My Own Planet

The Second Annual Memorial Day Butt Bruisin'
Were this an event moderated by Danielle, it would no doubt include plenty of rowdy fun accompanied by the copious consumption of alcohol. Instead, it's just me, spending my second Memorial Day weekend in a row by engaging in an activity I have not done with any regularity since junior high, and winding up with an extremely sore derriere as a result.

Last year, it was rollerblading with Heather around Lake Calhoun, which earned me quite an ample bruise as I attempted to careen down a hill toward a water fountain and ended up falling flat on my ass. This year, my companion of choice was Dave, the nearby body of water was the Potomac River, and the wheeled instrument of transportation/torture was a rental bike. There were no embarrassing accidents this time, though. I'm not sure if it's just that I'm out of the habit of riding a bike, or if the one they gave me just had an unusually uncomfortable seat, but by the end of our Sunday ride, my butt was crying out in pain--and continues to make little yelps each time I sit down.

The consistency of this phenomenon leads me to wonder what butt-bruisin', junior-high-throwback activity next Memorial Day might have in store. If I had to guess, I'd say it would probably be watching a marathon number of Saved by the Bell episodes in a row.

Beating the bridesmaid racket, one dress at a time
It is merely coincidental that the day Christa happened to post about the evil nature of the bridesmaid's dress sizing scheme was the same as the one that will forever go down in history as the day I single-handedly foiled the bridesmaid's dress industry's nefarious scheme. That's right, dear readers: I have managed to get a bridesmaid's dress that not only fits correctly (for the most part), but is only one to two sizes larger than I normally wear.

How did I do it, you ask? Well, I'm not sure you're ready for this groundbreaking idea, but I'll let you in on it anyway. I went to the store. Tried the sample dress on. And then ordered based on the way it fit. That's it. There was no stranger making me strip down to my underwear so she could feel me up with a tape measure. No horrifying moment when I realized, "No, that's not my age on the hanger; that's actually the dress size." No putting the dress on and finding that the neckline actually comes down to my belly button. I'll give you a moment to let this revolutionary idea sink in.

You must understand before you try this at home, though, that bucking the bridesmaid's dress system is not without its share of risks. When I pulled the dress for Nikki's wedding out of its box yesterday, I felt a wave of panic swell around me. What if I had estimated wrong? Should I have taken my measurements, or at least given the measurement chart more than a passing glance? If the dress was too small, could I make it fit by October? Would I have to join Christa on her adventures in bulimia, or perhaps pick up a cocaine habit, a la Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan? Oh, God, what have I done?

But then I tried the dress on. And it fit perfectly. All right, it needs to be taken in a tad in the chest region (isn't that always the way?), and clearly I need to start going back to pilates on a semi-regular basis, but other than that? Perfect.

Bridesmaids of the world, I urge you to follow my lead and overthrow the evil bridesmaid's dress tyranny! Fight the power of the measuring tape! We shall overcome!

Well, I hope you Taylor Hicks fans are happy
Because it looks like America's favorite cokehead is gonna win American Idol. Even I, a former-city-pride-flaunting Katharine McPhee fan, have to admit that he sang circles around her last night. (Of course, her strange decision to repeat performances for which she'd previously received exuberant praise didn't exactly help matters. I love you, Kat, but would it have killed you to take a bit of a risk?) Taylor even managed to somewhat mask the true heinousness of his show-written "single," which is no easy feat.

If only Danielle had had the foresight to snap a few Kate Moss-esque shots when she saw him snorting lines off that cutting board in Crestwood--she could've single-handedly helmed the next great American Idol scandal! As it is, I suppose she (and I, for that matter, as I like to bring it up in conversation as frequently as possible) will just have to settle for Taylor Hicks fans vehemently refusing to believe us when we spread the gospel of his affinity for the white stuff. (Come on, people. Do you really think he'd be acting like that if he wasn't on drugs? I doubt it.)

Office culture shock
This afternoon, as I was gathered in the lunchroom with my new co-workers to eat banana splits in celebration of this month's birthdays, I suddenly wondered how I got there. Who were these people? Where were my real co-workers? Was this a dream? Or were we on a TV show? (I'm pretty sure it wasn't the latter, although our publisher kind of reminds me of Jan, and there's a guy there who could probably pass for Oscar, so I can't be entirely certain.)

I guess I'd gotten so used to gathering around and eating food in a certain place with a certain group of people that the realization that hey, these are different people and this is a different place was just a little bit jarring.

Incidentally, I also think my shower curtain and hot-pink shag rug look strange in a different bathroom, but I think I might be adjusting to that a little bit better.

Here's hoping heaven has plenty of burgers
Even though I have not watched and/or cared about much of The O.C. this season, I decided to tune in for the finale last night. I didn't have anything better to do, for one, and historically, the finales of this show have always been top-notch, despite how lackluster the rest of the season may or may not have been.

I was a bit preturbed, however, by the promo's promise that one of the core characters "wouldn't survive the night." Despite the severe problems the show now suffers from, I still like most of the characters and the actors that play them--with one big exception. But it was too much to hope for that they'd kill off Mischa Barton, right? After all, this show has practically revolved around Marissa Cooper, to the extreme annoyance of all watching, for three years now. There's no way they'd actually answer viewers' prayers and eliminate her.

But they DID. And it was AWESOME. Granted, most of the finale was completely bland and inconsequential, and nowhere near the caliber of finales past, but the 57 minutes of my life that I wasted on it was totally worth it just to see Marissa take her last less-than-convincing breath. (Unsurprisingly, Mischa Barton can't even stop breathing believably.)

It's too bad that this show has hit such a downward slide that not even the death of its most repugnant character will be enough to persuade me to start watching again. And it looks as if they'll be filling the void left behind by Mischa with Willa Holland, who is just as bad an actress, if not a worse one, than her predecessor. Too bad they probably won't try to kill her off until at least Season 6.

Commuter hell
Yesterday on my commute home from work (which was made all the more hellacious by a detour to Wal-Mart to buy an air mattress), I thought to myself that I'd really like a sticker that says, "It could be worse. You could be in L.A." A few minutes later, I also decided I'd like to have a T-shirt that says, "I'd rather be riding the Metro." I'm not sure why one has to be a sticker and one a T-shirt, other than that if I was wearing two T-shirts at the same time, it would kind of defeat the purpose of having something written on them.

The point is, my commute sucks. I knew it was going to suck before I moved here, and yet somehow I don't think I was prepared for the magnitude of its suckage. I keep telling myself that the reason it's so horrible now is because I've only been doing it a week and haven't had time to figure out all the little tricks and shortcuts. It's early enough that I can still hold out some hope that that's actually possible.

The thing is, I had my commute in Birmingham down to a science. In fact, it was approaching an art form, it was so beautiful. Through careful observation and analysis, I had every detail worked out, including which lanes to be in at which lights to ensure my lane would always be the fastest. I'm getting a little misty now just thinking about it. I knew where to take the shortcuts, which subdivisions to breeze through. It was rare that I was ever stuck in traffic.

Over the past couple of days, I've been experimenting with some alternate routes to and from work. I've managed to plan a route that avoids almost all of the congestion on my way to work, and with one minor tweak tomorrow morning, hopefully I will have eliminated the last of it. The drive home is a bit trickier. It seems there's no way to get from my office to the highway that doesn't involve rage-inducing amounts of traffic. And I haven't quite managed to figure out how to sidestep the major bottleneck heading into Arlington, either.

But just give me time. Soon I'll be making art out of the D.C. traffic. Then I suppose it will be time to conquer L.A.

The dad connection
I have this...I wouldn't call it a supersition, exactly. Well, maybe it is a superstition. You can call it what you want, but I have a long-held belief that if the place I'm living (or thinking about living) is right for me, it will hold some connection to my dad. Sometimes it's an obvious connection, like the street in Birmingham that was seemingly named after him (it wasn't, of course, but it was a strange coincidence), and sometimes I have to stretch a little, like the bench I found near my house in London that had a plaque on it for the local Rotary Club. (Rotary Club has been central to my dad's life for as long as I can remember.) Sometimes it's apparent before I move somewhere, like the fact that his college roommate also happened to live in Columbia, and sometimes it doesn't reveal itself until after I've arrived, like that bench in London, which I discovered a few days after I'd moved.

In D.C., it was the latter case. I hadn't found the dad connection before I left to make the big move, but I was so caught up in all the planning that I didn't really think about it. In fact, it didn't cross my mind again until yesterday on my way home from work, when I saw it. There, not a mile from my office, was a sign advertising the opening of a new restaurant, Paisano's, peddling pizza, pasta, subs, and calzones. Paisano's, of course, is the name of the restaurant on Seinfeld where George goes to get the calzones that George Steinbrenner eventually becomes addicted to. Since conversations with my dad that don't include a Seinfeld reference are few and far between, I knew I'd found the connection.

That's one less thing I have to worry about regarding my new residency in D.C., which means I can spend more time puzzling over Bill's claim that the place where I spent a good portion of my time last weekend doesn't actually exist. This has to be part of the Delaware conspiracy.

You know it was a good season finale when...
At least half of the last 30 minutes of the show were spent bawling. (See also: O.C., The; Season 1.) The finale of Grey's Anatomy? Very good. Man, are my eyes going to be puffy tomorrow.

The calm after the storm
"Calm" being a relative term, that is. I'm still essentially homeless (I've found an apartment and turned in my application, but I can't sign the lease or move in until next Friday), and even after I manage to get a home to call my own, it will still likely be a few weeks before I'm reunited with my furniture. But I am a far cry from Monday, when, broadcasting a strange amalgamation of states (Alabama licensce plate, Missouri window decal, Delaware T-shirt), I embarked on a twelve-hour drive to that other strange amalgamation of states they like to call the D.C. metro area. My car was packed so tightly with as many of my worldly possessions as I could manage to cram in that Diana and I were barely able to excavate some of them and haul them into her apartment. Never mind that my crap is slowly starting to take over her living space; at least my car looks a little less like I'm on my way to an audition for the reality-TV version of The Beverly Hillbillies.

The exhausting drive out of the way, the next two days were spent covering much of the city of Arlington on foot while searching for an apartment, an activity that was considerably more exhausting, although in a different way. Which is why most of the two days following (i.e., the last two days of my unpaid vacation) have been spent sleeping, watching Diana's cable, and occasionally feeling guilty about neglecting my mountain of freelance work/blog. I've also found a little bit of time to go exploring, an activity which has netted me a grocery store that's not quite as good as the one I loved and left behind, a pilates teacher who is also not quite as good as the one I loved and left behind, and a walking/bike trail near my soon-to-be apartment that is so much better than any other I've ever loved and left behind. I also tried some Irish bacon, but I'm not sure how I feel about that yet, as I've never had the chance to love it or leave it behind.

All in all, I think I'm gonna like it here.

I have arrived
Yesterday, I was having a brief chat with my boss-to-be, and he happened to mention that he had just put in the order for the nameplate that will hang outside my office. Yes, that's right. The nameplate outside my office.

All right, so technically my future office is only slightly larger than your average closet. But it has a window. And, I may have already mentioned this, a nameplate.

Now if I could just get everything crossed off my to-do list this week at work. (It would help if five more things didn't get added to the list as soon as I managed to get one crossed off.) And if I could get my freelance boss to cut me a check for those months of back invoices so I don't have to starve during my first few weeks in D.C. And if I could get my apartment to not look like a tornado blew through a box company and then landed squarely in my bedroom.

But still? A nameplate. I have arrived.