Monthly Archives: May 2008

Wrecked Jetta

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Oh yeah, and I got rear-ended on Friday.

Zack and I got stuck in stop-and-go traffic on the way to get Michael a.k.a. he-who-had-his-wisdom-teeth-removed.  After stopping, going, and crawling along the highway at no faster than 10 mph, we got hit from behind by a TCU student in a very small tank top and a very large (bright yellow) SUV.  We pulled over on the side of the highway and she and I exchanged information while Zack buzzed around conducting his own crime scene investigation.  I was frustrated and looking for a pad of paper in my purse, and shuffing off her 1,000,000 apologies while he was covertly using his cell phone to take pictures of the damage, her licence plate #, and recording bits of ‘important information’ on his voice recorder.  I didn’t even realize he was doing all of that because I was so blinded by my annoyance. 

Obviously, nobody was hurt.  I’m not so shallow and bothered that I could talk this flippantly about a car wreck if this post was going to end with, “And the thirty other people involved in the 90 car pile up all had to go to the hospital for near-mortal wounds.”

After we got back in the car, Zack informed that when she hopped out of the car she confessed to having been in several wrecks recently as well as saying, “I fell asleep, I’m not going to lie.”  My old lady response to her irresponsible youth was to complain to Zack for the rest of the trip to Denton about how A 30 MINUTE NAP WILL NOT RUIN YOUR SOCIAL LIFE, MISSY.  I also called my daddy to complain.  Rather than pointing out to me that I don’t have to call him to tel him about wrecks anymore, he just congratulated me on my lack of hysterics.  Last time I got in a wreck (a.k.a. murdered Bambi with the Jetta 2 years ago) I cried for hours on the phone with my parents, and they had to talk me off a ledge as I hyperventilated in my car.  In contrast, dad is right.  My “wreckless youth” diatribe was extremely moderate.  I mean, I’m glad that she fell asleep in stop-and-go traffic, not on highway-blast-on-cruise-control.  On the other hand, my bumper and I are really bothered.

Sentences

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Here are some sentences for you:

-Lost my glasses two weeks ago.  I was sure I left them on the kitchen table, the kitchen table was surely not where they were.  Sunday, Zack found my glasses, gnawed to a gnarly mess, in the backyard.  I couldn’t even be mad about it, because I was so happy that I wasn’t losing my mind. 

-Yesterday, I was cooking in the kitchen with Scout.  Scout usually lays in the floor, practically wrapped around my feet while I’m cooking.  She knows that I’m a messy stirrer, and that the heavens rain down little bits of delicious doggie treats from the kitchen counters.  I turned around yesterday to find her using her doggie logic skills, paws on the counter, searching from the great cloud from which come the crumbs. 

-Putting two and two together, I am no longer wondering how she got my glasses off the table.  She’s getting tall, that’s how.

-I finished all the crazy History tests, and now I’m having very typical bouts of procrastination regarding the paper I should be writing.  I cranked out over half of it during one lunch hour, and now, having been reassured that I can still write a 5 page paper in around 3 hours, I’m having a hard time sitting down to get it finished.  I guess I’ll do that tonight.  I almost prefer to watch TV shows via the computer these days, just because I desperately loathe commercials.

-I got my Anatomy and Physiology II book in the mail the other day, and I am, in a word, INTIMIDATED.

-Went to drop off some dinners for some good friends of ours that had a baby (Wyatt! His name is Wyatt!) last week.  I forewarned Zack that the first-time mother could want him to wash his hands before touching the newborn.  He replied, “I’m not going to get anywhere near it.”  I guess that’s one way to avoid new mother confrontation, huh?  He missed out; Wyatt is adorable and fantastic, and no bigger than my pinky toe, and I slept quietly on my chest for half an hour.

-Babies are weird because they are people.  Wyatt had a chin and it moved, and it was connected to muscles that he controlled himself.  It was the weirdest thing.  I go through this absurd realization every time I see a newborn, I know, but IT IS WEIRD. They are people.  Really little, squished nosed, barely-able-to-move-their-own-head people.

-I got my hair cut.  I tried to go blonde, but time didn’t allow for it.  I have a more sophisticated version of my old short-back/long-front haircut.  The best way I can describe it is: from the back, it looks like Natalie Portman when she was in the most adorable phase of growing out her V for Vendetta ‘do, (like it was in Hotel Chevalier, the pre-movie to The Darjeeling Limited) and the front basically looks like a Posh ‘do.  I’m still a little on the fence about it.  It makes me wish that I’d have the guts to just chop it all of into the Natalie Portman all-the-way.  Alas, I’m not that brave, and these face framers that I’ve got here, they are my hair security blanket.

I was 30 minutes late to work this morning.

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I got up early this morning expressly to shave my legs. 

I shaved my legs because I wore an awesome vintage pencil dress to work this morning that my mom gave me over a year ago.  I was excited about wearing the dress because I’ve been waiting for over a year to find shoes that matched the dress.

I looked like a million dollars in that dress and those shoes.  And I felt like a million dollars. Right until I stepped out of my car, and Chris Farley style split the entire dress down the back seam.  

On Being Prematurely Old

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I’m not in college anymore. I mean, I am taking college classes, but I’m not in college like I was in college the first time. The first time I was in college I didn’t require this much sleep. In fact, I didn’t really require sleep at all. That’s not the case any more. Now I am old, relatively boring, and I require many hours of sleep.  I keep a very regimented schedule.  My out-on-the-town clothes used to be ‘frisky and backless’ when I was in college. Now they are ‘classic and modest’ if you’re being nice, ‘boring and old’ if you’re being honest.  And they aren’t even out-on-the-town clothes. They are actually work clothes.

Whereas I generally don’t care about the premature oldness that I’ve achieved post-marriage and post-college, I’ve been very aware of it lately. The other night, after having been asleep for an hour and a half, I woke up to realize that I had to go to the bathroom. I got out of bed to discover SisterKaty, who had been asleep for several hours already, in the bathroom straightening her hair. I asked her why she would be doing such a thing at an ungodly hour such as this!? She gently informed me that it was only 10:30, and it wasn’t that late when you’re not a 24 year-old geriatric. Also, she said, It’s Friday night.

So when Zack’s good friend and his lovely wife asked if we wanted to go to Pete’s Piano Bar with them, I said, “Yes!” I relished a chance to get outside of the house, to be out on the town, to be young again! I put on my hippest jeans and my least work-ish work shirt and some heels. I was READY. I was wearing EYELINER. It was a BIG DEAL.

Around 9, when we parked 8 or 10 blocks away from the bar, in the closest parking spot we could find, I started to doubt my excitement, and my choice of shoes. I remained blister-free for the 15 minute walk to the bar, and I felt really impressed with myself. I’m doing it again, I was thinking, until I noticed that I looked like a total granny next to everyone else on the street. My jeans, though hip, covered 98% more skin than everyone else’s clothing choices. Also, I was the only person within a 3 mile radius wearing a bra. I was also the only person in that radius that NEEDED to wear a bra, because I’m lacking certain surgical enhancements that are apparently far more wide-spread than I had previously acknowledged. Worst of all, there were girls wearing hot pink nighties with elastic holding the bottom firmly against the fold of their butt cheeks. Look, I know I exaggerate, but I swear, I’m not making that up. Elastic-bottomed, butt-hugging nighties sans bra. Ask Zack. He can confirm. At least he might have a slight memory of a pink blur that he saw right before I jumped on him screaming “AVERT YOUR EYES. VICTORIA’S SECRET JUST BECAME PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE.”

After we got to Pete’s, I started to feel a little better. It was loud in there, and there were no tables, but we were happy: the four of us, standing in the back with drinks trying to soak in the atmosphere. Telepathically, Zack and I were communicating with messages like, “So, people just come here to sing along with the guy playing the piano?” and “Did someone just pay him $20 NOT to sing ‘I Will Survive’?” Several ounces of vodka later, we had adjusted. We were all still standing there, watching the place continue to get fuller and fuller, but we were all screaming “MAMA, OOOH OOHHH OHHHHH, DIDN’T MEAN TO MAKE YOU CRY…” in sync with the rest of the WHOLE ENTIRE BAR. We didn’t completely shed our oldness, though.  Conversation topics while we were there covered a number of items, including our escape routes in case of a fire, and the percentage drunk that we estimated for each person in our immediate realm. Also, like responsible adults, we chose who was going to be the lucky DD before we ordered our first drink. I was really proud of myself….

… Really proud until about 11:30 when I realized that the rest of those crazies in the bar had four or five hours of PARTAY left in them and I was feeling very, “The 50 year-old couple just left, and isn’t that our signal that it’s time to go?” and “These heels were not a sensible shoe choice.” I hinted to the couple that was with us (a very respectable modest and classy clothes wearing kind of a couple) that perhaps my eyeballs were going to close soon, never to be re-opened (until 6 or 7 tomorrow morning, the time that I wake up every morning, alarm setting non withstanding) again. With a look of relief, everyone decided that it was, in fact, time to go.

As Zack and I crawled into bed that night, I said, “That was a really good time. I’m glad we did that.” And Zack said, “Me too.” To which I said, “Let’s never go to a club again.” And he said, “Never ever.”

10 Movies That I Like

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I am also going through a strange cinematic phase of life. Instead of feeling pressure to like all movies that are underground and hate all movies that are commercial, I am realizing that some movies (You, Me & Everyone We Know, Running with Scissors, Junebug) that I’m supposed to like as according to the unwritten guidelines of my age/hipness/usual preferences aren’t enjoyable to me. There are some movies that I can see why they are great, even though I don’t like them. There Will Be Blood is the best movie I hope I never have to see again. It deserved every single critical acclaim that it received, and I hope that Zack never feels the urge to buy the DVD. That’s fair, isn’t it? I can recognize museum art as being of good quality even if it doesn’t tickle my tastebuds. Surely that same ideal can apply to movies, RIGHT?

The above coming-into-my-own weirdness combined with my gross overuse of the word “favorite” make it difficult for me to do simple things like assemble a list of my 10 favorite movies. But here I am anyway–partly because I rarely get tagged in memes, and I feel flattered that Sadie thought of me. And partly because I wanted to post something ‘easy’ because I AM TIRED BECAUSE I STUDY U.S. HISTORY ALL THE MINUTES OF MY LIFE. Easy wound up requiring a lot of internet research, but ALAS. I am here, with a list. Without any more ado than I’ve already given you:

Ten of Sarah’s Favorite Movies, but Not A Truly Definitive List, And Not in Any Real Order:
10. I <3 Huckabees
9. The Departed
8. Juno
7. Little Miss Sunshine
6. Thank You For Smoking
5. Life is Beautiful (Only seen this once. Fantastic, though I can’t watch it again because the weeping.)
4. The Motorcycle Diaries
3. Along Came Polly (I’d be lying to myself if I didn’t include this movie, it’s my go-to feel-good flick.)
2. Spanglish (maybe second most favorite of all time? maybe?)
1. Amelie (most favorite of all time.)

There you go. If you asked me to do this next week, that list would probably be 80% different. Whatever. What did I miss?

Bullets

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+ Lately I’ve had the perpetual feeling that I have something stuck in my teeth. No amount of flossing or brushing or rinsing or FRANTICALLY PICKING has been able to remedy it. This is, as you might have expected, driving me bat-shit-crazy.

+ I finally saw The Kite Runner, and though my reaction is probably deserving of its very own post, for some reason, I just can’t get the sentences to form like I want them to. In short: I think the movie was about as good as it could be when stacked up against such literary greatness. There were some major (to me) things that were missing from the movie, but I guess a 6 hour The Kite Runner wouldn’t have been as well received. The movie already had its work cut out for it; dramas about Afghanistan aren’t exactly a thriving market these days. That is a whole other post though. A whole other post that nobody wants to read.

+ Still not working out, and the dog stood up yesterday, looked me in the eyeballs and said, “Woman. You can not punish me for digging in the yard when it is my God-given right as a dog to go on walks and you won’t take me. I HAVE TO GET THE ENERGY OUT. I LIVE IN A METAL BOX.” And even though I totally understand her point, I still get totally enraged every single time I peek out the window if she’s doing anything but sitting perfectly still and/or shining her halo.

+ I’ve had the new Madonna single stuck in my head for about three days now. Also for the last three days, I have been up past midnight. I haven’t been up past midnight for three consecutive days since at least 2005. I think God is punishing me for my sleep in digressions with the bad music on repeat in my head.

+ And as a final bit of whining, I’ll mention that I’ve had a zit on my cheekbone for the last week–the kind of zit that I can see out of the corner of my eye, giving me the perpetual feeling that I have something on my face. That zit is never going to go away because about thirty times a day I absentmindedly try to rip it off, thinking that it’s… something that can be removed. Smooth.

Rude Awakening

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At 5 this morning, Zack’s cell phone emitted a noise not unlike a screaming banshee combined with a tornado siren. At that point, I resigned that yes, he does need a new cell phone.

I’m tired today. Been working on my US History class in all my spare minutes, trying to finish the Maymester class in somewhere around 10 days. I’ve also lost my glasses (for the 3,000th time in my life) which makes for difficult days of staring at the computer then staring at little print.

I haven’t been working out because I’ve been staying up late with the History book. In order to justify the removal of workout from my schedule, I’ve also had to remove TV from it, as a sweeping hole.

These three points together prove this one thing: SAD WEEK.

UPDATE: Zack made me dinner last night, so it’s all better now. Who cares about other things and stuff? My husband cooks for me. I WIN.

Zack & Cruz

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Since our weekend visit to Brownwood, Cruz has been eating out of his weekend feeder.  He usually just has a bowl and we fill it in the mornings, but with the time release feeder, we can go without adding food for a week, sometimes a week and a half.  

Cruz, however, isn’t used to always having food when he goes upstairs.  When he came inside this morning, he jumped on the couch and loved on Zack for a while, then went over to the stairs and said, “meow,” or translated, “hey doods, I’d like some breakfast if you don’t mind.”  (He’s a hip, yet polite cat.) And even though he already had food, Zack went upstairs to show him to his food bowl.  

And that’s why I love Zack.  Because Zack and Cruz are BFF, and because he’s the kind of man that feels like it is important to show the cat that we still love him, too–even if we did happen to get a dog that is wrecking his life. 

On Still Working Out

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Forgive me Internet, for I have sinned. It has been three days since my last work out.

For the last two weeks, I have been easily distracted. I haven’t gotten up to work out every morning. I have slept in, hit the snooze, made excuses and I have forsaken working out for television watching. I am truly ashamed.

My original goal was to get up to a daily work out routine of 60 minutes. I know that 60 minutes is a lot of time to spend in a given day doing exercise, but that’s what the government’s health experts recommend to prevent the gradual weight gain that comes with age, and so that’s what I was shooting for. Starting out, I could run/walk for about fifteen seconds before I was looking for a hot tub and a lime spritzer. I have worked up to currently being able to run about 1.5 miles of a 2 mile loop. I had improved my time from 10 minutes of running to 20 minutes of running! (At least I had last week, before all the Chick-Fil-A and Gossip Girl.) That’s PROGRESS! And when I first started my calisthenics routine, I really felt like I was going to vomit. That first day, when I got done with my fourth round of husband-prescribed ab-toners, I laid in my bed thinking, “This is never going to be easy. This is going to suck forever.” A month later, I had cut the amount of time that it took to do that work out routine in half, and I started adding to it. That’s ALSO progress. I had almost worked up to my 60 minutes-a-day goal, and I was so damn excited about it.

But then I looked in the mirror, and I didn’t see progress. Something about getting up every day to work out (even when you can tell that you’re getting healthier/stronger) is really difficult if you can’t also see that your stomach is getting flatter, or your spare tire is deflating. It shouldn’t all be about my abs, though. It’s about reducing the risk of Heart Disease, and about not getting Diabetes, and it’s about being able to get outside and play without feeling exhausted after three minutes. And even though I know that the only way to get stronger/healthier/toner is to WORK AT IT, knowledge doesn’t make it easier. I don’t know what is ever going to make this easier.

I know that at some point, getting up to work out every single day will become a habit. I hear, (though I have a hard time believing) that at some point I will really enjoy running. But in addition to not seeing any physical progress, working out is really hard for me because it’s not for a season. I’m aiming for healthy life changes. That means that FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, I will not be able to drink and many Cokes as I want. And FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, I’m going to be working/pushing my body on a daily basis. And FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, I’m going to feel a measure of guilt when I suck down a whole serving of Chick-Fil-A nuggets and fries. When I think about those kinds of changes, they feel so overwhelming–like maybe I could do them for a week or for a month, but FOREVER???

I guess I’m going to have to scale “forever” down a bit to something like, “a week.” Maybe once I have “a week” and I get four “a week”‘s in a row, then it will turn into forever before I realize what’s happening. We’ll see. This is all really big talk for a girl who just hoovered an entire package of Now-and-Laters.