Snoozeworthy

But it's all I got, yo.

So last night I had a bunch of homework to do because, even at UH, when you don't do your homework for like three weeks, that's eventually going to bite you. So I stayed out with some peops at Texadelphia and then tooled around until approximately 10:30p. Then I had random things to do at my house, like read Craigslist, because I am a fiend. Point being: I didn't start my AMPLE amount of homework until about 12. I didn't think I could even stay awake to attempt it, but somehow, I worked through it! Around 2:45, I was finishing up statistics homework, when I basically started my hour-long fascination with looking at the wall, slack-jawed. When I came to about 3:30, I realized I wouldn't be able to wake up early to finish the rest, so I needed to finish up then. See how interesting this is? Just wait! It stays about the same! So I went to bed about 4:15, mildly delirious, as the last time I stayed up this late, not intoxicated, I was approximately 19 years old. (The last intoxicated time was Thursday...but whatever. And for my mom who sometimes reads this, it's all a joke. I've never been intoxicated and I went to bed by 10 last night.)

So I woke up this morning in that weird state where you feel oddly completely awake, like maybe you hadn't really gone to sleep at all, but spent the night laying completely still in a three piece suit. Of course, once I stood up and started making coffee, a wave of exhaustion swept over me and I hear my alarm clock, as though it's coming from a tunnel. At this point I am basically sleep walking and it occurs to me that all alarm clocks should be available for test driving. Like if the beep is too annoying or too soft or there aren't enough snoozes available, you should be able to know before your purchase. I have two alarm clocks and they are both a bad fit for me, so this thought was somewhat lucid. But then I started thinking about hilarious animated alarm clock displays at Best Buy and getting a free gun with alarm clock test drive. It got kind of bizarre. And by bizarre, I mean awesome.

In conclusion, here are my religious match-ups from the Belief-o-Matic Quiz I just took. Please enjoy the hilarity of my "match" with Catholicism after having attended Catholic school and so forth.

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (97%)
3. Liberal Quakers (94%)
4. New Age (93%)
5. New Thought (88%)
6. Neo-Pagan (83%)
7. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (81%)
8. Reform Judaism (74%)
9. Scientology (72%)
10. Mahayana Buddhism (63%)
11. Bahá'í Faith (68%)
12. Secular Humanism (58%)
13. Taoism (57%)
14. Theravada Buddhism (54%)
15. Orthodox Quaker (48%)
16. Sikhism (45%)
17. Hinduism (44%)
18. Nontheist (39%)
19. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (37%)
20. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (36%)
21. Orthodox Judaism (27%)
22. Seventh Day Adventist (27%)
23. Jehovah's Witness (24%)
24. Jainism (19%)
25. Islam (18%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (13%)
27. Roman Catholic (13%)

In further conclusion: Why the hell not?

A Time to Be Born

And they're off!

Today is the opening day of "Mary T all your friends have the same freaking birthday" week. Actually, that's not true. In the old days, I would have referred to this as the finals week of birthday season, which actually opens in February with Eldge, Jamie, and Shannon all at one another's heels, with additional marginal associate birthdays earlier in March. However, I do find this particular week remarkable because of the quick succession of birthdays of three people, all of whom I consider first tier friends. I mean, maybe even 0.5 tier friends. These are people I would let look after my dog. Yeah. I know. We're talking Circle of Trust membership.

These aren't the people I play a board game with and then make reference to when I play it "with my friends." No, no. I make much worse gaffes in front of these folks. So apparently, my message from the universe is that folks born in Marchtweenth, as I will henceforth call it, are destined to be my friends. However, this week is full. I will not be accepting any more friend applications from persons whose birthdays fall in this week.

And I'd like to give a shout out to M! for being born in November, Ang for being born in July, and so on and so forth---to all my outlying birthday friends. Your considerate spacing is appreciated. (Confidential to Noonan*: My pocketbook appreciates it.)

Okay, fine. Happy Birthday, children of Marchtweenth!

Erin--March 23
Suzy--March 24
Matt (of no particular numerical distinction)--March 25

*Why does Dear Abby say "Confidential to my ___ readers" and then print it? Does she know what confidential means? It's not like I'm going to stop reading because the confidential isn't addressed to ME. Plus, it's always for stupid things like: "Confidential to my horticulturist readers: Happy Arbor Day!" Yeah, that sure is privileged info!

I Don't (Woof) Your Pets Like You (Woof) Them

So my downstairs neighbors are out of town for their spring break this week and in a moment of weakness, I agreed to feed their pet rats while they're gone. That's right. Pet rats.

If your response is "WTF? Rats are freaky deaky!" then you are basically on track with me. I have been assured that rats, unlike hamsters, do not bite and are really friendly and blah blah blah--who CARES?! They're RATS. They have flesh-colored tails that are roughly the length of Route 66. They have only two teeth which somehow fill the entirety of their freaky, rodent mouths. I don't like to discriminate about peoples' pets. It's not like people have never given me crap about having a charming, adorable, cuddly pit bull. But a pit bull is a dog. It's a domesticated animal. Even cats, which I'm not overly fond of, I at least understand because, you know: fluffly little cuddle ball.

I cannot understand peoples' deal with the exotic pets. My mom was telling me last night about this chimp named Moe who ate the hand off of the sister of his owner. He ate her hand! So Moe was taken to a wildlife refuge. His former family came to visit him and two of Moe's pals ate off the man's face and testicles. Let me repeat that: Moe's monkey pals ate a man's face and testicles. I am aware that dogs have viciously attacked people in the past and that cats eat a dead person's face fairly soon after death. But why do people think they can have monkeys? They can't! They will eat your hands and testicles! I am the first to say that monkeys are cool, what with the poop-throwing action and all the cool things they do that people and other pets don't (typically) do. But MUST you have one as a pet? Maybe you can sign with your chimp and peel bananas together with your toes, but what are you really getting out of your one-on-one time with your tarantula?

I briefly dated this dude last year that had a pet cockatiel named...oh, I can't remember and who cares anyway? The bird FREAKED me out. I am unusually hyper-afraid of birds, but this bird was always flapping and pecking and pacing and giving me the evil eye. "I see you," he said with his flappy body language and cocky strut. "Yes, I am neither soft, nor cuddly, and if you mess with me, I will peck your eyes out! You've been warned." Fortunately, I knew that dude and I should never have been dating, even before I met his noisy, smelly, menacing pet.

I would like to conclude with a list of pets that WTF?!--you have no business owning, plus a marginal list for the pets I guess it's okay to have, but will never have a cozy spot for on my sofa. Plus some why bothers, because really--why bother?

Dude, no.
Tarantulas/other spiders/ bug and insect action
Tigers (Bears, Lions, etc.)
Mountain gorillas, chimps
Rats
Wolves
Penguins
Walruses

Marginal
Birds (all)
Lizards: Iguanas, Chameleons, etc.
Hamsters
Turtles
Trunk monkey

Why bother?
Fish
Sea Monkeys
Chia crap

P.S. My dog Asta passed away last September, but if he were alive, he'd be 15 today. I miss you, my excellent friend.

Live Strong? Live Long? Love Pong? Whatever.

I know a lot of my friends will hate me for saying this, but can we please cool out with the glorified yellow rubber bands? We get it--you're channeling Lance. I guess. But seriously folks: you're dangerously close to a yellow ribbon magnet on the back of your car. Yes, I said it. And I'm not taking it back.

I know. I know. You were all wearing them back in the days when they were being sold exclusively at Chuy's.

Wait. What?

Okay, so here's how meaningless they've become. While waiting to go into the lecture hall for my statistics class last week, some dude was wearing a Live Strong thingy and puffing away on a cigarette. Hey--way to keep it going strong there, pal! It's not like Lance Armstrong had to overcome cancer or anything. Oh wait.

And now for your edu-tainment (and so my yellow band-clad friends will stop hating me--maybe), I bring you this excerpt from the movie Dodgeball.

Lance Armstrong: Hey, aren't you Peter La Fleur?
Peter La Fleur: Lance Armstrong!
Lance Armstrong: Ya, that's me. But I'm a big fan of yours.
Peter La Fleur: Really?
Lance Armstrong: Ya, I've been watching the dodgeball tournament on the Ocho. ESPN 8. I just can't get enough of it. Good luck in the tournament. I'm really pulling for you against those jerks from Globo Gym. I think you better hurry up or you're gonna be late.
Peter La Fleur: Uh, actually I decided to quit... Lance.
Lance Armstrong: Quit? You know, once I was thinking of quitting when I was diagnosed with brain, lung and testicular cancer all at the same time. But with the love and support of my friends and family, I got back on the bike and won the Tour de France five times in a row. But I'm sure you have a good reason to quit. So what are you dying of that's keeping you from the finals?
Peter La Fleur: Right now it feels a little bit like... shame.
Lance Armstrong: Well, I guess if a person never quit when the going got tough, they wouldn't anything to regret for the rest of their life. Well good luck to you Peter. I'm sure this decision won't haunt you forever.

New Slang (not the kind by the Shins)

i'm looking in on the good life i might be doomed never to find.
without a trust or flaming fields am i too dumb to refine?
and if you'd 'a took to me like
well i'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
and the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.
--The Shins New Slang

I think exclamation marks, especially occurring in large quantity are the new air quotes. Air quotes aren't really that funny or ironic anymore because 1) they have not been used sparingly and 2) due to the loosey use mentioned in 1, some of the people who used them in an ironic fashion (i.e. me, and my sister x 10000000), actually use them regularly in everyday speech without feeling excessively self-concious about it. And that's just not right.

I submit that the new frontier of hilarity in grammar is here!!! See my previous post about teenagers.

The only thing I fear is that soon, I might possibly use three exclamation marks in an average email to a friend, and feel fine about it.

Dear Erin,
How are you? I am fine!!!

I don't really say that sort of thing in emails though, with or without exclamation marks, so I think the greater fear is that I return to writing emails in which I am apparently an 8 year old sending post cards from summer camp, which I penned while lying on my bunk.

Oh, summer camp memories!!!

I Love Teenagers!!!

Ha ha. Just kidding. I still hate them.

I'm having a real shopping issue. The first part of it is that I need new clothes. No, seriously. Anyone who remembers my blue/gray striped shirt (and if you don't, do you know me?!) and my umm, ventilated jeans can attest to the fact that I have many white trash ensembles. They didn't start out this way, but I have owned most of my current wardrobe since I was approx. 18 years old. It's not that I haven't bought anything since then, but most of the stuff I've bought in the last couple of years has been for work and it's not like I can wear a powersuit to frolic in Hermann Park, as I did yesterday. Well, I guess I could, but it's a heck of an investment.

Anywho, the second part of it is that I have been attending the malls recently as though on a mission from God, but I consistently come up with nothing. I shop and shop and shop, but no clothes are being added to my wardrobe.

Why?

Well, a few reasons really, but all of them lead to one conclusion that I long ago came to: it's the teenagers' fault. Yes, that's right. As usual, I blame teengers*.What exactly do I blame them for (besides everything)?

I blame them for their influence over consumer America--namely mom and dad who pay for all of their ridiculous clothes at an assortment of overpriced retail shops and the fashion repercussions that are being felt in every store, even those not catering to teens.

Has anyone noticed that it's next to impossible to buy new clothes anymore? You can buy a pair of $85 jeans, but they're not new. No, apparently, they have been run over by a tractor, balled up, rolled in stainy stuff, and then placed on a hanger. All shirts have been sliced to the point where they have no backs, rarely have sides, and if you're lucky, don't have some sort of peek-a-boob action. (But usually they do.) What ever happened to the good old days when jeans and t-shirts came new and shiny and it was up to you to run over them with your own tractor and put flames/scissors to them? Now the rips in my pants look like the rips in every other kid's pants. The story behind the rips? "Oh, the douchebags over at American Eagle put them there."

So not only are the clothes that once retailed for approximately $0.25 at Val-U Village now listed in double and triple digits at "new" stores, but they're also getting dumber. For example, I saw a shirt yesterday that said "If your Irish I'm single." Not to be confused with: If you're Irish, I'm single. I wept on the spot. If I had been on the ball and had a sharpie with me, there wouldn't be a one of those shirts left sans apostrophe, e, or comma. It would have been a showdown between fashion and me. Instead, I just said, "This is stupid," and slunk out of the store with my head hung.

Teenagers, I hate you. My clothes are all in tatters. And they didn't start out that way. I'm not doing it to look cool. I need new clothes. And not your kind. I will prevail. I will find an outpost of new clothes and grammar. I will not be assimilated. And I will remember my sharpie next time. This is not over.


*And Paris Hilton. But seriously, what's the difference? How has her dog not killed himself? I mean, he lives in a freaking ugly handbag...

MaryT Does a Little Soft Shoe

I tried to make-up for my lengthy and random absence from blogging last week by posting a most delicious recipe for my famous* kielbasa black bean chili, but blogger was acting up and I was not really feeling patient enough to re-type ALL those ingredients and so forth again, so basically I gave blogger the big number one. The unfortunate consequence of that, however, was that I actually gave the big number one to you, my handful or reamining readers.

I'm extremely hungry right now and unable to string sentences together coherently, but I actually have two okay-ish blogs coming up. Stay tuned later this afternoon.

And yes, if you were wondering, Council of Elders is no more.

*Not really famous...but delicious!