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April 20, 2006

Perspective

I'm destined to be a crotchety old woman, probably by the time I'm 28. I say a lot of stuff that sounds like "kids these days" and "what is the world coming to" already. I talk a lot about how much current pop culture and fashion suck, and I contemplate the changes in pricing in my lifetime on EVERYTHING.

So when I read this, in Baby-Sitters Club #3 (published in 1986):

"A small tab and a small popcorn, please," I said.

"That'll be a dollar seventy-five," replied the boy behind the counter.

I gulped. I'd forgotten how expensive things were in New York. At the theater in Stoneybrook, you can get a soda and popcorn for ninety-five cents.

I almost died. What's the world coming to?

Posted to Books & Nostalgia at 06:31 PM | Comments (1)

April 19, 2006

So much to say, so little interest in paragraphs...

  • I spent Sunday afternoon pulling up the strips of carpet tacks in my mom's office. I did the whole, big room by myself. I scraped up my hands, but otherwise enjoyed myself.
  • A friend recently told me that the only time she can turn off her brain is when she dances. The only time I can is when I'm doing simple, monotonous, but not-too-taxing manual labor. I enjoyed Sunday afternoon.
  • I spent Monday painting my mom's office (walls and ceiling) with my mom and then moronically decided to roll up the aforementioned carpet it and take it down to the basement. That wasn't as much fun.
  • I'm still missing quite a few books, but I've begun my quest to read every BSC book in order. I am happy.
  • I always thought that Claudia looked a lot like Winnie from The Wonder Years on the first few book covers. Now, as an adult, I still think that.
  • I've gotten a lot of spam on this site in the last few months. Most of it was on one particular entry, so I closed comments on it. Then today I woke up to 22 spam comments. So from now on, comments on each new entry are open for a week, and then I'll close them.
  • It's taking a very long time to go through over 130 entries and close comments on each one. I'm probably too stupid to figure out how to do it all at once.
  • Last night's Gilmore Girls was the WORST episode of that show ever. I mean, the show has had some good periods and bad periods, but last night's show was TERRIBLE. There were a couple funny moments ("I can't pick a side. Either way I look at it, I'm right.") but overall, as a whole, it sucked.
  • Even with all the complaining I do about the noise here, I had totally forgotten how loud it is here while I was gone for 11 days. Last night was horrible. Can I please go back to Minnesota now?
  • It's over 70 degrees outside, and the heat is on in this building. And our living room window is nailed shut by facilities.
  • Oh, yeah, one more thing -- my little brother's girlfriend's mom has cursed my future children. Gotta love that.

    Posted to Miscellaneous at 11:13 AM | Comments (4)

    April 15, 2006

    Please don't ever let me wait until April 15th again

    I hate Ohio, I hate taxes, and I hate Ohio taxes.

    I guess I'm now officially an American adult.

    Last time I was in town, in mid-March, I did my taxes as well as Lauren's. It was the first time I had ever done my own taxes, and that was a pretty cool feeling. My dad has Turbo Tax, which I guess means that I didn't do anything that amazing, but it was still a big deal to me. I mean, I figured out how to put in our savings account interest, the credit Lauren gets for paying for grad school, and her two separate state tax information on the federal return. I was so confident that I didn't even need my dad to help me. I did both of our federal and Minnesota taxes without a problem.

    But for Lauren's Ohio taxes, we had to do them manually. Turbo Tax doesn't let you buy a 2nd state (as far as we know, at least), so we figured no big deal, we'd just do the Ohio ones by hand. But somehow, they just kept getting put off and put off and put off... I finally decided that I'd do them with my dad when I got here this week.

    Somehow, they got put off some more until last night after my dad had gone to bed. Lauren and I sat down to do them and we were completely stumped. Trying to figure out how to NOT have to include her Minnesota wages on her Ohio forms was mind-boggling, for some reason. So this morning, my dad and I spent stupid amounts of time figuring that out. And then we weren't done. We also had to do CITY taxes. What the hell?? And then we STILL weren't done, because we had to do school district taxes.

    Now, in the end, we're getting refunds from each of the 5 separate envelopes Lauren had to mail in, and we're getting refunds on both of mine as well, so I shouldn't complain. But still... It was ridiculous. I'm already dreading next spring when we have to do her partial year Ohio taxes AGAIN.

    I hate Ohio. I hate taxes. I hate Ohio taxes. And we will never live in Ohio again for this reason alone.

    Posted to Oberlin at 10:10 AM | Comments (3)

    April 12, 2006

    PMS + family holidays = moody melodrama

    I love Pesach. It's my favorite Jewish holiday. I like the food (no, not for all 8 days, but for the first few, it's great). I like that there is some meat to the family gathering portion of the holiday. I have always enjoyed the seders, even the ones that go until 1 in the morning.

    But the last few years, I've really dreaded them. My family's seders last a half hour, don't cover any of the more meaningful aspects of the event, and are kind of... going-through-the-motions-(in-English)-like.

    I just can't figure out why I should bother doing something that's fairly meaningless.

    Anyway, this year has been especially hard for me. As I mentioned before, I'm not in the best mood these days anyway. On top of that, I've now had a taste of Reconstructionism. We even own the Recon haggadah, which is absolutely amazing. All night tonight, I found myself wishing we had a Recon seder to attend.

    I don't really know what my point is. Judaism has become so important to me recently, and I just hate for Pesach to become a thorn in my side. I understand that it's partly about being with family and doing things OUR way, but I just wish that I had a 2nd seder to look forward to that was done MY way.

    At least I got to eat a lot of really good charoset.

    Posted to Jew-mania at 08:19 PM | Comments (3)

    April 11, 2006

    If I posted a real entry, it would be very melodramatic

    Oh my goodness. I've been in Minnesota for less than 4 days, and I'm already completely worn out. This trip has been completely emotionally exhausting. Between trying to figure out my relationship with my youngest brother, who is growing up faster than I really want him to; his girlfriend moving in with my family due to family issues of her own; having PMS; not getting the job I interviewed for two weeks ago, which has caused me to question our entire plan to move back to Minnesota; and the impending pressure of a family gathering, I'm completely worn out.

    Therefore, I present you once again with many links.

  • Every year at Pesach, ridiculous animated cartoons pop up on the web. Last year's Seda Club (from ShaBot 6000) is still my favorite, but what with the aforementioned impending pressure, I'm also really digging the 60 second seder (which is actually 70 seconds). I actually really love the whole seder, but it is really nice to think that you could do the entire thing in just over a minute and have the family out the door soon after. Of course, then you'd miss out on matzo ball soup and brisket and charoset and yummmmmmm...

  • Apparently, couples in Connecticut are not taking advantage of the institution of civil unions. The presumed reason for this is because now that the gay community has tasted the right to marry, we refuse to settle. This is no great shock to me -- I sure as hell wouldn't bother with civil unions if the state next door allowed me to marry...

  • I so want to buy these stop sign statement stickers. I've never seen anyone deface a stop sign with a sticker about driving or eating animals, but these crack me up. My favorites are [Stop] Hammer Time! and [Stop] With All the Patchouli. And as long as I'm linking this website, I may as well share that if I ever follow through on my childhood plans to become a lawyer, I would definitely have to own this shirt.

  • When I was little, I had a thing for Barbies and for paper dolls. I never acted out any stories with them, but I LOVED to change their clothes. I also used to draw my own paper dolls and make clothes for them. I once owned a book of paper dolls that my 2nd cousin informed me were clearly hookers. Since I no longer have the patience to cut out all those clothes, I now rely on online paper dolls, and I've found the motherload. At Stardoll, you can dress up tons of actresses and singers in the craziest crap I've ever seen. I actually went through and did every single doll a couple weeks ago. They've since redesigned the site and it's a little slower, but definitely worth a look.

  • It's been almost a year since my friend Carly directed me toward this link, but this week, I got a hankering to check it out again. Go listen to an acapella group sing (and act out) old Nintendo theme songs -- but only if you don't mind having the Mario theme in your head for the next week. And as long as we're talking about Mario, some girls in Ohio were arrested while attempting to recreate the game in real life. Too bad that's a criminal offense, because I wouldn't mind giving it a try.

  • I suppose since I did those Passover links, I should also acknowledge that Easter is coming this weekend. The question is whether I should focus on the Drumstick-like ice cream cones with the Cadbury Creme Eggs in the middle or the article about how Jesus may have walked on ice, not water. As Carly said, "I could totally see his buddies being like, 'Hey Jesus, you're crazy man! You could totally fall through the ice! Crazy Jesus...'"

  • The folks over at Television Without Pity recapped the Facts of Life Reunion movie. Now, I have to admit that I haven't read the recap the whole way through yet (I'm waiting to read it while watching the movie the next time it's on), but I'm linking it anyway. My opinion of the reunion movie? Without Jo, there's no point. I love Nancy McKeon so much it hurts.

  • There are some pretty stupid interactive things on the web. On Good Morning America recently, I saw a guy who lets his website viewers choose what he's going to wear each day (dude even lets you pick his cufflinks). That may be kind of lame, but at least he isn't wasting his own time by wearing what they choose for him. A supergenius named Aric, however, has decided to let us choose what TV shows he watches every night. What a great way to spend his time...

  • I don't see a lot of movies. I especially don't see a lot of quality movies, and I see even fewer classics. That's why out of this list of the top 100 overlooked films of the '90s, I've seen exactly 6. I've actually seen 21 of the top 101 screenplays, although most of them weren't movies I paid very good attention to. I suppose it won't come as a great surprise, then, that I only saw 6 of the 574 movies that came out in 2005.

    I actually have about 20 more links saved for this post, but I realize now that none of them are interesting. Neither is this post. The emotional toll that this week has taken on me has definitely done its damage.

    Thank goodness Lauren will be here in 9 hours.

    Posted to Links at 11:29 PM | Comments (1)

    April 08, 2006

    about nothing

    I'm in Minnesota, land of quietness, better weather, and paint chips. I'm happy to be here, although I already miss Lauren more than I did last time I was here. I'm glad she'll be joining me in a few days. And best of all, we extended our trip here two more days because Lauren has an on-campus interview at the U of MN on Monday the 17th! Please send her all your positive energy -- this opportunity is SERIOUSLY important.

    I'm sending out a major plea, though... Dar Williams is playing at St. Ben's (up near St. Cloud) on Monday night, and I'm DYING to go. I can't find anyone to go with me. If anyone is up for going, I'll happily pitch in for gas, I just need a way to get there.

    And if anyone can tell me why I've had serious pain in my calves for the last 24 hours, I'd really appreciate that. I can't even go up a single step without major pain. For now, I'm going to pretend that they're growing pains and that by the end of the week, I'll be a whole 5'3".

    Posted to Miscellaneous at 11:45 PM | Comments (6)

    April 06, 2006

    Thank goodness I'll be in Minnesota two days from now. There are people to talk to there.

    In the past 12 hours, I've attempted to write three other posts for this site on three different completely obsessive topics. Each one rambled on and on about details no one but myself would ever care about.

    The first was a public admittance that I actually like Star Trek: The Next Generation and watch it every day and have a favorite character and a favorite episode and everything. The second was about which folk singers I've seen live, which concerts I've missed out in while living in Ohio, and which concerts I plan to go to in Minneapolis next week. And the third was an update on my attempt to collect all 131 Baby-Sitters Club books (I've managed to round up 85 of them, for under 75 cents each, including shipping).

    Conclusion? I have way too much time on my hands, no one to talk to, and nothing significant to say.

    Posted to Miscellaneous at 09:52 PM | Comments (6)

    April 05, 2006

    If Lauren had her way, we would spend all our free time visiting other colleges

    We're back from our little vacation. Actually, we've been back for almost 48 hours now, but I've been in denial. It was so nice to get away from here together. Lauren was able to truly take a brain-break from work. Of course, the trip ended up being a student affairs geek college-tour-o-rama... We saw 8 colleges in one day -- it would have been 9 if we had remembered that Trinity was in Hartford -- and Lauren had the time of her life.

    We spent Saturday late afternoon/early evening checking out Northampton before getting a snack in town and then going to dinner and a Nields concert at the famous Iron Horse. On Sunday we had the yummiest brunch on the planet and then began our whirlwind college tour... We saw Smith, then drove over to the synagogue in Amherst to see how far away it was and checked out Amherst and UMass on the way, and then we ended up at Hampshire because I'm crazy and had some weird need to check out a market near their campus. I have to stop for a second and say that I cannot BELIEVE that I applied to Hampshire. That place is nuts! I also officially believe that Obies have no commitment. They can't commit to being hipsters, like the people in Northampton have, and they can't commit to being crunchy hippies, like the Hampshire students do.

    After that we managed to find Mt. Holyoke despite not having directions. It was eerily like St. Kate's, but I think I prefer St. Kate's. We made a quick stop back in Northampton for ice cream and then decided we were ready to depart and took off for Hartford. After checking into our hotel, Lauren decided she HAD to see Yale, so we headed out again, and we stopped along the way to see Wesleyan and Quinnipiac. And as I said above, we forgot Trinity.

    And that was our trip. It was really nice. I definitely feel like I have a good feel for Northampton now. I can honestly say that I wish I had gone to Smith for college... I think it would have been the perfect fit for me, both in terms of the college and the town. It seems to have everything I got from Oberlin plus all the stuff I didn't get from Oberlin.

    And I can also say that Northampton would be about a million times better than Oberlin if we end up there next year. It's sooooooo much bigger and more lively, and the food.... oh, the food. I expected something about the size of Oberlin, but I was pleasantly surprised. But it's also not what we're dreaming of. It's still more remote than we'd really like, and to be honest, it's a bit too hip for us. We're kind of stodgey and homebody-ish and I wear jeans and sweatshirts every single day and... We felt very uncool there. It seems like a good place to raise kids, though. And the fricking NIELDS live there! And the folk music! We'll never get that kind of folk scene in Minnesota.

    So we have our answer. Minneapolis is home. Northampton isn't a bad 2nd choice, but it's not in contention for a top choice spot. I will say, though, that New England is gorgeous, and if we ever have to move away from Minneapolis, it's definitely on our radar.

    Posted to Miscellaneous at 10:52 AM | Comments (2)

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