If I Ruled the World
B/c Ems asked for it:

If I Ruled the World...And could dictate how people spend their free time, at least a little of it...A Meme by Katie P.

Movies I would make everyone watch at least once: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Garden State, Good Will Hunting, American Beauty, Lost in Translation, A Beautiful Mind, Finding Neverland, Dead Poets Society, Sister Act 2, Empire Records, Mr. Hollands Opus, Return to Me, While You Were Sleeping.

TV shows I'd make everyone watch at least once:
Twin Peaks, CSI (Las Vegas), Six Feet Under (Haven't watched it yet, but have heard under good authority from 2 of my best friends...)

Books I would make everyone read:
The Giver by Lois Lowry, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller

Games everyone should be able to play: Euchre (enough said.)

Songs I would make everyone listen to-- really listen to:
Reasons Why- Nickel Creek, Belief- Gavin Degraw, Windmills- Toad the Wet Sprocket, Perimeter of Me- Ellery(DTP), Hanging By A Thread- Nickel Creek, Beautiful- UK Vineyard Burn Service, Round Here- Counting Crows, I Need Words- David Crowder Band, Use Me Well- Nickel Creek, Seasons of Love- RENT, When It Don't Come Easy- Patty Griffin, Worth It All- Rita Springer, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For- U2.

Theatre everyone should see at least once:
Wicked, RENT, Lion King, Mamma Mia!, RENT, and Wicked. (They deserve repeating.)

Due to a VERY slow computer on my part, I'm linkless. But since my work plans tomorrow will likely consist of nothing, maybe I'll fix them. I will say, today is a much better day than yesterday, enough better to consider deleting the unhappy message, but since it's what I was feeling then, I'm going to leave it.

There you go Ems, enjoy. :)

You know we all hover between apathy and compassion
We fill up all our days with so much distraction
It makes it easier not to see what we don’t want to
But we all live here
We all live here
We all live lonely
~The Be Good Tanyas

Been in a bit of a funk lately. Thought some family time would do the trick. No luck. Maybe vacation will help but that’s still a couple weeks off. If I didn’t have to work tomorrow I think I might just get in my car and find the closest coast and just sit. I find myself wanting to be around people, but then as soon as I am, I wish I was by myself. Our purpose in life is to love other people, but sometimes that loving ends up causing an awful lot of hurting. I think I’m supposed to be learning something, and I’m not doing a very good job of figuring out just what that is. My patience with people has been low lately, but instead of getting frustrated anymore, I just feel sorry for them. For how they choose to live their life, for the level at which they’re experiencing life, for how much they’re missing. But should you really feel sorry when they don’t even know that they’re missing anything? I had a conversation with one of my closest friends last week. Somehow we started talking about passion and how it affects you. And I told him I didn’t understand how people could choose to live their lives so full of apathy. And lately I’ve been witness to a lot of apathy. Even if I don’t agree with what someone is passionate about, I can understand them better b/c I know what that feels like. I guess I just feel a little restless right now. Which always makes me want to go away. Not that I want to go away for good. Things here are actually going well. I guess I’m just going through one of those moments where I realize just how disconnected my community is. The people most important to me are all over the place and sometimes I guess that’s harder than others. Just feeling a little bit lost I suppose. And a little bit lonely.

It’s like we’re all playing this big game of hide and seek. How long do I have to seek when all I want to do is hide? I can’t even remember what I’m looking for it’s been so long since I’ve even had a glimpse. Sometimes even His face is harder to see than I remember it being. Is anyone looking for me or am I playing this game by myself? Sometimes it makes me tired. Sometimes I just want someone to hold my hand and look with me. I guess right now, that’s not what He wants. So, I’ll keep looking by myself. Maybe I’ll realize that this search is more than enough.

Maybe.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

You’ve just got to “gitchoosome”.

I just need to pause for a brief moment here and paint you a little picture on the state of the music industry. While listening with a co-worker to a little Rascal Flatts in his office, he got a pop-up from a new artist on CMT.com. Cowboy Troy. That’s right, his name is Cowboy Troy and he’s an African-American country singer. The issue is not that he’s African-American doing country, the issue is just how much talent this guy has. (I think none at all.) And apparently thousands of people, almost 160K in the first week to be exact, seem to think that this is music. Not just music, “hick-hop muzik”. That’s right. No typos there. It’s actually labeled as hick-hop muzik. He’s produced by Big & Rich, which in and of itself should tell you something. So please dear reader, take a listen. For the record I think that people who spend their money on music like this (that is so bad, I’d rather listen to white noise,) instead of incredibly talented unsigned groups like this, ought to be taken out back and shot. Or better yet, go find yourself a train and play chicken.

For your reading enjoyment, here’s a little of the lyrics from his new hit single “I Play Chicken With the Train”.

Hold 'em up, Here we go,
All the Hicks and Chicks feel my flow,
Big black train coming round the bend,
Gwone kinfolk tell your mamanem,
Chugg a lugga Chugg a lugga Chugg a lugga Who?
The big black train comin' through to you boy
You fell and bumped you head uh hu,
That's what they said,
People say it's impossible, not probable, too radical,
But I already been on the CMA's,
Hell Tim McGraw said he liked the change,
That he likes the way my Hick-hop sounds
and the way the crowd screams when I stomp the ground,
Now, big and black, clickety clack and I make the train jump the track like that,

I play chicken with the train play chicken with the train train, uh hu hu uh hu hu,
You know that I play chicken with the train play chicken with the train train uh hu hu uh hu hu yea,


There should be laws against producing things like this...

And our next model Laura will show us that the color brown is in regardless of the season!

Yesterday, Menny and I worked an event for the GIA (Girls Intelligence Agency) which is a group based out of California. Apparently at the last minute, they realized that they didn’t have some to essentially run the event and got in touch with the Marketing group we work with that’s based out of Chicago. Our office was contacted and Mary, my boss asked if I’d want to help out for the afternoon. Originally we thought it was only going to be for 3 or 4 hours tops, and it turned into an all afternoon early evening thing. However, the pay for the afternoon was $500. So I enlisted the help of Jennifer to fund her new puppy purchase, and yes my dear readers, to fund my ipod and we accepted the offer.

Welcome to pre-teen hell. To make it that much worse, these girls had a. been standing outside in the heat for a good hour, and b. their mom’s were with them. What’s worse than pre-teen moms you ask? Pre-teen CHEERLEADING moms I reply. Oh my dear Jesus. But hey the good news is that we just had to check all the names of everyone trying to see the movie off of a list. A list that was alphabetized by one of the random members of the group’s FIRST name. Hello, could we pause here for a quick excel lesson? How difficult is it to do last name first or if you’re so opposed to that, use two separate cells so that we can at least sort by the last name. My favorite names were ones like “Ben Davis Girls” with the number 21 beside it. Great, that’s great, we’ll just make up those names or just let you in if we think maybe at some point in your life you’ve thought about Ben Davis. Enter our dear friend Dawn. Dawn apparently runs a cheerleading camp/school. She’d brought all 5 billion of her girls and was promised they’d all get in. Oh did I forget to mention that the invitation list with names was well over 300 and there were only 200 spots to fill? If I did then let me tell you, we had over 300 names on this list and only the first 200 got in. I asked if these girls were aware that it was on a “as space allows” sort of invitation and was informed that no, they weren’t, but it’s never been a problem before. Well dandy. Before it was over, we had threats for Dawn to be thrown out of the theatre by their management, and she was threatening to pull her girls from the fashion show. Did I mention her girls are the entire fashion show? Well her girls are the entire fashion show. They were the only models. So, 3 of us took names and tried marking them off on the alphabetized by the first name list, as well as the list that Dawn was so nice to provide us with as she leans over my shoulder pointing out her handwritten chicken scratches that are supposed to resemble names like Lindsay or +1. Oh, you look like a +1, come on in! The good news is that we got all the girls in, and they enjoyed the movie.

Then came the fashion show that somehow I not only introduced but had to MC the entirety of. With little to no notes I might add. They were about as thorough as Sarah’s sporting looks from the Going Out department. I tried to fill, but really, I’m not a fashion talker. I wear what I like, and if it happens to be fashionable to other people so be it, if not, I like it and that’s what’s important. There was a bit of silence, well filled by Kelly Clarkson playing in the background. I was a little concerned that I was going to have to start pulling out lines like “To all of you moms out there, I’m sure this fabric is going to wash up really nicely.” Dear Jesus, I’m turning into Bettie. I will add that my dear Menny, just stood in the back and laughed her fool head off the entire time and I couldn’t make eye contact with her. Anyway, long story short, the day was Hell, but for some reason great fun b/c J and I did it together. And we’re now funded for the purchase of a new puppy and an ipod. Life is good.

I know I’m a month out on updating. I’ll try to get back to a normal routine. Sometimes you just don’t feel like sharing your thoughts with the world. Or the 2 people who read this site. Not that you guys don’t know them anyway. But, for the record I’m happy. Really happy. I guess that’s what matters.