Tagged

My friend Lois tagged me, and now it is my turn to list 7 random things about myself:

1) I silently count stairs as I walk up and/or down them. I think I may have fallen down the stairs or something as a child, but for as long as I can remember, I have counted stairs. If I know how many stairs there are, I won't be in danger of missing one. 

2) I memorize license plate numbers. When I was growing up in Georgia, the plates there had 3 numbers followed by 3 letters separated by a space. Since many of my friends had similar cars, I could tell whose car was whose by the plate number. Plates in CA are a bit different, usually one number, followed by 3 letters, and 3 more numbers, with no spaces in between. 

3) I silently correct the grammar of anyone to whom I speak. You'll know we are true friends if I correct your grammar out loud. 

4) I cannot stand to have unpainted toenails. Even if it's clear, I must have toenail polish on in order to function. I have had some sort of toenail polish on my toes for at least the past nine years. 

5) I have a very specific way of eating a cupcake. I usually lick off most of the frosting until there is just a little bit left. Then, I remove the bottom half of the cupcake and put it on the top half, and eat it like a sandwich. 

6) I have a freckle in my eye. In it. On the very bottom of my iris of my left eye, there is a little dark spot. In college, I knew someone with two different colored eyes, so I felt slightly better about my eye weirdness once I met her.

7) Until Ian brought home his X-Box from Iraq, I had never owned a video game console in my life. Prior to playing Guitar Hero, the only video game I had ever played was Frogger, and that little bastard never once made it across the street.

Now, I TAG: Meghan, Andrew, Ian, and Steph. 

Saturday at the Movies...

I think I spent more time watching movies today than I have in the past month. Ian granted me a reprieve this afternoon, and I caught a matinee by myself. (Note: By Myself = awesome. I'm not one of those people who has a complex about seeing movies alone. In fact, sometimes, I rather enjoy it.) So I headed downtown (downtown Escondido, which is far less interesting than downtown SD) and saw Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie. I had been wanting to see this movie for awhile, but could never convince Ian that he wanted to see it, too. Finally, I stopped trying to convince him. Anyway, the movie was good, but it was long. I kept expecting it to end, but it just kept going. Parts of it were pretty disturbing, too. The basic premise (SPOILERS ahead, be ye warned) is that Ange, a single mom in the late 1920s, goes into work her shift, comes home and her son has disappeared. She reports him missing to the corrupt LAPD, who eventually return a boy to her whom they claim is her son. She knows that the boy is NOT her son, says so, and then the LAPD calls her crazy and shuts her up in a mental institution. She eventually gets out, goes public with her story, frees all the other inmates who have been committed by the police, and testifies against the Captain who was handling her case. At the end: no son. Long movie, and no happy ending. Lois would have been so pissed.

And speaking of Loie, that wonderful gal let me invite myself over to her place this evening to blow off some steam. We drank so margaritas and rented Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Now, this movie was something I had wanted to see, but figured it would be one of those flicks that I added to my Netflix queue instead of shelling out $10+ to see it in the theatre. And, truth be told, while everyone else is busy killing themselves laughig over Judd Apatow's movies, I, to this point, have been rather unimpressed: The 40-Year Old Virgin? Eh. Knocked Up? Not so much. The one (obvious) exception to this, however, is Anchorman. But I digress. Forgetting Sarah Marshall was really pretty good. There are a lot of good jokes, and although I did see waaaaay too much of Jason Segel's penis to be able to sleep peaceably ever again, it was, overall, a pretty good movie. And, from me, that is a glowing recommendation. 

Boring

It's becoming more and more obvious recently that Ian and I are not being invited to certain social events within a particular group. And, other than getting a little butt-hurt over the whole thing, and not having much to contribute to conversations on the off chance that I AM invited to such shindigs, I'm pretty ok with it. I may only be 25 years old, but my partying and bar-hopping days are long gone. Truth be told, I didn't particularly enjoy it even when I could just go out night after night with no familial obligations. I don't like going to crowded places where you have to pay just to get in the door, where drinks cost as much as the cover, and where you have to yell to the person standing right next to you while migraine-inducing bad music streams from speakers placed right next to your ear. This is assuming that you're not still circling the block looking for a parking spot before you ultimately surrender and cough up the $20 to park in a poorly lit lot no less than a mile from the bar which you plan on attending. Maybe it's just me, but that's just not appealing anymore. Even a couple of glasses of wine with dinner now result in a headache and a fistful of Advil in the morning.

And, when all is said and done, who can really afford that? Congratulations if you you can blow that much money weekend after weekend, but I know many of those people also stay at home with their kids, just like I do. (For now. In other news, I GOT A JOB! But that isn't the point of this post.) I have a mortgage, student loans, car payments, bills, bills, bills, a two year old who is growing out of his clothes before I can buy them, and more bills on top of that. 

So yes, I am out of the loop. I'm not cool, I don't like to party. I'm a nerd. I am boring. But when all is said and done, I'd rather sit at home and play trucks with my kid. I'd rather sit on the couch with my husband and laugh. I'd rather make dinner for my family and splash with my son in the tub. 

Thankfully, I have a wonderful, close-knit group of friends who feel the same way. While we do occasionally enjoy an evening out downtown, these nights are usually planned well in advance and executed with the logistical equivalent of a SWAT team. However, these nights are few and far between, and you are much more likely to find us sitting around one of our living rooms with a couple of bottles of wine, good conversation, and many, many laughs. We sometimes get a little crazy and play some Cranium.

Crying with Jealousy

Oh, how I hate Meghan....

President Elect

There is nothing more obnoxious to me than people who, once their candidate has lost, "threaten" to move out of the country. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, people: America is a democracy, and the fact that you even have the right to choose your president puts you above so many other people in the world. America's citizens voted, and if your choice was in the minority, too bad. You have a duty to support the President Elect of the United States, and if you are too narrow minded and closed off from reality to realize this duty, then please, by all means, LEAVE the country. I will help you pack.