French-Roast, the Blog, the Legend, is Now Closed.

Because no one should have their 20s so fastidiously documented online.

After 1131 posts, 117 unpublished drafts, and seven years, French-Roast, the personal soap box of my roaring 20s, is no more.

Archives through August 2006 will remain online for another year. After that, French-Roast.com will return to the people of the internet underworld. Or I'll sell it to you for a million dollars. You decide.

Archives from June 2002 to July 2006 are going offline today, but will be kept safe (for posterity? vanity?) on my external hard drive. Woe to future generations who find it and read it.

Thanks everyone. I've enjoyed it.

Sincerely,
Mary T

Ch-ch-ch-changes

French-Roast is up for renewal on Sunday and being the spineless (some would call this a "softy") blog owner I am, I renewed it. But don't get all jazzed, yet. There are going to be some changes around here.

Number 1: Appreciate my archives now and avoid the rush because they're about to go offline. I know it's a great joy to re-live my mispent youth but it's making it hard to move on into my older, more seasoned vitriol and blather. Plus, it's expensive to keep buying the extra storage for a bunch of people who only open the pages when they're doing "nacked" searches. Anything before we moved to Nac in August 2006 is dead to me (though I may entomb it on time machine via Lappy 5000).

Number 2: I may buy a new domain name and have french-roast goers sent there. Or maybe I will keep it a secret from all but the most deserving because, I don't know. MYOB. What do you think this is? The information superhighway?!

No number 3. Now move along. Nothing to see here. For now.

Reader Internet Searches Remarked On!: Part 5 in an Occasional Series

If you weren't convinced F-R was going down the tubes, I hope this post will do it for you. We now return to the occasional series (very occasional it seems) in which I make comments and reply to the people who have, in their wild internetting, come to F-R with very wrongheaded ideas about what it is we (the royal we, of course) do here. Or rather don't do, considering my consistency of late. Here come the nacked people!

Word that rhymes with liberte egalite fraternite
Try any of these: month, orange, purple.

Nacked woman
As promised! Here's a new one. I am beginning to wonder if this is a nick for Nacogdochians, considering the awkwardness of saying Nacogdochians.

Why is Calibri the default font in word
I have wondered this myself a time or two, but it's a little bit like asking why the universe is infinite, isn't it? There's nothing you can do to change it and ultimately, it won't really change the outcome of your life's events. Just be glad it's not Comic Sans and that my husby can go another day without slipping xanax in my coffee. Namaste.


Actuality of binge drinking in french
I wonder if this has to do with people who get drunk and then spontaneously speak French, a la Morticia Adams? I wish I could speak to this experience, but I find it is much more common to binge drink in Flemish. Okay but seriously, there is no official language of alcoholism, sonny boy, and that's just the way of the world. May I recommend alateen? By the way, how come all the people who attend AA in Nac are always standing around chatting in front of the building when I drive by? That is not very anonymous. Just sayin'.


Does anyone date anymore craigslist
Well if Craigslist isn't the gateway to love and happily ever after anymore, I'd like to know what's wrong with this cruel, cruel world. I personally met several crappy boyfriends that way (and if any of you are reading this: yes, I am talking about you; why do you still read my blog? We're all done now. Nothing to see here.) and can smirkingly vouch for this. I wouldn't mind seeing the demise of match.com though. Unlike craigslist, match.com rarely, if ever, offers free couches and vitriolic rants about nothing-in-particular. Also, when I needed to give away a bunch of weird nail polish, was it match.com who provided the odd individual(s) who gathered them from the heap on my front porch? It was not.

Twitter = End of Civilization

If you want my fake, undeveloped answer as to why this blog is on the way to meet its maker, it's because of Twitter. You see, while I have not been blogging with anything resembling consistency (or quality for that matter!), I have been burning up the tubes with my tweets of hipsters, bad manners, amazing inventions, star turns, and more. The underlying reason is, of course, laziness.

Twitter gives me all the satisfaction of a blog (public forum for cracking wise/restrained vitriol, built-in audience, friends as followers) without any of the work (no idea development expected or even possible in 140 characters! wee!) or heartache (comments).

Basically, Twitter is the end of civilization and the antithesis of every composition competency exam. This is not to say that composition competency exams are civilization, but it wouldn't be a stretch to say that they are. In fact, if you set a composition competency exam on fire and stuck it in a wheel well and rolled it to another town, you pretty much have the last several thousand years of human existence. And Twitter negates the necessity for any of it, except fire. Just sayin'.

Follow me on Twitter! Or use the handy widget to the right of this blog (for as long as this blog stands.)

A Mess of Memories

I had an epiphany this morning that almost every major fight I've had with anyone has revolved around me being overly upset about a messy living space. It seems laughable to think about, but I tell you when I had this revelation, I was completely humiliated and haunted. Consider the lost amity from my obsession! I say this because I am almost certain that I picked every one of these fights, precipitated by a bad mood and a personality flaw that is a bit more glaring than I ever cared to admit.

I memorably threw food and shoes at one of my roommates my freshman year of college and broke down sobbing in front of another, lamenting how no one cared about their personal areas. (Is this how people say that good help is so hard to find?) In thinking of the second roommate, I kind of want to give her an award for knowing me before age 25 and continuing to sit with me in the dining hall.

Prior to starting college, I filled out a roommate form in which one could indicate personal preferences "I do drugs: always, sometimes, never." (I incredulously wrote "You mean this is allowed?!") Instead of circling a preference for "I keep my room: very clean, tidy, a bit sloppy, messy, filthy," I neatly wrote in my darkhorse candidate "immaculate" in the margin. I congratulated myself on putting myself out there, but now I am relieved they decided to give me a roommate at all and not exile me to the masters' house garage apartment or something. Dark memories of disputes over misplaced pens and dirty laundry are flying out of my head and straight to my heart like exploded schrapnel. This is very bad, people. Very bad.

Why am I telling on myself? I'm kind of freaked out, honestly. MRT has always been insistent that my obssessive compulsions were closer to disorder than anecdotal comedy and now I am starting to wonder if he's right. Mind you, I am only revealing choice incidents that personal limits on self-mortification allow. While I have yet to bottle and label my own excrement or count things, I fear the devil is truly in the details. Dare I describe the excruciating ritual with which I used to eat Nestle Crunch bars? Suffice it to say it took me about 10 minutes just to make it past the wrapper. And this when I was 10!

Either I'm getting better about letting things go or I'm getting better about hiding my bizarre behaviors. I am begging you all, those that had the courage to know me before age 25, and those that are newer to the fold, don't let me end up like Howard Hughes. I couldn't bear for Leonardo DiCaprio to have any kind of role in a movie about my life. But would you mind picking that up when you're through with it?

Not "The New Me," but the New *Me*

Hello out there in TV-Land,

I'm not entirely sold on sticking around in the blogosphere, but should I decide to, some things must be in place. And what might those some things be? A snappy domain name, mainly. I have considered just writing about food: eating it, making it, enjoying it, dreaming of it (as I do) and have looked up a few domains that represent my cooking style (haphazard, spontaneous, usually acceptable). But I also like the idea that this is a chance to write a good blog that people like (no offense people who already claim to like this blog) with a superior wit to that developed in my 21-year-old self. I was thinking some use of bizard is in order, no doubt.

I don't want to reveal my domain name choices in case some bizard swoops in and tries to buy it ahead and sell it for more, but then, I've always been a fan of audience participation. So here are some choices. Pick one or so and leave it in the comments.

My next incarnation in the blogosphere should be:

A. a food blog
B. a blog that might include food, but is not a food blog, and is funnier than this one
C. after reading this entry, you understand why I want to call it quits, no longer find me remotely witty, and think my next blog should be a private journal written in pencil

If you did not select C (or did so secretly), my new domain should be:
1. some involvement of the word bizard ( a la bizardcity or thisamericanbizard)
2. no involvement of the word bizard; get a new bag of tricks, bizard!
3. nothing. As I mentioned in C, I think you should call it quits.
4. French-Roast.com. Hey....waaaaait a minute.

Go now. Exercise democracy or whatever.

Sincerely,

This American Bizard

The Family von Trapp says Good Night.

Hello Blog and Blogosphere,

Remember my resolution to keep up with you twice weekly? I remember it, too, but alas, have decided it was not my best resolution. That got me to thinking: why am I still blogging? Habit, mostly, as the joy is all but gone. Also, how many tales of my dealings with AT&T can you really stand?

This is not a cry for help or a plea for anyone to tell me how French-Roast has changed their life over the last 7 years of rambling (but feel free to do so). It's more like the overture to my swan song. I will blog as time allows in the next few months, but I think when F-R is up for renewal in May, it may be time to shut it down until the next incarnation. See you on facebook?

Thank you for the supreme pleasure of your company over the years and for your readership.

Your pal,
MaryT