One American dollar

Last night and tonight we watched a film called Wristcutters: A Love Story. We watched it in two nights because we couldn't finish watching it last night on account of being old people who like to go to bed sometimes. I'll cut right to the chase (ha ha): we didn't love it. I don't think we hated it either, but if it didn't come so highly recommended by colleagues, we would not have finished it, I don't think.

I said something in an off-hand way to Scott about the guy in Wristcutters being the same guy from Almost Famous.

At this juncture it's important to note that I am not a betting lady. I do not bet for money. I will very occasionally bet for friendly bets where we just shake on something and nobody wins anything. I am powerfully anti-gambling. It's leftover from Jesus and reinforced by my belief that a state-run lottery is the work of Beelzebub himself (he's got a devil set aside for me) and it causes me to refuse even the simplest and most pleasurable forms of betting, including scratch tickets. Although I must admit that on the rare occasion I'm at the Big Y, I will play their fake-o slot machine game. I never win a coin. Never. I think they know that I am disgusted by their jingoistic bullshit.

Anyway, coming back.

So Scott says, "That's not the same guy." I said, "It certainly is. Don't you recognize him?"

I mean, that kid's mouth shape is uniquely his. How can a person not remember it after that goofy grin he has in Almost Famous?

Scott said, "If it's him, I will give you a dollar." See? He knows better than to try to engage me in a bet. In fact, in all the times he's tried to engage me in a bet, I think he's only succeeded once.

I advised him that the Internet was available to help him on his quest. He went upstairs, returned a short time later, and handed me a dime - this to try to convince me that I was wrong and he was right. But I knew that I was right. I have eyes, for christsakes! I said, "Where's my dollar?"

"Oh, you still think you're right?"

"I know I'm right!" Incidentally, the guy's name is Patrick Fugit. The Internet just told me he was also in White Oleander and - attention, please, mother - a few episodes of Touched by an Angel (he was not an angel, sint frum Gud).

I'm the proud owner of a dollar coin which once belonged to Count Scottula himself!

Victory is mine.

To: Sworn enemies. Return address: Unknown

Scott (the Count of Counts - Hallelujah! Hallelujah!) gave me a copy of George Carlin's autobiography (or sortofbiography, as Carlin called it), Last Words.

It is dynamite. I love it. I'm on page 178. I like it so much better than Steve Martin's stab at the same, Born Standing Up.

Both talk a lot about their early lives and stand-up. Last Words, though, actually includes pieces of material written out, including how the pieces changed over time. I'm finding this way more enlightening as a comic. Both are good stories, though, and worth reading.

One part of Last Words has kept me laughing since I read it. George Carlin starts the book with all that David Copperfield kind of crap (sorry, Holden Caulfield). In the section about his maternal grandfather, he begins to talk about his mother, Mary Carlin:

Mary was the first of his six children, all born in either Greenwich Village or Chelsea. She was frail as a kid and among other things was given a glass of Guinness stout each night to build her up. It worked. The physical strength she ultimately developed was matched by mental toughness. When she was ten she sent a box of horseshit to a girl on her block who had neglected to invite her to a birthday party. She was small, vivacious, made friends easily, played piano, was a great, dancer, laughed loudly ... and you didn't want her for an enemy.

I read this aloud to Scott in bed. I said, "Can you even believe that? She was 10! Incredible!" and he replied, "I can't believe you've never thought of sending anyone a box of shit."

I really hadn't. And once he suggested it, I couldn't believe I hadn't thought of it either.

We proceeded to talk about how a person, in this modern age, might send shit through the United States Postal Service without being detected. A ziplock bag would not be enough. Tyvek? Maybe. But under no circumstance should a person include his or her return address or apply his or her handwriting to the box. Certainly, the box would be full of his or her DNA, but the federal government has bigger fish to fry than to run a DNA test on a box full of feces. And anyway, even if they did, they'd have to have another sample of his or her DNA to make a match, and they wouldn't, so he or she'd be home free!

My god! It almost seems too easy!

We got ourselves laughing so hard about this that I had to get out of bed and cough vigorously while Scott shook quietly in the bed making his laughing-really-hard face.

I guess there are a number of points here. The first is I wish I had the courage to shit into a box and mail it to someone. Incidentally, I can't think of a single person I want to mail my shit to. And what if I thought of someone, but then I changed my mind after it was mailed? It's just mortifying to think of - and at the same time hilariously funny.

Another point is that when I met Scott, I couldn't possibly have foreseen that we'd both find shitting in a box and mailing it to another person so hilarious. We are so perfectly suited to one another that it probably makes people want to hurl a little bit. And I can't blame them. If it was four years ago and I saw a happy couple like Scott and me, I would barf a little bit myself - a jealous and angry barf, certainly, but barf nonetheless. (Would it help the barfing people to know that being happy with another person takes work and often involves the help of a qualified professional? Because it does.)

Finally, if you have delivered - or if you plan to deliver - a Mary-Carlin-style box of feces to another person, I kind of want to know how it went/goes - just so long as you're not sending it to me. I promise I won't tell (unless a subpeona is involved).

Happy New Year!

Ah, 2010. Have you decided if you're calling it Two Thousand and Ten, Two Thousand Ten or Twenty Ten?

I'm calling it Twenty Ten, for the record. Join me if you want to be cool.

I'm not big on resolutions, but I'm making one. Here it is: I'm going to write on my blog at least once a week. Here's why: I miss writing here. It helps me sort out hilarious things that have happened and turn them into material, it helps me sort out terrible things that have happened and turn them funny, and it's a nice way to stay connected with people (including my identical-twin grandmother, who is not pleased by the dearth of posts here (sorry, Grandmother)).

In any case, I'm going to try.

Remember the olden days when I blogged multiple times a day? How did I have that kind of time?

Oh, right. I didn't have a Count.

I guess this is a good trade. Even so, I am striving for balance. Join me.

Yes, I have a job

I got a note from a friend who didn't realize I have a job. I announced what happened on Facebook, I think, and didn't update here. Many apologies.

So August I got the can. I was bereft, truly, because I really liked my job and my work people. Shortly, though, I started to think that my job loss was happening for a reason, that there was something better out there for me, and I was hoping that the something better was comedy-related.

I became disabused of the notion, however, in September when I was given my job back. I didn't exactly have a choice in taking it since not taking it would mean that I wouldn't get a severance or be able to collect. I was inconsolably upset about it for a couple reasons, the main one being the disappointment that the "something better" lined up for me was my same old job, which didn't seem "same" or "old" before I got the can, but my perception was changed. I was supposed to be so happy and relieved to get my job back and I wasn't, so I looked like a total fucking asshole at my job. For real. People would come up to me to congratulate me and tell me how happy they were that they got to keep me and I would burst into tears like an ingrate.

Honestly, I was furious for having been dicked around (or at least I felt like I had been; in truth, there were people pulling for me in a big way behind the scenes, which is how I ended up with my job back), disillusioned by the whole process (the internal workings of a giant company are a real sausage situation; the less you know the better) and really, really, really sad that I wasn't moving on to bigger and better things.

Distance and reality glasses allow me to know and appreciate the value of being employed in a down economy. I've been unemployed before and while it was great - splendid, really - at that time I did not have a mortgage or any other real responsibility outside of a very inexpensive rent. I am truly glad and feel blessed that I am not in any fear of losing my house and that I will be able to continue supporting the Count in the lifestyle to which he's grown accustomed (bon-bons and diamonds for everyone!).

I'd be lying, though, if I said that everything is back to normal. It's not. Some of my relationships have changed. I don't trust people the way I want to trust them. I feel alternately bitter and jaded and then lucky and grateful. I'm trying to focus on the lucky and grateful part. It doesn't always work, but I try.

One thing that the whole situation really brought to the forefront for me, though, is how important my radio life is to me. Especially since starting this job, I've thought about giving it up so many times. It brings me so much joy, yes, but it also means I only have one day truly off each week and I can almost never go away for a weekend. A person can understand why I'd consider giving it up. When I got the can though, one of the first things I thought of was, "Thank god I never gave up the radio!"

Another thing is that I really do want to make a go of the comedy. I don't exactly know how, but I'm going to do what I do know how to do and trust that the Universe is lining things up for me just right.

So I have a job. Christmas is saved!

Can it be three whole weeks since my last post?

That's it. I'm fired!

Okay, not really.

So much has been going on, most of which is not blog fodder, so I must abstain. But here are a few things that are worth sharing.

First, I did several hours of yard work today and if I didn't know I did it, I wouldn't notice I did it. There are many parts of home ownership that suck. This is one of them.

While I was working on the yard, I applied some sunscreen so I could try to avoid premature death. I bought some sunscreen at the Greenfields Market that is all-natural, so it's not as bad for the environment or anything (because some of them are pretty bad). It was made with zinc oxide, so it made me sort of white and pasty (or should I say, "whiter and pastier"?) than normal. When I was finally done being outside, I went into the shower to return to my normal human state, and I could not wash that stuff off. It took a ton of soap and water and actual, factual scrubbing and carrying on, and the water was still beading up on my skin like I had been freshly waxed. It was like tar.

(Aside: Remember Actual Factual Bear?)

Part of what I did was clean up some leaves that were leftover from fall. I found a whole bunch of them in my brassierre when I took a shower. Awesome!

This week was the best week I've ever had at work, ever. I got nominated by my peers for an important and prestigious award - and then I won it. And all of this happened without anyone spilling the beans to me, so that when they announced it in front of everyone in my division (100 or so people), I was so surprsed that I instantly started weeping and walking around in a daze like Miss America.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking: Jennifer always cries. And it's partially true, but I really try to keep the out-loud-and-in-public weeping to the minimalest minimum at work. They don't smile kindly on ladies in career separates getting their weep on in earnest 'round about my corporatey-corporate workplace. But I did it. And it was on a teleconference too! I was pretty embarrassed. But afterwards, everyone was coming up and hugging me and congratulating me and it basically didn't matter at all. In fact, my old bossidy-boss came up to me later to tell me how touched he was that I was so surprised and happy about the award.

My crying brought people together! Even so, I'm going to try not to do that again.

In the bastard plantar fasciitis news, it went away for about a week, then came back again, but I'm confident I can get it to go away again. It's so frustrating. But I've been taking short walks and basically giving it a giant middle finger, so that helps. In a related story, I bought another pair of shoes in an effort to fit my foot and my orthotic into a shoe at the same time. Upon wearing the shoe for one work day, I discovered it doesn't actually fit me. Fucking yeah!

I had a membership to Planet Fitness. A few weeks ago, Scott helped me face the reality that I never go. Not just seldom. Never. So he drove me over there and I cancelled my membership easy-peasy. It was nothing. But I wouldn't have gone over there without his urging. And because he was there, I didn't get caught up in feeling like a loser for quitting the gym. Honestly, I couldn't stand it in there. It was a lowest-common-denominator playground, as far as I could tell. When I was going regularly for a while there, there was a series of nutso people basically parading around me the whole time. This one insane mother in particular screaming at her son for about a thousand hours while I was just trying to exercise for about 30 minutes set me into a bit of, oh, I don't know. If it weren't so goddamned funny, I might have had the panic. When did mothers start screaming at their kids like dogs in public? My mother always had the courtesy to whisper-shout at us through gritted teeth. If you weren't right next to her feeling the anger radiate off her like thermo-nuclear waves and experiencing her death grip sear your arm fat while her growly whisper-shout singed the extra-fine cilia in your inner ear, you might not even know she was angry. (I'm not sure I've adequately thanked her for keeping the public mortification to a minimum.) In any case, the number of people working out in their pajamas was basically stunning. Also, teenagers getting their pose on in earnest. It was madness is all I'm saying.

You might be thinking, "Jennifer, the common denominator in all this is you." And indeed you may be right. But no self-respecting establishment purporting to be a health and fitness gymnasium should have a weekly all-you-can-eat pizza night. Just sayin'.

This morning, my mother called my very popular radio program to put on Grandpa No-legs's Bass Boat. It was sold within a very short time, which gratified me to no end. In any event, there was a glorious moment while we were on the air when I asked my mother what the boat was made of, aluminum or fiberglass. She approximately replied, "Whatever Bass Boats are made of." I approximately said, "They can be made of either." I only know this because of the show that I host. We talk about these things. She approximately said, "People who know Bass Boats know what they're made of," like she was some kind of person who knew Bass Boats, which she couldn't be because she didn't know what it was made of. I approximately said, "Yes, of course, ma, either aluminum or fiberglass." I added "approximately" in there because I didn't record it. I only wish I had so I could get those quotes exactly and so I could listen to it in perpetuity and laugh and laugh. We raised the curtain on our relationship to the listening public. When it was over, my bossman at the station popped into the studio and said, "You've gotta have your mother call in more often." I said, "I wasn't sure if that was funny to outside people or not." He said, "Oh, it was."

It is a radio program on public air waves, so my mother can certainly call in whenever she wishes to do so.

I think we're all caught up now.

Craigslist Killer

I hate that this happens to me, but I am just like everyone else in America and I get fascinated by news stories. I've been drawn in by this Craigslist Killer story for a number of reasons.

One of them is that this guy and his lady have been together for four years and were planning a summer wedding. I can't imagine the horror of discovering the person you thought you were going to spend the rest of your life with, who you thought couldn't hurt a fly, was secretly a giant moron at serial killing.

Seriously, this guy thinks he's smart enough to be a doctor/serial killer and he doesn't realize that phone records and IP addresses would lead investigators directly to his sorry ass? He may as well have left directions to his apartment with the victims. Give me a fucking break! This guy is supposed to be the best and the brightest? Bah!

Also, the part where he totally snowed his lady gives me the terrors, particularly the part where she's defending him and saying he couldn't hurt a fly while investigators are pulling his victims' underpants out of their apartment. The least he could do is give her some kind of sign so that she doesn't go on Good Morning America and become the pathetic fiancee of the Craigslist Killer.

Also, there's the part where Scott and I met on Craigslist on that fateful day nearly three years ago. I said to him yesterday, "Listen, brother, if you turn out to be a murderer, can you at least do me the favor of telling me so I don't make a total fucking ass of myself on television defending you."

He said, "Don't worry. I will only kill people that I don't meet on Craigslist."

What a sweet relief.

I think this might make it to the stage this weekend.

How you know you're at an open mic where you maybe don't belong (but you actually do!)

I've got a kind of important audition this weekend. I don't want to say much more about it here. In any case, I'm trying to get ready like nobody's business.

I went to an open mic tonight that will remain nameless and location-less so as to protect the identity of the innocent.

It was primarily a music open mic, the kind I swore off years ago. And if I weren't desperate for stage time to prepare for this weekend, please be assured that I wouldn't be there. Nosiree.

The host opened up the show by saying (I hope this doesn't give too much away) that she got tickets to see Dar Williams for Christmas one year from her husband, but then she had her baby the week before the show, and because she couldn't go to a concert with a one-week-old baby, she stayed home. "This is a song about a concert I didn't go to."

Scott and I looked at each other and we knew we were both thinking the same thing. And I said to him, "You should know that I know how much you love me. You show me because you are here with me right now."

I think that's how you know that you're with exactly the right person, the person you were meant to be with. If I believed in predestination (which I kind of do a little bit), I would believe (and I kind of do) that I had lived my entire life up until this point just so I could sit in a coffee shop, pay $3.25 for a small cup of babaganoush and listen to a lady sing a song about a concert she didn't go to - just so I could live in the perfect moment of Scott and me looking into each other's eyes and not having to say a single word before we stifled laughter. This is the stuff of life!

I ended up doing the whole set that I planned for my audition. I came in 30 seconds short of the maximum amount of time I can use in the audition, which is perfect because I felt like I was rushing a little bit. I can relax a little. And people laughed even though it was a music open mic. I'm feeling really good about my set and just excited to be taking this next step with the comedy. I haven't done any kind of audition since 2001, if you want to know the truth. I should have been doing auditions all along, but I haven't been doing them. I'm not sure what's stopped me. Fear, probably. But not any more.

I actually ended up having a great time at the open mic tonight, and I met a lot of nice new people, many of whom I may well see again because - get this! - I think I might go back. I surprised myself by how much fun I had even though so many people totally sucked (and I mean this in the most supportive way possible, because I'm pretty sure I sucked when I first started out too). But I won't make Scott come with me. Unless, of course, he wants to come.

I said to him, when we're old ladies and men, we will look back on this night and laugh. I will be in my rocking chair and I'll say, "Gosh, I would love to listen to a song about a concert someone didn't go to." And then we would laugh.

Scott said, "Okay, but you might have to remind me of this story so that I remember to laugh."

Do I ever love that guy!

Here, take this barf bag

Scott went to a party tonight without me. I could have gone; I opted not to. I was just feeling tired and not in the mood. I'm a human.

The party was in Cambridge. That means that Scott is driving alone. Fine. I guess.

It's funny, I never got this nervous or worried about anyone driving anywhere before I met Scott. I just don't want to lose him. I can't imagine my life without him in it. The idea that he is hurtling down a highway alone makes me worry.

When his parents were moving, he was delivering some stuff from his parents in NY to his sister in VT and was driving around quite a bit for a few days. I basically had to take to the bed I was so out of my mind. Right now, I'm just in a mild state of worry. It's not even worry so much as a strong desire for him to be home already.

Okay, maybe saying I never got this worried before meeting him is a slight exaggeration. One time a long time ago - I think I might have been in college - I was dropping my parents off at the airport because they were going to Florida to visit my grandparents. I became convinced that they were going to die on a plane. I cried in the car all the way back home. Then when it was time for their return trip, I cried about it in a booth at Bickford's of all places (it is breakfast anytime, after all) and an old lady turned around in her booth to tell me that I shouldn't worry and that it is all in God's hands.

She said God like Gaud. Like the vowel sound in gauze. In case you want to imagine it. I should mention that I was wearing pajama pants in public at the time. I went through a bit of a phase with that.

I guess what this is proving is that I sometimes get worried. And my state of worry about Scott driving home is no where near crying out loud in a Bickford's. That said, I will be hella relieved when he gets his honkey ass home.

I will now turn my eyes upon the TeeVee to distract myself with the SNL.

What's new in the neighborhood?

Well, we bought a car. For the last year and a half, we've been driving a free car from Scott's parents, but the lease will be up on it soon and we needed to make a move. So we made one. There's a shiny, used 2004 Hyundai Accent taking up space in our driveway now. I'm a little bit not excited about it because it's nothing like the lap of luxury we've been sitting in for the last year and a half, but it's a much smarter car for us: small, low miles, excellent mileage, etc. And yet, I admit I will miss having heated seats.

Scott hates heated seats so he will be unaffected by this one part of our new car. He says sitting in a heated seat is like sitting in a seat that's been pre-farted. I can see his point, certainly; I just don't agree.

In case you'd like to stalk us, our new car is light blue.

With the snow melting, we're finding all the dog turds that one of our asshole neighbors has been letting his dog leave in our tree belt and on our sidewalk. Give me a break! We think we know who it is, but we haven't seen any deuce-dropping in action. If we don't catch them in the act and keep a photographic record, the police can't do anything about it. We only know this because our neighbor called the cops about it when they were hitting her yard.

All we can say for certain from looking at the specimen is that it's a small dog. I think I'd just like to have a casual talk with the owner about dog turds and see if we couldn't come up with some sort of amicable resolution without involving the cops. I mean, the Holyoke police have bigger fish to fry than some stupid dog owner letting his dog lay cable in our yard.

That said, I found this customizable sign that I want to get and post on our fence. They print the message for you. I want it to say, "Please pick up your dog's turds." Do you think it might help, or do you think that it will make people throw dog shit over the fence and into our yard? I think it might help because it will show that we have a sense of humor. But they might laugh all the way home to get their catapault and then they might start launching. I'm a little bit sceered.

I also want to get a sign about litter. We're on a corner lot and the cross street is a major pass-through for teenagers and winos. I don't think we can stop the drunks from dropping the nip bottles, but I think we can stop the teenagers from dropping their gum and candy wrappers. Maybe I'm too optimistic. Scott goes out at least once a week and picks up all the trash on both sides of the street in our area. He can't stop giving.

Last summer, someone bought a box of drumsticks (you know, the ice creamy treat), ate them all, put the wrappers into the box and then threw the box over our fence. Talk about infuriating. If I knew who did it, I could probably have set fire to them with just my gaze. Hell, I was mad.

I think the main culprits in our war on litter might be the kids directly next door. I caught one littering over the summer - he threw a brownie wrapper and an ice cream pint right into our driveway - but faked I didn't know he was the litterer. I asked him if he saw anyone throwing trash into our yard. He said no. I asked him if I could count on him to help me keep the area litter free. He said I could. And we haven't had any actual litter in our driveway since, except for the kind that blows into the yard from someplace else.

I'm making it sound like we live in a trash heap. We don't.

Hey, remember Madame Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock?

I have an entire program of flowers and plants planned for the outside and inside of the fence though, to make it look less like a fortress and more like a friendly home. Maybe that will help.

Comic-in-residence: Day four

Day four: Wednesday, January 7, 2008

It was Scott's big 4-0, so I was planning to do my Scott jokes, Husqvarna and all the rest. My economic stimulus package joke is a real crowd favorite, and it's partially about him, so I planned to do that as well. I wrote a few new jokes about career separates. I keep getting mixed results with those jokes, so I've been tweaking them and tweaking them.

If you've been to a Studio show more than once, you may have noticed a pattern, which is that the music directly before the show is the same every time. Rick starts playing a mix of popular tunes as soon as the doors open, but then right before the show, he plays Edwin Starr's "War" and then the beginning strains of "Dirty Water" and then the show is on.

Last night, halfway through "War", Rick Jenkins comes up to me all casual and friendly-like and asks, "Hey, you wanna host tonight?"

He's a sly debbil, that Rick Jenkins. He surely knew he was going to ask me to host long before he actually asked me, but he asked me to host about one minute before I was going to have to host. I think it was a test.

And I think I passed. I ended up doing most of my current strongest jokes, sprinkled in a few new ones, and overall had a great time. I think one of my biggest anxieties while I was actually in the middle of it is that I had to introduce people I didn't know, and I couldn't figure out who they were to talk with them before actually introducing them. It worked out okay, though. I don't think I mangled any names or gave anyone too crappy an intro.

We hung out at the bar on the first floor after the show was over and talked to Rick and the gang. It seems Rick's biggest criticism of my style is that I back off my jokes when it seems the audience isn't responding. He reminded me that sometimes an audience is amused but not laughing and when I start backing off it confuses them because they didn't notice that anything was the matter. He said that when you're doing a big show and 100 people say, "Ha!" it sounds much louder than a smaller show and 12 people saying "Ha!", but the 12 people aren't enjoying the joke any less.

Good point. I knew this month-long project would turn me into a better comic just by virtue of getting up and performing every single night. I think Rick's criticism, however, may be even more valuable. I hope I can break myself of the backing-off habit.

More later.

Ailment update - plus bedtime apparel

Did I ever tell you about how I got the Carpal Tunnel? Well, I did. It's mostly gone away, but I have to wear splints at night. I got an ergonomic keyboard at home and at work. Did you know ergonomic keyboards go for $68? Well, they do.

I stopped having to wear the splints, which I lovingly refer to as my mittens, at work, but I do have to wear them when I'm typing at home. Something about my set up at home is still off even though I've futzed around with it quite a bit, and if I spend any amount of time on the home computer without my mittens, I end up in a lot of wrist pain.

I feel like I'm on top of it, though. Things are turning around.

On the bastard plantar fasciitis front, I really am feeling mostly better, as long as I do my stretches and wear my foot splints to bed. I like to call these my boots. Anyway, last week I woke up on the middle of the night with my feet tingling and I was too groggy to fix the boots, so I just took them off. Holy hell. What a difference that made. I was in such a bad way that day!

Of course, my current "in a bad way day" is about 100% better than my former "good day" levels of pain. It's all relative. In fact, what happens now isn't even pain more than it's tightness.

Bedtime is a real fashion show around here what with my boots and mittens. I also am wearing ear plugs to bed these days to drown out Scott's night-time deforestation project.

See, I got to feeling really guilty about running the fan all night for the white noise (I've tried several white noise machines to no avail; they just didn't sound like my fan) and I tried out the ear plugs. At first, they didn't really help, but now that I've gotten used to them, I'm nearly sleeping through the night. And we're not wasting electricity. It's like a miracle!

I am not sure if I should be feeling guilty about the ear plugs since they're made of plastic. They're disposable, but I reuse them until they're fall-apart-y. I'm not going to think about it.

Who knew how easy it is to make granola?

Catherine Newman changed her blog around to be about food, and I wasn't sure I was going to be on board, but it turns out I am. I keep checking back for new recipes. It's funny because I feel like I'm checking back MORE now that it's about food.

I don't want to be the fat lady who is more interested in food blogs than human blogs, but in this one case I might be.

Tuesday I checked it and there was a recipe for granola. Scott really misses the granola he got from the Olympia Food Co-op back when he used to live in Olympia, so much so that his friend Mer (remember when her dog ate my underpants?) sometimes mails it to him. For realz.

As a result, I've been thinking of making granola for kind of a while now. I like to keep The Count happy with tasty foodstuffs, after all. I suggested it to Scott a while back and he said, and I quote, "Don't bother."

(Aside: If this were Taste of Home magazine, I would say, "I like to fix my man a heaping healthy helping of homemade granola. It really makes a difference when it's made with love." Which it does. And that magazine generally has excellent recipes. But sometimes it gags me because they say these things without a hint of irony. Where do they find these women? And when they have a recipe from a man, they make a whole page about a man who cooks. A man who cooks? Who ever heard of that?!)

Well, brother, he's singing a different tune now, since I made Catherine's granola recipe. It was really weird. I had just gotten home from work, started dinner and was reading blogs when I saw the granola recipe, read the ingredients list and thought, "I have all of these things. I will do this right now."

It was so easy. I got it ready to go in the oven while dinner was cooking. I put it in and it cooked while we ate dinner. Then it was over, I let it cool and put it in a giant container. And it's delicious! I can't imagine why people buy granola from the store (and until Tuesday, that's exactly what I did).

All I had was flax seeds, so I skipped the others in the recipe. And I was out of butter, so I used Smart Balance (which is probably for the best since butter is basically poison - delicious, delicious poison).

The result is a big hit. I have eaten it myself for about five meals since. I brought it in a container to work and picked up a milk in the cafeteria and had it for my can't-get-it-together-to-eat-breakfast-before-work breakfast this morning. I had it for breakfast yesterday and snack last night. I ate some of it fresh out of the oven.

Okay, that's just four times and only two meals. Still! I would like to recommend the recipe to you is all I'm saying.

(Aside: Yes, I made this in the oven. Yes, the oven still makes a little bit of a smell like an H.R.V. But it's not terrible any more. I think the smell is nearly gone. I think maybe untrained noses can't smell it at all, though mine can. It's attuned to the H.R.V. aroma. I use "aroma" ironically here. It's funny because I can smell it most in the pantry. It seems that the pantry is the place for cooking smells to collect in this house. In my Springfield apartment, it was the hall. In the Holyoke apartment it was the bathroom. Here, it's the pantry. Fine. I accept. And pretty much we'll live happily ever after.)

For real? Plus an explanation

The person I claim to have overheard on the way out to the car last month allegedly read my post and left a comment. Read the post and the comment, if you want.

Interesting.

I've gotta call bullshit on it though. I do not believe the actual person I overheard's girlfriend was all, "Hey, this lady on the Internet overheard a generic 30-something fellow in the parking lot at work disparaging his old lady and I think it might have been you! Come read this; it's hilarious!"

And I am briefly filled with the fury and the sadness once again.

Also, I guess those guys, with their swirling vortexes of commitment-phobia, rather deserve a bit of my thanks. I was so angry and sad about the whole scene I observed. I was set afoul by it and had to cry and beg Scott never to talk about me in such a disrespectful way (I'm a catch!). As a result, we had Important Conversations That We Probably Should Have Already Had and Didn't, which means now we're both on the same page about many things. This is good.

I suppose I should mention that my fury is not new, is born of fear, and that I spent quite a bit of time on those fears in therapy some years ago, which is how I can have a proper adult relationship now. It really is a miracle. My therapist is quite good.

I don't think it's fair to place blame anywhere, but I can say that a trusted adult spent a good deal of time warning me about the way "men are" when I was too young of a child for such talk. It left a nearly indelible mark upon me. To say I've had issues is to put it lightly.

It was mostly of a men-think-with-their-dicks, why-buy-the-cow order, which I think is pretty regular stuff adults may say to teenagers to scare them away from having sex. My trusted adult took it quite a bit farther and started on me quite a bit younger and basically gave me a gift that kept on giving: an irrational fear of men and, in particular, of how men treat women once they've had sex with them and no longer need them.

When I was working on it all in therapy, my therapist had me think about good men I knew and use them (in my head, not in real life) to try to break the beliefs I'd accidentally formed. There were mixed results, of course, because the fellows I chose still were piggy humans, said totally inappropriate things with regularity and seemed sometimes to prove that what my trusted adult said was true.

Fantastic!

Even so, over time and with much work I have been able to turn in to a mostly normal adult human, which is lucky and not by accident.

Sometimes though, my historic fears rear their heads, sometimes even in workplace parking lots. Given my history, my crying and furious reaction to that conversation may seem a little more reasonable, even if it wasn't reasonable at all.

I'm really lucky to have Scott, who seems to get me and - this is a bonus - is not at all freaked out by me (even though he'd be well within his rights to be completely and totally freaked out with some regularity).

Updates

My new orthotics seem to be helping. I'm not over the bastard plantar fasciitis yet or anything, so it's not time to have a party over it, but I think there's a good chance I'm on the right track.

I think when it's finally over, though, I really will have a party. I can't think of a better reason to celebrate than a return to good health.

Here's hoping it's sooner rather than later.

Some neighborhood hoodlums broke a window in our house. It was a giant ruckus and basically terrible. Mostly for reasons that had nothing to do with the window breaking and everything to do with Scott running after the children who did it and then not coming back or calling me for nearly an hour while I imagined the group of them pushing him down and kicking him in the head and leaving him dead in a ditch.

I'll say this: Scott runs like a gazelle. He's in great shape and he caught up with those kids before they even knew what hit them. I think the children know now that they can't fuck with us, because if they do, Scott will chase them and then talk with them about why they broke our window, while they all claim they had nothing to do with it (then why were they running away as soon as the window broke, pray?). Of course, we can't prove that any one of them was the one that broke it, so even though we made a report, basically the cops can't do anything. So frustrating!

Those fucking kids are ballsy, though. They did it while we were right there! Sweet god.

I bought us new cell phones (I got the black one; the Count got purple). They're much fancier than our old cell phones. I also bought myself a blue tooth device called Jawbone, which is apparently the top of the line. Now I get to walk around like one of those assholes with a bluetooth device in my ear in public. Don't worry. I'm not going to be that guy. I totally promise. I only got it because I sometimes have to be on conference calls for work and it's hard to be on the phone for an hour on a cell phone without hurting my arm, neck and ear. I'm just a human.

They sure do soak you for this bullshit. However, unlike basically everyone else in America, we sent in our rebate forms, so they're giving us some cash-money back.

It was really time for me to get a new one. I'd had my old one for three or more years. Upon my telling her that I got a new cell phone, my old carpool-mate at work pretended to lift up something very heavy, held it to her ear and said, "Hi, I'm Jennifer Myszkowski answering my phone."

Everyone is a comedian.

Story Corps is coming to the Basketball Hall of Fame. I really want to go and interview my dad about this story - either that or I want to interview my sister about, well, everything - either that or I want to haul No-legs down there and interview him about his role in the printing union in the '40s and '50s or accidentally setting off the alarm in San Francisco when he was on night watch during WWII - either that or I can think of about a hundred other topics/people to interview. I only wish I could do it all.

This is my favorite time of year, when it's still warm during the day, but it gets really cool at night and I can sleep with a blanket. It's supposed to be sunny and lovely this weekend, so I'm really excited about everything going on. It's about the busiest weekend of the summer for us so far.

I must spirit myself away to prepare.

Green River highlights reel

Last weekend at the Green River Festival, we saw a number of acts, among them The Primate Fiasco, Crooked Still and Lucinda Williams.

I'm officially in love with The Primate Fiasco, so much so that I've engaged them to play at an upcoming party (details to be announced very soon). They opened their set with a funked out version of the Muppet Show theme song. I think that says it all.

I've seen Crooked Still twice now and I officially like them a lot and intend to pick up their CDs. They sound kind of like Allison Krauss and Union Station, but more like real people I just want to be friends with. I love bluegrass music so much these days. I just can't get enough.

It's hard being a person who doesn't like Lucinda Williams because basically everyone likes her. I've been trying to put my finger on what I don't like about her for some time and it finally hit me: the melodies in her songs (to me) sound like the harmony lines. I'm just waiting for a kick-ass melody that never seems to come. There are a few songs with melodies I like, but by and large, I just don't dig her (un-)melodies.

(Aside: The Count loves Lucinda Williams and scores of other caterwalling ladies and gentlemen that I can stand in short doses only. Music we always agree on: Johnny Cash, the Mountain Goats and the Magnetic Fields. Everything else is a crapshoot.)

Over-sharing

Here's an interesting article from the NYTimes Magazine about a lady who over-shared on the Internet. It's fairly long, but worth the read. The end of the story is a little anti-climactic, but I think it only seems that way because the rest of the story is so...oh, I don't know. Something.

I used to do a lot of over-sharing on the Internet. Now I just share, I think. I try to keep what I say to my own business and I try not to include anything that is other people's businesses. Of course, it's hard to tell a compelling story without mentioning other people. But you know.

I did some serious over-sharing on a stage last weekend wherein I discussed my asshole, Scott's asshole and the economy, and, well, it was really quite something. I've got a lot of great new material that I think you're sure to love. That is, if you love my asshole.

Actually, people gasped in horror and stifled laughter, perhaps to avoid looking like they were laughing at my asshole. Of course, from my vantage point on the stage, it just seemed like stunned silence. In fact, if people didn't come up to me later and tell me how much they enjoyed the show and how funny they thought I was, I wouldn't even know.

Of course, I got plenty of out-loud laughter for things that weren't quite so controversial. Like the economy. I have to say, this economy joke, which I will not tell you here, is about the best joke I've written (with Scott's help) in some time. It kills me that I will only be able to use it for a little while.

Oh, the humanity!

Anyway, I'm opening for the Gay Men's Chorus on June 7 at PACE, though I think I'll keep the subject matter a little tamer for that crowd. Also, I'll update my shows list so you can actually come to one, maybe.

Look what craigslist did

On this day in 2006 at 1:30 p.m., I had a blind date with a fellow at Haymarket. He didn't show up until 1:40, seemed scattered, had paint on his ear, wore boots with shorts and, frankly, didn't ring my bell. I looked into his eyes and thought, "Here's a guy I will never see again."

A few hours after our date, I did see him again at the intersection of Main and King. He was by Silverscape and I was by the courthouse. I crossed to the Sweeties side of the street and kept my head turned so that he wouldn't notice me. I didn't want to complicate things by talking to him again.

I bumped into JBo at the Stop & Shop and told her about the date. We assigned him a name and decided that I should probably send him my non-rejection rejection e-mail -- "It was nice meeting you; good luck in the future" -- or not e-mail him at all.

But then, later that same day, I got an e-mail from him that was the sweetest e-mail I ever got in my life. Also the scariest, because this guy figured out in about 90 minutes what it took me five years of quality therapy to figure out about myself. It certainly gave me pause. "Maybe I ought to give this guy another chance," I thought.

And, well, I'm glad I did.

He is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I am extraordinarily fortunate to have him. I can't imagine my life without him in it. I almost didn't have that initial date. I almost dismissed him out of hand. If he hadn't written me that e-mail, I might not have written him. It gives me a pain about the heart to think of all this beauty I could have missed.

Scott Welsch, you make me the happiest I've ever been. Happy second first-date-iversary, darling.

Thar she blows!

I had a situation last weekend that was pretty terrible.

We went to see Juno at Pleasant Street. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it. It's a fine piece of cinema. Anyway, we were in the little theater. There were these college students in front of us who seemed nice enough, I suppose. They were acting a little like college students, but seemed mostly benign.

After the show was over, we were getting up to leave. We were looking around to be sure we got all our crap. We noticed that the college students left a mess of candy wrappers and a half-full bag of popcorn all over the ledge. I cleaned it up.

I expect this kind of behavior at Showcase (which doesn't make it right), but I don't expect it at Pleasant Street, which is a small non-profit movie house. The little theater probably fits 30 people in it, at most. If you mess the place up, the person who is going to clean up after your lousy ass is also the person who's taking your ticket at the counter, and perhaps even running the projector. It's not okay to leave your trash around. It's just not.

Had the young people been there, I would have told them that very thing. Alas, they were gone.

I hadn't eaten a proper meal just yet. We were planning to eat after the movie. And maybe not eating played a role in what happened. I don't know. All I know is that we were outside trying to figure out where we were going to eat, when Germy said, "Hey, there are the litter bugs now."

I turned around and it was them. And that's when I shouted, "Oh, it's you!"

And they were looking at me with eyebrows that said, "It's us, what?"

"You left your trash in the theater. That's just not acceptable behavior. This is not what we do when we go to the theater."

First they denied it. Then when I gave specifics, they said it was an accident. I said, "Right. An accident."

Then they said something about wondering how acceptable it is to speak to strangers the way I was speaking to them. Then there was shouting coming out of other people's mouths (Scott vs. college students) and I started to realize what I had done. So I turned around and walked away.

When we got to Siam Square, I was weeping out loud. Marge had to escort me to the lavatory because I was coming undone. Thankfully, they serve food at Siam Square, and soon I turned back into a normal person.

The thing that's weird about this is that I was disgusted by they're behavior when I was cleaning up after them, but if you had asked me if I thought I would blow up at them if I saw them, I would definitely have said, "No way." But then, moments later, I was so filled with righteous indignation that I was not able to stop myself from letting them know how we behave in a society, while not behaving in a fashion fit for society.

I'm an animal. And a human. I'm a Huminal.

Songs in a bottle

Last night, Scott was making a salad and I was trying to figure out what we could possibly eat with it. It's slim pickin's in our cabinets right now. We're not broke or anything (thankfully); I just don't have time or energy to make a proper trip to the grocery store. Whatever.

Anyway, I ended up pulling two almost-empty bags of potato products out of the freezer. There were Trader Joe's oven fries and Stop & Shop's tater nuggets. I presented the idea of mixed potato products to the Count, he was in, I put them on the pan and into the oven. He moved out to the dining room and started singing a song.

It was to the tune of Time in a Bottle, a song I'm not all that familiar with, except that it's a tune Scott comes back to again and again when he makes up songs.

He makes up songs on the spot basically all the time. I have to tell you the truth: half the time I don't even listen to what he's singing because he's constantly singing these made-up songs to tunes I don't know. Also, sometimes it's a tune I know, but I don't recognize it because, well, Scott has anything but perfect pitch.

So I was only half paying attention, washing some dishes, when I heard Scott from the other room singing on the top of his lungs: "There never seems to be enough ketchup for all the tater tots you want to eat..."

This morning, I was talking to him from the bathroom while he was in the kitchen. He started singing a song about his Auditory Hallucination Girlfriend, which featured the line, "She's out of sight!"

A few weeks ago, I was feeling like Scott and I had fallen into a nice pattern for living. We loved each other. Great. I was a little sad that I didn't feel sick with the love anymore, but it seemed fine. But then, suddenly, I'm more in love with Scott now than ever and I'm sick all over again with the love.

Mistaken identity

So Maya got her own e-mail account this week. I guess it's high time since she's 10. We're all so proud. Let's not mention that I didn't get my first e-mail account until I was about 20. Whatev.

So we've been e-mailing her back and forth and what have you. Tonight, Scott announced, "Maya asked me to be her friend on MySpace!" Without even looking at her profile, he accepted her hand in friendship.

At first I was miffed. I mean, she didn't ask me and I'm her AUNT for christsakes. And then I started thinking, "What is Tesia thinking letting Maya get on MySpace?" Then I thought, "Maya will never be on the computer without Tesia nearby." But then I got scared and turned to Scott's computer screen to get a load of whatever photo and profile Maya put up for herself.

No photo.

Hmm. This is a relief.

Scott clicked on the no-photo icon, which brought us to Maya's profile.

Turns out she's 22 and lives in Florida. Her friend list is all young-ish men in various states of drunkenness. One particularly fetching friend of this Maya has a photograph of himself funneling beer. Good times.

Thankfully, our Maya is safe from the scourge of MySpace, at least for now.

As a side note, you may be interested to know that Maya is crazy about Scott. Like, no joke. She made her e-mail address the nickname he calls her and everything. Sometimes when we see her, she goes straight for Uncle Count Scottula and leaves old crappy Auntie in the dust.

She just can't get enough of that guy. Me neither.

A better photo of my glasses is just a click away...

Amy took an awesome photograph of me and my glasses, which is much better than the photo we took with our camera (which is not as fancy as hers). See it here.

She took it at Matt and Kristen's engagement party, which was really fun (also, check this closeup of Kristen's awesome hair). The love was all around us. I cried during the toasts. Show of hands: who's surprised by this?

Nobody, that's who.

Other highlights from a variety of event photo galleries:

Here's a side view of my glasses, a silhouette of my head, and a smiling Count.

Here's J.Bo and the Human making us want them.

Jeremy and The Count having a snack.

The cake I made is on the left.

Flora's bracelet helping her get her cry on in fake earnest.

Kelsey looking rather feline.

Jaime's in a commercial for tasty snacks.

Good times.

So lonesome

Scott left this morning to go to NY to see his mom before she goes back home to Italy. Also, he's visiting is sister and niece. He's coming back on Thursday. He's got the car. Did you know we're a one-car family?

I worked out rides home from work today and to work on Thursday and I'm working from home on Wednesday. So everything's fine.

But, hell, I'm lonesome - and it's only been one evening! I came home from work, made a crappy dinner for myself (baked sweet potato, a giant pile of green beans and too many cookies), ate it and have been reading Newsweek for the last hour. The excitement is palpable.

If Scott were here, we would still be eating dinner and figuring out if we wanted to read or watch a movie for the evening. Being by myself, I can't think of a compelling reason not to just go to bed.

I desperately didn't want him to go for purely selfish reasons. And I did want him to have some extra one-on-one time with his mom before she hops the pond back home. I just knew I'd be lonely and miss him terribly. His mother was really excited to get a little extra time with him, and Scott was really excited to get some extra time with her, so I guess everyone wins. Even me, since now I'll have time to work in my poetry.*

Isn't it crazy how just two years ago this lonesomeness was my life, but it didn't feel lonesome at all? Sometimes it scares me how emotionally dependent I am on Scott. Or are we interdependent? I don't know. I just really like having him around.



* This is a joke because the only poetry I write is hilarious haiku for entertainment value only, which I then recite in an extremely showy way, much like I do everything else. I make it a point never to read poetry written by anyone I know and want to stay friends with just in case it's terrible and I can no longer look them in the eye. Does this make me bad?

Nerding out, Count style

Super Tuesday is wrapping up and the Count just can't stop counting. I tried to get a photograph of him doing his math and what have you, but he kept goofing around. Instead, I took a photo of the stack of notes he's making so you could get a glimpse into his world.

Early in our relationship he told me, "My favorite math is probability."

My favorite nerd is Scott.

Interesting aside: Margaret named Scott the Count before she even knew he had a favorite math. She sure does know how to assign a nickname.

The cord is found!

I spoke too soon, for the Count got up and found the cord lickety-split (in his closet). He is still a squirrel, and will likely remain a squirrel, but he's MY squirrel.

Okay, here's me posing like I'm having deep thoughts in my new glasses:

Are they totally awesome or what?

Why you're being made to wait

At first it was because we couldn't find the camera. We had no idea what we'd done with it. We ransacked the place.

The last time I used it, it was when I was downloading our Olympia pictures and posting them on my old blog. When I was done, I left the camera on the table in the office, which is where I thought it still was.

I said to Scott, "Where could we have put the camera? I mean, where could it be?"

He said, "It might be in the closet."

Who puts a camera in a closet? It wasn't in any closet that I'm in charge of.

Anyway, Scott ended up finding it in his bedside table.

Who puts a camera in a bedside table?

So we took some photographs of me in my glasses. Some of them were even hilarious. Then I asked Scott where the little cord for the camera was and he said, "What cord?"

Before I continue, you need to know that I'm in love with Scott. Like, for real. But he's got this situation wherein he's kind of like a squirrel. He takes things and he stows them away, but then he doesn't know where he stowed them away. And he doesn't stow them with things that are anything like the other things they're stowed with. So when Scott took the camera off the table in the office and stowed it in his bedside table, he also took the cord. Where did he put it?

Great question, because he doesn't even remember taking the cord. But surely he did because I left it on the table and it's definitely not there anymore.

So now there are photos on the camera and I have to go and buy a new cord.

Scott's mother and step-father came and stayed with us Saturday night, and in preparation, we did some cleaning. Scott and I are much different cleaners, for sure. I want things to be tidy and for everything to go where it belongs. Scott wants to take everything and put it in a box and then hide the box. It's infuriating. My god. Why not just put all those things where they belong?

Here's an example. I keep all my supplements in a basket in the dining room. Scott keeps his on a shelf in the dining room. My supplements are often not in the basket because I sometimes leave them on the table. Scott's supplements are generally on his shelf. With his parents en route, I took all my supplements and put them in the basket and put the basket out of the way. Scott packed up all his supplements and put them in a box with a bunch of other crap and stowed it all behind the bed in the spare room (where we were sleeping during their visit).

There's nothing unclean about supplements on a shelf. There's no reason to hide supplements. I think Scott's parents are reasonably certain that Scott is fortified with vitamins and minerals, and that many of them come out of bottles.

Eh, whatever.

That we have to squabble over this kind of stupid bullshit is good news, I guess, because we don't have anything more important to fight about.

In other glasses news, I acquired a pair of vintage frames while we were in Olympia back in August. "I acquired a pair of vintage frames," is a polite way of saying, "One of Scott's former ladyfriends acquired a pair of vintage frames through a friend who cleaned out an old person's house and then benevolently gave them to me when I casually said I was looking for either old or old-looking cat-eye glasses frames."

The thing about them is that they were kind of shaped a little funny. Not the actual glasses frames part, but the way the arms hooked on to the frames. It was at a funny angle and I was sure if it would end up working out for me.

I stopped over to the Fairview Eyecare Friday to show them to Jen and find out what the what was. She fooled around with them. By "fooled around with them" I mean that she used important optical equipment to bend them into shape. She fixed them up so that they fit my head just right. So I ordered some new lenses. I should have them in my hands by the end of the week.

So many new glasses. So few photographs!

Unneighborly neighbor update

I've offered regular updates about my new neighbor situation over here. There's an update. There's been an update for upwards of two weeks. I didn't write it because, well, I was afraid the neighbor would find it here and a scene would be made.

I would have no fear of this except that his royal highness, the Count of Suffolk Street, Scottula D. Buttox, casually mentioned to the new neighbor that I have a blog.

But, friends, I can no longer stay silent.

A short recap:

• I over-rolled out the red carpet for the new neighbor
• After my shame (and a month) had passed, I left her (and everyone else in the building) a box of homemade cookies and candies for Christmas
• She replied with a tin of cookies containing mediocre chocolate peanut butter squares and delicious oatmeal cookies
• I replied with a thank you note and a request for the oatmeal cookie recipe
• She replied with a meticulously hand-written letter one full page long containing both the recipe and her hot tips for how to make cookies better, which were extremely involved and which I summed up here in about 1/20th of the number of words
• I was offended that she sent me cookie tips because I had made her some pretty fucking awesome cookies, but then chose not to be offended after anonymous advised me that she was trying to find common ground and obviously we both like cookies.

I showed the letter to a couple friends and asked them for their take. JBo said, "Listen, you're even now. You did something crazy with the shouting down the stairs. Now she's done something crazy with this letter and you're even."

I took real solace in this.

Two weeks ago I was arriving home from my extremely painful massage about the foot to alleviate the bastard plantar fasciitis. As I climbed the stairs, I heard our door open. I shouted up the stairs, "Darling, is that you?"

It sure was him. But he wasn't opening the door for me. Seems the new neighbor had knocked. She wanted to borrow an egg. I arrived at the top of the stairs just in time to inform her that we were plumb out of eggs, but that I could offer her dried egg-white powder, which works in a pinch.

She declined, but we got to talking, all casual and friendly-like about things.

Somehow, and I don't know how, I mentioned that my sister is a phlebotomist.

Her reply, "No offense, but you could train a monkey to do that job."

What?

I said, "Well, my sister is a human being who is a phlebotomist."

And she said again, "No offense, but you could train a monkey to do that job."

Scott and I started this whole trying-to-prove-that-Tesia-has-mad-phlebotomy-skillz-and-isn't-a-monkey thing. We're hopelessly devoted to her, after all.

Then she started talking about how serious she was about her cookie tips, and how important it is to avoid flat cookies by adding extra flour. (Aside: my cookies were definitely not flat!)

Scott started telling her that I worked in a bakery for six years. She wouldn't hear it. She just kept repeating her tips (or un-tips, as the case may be).

Then she asked me what radio station I work for. I told her. She replied, "My sister hates Country music."

Um, well, uh. "Great."

Our encounter ended with her telling us to stop by anytime. We said, "Yes! We will stop by!"

At first, upon mulling the whole thing over, I was wholly offended. Then I realized that this is a human who clearly does not know how to communicate with other people and her extreme negativity must come from a place of insecurity. I don't know how telling me my sister has the job of a monkey, that I need to avoid flat cookies and that her sister hates Country music helps her deal with her insecurities. And maybe this is just a story I'm telling myself so that we can all be pleasant if we bump into each other in the hall.

I have to admit, though, that I'm hella disappointed. I really, really wanted a pal in the building.

Of course I do have a pal in the building. He sleeps in the bed next to me. He's the Count Scottula D. Buttox.

All the love songs are right

People warned me that all the happy in-love feelings would fade over time, and I've been sort of waiting for it. Well, not waiting. Just kind of expecting it would happen. And not really expecting either, because I don't want to make it out like I want it to happen or anything. Maybe just a silent knowing. Maybe I've silently known that, over time, all the happy in-love feelings would fade.

But they haven't faded, not at all. In fact, they've grown over time. I don't want to make you barf or anything, but I am more in love with Scott now than ever.

Love songs will come on the radio and I'll listen to them and I'll think, "God, they are so right! Everything in this love song is the truth!"

And then I'll think, "I am agreeing with a love song on the radio!"

I was shouting at Scott about how much I loved him and how I love him more and more each day. He replied with a quiet, "I love you, too."

And I shouted, "More and more each day?"

And he quietly said, "Sure."

I was all, "Sure? Sure? That's all you've got?"

He said, "Jennifer, you are the over-the-top one and I'm the understated one. Those are our roles."

"Really?"

"Yes," he replied.

He officially blew my mind.

Yesterday morning we were watching ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Chrystia Freeland from the Financial Times was on the roundtable with a few others. She is really pretty. That photo on her official Financial Times page does her no justice. She is really quite beautiful.

I said, "Look at her. She is so pretty."

Scott looked up from his nerdy notes about the presidential race and said, "Which one?"

I waited for her to come back on the screen. "That one," I said.

He looked up at her, said, "Oh," and then went back to nerding out with his notes.

Then he said, all casual-like, with completely seriousness and without looking up, "She's not as pretty as you."

Now, I've got full reality about myself and I can see fairly clearly that that lady is really, really pretty (that crappy photo on the Web site aside). The part where Scott says I'm prettier and, what's more, actually believes it? My god!

I'm the luckiest girl alive.

Sometimes we fight and everything, but then the fights are over and then love recommences in earnest.

Barf bags are located in the seatback pocket in front of you.