Ew, ew, ew/I hate you

My brain is never, ever quiet. I always have stuff tossing around up there. Unfortunately, my brain isn’t always processing quality information. Whenever nothing else is going on, and I should be able to just stop thinking for a minute, my brain decides that I need some background music and starts running a song through my head. As I may have mentioned previously, that song is usually Elvis Presley’s “In the Ghetto.” I call it my “default song” because whenever my brain can’t think of anything else, that song kicks in. I have had various default songs over the years, but that one’s been the most recent.

I never know what is going to set off the cranial jukebox. It doesn’t seem to be related in any way to something someone has said or to something I’ve seen. The other day it was “You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille,” which rr did not appreciate me singing out loud, because as we all know, bad songs are contagious. And as it turns out, the only way to get a song out of your head is to get it stuck in someone else’s. Luckily, this is easily accomplished, because, as I said, bad songs are contagious.

And that is why, my friends, I’m letting you know that right now I have the Milli Vanilli classic, “Girl, You Know It’s True” on constant rotation in the radio of my brain.

I know, I know! Thanks for sharing! I’m not doing it to be mean—really I’m not. But I can’t bop around the office with this song in my head. And if I don’t do something about it, it will be with me all the rest of the night, and I have other plans. It has to go. Therefore, I have to pass it on to someone else. So . . . sorry about that.

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Oh, for -----

*&#@*!@!!!!

I started to say, ‘hey, it worked,’ because the song was gone, but now “Lucille” is back. GREAT.

So, um . . . does anyone else have that song stuck in their heads now?

PRO-CRAS-TI-NATION

So, I'm supposed to write a paper today.






Yep, writing a paper.






Yep.






. . .





I think I need to go file my nails.

Please don't stop inviting me places. Just stop expecting me to say yes.

I have nice friends. That is, I’m friends with nice people, and my friends, as friends, are nice. They try. They put forth effort. They invite me to do stuff. Sadly, I’m not that kind of friend.

I used to be a good friend. I would go places to see my friends. But over time, the “good friend” character trait and the “lazy” trait have battled it out, and I’m sorry to say it, but lazy is way ahead.

I know what you’re thinking. ‘JLR, what a horrible person you are!’ But no! I’m not! I love my friends. I often think of them and hope they are doing well. I’m constantly thinking of all the nice things I’d do for them if I won the lottery. I love getting their e-mails. But not their phone calls. Because reading e-mails requires no input from me, but being on the phone does.

Really, I’m not a horrible person! It’s like a disease. This weekend, I really needed to read for class, but I didn’t, because I had left my books at school, and it was too far to go get them. School is just over a mile away. It’s a five minute drive. But I would have had to get dressed, find some clean matching socks, puts on my shoes, walk to my car, back out of my parallel parking space, deal with crazy drivers and, like, a hundred stop signs, park in the parking garage, walk across the street, go into the building, find the right key for my office, get my books, and then do the whole thing in reverse. It’s so hard! And just thinking about it . . . too much.

It didn’t used to be that bad. But like many diseases, it gets worse over time. For example, it’s too much effort for me to go check my mail. The mailbox is literally right outside my apartment. But it’s to the right of my door, and I always go out the gate to the left, so that would involve back-tracking, which first of all, I do not do, and second, that would require extra effort.

I eat mostly soup and other canned items because I can microwave them and there’s minimal clean up. RR and I have been buying a lot of soup from Central Market on our way home from work because (a) it’s already hot, so not even a microwave is required and (b) they give you plastic cutlery, so you don’t even have to wash dishes. Because washing two spoons takes that much effort. [RR’s note: and two bowls!]

It has gotten so bad that when the phone rings, I don’t even get up to see who it is. I screen my calls with caller i.d. usually, but now I figure I can just listen for the message and see if the person is worth walking all the way into the kitchen for. And if I’m somewhere where I can’t hear the answering machine, well, all my friends and family have my cell phone number. And if I can’t hear my cell phone . . . they’ll call back. Usually.

Why do I have to go into the kitchen to answer the phone? Because I’ve never plugged in the phone in my room in the year and a half that I’ve lived here. Because the plug is under my bed and that would require getting on the floor and leaning under the bed. But that’s not all lazy. You never know what’s under there, and I think it’s best not to look.

So, you’re probably thinking that I’ve missed out on some great opportunities by being so lazy. And that’s how I know that you don’t get it. Because those great opportunities I’ve missed? Don’t care! RR and I discovered quite some time ago that when it comes down to those things everyone says you’ll regret if you don’t do it, there hasn’t been one thing that I actually regret missing. BECAUSE I’M LAZY. So the effort it would take to do whatever it is pretty much will make it not worth it.

I just don’t want to become one of those shut-ins. Although, maybe I could do Meals on Wheels, and that would take care of the cooking issue . . .

Have you heard his morning show, wake up with Flem?

So the office temperature is set to “steam” this morning. That’s ok, I dressed for it. I was half afraid that it would be arctic in here, because it’s supposed to be in the 60s today, so why wouldn’t they have the A/C cranked up full blast? So I’m happy with the temperature. It’s a good thing, because I had picked out what I was going to wear last night, but then this morning I worried about it, whether the temperature in the office would be too cold, but because I woke up late this morning, I didn’t have time to change my mind.

Yessir, woke up late. That’s not unusual for me, but this morning, I was way late. So I look very much as though I got beat with the ugly stick this morning. When I left my apartment, my lips had a healthy, natural pink tint to them, so I didn’t bother with lipstick, so naturally when I got to work they had an approaching-death pallor to them. But that may have had something to do with the frustrating drive in.

It was so traffic-y today! I guess it always is, but I had forgotten how bad it could be, and I was stuck behind a huge pick up truck that I couldn’t see around. At least people were nice and let me over when I needed to change lanes, which doesn’t happen most mornings. Maybe they were afraid of me. My car does look a little banged up, so maybe I look like someone who doesn’t have insurance. All I know is, when I’m driving through the bad neighborhoods, I never get looks like maybe I don’t belong there. Partly it’s the missing hubcap. I’ve been missing one since last spring. I don’t know what happened. I just went out one morning and it wasn’t there. I did make an effort to replace it. I asked the place where I get my car repairs if they’d replace it, but they said they’d have to get it through the dealership and that would cost me too much, so they directed me to a less-expensive place that sells hubcaps. I drove to the hubcap store, but I got there after they had closed. And I haven’t been back, because although it’s only about 7 minutes away, it’s out of my way, and I am in fact that lazy. So I just go with it. I make it work.

Not all of the drive was frustrating. Being stuck in traffic gives you time to reflect. For example, I was noticing how, for some reason, I had the taste of bologna in my mouth—more specifically, a bologna sandwich. I’m not sure where that interesting variation on morning breath came from, but considering I had brushed my teeth before leaving this morning, I’m a little alarmed. Fortunately, I have coffee, and it’s replacing the bologna breath with old man, junior high shop class teacher breath. Mmm, mmm, good. Don’t you just wish you could wake up with that every morning?

Anyway, so I put on lipstick when I got to work, so not only do I look like I’m a resident of Uglysville, but now I have a neon sign. Look! Look at me! Uuuuug-ly!

Ok, it’s not that bad. But I will be trying to avoid the gaze of others today. Because you see, as some of you who do not wear make up may not know, it is a fact that if you put make up on before your face has had a chance to wake up, you face will actually freeze like that. Make up acts somehow as a preserver. It’s one reason why I try not to oversleep that much, and why I have been known to do jumping jacks first thing in the morning. I have to do something to look alert, or I’ll have people doing double-takes all day and asking me if I need coffee. Well, they’ll say “what happened to you,” but I always interpret that to be a polite inquiry into whether I need more tasty beverage.

But I’m here, I have said tasty beverage, and I’m about to go for seconds. I feel as though I might fall asleep at any second, but hey, only 8 hours to go!

If you're not watching Dancing with the Stars . . .

Well, then you won't know what I'm talking about. But regarding the results show tonight--all I can say is that Master P better be the one that gets kicked off.

If you don't watch Dancing with the Stars, then why don't you? If you love ballroom dancing, then it's for you. If you don't love ballroom dancing, but you love watching B-list celebrities embarrass themselves, then what are you waiting for? Of course, they don't all embarrass themselves, but enough of them do that it's fun to watch. And when they don't screw up, well, that's fun for us dancing fans.

I won't be watching the show tonight, because I will be out with rr and my friend kk--provided, of course, that we can decide on what to do. We can't seem to agree on a movie, and I'm broke broke broke, so there's a budgetary limit to what we can plan. Plus, I can't really think of anything to do. It's been so long since I've done something besides (a) the movies [and actually, that's been a long time, too], or (b) dinner, that I can't remember--what do people do for fun? I personally would love to just sit around drinking coffee and talking, but since that's what we always do, I think we're supposed to do something different tonight.

But WHAT?

TOMORROW NIGHT!

Dancing with the Stars, baby!

Yeah, like you aren't excited about it.

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Anyway, school hasn't started back up yet, but law review has, so I'm sitting in my office as we speak, editing away. I didn't get anything done this break, unless you count gaining a few pounds as an accomplishment, but I'm listening to tunes by great artists such as Tears for Fears and Glass Tiger, so it's all good.

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Tia Carrera? Tatum O'Neil? George Hamilton? Come on, it's George Hamilton! You know you're going to watch.