Category Archives: The Almighty TV

Mother Tongue

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Daily, Good Stuff, Muse, Random Shit, The Almighty TV, The Weather, Totally normal, WTF?

I forgot to put up my post about the Golden Globes. Well, that implies that I wrote a post about the Golden Globes and that’s a blatant lie, so there you go. I’ve had far more important things to do. First of all, I worked like, almost a full week last week, y’all. I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I was so done with my work people by Friday that I looked at my boss at one point and said, “Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Just shut up.” Oh yeah. True story.

Anyway, this weekend I was all I’m gonna organize! I’m gonna get shit done! I’m gonna I’m gonna I’m gonna! and now it’s Sunday night and I haven’t even finished that one load of laundry. HOWEVER. I’ve yet to find a person out there who hasn’t read Stieg Larsson’s Millienium trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc.) and I’ve been anxious to watch the movie. A quick search of the on-demand movie channel revealed that the first two books are now movies in Swedish with English subtitles. Let this not deter you, Internet! These movies are OUTSTANDING.

If you’ve read them, you know how graphic they are and the movies do the nasty parts some serious justice. They are entertaining and stick with the story pretty closely, but by far the most fun for me was learning Swedish words. For instance, did you know that “okay” in English and “okay” in Swedish are the same? ME EITHER. And “holy shit” and “what the fuck” sound exactly the same, except with extra syllables. I always thought Spanish was fun, but Swedish? Well. I haven’t asked anyone about this officially, but I’m pretty sure Swedish is a combo of German, French and English, and maybe some other languages, and they use all those fun letters with the dots and slashes through them, like the No Smoking signs. SO FUN, RIGHT?!

Now this is interesting: I just looked on Wikipedia and it turns out that Swedish is the official language of Finland, too. Which totally confuses me, because I would think that Finnish would be Finland’s language, but does that mean that Finnish isn’t a language? Or do people in Finland not like their own language? Or is it like Canada, where people speak English but probably don’t want to, and feel like Americans just shoved English down their throats and so they rebel by saying “oot the door” and other weird stuff?

These are the questions that keep me up…in the afternoon. I didn’t even nap today thinking about this stuff. I blame Stieg Larsson.

In other news, everyone in these movies drives a Volvo. Or, if they’re executives at their jobs, they drive Audis or Mercedes. Can you imagine living somewhere where there isn’t a tacky 12 year-old domestic death trap parked on every street corner? Me either. And all the houses in Stockholm looked really quaint but modern and Ikea-y and the rural towns have names like Uppsala and Hedestad. I said on Facebook today that I wanted to plan a trip to Sweden soon and one of my friends sent me the current weather in Stockholm, which was 22 degrees, and I said that I didn’t mind because hello? It’s colder than that in Pittsburgh today. (I only know that because I’m watching the Steelers play the Jets, and that’s only because my friend Kristen showed me Heinz Field when I was there a few months ago and now I feel beholden to Pennsylvania.)

Tomorrow I’m going to see the lu-lu doctor, which is not the vagina doctor. Apparently this is confusing to some people. I’m going to ask her what I’m supposed to do about taking my crazy meds when I’m sick with a stomach virus, and also about Ambien amnesia, which is happening more and more. Maybe I’ll come out of there with some new prescriptions, and if that’s the case, I’ll be sure to let you know what’s good and new on the crazytrain market.

Until then…

Var är toaletten? (I’m asking you where the toilet is, please, when I’m in Sweden. Or Finland.)

This is MISS AMERICA, y’all

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, The Almighty TV

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have possibly seen my (12 billion) tweets last night about the Miss America pageant. I’m not shamed, people. I watch this shit and have watched it religiously since I was a tot, camping out in the living room at home or in my Nana’s kitchen, waiting with baited breath to see if Miss North Carolina would do our state proud. I don’t care who she is, where she’s from, if she’s ass ugly or if she’s got 6 heads; I’m pulling for that girl and cussing all the other hussies when they take her top 10 spot. Bitches.

Anyway, over the last 5 years or so, the Miss America pageant has suffered a loss of viewers and pageant organizers have been desperate to win them back. There was the Swimsuit Uproar that allowed contestants to choose a one-piece. There was the host switch-up that was so painful I almost deserted those 53 precious pumpkins. Then there was the venue change, the reality-show component, the we’ll-try-anything-to-get-people-to-take-us-seriously stunts.

Last night though, Miss America returned to ABC with perfectly respectable Chris Harrison (The Bachelor) and Brooke Burke (Dancing with the Stars). There were only a few moments of cheese and behind-the-scenes, and the interview questions were inane, but overall it was a delight to longtime watchers. I mean, I didn’t actually ask those other 4 longtime watchers, but I feel I can speak for them.

MIss America 2011, Teresa Scanlan, Miss Nebraska

 

I tell you what though, there were two girls who just defied explanation. There was Miss Delaware, who has a tragic case of alopecia and is very proud of her wigs and hairpieces and such, and there was Miss Arkansas, whose enviable talent was – are you FREAKING READY FOR THIS – Yodeling Ventriloquism. If only I could make this up, y’all. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before and hopefully like nothing I’ll ever be blinded by again.

The winner was Miss Nebraska, Teresa Scanlan, who is but a baby at 17. The hair and makeup put her at least at 26 if not 35, and she is blonde, which my gal Ashley Gross noted has been missing the last few years. Hot dog for her, quelle horror for Miss North Carolina Adrienne Core, who didn’t make the top 10. She did, however, win the talent competition earlier in the week and for that we are proud.

Miss Hawaii Jalee Fuselier (Lifestyle & Fitness) and Miss North Carolina Adrienne Core (Talent)

 

The one where January bites back

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Anxiety, Daily, Lamenting, Muse, Random Shit, The Almighty TV, Totally normal, WTF?

If writing is an exercise, I’m about as lazy and out of shape as one can be. I’ve been practicing a little with logging my dreams (see recent posts) but writing about my life is, well, a bit overwhelming. Many of you reading have blogs yourselves, and most of you have regular schedules of posting. There are Monday these and Wednesday those, and sections and lists that your readers count on. I used to do that here, and then life got in the way.

I vow to try really hard to remember to use my muscles a little more often.

Since Christmas, the house has been quiet but tumultuous, if that’s possible. I had a three week break from school over the holidays, which I really enjoyed but which threw my circadian rhythm off so much so that I worried for days about oversleeping on my first day back. The first week back was a blur of training, registration, lesson planning, putting out fires and getting back into a regular sleep schedule. The second week back was about as awful as I would expect in January. We discovered mistakes we’d made with advising this past semester and had to rectify those quickly, until it snowed and I got the stomach flu and we had extended drop/add and my co-workers were short staffed and OH GOD THE STOMACH FLU.

From what I know, it’s spread like wildfire around this town. From what I’ve heard, it’s all over everywhere. I think I’d rather be shot in the toes than have that again. Not even kidding.

So I guess the point of my story is that my mind has been elsewhere and I’ve suffered because of it. There are so many things that I think Oh! I need to remember to blog about that! and then a day goes by and I forget, or it’s not relevant anymore. I watched some serious TV over both the holiday and The Illness of January, and I’m happy to report that “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is my new discovery. It’s just…genius. I can’t believe I hadn’t found it before, but I owe that show a debt of gratitude for helping me climb out of a panic attack the other day. The thing about a stomach bug is that if I can’t keep anything inside me (I know this is gross, but most of y’all are moms and your gross-o-meter should be tolerating higher stuff than this) I can’t keep my medication regulated. So it stands to reason that without the good drugs, I am a pure-T nutcase. I’m telling you, this week was not pretty.

Catching up on Google Reader was a treat this week, as I’m woefully behind on my reading and have so much more to go. A lot of your posts have given me good ideas and some have even helped me come up with things to talk about in my class this semester. Y’all are so smart. I feel so…inferior.

In other news, things that have been rocky are slowly rocking themselves back right again. I wish so much that I could talk about this here, but the important thing is that you know I am and will always be a shiny, sparkling, extra wonderful, fantastical rock star. I just don’t see how you could argue otherwise. I didn’t make new year’s resolutions because frankly, who keeps them? (not me), and most of them cost money (gym, diet crap, buy a fancy planner, buy organization shit that will sit in a bag for a year) so I just scrapped that plan. Instead I am resolving NOTHING. I promise you absolutely nothing, I don’t guarantee a single thought, idea or gesture, and I surely am not planning to live up to anyone’s expectations.

See what I did here? I lowered your opinion of me so when I do good shit, you’ll be all surprised and impressed. I said it already: I’m a genius.

Finally, this exercise of the writing here has sparked some ideas so I’ll be back in the next few days to write specifically and, perhaps, intelligently. I ask that you stick with me, and I ask that you do this one huge thing for me that would make me happier than all the Doritos on the planet: send your love, your happy thoughts, your prayers for good and your healing powers to my friend. She is an even brighter and shinier star than I, and she needs a few peanuts in her gallery.

Thanks bunches.

Gettin’ Slizzered

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Anxiety, Daily, Muse, Random Shit, The Almighty TV, Totally normal, WTF?

Some people in the morning, after they are caffeinated, are all buzzy and chipper and energetic and some kind of shit like that. In the morning, I have a moderate amount of caffeine in my Diet Coke Pepsi, go on about my day and that’s that.

It’s at the nighttime, the glorious nighttime!, when my wild buzzy chipper side awakes and my smart, practical Ambien is supposed to take me back down to lala land. I’ve discovered though that when the Ambien is having a half-ass workday, my productivity goes WAY up. Case in point: tonight I take the Ambien a little before 9. I get in bed, watch the end of a football and basketball game, and decide to check Twitter one last time. But see The Bloggess has this gravy pony thing for arthritis going on, and then someone talks about how many DMs they get and I’m jealous, and then I get the idea to throw a last minute New Year’s Day supper and OOH! the recipes I can find on Food Network right now!, and it’s fucking almost midnight again for the 17th time in a week (yes, I did the math), and I’m sort of feeling great. My mind is racing but in a hyper-productive way, not in an panicky one. Let me step from behind my keyboard, though, and then I’m all swimmy, I can run and hop and skip through the house eating whipped peanut butter and honey, and being none the wiser until the morning. Because somewhere in all that I have finally crashed.

There are the other kinds of nights in between the zonked out immediately and the night I’m having tonight. Those in betweens are shitty because I don’t get the mania and I don’t get the sleepy and so instead I have insomnia and I’m annoyed at TV and I’m hungry for…what does Taco Bell call it? Fourth Meal?…yeah, I’m hungry for Fourth Meal.

Mmm…Fourth Meal. Happy Meal. Full Meal from Waffle House. Waffles with bacon. Fried hot dog wrapped in bacon from Food Network. Ooh, Food Network at this hour.

This is my brain, and it’s on Ambien.

Other than my self-diagnosed addiction to refined carbohydrates, I have never been addicted to anything other than cigarettes. Alcohol is a for-fun thing for me that I don’t really miss when it’s not there. But I can see – just a little, tiny, eensy little bit – how people can be dependent on a drug. I believe that if I had an addictive personality, this would be the easiest drug to abuse. You take one or two, don’t fall asleep and HELLO! the fun begins.

Full disclosure: If I got behind the wheel of a car right now, I would arrest myself faster than I could buckle my seatbelt. If I tried to text right now, my text would read as a 13 y.0.’s and if I were to carry on a conversation, I would plan grand things and tell you tall tales of my childhood.All of this is why I am restricted to the computer – Twitter, email and the blog – when it’s bedtime, on the off chance I stay up and do some accidental damage.

Getting slizzered, for me, is mainly harmless because I try to limit potential dangers. Some days it works, others it doesn’t, but I am never anywhere but inside my bed when I ingest that pill. So, to sum it all up, henceforth I am campaigning for Internet breathalyzers, or otherdrugalyzers that can measure your level of inhibition and stop you immediately from shitty blog posts, dumbass emails to people, and posting pictures on your Facebook page that will inevitably ruin your political career 30 years from now.

Trust me on this, Internet.

While sitting idly by

Posted by Elizabeth in Addiction to, Beach, Daily, Good Stuff, Listing, Muse, Random Shit, The Almighty TV, The Weather

One of my friends on Twitter this week said that she was thinking of starting a petition to keep me from going MIA. Don’t do it, Ashley; you will disappoint your signers. If my fucking HTC Eris Android phone ever starts to work again (VERIZON: Fucking get Apple to fucking let you sell the fucking iPhone al-fucking-ready, wouldya?) I could set an alarm on my calendar for blogging days and not get behind. Really I blame this all on the Droid. Who names a phone “Droid” anyway? Nerds need to get new lingo.

A few thoughts and observations, in no particular order, about no particular or singularly fascinating thing:

My friend called me tonight to tell me that he ran into the woman he THOUGHT he was dating, except she was having dinner with another man – her steady boyfriend. The “other man” was wearing a blue wife-beater, a camouflage hat and a gold rope chain. My friend wears tweed sport coats and those leather driving moccasins with the buckles. The irony was not lost on us.

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I went to the beach this week and it was absolutely beautiful. Fall is my favorite season anyway, and anywhere, but the beach this time of year is perfect. The crowds are gone, the air is crisp and salty and the seafood is extra fresh and comes quickly. Days are warm, nights are cool, and any time of day you can watch huge white yachts cruise by on their way to warmer climates. You really can’t beat it with a stick. True story: some giant rusty barge slammed into the side of a really shiny yacht from the British Virgin Islands while we were having lunch on a dock. It was kind of awesome. (I’m not evil; no one got hurt, except the side of the shiny expensive gigantically huge rich people’s yacht.)

I went to the beach this week because we’re on fall break and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I always lust for vacations from work because, let’s face it, I don’t like to work. I don’t like to do much of anything, really. But what always happens has happened again: I got home from my trip, have had a few days to myself and I’ve wound up couch-potato-ing the days away because I am out of my routine. I’m like a three year-old who missed a nap. When I’m out of my routine, I don’t take my crazy meds on time, I sleep too late, I take too many naps and I have chronically dirty hair. Not to mention the fact that the pantry mysteriously gets emptier and emptier. Remind me of all this two weeks from now when I’m counting the days until Thanksgiving.

What I need to do is grade papers, calculate percentage points, pay my business taxes before I get sent to jail and finish up invitation orders already. Someone tell me how YOU get motivated when there’s all this free time ahead of you, because frankly I’m stumped.

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In other news, the famed Power-Tool Pumpkin Carving Party is next weekend and as usual, we don’t have a pumpkin yet. Also as usual, I’m worried about what to wear around the 20-somethings. If I wear clogs, they’re in boots. If I wear jeans, they’re in cords. If I wear a sweater, they wear t-shirts and those infinity scarf things. If I didn’t actually care whether or not a 20-something looked my way, I’d drink more pumpkin ale.

Also in other, scarier, news…there is an arsonist loose in our neighborhood. I’m not even remotely kidding and I get terrified every time I leave the house that I’ll come back to fire trucks. Two houses that were recently vacated have burned in the last 6 weeks, and that’s just on the next street over from us. There have been other fires nearby and the police have resorted to fliers asking for leads in exchange for reward money. This is quite unsettling, and yes, we’ve checked the smoke alarm batteries.

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The Seven Year Itch. Yeah, Internet, we’re gonna talk about it. Not right now, of course, because that’s a whole other casserole in the oven. But it’s there. IT’S THERE. I’m referring of course to relationships and not a condition that requires vagina cream, if you were wondering.

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Finally, I miss – like, in my bones and my heart and my soul – my co-workers, specifically my shiny light, C. This new job is fantastic, wears me out, makes me feel challenged and yadda yadda but I don’t see her every day anymore. I actually don’t see her at all and our phone conversations are short and somewhat stilted. I love her more than life and I miss her deeply. Don’t let people fool you: your co-workers are closer to your heart than you think, whether you love them or hate them. When you leave them or vice versa, you will miss them. Mark my words.

I’m going to bed, y’all. I’m going to sleep well because the windows are open and it’s 40 something degrees out – YES, BITCHES, THE HEAT IS GONE! I AM NOT SWEATING! HALLEFLAPPINGLUJAH! – but I will dream about this blog and wonder if you’re still out there reading.

I sincerely hope you are.