my cat is so cute!!

i'm always intrigued by...

what my mind comes up with right before i fall asleep. unless it's that feeling of falling when your body relaxes. hate that. anyway, last night i started thinking about things i remember from my life. and it's so strange what i remember and what i dont' remember. i know what i was wearing the day i passed out in high school, but i have no clue what the date was, or wheter i was in a or b lunch, or what classes i'd had that day. so, because nothing THAT exciting has been hapenning in my life because it's summer break and i just hang out at my house all day, and because i don't feel like rehashing everything that happened at lindsay's wedding ( i will do so, but not today) i've decided to write down a list of things i remember.

• when we lived in terre haute, (we moved to jamestown when i was almost 4) we had a sandbox outside. one day, i wondered what sand tasted like, so i tried some. it mostly tastes gritty, with a hint of cat pee.
  
• the back door at our house in terre haute stuck, because back doors often do that, and i had trouble opening it, which i know is shocking considering my three-year-old strength. i told mom and dad that i couldn't open the door, but didn't have the cognizance or the vocabulary to tell them why, so they assumed that i was too short, and dad put a cinder block next to the door so i could stand on it and open it. i remember thinking they were dumb, because i could obviously read the handle (i was THREE wasn't i?) but the door was dumb, and they needed to fix the door. not my shortness. i've gotten over it, and mom and dad, i no longer think you're dumb.
• i remember the day that i discovered that if i rode my bike down my street to the left, i could see the back of heidi and lindsay's house. i previously hadn't known how to get there.
  
• i always have trouble sleeping the night before something big or monumental. the night before i started kindergarten, i was terrified because alana bloom down the street had told me that my teacher, mrs. kohler, was mean. i remember that mom and dad came into my room (probalby because i was crying--i was a horrible crybaby when i was a kid) and sat with me for a while and tried to convince me that it would be okay and mom sat on the bed with me and dad sat on the chair that went with my vanity and propped his feet on the fan on the floor (this was before we put a ceiling fan in my room). turns out, alana bloom was right--mrs. kohler was mean. not to me, but to other kids. she's someone who should not be teaching kindergarten.
• speaking of kindergarten, we had these activity packets that we had to fill out every morning within the first hour. i have no clue how many pages they were, but it seemed like there were at least 30 pages, all of which had intricate, difficult instructions (we're talking on par with building a nuclear reactor) and i was always afraid that i wouldn't finish in time and i would get in trouble. people always think i'm exaggerating this, but the first hour of each day made me want to have an anxiety attack. so i would hurry through my cutting and pasting so that i would get done in time and then i would get check-minuses on my cutting and pasting, when it was really the teacher's fault for putting that much pressure on a 5-year-old.
• i remember the night that my brother michael broke his arm. or maybe his leg. but he was trying to do skateboard tricks in front of the house and fell. once when one of the boys broke an appendage--it had to have been michael, because jonathan broke his arm before jamestown (maybe before i was born) and he broke his knee at camp and i already wasn't there. or maybe it was jonathan, because i got to go to debbie noggle's parents' house and ride horses, and i was the best time of my life. and the next morning we went down the road to debbie noggle's grandma's house and she made us waffles, which was very exciting because i loved waffles as a kid and they were one of two things my mom can't make (no bake cookies are the other thing). she's really good at making everything else. she makes a mean pot roast. it tried to bite me.
  
• i remember imagene owen, and that she had a ladder in one of her closets in the kitchen, and the ladder led to the upstairs and it was so cool. and then as i got older and thought about it, i decided that it was probably from the underground railroad (i went on a big harriet tubman kick in about 4th grade) and that made it even cooler.
  
• when we first moved to jamestown, there was a ladder in the back of what became the storage room in the basement, and my brothers told me that it led to a secret passageway to the church building. i was never able to investigate, because it was impossible to get to the back of the storage room. the only things i ever got out of there were suitcases, coolers, and my dad's record collection. i'm not sure what the rest of it was.
• i had a huge walk-in closet at the house in jamestown, and i always wanted to play in it, because a) it was cool, and b) heidi and lindsay got to. but, i wasn't allowed to because i always made a mess in there. and if you've met my mother, you understand why my closet wasn't allowed to be messy.
  
• once, in junior high, i was burning a candle in my room when the wick got too low and stopped burning. i decided to melt the rest of the wax, so that i could use it in another candle, instead of just throwing it away like a normal person. i then decided that the best way to melt the wax was to put bits of kleenex in there and light them on fire so that there would be heat to melt the wax, and an energy source that i could keep adding to as it burned down. i forgot, however, that i'm a moron, so the next thing i know, this little fire is kind of raging out of control in the candle jar. first i grabbed a spray bottle of water, but that just seemed to make the fire jump higher, which was not what i wanted. please remember that we lived in a house owned by the church where my dad worked, so if i burned it down, i would be in trouble with my parents, the church, and God. i was REALLY concerned with putting it out. i thought back to my fire safety classes in first grade, and i remembered that they way to put out a fire if water wouldn't work, was to smother it. so i grabbed a mirror and put it over the candle and put out the fire. i took the mirror off and had a new problem: lots of smoke. so i grab a sock off of the floor (dirty, of course, because i was in junior high, after all) and pick of the candle and take it to the window and open the window and put a fan on it to blow the smoke outside. i then realized that my room smelled like smoke, so i ran out and told my mom everything, finishing with, "I just want you to know so you don't think that i'm smoking or anything, because i'm not." at that point, many of my friends were smokers, and mom knew this, and i didn't want her to think i was doing it, because i didn't want to get in trouble. i threw away the candle. and have never tried to melt wax again.
• remember when you were little and life was measured by tv shows? how many mister rogerses or how many sesame streets until something? that was cool.
  
• before i learned how to tell time, or maybe just as i was beginning to tell time, i thought that "a quarter till" or "after" was 25 minutes, because one quarter was 25 cents, so that made sense. stupid fractions.
• i couldn't never understand why my neighbors across the street, wendy and heather, called their dad "wayne" instead of "dad." he was, of course, their stepdad, but i didn't get that when i was a kid. i also never understood why "big heather" and "little heather" had different last names, and why big heather was only there on the weekends. big heather was wayne's daughter from his first marriage, obviously, and little heather was his stepdaughter.
  
• there used to be an urban legend that a man hid behind the sign for our church and shot the man who lived in the house across the street from me. it happened a long time ago. i wonder if it's true.
  
• that sign was the best place to play as a child. you could hide behind it. and if you were one of the big kids, you could climb on top of it. i never did.
• the year we did "the great late potentate" for our christmas musical at church i was 5, i think, and if you watch the video from the second night, there's one part where the camera is on me, and i don't realize it, obviously, because i am just scratching my ass for all i'm worth. i'm classy.
• my aunt and uncle had a foster son, i think his name was robbie, and i have almost no recollection of him. i think he was at a few christmases when i was really little, but i don't ever remember talking to him, or even interacting with him. i wonder what ever happened to him.
• when i was in early grade school one day we went to visit my great aunt and uncle. i'm not sure exactly where they lived, but i think it was near ohio. anyway, they lived in florida during the winter, as old people in the midwest tend to do, and i overheard someone mention that they lived there. i thought we were going to see them in florida. now, i wasn't sure where florida was, but i was pretty sure it was really far away, and it seemed crazy that we were going there and back in a day. it seemed better to do for a long time and pack clothes and stuff. i was schocked when it only took about an hour. and then we got there, and their house was on a pond, and there were ducks and we got to feed them. that was also the first time i ever saw burner covers on a stove, which i still do not understand. why cover the burners? everyone knows they're there? this is why i made it my sacred duty to keep burning them until mom gave up. mom, i won.
  

enough memories for tonight. two really quick things: why is jon stwart's hair staring to look really similar to that of luke perry and jason priestly on the first few seasons of 90210?

and is anyone really shocked that lance bass is gay? seriously? that's not news. once 'nsync became really popular, i decided that everyone liked justin, and i should try to be different and like someone else. i honestly tried to cultivate a liking to lance, but he was too gay even back then. back in the super-gay boy band heyday of the late 90's, early 2000s. *sigh* those were the times.

my cat is a sexual deviant...

saturday night, my friend alison came over to watch a movie and hang out, and my cat decided taht was the time to resurrect his "care bear humping extravaganza" that he debuted while staying with my friends sean and gwen. lucky the green care bear has been defiled. so guy is humping away, and i'm embarassed, and alison is scandalized (she's catholic, so she doesn't actually know how sex works...okay, we all know that's not true. those crazy catholics... but she was really scandalized), so i pick lucky up with two fingers so as to touch as little of him as humanly possible and threw lucky in my bedroom, telling him to be dirty in there like the rest of civilized society. apparently though, he's an exhibitionist as well as a miscreant, and he carries lucky back out into the dining room so that we all got to share in the joy of his masturbation. he has an appointment to become a eunich next tuesday.

so let me continue with some of the hijinks of my sabbatical in the crossroads of america (that's indiana, for those of you who weren't inculcated with that phrase from a very young age). i went to the art museum with heidi and lindsay to see an exhibition of wedding gowns. it was really cool. they had american gowns from different time periods as well as traditional wedding garments from all over the world. they had a little "interactive learning" space for kids, with kind of typical wedding dresses from each decade starting with 1800 or so and going to 1960 or something. unsurprisingly enough, my favorite was from the time period of jane austin. speaking of jane austin, here's a fun conversation that occurred while i was home:

sarah: oh, by the by lindsay, i need to stop at the atm.
lindsay: what does "by the by" mean?
sarah: it means, like, by the way.
lindsay: why would you say that?
heidi: because sometimes sarah thinks she's in a jane austin novel.

it's true.

anyway, we wandered around the parts of the museum that were open (not the europeans, though. sad) and there was one little room that had a video screen and seats--think very small theatre. we walked in and there was a bunch of red stuff on the screen and some very pulsating music, and thinking that we were the only ones in the room i blurted out, "is that an orgy?" it was then that i realized there was a couple about the age of my parents in the room. we left quickly.

let me talk about the bachelorette party. the non-cedar point version. we had dinner, and while we were waiting for our ice cream, jen (labrie) deem decided to make one of those paper fortune tellers out of her placemat. you know the ones with colors and then you spell it and then there are numbers inside and you count them while opening and closing it (i'm having trouble describing this without using my hands, obviously) and then there are fortunes inside. since it was a bachelorette party, jen made a dirty one. i don't remember all of the fortunes, but here are those that i do know:

2=his two lips, plus your two "lips" equals one curly mustache
3=three "accidental" slips toward the 'other hole' are not accidental...

i guess that's all i remember. but they were funny. if you know jen, this isn't surprising. if anyone knows any others, please post a comment to share with the world.

we left there and went roller skating, where we got free skate rental because lindsay was a bride-to-be (thank goodness she was wearing that ridiculous veil) and we had a blast. did you know there is this whole culture of people (kids--high school age) who hang out at the skating rink and breakdance on their roller skates? IT'S AMAZING!!!! it made me want to go...well, nothing really, but it was really cool. they had lindsay request a song, so of course she requested "baby got back," because, what else would she request, honestly? we're out there skating and guess who fell? lindsay. the bride was the only person who fell the entire night. it was HILARIOUS. she was pretty excited (sarcasm) that her knee would be all swollen and bruised on her honeymoon. we all tried to convince her that matt wouldn't be looking at her knee.

the next part of the plan was karaoke at some bar on tenth street, which, as it turns out, has karaoke on friday nights and live music on saturday. we were there on saturday. we thought there was karaoke at a different bar in avon so we went there, but there was no karaoke, just a dj and (miniscule) dance floor. this bar was pretty dive-tastic, and full of hendricks county's white trash. the dancing was pretty entertaining. heidi and i devised a game where we give everyone whom we don't like a new, sort of mean nickname. one very drunk lady who was in her mid fifties was out shaking her money maker while wearing white capri pants, so her name became fancy mcwhite pants. oh yeah, everyone got a 'mc' before their last name. well, most everyone. there was also seniorita salsa, fringe-y mcsequins (a shirt with fringe and sequins, because overkill is never enough), skinny pink tank top (the top was skinny, she was not), the striped shirt twins (two men wearing the same shirt--or close enough for us to make fun)... that might have been it.

by the end of the night it was lindsay, heidi, lauren and i. we were playing pool, having a good time, just the girls, when this guy comes over and says he and his friend want to play against us in pool. so we go over there and one guy was named stewart, and i forget the names of the other guys. now i had noticed stewart because he kept checking lauren out. he was quite the monet (looks good from far away, but up close it's just a big mess). heidi and i voted not to play because we suck at pool and it was more fun to make fun of the people in the bar. lindsay was pretty drunk by this point and had morphed into drunk voice. at one point she says to lauren "lauren, thish ish verrry imporrrrrtantt shhhot." this was really funny to me. and i kept repeating at random throughout the rest of the game. heidi and i gave nicknames to the three guys. one guy was sitting on a stool and not talking to anyone, so he became ugly mcwallflower. the other guy had a HUGE nose, and he kind of looked like an african mask, specifically the one that's in the aquarium in finding nemo. which made me think of nemo's nickname "shark bait -ooh ha ha. which of course means that his name became shark bait mc'ooh haha. it took us a while to get stewart's nickname tacked down, but we eventually setlled on stew-boo.

at one point, lindsay and lauren were losing, and lindsay and i didn't like that idea, so while everyone was distracted, we cheated and "nudged" some of their balls into the pockets until it was pretty even. so now it's the end of the game and stew-boo starts to line up a shot. and continued to line it up for FIVE MINUTES. at which time we started teasing and i repeated lindsay's line of "thish ish verrry imporrrrrtanntt shhhot." then he missed. and we died laughing. he walks over to where heidi and i had been heckling and starts telling us that we need to be nice to him and he's been nice to us, and all he wants is for us to not make fun of him. we start laughing, because we think he's joking, and he gets really mad. and starts yelling at us. heidi keeps laughing, because she apparently doesn't value her life and i'm trying to tell him that we'll be nice and get him to go away. he doesn't go away and keeps yelling. so lauren comes over and tries to diffuse the situation. it doesn't work. so his friend shark bait comes over and tries to diffuse the situation and stew-boo tries to fight him! so he leaves and we decide to leave also. as we're walking out, we ask one of the security guys to walk us out, and he agrees. stew-boo is already out at his car, but shark bait is walking out at the same time. he says to us that we shouldn't have done what we did and he was right to be mad!! we tried to tell him that we were teasing everyone equally and he had no reason to be mad, and then shark bait tries to start yelling at us. the security guy kind of diffused it and we all left, but it was the most bizarre thing that has ever happened to me. and i've had a few crazy experiences. it's a better story in person, but this will have to do. i hope it's funny.

my cat is humping floyd, his other care bear, whom he carried in here to hump in front of me. pervert. at least he alternates between toys.

i went down to the strip today, which always makes me angry. here are some things that i feel tourists need to know:

• you're in vegas. not orlando. there is couture here. dior, fendi, burberry, prada, chanel, valentino. don't wear old t-shirts from the county fair. at least try to be clean.
  
• just because they sell 2-foot tall margaritas at 9am, it doesn't mean you should buy one. you look dumb. and the natives are laughing at you.
• if it looks like a fanny pack, buckles like a fanny pack, and sits above your groin like a fanny pack, it's a fanny pack. even if it says louis vuitton or gucci. and it's not okay.
• yes, the buildings are pretty and tall and there are lots of lights and many things to look at. this does not mean you are alowed to come to a complete halt in the middle of the walkway to look at said pretty things. move to the side.
• if you are going to walk slowly, at least walk in a straight line so people who have places to be can pass you. you only zigzag if you're trying to run and not get shot. if you zigzag while i'm trying to pass you, making it impossible for me to pass you, you might get shot. if i had a gun, that is. and not morals. and not conscience... okay, you might not get shot, but i'll bitch about you in my blog.
  
• if you don't know how to drive on a west coast freeway (fast, agressive), don't drive. let a taxi do it for you. because you'll be in my way, and i'll get angry.

that's it for now. i was at the paris hotel and they (understandibly) have tried to make it feel like paris (the city) inside the casino. but it donesn't, because there is absolutely NO dog shit on the floor. i looked.

i forgot to mention that we got home from cedar point at 5am (i was the only person in the car to be awake the entire ride home), giving me enough time to shower, eat breakfast and leave for church, where i had to sing at both services. i thought i was going to die at one point. i decided to drive down to the (one) gas station in roachdale and buy a can of monster (my energy drink of choice) and they don't sell energy drinks. just soda. i was so angry at that point i was wide awake. stupid gas station. i'm not bitter.

this is lengthy. and i think very incoherent. but whatever. bedtime.

the amazing thing is...

someone, somewhere in history, had the idea to pour milk over pieces of grain or whatever and call it cereal. brilliant. those of you who know me at all know that i could not live without cereal. i honestly can't imagine my life without it. there's just nothing like it.

so i went home for three weeks. hijinks ensued.

my friend lindsay got married (hooray mrs. lovell!) how was jamaica by the way? and a trip to cedar point was planned as sort of a pre-bachelorette party. we all drove up friday night, stayed the night in a hotel, went to the park the next day, left at closing and drove home. now, close your eyes and imagine with me: we're getting ready to leave on friday night, around 6:30 or so, and as we're heading out to the car, i ask which way we're going. someone mentions that we were going to take I65 south to indianapolis, I-465 across to I-69 and then up to ohio. if you live in the central indiana area, you know that that's a little out of the way, so i suggested that we take state road 32 across to I-69, which was a little more straightforward. i knew that 32 was a two-lane highway, and i knew it might be a little slower, but i figured that it would be better that dealing with friday night rush hour traffic on the interstate. before i continue, i would like to point out that no one argued with me, or offereed any other suggestions. they all just agreed with me. my "shortcut" added at least two hours to our trip. i felt really bad. and then, to add insult to a very hungry and cranky injury, traffic was still backed up on I-69 because of construction. we got to our hotel super late. then heidi tried to give me a seizure by putting a flashing light ring in my face just as i was falling asleep.

the next morning, after a refreshing six hours of sleep, we all got up and went to breakfast, which might have been the worst hotel continental breakfast of my life. i'm pretty much an authority on hotel breakfasts, too. my family doesn't stay at a hotel unless there's a continental breakfast. they had cereal, so i was okay, but the rest of it was pretty slim pickings. lauren was wearing a tee-shirt that said "dry campus" on the front, and then "my ass (#1 party school in the country)" on the back. it was in regards to IU a few years ago when they got that particular award. of course, this prompted us to make the decision to call lauren "my ass" for the rest of the day. this lead to many memorable statements, including (but not limited to):

• my ass wants a funnel cake.
• my ass is in for the ride of her life
• my ass likes it fast and in the dark (in reference to riding roller coasters at night)
• my ass wants some hot nuts (in reference to roasted nuts being sold at a concession cart)
• my ass will not shut her mouth

you get the idea. it's probably not funny to anyone but us, but we thought it was hysterical. around lunchtime, we were standing in line to get the most overpriced yet disgusting pizza of my life when this old guy with approximately 2.78 teeth started telling lauren that he liked her shirt, and that he agreed with it (meaning that she had a nice ass). when she ignored him, he moved on to christa, going so far as to tell her that he liked her nail polish. he was pretty drunk, and really really really gross. i'm also an authority on gross. i worked at a truck stop.

it was a fun day. near the end we decided to ride the magnum and pose for the cameras, so we spent at least 30 minutes deciding what pose we were all going to do, and then we asked the ride operator where the cameras were. he said they were in the third tunnel. as we raced through the first two tunnels, lindsay was up frong yelling "first tunnel! practice positions!!" and then "second tunnel! practice positions!" as we were approaching the third tunnel and were all moving into position, the cameras went off, because they are placed BEFORE the third tunnel, not IN the third tunnel (this is why prepositions are important boys and girls) so we got a bunch of pictures of us looking extremely stupid in mid pose. we decided we had no other choice but to ride it again, this time posing before the third tunnel. the pictures are pretty sweet. we were going down a hill, so my boobs look ENORMOUS. if you're ever at my house, ask to see them. i'd put them on here, but i don't have digital copies.

well, this is short but i want to go to bed, so i'll continue the story of the hijinks during my stay at home at another time.

by the way, saw pirates of the caribbean 2 tonight, and have decided that i will marry the man who uses the following pickup line on me: "You know, these clothes do not flatter you at all. It should be a dress or nothing. I happen to have no dress in my cabin." (joking mom, don't get worried). is anyone besides me glad that they live in a world where johnny depp is alive and
acting??