ain't no high-class broad

It’s official: my *relationship* with my former landlords is OVER, as of yesterday. Meaning, yesterday I finally received my security deposit, thus ending any necessary communication with said landlords. (Never mind that she promised she’d “put the check in the mail first thing in the morning” over two weeks ago. Postal date stamps don’t lie.) I was pretty happy to finally get the check, seeing as how it was for a not-so-insubstantial dollar figure. Even though she couldn’t be bothered to, you know, write in the cents when she was writing the amount. Apparently that’s too time-consuming. I can’t wait for the bank to get all anal-retentive over that one.

The thing that amazed me most, though (although deep inside, I know it shouldn’t), is the vessel she used to mail the deposit. You would think that a professional woman, with her own real estate “business,” could at least spring for a semi-professional envelope, maybe even (*gasp*!) of the security type. Apparently not. No, instead I received my hefty check in the return envelope from her latest bill from her insurance company. Of the window variety, meaning you could see my happy check hanging out inside, because she (naturally) couldn’t be bothered to accompany the check with even a short note of some kind, you know, “Nice doing business with you!” or even, “Have a good life!”

As I thought about it, the whole thing pretty much summed up my entire experience with the woman, the house, everything. It involved her taking the least amount of her time doing as little as possible for as cheaply as possible, to hoop with everyone else. Which makes me ever more glad that I am finally, finally done.

Nice doing business with you, Cornelia. Have a good life.

til exhausted close our eyelids

One of these days I might take the time to sit down and reminisce about some of the crazy times that have gone on in the last month and a half: I went to a mini-family reunion in southern Illinois, I went to the Former Students’ Day reunion at my high school in Kentucky, I moved (!!!!), I went to Kentucky for Labor Day/my nieces’ 4th birthday, blah, blah, blah. It’s been busy, yo. That’s pretty much all I can say. The long and the short of it is that I’m living in someone else’s house, with a storage unit full of crap*, and that I have added a few thousand miles to my newly-tired, newly-aligned car, and that I have officially driven over every single curb between Algonquin, Holiday Hills and Lake in the Hills with a 24-foot moving truck.

But rather than take the time to write about all that, I’m going about this post the lazy way. Meaning I’m going to copy a bunch of stuff I’ve already written.

For context’s sake, I should first tell you that Corella & I keep each other awake from time to time at work with short, random emails. Here are a few snippets of said emails from me, all from this week. Frankly, you may want to just stop reading now.

•I'm only slightly worried about the yarn, since it's boucle and I'm not completely sure I'll be able to keep it even.

•I need this day to be over, like, now. If I don't leave a vomitous mess on my keyboard before the day is out, it will be a miracle.

•I should have known what this day was going to be like before I even left the house this morning. Like, when I couldn't figure out where my bra was, until I realized 30 seconds later that I'd already put it on. Yep, that kind of a day.

•Boys are stupid. Boy stalkers are just ridiculous.

•I want to hear details of the sobbing. Because I hate her.
(Stop judging. It’s reality tv.)

•I love that one of the pillars of the church uses the word *knockers* at choir practice.

•I just started counting in my head/on my fingers the number of months so far in the fiscal year, but instead of mentally saying "April, May, June, July, August" in my head as I extended each finger, my brain started saying, "Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers…"
I. Need. Help.

•When I get married, I'm going to have somebody play just the intro to Let's Get It On as we're running through the birdseed/bubbles/whatever to the car.

•Just remember, it's all about the tongue, baby.

I haven’t fallen asleep yet.




*So full, in fact, that the new roomie was worried when I was late coming home one night that I had stopped by the unit and a bunch of stuff fell on my head and knocked me out.

my dirty little secret

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Shhh!! Get closer now, I’m not going to tell this to just anybody. (Thankfully, it appears that none of my coworkers has as yet found this little corner of blogdom.)

Are you ready? Closer!

Okay, here goes.

I am a Summer TV-Smut whore.

There, I said it. I know, I know, who would believe it, right? (*ahem*) Until recently, this sickness was limited to really only two embarrassing shows, at least for this summer: So You Think You Can Dance (go Jeanine!) and (*hangs head in shame*) The Secret Life of the American Teenager.

Granted, I have watched Secret Life since its entangled inception, watching with rapt attention the metamorphosis of Amy from naïve good girl to hormonal pregnant teen to jealous teenage mother (and my personal favorite metamorphosis: Grace, from the quintessential *Jesus Barbie* to new med camp graduate, with a little “My dad’s plane crashed because I got laid” in between). I could go on about the little quirky things that make me so addicted, or the moments that actually make me laugh out loud (“GROIN INJURY!!!!!!”), but I won’t get into all that here. Honestly, I don’t think I would have even classified this show as “smut” until recently, especially since this is a show directed to the tween & teen stage-of-lifers. But a week or two ago, I watched the show with a friend of mine who had never seen it before. And honestly? Trying to explain who all the different characters were made me realize this is a teen version of a late-night drama, or at best (worst?), a teen soap opera.

That guy is dating the girl with the baby.
That’s the father of the baby, who is sleeping with the girl who broke up the Jesus Barbie and her boyfriend the first time around, but who really wants to be with his baby mama.
That woman is the mom of the girl with the baby, who is currently pregnant with her ex-husband’s baby, and who just broke off an engagement with some other dude and is now contemplating dating some old friend before she decides if she’ll let her ex-husband move back in. (granted, the “old friend” turned out to be the ex-husband.)
That’s the slut. She dated her brother for awhile.
That’s the dad of the guy dating the girl with the baby. He’s engaged to a woman he doesn’t know was an internet-order prostitute, who went on a date with the Down’s syndrome kid.
He’s the dad of the girl with the baby. He installed a urinal in the garage.

Um, yeah.

So anyway, until recently, Adrian, the Teenage Whore and SYTYCD were pretty much my only two “I’m ashamed I watch this” shows. And then, one night, I just happened to be flipping through a few channels, nothing much was on, and I randomly stopped on some good ol’ Fox reality fun. And I can’t stop watching. Like, I’m addicted. And I can’t figure out why. But honestly, More to Love has me sitting on my couch on Tuesday nights, eating frozen pizza and trying to figure out just how that larger woman is going to manage to belly dance. I don’t really know what else to say at this point, other than I probably lost more brain cells last night than I inhaled calories. The show has sucked me in, and although I’m super glad the loud-mouth witch went home last night, and I’m not really sad about the loss of the painfully shy girl who had never dated before, I can’t wait until next week to find out which two are going home next (and which four aren’t).

The fall season needs to hurry up and get here. I can’t take the loss of any more of the few brain cells I have left.

Should I have been weirded out?

I think so too.

So I walk into the rest area on my most recent trip south, and they have put signs over each bathroom door. The women's restroom says "TEMPORARY MEN'S," while the men's says the opposite: "TEMPORARY WOMEN'S." Both bathrooms were open, usable. So I walk into the "temporary women's," and am slightly startled as I round the little corner, when there in front of me is a teenage guy scrubbing the urinal. Another person of the female persuasion has entered the washroom just before me, and asks, "Um, is this open?"

The kid responds, "Yeah! Go ahead."

So I hurry about my business, still kind of creeped out, and finish up and wash my hands. As I'm finally walking back out, I pass another woman starting to walk in the door. She sees the kid, who is about to start on the first stall, and the urinals along the wall, and stops dead with the deer-in-the-headlights look, then glances back to make sure she didn't walk in the wrong door. (I think it's that age-old childhood fear of accidentally walking into the wrong restroom at school.)

I laughed. (Is that wrong of me?!)

But, um, can anyone figure out WHY there would ever be a need to switch the men's bathroom & the women's bathroom? When both were completely usable? Weirdness.

that distraction inside of me, oh well

(this post is for andrea)

And now, for the long-awaited project! (Which, honestly, is partly to blame for my lack of reading lately. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)

I took on a project a few (read: many) months ago as a present for my (insert completely non-hyperbolic, totally awesome word that exudes the awesomest awesomeness here) nieces. And then, because I suck lack the proper motivation, it took me forever to finally finish the project. But it's finally done, and with the exception of a crookedly-sown-on arm, I'm pretty satisfied with the result. But you can judge for yourself:


Making the frog body

The finished products:


Ms. Bear:

Mr. Frog:




Kudos to Amy Gaines, whose adorable amigurumi pattern made these backpacks possible. They were incredibly easier than I ever imagined them to be, and if I decide to do another one sometime in the future, I have full confidence I could get it done fairly quickly and quite well, thanks to what I learned this first time around.

How did I fall so far behind?

I am woefully behind on my reading list.

It was my goal this year to read 50 full books in 2009 - only a few more than what I read in '08. Shouldn't be too hard, right? It's not like I'm attempting Corella's 100. So far, though, I'm barely in my 20s (which, for me, is borderline embarrassing). Earlier today I was browsing through my goodreads, looking at all the wonderful books I read in 2008. Some of the bestest books I've read in my life, truly fantastic. A few not-so-fantastic, I'm sure, but all the same... I was reading. This year, my shelf is sorely lacking. Not just in quantity, but also in quality. Oh, there are a few really good books, and very few I wish I hadn't taken the time to read. But I have a lot of ground to make up. It's not like I have a lack of books to read; there are so many lying around at home I could easily reach my goal, not to mention the MUST-READs I have yet to get from the library. I better get crackin'. (But not your beautiful bindings, Coral - worry not!)

As for what I have read recently... the book that stands out the most is one that I won through a goodreads give-away, Valeria's Last Stand. I personally loved this book. I thought it charming, full of dry humor, and a very interesting portrayal of the life and desires of a stubborn older woman that nobody likes (and that returns the favor). That is, until the Potter. The book deals with the conflict of the old versus the new, the time-honored versus the newly advanced, old socialism versus new capitalism. It is quirky and almost playful, in an almost fairy-tale sort of old-fashioned Hungarian village set during present times. The characters are intriguing and unique, and their interactions with each other are clever and fascinating to me. I'm glad this was the first advanced copy I won, and I would totally recommend it. My only caution to future readers comes from a review I found: "The geriatric sex is unnerving." Nuff said.

can you touch your nose with your tongue?

I'll update more later, but until then, this is one of my favorite moments from this past weekend:

wordless wednesday