12,412,678.06

The approximate number of calories I have consumed since December 21st.

Long live peanut butter balls and sugar cookies.

Ho...Ho....HO!

Merry Christmas from Illingworth Manor...













May your Christmas be Merry and Bright!

P.S. Here's Minnie hoping Santa doesn't forget about her....

Welcome to Office High

I graduated from high school over 14 years ago. As much as I feel like high school was just last week, it also feels like a distant memory. Like I need to squint to remember it clearly. And this is ok with me. Being an adult, while overrun with bills and responsibilities and giant life decisions, is at least free of the need to be popular. The need to achieve status among the elite. I've come to a place in my life where I don't care (all that much) if you like me or not.

Until yesterday.

For a few weeks now I've known some information about a friend that not many other people know. I was asked to keep this information a secret for a few weeks - and I did. It wasn't my news to spread. Yesterday, this information was finally revealed to our mutual friends. Most of these friends shouted YAY! and CONGRATS! since this information is of the good variety. Although one friend received the news by saying, "Jo knew before me? SHE KNEW BEFORE ME!!!"

Later in the afternoon this One Friend and I were discussing the information when she looked at me and said, "I can't believe she didn't tell me first. I can't believe she told YOU before ME." Like somehow it should be obvious that I rank WAY below her...and that I should know that it was obviously ridiculous for me to know information first. Information of any kind. Like I should know my rank in the office friendship queue - and stay there.

I can't explain why...but this stung a bit. Like the popular girls telling me with a smirk that the last seat at their lunch table was taken.

Thinking...

Don't you hate it when you've been so sick that you've had to blow your nose every 32 seconds and now it's raw and cracked and irritated but you finally have some drugs thanks to the shiny walk-in clinic where all the mean people work and you are starting to feel better although you still have to blow your nose only now it's not every 32 seconds but more like every 32 minutes and more of a maintenance than a nuisance but now that you aren't blowing your nose so often when you do actually touch cracked nose to scratchy tissue your ears EXPLODE with a force only matched by the pushing and shoving at 5am at Best Buy on Black Friday.

I hate that.

Also, I'm wearing a long sleeve t-shirt today (my fav) and a wool sweater (it's cold) but the sleeves of my t are quite longer than the sleeves of my sweater so I look a bit like a six-year-old with a ten-year-old sister who hasn't grown into the hand-me-down t but has already grown out of the last season sweater.

I hate that too.

Bedside Manners

I live in an area that's in constant development. Constant newness. We're on the outskirts of "town" but we're trying very hard to become town. To become destination worthy. We just got our first sit-down chain restaurant, a Home Depot, Lowe's....even a walk-in clinic. We are becoming so urban Minnie will soon start sagging her pants and writing rap rants about her smothering Mother.

For the past month everyone in the office has been sick. I had secretly started to pride myself in my resilience...taking my multi-vitamin every day and drinking my carrot juice. I thought I was somehow untouchable....like the germs trembled in my healthy presence.

Then on Sunday - I got sick.

Today I broke down and went to the brand new walk-in clinic. I called ahead to find out their hours, checked online to make sure I knew where it was. New clinic!, I thought. Should be fast and easy!

I walked in the shiny new door (no hand prints!) and breezed through the empty waiting room, smiling as I skipped. Well, half-skipped.....I am sick. As I dutifully signed in, the pinch-nosed nurse behind the sliding glass asked me if had been there before. No, I smiled. You haven't!, she shivered. Ummm, no.....aren't you new? Well, she sighed throwing her hands up, you'll HAVE to fill out ALL THESE FORMS and you'll HAVE to GIVE ME your INSURANCE CARD you know. Ok, I smiled.

After I was called back the nurse carrying the small laptop pointed for me to get on the scale. Given my recent weight loss I was happy to oblige. She started me out at 200+......note to the reader.....even at my heaviest, her choice was a bold one. I smiled lightheartedly and said, Oh No! I'm way below that. She growled suspiciously and slammed the weight counter down a notch. Then, almost as an intentional jab, she shouted my weight while typing it into her laptop. She shouted it. Now...I think all ladies know the universal Don't-Shout-Another-Ladies'-Weight Rule....don't we? I don't care if I weigh 105 - don't shout it. Ever.

She then grunted me into Exam Room 1 and checked my vitals. I tried to make polite conversation but she wasn't having it. I ended up leaving with an infection, a prescription and an irritated demeanor.

I ask you, when going to an Urgent Care facility, shouldn't I deserve a little (in the immortal words of Michael Bolton) Time Love and Tenderness?

Just Shoot Me

Our record company collected thousands of emails all summer on the Warped Tour. Understandably, we got some fake emails. My personal favorite is:

biteme@yeahright.com


Rowdy punk kids.

Naked

Sometimes I forget that The Glamorous Life is open to the public. That anyone on planet earth with an internet connection or a library card can access my personal-ness. Not that I'm writing anything embarrassing per se.....but on the occasion someone from my murky past comes back to haunt me. Or to say hello. Or both. Sometimes it's alarming...and sometimes nice. But it always makes me feel like some creep flasher - stunning onlookers with my private bits and pieces. This is one of the main reasons I haven't fully disclosed The Medical Condition I'm wading through. That's what I'm calling it now - The Medical Condition. Or TMC. Or The Thing That Hurts: Season 1. Or......anyway.....I say all this to say.....it's a weird thing, writing about your life in such a way and not knowing whose eyes are watching. It makes me want to censor. Cover up.

But at this point, why bother.

P.S. Hello to you Bryan Currie.

The Duck Says:

The Duck says Happy Halloween Ya'll.



And just so Minnie wouldn't get jealous we let her join in on the Halloween fun. But for some reason...she wasn't enjoying it. In fact, I'm pretty sure she now has it out for The Duck.






Kids.....whadyagunnado.


P.S. I said I would...and I did. Color me twenty pounds lighter. Happy Halloween.

Costume Quiz

It's almost Halloween....do you know what you're going to be this year? I'm still deciding....so help me out.

1. What are you going to be this year?
2. What is the best costume you're ever worn?
3. What was your favorite childhood costume?
4. If you are one of those "Non-Costume-Wearer" type people....shame on you. Please shape up.

My answers:
1. I don't know yet...
2. Maybe Poison Ivy - although I couldn't sit down in it
3. Raggedy Ann with lifesize doll to match
4. YEAH!

Here are some of my past contributions.....

2005 - Highway Robbery


2000/2001? - Poison Ivy


College - Wilma Flinstone

I'm Lost

Things that drive me CRAZY:

1. HenryGale/Ben and his lack of eyelashes. The man doesn't have any eyelashes!
2. Charlie acting like he doesn't know why Locke is freaked out and doesn't know anything about the hatch blowing up - wasn't he THERE when it happened??
3. The fact that Echo didn't get eaten. I mean, I don't WANT him to get eaten....but how the heck did he not get eaten?
4. Naked Desmond and his sudden ability to foresee the future.
5. The fact that The Others appear to have the ability to leave the island and rejoin society, but choose not to do so.
6. The fact that every time I see Jack in that cell I freak out that there will be a leak and he will be eaten by a Dharma Shark. I am afraid of sharks.