In Which I Regale You With Stories Regarding My Inability To Successfully Go To The Grocery Store, As Promised.

As pointed out, my blog has literally sunk this low. 
Damn you, Popeye, you liar!

However, please, rest assured that it has not sunk so low that I will be blogging about yesterday's kidney stone and the related hospital visit. According to WebMD, I eat too much spinach.

Instead, as promised, I will attempt to entertain you with various stories regarding my inability to successfully go to the grocery store.

Going to the grocery store is not a difficult task. In fact, it's one I've been doing for years quite successfully. But for some reason, since I've been in Virginia, my grocery shopping abilities have become slightly impaired.
"Oh, damn, I left my debit card in my pants pocket."
"Oh, damn, I broke the self check-out machine."
"Oh, damn, I just got caught dancing in the middle of the aisle"

And it is that last story in which I will regale you with now.

You see, there are certain songs that, upon hearing them, regardless of the place or function, force me to grab the nearest microphone-shaped object and rock out. These songs are mostly by Journey and Bon Jovi. But it was NOT either of these classic ensembles that got me in trouble that fateful night.

You see,  it was a Monday evening, after 8pm, and there was an ice storm beginning outside. As a small town, this meant that nobody was at the Middleburg Safeway except for me and a friend, who wanted ice cream and wine. 

As I head, alone, through the seemingly deserted aisles to find a reasonably priced pint of Cookies N Cream, the song "Marry Me (Dance Mix)" by Train (yes. Train. THAT Train. The very Train that my "about me" section demonishes) began wafting over the loudspeakers. 

Now, before I describe in detail how I started giving an impromptu song and dance performance in the middle of the Safeway, remember that I assumed that I was completely alone in the entire store, with the exception of my friend and the teenage guy with the fro who works the register that makes us laugh every time we go in.

So that's how it came to pass that I grabbed a can of Pringles and was serenading a bag of pretzels in the middle of the grocery store.
"Forever can never be long enough for meeeeee. 
To feel like I am close enough to youuuuuuu. 
Marrrryyy Meeeeeeeee. 
I would have rocked out to this song, too.
If I ever get the nerve to say helllloo in this cafe. 
Ohhhhh-ooooooooh"

If this were a movie, Michael Buble would have rolled up on his creaky shopping cart and whisked me away.

As it was, I didn't even consider that the shadow in the corner of my eye might be someone besides the person I was at the store with when I took it up a notch. Added some head bobbing and dramatic interpretive dancing to my act.

After 2-3 seconds of this, I realized the person was not laughing at me. And realized, this wasn't a blonde haired, blue-eyed young 22 year old holding a bottle of wine. This was... An older lady in her 60s or so. And she did not look amused.

Actually, she was looking at me like I was insane.

At that moment, all motion ceased. She stared at me, I stared sheepishly at the bag of pretzels. Then slowly put them back on the shelf and backed out of the aisle. 

Happily Ever After (I Finish X, Y, And Z)

...Is a really bad way to live life.

And we all think we're sooo smart.

[Insert bad-ass orchestral rock instrumental break here]

Does Anyone Else Feel Like They've Already Watched This Movie?

There's a scene in the movie "Mean Girls" in which one of the main characters makes a bunch of copies of a Burn Book she's written and mass distributes them throughout the school. The Burn Book contains all sorts of information about everyone at the school- who's slept with who, who's talking behind someone's back, who's a lesbian, etc.

Naturally, the resulting pandemonium causes so much chaos that the school stops functioning.

Movie Videos & Movie Scenes at MOVIECLIPS.com
Though he does kind of look
like Amanda Seyfried if
you squint really hard...

Not to be outdone by Hollywood, the real world is even more insane; except that instead of Rachel McAdams and Lindsey Lohan, the main stirrer-of-the-pot is a possibly-albino Australian called Julian Assange.

And instead of unimportant gossip about high school girl's sexual habits (spoiler alert: they get around),
Assange has released thousands of classified documents about the inner gossip-induced drama fest workings of US Foreign Policy.

And even better than high school, the resulting chaos involves people who are in control of lots of money, governments, armies and weaponry!

France and American gossip about discuss Iran
Prince Charles isn't nearly as cool as the Queen!
Follow that UN Secretary General!
Azerbeijan's Leader eats soup! (or something)
Those Koreans are freaking weird, man
Cristina Kirchner looks SOOOO stressed out these days
Qadhafi is SO sleeping with that blonde chick with the fake boobs

Oh, yeah, and basically the entire middle east: Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen, Qatar, Oman, Jordan (yes, these are countries, not a basketball team) are all "Ahmadinejad doesn't play nice on the playground. TEEEEAACHER AMMEEERICA, put him in timeout bomb him!!"
Not exactly the comic I was going for
but you get the point.

So naturally, while the public is appreciative of actually knowing the truth about their government, the governments of the affected countries are pissed. Sarah Palin (who isn't the government but is arguably the press's governmental lapdog) even said that we should be hunting down Assange like he's the Taliban or a TSA molestation pat-down dissenter.

The media, understandably pissed that Wikileaks just did their jobs for them, is calling it "irresponsible."

Hell, even Jimmy Carter (did anyone else forget he was still alive??) has an opinion.

Memorization is for wusses
I, on the other hand, have not yet formed an opinion. The fact that the world is run like a giant, more evolved high school doesn't surprise me in the slightest. And while I appreciate the arguments that Wikileaks has potentially harmed national security, I can't help but be a little glad that someone had the balls to out them.
Not only did it point out weaknesses in our important-document-storage system, but it also got the American public paying a little more attention to the way our leaders act when they aren't in front of a teleprompter.

Like high schoolers. With nukes. And bigger egos.

Lesson #44: Transition and Typography Shower Curtains

My whole life has been spent in transition. Middle school prepares you for high school, high school is spent obsessing over college, college is spent resume-building for graduate school or the real world. Everything is done with the idea of getting to the next level. Always pushing forward, always preparing for something else. Like a never-ending video game, except you only get one shot. The funny thing about it, is that when asked, we cite our goal- this time in life where we've got it all set, where we have a family and a career and a 30-year mortgage and there is no more change. But will we ever get there? Will we enjoy it if we do?

I'm moving next week into what will be my 5th apartment in just as many years. I very much hope that this will be my last move for a while. I very much hope that I start developing a social life here. But I don't feel a desire to expedite the process. My mom jokes all the time about having grandbabies and planning my wedding. It'll happen when it happens. I am unconcerned.

This is how my mind works- this introspection was brought on by my search for a shower curtain. Shower curtains are important. They set the decorative tone of your entire bathroom. They are what visitors judge you on when they use the bathroom (at least, I judge people on their shower curtains). They aren't one of those purchases that you make often, even though they are relatively cheap. In fact, I've only purchased one shower curtain since I graduated from high school (I loved that shower curtain too, but it is still in Knoxville). So when I started my search for "the perfect shower curtain," it really drove home the fact that I am now an adult.

So, to honor my new adult-self, I decided at the beginning of the shower-curtain-purchasing-process that I would not buy one of those plastic ones (which is good, because I really liked this one:


Instead, I looked only at fabric ones. The problem I ran into, was that all the fabric ones looked like they belonged in the shower of, well, someone with plastic on the couches, sherry in a wine glass, and Murder She Wrote on the TV. To my dismay, I could not find a single fabric shower curtain that matched my personality. I was about to give up, when I walked past this one.


Bingo.