Wow.

Let’s hope I never have to write a list like this out again. (Found from a few years ago).

Helpful reminders.

I’ve got the staying up late and becoming a total goofball part down with no problem. As evidenced by this, which occurred over my workaholic weekend:

More commentary on how Facebook makes some peoples’ brains become overwhelmed with rainbows and butterflies

Right. So.

When I wake up in the morning, usually the first thing I do after turning off my iPhone alarm is fire up my email and Facebook. Yeah, I know whatever…I’ll take a break for you to snicker at my obsessive social networking and pretend like you aren’t in the same boat. Yesterday, I fired up FB and saw that red circle with a white plus sign in it that means SOMEONE WANTS TO BE YOUR FRIEND! Yay, I’m popular! So I tap on the friend request to see just who this person might be that wants to be my friend. And lo and behold, the person that wants to be my friend….was in fact, my nemesis from the sixth grade. We shall call her “TT” for the purposes of this blog post.

You might want to know the reason why TT was my arch enemy in the sixth grade. Well, suffice it to say #1 reason was that she was a huge, raging, eleven-year-old bitch. You know how only pre-teens can encompass that off-the-charts level of bitchy never quite able to be mastered by older women, because people aren’t really sure if they’re serious, because really they’re still kind of children, how could they possibly have such rotten souls at such a young age? It was that level of bitch. Never encountered before by my bumbling, nerdy, more or less harmless (unless you were one of my younger siblings) self.

I remember that TT made sixth grade pretty hellish for me. It was a nice introductory precursor to the even more hellish depths of seventh and eighth grades. There was one incident in particular that I remember like it was just yesterday, that forever cemented her arch enemy status…

It was January, and in sixth grade, you still have to go out to 45 minutes of recess, even in sub zero temperatures, even if you’re a slightly chubby, inactive nerd that would much rather sit in a quiet and heated classroom reading the latest R.L. Stein Fear Street book, but I digress. So my best friend and I were huddled out on the ghetto playground afforded to us as 4th-6th graders. I say ghetto because it was in inner-city Wilmington. It was not uncommon for us to pass by drug busts on the way to and from school, see homeless people digging discarded cafeteria food out of the school dumpsters, and find used needles/condoms and plenty of broken glass on the playground. Clearly, a safe haven for children. So this abysmal playground had very little to offer to us. Usually, the swings were taken, and all we wanted to do was try and stay warm anyway. We wandered around the perimeter of the playground and happened upon a small treasure: a discarded tube of Chapstick. Nevermind that it probably had AIDS festering all over it, we got a brilliant idea. We would smear Chapstick all over an open swing, and then convince TT that she should swing on it. Mind you, this was 1993, and the height of the Starter jacket craze. Being that it was January, all the cool kids had just gotten Starter jackets for Christmas and proudly wore the colors of the popular teams: Charlotte Hornets, Miami Dolphins, Notre Dame, and the Chicago Bulls. TT had a prized Bulls pullover Starter. And of course, everything was oversized. So when we convinced her to sit on the Chapstick-laden swing, she got a nice coating of waxy goo alllllll over the rump of her brand new Starter Jacket.

Of course, we thought this was hilarious and a wonderful payback because she had NO CLUE about our evil plan! That was, until my friend grew a pesky conscience and decided to tattle on us. Damnit, Valerie!

It was the only time I ever went to the principal’s office in my twelve years of school. I can remember Mr. Vassos (he was a rather rotund man and we used to call him Mr. Fatsos…yeah, kids can be mean little bastards) threatening to call my parents, but he didn’t since I had a previously clean record. In the end, I gave TT an apology and offered to pay to dry clean her Starter jacket.

Her response: “This jacket means more to me than you ever will!”

Well, ok then. At least we’re in agreement on how we feel about one another. Except I guess she must have forgotten that she ever said that, because now, she wants to be my friend on FB. And I finally did accept the friend request. I don’t know why. She can’t really see anything worthwhile on my page. She’s married to a balding thug that went to our high school and has just had her third child. According to her profile, she is a consultant for Passion Parties… “THOSE parties,” as she puts it. Well, TT, I hope that you’re living a fulfilled life. Sure, we’re friends now. I hope your Starter jacket is still doing well and you can avoid Chapstick butt. Just don’t cross me.

Giggity!

So, when I was in grad school, I hated Fridays. Because I was a waitress at Outback, and unlike the rest of the world, Friday for me did not mean rest and relaxation. It meant slipping around a greasy kitchen for the next ten hours, serving extra ramekins of honey butter and doing laps by the cold side window to grab and deliver salads. The one thing that always got me out of bed on Friday mornings was Amazon’s $5 Friday deals. Being destitute in grad school, I felt okay with occasionally buying myself a $5 MP3 album.

Lucky for me, the $5 MP3 album deal caught on and now it’s a regular thing. Unlucky for my wallet, I’ve been going a little nutso lately. Recently purchased albums include:

500 Days of Summer soundtrack
Band of Horses: Cease to Begin
Coconut Records: Nighttiming
Death Cab For Cutie: Transatlanticism
Foo Fighters: Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
Jay-Z: Blueprint 3
Mazzy Star: So Tonight That I Might See
Paramore: Brand New Eyes
Regina Spektor: 11:11
Smashing Pumpkins: Siamese Dream (This is one I had wanted since, like, seventh grade and just never got after years of putting it on birthday and Christmas lists…good to know, fifteen years later, I still support the grunge scene)
The Avett Brothers: Emotionalism//Four Thieves Gone
The Decemberists: The Crane Wife
The Weepies: Say I Am You
Them Crooked Vultures
U2: No Line on the Horizon
Weezer: Raditude
Yeah Yeah Yeahs: It’s Blitz!

$85 for 17 albums…not too shabby! I finally decided to replace my busted iPod FM transmitter too…which requires even less work than burning CDs! Hooray!

Oh Ten in Da Hizzouse

I ran across this resolution generator that I thought was pretty cool. Here are some of my reso’s for this year:

(Not likely, but good practice, I suppose)

(And squirrel it away so that Wells Fargo can’t get at it)

(I make this resolution every year. I’ve gotten better, but I’m sure my dentist would still be horrified by my irregular flossing habits)

(Well…yeah. I used to be a lot better at this when I was in school and wasting time on a regular basis)

(This is the big’un!)