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If you are a cashier at a coffee shop/cafe and you suddenly resume your conversation about meatloaf with a co-worker who is invisible to customers behind a stack of boxes, some confusion may occur. You see, the frazzled secretary waiting to pay for the somewhat dodgy sushi lunch will assume that your question, “So, you don’t like it with gravy?” is regarding her impending meal. And she may be overly polite and will produce an answer, despite the terrifying nonsensical context, and reply, “Um…no, I don’t think I’ve ever put gravy on sushi.” And you and your co-worker, who has suddenly peered from behind the boxes to study this odd creature who allows words to just tumble out of her mouth about meatloaf and gravy and sushi, will suddenly become just as confused as the now thoroughly embarrassed secretary. And eye contact will no longer be bearable.

So, you know, don’t do that.

* * *

The husband whisked me away for a restorative weekend of food and walks and TV because I’ve been really sad lately. We watched many episodes of Food Network’s offerings to the reality TV gods, including Chopped, Cupcake Wars, and…I don’t know…manufactured drama over fondant. Much like the tic of reality stars of other competition-based shows to say, “I’m not here to make friends,” competitive chefs have a tendency to say, “Go big or go home.” This makes sense when you’re talking about cupcakes, as they’re known for their gigantic size. The husband, who doesn’t absorb bumper sticker folk wisdom or cliches very readily, which is odd since one of the first gifts he ever gave me was a book of cliches, took note of this repetitive boast: “They keep saying…like, ‘If you’re gonna go, go big.'”

We took great delight in reconstructing cliches in this manner over the rest of the weekend.

There’s a box and you’re outside it. Thinking.

That’s evil but less so than this other evil.

If there’s something that you can do now, you should do it and not wait because procrastinating is doing stuff later.

Mi casa es mi casa but you can come over whenever.

* * *

We watched most of Sex and the City 2 last night. It was offensive. And terrible. And offensively terrible. And two and half hours long. The husband and I have a really unhealthy habit of watching particularly bad movies for the sheer delight of giving them the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 treatment.

“What happened in the first one?”

“Uhhhh…you know, honestly, I think I blacked out in the middle of it. But it was also two and a half hours long and I remember the realization that I had been watching it for hours depressing the hell out of me.”

Upon seeing Carrie, Charlotte, and Miranda peek around a corner wearing burqas:

“I know that it is not in any way okay to say this, but I’m pretty sure this is why planes get flown into buildings.”

“Maybe the 9/11 terrorists saw this movie and traveled back in time to try to stop it.”

“Like Terminator?”

“Yeah…I think.”

“Maybe John Connor wrote Sex and the City 2?”

Upon watching Carrie, insecure in her marriage after confessing to kissing her old flame in Abu Dhabi, come home to a Big-less apartment and the TV missing:

“I bet he’s just out buying a new TV.”

“I hope she goes totally Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale and is halfway through burning all of his clothes when he comes home.”

Pondering the last five minutes of the movie, in which all plot development abruptly stopped and the writers just threw all of the characters back together happily with their spouses:

“Huh. They must have been two hours and 25 minutes into the movie when they realized that it was going absolutely fucking nowhere and were like, ‘Okay, let’s just end.'”

“Orphan is coming on. That movie was also terrible. Come to think of it, Orphan was similar to Sex and the City 2. This girl is being weird and killing people for over two hours and you’re supposed to be thinking, ‘What could possibly cause this little girl to go on this rampage with this ridiculous accent?'” And the big reveal is that it’s because she’s actually 35 and you’re like, ‘Uh…’ That’s not even a twist. Someone being 35 is not a twist. That’s just starting a whole other movie.”

I’m trying to not think about earthquakes because they scare the shit out of me and aside from donating money for relief there’s not a whole hell of a lot anyone can do about stuff like that. Earth got a wedgie. Then everything went boom.

* * *

I’m ordering new checks and have the option of adding a pithy expression to them. I’m so tempted to add something ridiculous and untrue, like, “Horses are my life.”

After writing it out, it seemed so deranged and wonderful that I went ahead and ordered them as such. So now, at least in my checking existence, horses are my life.

* * *

I’m still jogging, as you can see from the widget over there on the left. I’m working on building up my speed because I have this somewhat arbitrary goal of being able to run 5K in 30 minutes. I decided to accomplish this by redoing the Couch to 5K program but using it to incrementally increase how fast I can go. It’s pretty cool, because I can remember getting on the treadmill around this time last year and barely being able to survive going 4.0 miles an hour for longer than a few seconds but eventually, after weeks and weeks, getting to 4.7 miles an hour and thinking, “Wow! I hope my face doesn’t peel off from going so fast!” Now, 4.0 mph is my warmup/cooldown walking speed and I’m pushing past 6.0 miles an hour.

One of the students where I work checks in on my progress occasionally. He did the Couch to 5K about two years ago and now regularly competes in triathlons and stuff. He’s obviously more hardcore about the whole thing, as I don’t think I’m really interested in working toward that big of a goal. He did encourage me to sign up for a 5K race, though. I told him that I had been hesitant to do so because I didn’t want to be embarrassed by how slow I am or how many walking breaks I might have to take, but quickly gobbled up my self-doubt with, “But, I KNOW that that doesn’t really matter. It’s far more badass to go out there and just do it than to stand on the sidelines and pout about how much better everyone else is.” He paused and said, “No, it matters.” To which I replied, “Oh…oh.”

A few days later he emailed me about the Race for the Cure, encouraging me again to go for it, adding, “There are lots of old people, so you know you won’t be the slowest person there.” Thanks, man! Now I’m thinking about making a point of running past old people at this breast cancer shindig and saying stuff like, “OOOOHHHH in your FACE, coffin-dodger! How does my ass look jogging further and further away from you? What was Prohibition like?” But I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if an 80-year-old elbowed me out of her way. We’ll see.

* * *

And in stark contrast to all of that health and exercise talk…

Since it’s the first Friday of Lent and we’re celebrating my mother-in-law’s birthday today, we’re going over to her house for fish sandwiches. I am far too excited about this. And I agreed to make her a birthday cake. So, knowing that she really likes Oreos, I made her a Chocolate Oreo Cake, the recipe for which I found at Sing for Your Supper.

The hardest part was actually cutting Oreos in half. They’re such brittle cookies. Even still, I didn’t finish up with this until nearly 1 a.m. because I had a horrific stomachache that kept me confined to the couch for a few hours.

This morning, I was putting my oatmeal on the stove and the baby was supposed to be getting his shoes and jacket on. When I came out of the kitchen, he was reading a book. “BLAFGGHHHAHAH!” I shouted. We made it to the bus stop just as the bus was pulling up to the light. The bus driver actually said to me, “You know, you almost missed the bus,” to which I replied, “Hehehe,” which is what I say when someone has just said something so thoroughly annoying and obnoxious and unnecessary and I need to prevent myself from saying, “ALMOST DOESN’T COUNT AND ALSO I ALMOST HATE YOU EVERY OTHER MORNING WHEN I STAND HERE FOR 15 MINUTES WAITING BECAUSE I GET HERE AT THE PRESCRIBED TIME.” I don’t like to provoke the people commandeering large vehicles containing my child. I’m overprotective.

Anyway, this past weekend, I consumed like a good American.

Movies:

The Duchess

Yawn. Very pretty-looking period drama about the Duchess of Devonshire, but I get so bored with heavy-handed, “You’ve come a long way, baby,” pearl-clutchers in which women are overtly oppressed in such a way that we’re supposed to go, “My, it’s so good that sexism is all gone now.”

The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia

I can’t remember why, but in one of my short story classes in college we watched The Dancing Outlaw, about the wild mountain dancer Jesco White. He was a character and not always likable but entertaining enough. It never occurred to me what kind of cloth he was cut from. But someone went back to Boone County, WV and made a documentary about his family, including matriarchs Bertie Mae and Mamie, Kirk, and of course Sue Bob, aka The Pretty One.

I admire their loyalty to each other and their determination to live exactly the way they want to. But it was undeniably fucked up to watch Kirk snort crushed up pills in her hospital room while her newborn daughter slept nearby and to know that even if they do get sober, the only real option they have is to break their backs working for a coal company and still be more or less broke. Blargh.

ANYWAY

The Glories of Big Box Commerce:

We went to Teh Wal-Mart to procure groceries. Most of the time this is a purely robotic venture. We march up and down the aisles, grabbing stuff on our list and try to make it out of there expeditiously so that we can get on with our lives. But sometimes if you really look at the stuff that’s available to purchase, it all seems kind of surreal.

Chocolate-covered Froot Loops. You can tell from the startled expressions on the faces of the banana, orange, and cherries that this was an unexpected development. I’m not really opposed to chocolate-covered anything and really if you’re eating Froot Loops, why the hell not dip them in chocolate at that point?

It’s never encouraging when your food barfs before you even eat it. “Ugh, I’m nauseating.”

This is very clever product placement. Next to the condoms, you have both the Gatorade Prime, for the pre-game, and the Gatorade Recover. It’s got electrolytes.

Doo-do-doo, I’m strolling through the hair care aisle. The last thing I’ll run into is pla–

I had heard of placenta treatments for hair, I just never imagined seeing them in Wal-Mart.

Charlie Sheen and Ronald Reagan. A double dose of “I just can’t bring myself to give a shit,” and “Thanks for the legacy, a-hole.”

Two things worth noting about this video: 1) I’m wearing a shirt that says, “There is no R in Warsh,” warsh being how many people in this region pronounce wash and 2) I did my best to just say the words as naturally as I could. I’ve noticed lately that I do have a bit of a Pittsburgh accent for certain words and that I kind of talk out of the side of my mouth. What’s that about?

Anyway, this has been all over the interwebs by now but I saw it most recently here. The full list, if you’d like to play along, is:

Aunt, Route, Wash, Oil, Theater, Iron, Salmon, Caramel, Fire, Water, Sure, Data, Ruin, Crayon, Toilet, New Orleans, Pecan, Both, Again, Probably, Spitting image, Alabama, Lawyer, Coupon, Mayonnaise, Syrup, Pajamas, Caught

Added on: Pillow, Toothpick, Milk, Eggs

Questions:

What is it called when you throw toilet paper on a house?
What is the bug that when you touch it, it curls into a ball?
What is the bubbly carbonated drink called? Edit I can’t believe I skipped over this one. The word for that type of drink is pop!
What do you call gym shoes?
What do you say to address a group of people?
What do you call the kind of spider that has an oval-shaped body and extremely long legs?
What do you call the wheeled contraption in which you carry groceries at the supermarket?
What do you call it when rain falls while the sun is shining?
What is the thing you change the TV channel with?

I posted to MamaPop last week about a UK show called Big Fat Gypsy Weddings (or My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding according to some sites) and wailed about how it wasn’t available to watch in the US. I forgot, of course, that this is the internet and anything can be had if you know the right people. I won’t reveal my sources, but a few discs with some episodes arrived in my mailbox last week and I spent Saturday afternoon devouring them.

It’s pretty wild. The gypsies and travelers regard themselves as very strict and traditional. Gender roles are severely defined and haven’t changed much in the face of several waves of feminism and a sexual revolution. Girls marry young and move immediately into their roles as homemakers. They do this in their mid-to-late teens, which is around the time that many girls begin exploring their sexuality. So they’re able to say with some degree of authority that there is no pre-marital sex.

Because of the young marital age, gypsies and travelers seem to be far more tolerant about outward displays of sexuality extremely early in life. I watched, slack-jawed, as a group of 8-year-old girls celebrated their cousin’s First Holy Communion by grinding in high heels and tiny skirts and tops. Their parents and grandparents sat and watched and beamed with joy, the same expressions that they might have if they were watching the kids play Duck, Duck, Goose. They’re not concerned about the early sexualization of the girls because a) they’re only a few years out from being married anyway and b) they’re merely imitating the behavior of presumably chaste adolescents. The boys display a sense of territoriality by participating in “grabbing,” a courtship ritual that sounds a lot like accepted assault to me.

I wish the show would explore these gender roles and sexuality conventions more thoroughly, but they spend a lot of time on the bridal attire, if for no other reason than how absurd it is. I’m really curious about the general attire of the young people, which is, again, sexually provocative but to the ends of securing a husband, and other outfits that almost look like stereotypical/racially offensive gypsy costumes that you might see around Halloween in the US.

Anyway, all that pondering aside, I suddenly found myself feeling a bit of a pang during the Communion scenes. It occurred to me that the baby is around the age, perhaps even a bit older, that he would be making his First Communion if we were raising him Catholic. I remember being extremely excited about mine and in the context of this show I began to wonder how much of that was because of the dress and the veil that I got to wear. We looked like mini-brides and were giddy about that. But the important thing about my Communion outfit was that it was my mom’s. I was the latest in a long of people who had made the same sacrament. It was presumed that I would continue the tradition…until I knew that I wouldn’t.

Parenting and life are so scary sometimes, that maybe traditions, even those surrounded by yucky things like inequity, are comforting because they give us some road map that was laid down by people who lived and took care of their families with what seems to be a degree of certainty. Of course, the old ways were once new and there’s nothing stopping us from forging new traditions that are more appropriate for how we feel about and experience life. But I can’t help but look at even the most ridiculous, competitive dress for a young gypsy girl and think there’s something at least a little nice about it, the sheer celebration of survival of it.

Husband: “Smell my pants.”

* * *

Husband: “Smell the cat’s butt.”

* * *

Husband: “Why are you drinking whiskey?”

Me: “I’m not drinking whiskey.”

Husband: “Oh. Then what are you drinking?”

Me: “Cognac.”

Husband: “Why are you drinking Cognac?”

Me: “…”

Husband: “…?”

Me: “Because we’re out of whiskey.”

The baby has not had a full day of school in close to two weeks due to various things like holidays, school closings, doctor’s appointments, and Surprise! Your Strep Test Is Positive! parties. I’m not entirely convinced that he has retained the ability to read.

On Sunday, I started displaying symptoms of the husband’s Man Cold that he was just getting over.

This resulted in me doing things like NotLaundry and NotGrocery Shopping. The husband and I both ended up passed out on the couch for a good two hours in the afternoon. During that time, the baby turned on Adventure Time and helped himself to a bag of Cheetos (aka our AFC Championship buffet). I half-opened one eye about 1.5 hours into my nap and mumbled, “Yo. Take it easy on those Cheetos, dude,” and went back to sleep. It was a proud moment for me as I have long yearned to reach the same level of parental competence as Britney Spears.

After a night of sleep that could only be described as, “Really weird…and moist,” I went to work yesterday fueled entirely by DayQuil. Aside from being rather drippy and cycling in and out of sweating spells, I felt surprisingly okay. But last night, I started to feel kind of woozy. I told the husband this and he cackled and told me that I had not yet reached the zenith of my sickness. Yay.

Speaking of parenting, over the winter break, I started watching…nay, devouring episodes of Intervention on Netflix. The husband finds this habit of mine entirely absurd and even I reached a point about halfway through season three where I thought, “I can’t watch this anymore.” The situation was so disturbing and I had a pretty sick feeling that we only knew the half of it. Just to be clear, I’m not referring to the episode featuring Sylvia, the alcoholic Southern belle. Though that episode was disturbing because when they first showed her cracking open a mini-bottle of vodka while driving, I said, “Holy shit, is that Lucille from Arrested Development? Is this like the April Fool’s episode of Intervention?” The resemblance was that uncanny.

But the whole thing has me freaked out about parenting. I mean, plenty of the people featured on the show had some really horrible experiences and I don’t think anyone can blame them for just checking out of life. But then there are some people who had relatively good existences and then blam. “My mom pushed me to get good grades so I started doing heroin. My dad criticized my cooking this one time so now I weigh 30 pounds. My mom was tired that one time and couldn’t devote her entire consciousness to me so now I’m 90% Jack Daniels.”

I’m not terrified of the baby trying alcohol or even some drugs when he’s older. But I am scared of him finding any number of my imperfect behaviors devastating and running with that to the crack house. Now, every time I shout, “DO. YOUR. HOMEWORK!” I panic and hide all of the liquor. But I know I’m oversimplifying and overreacting. If something as crazy as addiction could be simply boiled down to bad parenting, I doubt it would be so hard to overcome. I just…I just see a bunch of people who love ya like crazy and they feel like they’re losin’ ya.

(Sigh. Right after I finished writing this, I had to angrily reclaim my iPhone from the baby after I asked for it three times so now I’m wondering what in our house can be used to cook up a shot.)

The baby was sick all weekend with some weird viral thing that the pediatrician diagnosed as “some crud.” Immediately after the Steeler game on Saturday, he puked, but that portion was mercifully over right away and replaced by a fever and sore throat. He was mostly better yesterday, but I kept him home.

Then last night, in the midst of cooking dinner (black bean soup, of all unpleasant visual things), this crap happened again. I’m now fairly certain that the culprit was not a virus but some protein mix that I had put into a smoothie both times that may have turned. I shuffled upstairs to brush my teeth and while I was in the bathroom, the baby adjusted the bed covers, laid a towel over my pillow like I do for him when he’s fighting stomach nastiness, placed a bucket next to the bed, then got some books out. When I came out of the bathroom, he splayed the books out in front of me, three Diary of a Wimpy Kid books and Tales of Beedle the Bard. “Mum, pick one,” he said. I picked the Beedle book. “Uh, not that one,” he replied. Then we climbed into bed and he read Diary of a Wimpy Kid to me while I closed my eyes and tried to think about all things non-vomitous.

It’s really nice to be taken care of sometimes.

Happy New Year!

What’s that? You say that 2011 is practically almost over already? Well, I’ll be…

Yes, this is my first post on here for 2011. My poor little blog. I started back to work after the winter break and felt completely spun around. I think it’s mostly seasonal. When the days are short, I get overwhelmed. In addition to the 9 to 5, I’m still writing at MamaPop,** plus I’m now officially the managing editor at We Covet. It’s a lot of work, but it’s good. And I feel like I’m really making use of my MA, which means a lot to me. But I’ve had literally no time for regular internet stuff and nearly cry every time I click “Mark all as read” on Google Reader.

But, really, not much has happened since we last spoke. I got a new retainer! I had a permanent one affixed to the back of my bottom teeth when I got my braces removed when I was…uh…13? And it was fine up until about September, when we were at a barbecue and someone made deep-fried corn on the cob. And I was like, “Put that in my face.” It was very tasty, but obviously harder than regular corn and it broke the wire on the retainer.

I went to my dentist to get it removed so that it wouldn’t cut up my mouth and then our conversation was like:

“Do you want to get another one?”

“Uh, is that what I should do?”

“Well, you don’t have to get it replaced.”

“Then what happens?”

“Well, your teeth will probably shift and that could cause serious problems down the road, from having to get braces again to getting teeth extracted.”

“Uh, so, it sounds like I should get it replaced.”

Like, why was I even presented with an option? When you go to the emergency room with a broken leg, do they get your opinion on whether or not you want a cast? No! They say, “I went to school for a million years so that I could be an expert in these situations, unlike you, who is still struggling to understand the nuances of the last Real Housewives episode. You’re getting a cast and some crutches and then I’ll tell you how long you’ll keep it on and then I’ll tell you how much physical therapy you need. You see this ‘M.D.’ after my name? That doesn’t stand for ‘Mad Dog,’ my friend.”

Anyway, getting an appointment with the orthodontist was a whole other ordeal because I had to keep rescheduling and then one day I went to the wrong location and another day the bus never came. But I finally got there and sat in a chair in an open room with lots of other exam chairs (are they standard for orthodontists?). And the orthodontist said, “So, your retainer broke and you would like to get a new one? That’s what you want to do?” This did not make me feel any better. I’m lying down with my mouth stretched out and dude is asking for my medical opinion on my teeth, which, by the way, I can’t see and know nothing about. Yes. Please. Give the goddamned retainer.

The orthodontist’s office was above a Starbucks and after I had my new retainer, my mouth tasted like cement so I went to get a coffee. There was a lady there who had a nervous tic of loudly saying, “Hold on! Wait! Hold on!” in a very irritated tone. She either had a) Tourette’s or b) a couple of kids.

*Eddie Izzard’s impression of entrances in British movies, which is what this post feels like.

**Psst! Please read my Big Love recaps! I work really hard on them and it’s the last season and I can’t take the Henricksons alone!

I have a year-in-review meme that I thought I did every year but I can’t seem to find it for last year. Weird.

Anyway, here it is for 2010.

1. Where did you begin 2010?

In my living room with the husband and the sister-in-law and her boyfriend.

2. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?

I ran. Writing this post, I looked back at my posts from the beginning of the year, and especially from when the husband’s job fell through. I was so sad. So, so sad and so very scared of what would become of us. When the winter finally started to let up, I started the Couch to 5k program. I really didn’t think I would be able to finish it, but I just kept doing it. Jogging a few times a week gave me 30 to 45 minutes where I was working toward a goal, sweating out a lot of nastiness, and pounding the ground beneath me, leaving everything behind for a bit. It was cathartic in a way that I didn’t know was possible. I still jog at least once a week and would like to do it more.

I walked across the stage of an auditorium and had my master’s degree placed in my hands. The associate head of my department, who works closely with me and who was the person to give me the diploma, said to me, “This is really such a rush,” and grinned the grin of an educator who sees her life’s work being well spent on someone who truly wanted to learn. I made a lot of people proud that day and that’s pretty cool.

3. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I don’t really make resolutions because I think I like to ease into things rather than be like, “Okay, doing this starting NOW.” I want to jog more and figure out a way to work it into almost every day. I’ve lost about 20 pounds over the past year and would like to lose about 20 more. I started eating much better and adopted a much better attitude toward food and my body and would like to continue that. I also need to read more books.

4. Were you in school (anytime this year)?

No! I’ve had momentary flashes of, “Ooh, that class sounds interesting,” but they’re quickly replaced with the realization that I could just do anything else and it goes away. Maybe in the next few years I’ll have the strength to audit a class here and there, but I think I’m officially done with formal education.

5. Did anyone close to you give birth?

My co-worker/officemate had a baby girl and I feel like I haven’t really met her yet because both times she’s come to visit her office aunts she’s been asleep. The brat.

6. Did anyone close to you die?

No. Though we thought that my mother-in-law’s dog was going to kick the bucket (again) and she made a miraculous recovery (again) and it’s emotionally exhausting so I’ve decided that the goddamned dog is immortal the end.

7. What places did you visit?

Washington, D.C., Detroit, MI, New York, NY, Philadelphia, PA

8. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?

Less fear and I would prefer that we accomplish that by having two incomes but some kind of like inner peace or whatever would work, too, I guess.

9. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

The only big date that I can think of is my graduation ceremony but I can’t remember what the precise date was. So, “some time in mid-May” will be the date etched upon my memory.

10. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

The aforementioned Couch to 5k and general big strides in my health and wellbeing, my graduation ceremony. I think I calmed down a lot.

11. What was your biggest failure?

Though I did calm down a lot, I’m stilly pretty anxious a lot of the time and get too upset about things that I can’t control and then lash out at people about it. It’s shitty. I don’t like myself for it. I wish I was better.

12. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Thankfully, no. Just the stomach virus thing a few weeks ago. And my PMS seemed to turn some kind of corner into crazytown. Need to tend to that.

13. What was the best thing you bought?

Roller skates! Though I’m still far from being an expert roller skater, I feel pretty bad ass marching into the rink with my skates. And they’re much prettier than those brown rental skates.

14. Whose behavior merited celebration?

The baby is 9, which is a weird age. He doesn’t really know how to behave because he’s not a little kid anymore but he’s not a big kid yet, either. So he’s struggling with handling responsibility and wanting more privileges but not acting in a way that affords him that. And getting mad at us when we point that out but mad at himself for knowing he could do better. But really, he’s a good kid, very self-aware, and wants more than anything to be a good person. It’s hard to know how to do that and I don’t think any of us ever figure it out, but at least he’s trying.

15. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Pretty much everyone else. I really kind of don’t understand what people are thinking and why they feel they can just do and say any stupid thing that comes in their head.

16. Where did most of your money go?

All of my money went to paying the bills that I can pay right now. None of it went to savings or toward paying the bills that I can’t pay right now (student loans). And that’s all I want to say about that because it’s so embarrassing and depressing that I don’t want to get into it.

17. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Getting past this shitty point in life somehow and moving forward. It’d be cool if that could happen.

The husband and I celebrating 10 years together. I think that’s pretty cool.

18. What song will always remind you of 2010?

Moments in Life by Andres

19. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Both.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner.
c) richer or poorer? Poorer.

20. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Reading books, taking pictures, writing, and being with people. I live inside my head too much and that is, uh, a bad neighborhood. Sometimes I need to do that, just be alone so I can think through some stuff, but it’s better for me to be around other people.

21. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Being on the internet. I think I became a little better about just walking away sometimes. I’m having trouble balancing out the time that I spend on here being something that I actively enjoy and something that I do because I’m bored or don’t feel like doing something else.

Fretting about things that I can’t change.

22. How did you spend Christmas?

Christmas Eve was at my mother-in-law’s. Christmas morning was at our house, then we went to my mom’s house, then we went to the husband’s family’s house. The actual familial relationship I’m still not clear on, despite being part of the family for some time now.

23. Did you fall in love in 2010?

I fall more in love with the husband and the baby every day.

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Big Love, True Blood

25. What did you do for your birthday in 2010?

We had a small party at my mom’s house and went trick-or-treating.

26. What was the best book you read?

Oh, god. I don’t think I actually read any one book from beginning to end this year. This has to change. I used to devour books.

27. What did you want and get?

A new couch, thanks to my mom and a big sale at a local furniture store.

28. What did you want and not get?

Less stress and fear for both me and the husband.

29. What was your favorite film of this year?

I’m really glad that we saw True Grit the other day because otherwise it would have been a pretty lackluster movie year. True Grit was awesome.

30. Did you make some new friends this year?

Yep. BlogHer was kind of a goldmine for funny bitches.

31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

I know it’s stupid to get pissed at a meme, but isn’t this the exact same question as what did you want and not get?

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010?

Same as its always been: dressed.

33. What kept you sane?

The rad people in my life. Movies. Writing. Louis CK’s comedy.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Celebrities can eat a fat one. Seriously. I don’t give a flying frack.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?

The one where people acted like ignorant, over-privileged jackholes. Oh, wait, THAT WAS ALL OF THEM. Yeah, seriously done with every politician, every Republican, every Democrat, every Conservative, every Liberal. None of them has a clue what’s going on or what to do about it but they can’t admit that because shit would be chaotic.

36. Who did you miss?

I don’t know. Frank maybe?

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.

I’m not very cheery.