I’m not often this excited… But tomorrow I’m getting my very own bike! Yes indeed, girls and boys… Turns out it really pays to have a badass cycling dude for a best friend these days, because that means you get his fancy Italian cast-off parts to build a killer velocipede. After falling head over heels for spinning classes a year ago, this is certainly the next logical progression… I’m STOKED!

5 comments April 29th, 2006

My pal Digital Ed tagged me to cough up “Six Weird Things About Me” and since there are far more than just a half-dozen of those things, this should be a piece of cake:

1. When I’m nervous or thinking about a complex issue, I twirl my hair… Then again, I also do that when my blow-dryer combines with proper atmospheric conditions to create an unusually smooth result.

2. I dress like I have multiple personality disorder… Or according to my mom, I go to extremes – From banker to rock star to pinup. Clothing can be a fun avenue of self expression.

3. Never had the chicken pox, but recent test results show that I am somehow immune. Maybe it was simply the most undetectably mild case ever? In any case, I’m extremely grateful.

4. Lately I’ve been collecting Hermes Twilly silk ribbons. I wear them tied in a bow on the handle of my purse, as a bracelet, in my hair, as neckwear, and even as a belt.

5. Though I keep lip gloss in my purses, in my glove box, in my drawer at work, on both desks, on my bedside table, in the medicine cabinet, in my makeup bag, etc… I always forget to reapply until it’s too late.

6. Before last year I had never seen snow fall from the sky.

It’s Your Turn: Nihility, Ms. Grins, Deleted Soul, and Jason

6 comments April 28th, 2006

Would you rather:

• Be stuck beside somebody with horrible body odor on a crowded subway car or pressed against someone with an obvious erection on a long elevator ride?

   
  Think what you want about me, but I’d pick the boner. My sense of smell is way too keen, and I’m far too prone to vomit when something foul passes my nostrils.

• Find out your parents kidnapped you when you were a baby and raised you as their own or find out you had a twin that died at birth that they never told you about?

   
  I’d rather find out about a deceased twin, because if my parents were so committed to having me as their own that they’d sink into a life of crime to obtain me, I certainly hope that I would have been treated a little bit better in my youth… Hmmph!

• Find out that you will die exactly on your 75th birthday or never know?

   
  Piece of cake! I hate surprises. Loathe them. I’ll take the known over the unknown any day. Even though most people in my family live to see their mid-eighties and nineties, I’d be willing to sacrifice a decade or more just to know my checkout date in advance. Who knows, it could even revolutionize the way I live my life.

• Have regular encounters with aliens and not have any proof or have your best friend be invisible?

   
  Alien life forms would freak the shit out of me. Fortunately, I don’t believe in their existence. Having an invisible friend might not be so awful. In fact, most of my best friends are pretty invisible as it is, since our busy lives force us to keep in touch verbally and via text. Plus, invisible friends can shoplift for you undetected.

4 comments April 25th, 2006

Saw this “Mallard Fillmore” comic in the paper last week and it got me thinking. My mother may be far from a shining example, but she had me reading by age three… I kid you not! To this day I can remember our “play time” with phonics and flashcards. Those early years set the stage for a life-long love of learning.

These days, so many parents don’t view their children’s education as a personal responsibility. Either they feel ill-equipped, uninterested, or too busy. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions… My aunt and uncle are among them. They homeschooled my six cousins, the oldest of whom recently graduated from UCLA.

I was always a little jealous of their personalized education because I was always so bored! In both private and public schools, I had the same experience of waiting for the slowest moron in class to catch up so that we could finally move on and learn something new. The whole process was terribly painful for a bright girl with A.D.D.

Maybe some day I’ll have a family and face decisions about education. I wonder if I’ll have the option to home school, or if economic conditions will force me to subject my children to the boredom I once endured.

9 comments April 24th, 2006