Daunted

These are next on my to-read list.  I am slightly freaked out by their sheer size, especially the top one. Neither qualifies as light reading.(Ha! Ha! See what i did there?)

Backassward

I've never been much of a follower.  I cannot stand American Idol.  I lost interest (heh) in Lost somewhere around the third season.  Coffee makes me twitchy.  I don't understand the appeal of Justin Bieber.  I mean, sure, I'm predictably obsessed with Harry Potter, Glee, and Gustavo Dudamel, and there were also a few instances in my teens where "fashion" trumped "better judgment" (one particularly heinous pair of sandals comes to mind), but we all have our crosses to bear.  In general, though, I'm often so obstinately NOT a follower that I nearly miss out on some of the Great Inventions of Our Time, like Facebook, smartphones, and Lady GaGa.   

[Exception: the iPad.  I had one in my hands for approximately four seconds before shouting "I MUST HAVE ONE!" and causing my friends to jump six feet in the air.  I do not yet own one, however, so if you'd like to gift me with an iPad, I would not turn it down, and if it was the 3G-enabled version, I might even kiss you.  Or bake for you.  My chocolate pecan pie is the stuff of legends.]

So anyway, I'm stubborn, and I generally sort of do things my own way, but in recent years, even my body has said, "Well, fine, if you're so intent on being different, HERE."  At the age of 20, after a lifetime of clear skin, I suddenly started breaking out.  I was studying in London at the time, and I assumed that perhaps my skin wasn't used to, I don't know, the weird English air? Or the water? It was too sudden to be a coincidence, but then I returned from abroad and the breakouts continued.  So that was unfortunate.

About three weeks ago, however, I developed this rather entertaining condition wherein I kind of couldn't breathe periodically. I wasn't suffocating or anything.  It was just an occasional tightness in my chest and an inability to take a deep breath.  So I ended up at the urgent care place, as you know, where I was reassured that I wasn't dying and given a super-classy inhaler.  But it didn't go away, so I went to see the nurse practitioner in my neighborhood, and, whadya know: asthma, triggered by seasonal allergies, neither of which I've had before.  At the ripe old age of 26. 

OF COURSE it's asthma.  So now I'm armed with two separate inhalers and Zyrtec, and I can breathe again.  But I'm still without an iPad, so anything you can do to remedy THAT situation would be awesome.

Oh, and also...

I got an email from Amazon today, suggesting that, as someone who has purchased or rated books by Louisa May Alcott, perhaps I would like to preorder....Little Vampire Women.  Which is apparently the latest in the "turn classic literature into horror novels" craze begun by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.  Don't get me started.  So I emailed Ash, who had left an Ash-shaped hole in the ceiling when she heard about the first one (I believe the email she sent me that time was titled "Blasphemy"), to see if she had heard about this latest development.


Me: ...and then Louisa May Alcott rolled over in her grave. Pun intended.
Ash: Do you think Jo gives up her teeth?  After all, in this version that may be her one true beauty. 

Things That Happened Yesterday

~ Homeless man complemented my "Mary J. Blige shades"

~Thought I might be dying.**  A little. Maybe.  Probably not. 

~Against better judgement, visited WebMD.  Convinced myself I was actually dying.  

~Took COO's car*** and went to urgent care facility in the middle of the afternoon.  

~Inadvertently left book at home.  Consequently, achieved level 20 on Brick Breaker on my BlackBerry while sitting in the doctor's office.

~Got an EKG (breaking news: my heart works!), a diagnosis of bronchospasms, and an inhaler.  (Now feel like a six-year-old again.) 

~Saw a dude on the Metro with a tuba.  No instrument case, just a guy with a tuba.

~Bought a pineapple.

**Gross exaggeration.  

***Borrowed (not hot-wired, obviously).  She offered it, probably because she didn't want me dying on the clock.

Smurfs, Ugly Betty, and the NEA

I had sort of hoped that if I put those three things in a title together, some sort of theme would come to me.  It didn't.  Consequently, this post is kind of all over the place.  As, by the way, am I.

So. Life is proceeding, now that I have a chance to experience the world outside my office again. Various things are going on here. I dug my desk out from underneath All The Piles of Paper, which was refreshing. Glee returned. The Capitals lost their first playoff game. I'm reading Game Change, about the 2008 election, and it is seriously excellent. I'm not normally much of a non-fiction reader, but I highly recommend it.

Hm, what else. My apartment is starting to look like I live with a Smurf, because there's blue fuzz everywhere from the towels I recently bought at IKEA. They are wonderfully soft and fluffy, but I swear it looks like I'm molting.  Washing them hasn't helped.  The problem is compounded by the fact that my dust buster is, ahem, busted (or it needs to be charged...one of the two), so the fuzz is accumulating.  

Huh. This isn't very interesting. Instead, how about a list? I like lists. We'll call it "Things That Are Currently Thrilling The Pants Off Me." Without further ado: 

Things That Are Currently Thrilling the Pants Off Me

She &Him, "Volume 2." And everything they contributed to the (500) Days of Summer soundtrack. Actually, the entire (500) Days of Summer soundtrack....Okay, FINE, if we're being honest here, I have a girl crush on Zooey Deschanel. I confess. 

Vaughan-Williams' "The Lark Ascending," specifically as performed by Hilary Hahn 

Neil Patrick Harris on Glee. This hasn't actually happened yet, but the anticipation is nearly as good as the event. 

These cookies from IKEA. HOLY PETE, I cannot get enough of them. 

My new(ish) yellow bag. J'adore, ya'll. 

Real Simple 

Lady Gaga, unless I have to look at her, which weirds me out. But the "Recently Played" playlist on my iPod doesn't lie.  Girlfriend's got pipes, yo.

Google Reader. Yeah, I know this is not new. It's not new to me either. But to say it revolutionized my life (or the 80-odd times per day when I click over to see what new posts have appeared) would be an understatement. 

My ATL cords, which I should've bought in lighter colors so I could wear them into spring. Live and learn. 

The Ugly Betty series finale. I stopped watching the show about two seasons ago, but I tuned in for the finale. My reactions were twofold: 1) Betty and Daniel? Really? Huh....Okay, maybe. 2) It's time for me to move back to London. 

Rosemary & Olive Oil Triscuits 

That Capital One commercial with the vacationing vikings and the goat on skis. Cracks me up every time. I mean, a goat on skis?! That shit is funny. 

New red shoes 


Things That Have Me Worked Into a Lather, and Not In a Good Way 
(or, Hold On While I Get My Soapbox...) 
Arts Advocacy Day was on Tuesday, and my coworker Scott saw this video and forwarded it around the office. A Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute called for zero funding for the arts, stating that all public funding for the arts should come literally from the public in the form of ticket sales or private donations. He called the National Endowment for the Arts a government-run “racket” that “extorts” money from taxpayers to give to “politically well-connected artists.” (After I calmed down, I asked Scott if he really expected any less from Fox News, and what the hell were you doing watching that anyway?!) 




Anyway. What a tool.

Heartbreak hotel

I was home in Tennessee for Easter this weekend.  It was delightful and relaxing, but also a bit odd because I was sleeping in the guest bedroom with my sister.  My grandparents are currently staying with my parents as my grandfather recovers from his knee replacement, and they are occupying both my old room and G's.  So we were in the guest room, and G's boyfriend was on the air mattress in the den, and WOW, that made for a whole lot of showers to coordinate on Easter morning.  Also, G and I are not the most amiable co-sleepers, AND she had a cold, so that was interesting.

The big event of the weekend, though (aside from Jesus, you know, rising from the dead, which is a notable event, and also my acquisition of the Most Awesome Red Shoes Ever--pictures to come!), was the West Virginia/Duke Final Four game.  And since four of the seven of us LIVE in the great state of West Virginia, there were, shall we say, some emotions about how the game went.

It didn't go well, in case you missed it.  It was pretty tragic. And so we all desperately wanted Butler to win the championship on Monday night.  Which they didn't. 

But that's okay.  It was a beautiful weekend, and we ate many eggs and large quantities of jelly beans, and I bought shoes, and a good time was had by all.  The end.

Well, HELLO there!

My heart is all aflutter, and I simultaneously feel like I just awoke from one of those dreams where I am on the Metro and suddenly realize that I'm not wearing pants.

It turns out that there ARE more people reading this blog than my family and two best friends and Jules' mom. And if it weren't for the lovely Keenie Beanie, who, I have just learned, lives on the whoooole other side of the country, I would never have known it. So, hello Krys, and hello to Helen from Postcards from the Edge (of the West Country), who apparently led Krys (and, presumably, others) in my direction! And also to whomever else out there is reading Unagi that I'm unaware of. Welcome! I hope you'll stick around.

I cannot tell you how exciting it was to click over to Postcards and see my humble little blog's name in a list with my fave, Nothing But Bonfires, and several other of my must-read sites, so many thanks to Krys, for commenting and leading to this little revelation. Guess I need to step it up a bit and put on some pants. Metaphorically.

It also seems that Helen has "nominated" me for this “Kreativ Blogger” thing, which I don't really understand, but hey, I'll take it. (I'm so surprised! I didn't even prepare a speech. I'd like to thank the Academy...) And as part of the "rules" for that (wow, so many "quotes" in this "paragraph"), I am supposed to share a few things about myself. So without further ado…

1) I will eat nearly anything, but I strongly dislike olives, anything banana-flavored (except actual bananas), Indian food, and anything blue (except blueberries).

2) I quote Friends and The West Wing kind of a lot. One or other is nearly always applicable.

3) There is something about the shape of pigeons that makes me kind want to kick them. Not repeatedly or anything, but punted like a football, which is exactly how they are shaped. I expect that it would make a rather satisfying thwok sound. I should clarify that I have never actually kicked a pigeon, and I’m unlikely to do so unless I have just caught it pooping on my car.

4) The #1 place on my very lengthy to-visit list is Greece. It has been since I was ten years old, when I marked off the previous #1—New York City—which I visited while dressed like a young Amish girl. At the time, it seemed like the height of fashion. But a denim dress and a scrunchie were involved, so I’ll leave you to make your own judgment.

5) I get highly irritated when people pronounce “Appalachian” like “App-a-LAY-shin.”

Anyway, hello, nice to meet all of you, wherever you are. Please comment away so I’ll know who you are, too!

*****

In other news, G and Beth were here this weekend, and we had a grand old time. Basically, we went out for brunch (multiple times), introduced G to IKEA, watched WVU beat UK (word) and Tennessee lose to Michigan State (bummer). Oh, right, and went to see BON FREAKIN’ JOVI last night—the whole reason for their visit. I thought G was going to burst a blood vessel waiting for “Livin’ on a Prayer,” which, naturally, they played last. And, besides being awesome, the concert was also quite the cultural experience. It was as if all of rural Virginia and Maryland had put on their old Slippery When Wet tour t-shirts and ventured into the big city, though there were also a fair number of cardigans (we had three of them) and pearls in the hizzouse, too.

Incidentally, I had no idea how polarizing Bon Jovi is. Reactions to the news that I was attending the concert ranged from “SWEET!” to “Ew. Why?” But whatever, dudes, we all have our own cheesy musical proclivities, and mine lie squarely with Mr. Jon Bon Jovi and his apparent allergy to buttoning the top four buttons of his shirts.