time for some reader input

I’m thinking about getting a tattoo, so I’ve been looking around for some inspiration. I’m considering a few of these, but I don’t want to say which ones so as not to bias your feedback. What do you think? Which one should I go with?

good for airplanes, my church, the Arctic, etc.

My boyfriend recommended some books for me to read, and since I value his every thought like the precious drops of heavenly wisdom that they are, and since I’ve been wanting one of them for a long time, I decided to hit up Barnes and Noble after church today and pick up a couple of his suggestions. I had some money on a gift card, and I didn’t want to spend much more than that, so I only got two of them: On Writing Well and Bird by Bird. I’ve already started on the former, and I’ll let you know how they are, but what I really want to show you is this:

I went into Old Slavey after making my purchase at B&N, and I found what appears to be a mannequin who was VERY cold. I mean, what do you see? I count no less than six shirts being displayed here, and apart from the fact that the thought of wearing this outfit is just weird, actually doing it would be completely impractical. Just imagine how often you’d have to do laundry if you wore six shirts every day! I suppose you could just wash the bottom-most one(s) and rotate the rest for the following day(s). But you know that the amount of effort it would take to arrange them just so every morning would not be worth it, especially when you realize that there’s no way they’d stay like that all day. The top one would be the only one visible by lunch, and then you’d just be hot and sweating, unnecessariliy soiling six t-shirts.

It does look kind of cool, though. Maybe I could make myself just one shirt that looked like it had five more underneath, peeking out just so.  If you’ll excuse me, I have some sewing to do.

just in case you were thinking of becoming a craig’s list entrepreneur

You cannot sell blood, bodily fluids or body parts on craigslist.org. However, you can give away pretty much anything you want - single car seats (like the actual seats from the car, not kids’ seats), staplers, cages, dirt, beds, and this one found by Emily’s husband, Matt:

WANTED: SCRABBLE® Tile “R” (Union Station)

NOTE: Tile must be burgundy in color.

Willing to exchange for Monopoly® wheelbarrow OR any clubs playing card.

Serious inquiries only.

this is a weird one

I’m pretty sure this is the reason I woke up with my bedsheets all atangle. I had a very bizarre dream wherein I was being vehemently pursued. I would call it chased because that’s what it felt like, but the pursuit was in no way malicious. It was just scary. But perhaps I should start from the beginning.

I was driving in Chapel Hill, and I looked over into the car next to me to find that Julia Roberts was its driver. So clearly I did what any normal person would do. I followed her. Well, somehow she lost me, but it was ok because I didn’t really have time to keep after her anyway. I was on my way to a park somewhere to meet a friend and go for a walk. I don’t remember who the friend was, but soon after I met her at the park and we started walking, she disappeared. And then I was joined by what would best be described as a robot. I’m not really sure what he was in the beginning, and he morphed fairly quickly into a human being, so it doesn’t really matter what he was initially, but he was a product called “Wit and Fit.” Basically, he was a robotic walking buddy that could carry on a conversation with you as you walked.

Perhaps in my dream, I witnessed very quickly the progression of “Wit and Fit” from its prototypical stage to its fully-developed model, but it went from being basically an arc that functioned as legs (with the two ends acting as its feet obviously), to more human-like legs and a torso, to legs with a torso and head, to a fully human-shaped body, to a really realistic-looking person. Right up until the last stage, it looked like “Wit and Fit” was made of clay. He was all chalky and sort of gray, but then when he became a real-looking dude, he was…well…real-looking.

Anyhoe, somewhere in the next to last stage of development (where he had a complete human body, but was still clay-ish), he started to hit on me. And it was super-creepy. So I kicked him in the chest.  He fell down, and his arms cracked and fell off. Mostly unfazed, however, and very much in the style of Mr. Collins’s proposal to Elizabeth Bennet, “Wit and Fit” was not deterred by my violent refusal of his advances. He jumped back up and tried again. So I kicked him again. Down a hill this time. I watched him crack and break and fall apart, and then I ran.

I ran to the top of another hill, and when I looked back down to where I’d just come from, there he was. He had clambered back up the hill I kicked him down, and by the time he reached the top, he’d become the realistic humanoid “Wit and Fit.” And he was looking for me.

The rest of the dream was basically just him looking for me and me hiding. We wound up at a wedding where a lot of my friends from high school were in attendance, and they helped out a lot in shielding me and acting as decoys and such. He never did find me, and in the end, I woke up in a tangle of bedsheets.

Ok, so I know he’s a robot and all (and a dream robot at that), but what do you think? You think it’s the fear of commitment thing again? And what does Julia Roberts have to do with it?

lolpanda is influencing my subconscious

I had a dream about a panda that had human legs. But not just human legs - long, sexy woman legs. The panda might have even been wearing heels, but I don’t really remember. I just remember thinking So that’s what panda legs look like.

in preparation for my 10-year reunion

A VERY special thanks goes to DLF for turning my attention to this. Yearbook Yourself. You can put in a picture of yourself, and it will show you what you likely would have looked like through the years in yearbooks. For example:

Here I am in 1954. I’m not sure why my glasses have gone askew. Maybe I had a run-in with the school bully right before the photographer arrived. But then why would I look so happy? Hmmmm…maybe the school bully had a run-in with ME. Either way, I love these glasses, and I’m diggin’ the super-short bangs on this one. Too bad I couldn’t pull it off in real life.

Ah, 1960. Though the bangs have grown out (and I’m certain it took six years to get them to this point), the glasses are still kickin’. I’m not sure what’s up with this dress, though. I feel a bit like a pilgrim.

1964. I tell you what - I would have ROCKED OUT some glasses in the 50’s and 60’s. I kind of like this hair-do too. And oddly enough, whatever I’m wearing here is strikingly similar to what I wore in my actual senior yearbook photo 34 years later. And not to toot my own horn, but I have aged really well.

1968 - I think I’ve seen this somewhere before.

Here I am in 1976, and if I’m completely honest, I think I look really cute. Obviously I know this isn’t really me, but let’s face it. You know you think I’m cute too.

Just a couple more to go…

Well, at least we know that if the rest of me drowns in 1982, the top of my head will stay afloat what with that inner tube resting on my forehead.  I don’t even really know what to say about this. It’s just that spectacular.

And finally, 1994. Ah 1994. Wow. Just wow. Do you remember how much hairspray this would require. Lucky for me, though, I didn’t really need it. I just had to hot-roll it the night before, and then my bangs would spring magically into place upon brushing. For comparison’s sake, here is my actual seventh grade yearbook photo. See the bangs? Inspirational, aren’t they?

You wish you lived in my house.

Whitney: (Upon waking from her 2.5 hour nap) I took a nap, buddy.

Me: Yeah you did!

Whitney: Did I snore?

Me: No. Heavy breathing, yes. I thought I was in a porno.

Whitney: They don’t sleep in pornos, buddy.

Me: Well I’ve never seen one. I’ve only heard them when people are watching them on TV or in movies.

Whitney: (Breathing heavily)

Me: See? That’s what they sound like.

on the purchase and return method of product procurement

Alright. We’ve established that I’m weird, right? Ok then, so sometimes I do things without even realizing that other people don’t do them that way. For example, you go to Target, you see something you like, you buy it, you take it home, you look at it for a few weeks, you decide you don’t like it that much, and you return it. That’s what people do, right? Well apparently, and this was shocking to me, so just go ahead and prepare yourselves…

Apparently people like things so much in the store that they buy them and never return them. Ever. They just keep them. They take the tags off and wear them without any hesitation or second thoughts. They throw the tags and receipts away even. Astonishing, isn’t it?

I don’t know how or why I got into the habit of doing this. I don’t remember my mom doing it. Not when she was buying things for herself at least. If she bought something for my dad or for one of us when we weren’t there, then I’m sure she would hang on to the receipt just in case (she’s a smart lady, my mom). But I don’t know where this came from. I think it’s partially that I’m a bit of an impulse buyer, but I’m wise to my own ways (subconsciously, obviously), so I prepare for the moment when I realize it was a bad choice to purchase that smocked tunic that makes me look completely obese even though I was certain that I could and would take it in to make it look totally hott.

It’s a system that, though flawed in that it uses time and energy unnecessarily, really works for me. I bring a pair of purple shoes home, try them on with several different outfits and realize they don’t really jibe with the rest of my wardrobe, so I return them and voila! Twenty bucks I can feel not guilty about spending at Target because hey! I’d already spent that money before. In my mind, it was gone already. Or if I’m feeling particularly poor and/or thrifty, I hang on to it for later when I need to get my “earl” (oil) changed. Look at me! Using money wisely! I’m so grown-up sometimes that I forget I only work part time. And that I eat expired food as long as it doesn’t smell rotten. And that I don’t always wear a bra. And sometimes I pee in the shower. And my parents still pay my insurance bills. And I have a secret crush on the Jonas Brothers. And I shop in the juniors department. And I wear days-of-the-week underwear. (Game: Some of those things aren’t true. Can you guess which ones?)

Anyhoe, the slightly dangerous (though some may call it adventuresome) side to this buy-and-return method of shopping is that I don’t only do it with shopping. I like to try things out for a while before I decide to stick with them. That’s how the vegan thing started out. It was sort of an experiment. Could I possibly give up cheese? And it’s worked out pretty well (except for when baked goods are involved). And living in Raleigh. I tell you, signing that first year-long lease was a BIG DEAL for me. After all, I’d only been here for about six months. I wasn’t sure I wanted to stick around (I’m still not really sure about that, but it’s a little different now). And I think I probably do this with guys too. I like to have a crush and flirt with a dude for a while without any commitment while I decide just how much I like him. I don’t know where I’m going with this exercise in self-discovery, really. I imagine it probably goes deeper than I realize or want to share on the internet, so I’ll stop now. This is a pretty long post, and I have to go return some things to Target anyway.

a conversation between my roommates

I don’t know where she found this, but Lauren somehow discovered the “worst worship ever?” (although she couldn’t bear to watch the whole thing), and after the dude had had them take off their shoes and start twirling their socks around, he started singing, “You spin me right round, Jesus, right round, like a record, Jesus, right round round round.” Well, we just sort of lost it for a second, and then the following conversation took place:

• Lauren: I just didn’t see that coming.
• Whitney: Of course you didn’t. How could you? You’re not deranged.

JELL-O!? NOOOOOOO!!!

I have plenty more to say later about various topics, but I had to let you know immediately that just now, I turned on the TV to find a woman on Maury Povich talking about her fear of jell-o. She stopped going to restaurants because of it, she lost her job over it, she stopped going to family reunions because of it, and she says, “I don’t want people to think I’m a freak, ’cause I’m not…but jell-o scares the hell out of me. I have to get over my fear. Jell-o’s been in control of my life for too long.”

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA…this is amazing. Oh my gosh, they just brought out some jell-o, and Margaret FLIPPED. OUT.

Oh! And now they have a woman who is scared to death of chicken. Not just chicken, but chickens. Including Peeps. Seriously? Peeps? Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. She believes that raw chicken can come back to life and attack her. PLEASE tell me someone else out there is seeing this. Please, oh please!!