OMG, I'm a stereotype...

Sometimes something will happen that forces us to take a step back and examine our life. If it's good, you marvel at how far you've come. If it's bad, you wonder how you ended up in this place. One such moment happened today when I began writing a blog, paused, looked up puzzlingly, saw the bigger picture and exclaimed "HOLY SHIT! I AM BLOGGING ABOUT TWILIGHT!"

This is embarrassing on several levels. One, I am kind of ashamed of blogging in general. I've noticed the few times I've brought up my blog, I said it in a kind of mock-Thurston Howell voice as if to say "Yes, I realize it is narcissistic and self-indulgent to think anyone would be interested in what I had to say". Maybe it's the bad blogs I've read where people just ramble off everything they ate that day or who they had coffee with. I don't care if Safeway started carrying your favorite brand of freeze-dried strawberries. And I bet no one else does either. Which I suppose is hypocritical to say since by writing a blog you are sort of acknowledging that someone somewhere is interested in your own mundane life.

So the other reason that this particular blog was like a spot light on my pathetic existence is because it's about a book written for 13 year old girls. A book, well four books and a movie specifically, that I am so obsessed with I'll hear a voice in my head saying "Amy, be careful, you've already brought up Edward Cullen twice in the last five minutes..." AND I'LL STILL MAKE THE COMMENT! The other sad thing is that not only am I reading them, I'm giving myself credit for reading them. They're each like 600 pages long and each took like 3 days and I'm seriously thinking what a genius I am for reading them so quickly. Like it's f'ing Tolstoy!!! So I fly through the book (cause I'm so smart), see the movie twice in theaters (so far), change my computer background AT WORK to a picture of Edward and Bella, watch their interviews on YouTube and buy Twilight gifts for no joke three of my friends and then sign onto my blog to tell the world how dreamy Edward is and how Jacob isn't good enough and that I wonder who they're all dating in real life, like ever other pre-pubescent girl is telling the world.

I AM ALMOST 24 YEARS OLD!!! And I keep thinking I'm getting to the saddest part but there's always another layer of patheticness. But I think here's the pit of it: I'm not even embarassed. I, like every other 13-year-old girl, believe deep down, no matter how much I protest, that my dedication and obsession makes me cool or interesting or endearing when in truth, it just makes me like every other 13-year-old girl, desperate to fill the hole in her own romantic life by tatooing Mrs. Cullen to herself and covering it with the Team Edward t-shirt she bought at Hot Topic. Wow, this got depressing. I'll lighten it up next week for my blog entitled "Vampires: Why are they so hot?"

He had kissed a woman, and he had kissed her long and good.

I was watching The Sandlot this morning on HBO and I got to thinking. Those are some good looking boys. It's been like 10 years so I'm sure by now they've turned into good looking men. I wonder what they're up to now.

Here's what I found out:

Wil Horneff - So first I looked up the kid who gets in the fight with Ham. The "You bob for apples in the toilet - and you like it!" guy. He was a good looking kid. And sure enough, totally hot now. He's been in some other stuff, like an episode of CSI and House but his biggest accomplishment seems to be just being very good looking. Congratulations! Oh, and he spent several months in Russia helping underprivaledged children. Also impressive.

Tom Guiry - Oh, Smalls. You are so wonderful. The first time I saw that largely-brimmed hat, I knew I was in love. He is also very attractive now. Way to go, Smalls. I remember seeing him in U-571 and being very sad when he drowned. But he did it so well. I also watched him on the short-lived Black Donnelly show. He had this beard thing working. It was nice. So after reading his IMDB bio, I found out he had a kid when he was 18. Oops. So come on, Tom, make a new movie.

Patrick Renna - Since Sandlot, Hamilton "Ham" Porter's career has really taken off. I'm sure I don't need to remind you that he played the lovable smart ass brother in Son-in-Law, that Pauly Shore masterpiece of film. Come on, The Sandlot, Son In Law, The Big Green...how this guy hasn't gotten some kind of nomination yet is beyond me. And he kinda thinned out. Aces to you, Ham.

Chauncy Leopardi - Squints went on to play the bully on Freaks and Geeks. The Bully! Everybody knows Squints wouldn't hurt a fly. And even more surprising than him being a bully, he's hot. Check out this pic. He's a good looking guy. I'm finally starting to believe he could have really gotten Wendy Peppercorn. I also loved him on Gilmore Girls when he only had one hand. It was moving.

And now, last but not least. Mike Vitar. Benny "The Jet" Rodriquez. Set my heart a flutter. And I am happy to report that he managed to pick a profession even hotter than actor. He is now a L.A. Firefighter. Amazing. Doesn't get better than that. He was also amazing in the last two Mighty Ducks. Maybe I'll do this for Mighty Ducks next. Who wouldn't want to know about them? Unfortunately, no recent pics of Benny were available. But just combine your vision of Benny as a ballplayer with him as a firefighter. I gotta go.

Slippery Slope

So today I started reading in the bathroom at work. My boss was in a meeting, I had some time to kill and I was in a climactic moment in my book. My justification was that I spend countless hours reading articles online, why not a book? The bathroom is the only place no one would notice me. So then I faced a new dilemma: How to take the book into the bathroom as inconspicuously as possible. Because since I am in fact a woman, I don't take pride in bringing reading materials into the bathroom. I have guy friends who I see parading in with a newspaper. I actually asked someone "Why don't you just wear a sign that says I'm going to take a dump." But I guess they don't care. Unlike women. Women will play this cold war of waiting in order to avoid other women hearing them poop. Someone could really write a whole book on the subject.

So I eventually decided on the old interoffice mail envelope as a cover. So if I bring it into the bathroom, someone will just thinking I stopped in the bathroom on the way to the mailroom (even though geographically that really doesn't make sense). The causation of bringing it into the stall with me would be a little harder to explain but luckily nobody asked.

Okay, so now I'm in the stall when the next problem arises. Pants on or off? I really didn't like the idea of the toilet seat touching my clothes, the equivalent of someone else rubbing their butt on my pants. But on the other hand, I would feel quite odd sitting there with pants down for any extended period of time. Our bathrooms are pretty clean so eventually I went with pants up.

With a few problems behind me, I had 30 minutes of uninterrupted reading. Hey, it beats working. I'll probably do it again. I just hope I don't get a reputation. Everyone knows about the girl who doesn't wash her hands or the woman who must think the stalls are sound-proof booths considering the way she lets it rip as soon as she closes the door.

So in conclusion, I hate my job, would do anything to avoid it, and wish I was a man so I would spend less time worrying about bathroom etiquette.

Buying the Cow

So yesterday I bought a cow...and a sheep and a goat. I got a catalog from World Vision where you can buy animals for Africa and South America. So I started like "Oh, maybe I'll buy some chickens." Then chickens became a sheep which became an alpaca and before I knew it, I had just purchased the "Dairy collection". I have to say, I am so excited about it. I was tempted to get everybody I knew ducks for Christmas. I still may.

But the whole experience did bring back some bad memories from high school when we planned a donation drive for the Heifer Project and all anybody did was complain. I remember being so discouraged about all the excuses were people coming up with not to give. And if you don't want to give, that's one thing, but people were actually working against it. I had to take down some signs because people had written "Killing animals is wrong" and stuff like that on them. And the budding protesters must have been a special breed of moron because we were trying to buy a dairy cow. You don't kill a dairy cow. Or my favorite excuse was "There are poor people in this country, why are sending money to another?" I remember answering, "Okay, well, what are you doing to help people in this country?" "Uh, nothing." Thank you, you little high school ass hole. Man, it's weird how that makes me mad after all this time. Maybe it's because that wasn't the last time I came up against that kind of attitude.

Anyway, I'm so happy about my animals. I hope I get to find out where they are being sent. Check out the catalog. They send out a card with info about the donation so they can make great gifts.
http://donate.worldvision.org/OA_HTML/xxwv2ibeCCtpSctDspRte.jsp?section=10389