How I became the very thing I always laughed at.

I just discovered that my former high school has a Wikipedia entry.

In the words of actual high-schoolers, OMG.

Sweet Harold Jesus, this is funny.

Alright. Here's the intro...

"Saint Charles East High School is a public four-year high school located in St. Charles, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. It is part of Community Unit School District 303 which also includes Saint Charles North High School which no one likes."

Awesome. Now please note that I graduated before the split, a.k.a. "Before the year 2000, one high school served all students within the District 303 boundaries." But my sister graduated from North.

Fun fact: St. Charles, Illinois, may be the most redundant town in America! It was bad enough when we were the Saint Charles Saints (creative, guys), but now the town is split between the Saint Charles East Saints and the Saint Charles North North Stars.

*sigh*

Moving on...

The rest is pretty dull. There's a blurb running down the big Black Mold Scandal of 2001, when they "discovered" this mold all up in the walls of the building that was "believed to be the source of some student and teacher illnesses" (over a span of decades). From what I hear, when they tore down the building, there were places where garbage had been stuffed into the walls in place of insulation. Just what I heard. And I think it's pretty dang convenient that they "discovered" it in 2001, coincidentally the first year that the NEW high school was open, after years of "investigating" the poor air-quality at the school. Sure, you discover that there's crazy shit running ALL through this huge building... but where are you gonna put 25,000 teenagers? Better hurry up with that new campus, home-skillet.

OH! And the other most-fun thing about my school? The fight song.

Here's to St. Charles High School
Bring victory back
Heres to our colors---
the Orange and the Black
RAH, RAH, RAH,
Here's to all the fellows
Who bear our name
Fighting to defeat the foe
And win this game
RAH, RAH, RAH,
RAH, RAH, RAH,
RAH, RAH, RAH,
RAH, RAH, RAH,
RAH, RAH, RAH,
RAH, RAH, RAH,
Saaaaaaint Charles!

As horrible-sounding and uncreative as that was (21 "RAH"s in a 16 line song?!), apparently now they've modified it for the new East campus. While they have jammed the word "East" into the first line (which was awkward enough to sing to begin with), the addition of "East" to the end of the last line does eliminate the irritatingly drawn-out "Saaaaaint". However, that did always add a spark of sarcasm to a totally lame cheer, so I think the change may still be for the worse. They have not, however, taken out the line that specifically lauds the "fellows who bear our name". *grunt*

Hey! A girl I graduated with was an American Idol Top 24 finalist. Who knew? Well, I guess people who lived in my town and watched American Idol. Anyhow, it was the season Jordin Sparks won, and from what I remember, Leslie Hunt was and probably is still way cooler than Jordin Sparks. For what that's worth.

The point of all this?
(Sorry. I got side-tracked by Wikipedia!)

I looked up my damn high school because the school motto had always cracked me up. It was "To Create Caring, Responsible, Life-long Learners". My friends and I always made fun of those signs in the classrooms, in a dorky, super dated orange type, laminated and stuck to the walls.

But I realized something.
I AM a caring, responsible, life-long learner.
Son of a bitch.
It worked.

I mean when you think about it, I was in school from the ages of 3 to 21, so a precedent had kind of been set. A person gets used to learning stuff. For a few years, I just felt odd and stagnant, but now I've realized my place as a caring, responsible, life-long learner, and I'm going to embrace it.

I'm gonna learn stuff.

I've been trying to teach myself a few things in vain over the last year or so, but I usually don't stick with it.

Maybe I will if I can write about it afterwards.

SO...
Anyone who reads this blog?
Prepare to hear a lot about this in the future.

And if you don't, be sure to give me crap about it.

Oh, bite me.

Give me a break, really.

Why is it that every time I browse the "reviews" on items at Urban Outfitter's website, it seems like there is ALMOST ALWAYS one or more comments reading, "I'm 5'8" and 113 lbs. and this just did NOT fit right at all. The top was SOOO baggy and it just looked weird." And I just want there to be a place for me to reply and be like, "Either a) you're lying about your weight and it STILL doesn't fit you right, in which case you don't NEED to give your dimensions in this review and too bad about the fact that the piece you purchased didn't fit, or b) EAT MEALS REGULARLY FOR A WEEK and maybe your clothes will fit like clothes instead of dropcloths."

Unless this person is like my pal Jana and just can't put on the pounds, no matter how much dark chocolate and peanut butter she eats. In which case, I feel for you... but forgive me if I don't want to be seen in the same mirror next to you.

Or if they are actually Jana.

(Hi, Jana!)

Or maybe the bigger problem is mine. And the fact that I troll UO's website. I tell you, if I actually purchased something once for every 100 times I trolled the site, it would STILL be a marked increase from my current spending patterns.

Hey Safari! SCREW YOU!

Man, how much does the Safari browser suck?

I abandoned it about 8 months ago at work, but it had been doing alright by me on my home computer until today. After having to restart the program 5 times in one sitting and talking myself down from wanting to flip my computer off my desk (I reminded myself that the computer was heavy and my arms were sore), I got Safari to stay functional for just long enough to download Firefox.

I mean, sure, a Safari sounds pretty awesome and wild... but it's nothing compared to a Firefox. A fox on its own is fairly bad-ass, but throw in some fire? WHOA NELLY! Plus, as adventurous and far-off-land-y Safari sounds, we all know that Firefox is a roundhouse-kicking, laser gun-wielding, tough-as-nails intergalactic fighter. Africa is exotic, but not as exotic as frickin' SPACE. It's the final frontier, beeeatch!

*sigh*

So yeah. Firefox and I have been very happy together for the last 20 minutes. He imported ALL of my 8 bazillion bookmarks from Safari in the blink of an eye (the prospect of doing so myself being the only thing that has kept me from making the switch eons ago), and all is well.

However, if it locks up when I go to post this blog, the computer may be upside-down in the hallway when Matt gets home.

And BTW, the way to my heart is...

... apparently, a small penguin made of rice and seaweed, stuffed with salmon, mayo, and wasabi.

Dear god.

Go ahead, browse this bento website, Cooking Cute, for a while. It will surely (if you're anything like me) send you into A) an uncontrollable fit of needing impeccably-presented, multi-course meals in an itty-bitty box that looks something like the hybrid of a tackle box and Sailor Moon's pencil case, and B) a bit of confused horror as you try to imagine having so much time on your hands (steady and nimble hands, mind you) to create things like this...



Now, just so there's no confusion here, you're looking at hand-crafted sushi rolls, made with salmon rice and rolled up to look like pig faces, teeny-tiny hot dog flowers with carrot centers, fans made out of kamaboko (a processed fish product; yes, I had to look that up on Wikipedia), crazy decorative edibles made from colored sticky rice, nigiri with little Spam pig heads, and finally an egg DYED PINK AND SHAPED INTO A PIG FACE. No, that's not plastic.


I KNOW, right?










I don't think I'm QUITE cut out for the hard-core bento lifestyle, but some of the ideas are very good.


And the lunch-boxes are just adorable.

Did somebody say "WANT!"?
Oh wait, that was me.

Tears for fears... Wow, rather literally.

You know what makes me sad?




This.
The Vespa GTV 250.


This beautiful piece of machinery.
So stylish.
So classy.

The gas mileage?
65-70 miles per gallon.
Unheard of for a car.

Where can I park it?
Anywhere I damn well please!
It fits EVERYWHERE.

Did I mention how cool-looking it was?

But alas!
I am so terrified of the way other people drive that I could never conceivably talk myself into getting one of these as a replacement for my car because, yes, I am a wuss. And I'm very concerned with the prospect of causing irreparable damage to my person.

Is it any wonder that I have no damn cred?

Challah if ya hear me!

Heehee.

I made challah rolls just now. No big twisty caper, just simple buns as instructed by my "Les Dames D'Escoffier" cookbook. This is a goooooood recipe.

I'm holding myself back until dinner to start plowing into them, but as you can see, I HAD to test at least one to make sure they were fit for consumption. (And they are.) Those puppies are going in the oven again right before dinner. SO GOOD.








The following are a collection of photos I found on my camera that have accumulated over the last month...








This is a mutant strawberry Matt took a picture of. It's almost like it has an evil twin trying to grow out the side. I'm sure it was delicious.










These are some shoes I bought with my share of the kitty after the DK break-up. They're cute, but I still miss DK.













This is what the apartment looks like these days (for messier or for cleaner). I DID recently move things around to accommodate my new bike trainer attachment. That's right, I exercise now.












Not quite sure why I took this picture, but one can see that my hair had gotten very long (on one side, at least). I cut it this week and am SOOO happy I did. No more sweaty hair on the back of my neck when I'm biking in my living room!














And this was just a day I found myself looking kind of good, which apparently led me to make a smirky Juliet-from-Lost face into the camera.


(Sidenote: Is my nose getting longer and bonier, or is it just the angle of this photo?)


Alright. Enough of this. That bottle o' wine ain't gonna uncork itself.

Don't worry! I did my taxes!

... And I mailed them out yesterday.

Wow.
I really pushed it this year.

I've been INSANELY zooey busy. Quick rundown of why...

- The new Hungry Girl book comes out/"drops" on Tuesday. Which means my boss is going to be touring the country for the next few weeks, which means we've all been working double-time to get a bunch of stuff taken care of before she's gone. Sure, she can approve emails from the road, but it's a little hard to IM her a low-cal strawberry margarita (that's right; keep an eye out for that recipe)...

- "Gloves Required" is still running.
(I think if you click on that picture, it will take you to a bigger image.)

- I've been working on some short films! YAY! "Attack of the Werenerd" will hopefully be up online soon, and the more intensive project "Puppy Love" will hopefully be eventually making the festival circuit. Rad. Mad props to Brett Gilbert, the fool awesome guy who foolishly wisely cast me in both of those pieces.

- I participated in a staged reading for the Living Room series at the Blank Theatre of "Occupied", a new play by David Misch (who is awesome). I spent my time hanging out with really fun people and eating obscene amounts of pizza. I credit this experience for finally prompting me to buy a bike trainer, so I can get exercise in my living room (it all comes back around), since I have no control around pizza.
- ... Eh, there's been other stuff, but I don't want to go through all of it because --

I'm on Spring Break!

Granted, my "Spring Break" is a long weekend, but I'm gonna make the most of it!
And this is the last time you're gonna see these...