Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Weird Things I Say

10. "Pavlov's dogs." This phrase was more prevalent in my college years. For some reason, I liked to relate things to a Pavlovian response almost daily. "That is just like Pavlov's dogs."
9. "Never Say That Again." You are probably thinking that this is not that weird of a thing to say, but I like to say it with a dramatic tone, and after something has been said only once. Roxy: "Did you hear that the grocery store stopped carrying Little Debbie Chocolate Cupcakes?" Me: "Never say that again."
8. "Carp." Camelio Estevez is the originator of this word, but it is making it's way around. It started as a consistent IM typo of the word crap but is now intentionally used..."What the carp are you still doing at work?" "Where the carp have you been?" I guess it is becoming widespread though because Carly told me her mom used it when they were in the car the other day.
7. "Blego." I made up this word as a combo of blog ego. "Gosh, his/her blego is really getting out of hand."
6. "You can do it, Shannon Miller." My sisters and I used to conduct Olympic Gymnastics on the lawn and my stepmom was our coach. She would say in a loud German (I don't know why German) accent just before all of our cartwheels, "You can do it, Shannon Miller." Now whenever I need to give words of encouragement, I usually follow it up with a Shannon Miller.
5. "Gag Me With A Pitchfork." If something makes me sick, this is what I say. I don't know why.
4. "How am I doin'?" This is to the cadence and tone of Joey Tribiani's "How You Doin'?" but is altered for situations such as trying on something cute in a dressing room.
4.a. "How's he doin'?" Again like Joey...but for such situations as passing a handsome man on the road, or Matthew McConaughey coming onscreen, etc...
3. "Tight as Dick's hatband." All I know about this saying is my grandfather, my mom and I all say it. It comes from a John Wayne movie and surprisingly fits into a lot more conversation than you would think. "I ate too much Thanksgiving dinner and now my pants are as tight as Dick's hatband."
2. "I'm a poet. I didn't know it, but my feet they surely show it. They're Longfellows." My mom said this dumb poem when I was a little girl. I can't stop myself from carrying on the tradition and say it, without thinking, anytime Longfellow is mentioned or I accidentally rhyme.
1. "That makes me not be able to swallow." I know there are more concise ways to express this sentiment, but this wording is really the only one I consider to capture the proper essence of my emotion. It is generally said while holding the throat and attempting to swallow (It is reserved for situations worse than those where I would use #5.) "That 200 pound tumor with hair and teeth inside is making me not be able to swallow."

Monday, March 28, 2005

Trying to Get out of 10 Years of Curses

Today I received the most ridiculous chain letter e-mail forward I have ever seen. I won't bore you with the story, because it has to be the dumbest one ever, but my favorite parts of the email were the chain-letter instructions at the end. They were:


"I like you because of who you are to me...a true friend. And if I don't get this back, I'll take the hint.

Tonight at midnight your true love will realize they truly love you.

Something good will happen to you at 1:00-4:00pm tomorrow. It could be anywhere: AOL, yahoo, outside of work, anywhere.

Get ready for the biggest shock of your life.

Also if you break this chain letter you will be cursed with 10 problems for the next !ten years!

If you send it to 15 people in 15 min you are safe!"


Shoot! What was I thinking when I didn't forward it? Now my true love will not realize he loves me at midnight tonight nor will I get the biggest shock of my life tomorrow from 1-4 anywhere: on AOL or yahoo or anywhere else. Not to mention the curses.

What I really wonder is: who wrote this? and how does it keep getting forwarded? I guess I AM posting it on the internet. Perhaps it will get me out of my curses...this seems better than forwarding it. I can only hope.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

A Few Unrelated Thoughts

Because I Loved the British version of The Office, I am a little skeptical that the American version is going to be as funny. But I'm willing to give it a shot. If you haven't seen the BBC version, check it out.

It's now the time of day when my boss usually takes a nap. But today, instead he came rushing into my office and said, "Do you have anything urgent for me?" When I answered that I didn't, he said he was going swimming and took off.

I won't be eating Wendy's chili anytime soon. Check out the video on that too, unless you're squeamish. Speaking of gross videos, I once saw a show about the world's largest tumor. It was 200 or so pounds I think and they found teeth and hair inside. The truth is I have it on tape. For some reason, when they said, "after the commercial break: the world's largest tumor," I felt compelled to pop in a tape and record it. I better look for that tonight, it has been a few years and I think it's time to bring it off the shelf again.

Monday, March 21, 2005

March MADness

It's 11:54 a.m. and I could really use a substantial meal right now---probably because I had basketball practice til almost 11 last night and now all I want is some heavy pasta. or a steak. or some steaky pasta.

I got checked into the Smackdown by my "coach" last night. I use that term loosely because, well, I don't really know how my teammate's boyfriend ended up as our coach. Last night he stopped play to come over to me in front of the team and say, "What happened on that, Marcy? Did you not play the release?" I was very polite to his condescending tone and told him I would do better next time. After this, he demonstrated to the team what I should have done.

In our game on Saturday, I was going for a rebound when a player from the opposing team practically ripped my arm off. The ref blew the whistle and he called it our ball. The arm ripper argued the call and said I touched the ball last, which is true. I did touch the ball last during the attempted arm-rip-off. The cowardly ref did not stand up to her and stick by his foul call, but looked at me and asked if I had touched the ball last. I looked at him in disbelief and finally said yes. Maybe you think I'm a coward like him for not standing up for myself there, but I'm just so tired of the attitudes and arguing that are going on in church basketball. This is not a serious league, people. We are just trying to have some fun here.

Anyway, I heard the arm-ripper tell the ref that she couldn't believe that I was being dishonest by not coming forth and admitting that I had been the last to touch the ball. Luckily, the ref then got annoyed with her and told her to lay off it. A couple of minutes after this small drama, I made a basket and she looked at me and said "Lucky." So after the game when she was trying to avoid me, I followed her so she had to say "Good game" to me. One of my teammates congratulated me on being such a good sport, but I told her that really my intentions were not good at all. The only reason I went over to the rude arm-ripper was because I could tell she was avoiding me, and I wanted to force her to say it. A fairly harmless revenge I think.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Name This Song

The first person to e-mail me (my address is on my profile page) with the correct title and artist of this song wins. GO:


"A schoolboy's dream, you act so shy. Your very first kiss was your first kiss goodbye."

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

"But When We Wake, It's All Been Erased"

Last night I dreamed that I went to the Academy Awards with Renee Zellweger. We were friends and she invited me to go with her. Oddly enough, in my dream, I looked better than her. But of course in my dream I was super skinny and had a great dress. It was black and pink and long and fitted with black ribbon-like spaghetti straps. Renee was wearing a frumpy outfit that made her look like a grandma. We pulled up to the awards in her RV and got out for the red carpet walk. But since I am not famous they made me walk out of the cameras’ view alongside the red carpet. I was particularly upset because I had just gotten off the phone with my mom telling her to turn on the TV and watch for me. At the end of the red carpet just before you went inside, there was a check-in table where all the stars signed this HUGE book; Debra Messing was there. I looked over, trying to see all the famous signatures. And what signature was the largest and went across both pages of the book? Merle Norman. Yes, founder of my grandmother’s make-up company. Once we got inside, Renee grabbed me and said, “Well, you really turned Bob Barker’s head.”

This was an odd dream considering I’m really not a big Renee Zellwegger fan. Why wasn’t I going with someone like Matthew McConaughey? I guess he would be going with his girlfriend Penelope Cruz, though. And Bob Barker? In my dreams, where I can be and look like anyone I want, I chose to look gorgeous for Bob Barker? Oh well, at least it wasn’t as scary as the dream I had recently where I was descending elevators through the building of Hell-- “Dante’s Inferno” style-- with large, super-fast, flesh-colored snakes chasing me or wrestling Grizzly bears in water.

Monday, March 14, 2005

Awww yeah...

Jimmie Johnson won yesterday. I wish I could have seen it. Instead I went to a brunch for the temple workers in our ward hosted by the co-chairs of the Temple Committee at the Tramp house. That's short for Trampoline House. It's one of those houses that a ridiculous number of guys live in and there is hardly any furniture except for a giant trampoline in the foyer, a Viagra clock and a stuffed (and by stuffed I'm talking taxidermy not toy) jackalope on the table where our food was laid out.

Friday night, Shotzy and I went to our ward variety show. Some of the acts were good and some were painful. I went with the goal of meeting some new people, but it was so warm in there, I couldn't get in the right frame of mind while hot and sticky. So we left. But only after I battled it out with the Bishop for the last bottled water. We got home where Shotzy popped in her new cd of Queen's Greatest Hits, a purchase inspired by the "I Want to Break Free" C2 Commercial. After we listened a couple of times, we got online and watched the commercial and then wanted to breakdance like they do in it. "How hard can it be?" we asked. We found out we were not strong enough to move our legs while standing on our hands. I actually can't even stand on my hands. We both tried to stand on our heads instead(we had to lift each other's legs up) and after about 2 seconds we were both crying, "I've got to come down. I've got to come down." Then Shotzy curled up in a ball on her back with her legs crossed in the air while I spun her around. We both tried the move where you have one leg outstretched and spin it around while jumping over it. Yeah, that didn't work either. What we need is an instructional video. I'll check online today.

In other good news, we won our basketball game on Saturday! Okay so it wasn't an "official" game and the other team only had 2 players show up...so we just split our team and had a scrimmage, but the team I was on did win so that was fun after our humiliating loss last week. And we had some nice guys from the ward who volunteered to show up at 9am to ref, one of whom used a whistle pop for a whistle. I came away with 8 points, 0 fouls (I think his whistle pop must not have been working very well), 1 cut on my left wrist, and 1 large bruise on my right arm. And speaking of basketball, March Madness is here! I'm excited to make my picks today and send them in to the annual pool.

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Decisions, Decisions

Last week when I was in Utah, Kitty told me that my hair looked like Kirsten Dunst's at the Oscars. I only saw parts of the Oscars interspersed with episodes of Arrested Development: Season One, none of which included her. I do really like Kirsten Dunst though, so I was happy. This morning I looked through 31 pages of Oscar photos online looking for her before I stumbled onto this one. Try not to stare at orange Orlando and tell me what you think of her hair...I can't decide. I mean, I don't hate it, but I don't look at it and think "wow, I wish my hair looked like that" either. And frankly, I think that we all know that my at-home-haircut probably isn't as good as a star's, so maybe I need to rethink my current style. Anyway, it has been some food for thought for me today.
Speaking of the Oscars, my favorite part, of the parts I did see, was something that America had been wanting for a long time.. And that is--Salma and Penelope side by side. Finally! Having compared and contrasted, and as much as I wanted to choose curvy Salma, I have to say, I pick Penelope. And that is that. You?

Monday, March 07, 2005

How Can I Get in Great Shape by Saturday?

Highlights from my first basketball game in over 5 years:

1. Red Pants. This was my name on the court--given to me by the refs and the other team. "I'll guard red pants." "Watch out for red pants behind you." "Foul on red pants." "Foul #2 on red pants." "Foul #3 on red pants."...

2. Our team had never practiced together. Most of us hadn't played basketball in years, the rest had never played.

3. We played a team that plays together 3 times a week. They also have a college basketball player on their team.

4. We lost by 40 points.

5. I was so wasted after the 1st quarter, I almost threw up in the garbage can by the water fountain.

6. Since we had never practiced, the 15 minutes we had before the game was spent explaining the rules, positions, etc to those who had never played before.

7. We had a quick contest to see who could jump the highest on our team. I won and ran out to jump in the tip off. There I was standing in the center of the circle waiting to jump when they started the prayer. Because I hadn't been paying attention to everyone gathering around the circle for the prayer while I stood in the middle waiting to jump, I ended up standing with the other team for the prayer.

8. After the game, I couldn't talk or stop coughing like an old man. Apparently, playing really hard in a game after all these years gave me an immediate chest cold, which has yet to go away.

9. After having 3 fouls called on me in the first quarter, I took it down a notch and didn't get any for the rest of the game.

10. I did take the college basketball player to the floor over a rebound...luckily it was our turn for jumpball posession.

Lessons Learned:
Paula Abdul's Get Up and Dance Workout may not really work you out after all. I seriously knew I wasn't in good shape, but after Saturday (and the pain I am still in), I would say I'm in about 10-times-worse shape than I thought I was.

You can still have fun, even when it hurts and even when you lose by 40 points.

Question:
The excruciating pain that I inevitably face for all of our games on every Saturday for the next few weeks scares me to death...so how do you think I can get in great shape by Saturday?