New blog

I've decided to start a new blog.

Please won't you join me there.

Baby, I'm yours

DUCK BUTT!!

You know you haven't blogged in a while when your browser doesn't autocomplete your domain name.

I'm back, baby!*

*This may or may not be my last blog post for another 3 months.

So yes, the rumors are true. You can stop digging through my trash cans and hyper-pixelating pictures of my stomach.

I am pregnant. Fifteen weeks and three days to be specific. That's about three and a half months, if my maths are correct.

As you can see from this picture, my baby does indeed have a head.

You laugh, but I feared that for about two days. That I'd go to the ultrasound and my baby wouldn't have a head. Because that's pregnancy in a nutshell -- fear. Fear that your baby won't survive the nine months inside you, that it will be born with something wrong, that that Benadryl the doctor told you was OK to take is giving your baby a third eye, that putting your laptop too close to your ute will burn off your baby's eyebrows. Will my baby even have eyebrows? Will it be born eyebrowless?? What a nightmare.

Beyond these fears I'll give you a little FAQ of my pregnancy so far:

Whoops, you're pregnant! Way to go Em! Guess you didn't mean to do that?!?

Listen, jerkwad. I meant to get pregnant. Just because I didn't TELL you I was trying doesn't mean I wasn't. We're just not that close, and it was nunyabizness.

AND EVEN IF I WASN'T (but I was) trying to get pregnant, I wouldn't have been upset. I'm married, I love my husband, we have a home, jobs, are older than 16 and live a pretty happy life. And not to get all Michelle Duggar on you, but I believe children are a blessing. I would have been psyched either way.

So now what? When are you due? What is the baby's sex? What are you going to name it??

Now what is that I let this baby cook for another 25 weeks, godwilling. I am due the end of June. I am not finding out the baby's sex. No, I don't care if this makes you roll your eyes. Yes, I will be able to hold out. No, I don't care that I'll have to shop gender neutral.

As for the names, we're keeping that to ourselves as well. It will be one big giant surprise for everyone the day of. No spoilers on this blog.

Are you going to breastfeed? Will you circumcise a boy? Do you plan on delivering naturally?

I'm sorry, do I know you? No, you're not my husband asking me these questions? Why do people think this is their business? Pregnancy is not a "Get out of the rudeness of asking personal questions free card." That would be hard to put on a card anyway, it's long.

Should you be eating/drinking/doing that?

Yes. I should, Dr. Nobody.

How are you feeling?

I'm feeling OK. I've been telling people that pregnancy is every disgusting thing your body can do, all at once. I'll spare you the details, but you can imagine. I went through a three-week nausea period, a 4-week period where it hurt to be awake, and now I'm going through some pregnancy congestion and pregnancy nosebleeds. Yeah, nosebleeds. Jeff walked by me the other day with a tissue rammed up my nose and sighed, "You're falling apart." And he still kissed me.

Which brings us to...

Is Jeff excited?

Jeff is tremendously excited. He named our baby "Bun" which has stuck, and is a nice alternative to "it" or "he/she." He's bought a ton of baby books already, clothes, and has really taken to the monkey theme for our nursery. See picture:

He's been helpful and supportive and everything I could want in a husband. We are so tremendously excited and eager to meet our little bun. Stay tuned!

Any questions for me? Is anyone still out there?

A self-indulgent post about my self-indulgence

I, like I suspect many others of my generation, went out tonight and saw "The Social Network."

Now, I'd go out to see a movie written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by David Fincher if it was about the creator of the metal detector. I'd also see movies by lesser known and talented people, but I digress. I was there. And I loved it.

I didn't realize I joined Facebook so early on in its existence. It launched in February of 2004. I was on it by that May, though I don't remember the exact date. Northeastern was definitely one of the first schools it branched out to, as I believe after the Ivy Leagues, they hit the Boston schools.

I don't remember who invited me or how I set it up (I didn't even remember there was an invitation process), but I do remember sitting on my dorm room sofa, in front of a window, dressed in a black shirt, my hair twisted back from my face, holding up my digital camera (my second large purchase with my Boston Globe internship money -- first was an iPod mini) and trying to take a photo that made it look like I didn't care what my Facebook photo was. It's good to see I wasn't the only lemming of my time.

I had just turned 20. I was "reeling" from two break-ups in a years time. The first was my high school boyfriend. The second was the man that was going to be my husband. I'm almost certain they were the first two people I sought out when I signed up.

I remember seeing said HS boyfriend at a mutual friend's house not that long after. "Oh, I didn't realize you were on facebook," I said. (Bull). I had used it to find him, his new girlfriend, various exes, THEIR girlfriends of current and past and over the past six years have used it to stalk numerous people. I get angry when privacy settings get in the way of what I want to know about that girl I used to know 20 years ago. I can' see her face! What does she DO? I tend to rely on Facebook to tell me anything I want to know about a person in a few short lines and then I fill out the rest in my head. A lame bio quote can be so telling...

Facebook is my Internet footprint, the first thing that comes up when you search my name, which is both apropos given how much time I spend on it, and sad, given that I used to be a published writer in a past life. (Today's Local News out of Northern San Diego didn't take off quite like some other ventures of the decade. In fact, they've spiked the website, wiping from existence any proof I ever wrote there or was ever a full-time writer. Perhaps that's a good thing.)

It's crazy to think how Facebook is such a symbol of my generation (I think "my generation," anyways. Zuckerberg and I are the same age and were the same year in college.) I wonder how many hours of thought I've put into it in the past six years. What my profile picture would be (we have 3 wedding pictures printed out in our house -- I have over 450 on Facebook), how my "interests" would make me appear to other people, who to friend and when to friend them (usually one meeting is enough for me to seek you out.) Whenever I friend request someone I don't know that well and they accept, I go to my page and look over my profile. I'm admitting this in a sort of blase way, but it is embarrassing. I try and take an unbiased overview of my page. What do these lines of code and data I update infrequently say about me?

Whenever I host live chats, commenters will ask me to put up a picture (I use an avatar instead and have no interest in sharing the sad truth with them.) I'm not particularly flattered by this, there's just as many people who implore me to shut up. They want to see my picture to see if I fulfil some fantasy about girls and sports. Regardless, I always think, "Why don't they Facebook me?" Some of them do, I know because they friend request me. But I always wonder how I come off. Probably as someone's who's trying too hard and not doing it well enough to make it look easy.

I'd like my internet footprint to be more than Facebook someday. I admire people with great ideas and hope that one day I have one.

And Facebook would probably be the first place I'd share it.

The one where...

I just ate the World's Worst Sandwich.

There's a lot of hyperbole out there these days. There's even hyperbole of hyperbole. But you have to believe me when I tell you this was, without a doubt, with no exaggeration, hand to God, the World's Worst Sandwich.

Not only is this the only sandwich they serve in Hell's cafeteria, you have to share this sandwich with Satan, who eats this sandwich with his mouth open for all of eternity.

The remains of the World's Worst Sandwich.

I stood in a long line to order the World's Worst Sandwich. I waited among weary travelers, and you could just TELL no one in the group was entirely jazzed about the sandwich selection. But here we were.

I scanned the board of options. It was one of those places where it lists the calorie count next to each choice.

"How helpful," I thought. Thinking back, I had a fairly large lunch where I had an absolutely delightful blackened salmon sandwich. Clearly, I was tempting fate, mocking the sandwich Gods by attempting to have two delicious sandwiches in one day.

I chose a sandwich with 400 some odd calories. This sandwich will allow me to be conscious of my figure, I said to myself. Then I would wash down with a bucket sized coke.

I was immediately filled with regret when I ordered the World's Worst Sandwich. It was a moment that I will no doubt replay in my mind over and over. As I swiped my debit card -- paying more than $9 for the World's Worst Sandwich by the way -- my stomach immediately curdled. I had no desire to eat this sandwich. It was too late though. The events that would deliver me the World's Worst Sandwich were already in motion.

I went to fill up my coke and then wandered back to the sandwich station. An open glass case allowed me to watch as the World's Worst Sandwich was created. I scanned the ingredient buffet, wondering exactly which components were ear-marked for my sandwich. I located them, and I wretched.

Let me tell you something, blog readers, roasted vegetables should never be applied to a sandwich via an ice cream scoop.

I watched the counter boy, the little demon, wipe the sandwich cutting knife across his apron before he sliced the World's Worst Sandwich. I was very appreciative of how conscious he was: whatever trace of tomato juice he wiped off was obviously an upgrade to the rat feces it looked like he washed his apron in.

My number was called. I went to collect the World's Worst Sandwich. But there was a twist.

What's this? A bag of potato chips accompanies the World's Worst Sandwich! Things are looking up!

I was instantly psyched by this positive development in my dinner, but as the bag made the transfer into my hands, I was swiftly crushed: It was the smallest bag of potato chips I've ever seen in my LIFE.

On the back of the potato chip bag it says, "All the flavor. Where's the fat?"

Well, I have a question for you, potato chip bag copywriter.... Where's the [expletive] chips?

I know it's hard to see, so let me tell you that this bag of potato chips had exactly 10 chips in it. And, shocker, they were awful. They don't even bother to call them potato chips. They call them "popped chip snack." Eff you.

I brought the World's Worst Sandwich back to my car. I unwrapped it, surveyed it. It looked dreadful. But still, I'd paid for it. So I bit in.

I should have just taken this sandwich, found the person I hated most in the world, and thrown it in their face. That would have been the appropriate purpose of this sandwich. Every ingredient was the wrong temperature. It tasted like pickled dirt.

If they replaced the hospital pain chart with a chart of sandwiches, with a nice, crispy spicy buffalo chicken sandwich being a 1 -- this sandwich would represent pain so intense you begged for death. I would rather die than eat this sandwich again.

I ate a third of it anyway. Then I crumpled it up and put it on the driver's side seat. I considered running this sandwich into a tree. Taking this sandwich far out in the woods and burying it.

Instead I brought it home and threw it in the trash.

So thank you, Charlton, Massachusetts rest stop "Fresh City," for providing me with the World's Worst Sandwich. You win this time. I learned a valuable lesson today that if I desire a nosh, but also need gas, I would be better off drinking straight from the pump than eating this sandwich.

And I'm still hungry.

Home is wherever I'm with you

I'm not having a great evening. I rarely cry (and I'm not now), but when I'm feeling down, I try and remind myself how lucky I am. And then I feel even more sad because I'm such a cheesy writer.

Onwards...

• My life is 6% better right now because: My husband has made me a home cooked meal the past two nights. And seriously HOME COOKED. There have been carrots pealed and diced, from-scratch marinara sauces simmering and more parsley purchased than will garnish the plates at Applebees this month. It's part of a challenge Jeff is doing, and I'm proud of him for it. And the food is gooooooood. (Check out Jeff's blog for more details of this exciting new project.)
• My life is 4.5% better because: Louis CK. I'm mildly obsessed with him right now. Are you watching his show on FX? It's absurdly hilarious. Unless I'm watching it with my mom, in which case it is completely inappropriate and should be canceled immediately.
• My life is 3% better because: I hate to come back to food so quickly, but my aunt's homemade blueberry jam/jelly (hell if I know the difference) has been the highlight of my mornings. Things are just seriously, so much better when they are homemade. The Amish are onto something!
• My life is 2.37% better because: I found a pair of shorts that I like for the first time since I was a teenager. That is a long time to wear pants in the heat, a lot of unnecessary sweating, a LOT of leg paleness LET ME TELL YOU.
• My life is 1.48% better because: I'm drinking beer now. I decided to get into it, GIVE IT A WHIRL, find out what all the RAVES are about. I started with the girly beers (Bud Light Lime anyone?) and am slowly working my way through the Sam Adamses of the world. Not sure it will ever be my first choice, but I'll never feel lonely at a kegger again.
• My life is 0.72% better because: Our credit cards are paid off, our non-student loan debt is nearly non-existent, and we're on the track to start buying a home. How FREAKING exciting. It's like I'm almost an adult! (Hoping to get all the way there by 32.)
• My life is .0065% better because: I'm working hard, and I know I am. It's satisfying, and it makes me better than you.

What is making your life good right now?

The hate list

I gotta be honest with you, blog reader: not a lot of thought goes into my blog posts. I don't spend a lot of time crafting a thesis, writing an outline, or stealing jokes from lesser known bloggers. I don't even usually re-read my posts cause damn... I do that all day.

I usually say, hey self... why don't you blog something so you don't feel like such a fracking failure of a writer. Then I cry for 30 minutes, find a topic and head over here to rattle off 15 minutes worth of thoughts, hit publish and send the contents of my word vomit out into cyber space to be found by the kind of people who google, "construction company picnic games contests." (Seriously.)

Just wanted to give you a little insight into the mind of the blog magician.

But since you're here, hey, how about a little story?

When I was in high school (GLORY DAYS!), I used to hang out in big packs of people. On weekend nights, my mother would literally drop me on corners and a huge crowd of like 30 friends would wander the neighborhood until we found a parent willing to let the group of us into their basement where we would TOTALLY MAKE OUT.

When we weren't attempting to open beer bottles by breaking them on the cement, we did things like compile a "Hate List." Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking we put other students on it, and spread vicious rumors about classmates. But alas, dear blog reader, my life is not a Tina Fey movie. Examples of things on our hate list included: The pledge of allegiance, the Mowry sisters, and the quadratic formula. See, we couldn't spread vicious rumors about the nerds in our class because WE WERE THE NERDS. And weeeeeee were quirky!

Anyways, I'm pretty sure I held said hate list for the duration of high school, and we'd add as necessary. And then I lost it. I'd give my right arm to see it because it became legendary and I could really use it to milk for a blog post. Oh wait...

As I've gotten older, there's a lot more to hate. Here's a few things I hate:

• Milk.
• The fact that no one cleans up after me.
  
• Anyone who runs a mile under 12 minutes.
  
• Sylvester Stallone's creepy arms.
• Fake laughter.
  
• Thinking.
• Bad iced coffee.
  
• When my windshield wipers get sucky.
• Myself, for reading Perez Hilton.com.
  
• Star Wars/Major League quotes.
• Celebrities who drop 40 pounds 3 weeks after they give birth to four pound babies.
  
• Sunshine.
  
• Sherbet.
• Guilt trips.
  
• Crazy cakes statements from Jesse Jackson.
• LOLing over 16.
• Renee Zellweger's weird squish face.
  
• People who spell Twilight -- Twighlight. You are just all kinds of dumb, girl.
• High school boys with more precise hairdos than I have.
• People who insist I repeat my last name so they can know how to pronounce it correctly when it doesn't matter/they won't remember.
  
• Anyone who thought the following movies were good: Step Brothers, No Country for Old Men or The Thin Red Line.
• The fact I will never look like this.
• Insects.
  
• Kombucha. Because I don't know what it is and all of a sudden it's everywhere. I fear what I do not understand.
• Lady Gaga.
  
• HTML.
• Men's Health.
  
• The credit card commercial that ends with a song playing that says, "Callll meeeeeeee."
  
• Nurses who can't spell surgery. There ain't no sugar in it.
• When I want to drop a swear word on the internet but I can't because my "mom" and "my superiors" read my blog.
• The fact that this man and I will never be one.
  
• Laziness.
• My back.
• When my mix CDs get scratched.
  
• Having to create user names and passwords for EVERYTHING.
• Bloggers who get free stuff. That ain't fair. I want a year long supply of Venus flytraps, Jordan almonds, desk calendars, SOMETHING.
• Excessive hating. Seriously, lighten up.
  

I'm thinking I'll add to this list as time goes on because I do hate so, so much. What do you hate dear reader? An no, no names.

I'll bet that you look good on the dancefloor

Do you like music? You do? Gosh, we have so much in common.

I'm a girl. No.... really. As such, I've had a few mix tapes made for me in my life. I guess I attract that kind of man. It could be worse. I could attract the kind of man who gives me an STD.

Mix tapes are a great thing to receive, whether it be from a friend or someone who's interested in you (the MORE you KNOW). Jeff has made me a boat load of mix CDs in our relationship, I'd venture to say over 30. He's been, basically, my entire source of new music over the last four or so years. He always complains how I don't make any mix CDs for him... how could I? I'm a hermit.

But recently, I've been exchanging mix CDs with a friend. And like Rob Gordon once said, "The making of a good compilation tape is a very subtle art. Many do's and don'ts. First of all you're using someone else's poetry to express how you feel. This is a delicate thing."

When you make somebody a mix CD you desperately want them to love it. You want them to think, "The maker of this CD is keenly aware of all things cool. She obviously is someone with many friends with tattoos and piercings and probably once had purple hair. She eats all her food with chopsticks and conducts her business at coffee houses. She knows sign language and has been to Croatia."

Anywhoozle, I went the ol' Cover Songs route the last exchange. And if I do say so myself, it was pretty dope. (Do people still use that word? If not, they will, because I have, and I am at the forefront of TRENDS.)

Here be the track list. And here's a link to all the songs on a playlist. Love 8tracks!

Track 01: Into the Mystic -- Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (Van Morrison)

A few months ago I saw a little movie called "Once." If you have not seen this movie, you need to DROP IT right now and rent it. I enjoyed it so much I watched it twice, nearly back to back. I loved it so much I wouldn't shut up about it. I like it so much that you would not want to see it just because, just to spite me, because I love it so much. While spite is a perfectly good reason not to see a movie, I urge you not to miss out just because I make you roll your eyes. The movie stars the aformentioned Hansard/Irglova combo and their voices are like butter and brown sugar together. And Into the Mystic is one of my favorite songs of all time.

Track 02: Baby I'm Yours -- Arctic Monkeys

Track 03: Overkill -- Colin Hay

Technically cheating. I did not know this was a self cover until I was halfway through watching the VIDEO of the original and thought to myself, "Duhhh... these two lead singers sound awfully alike!" Then I walked into a doorframe and washed a pen with my clothes.

Track 04: Bizarre Love Triangle -- Frente!

Don't you love when a female covers a male vocal? This song is so stripped down it's GAWGEOUS.

Track 05: Jolene -- White Stripes

GOOSEBUMPS. Not the series, the sensation.

Track 06: I Just Can't Help Falling in Love With You -- U2

Track 07: Just Like Heaven -- Laura Cortese

Track 08: Hurt -- Johnny Cash

Track 09: Asshole -- Tom Petty

Track 10: Sheena Is a Punk Rocker -- Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs

Track 11: Live and Let Die -- Guns and Roses

These are all pretty self explanatory, right? I'm going to keep going if you don't mind.

Track 12: Gone Daddy Gone -- Gnarls Barkley

I popped this one on here because said friend is a Violent Femmes fan. For some reason this song makes me want to the do the mashed potato (do the mashed potato).

Track 13: Don't Let Me Down -- Stereophonics

Track 14: Romeo and Juliet -- The Killers

Track 15: Scarlet Begonias -- Sublime

Track 16: You Ain't Going Nowhere -- Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova

So nice I had to include them twice. Oooooo weeee!

Track 17: Running to Stand Still -- Elbow

Track 18: Wonderwall -- Ryan Adams (Thanks Jessica!)

Track 19: Mad World -- Gary Jules (it's a cover, look it up!)

Track 20: Last Kiss -- Pearl Jam

Track 21: I Will Survive -- Cake

Track 22: I Just Gotta Get a Message to You -- Gavin Castleton

I love a good key change. Who doesn't?

What other good covers are there out there? Anyone else have any good summer playlists they want to share? Hello... is this thing on?