Hello Captain Obvious

I'll be the first to admit that growing up can become overwhelming, if not outright scary, sometimes. There's something about learning how to balance relationships and money and knowing what's right or what's wrong that can just be a little too much sometimes. However, I'm enjoying the ride to adulthood. Especially when I get letters from important people - like my credit card carrier - that are hilarious.

My credit card provider decided to write me a letter in snail mail about this "Important Account Price Change Notification". I was a little worried that this would effect me. It doesn't. They're raising prices on...

-APR on cash advances (I don't do cash advances.)
-APR on any balances that have a penalty rate because of a late payment (I don't ever pay late.)
-the late fee

The best part is after they say "We are increasing the late fee" they say:
"Please remember that you can avoid late fees by paying on time."
Well, hello Captain Obvious!
I'm really sad if people actually don't understand the logic of how to avoid a late fee. But it makes me happy to know I may be pretty naive about some "grown up" stuff. But at least I get how to avoid late fees.

That's So Shway

Dave Egger's new book, Zeitoun, is awesome.
It really explains the horror of what went on during Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
Go buy it. That is all.

Bookstore Therapy

Something comes over me when I am down and in the dumps. I don't know why or how this began, but when this something happens I have no other solution, but to go to a bookstore. Sometimes I buy and sometimes I don't, but today was a buying day. There is probably a connection between how upset I am and how much I'm willing to buy. Today I bought a lot.

I started at Border's because they emailed me today with a coupon. They email me about every other day with coupons and I always have some reason to use it. Today's reason was that I wanted to buy Knuffle Bunny. Yes. A childrens book. I fell in love with this book a few years ago with its fun story but especially with the illustrations which uses black and white photographs and colored illustrations on top. There is a sequel, Knuffle Bunny Too, which I will buy next time I need Retail Therapy. I was hesitant to buy it, so I did my usual process of walking throughout the entire store and having multiple employees ask me if I needed help finding something. "Yes, my sanity." I should have said. I just always smiled and said "No, thanks." Because part of bookstore therapy is just reading the sleeves of multiple books, smelling the books, flipping through pages and realizing you're so small and have so much more you could learn.

When I finally was done browsing and decided the one book I wanted was Knuffle Bunny, I asked for help because I wasn't sure where to find it. I don't know if the sales person thought I was weird as I, a twenty-something asked her, "Do you have Knuffle Bunny?" I didn't give a reason for why I wanted it. Because honestly, I couldn't come up with a good one. I didn't think telling her, "I'm just in one of those moods and today's mood will be lifted if I buy this book." She'd think I was weird. And no one needs to know that truth.

(On a side note, I've seen You've Got Mail probably 73 times and today reminded me of the scene when Meg Ryan's character, Kathleen Kelly, is in the children's section of the big bad Fox bookstore. Kathleen sits down and overhears an employee being asked what the "shoe" books are. Of course the employee has no idea. Kathleen tells the person working who the author is, as she fights back tears. It's one of my favorite scenes. And you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UZ3t1iQuTo It starts at about 6 min. in. Anyways when I was at Borders today, the girl working didn't know Knuffle Bunny even though it's right there at the big Caldecott Award Winning display. I was very upset she didn't know. I should work at Borders. Seriously.)

After I left Borders I decided to just go to Half Price Bookstore because I needed a new journal and they always have cute ones for $5. So in I went wanting to spend $5. Then I remembered wanting to buy Franny and Zooey by JD Salinger. The last time I was there, they had nothing by Salinger. Well, today was my lucky day. They had Franny and Zooey, Catcher in the Rye and In Search of JD Salinger. I decided against Catcher in the Rye but got Franny and the biography on Salinger because he is so fascinating to me (The fact that he's alive yet no one knows anything about him). I am excited to read what this guy that researched Salinger discovered. It was published the year I was born, so I suppose it won't be the most updated version. So I left Half Price $17.06 poorer but ten times happier. And I think my bookstore therapy did just the trick.

Junk in the trunk

There ain't any junk in my trunk, but there sure as heck is some junk in my desk.
Apparently, I have a trend that I've had all my life, but only just now realized.
Ready for it?
I always have a junk drawer.
In my room, I have a dresser and in the bottom drawer is nothing but junk. It started one night many, many years ago when I didn't know what to do with the drawer, so I put some random stuff in so as not to have it all over my dresser. It's only grown from there. If you looked at it, it would be junk. To me it's random stuff that has loads of memories and meaning to me. For instance, the drawer might contain the movie stub to my first rated R movie, random BFFs and Friends Forever necklaces and bracelets from my childhood, pictures that never made it into a photo album, etc. I thought it only existed because I don't have enough space in my room to showcase all my fine junk treasures. I didn't think there was more to it than that.
Then I'm sitting at work yesterday and I open up one of my desk drawers for a piece of candy. Apparently that junk drawer habit has now continued into my work space. Not only is there candy in that drawer, there's other random stuff. It's not the same kind of sentimental junk as I have at home, but it's none the less a miscellaneous, "Why the heck is there a parrot magnet in here?" drawer.
I guess it doesn't really matter. However, I can't help but slightly worried that when I have my own home, I'm gonna have an entire junk room.

That's So Shway

When I'm really bored, I watch this series on CollegeHumor.com called Jake and Amir (http://www.collegehumor.com/jake-and-amir). Amir cracks me up! And I'm not ashamed to still be visiting collegehumor.com daily even though I've officially been done with college for an entire year.

My latest favorite poem

You can thank Helen Fielding, or you may know her as the author of Bridget Jones Diary, for renewing my love for poetry. In Bridge Jones: The Edge of Reason, Bridget is given a poem by Mark Darcy titled "If" by Rudyard Kipling. The entire poem is put in the book and it's wonderful. It really does a good job tying up the theme of the book, I think. Bridget is learning how to be satisfied as a Singleton and is also becoming independent and getting to know herself as a person...something I believe is definitely needed before tying yourself down to someone else.

My favorite line has to do with waiting...something I'm learning a lot about right now.

Anyways, this is the poem and I bolded my favorite lines.

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

That's So Shway

My friend posted this on my Facebook. It's a typewriter that plays musical notes for each letter. That thing would entertain me for days.

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=135877103312&h=bnsfE&u=7f-vh&ref=mf

Times!

Remember being a kid and you'd play tag or something and sometimes you'd get tired and yell out "Time!" or "Times!" or if you had a full breath, "Time out!"

Well I had forgotten till I was at the pool today. This one girl kept saying it over and over again while playing tag in the pool. And I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice if we could have that?"

Time out, life. I need a breather.

I also remember having "bases" where we were safe from the person that was "it". I'd like to have some bases in my life, too. Sometimes you get so caught up in everything, you need a place to run to and be protected from everything that is getting shot at you.

I suppose in a way God is my base. He is who I run to when things get to be too much. But I think I'd also like a beach or a mountain that is so serene that I can run to and escape. Maybe I need to move to a place closer to one of those...

That's So Shway

With the recent death of several famous people including Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, the media world has been busy getting as much hype as they can from it. This illustration I found comments on the TV world's approach to covering deaths. It's dead on.

http://picturesforsadchildren.com/blog/famous.png

MURDERER!

I made that title to get your attention.
I am, apparently, a murderer. A bunny murderer.
Here's what happened.

My brother always mows the lawn. If he can't, my mom does. If my mom can't, my dad does. Well, all three were busy, so I was left with the job. I actually willingly took it, because I thought it'd be good exercise and I wanted the sun on my legs (which are deathly pale). So I began my mowing the lawn journey thinking little of it...until my allergies attacked me with a vigor I had never known before. Apparently I'm allergic to the cottonwood trees which had sprayed cotton all over my lawn. And apparently I'm allergic to freshly mowed grass. Needless to say, halfway through the job, I was sneezing every minute. Literally. I had to stop countless times to go inside and blow my nose. It's a wonder I even could see whether I was mowing in a straight line.

So flash forward to a few days ago and my mom reports a dead bunny is in the backyard. I think nothing of it and watch my dad scoop up the dead bunny with a shovel. Gross. Next day I hear two more dead bunnies are found in our backyard, with barely their skeletons remaining. Grosser. We think, "Gee, some cat out there is going crazy!" Or else...

Yes, now everyone believes there was a bunny nest in our backyard, we didn't know it, I couldn't see from sneezing and that I. killed. the. bunnies. Tragic. And super gross. And if that's the case, it wasn't cotton sticking up and down my sweaty legs...it was bunny hair.

That's So Shway

To lighten up the mood I bring you this post-it note project which is awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpWM0FNPZSs

I'll blame H1N1

I'm gonna blame the lack of updating in a month to the pig flu/H1N1 flu. I didn't have it. I was just so sick of the media covering it that I didn't even have the strength to write in my blog. Tragic.

When I haven't blogged in a while, it's hard to remember what is "blog worthy". When you start to get into blogging, your brain starts to come up with ideas like, "Oh, that's funny. I'll be sure to blog that." But I haven't had that mindset in a while. However, I did remember something significant that happened to me, that I feel is necessary to share with the whole world.

About a week or two ago, for the very first time in my 20 some odd years on earth, I dreamt that I died.
Or at least, I think I died. It's hard to say, because as soon as I was supposed to be dead, my dream played out as though I didn't. It was like one of those "Choose Your Own Adventure" books where you get to the point where the character dies, so you go back to the previous page and change it so they don't. Anyways, I died on the highway, which isn't odd considering I used to be scared of driving the highway when I first got my license. In my dream, I was on this entrance ramp and the ramp continued going up and up and it was more like a ridiculous roller coaster. And suddenly I could see myself from a distance (It was like on Mario 64 where you could change the camera angles) and I saw the car in front of me lose control and so I did too. So my car falls off the ramp and then I just fall out of the car, knowing as I fell through the air that I was going to die when I landed in the forest below me. So I pulled out my cell and as I'm free falling (it was a long fall) I text "love you" to my mom before I died. It was the most I could text before I died, I guess. T9 only helps you so much.
Then before waking up, I had my alternative dream where I was telling everyone about my experience and how I didn't die, but "Wasn't it nice I texted my mom?" and then saying, "Now that I think about it I wished I had time to text _______ too and tell him I loved him." I won't reveal that person's name.

I always get really confused when I dream about loving certain people that I don't love in real life. At least, I don't THINK I feel like that towards the certain someone.

Anyways, so the dying thing wasn't so bad, fyi. I mean, if you have time to text your mom first, how bad can it be?

That's So Shway

It always amazes me when people have the patience to do these kind of things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ky6vgQfU24