by saying all the YouTube Tuesdays in December would be Christmas-related. Last week was easy. Anytime I write about the Biebs is easy. But I don't have time to be sitting around thinking of blog posts because I am behind on my Christmas gift shopping and it is STRESSING ME THE EFF OUT.

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I am generally regarded as an excellent gift-giver. Not unlike one of my heroines, Leslie Knope:

I want to give people gifts so good it makes them furious at me.

But if I don't get on it soon, I might have a situation like this on my hands:

Anyway, maybe instead of blogging during my lunch hour, I should be shopping online.....

Don't worry, I won't get any of you oranges:

(Did you know that people used to get oranges and nuts in their stockings?? Ask my dad.)

P.S. - It's snowing here. Which means I'm DEFINITELY shopping online because I refuse to go shopping in the snow. This isn't a Christmas movie, people. This is real life.

I don't normally get sick, but when I do, I blog about it.

2011-12-12T15:40:00.000-07:00

I'm sick, guys. Feel sorry for me.

I wouldn't normally blog about being sick because I don't think anyone actually cares. But I felt like blogging and I don't have much else to talk about and also it would explain why I'm blogging at 3:15 in the afternoon on a Monday.

I won't go into details because it's gross. TRUST. Last night was the worst. Today I feel a little bit better but still like total junk, so I stayed home from work. I wish my mom was here to take care of me. Taking care of yourself is for the birds. Also, I'm dumb and don't know what to do except watch Friends and sleep and change my clothes every hour because I get grossed out by the ones I'm wearing.

Anyway.

The only other things of interest that have been going on with me is that I'm way behind on my Christmas shopping, I got a new blow dryer, and a girl at church yesterday told me I can pull off ankle booties because I have skinny ankles. NEW BEST FRIEND.

After reading this post over, it's clear I need to take another nap. Hope your Monday is less sickly than mine.

there are good people in the world (and I'm one of them!)

2011-12-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

So after posting two insanely selfish, materialistic and shallow posts about what I want other people to buy me for Christmas, followed quickly by a typical but highly inappropriate post about Justin Bieber, I thought it was time to shift gears a bit.

There's this girl (lady? woman?) named MODG. Well, actually, MODG is the name of her blog but also her nickname. Keep up people, we don't have this kind of time. Anyway, she's basically the funniest/coolest/prettiest person alive (with the most adorbz baby) and if there was one semi-famous-on-the-internet person I would want to be friends with in real life, it would be her. After a series of light-hearted JOKING posts about money, etc. which roused some negative comments from some DUMB readers of hers, MODG started a campaign to help people in need during the holidays called Operation WANA (We Are Not A-Holes). You can read more about it on her blog, which I suggest doing. Basically, people accused MODG of being rich, selfish and careless with money so she proved them wrong by creating a place for all of the cool people on the internet to help each other. I spent a good amount of time reading through the hundreds of comments on her posts and I was amazed. It was cool to see this community of people just create their own amazing happy place of giving. And I wanted to join in with all the cool people!

So I was reading through the comments, and since I am a poor biznitch, I didn't really think I could help that much. But then I realized that even a little bit can go a long way. And I can certainly sacrifice a couple trips to the Gap to help at least one person who can't afford to buy Christmas presents.

I started out by looking for the fastest/easiest way to help someone. Because if it required any leg work and/or mailing, it was never going to get done. (I still haven't mailed my friend Ashley's birthday present. Her birthday is July 25. Needless to say, she's getting it when I see her at Christmas.) So the first thing I did was donate to this family that is in danger of losing their farm after the father's death. They already had a PayPal account set up so it was super easy to drop in a few bucks. THIS was the kind of do-gooding I was looking for!

I kept reading through the comments and I sawthis girl that said she has always dreamed of becoming a nurse. She has worked really hard and gotten into her nursing program, but she has a baby girl and is having trouble affording tuition and books. Which, as a college student of many years, I can completely relate to. I wanted to help her so I reached out. I remembered that you can e-mail people gift cards to Amazon.com. EASY. So I went on Amazon and e-mailed her a gift card to help her buy one of her many expensive textbooks. She was so sweet and grateful and I could tell that she was just a really cool person that was obviously embarrassed to ask for help but, thanks to MODG, had found a safe place to say, hey, I need help buying textbooks.

At this point I was addicted to reading comments. There were over a thousand comments of people telling their stories and other people offering to help. I found another lady that has an 18-month-old daughter and is due to have a little boy in April. She had purchased one Christmas gift for her daughter and knew that was all they would be able to do. After a quick look at Target's website, I found they also provide e-mail gift cards. Again, the key to this was that is was EASY and could be done immediately. So I e-mailed her a gift card to Target so she could buy a couple more gifts for her daughter or even some stuff to get ready for her new baby in April.

Now. I'm NOT telling you any of this because I felt like bragging about my good deeds. The thing that has always troubled me during the holidays is that I know there are so many people out there that struggle - not just around this time of year, but all year round. But it gets overwhelming because it's like, if I do want to help, where do I possibly start?? For me, this was the perfect way to do something for a few complete strangers during the holidays. I took me a few minutes and not too much out of my budget to e-mail a couple gift cards. But I know it meant a lot to those people because they are now my internet friends.

The point is, it felt good and I wanted to give you guys the opportunity to do the same if you're looking for a small way to do something good during the holidays. If you need help or you think you have something that could help someone else (doesn't have to be money; I just donated money because I have no other useful skills and it's the easiest thing to do), pop over to MODG's blog and leave a comment. If I had as big of a following as she does, I would do something like that here, but I don't, so it will be much more useful to just send you all her way.

I hope you get inspired by her posts and the comments by her readers. It's nice to know there are so many good people in the world just willing to help others based on the simple fact that they follow the same hilarious blog every day. YAY FOR THE INTERNET.

Peace and Blessings,
B-Dub

YouTube Tuesday: all I want for Christmas is to get it all (and by "all," I mean the Biebs)

2011-12-06T19:45:00.000-07:00

Hey-O!

I've been terrible at YouTube Tuesday lately. Granted, the last edition was great enough to hold the fort down until I had time to come up with something new. In fact, I should have just reposted that every week.

Part of the problem with YouTube Tuesday is that every time I go to YouTube to grab a video for you, I end up spending hours watching Ryan Gosling, Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber talk show and press junket interviews. I'm NOT kidding. YouTube knows my heart and they know what to recommend to me straight away. And I have to resist the urge to post them all here. I'm pretty sure nobody needs to be forced to watch Ryan Gosling's interview on The Ellen Show from 2007. (But by the way, you SHOULD watch it right now.)

While I'm not going to post any of those said videos, I did decide that I was going to post Christmas-themed videos for the entire month of December. Fortunately for us (or unfortunately if you hate happy wonderfulness) Justin Bieber came out with a Christmas album and subsequently a few new music videos to go with. And it has been quite a while since I've let my Belieber flag fly here on the blog. Now, I COULD stretch it out and just make it a Justin Bieber Christmas month. But instead I'm going to show an illusion of constraint and just gift you with all of them today. ARE YOU SO HAPPY?

I don't really know what is happening in this video. Aside from a lot of product placement, Mariah leaning against a fake brick wall and pointing her post-baby butt at us, and Justin looking adorable, there doesn't seem to be much point. LIKE I CARE. I've still watched it like 20 times since Biebs posted it on his Facebook profile a week ago. The only thing that can be better than the original version of this song is turning it into a duet with my favorite almost-legal pop star. It's like, basically the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Justin knows my heart and he knows that a collab with one 90s R&B star just wasn't enough.
Enter Boyz II Men:

There are no words. Fa la la INDEED.

Ok, there are actually TWO more music videos from Justin's Christmas album, but Biebs is actually ON MY TV right now on the Michael Buble Christmas special and I gots to go. If you're interested in seeing Biebs' as a claymation character while singing "Santa Claus is Coming To Town" with a Jackson Five flavor (DUH YOU ARE) or standing in a snowy street singing to a girl about mistletoe while looking like a heavenly Christmas treat, be my guest. Obviously I recommend doing it immediately.

Oh, what's that? You wish you could see a video of Justin and Jayden Smith interpretive dancing on ice in Park City, Utah?? THERE YOU GO. I only give the people what I want. I mean, what they want. (I legitimately typed "I" without thinking. It wasn't a joke.) I can't take how cute this video is. They're lucky I didn't completely stalk them since that is like 20 minutes from my house. WHY DO I HAVE TO HAVE A FULL TIME JOB?

It's too much.

P.S. - The other night at a dinner party, my Beliebing was exposed and a guy thought I was joking. No. I'm oh so serious.

URGENT UPDATE: you're standing on my neck and add this to my Christmas list immediately

2011-12-05T18:11:00.000-07:00

YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH I NEED THIS.

Obviously since I posted my partial Christmas list I've added about a billions things to my Pinboard and Amazon Wish List. But I wasn't going to say anything about it. It's there, on the internets.

But this is urgent.

I was on Amazon today and Amazon knows my heart so they suggested that I purchase Daria: The Complete Animated Series on DVD. And I was like, "DUH AMAZON WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME THIS BEFORE?" The last time I looked at buying the complete series it was like a bajillion dollars and I was unemployed and therefore had no business purchasing TV on DVD no matter how much I needed it. But now it's only $28.99!! (If I could capitalize numbers, I would have capitalized that.) Less than $30 for an entire series of awesomesauce? I'm on board.

And since my previous blog post about sexy animated characters is my third most popular post of all time, I'm guessing a lot of other people are on board as well.

"Do you ever feel like you are wasting your life?"

"Only when I'm awake."

even skanks say thanks: also known as stuff I need in my life

2011-12-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

Oh, remember how it's December?

I know. How can this be? I don't know but I LOVE IT. December is the only month of winter that I don't want to slit my wrists on a daily basis. I put up the Christmas lights in my living room and am sitting on the couch typing this in the dark with just them on. It's magical.

So this post is all about crap I want in my life. I'm allowed to talk about it because it's Christmas and my mom's been asking me for my Christmas list. WHAT. I still give my mom a Christmas list. GET OVER IT.

Here is a PARTIAL list of things I want, culled from my Amazon Wish List and Pinterest Christmas/Birthday List board (I love internet). Because it's fun. And maybe you will want some of the same stuff and get excited. But don't buy it all or I will be seriously pissed. (I'm not putting everything here because I like a lot of stuff. These are the highlights. I'm not putting links either because it takes a century and I'm lazy and you can get links to everything on my pinboard and Amazon list.)

1. The Royal Wedding on DVD.

I KNOW. It's what I've always dreamed of.

2. These rugs.

I can't decide between the two of them. So I want both. No, I don't really need two 5" x 7" rugs in my two-room apartment, but that's nobody's business but my own. Or maybe you can vote and tell me which one I like more.

3. Harry Potter Complete Movie Collection

Duh.

4. These coasters:

Even skanks say thanks! LAUGH OUT LOUD.

5. Ryan Gosling.

I really don't think I need to elaborate. (The Notebook is on Oxygen right now. Obs I am watching it.)

6. This rug is the business and would look cool in my kitchen:

And I'm from California so it's practical like everything else on this list.

7. These adorbz file folders from The Container Store.

I'm kind of file folder hoarder. I once spent upwards of $40 on filing supplies in one shot.

8. "Justin Bieber Never Say Never Director's Cut" amazingness.

Yes, it comes with a necklace. AND?

9. Steve Madden PAMMYY black suede pumps.

I really can't live another second without these shoes.

10. Ikea pillows and covers.

Ikea knows what's up. Cute and cheap. Like me. KIDDING.

11. Adele Live at Royal Albert Hall

I need to see this immediately.

12. SteamFast Everday Fabric Steamer

I have one of those Italian steamers that they have in the kiosks at all the outlet malls. A friend gave it to me for my birthday or something a few years ago. But, I hate to break it to him - it sucks. It does NOT work like the demonstrations in the mall. I think those guys in the mall have magical skills. Because that thing is a POS. I feel this one would change my entire life.

13. Burberry BRIT perfume

My brother got me this for a past Christmas and it was magical. I savored it for a long time but it has finally run out. And I feel guilty buying it for myself.

14. Justin Timberlake.

Jimmy Fallon can come too.

Ok I think that's enough for now. I want to add a disclaimer to this worldly and greedy post by saying that I am an amazing gift giver (you might say it's a....gift) and that I LOVE giving gifts. I truly do like it better than receiving, that's not just a BS line. But I can't blog about a list of things I'm giving people because hello, stupid.

What are YOU asking for this Christmas? Are you excited for the holiday season? Well GET EXCITED. If I have to be excited, so do you.

it's cold here why did I come back

2011-11-27T20:25:00.001-07:00

10 hours
72 ounces of Diet Coke
1/2 a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos
1 long phone call with best friend
3 bathroom and/or gas stops
1 package of hard-ish Jumbo Red Vines
6 unnecessary traffic jams
1 dead iPod battery
4 listens of Breaking Dawn soundtrack
1 bathroom close call
3 trips to unload my car in 30 degree weather

Lopping a whole day of your vacation by spending it driving is just rude.

One good thing that happened on the way back to SLC was hearing a live version of "All Apologies" on the radio after my iPod battery died and I couldn't listen to the BD soundtrack another time. The fact that it was on a classic rock station?? Not so good. Songs that were released in my post infancy cannot be considered classic rock. UNacceptable.

Now I'm home, Christmas shopping online and watching the first Sex and the City movie on E! with my space heater 12 inches away from my face.

It's all I can do.

One of many lists I'll make in the next month

2011-11-26T12:52:00.001-07:00

Things to do now that Thanksgiving is over:

1. Help Mom put up her Christmas tree.

2. Panic.

3. Plan out my Lifetime Christmas movie schedule.

4. Go Christmas shopping.

5. Make MY Christmas list. (Don't worry - I'll let you guys in on it so you know exactly what to get me.)

6. Freeze to death.

7. Organize my Christmas music playlist.

8. Bake all the things.

9. Decorate my office.

10. Decide if I care to decorate my apartment.

11. Look at all the Christmas things on Pinterest.

12. Drown my seasonal affective disorder in hot chocolate and Christmas Vacation.

13. Buy a Christmas outfit. WHAT. Adults do that right?

14. Count the days until I'm back home at my parents' for the holiday.

15. Make more lists.

'Tis the season! I've already started on some of these things, really. Yesterday Ma and I went shopping at the outlet mall in Palm Springs. I mostly got things for myself obviously, but I did pick up a few gift items. (And by "a few gift items" I mean I bought two things for Shannon's baby and that's it. Everything else was for me because I'm a selfish ho.) And currently we're watching the first of many Lifetime Christmas movies that I will inevitably consume during the season. This one is called A Christmas Wish and it stars the guy from The Best Two Years and the dad from Richie Rich and Gilmore Girls. I thought I didn't care that much about it but my mom changed the channel and I burst out with, "WAIT YOU'RE TAPING THAT RIGHT?" Shame spiral. OR IS IT?

Get your business together people. It's freaking CHRISTMAS.

take your time, hurry up

2011-11-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

If you're wondering what that title has to do with the content of this post, the answer is absolutely nothing. A week ago when I started this post, my iTunes just shuffled me "Come As You Are" and that is my favorite line from the song. I am lazy at creating blog titles. That is as far as your analysis of this post title should go, if it even went that far to begin with.

You guys. My life is really hard. I have like NO time to blog.

LIE. I bought an iPhone a few weeks ago and I have been spending all my blog time having a love affair with it and losing at word games.

Do you even know how many drafts of blog posts I have that have not been published? I started an update one like a week ago and couldn't even finish that! And it sucked as an update because I was trying to do like the CliffNotes version of my life and that's like pretty much IMPOSSIBLE for me. So it was like seventy scrolls long and I wasn't even done with it yet. So I THINK I'm scrapping it. All of it is still there, below what I'm currently typing, but you may NEVER SEE IT. Does that make you sad? Don't let it. It's pretty crappy. Be thankful.

Speaking of being thankful, I'm home for Thanksgiving. Which you SHOULD be thankful for since that is the only reason I am actually going to publish a post. Lounging in my parents' living room is where I do my best work.

SO - I am going to attempt the CliffNotes version AGAIN. Here's what's been going on with me:

1. Like I said, I got an iPhone. It's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Siri is my new best friend. Can't say anything else otherwise we'll be here all night.

2. My apartment went from Hoarders, to spotless, and back to Hoarders. A few times.

3. I've spent millions of dollars at Target.

4. I moved offices at work. I now have a window and share a space with my Obi-Wan, Ana. We are now officially the coolest people in the world.

5. I went to California on Veteran's Day weekend for a big family weekend. It was amaze. (CliffNotes, people. CiffNotes.)

6. My bestie came to visit. We went to see Breaking Dawn and said millions of funny things that we can't remember because we're old. We also went shopping a lot.

It's a FAKE belly at the maternity store, people, calm down. It's not like she's having Edward's baby....

7. Did you know that you're only supposed to put one space in between sentences now?? As you may or may not be able to tell, I have not yet subscribed to this rule as I have spent at least 15 years slamming that spacebar twice in between sentences and changing that habit is proving pretty difficult. I really don't see the difference between one space or two and wondered why there has to be rule about it, but when I voiced this concern to Ana, she pointed out that there HAS to be a rule about spaces otherwise people would just be putting however many spaces they wanted. Like three or four or worse, NO spaces. That thought set my OCD in motion and I agreed her point rather quickly. But I'm still putting two spaces. I think it's fine for now.

8. The dirty skank that accused Justin Bieber of being her baby daddy dropped the paternity suit because she knows she's a lying hooch. Yes, this is a part of my life. WHAT.

9. I bought my first snow shovel. fml.

10. I went to my first Rebel game of the season. It was the business.

11. I'm going to eat all the foods tomorrow.

You guys, my life is boring. I'm boring MYSELF to death just typing all this. Let's just forget this ever happened.

Happy Thanksgiving, ya'll. Sorry I suck at blogging. I gotta so - I'm watching Regis' last week on Live with Regis and Kelly with my dad on the DVR. PRIORITIES

I'll leave you with my favorite thing that's happened in the last two weeks:

Me: What is wrong with that dog's mouth????
Shannon: It's dyed. Or it ate lipstick......I can't tell.

We also both said the word "magical" in unison to describe something we can't remember. We both pronounced "marijuana" in unison in a Mexican accent. The girl at In N' Out offered to put onions on my diet coke. And some other stuff we can't remember. Because we're pretty much Golden Girls.

burn it up, ***hole...............................................(commence sarcastic slow clap)

2011-11-10T14:30:00.000-07:00

I've been kind of absent lately because life gets busy and I get lazy and those two combined does not a blog post make. But today is a special day and I am going to blog about it. Today I need to say Happy Birthday to my favorite Scorpio of all time. Today is my Grandpa's birthday. He would have been 80!!

The reason I bring up the fact that Gramps was a Scorpio is because I'm a Pisces and as you may or may not know (you don't know, let's face it) Scorpios and Pisces are two signs that get along the most swimmingly (both water signs - get it? GET IT?). Which is probably one of the many reasons why I was Grandpa's favorite. Did I just say that? YEP SURE DID.

I'm not going to lie to you - this is as far as I planned this blog post in my head. It's really hard to express how much you love a person and how they influenced your life in a blog post. TRUST. So I'm not really going to try because I might do a horrifying job and that's just rude. But anyone that knew my Grandpa knew that he was one of the most amazing people in this world, the patriarch of our family and the funniest person I've ever known in my life.

I know I've shared this picture before, but LOOK HOW AWESOME IT IS. Grandma and Grandpa on their honeymoon in Las Vegas, 1954.

This is my desktop background at work, that is how cool it is.

My favorite quote of all time from Grandpa - said to me circa Summer 2010 at some family gathering where everyone was harassing me about when I was going to get married. He looked at me and said, "Don't rush to get married. Because when you do, it's for a hell of a long time." He would know, since he was married to my beautiful grandmother for almost 55 years. And as you can tell, I've been sticking to that advice pretty religiously.

One of the other best things about Grandpa was that one of his favorite movies was Footloose. AKA, coolest person ever. Not that he would have been caught dead watching it, but I think it goes without saying that he would have been HORRIFIED at the abominable and bastardized remake.

But I think the most important thing my Grandpa (and Grandma) did for me was to raise MY dad, who kicks ass all over every dad ever. I will forever be in indebted to him for that and also forever indebted to my dad. I would be here my entire life if I tried to tell you all the reasons I love my dad - he is without a doubt the most amazing man ever and I owe everything to him and my mom, which means I owe everything to their parents too. I don't know if saying that they helped make me who I am is really a compliment, so I'll just say if it weren't for my parents I would be an even bigger train wreck than I already am.

I think we can all be grateful for that.

xoxoxo
Pete

see you in June.

2011-11-04T23:59:00.000-06:00

Well I guess fall is OVER. Drove home tonight in practically a BLIZZARD. Send help.

Please refer to my post from last year around this time on how I will be spending the next 8 months trying to avoid seasonal affective disorder when I'm not curled up in the fetal position with my blankey. WHAT.

YouTube Tuesday: drop it like it's HOT

2011-11-01T11:00:00.001-06:00

They've done it again. I didn't think it was possible. I didn't even think to dream that it could happen again. May I present to you, History of Rap, Part 3. You're welcome.

(Note: The version I posted originally expired, so I had to post this lesser quality video. You can view a better quality at the link above, it's just not embed-able so I had to post the crappy one here.)

>
I die for them.
So, after viewing all three (and if you haven't viewed parts 1 and 2 I can't even talk to you right now - leave now, go watch the other two and come back and we can be friends again) which one is your favorite?? I've only watched Part 3 like 50 times so far as opposed to the one million times I've watched Part 2, so I'm still leaning toward Part 2. It is my everything.
Speaking of my everything...

I need to put my mouth on his mouth.

paper faces on parade

2011-10-31T09:32:00.000-06:00

I called Halloween "H-ween" in a text to Shannon last week and because she is my BFF, she didn't blink an eye. So basically everyone should start calling it that immediately.

Anyway.

I semi-promised you pictures from the masquerade ball. Here it is:

Well, he was just standing there in Aymara's living room, we weren't going to NOT take a picture with him. How hot is Aymara, by the way? I know.

Fast forward to Saturday night in Vegas. We wanted to do something for H-ween (see what I did there?) so we got dressed up and went out like cool people! And by dressed up I mean I wore a shiny shirt, skinny jeans and my Michael Kors wedges, tossed on my masque and some glitter eyelashes and called it a day. (P.S. - I did NOT just "toss on" my eyelashes. Those thing are a hassle.)

Shannon made that disco ball masque because she is a bad-A

lololololol

I can't even.

frozen hot chocolate!

who doesn't love a little Serendipity 3?

STOP EVERYTHING. disco ball nails. You might say that we NAILED IT.

aaaaand we're swapping shoes under the table.

So there was my H-ween. It's no West Village in a purple wig, but it'll do. I'm wearing my glitter eyelashes, spider web nylons and glitter nails to work today. I'm totally festive. I'm pretty sure all of this absolves me from any obligation to dress up tonight or do anything besides veg, eat candy and watch Phantom of the Opera. Hey-O!!

(Also - I updated my other post with pics from Shan's ultrasound session so pop back over and ch-ch-check it out. She's one hot mama.)

you're still going to the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn with me right?

2011-10-29T21:48:00.000-06:00

So, my best friend is pregnant. It's out there now. She really is pregnant; I've seen the fetus (not in a weird way). So I thought it might be time to tell you about it. (UPDATE: I added pics from the ultrasound session. Scroll down to see the lil' mama.)

When Shan first told me a few months ago that she was pregnant, my first reaction was: "You're still going to the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn with me right?" Priorities.

I have the best bestie in the whole world. If you're thinking, "No, I do," then you're wrong. I love her more than I love looking at pictures of Ryan Gosling. And that's a lot.

Today we found out that she is GOING TO HAVE A GIRL.
Commence happy dance and trip to Baby Gap to buy all the things.

hot mama!!

big screen baby

I know Ronnie's face is totally blurry but for some reason I still just love this

looking at her little girl. obsessed with this pic.

Do you know how freaky it is when your friends start having children? Like, by choice?? First it was Laura, now Shannon. I can't take it. In my mind we're still in college doing dumb college things. Not pushing children out of our tchotch.

Anyway, YAAAAAAAAY for Shannon and Ronnie. If you name your daughter Elena I might have to rethink this whole friendship thing. KIDDING. Kind of.

xoxoxo

girl, you'll be a woman never

2011-10-28T13:29:00.001-06:00

The most humbling-slash-mortifying words a 25-year-old girl can say: "I'll be paying with my dad's credit card." (Followed by the inevitable side-eye by the guy in the Pep Boys baseball cap.)

Thanks for the new tires dad! I can now be fairly confident I won't die on the way to Las Vegas.

By the way, just read my post from last night and was all, "Did I really write that at 2 a.m.? Horrifying." But I'm leaving it. For historical purposes.

(P.S. - I went back and forth for a good 60 seconds about whether I should call myself a "girl" or a "woman." And then I thought "girl" sounded more appropriate and less pathetic considering the next sentence. Believe it or not, I've been a non-full-functioning adult for quite some time now and I still can't bring myself to call myself a woman. My mom's a woman. I'm a dumb little girl who uses her dad's credit card to buy tires.)

realizing dreams, one average fashion ensemble at a time.

2011-10-28T01:55:00.001-06:00

It's nearly 2:00 a.m. To call the current state of my apartment a train wreck would be pretty generous. Tomorrow (which I guess is technically today) I have to work, do laundry, get new tires on my car, get an oil change, pack and drive to Las Vegas. Maybe think of a Halloween costume. Maybe clean my apartment. Maybe take a shower. WHEN AM I GOING TO CATCH UP ON ALL MY SHOWS? I should go to sleep right this second. But I'm tired and cold and I just want to blog for awhile.

Where was I going with this?

I just got back from realizing two of my life dreams tonight. The first was to attend a masquerade ball. The second I can't really talk about in mixed company because I'm paranoid about who stumbles across my blog and OMG EMBARRASSING. But I can tell you it wasn't going to In 'N Out. But I did that too anyway. I think every fancy night should end with a trip to In 'N Out.

Let's talk masquerade ball. Did you know that this was a life dream of mine (and at least three of my closest friends)? I could go into the details but I think it goes without saying that it stems from Phantom of the Opera and the winter of 2004/2005 when The Square began listening exclusively to the POTO movie soundtrack and continued that for at least the next year or so (until the Rent movie soundtrack came out).

Anyway.

I'm going to be really honest right now. I was pretty disappointed in my costume/ensemble, if you will. Mainly because I had these grandiose ideas about what I wanted to put together and I just finished reading The Night Circus and had all this amazing inspiration. Then my life got psychotic and I didn't have any time to really devote to making anything happen. I had a dress and jewelery and makeup and a masque. But it wasn't what I had built up in my head. I really let myself down and that was even more clear after seeing some the AMAZING dresses and masques and general get-ups that some of the people there had. There was some impressive stuff happening.

Of course, I had a blast anyway. We danced our lives away and I realized two of my life dreams. So it WAS a successful night. But I've come to consider it as more of my masquerade warm-up. The next one will be for realsies amaze.

Also, there was this one couple there that I completely (and creepily) fell in love with. They were two of the most attractive people I have ever seen. Her hair and masque sent me to my knees. They were like the perfect dream couple. THEN. They both knew the Thriller dance and they did it together in their own little hot world, so well that it could have been choreographed. But me, being their stalker, could tell that it was pretty impromptu and natural. I die for that couple.

Well, now that you can see I'm a complete creepster, I think I will consider that whole going to sleep idea. (I just fell asleep at my computer with my hands in typing position.) So I can wake up tomorrow and have about 50 melt-downs.

If I find any pictures where I don't look hideous, maybe I will post them. Don't hold your breath.

Favorite quote of the night: "Yeah, I don't like her. But I pretend like I do, and that's what's important."

Word to your mother.

YouTube Tuesday: clearly they've never heard of sweats

2011-10-25T09:42:00.000-06:00

So, the other night while I was lounging around in my Snuggie,* I was dumbfounded by an infomercial like none I've ever seen before. Actually, that's a lie - it was pretty much the exact same as EVERY infomercial, but it was the product that was very WTF.

*I'm not just saying that to like be funny or something. I absolutely have a leopard-print Snuggie and I was sincerely wearing it when I saw this infomercial in between scenes of RHONJ.

A couple weeks ago, my friend Ginger blogged about a boy band music video that you would be sure was a parody, but was in fact, not. Well, Ginger. I will SEE your should-be parody boy band magic and RAISE you an "I wish it weren't real" infomercial. NOTE: It's pretty imperative that you watch the entire thing. Behold:

Let's discuss:

1. First of all, nothing about fleece OR those colors of fleece is "stylish." I think they really need to reevaluate some things.

2. Why would the dad be the one person sleeping during the "big game??" AND. I know dads like to nap, but it's pretty rude to say that's what he does best. This doesn't really have anything to do with the Forever Lazy itself, but just the general insanity of this infomercial.

3. Do I even need to bring up the name? They just went straight to "Forever Lazy." I'd like to point out that if I were TRULY lazy, I wouldn't be doing half the things they profess you could be doing while wearing the Forever Lazy. Which brings me to.....

4. TAILGATING?? REALLY? Get serious!! Nobody half-way normal would be caught DEAD at a tailgate wearing what are essentially footie pajamas. It's just NOT going to happen. It's more ridiculous than the notion of wearing a Snuggie at a football game. Don't get me wrong - I'm not about to cart mine to the next chilly outdoor sporting event. BUT. I'm much more likely to wear what can pass as a blanket and can be easily removed when I'm walking around the concourse than a full fleece body suit. Just saying.

sooooo unflattering......

5. And let's call a spade a spade. You're basically trying to convince adults that it's ok to wear footie pajamas in public. That's what they are, are they not??

I actually think the footie pajamas are more flattering.

6. "A blanket can't cover it all!" Here's where I ~~scream~~ say, "HAVE THEY NEVER HEARD OF SWEATS?" You can't tell me that this one-piece fleece atrocity is warmer than my sweatpants and sweatshirt that don't happen to look insane.

7. Fleece footies??? Or socks. You could just wear socks.

8. ZIPPERED HATCHES. I don't even know what to say.

What did I miss? What were your favorite parts?? Is this as looney tunes as I think it is or are you already in the middle of ordering your very own Forever Lazy?

(I realize that this is coming from someone who just admitted to owning and actively using a Snuggie, but a Snuggie is just a blanket with sleeves. That's totally normal.)

P.S. - I might have to start a new series about infomercials. Do you even KNOW the kinds of things they're trying to sell me late at night?

I spent more time trying to think of a title than I spent writing this entire post

2011-10-23T21:54:00.000-06:00

What's going on in my life right this second? I'm glad you asked.

- My upstairs neighbors are banging around like crazy upstairs. They're lucky I'm not trying to sleep because I'm watching a Real Housewives of New Jersey marathon. But, seriously, who moves enormous amounts of large furniture on a Sunday night? That's the only thing I could possibly imagine that is causing that much noise.

- Don't ask me how I know this, but my Snuggie smells ridiculously good. I can't remember who wore it last, but whoever it was smelled effing amazing.

- I just got back from a magical dinner at my boss Ana's house. All my clothes now smell like batayaki but LIKE I CARE because it was sooooooo good. But now I am so full it's insane. I still can't breathe normally.

- Also at this dinner we had a little Just Dance competition. Just Dance is probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'll never be the same after watching our intern Mike dance with Ana to "Crazy In Love." Everyone probably thought the same thing when they saw me and Mark dancing to "A-Punk" or me and Matt dancing to "Tik Tok." Also, Mama Cabrera told me I was musically talented and had rhythm. WHAT? She used to own a music studio. So basically I am awesome.

- I'm having an old-school sleepover at my apartment with my friends Ashley and Aymara tomorrow night. Hopefully no one will get scared and call their moms to come pick them up before midnight.

- On my way home tonight, a guy in the car next to me caught me rocking out to the Biebs with my windows down. It's definitely not the first time it's happened to me, but once you know they know, it's hard to carry on normally.

K, I'm gonna go purge now. Don't worry, I'll take my Snuggie off first.

TGIF: thankfully I'm not flying this weekend edition, also known as the time I wasn't going to blog about air travel but then my pilot overshot his landing and now I have to

2011-10-21T11:15:00.001-06:00

As you may have gathered from the title of this post, I flew again last weekend. And, as I was sitting on the plane, getting ready to leave Salt Lake City and head to Long Beach, enraged and sweaty from a bunch of crap that happened before I even got on the plane, I thought to myself, "I'm not going to blog about this flying experience. I just need to accept the fact that every time I fly is going to be horrifying nonsense and realize that other people don't care. Nope, I'm not going to blog about this."

Fast forward approximately two hours when the fit hit the shan and I realized I was definitely going to be blogging about this.

Remember back in March when I swore I would never fly Delta ever again because they are hell on earth? I should have listened to myself. But my judgment is clouded when I'm trying to save money and I purchased a ticket with them anyway. Chaos ensued.

After traversing the moronically-designed Salt Lake City Airport and then having to gate check my carry-on because it wouldn't fit in our miniature plane and stripping out of any unnecessary clothing because our plane was obviously trying to bake us, I settled in hoping to just get this thing over with and get home. I don't think I need to tell you that the stewardess bumped me at every pass and made drinks with ice in my ear while I was trying to sleep, or any of that. I think that was all implied when I said I was on a Delta flight, right?

I don't really know how to explain the next part because I'm not a pilot. But apparently neither was our pilot because the short version is that he overshot the landing in Long Beach and said he had to go to Ontario to re-fuel. WHAT. He blamed it on fog, but my grandpa was a pilot and according to my mother and grandmother, that excuse is a giant load. So, while my brother was waiting to pick me up in Long Beach so we could drive home to our parents', I was landing in Ontario, not knowing if they were going to make us get off in Ontario or if they were going to fly us back to Long Beach. After an excruciatingly long time on the tarmac in Ontario, on a plane with no air conditioning, an overly-biotchy stewardess, and the people on the verge of a revolt, they finally decided to kick us off the plane and bus people back to Long Beach. In Southern California. On a Friday night. The "Double-Edged Sword" episode of 30 Rock where Liz gets stuck on the tarmac in a plane her Matt Damon boyfriend is piloting was basically what our plane looked like when people found out the news.

Anyway.

For those of you not familiar with Southern California, let me illustrate this for you:

Even if you've never been, you've inevitably heard tales of Los Angeles traffic. Multiply that by about a million on a Friday night. I was one of the lucky ones because my brother and I were going to be headed in the general northern direction anyway, so I just had him leave Long Beach and come get me in Ontario so we could make the extra 60-ish minute drive home to Lucerne. But as you can see from my very advanced map, it was a TAD out of the way for him to drive to Long Beach, wait for over an hour, then head up to Ontario. In Southern California. On a Friday night.

In the end, we reached my parents' house at about 11 p.m Pacific. I had left Salt Lake City at 5 p.m. Mountain and my brother had left his house to pick me up at about the same time. And I was one of the lucky ones.

I would like to say that next month when I fly on JetBlue it's going to be a peaceful dreamlike experience, but looking at my air travel track record, I'm not going to make any assumptions. But it couldn't get any worse than this, right? RIGHT????

YouTube Tuesday: refer to video for why I'm not coming up with any reasonable title

2011-10-18T16:51:00.000-06:00

I can sum up how I'm feeling right now, and how I've felt all day, with a simple, seven second YouTube clip:

I had an incident early this morning that I will likely blog about at a later date; right now I couldn't care less about filling you in on it. As Charlie depicts in the above clip, I have been a cranky crankster all day and have had to restrain myself from performing this exact scene more than once in the last 12 hours. So, you'll forgive me if this is the only clip I could think of for YouTube Tuesday.
Maybe in my quest to not speak to any more absolute goons for the rest of the day, I will free up some time for backlogged blog posts. Or I'll clean out my fridge. One of those two things.

royal insomnia

2011-10-17T22:54:00.000-06:00

Remember how I'm supposed to be in bed but I can't because Kate and Pippa's E! True Hollywood Story is on??

I was also drafting a post about my weekend and latest air travel debacle, but I can't concentrate because KATE AND WILLS ARE ON MY TV. Did you know that before they were dating Wills won a date with Kate at an auction at a Harry Potter Party?? WHY DOES SHE HAVE MY DREAM LIFE?

Also, they just showed a clip of William and Kate's graduation from St. Andrews and they announced him as William Wales, but I thought their last name is Windsor?? I so do not get the monarchy, even though I've spent a significant amount of time on Wikipedia reading up on it. But that usually leads to me getting sidetracked looking at google images of Kate, so you can see why I'm confused.

K gotta go, they're talking about Kate's fashion choices and showing hot pics of Wills when he still had all his hair.

I truly don't know who I am more in love with.

YouTube Tuesday: Supergirl Superbass

2011-10-11T07:40:00.000-06:00

Remember when you used to sing and dance and put on fake concerts and maybe sometimes your dad would inexplicably film you? Well, you were never this cool:

Correction: you might have been as cool as the little blonde girl on the left since she contributes absolutely nothing apart from looking like a damn fool. Now, let's be honest; we love everything about this video. But let's talk specifics:

Her outfit. So glam.
Her accent. She sounds classier than me, and she's practically a toddler.
Her intro: "Let's hit it now!" ADORBZ.
Her rapping skillz.
The way she says "you're a helluva guy" and "who the eff I is." Hilarious.
Her pipes. At about 0:32, my jaw was on the floor.
Her dance moves. I mean, come on.
Her passion. She is so committed to this performance.

Here is the actual Nicki Minaj video for this song so you can compare and realize how truthfully ridonk this child is. Plus, this song is the boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-boom-ba-BOMB.

If my kids aren't this cool I might have to disown them.

iSad

2011-10-06T14:00:00.001-06:00

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” - Steve Jobs

I remember cutting the Apple print ad that featured that quote out of a magazine when I was in high school or something (either before iPods existed or at least before I knew what one was) and tacking it up on my bulletin board where it stayed until I moved out. I still have it in a box somewhere.

I can't even go into how much Steve Jobs has changed the world we live in and how we operate our daily lives, because I'm not smart enough. But anyone who at least played Oregon Trail on a boxy Apple computer back in the day owes SOMETHING to Steve Jobs. And so, we will commemorate him here.
Haters to the left.

Steve died yesterday after a battle with pancreatic cancer and left behind him a legacy that I will carry with me as long as I carry my iPod and my beloved sexy black MacBook. Two things that I cannot imagine my life without. Thanks, Steve.

Now I HAVE to buy an iPhone.

Word.

This party's gonna be OFF THE HOOK.

2011-10-05T10:20:00.000-06:00

Ok, no messing around - this is important. I need you to help me decide which news I am most excited about:

1. Arrested Development is coming back for one more season before they make the movie. WHAT THE JUNK? Best news of my life! (Oh wait - you're supposed to be deciding that. My b.)

2. Buffalo Wild Wings is opening a restaurant in Lehi, Utah. Which is a mere 40 minutes from my house. Which may not seem that close to YOU, person who probably takes advantage of the B-Dubs down the street from your house or person who doesn't like bad service and delicious food. But the first B-Dubs in Utah makes my life. And yeah, I share a nickname with a hot wings sports bar. Jealous much?

3. Justin Bieber is releasing a Christmas album.

4. She & Him is releasing a Christmas album.

5. VH1's Pop-Up Video has returned!!!! If you don't know what Pop-Up Video is, then you are either too old or too young, but just know that this is very exciting. I realize it's not as exciting as back in the day when 'N Sync was making new videos and it wasn't so easy to look up obscure facts on our dial-up internet connection. These days I can find out probably more than I want to know about these artists and videos online in an instant, BUT I DON'T CARE. It's Pop-Up Video! It's my childhood and adolescence. I can still hear the "Pop-Up Video" jingle in my head. This is better than if TRL and Carson Daly made a return. AND now I can watch the Biebs on Pop-Up Video. And I can STILL see Britney on Pop-Up Video. And 'N Sync!!! But here's the best of the the best part: You can watch Pop-Up Videos on VH1's website. Like, classic ones too. As in, I just watched the original Pop-Up Video for Mariah Carey's "Fantasy." I can't even process.

6. The new iPhone 4S is coming out next week. And I'm going to buy one. Whaaaaaaaa?

So, what do you think? I'm leaning toward the Arrested Development news, but you tell me. Because I spent a lot of time talking about Pop-Up Video and also, I'm getting an iPhone!!! And I'll have a Christmas album to go with my lady crush on Zooey Deschanel. Also, Buffalo Wild Wings is really good and I really really love Justin Bieber.

But then there's the chicken dance and I'm just back to square one. You see why I need your help.

*title credit: Buster Bluth

YouTube Tuesday: cows are stupid

2011-10-04T09:30:00.000-06:00

So a couple Saturdays ago, my friend Kristin invited me to go to Bear Lake with her family. And thus commenced the best day of my life.

We drove out to the north shore on the Idaho side where there is this magical beach of magicalness. I can't even describe to you the perfection of this day. I put some pictures below for you to pine over, but since this IS YouTube Tuesday, I think we'll fast forward to that part first.

After we had our awesomesauce day, we were driving on the lakeside road to leave when we were completely road blocked by a HERD OF CATTLE. I guess this is normal in Idaho?? It's not normal to me, so naturally I FA-REAKED out and got out my camera to film it. For your benefit, obviously. Just to warn you - we sound like idiots.

I know RIGHT??? Freaking Idaho.

Anyway, it was a wonderful day that I will look to in the cold winter days of longing and wish I could go back to always. Wouldn't you?

Yeah, the water is THAT clear and the sand is THAT cool looking.

That's our magical floating island and the boat in the background.

Me, Kristin and her totally rad little sister Michelle.

That was a good day.

what's not to love about biscuits?

2011-10-02T19:38:00.000-06:00

Check it. I wrote this amazingly long and tedious post about all the things that I haven't blogged about in a couple weeks because I was ~~lazy~~ busy and somehow it got deleted. So I got pissed, shut Blogger out of my life for a couple more days and here I am again. I'm not going to make YOU suffer for Blogger's transgressions.

I'm also not going to recreate what I had ~~wrote~~ written because the idea of it fills me with rage and also makes me tired. So I'm going to hit the important highlights. (Playing fast and loose with the word "important" here.) Plus, this last week was a total d-bag and I'm kind of glad that I didn't blog too much because it probably would have been a real dragfest. (Not THAT kind of dragfest. That would have been fun.)

Anyway. Let's bullet, shall we?

- I've been meaning to bring this up for awhile now, but like I said, I'm ~~lazy~~ busy. So, I don't mean to brag or anything (totally do), but my job is going really well. My boss and I are having a little awesomefest together. I've always had a knack for getting along with my bosses, but this in another level. Ana is the shiznet and I'm having a blast working with her. She loves me too, guys. It's true - she even wrote a blog about it. You can read all about it here. And here. And then eat your peanut butter and JELLY sandwich because you wish you had my boss.

- Speaking of Ana, one bright spot in my dump of a week last week was when we went for a leisurely lunch (we do that from time to time) at this place in the canyon called Ruth's Diner. They have famous biscuits, which prompted Ana to observe, "What's not to love about biscuits? It's fat held together with carbs." Ana also thought that this one cloud in the sky wasn't a cloud because it was too white and fluffy. To which I said, "You do know what a cloud is right??"

- I'm wearing a headband right now that has proceeded to give me a headache. Are there any fashionable headbands that don't give headaches?? I'm beginning to think there is not.

- I've been watching some episodes of Wings lately and in an ep I watched today, Helen tells Joe and Brian that she's wearing pants because she didn't have time to shave her legs (relate-able) and Brian's response is: "Oh whoa CHECK PLEASE!" Which I found hilarious. Hilarious enough to spend an entire paragraph telling you about it. (I also took the time to find a clip on YouTube and I laughed again. Fast forward to 5:12 to see it. I realize at this point you think I'm a Wings-obsessed lunatic, and you'd be right. But also, the clip is freaking funny so just get over yourself.) The point is, I'm going to start using that when someone says something that disgusts me and or I just generally don't like.

- I'm supposed to be cleaning my kitchen right now, but I came to my computer to add some songs to my cleaning playlist (which is already WAY longer than it needs to be - nothing in my 500 sq ft. apartment takes FOUR HOURS to clean), and what do you know, an hour later, I'm still on my computer.

- I just made that square footage up. I literally have NO idea how many square feet my apartment is. 500 is my best estimate and it's completely arbitrary. I have no gauge for this claim and I'm a terrible estimator.

- Today someone "anonymous" commented on my blog post about sexy animated characters and said that I forgot about Puss in Boots. First of all, CHECK PLEASE! Second of all, ew. Third of all, no I did NOT forget him because as we've established, I hate cats. No wonder they were anonymous. Like I would put someone like that on my animated crushes list. Come on, I have standards.

- If you got the Phantom joke in the second paragraph of this post, then you are cool and we are probably best friends.

Ok, I'm kind of over this post. I mainly just wanted to brag to you about how awesome my job is going and the rest of this is just a pretense that has deteriorated pretty quickly. I have pictures from my trip to Bear Lake last Saturday, but I'm going to put those on YouTube Tuesday with the amazing video that was also taken. Get excited.

tales in living alone: part 2

2011-09-29T14:28:00.000-06:00

So, remember how I was all, living alone is awesomesauce until I get scared and then I soil myself?

Here's what happened: One night in the recent past, I was sleeping as I am wont to do in the middle of nights when I have to work the next day. (Oh yeah - pause. One thing you need to know is that I don't so much have a door between my bedroom and the living room as I do an open archway. Subsequently, I can see the front door if I'm laying in bed. Also, the front door is glass. Resuming story.) SO. I was sleeping. Until I woke up. And I could see, through the darkness of my apartment and through the glass door that the motion light on my porch was on. The MOTION LIGHT. Meaning something was MOTIONING out there. In my irrational state of half-consciousness, I started to panic because OBVIOUSLY someone was out there trying to get in and rape and/or kill me. No seriously though, WHY IS THAT LIGHT ON? The motion light stays on for about 10 minutes after there is no motion, so I lay in bed rigid and unmovable for those 10 minutes, waiting for it to turn off or waiting for someone to bash in said glass door and charge me. I have a mini Dodgers baseball bat next to my bed of course, for these types of situations, but I was too scared to even move enough to reach down and bring it into the bed with me. (You're probably thinking, "REALLY, BRITT? A mini baseball bat? What is that going to do?" To which I would reply, have you ever taken a swift mini bat to the junk and/or face?? Imagine it.)

This is an illustrated reenactment of the scene:

It's a rough sketch.

Anyway.

So finally, the light goes off and I eventually fall back asleep. When I wake up the next morning, the horrifying scene from the night before is fresh in my memory, but I am more coherent and a little more reasonable (stressing the word "little") and I think, "OH. There is empty Ikea box leaning against the wall outside, maybe it blew over and triggered the motion light. TOTALLY. That's it. No one tried to murder me." But when I went out to verify my theory, the box was still upright, leaning as I had left it. Nothing was visibly awry.

Aaaaaand we're back to attempted murder.

The resolution of this story is that THERE IS NO RESOLUTION. I have no idea what triggered the motion light. My boss' response after hearing all of this the next morning was, "Well. It was either a killer or a cat."

In which case, I hope it was a killer because I hate cats.

YouTube Tuesday: free hugs

2011-09-27T13:43:00.000-06:00

Hey peeps. Sometimes you're just too busy living your life to blog about it.

But there's always time for a YouTube clip of the week. And there's always time for free hugs.

My dad sent me this video last week when he didn't even know I needed a pick-me-up. Now it's another week and I need another pick-me-up because this week has been a real d-bag so far.

I just really like things that restore my faith in humanity. I hope someone gives you a hug today. Or maybe you should give someone else a hug today instead of punching them in the face like maybe you want to.
Oh, just me? Carry on then.

P.S. - You might see an ad for Internet Explorer at the beginning of this video, to which I say: Really, Internet Explorer? You're still trying??

YouTube Tuesday: Cat armies and Ryan Gosling

2011-09-20T14:25:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I'm blogging about Ryan Gosling again. Get over it.

So, I wrote this whole blog about the Emmys yesterday but then I got busy and never got around to finishing it or posting it. Then I thought, "No biggie, I will post my favorite moments from the Emmys for YouTube Tuesday." Then I saw this clip of Ryan Gosling on Conan from last night and I no longer cared about the Emmys. We're totally over the Emmys, right? Cool.

Moving on to more important things, Ryan Gosling's latest late-night visit. He was on Conan last night, like I said, and while I highly suggest you watch the full video below, if you don't have a spare 12 minutes, you at least have to watch the first five minutes (the funniest ones) in which Ryan explains his love-hate relationship with Disneyland. (Remember when I blogged about Ryan's days on The Mickey Mouse Club? It doesn't involve that.) But actually you should just watch the whole thing because it will make your day and there's a whole segment about REO Speedwagon. It's just golden.

As EW points out, I wish Ryan was making the talk show rounds every week. He's hilarious. And in case you didn't see it because I didn't blog about it, this clip from back in July of him with my love Jimmy Fallon made me cry with laughter:

I'm so obsessed.

He's so money and he doesn't even know it. (Actually, he probably does know it because you can't be that funny and that hot and not know you're money. I mean, really.)

tgif round-up

2011-09-16T18:30:00.000-06:00

This is a bunch of crap that I didn't have time to blog about or, more likely, don't deserve their own post but I feel are still worth mentioning on a Friday. TGIF yo.

- Our new intern started this week. I like to call him "my" intern because it gives me a superiority complex and, as the saying goes, poop runs downhill so he basically has to do whatever I don't have time slash don't want to do. He also has the unfortunate deal of sharing a cubical with me. And because he is a young college sophomore or something I've decided to teach him about life which I'm pretty sure he hates. He's already had to listen to me lecture him about how to treat or not treat girls as well as a diatribe about capitalism and libertarianism and how he's dangerously close to becoming a socialist and he just needs to STOP IT. It's super fun for him.

- Big Brother 13 ended this week. Good riddance. I stopped caring as soon as Big Jeff got evicted. All I cared about at that point was making sure he won America's Favorite Houseguest, which I did by voting the maximum amount of times and lobbying for him at every turn. I also took the online trivia test about Jeff. You know, just for fun and to watch his video answers. I got 5 out of 5 right. (P.S. - he won. Thanks to me, obviously.)

- Speaking of life successes, I watched a little Cash Cab the other night. I swear to you I knew EVERY FREAKING ANSWER. I might suck at Jeopardy, but I would rock Cash Cab so hard.

- My shows start next week which means I won't have to watch so many Kardashian reruns anymore.

- Ok, so my upstairs neighbor came by last night to ask me if I could keep my radio down in the mornings. It was awkward. Here's what I have to say about this: I honestly didn't think they would be able to hear my radio in the basement. But I get it. When you're alone it's hard to realize when something is really loud. You have nothing to judge it against! Plus I'm trying to hear my sports radio over the sound of my work-out video, shower, blow-dryer etc. I'm sure it's been pretty loud. And she was perfectly nice about it, by the way. But it was still awkward. Maybe I should have told her that on the weekends it sounds like her and her husband are moving large items of furniture ALL DAY EVERY DAY. But I didn't. It was already awkward enough.

- Me and my boss had this conversation:
B: I've only watched Camp Rock 2 like a couple times because it wasn't as good as the first one.
A: Oh it totally sucked.

- I miss my best friend.

- Listen, we're Team Jen around here, ok? Deal with it. I'll be real with you: I think Brad's hot and I like about 90 percent of his movies. But let's also be real about THIS: Brad Pitt is an a-hole. I mean, I think that came to light when he cheated on his wife with a disgusting ho-bag. But he went ahead and solidified it this week when he basically told Parade magazine that being married to Jen made him boring. He backpedaled a little bit, but he's still a d-bag. Not cool, dude.

- I've worked out every day this week because I had become a little disgusted with myself. It now hurts to be alive.

- This almost made me puke. I mean, really??

- This is my September issue of Vogue that I've been reading this week:

This is my Rolling Stone:

AND, it's a double issue:

I wonder which industry is making more money right now? Fashion or music?

- I was searching online for a new nail salon and I became obsessed with this spa down the street from my place. I want to go to there and purchase every super expensive massage, pedicure, manicure etc. that they offer.

- My boss and I began the Friday workday by having a "meeting" at The Original Pancake House. About half-way through breakfast I said, "So should we actually talk about work or no?"

- I get to sleep in tomorrow. And isn't that most important thing of all?

I'm tired bye.

YouTube Tuesday: Sound of Silence

2011-09-13T11:10:00.000-06:00

First JTT turns 30, then it's 10 years since 9/11. Way to make me feel old, world.

Anyway, since Sunday was indeed the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, I thought this week's YouTube Tuesday should be something commemorative. Actually, I didn't really think that until I saw this video of Paul Simon (whom I love), but no need to split hairs.

Everyone feels the need to share their 9/11 story. Mine is pretty unremarkable. I was 15 at the time, so naturally I knew pretty much nothing about anything outside of the Lakers latest championship and the goings-on of 'N Sync. Apart from the Twin Towers' presence in the New York skyline on Friends, I didn't really even know the World Trade Center existed. There, I said it.

My mom came to pick me and my brother up from early-morning seminary and take us to school and my friend Brian (who was living with us at the time) was in the front seat. We got in and he turned around and said, "We're under attack." My response was something along the lines of "You're retarded." Things from there are kind of blurry - all I remember was listening to the radio in English class - which hadn't happened since the O.J. Simpson verdict of the 5th grade, so I knew it was a big deal. Then we went home and watched the news for the rest of the day and night. Up until that point, I'd probably never watched that much news in my whole life TOTAL, unless you count Sportscenter or MTV News.

Anyway.

I think it's safe to say that our hearts and prayers go out to those families that were affected by the events of 9/11. There has been a lot of coverage on the subject, but this video of Paul Simon performing "Sound of Silence" at the 9/11 Memorial is the best thing I've seen come out of all of it. It's a moving performance of an appropriate song. If you don't get chills, you're probably dead inside.

Paul Simon was also the first musical guest on Saturday Night Live after 9/11, where he performed "The Boxer" for Mayor Giuliani and members of the NYPD and NYFD. You can check out the video here, which I obviously recommend, or I wouldn't have brought it up.

I guess all that's left to say is that I am certainly proud to be an American and I sincerely would not want to live in any other country. Did you know that in Canada they pay like $28 for a block of cheese?? And, if I wrote this blog in a lot of countries, I'd probably be dragged through the streets by goats with my hands cut off. Just saying.

And we probably wouldn't have Simon & Garfunkel.

Which would be a travesty of unimaginable proportions.

there's a ghost in my apartment who needs a place to pin things

2011-09-12T12:38:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I'm pretty positive there's a ghost in my apartment.

Background info: When I was in college at UNLV, we had a ghost in our apartment. One day we found a red pen that had the name "Susan" on it. None of us were named Susan and also none us would lay claim to the pen; no one knew how it had gotten into our apartment. So OBVIOUSLY we concluded that there was a fifth girl living among us - a spirit named Susan. Which was great because we proceeded to blame all things that no one wanted to take responsibility for on Susan. Dirty dishes? Susan. Water bottles all over the apartment? Susan! Old food in the fridge? Really, Susan?? Lights left on? Damn that Susan.

When I graduated and we moved out of that apartment and I moved into a new one, I tried blaming things on Susan but no one knew what the hell I was talking about so it didn't really work that well. I figured we had left Susan in #202 with my heart. Clearly, I was wrong.

Fast forward to last night when I freaked out in the middle of the night because there was a loud crash. After I swore violently because I thought I was being killed but then I realized it was just something falling off the wall, I didn't really think anything else about it and just went back to sleep. Since I've moved in, lots of things fall off the wall because I suck at hanging things on walls.

Then, this morning I remembered what had happened last night and I started looking around. I realized the corkboard I had haphazardly hung behind the open-back hutch on my desk was no longer on the wall. So I went in search of it - on the floor, behind the desk, thrown to the side. IT IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. Seriously you guys, it's gone. I searched for a good five minutes until I realized I was almost late for work. But where could it possibly be?? This isn't a small corkboard. It's like a few feet by a couple feet. IT CAN'T JUST DISAPPEAR. So unless someone came into my apartment to steal a corkboard and left the rest of my stuff (like my TV and MacBook) untouched, the only logical conclusion is that Susan has followed me to Salt Lake City and has taken said corkboard for her own purposes. AND you should probably know that that corkboard used to hang in our old 202 apartment, where we first met Susan. I think I might have released her when I rescued all my old stuff from the Public Storage facility in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Or maybe she's been following me all along....

Situation developing....

I just give the people what they want.

2011-09-08T19:36:00.000-06:00

First of all, let's talk about how slutty all of you are.

From time to time I check out my Blogger stats. They tell me where people are reading my blog from (you'd be surprised), which posts are getting read the most, how people find my blog, what kind of things you enter into a Google search that bring you to my blog, etc. Some of my favorite Google search terms that have popped up include:

"large booty women youtube"
"inappropriate animation"
"women shame fandom"
"afraid without entertainment snuggie" - I don't even want to know what this means.
"ranch dressing and cheddar cheese difficulty breathing" - WHO ARE these people???

I don't know what is more concerning: that you people are searching these things or that you're finding my blog as a result.

Anyway.

The most popular Google search terms in my Blogger stats are always anything to do with Ryan Gosling and Chris Hemsworth combined with the words "hot" or "shirtless." So thanks, guys. My most popular posts are Ryan Gosling shirtless, Chris Hemsworth shirtless and sexy animated characters. You're just a bunch of ho-bags.

Which is perfect, really. Because speaking of which...

Adorable follow-up of the day: So remember when I blogged about Ryan Gosling breaking up a fight in NYC and then my uterus exploded? Well, Ryan speaks. In an interview with MTV News during his Drive press junket they asked him about the incident and he responded. He's "embarrassed" and it's adorbz.

Get More: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog

There go my ovaries.

Keep whorin' it up ladies. Ryan is so obviously worth it. And sorry, dudes. This post probably made you die inside. My bad. I'm just trying to give the people what they want.

YouTube Tuesday: Break Free with Freddie Mercury

2011-09-06T12:38:00.000-06:00

Let's talk about how awesomesauce Freddie Mercury is/was. Yesterday was his birthday. He would have been 65 years old if not for his untimely death in 1991.

I've been a Queen fan since I was singing and dancing to their songs in my parents' living room with my little brother in practical infancy. Also since we watched Wayne's World like every day one summer. One of my favorite things to do is sing "Bohemian Rhapsody" when my friend Dan plays the piano or to sing it extremely loudly in the car alone or with other people - I really don't care. Anyway, everyone is celebrating Freddie this week, so we will too my peeps.

First, what might be the best Queen tribute of all time and also one of the best cinematic moments of all time - the opening scene of Wayne's World that I could watch all day every day of my life:

Best thing ever. (One of these days I'm going to have to have a YouTube Tuesday with just my favorite scenes from Wayne's World. In which case I should just post the whole movie.)

Moving on to some actual Freddie footage. I love all the videos from Queen's legendary 1986 concert at Wembley Stadium. This one is a favorite of my friend Mark, whose quote was: "It makes me want to live in the '80s. All those people - all that heroin." Nice, Mark.

That jacket is everything. (You know it is when "freddie mercury wembley jacket" is a google auto-complete search term.)

One of my favorite Queen songs EVA:

This performance of "Bohemian Rhapsody" is so clutch:

I could go on forever, posting videos of all my favorite Queen songs, but I'll just leave you with these and permission to spend a good amount of your day watching your own favorite performances and listening to your Queen playlist (you have one right??) .

Also, if you haven't been to Google in the last day or so, you should go check out their Freddie tribute Google doodle. I don't know how long it will be there, so run quick!

Happy Freddie Mercury week. Break free.

this is just sad

2011-09-05T20:26:00.000-06:00

Contents of my refrigerator:

half a jar of vodka sauce
partial block of sharp cheddar cheese
partial wedge of Parmesan cheese
six eggs
left-over penne noodles
almond milk
butter
Britta water pitcher
sweet soy sauce
Cholula
ranch dressing
barbecue sauce
ketchup
balsamic vinagerette
lemon juice
Sambal
grape jelly
20 oz. Diet Coke
mini Aquafina
ice pack
batteries

I don't even like ketchup.

Yay for being single.

the Bridget Jones problem

2011-08-31T22:55:00.000-06:00

It's Wednesday. Tonight I had a lengthy and juicy telephone conversation with a bosom friend who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent.

Girl 1: It was supposed to be all 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back' but it turned out all 'Bridget Jones' Diary.'
Girl 2: I hate being Bridget Jones! I mean, I love Bridget, but I hate being her. It did work out for her in the end though.

It was good she called and that I finally picked up because otherwise I might have spent the night eating like 70 Oreos, watching Frasier on Hallmark Channel and using my laptop battery pack as a heating pad. Real Bridget Jones-like. Because it's Wednesday.

(OMG, I forgot she was even watching Frasier in that scene until I just re-watched it. I really am Bridget Jones. Sans Mark Darcy. Which is really the worst Bridget Jones to be.)

YouTube Tuesday: Adele is cooler than we'll ever be

2011-08-30T16:45:00.002-06:00

Since Adele's performance of "Someone Like You" was the best of about three good things about the MTV VMAs and also because I've re-watched the performance like 70 times, I thought it would the perfect clip of the week.

Get More: 2011 VMA, Music, Adele

I dare you to find a more honest and raw performance at any VMAs ever. You'd be hard pressed to find a more honest performance during ANY live show EVER. I'm just blown away by how much you can feel her emotion and feel like the song actually means something. It's like she just hit pause on the entire ridiculous spectacle that was the VMAs and said, "Here's something real, and also I can actually sing. Weird huh?" You wouldn't even know you were watching the VMAs if you popped in for just her performance. No crazy lights, no supporting track, no auto-tune. Just her exposed emotions, flawless voice and tiny bit of piano. I love how beautiful she is and also her dress. I wish I were one percent as cool as she is.

Anyway, obviously I have a huge lady crush on Adele, as everyone should. Unless you're a dude, then you can just have a regular crush on her.

Also, I still hate Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.

can we all just agree we're over Katy Perry?

2011-08-29T17:03:00.003-06:00

So I stayed up past midnight last night to watch the MTV VMAs. Ughsville.

Let's talk about how MTV is still trying to pretend that they care about music. All year long they do nothing but produce trashy TV (that I love) and then once a year at the Video Music Awards they try to be old school MTV. YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ME, MTV. I'm from the TRL generation. I know what you used to be.

Anyway, here are my highlights/really low lights of the night:

- Is this the VMAs or a Halloween party?? Nicki Minaj looked REDONK and that was disappointing because she's so cool, Katy Perry looked ridiculous in all of her MULTIPLE fugly "outfits," and Lady Gaga was dressed as a man.

- Katy Perry is lauded for being the only performer to ever be nominated for three different music videos at the same VMAs. All that tells me is she is the queen of too much. We're totally over you, Katy. (We are right? Please tell me we are.)

- Which is why the Katy Perry - Kanye West acceptance speech for Best Collaboration made me happy because it was so incredibly awkward and horrible. Katy: "Nothing like your first time, right? Your first Moon Man?" Kanye: "No. I have more." Katy: *awkward sentence that no one heard because it was so awkward.* Seriously, KATY? You thought this was Kanye's first VMA? Pretty sure he got that in like 2005. I'm also pretty sure you were referring to that being YOUR first Moon Man, but Kanye is so full of himself he of course thinks all words are about him, which made it even more awesomesauce.

- Selena Gomez interviewing Justin Bieber during the pre-show was too adorable for words. And I was mad because I was all, "Crap now I have to like them as a couple."

-Britney Spears looks kind of shamazing, AMIRIGHT?

- What was with Lady Gaga's opening performance??? I'm kind of over her too. THERE. I SAID IT. Even Biebs looked horrified. Yeah, she definitely was dressed up as a dude the entire night. It was really awk.

- You know who I'm not over? Adele and everything about her. Ultimate lady crush alert! Her performance was beyond amazing as was her dress that I wanted to steal off her back. And her dancing during Beyonce's performance was adorbz. I'm so pissed she lost Video of the Year to Katy Perry and Best Female to Lady Gaga. Especially since Gaga wasn't even dressed as a freaking female. Adele's fans obviously suck at internet voting - she won a bunch of awards but they were all behind-the-scenes ones so we didn't get to hear an acceptance speech. Instead I had to hear/look at Katy and gag-me Gaga.

BAMF

- Jonah Hill called Nicki Minaj "Nicole." LOLZ.

- Tyler the Creator totally trashed Bruno Mars during his pre-show interview. And I was like, "HAHA YEAH ME TOO."

- Pitbull is kind of hot. WHAT? I've always liked the brown boys.

- Joe Jonas is still hot, but also I miss Nick.

- Oh let's please discuss Will Ferrell, Jack Black and Seth Rogan as the "future" Beastie Boys?? I was confused and mad because for a second I thought I was going to get to see the real Beastie Boys.

- Most of the time I hate presenting pairs that make no sense (Cloris Leachman and the girls of Jersey Shore, for example) but Paul Rudd and Rick Ross were my favs ever. Really just Paul Rudd.

- It's hard to like Chris Brown, but it's also hard to not like him.

- Jessie J was the house band for the night and she sang a bunch of covers but my favorite was "No Scrubs." Remember when "No Scrubs" was on TRL like every day? Remember when TRL was still a thing? Remember when MTV was still cool?

- The Britney Spears tribute was all right (if you think little girls doing Britney dances in inappropro Britney costumes is "all right") but I kind of wanted HER to perform. Didn't everyone think that's what was going to happen? But I liked it because even if Brit's gone crazy a few times, I still grew up to her music. It also would have been like one million times better if Gaga hadn't made it totally weird and awkward. WTH, Gaga?

- Beyonce' is knocked up with Jay-Z's baby. Music's head just exploded. In a good way.

- I wonder if Biebs was threatened seeing Selena arm-in-arm with Taylor Lautner on the stage. If you're thinking, "It's Justin Bieber!" my response would be, "Yeah, and it's Taylor Lautner. Have you seen him shirtless lately?"

-Hey, Tyler the Creator - maybe the kids you're talking to out there could hear your inspirational message if the entire thing wasn't bleeped out. Just a thought.

- Deena from Jersey Shore looked freaky tonight. Like, more than usual.

-Russell Brand and Tony Bennett's tribute to Any Winehouse was pretty presh and I actually liked Bruno Mars' performance of "Valerie." Probs because it was "Valerie" and not any of his songs.

- I'm glad they waited until the last possible minute to show the exclusive Hunger Games footage, which was the secret real reason I was even watching the show in the first place. And it wasn't even worth staying up for.

- Their way of letting us know the show is over: "And now a sneak peek for MTV's new series 'I Just Really Want My Pants Back.'" Aaaaaaand it's bedtime.

- I just really hated Lady Gaga a lot the whole night.

Did anyone else waste over three hours of their Sunday night watching the VMAs? Did you want to poke your eyes out? Did it make you wax nostalgic for the days of Carson Daly and TRL? Oh yeah, if you care, you can see the entire list of "winners" on EW.com.

Just so you know, I totally hate myself for taking the time to write this entire post. It's a shame spiral that ends in my posting it anyway.

tales in living alone

2011-08-28T21:26:00.010-06:00

For the most part, I've pretty much done a happy dance over living alone for the last two weeks. Living alone is awesome. I can do whatever the crap I want. Until there's a thunderstorm in the middle of the night and then I want to die.

Backing up for a second, yesterday around 6:30 p.m. my electricity went out. And I was like, WTF this is Utah, not the East Coast. Why are we having hurricane symptoms? I was secretly hoping that the electricity was out in the whole triplex or even better, the whole neighborhood because if it was just my apartment I wouldn't know how to fix it and I would have cried a thousand tears. Turns out it was indeed a large outage affecting like 3,000 people and wasn't excepted to be fixed until at least 10:30 p.m. Perfect. What the eff am I supposed to do all night with no internet, TV, or, I don't know, LIGHTS?

Since it's August, at 6:30 it was still totally light outside, but since I live in the basement, it was pretty much already dark in my apartment. There was enough light for me to get dressed (what - it was SATURDAY, I don't have to get dressed before 8:00 p.m.) and put on my makeup next to one of the tiny windows, and see enough in the mirror to know my hair looked like crap.

Luckily I do have a friend or two, so I went to Target while I waited for Kristin so we could go to dinner. Before we even got to dinner I got a call from the power company saying that electricity had been restored. WHAT? AWESOME PANTS. We still went to dinner, obviously, but I didn't have to spend the entire time wondering what movie I was going to go see by myself after we had finished our Thai.

ANYWAY - after dinner I went home, found power was indeed restored, watched the last half of Sweet Home Alabama on E! and went to bed.

A couple hours later at about 1 a.m. is when living alone got real, ya'll. That's when the LOUDEST THUNDER OF MY LIFE woke me up like a cold slap in the face. Naturally I thought I was dying. What else was I supposed to think then it sounded like a bomb went off in my kitchen and I'm still kind of half asleep? You know the feeling. Once I realized it was "just" thunder and not a terrorist attack on my street, I lay rigid and wide awake listening to all the thunder, cursing myself for living alone and thinking, "I better put pants on just in case I have to make a quick getaway." (SOMETIMES I GET HOT OK? It's summer and I live alone - I'm allowed to sleep sans pants if necessary. Also, why would thunder necessitate a quick getaway?? Where would I be going? Nobody knows, but this is what runs through your mind when you're alone at 1 a.m. in a thunderstorm.)

This was me:

Source: Thanks, MODG. You get me.

That's when I realized thunder is never not scary. Let's just all agree we're always going to be effing scared of thunder - especially alone at night.

Now I'm watching the MTV VMAs in my sweatpants with peanut butter M&Ms and no one complaining or judging or talking or breathing. So yeah, living alone is cool. Unless it's storming. Then it's the worst.

P.S. - When I got home tonight my apartment reeked of like moldy old lady. It's an old house so my apartment always kind of smells like old lady - but not MOLDY. Cause of the reek is still unknown and I now have a different-scented candle burning in every room trying to diffuse the situation. This doesn't really have anything to do with living alone except that there's no one around for me to be all, "DUDE. What's that smell??"

Gotta go - Justin Bieber is on my TV.

Before I had a blog: the sharp knife of a short life

2011-08-25T18:49:00.001-06:00

Before I had a blog, I had a middle-school boyfriend. This is what we looked like:

Yeah, I'm wearing white jeans and an ill-fitting t-shirt. This also appears to be soon after I let my dad cut my bangs and they were the shortest of too short. This is also pre-braces and pre-tweezing. I'm so glad there is photo documentation IN THE YEARBOOK of what was clearly my most awkward phase. But whatever, how many of you got voted Cutest Couple in 8th grade? That's what I thought. While our middle-school romance was short-lived (probably largely due to the fact that it was a middle-school romance), Big Vic is the first boy that kissed me (sorry Dad) and he was one of the few people I cared to stay friends with after high school.

Today would have been Victor's 25th birthday.

In May, Victor passed away in a car accident late at night during a visit to our hometown. I didn't say anything about it at the time because it was raw and I have this thing about airing real grief on the internet. I wanted to cut every person that grieved over Vic on Facebook because it felt too public and fake. I also try to keep this blog as light and fun as possible because it's an escape for me and maybe even for some of you as well. So, at the time I decided not to blog about it. But then it kept nagging at me like I should say something because Vic is my friend and I love him and I love the rest of our friends and it was just a really weird time for all of us. You never get used to someone your age leaving the earth like that. So I decided I would sit on it and write about him on his birthday. Then today came and I dreaded doing it. But I've been thinking about him all day anyway so I might as well devote this little corner of my internet to him.

When I got home from work today I started looking through old stuff that I found in storage while I was moving and tried to find some Victor stuff. I looked through my old yearbooks to see what he had written hoping to find something awesome.

Seventh grade: "Would you go out with me sometime? Just kidding. Love, Victor." (Except he obs wasn't kidding, wink wink.)

Eighth grade: "Brit, what's happnin? Do you got to go to summer school for volleyball or something? I've got to go to summer school. I hope you have a great summer. Later, Victor." (REALLY, VIC? I gave you the best months of 8th grade and that's all you've got for me?? I didn't even play volleyball. WTF dude.)

I also found a piece of paper on which I planned me and Vic's wedding. Oh, to be 14 again...

Anyway, I don't know what else to say except that Vic was a good friend, an amazing person and we all miss him a lot. Especially his boys. I wish he were still here so I could show him all the hilarious stuff I have from middle school. He would love it.

Since you read my blog you know that my dress and grooming standards have increased significantly since 1999. But I don't want your last image of Big Vic to be a chubby little Mexican kid with slicked back hair. He's a very handsome dude. This is what he looks like to me:

Just kidding, this is Halloween last year when he dressed up as Wayne Campbell.

This is more like it:

Love you, Big Vic. Happy birthday. Thanks for liking me even when I was awkward and pretty gross looking.

I gotta go to bed before I get into this Picker Sisters show

2011-08-24T23:50:00.007-06:00

Remember how I stayed up past midnight watching Storage Wars because I have cable again?

CABLE!!!! INTERNET!!!!! askjfhaslfkhaslkfh!!!!!

In my defense, I was DOING THINGS while I soaked up all the cable. I cooked dinner and did laundry and put together Ikea furniture and worked on making my apartment less of a train wreck. I also watched two episodes of Hoarders online with my fast internet, but that was to put my half-unpacked situation into perspective.

I just really love cable. And internet. And Storage Wars.

No for reals I can't not watch this Picker Sisters business.

YouTube Tuesady: Ryan Gosling Saves the Day (and someone dumb kind of films it)

2011-08-23T15:12:00.009-06:00

I was also going to title this post, "Celebrity Do-Gooders and the Idiots That Film Them." But I wanted everyone to know this was about my boyfriend Ryan Gosling right off the bat.

So yeah, there's this video floating around of Ryan Gosling breaking up a fight in St. Mark's Place in Manhattan. Why don't you just watch it and then we'll talk about how much I hate the girl that is filming this.

I have to give the girl credit for having the foresight to film a street fight. These things should always be filmed. It was just her luck that Ryan Gosling happened to step in all hot and tank-toppy to calm things down. Unfortunately, that's about as far as her competent thinking goes.

First of all, you DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHO HE WAS until your even dumber friend pointed out he was "that one guy from the movie." "What movie?" you inquire. "The Notebook," she replies. Then all of a sudden you lose your mind because you're within feet of someone famous even though you obviously don't love him enough to know who the eff he is. So obviously the thing to do is FREAK OUT and rustle your camera around and film a passing car and then TURN AROUND just as he is getting close to you, effectively ruining the video entirely. Bravo. "Am I really filming this right now??" Um, actually, no. You're not. You SHOULD BE. But you're terrible at life.

Ryan Gosling, on the other hand, is awesome at life and stops random street fights on his way home from a casual shopping trip and can pull off blue-and-white-striped tank tops and rolled pants.

This is Ryan being all, "I contribute to society, what did you do today?"

Also, lady crush Kate Winslet saved Richard Branson's mother from a fire. And she was like, "I save old ladies from fires. What did you do today??"

fun fact friday: unpacking edition

2011-08-19T17:06:00.001-06:00

TGIF, yo. TGIF.

These aren't so much "fun facts" as they are horrifying confessions that I would only admit to because I'm delirious after the longest week of my life.

1. I'm staying late at work to write this because I'm roughing it and not getting internet in my apartment until next Wednesday. Which is why I'm slowly dying inside.

2. Next week when I have to leave work so I can get internet and cable installed in my new apartment I know my boss will be totally cool about it because she loves cable and internet more than I do.

3. I had a total of five boys help me move (along with my saint-like parents), all of which I'm confident now hate me and have terminated our friendship. I'm that girl.

4. My office wardrobe choices this week have been pretty questionable. The other day I wore inappropriate flip-flops and today I kind of wore a cleavage shirt*. WHAT. I'm unpacking I HAVE TO WEAR WHAT I CAN FIND.

5. Late the other night I attempted to watch Clueless on my iTunes while I was unpacking. I hit play and walked away. I knew after literally two seconds that I had accidentally hit play on Baby Mama instead. That's how much I know the Baby Mama score (and incidentally, the beginning of Clueless).

6. I ran into this older lady that I work with in the bathroom earlier today and she was holding a can of Diet Coke and she looked at me like I was probably judging her for drinking Diet Coke at 10:30 a.m and she was all, "I'M TRYING TO STAY AWAKE." And I'm thinking, "GIRL, PLEASE. I've had 32 ounces already THIS MORNING and like 700 ounces in the last week. So you get yours."

7. Last night I unpacked for six hours while watching Roswell Season 2 discs four and five. Then I lost my cool during the prom episode slash Alex-is-dead series of episodes and cried a thousand tears in the middle of my boxes. Yet I didn't cry when I found my first Book of Mormon that my great-grandma gave me on my sixth birthday. Options: misplaced grief, upside down priorities, or dead inside.

8. I found a 7-11 in my new neighborhood. It's not my 7-11 though - it's like a weird 7-11. The owner hasn't given me any free Diet Cokes yet and the guy that works the morning shift doesn't even tell me how beautiful I am every day. wtf.

9. I'm way less tolerant of elevator shenanigans (for a different post) when I'm exhausted from a week of moving, unpacking, etc. So it's good thing that me and my new partner in crime found a secret freight elevator the other day.

10. I can't deal with people sidling up to me at work anymore. It's become too much. My back faces the entrance to my cube and it's not that I'm doing anything inappropro at my computer, it's just that it SCARES THE POO OUT OF ME. Some people know what to do - stomp their feet to announce their arrival or something of that nature. Some people don't. I went over the edge today when this lady sidled up LITERALLY TO MY SIDE. As in, she was at my elbow before I even knew she was there. I almost shat myself. Granted, she was bringing me a brownie, BUT STILL. Give a girl some warning before you put a delicious treat in her face.

11. I've had a crippling headache all day which is probs the real reason I'm so grouchy re: elevators and sidling. And spare me your "You drink too much diet coke you should drink more water" diatribe BECAUSE I DRANK A CRAPTON OF WATER TODAY FOR THAT EXACT REASON. And it still feels like I've been hitting my head against a wall.

12. I realized today while speaking to my dad on the phone about exiting my storage unit that our knowledge of storage unit rules is solely based on the A&E hit Storage Wars.

13. Remember two months ago when I was pretty freaked out about some deformities - namely a bug bite and swollen ankles/feet? They seemed unrelated at the time, but then during the moving extravaganza I incurred a massive bug bite in my knee-pit. Then I realized I had gross cankles and fat feet again! WHAT THE JUNK? My mom was all, "You drank a lot of Diet Coke today." First of all, HEY KETTLE WHY YOU CALLING ME BLACK? Second of all, why does everyone keep blaming my illnesses on Diet Coke? There could be other reasons, you know. MY college-educated brain put two and two together and realized I must have a strong reaction to some variety of bug that causes my lower extremities to swell. MYSTERY SOLVED. Now you can all rest easy and back up off me about my coke habit. I MEAN MY DIET COKE HABIT. Geez, everyone BE COOL.

Well this post unraveled pretty quickly. Kind of like me trying to organize my hot mess of an apartment.

*To be fair, this shirt would not be a cleavage shirt if it were on a non-chesty girl. It's not my fault that my bosoms want to be free.

best friends: late-night snapshot

2011-08-14T00:11:00.003-06:00

B: How did I live my life without Pinterest?
S: I don't know.
B: I think of all the things that I could have pinned but didn't.
S: I know. It's depressing.
B: Totally depressing.

.......

B: I'm googling it.
S: You realize I'm not going to think that a naked newborn baby is creepy right?
B: You'll see.
B: AAAAHH!!
S: WHAT?
B: It's weird. Want to look at it?
S: Is it a baby?
B: Yeah.
S: Awwww, it's just a newborn.
B: Yeah but why is his junk like that???
S: You've never seen a newborn like that?
B: Obviously not!
S: Why is Robert DeNiro in pictures of naked newborn babies???

time to get goin'

2011-08-12T07:45:00.008-06:00

"It's time to move on. Time to get goin'. What lies ahead I have no way of knowin'. Under my feet, baby, the grass is growin'. Yeah, it's time to move on. Time to get goin'." -Tom Petty

I signed the lease in my new apartment yesterday. After nearly exactly two years, I'll be leaving Provo for the not-so-distant Salt Lake City. It's not as weird as when I left Las Vegas after living there for five years, but it's still worth mentioning, no?

While there have been times when I wanted to take the extension cord into the bathroom, for the most part, I would say that I've loved living in Provo. I never thought I would ever go to BYU and live in Provo until I did. It's always just comes down to the people, right? I've met some seriously cool people here - people that I will be friends with for the rest of my life. (Except for my "friends" that have actually finished their Master's degrees and graduated before me. They're dead to me.....KIDDING.) And luckily I'm not moving too far, so I can still be friends with those that are sticking around the general northern Utah area. Right? RIGHT??? You guys will come visit me in the city and I'll schlep down to Provo on wandering Saturdays and lonely Sunday nights. You'll still be my friend, RIGHT?

I'll miss things about Provo, other things I won't miss. There are things I wish I'd miss but I won't because it will be in Salt Lake too (side eye SNOW).

These posts are always kind of boring. I'm over it already. Also, I'm moving on Monday, but leaving tonight for Las Vegas to meet my parents there and get stuff out of storage for my new apartment, and I haven't started packing yet. (As in, I haven't packed any of my belongings that I'm taking with me when I move.) So basically the last thing I should be doing is blogging at 7 a.m.

Speaking of which, I'll probably be radio silent for like the next few days because I'll be busy moving and now that I think about it I don't really know what my internet situation is going to be when I get to my new place and OMG I NEED TO FIGURE THAT OUT PRONTO.

Eff. I hate moving.

YouTube Tuesday: Preteen me and adult me never really parted ways.

2011-08-09T07:31:00.006-06:00

How to preface the most amazing thing I've ever seen?

The following is a clip of Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling performing together on Disney's Mickey Mouse Club circa 1993. This is why the internet exists.

I can't even deal. Pre-teen me would have thought this was amazing. Adult me also thinks its amazing.

I never watched MMC live in those days because our town didn't have cable access and we didn't get Primestar (and therefore Disney Channel) until I was at least 10 years old. Finding this video obviously started the downward spiral of an MMC YouTube binge. Spoils:

Brain explosion.

I hope you watched that last one all the way through because if you did you will have spotted the following things: Justin, JC, Ryan, Keri Russell, Britney, Christina, and Justin and Ryan's sweet dance moves. You'll also be smiling widely, unless you're dead inside and hate nostalgia.

I wonder if the kids of today will ever truly appreciate how lucky they are to have YouTube. Back in my day, I would have had to tape this crap on my parents' VCR to enjoy it at will. And I WOULD HAVE. Now, everything is on YouTube and it's AWESOME. But will they ever know??

I love the internet.

P.S. - I just had the most amazing idea as I was posting this on Facebook. JT and Ryan need to reunite in their adult stardom. Perhaps on SNL??? Someone call Lorne Michaels stat.

eye contact is hard

2011-08-08T16:23:00.001-06:00

The other day I spent the first half of my Saturday kicking around my apartment in my pajamas with my good friend K-Star (also in her pajamas) eating donuts and looking at attractive men on Facebook. That's when this quote came out of my mouth:

"Step one: facestalk. Step two: astrology book."

This is basically my process after meeting an attractive guy that I think needs to fall in love with me. I Facestalk him, which usually leads me to his birthday, at which point I get out my astrology book and read every word about his sign and find out if we are an ideal match or bound to have a sexy affair with no place to go. You probably didn't know I was that smooth.

Anyway. I don't really know where this post is going but it's somewhere between Creep Town and Cat Lady Crossing. The main reason I started it was so that I could publicly record the following g-chat conversation that recently took place between me and K-Star. (Note: Parts of this conversation as well as the exact day and time it happened have been changed and/or omitted for the sake of discretion - you never know who is reading your blog and omg EMBARRASSING.)

B: More importantly - I just saw McSexy

B: He has blue eyes, btw

K: oh i totally noticed that

B: I stared into them instead of avoiding eye contact like i normally do

K: good job!!!!!!!!!

K: that is a hard thing sometimes

K: eye contact is hard

K: its like... do i look at one eye? or do i try to look at both? which is impossible... by the way.

B: you get me

K: and then i'm like "can he tell i don't know how to look in his eyes???!!!???!???!?!?"

K: its stressful

B: truth.

K: i should write a blog about that. dibs that blog idea

B: you can dibs it only if I can blog this conversation

K: deal.

B: done.
B: I feel gross because I had McDonald's for breakfast.
K: I feel gross because because i ate two hostess cupcakes last night at midnight

B: So you get it. Sounds like a good idea at the time but ultimately leads to self-loathing.

B: Kind of like facestalking

It's hard to be this good at life.

And then I avoid eye contact and just Facestalk them instead.

fun fact friday

2011-08-05T16:35:00.000-06:00

These aren't so much "fun facts" as they are horrifying confessions that I would only admit to because I'm high on TGIF. But that didn't sound as good in a title.

1. Chris Daughtry's "Over You" is one of my favorite songs. There, I said it.

2. I have an aversion to books whose covers have been changed to reflect their movie adaptation.

3. I hate that I'm supposed to hate Mel Gibson now. I like A LOT of Mel Gibson movies. Am I just supposed to FORGET about Braveheart??

4. I take Kelsey Grammer's side in his divorce drama with his ex-wife Camille. Even though he cheated on her and got engaged to someone else shortly after their split. WHAT? It's FRASIER.

5. Nude newborn baby pictures creep me out. Not the ones where they're all gooey at the hospital (which probs should creep me out but don't), but the posed studio ones where they're supposed to be all presh and majestic (often they're in black and white - you know the ones I speak of). You're not straight out of the uterus anymore, kid. You're in society. Put some clothes on.

6. I deleted one of my Facebook friends because he posted that John Mayer was dead when he wasn't. I stopped breathing for a minute and it was NOT COOL.

7. When I see an acquaintance (or even the occasional friend) in the grocery store or other public place, I will always avoid them, even if I have no specific reason to. (I've probably avoided some of you.)

8. Sometimes when I'm writing something down or typing, I mix up q and g. Apparently quacamole is not a word. And g and q aren't even in the same neighborhood on a keyboard.

9. When I try to go on Pinterest and I get the "We're working on things" message I silently freak out and want to punch Pinterest in the ovaries.

10. Sometimes I don't like strawberries.

11. My friends claim that I became depressed during the Felicity/Roswell marathons of Winter 2011. Well, YEAH HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THOSE SHOWS?

12. I miss long-haired Biebs even though he looks younger than short-haired Biebs.

13. I truly believe that every year on my birthday George Harrison sends me a message from the beyond.

14. I have hoarding tendencies.

15. I have a "striped" section in my color-coded closet. That's how many striped shirts I own.

16. Also, my closet is color-coded.

17. I cry at the end of Hook when Robin Williams gives that fat little black kid his sword and puts him in charge. But everyone cries at that part, right?

18. I'm obsessed with Mark Zuckerberg.

19. I pretend to be devoted to my Blackberry, but the real truth is that if I had the chance to get an iPhone I would gladly throw said Blackberry out of my rapidly moving car, preferably in the general direction of a large cliff face.

20. I chew gum in the shower.

21. If my underwear don't match my outfit, it bugs me the entire day, even if I know nobody is going to see it.

Too far?? Well sorry, you signed up for too far when you kept reading after I admitted to liking a Daughtry song.

This is all your fault really.

Ryan Gosling is crazy stupid hot

2011-08-03T12:50:00.007-06:00

You're all traumatized after yesterday's run-in with the people of Walmart, aren't you? My bad.

I wasn't planning on posting today, but then I thought, after yesterday's post, that would be like shoving a handful of raw onions down your throat and then not offering you a piece a gum. Let's cleanse our palates shall we?

SWOON

What? You're not thinking about anything else now are you??? That's what I thought.

This weekend I saw Crazy, Stupid Love and it's like my new favorite movie. See above photo for exhibit A. Crazy, Stupid Love : me and Ryan Gosling : : Thor : me and Chris Hemsworth.

I've always known Ryan Gosling was hot, but this movie and his role in it took it to a completely different level. He was smokin' and adorable and funny and also this:

Are you still breathing? How?

(If you'd seen the movie, you'd know why he's making that face and why it's awesome. Soooo... leave now and go see it. It's way more exciting than my blog or anything else you could possibly be doing. Unless you left to google image or watch YouTube videos featuring Ryan Gosling, in which case, carry on.)

Anyway, in addition to Ryan being perfect in every way, the rest of the movie was pretty awesome too. The cast (Ryan along with Steve Carrel, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon) were amazing, the script was great and it's suddenly in like my top five favorite rom-coms ever. (That's a big deal, people, I freaking LOVE rom-coms.)

I totally have a lady crush on Emma Stone too, so I can't even hate her for playing opposite the new love of my life.

le sigh

Other important things you need to know about how celebrities are better than us:

- Vanity Fair has named Kate Middleton as the leading lady of their International Best Dressed of 2011 . WAY TO POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS VF. Kate totally wins at life.

- Taylor Swift covers Eminem's "Lose Yourself" at her latest concert. Officially becomes one of the coolest people on planet earth.

- Mila Kunis defends Justin Timberlake against a Russian reporter IN RUSSIAN. EW.com subsequently compiles a bunch of videos of celebrities being ~~really hot~~ fluent in foreign languages.

- Matt Damon channels his Good Will Hunting character of the same name and lays the smack-down on a reporter who tries to trash teachers while interviewing Matt, who is incidentally standing next to his mother, a teacher. "My boy's wicked sma't."

Minty fresh!

P.S. - In my Ryan Gosling internet trolling I have found some life gems. One of them will be featured on next week's YouTube Tuesday. I don't think you're ready for how much this is going to bomb your mind, but I'm doing it anyway. There WILL be a brain explosion.

YouTube Tuesday: Wally World

2011-08-02T09:04:00.004-06:00

Truth: Sometimes I shop at Walmart.

Truth: Every time I do, I hate my life and vow never to return.

It's a horrible place that lures you in with wide variety and cheap prices. I must be clear - as a staunch supporter of capitalism, I do not hate Walmart for their cheap prices. Sorry, I just don't. I know there's like some moral discussion about it, but I've never really felt the need to get involved. What I do hate about Wally World is its essence of white-trash and/or ghetto horribleness.

In theory, Walmart might seem like a magical place where you can get anything your heart desires at a reasonable price.. You could LIVE in Walmart some might say:

But let's get back to the horrifying part. My dad sent me this video awhile back. This is why I love the internet. Someone wrote a song based on the website People of Walmart, made a music video featuring photos from the site and put it on YouTube. Thank you. (SEVERE WARNING: This video contains disturbing images. If you are faint of heart or weak of stomach, think twice before subjecting yourself. But you totally should because it's amazing. Also, partial nudity.)

Do you need to poke your mind's eye out now? Me too.

Why is it even called Walmart? What does that mean? Walmart isn't even a real word to me anymore because I've typed it so many times.

Did you know they have a fire-pit on sale for $20???? I know.

UPDATE: My fellow Walmart disdainist (<--not a word) Maurianne left this amazing video in the comments and I had to add it. Via the Onion News Network:

Hostages Trapped Inside Walmart Insisting They Never Shop At Walmart

Yeah. It's like that.

I want my mommy Monday

2011-08-01T11:01:00.007-06:00

Real adult life totally sucks sometimes.

It's raining and I'm very tired because I am irresponsible and stay out until midnight on Sunday night even though I know I have to work the next morning. My room looks like a bomb went off inside of it because when I'm not busy I'd rather be watching Bravo than cleaning my room - I mean, GET REAL. I'm a GROWN-UP I don't have to clean my room ever if I don't want. But when your room/bathroom is a mess, it takes like twice as long to get ready in the morning, have you noticed that? So you might have to skip breakfast if you wake up late because you're tired AND your room is a mess so it takes you a long time to get out the door. Also, all weekend you've been having nightmares about finding/moving into a new apartment.

On the bright-ish side I MAY have found a place to live. Which is the main reason I'm freaking the eff out.

You'll recall my laments about how looking for a place to live is basically one of the worst human experiences ever, right up there with looking for a job, moving into the place that you may or may not find and other horrible things that can happen to you like death or severe injury.

During my apartment hunt I've found out why people don't post descriptive photos of the place they are trying to rent. Because on the internet they can make it sound magical but in real life it's the horror of all horrors and if anyone did see a picture of it, they wouldn't go in to look, they'd just spit in its general direction.

Anyway, I thought everything would be better when I finally found a place that I wouldn't be miserable living in, but when I did and they actually wanted to rent it to me, I had a panic attack. Did you know that they make you SIGN STUFF?? Did you know that you have to PAY MONEY??

(I'm kidding here - obviously I know all these things, having rented approximately 700 apartments in my short adult life. But every time I do it it's a new shock to my system and my bank account.)

I won't go into all the details of the painful decision process that was my weekend. Mainly because my dad reads my blog and he's already gone through at least 2+ hours of me panicking on the phone and dissecting every detail with him while he and my mother think to themselves, "You'd think by 25 she'd have things figured out." NOPE.

So I THINK I've found a place that I'm going to commit to, which is, in reality, a load off my mind, except it's totally not because now I have to actually move into it. I have to pack, and get stuff out of storage and figure out what to keep and what not to keep. I have to make my parents come and help because I can't do anything by myself apparently. It's all very stressful.

Also, yesterday I started crying at church right in front of my friend Dan because he was telling me were going to hang out before our friends Malia and Alicia (and I guess me) all move in the next couple of weeks. And I just started crying at the thought. (There's a chance I'm PMS-ing. But it IS sad so it was totally normal to cry, maybe just not right in Dan's face, likely making him feel super uncomfortable.)

Doesn't everyone kind of want their mommy on a rainy Monday? What do you need your mommy for today? If you need something to get you through Monday, try this:

Watch it again.

P.S. - I just shook two guys' hands after applying some pomade hair product crap and I hadn't totally rubbed the excess off my hands yet. So basically they think I have sticky gross hands. Cool. (I was putting that on at work because it's raining and my hair is frizzy. If you must know.)

reality television keeps me warm at night

2011-07-29T09:21:00.014-06:00

Let me tell you about the best night of television ever:

Project Runway ---> Big Brother ---> Real Housewives of New York Reunion Part 1.*

That was how I spent my Thursday night. I know.

*Yeah, there's a Part 2. It airs Monday night. I know where I'll be!

Remember how I was all, "Oh I'm totally going to blog about Big Brother all the time" (paraphrasing). Well, I got busy. I had to blog about Justin Timberlake and Jeopardy and near-death experiences, so EXCUSE ME. Remember how I told you who my two new favorite Big Brother houseguests were? Yeah, they're both gone now.

Sadcrytimes.

At least I still have Jeff and Jordan.

happyfuntimes

While I was watching BB last night I sent Ginger a text that went something like this: "I effing love Big Brother." Not because of the course of events (because obviously I didn't want Dominic to get evicted) but simply because of what the show stands for. Idiots, drama, plotting, backstabbing and the like. Loves!

Incidentally, those are basically the same characteristics of any given Housewives episode. I know people don't like Jill Zarin, but I freaking love her. Everyone else on that show is pretty much insane but I think she's amazing. (Except for that whole fight with my reality TV BFF Bethenny Frankel. I wish to pretend that never happened.)

BFFs forever??

Oh yeah, my other new favorite housewife is Cindy because she seems so normal and sane that she's almost out of place. Which is probably why I've heard rumors that she's not returning next season.
(The only thing that's weird about her is that she can't handle taking care of her own kids through one lunch. Which, in retrospect is pretty weird.)

And I love that Andy Cohen moderates the reunions himself. Let's be real, I owe a large percentage of my life's happiness to Andy Cohen. If not for his bringing these housewives into my life, then at least for his interviews with Jimmy Fallon.

I feel like Project Runway is considered like the snobby gold standard of reality television. You can watch it and not be judged because it's fashion. Whatevs, there's just as many idiots, drama and even a little plotting and backstabbing. The only thing that makes it more high-brow is Tim Gunn because he wears nice suits, has an accent and is an EFFING GENIUS.

Make it work.

Reality TV totally loves me back, right?

things you need to know to live your life

2011-07-28T12:45:00.008-06:00

JK none of the following is useful to you in any way.

- I haven't watched last night's episode of Big Brother and it's giving me anxiety because my friend Ginger was going to text me but didn't because she knew I hadn't watched it and my dad called me last night to talk about it. Which in my mind means something terrible happened and I'm going to be homicidal after I watch it later today. Also, my mother sent me a cryptic text that said, "And so the games begin." WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? (It could be completely unrelated to Big Brother, but I'm paranoid and also it's most likely in reference to Big Brother.)

- My token Asian friend Samwise Gamgee brought me cookies the other night. I can no longer remember why he owed me cookies since the debt has gone unpaid for so long. (I was pretty sure it had something to do with me winning a Sunday school Sudoku race, but that seems so unlikely because he's ASIAN. Maybe that's why I owe him cookies and he owes me cookies because I won testimony meeting bingo. Either way we were playing games in church and neither of us should be rewarded with cookies, but that's how we roll.) Anyway, finally he delivered to my door two plates of the most amazing cookies I've ever eaten in my life. I ate one for breakfast this morning. (Judge much??)

Yeah, those are giant chocolate chip cookies with a full-on S'MORE inside the cookie. I don't even know how he did that. It must be some kind of Asian magic. (And I know what you're thinking and the answer is, no, it's not hobbit magic because despite was his nickname implies, he's not a hobbit, just a Korean named Samuel Shin with magic cookie skills.)

- Pinterest is taking over my life. It's like a drug to me. If you don't already have a Pinterest account, don't get one. You'll become obsessed to the point of no return. Except that you should totally get one BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME. If you want to see all the amazing things that keep me glued to my computer screen, you can look at my boards. My favorite one is "Funny Crap." Because I like crap that is funny. My other favorites are "Things I would rip off other people's bodies" and "I need this in my house." The other day I got tired of looking for apartments online so I went on Pinterest. I'm pinning a bunch of amazing stuff for an apartment/house I don't even have. I totally went to college.

- Season 9 of Project Runway premieres tonight on Lifetime. I'm still pretty bitter about what happened last season, so I'm not sure how excited I am for this. Michael and Nina better have got their minds right since then. (Of course I'm going to be watching it. That was never really in question.)

- Speaking of Michael Kors (who I worship), my boss forwarded me this e-mail today that she got from MK that featured pretty much the exact striped sequin top that I'm wearing right now. I'm totally fashionable, you guys.

Except that I got mine at the J. Crew outlet for like $15 and as you can see, the MK one is going for a cool $99.50. I'm still fashionable, though, right?

- Rick Astley is haunting me. First, I saw this on Pinterest:

Then, I was flipping channels and landed on FX where an episode of It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia was on in which Dennis sings "Never Gonna Give You Up" in his car. THEN, I saw this article on The Daily What about how whoever runs the White House Twitter account RickRoll'd a follower. It was pretty brill and made me want to RickRoll a lot of people. Except if I did, I would totally do it Sunny style.

- I've been thinking about getting straight across bangs again. I had them like two years ago, but then I saw Kristen Stewart's hair in New Moon and I wanted to grow them out. Yeah, I said it, I wanted to copy something K-Stew did. Get over it. Plus you can only have straight bangs for so long. Plus plus mine never looked that cool. Now I just have swoop bangs, as you know, because it takes a long time to grown out bangs. Also I don't look good without bangs so that was always an ill-advised plan in the first place. But then I saw this picture of Emma Stone on Pinterest (where else?) and became obsessed with it:

Her hair, her hair!

I could pull this off, right? RIGHT?

- I'll tell you what I can't pull off and that's the skirt I wore to work yesterday. It's a kind of a wannabe bubble skirt with a ruffly waist and it does not look good on me. It was probably the third time I'd worn it and it's never worked, but I keep trying. I think it's time to try selling it to Plato's Closet. But they are kind of snobby so I don't know if they will buy a skirt I purchased at Target. Maybe I can sew a Gap label in there and they will reconsider.

- I love when my boss doesn't have time to get lunch because she sends me to get lunch for both of us with her credit card.

- So, it turns out my friend Alex Trebek is kind of a bad-A.

- Chandler seems to be handling our almost-death from the other night pretty well. A little too well, if you ask me. I told him he didn't need to be brave for me, but he seems determined to show that he is unphased. He's so prideful like that.

P.S. - When I was searching around for a good picture of K-Stew's hair in New Moon, I couldn't because I was too distracted by this little capture that kept cropping up, reminding me that K-Stew makes weird faces when she lies on her back and is trying to be dramatic:

BAHA! She's totally cross-eyed! Also, Taycob's body.

I also came across this screen grab that I love because it's like the funniest part in the whole movie:

These are the important things in life.

Check yourself before you WRECK yourself

2011-07-27T09:29:00.003-06:00

Remember how I almost died last night?

I seriously can't take it anymore. I'm now sincerely afraid for my life. Chandler (my car) and I are at the end of our road-rage rope. I originally drafted this post a few weeks ago after my first week of commuting an hour every day to and from work. Then I let it sit there because it was kind of ranty and I figured it could wait to be posted (since Utah drivers are always going to be attempted murderers) if I ever posted it at all. But then last night I almost died on my way home from work. And this isn't typical Brittany over-dramatic talk. This was like a legitimate near-death experience.

I'll quickly describe to you my almost murder before continuing with my lengthy rant. I was driving home on the freeway in the middle of a torrential downpour yesterday evening around 6 p.m. In the left lane near me was a dude driving a yellow Volkswagen Beetle (Utah lisence plate Y35 2CC in case you see him on the streets and want to slash his tires for me) so he was obviously some kind of idiot moron. I was in the middle lane when the VW d-bag cut me off, then slammed on his brakes - I had to slam on my brakes and get into the right lane, but as you know, in a lot of water any sudden movements are ill-advised. I had no choice, however, and as I was losing control of my car, we hit a large lake in the freeway and his car splashed a wave of water into my car's face and I could not see anything. I continued to lose control of my car, still can't see anything and there is no shoulder because the POS freeway is under construction. I hit the cement sideguard, which bounced me back into traffic and somehow, I came out alive without hitting any other cars or any other cars hitting me. When I could finally see again, I was back in the middle lane, stopped and askew. I immediately started shaking, crying and generally freaking out. I drove to the nearest exit, got off and called my daddy.

Here's the thing about Utah drivers - they suck. They literally do not know how to drive in basically any circumstance that involves roads or other cars. They DEFINITELY don't know how to negotiate a freeway, but basically they don't know how to use roads at all. Maybe it's because THEIR WRITTEN DRIVING TEST IS OPEN BOOK. I mean, how can you expect to know traffic laws when you were basically only tested on how well you look up information in a pamphlet? And I guess you can't really blame them for not knowing how to drive on a freeway since there only like three freeways in the entire state.

JUST KIDDING - if you're going to drive on a freeway, YOU BEST KNOW HOW. They don't.

Whoever thought it was a good idea to put a carpool/HOV lane in Utah is a fool because nobody knows how to use it. Their brains short circuit with the thought. One of the core purposes of a carpool lane is to prevent frequent lane changes and encourage the flow of traffic. AKA - DO NOT CROSS THE LINE UNLESS IT IS DOTTED. That means nothing to these people. They will enter and leave the carpool lane whenever they please, thank you, especially if there is an opportunity to cut someone off in the process. (The most annoying part about this is that I know I'll end up being the one who gets pulled over for going 80 on the freeway instead of those jerkholes who are endangering lives with their lawless lane changing. Because I'm pretty sure not even the cops here know the laws.)

Knowing who has the right-away and then proceeding accordingly is also a problem. Because they don't know. Guess what I learned when I moved to Utah? The only thing more frustrating than someone taking your right-away, is being behind someone who doesn't know that THEY have the right-away. I've taken to just automatically laying on my horn in these situations. This is basic stuff people.

There's other typical infractions like driving slow when you should be driving fast (or even a normal speed), driving fast when you should be driving slow, cutting people off at every chance, just generally not obeying any traffic laws ever. And I don't know what is so fascinating about Chandler's booty, but everyone here obviously has some sort of obsession with it since they're constantly crawling up it. There's always someone all up in his business.

When I moved to Las Vegas, I thought they were the worst drivers. And they are TERRIBLE. But it's different there. In Las Vegas, driving is like being in a war zone. People are speedy, angry, yelling, cutting off, not letting you in, speeding up specifically to not let you in, no blinkers, the middle finger abounds. You have to be on your guard at all times or you will die. In Utah, it's similar, with less yelling and middle fingers, just instead there's pure oblivion. I honestly think they don't know they're doing anything wrong. Because they're idiots.

I'm not saying I haven't made dumb driving decisions in my life. I'm not saying I didn't total my parents' Suburban when I was a teenager. But that's like, an every once in a while thing. And at least I KNOW when I'm doing something wrong. (When a full-size SUV has been murdered by a tree, it's pretty obvious you messed up.)

If you ask anyone who isn't from Utah, they will tell you that Utah drivers are the WORST. Utah drivers will say California drivers are the worst, but that's because they're from Utah and they don't know what competent driving looks like. To all my friends that are from/grew up in/learned how to drive in Utah - I'm sorry. We can still be friends; I generally like you. You're probably the exception to the rule anyway. (You're not.)

I was going to run a bunch of errands last night or go to the movies or LIVE MY LIFE, but I was so rattled I just went straight home, put on sweat pants and watched Housewives all night. (Wait - that's what I do like 80 percent of nights. No seriously though, I was scared.)

This is what my life has been reduced to - hermit town or eventual roadkill.

YouTube Tuesday: Hip Hop Hooray

2011-07-26T13:00:00.004-06:00

So, remember last week when I hated my life and the only thing that got me through the day was a video of JT and Jimmy Fallon being awesome? Remember how I've watched the video like 150 times a day since then?

In case you missed it, that video was called History of Rap PART 2. Which means, there's a part one. Luckily for you, I found it. So I'm using it for the clip of week since it's awesome and also because I'm too busy to think of anything else.

While both are my favorite things ever, I think I'm partial to Part 2. Let's watch it again:

I can't get enough.

then his nose started bleeding

2011-07-22T08:22:00.007-06:00

For some reason I find it absolutely necessary to detail for you every air-travel experience that I ever have.

Last night on my flight from Salt Lake to LAX, things were pretty normal as far as flying on Southwest goes. I sat toward the front of the plane in an aisle seat because on short-ish flights I like to sit by the aisle as to get the eff out of dodge as fast as possible when we land. In the window seat of my aisle was a small Asian girl around my age I guess. Can't say for sure as I try to avoid all eye contact with the people near me so they don't get any ideas about talking to me. Anyway, no one was in the middle seat and I while I was hoping it would stay that way, my expectations were, as always, extremely low.

The flight began to fill up rather quickly and of course a bunch of idiots who got to the airport right before we were supposed to take off were just flabbergasted that they couldn't find a seat together. This is Southwest, people. Get with the program. One of those idiots happened to be a mother with a small-ish child. The stewardess came on the intercom and asked if anyone would be willing to move in exchange for free alcohol so that the mother could sit with her child. I pretended to not be able to hear said announcement because of my iPod headphones and intense magazine reading. (Don't judge me - I would have moved if necessary, but it wasn't necessary because someone else volunteered so get off me.) Well the nice person who volunteered his seat had to come sit next to me. But he was a well-groomed good looking guy, so I was fine with it. I even contemplated flirting with him until he mentioned he should have let someone over 21 move seats so that they could get some free booze. So basically he was an infant and that is where our affair ended. But we shared the armrest and it was fine. He asked the flight attendant to let another passenger near us have his free beer, which I thought was enabling, but nice. He was on his way home from visiting his grandfather in Wyoming where he helped with the lawn-mowing business and made a little money. I learned this by eavesdropping on his conversation with the Asian, of course, since I don't talk to people on airplanes. Then his nose started bleeding about halfway through the flight, but that didn't really bother me.

JK IT WAS TOTALLY DISGUSTING. Yeah, that's right, his nose started BLEEDING. At first I just thought he had a runny nose and as I was giving him the side eye I realized he'd already bloodied one napkin extensively. I quickly looked away and stared intensely at a picture of Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake in my magazine while I resisted the urge to gag. Normally bloody noses don't fall into my revolting category, but when it's happening inches from my face and I'm trapped there, it's not cool. Not really the guy's fault, I guess, but that doesn't mean I have to be comfortable with it. Nor was I comfortable with him reaching across me to throw his blood napkins in the flight attendant's trash bag. But it happened.

It also smelled faintly of puke the entire flight, like someone had recently thrown up on that aircraft, likely in the last 24 hours. But don't all Southwest flights pretty much have that feeling?

Like I said, typical day at Southwest Airlines.

Anyway, my cousin slash brother-from-another-mother-who-is-my-aunt is getting married tomorrow so that's why I'm in California on a Friday morning instead of at work. And maybe I'm resisting the urge to ditch said wedding and go to Comic Con instead.

What to do? What. To. Do.

I ride in cars with Justin Timberlake (IN MY DREAMS)

2011-07-21T09:35:00.010-06:00

No, seriously. I had a dream last night that I was riding in a car with Justin Timberlake.
It was magical.

I can't even deal

You don't need to know the details really, just knowing that I was in the car with Justin and we were having a lively conversation while he drove and I stared at his face is enough to know it was a good dream. We talked about his appearance on Jimmy Fallon and I was like, "YOU..." and poked him with a corny smile. (EMBARRASSING.) We also drove past some weird cylinder apartment buildings and he was all, "What if you moved into one of those?" (because we're friends and he knows I'm looking for an apartment) and I was like, "They're kind of weird," and he was all, "They look like Howard Roark designed them." OH YEAH. WE WENT THERE.

In the other dream I remember from last night (that makes any kind of sense, that is) I was back in Orlando. IF ONLY.

Anyone have any dreams last night that were better than mine? (DOUBTFUL)

P.S. - It's so comforting to have a childhood/adolescent celebrity crush/obsession that I can openly obsess about as an adult. It's like, inside I don't have to grow up, but on the outside it's not weird because what person in America doesn't think JT is cool? I loved Justin before he was JT.

P.P.S. - Choosing which picture of him to post was like the hardest decision of my life because he is so hot in every photograph ever. (Ok, maybe not, but you know Britney totally picked those outfits.)

this is where a little song and dance comes in handy.

2011-07-20T09:12:00.015-06:00

Well things have been a little too perky around here lately, what with all the Jeopardy talk, etc., so I thought it was time to bring us all down a notch.

My morning was nothing short of terrible. Maybe you're having a crap day too and it would help to know you're not alone.

1. I woke up with this song in my head. (Which is some sort of sick foreshadowing joke by my subconscious. Also, they couldn't have one scene in their music video of them actually dancing on the edge of the Hollywood sign? WASTED OPPORTUNITY. I should have been a music video director.)

2. I forgot like 70 things when I left this morning and had to run back in the house at least a million times, once when I was already down the street.

3. The shoes I bought at Target last night specifically to go with this outfit, suddenly did not fit. As in, smallest shoes ever. I TRIED THEM ON. This makes no sense. And it's not even like, oh they're a little snug. It's like, they hurt to walk in. So that was cool. I decided that since I'd already picked out and PUT ON the outfit (for which I have no other suitable shoes) I would stop by Target on my way to work and exchange them. (Which, believe it or not, would take less time than picking out and putting on another outfit.) Except I couldn't go to the Target by my house where I bought them because it wasn't open because I have to leave for work at the A-crack of dawn. So I thought, I'll just go to the one downtown closer to my office and by the time I get down there, it will be open. Well, not only did said Target not have my size, they don't carry this shoe at all. Really, Target?? Get it to-FREAKING-gether. So I'm wearing the shoes. I'm forsaking comfort for fashion. (You may be asking, "how fashionable can they possibly be if you bought them at Target?" The answer is, not that fashionable. But they match my outfit. That's all you can really expect from me at this point.)

4. When I got to 7-11 to get a Diet Coke, it came out clear. Which, if you're a Diet Coke enthusiast like me, you know one of the worst feelings ever is when you hit that button and CLEAR liquid comes out. Disgusting. Luckily, the guy that works the early-morning shift (not the creepster that works the late-morning shift) is basically in love with me and we are besties so he hurriedly rectified the situation.

5. Why is this country so in love with Katy Perry? I mean, seriously. From the time I woke up from the time I got out of my car, I heard FOUR Katy Perry songs, one of them twice. And none of them are good. But every single she releases gets on that Top 40 list. Kill me.

6. I think I'm becoming mildly lactose intolerant. This isn't really going to work for me since I love cheese and ice cream. Milk in its milk form I can actually do without; I've been drinking Almond Milk for like three years anyway (which, incidentally, is probably why I've developed an intolerance for lactose). But I've noticed a pattern of feeling sick in the morning after I have a Slimfast for breakfast and last night after my mac & cheese dinner, my stomach was hating me. (Hard to say if that was because of the lactose or because I added Flaming Hot Cheetos to the mac & cheese, but I can't rule out the lactose.) I've always been pretty prideful of the fact that I don't have any weird dietary limitations (imposed by health reasons - my disdain for mayonnaise is simply because it's revolting). Now it looks like I may just be like 80 percent of the roommates I've ever had, with some list of crap they can't eat.

7. Accept the fact that about 90 percent of the friends you meet in your life are going to screw you over and be total toolfaces. Then cling hard to the ones that don't, to the point of cutting off their proverbial circulation. The sooner you learn this, the less burning anger you will feel.

In retrospect, that doesn't sound like too bad of a morning. But when all of this is happening before 8 a.m., I can't deal.

Good thing I have a cool friend named Ginger who brought this video to my attention and it basically made any bad thing that can happen to me ok as long as I watch it every hour. I didn't catch the live version since I went to bed at 9:30 p.m. last night. It's not YouTube Tuesday or anything, but then I remembered that this is my blog and I do whatever the crap I want, so I'm sharing this with you like six days early. (How is it only Wednesday?) You're welcome.

If you're not smiling right now, then I can't help you.

yeah, I'm blogging about Jeopardy. again.

2011-07-19T19:42:00.012-06:00

omg, you guys, the current Jeopardy champ is totally hot.

HELLO, Mark

I was going to post this on Facebook and Twitter but right before I pressed send I was hit with a wave of shame and embarrassment. Was I really watching Jeopardy and TAKING PICTURES OF THE HOT GUY ON MY TV WITH MY BLACKBERRY? Shame spiral!! I'd already admitted to eating a white-trash dinner of mac & cheese mixed with Flaming Hot Cheetos. I think I'd embarrassed myself enough for one day. But my blog is a safe place. Right? You're not judging me. RIGHT???

Plus, now you know that I wasn't lying about watching Jeopardy. (Of course, why anyone would LIE about that is a mystery.)

YouTube Tuesday: THIS is Jeopardy!!

2011-07-19T08:17:00.007-06:00

I watch Jeopardy. Get over it.

I feel smart when I know the answers (or questions, as it were, which WTF is that all about?) and when I know the Final Jeopardy answer, I completely crap myself with happiness. I could never really go on Jeopardy because first of all, not all the categories are pop-culture related and/or Bible-related (but if they were I would be all Ken Jennings 2.0) and second of all, it's not always Kid's Week. But if I were a contestant on Jeopardy, I wouldn't take any of Alex Trebek's condescending nonsense, that's for sure.

Granted, some of these people are freaking weirdos, but you can't call people out on their antics when you're pulling crap like this:

I'd like to see you be a contestant on Jeopardy, Alex! (No seriously, that is my dream. But I know it will never happen because Alex would never subject himself to the risk of humiliation.) Of course, I make fun of contestants too, but only because when there is a pop culture or sports category their brains short-circuit and only because IT'S TOTALLY BEHIND THEIR BACK AND NOT ON NATIONAL TELEVISION.

Anyway, speaking of Ken Jennings, this is my favorite Jeopardy clip EVA:

Bahahahahaha! I would have said the same thing, Ken.

Suck it, Trebek.

Confession: I do love it when Alex calls people out for their "interesting" anecdotes being total crap. Oh really, lady? Your dog really DID eat your homework in the fifth grade? No one cares!!

I want to go to there Monday

2011-07-18T09:20:00.003-06:00

This exists:

In case you can't tell, that's a three-story H&M at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. I was there a few days ago. I want to go back to there.

Where would you rather be this Monday?

make love, not horcruxes

2011-07-15T20:03:00.015-06:00

Well, it's over.

It's done.

Finished.

Goodbye.

Dead (literally, in some cases).

And it was AWESOME.

If you think sobbing in a movie theater for two hours is awesome. Just kidding, there was a lot more to it than the crying. But the crying was a large part of it.

So, last night we went to the midnight showing of the final Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. What to say? Well first of all, we were by far the coolest people there.

Shannon made our shirts. Because she is the coolest.

I loved the movie. But I knew I would. Was it perfect? No. But it was perfect for what it was. I'm good at separating books from their movie adaptations, a skill I'm pretty proud of because I end up enjoying the movies a lot more. So it was completely enjoyable. Except for the 90 percent of the movie during which I was sobbing uncontrollably. I couldn't even deal. In hindsight, our t-shirt designs are a little ironic, considering I in no way kept calm.

The weirdest part about the whole thing was that Shannon and I seemed to be the ONLY PEOPLE IN THE THEATER THAT WERE CRYING. What is wrong with these people? They are obviously dead inside. There were times where it just got plain awkward because Shannon and I are audibly upset and it's dead silent in the rest of the theater. This is a sad freaking movie, dudes. People die. It's ok to cry. I will probably see it at least four more times in the theater, if I'm keeping up with my normal habits. And I will cry every time. And I'm fine with it.

I'm sad that I'll never see another Harry Potter movie for the first time at midnight ever again. But I think we went out in style. We obviously looked awesome, I was with half of my Harry Potter crew (it's a thing) and this world will always be a part of my weird little life.

We have a second set of t-shirts, lest you think we could stop at just one.

mischief managed.

If you don't get it, that's fine. You don't need to. Your life is not as happy as ours, but whatever.

Call me if you want to go see the movie. I'll never say no.