I Heart Matt

I always wondered . . . back when Matthew Good was married . . . "why in the hell is he with that Barbie?" Does he know he's with a Barbie?

Matthew Good Artwork

I guess he did . . . or he figured it out.

I Run Slow

Or to be more correct, I run slowly.

Today was the day that I was to run 20 minutes straight with no walking . . . ideally running for 2 miles. I don't think that I've run for twenty minutes with no walking ever. Sure I "ran" that 5K in sixth grade because I had a deep admiration for Mr. Williams, who was a runner and wanted us all to be runners. But I must admit there was a lot of walking in amongst the running in that 5k in sixth grade. And I don't think I ever trained for more than a mile, which I thought was running the whole loop of the subdivision. (or our "sub", as we called them)

So I just ran for twenty minutes, with no walking. And right at this moment I don't feel as though I'm going to die . . . though right afterward I considered just lying down in the street and taking a little siesta. And through the power of the internet, I know that I did not run 2 miles . . . I only ran 1.5821 miles according to the gmap pedometer. But hey, I've not run 1.5 miles straight in a long time . . . if ever.

So I made it. Ran all the way through, no walking. Got over the fear and psyching myself out (every new routine, somewhere in my brain says "You can't do that"). So now I get to put on some flip-flops and go get my nails done, that and Traders Joe's for some crack trail mix. After a shower, of course.

And for the record . . . I'm old. So I'm allowed to run slowly.

It's Like Crack . . . with Peanuts!

I have long held that Starbucks puts something akin to crack in their coffee. And that a recreational drug habit is probably cheaper than my Starbucks habit (at $3.55 a day). But now, I have found something else.

My sister loves trail mix. Keeps it at her desk. She likes this kinds she gets at Wal-mart and she tried to convert me. And she almost did, as it looked yummy with all those chocolate chips and peanut butter chips and then I read the back of the bag and figured out that I could just pour sugar straight into my mouth . . . and consume less calories.

And let's face it. I'm not really a trail mix kind of girl. I don't like my food touching other food. I don't like raisins (so let me get this right . . . you left the grapes out in the sun and now you want me to eat them?) and I'm very persnickety about nuts. Don't like coconut . . . the list goes on.

But then there was this bag at Trader Joe's (I know I'm banned . . . I figured out his days off) and it said "Nuts about raspberries and chocolate" and it was like the skies parted and shined a beam in the trail mix aisle. (TJ has a trail mix aisle . . . I know, such a hippy store) (but what would a punk rock grocery store have in it? Two aisles . . . Jack Daniels and beer? But I digress.)

Because the problem with trail mix was that I always had to pick something out. I have this problem with other mixes too. Chex Mix . . . I only eat the pretzels. And this TJ trail mix, only has four ingredients . . . which is very un-trail mix like. And they're all ingredients that I like. Almonds, peanuts, dried raspberries and chocolate chips. I could do without the chocolate chips, but oh, so good. My new crack-like product.

Speaking of crack-like dog treats . . . turns out Chuck from Dooce.com likes organic chicken strips from Trader Joes too.

And I think I have mono I'm so tired. Sore throat, stuffy nose and just a difficulty staying awake.

But He Was Too Cute . . .

I had to drink a caramel macchiato this morning . . . and now I can't eat anything for the rest of the day, since I just had 45 billion empty caramel-y calories (and milk, yuck). Unfortunately, this state just makes me want to go to coney island . . .

The reason for the sudden caramel macchiato? Something that I would never order. Well, the cute boy with the tattoo on his neck was in drive-thru this morning and I just couldn't bring myself to say "Umm, this isn't my coffee." The giant band-aid covering his neck tattoo aside (a new addition, I was wondering when the management at Starbucks would get around to it), he is really attractive in an alt boy in kind of way. And flirty, and nice . . . and terrible at working the drive-thru. So it wasn't all that unexpected when he handed me a cup that was a different size from what I had ordered (another very predictable thing about me: grande soy latte).

To his credit, he did charge me for the caramel macchiato, so it's not like I stole someone's drink. It just wasn't what I ordered and after all the flirting ("So, what's your name again?") well, it just didn't seem right to kill the moment. And even the giant band-aid is kinda cute.

My Teacher the Rock Star

As I was reading the newspaper yesterday, there was a picture of a group of handsome young men with a little caption reading "mustardplug.com". This caused me to READ instead of skim the daily "what to do" section and found that Mustard Plug, the ska band from my youth, was playing at the Magic Stick.

I immediately called Molly (M1), who is in town for the holiday, and she graciously agree to accompany me to the show. I knew that I would see at least two former students from yearbook who are Mustard Plug fans, so much so they actually own MP T-shirts. Turns out that there are quite a few Mustard Plug fans as the line wrapped around the building. Unfortunately about 16 of these fans are over the age of 21, including all the guys in the band (and it's a ska band . . . with a horn section). We got to talk to Dave (the lead singer) and he was very nice . . . nice enough to listen to two girls babbling at him about people he knew fifteen years ago.

As I'm at the bar, I hear a "Hey, Miss _______!" from this guy with a beard. Turns out there was a group of former Cranbrook students (including one in a mustard bottle costume) in the crowd, who are all old enough to drink . . . thus making me older than dirt.

M1 and I proceed to make up stories about the guys sitting at the bar, including a guy with glasses that is very cute in a Drew Carey way . . . and you know how I'm hot for Drew. However, he calls the bartender by name and orders up a shot of Jager so he is disqualified from the "flirt with" category for potential alcoholic status. The next band is coming up and I have moved on to staring at some guy with a fauxhawk in the corner, who might even be my age and not a parent. The next band is GREAT so I look up to see who is singing and it's Drew Carey guy. So he was just getting some liquid courage to go up in front of the throng of teenie boppers. And of course, any guy that's up on stage with a microphone gains like a thousand cuteness points automatically, especially when the band is actually good. Unfortunately, I hate people who don't like me at first and then see my art and want to be my best friend so I refused to go talk to him . . . it just wouldn't have been right under the circumstances . . . but the band was really cool. Deal's Gone Bad. Check them out. So we go dance and end up at the stage.

Cute Drew Carey singer boy calls all the girls up on stage. People are videotaping and have camera phones so I do not go up on stage, but some dumb sixteen year old decides to stage dive without looking, colliding with my head on the way down to the floor. It really hurt but if she had caught my nose, I would have kicked her ass. I mean it. It was very cute how the former yearbook students checked to see if I was okay.

So there was much more merriment before the night was done, all of which I will not bore you with today. Good clean fun, I tell you. Good clean fun.

Gotta find a band I like that my students don't like though.

Eye Candy

So went to see the 'rents today at Stately Wayne Manor. Mom was home because there are "home enhancement" products being put on the house (she made me say that) which was cool. I cat-wrangled for a large part of the afternoon, Mr. Cat being locked in the basement due to the "home enhancement" people walking in and out.

"Catman" does not like the idea of confinement of any sort, so he yowls, cries, hisses, snarls and sticks his little paws underneath the door as if you have just forgotten him or maybe you accidentally closed the door without realizing that he was down in the basement. Short memory, Mr. Cat, since Mom had to physically take him to the basement. So to stop what sounded like kitty torture, I let him out and then followed him around the house making sure that he didn't jump out on the roof or run out an open door (where would he go? the woods? he knows there are raccoons. . . big mean biker-like raccoons, that could kick his ass . . . so he just stays on the porch). Luckily, Mr. Cat's "duvet time" coincided with my "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" time, so we snuggled up on our individual duvets (my parents have separate duvets . . . told you it was "Stately Wayne Manor") and watched the slayer.

The "home enhancement" salesman was there, because they jacked up a bunch of stuff. Now the Mr. Salesguy is cute . . . I mean eye candy cute. So eye candy. Big blue eyes, great smile . . . ultra nice because he is Mr. Salesguy. He starts with "oh, you have spring break this week" which was a good entry, meant he remembered me and vaguely remembered that I did something that would have a spring break . . . like a teacher of sorts. My mom takes him away to point out the problems. Ten minutes later, mom and I are sitting at the kitchen table and Mr. Salesguy/Eye Candy walks in and starts talking about his neck. Now I had noticed his neck was red, but now he's rubbing it and telling us all about how he just had laser hair removal. "Oh", is all I could muster, thinking that it was too much information. He then proceeds to go on about the hair removal . . . how he gets it for free cause his best friend does it for a living, I mean he owns the place and they tested out the equipment on me and this lady kept changing the dial and asking how much it hurt and sometimes you could actually hear a sizzle and they said I could shave today but I don't know . . . Way, way, way, too much information. You cannot maintain eye candy status if you share about the sizzle during your laser hair removal. Cannot happen.

My mother insisted at dinner that Mr. Salesguy had no idea that he was (now formerly) eye candy. I thought that he did know because that would be why he is Mr. Salesguy. Anyway, he totally jacked up the order on my parents stuff, which is really annoying my mother and he is no longer eye candy . . . but he does have a totally red neck. Mental note: free hair removal, bad. sharing about any hair removal in general, really bad. Not realizing that you are eye candy and not real bright (thus screwing up the order), really bad too . . . cause you don't want to deal with my mother annoyed.

Having to call everything "home enhancements" because your mother thinks someone will read this and tell the eye candy . . . priceless.