The Ballad of Exercise Ball and Elbow.

I've always been a fan of exercise balls. I love that when I go to the clinic where I do my practicum, I see an exercise ball/chair in the clinic supervisor's office.


Exercise balls are big, round, make people look goofy, and have always seemed like the least threatening things in the world-- kind of like Dumbo. In fact, I love exercise balls so much that not only am I a proud owner of my very own purple ball, but I also took a six-week Pilates BALL class over the summer, so that I could learn more about the amazingness of exercise balls. Despite my affinity for exercise balls, I view them as a dying trend, too-- something that is being replaced by all these silly things like discs and kettlebells and whatnot. In a world full of these exercise ball replacements, I felt like I was one of the few remaining who truly understood the marginalized exercise ball.

But then, The Accident happened.

The fateful day after which I would no longer feel the excitement of clutching a bright red exercise ball in the rec center studio after Jared, our instructor, would tell us that we'd need to get an exercise ball for that day's routine. No, no more. The Accident now marks my last dance with the exercise ball, and leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Let me back up. I'm the heartless, mean-spirited butthole that laughs when people are escorted via snowmobile by paramedics to the ski lodge on ski slopes. That is, until I, too, was the victim of a newbie skiing mom who skiied right into my face. I'm the bitch who will tail you on the highway, and then complain about how there are so many awful drivers on the roads after being tailed 10 miles up. Yup, I'm That Bitch. So, it's no surprise that, fast-forwarding to that fateful Accident Day, I was also the pretentious snob who prided herself on having such a great relationship with a piece of sweaty exercise equipment, and then fell off of my so-called (inanimate object) Friend Frienemy. Melodramatic? I think not. I have the big bruiser on my left elbow to prove it. Friends don't let friends fall. I trusted that ball. Now who will I trust?
hmm, I've heard good things about those balance disks.... and those ValSlides.... hmmmmm....

Isn't real-life wedding planning time-consuming enough?!

So, my quasi-New Year's resolution was to start blogging on a much more regular basis. And, to start a blog with the fiance about wedding planning, from the perspective of Juni, my (ok, our) dog. This might *sound* kind of adorable, but really, it would probably get old in about 2 days. ...... i'm doing it.

Anyway, back to this new year's resolution. Obviously, I've failed miserably already. It's mid-February, I'm taking one class in school, and working on the side. I surely have time to blog! So, here's my come-back blog #1. Welcome!

As I've been dabbling in some wedding planning, I've stumbled upon these crazily addictive websites like weddingbee and projectwedding. They're amazing. and, they will consume your life. this is no.joke. For instance, I posted a thread on weddingbee the other day because I was contemplating shoes for the wedding day. Did I want a kitten heel, a platform, stilettos? Big side bow, flower applique, knot detail? All very important questions, and tons and tons of options to choose from. And most importantly, are these shoes dyeable, since I'm planning on using shoes as my 'something blue' (and teal is one of our colors!). So, with all these thoughts tumbling through my mind as I stared at my work computer, I turned to my 'bees' and threw the question out to them for some feedback. Which shoes? Within a day, I have a handful of responses from complete strangers, giving me advice on which shoe would best match my dress, and would look great dyed blue. AMAZING. it's like MAGIC. and this is PERFECT for a very indecisive girl like me. How had I not found this earlier? Was there never a weddingbee equivalent of, where should I go to grad school? What should I do during the summer? Should I eat leftovers even though they've been sitting in my fridge for 4 days? All these (very important, life-altering) questions I had in the past... where were my bees then? Or had technology not progressed to huge hubs of people from all over existing in cyber-world at that point?

The one slight issue about these sites is that you kind of feel obligated to hang out in cyber-world, on the website, constantly updating posts, replying the threads... i don't even know the difference between a post and a thread. how am i supposed to know if i'm being a good cyber-friend to my bees? It's actually a little stressful. Because, on top of your real-life wedding planning and talking to friends who are getting married, having babies, adopting animals, saving the world, sniffing their dogs' paws.... there's this whole ... internet-beehive out there who you *also* have to attend to, discuss things with, and ask advice of. i mean, isn't real-life wedding planning time-consuming enough? am i just a bitchbee?
.....
by the way, i swear i do work at work, too. not just stress out over being a bitchbee and stalk my dog on doggie-cam while she's at doggie daycare.
.... aaand, i'm going to get fired tomorrow.

Frito Paws?! WTF?

So I've been having this conversation with many people (i.e. i keep bringing the topic up with people) about some of my favorite smells. Most people like normal scents like... roses, freshly-baked cookies, laundry.... but my two favorite smells happen to miss the mark on typically-agreed-upon good scents. They are: sleeping dog paws, and basement.
...
...
That's right. Sleeping dog paws. and basement.
This topic came up again earlier today with the bf, and I decided to confess this fact to cyberspace by typing in "i like the smell of sleeping dog paws" in my google toolbar. Lo and behold... google generated 204,000 hits based on my ridiculous confession. true fact.
it's kind of fascinating because it appears that some dogs' post-nap paws remind their owners of corn chips and fritos. i find this... disturbing, to say the least. perhaps these absent-minded owners dropped a few crumbs onto their beloved dogs' innocent paws? but no, there are too many others out in cyberspace connecting with others over this very same phenomenon. Frito paws. After spending some time (i.e. too much time) researching this strange phenomenon, i found the consensus to be that Frito paw does not = the scent that i love. Frito paw is caused by some type of bacteria/possibly yeast infection (the dark, damp nature of the crevices in paw beds make optimal breeding grounds for these bacterium). I refuse to believe that i love yeast infected paws. or that i sleep nightly with these tainted paws in my face. and that a guilty pleasure of mine is to deeply inhale bacterium while my unconscious pup snoozes on.
Well, but it's possible, you just might like the smell of weird fungus and bacteria, you might say. Afterall, let's be honest... the smell of basement... is basically mold and asbestos growing on old pipes.
...
...
dis.turb.ing.
can i come over to smell your basement?

Merry Hanukkah and Happy Christmas...Discovering the Real Deal.

Happy Holidays, from Mitchell, SD.

Yes, that's right. South Dakota.
As in, land of bizarre weather patterns (i.e. 40 mph wind gusts blowing up snow onto icy interstates at 5 am), venison steaks, and corn... fields and fields of corn. in fact, mitchell, SD is famous for an establishment in downtown called "The Corn Palace," which, tourguides proudly claim, is "the world's largest birdfeeder."
Awesome, to say the least. you think i'm being sarcastic. but no. no, i don't think you understand the wonders of places like the corn palace and mitchell, south dakota where weather is the local talk of the town rather than whether bragelina are having marital problems.


There's something wholesome and homey about places like Mitchell-- something you crave when you're at home in your messy apartment in a College Town #10, USA eating Lean Pockets and chugging Red Bulls while you fight the clock, the cold you're coming down with, and sleep as you try desperately to finish your last paper of the semester on some mundane topic like the use of policy forecasting in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

Even after a 17-hour car ride with a canine releasing occasional spurts of chocolate muffin and mustard-covered lettuce scents out of her butt, snowy Mitchell, SD (now at -3 degrees) still glows in its Christmasy spirit. Is it the acres upon acres of wheat and cornfields covered with a downy blanket of superfine powdery snow? The way the Christmas decorations gleam through the storefront windows? There is something very distinct about the holidays in places like Mitchell, it's almost as if a Christmas card came to life; like oh, look-- there's Santa over by the Johnson's, piling up carefully-wrapped presents under the tree.
It's funny to experience such a "real" Christmas, not the over-the-top seizure-inducing Christmas-turned-into-a-house-decorating-contest affair of my hometown on Long Island, NY (or, perhaps Hanukkah-turned-into-a-house-decorating-contest is more appropriate). I guess it didn't occur to me that Christmas could be quiet, merry, peaceful, calm.... not loud, obnoxious, stressful, with cranky shoppers fighting over the last small parking spot.
Hm. Makes you think... if you listen hard enough here, you could swear you hear some reindeer prancing away, and Santa's jolly laugh echoing in the distance.

...aaaand, approx one year later...

We're back!

So it's been a while, and much has changed. For one, I've moved back to the midwest. I guess I missed the accents and corn on the cob too much. Not that San Diego wasn't amazing, but, it's good to be back, where I get asked about Chinese food menu options and people occasionally talk to me slowly using lots of hand gestures. oh, how i love thee, midwest.

The biggest news is that I have a new companion, Juni. Juni is a five year old Whippet (yes, as in what bad-ass kids use to get high on the playground)/Jack Russell Terrier mix, and a whole lot of cuteness.

I think she has autism.

See, this is the problem with a psych major all throughout my higher education. I think everyone and everything around me has some sort of Axis I psychological disorder. Of course my dog is on the Autism spectrum. of course. But seriously, I have witnesses. She engages in repetitive motions, hand-flaps, didn't talk for quite some time, and she rarely looks straight at me. And, she's a weirdo around other pups. As in, she plays with them for about 10 minutes, then wanders off on her own to smell the flowers and poop around her, all the while, ignoring the other pooches that are trying to be nice and asking Juni to play tag with them.

I need to look into this more, maybe there is a support group online for people who have dogs that have various psychological disorders. Can dogs even have disorders? ..... hmmmmm.

Just saying, possible dissertation topic.

So long, SoCal...

Well, it's officially official. I'm currently sitting on a bed in a lovely little inn in Park City, UT (home of Sundance and the 2002 [... or was it 3?] Winter Olympics [ok, so that may have been Salt Lake City, but Park City is close enough. they at least both have the word 'city' in their names). My car made the Day 1 600 mi. nearly-vertical climb (it really was a complete upward trek from LA to Park City), despite the nausea-inducing highways and despite being packed to maximum capacity with unnecessary items like shower curtain rings and marshmallows (which will, in fact, come in handy as an evening treat tomorrow night when we go camping in random wyoming).
So, now that I've had time to reflect on life, here are some things I've realized:
1. Drinking margaritas on a nearly-empty stomach the night prior to a road trip is never a good decision, especially when the night ends with you puking in some shady alleyway.
2. There is no better feeling than beating the LA rush-hour traffic.
3. Starbucks makes an assortment of delicious pastries.
4. There are some true assholes on the road (mostly SUV drivers who don't believe in sharing the road).
4b. I'm also one of those assholes.
5. High altitudes really mess up one's digestive system. i won't go into that any further.
6. Nik now hates me because I am completely and utterly anal about my vehicle.
7. Frijoles = beans.
8. Utah is more than just mormons and polygamy. It's also 12-passenger vans carting 2 adults + 10 screaming children driving in front of you, along 75 mph roads... oh wait. Mormons and polygamy. That's it.
9. I kid, i kid. Utah is beautiful, with placid lakes and towering red mountain ranges.
10. I may have to move to Park City, UT one day, rather than to a farm in the midwest. Let's be honest; mountains and hot cider > cowpies. Agreed.

Really, then it seems that the realization hasn't hit that San Diego/LA is no longer home. Perhaps Day 2's 200 mi. trip to Wyoming will make me reflect on life in socal...
Maybe if I stopped drinking margaritas. that might also help. putting down the glass riiiight now.

NyQuil nightmares and DayQuil daymares

I used to never get sick.

I'm serious. I think it was because my mom force-fed me whole milk until I turned 12 and realized I was actually obese.

I was the kid who didn't know what was so great about cherry and grape flavored Dimetapp (although, out of jealous curiosity, I once convinced my mom that I had a sore throat, and, not realizing I had magical powers, i.e. childhood immunity against viruses, she bought me a bottle of grape deliciousness that was Dimetapp. which, I chugged straight out of the bottle. What? I'm an only child, so who else was going to be taking children's cough syrup?), or how being sick actually really kind of, well, is awful.

Hard to believe I really didn't get sick, ever? Well I'll prove it. with a story. which, you may or may not choose to believe. So, I never missed a day of middle school or high school. My school was weird and gave out awards for strange accomplishments like, not missing a day of school since 1996. So, that award was supposed to go to me. and boy, would I have loved getting that plaque! But, instead of attending the awards assembly, I, along with the rest of our senior class, was attending a different type of function involving roller coasters and hot dogs. We were partaking in our unofficial senior cut day, at Six Flags in the great state of NJ. So, I never got to experience that plaque with my name on it, stating that I had never missed a day of school. Because, in fact, I had missed a day of school-- the most important day for me to NOT have missed school-- the day I was to be acknowledged as the only kid in high school... to have never missed a day of school. How ironic.

Anyway, I digress.

I started getting the oh-so-common cold once I started college. Although, really, what kind of super-human doesn't catch a cold in below-zero Michigan winters? I guess though, seasons don't particularly matter, since: a) it's currently the beginning of June and I have a lovely cold, and b) what actually causes colds to get passed around is population density. So, I guess it was inevitable that, in the dorms I eventually caught whatever nasty bug everyone else already had. And, so here I am, now, as your average 20-something adult, lacking my super-immune-system, and still pining for my glory days where having a plaque to celebrate my immune system seemed like a petty and trite event that i just brushed it off. Little did I know that without it would come my downfall.

Dun-Dun-Duuuun.

Please excuse me. I'm high on DayQuil.