Some lists

Products I would like to endorse

I'll endorse them for free, but if you want to pay me money, by all means.

1. Downy Wrinkle Release. I know, it sounds like a scam, but it is the BEST THING EVER. Spray your crushed-by-the-cat-in-the-worst-possible-way shirt, hang it up, and go to sleep. When you get up in the morning, ta-da! Unwrinkled shirt.* Cat hair will still be affixed, however, because it is Downy Wrinkle Release and not Downy Total Miracle.

2. Progresso Soup. So much better than Campbell's. Still tastes like it came from a can, but that's better than tasting like a can is one of the major ingredients (mmm, tin). I enjoyed the Sirloin Steak and Vegetable, and the Chicken Herb Dumpling flavors.

3. Those liquidy highlighters. Perfect for articles and various other sorts of academic drivel that students are made to read. I stole one from my roommate in college and was hooked from there. At that point they only made pink and yellow, so I hope they've expanded their spectrum now that I'm getting ready to go back to school and will need highlighters again.

4. Garner's Modern American Usage The usage Bible. Get one and stop irritating me with your grammatical incompetence.

5. Aussie Leave-In Conditioning Spray. After I ruined my hair with ill-advised dye attempts, this gem of a product went a long way toward keeping my hair on my head. Bonus: I got it on close-out at Walgreens for half price.

6. Target. I realize that this is not so much a product as an entire store, but I love Target, and have on several occasions stated my desire to marry Target. (It is at the top of my "To Be Proposed To" list, right before "Jon Stewart" and "Nit Noi's Padd Thai.") If I got married, I would live in the laundry aisle (best-smelling place in the entire world) and subsist entirely on candy. It's like the ideal life. If I ever had to divorce Target, I would demand half its assets, which is a tidy sum. I might be willing to settle for the entire Issac Mizrahi clothing line and my weight in jelly beans.

^{*Presuming you haven't hung it somewhere that the cats could reach it and pull it off the hanger to re-crush it. True story.}

The Dr. N.N. Mind Food Reference Guide

Foods I won't eat
raw tomatoes
peas
sushi
cucumbers
anything cherry-flavored
bologna
hot dogs
most kinds of nuts
Cheetos
olives
maple syrup
cheese blintzes
pancakes
bacon (breakfast can be quite difficult for me)
black jelly beans
Soda that isn't brown
beer
Fig Newtons
kiwi
dried pineapple or papaya

Foods I don't like, but will tolerate if you're nice to me
hamburgers
Tex-Mex (particularly beans and rice)
most cheese
ketchup

Foods that, based on the previous two lists, you wouldn't think I would like, but which I actually quite enjoy
tomato soup (particularly with grilled cheese sandwiches)
cherries
corn dogs
waffles
cashews

Although the Diamond Shamrock All-Stars might suggest otherwise

I think I'm not really attractive enough to live in my neighborhood.

I went to the laundromat tonight, where Tuesday is evidently Hot Guys Night. Multiple hot guys came into the laundromat while I was there, some to pick up dry cleaning, some to do eight bazillion loads of indeterminate color. (Is this a guy thing, the not sorting?) There was even a quasi-striptease, as one of the hot guys decided his shirt was dirty and needed to go into the wash, as well. He was wearing an undershirt underneath, much to the disappointment of everyone in the room. (Yeah, I'm pretty sure the other Hot Guy was actually a Hot Gay, but whatever.) I had a few nice little fantasies that generally ended with imagining myself saying, "Yes, I met your father at the laundromat—we were both using Cheer Dark, you see...." I stress fantasy, though, because these guys were far too good-looking to even contemplate talking to.

After I finished my laundry, I stopped off at the nearest Kroger, which my friend H. calls the "Beautiful People" Kroger. She's not wrong. It's constantly full of people that are above-average attractive. And I would say the demographic skews young, too, so there's always the potential of bumping into a looker while you're both reaching for the instant breakfast or Ramen or whatever. Unfortunately this has never happened to me, and not because my spatial perception is particularly acute. The only time I've been stopped in Kroger was because some guy wanted to ask about my T-shirt. (It was for my brother's alma mater and he had evidently played college there back in the day...yeah, I don't know).

I don't know what the situation is in the neighborhood bars, but I suspect it's more of the same. I know the restaurant across the street from my house is constantly full of gorgeous guys, because I can see them going in and out from my front windows. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in this lease, so I can't move to somewhere where people are of comparable cuteness. Like Hoboken.

"Happy Valentine's Day and all that MUSHY [crap]."

What the Oscar-the-Grouch Valentine set my boss brought in today said. More or less.

Just a quick note obliquely related to Valentine's Day:

If you know me, and you think you might ever, at some misty point in the future, have cause to get me flowers, let me assure you: you don't.

I can't think of a more pointless gift than flowers, unless it's a...no, I really can't think of anything.

Don't get me wrong; I love flowers. I think they're gorgeous and frequently I wear a ring with my favorite flower, the calla lily, on it. However, if you're going to spend money on me, which I thoroughly encourage, make it something that I'll actually like. Namely, cash. (My mother got on this bandwagon this year—she sent me $10 and a baffling cartoon of two toasterheads from the New Yorker. I bought a shirt. And just to prove I'm not a total V-Day hater, I'll tell you that it was pink, and I wore it today.)

Or, you know, a nice gift certificate. Or a book if you must. Something along those lines. Not something that's going to die in a week, leaving me with a mess of dry petals and a cheap vase. If you insist on being pedestrian, I like chocolates, but no nuts.

You know who else better not hold their collective breath? The cats.

Most bizzare feeling ever: being offered over a quarter of a million dollars in two weeks but knowing that it assures your poverty for the next five years. It just doesn't quite add up.

I applied to nine graduate schools, including one school that I was almost sure would reject me and two that would certainly accept me, no matter what. The other six are solid, if not Ivy League, and they have good matches in my interest area (psychoanalytic criticism/memoir). So far, I've heard back from four (Mizzou, Wash U, and Iowa), and they've combined to offer me over $250,000. Well, Kansas offered me diddly squat, so they can probably just not hold their collective breath. But the rest of them are solidly in the running, at least until I hear back from the other five (Cornell, SUNY Buffalo, Vanderbilt, Kent State, and University of Washington).

The thing is, though, that no matter where I go, my salary is going to be cut in half, and I'm not living large now, although I'm certainly not poverty stricken. But if I accept, for example, Wash U's offer, I'll be living on less than $1,000 a month, which could be a challenge. Although maybe it won't be so bad, as I'll also have no friends and thousands of pages of reading to do. I'll spend $600 on rent, $100 on transportation, and the rest on chocolates until I'm so fat I can't leave the apartment anymore and the cats eventually eat my face. These are the things I think about when I wake up at 3:30 a.m. and have two pairs of slitty eyes staring at me. Sometimes it's unclear why I'm going to graduate school and not a mental institution.

Really, my big question is this: I don't know if it would be better to know that by the time this is all over, I could have $500K or $750K in offers and pick whatever school I want, or to have one $100,000 offer and be grateful that somebody wanted me and that I'll be able to become Dr. N.N. Mind without filing a Chapter 11.

In other news, I spent the weekend looking gift horses in the mouth. They have big sharp teeth.

Proof that the internet is, in fact, an addictive substance

As I write, at this very moment, I am walking on my treadmill.

I know. I'm the coolest person ever.

The story of me and the computer and the treadmill isn't particularly interesting; it just involves extreme boredom while exercising on my part and an excess of loose lumber on my apartment's, plus inspiration from this article that my mother sent me. See, my father built me a makeshift bookshelf a few years ago that was dismantled when I moved and never reassembled because my current apartment has built-in bookshelves. So I have five damn heavy pieces of six-foot particleboard just lying around. Plus, I own a handsaw.

So, I sawed a piece of particle board in half and laid it across the hand-holds of my treadmill. Okay, that's simplifying a bit to make myself look less stupid. What I actually did was lay the six-foot piece of particleboard across the hand-holds and kind of let that sit for a couple of days because I was lazy, but I was mildly afraid that one of the cats was going to jump up on it, walk out to the unsupported end, and then kill herself by tipping it over, concussing her head on the nearby doorknob, and then being decapitated by the end of falling board. So I decided to cut the particleboard. That was an adventure in itself, as I'd never actually sawed anything, but I managed to get it done and retain possession of all my fingers. I decided that sawing things is far easier than nailing them, so I'm going to do it more often. Look out coffeetable.

After that, it was just a matter of buying a longer LAN cable (we're not all fancy and wireless around here) and going to it, which is, as I said, what I'm doing right now. I'm going a little over two miles an hour, which surprisingly has little effect on my (already questionable) typing. The mouse skills are suffering a bit, but it's not like my every click might launch a bomb. I'm not playing Minesweeper.

Will this mild bit of DIY genius actually contribute to any improvement in my health? I don't know, but if it can make me less resistant to the damnable treadmill, it's worth a shot. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get off this moving band and go saw myself a shorter bed.

Nobody says "I love you"

My mother decided over Christmas that she had permanently ruined her children.

This idea is my sister's fault, and not just because this sister (E3) is intermittently insane. No, my sister informed my mother that we weren't affectionate enough as a family.

She has a point, especially if you're into attachment parenting or some other newfangled, New Age, non-Midwestern family reltionship fad. The six of us are not a very touchy group. I get a hug when I come home (sometimes; my sisters are hit-or-miss), a hug when I leave (again, sometimes my sisters can't be buggered to even GET OUT OF BED), and that satisfies the hug quotient for the year, really. And I'm fine with that. We've never been very openly affectionate, and to this day I don't really like to be touched. As I explained to my sister when we talked about it (we being the women of the family), it makes me feel squirmy inside.*

In fact, when I was younger, I used to think that some families were a little too much with the affection. On the rare occasions that I spent the night at my cousin's, I used to dread bedtime because I knew I was going to have to give my aunt a kiss, and it creeped me out. I mean, my aunt was a little off in other ways—who puts mayonnaise on a cheese sandwich, honestly?—but this was what bugged me the most. I didn't kiss my mother or my grandmother, and I actually liked them. I certainly didn't want give my aunt a kiss just because I was going to bed.

I watched other parents coddle and caress their children into rebellious hellions, and I just didn't get it. I preferred my parents' time-honored method of showing affection: buying me a book, making me dinner, and breaking a wooden spoon on my butt when I needed it. (All right, I admit I didn't appreciate this latter thing until a few years ago. And that it was my brother on whose butt the wooden spoon was originally broken. Aaaaand that it was probably because of a weak spot in the wood, and not because my mother was strong like bull. But still. It was a good system.) When my best friend's mother took every opportunity to kiss and hug her children, I was like, dude, lady, at least one of those kids is going to grow up to be a politician or a stoner. So far this hasn't come true, but there's time.

I've never doubted that my parents love and adore all four of us, even that time when I wasn't speaking to my mother and so my dad threw a glassful of water at me during dinner, but I don't really need them to tell me all the time. Like, I get it. Lay off. Fortunately, they also get it, and they lay off, except when my mother occasionally tells me on the phone. My father hasn't told me he loves me in recent memory. Instead he straightens out my insurance and builds me bookshelves, and really, which is more valuable? I can't get cavities filled with an "I love you," is all I'm saying.

My sisters and I have basically come to the realization that we aren't warped, although I don't know that my mother is convinced. Probably because my sisters are cruel and have run with the fact that I told them being hugged and saying "I love you" makes me squirmy, and they use it to torture me. I called home yesterday to tell my mother that the insurance company was still under the delusion that my first name is Lester (or that my father lives in Houston), and my sister (E4) walked in the door while she was talking to me. This is what I heard:

E4: Who is that?
Mom: It's your sister.
E4: [Unintelligible]
Mom: No, Erin.
E4: Oh! Make her say it.
Mom: (to me) Your sister wants you to say it.
Me: Say what?
E4: Make her say it!
Me: I don't know what she's talking about. [Because I didn't, at that point.]
Mom: (to E4) Do you want to talk to her?
At that point, my sister grabbed the phone.
E4: You have to say it.
Me: Say what? What are you talking about?
E4: (cloyingly) Oh, I think you know.
Me: Oh. No, I'm not going to say that.
E4: You have to say it.
Me: You know, I talked to E3 on IM the other day, and she didn't make me say it.
E4: You didn't say it? You don't mean it?
Me: I didn't say it. [At this point I start laughing because my sister is being faux pitiful and ridiculous. And stubborn.]
E4: You have to say it.
Me: Fine. I love you. Get off the phone.
E4: I love you tooooooo! Bye.

All right, we are warped. But none of us are politicians.

^{*I'm fine with some physical contact; I don't live in a bubble. I've had boyfriends and I occasionally hug my close friends. I just don't think it needs to be out of control. Personal space, people. I'm a Midwesterner.}

Two Lists

Things my apartment has swallowed recently
My black Dockers
Bottle of Woolite
Roll of Scotch tape
Garden State soundtrack
A pair of black dangly earrings
My GRE scores (set 2)
Blue fountain pen


Stupid things I have done in the kitchen
Forgot a bottle of wine in the freezer, causing it to explode
Dropped an egg and tried to catch it against the cupboard with my knee
Melted a spatula on a burner
Melted Gladware lids in the dishwasher (multiple occasions)
Dropped a tea infuser down the garbage disposal and then fished it out with my fingers (but not before grinding it up a bit)
Whipped softened cream cheese on speed 10 with the Kitchen Aid
Dropped food under a heated burner and allowed it to catch fire not once, not twice, but three times (I blew it out all three times, too. Damn noodles.)

"I'm just the single guy; there are no other guys attached to me."

Married people, I don't know if you remember this from when you were single, but being friends with a couple is nothing like being friends with a single person. Maybe you get a brochure on this when you are married, like, "you will no longer be an independent entity for social purposes; everybody will expect you consult your spouse" and "everybody should be married; mix and match your single friends with your spouse's signle friends." Actually, my friends don't do this last thing. I don't know whether to be grateful or offended. But in any case, the whole ball game changes when you make friends with a couple, or when one of your single friends becomes a permanent member of a couple. Frankly, it's weird in many, many ways.

I'm friends with several married/practically married/"committed" ("Committed"--what is that crap? Be a man! Say the L word!) couples, who, although they are all very dear to my heart, are also an exercise in understanding human behavior. The rules are just different. For example. When I call up a single friend, and say, "hey, how do you feel about dinner tonight?", I get an immediate answer. "Sure," or "I already ate," or "who is this, loser?" Married friends? Always checking with the spouse. I get an answer eventually. Which is fine, you know, but for those of us who are all about instant gratification, it's...new.

And there's the matter of being better friends with one half of the couple than the other. Like, is the other half jealous? Should I make more of an effort with the other half? Do I have to get the other half a birthday present? Oh, my God! I don't even know when the other half's birthday is! At least you can just get them one "couple" present for Christmas. They're a fiscally sound bet that way, at least. By the way, when you tell me your birthday, closer spouse, can you just give me other half's birthday and a list of suggested gifts? Thanks so much.

Knowing one spouse better than the other is also weird because it usually means you know things about Other Half that you're pretty sure you're not supposed to know. Like, for example, that he pees sitting down and his wife thinks it's weird. Or that she can't have an argument without bringing up that time in Miami when he checked out another woman. Or whatever. And then when you encounter Other Half, you're like, I know this thing about you...but you can't know that I know, just in case you don't know that I know, so instead I'll sit here and marvel at how strange you are. I hope that's not awkward for you. And then there's the reverse phenomenon, which is where, as a single, you can be 99% sure that whatever one spouse knows about you, the other one does, too. Even if you've said, "You can't tell anybody about this," it's almost certain that Spouse 1 will assume that Other Half is an exception. So yes, her husband knows that you got a grape stuck up your nose when you were drunk last week and tried to suck it out with the vacuum cleaner hose. He knows, but he can't admit that he knows, so he's just going to sit there and look at you oddly. Aren't you glad that you know the peeing thing now? It's like insurance, almost.

Basically, being friends with a married couple is like going for a hike in a neurosis minefield. And when you're as clumsy as I am...well. Landmine 1: at any given moment, what does Spouse 1 think of my relationship to Spouse 2? Usually this only worries me if Spouse 2 is male. Not that I'm actually concerned that Wife thinks I'm moving in on her man, but still. I also don't want her to think that I want to move in on her man, because I don't, but I do tend to be hypervigilant. Unfortunately, this paranoia of mine leads me to go so far in the other direction that I end up with the Other Half Birthday Panic described above. And in the cases where I'm closer with Husband, the idea that Wife thinks I'm moving in gives me the same feeling you get when you think about kissing your brother or your parents having sex, and then I have to talk to them about football or that noise my car is making or something similarly innocuous until the feeling passes, or possibly I think that Wife needs to chill the hell out because if I wanted to make a move, I would have done it well before she came on the scene and this would be moot. Then I feel bad because I do actually like Wife and want her to like me. It's all very confusing because I'm just not really sure what's going to cause a jealous rage, so let me just issue a general disclaimer: WIVES, I AM NOT AFTER YOUR HUSBANDS. THEY'RE VERY NICE, I'M SURE, BUT JUST NO. THAT IS ALL. As I told one Husband-friend, "not even if you were dipped in chocolate and rolled in cash."

Landmine 2: The Single-Among-Marrieds Torture Session. I think everybody's squirmed through that scene from Bridget Jones where the Smug Marrieds invite her to dinner and she's the only single one there? Yeah, sometimes that happens for real. I mean, not that my married friends are (too) smug, or that they ever try to put me on the spot about being single, bless them. But it does occasionally happen that you will accidentally end up in a group of SMs. If at all possible, I try to put a stop to it before it happens, because really? My ego is fragile enough as it is. I don't need to spend six whole hours being reminded that I go home at night to two mildly retarded cats and a pair of technicolor pig slippers. The worst combination, by the way, is two couples plus you. Like, there is no way to disguise the fact that you are single then, because I promise you those two couples are going to be talking about something couply—vacations they took, a house they bought, whether they want to have kids—and you will have NO input. "Uh...the dog and I went on a great trip to the park last week...." Sometimes in a larger group of couples, you can kind of subtly separate the men and the women, and make everybody functionally single by dint of bringing up how men are clutter-blind and leave the seat up or something, but if it's two couples on one single, you are the living definition of "fifth wheel." This past summer, a friend tried to get me to tag along to a play with him, his girlfriend, and another married couple. I was like, thanks for inviting me to tag along on your double date, chief, but I think I'll pass. I've got a busy night of sticking splinters under my thumbnail ahead, and I just can't spare the time. I thought the fact that the play it was "Taming of the Shrew" was an extra little dig that I could have done without, too.

Landmine 3: Examining Their Relationship. Yesterday I chewed one of my best friends out for not telling me that he and his girlfriend have decided to take the monumental step of moving in together. (This is the "Taming of the Shrew" friend, by the way.) I thought this was rather large news of which I should have been informed directly because when I met him, he was the most serial of serial monogamists due to a severe case of commitmentphobia. Instead I heard about his big news when two other married friends casually mentioned it at dinner Saturday. (See? Couples talk about couply things, and singles are excluded. It's like a secret club.) Anyway, it occurred to me, halfway through my rant, that I actually didn't have much ground to stand on, because here's the thing: when a couple's that committed, you only get to comment on the relationship if invited to do so. Sometimes it makes the one-on-one friendship a little harder to deal with: when one spouse comes to me and says, "I've had a terrible day; I lost my car keys and got in a fight with my spouse," I have to be all, "Oh, do you know where you left your keys?" when, let's face it, who cares about the damn keys? Your spouse has keys! Give me the details of the fight! But I can't ask, because it's their marriage, and I'm pretty sure there's a vow to love, honor, and keep the secret of what marriage is really like from your single friends. I don't want to butt in and then have Spouse 1 feel guilty for telling me, or worse, have Spouse 2 find out that I know and hate me forever, thus excluding me from future married wine soirees, which, as we all know, are classier than the single equivalent, the drunken hootenanny.

So what I'm saying is that marriage is a minefield (and, as Pat Benetar reminds us, love is a battlefield). But it's not a minefield for you, my married friends. It's a minefield for me and every other single person who you have invited to meet that great guy who works with your husband, or who you take home for minor holidays because Lord knows they just going to spend it writing awful poetry about their loneliness otherwise. That being said, though, please keep harrassing us to see "Taming of the Shrew" with you. Your friendship gives us hope. Hope that someday we will get to torture single people with our smug marriedness, too.


<sup>Because I wasn't able to work this anecdote in, but thought it was too funny (and illustrative) to leave out:

Postscript: The other day, my friend informed me that "dude" was the most common pet name that she and her husband use for one another. But, she said, "You probably haven't heard us use too many nicknames." I admitted that was true and asked her why. "Well, we don't like to do it around other people. It's too..." I wish I could say that she said "smug" here, but unfortunately it was something like "exclusive" or "cutesy" or whatever. I was amused. I said, "Why? You're married. I'm fully aware that you guys like each other."

I don't know, maybe it's only funny to me, but the idea of them "liking" each other—i.e., calling each other "dude" on the sly and perhaps holding hands where I couldn't see if they're feeling particularly daring and adult in that I'm-twelve-and-soooo-grownup way—was hysterical. Of course, considering what I've written above, maybe she has some room for paranoia, herself.</sup>

About the cats, for Jane

Things my cats do that annoy me (excerpt from a running list):

Pick earrings out of my jewelry box and throw them on the floor
Run under the treadmill and get gunk on their heads which dries into a matted hard lump that leaves a bald spot when I pull it off
Knead my boob at 6:30 a.m.
Swat the measuring cup full of cat food when I'm feeding them so that the floor is littered with kibble
Stand on the laptop keyboard, particularly the "Esc" key, which closes whatever I'm working on and makes the computer beep in way that I can hear but they, evidently, cannot
Drool
Pull down the bunny ears on my t.v. so I lose reception on whatever I'm watching
Knock the papasan chair off its stand, and then walk away as if nothing's happened
Lick my fingers when I'm not paying attention (v. creepy feeling, actually)
Chase my pens when I'm writing, causing me to make big jerky lines across whatever important document has to be mailed to the IRS like, yesterday

God reads this blog

Early last month, I wrote about church names in Texas and how they're just not okay, really. It amused me, which is usually about the limit of amusement, unless I write something about the cats for Jane. Anyway, I wrote the post and forgot about it until I got this email last week:

We were sitting here trying to come up with a name for our new, NJ church and started rummaging through the internet and found your posting of December 4 last. Being church people we laughed out loud (thanks!) at ourselves and how our church names our perceived by others---at least by one other---you. And we think you represent many others. What kind of name would you suggest for a non-catholic bunch who don't want a religious name? Sure would appreciate a suggestion or two---we're sensitive clergy so be kind---chuck

I was thoroughly delighted. I mean, you know how I love being asked for advice. Love love love. That is because I am a bosser who likes bossing people around.

Anyway, I don't know if you've ever tried naming a church, but it is not easy, my friend. I feel like giving the Texas weirdos a little more leeway, except no. "Church on the Move?" That's just weak.

Chuck didn't make my job any easier, with his "non-catholic, non-religious" requirements. No "St. Bonaventure?" No "Christian Church of Christ?" You're killing me here. My co-workers were no help, either. Most of their suggestions involved some sort of slang, including "First Church of Jesus Is Cool." (In that case, I think they would be the actual first church of that. Which is something, I guess.)

Anyway, I took some time to ponder (and, if we're being honest, to bask in the enjoyment of being asked what I think is best), and then I wrote Chuck back. Here is what I said:

Chuck-

You totally made my day with this email. I'm so glad I could make you laugh.

Of course, now I realize that naming a church is hard, and maybe that's why so many go astray of the sensible values we embrace in Nebraska. I don't know. One of my co-workers suggested "Rockin' Toward Rapture," which might charm teenagers, but is probably otherwise unappealing. Oh! It might be good if you've got a really oustanding gospel choir. Or it might attract a really outstanding gospel choir. Things to consider.

More seriously, I do have one sort of general suggestion that might spark some ideas for you. You didn't mention which religion your church is, which got me thinking about how, regardless of denomination, church is really about one thing: community. It's a community of believers who get together to support one another and strengthen each other's faith. It's very hard to have faith when you're all alone. So if you don't want an overtly religious name, that's what I'd focus on--the togetherness of the community. Something simple like Fellowship of Faith emphasizes both aspects and keeps you from sounding like an Elks lodge.

Anyway, I hope this helps. My core advice is something my father likes to tell me: "You've got to KISS--Keep It Simple, Stupid." It always makes me laugh, but the man has a point.

I'd love to hear more about your church when you decide on a name. In the meantime, I'll be praying for you, and, unless you object, probably writing about you on my blog because I thought your email was so great.

Happy New Year!

Erin

I don't know if this is good advice, nor do I know if Chuck and his flock have decided to take it. I hope I helped them. And I hope I don't have to hear about "Chuck's Fourth Church of Bein' Awesome" any time soon.

P.S. My dad wrote a column in his newspaper about this experience after I sent him the email from Chuck and my response. So that's kind of cool. Too bad he didn't include my blog address so I could up my readership from four relatives, two friends, and a pastor in New Jersey to four relatives, three random strangers, two friends, and a pastor in New Jersey. And a partridge in a pear tree.

I can't believe I didn't think of this years ago

Lazy Chicken

3 chicken breasts
dash of pepper
Italian seasoning
1/3 jar Prego spaghetti sauce, flavor of choice
3 oz. pseudo-mozzarella cheese, shredded

Turn oven to 350 F. Put chicken in glass dish; sprinkle with pepper and Italian seasoning. Dump Prego over top. Sprinkle with pseudo-mozzarella. Cook until chicken is done (about 30 min.). Reheat leftovers for lunch the next day.

Seriously, this is like my new favorite food. Two seconds of assembly, three meals. Woohoo!

The yearly rankings

I'm filling out my calendar for next year, which mostly entails writing in birthdays and other dates to be remembered, along with the few events I already have planned for next year.

I love writing in names on my new calendars. It's always an interesting experience, because more than just a reminder that I need to send a card or buy a gift, it's an evaluation of my relationships. Have I remained in contact with him? When was the last time I did anything with her? Oh, we've gotten to be good friends. March 23, add her, April 27, delete him.

I wonder if it's somewhat cavalier to end friendships this way, downgrading them to acquaintances by simple expedient of not writing a name in a numbered box. It's a little sad, unless something has happened to make me bitter toward the person, and then it's sad and schadenfreude at the same time (like the person cares that they're not on my calendar anymore). Mostly I think it's a way of identifying what my friendships are. Sometimes it's a reminder that I need to get in touch with someone (April 1) or find out when someone's birthday is (December...11? Crap. Missed that one.).

This year my calendar has three additions and three deletions (one schadenfreude, two normal). It's been a balanced year. In addition to my parents' wedding anniversary (June 21), I'm adding my brother's wedding day (May 27). I've noted a concert I'd like to go to in February and the dates of my brother's visit in January, and I'm done.

The new year is already underway.

Let's face it: I've never been rock 'n' roll

So I took my eyebrow ring out last night.

At the moment I did, I just wanted to see if I could; in the three years that I've had it, I've never taken it out or even tried to. I liked the ring that I had, a little silver hoop with a ball. I didn't want anything gaudier or more noticeable. I just wanted my little reminder that I can be even mildly edgy.

Lately, however, I'd been thinking of taking out the ring and letting the holes grow closed. Several things prompted this: first and foremost, my kitten keeps trying to get her teeth in the ring and pull it out of my face when I'm sleeping. Second, possible graduate school visits and interviews are coming up, and it's not the most professional thing in the world, even if most people (somehow) never notice it's there. And finally, it's always annoyed me a little that the ring wasn't exactly on my eyebrow; it was a couple of millimeters below. This is what you get when you go to a piercing parlor in Prague on a whim; it's a fun story and a great memory, but the actual result is a little questionable.

I took it out, feeling a little uncertain as I pulled the ball from the tension of the ring, but God gave me an immediate sign that it was time for the eyebrow ring to go: the ball fell out of the tweezers and down the drain. It's in the U-bend of my sink pipe now, ne'er to return.

So it's gone, and I'm coming to grips. Of course, the holes haven't closed themselves overnight; I could still go out and get a replacement ring if I wanted to save it. But I think I won't; nobody seems to have noticed that it's gone, and I'm sort of enjoying the reverse edgyness of it (whatever that means). Maybe I'll get it re-done after I get into graduate school, maybe not. For now, though, I can stop worrying about waking up with blood in my eye and a smug cat on my chest.

Because I've written this, I'll be going to Third Hell

What is up with church names in Texas, y'all? I'm Catholic, so maybe I'm not getting it, but is there some sort of prize for creative/bizarre names for your church? I mean, I attended St. Mary's Catholic Church and St. Patrick Catholic Church for my entire growing up, plus I'm from Nebraska where everything is sensible and cornfed. We do not, as a rule, name our churches after anything other than saints or members of the Holy Trinity. "Sacred Heart" is a break-out where I'm from.

Churches down south here are evidently having some sort of Bizzaro Name Contest in which the Catholics were not invited to participate. Sometimes it's just excessive wordiness: Fellowship Bible Church North (in Plano). Presumably there are Fellowship Bible Churches in all directions that necessitated this one putting "North" on the end, but frankly, this is why we have addresses, people. If this goes any farther, we're going to have "Fellowship Bible Church North-Northeast, But Mostly North" in a few years. Another entrant in the locational-church names category: Houston's "City on a Hill Bible Church." I don't know what city they're referring to, because by and large, Houston is flah-at.

Another thing I find weird is numbered churches. Catholics don't do this, either. Right down the street from me is the Third Baptist Church. Third? Did they lose a race? It's not in the Third Ward, so I don't think it's locational. They're just third. Personally, I would develop some sort of a complex. "Well, I'm Third Baptist. Too sinful to be second Baptist and too poor to be First Baptist. I'll be going to Third Heaven." And by the same token, how come someone gets to be the First Baptist Church? I'm almost certain that the Baptist faith wasn't founded here in Houston. Like, 99.9% sure. How come you get to be first, Fancypants? Isn't that a little egotistical? I'm pretty sure Jesus said "The first shall be last and the last shall be first." I couldn't tell you where, though, because I'm Catholic and we don't read the Bible. In any case, third heaven for you, too.

Last weekend, though, I found the total and absolute winner for Weird Church Names of the South. Ladies and gentlemen, from Tyler, Texas, I present: Church on the Move.

This is not, as you might reasonably suspect, a church in an RV or some sort of travelling church visiting shut-ins across East Texas. No, it appears to be a typically affixed church of unspecified denomination. I like to think that they're required to dance for the entire service on Sunday mornings, and that perhaps the altar is on some sort of Lazy Susan that moves. Either that or they get a new building every year like a college student.

So yeah. I'm sure there are churches with weirder names out there (because the internet told me so, Driven Life Church of Canton, Texas), but these are ones that I've seen personally, for the most part. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a mass to attend at Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church.

Dear Bono: You're indoors. Take off the glasses, ass.

If I see the U2 Ipod commercial one more time, I'm going to...do something drastic. Dye my hair again. Something. "Uno, dos, tres." Fine, fine, fine. "Catorce!" Uh...what? One, two, three, fourteen? Who counts like that? I can count in several languages, and in none of them are the numbers ordered "one, two, three, fourteen." Evidently the Spanish have made some adjustments lately. I hear their alphabet now goes A, B, C, K. Oh, they're hip, those Spaniards, and Bono's the hippest of them all.

What's that you say? Bono is Irish? REALLY. Interesting.

Honestly, I don't understand the whole U2 craze. As I was thinking about it, I asked my music guru his opinion of them. "U2 does not absolutely suck, but they come pretty close." Word. Their songs all sound the same, and that sound? Not good. The music is generic and the lyrics uninspired. And before you get going, I realize U2's been around a long time, and maybe they did found the genre. But even if they were first...meh. Or actually, blech. It makes it worse—they started this lowest-common-denominator genre. It's like the first guy to make a disco record. Or the first Wayans brother.

As I write, I am listening to the one U2 song I can remotely stand, "So Cruel." I think I tolerate it because it is not, like most U2 songs, processed to the point of EZ Cheese. Don't get me wrong, it's still an American Cheese single, but that can make a decent cheese sandwich. (yes, I'm eating a cheese sandwich made from Kraft American Cheese. Take your metaphors where you can get them, kids.) Most everything else, though, is painfully boring.

And if it's not boring, it's fascinating in the way that plastic surgery gone wrong is fascinating. You know that woman's eyes aren't supposed to be touching her hairline, and yet you can't. Stop. Staring. "Hold Me, Kiss Me, Thrill Me, Kill Me" is like that. First of all, it's on the Batman Forever soundtrack. I watched that movie Sunday while Tex was reformatting my computer (it was on UPN, home of all quality programming), and let me tell you. No. Just no. I liked the movie in seventh grade when it came out, which is also about the last time that I liked U2. Keep in mind, this was also the year that I liked big fat scrunchies and Chris, who played chess at the library on Saturdays and made Cs in social studies (social studies!). What did I know?

Anyway, U2 has a new album coming out now, and based on the commercial, it sounds like the same pseudorock pseudoedgy schlock they've been putting out since at least 1993. If you like that kind of thing, feel free to download it and play it on their overpriced, underuseful Ipod.

Just don't expect me not to roll my eyes at you.

*Please note, I made two errors in this blog, and my co-workers caught them and taunted me mercilessly. Thanks, guys.

Committing hairy-kiri

I'm a smart cookie, and I'll tell you why: I know that I'm dumb, and I institute countermeasures ahead of time to prevent total embarrassment.

So when I showed up at Mary's this morning wearing a bandanna, she had no reason to suspect that I had orange and pink streaks in the hair underneath. I started wearing bandannas over my hair in college, actually around the time I dyed my hair for the first time, as a freshman. Not coincidental, and it came in handy today.

Evidently five years is enough time to forget why it's a bad idea to dye your hair on your own. The last time I did it, it turned out this weird red color that doesn't occur in nature, but fortunately it washed out before my supply of bandannas ran out. This time, I knew I was bored with my hair, but I didn't want to repeat the Red Tragedy of '99. I decided "just to highlight it." That was my first mistake.

Highlights are significantly harder than all-over color, because you have to carefully control where the dye goes. This was made infinitely more difficult by the tool I was given to work with. It looked like a fork gone retarded,tines sticking out in every direction and a little bowl in the middle to hold the dye. I managed to get dye everywhere—on my shorts, on the sink, on the floor (and then on the soles of my feet as I walked on it), on my forehead and shoulders. Everywhere but my hair. The great thing about this dye was that somehow it was hot pink, despite the fact that we were going for kind of reddish-copper highlights. I was cheered, though, to see that the cat had some lovely copper streaks. I soldiered on.

Anyway, after an hour of pulling that crap through strands of my hair and then waiting for it to set, I washed the dye out and toweled off my hair. I waited for the steam to clear from the bathroom mirror only to see that my hair had been attacked by a kumquat with a grudge. The highlights were hot orange and had banded together to form a malicious, indistinct blob centered slightly to the left of my part. It appeared to be gearing up to attack my eyebrow. "Down through the widow's peak, boys! We'll go across the stray eyebrow hairs and get that eyebrow! And after that, the eyelashes!"

It was obvious I couldn't show my hair in public. So I decided to correct it. You can see that hair dye seeps into your brain pretty quickly and makes you dumb(er, if you're me). This morning, before my bandanna'd breakfast at Mary's, I swung by CVS (Motto: taking over the world one prescription at a time) and picked up a box of Revlon hair color, the kind that had both the dye and the highlights all in one package. I ate breakfast with Mary and went home to deal with the insurrection on my head.

The application of the all-over dye from Revlon went fine—it turned the orange to something close to the color I had originally hoped for. It was kind of a blood red, I guess, but I hadn't solved the clump problem. This is where dumb idea number three made its way out from under the masses of over-processed hair. "Well," it suggested, with barely repressed glee, "why don't you use the highlighting kit to see if you can break up the clomp with lighter color? It'll be a multi-colored effect. Very hip."

Fine. I put the highlights in, using the oversized mascara brush Revlon provided.
It was a somewhat better tool than the fork of doom, but it didn't do much better with getting the dye all the way down to the ends of my hair and thus preventing the dreaded clump. I finally gave up and worked it down the strand with my fingers. It was at this point that the phone rang. I picked it up, holding it as gingerly as I could, and brought it to my ear. It was my mother.

"What are you doing?"
"Um...nothing?" I lied. I like to preserve my parents' illusion that I'm not totally abusing their intelligence genes.
"Oh. Well, Touching the Void is on PBS tonight. And something with Jon Krakauer."
"Great. I'll check it out." My eye started to sting. I flipped a lock of wet hair out of it.
"Yeah, I knew you had read Krakauer's books, so I thought I'd let you know."
"Oh, thanks. I'll be sure to watch it."
"Big plans for today? Isn't Tex coming over?"

This went on for two minutes, and in the meantime, dye was running into my right ear and, I think, the second set of highlights was plotting with the first. When I rinsed the dye out fifteen minutes later, not only was the problem not alleviated, it was worse. I had somehow managed to add flamingo-pink highlights to the reddish areas that the all-over dye had quasi-corrected, plus the orange had staged a mysterious comeback over my right ear.

So, torn between a temper tantrum, tears, and uncontrollable laughter, I put the whole mess in a bun, put my bandanna back on, and headed out to Walgreen's, because I obviously couldn't go back to CVS. Time was of the essence—it was 1:30, and Tex was due sometime between 2 and 2:30 to fix my computer. I quickly grabbed a box of Garnier Nutrisse dye in the darkest brown I could find. No muss, no fuss, and it supposedly covered 100% of gray. I could only hope that the dye couldn't differentiate between orange and gray or pink and gray.

I mixed the powder and the developing conditioner, forgetting the "concentrated fruit oil" in my haste. Squeezing the bottle a little harder than strictly necessary, I began to apply the dye to my hair, praying all the while that my hair wouldn't just rebel all together and fall out, leaving me as sad as Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. I was hurrying so much that I didn't notice when a drop of dye splashed onto my nose, leaving a little brown spot that I still can't get out, hours later. Finally the dye bottle sputtered its last, and as I looked down to pitch it, I noticed the little packet of concentrated fruit oil. Swearing, I drizzled it over my hair like dressing over salad and, spinning my gooey locks into a loose bun, went to throw clothes into the closet and dishes in the dishwasher. As if Tex doesn't know what a horrible housekeeper I am already.

At 2:25, the door to my apartment burst open. "Uh...hang on," I said, and spent the next minute fumbling for a shirt I could ruin by pulling it over my dye-covered hair. I finally located a Rice freebie and shrugged into it, and then permitted Tex to enter. He manfully refrained from laughing when he saw me, acres of oddly colored and dripping hair on top of my head, wild look in my eyes. Or, knowing him, he didn't notice. Either way, I was grateful.

Eventually I got the last round of dye rinsed out, and blessed Garnier for living up to its promise. Even if it smells like a chemical factory, my hair now looks essentially as it did when I started, three dye jobs and many dollars ago. It's maybe a little darker, and there's a hint of a red sheen toward the back where the stragglers of the orange army wander aimlessly, looking for their slain kumquat leaders, but I'm not going to have to wear a bandanna to work tomorrow.

What have I learned? It's a damn good thing I'm applying to English graduate school and not to beauty school. And I'm going to Hobby Lobby tomorrow to get more bandannas.

Notes

I haven't bought gas in almost a month. This is not because I have a fuel-efficient car; it's because I never go anywhere. Still, I think it's pretty awesome. Especially since I just spent $200 on four new tires and an oil change.

My brother, on the essentials: "If I've got a wife and a freezer full of meat, what else do I need?"

Lyra fell in the toilet this morning, bringing the grand total of Erin's cats who've fallen in the commode to two. Lyra was somewhat more blasé about it than Regan was. She pulled her front legs back out, jumped down, and attacked the shower curtain.

Five recent Google searches: "crank radio," "t.s. eliot criticism theory," "cool out," "huskers volleyball apparel," and "sarah connor." Two of those are potential Christmas gifts. The rest are just weird. Speaking of Christmas gifts, can anybody think of a good idea for my dad? He likes gardening and chewing out hunters who shoot at his house. Go.

On that last item, I originally wrote "and chewing hunters who shoot at his house." I like the idea of my dad employing punitive cannibalism.

Raspberries are my favorite fruit. Asparagus is my favorite vegetable.

According to Kroger-brand yogurt, "lemon meringue" is a fruit, and therefore eligible to be "Fruit on the Bottom." I'm not really complaining, although I think this could get out of hand if they continue down the pie path. Nobody wants mincemeat-on-the-bottom yogurt.

I got a haircut today, and evidently, in stylist world, "I need a trim; take off about an inch and a half" means "take off five inches and give me layers." My hair looks good now, but I think we all know it's going to be what my family calls "BIG hair" tomorrow morning. It's okay. I preemptively went to Wal-Greens and got a headband. Pillow, do your worst.

Suspect your lawyer and control your elephant

As most of you know, I started the full-time copyedit phase of my job; I spend six hours a day (on average) reading the Cause of Action book my company publishes. This is the third edition; it comes out in January. Contact me for ordering info if you are a Texas lawyer/law student or just phenomenally bored.

The Causes of Action book basically tells you all the major reasons you can sue someone and how to prove your case if you do. Sometimes this is irrelevant and mind-numbing (Usury, Abuse of Process, and Conversion), and sometimes it's fascinating, usually in a sick way (Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, Defamation, and Fiduciary Duty). And sometimes you get a mixed reaction that makes you go, hm, this is why Law and Order has been on T.V. for the past 75 years. For example, Premesis Liability. Doesn't sound terribly interesting, and in fact I thought I was going to have to have an extra shot of caffeine to get me through it. However, included in Premesis Liability is the idea of Attractive Nusiance, whereby children wander onto property and drown in pits or get killed by arcing electricity because they don't know better. Then the premesis owner has to pay through the nose.

Right now I'm reading the Legal Malpractice chapter, which is interesting but it's not doing anything to convince me that attorneys are nice and/or competent people. There are a disturbing number of cases that are like, "Attorney conspired to lengthen trial to increase fees" and so on.

The best chapter I've read so far has been Animal Actions. Mostly it was people being bitten by dogs or attacked by rabbits or something, although I did learn that bees are tameable, and if your bees attack someone you're liable. But the reason this was the best chapter ever was because of what I call the "Siegfried and Roy" subsection on Wild Animal Actions. Unfortunately we mentioned no cases involving white tigers, but there was an elephant escape, a deer attack (yeah, I didn't know deer were particularly vicious), and a contrary, irritable, and nervous type of horse named Crowbar. Good times.

Geeker Joy: English Major Version

If you don't love PBS already, let me explain to you why you should. Three words: Regency. House. Party.

When I was flipping through the channels Wednesday night and ran across a servant in a wig going down the stairs of some dimly lit house, I thought, hm, maybe this is a production of some Victorian novel that I can watch for a point or two on the GRE subject test.

Oh, no. No, it's far better than that. Five men and five women from England are living for two months as if they're in Regency England. (If you don't know, the Regency era ran from 1811-1820. Think Pride & Prejudice, more or less.) They've been assigned roles, and they're supposed to attempt to make an advantageous marriage. I don't really see how any of them are going to be able to do that, given that they're only allowed one bath a week and no deoderant. Of course, there are 36 chamber pots in the house, so maybe B.O. isn't the real problem. The chaperones aren't helping, either, even though one of them is a real-life countess. (She hooked up with the Mr. Bingley character in the first week, I think. Good work there.)

The best part, though? There's a hermit. Evidently there was a "back to nature" movement during the Regency, so wealthy landowners would let part of their acreage grow wild and then hire a guy to be the hermit. Basically he would take port with the master once a week and jump out from behind the bushes to scare the ladies. This guy, who's played on the show by an artist, spends the rest of his time cooking things over and open fire and hitting on the chick who's playing the lady's companion.

I don't think I can really explain to you how great this show is. It hits on all my English major fantasies (guys in waistcoats, parasols, romance and complicated dancing) and is hilarious to boot. Need I remind you: hermit. Hermit hermit hermit. And also, snuff.

Yes, Wiglaf and Chalantly need to have their pizza and go to bed

I swung by Kro-GRR tonight after a meet-and-greet for Rice's new president. I ran out of milk this morning, plus I needed some fruit and frozen delights for lunch this week. (I also bought a turkey, but that's neither here nor there.) I was standing in the typically long check-out line, idly flipping through Time and observing that there are far too few blue states on the map of the U.S. right now. I noticed a couple behind me. The woman was in her early forties, holding a squash of some sort, bossing around a man of the same age holding an 8-oz. package of sliced mushrooms. They were trying to find a shorter line, but in that store it's like looking for a polar bear in a blizzard.

"Is that all you have?" I asked. "Would you like to go ahead of me?"
The man looked surprised. "Oh, that's just so nice of you. Are you sure?"
"Oh, yeah, no problem. Plenty of people have done it for me before. Go ahead." I waved them ahead of me with the magazine.
"Well, that is just so sweet," the woman said. "Especially since your children are probably waiting at home for you."

I had to mentally check myself to keep my jaw from dropping on the spot.

I don't have kids! Do I look like I have kids? I'm 23 years old, and I look it. I had my hair up tonight and I was wearing slacks, so maybe you could add a couple of years at most, but I'm certainly not at that age where people can assume that I have children. Am I?

I don't ever even want to have children. But I realize there will come a point when people may just take as given that I have, as Tex put it earlier today, "cursed the earth with [my] seed." I just didn't realize that point was now. Maybe I need to get some hipper clothing, something like the screaming yellow translucent blouse and black mini-skirt worn by the med student trolling for dates at the alumni gathering I attended tonight. Evidently my tan slacks and maroon sleeveless shirt aren't getting it done.

Or maybe it was the fact that I had a frozen pizza and multiple half-gallons of milk in my cart, I don't know. I don't have any idea what it was that made this woman assume that I had children. I smiled at her and said in a lame, "Yes, my non-existent children. My cats."

I think I should probably just be glad she didn't ask when the baby was due.