The closest I’ll ever come to a TMI:Thursday post

There is something about marriage that people don’t tell you: when you or your spouse is ill, it’s not RUDE for the healthy person to ditch the sick one and sleep on the couch.  It’s SMART.

And I can say this now with great authority.

For the past few weeks I’ve had an on-and-off sore throat.  You know the type.  It’s sore for a few days, you are CONVINCED that you are getting sick and then it goes away.  Like, you’re sitting there, watching Chuck and you swallow and realize you’re fine.  And so you sail along for a few days, you’re doing great, and then the sore throat comes back.  But it doesn’t REappear as abruptly as it DISappears, oh no.  You just wake up with it one day.  You think that you just slept with your mouth open or something and that it’ll go away but it doesn’t and then you’re right back where you started, with a sore throat, CONVINCED that you are getting sick.

So while I was doing the sore throat dance, Boo somehow managed to steal my sore throat and get a full-blown cold from it.  He had the scratchy throat and the achy body and the runny nose.  And the worst part?  He was on his work pager this weekend and the poor guy was up all night working when he should have been passed out on NyQuil (I’m giving you all a break and NOT linking to my NyQuil post this time…you know…since I just did it yesterday.  PLUS you guys really should have read it by now, yes?)

So anyway, while he was a snuffly mess, I thought about sleeping on the couch but we’re newlyweds and we didn’t live together before we got married (hell, we weren’t even in the same STATE before we got married) so we like to cuddle.  Apparently, cuddling is one of the reasons that you are supposed to sleep on the couch if you are the healthy one.  Falling asleep with my head on Boo’s chest leaves me right in his line of breathing.  Which means?  Yes, you guessed it.

Cold city baby.

And this vicious beast has taken on a life of it’s own.  It’s growing man, and it’s not taking “Vitamin C” for an answer.  It has rebuffed my use of ALL of my normal meds.  The elderberry isn’t taking effect yet.  The Vitamin C has done nothing for me.  The decongestant?  Well I’m still fully congested, so take a guess as to how well that is working.

Tuesday was one thing.  I had the stingy sore throat and the aches.  And I could have lived with that.  Do you know what stage of the cold I spent yesterday in?  The perpetual runny/twitchy/verge-of-sneeze nose.  The nose where you constantly feel like you need to sneeze but you can’t?  Sneeze constipation is one thing, but then you have the dripping thing.  There is only ONE thing you can do on a day like this.

You spend the whole day with a tissue shoved up your nose.

Classy, right?

Message to tourists: please keep walking

So remember how I said that I realized a lot of people don’t ever read the title of the post and just wander onto these posts and have no idea what I’m talking about because my first sentence is the second half of a thought I started in my title?  Well, you should because it was only like a week ago (remember now?).  So anyway, if you didn’t read my title today, could you take a second and read it real quick?

I’ll wait….

We good?

Okay, great, so that title was a actually a six-word memoir that I entered in Smith Magazine’s six-word NYC memoir contest.  And guess what?  It was one of the winning entries, which meant that I, along with the other winners, was invited to read my memoir at the six-word memoir event at the 92nd Street Y on Sunday night.

The event was basically a round-table discussion with Amy Sohn (author of, most recently, Prospect Park West), A.J. Jacobs (author of, most recently, The Guinea Pig Diaries) and Ben Yagoda (author of, most recently, Memoir-A History) as well as Larry Smith, the founder and editor-in-chief and Rachel Fershleiser, senior editor.

It was a really cool evening.  It was great to sit in a room full of people who love to write and love to read and listen to people who love to write and make a living out of it.  I was in nerd heaven.  Afterward I was able to meet the authors/panelists, get some autographs, and talk for a few minutes.  I was also able to hand these out:

Boo made me business cards to hand out!  It was just a good way for me to get my blog and info out to some other people.

Sunday night was also the first time I’ve been back to NYC since I moved (almost 4 months exactly from my move-out date!)  Cait and I took the train up on Sunday, sthpoooooned in the hotel on Sunday night, and took the train back on Monday morning.  There is nothing better than a girls’ weekend (no offense baby!) and we had a great time!

We had 2 criteria for the weekend:

1) Shopping

2) Dinner at Fetch to see if we could, once and for all, solve the mystery of the mac and cheese.

Missions accomplished.

la

*I also managed to get a cold while I was in the city (super, right?) so I’m writing this through the Nyquil haze (as if you had any doubt) and I’ll be back to the regularly scheduled posting here asap.

Also…I didn’t feel like I had any overwhelming votes one way or the other about the email/comment responses so for now I’m sticking to my old system.

A question for you, my loyal readers

So I don’t actually have a post for you today.  Instead, I have a question.

What are your thoughts on the whole comment/comment response thing?  Generally I respond to your comments on the post itself but I realized something today and that is that no one ever goes back to the post after they comment.

I comment on a TON of blogs and never necessarily know if the author has seen my comment, read it, or responded to it because I don’t leave the page open and refresh and wait for a response to my comment.  And while I know that hearing back isn’t the point of commenting, I feel like not knowing if there is a response is kind of like yelling into the wind (pardon the terrible cliche)–you just don’t know if anyone ever heard what you said.  You miss out on the conversations and the banter and the relationship building.

One of my favorite bloggers, Not So Jenny at it’s always like this always e-mails her response to comments.  A lot of times, this leads to a back-and forth volley of e-mails which I love!

So my question is this: am I the only one who has no idea if their comments are being heard?  (Okay, I lied, I have 2 questions)  Would you guys like it if I e-mailed you back when you comment or would you prefer that I just keep my responses on the post?

I know he’s Jack Bauer, but he can’t teleport yet, can he?

*WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILER ALERTS FROM THE NEW SEASON OF 24 WHICH NOW THAT I THINK ABOUT IT AREN’T ACTUALLY SPOILERS IF YOU’VE SEEN THE FIRST 4 EPISODES OF THE SEASON.  WHY AM I STILL YELLING AT ALL OF YOU?*

la

As most people probably know, 24 premiered on Sunday night.  At this point, we’re now 4 hours into the day/season.  This time around Jack Bauer is in New York with a whole crop of newbies working at CTU.

And they don’t know shit.

Except Chloe.  She knows what’s up because she has worked at CTU and with Jack Bauer before and she knows what he is capable of.

But has anyone had any faith in Chloe so far?  Nope.  No they have not and so far they have been SHOWN UP.  But I digress.

So anyway, CTU New York is being run by this guy Brian Hastings.  Hastings has been running around, thinking he’s the poo because he’s in charge, but I’m not so sure that he’s qualified to run CTU.  And I’ll tell you why.

CTU is supposed to be all about government security and anti-terrorism and they know how to hack computers and stuff and yet they let this Dana Walsh character in.

If you’ve seen any of the first few episodes of this season, you know that Freddie Prinze Jr.’s character is dating Katee Sackoff’s character Dana.  Or should I call her Jenny?  Yeah, uh huh, CTU is managing to employ someone who has an entirely false identity.  She created a whole new I.D. and no one bothered to do a background check on this chick?  Chloe is getting a hard time because she can’t keep up with the new computers, software, or whatever and Dana/Jenny isn’t even who she says she is.  And no one has found this out yet?  I mean, Chloe hacks a computer in the office and someone knows about it immediately but this chick sneaks right into the government agency?  HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE!?

And another thing.

I know that I haven’t watched in a few seasons.  24 isn’t exactly a show you can watch if you don’t have a VCR (back in my college days) or a DVR (yes, I have caught up with technology) and you have a varied schedule.  Before Hulu there were no options.  You were home for 24 or you missed it.  And they got a lot done in an hour.  I mean, these are some of the most productive people on television.  Because their hour is a REAL hour.

And that’s where I run into my problem.  Even during the first season when they were stationed in L.A. Jack would hop in a car and then 13 minutes later be outside of the city.  I have been to L.A.  I have ridden in cars in L.A.  And I know that there is no way in hell that you could get out of the city in 13 minutes without a jet pack or some sort of teleportation device.  And now they are in New York.  And in one of these first few hours Jack managed to get from CTU (which from the look of their helipad is actually located in New Jersey?) to whichever outer borough that Russian guy went to when he killed that other cop and then he managed to get to the UN in time to save Freddie from getting a bullet in the head.  Now, listen, I’ve gone from Midtown to Brooklyn by car.  And I’m going to tell you that there is NO WAY Jack made that drive in under 30 minutes.  But according to the handy countdown timer, he made the trip in approximately 9 minutes.  Even with the police siren wailing, there is NO WAY he could do that.

Continuity what?

A post about boobs

Oh man, I tricked you guys AGAIN didn’t I?

Listen, no hard feelings, but I’ve been battling a cold/stomach bug combo for the past few days and so you only get one post per blogs.

But, if you want to read about boobs (and you aren’t a male who is related to me) then you should probably skip over to street cake and take a look.

The title/Reader issue

I realized something last night while I was laying in bed and in that half-awake/half-asleep/half-blogging in my head stage.  You know the one where you’re partially asleep and then you get this great idea for a post and you try to form it out in your head in the hopes that you’ll remember it  in the morning, which of course, you never do.

Anyway, while I was doing this I realized something about the way I write.  Half of my posts have a title that is just the first part of the first sentence of my post.  (These two are from the last year alone.  Actually they’re both from last April, so apparently I was big on this in the spring).

It didn’t occur to me until last night that this might a problem for some people.  There are some people who probably skip over the title in their Google Reader or whatever they are using and stumble on a post that starts in the middle of a sentence.

For example (and by for example, I mean one of the posts I already linked to because I know you guys didn’t click.  Slackers.):

“…to my 97th birthday celebration.”

And I wonder if the people who skip over the title read that and go “what the crap?” and keep going or if they go back and read the title or what.

Now you’d think that because I realized this, I would make a conscious effort to stop doing this but I can’t say that that’ll be the case.  So, be alerted readers!  Be on your toes!  And, you know, read my titles and stuff.

Welcome to Good Burger, home of the Good Burger, can I take your ooorder?

Well damn, I MUST be getting old.  I was in bed, watching The Nanny on Nick @ Nite (which in itself makes me feel old because I remember watching that in prime time) and I saw a commercial for Good Burger*.

You all remember the Good Burger sketch from All That, right?  With Kenan and Kel?  And you all remember when they turned it into a movie, right?

Well apparently today’s youth have NO IDEA about any of that.  Do you want to know how they were promoting the movie?

“From the creators of iCarly and Drake and Josh, and staring SNL’s Kenan Thompson…”

Say what?!  It’s not from the creators of iCarly and Drake and Josh.  I mean, it IS, but those shows weren’t even around when the Good Burger sketch first aired.  In fact, Miranda Cosgrove (the “Carly” in iCarly) was only 1 year old when the sketch first aired.  She couldn’t even speak and now she’s got her own show (which in itself is a spinoff of a spinoff of a show featuring All That cast members) that was created by the guy who created Good Burger the movie.

This is just insanity. And just when I was coming to grips with the fact that I’m 25.

I guess it’s time I get out my glasses, find a good rocking chair, and start practicing my “back in my day” stories because I swear my childhood memories have become “vintage classics.”  To quote Miss Fine, “Oy.”

la

la

*It’s on Sunday at 8 if you want to relive your childhood.

la

Your Wikipedia “fun fact” regarding Good Burger: When the movie debuted on cable in 2007 Nickelodeon made some cast members re-voice lines to censor out the words “ass” and “sucks”.  (They weren’t in the same sentence, that really WOULD have required censoring).

Omg…look, it’s that Rodarte stuff

Oh, wait, were you expecting to see something over here?  My mistake.  I guess titling this post was kind of misleading, wasn’t it?

If you wanted to check out the writing, check over on street cake.

No, seriously!  Check it out!  And de-lurk while you’re at it!

I should know at least one of their names, right? I mean, it’s been like 19 years

My family has been watching Law & Order for pretty much all of the 20 years that it has been on the air.  First the original, then a few episodes of SVU and then Criminal Intent.

They’ve been with the show since Chris Noth played Det. Mike Logan–the first time around.  They watched Jack McCoy work with Claire Kincaid, Abbie Carmichael, and Connie Rubirosa.  They watched Det. Olivia Benson’s hair go from short to longer to shorter to that weird medium-ish length.  They’ve been with Det. Robert Goren while he gained those last 30 lbs.

But ask them, or me, or most of the people who watch Law & Order, what these people’s names are and no one has a clue.

It was October, when I was home with my parents watching some Law & Order before the wedding, that we first realized that we have no clue what any of these people’s names are.  In the middle of a case, someone referenced Det. Lupo by his first name: Cyrus.

Cyrus Lupo?!  What the heck kind of a name is Cyrus Lupo?!  And while we were obsessing about his name, and “who would have EVER assumed this guy’s first name was ‘Cyrus,’” we stopped short.  What the heck is his partner’s name?  I mean, he’s played by Anthony Andersen, I know that much, but what is his name?  (It’s Kevin Bernard, by the way).

And so we started going through the cast, past and present, over all three series, trying to figure out if we really new anybody’s name.  Elliot Stabler, sure, but him and Olivia spend most of their episodes yelling their names.  Lennie Briscoe, yes, but he was so classic, how could you NOT know his name?

But what about Benjamin Bratt’s character, what the heck was his name?  And Jesse L. Martin (the guy from Ally McBeal)?  What about him?  And, okay, I didn’t actually know Goren’s first name until I imdb’d it.  And Eames?  Her first name?  Yeah, not a clue.  A.D.A. Casey Novak I knew, but what about Ice T’s character, something Tutuola?  Yeah, it’s Fin…or Odafin.  And Richard Belzer?  It’s Munch, sure, but what Munch?  (And don’t you dare say Butt Munch.  Gosh, so immature).

Okay, now that I’ve listed half of the cast from the last 2 decades, let me just ask: how many of you knew ANY of these people’s names?  And what does it say about a show that is on TV any time, day or night, any day of the week?  USA airs SVU marathons like the show is going out of style.  And yet?  I couldn’t tell you the Captain’s name if you held a gun to my head and threatened to make me my own episode of Law & Order.

So what do I do with that last little bit?

I like to have bar soap in my shower.  Generally speaking I’m a body wash/loofa kind of girl but I like to have the bar soap in there too.  I actually use it, it’s not just in there because I’m a weirdo or anything.  I mean, I am kind of weird but that isn’t why I have the soap.

Anyway, I always run into the same problem with the bar soap.  The problem is, what the heck am I supposed to do with that last little bit of soap?

(totally sick illustrations, right?  I know.  Me and Paint can rock the house.  Okay, sorry, I’m done now)

I mean, yes, technically it is small enough that I could throw it away but I’d still feel bad for wasting soap.  If I had a proper soap dish in my shower, it would be one thing.  Okay, fine, yes, I do HAVE one but I never use it, I just use my shower caddy, you know, the kind with the iron racks that can hold a full bar of soap with no problem but can’t seem to contain the little guy.  Anyway, if I USED a proper soap dish, it would be no problem to use this soap until there was just absolutely nothing left of it.  But since I don’t use the proper soap dish and instead use the caddy, then that stupid little  piece of soap slips and falls and if I’m not paying attention will slide right down the drain while I’m rinsing the shampoo out of my eyes and thinking “well, I may have just sudsed my eyes, but at least the soap is back where it belongs.” (Note: I don’t actually think about my soap placement in the shower.  I think about more important stuff.  Like what I’m having for lunch.  Or trying to remember all of the words to the “Schools on Demand” song in the commercial, which by the way, is the most annoying song ever).

But I guess the point in this post (since when I do I feel like I need to have a point?) is this:

What do I DO with that last little bit?

My “doesn’t live in NYC and shop at overpriced Gristede’s or Duane Reade anymore” side says just toss it.  My “time to be a responsible housewife who isn’t wasteful and keeps track of what we’re spending” side says I absolutely MUST use that little piece of soap.

But don’t be surprised if it “accidentally” slides down the drain while I’m rinsing the shampoo out of my eyes.

la

la

Editor’s note: While typing this, I wrote “saop” the first time around 9 times out of 10.  For whatever reason, “soap” is awkward to type.  It’s like your fingers just don’t want to do it.  Or there’s some weird disconnect with the brain.  Seriously.  Try typing it if you don’t believe me.*

la

*I just asked for any comments on this post to be the word “soap,” didn’t I?  Aw nuts.