Hi Dad, Hi Mom!

I'm famous!

Well, okay, as close to famous as I can get.

Ri, The Music Savvy Mom, asked me for my shuffle! Ri has this nifty little (soon-to-be-huge) blog where she asks moms, procreators, or non-procreators (like yours truly) to set their iPods on shuffle then share the top 10 songs that come out.
When she asked me for mine, I was honored, and thrilled. Why not bless the world with a few selections of my enthralling taste in music? (Oh be quiet)

Y'all be sure to check her out and leave some comments. She's hilarious and insanely sweet.

Okay, reason #2 why I'm famous (who'da thought, ey? I have two reasons)

I got an award! From this lovely gal right here, Laila.

So, in the spirit of receiving this award, I'm supposed to list 10 things about myself. So here goes:

1. I have a terrible fear of crickets. That's why 'cricket' is one of my curse words. When something bad happens I yell, "Cricket!" You know what the problem is, with crickets? You just can't kill them. They always hop around like deranged lunatics whenever you attack them with a tissue box. So your only solution is bug spray. The problem is, I'm too scared to use that on them. I visualize a wheezing cricket, on the verge of dying, antennas wiggling – and I just know he's using those impossibly long antennas of his to communicate with his army of crickets, which will come harass me in order to avenge their lost brother. So I put the bug spray down and scream until someone rescues me. Except that never works, because usually a darling member of my family ends up squishing the cricket in a tissue and chasing me around the house with it.

2. You know that expression, "Your eyes were bigger than your stomach?" Yeh, that's never happened to me. I have quite the stomach, you see. I eat, a lot. If it weren't for my abnormal metabolism and my stick-thin father's genes swimming around in my body, I would never find a door that I'd fit through.

3. I'm very easily amused. Once I spent 30 minutes looking outside a window, chuckling at this newspaper that was being tossed around by the wind. That's why I laugh at the lamest jokes, including mine. When I'm bored I just have a little stand-up comedy skit in my head.

4. I am frighteningly lazy. I once watched two Spy Kids movies in a row because I was too lazy to extend my arm a few inches and reach out for the TV remote.

5. Building on #4, I suppose, I am, as the name of my blog so subtly suggests - a pathological procrastinator. The most repeated word in my vocabulary is probably: "Nyahhh... Later." This year, for example, I can count - on my hands, without having to take off my shoes and socks - the number of times I did my homework at home. I just copied it off people in the morning or during recess or crossed my fingers and hoped the teacher would forget about it.

6. I have a very strong aversion to physics. I hate that subject with a passion. A lot of things in physics don't make sense to me. And since my teacher never quenched my undying curiosity, I started hating the subject even more. Whenever I asked her a perfectly logical question, she took it as a personal offense - like I was challenging her authority or being blasphemous towards the holiness of Sir Newton the Fart. She's mastered the art of making students feel like the stupidest people on earth whenever they ask a question, while simultaneously managing not to answer their questions.

7. I like being nice to strangers. I smile at them if I notice them rudely staring, or I compliment them. I was once at this hair salon and I saw two sisters arguing – I assumed they were sisters, since they were bickering in that professional way only sisters can master. One of them was short and a bit chubby, the other one was tall, thin, and possibly beautiful if only she didn't look like someone had stuck dung underneath her nose and forced her to smell it. Dung Sister was getting married (she was wearing a white wedding dress), and she was giving her sister a hard time about something very mundane. Dung Sister stormed off and Poor Sister looked like she was about to cry. I piped up, "Sorry for asking, I'm just really curious – was that your sister?" The woman looked shocked, "Yes… How did you know?" I shrugged, "She looks like you… But you're prettier." And then I watched her face glow in a very pretty way indeed, and that still makes me feel good.

8. I have Futurephobia. Sometimes I get so worried thinking about things like majors and colleges that this dread fills me inside and the room feels very very warm until I calm myself down.

9. I still watch Barney. If I stumble upon it on TV, I'll watch it. And my 7-year-old sister will say, "Ewww Barney's for babies!" And I'll tell her wetting beds is also for babies. Then she'll shut up.

10. ……… I have a sticker book.

And in the spirit of receiving this award, I must pass it on to 5 bloggers. So the torch goes to...

An Experiment in Poverty

Desperate in Dubai

Something Like That

A "Cheery" Disposition

The Adventures of Rose Red

Take care, folks.

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Cricket Advice

You know how there's always people telling you that you should keep your expectations low, and others telling you that you should "aim for the sky"?

You know how there's always people telling you that you should forget the past, and others telling you that it should always be your guide?

You know how there's always people telling you to be Little Miss Optimisic, and others telling you that you should get real, and that the world is not always rainbows and butterflies; it's compromise that moves us along, yeah? (I may have stolen that from Maroon 5)

You know how there's always people telling you to appreciate what you have and be satisfied with yourself no matter what, and others telling you that dissatisfaction is the mother of all improvements?

You know how there's always people telling you to follow your dreams and pursue what you love, and others telling you that what you love won't pay the bills?


You know what you should tell those people?

Shut the cricket* up.

"When you encounter seemingly good advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both."

~ Al Franken

If you like hearing yourself talk so much, start a self-help column/blog/merchandise-stand-thing and sell t-shirts and cups and little keychains with cheery little slogans -or uncheery ones, for that matter-.

But for the love of God and cheesecake and all things holy, spare me.

*Cricket's my new swear word. If people can use shit as a curse, I can use crickets. Poop > Crickets in terms of aesthetic pleasingness, in my opinion)