Thursday, January 24, 2008
Thank God the dial landed on "Jennifer Garner" rather than "Heath Ledger"
So I have to say, I'm a little shaken up by this whole Heath Ledger thing. (So much so, in fact, that when I first heard the news at pub quiz on Tuesday night, I promptly named our team "Heath Ledger, WTF?!" And we went on to nearly snare the victory, missing first place by only one point, and therefore really being glad this time that they'd changed the rules to include a prize for second place. But that's another story for another blog post.) Anyway, Heath Ledger. I can't say I've ever really had strong feelings about Heath Ledger one way or the other, other than not really understanding why everyone thought he was so attractive, and also not understanding why his Brokeback Mountain performance was nominated for an Oscar because I couldn't understand a damn word he said in that entire movie, but also (despite these somewhat-negative perceptions of Heath Ledger himself) wishing that he and Michelle Williams had been able to make it work, because I really like her and thought she generally looked very lovely throughout their entire courtship, as opposed to on Dawson's Creek, where she had a series of mostly unfortunate haircuts.
Where was I, again? Oh, yes. The thing that troubles me the most about Heath Ledger's mysterious death is that it seems like every new thing I read about calls to mind something in my own life. When the story first broke, I realized he was 28, the age that I will be turning in a matter of months. Then I heard that he'd just come back from London, where I will be going in a matter of weeks. But these similarities are kind of trivial to what I read today, which was that as many as six different prescriptions were found at the scene of his untimely demise, including sleeping pills and an antihistamine, and that authorities believe it may have been the ill-advised pill-mixing that did him in.
If there's anyone who knows about ill-advised pill-mixing, dear readers, it is me. For the other night, as in the night before I woke up with the swollen eye and Jennifer Garner lips, I took not only my standard Benadryl, but also one of the prescription-strength Motrin left over from my neck injury (because I had a headache, and also wanted something that would put me to sleep, since I didn't think I'd be able to get there myself with all the stress and the itching). Oh yeah, and this was all on top of a glass of wine that I'd had with dinner. But I reasoned that since the only warning on the Benadryl was not to mix it with another di-somethingorother (whatever drug is in Benadryl), and the only warning on the Motrin was not to mix it with asprin, they'd be all right together. And by that time, the wine was pretty much out of my system. But now that this whole Heath Ledger thing has come up, suffice it to say that I'll be much more prudent when mixing drugs in the future, no matter how crazy my hives are driving me.
So I have to say, I'm a little shaken up by this whole Heath Ledger thing. (So much so, in fact, that when I first heard the news at pub quiz on Tuesday night, I promptly named our team "Heath Ledger, WTF?!" And we went on to nearly snare the victory, missing first place by only one point, and therefore really being glad this time that they'd changed the rules to include a prize for second place. But that's another story for another blog post.) Anyway, Heath Ledger. I can't say I've ever really had strong feelings about Heath Ledger one way or the other, other than not really understanding why everyone thought he was so attractive, and also not understanding why his Brokeback Mountain performance was nominated for an Oscar because I couldn't understand a damn word he said in that entire movie, but also (despite these somewhat-negative perceptions of Heath Ledger himself) wishing that he and Michelle Williams had been able to make it work, because I really like her and thought she generally looked very lovely throughout their entire courtship, as opposed to on Dawson's Creek, where she had a series of mostly unfortunate haircuts.
Where was I, again? Oh, yes. The thing that troubles me the most about Heath Ledger's mysterious death is that it seems like every new thing I read about calls to mind something in my own life. When the story first broke, I realized he was 28, the age that I will be turning in a matter of months. Then I heard that he'd just come back from London, where I will be going in a matter of weeks. But these similarities are kind of trivial to what I read today, which was that as many as six different prescriptions were found at the scene of his untimely demise, including sleeping pills and an antihistamine, and that authorities believe it may have been the ill-advised pill-mixing that did him in.
If there's anyone who knows about ill-advised pill-mixing, dear readers, it is me. For the other night, as in the night before I woke up with the swollen eye and Jennifer Garner lips, I took not only my standard Benadryl, but also one of the prescription-strength Motrin left over from my neck injury (because I had a headache, and also wanted something that would put me to sleep, since I didn't think I'd be able to get there myself with all the stress and the itching). Oh yeah, and this was all on top of a glass of wine that I'd had with dinner. But I reasoned that since the only warning on the Benadryl was not to mix it with another di-somethingorother (whatever drug is in Benadryl), and the only warning on the Motrin was not to mix it with asprin, they'd be all right together. And by that time, the wine was pretty much out of my system. But now that this whole Heath Ledger thing has come up, suffice it to say that I'll be much more prudent when mixing drugs in the future, no matter how crazy my hives are driving me.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Further proof that the American public is essentially stupid
So it's generally agreed that the People magazine crossword puzzle is like the easiest crossword puzzle ever, right? And it's also generally agreed that the easiest clue in the already-super-easy People magazine crossword puzzle is the name of the puzzle's "star," whose picture is shown on the same page. Because by the time you get to the end of People magazine, and in fact if you are the type of person to read People magazine in the first place (even if you only indulge at the gym and occasionally in a long checkout line or in a doctor's waiting room, like me), you should have a pretty good handle on what celebrities look like and how their names are spelled.
So last night (at the gym), when I noticed that the crossword puzzle featuring Leann Rimes was entitled "Time for Rimes," I naturally thought to myself, "Come on, People! Aren't you making this a little too easy for everyone?" Yeah, apparently not, as the person who had filled in the puzzle spelled Leann's surname with a "y" (and also failed to notice that it was Loni Anderson, not Lony Anderson, on WKRP in Cincinnati).
Feel free to smack your own forehead with the nearest blunt object (perhaps a People magazine!) now.
In other news, for those of you who were wondering about the hives situation, I no longer look like a hideous monster (yay!) or Jennifer Garner (boo!). I went to the doctor yesterday (which, incidentally, is where I started reading the People issue in question, although I did not get a chance to see if its crossword puzzle was also filled in incorrectly), and he put me on Zyrtec. The good news is that it seems to be working much better than the Benedryl. The bad news is that I'm going to have to take it until the hives go away on their own, which my doctor confirmed could take up to two years. Oh, the humanity!
So it's generally agreed that the People magazine crossword puzzle is like the easiest crossword puzzle ever, right? And it's also generally agreed that the easiest clue in the already-super-easy People magazine crossword puzzle is the name of the puzzle's "star," whose picture is shown on the same page. Because by the time you get to the end of People magazine, and in fact if you are the type of person to read People magazine in the first place (even if you only indulge at the gym and occasionally in a long checkout line or in a doctor's waiting room, like me), you should have a pretty good handle on what celebrities look like and how their names are spelled.
So last night (at the gym), when I noticed that the crossword puzzle featuring Leann Rimes was entitled "Time for Rimes," I naturally thought to myself, "Come on, People! Aren't you making this a little too easy for everyone?" Yeah, apparently not, as the person who had filled in the puzzle spelled Leann's surname with a "y" (and also failed to notice that it was Loni Anderson, not Lony Anderson, on WKRP in Cincinnati).
Feel free to smack your own forehead with the nearest blunt object (perhaps a People magazine!) now.
In other news, for those of you who were wondering about the hives situation, I no longer look like a hideous monster (yay!) or Jennifer Garner (boo!). I went to the doctor yesterday (which, incidentally, is where I started reading the People issue in question, although I did not get a chance to see if its crossword puzzle was also filled in incorrectly), and he put me on Zyrtec. The good news is that it seems to be working much better than the Benedryl. The bad news is that I'm going to have to take it until the hives go away on their own, which my doctor confirmed could take up to two years. Oh, the humanity!
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Look away, I'm hideous!
So the hives (which, by the way, are now considered chronic, meaning they likely have no cause and could last for up to two years) were my first indication that my body was maybe not so happy with me and had decided to show it, in the manner of a petulant child. I don't know why, though, really. Except for the occasional indiscretion, I feel like I take pretty good care of it--eating fairly well (at least during the week), exercising regularly, not drinking too much, trying to get enough sleep, etc.
Only this week I've kind of let all that slide, since I've been more stressed (due to a variety of reasons) than I've possibly ever been before. As a result, my body has gone from "petulant child" to "screaming toddler," and has basically declared an all-out war on me. The hives, which up until now have been responding pretty well to regular doses of Benadryl, are now refusing to go away at all--I've had the same bumps and welts on my legs pretty much the entire weekend. As if that weren't bad enough, the hives have moved on to attacking my face, which, trust me, is the last place where you want to have hives. I woke up this morning to find that my scalp itched like crazy, and my right eye was sore and practically swollen shut, as if I had somehow sleepwalked into the middle of a cage fight. I was trying to deduce whether this swelling was a result of the hives, the stress, or crying about the hives and the stress (or the aforementioned cage-fight sleepwalking possibility), when all of a sudden I felt my lip start to swell, too. Great. So I now look even more like a hideously deformed beast, and if the Benadryl somehow fails to have an effect on the face hives, too, it's looking likely that I will not be leaving the house today.
Barring anaphylactic shock (which, fortunately, doesn't really seem to happen in chronic hives cases), I'm trying to put off going to the ER today, since I'm actually still paying off my last ER visit (from the post-Thailand pulled-neck-muscle debacle). I will, however, be making an appointment with my general practitioner first thing tomorrow morning. I'd been putting that off in hopes of being able to find a specialist (dermatologist, allergist or similar), but at this point, the fact that I already have a GP and that they can usually get me in within a day or two of when I call for an appointment is making that the best choice right now. I hope you're happy, body.
UPDATE: Shortly after I wrote this, I looked at myself again in the mirror. While the eye swelling was not that noticeable with my glasses on, the lip swelling had gotten way worse. I have to admit, though, that even though I feel like a hideous monster because I look nothing like myself, the super-swollen lip also makes me look a little like Jennifer Garner. Kind of like how, in Vanilla Sky, when Tom Cruise's face gets all mangled, he looks like a hideous monster but also a little like Luke Wilson.
So the hives (which, by the way, are now considered chronic, meaning they likely have no cause and could last for up to two years) were my first indication that my body was maybe not so happy with me and had decided to show it, in the manner of a petulant child. I don't know why, though, really. Except for the occasional indiscretion, I feel like I take pretty good care of it--eating fairly well (at least during the week), exercising regularly, not drinking too much, trying to get enough sleep, etc.
Only this week I've kind of let all that slide, since I've been more stressed (due to a variety of reasons) than I've possibly ever been before. As a result, my body has gone from "petulant child" to "screaming toddler," and has basically declared an all-out war on me. The hives, which up until now have been responding pretty well to regular doses of Benadryl, are now refusing to go away at all--I've had the same bumps and welts on my legs pretty much the entire weekend. As if that weren't bad enough, the hives have moved on to attacking my face, which, trust me, is the last place where you want to have hives. I woke up this morning to find that my scalp itched like crazy, and my right eye was sore and practically swollen shut, as if I had somehow sleepwalked into the middle of a cage fight. I was trying to deduce whether this swelling was a result of the hives, the stress, or crying about the hives and the stress (or the aforementioned cage-fight sleepwalking possibility), when all of a sudden I felt my lip start to swell, too. Great. So I now look even more like a hideously deformed beast, and if the Benadryl somehow fails to have an effect on the face hives, too, it's looking likely that I will not be leaving the house today.
Barring anaphylactic shock (which, fortunately, doesn't really seem to happen in chronic hives cases), I'm trying to put off going to the ER today, since I'm actually still paying off my last ER visit (from the post-Thailand pulled-neck-muscle debacle). I will, however, be making an appointment with my general practitioner first thing tomorrow morning. I'd been putting that off in hopes of being able to find a specialist (dermatologist, allergist or similar), but at this point, the fact that I already have a GP and that they can usually get me in within a day or two of when I call for an appointment is making that the best choice right now. I hope you're happy, body.
UPDATE: Shortly after I wrote this, I looked at myself again in the mirror. While the eye swelling was not that noticeable with my glasses on, the lip swelling had gotten way worse. I have to admit, though, that even though I feel like a hideous monster because I look nothing like myself, the super-swollen lip also makes me look a little like Jennifer Garner. Kind of like how, in Vanilla Sky, when Tom Cruise's face gets all mangled, he looks like a hideous monster but also a little like Luke Wilson.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
This can't just be a coincidence
Why is it that every time Cingular/AT&T comes out with a new marketing concept, the thing that they promise will never go wrong with my phone if I have their service is the one thing that seems to constantly go wrong with my phone? When they touted themselves as the network with the fewest dropped calls, my phone was dropping calls right and left. (Naturally, this prompted more than a few hackneyed, "If they're the network with the fewest dropped calls, I'd hate to see the other guys!"-type comments from me.) Now that they're doing this whole "more bars in more places" schtick, my phone seems to randomly waft in and out of service, even in concentrated urban areas where you'd think they'd surely have service. (Come on, AT&T, if you can cover "Chilondoscow," surely you can connect me on the corner of 14th and U in downtown D.C.) I'm not usually one of those hard-core "There are no coincidences!" types of people, but this is all starting to look pretty suspicious. If their next marketing campaign is about combustion-proof cell phones and my phone spontaneously combusts, I'll know there's something fishy going on here.
Why is it that every time Cingular/AT&T comes out with a new marketing concept, the thing that they promise will never go wrong with my phone if I have their service is the one thing that seems to constantly go wrong with my phone? When they touted themselves as the network with the fewest dropped calls, my phone was dropping calls right and left. (Naturally, this prompted more than a few hackneyed, "If they're the network with the fewest dropped calls, I'd hate to see the other guys!"-type comments from me.) Now that they're doing this whole "more bars in more places" schtick, my phone seems to randomly waft in and out of service, even in concentrated urban areas where you'd think they'd surely have service. (Come on, AT&T, if you can cover "Chilondoscow," surely you can connect me on the corner of 14th and U in downtown D.C.) I'm not usually one of those hard-core "There are no coincidences!" types of people, but this is all starting to look pretty suspicious. If their next marketing campaign is about combustion-proof cell phones and my phone spontaneously combusts, I'll know there's something fishy going on here.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
The writers' strike is ruining my life
You know, I'd really come to terms with this whole writers' strike thing. Sure, I was expecting a few pangs of withdrawal once the new episodes of my favorite shows ran out (The Office is already kaput; Gossip Girl and Grey's Anatomy trickle to a close this week), but I'd managed to console myself with the fact that I'd at least have a partial season of Lost to look forward to, in addition to another full season of America's Next Top Model. And I could always Netflix TV shows on DVD, which I almost prefer to watching actual TV anyway, since it's the closest I can come to having Tivo without having to fork over a substantial chunk of change each month. Plus, there would be time for other, more enriching pursuits, such as working out, reading books, connecting with friends and taking on more freelance projects. (Or, if I'm being honest, wasting tons of time on Facebook, which I got talked into joining and have become totally addicted to.)
So yeah, it's safe to say that I'd made my peace with the writers' strike. Until it caused the cancellation of the Golden Globes, i.e. the one thing that, for me, makes the month of January worth slugging through. I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to get through the next 22 days of this wretched month now that my one beacon of hope has been taken away. Especially since I don't have another Obama victory to lift my spirits today.
You know, I'd really come to terms with this whole writers' strike thing. Sure, I was expecting a few pangs of withdrawal once the new episodes of my favorite shows ran out (The Office is already kaput; Gossip Girl and Grey's Anatomy trickle to a close this week), but I'd managed to console myself with the fact that I'd at least have a partial season of Lost to look forward to, in addition to another full season of America's Next Top Model. And I could always Netflix TV shows on DVD, which I almost prefer to watching actual TV anyway, since it's the closest I can come to having Tivo without having to fork over a substantial chunk of change each month. Plus, there would be time for other, more enriching pursuits, such as working out, reading books, connecting with friends and taking on more freelance projects. (Or, if I'm being honest, wasting tons of time on Facebook, which I got talked into joining and have become totally addicted to.)
So yeah, it's safe to say that I'd made my peace with the writers' strike. Until it caused the cancellation of the Golden Globes, i.e. the one thing that, for me, makes the month of January worth slugging through. I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to get through the next 22 days of this wretched month now that my one beacon of hope has been taken away. Especially since I don't have another Obama victory to lift my spirits today.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Nothing comes between me and my Calvins
I can only remember one time in my life when I had any sort of emotion about the brand of jeans I was wearing. It was in sixth grade, and we were in Sunday school, and everyone was going around and naming brands of jeans that were cool and uncool. (I seem to remember this being part of the lesson, although I have no idea how it possibly could have related to God and/or Jesus.) Anyway, the brand of jeans I wore (Lee) was called out as being uncool, and I was deeply, horribly embarrassed. Not that I didn't continue to wear Lee jeans for the rest of middle school, but I was horrified to learn that something as innocuous as jeans now represented another tally in the ever-growing column of my uncoolness.
Still, although I may not have wanted to admit it, I'd read enough teen magazines to know what the cool brands of jeans were before it was spelled out in Sunday school: Guess, Pepe, Levi's. In other words, jeans that were way too expensive for my mom to ever buy for me. But on top of all of those, there was the unreachable pinnacle of jean coolness: Calvin Klein. I remember my entire church camp being abuzz sometime in late elementary or early middle school over Abby Galbraith's white cutoff Calvin Klein jean shorts. Rumor had it that Abby come into possession of these shorts by stealing her mom's white Calvins and hacking into them with a pair of scissors. I couldn't imagine such audacity, as my mom had recently read me the riot act for cutting the feet out of an old pair of heart-printed white tights.
Given the impression that Calvin Klein jeans had made on my young mind, when I walked into the Calvin Klein outlet yesterday evening with Autumn, I certainly never expected to actually find, for only $40, the skinny jeans I'd been looking for to tuck into my new boots. In other words, for $10 more than I've been paying for crappy Old Navy jeans all these years, I could've been wearing Calvins. Now, I know this was the outlet, but still. Have Calvin Klein jeans always been this inexpensive, and I was just too young and stupid to realize it? (I am, after all, the same girl who once told her friends in third grade that she still believed in Santa Claus because there's no way her parents could afford a mini trampoline.) Or is it just that Calvins aren't as cool now as they were in 1989? Whatever. All I know is, the sixth grader inside of me is very excited about her cool jeans.
I can only remember one time in my life when I had any sort of emotion about the brand of jeans I was wearing. It was in sixth grade, and we were in Sunday school, and everyone was going around and naming brands of jeans that were cool and uncool. (I seem to remember this being part of the lesson, although I have no idea how it possibly could have related to God and/or Jesus.) Anyway, the brand of jeans I wore (Lee) was called out as being uncool, and I was deeply, horribly embarrassed. Not that I didn't continue to wear Lee jeans for the rest of middle school, but I was horrified to learn that something as innocuous as jeans now represented another tally in the ever-growing column of my uncoolness.
Still, although I may not have wanted to admit it, I'd read enough teen magazines to know what the cool brands of jeans were before it was spelled out in Sunday school: Guess, Pepe, Levi's. In other words, jeans that were way too expensive for my mom to ever buy for me. But on top of all of those, there was the unreachable pinnacle of jean coolness: Calvin Klein. I remember my entire church camp being abuzz sometime in late elementary or early middle school over Abby Galbraith's white cutoff Calvin Klein jean shorts. Rumor had it that Abby come into possession of these shorts by stealing her mom's white Calvins and hacking into them with a pair of scissors. I couldn't imagine such audacity, as my mom had recently read me the riot act for cutting the feet out of an old pair of heart-printed white tights.
Given the impression that Calvin Klein jeans had made on my young mind, when I walked into the Calvin Klein outlet yesterday evening with Autumn, I certainly never expected to actually find, for only $40, the skinny jeans I'd been looking for to tuck into my new boots. In other words, for $10 more than I've been paying for crappy Old Navy jeans all these years, I could've been wearing Calvins. Now, I know this was the outlet, but still. Have Calvin Klein jeans always been this inexpensive, and I was just too young and stupid to realize it? (I am, after all, the same girl who once told her friends in third grade that she still believed in Santa Claus because there's no way her parents could afford a mini trampoline.) Or is it just that Calvins aren't as cool now as they were in 1989? Whatever. All I know is, the sixth grader inside of me is very excited about her cool jeans.
Friday, January 04, 2008
I am impossible
So remember how this whole "happiness journal" thing (cooler name? anyone?) was supposed to make me better at living in the moment, rather than dwelling on plans and dreams for the future? Yeah, that hasn't worked out so well. Instead, I find myself trying to plan my happiest moment of the day. Well, not really plan it (that's kind of impossible), but rather play this totally consuming guessing game about what it's going to be.
For example, knowing that the Iowa caucuses were taking place last night has had me thinking for days, "If Barack Obama wins in Iowa, hearing that news on Friday morning is going to be the happiest moment of my day." (I'm only about a hundred pages into The Audacity of Hope, and not only have I already fallen completely, hopelessly in love with Barack Obama, but I've also become convinced that he's the next John F. Kennedy.) Anyway, given that hearing this very news on the radio this morning produced an actual squeal of excitement, I have to believe that it's going to be very hard for anything else to top it today.
To make matters worse, I've already started hoping for this exact same happy moment next Wednesday after the New Hampshire primary. Seriously, I need help here.
So remember how this whole "happiness journal" thing (cooler name? anyone?) was supposed to make me better at living in the moment, rather than dwelling on plans and dreams for the future? Yeah, that hasn't worked out so well. Instead, I find myself trying to plan my happiest moment of the day. Well, not really plan it (that's kind of impossible), but rather play this totally consuming guessing game about what it's going to be.
For example, knowing that the Iowa caucuses were taking place last night has had me thinking for days, "If Barack Obama wins in Iowa, hearing that news on Friday morning is going to be the happiest moment of my day." (I'm only about a hundred pages into The Audacity of Hope, and not only have I already fallen completely, hopelessly in love with Barack Obama, but I've also become convinced that he's the next John F. Kennedy.) Anyway, given that hearing this very news on the radio this morning produced an actual squeal of excitement, I have to believe that it's going to be very hard for anything else to top it today.
To make matters worse, I've already started hoping for this exact same happy moment next Wednesday after the New Hampshire primary. Seriously, I need help here.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Baby had a bad, bad year
So remember back at the beginning of 2006, when I asked that Magic 8-Ball if it was going to be a good year, and it insisted that it wasn't? And then 2006 ended up being sort of awesome anyway? Yeah, apparently that 8-Ball was just off by a year, as I can now say with some certainty that 2007 was one of the worst years in recent memory. I and everyone around me seemed to be so plagued by death, disease, heartbreak, rodents and other assorted horribleness that at times I wondered if we hadn't just stumbled into one of the bleaker chapters of the Old Testament.
So I guess it goes without saying that I've never been happier to see the ball drop on a new year than I was a few nights ago when Seacrest ushered us all into 2008. This time I'm leaving the Magic 8-Balls behind and deciding for myself that 2008 is going to be a great year. I'm not sure that willing a year to be good will actually work, but I'm sure as hell going to try.
In keeping with this spirit, I've already done a few things to help shepherd 2008 in a more positive direction, the first being to paint one wall in my bedroom a lovely shade of green. I didn't really ask for permission from my landlord before doing this, but my lease didn't expressly forbid it, and the guy at Home Depot assured me that I'd be able to paint over this particular shade easily enough when the time comes. (Of course, he also assured me that I would need more than one quart of paint to cover the entire wall, which I did not. So yeah, we'll see how that works out.)
The other new thing I'm doing is keeping a happiness journal, which is an idea I got from Elizabeth Gilbert when I saw her on Oprah a few months ago. I have no idea what I was doing watching Oprah, since I usually do not watch Oprah, nor do I usually subscribe to things that are described with a phrase as lame as "happiness journal," but I haven't yet come up with a cooler name for it. Anyway, this is basically a small 99-cent spiral notebook from Target that sits by my bed, in which I will record every night the happiest moment of my day. I tend to have a real problem with not living in the present, and it seems like maybe this will help. In describing my happiest moment from yesterday, I ended up christening the notebook with one of my favorite quotes from My So-Called Life (yep, ever since I got the DVD set for Christmas, I've been kicking it 1994-style with a renewed obsession with the show), which kind of sums up what this whole project is really about: "Every once in a while I'll have, like, a moment, when just being myself, in my life, right where I am, is, like, enough."
So there you have it--2008 is going to be a good year. Whether it likes it or not.
So remember back at the beginning of 2006, when I asked that Magic 8-Ball if it was going to be a good year, and it insisted that it wasn't? And then 2006 ended up being sort of awesome anyway? Yeah, apparently that 8-Ball was just off by a year, as I can now say with some certainty that 2007 was one of the worst years in recent memory. I and everyone around me seemed to be so plagued by death, disease, heartbreak, rodents and other assorted horribleness that at times I wondered if we hadn't just stumbled into one of the bleaker chapters of the Old Testament.
So I guess it goes without saying that I've never been happier to see the ball drop on a new year than I was a few nights ago when Seacrest ushered us all into 2008. This time I'm leaving the Magic 8-Balls behind and deciding for myself that 2008 is going to be a great year. I'm not sure that willing a year to be good will actually work, but I'm sure as hell going to try.
In keeping with this spirit, I've already done a few things to help shepherd 2008 in a more positive direction, the first being to paint one wall in my bedroom a lovely shade of green. I didn't really ask for permission from my landlord before doing this, but my lease didn't expressly forbid it, and the guy at Home Depot assured me that I'd be able to paint over this particular shade easily enough when the time comes. (Of course, he also assured me that I would need more than one quart of paint to cover the entire wall, which I did not. So yeah, we'll see how that works out.)
The other new thing I'm doing is keeping a happiness journal, which is an idea I got from Elizabeth Gilbert when I saw her on Oprah a few months ago. I have no idea what I was doing watching Oprah, since I usually do not watch Oprah, nor do I usually subscribe to things that are described with a phrase as lame as "happiness journal," but I haven't yet come up with a cooler name for it. Anyway, this is basically a small 99-cent spiral notebook from Target that sits by my bed, in which I will record every night the happiest moment of my day. I tend to have a real problem with not living in the present, and it seems like maybe this will help. In describing my happiest moment from yesterday, I ended up christening the notebook with one of my favorite quotes from My So-Called Life (yep, ever since I got the DVD set for Christmas, I've been kicking it 1994-style with a renewed obsession with the show), which kind of sums up what this whole project is really about: "Every once in a while I'll have, like, a moment, when just being myself, in my life, right where I am, is, like, enough."
So there you have it--2008 is going to be a good year. Whether it likes it or not.
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