Because I Find Lists To Be The Easiest Way Of Letting You Know What I'm Up To

Hello, Internet! Hi. You can't see it, but I'm doing one of those low, self-conscious waves at you that little kids do while they're coiled tightly around Mom's leg. Because, Internet, I feel like we are strangers, but possibly you have candy to give me, so I'm willing to give it a shot. Do you like the analogy? I like the analogy. Also, I spent my day with two-year-olds, so it came readily to mind.

Here are some things I have been up to:

1. I got a Wii. It is fantastic, and I have been playing Mario Kart like a mad woman, and my plan was to assemble all of my friends, and we would play Wii, and it would be fantastic. And then they all went out and got their own Wiis. I almost had real-life friends, though. Almost.

2. Watching all those movies people just ASSUME I've seen, because everyone has seen them, but I haven't. I don't know what I was up to while everyone else was out watching Forrest Gump - that's right, haven't seen it.

3. Compiling Christmas Gift Lists. So many people these days have so little, and I am blessed enough to have more than I need. I am doing my own, small part to stimulate the economy, and presents are involved, too, hoorah! You don't know how I agonize over gift-giving, either.

4. Fiercely combating with entropy. Do you know how difficult it is to keep a room clean, when it's not YOUR room, and the room's occupant keeps bringing dirty dishes into it and saves every last receipt he has ever gotten, ever? I started with a hamper, a bill folder, and some organizational drawers. It will end in bloodshed, I have no doubt. Bloodshed, or scented candles.

5. Buying laptops for people. Everyone wants a laptop, and no one knows what sort will be a good fit for them. So I get to show off my skills and sniff out the best deals, and for some reason people think I am using my own special brand of magic, instead of Google and a little splash of patience. Here's my advice, people: Type in "good deals on laptops," and have at it! Or just "good deal laptop." "Good laptop deal." "Deal laptop good"? Turn it into a game. Play with the kids!

6. Using illegal quantities of lotion. I cannot stand dry skin. Winter time, I am looking at you.

7. Bathing a large, unappreciative, very furry cat. At one point, he tried to escape from the tub, and of course it was when he was covered in soap. I suddenly had a vision of this soaking-wet, twenty-pound, slimy gargantuan cat streaking loose through the house. You should try it some time.

8. Hunting down Count Chocula cereal. I used to buy it about twice a year for friends and/or church activities, and it was always easy to find, back then. Then came a day when I wanted some for myself, and lo and behold, it became the rarest and most impossible thing to find. I moved back to Maryland, which had plenty of grocery stores, and I thought my luck would improve, but alas, it did not. Now if a store sells it, I buy two boxes. Also, because I am an adult, I can eat it any time I want. Sometimes I'm lying around, enjoying a bowl, then I go grab a slice of cheesecake to complete my dinner, and I think to myself, "Holy cow, it is cool being a grown-up. Rent is not cool. But the food selections more than make up for it."

9. Not doing laundry. Worrying about it takes up a lot of time. Trust me on this one.

10. Missing you. Seriously.

Really Good Things That Can Happen

I got a package in the mail from my old roommate cointaining one grey zip-up hooded sweatshirt, one dessert-sized plate purchased at Deseret Industries, one bag of Riesens, and one happy birthday note. It is mid-seventies here in Virginia, but I am wearing the heck out of that hoodie.

I happened to glance at my reflection as I was walking by a mirror and actually agreed with what I saw. Usually drive-by ambush sightings are the worst, too.

Someone compared me positively to Uma Thurman. I didn't know that was even possible, but apparently I am a warrior.

My living room is covered with books on Charles Dickens, no doubt the result of someone's harried finals paper writing. I am going to browse through all of them, and I may not even make it to work. Just kidding. Sigh.

I'm done with this job in less than a month. I am going to paint my bedroom the exact shade of happy I feel when I hear "home."

Because This Might Embarrass Her

A copy of the letter Bree left on my desktop before she and Kyle left on Spring Break (I offered to babysit their little love ferret):

"Betharoonie-


The Cheetah print key on your desk is the key to Kyle’s house. You know where he lives…

The furry fairy is in the first room at the top of the stairs. He is in the closet. You will see/smell him instantly. Please do not clean up any poopsies or anything. I seriously DO NOT expect you to do that. Just play with him for a bit, let him get some exercise. His food is in the closet too. And just make sure he has water. Like I said, if you miss a day, it is not the end of the world.

Kyle and I seriously appreciate this! You can call my cell if you have any questions…

Love your face off!!


Bree"




Things I Love About This Letter
1. Being addressed as Betharoonie.
2. There seriously is an honest-to-goodness cheetah print key sitting on my desk. It is just too perfect.
3. Poopsies. With the chinchillas it was "EWWWWWWW, POOOOOOOOP, get those monsters away from here, hiyah!" with that last exclamatory being made as we hiked them through the window. Without even waiting to open it. But now, poopsies. So cute.
4. She loves my face off. And there really is no better place for my face to be right now than off. (I may have been so tired I fell asleep without washing off my mascara, and now it may be caking the entire cheekular region of my face. Maybe.)
5. The ferret will probably die under my care.

The Worst Things Ever

Off the top of my head, just a list of the ten worst things I could possibly imagine. Except not, obviously, because phone conversations is not an item on that list. (Joking.) (Not.) (Yeah, okay.)

1. Throwing up.
2. That skin on jell-o.
3. Passwords that require letters AND numbers.
4. Forgetting to bring chapstick.
5. Mint chocolate chip cookies.
6. The squeaking of lead pencils.
7. Flossing.
8. Running into a professor when you skipped his class that day.
9. Ground beef.
10. Bills.

Some New Things

- I have decided to rechristen the cat (formerly Eliot, or kittylicious to those flippant among us) as Ghostface Killa. Ghostface because he is white, and therefore has a white face, and for some reason I think of ghosts as being white. (PacMan would be ashamed of me, I know, but it's just too late to change me.) Killa, because that cat is a stone cold killa - he jumped four feet in the air to kill a moth, for example. He ripped the toys I bought for him to small, feathery shreds. I came home today and his collar has completely vanished from off his little, fuzzy neck, leading me to believe that he has masticated it to such an extent as to leave no remaining fragment larger than an atom.

- I finally conceived of, created, and completed a Wal-Mart list, remembered to bring it with me, and bought only those things on the list, which turned out to be everything I needed. I know this is a personal first, and I believe it is also a first for mankind. That store does things to people to make lists void and fruitless. I have changed all that and am now considering penning a self-help book and making millions on proceeds. And blowing that on my next Wal-Mart visit, when I go only to acquire a curtain rod, some Windex, and fishing lure.

- PostSecret wasn't updated on Sunday, which makes it the first Sunday in perhaps a year when I have not voyeuristically perused other peoples' deepest, darkest parts. And then stared at the picture OtherJennifer gave me to put my own secret on and mail it in. I still don't know what to say.

- Everyone is going to Europe(/Utah), and I am still in Buena Vista. And I like it here and never want to leave, except maybe to visit Egypt.

Things That Have Kept Me Away From The Internet

1. A schizophrenic crackwhore (no, I do not exaggerate) came into work requesting alcohol, but saying she'd left her I.D. "up north," (though she told everyone else Mexico, so I wonder where she thought she was), so I refused to sell her any. Whereupon she asked me how much money it would take for me to take off my shirt. It left me speechless and afraid.

2. I made the transition from grinding levels for someone else's Final Fantasy XII game to playing my own game of IX. My drug of choice is no longer heroin. Give me a fat stack of video games, and I will not eat, I will not sleep, I will send misleading e-mails to people about my snowed-in-ness, anything it takes for just one hundred more experience points. Just one hundred more....

3. A friend asked me to go to Cabo San Lucas for spring break, and, hello, I'm there. As Stephanie put it, "You have to do this for all of us!" Thoughts of warm Mexican beaches make it hard to sit in a cold, dull apartment.

4. The recent craze of promotional posters decorating our hallway and living room walls have provided the apartment with a variety of opportunities. Now we don't just talk about doing something awesome at some point in time. We set a date and time, and we MAKE A POSTER TO ADVERTIZE. So everyone knows, and there's lots of guilt if you don't come.

5. My punishing schedule allows me little energy to think of anything to say at all. And by punishing I mean, you could not do this schedule if you tried.

6. I'm too busy watching the police chase said schizophrenic crackwhore around. Literally chase around, and jump over counters and get hit in the face with pans, and forcibly tackle her. So brutal. So so worth it. Except no one used tasers like I suggested.

7. I (re-)learned to double windsor ties. I want to (if I get married) tie my husband's ties for him, so it's a worhwhile skill to have. Plus, this way I can spread the double windsor to more people. Enough of these ugly, useless knots.

8. e-Bay.

9. Art promises 80 degrees of thermostat goodness, and who am I to argue with that? I cannot argue with the 80 degrees. I am too busy sighing with contentment and curling up into a little ball of happy. And then sending that happy in a surge through a playstation controller to kill things.

Before You Go Home For Christmas

TO DO

- Break into someone's house to use their washing machine, because the stark reality of several weeks' worth of unwashed clothes piling up in the laundry basket in the closet has finally hit - the very real, very terrible reality of wearing spandex exercise pants, not to exercise, and not as a joke.

- Buy some food coloring and a nail, the final items necessary to fully install and appreciate the weather barometer I (no joke) got for Christmas and still can't quite believe I actually possess. WEATHER! BAROMETER! Apparently Anna thought Art was a little insane for thinking it would be an acceptable Christmas gift, but I can promise you right now I will be positively glued to the thing and may even forget to go home for Christmas.

- Find out where the internet lives; throw rocks at house. This kind of tomfoolery isn't even funny, it's just plain cruel.

- Read 483758392947 books.

- Figure out how, exactly, girls manage to have so many pretty, girly things laying about in beautiful arrangements of class and femininity and duplicate it. Maybe this requires having secret admirers send you things over a lifetime? Fine.

- Pretend to be my own secret admirer and leave me packages with beautiful, romantic notes scrawled on the packaging to be torn off and kept in a shoebox under my bed. I can do romance, even if I have to do it for myself.

- Get a haircut. I know it's lovely and long, but it's threatening to take over your life. Make sure it's still quite long, though, because your mother and grandmother both want it short, and what are you, compliant?

- Spend more time with the Microsoft program Paint, creating whimsical recreations of every person you've ever met, with the only distinguishable difference being the mismatched eyes, crooked mouths, and cartoony, never-duplicated-in-reality color palette you have to choose from.

Making A List Of Things I Aboslutely Cannot Accomplish And Why

1. I buy bottled water with sports caps because it's the only way I've found to be able to drink water at all. Pretty much every other time I try, I fail. I either drink it too fast and choke on it and look like an idiot who doesn't even have enough brain function and coordination to control the swallow muscles, or it spills out all over my face and whatever shirt I happen to be wearing at the time.

2. There is an international ban on my playing pool ever. It's actually been listed as a crime against humanity because my skills are so entirely lacking that people die whenever I attempt it. Throught the years people have tried to teach me but my incompetence is so monumental that I am plain unteachable. The only way to play pool with me is to bodily move me - arms, legs, fingers, pool cue, my entire body - into proper position. This is usually best accomplished by hoisting me onto your shoulder and carrying me around the pool table. Oh, and I won't cooperate with you, either.

3. I cannot find the Chick-Fil-A french fries I bought today and saved for dinner. I know I got them out of Jaela's car, but after that, it's a complete mystery. Maybe the apartment ghost got to them.

4. Tell the truth. The reasons are obvious.