Gee whiz

I love E. H. Shepard's illustrations.

Okay! Excitement! I get to do some boasting!

So, I just went for a run.  Look how casual and oh-I-exercise-all-the-time that sentence was, what? I can feel my abs hardening as I type.  Actually, it was three two minutes running, ten skipping to music, and eighteen walking with my hands over my face.  I had to cover my face to keep it from falling off.  My hands are still so numb that sentences - for example, "So, I just went for a run" - keep coming out like, "So, I jist went fo r a ru." As Lemony Snicket would put it, my hands are so cold I can barely type these worfs.
I have not willingly gone outside for about three months - and here I am suggesting outings! And outings (outsings, it keeps coming out) where exercise was involved! I'm so proud.

Anyways, it was freezing.  It hurt to breathe.  Our

Well.  That cut off "our" was not a typing error.  About twenty seconds ago, just as I was about to move into a stirring description of the beautiful trail and the river and the icicles, I made a discovery that significantly lessened my enjoyment of this brief foray into the world of physical exercise.  If you guessed dog poo on my shoe, you're right!

So.

The obvious conclusion:  I am clearly not meant to exercise.  At most, I'm supposed to trifle with it every once in a long while.  Maybe toss a frisbee at picnics. Move furniture.  Things like that.

Ah, well. We can't all be exercise people.  I mean, if we want to maintain the percentages which "statistic has laid down for our guidance", some of us have to be sedentary.  It's just the way things are.
(Melancholy, and obviously fake sigh, as if I am sorry to see a life of physical fitness jogging away from me.)

P.S.  That is the lake behind our bestie family's house.  It isn't green like that right now, but I put it on here to give you an idea what sort of post this could have been if it hadn't been for some fat dog.  I mean, I can just hear the poetic words of the could-have-been post in my head.  What a pity.

electricity

Okay.  I have a couple of things that I have to talk about or I will never get to sleep.

To begin with, I just watched Billy Elliot like an hour ago for the first time. My gosh.  What a movie.  I'm actually shrieking about it in my head (and hopping up and down a great deal) but I'll spare you, my dear blog.  But what a movie.  Gosh. 

Also, it is still ice land here.  I didn't go to work or school today.  There aren't any snowplows here - it snows so infrequently that it isn't worth it - so there doesn't seem to be much hope for tomorrow either.  I love this snow-plow-less town.  The joy of staying home was almost too much for me.  I nearly died. This is thrilling in different way than Billy Elliot was, but extremely pleasing nonetheless. 

I am enjoying life right now.  The dog is snoozing at the foot of the bed.  I'm tired and know now I'll sleep well.  I'm reading two books about idling. Good cheer abounds. The alarm clock is off.  I have to take a bath tomorrow.  The world is wonderful. 

cheers to cheery

Oh, gosh.  This time last year I was in bed with a swollen face.  I'm glad wisdom teeth only come out once.

This morning I read in the paper that the editor of the Croatian newspaper Sata believes there is too much bad news in the world and decided to print a thursday issue (I don't know if it was last thursday or will be next thursday) made up only of good news.
Cheers to that, eh?

Five hours ago I read a post on one of my favorite blogs about how the author writes about the things she does well - she wants to give people good, inspiring things to read.  Nice idea, isn't it?

I've never been a fan of new year's resolutions - mainly, I think, because so many cartoonists do horrible, horrible jokes about them in the paper - but this year I think I am going to sort of make one.  Try to turn over a new leaf.

This year, I'd like to:
Be less negative
Enjoy idling again
Give myself a break.  When I've done my best, leave it at that.
And be a happier, more cheerful person in general.

I hope your new year is happy too.

ow my brain is escaping out my ear

When I was reading along in Descartes and came to the bit about how he can't really tell if he's awake or asleep and immediately thought "Inception!" I knew it was time to take a break.

What a nasty school semester it has been. Truly, truly unpleasant.  The only thing I felt even a teensy bit of satisfaction with was the title to one of my many, many essays.   He Loved Big Brother: W.H. Auden's "The Unknown Citizen".  I didn't actually talk about 1984, but I thought the teacher would get it.  But how pathetic is that?  That right there was the only thing I felt even remotely okay with.  Out of all the work I did.  Ugh.

I've got two more finals - horrid, horrid French and philosophy (hence Descartes).   At least I'm being forced to read important things for philosophy - it isn't just textbook.  The downside of this is that we are reading, like, Thomas Aquinas.  Which, just so you know, is murder.  It's not unintelligible - but it's so hard to plow through.   I really have to focus - my mind starts wandering and I find that I'm reading along and thinking about how I will furnish dream house.  Not retaining a thing.

 Anyways, I'm trying to cheer myself up now.  So, here are some happy things.

Oh!  Oh! If you're a Narnia fan you should know that you can get every single book, unabridged, read by magnificent people like Jeremy Northam, on itunes for - wait for it, wait for it - NINE DOLLARS.  It's fantastic.  You can bet that has cheered me.  The Narnia books were my absolute favorite books ever when I was younger.  Heck, they're some of my favorite books now.  They're a mix of all the things I love.  Harry Potter is like that too.  Magic and crazy boarding school and super close best friends and Christmas holidays at the Burrow.  It's perfect too - but less perfect than the Narnia books.  To me, at least.

Please pretend these look like the originals. Please.

I know I blather about them all the time, but those Pomplamoose people really are great.  Funny and cheerful.  Listening to cheery music is helping me right now.  Lady Danville and Buddy Holly are very cheering too. Cheery.  How many times can I say cheery?

I think this: 

Actually looks more like her, especially the hair and eyebrows. Chin is too long. But I can't get her entire head right at all.  I didn't even try with Jack Conte's head.  I can't help being a bit depressed that my drawing skills are about on a level with the average four year old's.

But back to happy things.

I'm getting used to this new laptop - whenever I try to mess with the old one, I scroll with two fingers and the page goes shooting off into nowhere, look for the close x in the left hand corner of the frame, and press alt when I mean to press command. Translation: I'm too cool for you, PC.

Hot chocolate.  We bought baby marshmallows the other day, and I put five in my cup and grin. 

Blog people.  I love the blogs I follow.  I almost never go on facebook anymore, but check my dashboard every day without fail.  Whenever I used to hear about blogs I never imagined they could be so interesting and fun to read.  I know - what a silly little idiot, right?

If I had a twitter account, or didn't want to further alienate the few friends I have on facebook, I would scream I HATE FRENCH CLASS I HATE FRENCH CLASS I HATE FRENCH CLASS on it.  Right now.  Like that.  Because I hate it.  Or at least supremely dislike it.  That's two rotten French classes now.  I think I will have to give up on this language because the people who teach it in my world are morons or something.  And the sad thing is I actually do want to learn French.

Ugh.   I had to get that out.  Now that I've cried and screamed and got it all out of me I will either go take a bath or try to find Swiss Family Robinson (I have no idea why a sudden desire to watch that movie popped into my head) and then give up searching for it and watch Bend it Like Beckham instead.  I'm in an odd mood.  Feeling an urge to paint my nails and watch teen movies.  Or very bad action movies.

By the way, I finally bought another copy of The Elements of Style and read the darn thing.  I am a bad writer.  But, anyways, it's a marvelous book.  Like Mere Christianity - it conveys so much so compactly.

Whoo.  I am calm now.  Thanks for listening, my dear blog.  Goodbye.

"Not long after I moved with my family..."

I did something mildly awesome a few weeks ago.

Yeah.  I saw Bill Bryson. That's who that is. And that grinning idiot next to him is me.

How, you might reasonably ask, did I manage to do this in Arkansas?  Well, Mr. Bryson gave a reading at University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. I had no idea that he was visiting.  My mom told me the saturday before that I had to get all my homework done because we were going somewhere on Monday.  I did so, and we drove for three hours.  When we got into the auditorium I was ordered to look down at the floor.  I was told afterwords that people were carrying books around for signing.  I have excellent self-control, however, and didn't see.  I didn't know what was going on until a guy got up and said, "And now, Bill Bryson." 

It was great.  Unless I sit next to an extremely voluble Emma Thompson on a very long plane flight, it was the high point of my life. 

So, that's all for now.


P.S. I am not actually that geeky looking.  The, uh, lighting was bad.  In real life I am remarkably attractive in an ugly sort of way.