so this is it then

I recently learned something about Stephen that I believe has brought us much closer as a couple and to a higher plane of understanding and equality. As a child, he too was terrifed of ET.
I think I watched ET for the first time at an age just slightly too young (my parents are not to blame for this, I'm fairly confident I snuck out of bed and watched it from the doorway of the living room). I now realize that ET is meant to be an endearing, sweet, and lovable friend from another planet. But when I was four, ET was the scariest, ugliest, most unholy creature to be depicted on film. I would close my eyes at night and ET's face with those bulging eyes and disproportionate neck would stare at me. And I would cry. Our local library had a poster of ET holding a book as part of the READ campaign (maybe you saw the Michael Jordan version). I saw it once and flipped out, then refused to step foot in the library again until Mom called and requested that the poster be removed from the wall. I reluctantly agreed to attend story time again, but only after thoroughly inspecting the empty spot on the wall where my worst fear previously hung.
It was a long time before I gave ET another chance. I think I was 15 before I sat down and watched the entire movie. And while I didn't have nightmares or check beneath my bed that night, I still felt unsettled and I haven't watched it since. There's just something not right about that dude. Does that make me racist? Or specist rather?

yesterday was thursday

Just a couple of things to help you get through today.

1. Muppet Annie Hall

2. Don Draper

You're welcome. Happy Friday.

it's fun for you

I lost a follower and as a result I've had so low blog self esteem lately. It's made me act like a nervous seventh grader. Like on Monday I posted and then removed the post thirty minutes later because I felt it was the stupidest thing ever written and no one would like it and I'm the worst. But I'm going to post it again because it actually took a significant amount of time to draw the chart.

I know. It's not mind blowing. But those lines are very straight, if I do say so myself.

cause i'm a creep

It took all of my brain prower and a solid hour of concentration during the latest X-Men installation to finally recognize Hank:

as the boy in About a Boy

When I see a slightly familiar face on screen it nearly kills me when I can't place it. I stop paying any attention to the story and focus solely on the single actor like a kid who has taken way too much of that study drug. I really couldn't tell you what happened in X-Men, but I'm satisfied all the same because I NAILED IT. Just in time, too, because SPOILER ALERT, about 2/3 through the movie Hank transforms into Cookie Monster/Sully from Monsters Inc. and no longer wears the adorable face that once sang Killing Me Softly in front of an entire middle school audience.

Bird is the word

Happy Friday

It doesn't come in a jar, bug juice comes from who you are

Sometimes I wake up with very nostalgic songs stuck in my head. This morning it was the Bug Juice theme song. Bug Juice was Disney Channel's first (and I believe only) reality show. It followed a group a pre-teens through their adventures at summer camp, and contained what was probably the most controversial occurance in Disney Channel history; Jessica was sent home from camp early. We never found out why, but my friends and I all had our theories (boys, drugs, espionage), and we talked about it for months. Bug Juice was second only to Heavy Weights in terms of aweseome media representation of Summer Camp. Oh wait...no...Salute Your Shorts was also pretty solid (and completed the Nickelodeon trifecta with Hey Dude and Clarissa Explains it All). And so were both Parent Traps. So I guess it's hard to determine the order of awesomeness in Summer Camp shows. They were all amazing. But does anyone actually go to summer camp? Or is it a fictitious world that exists only in art (Like Narnia or whever it is that the hobbits live)? And how tragic is it that I spent five years at a university studying the greatest writers and philosophers and I've spent the last two hours reflecting on the artisitc merits of Heavy Weights?

so come on, and bring your juke box money

I'm a much better dancer in my head than I am on my feet. My brain knows exactly what my body should be doing in accordance to any given beat, but there is some sort of nueron malfunction when the time comes for my limbs to execute on the orders given by the brain. The result is often catastrophic.
"Are you drunk?" Stephen asked while we danced at a wedding reception. I thought it an absurd question at the time, since I've been sober for 25 years. However I later saw a video of the evening and understood his query. My attempts to shake my booty looked more like the swaying of a town drunkard upon leaving the bar.
I started dancing in the living room and Ollie became extremely upset. He growled and barked his angriest bark and started attacking my feet. As soon as I stopped the dancing, he stopped the barking and went back to chewing a stick.
From what I can tell, my body trying to dance looks something like a tree trunk with four cooked spaghetti noodles attached, moving independently of each other with no particular rhyme or reason.
I guess I could blame my roots. The Scandanavians aren't really known for getting their groove on, cutting a rug, shakin what their mamas gave em, or what have you. More for knitting mittens and baking streusel. That never did my any favors at the Friday night High School dances.
Even slow dancing was often more disasterous than not. It was during "My Heart Will Go On" while my arms were draped over some poor boys shoulders that my nose started pouring blood. It was the most dramatic nose bleed Timpview High had ever seen. Blood all over me, all over the floor, and probably all over my dancung oartner. A janitor rushed me away to a room with a cold compress and surprisingly comfortable chair. The number of boys wanting to dance with me reduced dramatically after that evening.