Guess who just passed some "stool" without having it feel like I was going through labor, only with my ass? THAT'S RIGHT.

...I find it's good to celebrate the small victories, people.

Anyways, Westport was fun. A+. Would visit again, only next time, I plan on visiting after bathing in bug spray. I thought I only got one mosquito bite, but I found four more this morning, so that's not cool. Also, I forgot to take pictures because, so sue me, I was too busy having fun. And I'm definitely going to be too busy keeping up with things 1 and 2, so you'll just have to trust that I have a life this weekend and live with that.

So tonight! Big night for television/television-like media for me. There were, count them, not one, not two, not three, but FOUR MAJOR EVENTS FOR ME TO WATCH. It was like Christmas. I am unsure how to handle all of this...this...this feeling I do not know how to classify (joy?!? AN OVER-ABUNDANCE OF THINGS THAT ARE WONDERFUL!?!? IS THAT WHAT THIS STRANGE FEELING IS?!!?) except to sum each up in ten words or less. Behold!

• Avatar: AWESOME! (See also: VINDICATION.)
  
• Psych: What is this shit? Less emoting, more shenanigans, please.
  
• Stargate: Atlantis Gay (John!). Pretty (Ronon!). KICKASS (EVERYONE!).
  
• Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Joss, you are an emotion-killing scumbucket. Have my babies.

I might have more to say, and be more excited, if a) today hadn't been so fucking hot, and b) my lower gastronomical tract had not been conspiring all week with my uterus to inconveniently have simultaneously occurring extreme constipation, cramping, gas, nausea, and various other bowel-related TMI annoyances. All during a heat wave! HAHAH. HAHAH. HAH. AWESOME.

Anyways, I actually am not going to be around a lot this weekend. (Right, I know? Shocker! If you're my friend on Facebook and need to reach me, text or call - my number's there.) Tomorrow, or, you know, in about nine hours, I'm going to Westport with Melly and the parents for the day, and then on Sunday I'm babysitting for these freakishly adorable tater tots. I can promise Westport pictures, but I cannot promise baby pictures, because they are not my babies to promise pictures of. I can, however, promise that since the two not-so-wee ones are one and a half, highly energetic, and increasingly proficient in the use of nouns, that there will be shenanigans (my favorite thing!) and ensuing stories. Also, probably some uteral envy on my part. Curse you, diabolically and fiendishly adorable spawn! You and your spawn-wiles.

Okay, so while 99% of the time I respond when other people post love memes, I really rarely participate in love memes because I feel like if you wanted to tell me how much you love, adore, and generally worship me, it's not like I'm BANNING you from doing so at other times. HOWEVER. Teija posted this, and last night I was thinking about fabulous things to say to EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of my f-list about how much I love and adore and admire and want to have sex with them (really!) and so when this got posted I thought "WELL, IT'S MY TURN NOW, BITCHES."

Also, they used really cool heart characters in the link thing. I was powerless to resist! So, uh, humor me. I rarely ask this of you. In fact, I think it's been, like, way over a year. Perhaps even a year and a half. Two years? It's possible! I'm just that full of crazy shit.

ಌlove me love me say that you love me!ಌ

So I've got some deep thoughts on social issues, but it's a sunny afternoon in the summer and who needs that, am I right? So instead I was going through EW's Forty Greatest Film Endings. This is not to say it was a happy-slappy pile of laughs, because some of those suckers hit you right in the grief bone, but man, it was fun. Anyways, I decided to make a list of my favorite film endings, which will contain spoilers, and you're going to suck it up and wade through this anyways.

This list is really just a list of my favorite movies because, much like with poems, if a movie has a shitty ending, it doesn't matter to me how great the rest of the movie is. My enjoyment of the movie is almost completely based on how well it ends - not how happily, mind (though that helps), but on how the ending rounds the entire experience. If a movie's well-rounded, if it makes me want to immediately pop it back in and watch from the beginning AGAIN instead of just sighing and going "Good times, everyone!", then it's a great movie, with a great ending. And here are the movies that, as far as I'm concerned, deserve to be on that list. (Incidentally, this should function as a must-view list. If you haven't seen these movies I list, watch them. Yesterday.)

( Julia's 8 Favorite Movie Endings as of, uh, until I see another great movie. )

If there is one chore I hate more than ANYTHING, it's laundry. I really really hate laundry. Laundry, more than any other chore I know, is the obnoxious little task that never ever ends. Take dishes, for example. You can do the dishes in one standing. You wash, you dry, they're done. Easy! Taking out the trash? Easy! Vacuuming? Easy! Let's go through what you have to do for laundry, which has to be subdivided into parts. That's right, parts:

Part One
a) Sort laundry into light/dark (or in my case, light-needed-yesterday, light-can-wait, dark-needed-yesterday, dark-can-wait)
b) Perform stain removal ritual of choice. I go with Shout Gel, though occasionally I do the Stain-be-Gone pagan dance of my ancestors.
c) Start laundry

Part Two (AT LEAST A HALF AN HOUR LATER)
a) Move sopping wet bedraggled laundry to drier. Let tumble and shake off for a minute or two
b) Sort already-sorted laundry into drier-friendly and drier-unfriendly
c) Hang up the drier-unfriendly (which kills my fucking back, bending to the drier and then stretching to hang up heavy, wet pants in the span of under ten seconds. Ow! Back not meant to perform such feats of daring-do!)
d) Start drier

Part Three (Half a day later!)
a) Gather now-dry clothes and lug them back upstairs
b) Sort and fold
c) Put away
d) Take your next load of laundry and lug it downstairs. REPEAT FROM BEGINNING.

I mean, can you possibly conceive of a more Sisyphean task? Or one that makes your back hurt more? I HATE IT. When I get married I'm making my future hubby do a few things - he needs to prepare raw meat (because otherwise he isn't GETTING meat. I can live quite happily on ground meat and pre-cleaned meat that you can get for extra - that money is well-spent, as far as I'm concerned, and lots of tofu. If he wants rib-eye steak, though, he's on his own. I can't cook with that stuff when it still resembles carnage, unless he thinks vomit makes a really good garnish), he needs to do the taxes (which is really in his own interest because I would probably lose half of our income out of sheer mathematical idiocy. Until marriage, I am using accountants. And my mother), and most importantly, he needs to do laundry, especially when we have kids,. I'd also like it if he did half the dishes, but that's negotiable. I am willing to do pretty much everything else. I will clean the bathroom, take out trash, vacuum and dust, do most of the dishes and cooking, hell, I will pick his nose for him if he needs, just please, for the love of god do not make me do the laundry. ANYTHING BUT THAT.

Honestly, I wasn't even kidding about the nose picking part. Wouldn't I be the best future Mrs. Somebody? I know. There should be a line to marry me. There isn't, but there should be.

So for those of you not in the know, Evan when he is not home being really tall and smelly, is away at college being really tall and smelly. More specifically, Evan is at the University of Rochester in all of his gigundity (best new word you have heard all day, y/y?). Anyways, since apparently the University of Rochester thinks they're, like, really super special and shit, they don't call parent's weekend or alumni weekend "parents weekend" or "alumni weekend". Heck, they don't even separate the two. Instead they have this orgy of Rochester-ness called Meliora Weekend where it's like a three ring fucking circus of speakers and entertainment and pleas for people to dump more money on them. Anyways, they always have one super big speaker. Last year it was Colin Powell, which was pretty cool except for the scarily-close-to-violent protesters all over campus. But they mailed out the official guest list of awesome people at Meliora weekend and guess who the big speaker is. No, please, guess.

Because it is STEPHEN COLBERT. STEPHEN T. COL-FUCKING-BERT. That's right, children, guess who has two thumbs, a connection to the University of Rochester, and, free with registration, a hot ticket to see Stephen Colbert (and perhaps, if I order the tickets fast enough, be in the same room as him and not in one of the rooms with a simulcast)? THIS GIRL. (Also, guess who the keynote speaker is? Anderson Cooper. Could Meliora weekend get any more pundit-licious? I THINK NOT.)

ANYWAYS. Between all my gleeful screaming, I would like to say that my point is this - I am now accepting bribes to tag along with me and my family. My preferred methods of payment are Mastercard, Visa, and sexual favors. The highest bidder wins. GO.

Edit: In sadder news, I forgot to mention that Barack Obama and my honeymoon period ended today with his vote for the FISA bill that retroactively pardons phone companies that violated customer rights by allowing the government to use wiretapping without probable cause. It was inevitable that this day would come - after all there is only so long any great love can last without a disagreement, and I certainly understand where Obama was coming from; he was obviously trying to a) pander to the centrists instead of just the pinko subversives like myself and b) prove that he has the balls to stand up to terror or make executive wartime decisions or what the fuck ever. I get that. Unfortunately for him this was a truly and one hundred percent retarded way of doing this that just ended up pissing everyone off.

Anyways, so now Barack and I are in what I would like to refer to as the old married couple stage. He does things that I disagree with every so often, but since I love him I am able to shake my head, close my eyes, and accept that the road to improving the country and perhaps even making (gasp) real social change involves both blunders and compromise. And I am mature enough to do that. Well, now I am. Earlier I drove to Starbucks in my Prius with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan on my iPod and cried into my mocha-smoka-triple-half-caf-soy caramel dulce grande espresso while stress eating some granola. But after reading some of Marx's communist manifesto in the original Russian and wiping my eyes on my free-trade hemp sweater made by union-employed unicorns (though I believe the correct term is now 'magical-Americans'), I felt better. And ready to move on with my life.*

*This is facetious, obviously, because I don't drive. Everything else may or may not be 100% true. I claim nothing.

You know, I rarely check Dinosaur Comics, but for some reason (boredom) I decided to today, and, well, it sort of creeps me out how sometimes my entire life can be explained by pixelated extinct reptiles.

( Pain, you've got to find other people to call. You've got to get other hobbies. )

On a side note, who decides what is and is not appropriate to print on boxers? I ask this because Evan came out of his room in his boxers and a t-shirt and I spent an awkwardly long time staring at his boxers because there was some TOTALLY WEIRD pattern on them and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what the fuck it was from the other end of the hall and so I finally asked and Evan was like "Oh, boxes of popcorn." Now I know Evan has some totally amazing boxers (like the ones that say "Pow!" in comic book font, which I find hilarious), and both he and my dad have normal boxers in plaid and pinstripes and solid colors, but then Evan has some really random ones with, like, cows. Or there was this pair that my mom got in a size too small and was trying to pass to me and the print on them was horses, only from the back, so what it was was, like, a stripe of horse ass. Why would someone want boxers with not one, but about a hundred horse butts on them? Who sits down and goes "You know what I think would sell really well? Farm animals on grown men's underwear"? And why do guys get to get away with cool underwear but girls get, like, lace and shit that is decidedly uncool? I feel men should be held to similar underwear standards as ladies. Actually, no, that implies I think men should wear silk thongs. No. That would be awful. What I mean is, girls should have really cool underwear that is considered similarly not only appropriate but attractive and has ridiculous patterns on it.

Especially the "Pow!" print. I really want underwear that says that. Or "Shazam!", because the word "shazam" is that much cooler.

Edit: How did it take me so long to realize that "Here With Me" by Dido is basically AN AMAZINGLY AMAZING SONG? I mean, I'm only, what, SEVEN OR EIGHT YEARS LATE?! Whatever. This song is awesome! Let's discuss it.

Edit: Dear Bitches and Hos,

I don't care which of you does it, but someone else has got to do my mix CD meme, because I refuse to only make mixes for four people. I THINK WE CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS.

Love, Julia

As if you needed another reason to wish you were related to me:

(Discussing why kosher laws exist)
Dad: You know, I'm pretty sure the people who wrote the Torah just assumed they were rules from God because they'd been passed down orally for so long.
Me: You mean like herpes?
Evan: (starts spewing out his half-chewed food) Orally....like herpes....
Me: (raises hand) What up, can I get me an air five?
Dad and Evan: (air five)

That's right, I [adjective] fived and then blogged about it. If only I had thought to suit up afterwards, I could have achieved the Barney Stinson trifecta of awesome. As it stands, I still think he'd be pretty proud of me.

TEIJA MAKES ME DO LOTS OF SHIT.
( MEME MEME MEME. CONTAIN YOUR SURPRISE. )

Also! Monthly Music Round-Up time:

1. Shoot the Lights Out - The Watson Twins
   If you like any of the stuff Jenny Lewis did with the Watson Twins (or, heck, without them), check this shit out. This is way more serious than the stuff they did with Jenny (all of her stuff, even her depressing stuff, has this sort of peppiness to it - there is none of that here), but it's amazing. If you like Hem, Over the Rhine, Eastmountainsouth, or music, you should download this song. For serious, yo.
   
2. Songs of National Freedom (Daytrotter Sessions) - Richard Swift
   I actually had no idea this wasn't the original version of this song until I was stalking Mark Ronson's celebrity playlist on iTunes (OH MARK RONSON PLEASE DO ME) and I got all freakishly excited to see he had it, and then I listened to it and it was...kinda different. The real version is a lot more processed, which I'm definitely not a fan of. This version is like pure, simple, recorded sunshine and joy. No additives required.
   
3. Of the Sea - AA Bondy
   I have this requirement that if a song is primarily about the ocean and is not "Somewhere Beyond The Sea", it's required to be all mysterious and enigmatic and gorgeous and slightly melancholy. This fits the bill. Good job, AA Bondy, you pass! A+.
   
4. A Postcard to Nina - Jens Lekman
   If a quirky upbeat song about a Swedish man refusing to be the fake boyfriend of a German lesbian so her father doesn't find out she's got a girlfriend is wrong, do you really want to be right?
   
5. Silver Lining - Rilo Kiley
   Look, if you haven't discovered by now that anything Jenny Lewis touches is pure musical magic, you don't deserve this song. It's another kinda-not-really country, kinda-not-really soul-inspired, completely-totally awesome indie-pop serving of wonder. Deeeelicious.
   
6. Chasing Pavements - Adele
   I am ashamed to say I actually hated this song when I first heard it in passing on VH1, but I have since learned the error of my ways, because this song is fucking incredable. It's like early Joss Stone (pre-pop, not that I'm saying her pop stuff is bad because, uh, it's totally not) minus the funk, plus blues, multiplied by epic soul. In short, it's another funky pop wonder-song that England has delivered on a pretty silver platter of awesome. I don't know how they manage to make totally way better music than we here in the states do, but I have a theory it's inversely proportional to their cuisine. This theory kind of doesn't work when concerning France, but, uh, what theory does?

So, an update on what's been going on here at the ranch:

• Evan got his wisdom teeth out on Friday. Following the time-honored order that my siblings and I have re: medical rites of passage, Evan had by far the easiest time of it. (See also: how severely each of us got chicken pox. Evan had it for like three days and, like, ten itchy bumps. Robin had it worst - not because she was the itchiest, I was just as bad as her, but because she got way sicker than me. I was pretty healthy, just...itchy.) Anyways, Robin always gets stuff the worst, I get it in the middle - occasionally with some zany twist thrown in - and Evan gets off the easiest.
  
  This should not be confused, however with who makes the hugest fuss. Also in keeping with tradition, Evan was the hugest prima dona about the entire thing. On the first day he was like this close to throwing around his yogurt and screaming. I didn't get like that until, like, four days later when I was still puffy and hadn't eaten anything solid. It's four days later now and Evan's almost all better and up to chewing soft things. I would have given my right arm at the same point after my surgery to be there.
  
  Granted, this is pretty much just keeping in line with Evan and his Evan-ness. When he gets in a snit he is the worst wronged princess on the face of the entire planet, which is unbecoming enough when anyone does it (myself included, though I usually throw small, slightly more reasonable fits more often. Evan stores it up and then draws out his tantrums sometimes up to a week over absolutely nothing), but when a six foot tall 19-year-old manchild does it it's just absolutely ridiculous. Especially when all the whining and toddler-like posturing is to women who are all about a foot shorter than him.
  
• Ella went to the vet and has officially been deemed on the chubby end of the weight spectrum for a dog of her size and relative breed, so she's supposed to be on a diet of no human food except for plate lickings, which of course we're actually following and Joan....isn't. Which is pretty par for course.
  
  Anyways, in honor of Ella's new diet, I have decided that Ben & Jerry's newest ice cream flavor should be called "Chubby Puppy" and it should be a delightful blend of chicken-flavored ice cream with grapes, string beans, and cheesy chunks swirled in with a beefy gravy.
  
  Deeee-licious.
  
• I've been marathoning Gossip Girl lately. It's awful. Like, really supremely awful. In fact, it's so awful it's TOTALLY WONDERFUL. It's like, some mornings you wake up and go "I want to watch a show that requires zero brain cells and/or emotional investment, and I want it to be pretty." AND THAT IS WHEN YOU WATCH GOSSIP GIRL. God. It's really awful. And I love every minute of it's shallow ridiculousness. Also, did I mention it's pretty? It's pretty.
  
  Also, I have an inexplicable soft spot for Jenny. Apparently this makes me super-weird? Explain this to me, my babies, because as much as she's sort of stupid, I sort of love her anyways.
  
  Non-surprisingly, I'm already making a soundtrack for the first season. I want to put Notorious B.I.G.'s "Mo Money Mo Problems" on it, but, uh, yeah. I think the fact that I sat at my computer with my iTunes open for a solid minute cackling to myself over this is proof that I do, in fact, have the worst sense of humor on the planet. Self, this is why you can't have pretty things.
  
• More people need to reply to my last meme. C'mon, folks.
  
• It used to drive me NUTS whenever I'd go to my last.fm after playing Schuyler Fisk because her picture looked so familiar but I had no idea WHY, until I learned that she was in an episode of Law & Order SVU. Ahhh, it's so nice to scratch that mental itch, finally.
  
• This weekend I got shorts at H&M (which fit my ass AND waist AND aren't too long! THIS IS AMAZING.) and a bra at Aerie. I would like to state for the record that Aerie is by far the best store I have ever been in in regards to shopping for underwear. They're extremely helpful, extremely knowledgeable, they're willing to totally go the extra mile for you, their stuff isn't too expensive, it's all cotton, and they have every weird size imaginable, including 32C. And they had 32C in every single style. None of this "Oh, well, we have it, but only in puke green because only freaks of nature are 32Cs." No. Every style. And when they were out of the color I wanted they said they'd ship it to my house for free. GOD I LOVE THEM. Also, my new bras. One of them is, as I mentioned, still in the mail, but I'll take pictures when it comes. (That's what she said.)
  
• I had a dream last night that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert taught third grade at my old elementary school and my job was to be their TA so they could both teach and broadcast at the same time. And the kids in their classes were AWESOME and I got to help them write material and be on air sometimes and it basically was the greatest thing to ever exist ever. And then I woke up. It sucked.
  
  I miss being a TA so hard. I miss teaching, I miss correcting papers, and most of all I miss the kids. I miss helping them, I miss them lighting up every time I came in the room (they really did. N'awww, freshman), I miss mentoring, I miss them thinking I was so cool just because I cared, I miss the way they talked, I miss the stupid stories they'd tell me, I just miss everything. Sometimes I wonder if I should be a teacher, but I think if I was an actual teacher a) the kids wouldn't like me that much, or wouldn't be that open with me, because I was in charge of their grades, b) I'd have to plan curriculum and go to stupid-assed meetings and do the stupid-assed detaily things that I got to miss out on because I wasn't really a teacher and c) I wouldn't always get to work with amazing kids. I don't know. Today, at least, it feels like it might be worth it anyways.
  
  Does anyone get this? I'm 99% sure that no one I know or can talk to right now has teaching experience or if they do have sort of TAing experience got as into it (I went so above and beyond what I was supposed to do it was actually a little pathetic) or enjoyed it even a fraction as much as I did. And all this missing and shit is just making me really, really, really cranky.

Babies, it's been too long since I sat down and babbled about how music and I should have lots of theoretical babies. It's also been a really long time since I've had someone new to make mixes for, which, no offense to my old people I make mixes for, is a thrill that I never get tired of, the oh-my-god-will-they-like-it, the need to still explain all your song choices, squeal about what you never knew you had in common, that sort of thing. And with that in mind I thought - MEME. And then I ran it past people to make sure it wasn't a shitty idea. Apparently it isn't! Which means you all have to participate. Here's how it works:

1. Open iTunes and go to the music store. Sadly, this meme only works if you have iTunes. You don't even have to use it to listen to music, but you need to have the actual application. Since most people have iTunes, though, I'm just gonna go ahead to the next step.
   
2. In the leftmost column you can shop by categories. Select "music"
   
3. Once you are at the music page, scroll down. In the leftmost column there should be a section labeled "More in Music". The fifth option is "Celebrity Playlists". Click on this.
   
4. If you haven't already, totally browse around that, because nothing is cooler than seeing what your favorite celebrities are listening to. I'd suggest going through them alphabetically at first. Also, a lot of playlists have sub-sections, so a tv show playlist will have each leading cast member, bands will usually have each band member's playlist, etc.
   
5. Choose at least one playlist (you can choose up to three) you like. This could be for any reason - you like the songs, you hate the songs, you like the celebrity, whatever. Comment with that person.
   
6. I will first analyze that person's music taste, and then I will make a playlist for them as if I am creating a CD to give to them. Naturally, I will upload all of my lameassed analyzation and .mp3s for everyone to take. Listen! Pretend you are as cool as whatever celebrity I would hypothetically have bequeathed this mix upon!

Awesome idea or awesomest idea? Okay, it's really just a self-serving idea. Whatever. Minions, I'm bored. Help un-bore me. It would cause me endless amounts of joy.

So Teija made me fucking do a video blog post. MOOOOOTHERFUCKER. Actually, making it was fun. You can set up a camera (or a puppet, or nothing, whatever, I'm not picky) and be like "TALK" and I will have fun rambling. This was actually longer and I made ANOTHER one last night that was just me complaining that was EVEN LONGER. Seriously. I can talk forever.

Anyways, so first I had issues getting this off my camera, then I couldn't load it to Youtube because it was too long, which I didn't know until AFTER I'd spent two hours trying to load it, so then I clipped it, then saving it took ANOTHER hour, then after that was ANOTHER hour waiting for Youtube to load it again. ALMOST NOT WORTH IT. For my pain, I have decided that Teija must move in with me and live under my bed, and this is effective immediately. If she is unable to do so, she may send her husband Lee Pace in her stead, because I am exceedingly generous and civic-minded like that. I promise I will take excellent care of him.


I would like to note, for the record, that next time I need to sit closer to my camera, because from far away my voice distorts and it sounds like I have a lisp which, uh, I don't.

But seriously, if you think my babbling on camera is the best thing since sliced bread, TELL ME SO. Also, give me ideas of what to talk about next time, and I will. Oh, I will talk.

Until then, can we discuss how weird that phrase is? The greatest thing since sliced bread? When did that start? Are they referring to strictly pre-sliced bread, like the kind you get at the store after it goes through the slicer? Because I'm not too fond of that. It always is cut too thin. And if that was the greatest thing for so long running before whatever happened to take over as the NEW greatest thing (greatest thing since edemame cooked in butter?) Because sliced bread is pretty lame. It's like, what was possibly lamer than sliced bread, and how sad is it that sliced bread was revolutionary and joy-inducing enough that people created that expression? Days of yore, you make me sad.

Someone needs to have a Mindy Kaling fansite with a comprehensive gallery of stills of her as Kelly and photos taken of her from her blog and various magazines, because damn if it is not a total bitch to find pictures of her. So it's YOUR job, awesome people on my friendslist, to spam my comments with Mindy Kaling pictures of the highest quality. Go.

In other news, yes, I hate life and everyone in it and no, I don't want to talk about it.

Equations for life:
(Meme(Done by Emurri+Done by Chen) + Boredom)Shower Avoidance = Julia Does Memes

Distressingly, this equation makes me realize that I forget how to distribute x if x(y+z). It's the same as xy+xz, right? Blergh, math. Blergh, distributive properties.

( Meme in question. )

So let's say once upon a time there was a girl. Let's call her "Julia". Let's say her mother was cleaning out her room and finding ancient dusty things like pictures and shoes she wore in the seventies. Let's say while doing this she tossed a bra out in the hall and asked Julia to try it on. "No way," Julia said.

"Why not?" Her mother asked.

"It's old," Julia explained, noting the old-school lace and underwire. "It's probably older than me."

"So?" Her mother asked. "It's vintage."

"There are certain things a girl should never share with her mother," Julia said. "Underwear is one of those things."

"I don't think it's mine," her mother said "It's too small to be mine."

"Oh, that's even better," said Julia, rolling her eyes. "Because now I'm totally stoked to try on this really really old, kinda weird-smelling bra that used to belong to god-knows-who that was clearly gotten by some means I'm happier just not knowing about."

"You're being ridiculous," her mother said. "It's a perfectly good bra. It's not even stretched out. And you need bras. Will you at least try this bra on later?"

"No, never." Julia said.

"You're being ridiculous," her mother said.

"I am clearly not the ridiculous one in this situation," Julia said. And thus, an impasse was reached.

Poll #1205261 What to do in this situation?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

The moral of this story is:

So this morning I re-arranged the links on my sidebar, cleaned out the ones I never visit, re-organized them, and added places where you can find me on other sites. PLEASE FEEL FREE TO STALK ME. And in regards to my new favorite link (The Gays of Daytime Television), shut up. It's really addictive watching. Shut up. Also, my parents think that I've gotten a sudden affinity for amateur German cinema. Let's keep them thinking that, okay?

Anyways, after that extremely hard-core job of anal organization well-done, I'm going to kick back and relax with a survey stolen from austen, 'cause I can.

( LET'S TALK ABOUT ME. I'M REALLY SWELL AT THAT. )

You know what I haven't done in a while? A list post that is at least 50% links. Let's remedy that.

Things that are link-related:

• At long last, the gay hot 100's are out! WOOOOOOHOOOO. I look forward to these because gay people always choose way more awesome celebrities than straight people magazines. It's a mystery why. But they do. I have to say, though, that this year the lesbian list totally kicked the gay dudes list's ass. I mean, to be fair both their number ones (Tina Fey and Jake Gyllenhaal, respectively) are pretty much a tie, as far as I'm concerned, but the lesbian top ten was infinitely hotter, and all my favorite boys were depressingly low on the gay list. When John Krasinski doesn't make the top fifty and goes down from his position last year, you can bet I'm going to beat your ass, is all I'm saying.
  
• This post at CuteOverload is potentially my new favorite thing ever. I opened my daily e-mail from them and lost it. AHAHAHHAAH.
  
• This vintage ad similarly made me lose my shit. It's all like "ALL THE BOYS WILL LIKE YOU IF YOU WEAR SWEATERS." BAHAHAH. YEAH. OOOOKAY.
  
• My friend Sarah linked me to Goods of Desire, which is the awesomest company ever. Mostly because they have high quality Asian stuff. Non-kitschy stuff. Stuff that is ACTUALLY FROM ASIA. BY ASIAN DESIGNERS. Oh my god, I want, like, everything on the site. But I'll settle for this. And this. Oh, and this. And also this. Or, uh, the entire site. All of it. To own.
  
  I'm not picky, really.

Random Shit Bouncing Around My Brain:

• Today I learned that Dusty Springfield is/was a girl. I did not know that! Before you ask, no, I never listened to her growing up. I was busy listening to oldies mix tapes and Peter Paul & Mary and James Taylor and Raffi because I was raised by granola-eaters, okay? However, upon telling my mom about my discovery, the following conversation occured:
  
  Me: So I just learned today that Dusty Springfield was a girl.
  Mom: You didn't know that?
  Me: No.
  Mom: I'm surprised is all. Dusty seems like a boy's name to you? really?
  Me: I thought it was some weird cowboy-like thing. Or was short for, you know, Dustin.
  Mom: (wonderingly) Oh. Well that makes so much more sense.
  
  Yes, Mom. Yes it does.
  
• I have no idea what to get my dad for father's day. I was going to get him a beer mug because I accidentally broke one of his when I was loading it into the dishwasher, but they don't make them anymore. WHAT TO GET HIM. WHAT TO DO. And by that I mean what to get him, because I like giving my parents stuff as opposed to doing jobs, even though they'd prefer I did jobs for them. They can suck it.
  
• I had a dream last night that I had a room full of really really young baby puppies. Like, two month old little wriggly ball of love puppies and they were all mine to play with and love whenever I wanted. And they were trained to go in a little box in the corner that magically cleaned itself and there was a bed and when I napped there they would all curl around me and give me kisses and nap with me. Right before I woke up I was at this delightful portion of my dream where I had this little husky puppy in my arms, belly up, pawing and licking at my face with his big puppy paws flailing. And then my mom woke me up because she is evil.
  
  This is why good dreams are really bad dreams. REALITY IS A HARSH MISTRESS.
  
• I want people to collaborate on singing projects with. I want to sing duets! I want y'all to bring in crazy instruments! I want to start a crazy interwebs band! THIS IS A BRILLIANT IDEA, PLEASE INDULGE ME.
  
• Boys are stupid. This is not news, but I felt I should re-iterate it lest anyone forget, as I did. Boys suck in the non-sexual way. (And, sometimes, in the sexual way too.)
  
• Sam Cooke is an exception to the previous statement, because I've been on a Sam Cooke bent lately. Ohhhh, Sam Cooke, you fine, fine looking man you. It's such a shame you're dead.
  
• I took an IQ test and scored freakishly high on social IQ, about equal (still very high) on verbal and spatial, and normal (which is v. low compared to my other scores) on math. This wasn't a surprise except for the social IQ. I suppose the test was testing more my ability to read people (the things they asked were, like, be able to tell if two people (without hearing what they were saying, just based on mannerisms) knew each other or were strangers, or if a smile was genuine). That stuff I'm actually pretty good at, though why it was so astronomically high I have no idea. Clearly it would have evened out if there was some way for them to test my ability to interact with people and leave them with a favorable impression. What we did get out of this test though is that a) I'm smart and b) the only reason I do not score as deficient on math is because I can make up for it by being smart, but in reality I'm actually mathematically challenged, if not retarded.
  
  We also probably learned that I'm pretty great at figuring tests out and manipulating them to score well, but we already knew that one.
  
• My mom lately has been buying maple pecan cookies from Whole Foods and I would love for her to continue to do this, even though it means I eat, like, five bazillion grams of sugar a day. Those things are so fucking good, oh my god.
  
• I now have (not counting my default icon) 69 icons. HEE HEE HEE.

Consider this some pre-Father's Day loving but pretty much you should know that my dad is the cutest.

For those of you who are still unaware of just how weird I am, you should know that I love to eat watermelons, but only the rinds. I don't mean, like, the green part, I mean the part right next to it where it's light pink and not all over-juicy and there are no seeds. That part is both glorious and magnificent. That is by far the best part of the watermelon.

Anyways, I went downstairs to go get breakfast this morning and what do I find but that my dad left me an entire bowl of watermelon rinds from after he made himself lunch instead of composting them like he usually does. OH DADDY.

(They were delicious.)

Edit: I forgot! Last night I was bored and bugging Chen for ideas of what I should sing/record (it's a sick addiction. I have over 20 songs recorded now. A sick addiction) and he was like "SING SYMPATHETIQUE BY PINK MARTINI" because he's really fond of that song especially how the chorus just ends in "et puis....je fume" and so I did. It was glorious.

Here. Please have a listen to me singing. IN FRENCH.

I'm very pleased with myself. I don't even care if I sound terrible (I mean, I don't think I do, but I wouldn't care if I did is my point) because you can understand my French and my voice is all...French. I feel like I should now own at least five slinky sparkly dresses, smoke profusely, and have a manslave/male prostitute devoted only to me named, like, Jerome-Pierre-Luc. You all should get on making that dream a reality.

Scout & I Are Really Special: A Practical Demonstration
(edited slightly so it reads in a linear fashion)

chibirhm: I'M A UNICORN AND I ALSO HAVE OPPOSABLE THUMBS. TOP THAT.
chimbleysweep: OKAY. I WILL. I'LL GET BACK TO YOU WHEN I DO
chibirhm: I LOOK FORWARD TO IT. UNTIL THEN I WILL FLOUT THE LAWS OF BIOLOGY.
chibirhm: IT'LL BE AWESOME. LIKE A PARTY. BUT YOU'RE NOT INVITED.
chimbleysweep: OKAY I NOW HAVE REMOVABLE THUMBS. TOP THAT
chibirhm: WHAT USE ARE REMOVABLE THUMBS? WHAT IF YOU LOSE THEM? OR THEY FALL IN THE TOILET?
chimbleysweep: I CAN MAKE THEM CRAWL AROUND. THEY'RE LIKE THE THING DUH
chibirhm: THAT'S BOTH CREEPY AND IMPRACTICAL.
chimbleysweep: IT'S AWESOME AND ORIGINAL
chibirhm: I THINK THERE IS A REASON NO ONE ELSE THOUGHT OF IT YET.
chimbleysweep: LIKE A UNICORN HORN IS PRACTICAL
chibirhm: IT SPEARS THINGS. YOU CAN USE IT TO ROAST MARSHMALLOWS OVER A FIRE. OR GOUGE OUT INNARDS.
chimbleysweep: THAT'S VIOLENT AND MEAN
chibirhm: I KNOW. WHAT DID MARSHMALLOWS EVER DO TO ME?!

I was going to not explain the context and be all superior until I realized there actually...is no context. This is just sort of how Scout and I talk to each other. So uh, yeah.

No unicorns were harmed in the making of this post. In case you were curious.

So I'm going to go out on a limb and say this but - it's been real, Hilary. I'm glad you ran (I'm also glad you lost, but I'm still glad you ran). See, I've always admired Hilary deeply. I think she's an extremely capable woman and politician. She's intelligent and strong, she works well with both sides of the aisle, and in general, she's the kind of woman who makes me pretty proud of our collective vaginas. And what she's doing for all vagina-kind. And I think she's an absolutely fabulous congresswoman who the people of New York are lucky to have. And I hope that they continue to have her for as long as they can. She's really quite something. And I like her.

That being said - I never liked the idea of her as president all that much. It's not that I didn't think she couldn't do it better than 90% of all humans and 95% of all politicians qualified for the job, I just thought that Obama was that liiiittle percentage above her. I don't approve of some of her tactics, I don't find her that compelling a speaker, but she would have been a president I could get behind. She would have been a huge relief after Bush and gone a long way to heal the country. She would have been someone I would be pleased to tell my daughters was the first woman president.

The thing is, if Hilary wasn't a woman, I just don't think I'd have liked her as much. Isn't that awful? If she was a guy to me she'd have been another Edwards type, nice, not amazing, spoke a good game. To me what made her stand out was that to get to what Edwards is as a woman in today's politics takes a heck of a lot more than it takes for a man to get to that position. And I admired her because, unlike most male candidates, it didn't matter how rich she was, the road to getting to the nomination or even being considered for the nomination was stupendously hard. But if Hilary had switched genders, she just would have been a nice candidate. And I never wanted to elect a woman just because she was a woman. The difference to me between Hilary and Barack is that it doesn't matter to me what Obama is. He could be a gay necrophiliac Muslim half-Guatemalan crackbaby. What matters to me is that he says things I've wanted politicians to say for years. He does things I've wanted politicians to do for years. He doesn't accept money from lobbies, he speaks openly on race, he has yet to be tied down by political scandals, and ins and outs, he has yet to compromise his ideals, and I think his ideals are glorious. If he was a young white guy or an old white woman or a young white woman or, as previously mentioned, a gay necrophiliac Muslim half-Guatemalan crackbaby and said these same things, I would adore him every bit as much as I adore him now. Which is why I have always chosen him over Hilary.

But back to my point - I am proud of Hilary. I'm proud she ran a good campaign. I'm proud that she fought for her party, I'm glad Obama was lucky enough to run against her because I think that only made him stronger. And I hope this doesn't discourage her from politics. I hope she stays a strong member of the Democratic party for years to come. And I really, really, truly hope that the Democratic party can come together and win this thing, because c'mon, if we lose to McCain, who the hell can we win against?

I also hope that Obama chooses Jon Stewart as his running-mate but, um, that's just me.

Anywho, alphabet meme time! Apparently everyone REALLY WANTS ME TO TALK ABOUT THE OFFICE. Well. If you make me.

( Now I know my ABCs, next time won't you sing with meeeeeeeeeeeeeee. )

Edit: This took the entire day because it was too freaking hot to sit in front of the computer all day. BLERGH. Summer, I hate you.

So, uh, it may or may not have come to your attention that there's, uh, this guy who's going to be running for president or something? Apparently he's, like, a big deal? Because he's sort of got a tan. And, uh, apparently his politics and speeches make me scream and sigh like a twelve year old girl and write "Obama + Oval Office = TRU LUV" on my trapper keeper with sparkly pink pens. So, like, good job, and stuff. I hear you also made a speech that a bunch of people talked about that was pretty kickass, which was, uh, good for him.

But what you may or may not have heard, because there are just fewer people talking about it, is how Michelle Obama is awesome and I want her to be my best friend. No, really. I've kind of always felt like she was awesome and never really had any solid evidence besides "I CAN INTUITIVELY FEEL AWESOMENESS RADIATING OFF OF HER". And then a while ago this Newsweek article came out and I really super loved her. Or so I thought. The truth is that I did not truly love her until this moment last night, which, as far as I'm concerned, is the most under-appreciated moment of greatness in American politics:

In case you missed that, here is a clearer picture of what they did:



I mean sure, before that they hugged. And they kissed. And did the whole obligatory "look how awesome my spouse is" rigmarole. And then they bumped fists.

And that, children, was when I fell in love. It was at that moment I went all Mr. Rogers on them and was like "OH MICHELLE AND BARRACK, WON'T YOU BE MY, BE MY AWESOME NEIGHBORS?" (And as a side note, who has two thumbs and loves Michelle Obama's dress? THIS GIRL.)

I would also like to point out that this is an entire post dedicated to how adorable a heterosexual couple is. I feel like this means I've grown, as a person.