Hazards of Driving

Well, it was that time of year again...or time of my life, rather.

I packed myself up, threw it all into the Monstrosity and headed back down the Alaskan Highway-- only I changed it up and instead of spending weeks on end (or so it seemed) mucking through Canada, I didn't bother trekking across the country and instead took a sharp dive southward and kept going till I hit...Texas.

I hate Texas. And not just because I spent a year living in a dirt hole. No, I just...dislike it strongly.

I'm currently suffering from culture shock. Not all that surprising considering where I came from. I always seem to suffer from culture shock, or rather reverse culture shock. Going back to where I came always throws me for a loop. When I get somewhere odd, the culture shock never really gets me. When I went to Scotland, I adjusted easily. It was when I came back that was hard. It took months for me to feel at ease again and not constantly thinking, "That's wrong..."

When I left the Dirt Hole all those moons ago and went back to Chicagoland, it was the same thing. I was overwhelmed by the cars, people, stop signs, speed limits and where I was. I grew up in the area. It's seared into my mind's eye to the point it's easy for me to call up areas and write stories about them without needing Google Maps. And yet, I drove around with my Texas plated car and got passed on suburban streets for going too slow (also known as the speed limit) and beeped at when I actually used stop signs.

You see, I forgot how the people of Chicagoland drove. While I loved them for their predictability  I'd forgotten their lack of use of speed limits and stop signs. After living in the dirt hole where it was cause for celebration when someone went the speed limite and you got a ticket when you failed to come to a stop for three seconds, it was jarring to realize I'd get run over if I ventured out onto the interstates of Illinois.

So, I didn't. I kept to the mean suburban streets and thanked God I had Texas plates.

When I arrived in Alaska, I don't remember finding things jarring. They were strange, but in a similar way Scotland was strange once I got over the jet lag. They drove fast during bad weather and slow during good weather. Generally speaking, Anchorage drivers were predictable and I never honestly feared for my life when I drove around the city. I drove around with ease and never one felt road rage or had the urge to announce I was a FIB, don't mess with me. (This happened often in the Dirt Hole...)

I honestly can't say that during the times we visited the Chicago area during our three years in Anchorage, I feared for my life whilst in the car. I even drove a few times...I never wanted to scream, never wanted to hide or close my eyes and pray.

San Antonio....oh, how I hate you and your love affair with highways/interstates/access roads.

One thing I learned during my few visits to SA during my tenure in the Dirt Hole was this: SA drivers are not predictable.

Honestly. You never have any idea what the hell they might do at any given point. They go slow for no reason, change lanes without warning, fail to look when they merge and kind of just...scare the living crap out of me. The lanes are also extremely...narrow. And while they know how to paint lines (something no one in Anchorage has gotten the hang of for unknown reasons), sometimes they just don't paint lines and the road is SUPER WIDE and you've got no idea how many lanes a road has.

And I have only drive through SA once in my life. In a small s40. And I only drove on the interstate and never had to get off.

You can't get anywhere without using the interstates and loops and access roads here. It is confusing, annoying and frankly frightening because you never know what someone is going to do. And most people have HUGE trucks.

Granted, I've got a huge truck like vehicle, but still.

I refuse to drive. Pilot Boy keeps mocking me, as I love civilization and hate being in the middle of nowhere, and yet I'm a hermit.

A well dressed hermit who loves hangers, but still a hermit. Even more so now that we've only got one car and I refuse to drive it.

Anywhere.

I'll drive when I get to where I'm actually going, which is in the middle of nowhere Oklahoma. Till then, I'll sit around a pine for Anchorage and the mean suburban streets of Chicagoland (which are way less scary than the road system of SA).

After all this why...

Ten years ago, on 11 September, I was seated in the cafeteria. I had no homework to speak of because I was a senior and just seemed to lack homework in general. So, I was writing in my "journal." (It is in quotes, because I had two journals in high school. A public one and a private one.) Here is what was going through my head the moment I hear the news:

September 11, 2001: I've come to the conclusion I will always have an odd ball obsession with That Guy. You see, most of my childhood crushes, they went away and the person left too. That Guy never left. He's always lurking around in the background, always there. And when he wasn't for a semester what happened? B. And now he's almost nowhere and on my mind 24/7. When I'm not pondering B, I'm pondering That Guy. I swear it is the last name. Generally when I'm thinking or talking about That Guy, it's always That Guy Insert Last Name, though after five years of him I still can't spell it. And now he's remotely cute and people like BF think so, I am just so grrred. And it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have B in my ear whispering, "i love you babe." Then I feel guilty for thinking about That Guy and those dreams... B either scares me or makes me melt by how much he loves me. At times I feel like a sap b/c I feel like a "7th Heaven" character. Then I wonder will I really marry him? Okay, they just made some announcement that I did not hear, but I bargain someone or people died. I did catch "mom of silence," "world trade center," and "airplane." But, I guess I'll hear later. 


Anyways, back to B. I really don't know what to do with him. At times I love him, miss him, want him near, but then That Guy, who I have next to no chance with, floats into my head. I will never comprehend what that was all about. And then I'm not sure. And then there's this car thing. What is that all about? So what, BF can drive if you can. It's just a car, not a baby. Grrrr....it's hard to juggle people. You know, I'm a bad person. How can I love someone I can hardly ever say anything nice about? I'm one screwed up girl. You know what, I'll probably get an ulcer and it won't be from any pain pills or drugs.


"I need to get away and find something to do. Cause everything I do reminds me of you." -Goldfinger, "Counting the Days"


Later: Okay, big day in history. The two World Trade Towers collapsed after two airplanes flew into them. The Pentagon had a plane fly into it and another hijacked plane crashed in PA. My dad's stuck in San Antonio, thank god he wasn't flying. Third hour we watched CNN. It was surreal watching both towers crumble to the ground. Just thinking I was there and now it's gone. It was just odd. I don't think Dad was coming home today. Plus, all the planes that were hijacked were transcontinental, ie NY to LA. So, I'm figuring that he's just stuck in San Antonio. There's talk of war and such. I'm finding this all hard to believe. It's like straight out of a movie. That's what all the news footage I've seen has looked like. Like the second plane flying straight into Tower Two while the first ones burning. Then the two falling to the ground live on TV. I don't know. I just want to go home and see the news. I need pictures. Well, and I gotta call B. Oh god. I have to deal with this on the retreat. It's like (almost) Columbine. Well, large scale. To put it mildly I'm grrified. It's just surreal. I've never lived through something t his big. I mean, it was announced during school. They didn't announce Columbine. This will be in the history books. My kids might ask me where I was when I heard. I was sitting in my 2nd hour study hall pinning over That Guy and B, wondering what I was going to do. At least my dad wasn't flying. Stupid SBC. If they just followed their stupid travel ban maybe....grrr.....grr....grr. I'm just glad he wasn't in NY or DC. Thank God.

Well, there you have it. That is what Ireland Scott was doing ten years ago. And my reaction to when I actually heard what happened. You see, at the time, there were no speakers in the lunchroom, thus none of us who were in there heard what the hell was announced. We all just looked at one another in a confused manner and the two teachers in with us, kind of shrugged. When the bell rang, we were the ONLY people talking. The whole school was utterly silent. And none of us who were in 2nd hour study hall had a clue what was going on, as no one was speaking. Everyone was just walking around in silence. I went to my locker and then got my stuff. I walked to my 3rd hour class: US Government. I was beginning to get a bit freaked out, as NO ONE WAS TALKING. My teacher, Mr. E, was standing in all his Nordic glory, but he had the gravest, freakiest face on in the world. (he kind of looked like Erik from True Blood, now that I think about it, when he's being all freaky serious). Usually, Mr. E smiled and greeted me as I entered, but on that day, he just stared at me. I was like, "What the hell is going on here?"

The TV was on, and turned onto CNN or something. I don't honestly remember which channel Mr. E chose to watch. I just remember sitting down and staring at the TV wondering what movie he was watching. Then, I realized, it wasn't a movie: IT WAS REAL.

It never sunk in what I was looking at. I just sat there the whole hour, watching the live footage, watching the other footage of when the first plane hit. I watched the first tower and second tower crumble that hour.

Then I went to lunch. I think I wrote that second half of my journal entry at lunch. Or not, as I think I sat with someone that semester for lunch. It was just so surreal going through the day. All I wanted to do was watch the news, even though I knew after the second tower fell, there wasn't much else we could watch. I spent the rest of the day shocked we were still going through the day. Only one teacher actually held class that day. Our physics teacher went on as nothing was going on.

My mother also picked me up because my father (who was indeed in SA and was supposed to fly home the next day) was fearful what the nutjobs in our town would do to the Islamic Center that was behind our high school. The cops had the same fears as they were out in full force when I got out of school. They were there for several days after as well.

The other clear memory was when I heard the first plane after September 11th. I was walking home from school and totally freaked out because I had no clue what the noise was. You'd think growing up under a landing pattern for O'Hare, I'd know what a plane sounded like.

I've asked Pilot Boy several times his memories on September 11th, but he can't tell me much of anything. Which is normal for Pilot Boy. He doesn't remember much of anything that isn't about flying an airplane. He doesn't remember half the things I remember clearly....like the first time I drove down to Purdue for 24 hours just to see him, when I first showed up to LEAD...and sometimes he doesn't remember clearly the events of the day he asked me to marry him.  At least he remembers me...

freaking fanstastic

On Saturday morning, Pilot Boy and I got up earlier than we wished in order to eat, dress and be bundled up in order to go see the Iditarod. Having never been to a dog race before (of any kind) I did not really know what to expect. I did though, expect the race to be all the dog sleds taking off at relatively the same moment. Like they do at most races. I expected to see dogs running by me, barking and shouting.

I got the barking.
I got the shouting.
But there were no mass of dogs running around.

They do a "ceremony" start on Saturday, the real start of the race the next day at someplace called Willow Lake. This is due to something about permits to run along the highway out of town. Or something. Anyways, so the dogs run around town just for show. And they do not run at the same time, they run every five minutes, so it takes like four hours to get all the sleds "started."

Pilot Boy and I got to the race track (which was piles of trucked in snow packed down in the street) about an hour before the actual start. We got pretty close to the start point and moved into a spot right along the fence. I remained relativly excited till about 20 minutes before when the a boy showed up and made a comment about being cold.

"I'm cold, so I only want to see the first three start. You know they wait like five minutes between sleds," he told the woman he was with.

I looked at Pilot Boy and was like, "I can't feel my toes."

Wearing warm socks (SmartWool, ski socks) and Bog boots do not keep your feet warm. In the least. They might be rated for below freezing, but my feet, since leaving Chicago, have ALWAYS been cold when I go out for extended periods in them. By the time the "race" started, I could not feel my fingers in my super duper gloves. Why pay so much money for super gloves and after an hour you can't feel your fingers? I was warm everywhere else simply standing around except in the fingers and toes. So the long johns work.

The race finally began after much fanfare I could not see, but I could hear. Then, the dogs began running by. Every five minutes. We stayed for the first two and before the third one appeared, I was like, "I can't feel my fingers or toes any more. And this is sort of boring."

Pilot Boy agreed, so after seeing a Scots man run by in a kilt (I bet he was a lot colder than I was in that kilt), we headed back to the car. As we walked along the track, we saw a few more sleds go by and got to stand right next to the track after we got off 4th Ave. That was pretty cool, much cooler than standing right near the start point.

We finally made it to the car and tried to get warm before heading to the store for some food. We spent a lot of time waiting for Chinese food from Carrs (oddly, pretty good), then came back to our home for the time being. Basil Dog was over joyed to see us and we actually got to watch the last hour of the Iditarod race on TV. While it was cool to say I went, I think next year I might just remain home in a cozy shell to watch the start on TV.

It snowed all day yesterday. And it is snowing now. I talked to my dad yesterday back in Chicago, and he said the snow back there was melting and also an icy mess. I think, after seeing snow since October, snow might be getting old by now, but for me, I still like the snow. I like the cold, I only wish I had more clothes. lol!

Jumping the bandwagon

I first heard Micheal Jackson was dead from someone's facebook status update. Thinking it had to be a joke, I went to Google News, which only told me he was suffering from a heart attack.

At some point yesterday, he was dead. Declared dead, confirmed dead. He was dead.

Last night, BET was playing Micheal Jackson videos. For lack of better things to watch, my husband and I watched Micheal dance one last time, for as you well know, now that he's really dead, the music video is truly dead.

The music video has been dead for awhile. It died at some point at the dawn of the new century, when MTV and VH1 ceased to actually play videos and moved on to playing the dumbest, stupidest reality TV shows. Micheal Jackson made the music video into an art form. Have you seen "Thriller?" MTV was made into what it was supposed to be by that video. Jackson's videos all had plots in them. There was always a story in there, usually having to do with what the song was babbling about. His dancing was always perfect and went along with the music. I have seen many Micheal Jackson videos (I know I have not seen them all, as this morning when VH1 and MTV finally played some, I did see a few I had never seen before). However, I have seen many. I've seen them mostly on "Pop Up Video" which is one of my all time favorite things in the word to watch, as I could watch music videos all day long and having random tid bits of information is just all the better.

Last night, as I watched the "mini-movie" that "You Rock My World" and I began thinking, "There is a lot of Micheal Jackson in Justin Timberlake." I did not realize at the time, that video was from 2001, so it might have been the other way around, but as I watched this mini-movie music video, I realized the music video was dead.

When you think about it, what is the last music video you've been excited to see? When was the last time you stopped what you were doing in order to watch a music video? When was the last time you actually saw ALL of a music video? When was the last time a music video debuted on prime time television?

I think I might have been in first grade or second grade, when the Dangerous Album came out and "Black or White" premiered on prime time TV...I think on TGIF Friday maybe? I do not exactly remember, but I do remember everyone at school being excited to see it on TV that night, and one just had to watch. I do not remember much about watching it, I do remember it was the most popular song at the talent show that year. Of course, I had no idea what the song was about or why it was such a big deal until I saw the video when I was in junior high or high school on "Pop Up Video."

I also remember being shocked when I found out Micheal Jackson was black, as throughout my childhood as far as I knew he was a funny looking white guy. I think it was my mom who pointed out that the black child who was the lead singer of The Jackson 5 was the same Micheal Jackson who had the little nose and white face. I also really figured this out more when I watched the movie/long tv show/drama thing about the Jacksons.

As I entered junior high and the boy bands all started coming out, I remember thinking Micheal Jackson wasn't cool. I did like his song, "You Are Not Alone," which to this day is the only Micheal Jackson song I own, as it was nominated for a Grammy, thus on the Grammy CD I own. That was the music video with Lisa Maire Prestly and I couldn't figure out how they had made it when Jackson was showing so much skin.

There will always be an elephant in the room when we think of Micheal Jackson, because his crazy, mixed up personal life over shadowed his talent as a performer. However, that talent is perserved in the countless music videos he made. His crazy personality does show through in most of the videos, so he is not totally lost.

What is totally lost is the music video. The last music video I watched in full was Britney's "Have U Seen Amy." It casused a buzz because of its "dirty" chorus, which I guess I'm stupid becasue I don't get it. I also didn't really get the video. Most of todays videos I don't get. Most of them are tasteless and stupid. None of them are truely sexy or artful. While I have a hard time taking Michael Jackson as sexy, his videos are artful and thought provoking. There might be sexy, artful videos out there, but I'll never seen them because MTV, VH1 and the various other "music" channels don't play music videos, as they do not think people want to watch music videos. I used to not be able to live without MTV and VH1 for the music videos. Now, if I did not have these channels, I wouldn't notice, as I do not watch them any more. I think a lot of people feel as I do.

I believe Micheal Jackson changed music, he used music videos to do this. I don't think he would have become what he did, professionally, without music videos. He gave us the form of the music video that was copied for years. He created stories in his videos, they were not just him standing around singing, there was always a theme.

Some poeple out there think he's getting too much attention and he shouldn't get it due to the elephant in the room. Farah Fawcett died on the same day as Micheal. However, we all knew she was going to die, as she's been fighting cancer for awhile now and it was rumored she was getting worse. Micheal came out of left field and caught us all off guard. If you look at the two of them, I'm going to have to say that Jackson had more of an impact than Fawcett. She gave us a hair cut, one season of Charlie's Angels and a poster. Jackson gave us countless music videos, years of high jinks, and music that shaped a whole generation (and then some) lives. Everyone's got a memory linked to a Micheal Jackson song. I can't say I've got much linked to Fawcett other than the fact my mother told me she couldn't get her hair to do that Farah Fawcett cut. I'm not saying Fawcett should not be mourned, I'm just saying the world's reaction to Micheal Jackson's death is expected. At least, Fawcett will be at rest and her passing will be more peaceful with the world's glare focused on Jackson, who always lived for flash.

Couch Launching

Last year's Superbowl, our friend A lunched himself off our couch at the end of the game as the Patriots lost. I have never seen a man launch himself off a couch such as A did that evening a year ago. I was really happy the Patriots lost, as I hate them for some unknown reason. I would have more than likely have launched myself along with A off the couch if I had known A better, but I had only met him a few weeks before and had yet to allow him to see me do stupid things.

This year, no one launched themselves off the couch, as in reality, none of us truly cared about either team that was playing. The only thing launched was Basil Dog, who launched herself on the couch at R once she re-entered the house after the game.

The Superbowl was a let down for many reasons. There were not a great deal of great plays. There were also a clear lack of really good commercials. My favorite one was the Millier High Life commercial, which was less than a second long and had the High Life guy just yelling HIGH LIFE! Earlier in the day, we had seen a commerical for Miller High Life, with the guy figuring out how much a second of air time duirng the Superbowl would cost and he could get his point across in a second. He did. He rules. If I drank beer, I'd drink Miller just for that one second commerical. The 3-D commericals were lost on us in the dirt hole, due to the fact I never saw the display that was supposed to be selling the glasses (or giving them away?) here in Dirt Hole central. No one else I was with had any idea what I was talking about with the 3-D commerical and glasses. No one believed me because there was a clear lack of red and blue swiggle lines all over the place.

When the Superbowl ended, that was all it did: end. I came home, gave Basil Dog water and cut my husband's hair and then we went to bed. I then had a dream that I had tickets to London, but was worried they wouldn't let me go because my passport had the wrong name on it. Evelyn called to have wine when I got to London and I freaked out and could not fit everything in my suitcases. I woke up before I reached customs.

Still Behind Bars With Frizzy Hair

When I was called for jury duty two years ago and realized I had no idea what the state of the world's affairs were, I promised myself I would try to keep up on the news. And for about a year I did really well. Lately, I've been slacking mostly because most news bores me or depresses me, like it always has. I feel safe in my dirt hole from the big bad jury duty call.

But today, I felt guilty and I was wondering if Conrad had used it get out of free jail card as of yet, or if he had failed to get one.

He failed to get one.

So he's still rotting away in prison. When I read this, it made me happy in a vindictive sort of way. As I went back to the main news page and began scrolling, I notices this story: Ashlee Simpson: Stop Talking About Jessica's Weight.

Huh?

After reading the story and going through the pictures that got the "story" started, I was like, "Dude, she made a bad clothes decision. I stick would look fat in that outfit. God. Get a life media."

The only reason it caught my eye was due to the fact that I wrote about how yesterday Jessica stole my drive.

I've been looking at other people's wedding pictures as of late as well. It is something that I should not do for various reasons, one being I am beginning to not like the batch of pictures I had and I wish I had done more poses with my husband. Just the two of us. We only have two pictures, and he is not smiling in either one. Also, due to the rain of the day and the indecision of my father, my hair looked awful that day. I had taken a shower, then went to blow dry it and just as I finished and it was a HUGE puff ball, my mom was like, "We're not doing the family shots, let's go eat." And I was like, "I HAVE PUFF BALL HAIR! AND IT IS RAINING! I NEED TO GET THIS HAIR STRAIGHT AND FLAT!" She said, "Whatever. let's go."

So I put my hair in a pony tail and left. Two hours later, we had to do the family shots, so it was still in a pony tail. I tried to fix it for the wedding, but it was a lost cause. No matter what I tried to do, nothing worked. The curls I tried to put in wouldn't hold, and the ends looked stringy in a lot of the pictures and I keep thinking, "God, why didn't i just put my hair up?"

Thus, I should not look at pictures, but I do. I find them so easily as well. I am not sure how, because I am never actually looking for them, but I still seem to find them. There are times I wished I had taken the whole picture thing more serious, paid more attention to what was going on, but I let my father handle it for the most part. And when we met with the photographer, I felt okay and didn't think later I'd be sitting around thinking, "God, did I spend any time next to my husband at our wedding?" I also remember thinking when I looked through the picture the first time that some were missing because I remember certain shots the guy had gotten and thinking, "oh, good. I'm glad I'll have a picture of that."

Those all seemed to be missing. The pictures arrived later than promised. I was let down by that and then some of the quality, like the graininess of all the ceremony shots. Also, when I was trying to create a little montage movie of the pictures, when I loaded them onto my old mac, they became even gainer and horrible. I wasn't sure why and I cried a lot. I am not sure what went wrong and when. I loved working with the photographer and his work on his website is still beautiful. He helped make my wedding day the special day that I remember in my head....there are just pictures lacking to represent this head pictures, as in my head my hair looked great and I was beautiful. There are very few times in my life I've felt truly beautiful. I think its happened three times in my whole life. Each time due to my husband.

long time no blog, eh?

Sorry. I have been "busy" with "living life" and developing an obsessive need for a dawg. I have everything I might need for this dawg, not just the dawg yet. No one in the dirt hole has the sort of dawg I crave, desire, want, need, etc. So i have to travel out of the dirt hole, and that takes timing and planning, etc.

Anyways, the Twilight movie is upon us! Ohnoz! People are going crazy! People are upset at being closed out of apperances! Ohnoz! The world has gone to crazy town! I have been following this craziness via Cleolinda's Occupation:Girl and that is all. I get all Twilight info from this website, as she shares my crazy need for Twilight, but not truely understanding the obessive nature of the fangirls towards it. Basically, she makes it funny and I realized reading something today, that is what is missing from the whole thing: funny. Its got no funny charm like Buffy did. Through reading Cleolinda's summaries and take on the whole thing, it became FUNNY! I enjoyed the fourth book purely because I had read her take on the whole thing, and it was fresh in my memory upon reading the book, so I tended to laugh a lot.

I wonder how the dirt hole will handle this craziness?

it seems you wish to give me a lifetime of discounts

Four years ago, I lived in Scotland for awhile. (And I know it was four years ago, because I was over there for the last election, which they were UBER excited about there.) Anyways, I spent a lot of time in Boots. At first my dad thought I was buying boots all the time, on a daily basis. However, I explained to him nicely that I was not buying boots (though I really wanted this kick ass pair of knee high boots at the time, but you could not buy those at Boots). I explained what Boots exactly was: a drugstore (or as they call it there a chemist.) About a day later, he figured out that Boots was really called Boots the Chemist and did not sell boots.

About a week into my life in Scotland, I decided to fill out the little card and get a Boots Advantage Card. It made sense to me as I was going to there awhile and I seemed to be spending a lot of time in Boots. (Which is not that strange, as when I was state side I spent a lot of time in Walgreens.) I am not sure what it is about drug stores, but I love them. I hardly ever actually buy drugs at these drugs stores, but I tend to buy a lot of other things. So, this Advantage Card made total sense to me. By the time I left the country I had managed to get close to 50 or so more pounds on the card, and I managed to get a few nice things for "free." I think when I came home there was still roughly about 5 pounds on the card, which now lives in a scrap book.

Anyways, I left Scotland and came back home and moved back into, well, Target. I left Walgreens for Target in all honesty, but that is another story. Anyways, I did not hear a peep out of Boots until about a year later, when a friend of mine sent me an email in all caps proclaiming TARGET SOLD BOOTS PRODUCTS. Granted, none of the products were the ones I feel in love with (Their Tea Tree Oil line was adored by me and others), but it was still excited to walk down an isle in my local Target and see BOOTS prodcuts. Amazing really.

Then, about a few weeks ago...Boots began to send me emails. Seriously, emails. I was confused on where they had gotten my address. Then I remembered, I had forked over my old email address when I signed up for the card. However, why some four years later did they suddenly miss me? I figured it was a fluke, but the emails have been steadily flooding in since this break of silence. So, today, after getting an email telling me about a half off sale, I decided to write a post about this odd happening. And guess what? Due to the face that TARGET sells Boots now, they have a US WEBSITE! I was shocked beyond all known words as I stared at this. Now, granded they do not sell EVERYTHING that the UK Boots site does (No Tea Tree and Witch Hazel line here, nor FCUK either...tragic, I know), but it is a website to buy thier stuff. But, I do not think this has anything to do with the fact that I began to get emails. Nope. My emails are still all in British, and about British sales, so they still think I live in Scotland at a joint that is no longer a house. It is an office building now! But, it was still interesting.

Almost as interesting as the day my husband and I walked into Walmart here and they were putting up Christmas Trees. In October. Early October, when they should still be freaking out about Halloween. As I walked into find all these horridly ugly trees, I thought, "Oh, this is just like in Scotland! Sort of skip over Halloween in favor of Christmas!" And within a few days, I had a Boots email about their online Christmas sale.

Lovely.

i want give you caaaannndddeeee

So, today, I was tooling through Google News and came upon something that caught my eye: Hugh Hefner splits from Holly Madison. Now, one would think that this would have no barring on my being, yet it does. Tragic I know. I will let you in on a secret: I watch The Girls Next Door and I LIKE IT! OOH NO!!!!!!!!

Anyways, it seems things for Hef aren't going too good, as Kendra is always leaving him. You know, I do not know what he expects. These are all YOUNG GIRLS and he is a VERY OLD MAN.

Anyways, the show has always fascinated me because of what it is and at times I just do not understand. I am an addict of things that I do not understand (WHERE DID SARAH PALIN GET HER ACCENT?!) and Girls Next Door is one of those things I just do not truly understand, yet I cannot look away. It is like watching Passions. I could not understand it, yet I could not look away (until it left NBC for Direct TV or something...or went off the air?) However, I do understand that the show is about Hef's three live in girlfriends. And he just lost two of them. Evidently, Bridget is still around, but abraod...FILMING A SHOW FOR THE TRAVEL CHANNEL!!!!!!

Did I ever tell you that my dream is to be Samantha Brown? Well, it is. And now Bridget is a step closer to being like Samantha Brown because she got a show on the Travel Channel. I am sad.

However, shortly after finding that Bridget might beat me to my dreams of being on the Travel Channel, per a German website, I find out that all three girls have new boyfriends and thus this is why they are leaving Hef. Kendra is enganged?! I....I....I...don't understand!

But I digress, Hef isn't totally heart broken over the loss of two girlfriend (Holly being the "love of his life") as he has clearly moved onto something that is the sterotypical male wish: twins. At the same time. And from that picture on the right, they look like they are orange twins. (Someday, I would like someone to explain to me why people thing that this whole orange thing is atttractive.)

I just told my husband about Kendra and Holly and he asked, "Which one is the ghetto one?"
"Kendra?"
"She's leaving? She's the whoel show!"

Not Exactly Typical Chick Flick Type of Movie

There is a major element is missing from The Woman to make it the typical chick flick: cute boys. Seriously, I do not think we see a single male during The Women, till the end when one of the characters, Eddie (Debra Messing), pops out a baby boy.

The movie is what my husband calls the typical Lifetime movie, the male is painted as the reason for all the injustice in a female's life and is the "bad" guy throughout the movie. This is how many lifetime movies go, and this is how this movie is. We never see the males in this movie, but they are the constant topic of conversation throughout the whole thing. The movie starts off with a showing of high heels that are supposed to represent each character. After we get through this, we open up with Sylvie (Annette Benning) and her Hermes Birkin bag. Yeah, I lost track for a long, long, long, long time due to the fact she was toting around a Hermes Birkin bag. I lost track trying to pick out other things during the movie. However, the Birkin bag was the only purse I could pick out right off the bat. I didn't even need to see the Hermes logo on it to know what it was. Thus, I did not pay attention again, until the purse was gone. However, during this time I guess alot happened. Sylvie found out that the evil man in Mary's life (Meg Ryan with out of control hair!) was her husband and sleeping with the purfume spritzer girl downstairs at Saks. Also, we find out that Eddie has about A BILLION KIDS and is going to pop out another one at some point and that whatever Jada Pinket-Smith's character's name is, just happens to be a lesbian and currently going out (or dragging around) a super model who eats napkins. However, this all happens during the whole Hermes Purse Screen Time, thus I was staring at the purse and not paying attention.

Tragically, this purse went away and was never seen again. It was tragic, really. Anyways, the movie goes on, as Mary finds out on accident that her husband is cheating on her with the purfuem sales lady after her father fires her for having "lack of deisgn or something" from his fashion line. She has lunch with her mother (Candice Bergan) and her mother tells her to buck up and go to Maine and leave the dude for a few weeks on his own, he'll come running back. On the way to the air port, the "friend" all find out Mary all ready knows, and they all talk over one another about not being told.

Mary goes to Maine. Husband calls. Slyvie had issues with her publisher (boss) dude and how she is trying ot make her magazine something respectable that does not solely deal with super modles and clothes and sex and revenge. (she fails at all). Mary goes back home and goes to shop for underware at La Perla or something and runs into the hussy there, who is spending and ungodly amount of money on something that will live on the floor. They show off, and Mary walks off and announces she is getting a divorce.

And all hell breaks loose. Mary falls apart. Sylvie realizes she has to sell Mary out to keep her job (Mary is married to a banker who is famous?) Mary finds out that Sylvie did this, they stop talking. I get the feeling the other two ladies (Eddie and Jada Pinket Smith) have no real purpose other than to make noise at some point, as the movie seems to be just about Mary and Slyvie. Well, so Mary falls apart even more now and goes off to a yoga camp or something and does pot, which is not the actual point of the retreat, but she does pot and talks a lot. Sylvie tries to find Mary, but fails. However, Sylive finds Mary's 13 year old kids who is having major issues with the whole dirvoce thing, but no one seems to notice except Slyvie who says, "Call me. We'll talk."

While high on pot, Mary is told by some Hollywood agent who is there for unknown reasons, she needs to be selfish and figure out what SHE WANTS! SELF DISCOVERY TIME! WHOOO!

So, begin the photo montage and the transformation of Mary into a sexy ass older woman. She gets great clothes suddenly, straightens out her hair and decides to start her own fashion line, backed by her mother's trust fund or something. WHAM! MARY IS PUT BACK TOGETHER! And suddenly she notices her daughter is behaving oddly and burning tampons. Mary can't talk about that stuff with her kid, who announces she is going to call Sylvie because she can talk to Slyvie about that stuff. This, upsets Mary who runs off into New YOrk City and hunts Sylvie down.

Slyvie hunting leads to the realization that Sylvie has no job because she quit (she was becoming that sterotypical career woman and she could no longer stand it, so she will start her own magaizne because she used to be a high paid editor who never spent any money on Birkin bags). After fighting in the street (Slyvie throws a banana at Mary, yet the guy manning the cart doesn't seem to care), they start laughing and make up in that typical way that girls do when they are really friends. They start crying on some stairs and try to figure out how to move on. Mary says she missed Sylvie more than her husband and all is well in the world.

Mary's fashion show is a huge hit (it is all black, white and red....) and Saks wants a whole line and some coats for next spring. Mary panicks and we never get a straight answer out of her if she will do it or not. She wants a small line. Whatever. Eddie is going to pop out a baby in a room full of woman, so they have to get moving to the hosptial. Eddie ( who had a billion kids all ready) is very calm, while the other three all panic over and over and over. They reach the hospital, and more bonding enuses. Eddie pops out a boy and they all laugh, cry, and hug one another. The final scenes is they are all sitting on a roof top. Mary takes back her husband while Eddie pops out kid, Sylvie starts her own magainze about old woman, and Jada Pinket Smith publishes her book finally (she was a writer? Did I miss something? Was that established while the Birkin Bag was on the screen?) And I guess Eddie stops having babies because she and her husband (who she cheated on five years ago, but they got over it by having a billion babies!) said they'd stop once they had a boy and her husband has his male heir.

The end.
And only one Birkin Bag seen. Tragic. Also, I cannot seem to find a picture of said Birkin bag. *tear*

The End of An Era...the start of a new one?

So, today, while tooling through Google News, I found out that MTV is canceling TRL. Here were my reactions, in no particular order:

1. TRL? People still watch that?
2. TRL is still on the air? Isn't it illegal to play music videos on Music Television?
3. It is about time they threw out TRL. No one knows anything about music on MTV any more anyways. They should just stick to what they know: bad reality shows.
4. I cannot believe TRL was on for 10 years.
5. God, I am old! I remember when TRL was NEW AND EXCITING AND YOU JUST HAD TO WATCH TO FIND OUT IF N SYNC OR BACKSTREET BOYS WAS NUMBER ONE! I remember when the Carson Daly era began!
6. Best freaking headline out there. Cause, really, did anyone even know TRL was still on the air?
7. Where did Carson Daly go?
8. What the hell is FNMTV? And why does Pete Wentz get to host it? Did anyone notice he can't sing?
9. Oh, wow, FNMTV plays music videos. Does it play them in full or just in snip its like TRL did after it became uber popular.
10. God, that annoyed me about TRL. I just wanna see the videos in their full glory, not just five seconds of it. I waited all day for MTV to play music videos and now you tell me you're going to play five seconds of it? Or not all all? God, whatever.
11. I wonder what happened to that world music station that I used to watch? I used to watch Fuse, but they sold out on me like MTV and VH1 did.
12. OH MY GOD! VH1 CLASSIC PLAYS POP UP VIDEO! THEY SHOULD TOTALLY BRING BACK POP UP VIDEO!
13. Wasn't I thinking about TRL before? How did I get on Pop Up video?
14. God, I am so freaking old. I watched Pop Up Video the other day and the "new" videos were like from 1997.
15. I cannot believe TRL outlived Pop Up Video!
16. Why is MTV kidding itself that it's going to "rest" TRL? MTV doesn't play music videos. Hell, Disney Channel plays more videos than MTV does.
17. Eminem isn't dead? Wow. Where did he go? Did he run off with Carson Daly?
18. I wonder how much more life the VMAs have in them? Especially since MTV doesn't actually PLAY MUSIC VIDOES IN THEIR FULL GLORY NO MORE.
19. Wait a second....this whole FNMTV sounds a lot like the orginal TRL....

"Starting in November, new and viewer-tested videos will continue to have a home on the Pete Wentz-hosted FNMTV, featuring a pretaped combo of videos and in-studio performances, which had a successful 15-episode run on Friday nights this summer," Natalie Finn, E! Online

20. I am old. I ACTUALLY remember when MTV ACTUALLY played music. And that was ALL THEY did. I watched music videos on MTV when I was BORN.

The Mindset List

At the start of every school year, these two guys at Beloit College put out this list that they call the Mindset List. They put this out every year, as you can hear about in that nice conference they give under that link. I had no idea what the Mindset List was until the year before I went off to college. That year, my dad shoved under my nose the Chicago Trib and said "READ THIS!" in his excited manner he gets when he is REALLY EXCITED about something. I read it and felt sort of silly, as half the things on that list I had no clue what they meant.

But that is the point of the mindset list. It is the mindset of the incoming freshman class of that year.

When I got the email about this years mindset list and read it, it made me feel old. I shouldn't feel that old, as I not that old, but it did make me feel a little dated.

However, that is truely not the point of this post. The point of this post is Tom McBride, one of the guys who put together the list. I went to Beloit for four years and had Tom McBride as a professor. Beloit is the type of school where you call the professors all by their first names. You have Georgia, Warren, Nancy, Bob, Tod, Emily, Sophie and on and on. However, Tom McBride was almost referred to as Tom McBride when you were not speaking to him. For awhile, I referred to him as Tommcbride. All one word as that was how I said it. I do not really understand why we always called him Tom McBride, but he was a full name professor. The only other professor that seeminly broke the first name rule was Krider, but that was only because he was Krider. You would never call him Emiel to his face. It just felt...wrong.

Anyways, so this Mindset List came out and I found myself face to face with Tom McBride again. Tom McBride is the flagship professor for Beloit. I am not sure how he managed to become the flagship professor of Beloit, but he is. Talking just like he has always talked, saying pretty much the same thing he always says.

Stalking the Morning After

I have been stalking the Morning After Mini bag by Rebecca Minkoff for about nine months now. I used to only stalk the bag online at her site, waiting for her to post new colors of the bag, wistfully thinking one might go one sale. Living in a dirt hole has given me a lot of time on my hands, so I have move past stalking the bag only on the designer's website.

Last week I went onto the Purse Blog Forum looking for information on the Bokier bags at Target and stumbled upon the tag for Rebecca Minkoff bags and found sites selling the bags. These sites have sales. The site I've taken to stalking on a daily basis now is Luna Boston, which has a new bag I've fallen for: The Mini Nikki. I always liked the Nikki bag, a classic hobo type of bag, but between the $600 price tag and the fact it looks HUGE, I wrote it off. But this mini! It seems to be the right size...

Not that I have the funds to be buying any purse over twenty bucks currently. I have been reading The Purse Blog for awhile now. At first I began reading it because I was researching Hermes bags for no reason other than I was bored and I liked to tell my husband I wanted one while he told me he wanted an expensive car. At some point I just took to reading the blog, as it fascinated me to no end. How did this writer do all this research on new purses, work, and still buy tons of handbags over the 1000 dollar mark? I still have no answer to that question and I am still amazed when she lists off the bags she has ordered/bought. I thought I was hot stuff when I bought my first Coach purse and wallet after I got my first 'real person' job. It was only after I had bought these two item did I realize that everyone and their mom has Coach bags and it did not make me special in any sense of the word. I had wanted it as a status mark: I had made it now! I owned a 300 dollar purse!

Whatever. Everyone from high school kids to grandma's own Coach purses. I needed something different. Thus, why I zeroed in on the Morning After Mini. It was only 200 more than I paid for that first stupid Coach purse. And not everyone I knew carried one.

In the dirt hole I've only seen Coach bags, or LV logo bags or knock offs of either two. No one carries a RM bag here.

I have realized I will not be owning one any time soon in the dirt hole. And yet the prospect of owning one fascinates me to no end. These people who spend a small fortune on handbags in a year fascinate me. And thus, I will continue reading about the newest Burberry bag or about how wonderfully soft and buttery leather is on a bag that I have never heard of. I will never join these people in owning pricey purses. I actually have recently realize I hate carrying a purse and wish my wallet had a chain or something so I did not actually need to carry a purse. I judge people by their purses and I always feel I do not have one to match with how I want to be judge, because I am a deep repressed cheap skate...I know people who will find that hard to believe, but alas, I am. I almost had a heart attack when I bought the Coach purse over two years ago or so, and I still sit there thinking, "God, did I spend that much on a purse? I am insane?"

And yet, now I dream of a more expensive one. But I am older and wiser now, thus I might not cave and believe I need it. I am insane. It happens to the best of us.