lent me your ears

or...
neither a borrower not a lenter be.
belly button lent.
lent for yourselves!
return to lenter, address unknown.
memories were lent for this.
they lent that-a-way!
lent me a tenor.
could you give me a lent?
lent-up anxiety.
i can't pay the lent.

yes yes yes, i am a complete fan of the puns. send me more if they pop into your head, and i promise to laugh appropriately until i snort. speaking of which, this seems to be a trait i picked up from vee and rhiannon. perhaps it isn't only regional accents that rub off on a person when you're in a group.

so you're all waiting to see what my secular lent brings this year, aren't you? it's almost as good as seeing what liz ate for breakfast, i know. as predicted, it's the soda ban until easter. i told a couple of the kids about it, and guess what? they said it really isn't that hard to do after the first week or so. some of them have pretty much given up soda, and these are teenagers! if the adolescent set can go without the pepper, then surely i can do it for a while. hopefully they can be a good influence on me. see now, peer pressure doesn't have to be a bad thing all the time. it's what is getting me through to my degree, after all.

in all honesty, this whole secular lent thing has become a great joy. i'm not religious in the least, so it's sort of like making a new year's resolution, but with a light at the end of the tunnel. in thinking on it, i suppose i could pick any time of the year to take on a challenge like this. it's just easier to do it at a time when there are people out there to commiserate with on giving up something. the ritual part of it is comforting, though. and i've been told that when you publicly declare a goal, you're more likely to stick to the means that will get you to that goal. maybe that's the whole trick. it's been an unconscious habit of mine for years to play it this way. i tend to be very close to the vest on a project until i decide for sure that i want to do it. i mean, if i actually tell people that i want to get something done, then i have some responsibility to follow through and try. what a fucking bummer that can be.

i'm not a fan of being responsible. in general i try to be as lazy as i possibly can while making sure to wash my face every day. outward appearances may speak to the contrary, but at heart i am a total slug who would gladly spend a great deal of time lolling about munching on cheese and crackers while reading trivia books and flipping through trashy magazines. the only reason my schedule stays busy is to get me out of the house. people need a reason to be, a purpose in life. my purpose is to get out of bed and socialize in real life with other people. if i ever lose that, you'll have to use a crane to get me out of here.

but then i could be featured on one of those discovery channel medical mystery shows, telling how it took a team of people to wedge me out of the bed... after it collapsed under a thousand pounds. they would dig me out of a pile of pizza boxes and periodicals. i would meet all sorts of new and interesting production assistants and doctors and go on to be the inspirational before/after story of the year. my story would live on in reruns night after night as you saw me breaking down in tears and admitting i need human contact to sustain my life. my goodness, who can commit to that amount of time just to be edited improperly later on for a thirty minute cable show? that would take way too much work. better to just go on getting up every day. see, that's how my particular brand of laziness works.


guilty pleasure movies for one and all:
bring it on
national treasure
doomsday
spy kids
strictly ballroom

tutus and dirt

over the weekend i got to meet gwyn's mom, and she's cute as a button! we sat and watched the ballet together and chatted incessantly whenever the lights would come up for a break. i see where gwyn gets her spunk, for sure. the show was adorable. i rarely go to see the full length ballets anymore, since the contemporary one act pieces are so much more interesting to me. i figure if i'm going to be a little lost, then i should be able to interpret what's going on however i like. they put descriptions in the programs of everything, but i've taken to reading them only after i've seen a performance. that way i can see if what they tell me matches up to what i think i saw out there. it's like solving a puzzle with no picture on the box, but taking much less time.

i also got a lot of work done, which negates the need for my regular workout. getting to sweat while getting a project going - what could make a girl happier? now that i've started my new side business for real, each new client gives me a little more confidence. i can't wait to load up the photos i took and show them off to the clients. things are coming along nicely. i might have a big challenge in my immediate future, but thank goodness i took on some interesting work projects right from the beginning. now i can go in and kick ass.


random fact:
i'm going to be a bridesmaid soon. eek.

random side notes - chapter twenty four

what ever happened to my airhorn? it must have been lost in one of the moves we made. next time i direct, it would be really funny to use one from time to time. maybe not so useful on adults, but the kids would surely respond. at least i still have my whistle and my silver pointer... and all of my jaunty scarves, which give me that je ne sais quoi thing.

with the impending start of my secular lent, i'm considering what to do this year. when i approached derek about making the ultimate sacrifice, he was aghast. "you're going to give up meat this year?" he asked. ouch, no way. "cheese?!?" hell to the nope. he squinted a bit and said, "i'm afraid to even ask, and i don't think i wanna know." since we've gone virtually soda-free at the house since derek's moratorium on mountain dew, i was thinking of maybe kicking my dr. pepper habit, or maybe even soda altogether. yikes, i'm a pepper, so just the thought of it hurts. any better ideas out there?

i'm supposed to be studying for a test right now. i don't feel like studying, but i do ponder if my brain is turning to mush for no apparent reason.

last weekend was the first time i'd been in an improv show in years. well, sort of. i mean, i've hosted a few shows for the kids, but as far as being an actor and playing all the scenes, this was kind of like my comeback. the feedback was pretty spiffy overall, and i was as pleased as i could be, considering how rusty i felt during the show. that seems nutty, since i play the games all the time with people, but having an audience there really is different for me. even after all this time, i still get the willies about being out there in front of people.

on that topic, i feel like a doltish lump of clay as of late. it isn't a case of being uninspired, but more one of feeling uncreative. that mantra of reduce, reuse, recycle wasn't supposed to apply to creativity, was it? my epiphanetic state is in limbo, just waiting for me to catch up with it. as much as i've tried to develop a sense of patience, this type of frustration is like chasing a greased pig through a mud puddle.

i like burritos. like, a whole lot.

woohoo! looks like i got a free ticket to the ballet this weekend. it pays to know the right people sometimes, especially when those right people are in the show. gwyn was nice enough to give me one of her comp tickets so i can see her and megan prancing around like goofballs.

my latest goal is fairly silly. by the end of the year i would like to do a one-armed pushup. okay, so prolly way before that. (i keep forgetting it's only february right now.) i've been getting my arms in better shape and can sustain the up position for a while right now, but the down and then back up again part is still waiting to happen. well, the down part is okay, but getting back up on just the one arm? let's just agree to disagree on the amount of gravity lurking in my house when i make the attempt. like i said, it's one of those things that is so random that it doesn't even make sense, and yet, it entertains me enough to keep me interested.

mr. bubbas is feeling needy today. he's right next to me on the desk, miraculously avoiding the keyboard for the first time all week. he must be tired of surfin the net and sending out emails with his butt. instead, bubba keeps suggesting with pitiful looks that he's been truly neglected and needs more love. never mind that i've set aside a spot on the desk specifically for the cats to splay. he's decided that if he can't lay on the keyboard, he should just pout on the corner until i give in and give him snackies as a peace offering. don't tell him this, but i'm pretty sure it's going to work. this must be why derek is usually in charge of the feedings.


my moment of quoi:
when i got home, derek was watching manly gun tv. QUOI?!?

if i were an intellectual...

so now i have to work on a senior capstone project, which is sort of a culminating thingy to prove to those people at school, "wowee, she DID learn something after all!" my seminar instructor and i seem to speak two different languages. she doesn't get me and i have no idea what the hell she wants out of this. no matter, because i have two individual advisors on the project to help me decipher all this academic gobbledygook and press on with it.

i'm supposed to be creating a public awareness campaign on the causes, effects, and possible treaments regarding compulsive hoarding. yes, i am addicted to all those shows that involve getting the shit out of your house and rearranging your leftover shit into some kind of functional order. now i just hope i can translate these scientific equations derived from social science research into some discernible form of "hey, look at this" to present at the end of the term. if it's successful, i graduate. whoop-a-dee-doo for me. i'm just relieved that both of my advisors are cool enough to understand me and get that i'm not doing this project to get published in some random academic journal that no one will ever read; that is, unless they're forced to do research like i'm doing now. we're sticking with the "just get it over with" mantra.

for now, the rest of my school life is strangely calm. it would seem that i can grasp the ideas of sociological and political theory with some bizarre amount of ease that makes perfect sense to me. how freakish is that? the information overload aspect of it is no picnic, but the base theories are strikingly similar in thematic importance. perhaps learning how to scan my texts just for the relevant statements is beginning to pay off for me. goodness knows i can't take serious reading on the subject anymore.

on other nerdy topics, i almost fell on the floor today after watching "fear the boom and bust" online. it's a rap video done as an intellectual duel between john maynard keynes and f.a. hayek, two quintessential economists. i found it after listening to a planet money podcast. if you haven't seen it yet, it's very high on the EEE! scale from me. just imagine these two dead white guys duking it out over economic principles, all while being righteous homies with street cred, and you'll understand the humor involved. go see it, trust me.


singers i love this week:
nellie mckay
pink
stevie wonder
jill sobule

who doesn't love a good christian?

someone please tell me why it's 7 am and i'm studying for an exam. what better way to wake up in the morning than with this fabulous little techno tantrum? EEE!