Happy Thanksgiving!

NOOOOOOOOOO!

My inspiration building is gone!

There was an old carpet store downtown that had a big sign that said "CARPET" over the door. The letter "T" was always out, though, so the sign always said "CARPE."

It always reminded me to go and seize the day.

It got torn down. :( Now I need to find inspiration someplace else.

VINDICATION! I HAS IT!

So the wedding went well Saturday night with one notable exception: Me.

It wasn't that I sounded bad, unless a lot of people lied when they told me how well I did on my song, but it was more of a slight "flow" issue that I caused in the ceremony. It wasn't a terrible thing that happened, but it was both mildly embarrassing and confusing!

The very capable wedding coordinator we have in residence at our church always makes an itinerary for every ceremony she presides over. These things are exhaustive, seriously, and have everything listed in the order they are supposed to go. Everyone involved in the ceremony in any way gets a copy of this itinerary so that we all know exactly what we need to do, and to my knowledge, everything ALWAYS goes according to this plan. Sounds rather wonderful, right? Especially for those of you who know how confusing weddings can be.

Well, Saturday night I arrived at the church and realized that I had forgotten to bring my itinerary with me. I knew about where my song was supposed to be in the scheme of things, but I didn't want to wind up standing up too soon and grabbing the microphone before the sound guy was ready, or having to stand there like a giant Muppet while important wedding things were going on. I knew that the assistant wedding director would have a copy of the thing, so before the wedding started, I took a look at the list and ran back to my "soloist chair" in the shadowy corner of the church.

(FYI, that is the nice little niche where I get to sit and be as unobtrusive as possibly while I wait for my cue. I like that place because I don't have to walk in front of anyone to sing and pretty much no one sees me, only hears me, which is the way I like it. But I digress...)

Anyways, when I read the list, it said that there would be the "wedding vows & prayer" and then my solo for the unity candle. I was glad that there would be a prayer so I could would magically be at the microphone when everyone looked back towards the stage. So, I waited for my cue of "Let Us Pray." Everything was going fine, the bride and groom said their vows and exchanged their rings and suddenly, there was silence. Then there was rustling. Then there were people looking around. Then the wedding party was looking around! Apparently I had read the itinerary wrong! The harpist (yes, there was a harpist) said "I think you're supposed to be singing!" and so I ran to the microphone, my face aflame. I heard the pastor say that there was going to be a song, which wasn't part of his script, but he didn't know where I was thanks to the shadowy corner, and didn't know if I was even in the sanctuary or not! I did my song and sat down, and THEN the pastor said a prayer. Oy vey. A good thing about it is that I was so embarrassed that I didn't have a chance to be nervous about singing, so at least there was that!

Now, all I could think of what that I had contracted a terrible case of dyslexia if I actually read "Vows & Prayer" and then "Solo" after that if that wasn't what the list said. I knew it wasn't a big deal, and in reality the people looking for me probably didn't last more than a few seconds. However, I couldn't believe that I got that confused. Well, after everything was done and I was at the reception, I apologized to everyone I could think of (no one was upset, but I felt bad anyways.) I was honestly kind of worried about my eyes or brain, though, to have made that kind of mistake.

However, when I got home, I did a search for my itinerary and lookie what it said:
IT WASN'T MEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA!

I felt much better. You could probably tell that, though.

All in all, it went well. So I live to fight another day. :)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

RANDOM ACTS OB BLOGGING

1) Crap. I'm singing at a wedding tomorrow and I'm not at all comfortable with my song or my voice. I mean, damnit, Jim, I am not Shania Twain! There are notes in this song that defy my understanding. I'm going to have to fake it. I'm going to sound like a basset hound.

2) I am currently disgusted with clothes. Nothing I own is comfortable except for my sweatpants and giant hoodie sweatshirt, but I can't wear those everywhere! Heck, I can't wear them anywhere really. I have been looking for a decent dress to wear to Steve's Christmas party, but almost everything is sleeveless! SLEEVELESS! What the hell? Chubby girls don't like sleeveless, yet almost every danged dress in my size is sleeveless! AAAAGGGGH! I finally found a dress with sleeves on the internet, and I'm praying that it looks OK once I've gotten it. You know what though? I'm going to wear it anyways! I might wind up looking like a hooker librarian from 1976, but I don't care anymore. I'm done. I can't take shopping for clothes anymore for a while.

3) I harmed myself at the gym yesterday, and I have no idea how. I kind of have to shuffle from place to place at this point, but it is getting better. Yesterday I got up to walk down the hall and promptly fell over into the wall. :) I'm so graceful.

4) Steve and I have been playing Lego Indiana Jones, and it's so much fun! Well, except in those places where we keep falling off of cliffs or missing walkways and have to start all over. A part of me is sad that I've spent the last three days playing a video game at night. The rest of me is having too much fun to care. :)

5) I'm usually done with Christmas shopping by September, but since I wasn't sure who I'd be spending the holidays with this year, or even if I'd celebrate them at all, I didn't bother shopping. Now I'm very far behind with my Alabama family. I'm going to have to shop *gulp* during the Christmas shopping rush. I think I'll just wrap things in the house and give them to family members. What? I have nice things! Don't judge me!

YES, I NORMALLY LIKE SCARY MOVIES

I saw a movie yesterday that scared me badly. I knew it was supposed to be a scary movie, but I didn't think it would be that bad! It was called "The Strangers." Now, if you want to watch this movie for yourself and see what happened, go away immediately! I'm going to talk about it so I'll feel better! Shoo!

OK, the story is about this young couple already having a really bad night. They were on their way home from a wedding, where the guy had proposed to his girlfriend at the reception. She said no (she wasn't ready), so understandably, they weren't happy. Their original plan was to go to his parent's - predictably isolated - summer house that night to stay and then go on a road trip the next day. Of course, telling her boyfriend she wouldn't marry him kind of changed plans for them. When they got to the house, the guy had decorated the place with candles, roses, and champagne, which didn't make either of them feel any better about what happened. Needless to say, everything was kind of sad and awkward. The guy calls his best friend and leaves a voice mail asking if he will pick him up the next day because things didn't go as planned. That's important, I swear. He goes back to the girl and while they were talking, a woman knocks on the door and asks them if "Tamera" was there. They tell her no, she had the wrong house, and she says "are you sure?" and then walks away. It was creepy, but not too weird. Inside the house things continue to be awkward, and when the girl runs out of cigarettes, the guy says he'll go and get her more and leaves her at home alone.

While he's gone, she starts hearing things. The woman who had knocked earlier comes back and knocks on the door again, and asks again if Tamera was there. The girl, already freaked out, says that she had already been there and asked that, and the woman says "are you sure?" again and then walks away. The girl calls her boyfriend and tells him that weird stuff is going on, and for him to hurry up and come home, but the phone cuts off. She keeps hearing weird things, and finally opens the curtain and sees this huge dude outside with a mask over his face. It was just a bag with eye holes cut out of it and a mouth drawn on, but it was a freakishly scary mask. She screams and hides. Her boyfriend finally comes home and she's trying to get him to understand what has been going on, but he doesn't believe her. Instead of shagging ass to the car and getting the hell out of Dodge, he tells her nothing was outside and spends valuable time trying to calm her down. When she runs to get her cell phone, it's gone. The guy goes back to his car to get his own cell and sees that his car had been destroyed. He finally believes the girl was telling the truth. It all kind of went downhill after that. The boyfriend winds up accidentally killing his best friend with a shotgun because he didn't realize the friend had felt so sorry for him that he came out there that night to get him. The three bad people (2 girls and a guy, all in masks) methodically terrorize the couple, as well as cut off all means of communication to the outside world. They wind up mentally torturing them for hours and eventually killing them, all "because they were home."

I can't say that the director didn't use some of the cheaper forms of scaring the viewer, because there were plenty of those sudden noises and misdirection that startle you. However, it was so atmospheric and, well, scary. There are scenes where it's totally quiet and the room is full of shadows, so your focused on the main actor, but eventually you realize that you see a faint silhouette or the faintest glimpse of a white mask in the shadows. They didn't use normal, scary music at all to alert you to what might happen. In fact, there isn't really any music at all in the movie except for what they show playing on an old record player in the house. The music that plays is weirdly cheerful and unsettling, because it doesn't fit what's going on. The whole movie is quiet, except for that music, with very little dialogue. The bad guys aren't supernatural, but they give off that impression because they appear and disappear so quickly, between the three of them there are only two lines that are spoken, and the masks they wear have frozen expressions that don't allow you to see them as human at all. Not to mention, you can tell they were just playing with the two people to scare them as much as possibly before they killed them, and enjoying it the whole time. I think part of what made it so scary was that it was plausible. Maybe real people would have reacted differently than the victims did, and maybe the bad guys wouldn't have been able to pull things off so smoothly, but in the realm of hard-core-crazies, you never know. The movie was probably more of a psychological thriller than a proper horror movie, but it was really, damn scary. It made getting to sleep difficult, and movies don't normally do that to me anymore.

It was scary. I watched it in daylight and it was still scary. So, there you go. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go and find a weapon to carry around with me today.

WELL, THAT WAS AWKWARD.

I have a theory about the Comfortable Silence. They are either automatic when you click with someone immediately, they grow organically as you get to know people better, or they simply don't exist at all with some people. You never really know how much you take a comfortable silence for granted until you are faced with an uncomfortable one.

We have a new guy working here that I haven't had a chance to get to know very well. He seems really sweet and like someone I could possibly become good friends with given a chance. Yesterday I was sitting at my desk fooling around on my computer when I happened to look up and see the new guy in my doorway. He didn't really say anything, but just stood there and smiled. I said hello, thinking he needed something, and he just kept smiling and standing there. He did eventually tell me he was up there to see one of my co-workers who turned out not to be in his office, and decided to say hello to me while he was there. We sat there basically smiling and looking at each other for a while. I had no idea what to say. I mean, as most of you know I could talk to a mailbox for an hour, if it were a familiar mailbox. I suddenly started feeling awkward. I wanted very badly to make him feel comfortable and not bored, but the more that I wracked my brain for a subject, the less my mind wanted to fix on a subject. I mean, I don't really know the guy! Outwardly, I probably looked fine, except for the big smile that never left my face, but inside I was thinking "OK, what can I talk about? I don't know! He's going to think I'm an idiot if I just sit here and smile. But he's not saying anything, either! He's just standing there and smiling! Dear Lord, I don't know what to do! Now I'm awkward! Awkward! AHHHHHHHH!" It was traumatic.

We finally did end up talking a little and to kind of break the awkwardness I jumped up to try and see if I could find whatever it was he came up here to get from my co-worker. I babbled to fill up quiet time, which probably made me sound silly. We also spent a lot of time just looking at each other and smiling because we didn't know what to say. If he's going to work here and come to visit me, I'm going to need to find out more about him. I'll google him if I have to!

Quick note: I hate working out.

That is all. Carry on.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I had a dream last night that I had died. Don't worry, though. Even though I was dead, it wasn't a bad dream. I was a ghost and I went to my funeral, which for some reason was being held in the church I attended when I was younger. I was floating down the center aisle and looking at who was there, but I didn't recognize anyone. There weren't that many people there, and they all seemed to be busy messing around with their cell phones or playing games on hand-held things. No one seemed sad, or even interested that this was a funeral! I was pissed! After it was over, I went back to someone's house (where several people from my family had gathered) and I spent a great deal of time getting revenge on their indifference by scaring the hell out of everyone by moving things around and knocking things over. :) It was funny.

2) I'm so tired this morning! When I go to the gym, I have to wake up at 4:30 to get there when it opens. It's not that I'm that dedicated about working out, but I know if I don't go first thing in the morning, I will be too tired to go after work. Normally I feel a lot better and awake after I do this, but today I feel like I've been drugged and I'm really sore. I shouldn't be sore, because I've been working out, at the very least, once a week since late May or early June of this year. That brings me to another point: I thought working out helped you lose weight! It's a lie! A lie, I say! I'm either going to have to completely stop eating altogether, or cut off a part of my body to lose weight. I don't want to do either of those things! No fair!

3) I think I had more to say, but my mind keeps wandering this morning. I'll write again if I remember what I was going to say.

I know I've mentioned on here before that on our anniversary, Steve and I go to the list of "proper anniversary gifts" and buy something that corresponds with the appropriate year. This year, number 8, the choices were traditional: Bronze/Pottery or modern: Linen/Lace. Quite honestly, since the gift is for both of us to share, none of those choices sounded good. We decided that we could reserve the right to look outside of those perimeters and pick a gift that we liked better, and we did.

We have decided that year 8 would be: The Year of Rock Band 2!

Yes, somewhere deep inside we are both 12 years old.

We actually bought the game Saturday, you know, since we'd probably be busy on Tuesday. Heh, yeah...that's why. We've been having fun playing the game, although there are some things we haven't figured out. Steve plays the guitar and I play the drums. I kind of suck at the drums, but I am better at them than Steve is, owing, no doubt, to my 4 years of being in the percussion section of my high school band. Granted, I didn't play the drums. I played the xylophone. However, I guess since I once hit an instrument with sticks, that makes me the drummer! So far I can only play in "easy" mode, but I only started playing this week. I'll practice and soon I'll be better than that one armed fella from Def Lepard!

A MEME ACCORDING TO iTUNES

1. Put Your iTunes, Windows Media Player, Winamp, etc on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
4. Put the artist after a dash following the song name.
5. Put any comments in brackets.

How would you describe yourself?

Beer For My Horses - Toby Keith & Willie Nelson [ I choose to believe this means I'm intoxicating. Otherwise I'm stumped]

How do you feel today?

Dr. Feelgood - Motley Crue [Word]

What is your life's purpose?

Hello Mr. Heartache - Dixie Chicks [Hmmm...does that mean I'm the heart breaker? I hope so!]

What is your motto?

A Kiss To Build A Dream On - Louis Armstrong [I can totally appreciate the idea in that song!]

What do you think about very often?

Rock -N- Me - Steve Miller Band [Well, I wasn't aware I thought of that very often]

What is your life story?

The Saga Begins - Weird Al [My story would have less Gunguns, but it's close to the truth.]

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Breathless -The Coors [Hopefully in the amazed way and not like, emphysema or something]

What will you dance to at your wedding?

The Way You Look Tonight - Frank Sinatra [Not bad. Now to find a Sinatra fan who'll marry me!]

What will they play at your funeral?

I'll Fly Away - Allison Krausse [Not a bad idea, actually]

What is your hobby/interest?

I Love Rock and Roll - Joan Jett [Again, I think my iTunes over emphasizes my interest in Rock music]

If you could do anything right now, what would it be?

Something Deep Inside - Billie Piper [That kind of sounds dirty. My apologies.]

What do you want most of all?

Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe - Barry White [*snickers* OK, I apologize again]

What is your greatest fear?

L-O-V-E -Nat King Cole [Maybe being without it, but I actually like L-O-V-E. iTunes FAIL!]

What is your darkest secret?

Broken Wing - Martina McBride [Which is why I don't fly without a plane these days.]

What is your favorite thing in the world?

Folsom Prison Blues - Johnny Cash [Yes. I like to shoot people just to watch them die.]

If you could have one wish, what would you wish for?

At Last - Etta James [This has no relevance to the question unless the words to the song count]

What is your theme song?

Pump It - Black Eyed Peas [I'm not exactly sure what this song is about, but OK!]

The next time you hear this song (aside from now, that is), you must dance.

You Drive Me Crazy - Britney Spears [Already do that, iTunes. Way ahead of you.]

Why will you post this meme?

It's Not Unusual - Tom Jones [HAHAHAHAHA! It's really not!]

Maybe this just proves have very confused taste in music.

MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) OK, so Obama won the election. Good for him! I'm not going to lie and say I voted for him, but to be frank, I practically eenie-meenie-miney-moed in this election. I'm not proud of that, because I would much rather vote because I believe in someone and what they stood for. There were only one or two tiny things that I liked about McCain that I didn't like about Obama, so that's how I chose. However, I want to say that I think the new president-elect seems very sincere about his desires to make a difference and I hope the changes he makes are ultimately positive ones. Now, of course, I get to go to a family gathering in the nest couple of days and listen to the racist side of my family bitch and moan about a black man being president. Beer me strength.

2) I'm so tired. Steve had to go into work last night to some work on a network thing (I'm not going to pretend to act as if I understood what it was) and I went with him. We got there at a bit after 10 p.m. and stayed there until after 2 a.m. this morning. I mainly sat in his office and read catalogs and played Solitaire with real cards! I don't like playing solitaire with real cards because you have to shuffle them and set them up, and I'm not good at shuffling cards. I had no idea we had been there so long until about an hour before we left. Steve showed off all of his high tech toys, and I got to see him and his co-worker Alan in action. I was duly impressed. However, I've decided that if I had to do their job, I'd shoot myself. I just would. Server rooms are some of the most depressing places on earth.

3) I was able to get in touch with a friend of mine from high school after Googling his name the other day. Well, I say we were friends, but we had a love/hate relationship for a long time after we went together for a while and then broke up. Ultimately, though, we ended up friends after we realized how dumb it was to not like each other for reasons neither one of us could determine. He makes me feel dumb, though. He doesn't do it on purpose, but he has a PhD in Secondary Education (or some such thing) and is an assistant professor at JSU. I only got my BA last year! Oh well, he was always more driven than me, so I'm proud of him. He told me he was on his way to Texas to present and that his oldest son will be 6 this year! So now I feel dumb and old! :)

4) My novel writing isn't going so well. It isn't that I don't know what to write, but I have a problem with adding in too much exposition, and it makes my story all convoluted. I didn't expect my first attempt at writing to be All Quiet on the Western Front or anything, but I kind of figured I'd do better than I am. Oh well, it's all about the journey, right? Anyone? Eh, I'll do my best. That's all I can do!

5) Here is another picture from St. Louis, just for funzies. It's kind of a neat shot, even if it's a bit crooked and dark. I wish I'd had a tripod, but I don't tend to visit friends with a portable studio in tow. This was taken from the top of Bro. Josh's building that he lives in.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Voting day is tomorrow and I'm not comfortable with who I'm going to vote for. Quite honestly, I'm not comfortable with either candidate. I want to vote for who I believe would be best for the job due to their stance on a lot of different issues, but it's been so difficult to even know for sure what those things were this time. I mean, if I want to vote for someone who has been on SNL more often or who has the best commercials, I wouldn't have had a problem deciding. However, this time it seems to be all about hype and I don't want to vote on hype. I am usually excited about voting, but this time I'm not because I don't know if either person is going to be good for the country. I don't like to be "Meh" about the person who is going to run our country.

2) Steve got to experience Fathead Rudepants at the gym today. He's the guy who gets on a stationary bike for five minutes, but feels he needs to cut off the TV in front of him before he can pedal. Apparently he flipped off the TV that someone was watching this time. Too bad a fight didn't break out! I'd like to see those geezers in a dog pile!

3) I'm writing a novel! Wait, let me rephrase: I'm attempting to write a novel. Because Amy inspired me, I decided to join NaNoWriMo this year. For the uninitiated, that is "National Novel Writing Month" and it's where you try (emphasis on try) to complete a 50,000 word novel in a month. It sounds daunting, but I'm going to try! So far I have 368 words or so (heh heh heh). I'm glad that the book doesn't have to be any good or even publishable. I just want to be able to mark "Write a Novel" off of my "Things To Do" list. Go me!

4) I still haven't pulled myself from the sticky pool of complete apathy long enough to tell you about my trip to St. Louis, but here are a couple of pictures to tide you over. Enjoy!
Metropolis, IL (I think). No, I wasn't intentionally trying to kick Superman in the crotch.
Jesuit Hall, St. Louis, MO. Steve and Bro. Josh in his Jedi Robes. On one of our walks, it was very windy and his cape thing kept getting tangled around my head. True story.
The Arch, St. Louis, MO. No, I didn't go into the arch (already done that) but no picture of St. Louis would be complete without the arch, right? I had to lay down in a parking lot to get this shot. Also, I hate wearing sneakers with those pants. I don't know why.