A few random things I’m grateful for:
-My job. It’s not perfect, but what job is? And I have a fantastic boss and coworkers.
-Being free of any chronic medical conditions or injuries
-Not being an addict. I feel like I’ve read a lot of addiction stories lately and I’m glad that it’s not something that’s ever been a problem in my own life.
-My chorus, which is doing some fun songs this season
-My new haircut.
I’m moving on the 31st, only about a mile away. I’m going to be living alone for the first time, which I’m really excited about. Eventually I might change that by getting a cat.
Until then, though, I’ll be living without a cute furry thing for the first time in three years. That’s because for those three years, I’ve been living with my roommate and her dog, Juno.
Juno, in my humble opinion, is the best dog ever. She’s probably a flat-coated retriever, and she loves you. Really. Even if she doesn’t know you, she loves you. Because she loves EVERYBODY. It doesn’t matter who you are. If you are a human, she loves you.
We should all be more like Juno.
I like to think she loves me more than the average human, though. I love her so much. I love how she likes to cuddle even in 90-degree heat. I love how she never stops wagging her tail. I love how she’d rather have attention than dog food and is always rolling on her back begging for a belly rub. I love how she’s six years old but still acts like a puppy. I love that she thinks she’s a lapdog despite being sixty pounds. I love how many kisses she gives. I love how excited she is to see me when I get home.
I have a lot of nicknames for her: Junebug, Puppy-girl, The Black Furball of Need, Princess Waggytail, Cuddles McFurry, You Ridiculous Beast. She doesn’t call me anything, but I call myself her Backup Human. If she could talk, as I’ve said before, I’m pretty sure she’d be singing a song that goes something like, “I’m the cutest! I’m the cutest! I’m the cutest!” (It’s not a very complicated song because she’s not a very complicated dog.) But she does have very high self-esteem.
She’s super quiet, though, which I appreciate. She very rarely barks, and when she does, it’s usually because she saw a cat out the window.
I never had a dog or a cat or any pets aside from fish growing up- my parents are just not pet people. This was the first time I’d ever lived with an animal, and living with her improved my quality of life immeasurably. During the manhunt for the Boston Marathon bomber, I spent a lot of the day anxiously petting her on the couch and thinking she’d make a great therapy dog.
No, even the best dog ever isn’t perfect. She sheds like crazy. She’s ridiculously needy and completely shameless. The firefighters down the street give her treats, which she knows, so one day when I was walking her, she saw that the firehouse door was open and yanked my arm out of the socket and the next thing I knew, I was in the firehouse, awkwardly standing there like, “Uh…hi. My dog wants a treat?” And she is the lickiest dog I’ve ever met in my life- while I like getting puppy kisses, my friends are not such big fans and I constantly have to tell her, “Juno, I know you love everybody but that does not mean you have to kiss everybody.” But even so, someday in the distant future I want my own dog, but I feel really bad for that hypothetical future dog—Juno has set the bar really high. It’s going to be hard to find a dog who’s half as awesome as she is.
I’m going to miss you, Juno. Keep being the best dog ever, and it has been a privilege to be your Backup Human.
Life goes on, and this week has been blessedly mundane. Here are five completely unrelated things.
1. THANK YOU to everyone who has donated so far to my run next week! If you haven’t donated yet, you have until Monday at 5:00 PM.
2. While I still don’t like Twitter, I have to say that one of the best feeds out there is Modern Seinfeld. I love Seinfeld and reference it way too much, and Modern Seinfeld cracks me up. The hypothetical plots they come up with are things I can completely see the Seinfeld characters doing. It is kind of strange to think about how much exists now that didn’t in the 90s- the Internet was barely a thing and cell phones were still new when the show ended.
But anyway, the other day they had their best tweet yet:
Elaine hates Arrested Development. Everyone judges her like she killed someone. J:”There are some things you’re just not allowed to say.”
— Modern Seinfeld (@SeinfeldToday) April 23, 2013
AMAZING. Even more amazing considering that my post on that subject was titled “Call Me Elaine,” in reference to the episode where Elaine hates The English Patient. I can tell you from experience that people really do act like you killed someone if you say you hate Arrested Development!
3. Line from Seinfeld I keep wanting to quote but can never find the right opportunity for: “You know, we’re living in a SOCIETY!“
Line from Friends I keep wanting to quote but can never find the right opportunity for: “That is brand new information!”
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlBh82TFn0Q]
4. On Sundays, I am now DVR-ing two shows, which are at polar opposites of the current spectrum of modern TV: Mad Men and What Would Ryan Lochte Do?.
Mad Men is still, in my humble opinion, the best show on TV. Even now, in Season 6, I’m marveling at how literary it is. I always tell people it’s a show for English majors- there is just so much to analyze and examine, both in individual episodes and across seasons and the whole show.
And then there’s What Would Ryan Lochte Do?.
Ryan Lochte cracks me up. He’s so pretty, and such a talented swimmer, but apparently there’s some chlorine water stuck in his brain because man, is he dumb. Male swimmers are usually huge dorks with great bodies, but most of them are somewhat smart. Not Ryan.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOCzzfy9C3M]
There’s only been one episode, but so far, while he’s definitely quite dim, he also comes off as very sweet, kind of like if Joey Tribbiani was a swimmer. Reality TV is often scripted (shocker!) but I did believe him when he said he just wants a girl to settle down with, and there was a really nice moment where he got teary talking about how his family always supports him.
I have to say, too, that the show is making me think of other shows featuring people who presented themselves as dumb. In 2006, Pink had that song “Stupid Girls” that called out celebrities like Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton for dumbing themselves down. More recently, we had Snooki on Jersey Shore playing up the dumb factor, and one reason among many I was glad when Sarah Palin did not ascend to higher office was because I dreaded how her lack of intelligence, and seeming indifference to her ignorance, would reflect on women everywhere.
It would be awesome if we could live in a world where women didn’t feel like the best way to attract attention is by being pretty and dumb. That would be ideal, but instead we now have this show, where a guy is building his image around being pretty and dumb.
Uh, yea equality?
5. There’s a shortage of platelets available for donation now due to the bombing last week, so consider making an appointment to donate platelets!
Well, I’ve had a crazy couple of weeks—good-crazy, though. I spent a week in Dallas for my company’s national sales meeting, flew home, was home for about twelve hours, and then went back to the airport to go to DC, where Erin and I stayed with Jackie and hung out with Tiana and Pam. Here are some of the highlights from the past two weeks:
I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the most popular searches that leads people to me is “Keith Lockhart’s divorce.” Keith Lockhart is the conductor of the Boston Pops, and today is their big July 4th concert on the Esplanade.
I got 19 searches for it today:
NINETEEN.
Happy 4th of July, all!
Have you ever had something you really wanted to tell people about but you didn’t think they’d quite get it if you did? Probably because it related to one of your obsessions and you didn’t know anyone else who cared about it quite so much?
…
You can see where this is going, can’t you? I’m not sure if anyone will find this the same level of giggle-inducing that I did, but I’m going to tell you anyway. And after this, I promise I will shut up about Les Mis (for now).
So, as I mentioned when I first posted about the movie, I, and millions of other fans, have been trying to figure out how the cast will be in the movie by listening to how they sound singing other things. Some people have inspired more confidence in the fans than others. One of the “others” is Russell Crowe, who will play Javert and whom we’ve only seen singing things that are nothing like musical theater, which makes it hard to judge how he’ll do.
Then I found a clip of Philip Quast, who was Javert in the 10th Anniversary dream-cast concert, singing on an Australian children’s show of which he was a cast member before becoming a big theater star. Someone had commented that if we’d only had that to judge his singing by before seeing him as Javert, who would have thought he’d be as great as he is?
See for yourself. Watch this video first. You don’t even have to watch the whole thing, just enough to get an idea of this guy’s singing voice and onstage persona.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urxk4mveLCw]
Now watch this video, from sometime in the 80s:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SpR3ZyMhEM]
IT’S THE SAME GUY!
…Okay, you might not be giggling like crazy like I was after discovering this, but in case there’s someone else out there who’s as amused by it as I am, I wanted to put it out there.
Foot, foot, footie-foot.
…And then I found twenty dollars.
It’s mostly my friends who read this blog, but occasionally I get comments from people who find me via some other method- a link on a friend’s blog, my 20-something Bloggers profile, or by Googling something.
That last method is the one I’m really interested in. I remember when I first started this blog, I had a post that mentioned Keith Lockhart, and a surprising number of people found me by Googling “Keith Lockhart’s divorce.” Mostly, people find me by Googling things like “single 20 something blog,” “struggling with being single,” or “books for twenty-something women.” A lot of people have found me by Googling “four-oh-wunk,” or the Sex and the City quote at the top of the blog. I’ve even had people find me by Googling, with quotation marks, “I hate Arrested Development” and “If you like Damages.”
But nothing tops the search that lead someone to me today.
I really don’t want to know.
It’s mostly my friends who read this blog, but occasionally I get comments from people who find me via some other method- a link on a friend’s blog, my 20-something Bloggers profile, or by Googling something.
That last method is the one I’m really interested in. I remember when I first started this blog, I had a post that mentioned Keith Lockhart, and a surprising number of people found me by Googling “Keith Lockhart’s divorce.” Mostly, people find me by Googling things like “single 20 something blog,” “struggling with being single,” or “books for twenty-something women.” A lot of people have found me by Googling “four-oh-wunk,” or the Sex and the City quote at the top of the blog. I’ve even had people find me by Googling, with quotation marks, “I hate Arrested Development” and “If you like Damages.”
But nothing tops the search that lead someone to me today.
I really don’t want to know.
We are now nearing the end of Lent, and I’ve heard that there’s an initiative in the Boston Archdiocese to encourage people to go to confession. I’ve written before here about my religious habits, but I haven’t been to confession since my confirmation retreat when I was fifteen. I was sharing a room with a girl I went to school with, and I confessed that I’d snuck a look at her retreat notebook while she was in the bathroom.
So while I might not be headed for ten Our Fathers or whatever they give you for penance nowadays, but there are plenty of things about myself that I’m not proud of. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to tell you guys some of the more unfortunate facts about me.
Without further ado, here’s what I have to confess to my readers:
-When I was a teenager, my sister and I both went to the optometrist. I was sitting near this table and had my hand under it, and I felt a button. When I pushed it, it made a noise like a doorbell. The optometrist apparently didn’t know the bell was there, because she was all confused and tried to figure out where it was coming from. I pressed it one more time to make sure, and it sounded again. I was too embarrassed to say that it had been me, and my sister didn’t even believe me when I told her.
-My first-ever concert was Backstreet Boys.
-It takes me over an hour to get out of bed on a normal day, regardless of how much sleep I get. My bed is just so soft and comfy that I don’t want to get out, so I can never get anything done before work.
-I don’t do laundry until I run out of underwear, and underwear and socks are about the only thing I wash. As long as my clothes don’t smell and don’t have any big stains on them, I just put them away.
-Although, I only own about three sports bras, so I very often take a sports bra out of the hamper, put it on, and hope that I run fast enough that people walking by me don’t have to smell me.
-While I love the Red Sox, I can’t claim to be a lifelong fan. I’m a lousy athlete and a bit of a girly-girl, so when I was a kid I was all, “Ew, I hate sports.” By high school I’d changed my mind, and I’ve been a die-hard Sox fan for the last ten years or so.
-I still have the keys from my summer job in 2001. Oops.
-At said summer job (lifeguard at a condo complex), I once accidentally left those keys, and all my other stuff, in the pool building and locked myself out in the pouring rain. I managed to climb over the fence and get myself back in through an unlocked door, but not before getting soaked by the rain. I don’t want to think about how many people in the condos must have seen this all happen.
-I watch Toddlers and Tiaras. It’s a horrifying, ridiculous show, but I just can’t look away! I’m too embarrassed to put it on my DVR, but I watched almost every episode of the most recent season. This one little girl, Makenzie, cracks me up. Sometimes I’ll randomly start laughing thinking of her saying, “I think waitresses are really cool…they bring food.” (That’s at about 11:47 of this video, but watch the whole thing!)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_vQ3kIXVNE&w=480&h=390]
-At chorus a couple of weeks ago, while having a conversation about Disney princesses, I told this girl how Hans Christian Andersen’s version of “The Little Mermaid” ends. (Don’t look it up if you don’t know and don’t want to be disappointed.) Uh, that was a mistake- I think I ruined her day.
-When I went to see Wicked last fall, my friend Amy and I walked over a sidewalk vent on our way there. Um, bad idea when you’re on a major street and wearing dresses.
-If you have ever been a competitive swimmer, at some point you have peed in a pool.
-I was a competitive swimmer as a kid. Make of that what you will.
