Those crazy Amish.

Watched Devil's Playground recently, a documentary on Amish teens going though rumspringa (apparently the equivalent of MTV's spring break for college students). This documentary stated that despite what, to the English eye, might seem to be downsides to the Amish way of life (patriarchal societies, horses and buggies, no health care) 90% of kids who go off on rumspringa return to the Amish way of life.

I'm all for shunning technology, working in the fields and/or with your hands - all that jazz. But, aside from the overall sadness I felt for the kids with 8th grade educations who thought that Wal-Mart and alcohol were "the real world"... I couldn't get over the fact that those damn bonnets would just drive me batty.

Dilly-dallying, carrots... oh, and assless chaps.

Catching up on the past few days' activities...

I talked with a few people about a job last Friday.

Wait, let me preface this to say that I am not one to dilly-dally about things. When my truck died, I bought the first car I test drove. After the third street riot outside my last apartment, I signed a lease for the first potential apartment I walked through. I was running errands one day last year, had a random thought about buying an iPod, and did that same day. Some might substitute "think at all about" for "dilly-dally about" in that first sentence, but these things have all worked out well for me.

So back to our regularly scheduled blog. I talked with a few people about a job last Friday. I wasn't really interested in the job walking into the interview (which might be why the discussion went so well? hard to know). They seemed very interested in my abilities, they seemed very intelligent and nice, and the project seemed challenging enough and a good match with my skills. Walking out of the interview, I was pretty sure I would sign up. Fortunately, I thought about it quite a bit this weekend and decided that it had enough drawbacks that it would be a "frying pan into fire" kind of situation, which I most certainly do not need. And so for once I chose to dilly-dally and put a concentrated effort into figuring out what I really wanted to do, rather than jumping on the first opportunity that would get me out of my current sitch. Pro-gress.

Next. Had a very productive conversation with some people today and left the meeting feeling like THEY GOT IT. I realize that it's just the dangling carrot of possibility moving closer to my reach (but still just out of reach!) than it has been in the past, but I haven't been this optimistic in... well, years, probably. Almost curious enough to stick it out a little longer. Almost, but not quite.

Finally. Next time someone invites me to a San Francisco street fair, I am doing my research first.

Next to godliness.

Cleaning the oven always seems like such a great idea while I'm spraying the Easy Off... Eight hours later, not such a great idea. Bah.

Bag lady.

Recently I have tried to be very good about reusing bags - remembering to take the canvas bags in my trunk when I go to the grocery store, only asking for a bag at the drugstore when I really need one.

The only bags I had when I made the smelly cheese purchase this morning were a bag with a stuffed monkey for my friend's new baby, and my purse. I didn't want to risk the monkey smelling like cheese so I put the cheese in my purse instead, just temporarily.

Ha. Seven hours and one smelly purse later, I developed a new rule: when buying smelly cheese, always get a bag.

Belated Friday five.

Top five "it's all about the little things" from this week:

• iced oatmeal raisin Luna bars - mmmmm.... carbs be damned
  
• finally catching up with my oldest friend back east who just had a baby
  
• buying a tiny "future Oakland Raider" shirt for said friend's new baby (finally, someone had a boy!)
  
• making it to the gym three days in a row and no resulting eye incidents
  
• seeing Roseann Barr at Cobb's last night
  

(I randomly found out about her show Thursday and was kinda surprised to get a ticket. Earlier yesterday my friend had me worried that she was all into scientology and tee-totalling these days and therefore the show would suck. All fears ceased when she started talking about how drugged up we all are, and how the only one who really needs drugs is Tom Cruise. It was all gravy from there.)

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Addendum: today I saw someone wearing a t-shirt, "I'm not crazy - I'm a scientologist." Must. Find. This.

I feel the earth move under my feet...

I am becoming increasingly convinced that there is a God and s/he is suddenly very pissed at our country.

Wonder what the final straw was...

Spam spam spam spam.

Recent spam email subjects:

• Is need on chutney postulant? (I know chutney is good. And occasionally I need it. But postulant?)
• To understand a abysmal rejoin. (Sooooo relevant to work right now.)
• As read as gooseflesh hidden. (See below.)

Last week while procrastinating for the big interview* I happened upon Supernatural. OK, I mostly kept the channel there after Gilmore Girls because that one guy is hot, but then the plot actually captured my interest. I need to see how it goes tonight** but based on last week's episode, this show could be a distant cousin to the X Files. Although no gooseflesh was involved, there was a lot of hiding under the blanket and saying "NO DON'T DO THAT DON'T GO THERE ARE YOU CRAZY?!!"

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* I am 99.9% certain I did not impress them, possibly - probably - because I spent two hours watching TV and procrastinating answering really, really hard questions the night before. Damn you, WB.

** I must watch My Name Is Earl (I do love Jason Lee) during the first half of tonight's Supernatural, but if the X Files is any indication I will easily be able to catch up at 9:30.

Restored faith in humanity.

South Park's parody of the Terry Schiavo case actually won an Emmy.

God bless America.

"Your greatest creation is the life you lead."

That's the tagline for Tarnation.

Really don't know what to say about this film, other than "holy hell" and "next time I complain about my life, remind me about this movie." I highly recommend it if you're into this kind of thing.

A, O, let's go.

The best part about the rafting trip on Friday was that the only one of us who fell in, was our guide. OK, that wasn't the best part - but it was quite a relief - and pretty darned funny.

We on the boat stopped laughing at him after he tortured us with "surfing" (also known as holding us in a rapid and tipping the raft until we were all getting blasted with icy cold water, then turning the raft and drenching the other side) for about ten minutes. But the other guides aren't going to let him live that down for a loooooooooong, looooooooong time. "Dude, we just saw a leg fly up and 'bloop'!"

Bleeeaaaaggghhh.

So... why can't potential employers just call your references and ask them to describe how perfect you would be for a job? Why do they sometimes preface the conversation with "well we really want someone with more experience but let's talk to you anyway" (hooray for self-fulfilling prophecy!)? Why do they always want to know your life goals and career plan when all you want is a steady job that you can leave at work at the end of the day? Why is the only area I feel comfortable talking about, the area of creativity?

Bleeeaaaaggghhh...

It's not a tumor.

And to round out this post-o-mania of a day, I must relate a story from this weekend. It was Saturday night around 3am and I'd just woken up with a killer migraine (which I only get every 6 months or so). I laid down for a while in the dark with an ice pack on my head. After a while I got bored and turned on the TV, but switched the contrast to dark, just so that I had something to listen to.

Sometime in the middle of a replay of a classic SNL episode, which they apparently do on Saturday nights at 3am, there was some kind of brief infomercial about lupus. The man talked about how lupus affects women more often than men, younger rather than older, and how it includes symptoms like fatigue, arthritis, weight loss, vasculitis and... migraines.

Please don't misunderstand. I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of this disease. I'm just trying to verbalize how impressionable one can be at 3am when one has an ice pack on their head. The evils of television, if you will.

My thought process at that time: "Hmm. I have been really tired for no reason lately. And I've had arthritis in my knees since I was ten. And those pants fit again. And that eye thing was just weird. And now I have a migraine."

The next day I got on the old WWW and looked up info on lupus. I'm monumentally optimistic that I don't have it. But I made an appointment next week... just to be sure.

"Two fer one, dude!!"

Although to my short-lived dismay they didn't do "July, July," last night's Decemberists show at the Fillmore was really incredibly good. So good, in fact, that I actually found myself nodding along to the guy walking out behind us after the show who kept repeating this saying to everyone who came within two feet of him:

"It was like, two fer one, dude! I expected something amazing, which was, like, one, and then they, like, totally EXCEEDED it, which was like, two fer one!"

Why I will always love Michael Stipe, exhibits X&Y.

Can I be the first to say that I am not a big fan of Coldplay's latest endeavor? I gave it the college try at the gym tonight, really listening to each song as I tried not to die on the jogmaster.* Made it through about 30 seconds of each song and had to skip to the next one.

This happened with Live too - after four amazing records filled with angst and pain and suffering and politics, their fifth album stunk. Just like Chris, Ed found love and had a baby, and could only make happy cheery lovey "life is wonderful" songs as a result.

Thank God some things will never change.

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* I don't know what it's really called. I do know that it hurts.

Damn you, James Lipton.

Why? Why did you have to do an Inside the Actor's Studio with Johnny Depp? Every time it comes on, no matter what I am doing at the time, or where I need to be, or how exhausted I am (like last night at 1am), I am physically incapable of turning the channel or turning off the TV.

I have the entire interview memorized. I know when he's going to hide behind his hair or when he's going to sweep it out of his face, I know that he called his dad "Pop" and his mom's name is Betty Sue, I know when he's going to be humble in his response and when he's going to be confident with his answers. I know that his favorite curse word is "shit." I know that Hunter Thompson shaved Johnny's head for the Fear & Loathing role. I know...

Well, you get the idea. I really don't need to see this particular episode ever again. And yet I watch. Again, and again, and again.

Damn you to hell, James Lipton.

Premium reaction.

Yesterday I filled up my tank - 8 gallons - and paid $30. I only bought "plus" grade but my reaction was more of the "premium" variety.

A coworker friend wisely suggested we start saying "premium!" in place of other expletives at work. I'm down with that.

Thumbs go down.

When my brother was here a while back, he kept raving about Tommy Boy. He couldn't believe I had never seen it, he couldn't believe it only got one star, and when he got back home he kept sending me TV Guide listings of when it would next air.

On general principle, if something airs regularly on TNT, there's a low chance that I will like it. If something has a lot of slapstick humor, there's a low chance that I will like it. If something has Dan Ackroyd, there's a low chance that I will like it. But sometimes my brother and I enjoy the same stupid things, so I put it in my Netflix queue and recently sat through it.

It seemed like David Spade and Chris Farley had fun making it. That's about the only nice thing I can say about that movie.

And, probably just because of all the controversy (oh and because Vincent Gallo is HOT - crazy psycho narcissist - but HOT) I watched The Brown Bunny last night. One of the first opening credits was "written directed produced edited by Vincent Gallo"* so I had a good sense of what I was in for... I beg to differ with Roger Ebert, though. I found Elephant more self-indulgent and offensive than Gallo's effort (which just bored me, frankly).

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* IMDB also credits him with cinematography, casting, production design, art direction, set decoration, costume design, makeup, art, camera operator...

Warning: exercise is hazardous to your eyes.

Or, the TMI Post. Or, Why Getting Older Is For The Birds.

After I started going to the gym early this year, I woke up one morning with a red dot in my eye. It was all I could see whenever I looked in the mirror - I felt like I had the world's biggest zit on the tip of my nose. (Of course no one else really noticed.) A coworker advised me that it was a broken capillary and that it would go away soon. It did.

I've been lifting the same amount of weight ever since, under the guise "I'm not lazy I'm just trying to tone rather than build muscle yeah uhhuh that's it." Yesterday at the gym I upped the weight on a few of the machines, just for fun. I could feel myself straining a little but it was a "good" strain... Yunno, like a "good" hurt. When I got home I noticed a dark bump under my eye, about the size of a jellybean, that wasn't there before I left for the gym. It didn't hurt, it was just obvious. Once again, it was all I could see when I looked in the mirror - which I did frequently last night hoping it would go away. This morning the bump was gone but the darkness wasn't and no amount of concealer could make it go away. I could only presume that I broke a blood vessel. A different coworker advised me that it would go away soon. It's starting to fade.

But I have to wonder - broken capillaries, broken blood vessels... What on earth (or in my eye, I should say) will break next?

Just call me Jeb Bush.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time at work today ballot-stuffing votes for the theme to a fun new program I signed up to lead. (And also recruiting others to help me ballot-stuff.)

I mean, people, please. I KNOW what to do with a pirate theme. Beach theme? Ehhhhh, maybe. Sports theme? Anyone who caught my baseball-themed presentation on "the project from hell," where I basically threw in baseball terminology incorrectly and frequently, only because the World Series was upon us at the time and I wanted people to pay attention to the topic, knows that I don't do sports. But pirates? Shiver me timbers, I am SO there.

Here we go again.

And then every thought I've had today seems meaningless and stupid in light of what's going on in our own country. Thanks, Anne, for this link. And thanks to others who've reminded me today, and who continue to remind me...

All I need to know, I learned from What Not to Wear.

I have this rule that I can't buy more clothes than I have hangers for. In with the new, out with the "something I barely wear anymore." This ensures closet-user-friendliness and, in theory, a tax writeoff when I donate all the "barely worn" stuff twice a year, but I always forget to get a receipt.

Anyway. The glitch in that concept was that last year I'd gained a little weight so half my clothes didn't fit, and new clothes were kind of a necessity. So about a year ago I put a bunch of summer clothes, and clothes that didn't fit at the moment, into boxes at the bottom of my closet and went shopping. TLC fans will know that Peter would not have approved of this move, but hey. One self-help program at a time.

Having lost a little weight recently, and having spent a good portion of the last year watching episodes of TLC's What Not to Wear, I decided to attack my closet today with a vengeance. I went through every boxed item with a critical eye: A) did it now fit? B) regardless of how cute it was, did it make me look short/fat/overly-pear-shaped/like I didn't have a waist? C) was it a color other than black, brown, green or white? D) really now, would I ever wear it again knowing what I know now?

I ended up with a large donation pile, including several skirts I've been hanging onto that are so adorable but just don't fit me well. And a nice pile of "hey wow this fits again!" which pleases me greatly because I SO HATE TO SHOP. Although I also have a nice pile of "crap I need to iron this stuff" which does not please me so greatly because I SO HATE TO IRON.

And I do still have a small pile of "ten more pounds and these will fit again," but I have promised myself that if I don't lose ten by Christmas they are all goners. It helps that I do most of my shopping at Ross - wear it once, you've pretty much gotten your money's worth. Anything after that is gravy.

Today's stupid human tricks.

Contestant #1: the guy at Home Depot who kept cursing (literally and frequently) at the sales guy because they never had anything he needed. Uhhh, why do you keep coming here, then?

Contestant #2: the lady in the "10 items or less" lane at Longs who thought her 465 individual embroidery thread items counted as one item. Uhhh, in what alternate universe do you live in and can you please go back there now?

Contestant #3: the checkout lady at Safeway who berated me for not telling her I didn't want a bag for my one item until she'd already bagged it, because apparently there are people who don't want their items placed into a crumpled bag, and she then threw the crumpled bag in the trash can. Uhhh, it's A BAG, get over it already.

Contestant #4: me, who spent a full minute wishing malfortune on the jackass who rammed their cart into my car thereby scraping paint off my front bumper. Uhhh, wait, that's a car alarm sticker - I don't have a car alarm - D'OH that's not even my car.

Not the sharpest tool in the shed.

I have lived in my apartment for two years. Ever since I moved in, I've been wondering about the sliding door to the kitchen. The kitchen itself has one of those counter-divider-dealies that opens into the dining/living room area, so it's not like closing the sliding door would give anyone privacy in their culinary endeavors. And believe you me, it doesn't help in shielding the smoke detector from an endeavor gone horribly wrong.

Of late, I have discovered a heavenly use for that door. When I go into the kitchen, and I'm planning to be in there for more than thirty seconds, and Luna has not yet had her squishy food for the day, I CLOSE THE DOOR. Instead of following me about and entangling herself with my feet while meowing like a banshee, she sits outside the closed door with her back to it - clearly pissed, but quiet as a mouse.

She often gets up onto the counter-divider-dealie so she must know, in some area of her wee little brain, that she could access the kitchen that way when the door is closed.

Perhaps she opts for silent protest of my clearly inhumane act of shutting the door. Or - and this is the more likely scenario - she's really just not that bright.

Mother Nature saying hello.

As a general rule, I don't read the news. Well, the real news - the Dish doesn't count as news. More specifically, ever since 9/11/2001 I have avoided media coverage about disasters. This is because after 9/11, I found myself glued to CNN for days at a time watching clip after clip of airplanes flying into buildings and firefighters cleaning up rubble and people running and screaming and bleeding. And wondering why I was even going to work and trying to be a normal person when all this was going on 3000 miles from here - it all seemed meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Not the most constructive use of my time, for sure. Occasionally I lapse and regret it, but otherwise, avoidance is the key.

It's not that I'm insensitive to others' pain and suffering - don't get me wrong, I gave today, and will probably give again (if not again and again). But other than knowing that Ellen Degeneres's aunt lost everything, I truly have no conception of the magnitude of what has happened. And I'm choosing to keep it that way. So this week when people have mentioned the south in meetings, or when my parents told me to be thankful for what I have, it has thrown me.

I am certain that there's a balance between becoming emotionally wrecked and/or philosophically jolted over disasters like this and being able to look at them sympathetically but objectively. I'm not there yet, and I don't imagine I will be anytime soon. So Mother Nature, give us a break already, will you?