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January 10, 2013

Day 47: Getting Ready

On Saturday, I’m leaving my beautiful, snowy state (by “beautiful,” I mean a specific brand of beautiful… like, that-snow-used-to-be-pristine-but-now-it’s-brown-and-gross kind of beautiful). While I’m away, I’ll be in the sweltering foreign land of Australia.

Needless to say, I’m incredibly excited. My best friend from college currently lives there and will be serving as my travel friend and tour guide.

BF and I spent many a college night eating Easy Mac and coming up with fake stories about fake versions of ourselves. We were the funniest fakers on campus, as was evidenced by our slew of fake friends. I’m anticipating a delightfully fun fake reunion, followed by a real one, followed by days and days of hiking and snorkeling. And possible poisoning.

My dad pointed out that most of the world’s most poisonous species of animals live in Australia. I made the mistake of Googling all of them. My advice to you is to never do that.

Big Fish

That’s my BF and Giant Nemo (not poisonous) in Australia earlier this year.

In preparation for my trip, I’ve made a preliminary packing list:

Swimsuit (obviously)
Backup swimsuit (Since I didn’t already have a backup swimsuit, I quickly bought one on clearance from J.Crew. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a pretty color for under $10/piece, so I bought a suit the exact same color as my skin, covered in white polka dots. I’m not sure why it was on clearance.)
SPF one million sunscreen
My seven-year-old laptop (How else will I blog?)
At least eight pairs of shoes
A bunch of hardcover books
Advil for when I hurt my back carrying all those shoes and books
My blue ‘Go Fly a Kite’ fanny pack

I will continue to refine my list as the date approaches. Until then, feel free to let me know if I’m missing anything.

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January 7, 2013

Day 44: We All Do It

Here are six things you probably do and think no one else does (but they do):

1. Not-so-quietly call everyone ahead of you in the airport security line an “amateur” and then proceed to be the worst prepared traveler ever.

You usually remember to put your liquids in a plastic baggie, but it’s buried somewhere underneath the five-pound bag of trail mix you need to sustain yourself on the two-hour flight. And last time you were in line, you double-knotted your shoe laces and made everyone behind you wait while you tried to untie your shoes with one hand and unzip your laptop case with the other.

2. Sing in the shower because you think other people do it and not because you actually like singing in the shower.

Nobody likes singing in the shower (except maybe the professionals).

3. Pretend you’re asleep.

Maybe you haven’t done it since you were five years old and wanted your dad to carry you from the car to the house (driveways can be very long). Or, maybe you did it yesterday when you heard your partner and/or housemate come home and you knew s/he wanted you to organize the junk drawer. Pretending to be asleep is oftentimes the perfect avoidance maneuver. The only problem is that we all do it, so we all know you’re pretending.

4. Realize you’re wrong during an argument and keep arguing anyway because you don’t know what else to do.

You know the moment—when you’ve been passionately making a point and you realize you either meant to make the opposite point or you actually don’t know what you’re talking about. At that moment, there’s really no turning back, so you keep going until both parties are confused by your vehemence.

5. Say you watch less TV than you actually watch.

We’ve all seen the research about how TV rewires and/or rots the brain. But one half-hour, once per week? Please. Downton Abbey counts.

6. Envision doing something inappropriate at a really inopportune time.

Whether it’s reciting the last scene of Die Hard during your niece’s baptism or unsuccessfully attempting the tablecloth trick on that couple sitting next to you at dinner, you maintain a high (but stifled) potential for inappropriate outbursts at any given time.

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January 3, 2013

Day 40: The Top Five

In honor of today being the day we all start writing “2013” instead of “2012” on everything, I thought I’d list the top five posts on this blog from 2012. Interestingly (to me), they do not coincide with my own top five favorites—but that’s a post for another day.

In 37 days of blogging, here are the most popular 402 posts:

1. Day 16: Not About Dating
It was a post about dating.

2. Day 12: Good Advice
As a new freelancer, I shared what I learned about the freelancing lifestyle.

3. Day 23: Not About Dating, Part 2
It’s a collection of conversations between my BFF, her husband and myself. About dating.

4. Day 9: We Are(n’t) Young
A friend and I went to a concert and we were the oldest people there.

5. Day 4: The Binder
My mother gave me a 300-page binder of every instant message conversation we had while I was in college. This is one of them.

I hope you and yours enjoy a happy and interesting 2013. In case one of your resolutions this year is to be more creative and spend less time reading blogs, here are some awesome things you can make using empty toilet paper rolls.

December 21, 2012

Day 27: Call for Content

Since the world is still here, I will continue my plan to blog every day until it ends (or until December 31, 2013).

In January, I am taking a trip to see my favorite outdoor enthusiast in Australia. I may not have Internet access each day I’m there, so I’ll have to pre-plan some posts. The concept of pre-planning is a pretty big paradigm shift for this particular writer, because I’ve been flying by the seat of my pants so far.

Thus, I need some help.

Call for Content

Do you have a great blog post idea? Please, please (please) share it with me (unless you are saving it for your bad blogging self, which I completely understand). Here is what I’m looking for:

Interesting people to profile
Interesting philosophies to ponder
Interesting personal quirks to discuss (yours, someone else’s, etc.)
Interesting questions to probably not answer
Interesting books to discover
Un-interesting stuff of all ilk

I’ll take whatever you’ve got. Leave your best, worst and everything-in-between nuggets in the comments section below.

America thanks you.

Also, here is a picture of Brian Boitano wearing his Girl Scout sash. He does a good turn daily.

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December 20, 2012

Day 26: What day is it?

As a not-purveyor of apocalyptic information, I thought the end of the world was on 12/12/12. My bad.

Since I’ve been informed that it’s actually tomorrow, I came up with a list of items I will take with me into the imaginary bunker I imaginarily built in the basement of my apartment building. Then, I will imaginarily emerge from my bunker on 12/22/12 to find peace and happiness abounding. That’s how apocalypses work, right?

Items:

At least three pillows of varying sizes. There’s no point in lounging around in an imaginary bunker if it’s not comfortable.

Raspberry licorice. It’s way better than the regular kind.

My George Winston December CD and the discman I’ve been keeping in my desk drawer for just such an occasion. It will be comforting to hear the skip-whir of the disc under the sweet piano tunes, and the odds are that my iPhone won’t be working because I wasted the battery refreshing Facebook.

Thin Mint-flavored Girl Scout Lip Smaker. I ran out of cookies like six months ago, so the waxy lip stuff will have to do.

More pillows, in case someone visits me and wants to borrow one.

The Company Store catalog. Obviously.

“The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat,” by Oliver Sacks. It’s interesting, touching, funny and much scarier than an apocalypse.

Brian Boitano. He’s very resilient (most recently, he survived a flip and a flop in my sink when I accidentally poured him out of his bowl), but I’d prefer not to leave him alone above ground.

A roll of quarters. If money loses its value entirely, at least I can play more games with quarters than I can with a ten dollar bill.

Which reminds me… Pogs. I need to find my Pogs.

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