The moratorium on thinking is over!
....er...at least I thought it was.

Items for discussion
1. Are beards symbolic emotional shields? Does the length matter? Or is it all just hair on the face?

2. How sexy are my calves? Are they irresistibly sexy? Or just really really sexy?

3. Do colognes and perfumes go bad? And if they do, should they be called something else? Like old smelly liquid?

4. Swedish pancakes vs. Belgian waffles- Who wins in a Death Match?

Talk about your gray areas
I really didn't know who to root for here. It's a battle between the overbearing Metro cop and the Annoying Cell Phone User.

Actually in this case, I think I'm going to have to side slightly on the side of the Cell. It's not because she's pregnant, though that could not have been pointed out much more often, but because the punishment didn't fit the annoyance.

I'm not paid to care part 2
or Does Marilyn control the universe?
I went to work today with my mind heavily engaged in my own "stuff". I did my work, but I didn't feel like I was really there until at least mid-day. However, once I got going, I didn't want to stop. Which I think somehow further proves that:
1. I have no idea what I want.
2. Refer to 1.

What do I want?

Welcome to Overanalysis Theater
I'll be your host this evening. I hope that's ok with you. Maybe you'd like a different host. One with a deeper voice? Or maybe you'd rather not be at this theater. Maybe you wanted to be on Broadway, but you got turned around and ended up here. I hope you aren't disappointed. I'd offer you drinks, but I'm afraid that might seem like I'm coming on a bit strong. I don't want to come on too strong when you just got here. I'd hate for you to leave. Then again if you left,I wouldn't have to put on this performance. Maybe it'd be better for both of us if you left. Then I'd miss out on an opportunity to really give a sensational performance, the kind of performance that could make me famous and you stand up and cheer. Of course I could also flop. I could end up miserable and alone. Maybe that's what you want. It probably is. That's why you're frowning. It isn't possible that you're frowning for some other reason. It most certainly must be a sinister desire to see me fail. Why, I bet you came here just to see me fail. You'll be 7.5 times as likely to be happy if I fall flat on my face. That's what you want isn't it? I should stop talking to you all together. Or maybe it's not like that at all. Maybe your frown is just a figment of my overactive imagination. Maybe it's a smile and I'm just too dense to recognize it. Or it's a smile and my brain is failing to invert your head. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. The voices. The whispers. The madness is closing in like a curtain. It's the curtain call at Overanalysis Theater. I hope you enjoyed the show. I hope it wasn't too long or too short or it left you appropriately adequately satisfied, if that's what you wanted, I mean.

My advice to you
Ignore unsolicited advice.

Mr. Sandman
WTF mate?

It's after midnight and neither hungriness nor horniness is strong enough to compel me to action. Instead I sit here, ready to discuss my recent Buffy and Angel addiction. I feel this story is most appropriately told from the beginning.

In the beginning there were Buffy fans. These fans went to my college and they said, "Rah. Rah. Watch Buffy." And I said, "No." And they said (in high pitched voices, of course), "Why?" And I said (in my coming-of-age-manly-college voice) "Because Ed's on. And also because I might want to play frisbee. And furthermore I don't want to." What I really meant by that last part was that I didn't want to exactly because these fans wanted me to. There are times when my sense of rebellion is um, like, totally lame (said in my best valley girl).

Time passed.

I moved to this area and found all those same Buffy fans and they said (back to their high pitched-ways), "Rah. Rah. La la la Now you should watch and sing Buffy." And I said (in my wise twenty-something voice) "I'd really rather not." And they said, "La La La. You don't have to watch but we're going to talk about it ceaselessly and make you sing along- la la la."
And I sang.

Time passed.

For a moment the fans seemed disquieted by the lack of news in the Buffyverse and the ceaseless talking ceased.

And deep in the recesses of my deep and recessful mind, the rumblings of the end of a rebellion rumbled. So one night, not so long ago when the question "What shall we do?" was posed, I suggested (in my I'm-26-and-too-cool-for-all-this-faux-rebellion voice which sounds nothing like Bob Saget) "Let's watch Buffy."

And the peasants rejoiced.

My friend Kim, who in my opinion should have an honorary degree from the charred remains of Sunnydale High, was placed in charge of picking an episode that would be both enjoyable, but also have what they call in the industry (What industry? Who cares?) the "hooks".

Kim, like a frickin' fireman, came through with the hooks and the ladder, bi-atch! But that was like August and so I have almost no recollection of which episodes she chose. I'm pretty sure it was in season 2. And I know there was some serious Buff and Angel melo-DRAMA.

And Time passed. Only in this case it was like lots less time. And it was hardly passing at all unless I was consuming either Buffy or Angel. The fruit of Joss's mental loins was like my f-in' rock candy. And so I'm jamming away, chowing down on DVD after DVD, and now like 2 months later I've been through something like 4 seasons of the Buff-ster and 2 of good old Angelicus. OUT OF CONTROL.

And the next thing you know I'm surrounded by all these fans and we're watching season 1 and I totally realize that I'm one of them. I don't have all the ties, because like Riley wasn't breaking Buffy's heart at the same time as my boyfriend was breaking my heart and so Buffy and I do not lead parallel lives. I just don't have the life time investment connection that the TV fans had, but I've developed my own sense of fanaticism. And it involves the desperate need for closure more than the full-on identification with the characters. Don't get me wrong. These shows are some good times, which I suppose is what most of you were saying all along, but Carol Vescey and Ed and the bowling alley... And I had the rebellion thing going. It was all modern-day James Dean only with more khaki and less jean.

P.S. I love Charisma Carpenter.
Shut up.

Spare me
You only have two bowling choices anymore- leagues or X-treme Cosmic Galactic Bowling. So either you're a serious bowler or you're like high and tripping on your bowling Xperience.
Curses.

I've got the caution.
You've got the wind.
Catch.

Worryometer readings continued cause for worry
Of course I get paid to care. What good is anyone if he/she doesn't care at all? My real point was that I'm not doing anyone any good to worry about stuff while I'm not at work. I can't fix things not in my control. I can't fix things that are already done. Got to move on here. Get over it. Come on. I can do it. I care. I'm just frustrated with the apparently inevitable Responsibility Creep. I'm doing the best I can, but everyday it seems like I have to do my best on a few more things. I'm starting to spread a little thin. And I'm concerned. And no I haven't talked to my manager about it. I haven't failed yet. I just don't want to. Probably because I care, whether they pay me to or not.

I'm not paid to care
There was a time in the not-so-distant past when I could put in my time at work. At the end of the day, I could go home. I didn't think much about home at work. I didn't think much about work at home. The world was in balance.

Now I'm teetering. I think about work at home. I don't want to think about work at home. I'm not paid to think about work at home. I can't (won't) do work at home, so I don't really see a reason to think about it. Now, how do I convince my brain of same?

Is this why I should be a robot? So I could just shut off the work part of my brain when my feet hit the sidewalk. "Work Mode is off. Ding!"

If I were a robot, I probably wouldn't like to watch Love Actually. And I probably wouldn't pause it when Keira was getting married. And I probably wouldn't drool on myself.

So I won't be a robot, but I should really return the DVD. At least with a VCR when I hit pause it made it fuzzy. Now I can look in Keira's perfect eyes and there's no fuzz. There's almost no reason not to pause.

Like Score
I like to roll it around on my tongue. I like the way it sounds, "Twenty". It smells like perserverance and tastes like determination. I like that Matt was there. He can verify it, because he's crazy too. I like the way it makes my calves hurt, the way it sent me through 3 plus hours of misery, glory, wretched pain and natural high. I like the looks I get when I tell people what I did on Sunday.

"I ran twenty miles." I like that it made my Monday morning fabulous, and my whole Sunday superb. Most of all, I like that I did it.

The stars are ours tonight
they sparkle and they shine so bright, go the lyrics to one of the songs on one of my birthday mix tapes. The song was terribly cheesy and perhaps therefore more fitting.

I can't find the tape. I don't know the rest of the lyrics. I rarely see the stars. Tonight the DC sky is filled with them, or as filled as I've ever seen the sky here. It's kind of like when a Midwesterner (not counting Chicagoans) says they have bad traffic. Bad traffic in the Midwest is light traffic here. A DC sky filled with stars is like an overcast night out that way.

I've always liked stars. I used to make lots of wishes. Sometimes I'd stand outside and wish I wasn't lonely, and sometimes I'd wish to get rich, or wish that I knew what I was doing, but most of the time my wish was more like, "I wish to be happy more than I'm sad."

So far so good. I didn't recognize any constellations; a failure of light pollution or a lack of astronomy knowledge. The two lines from the song played on repeat in my head as I tried to take in the clear night and fight off the slight chill. A silent tiny streak flashed across the sky- a shooting star. I made a wish as quickly as I could- not for me, for I am coming off such a fine weekend whose weather and recreation approached perfection. But for another. One whose happiness I can't help but wonder about, especially under a dark canopy poked through with a hundred pinholes.

For a moment, the stars are again, ours, tonight.

I'll take things that are laugh-out-loud funny for 200, Alex

This woman and her antics.

And things that nearly make me cry for 400, please

Joey and Sarah B. I don't know 'em, but that shouldn't stop you from reading Part 1.

Go on, read all 4 parts.

Boxing with idiots
I still haven't fully come to terms with the lack of television in my life. (DVDs don't count.) Although, tonight I started to realize just how "out of touch" I have become and just how much I don't care. It was Thursday night TV, my first TV since the Olympics. The pre-Joey Inside Edition, ET, or whatever, was on and it was unbelievable how much I just couldn't handle all the on-screen cutting and the commercials. It was all driving me mad. I was getting a headache. At first I couldn't figure out why, and then it hit me- I haven't watched a commericial in weeks. Oh how the ad major has fallen...

Tune in later to find out how the lack of TV has contributed to a less material-driven, more word-of-mouth me. It's not that I don't want stuff, it's just that I don't want the same stuff with the same intensity.

It's like (very much like, in fact it's barely a parody of) that Moulin Rouge Medley; only instead of lovers it's neighbors because you should move into the house for rent next door to me
Instructions: This is best read with the Moulin Rouge Love song Medley (I don't know what it's actually called) playing along and your imagination stretching on several of the lines.

(Start Music)

Me (Ewan): Next door is a very splendid thing.
Next door is where you belong.
All I need is you next door.

You(Nicole): Don't start that again.

me: All I need is you next door.
you:We can't afford the rent.
me:All I need is you next door.
you: We won't pay a cent.
me: All I need is you next door.
you: Next door is just a dream.

me: They built a house for you to live in.
And I live right next to it.

you: The only way we're moving in see
is if you'll pay our utilities.

me: Just sign a lease, sign a lease.

you: There's no way, unless you pay.

me: In the name of neighbors, just sign a lease for me.

you: You crazy fool. I won't give in to you.

me: Don't. Leave me this way. I can't survive without you next door. Oh baby, don't leave me this way.

you: Some people want to fill their neighborhoods with all their friends.

me: I look around me and I see, it hasn't worked.

you: Some people want to fill their streets with all their crazy pals.

me: Well, what's wrong with that? I'd like to know, 'cause here I goooooooo again.

me: Neighbors lend us sugar when we run out
fix our rec-ipes in emerg-encies.

You: Neighbors make us act like we are fools, throw our garbage away on trash day.

Me: We could be neighbors! just for one year.

You: You, you would be mean.
Me: No. I won't.

You: And I, I'll drink all the time.


Me: We could be neighbors
You: We can't do that.
Me: We could be neighbors. And that's a fact
You: Though nothing could bring us together
Me: We could steal timeshare, just for one year.

Us: We could be neighbors forever and ever. We could be neighbors forever and ever.
Us: We could be NEIGHBORS.

Me:Just because I iiiiiiiiiii will always live next door.
You:IIIIIIII will always live.

Us: How wonderful this place is, now that you live nearby.


Short French guy: (French words I don't know. Je ne sai pas.) NEIGHBOOOOOOOORS!!!!!!!!!!!

Schmoozin' on the river
I hate schmoozing. Hate it. It's worse than small talk. It's small talk multiplied by insincerity to the power of suck-up. Schmoozing, as Wayne and/or Garth might say, "Blows goats."

Today, I had to schmooze on a cruise as our office took a "summer outing." So I schmoozed, or I at least politely nodded while people schmoozed all around. I admit there was a pinch of small talk mixed in, but it was quelled by the schmoozefest. The two worst moments:

1. When a coworker of mine, one I'm fond of, and one that happens to be a fascinating individual gave me the same insincere, "Heyhow'sitgoing?Doingallright?Havingfun?" bit that she was giving everyone else. I think I stared vacantly past her.

2. When the topic turned to Vegas and another coworker, whose vibe I've never liked, started badgering me about interest in the Vegas burlesque scene. What the ???? You don't know me. You don't know how I feel about burlesque. Lay off.

Sometimes even free meals aren't worth the price.

My new motto
You'll get there faster if you run screaming.

Everybody wins
at Thursday Night Laundry.

Commuticable diseases
This morning I tried out that hour plus commute that so many of my neighbors seem to enjoy. What's all the fuss? I had a lovely run to work, except that one section that made me want to vomit.

One for the Gipper
I stalked the sidelines in my khakis and dress shoes. I hollered. I bossed. I cheered. I coached. I didn't play Ultimate. I wanted to, but I didn't. One small victory for me; let's see how the team does.

What?
If I was a giant Tuxedo-eating robot, starring in a romantic comedy opposite Keira Knightley, do you think I would need to be the rough and tumble type or would I need to be more of the sensitive robot type? Are there even sensitive robot types? I think there probably are, like the ones who wear lipstick, or like Johnny 5. He was sensitive, then again he was alive. Johnny 5 is alive! You think he's still alive? I think so. I mean he had a rough couple of years what with the short circuiting and all, but he seemed to come out on top, in fact didn't he come out golden? and not in the slang way either, Johnny 5 was gold-plated if I remember correctly. My favorite line from those movies was, "Your mother was a vacuum cleaner." I am not willing to wager that was the first big onscreen Mom joke. It killed! Oh my.

Tuxedos are Safeway brand Oreos. They taste just like Oreos, but better than Hydrox. I've never liked Hydrox much. The name is kind of creepy too. Like some weird cookie science experiment.
Do you think the cookie monster was a weird science experiment? Like maybe he wasn't supposed to be blue at all. Oh the horror. Poor guy.

In reference to #2 of the previously unnumbered list
It occurs to me that I may not have ever known who or what I was missing; instead there were times I was distracted.

Do you ever look in the mirror and say, "Who is that?"

-I am waging a battle with pride and instant gratification. I know that if I play Ultimate I could very easily hurt myself with a mere two months to go before the marathon. Twice I've played. And twice I've ached. It's time to accept the reality or face the consequences.

-I don't even know who or what I'm missing anymore. I just know that there are moments where my heart hurts. I reach out but all I clutch at is emptiness.

-Until I trimmed my moustache, I was very very pleased by the whiteness of the bathroom thanks to recent cleaning efforts.

in-law
Sometimes when I'm telling a story I come to the part where I need to say, "my sister and brother-in-law." And sometimes "brother-in-law" does not come out of my mouth as smoothly as "sister" did. My verbal slip-up invariably leads to the question, "It's weird having a brother-in-law, isn't it?"

No. It isn't. I thought it would be, but it's much harder to say than it is to accept. Now granted, he's been in action for something nearing 3 months and in that time I have spoken to him minimally, but as I put together photos from the wedding in an album, I am quickly reminded at how natural it all seems. My sister and Kevin look like they belong together. My sister loves Kevin, by extension I love Kevin. And that's that. So I don't say brother-in-law very well; I don't say stunningly handsome very well either, and I think we've all adjusted to that quite nicely.

Let's make a deal
I will serve you a heaping bowl of Mud Pie ice cream if you give me a back massage.

DOh! the comedy
The Laurel to my Hardy: So Dave, I heard you went to an Orioles game at Camden Yards. Who won?
Dave: I don't know.
The Abbott to my Costello: You don't know? Did you leave early?
Dave: I couldn't see.
The George to my Jerry: You couldn't see? Was there an obstruction?
Dave: Yes.
The Peter to my Paul and Mary: There was an obstruction. Why didn't you get up and move?
Dave: It was a big obstruction.
The Romulus to my Remus: How big?
Dave: About the size of the East Coast.
The peanut butter to my jelly: THE EAST COAST! Dave, you do exaggerate.
Dave: I ain't exaggeratin'. The game was in Florida.
The Jenna to my Barbara: (wide-eyed head shake)
(laugh track)

Quoth the Raven, "We're closed"
Having been denied the pleasures of an Orioles game, I decided to visit the home of Edgar Allan Poe. No publicly available map at the Visitor Center stretched far enough to show the location of Poe's home. The "you should be all right there in the daylight" may be an indication as to why. I arrived at the home of Poe in the heart of the ghett-o (that's poetic, see) only to find a sign that said, "Closed at 2:45pm on Thursday". I looked at my watch- 2:47. Poe escaped my clutchs, but will probably die a suspicious death and end up buried on Greene St. At least I think that's what will happen.

I got you Babe
About the only saving grace in my otherwise futile attempt to tour Baltimore was Babe Ruth's home. Allegedly fun fact: The Sultan of Swat allegedly ate 18 hot dogs in one sitting. It wasn't the most thrilling "museum" I've ever seen, but at least it was open.
Another fun fact: Babe was short for Baby 'cause Ruth was just out of high school when he played in Baltimore.

Who ended the Olympics?

I wasn't finished.

You kiss your mother with that mouth?
I'm sorry universe. I shouldn't have used such foul language. All I needed was a little run.

The equilibrium in the universe
DAMN YOU, UNIVERSE! I need a weekend.