Fresh from the oven: humble pie March 26, 2009

Well, cyber-stalkers, it pains me to say this, but I didn’t make it through the 5k. I didn’t even make it to the 5k, due to several factors. Let’s go over them, shall we?

1. Brooke, my running buddy, bailed (after I had called you such a faithful friend, too!).

2. I had just come home from work after being on my feet for 7+ hours.

3. Let’s face it; it’s more fun to sit on the floor and eat popcorn than put your legs muscles through agony.

4. Um…your mom.

Now, on to happier topics! Or not. It has recently come to my attention that I have 50 + pages worth of papers to do by the end of April. None of which I have yet started.

I think you can probably guess what kind of affect this will temporarily have on my maintenance of this here blog. That’s right; I will be more consistent than ever in my postings of utter nonsense as I sink further and further into the sea of denial and become more desperate to find a means of escape from the world of academia!

It’s all part of my new, improved, edgy-bad-girl-who-doesn’t-do-her-homework image. Ok, maybe it’s not so new.

On the bright side, I do get a t-shirt out of the deal. That makes ANYTHING worthwhile. March 18, 2009

If we were speaking face to face, you would instantly sense the desperation in my voice. But as we are not, I need to let you know that I AM PANICKING BECAUSE I JUST REALIZED I’VE MADE THE STUPIDEST DECISION IN ALL OF MY 20.8 YEARS!!

I can hear you now. “Oh, Anna. Tell me you did not get suckered into buying the Shamwow. I mean, just take a gander at the first half of the word.”

If only. We are dealing with something far worse than the purchase of a superfluous infomercial product. We are dealing with the fact that the neurotransmitters in my brain stepped out to lunch long enough for me to sign up to run a 5k when the truth is that the three R’s (roaches, rats, and running) are the things I detest most in the totality of the universe!

But it wasn’t enough to just get myself into this muddle; oh no, I had to go and pull Brooke into it all too (sorry, girl. And you’ve always been such a true friend…) Thus, for several early mornings in a row it’s been Brooke, me, and Dr. Brown at the rec center cardio room, engulfed in silence save for the soft whirring of the elliptical machine. (I must admit, collapsing jogging on the treadmill next to your former English professor is a little awkward. But not as awkward as the thought of being passed by a gaggle of visor-sporting 60-year-old women as I plod along the sidewalk like a sad, sweaty, I-don’t-even-know-what.)

The running commences this Friday at midnight. If I haven’t checked in with you within a week to let you know how it went you can safely assume my leg muscles overheated, giving way to spontaneous combustion, which then melted the skin off my fingers, inhibiting my ability to type. In which case this blog will be sold to the highest bidder. I don’t care what you do with it as long as you keep the “to the Max” part. Any Maxes lurking out there? Max to the Max would be kinda catchy.

SB’09. Don’t be jealous. March 16, 2009

Question: What does a 20-year-old college student do during an entire 8 days at home when “home” is a beautiful, albeit remote,  farm-like property with no cable, less-than-reliable cell phone service, and dial-up internet which takes 4 hours to load 3 lousy minutes of a single YouTube video? (Not that I’m complaining or anything.) 

Let me tell you.

First, you gotta get your priorities straight. Nothing keeps me from spending some quality time with Patrick the pillow and Cathy the comforter. (And on really chilly nights, Quinetta the quilt.) If you ask me, those scientists don’t know what they’re talking about. Seven to eight hours of sleep a night? Pshaw. I could have slept all week and still have begged for more.

Upon waking, skip the shower, I repeat, SKIP IT! Even when among my own kind in civilization, I’m not a big believer in hygiene. It’s vanity, I tell you, pure vanity! Shampoo? Moisurizer? Oatmeal scrub body wash? Nothing more than evil vices. Did the pilgrims need these trifles? Nay, and neither do I. Especially when the only ones around to smell me (all family members aside) have hooves.

Don’t get me wrong, bathing does have its place. But so does Captain Crunch. And if I remember my fifth grade math well enough, Captain Crunch > Bathing. (The duck’s bill does eat the greater one, right?)

After being thoroughly crunchetized, one has some major decisions to make. Option A: Take a nap. Option B: Play badminton. Option C: Get out the good ol’ bucket of sidewalk chalk and decorate the driveway. Option D: Dress up like the spooky creatures from “The Village” and peek out from behind the bushes at any cars that pass by. Option E: Make some ridiculously embarrassing home videos featuring contestants on a show called “The Biggest Gainer” and their demanding trainers who yell at them to cram more pizza down their throats during the Last-Chance Pig Out before the weigh-in. Option F:  Four words: Sunday school flannel board. aka FUNNEST TOY KNOWN TO MAN! Well, I guess technically it’s not a toy. But that doesn’t diminish it’s fun-ness a smidge. 

Oh, have I ever introduced you to K-Dizzle? She is a sibling of mine who, conveniently, is homeschooling this year and therefore is around all day providing me with endless amusement reading The Grapes of Wrath. Here she is, dressed in traditional Things-We-Don’t-Speak-of garb:

So that’s what I did until Friday. Quite a productive week, was it not? But to top it all off, I went as a chaperone with my church’s youth group to a gigantic conference Friday and Saturday. Because nothing brings me joy like jumping  around like a fool in a mosh pit surrounded by oodles of stinky 13 year old boys.  And because no one is more qualified to chaperone than someone who sits around in her Space Jam jammies eating Captain Crunch and doodling with sidewalk chalk.

And that is how I lived it up during Spring Break 09. (Oh, and I’d like to say a special thank you to my dear friends who went to Myrtle Beach and rubbed it in my face. How thoughtful of you!)

Oh, unidentified place of work. Looks like I’ll squeeze another silly post out of you yet. March 1, 2009

Well, dear readers, it was another long Saturday at the store that I work at but try not to mention by name on the world wide web because I’d like to remain employed there for as long as possible. Pizza Hut girl was injured, so who was the obvious candidate for a substitute? Why, service desk worker girl, of course! Dun da da dun! Never mind that she’s not actually trained in that field; the second she slips on that grungy apron and grease-stained baseball cap, she becomes the epitome of hotness.  

I tell you, you have yet to experience true boredom if you’ve never been stuck behind the Pizza Hut counter for two hours with no one to talk to but the breadsticks, which, I just learned, are supposed to go in the toaster upside down to prevent that very tooth-chipping quality mine always obtain. I also learned to check to make sure there is, in fact, marinara sauce in the marinara sauce vat before selling three breadstick combos. Oopsies! My b.

The best part of being the clueless Pizza-Hut fill-in? You don’t need training to wash dishes! Except you sort of do because there’s this special solution and the dishes have to soak in each of the three sinks of various temperatures of water for various amounts of time, blah blah blah. Oh, look, here comes our Starbucks buddy to get some soapy water of his own. But what’s this? A lecture on wearing three-quarter pants? You did not just make fun of my work duds. Am I going to have to go all Bon-Qui-Qui on you? 

Fast forward to mid afternoon. Let’s look in on our service desk worker girl-turned pizza hut girl- turned cashier. (My, what stylish capris she’s wearing!) A customer lays his soon-to-be purchases on the counter. She can’t help but laugh as she bags three big bottles of hot sauce…and four boxes of our Pepto-Bismol knock-off. There you go sir. No, you have an excellent day. Oh, the things people buy/say/do.