Ninja Turtles

Blogblogblog Re-branded!

I've changed the title of my blog.  I felt that the old one was getting a bit stagnant, and this one is more in tune with my personality.  I'm a nerd.  I love Star Trek and fantasy novels.  I read history books and collect encyclopedias.  Last night I spent almost two hours watching the first couple of episodes of A History Of Britain on youtube.  I wonder about the proper way to end parenthetical expressions with emoticons.  If I have a choice between MTV and the National Geographic Channel, I'll take Nat Geo every time.  I call the National Geographic channel Nat Geo.  I subscribe to six different podcasts from the BBC, and five from NPR (and also the Freakonomics podcast.  Love it.).  I have a tattoo, which is totally badass, but it's an open book.  There is a Benjamin Franklin action figure on my desk at work.  I've never heard a single song by Lady Gaga and wouldn't know her if she walked up and slapped me in the face, but if you have an obscure recording of Purcell or Byrd, I'm your girl. I am absolutely devoted to the show Lost, and now that it's over I'm considering getting into Battlestar Galactica.  When I was twelve I decided I wanted to redecorate my room with a Winnie-The-Pooh theme, so I did and I left it that way until I graduated from college.  Sometimes when I have nothing to do, I'll go to Staples and stand in the pens and pencils aisle just looking until I find the perfect new pen.  I love sorting and organizing, and I have mild OCD which causes me to freak out about weird things like what time I eat my snack at work, and the volume level of the radio in my car.  I shelve my books in a way that only makes sense to me.  Example- my travel guide to Australia is right next to my autobiography of Renee Fleming, because I have an Australian friend who used to work for her.  The other day at work, it was fancy dress-up day because we had visitors and my boss told me that I looked very nice, but next time I should leave the big history book at home because it makes me look like a nerd and I'll never pick up any guys in the clubs that way.  I told him that I didn't see that as a big problem because I've never set foot in a club in my life, and don't ever plan to.  

In short, I am a card-carrying, flag-waving nerd.  You will not woo me by taking me out to a late dinner, and then to a club until all hours.  I will just start making bored noises and looking at the door every five minutes.  However, if you take me home and put on the Star Wars soundtrack and then re-enact the corresponding scenes with me, our souls will align and I might let you get to like second base or something. 

Nothing, really. Just some stuff.

I just ate a piece of pineapple chess pie. It was delicious. It was also ten days old. I hollered down the stairs to my mom to see if it was safe to eat, but she was too busy watching Dancing With The Stars. So I took my life in my own hands and decided to go for it. What is the shelf-life of pie? I don't really know. It was in the fridge, so it's okay I guess. Right? I suppose we'll know for sure soon. I could be dead in a few hours. These may be the last words I ever write. I wonder what it would be like to go to my own funeral. I've kind of secretly always wanted to. It makes me think of two things. The first thing is that part in Tom Sawyer when everyone thinks that Tom and Huck are dead, and then they come to their own funeral. The other thing that it makes me think of is The Golden Girls. I forget what episode, but at one point Blanche is talking about how when she was sixteen her parents made her mad so she wanted to teach them a lesson. She faked her own death, and then watched her funeral. She was so happy because so many people came out to see her and were saying all kinds of good things about her and how much they loved her. Then she popped out and said "Surprise, it's me! I'm not really dead!" and her dad beat the tar out of her. I guess it's kind of an ego thing to want to hear what people have to say about you. But I would be totally curious as to who would come to mine. I want it to be really fun. Okay I'm getting a little morbid now.

Here's something fun- I got two new Pears' Cyclopaedias in the mail the other day. Well, not new, one is from 1929 and the other is 1932, but they are new to me. They are my current obsession. I'm not even going to try and explain what they are here, you can google it. It's so cool. The best part is that it's a British publication, so all the most interesting parts are things like Some Lengthy Tunnels, and how to write letters to persons of royalty, and a chart of silver and china marks so you can tell who made yours. It's really interesting to see how things change over time, too. For instance: I looked up Gandhi in the Prominent People section of my 2010 edition. There are almost two solid inches of text about him (itty-bitty printing). Then just for kicks I looked him up in my 1946 War Economy edition, and my 1934 edition (this would be when Britain was not a big fan of Gandhi) and all it said about him was "Prominent Hindu leader". My, how things have changed. The fun part about collecting Pears' is that every one is a little bit different. I think I'm hooked.

My Pears' Cyclopaedia Collection. Please notice that the bookend is a giant Pear.

Now I'm watching my frogs. One is swimming around like crazy (I think he's about to shed his skin, which is gross because after they do that, they eat it) and the other one is hiding under the food plate. Oh great. Now the crazy one is stuck to the glass above the water line. Hold on. I have to go save his life. Okay, I'm back. It's a good thing I was looking. Stupid frog. That's not the first time he's done that. I guess I can't fault him for being dumb, though. He's very small and doesn't have a lot of room in his tiny head for brains. Poor little guy.


*Disclaimer- I don't know why the font at the end came out in weird sizes. That was not intentional, I can't figure out how to fix it, and it's wreaking havoc with my OCD.

Mirror mirror on the wall, I am my mother after all

I've been thinking a lot lately about the imaginary children that I will have someday. Okay that already came out wrong. I don't mean that someday I will have imaginary children. They will be real. They are only imaginary right now. Anyway, I was thinking about all the things that my mother did that and I swore I would never do, and I realized that I'm actually going to do all of them. My kids will have a bedtime and a curfew. They will not watch tv and play on the computer all day. Cell phones are absolutely out of the question until they reach high school (we'll see if that one is still practical by the time these kids actually show up, but for now that's the way it's going to be) and if they don't like what I've fixed for dinner, tough. I'm not cooking five different meals every night to satisfy my family of picky eaters.

I used to think that my mom did these things to torture me. Now I know that they were actually for my own benefit. I'm not addicted to the tube, I can entertain myself with a book, and I know the value of a good night's sleep. The only thing that I am sure I will do differently than my mom is that I will not give my kids a name and then call them something else entirely for the rest of their lives. Although they might wish that I would because my current top three favorite names are Priscilla, Prudence and Frances (I love the nickname Francie). But I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself. This is not happening anytime soon. Unless the phrases "born in a manger" or "immaculate conception" come into play somehow. So don't worry, future children. I'm not ready to start torturing you. Yet.

Procrastination

My room
is a cloud of doom
full of dread
hanging over my head
because I don't want to clean it.

Dear Random Asian Spam Commenter...

Please stop posting links to your Asian porn sites on my blog. I get excited when I see that someone left a comment for me only to be disheartened when I click on it and realize I can't read it because it's in Chinese or something. Not fun.

In other news, I'm keeping one eyeball on my frogs in their new tank while also watching Star Trek and eating hummus. Best night ever? Possibly.