Here are some things we need to discuss.

! The flying kicks I just executed in my hallway. Also how my downstairs neighbors might feel about them.

@ Step it Up and Dance. Okay. So. We all know you're never the only one so I know I'm not the only one watching this show. First of all, I have to say it seems kinda like everyone on the show is awful at dancing except for the guy who was in Movin' Out, and his arms are scary, so, AHHHH. But wow has there ever been a show where you can witness people week after week taking abuse not only about their abilities as dancers but their abilities as PEOPLE MAINTAINING GENDER CONSTRUCTS? Professional dancers are effed up, they can't help it, and this show is here to show us why and how. Watch them yell, suffer, and then HUGGGGGGG each other over and over again.

@b Plus the last episode had this otherworldly appearance by a completely spaced-out Jason Alexander who spoke in hushed tones about the JOY OF PERFORMANCE and basically made me wish I had all the Valium in his world.

# The Invention of Everything Else. A second opinion.

$ 30 Rock. Girl I truly love you but why do you even deal in The Lackey In Love With the Rich Boss. Your jokes are mostly so goooooooooooood please no longer let your writers occasionally slip in parts of their old Simpsons specs thx. But what I liked best about last week was Miriam Tolan. MIRIAM TOLAN!!

% Okay this is not really spoilers for S4 of Doctor Who but it is a list related to constructing speculation, so, skip if you're skittish, sunshine. ( Yes, sunshine. )

^ I have all of these stories written and saved that will never see the light of day because when I read them over I think, these stories are not in any way funny. Which is not to say that everything I write is meant to be funny. But these stories are not FUNNY they have no humor. So I put them away and listen to rock music instead.

Industry vernacular! Any industry. Any vernacular. As many as you can, definitions as necessary. Right now, in the comments. GO.

I am SERIOUS.

The Internet is just pulling me in all directions these days. What of it Internet. What of it.

1. I got a Tumblr and apparently I've been writing in it. There's a feed if you want that instead: THE FEED. So far mostly I've written about movies that I've seen and things that I thought about stuff that happens. Sometimes there are songs and yesterday I talked about television.

1a. I don't know how I feel about Tumblr, though! It looks good. It lets me do things quickly. But like. It just doesn't quite feel right yet.

2. Daytime Prize Winner updates: a few. I wrote this one thing a couple weeks ago that I like and that's called Talk Pidgin. It's got some rough edges but mostly turned out exactly how I meant it. The other successful one I think was has is His Memory Heart. Next I'm writing something about bathrooms. I feel good. Things over there are kind of taking shape. Like I know how I want it and how I want it is how I'm doing it already. Sounds simple, but.

3. NBC decided to do a presentation to advertisers to announce their upcoming programming. They're doing this instead of upfronts. Information is therefore kinda mixed up but I would like to do some entries on the new stuff in the way that I did that last year, remember we had fun doing that? So I think I will when I have a minute.

4. I also have a Twitter that I hate.

5. And on Flickr there are some pictures from my SXSW trip last month. Also last weekend I went to California and there might be a few photos from that eventually but basically most of them are blurry shots of family, so, not for you, Internet. Although if I know you and I know I do, you don't care so much about Flickr because we know we are not a photographer over here up in this business. We are just a body.

6. Blargity smackity. Internet Internet Internet.

7. Goodreads.

8. HILARIOUSLY RELATED TO ALL OF THE ABOVE: I'm reading Feed finally. I probably should have done this a million years ago. So far my strongest feeling about it is that I hate the size of the paperback, the trim's all effed. I have other feelings too but I'm waiting to say them because Mr. Anderson is clearly writing an entire book not just the first 50 pages that I've read.

9. Oh and! Amy and I hung out in California for a few hours and it was so good. I attacked some food and mostly what this picture proves aside from that I attacked it is that I NEED A NEW FAVORITE BLOUSE. Because don't we all have a million pictures of me in that blouse already? GIVE IT UP. SOMEONE GET ME A NEW ONE.

10. Also I want a cameo necklace, or actually I want a necklace that features a cameo. I saw one I loved in Austin but it wasn't in the budget. Etsy is currently a big disappointment. I like dirty metals and I like necklaces with multiple charms. I don't love huge pendants. Okay, go.

This week I started doing this program where I leave work for 90 minutes every Monday and I walk down the street and around the block and down some other streets and through a gate and up some stairs and into a public school. Then I hang out with a first-grader for an hour while he demolishes his lunch and I read a book to him/with him/at him/near him and simultaneously try not to talk down to him, because for chrissake he's probably got enough problems without some square in ill-fitting dress pants, like, tormenting him with stupid. Basically it is work-sanctioned volunteership and I am not sharing this with you to brag but to say that I am super excited about the whole thing.

I mean I get it. I get that I am not exactly turning the world on with my smile here, I get that I am not patenting world peace or even really doing anything at all except hanging out with a kid. I get that at some point probably the kid is going to be like, wait hang on, this is recess, why am I not recessing, and maybe there is going to be a day where he calls me a name or just doesn't want to deal with me at all. Y'all I have done my share of babysitting so I am not all ooh check out the kid he is sunshine and puppy dogs. But if I could just allow myself to drop the self-defensive run-on sentences for a second:

It's fun, what I'm doing.

But also terrifying, a little. A bunch of other people were starting the program on Monday, too--we'd all been paired up with kids (who we'll stay with until either we or the kids say peace out, weird literacy program) and we seriously were just standing around wringing our hands waiting for the bell to ring so that we could see if we'd won the adorable kid lottery or not. Everyone was chatting nervously, hoping they looked okay, stressing. We couldn't stop reminiscing about our own elementary schools, and did they all smell like oven-cleaner like this one, and then the bell rang and SERIOUSLY LIKE IS THAT A HERD OF oh okay wow I'm not taller than all of them, that's fantastic. Really fantastic.

I mean, I really hope that doing this benefits my kid. I really seriously hope that in some way this one hour a week gets socked into his memory bank and I don't know in twenty years he won't remember it exactly but he'll like see some midget with frizzy hair and be like, that person makes me feel vaguely like I am an adult who is intelligent and can make good choices. I do know that as a kid myself basically I was just an attention vacuum. So I can at least provide um, attention dirt? Sure, attention dirt.

But honestly you guys should see the school lunches. Three mushy carrots and that sort of D-grade hamburger on well at least it looked like a whole wheat roll, plus another kid had three chicken nuggets that look like they'd been hit by a truck on their way to his plate. So. No child left behind, okay? Okay good.

Okay so over the past week I've had a few people refer to the fact that I you know do this thing with my opinion where I say it out loud and defend it angrily and gripe negatively etc etc. So: I've decided to make some half-hearted attempts at being more positive about things that are obviously things I dislike. Synchronicitously I have also been working my way through the first season of Torchwood! What ho!

Also I'm going to cut this post because technically these are I guess spoilery things for anyone who's like saving this show for a rainy day.( Risen Mitten, Life Knife, and that old classic, Stun Gun. )

So this has been a bit of a poorly kept secret but you guys for the week after Christmas I got myself a new domain and it's for writing. So if you liked (a) this (b) this (c) the parts of PostTober you suspected I made up (d) Megadee's Little Bit of the Web (OH YEAH I WENT THERE) then perhaps you will also enjoy:

Daytime Prize Winner.

There is not much up to begin with because give me a break I just registered it last week. It's been on my mind, though, you know, the idea, so let's not call it a Resolution. You can't knock on enough wood to counter that kind of attitude. Plus in the event that I do not double-knot myself in self-doubt it may in fact be the home of an Internet Serial based on a Joke Made at a Diner. The first bit of that is up now. Also if anything is janked up about the look or feel or click, pls. to tell. We're all aware of my design mediocrity. Just look at the way I dress.

Okay, gotta go, the latest issue of Glamour arrived today and I'm dying to read about The 5 Daily Habits That Will Save Your Life. Oh Jane Magazine, why did you forsake me and leave me with this crap I can't even stand to take out of the plastic bag each month. Oh why.

I wrote a Christmas story for you.

( ... )

xo Enjoy it.

Something is in desperate need of rebalance. Without going into too many details, here are the things that should have gone so much better in the last two weeks: throwing a chopstick, buying a Metrocard, going to the doctor, going to the pharmacy, the end of The Golden Compass film, helping out some people stuck in a turnstile, paying off my credit card, work-related social functions, buying a thoughtful gift. I mean! You go along in your life trying to believe that this is all doled out randomly and then it gangs up on you like a wolfpack or a dogsled team or a jury and you're like, SERIOUSLY, I'M SORRY ABOUT IT ALREADY. Except it knows you're not sorry, it knows you've supped for free at the cup of luck for TOO LONG now you freak and waiting for better days can be merciless.

But 'tis the season, right, so in the spirit of: these adorable fricking bird earrings I bought myself at the Bust Craftacular, the Christmas gift mug that followed me home (SERIOUSLY IT LOOKS SO GOOD ON A MUG!!), my tiny-ass fake Christmas tree and little wooden skiing Santa, pretending my apartment is proportionate to said tiny-ass fake Christmas tree if tiny-ass fake Christmas tree was real and not tiny-ass (and therefore pretending I live in a mansion), Ted Leo & naked guy & Buddy Holly covers (seriously, this video, you guys; that's me laughing like a total maniac in the bottom left), soy stroganoff, Chuck Shaw, Lee Scoresby & Hester, ProjRun IV, other people's babies, new dresses, Dr. Scholl's moleskine stuff, and my too-short haircut actually looking reasonably cute, for once.

Okay, off to go give all of my money to charity.

Yesterday morning I had a doctor's appointment. This appointment was canceled twice previously--the first time I think the receptionist just neglected to put me on the calendar, the second time they forgot that my PHYSICIAN (word!) would be on vacation. So yesterday I barrel in there a little late but ready to go and they check me on in and we do the things that we do and my knees do that kicking thing and other things are questionable but most things are great, yay.

This morning I wake up and I flip over to Google Calendar and there it is, in little blue letters, 9am: Physical. Wait what? And in no way have I written the same thing on Wednesday and just, like, duplicated the entry, no, it says 9am: Physical for this morning and not yesterday at all. So I go flipping through my wallet and come up with that little appointment card they give you and sure enough, big bright letters, 12/6/07, 9am. You guys, unless I am completely off my rocker, that is TODAY. And today is THURSDAY.

So I basically, what, walked into the office yesterday morning and strongarmed my way into an appointment? Like did they just feel so bad about screwing it up twice before that they decided not to say anything when I was clearly not on the schedule? Or did they screw up again and we're just sympatico now so that we BOTH wrote it down for Wednesday? THESE AND OTHER QUESTIONS WILL NEVER BE ANSWERED! But I have to say there is a part of me that wants to call them and apologize for screwing up their schedule yesterday, kind of like how as I was leaving yesterday I was like "do you need this co-pay" and they were like "no" and I was like "no I'm pretty sure you do" and they were like "nah" and I was like "seriously I checked with insurance and I don't want to leave you $20 flat" and the receptionist with the funny glasses said very seriously "That is very honorable of you." And then she said "We'll bill you." Which is probably a good way to end.

Except that also earlier this week I tried to go to this blood donation appointment I had through a work-driven blood-drive and I got all ready and ate my calories and drank a ton of water and then as I was going to the appointment my coworker was like, "I thought that was next Monday?" and sure enough.

Flying during the holidays sucks, obviously, but how come I keep doing it? Probably because at the end of all of my harrowing and semi-harrowing and quasi-harrowing journeys, I end up here at Syracuse Hancock, sitting in the sun and sopping up Free Wireless. Like even though I can spend an entire week on the Internet, like, on the message boards and the Ravelries and the LiveJournals and the Gmails and whatever whatevers, like, this extra 15 minutes sitting in an airport reading knitblogs somehow makes the crappy LGA layovers and the strip-to-your-stocking-feet worth it? YES.

Also on the CNN in-flight monitors they keep playing that Marriott commercial with the cut-up Andrew Bird song, which REMINDS ME that on MTV right now there is a bumper featuring Kenna and in the bumper he's talking about bands he likes and he's like blah blah blah "Kings of Leon...Okkervil River...and Andrew Bird. But Andrew Bird should stop whistling so much."

See, you like Free Wireless, too, because it gets you stories like that. Stories from the front line. The front line of my heart.