ratsiest rats-zorz! and a wee list of two

i have gotten a few emails lately saying things like such as but not necessarily:
"i hate you because i commented on your post and you didn't publish said comment so i'm assuming you don't respect/don't care about/hate my opinion."

i'm not in the depths of despair over it or anything, but i want to punch blogspot.com in the face a little bit for making people feel bad. hannah, others, consider yourselves apologized.

but there are still so many unanswered questions: where are these comments going? is anyone else having this issue? how do i fix it? what's going to happen to The Office now that Steve Carrell is leaving? i don't know if i'm even going to watch it anymore. the Scott character brought so much to the show, and while Dwight is awesome and Jim and Pam are sweet, i just can't picture the Scranton branch without Scott, as annoying and awkward as he is.
but THEN what am i going to watch while eating dinner? i can't eat in silence, and i've already watched Family Matters from start to finish. help me.

i'm not even really able to write a friday list today. i'm going to mope instead.
or maybe i'll write a list. but just a little one though.

1. this week, there is a music festival in town: the folk fest. and i'm going to be there. tonight, at midnight-- because that's when the band i like is playing on the free stage! three cheers for library voices at midnight!
2. last night, we went for a walk, and collective soul was playing a concert down the street, so the sound kind of wandered off into the sky and hit the stars and fell on me and it was drenched in star dust and tasted like joy and pop rocks.
3.
two is enough, on such a day as this.

your haste in fixing my problems is much appreciated.

friday list #14

1. this morning when i woke up there was a note on the table where i usually eat my breakfast. i smiled, because i knew the note had to be for me. my love language is not limited to but absolutely includes little notes and cards and letters. i slid a piece of bread into the toaster and picked up the note. it read, "WIENER STICKS."
2. my husband has been gone for two days now. my skin is shriveling up and my bones are crushed to a fine, white, delicate powder. i can't go on much longer.
3. if i could have the keys and unlimited access to any building anywhere in the world, i'd pick...oh i don't know. i'll have to come back to that one later.
4. have you ever wondered what life would be like if any one emotion didn't exist? like, anger. or excitement. or whatever.
5. or what if there were extra emotions that don't exist now? oooh. consider. it's like trying to think of a color that doesn't exist. odd.
6. if i could have the keys and unlimited access to any building anywhere in the world, i'd pick...
i think i'd pick a huge huge mall. that might sound lame to you BUT: think of a mall that has an indoor amusement park, indoor water park, music stores [complete with grand pianos], book stores, coffee shops, a massive food court and probably a yogen fruz. and probably i'd throw myself a birthday party every night at 2 in the morning and all my friends would have incentive to stay friends with me at least until they got tired of water parks and yogen fruz.
7. on monday, i'm going on a road trip to visit my friend hannah. i am luckier than all of you.
8. i answered the phone today and spilled water all over my very important folder which holds every single important file i've ever filed at this job. at first i was mad, but then some of the colors ran together and the pages got a little puffy and there's sort of a nice crinkly effect on the corners, and i can still read everything, so it's ok.
9. I'M HUNGRY.
10. does anyone remember those purple chewy candies called bonkers? i can't find them ANYWHERE since i turned 10. and i need one today.

friday list number thirteen

1. i didn't write a friday list last week. it is because i am a failure.
2. i don't really think i'm a failure. i just fail sometimes. i'm not sure what the exact criteria are that would move someone from the "i just fail sometimes" category into the "failure" category. i will give it some serious consideration and get back to you at the end of the list.
3. yesterday, a guy at work hid a walky-talky behind my desk printer when i wasn't sentient of his sneakings. then he snuck away and squealed into the speaker. and scared the sneakers off of me.
4. peter piper can't have picked a peck of pickled peppers--pickled peppers aren't picked pickled! they're pickled after they're picked!
5. we slept through our alarm clock this morning. oops. i still managed to be three minutes early for work. i think this is one good sign that i am not a failure.
6. next week, my husband is going away [for his job] for 2 weeks. rats. i think this is the ratsiest thing that's happened all life.
7. i need to drink more water.
8. ok. the failure thing. i think, in my humble yet esteemed opinion, that you are classified as a failure once you've successfully failed at every single thing you've ever attempted in your life. thus, i am not one, as i made it to work on time every day this week and passed high school and have a job and won a science fair back in grade 8.
9. in fact, with that criteria, i think it might technically be impossible for anyone to be a failure. i think everyone has at least accidentally succeeded at something.
10. my opinion isn't actually esteemed though. so. we might all still be failures. maybe, unless you've successfully succeeded at every single thing you've ever attempted in your life, you're a failure. then in THAT case i'm definitely a failure. you should see the cake i tried making this week; we ended up drinking it from bowls instead of forking it off a plate. it was failure with a capital everything.
11. oh well.

the dozenth friday list

1. my little sister is graduating from high school on sunday. wow. ceese, where has the time gone? i guess this is the culmination of all of these speedy weeks and fridays that come only seconds after each other.

2. the other night i had a dream that i got a book in the mail, and it was an alphabet book written by ben gibbard. he'd missed letters here and there, but other than that it was a fantastic alphabet book. the last page stuck in my head and stayed there all through breakfast and brushing my teeth. it had a large, terrifying picture of a black bat and it read: "W IS FOR WOMBAT. and that is why no one else will ever find anything."

3. i have a big black blotchy bruise on my leg. i don't know from what. it might be your fault.

4. barclay is so manly, that he won't use my body wash. he says it smells too female. so he buys these manly body washes from adidas and old spice that have masculine names like, "ICE DIVE" "MAXIMUM ENDURANCE" and "GREASY" and whatnot. but i took a sharpie marker to his ice dive bottle, and my husband is now sporting a new scent: ice diva.

5. went to a free show last night. saw jane vain & the dark matter and the valleys. both were terrific. live music puts me in a good mood for the whole next day. it's like a shot of espresso, but in a more potent, audible form. it's like five shots of it. it's magic.

6. today i shut a cupboard door on a wire and it popped and flashed and started smoking. i'm not sure where i got my knack for wrecking things, but boy howdy am i ever a dream at it.

7. interesting piece of trivia for you, which i learned whilst playing a riveting game of trivial pursuit:

"what is a baby boy called who is born between two cannons on a british war ship?"

8. he is called a son of a gun.

9. now you know.

10.

friday list number eleven

uno. friday again? they're stacking up like a 6 billion-car collision on the highway of my life. a wonderful, thankgoodnessit'sfriday kind of collision, though.
dos. last night it took me more than two hours to fall asleep. earlier that day, i'd bragged to a friend about how easily i fall asleep at night. "my head hits the pillow and i'm gone," i'd said, "never have a problem with that," i'd said, "can't imagine not being able to fall asleep within five minutes of trying," i'd said. but at midnight i was shaking out my legs and trying to have a friendly conversation with barclay, who really doesn't ever have a problem falling asleep [except for when i'm laying there going, "barclay...you awake? good...me too...what are you thinking about? barclay? baaaarclaaaaaay...]
tres. every single solitary year of my life [excluding the year i lived out in the mountains], i have spent the third weekend in june at the frenchman river valley gospel music jamboree. it is exactly what it sounds like and, incidentally, there is an overabundance of cowboy hats, gospel music, and the best hamburgers you have ever laid lips on. plus, tons of my friends make it out and what's better than tons of friends? not a thing. and, starting tomorrow, jamborree weekend is upon us once again! this weekend is going to rock my proverbial socks off.
cuatro. i don't like country music. however, i am completely ok with sitting out in the hot prairie sun eating a little dixie cup of schwann's ice cream  and listening to cowboys sing hyms in four-part harmony. i wrestled with this seemingly incongruous aspect of my musical consciousness for a while before realizing that country music as it is today is not even the least bit the same as country music was way back when, and gospel music is something else entirely. we're good.
cinco. "my shoe is off, my foot is cold, i have a bird i like to hold." - dr. seuss
cinco. this friday list feels lacking. i'm sorry. i should probably end it here.
seis. oh but one more thing: your comments and emails are so nice. they always make me grin and give me joy zits. merci merci boucoup.

friday list what?

1. boy howdy, friday again.
2. last night, kiersten and i walked around right before the sun went down and looked at houses.
3. admission: we looked in the houses too. at about 9 at night, you can't really help it, and it's the home-owners' faults for leaving their blinds wide open, and it's a step up from reading house and home magazines. but i draw the line at taking pictures of the outside of strangers' homes. i promise.
4. i won a pair of bright red sunglasses on wednesday morning. you have never seen such a happy little camper as i was that day. i had joy seeping out of every pore. i got joy zits.
5. someday, i might write a book called joy zits. it'd be, in general, pretty optimistic and cheery. would you read it? consider this an official potential prospective book audience poll.
6. i'm just too tired to think of a number 6. onward.
7. last night, barclay and i thought of a magical new music game. i'll teach it to you tomorrow maybe. music games are the best kind of games, i think.
8. once i had this great farm cat and his name was blackie. blackie had three kittens, so i guess he was a girl. i named them tiger, smokey, and blackie. two of them died, but tiger didn't. tiger had three kittens, and i named them snowflake, smokey, and blackie. smokey and blackie died, but snowflake survived and gave birth to three kittens. i named them smokey, tiger, and blackie. they all died, and then this orange cat started hanging around. i named it tiger, and it had three kittens.
9. speaking of pets, i also had baby chicks, but never named any of them. kaiden had an earthworm that he named goldilocks and a fly named cupcake.

friday list #9

1. friday. again. good graish. if i had a sharpie marker for every time it was friday, i could color a to-scale model of the planet earth, in eastery pastel hues.
2. i got a new printer at work yesterday. i fired it up and plugged it in, only to discover it was a greek printer and spoke not a word of english.
3. upon examining the troubleshooting guide that came with the greek printer, we found the page on what to do if your printer is in the wrong language. oh good. i will now read a segment of the troubleshooting guide to you:
             

On your printer, select "Options", and "Languages" on the touch screen, then select your desired language.

5. these instructions would help a lot more if i knew the greek words for "options" and "languages". as it is, it took three scholars who'd taken Greek in Bible school to figure out how to make my printer speak English.
6. on wednesday i spilled boiling water on my stomach and scalded myself. i stared at barclay for roughly a second and then screamed bloody murder. right in his ear. pork eye.
7. when my brother says, "poor guy", it sounds like he's saying "pork eye." so now instead of saying "poor guy", barclay and i say "pork eye." it's a thing. you can do it too, if you want. you'll sound kind of insensitive though, like us.
8. today there's a man working on the light fixtures right above my head. he keeps saying things like, "oh, this stuff up here is kind of worrying me. it might fall on your head." and "ha, ha, oh man, i hope this doesn't fall on your head." and "man, if these fall on your head, i'm going to feel terrible." i'm starting to worry that something is going to fall on my head.
9. i wish i had a raspberry mocha right now, and some headphones with samuel beam in them. and someone willing to play a game of monopoly with me.
10. you remember dr quinn, medicine woman? like, jane seymour? did you know her actual name is actually Joyce Penelope Wilhelmina Frankenberg?

friday list eight

0. friday. again. for the love.
1. last year, barclay gave me a potted plant for my birthday. i really really wanted to keep it alive, if only to prove that i'm responsible and can care about other living things, but it's dying and now i know that i can never be a mother.
2. a guy just walked past carrying eight toilet plungers... so...
3. the christopher walken situation seems to be quite under control, and my joy knows no bounds. not a single bound. [seriously. "my joy knows no bounds". what does that mean? for the love.]
4. conglomeration.
5. my dream saturday: wake up to breakkie in bed [waffles with whipped cream and turkey bacon and yogurt and peaches and syrup and eggs and acai berry juice because it tastes like the inside of a gusher and icing sugar], watch some old cartoons, go upstairs to find out we suddenly live on newport beach and there's an all-year music festival featuring anathallo and mewithoutYou [circa 2006/2007] and brand new and others like that and get a wee sunburn and a wee ringing in my ears and eat a lindt chocolate ball. and some spaghetti. and cuddle a panda bear. and go to sleep roughly around 11:30. in a hammock.
6. "jogging is very beneficial. it's good for your legs and your feet. it's also very good for the ground. it makes it feel needed." - charles m. schulz
7. what's your dream saturday?
8. today, one of my co-workers crawled under my desk and when i asked what she was doing, she answered, "i'm your new troll," and then she just sat there for a little while while i typed stuff. i think we're all a little tired around here today.
9. also, does my non-use of capitalization bother you? consider this a public opinion poll.
10. i pulled a piece of paper out of the printer today that said, "if you can read this, it means it's working."
so i guess that's a positive thing.

seven lists

1. wow. it's friday AGAIN. it's ALWAYS friday. if i had a toonie for every time it was friday, i'd have enough money to buy mongolia and fill it with paper airplaines made out of very expensive cardstock.
2. i've had this skirt for well over a year now--maybe a year and a half, even--and i just now realized it still has the remove before washing or wearing tag on it.
3. yesterday, after calling in sick to work, i trekked back to bed only to find another one of those centipede things walking on my pillow. i became very distraught and a little bit mad. BUG! this is MY pillow!
4. BUT. barclay cheered me up by making a fort-bed in the living room and sleeping upstairs with me last night--AND promising to buy me some spider-blaster azap so that we can reclaim our bedroom.
5. barclay says, "those are not centipedes. they are not christopher walken. they are called sow bugs." i don't care. they are going to kill me.
6. i love the thesaurus. i looked up "awesome" in the thesaurus, and they gave me "zero-cool" as a synonym. i thought that was awesome. i mean, i thought that was zero-cool.
7. about one time every year, i foolishly decide i can cut my own bangs. with the same scissors i use to chop the tops off of freezies.
8. my bangs look AWFUL. sorry shlee, i am about to ruin your wedding pictures.
9. i really, really am sorry. bad bridesmaid. woe is me. and other self-loathing exclamatory remarks.
10. i just drank four glasses of water in rapid succession. burble burble. my lungs are drownding.
11. did you GO to google.com today? you can play pacman on the google masthead. it is a massive time-waster and i love it.

the sixth friday list

my friday lists are not really of anything at all. a thing i know, my favorite color, stuff about people. i like lists, but hate committing to a topic.

1. when my friend's little brother was, like, 4, he told everyone that he wanted us to call him by the name "beerbottlePOPcan." he was adamant about it.

2. this morning, deleted fixed the internet, so we all started calling him Captain deleted, Techno-King of the Intor-Web, and pushing up imaginary glasses as our salute. he told us to stop, but we didn't. i guess that makes us bullies.

3. then i drew a picture and passed it around the office via email. i guess that makes me head bully. but i edited him out of here so people won't know who i'm talking about. so yes, i'm a bully, but no, not the incredibly mean kind.

3 again. this week, SIX BABIES were born!!! [that i know of.]

4. i'm almost psychotic about washing my hands. i probably have the cleanest hands out of everybody. i'm the one you should trust to chop the vegetables for the salad.

5. if i could have two of anything that in real life i can only ever have one of, i would pick to have two brains. i would keep one as a spare in my dresser drawer so that if i ever wrecked one i'd be good to go. i was going to say two stomachs because i really love food but i thought that was kind of gluttonous of me. what would you pick?
6. got moths? put dish detergent in a bucket of water and hold it up to the light where all the moths are. they will fly in it and die. that's how it's done, people.
7. got a bucket full of soapy water and dead moths? yeah, that's kind of gross.
8. my dizzy spells are extra today. i might fall over at some point. catch me?
9. my neice is cuter than your neice. i'm sorry if this comes as a blow.
10. auntie elaine, number nine doesn't apply to you. teehee.

friday list five

my friday lists are not really of anything at all. a thing i know, my favorite color, stuff about people. those kinds of lists are the funnest to write, i think.
1. i can't believe it is friday again. every time i turn around, it's friday. if i had a dollar for every time it was friday, i could buy an expensive yacht, and a brand new mac book, and some freelance whales songs off of itunes, and mangos, whenever i wanted them. but only if i lived to be a bit older.
2. is my favorite number.
3. i've got an idea. i'll tell you what it is later. it's a really, really good idea, though. the kind that has the potential to taste very terrific.
4. once, i got my grade 10 in rcm piano. i practised 3 or 4 hours a day. but that was a long time ago; i don't play much at all anymore.
5. yesterday, a girl came up to me and stomped on my foot with her heel. on purpose. she was like, seven. and i'd like to know who told her to do that.
6. a memory from summer camp: laying on my bunk bed looking up at the ceiling where someone had written a poem in jiffy marker:
"if you love something, set it free
if it comes back it was meant to be
if it doesn't, hunt it down and kill it."
7. swans.
8. one time, when i was working at staples, a man came in and bought fifty calculators. and then he paid for them and forgot them at the counter. he never came back for them. i'm not sure what that was all about.
9. i made a button for you. it's over there on the side. you just copy and paste the html in the little white box to wherever you'd like to pin it!
10. i found a nice self-portrait i'd like to share. from the time i tried to fly:

[fail.]

friday list number four

my friday lists are not really of anything at all. a thing i know, my favorite color, stuff about people. those kinds of lists are the funnest to write, i think.

1. for our wedding cake, our mothers used angel food cake to reconstruct a giant star-shaped sand castle that barclay and i made at the beach the summer we started dating. it was pretty much the best thing ever, and also the biggest wedding cake i've ever seen.

2. a baby is born with 300 bones. but an adult only has 206. if someone can explain to me how THAT works, i would really appreciate it.
3. another word for junk food is "lubberwort."
4. i'm so hungry right now. i could sure go for some lubberwort.
5. "for the first time in our lives, let's just be whatever exactly it is that we are. and that'll be better, ok? i think that'll be better." -zach braff
6. i have a folding machine at work. it folds paper, any way i want it to--tri-fold, brochure fold, hamburger style...whatevs. it has a turbo setting, probably for those times in life when you need to fold paper like a superhero.
7. i have rug burn behind my ears. not sure how to explain that one.
8. i can't think of a good number 8.
9. if i could speak any language other than the one i'm speakin, i would pick norwegian.
what would YOU pick?

friday list trois

my friday lists are not really of anything at all. a thing i know, my favorite color, stuff about people. those kinds of lists are the funnest to write, i think.

1. grapes taste better if you peel the skin off first.
2. every thursday, a little girl named georgia comes to visit me and gives me a little paper heart that she's colored with pink and green highlighters. as of yesterday, there are fifteen neon paper hearts tacked to my bulletin board.
3. i'm wearing purple tights. and some other stuff.
4. i have been sick now for three weeks and am starting to question if i am ever going to get better. i might not. but i might get used to being so sick and 'sick' will be my new 'well'. and people will talk behind my back about how i sniffle and cough too much.
5. when i was little i wanted to be a librarian because i thought a librarian's whole job was to sit in the library and read the books so she would know which ones to recommend to people if they asked.
6. have you ever heard of Foreign Accent Syndrome? google it. the human brain is absolutely fascinating.
7. the truman show. sometimes, i'm afraid that i'm truman. you'd tell me if i was truman, right?
8. spring is here! it's supposed to rain today. thunderstorms are better than caramilk bars.
9. i've been watching a lot of andy griffith lately. it's my favorite right now. if i could go home and watch andy griffith today during the thunderstorm, i'd be t-h-r-i-l-l-e-d. 
10. but seriously. you'd tell me if i was truman, right?

friday list number 2

1. if i could be any inanimate object in the world, i would pick to be an easy-bake oven. because: they are warm and have nice little cakes and cupcakes inside of them.
2. today, i wanted to use the word colloquialism in a sentence in a letter, and i thought spell checker was gonna kick my butt and be all, "you are stupid and can't spell and we don't even know what word you're trying to make with all those stupid, weeny letters", but no. i spelled it right on the first try. i feel so smart.
3. colloquialism. i bet you don't even know what that means. 
4. my least favorite word is prudent. [except i really like the song "dear prudence" by the beatles.]
5. if barclay could be any inanimate object in the world, he would pick to be the northern lights, because people would think he was cool and he could dance. [but i don't think this is a very good answer because northern lights dance, and are therefore not all that inanimate and really aren't 'an object'. maybe he thought i asked, 'if you could be any animate thing in world, what would you be?' probably.] [to be fair, it was about 2 o'clock in the morning and he was trying to sleep when i asked him.]
6. i put a little bit too much lime in my water bottle today, and have been wearing a kind of sour face all day as a result.
7. have i ever told you about the time i convinced a camp counsellor that i was twins for a whole week?
8. my favorite thing about grade 2 was putting daisies in food colored water and watching them turn colors. i might do that when i get home tonight.
9. alas. i have no daisies. it's not quite flower season yet.

if you could be any inanimate object in the world, what would you be and why?

a list of not really anything in particular

1. i like all of the colors, except hunter green.
2. it is very, very windy outside today. a billboard fell onto my street. i am glad i didn't park there.
3. reese's peanut butter cups were invented by a farmer who didn't really like farming.
4. i have this newly discovered fear of billboards falling on me or on my car.
5. i got a new scotch tape dispenser at work and it makes life easy.[not all of life. just the parts that involve scotch tape.]
6. "sometimes, when i am putting oranges in a circle, i think my thoughts, and they make me laugh." - winona ryder as bjork 
7. weddings are nice
8. i miss california.
9. If a picture is worth a thousand words and a video is 4 minutes long, then (at 30 frames per second) that video would be worth 7,200,000 words.
10.friday seems like a good day to write a list.

5 reasons today could potentially be bad but is actually ok

[5] i'm watching oprah right now. basically because i'm too lazy to turn the tv off...but it's on mute, so it's ok. instead of the sound from tina turner [who is performing today on oprah, in case you aren't tuned in], i'm listening to The Album Leaf. which is stellar.
[4] i had a job interview today, and my interviewer was a lady named Ish with pink hair, and she asked me a really hard question (how would you describe yourself in 3 words?). but i fudged my way through and expect it went not too train-wreckish, so it's ok. i might have a job, which is stellar.
[3] this morning when i woke up my room was FREEZING cold, and that made me pretty unhappy. but i'm warm now, so it's ok.
[2] the street sweepers came early this morning to sweep the street, and my car was still parked out there. and if you leave your car out there, they give you a 50 bones fine and your car gets all scratched up. but patricia was nice, and moved my car for me, so it's ok.
[1] this is basically a really lame blog entry, but no one reads this thing anyways, and the one[s]? who do/does loves me at my lamest...or don't know me. so it's ok.

america's next top model...

...gets to be on my list. which reads as follows:
10. america's next top model
9. big & rich, shania twain, celine dion, nickleback, creed, theory of a deadman, etc etc etc
8. when people spell things that should be spelled with a "c" with a "k" instead. [ex. krazy korner]
7. runny noses
6. oprah
5. a spider in my bath tub
4. a centipede in my kitchen
3. the debit machine not working when i need to pay for gas
2. people telling me i look like i'm 14
1. cold

i'm not going to say what kind of list this is so as not to insult anyone. but i will contest that i really really HATED having a centipede in my kitchen.