10 of the Tiredest Things on this Tuesday

I know that this topic is more tired than Phyllis Diller on the last day of Fleet Week but for reasons beyond my control I'm still on it. I'll try to be both brief and funny.

10 Nice Things That People Do When You Fuck Up Your Arm Beyond All Recognition

1. They talk to you while you cry on the street and get brave enough to assess your injuries. (MKAEP)

2. They help you decide which ER is the right one to go to. (Pony Express)

3. They walk your dog. (Alex, Pony Express)

4. They take out the nasty, stinky chicken garbage that you forgot to take out because you didn't know that you wouldn't be coming home without 2 working arms. (Alex)

5. They open your water for you. (Pony Express, Mike - bonus to Mike for handing me the water, tipping the server then whipping back and saying, "You want me to open that for you?" before I had to abase myself by asking. Bonus to Pony Express for calling when she got home and saying, "I forgot to ask if you needed any food opened. Sorry.")

6. They send chocolate. (Organic Mama, Chili, ProfDoc)

7. They make that chocolate funny. (ProfDoc - whole 'nother post)

8. They ask you wicked scary questions that make you realize that it could have been a lot worse. (Boss #1, Mike - "Do you think you passed out and that's why you fell?")

9. They fill your humidifier tanks, pour the dog food into the bucket, pour the cat litter into the box and other pouring and lifting combos because you can usually pour or lift but not both. (Pony Express)

*10. They tell their mother, "I want Kizzy." and make you feel warm and fuzzy all over...with a side of guilt for how long it's been since you've seen them. (Alita)

*Technically does not have to do with the whole falling on my face thing but made me so guiltily happy that I had to include it.

Who says all blogs are the same?

Many years ago I worked in a cubicle farm. A different cubicle farm than the one I'm in now. That one grew magazines. I was very talented so I was often finished with my work early (ha!) and free to roam the internet. One day I was reading an entry about Sars' cats and I laughed so hard I cried. However, not wanting the other farm hands to feel poorly about their own job performance by letting on that I was having a good non-job-related time I had to keep the laughing part quiet. Just as I was finishing the post someone came up behind me to ask my sage advice on something (threshing or ploughing, no doubt) and they, of course, only saw the tears in my eyes and nothing I could say would convince them that they were tears of laughter.

Today at least no one caught me.

I am methodically working my way through the NaBloPoMo list from November and I came across Whoopee. The first entry is a bit long and if you just skim it you'll think it's not very exciting but if you read it properly there's a bit about a duck...and then later another bit about the duck that just...well, better to just go read it. I think that the best stand up comics are the ones who craft a perfect ending to their set. It's the hardest part but the part people remember the most and often comedians think you can just trail off any old where if your material is good but it's simply not true. The best endings of all hearken back to whatever the funniest part of the rest of the set was and those are endings you'll remember forever. Larry the Cable Guy is oddly good at these. So is Anotonia, you just think she's going to let you trail away with a picture of her kid and she smacks a button on that post that makes you laugh so hard you pee a little.

Seriously, that bit about the duck is still making me giggle.

The Long and Winding Road of Links

I cannot even begin to recall the path that led me to this site. So far this strip is my favorite.

No Hook Required

Saw the orthopedic guy Friday.

Picture if the star fullback of your high school football team popped his ACL freshman year of college and somehow bluffed his way through med school. This was the guy.

I actually liked him a lot. He was honest and a little hyper but he was listening to me and didn't talk to me like I was imagining anything or was to blame for being unhealthy. Which puts him pretty much in the top 1% of the doctors I've ever seen. (No offense if you're a doctor but frankly, I freaking hate your kind and you should be fined every time you smile at me like I'm a slow toddler crying over a skinned knee and nod to hurry me up.)

The fracture may or may not be a fracture. It might be an imperfection on the image. However, my whole arm is severely sprained. The deal is it'll take about a month for me to be healed. A little longer than that before I'm free of even the occasional twinge. In the mean time, have you ever heard this joke?

Patient: Doc, it hurts when I do this.
Doctor: Don't do that!

Pretty much that's what he told me. "So, you should keep moving it but you probably shouldn't carry a lot of weight...but that'll hurt so you won't do that."

So, yes, I still feel kind of crappy but the bad news is, I'll live. Thanks for all the kind thoughts, and the chocolate!

Mission Accomplished!

And I don't mean that in a George W kind of way, either.

I found Kristin. Technically she found me, I guess. She doesn't think I'm completely nuts. Or at least not in a bad way. If you didn't see her comment a few posts ago she said a friend found this blog and tipped her off. I haven't found out who the friend was but THANK YOU FRIEND!

Thanks to everyone who tried to help me.

I Love the Internet

KSA,

If you're the Kristen Ames I'm looking for you toured with Robert Wilson and then returned to NYU in 1988. I was the freshman who stage managed your production of The Butterfly's Evil Spell. You went on to help found the Tiny Mythic Theatre Company and I did a bunch of odd stuff at the Ohio for you guys. Then life intervened and, you know, a lot of stuff happened.

I'm looking for you because I've written a play and I directed a reading of it last year. This year I realized that I really don't want to direct it. Someone asked me what I was looking for in a director and the second thing that came to my head (right after, "NOT ME!") was your name. So I decided to "casually" look around the internet for you.

You can e-mail me at isabeau6 at hotmail dot com and (obviously) I'd love to catch up.

Best,
Kizzy

Conflicting Agendas

I hurried the dog across the street to keep us from getting run over by all the construction equipment.

My dog, though? She thought we were hurrying so the nice man in the construction outfit could share his breakfast with her.

Construction Dude disagreed.

You know how a guy will sometimes hunch over his plate, shielding it from food pirates with an elbow? Yeah, just pathetic to see a grown man try that while standing on a street corner shovelling home fries into his mouth from an aluminum pie plate.

Oh those crafty writers

I'm in the middle of watching the first season of Big Love. In last night's ep we found out that Bill Paxton and his first wife weren't always polygamists. Their teenage kids lived mostly in a one mom family and now they don't. Coincidence or clever metaphor for the way kids of divorce end up sitting at an Easter table with a bunch of people they never signed on for?

You thought it was cold OUTside*

Cold: Letting the elevator door close on someone trying to get on without even leaning toward the door open button.

Subzero: Letting rip a cheery, "Hey Bill!" as the door slams shut.

True story. I was there.

No, wasn't me.

*I hate that I can't use italics in the title.

Imitation/Flattery

So typing causes pain.

My job requires typing.

Blogging requires typing.

I love blogging.

Not so much loving my job.

But, you know, also love to eat and wear clothes and have electricity.

Compromise, it's the mother of invention, right? Or something.

I'll just blog Maggie Mason style for a while.

10 Things Tuesday Right Hand Edition

It's hard to type but I can copy and paste with 1 hand so I'll do 10 quotes I love. Feel free to leave your own in the comments.

1. "Let's go practice watching me dive."
ChemE (so not what she meant but we kept saying it that whole summer)

2. Marla Singer: A condom is the glass slipper for our generation. You slip one on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, and then you throw it away. The condom, I mean, not the stranger.
Fight Club

3. Dr. Twardon: Who's to say that love needs to be soft and gentle?
Secretary

4. [They are stranded in the middle of nowhere in the rain]
Alison: I have a credit card.
Gib: You have a credit card?
Alison: Yes. But my father told me only to use it in case of an emergency.
Gib: Well, maybe one will come up.
The Sure Thing (perhaps this is where my love of the road trip originated)

5. Marcella: You know, when you started getting invited to your ten year high school reunion, time is catching up.
Martin Q. Blank: Are you talking about a sense of my own mortality or a fear of death?
Marcella: Well, I never really thought about it quite like that.
Martin Q. Blank: Did you go to yours?
Marcella: Yes, I did. It was just as if everyone had swelled.
Grosse Point Blank

6. [the President neglected a formality transferring executive power before going into surgery]
Margaret: Can I just say something for the future? *I* can sign the president's name. I've got his signature down pretty good.
Leo McGarry: You can sign the president's name?
Margaret: Yeah.
Leo McGarry: On a document removing him from power and giving it to someone else?
Margaret: Yeah. Or do you think the White House Counsel would say that's a bad idea?
Leo McGarry: I think the White House Counsel would say that's a Coup D'Etat.
Margaret: I'd probably end up doing some time for that.
Leo McGarry: I would think. And what the hell are you doing practicing the president's signature?
Margaret: It's just for fun.
Leo McGarry: We've got separation of powers, checks and balances, and Margaret, vetoing things and sending them back to the hill.
The West Wing

7. 'Skank' Marden: I play hockey and I fornicate, 'cause those are the two most fun things to do in cold weather.
Mystery, Alaska

8. Luke: Rory's not here yet.
Lorelai: Then you'll have to entertain me until she arrives. Okay Burger boy, dance.
Luke: Will you marry me?
[Lorelai is taken aback]
Luke: Just looking for something to shut you up.
Gilmore Girls

9. Pacey: See this? This is you. It's not showy or gaudy. It's simple. Elegant. Beautiful.
Joey: It's my mom's bracelet.
Pacey: I know.
Joey: How do you know?
Pacey: Well, because you told me. Six months ago. You were wearing that blue sweater with the snowflakes that you have. You were walking down the hallway at school. I was annoying you as per usual. You said, "Look, Pacey, I just found my mother's bracelet this morning, so why don't you cut me some slack?"
Joey: You remember that?
Pacey: I remember everything.
Dawson's Creek

10. Elizabeth: Aye, but marry who, your grace? Would you give me some suggestion? For some say France and others Spain, and some cannot abide foreigners at all. So I am not sure how best to please you unless I married one of each.
Elizabeth

I cannot express how hard it was to keep myself to one quote per show/movie or even how hard to keep myself to 10 shows/movies. We might have to do this more often.

Report from the front

I'm typing with 2 hands. Can't do it very long, though.

I was walking to work. I was 5 steps from the stairs. I felt my toe catch (the grating? the sidewalk? my other shoe?) and then I had that interminable time-slowing thing as I watched the sidewalk come toward me and calculated that I couldn't do anything to stop it. I felt my knee thwap into the sidewalk and I just lay there for a second flat on my face. You know how you fall and you kind of know the feeling, like "ow, I fell, fuck" but you know the difference when it hurts way more.

This hurt way more.

I thought it was my knee. I cried. 2 old ladies picked me up. I knew I couldn't just get on the train like this so I tried to figure out what to do. I'd been thinking about MKAEP (trying to work out my daddy issues and she's my partner on that) so I called her. Figured she'd talk me off the ledge and I'd just go to work late. I knew I needed to look at my knee before I went to work and I was too scared.

We talked. I cried. I finally looked at my knee and it didn't look the right shape.

Off the phone with MKAEP, on the phone with Pony Express because who else do you call when you need a considered opinion on which ER to go to? Called Audio Girl to tell her I wasn't going to work. Hobbled across the street. Hailed a cab. Spent cab ride realizing that the arm was as least as bad as the knee. Went to the ER.

Spent the next 3 hours at the ER. Much content to be found there but I can't type that much.

After many X-rays it seems that the knee is fine, the wrist is fine. The elbow has an eensy fracture. I forgot to ask exactly where in the elbow. So I'm supposed to keep the elbow immobilized for 2-3 days and then I'm supposed to move it. Also supposed to see an ortho. Have an appointment on the 23rd.

I took a shower today. That's interesting with one arm. Takes a while. As does everything.

I feel much better today. Knee feels a LOT better. The arm is very swollen. The elbow won't straighten completely, which concerns me, but I'm going to chalk that up to the swelling until the ortho tells me differently or I will freak the fuck out. And no one wants that. I'm going back to work tomorrow for a partial day.

Also, no, I didn't get any good drugs, they wouldn't even give me any motrin. Fuckers.

So, this hurts now and I'm going to stop but I'll leave you with this piece of advice: always bring someone with you to the ER, it's the only way you're going to get that damn gown tied.

Bit It

Face planted on sidewalk.

Fractured elbow.

Can't type (thank you, Chili)

Back in a few days.

10 Things I Wish on a Tuesday

1. I wish I was thin (duh).

2. I wish I could quit my cubefarm job without fear (me and what army?).

3. I wish I'd thought up the character of Barney on How I Met Your Mother (Virtual high five!).

4. I wish I'd been the one to cut my relationship with JAM short (lord have mercy do I wish it).

5. I wish I had the perfect cocktail dress (the one thing that makes me wish I were like every other woman my age).

6. I wish I knew what in heck to do interior decorating wise with my apartment (apparently I do have something in common with Sundry).

7. I wish I were braver (and I wished that shit so long before Shawn Colvin did).

8. I wish that Josh "I remember everything" Jackson would just freaking call already.

9. I wish my skin were not dehydrated (and that's the least of my dehydration worries).

10. I wish I had a TV the size of my wall. ("It hurts my eyes." [chuckle] "Yeah, that doesn't go away.")

What do you wish?

Timing

I'm not an idiot.

Well, not a complete idiot.

I know that when you "spring forward" you lose an hour of sleep. Yet somehow I screwed up and got up a full hour early.

I needed to be ready by 9:30 and I decided to cut it close in order to get some extra sleep and give myself just 90 minutes to get ready. So I set the (properly sprung) clock to 7am.

Yeah, I see that now.

The thing is I joined Weight Watchers and foods have point values and so do activities and you need to measure your food and points values obviously change with how much food you measure and math is not my strong point. I'm sure this has been made clear by now. Doing a lot of math makes me tense and pretty irritable and intensely confused. The whole thing is like 2 trains traveling at the same speed, 1 traveling West from Alberquerque and the other traveling East from Schenectady, each carrying 350 points of food with an equal distribution of each of the 4 food groups on the night before Daylight Savings...

You know what I'm saying?

It makes me tired.

So yeah. Alarm went off. I got up. I was sitting on the couch in front of the TV checking my e-mail before I realized I could have slept for a whole extra hour.

Fucking new Daylight Savings bullshit. Hate that.

It did bring me one awesome quote, though. My mother on DST, "It's ridiculous to move it like that. I mean, it's still the same number of hours of daylight. It's not like we're turning the sun back!"

True that, mommy, true that.

At least I am not alone

Yet another reason I'm loving the third season of The L Word. Alan Cumming wearing a "Fuck Yoga" t-shirt. Turns out there's a whole store. No offense, y'all, but I'm feeling vindicated.

Kid Again

Last week Ulserad was in town for his birthday. He was staying with Crash and we made a plan to get together on a night Crash had other plans. Turns out he could join us so it was the three of us out on the town again.

Much bigger town this time around. Substitute the Maine Memorial at Columbus Circle for the bandstand and the Mandarin Oriental for the Exeter Inn and fabulous Italian bistros for McDonalds and Dunkin' Donuts but the same journey at heart.

Mind you I somehow managed to schedule all but one of my obligations for the whole weekend on Friday. My alarm went off at 6:45am.

12 hours later I rolled into a sports bar to meet the boys. We had a few drinks, had dinner, watched a bunch of sports (by the way that hit on Kaberle by Janssen was late, from behind and totally deserved an enormous penalty). We went bowling. We walked through Central Park. And I'm not even going to try to list the topics discussed, there isn't enough room on the internet. (Perfect timing to have this during spring training, too, so I could get my pre-season tutorial.) In the search for a bathroom we found a nice Italian place to have coffee and dessert and then we walked probably another mile before, at 1:00am, the toll of the day became known in my swiftly crippling left foot so I hopped in a cab and took myself home.

I don't know how to explain the phenomenon the encompasses nights like this. It's like I'm 14 and 38 and all the ages in between all at the same time, but only the good parts.

Stats for my evening were 1.] five hundred (virtual) dollars lost at Texas Hold 'Em (I contend that I bet the hand right anyway. My opponent had a pair of aces and I had 2 pair - Queens & 8s - but then she got a pair of 2s in a total suck out on the river and I was already all in so...), 2.] 200 (real) dollars won at bowling (yes, bowling, don't go double or nothing with me in the second string, I'm just saying), 3.]many half decent food choices made (do not regret the mud cake even a tiny little bit, though), 4.] sense of accomplishment very high from almost making Ulserad snort coke out his nose, 5.] my youth returned with scuffing around after hours on the streets making the same old jokes and snarks and fun with people who have seen me grow into who I am now and (despite some good natured ribbing) love all the girls I've been and, dude, there's nothing better than people still liking you even when they know you really well and 6.] a serious case of bowling butt.

Family update

I'm a slug. Everyone else in my family is all about the big announcements and milestones today.

MamaKizz got a job! So happy and relieved and excited for her. It's a good choice for her and it's been a long dry spell.

PapaKizz has set a date for the wedding. And it's next month. I don't even know how one throws a bachelor party for one's father.

Aunt Rena turned 92 today. We spent a little time on the phone at lunch time today. She marked the day with a special outfit, pancake breakfast for one and not being allowed to stray too far from her phone. By the time we spoke at 1pm she was only short one family member's phone call.

What did your family do today?

Thief

Rosie O'Donnell tells a story of her first night of stand up. She didn't understand that comics wrote their own material and that it was a big deal to steal someone else's so she did a Steve Martin routine. After her set, which killed by the way, another comic came up and told her how that wasn't cool. At all. But she'd done so well that she was hooked and they'd asked her back so then she had to write her first material ever.

I already know that it's uncool to steal material..in public...for profit.

So, like here, I don't steal, I quote. In normal conversation, though? There is the occasional grand theft hilarity.

In a conversation with a small group the other day I said, "I kind of half-assed joined Weight Watchers* this week and starting tomorrow I'm going to join whole-assed." Huge laugh, very gratifying, everyone thought I was delightfully witty. I loved that! I felt a little guilty but it was a friendly conversation so I couldn't exactly go back and correct the mistake.

Here, however, I can confess freely. That's totally a joke from Mad About You. Paul & Jamie are talking about whether they're going to have a baby and Jamie says they've been going about it half-assed. Paul asks what she means by that. Jamie says, "I mean I want to go at it whole-assed!" This precedes her line, "Oh my god I'm going to be the mommy!" Great episode.

Thanks for hearing my confession.

*Yes, I did. Whole different post.

Ten Things Tuesday - Surprise!

I cached all these posts this weekend to dole out to the "intarweb" over the week. I was feeling really quite smug about the whole operation. I forgot about Ten Things Tuesday, though. What does that mean for you? Immediacy! This post will not have been crafted and tuned over the course of a couple of viewings and lovingly passed on to you at the exact right moment in time. Nope this one is coming right out of the shoot like a bull and you're a particularly inept Rodeo Clown. Get in the barrel people, here comes some content!

Ten.....er.....things....that....um....well....I...............

OK, no I've got it! Ten things I've....

OK, no, too immediate, no barrel is going to protect you from that.

You know what, I'm going old school.

Ten movies I love to distraction.

1. The Sure Thing. John Cusack in a road movie. Anthony Edwards with hair! It was the movie of my high school years, I could have quoted the whole thing to you at one point and I still quote it extensively. If you ever wonder what in flaming hell I'm talking about go see this movie.

2. Secretary. It's weird and I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people in my circle who would have to turn it off but if you embrace the message it's the kind of love story I wish for my life. It's about admitting that who you are isn't maybe right or sometimes even good and learning to love it anyway.

3. Fight Club. It's bloody and gory but at the core it's about how foolishly bloody and gory our generation has become. We're all flailing around looking for meaning and bollixing up everything we touch in the process. Also a little Wizard of Oz in there, because the meaning we're looking for is pretty much right in our own back yard if we ever bothered to turn off the TV to go out there and look.

4. Kramer vs. Kramer. I loved it when it first came out but I didn't really understand it. I re-watched it this past year and found that I love it even more because I can empathize with all the parts of the story. Also, Meryl Streep in a relatively short but truly grand performance.

5. Gallipoli. Just kills me every time. It's a beautiful story and one of the few Mel Gibson movies that I used to love and can still stand knowing what I know about him now.

6. Star Wars. No, I actually don't think Empire Strikes Back is the better movie. I like the original and I love that he went ahead and shot it even though most of what he envisioned wasn't ready. I find the half-reality of that original cantina far more compelling than any of the strange and wonderful galaxies he subsequently created.

7. Bring It On. I know. I know. Everyone needs a couple of guilty pleasures and there's something about this that I love. Cheerleaders! Grand theft cheer! Spanky pants! What's not to love?

8. Mystery, Alaska. Written by David E. Kelley but I already loved it before I knew that. It's a sports movie, it's about the underdogs, it's about hockey, it's a glorious ensemble cast and, while I wouldn't call it realistic exactly, it doesn't go overboard into fantasy land. "Ladies and gentlemen I give you The New York Rangers!"

9. Aliens. Note the plural. In this case I like the (first) sequel better. Sigourney Weaver plays a glorious heroine who is realistic enough to be afraid and maternal enough to be brave and she kicks some alien ass! When I first saw this as a teenager it really pushed the boundaries of what I could tolerate in terms of horror and suspense and I've come to love it both in spite and because of that.

10. Four Weddings and a Funeral. I came late to this party. I don't think I saw it all the way through until it was already well past its TV debut. I don't so much like the Hugh Grant/Andie MacDowell storyline, I love this for the rest of the cast. Kristen Scott Thomas' smoldering version of a pining friend makes my heart ache and the poem that the young lover reads at the funeral never fails to make me cry. It's a beautifully crafted film because I'm sure it was sold to the Powers That Be on the strength of 2 stars playing star crossed lovers and that strength is the weakest link in a gorgeous chain of a story.

Is sharing caring?

Budgeting Babe brings up some interesting questions for we chicas.

I seriously could not tell you whether any of my friends even has a savings account. I think this is a shame, because there is so much we could all be learning from each other. Then again, it may be for the better because there's a risk of judgement in sharing so much with your friends. What if I make a lot more than someone else? What if I become jealous of my friends' financial status? What if I am critical at how my friends spend their money? It's obvious that we run the gamut of incomes simply by the way we live. Would we think any differently of each other after we shared our financial health? I have a feeling that despite the open exchange of information, it might affect our friendships in ways we didn't expect.

I know that I do get very judgemental about how other people spend their money sometimes but it's mostly because I fear that other people are judging me for what I spend, where I live, what I do. Your mileage, as usual, may vary.

On the flip side, I really do think that I've got a lot to learn from the way my friends manage money. Just by accident I've learned so much from them already, even with the social restrictions in place. Who knew that people I know have safety deposit boxes? I didn't think I had anything worth putting in such a place but it turns out I do.

As a result of not knowing I often don't negotiate properly for what I'm worth and I know the same thing happens to a lot of other women, too.

What do you think?

Comment replies

First of all, sorry if some of you have had trouble not being able to comment lately. Please don't get your panties in a twist, it's happened to me with MKAEP's blog but it seems to get corrected after a bit. I've taken word verification off for the moment but if I start getting spam again I'll put it back on. I just don't have the patience to moderate comments and I don't like the way it makes it possible for me to censor what you read in the comments section.

Now, to reply to the comments I've had.

That hot chick? Katherine Moennig. She's been featured before on the Hot People series and I wouldn't be surprised if she was featured again. She's a core character, Shane, on The L Word, the 5 people that watched The WB's Young Americans might recognize her as the girl masquerading as a guy in that and she spent last spring here in NYC in a play whose name I can't remember off the top of my head. No, wait, I saw it on her site, it was Guardians at The Culture Project. Isn't she just smoking?

Chili, yes I read all of Crime & Punishment but it was a long time ago so our discussion might be very short. I do prefer Dostoevsky over some of the other Russian novelists. I'd like to read The Idiot but haven't gotten down to it yet.

Miflohny, technically Blue River came up from the Soundtrack for the Century disc that you loaned me but either way it came from you so thanks!

Everybody go down to the music meme entry and you can see that Sarah came over to let me know that she had posted her version of the instructions in an earlier entry so go ahed and hit that link to get the real deal. Thank you Sarah!

Gertrude Kennedy, thank you for the lovely compliment and I love that you referenced the most recent episode of the Gilmore Girls while doing it.

Keep those comments coming when you can, please, I will respond it just takes me a while sometimes.

Sinus me up!

Sinus headaches stink. If you can't so much take the sinus medications on the market it's hard to get relief. I don't feel like standing in my bathroom with the shower running for a few hours, makes it hard to sleep.

Oh well. My own fault. Skipped my meds and had a few drinks, I know that's a recipe for disaster and yet I'm still lazy.

Send steamy thoughts my way, please!

Meme Me

Chili's got this going on over at her teaching blog and I felt the need to jump on the bandwagon.

Look at the list of books below.
* Bold the ones you’ve read
* Italicize the ones you want to read
* Leave unchanged the ones that you aren’t interested in.
* If you are reading this, tag, you’re it!

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austin)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

She's back!

Or really I'm back watching her or something.




The love, people, the love. I can't help it. It's consuming me. You can see why, right?

Excuse me, I memed

Nablopomo really is the gift that keeps on giving content. I was surfing some of the list of participants from November and over on Zeitgeist I found this meme. I must have seen it somewhere else, too, because I remember there being directions and there aren't any in this post but I can't find that second place, if you are that person I am very sorry for not crediting you. However, I'm not going to let that stop me. I'll wing it, it's not, after all, rocket science. I know all about rocket science, I went on a date with a rocket scientist once, and this is not it.

You put your MP3player on shuffle.
You press play.
First song is the answer to the first question.
When you've written that down hit Next on the player and go to the next question.
Lather, rinse, repeat.

What you have to understand about mine is that I'm no music expert. I like a bunch of stuff, most of it weird. When I read other people's answers to memes like this I sort of skim because I'm not going to be able to hear most of the songs in my head so it won't make any sense to me. I won't ever be all *knowing chuckle* "Yeah..." I also like to hoarde music. I have over 5500 songs on the Pod. I got the first 1800 songs by "borrowing" Chili's entire library at the time. I also have some "wholeness" issues so even if I only like one song I really like to download the entire CD. Which is all to say that it's more than possible that, when doing this meme, I would get a number of songs I don't know at all. Here are my results:

Opening Credits: Things Happen, Kirsty MacColl
I love this song, I should be so lucky for it to be my opening credits.

Waking Up: Hang Down Your Head, Tom Waits
I like Waits but I don't know much of his stuff, I didn't know this until now.

First Day of School: Endless Summer Nights, Richard Marx
Very 80s with the synth and sax feel but the title sure is good for opening of school. Also did not know this before the meme.

Fight Song: One Trick Pony, Paul Simon
How disappointed in me are you going to be if I tell you that before this I'd never listened to this song?

Breaking Up: And With His Stripes We Are Healed, Handel's Messiah
Weird for a break up but not impossible and I love Handel.

Happiness: Blue River, Eric Andersen
Got this off a compilation. Had never listened to it. Am thoroughly in love now.

Life's OK: Hallelujah, Handel's Messiah
First repeat artist so that's interesting. This is not only a song I know but one I have sung in concert and hell yes it means Life's OK.

Mental Breakdown: Hold On My Heart, Genesis
I pretty much feel like if I'm stuck listening to Genesis all day long I would have a breakdown. I do like them but it's a total throwback to high school and it wigs me out. I'd also never heard this song before.

Driving: Inconsolable, Jonatha Brooke
I have actually used this as a driving song. It's awesome.

Flashback: Cedar Trees, Indigo Girls
Never heard this before. It has a great flashback feel.

Getting Back Together: Non Nobis Domine, Deller Consort
Yes, I frequently have makeup sex to obscure renaissance music.

Wedding Song: Higher Ground, Stevie Wonder
Here's where it gets weird. I had this off a compilation CD that Miflohny made for her wedding reception.

Birth of First Child: On Children, Sweet Honey in the Rock
Dude, how cool is that? Go listen to it if you have kids, especially if they're ticking you off.

Final Battle Scene: Jingle Bells, Eastern Bloc
I played this frequently during the last holiday season. Given my ongoing love/hate relationship with the holidays this is the perfect song for my final battle.

Death Scene: Dancin' in the Kitchen, Eric Sinclair
The artist was a student of my dad's and a teacher of mine. It's a very sweet and peppy love song about domestic bliss which makes my death even sadder.

Funeral Song: I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You, Tom Waits
And, another repeat artist. I have now fallen in love with this song, too. Last line: "And I think that I just fell in love with you" At my FUNERAL! The poor guy.

End Credits: On The Sunny Side of the Street, D. Jay Bradley
It's sort of perfect end credit music, instrumental, peppy, swingy and how nice for my end credits to be by someone I know and love.

A little odd, huh? But cool.

A cawhat?

Organizationally it seems like a really smart thing to do an a cappella track on your CD. It's no trouble to schedule rehearsals because it's just you and you can have them in your own living room. You can take whatever discounted time the studio has on short notice because it's just you and you don't have to check with anyone else. You don't have to worry even a jot about how anyone is playing or if you should get an arranger or anything else because it's just you.

Of course, then you get into the studio to rehearse and it turns out that it's just you! I mean, I don't know if you know this but a cappella means no accompaniment and if you're the only singer then you're all alone in there. Truthfully, the singing by yourself bit is fun.

Pretty soon, though, you have to listen to the results and there lies the rub. It's just you there on the tape! All those vague and fuzzy thoughts you had about, "well I'm sure he can just smooth that out"? Those are a bunch of bull.

Woof.

So, yeah, I recorded another track for my CD. I'm pretty sure it's not as bad as I'm making it out to be.