So what’s new, internet?

Not much is new here. Which is why I haven’t posted. Because while I could write yet another post about running and eating better, I’ve been really slacking lately. So much so that I had to come up with a real present for April to get my ass to the gym 14 days this month. And as it is, I’m really going to have to work for that present. This month will be a Roku! If anything will get me to work out, it’s some sort of added way for me to be able to watch TV. No more watching streaming things on my computer!

I went to see the Nerdist Live last Friday. I got there late because I went out for beers after work before the show with my sister Alix and her boyfriend. And drinking 8% alcohol beers on an empty stomach is always a good idea. But we had a fun time, which was why I was late.

But we only missed a small bit of Matt Mira’s performance and saw the whole rest of the show. It was absolutely hilarious. If you ever have the option to see it, or even any of those dudes do stand-up live, GO DO IT NOW. They are some funny motherfuckers. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time!

We didn’t wait around after the show to meet the boys, since the line was insane and I was drunk and we were both hungry. I will have to seduce Chris Hardwick some other time. Some other time…

After the show we went across the street to grab some food at the grilled cheese restaurant. There I had the most amazing sandwich – grilled cheese with chorizo and jalapenos. I’m still thinking about it. It was so yummy.

On Saturday morning, I drove up to Milwaukee to visit her and her family. It was the end of Passover, so I drove up to visit, eat matzah, play Catan and make a million melty bead creations. And really, minus the matzah, it was like any other time I get to hang out with the Martells, AKA always awesome!

I have zero patience for melty beads. I have ideas of how to make it cute, but then three seconds of having to dig through a giant bucket of beads that have 17 different shades of blue and I’m done. I’ll use the first bead I pull out of the tub and call it a day. I have so much admiration for Ali and her kids, who will painstakingly search for all the golds to make a cute peace sign. Or even something that matches.

It’s why my creations end up like this ugly monkey:

As an added bonus, the Martells flew out of Chicago on Monday and I got to meet them for lunch before they flew back to Canadia. I had taken the day off to get all my errands done anyway, so it worked out perfectly. We went to a Kosher diner near my house that had a really amazing burger. I really wanted cheese on it and well, then remembered I was at a Kosher diner. Dairy and meat, no mixy, mixy.

After that, I went home, went grocery shopping and then came home and took a nap at 5 PM. This was the least smart thing I had done. It was the opposite of my brilliant decision to get a chorizo grilled cheese. Yep, still thinking about that sammich.

Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep on Monday night. That led to me being super sleepy all day Tuesday, falling asleep on the train both to and from work, and walking around half the day with my pants zipper down.

So I went to bed at 9 last night. Skipped my run and everything. Which means my 4.2-mile race this weekend is going to be interesting.

But it’s for a good cause.

I was lucky enough to meet Pat Tillman when we were both at ASU and was honored that the Cardinals organization asked me to help work his memorial in San Jose after he was tragically killed. I’m glad to be taking part in the Chicago race this year and am planning to make it to Tempe next year.

I mean, it was a pain when I had to get a new debit card when it became Chase and had to change all my automatic payments. But I forgave them. And then like a year later, they changed the card from MasterCard to Visa and I had to do EVERYTHING ALL OVER AGAIN!

When that happened, I said “you know what, self? Why don’t we make all these payments through your checking account. That won’t change, unless you change banks. You won’t have to go through this again! You are a genius, self.”

Oh hahahahahaha past self, how wrong you were.

Last week I got a letter from Chase that my routing number was changing. Not my checking account number, just the routing number. So all those accounts I changed, to outsmart the fucking bankers at Chase, had to be re-done. It’s a giant pain in the ass. Most of them can be semi-easily changed online. It’s time-consuming, but at least I didn’t have to talk to anyone.

That is, until today.

My student load company is apparently stuck in 1997 and the only way to change the routing number is to call, or send in another voided check. Being lazy and cheap and not wanting to go through that, I decided to call them. How hard could it be?

Oh, hahahahahahahaha past self, you will eat those words smothered in cream cheese.

Mmmmmmmm, cream cheese.

Anyway, here is how the conversation went:

Me: I need to change my routing number.

Her: Can you hold on two minutes?

Me: Sure.

*two minutes passes*

Her: Hi, OK. Thank you for holding. How can I help you?

Me: I need to change my routing number.

Her: OK. What is the new routing number?

Me: 127000023

Her: OK, let me verify, that was 1200000073.

Me: No, 127000023.

Her: Right, 12000000003.

Me: No, ONE TWO SEVEN…

Her: Right, that’s what I said, 127000023.

And then my head exploded.

I’m still going to the gym. Tonight was day 10 out of 20. I’m halfway there. I have to say that people telling me how awesome the Fitbit is is like 100 percent of the reason I end up going most days. I do not want to fail this goal.

I need to figure out something to make as a goal once February is over.

I’m on Week 3 of the Couch to 5k. Last night I ran three minutes in a row. Without stopping. And did it twice in the workout! And I didn’t die! I still don’t foresee being able to run an hour straight for an 8k, but we will see. I have until the end of March for the race.

I’m eating healthy and tracking my WW points too. Even if I overindulge on beer or pizza, I write it all down. I’m taking this losing weight business seriously this time. Too bad the scale is not really cooperating. But I’m focusing on the fact that my clothes are considerably looser and I don’t look like a stuffed sausage all the time. So there’s that.

I know the scale will eventually show off all my hard work. But, it’s still frustrating to be so good and then nothing. I’m really trying not to get discouraged. I am very thankful for my Fitbit goal, because otherwise I might give up and say fuck the gym.

You know what else is good for the gym? Netflix instant streaming. Particularly, Friday Night Lights. If you have seen this show and have seen the very first episode, you can imagine how good of a show it is to work out to! I mean, most episodes end with football games that are very intense! Just what I need to get through the last 10 minutes of a workout. It’s perfect!

If only I could get it to work with the Couch to 5k app and maybe I could watch and run. Three minutes of running straight would probably be a bit easier.

I got a parking ticket on Super Bowl Sunday. I was over at this lovely lady’s house and knew my meter expired at 7:30. But I just forgot to get out there in time to add more money. I got a ticket three minutes after the meter expired. I’m contesting it because I’ve been told there is some five-minute grace period on meters. We shall see.

When I turned 21, my friends Sharma and Amber got me a keychain bottle opened (that I still carry with me every day) and a giant Budweiser bottle bank. Thirteen years later, the bank was about 3/4 full and I decided to go to the bank and cash it in this past weekend.

The bag was HEAVY. I didn’t know how much was in there, but judging by how heavy it was and my tendency to exaggerate, I was guessing a million dollars!

Turns out it was $238, which is still a shit-ton of change. Cha-ching indeed!

Tomorrow I’ll write about the one time I found a pirate’s chest full of gold! No, not really. But man that would be nice for my bank account and for a blog story.

Anyway, so one of Rihanna’s new songs out now is called “We Fell in Love in aHopeless Place” and I just love it. It’s got a good beat. But as I was listening to it the other morning while getting ready for work, I thought “what exactly qualifies as a hopeless place?”

So I decided to list all the hopeless places I could think of to fall in love.

• Crack house
• Denny’s
• Bomb shelter
• The Superdome after Katrina
• POW camp
• Crashing plane
• Jail
• War time
• Republican National Convention
• Antarctica
• Sinking ship
• Mars
• Bathroom stall
• Rehab
• Homeless shelter
• Deserted island
• Port-a-potty

Now it’s your turn! Add to the list!

When I moved back to Illinois in 2005, I made a promise to myself that I would live in the city. I didn’t care where I ended up working or where I had to commute to, I was going to have a city apartment in Chicago proper.

And I love it. I love the neighborhood I’m in. I love the public transit options. I love that I can walk to most anything. (I also love that I have an assigned parking space so I can drive to anything I want to as well. Don’t forget I am the Queen of Lazy.)

Tonight as I was walking home from the train after work, I was thinking to myself that I really needed to email my friends and make some plans for this upcoming weekend. Nothing extravagant, just something more than grocery shopping to force me out of the house and out of my pajamas.

As I made a mental note to send an email tomorrow, I was walking past a restaurant on Lincoln. I looked in the windows and saw my friend Melissa’s boyfriend Matt who was having dinner with Melissa. I went in to say hello and they invited me to join them. It was totally impromptu and I loved it. We had some wine, dinner, lots of laughs and it was a great time.

When I think about moving away from a big city, these are the things that I don’t think I can give up. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s so worth it.

So what about you, are you a country or a city mouse?

So, people inside the computer box, did you all have a nice holiday season? Were Santa and/or the Hanukkah armadillo good to you? Did you have a grand old time ringing in 2012?

I had a very lovely Christmas. This year I went over to my brother’s house and spent Christmas Eve with them. So I got to wake up at the buttcrack of dawn on Christmas morning to see all the presents that Santa done brought! Actually, I was lucky enough to have been woken up twice by Noah, once at midnight and once at 3 AM, with his excitement over ALL! THE! PRESENTS!

Let me tell you, even though it was early, it was really nice to wake up on Christmas morning with people that were not the cats. Not that I ever minded waking up alone and sleeping in, but it kind of took any magicalness out of Christmas. Spending it with family, especially kiddos, was really nice. I think I have a new tradition!

We then celebrated with the rest of the family and I got my Soda Stream that I asked for. And let me tell you, it is AMAZING! I love it so much! The first full day I had it, I drank three liters of water. Which is 1) a lot and 2) a lot for me, especially when that water is not flavored with Kool-Aid, which was the previous way you could get me to drink that much water. Either that or with barley and hops.

(I wasn’t intending to have this be a recap post. But I’ve got nothing else to talk about, apparently.)

I have spent most of my time off around these holidays in pajamas and watching TV. I’m almost done with Six Feet Under (10 more episodes!) and while I wait for those DVDs in the mail, I am usually watching 100s of episodes of Intervention. I’m really excited that new shows are coming back on regular television. I mean, I’m starting to prefer one rehab facility over another, making a note of it in my mind in case I ever go to rehab.

This is where I should talk all about resolutions, but let’s be honest, I never keep them. This year I’m taking the KISS method and keeping it simple. Nothing has to start Jan. 1, especially since we didn’t go back to work until the third. But here are a few things I would like to accomplish this year. Most are really better habits.

• Start washing my face every night
• Don’t hit the snooze button 11 times every morning
• On that note, get up at a consistent time and get back to my old work schedule
• Lose weight
• Eat better
• Start working out
• Run a race (5k, 8k, whatever, something)
• Post more on my blog

And that’s about it. To date, I have accomplished none of these things. But tomorrow is a new day, right?

How about you, friends? Any resolutions?

Let’s face it, it’s much easier running errands during the week when the rest of the world is at work or school. This is especially true during this time of year. I needed to make a MAJOR Target run and you cannot pay me enough money to go into a Target store on a weekend between Black Friday and Christmas. That’s like walking directly into the depths of hell.

I came down with a cold early Monday morning too, so these two days have really helped me to rest and take care of it so it goes away soon. It moved from a scratchy, sore throat to now mostly some congestion and a runny nose. I’m hoping this afternoon’s three hour nap kicked this cold to the curb.

I still need to get my flu shot. Can you get it if you have a cold? I think I might get it after work on Friday so I have the weekend to rest in case I come down with anything else. I’ve only ever gotten sick from the flu shot once, but you never know.

I really disconnect from the internet when I’m off. This is fine on weekends when most everyone else does the same thing. I mean, I’ll be on Twitter all day even when I’m not at work, but I rarely check email or Facebook and I don’t read any blogs. I am so out of the loop.

I am apparently just writing random thoughts as they come into my head and making them a post. See, I figured I should write something, this being the last day of November. And even though I failed NaBloPoMo, I still wrote a lot this month and figured I should write the first day of the month and the last, at the very least.

In all honesty, I’m waiting for my Megavideo account to reset so that I can keep watching Six Feet Under. Have you all seen this show? Of course you have. Its 10 years old. IT IS AWESOME! I’m really, really enjoying it. I’m still having a hard time with gay Dexter, but he’s growing on me. I have to stop thinking of him as a serial killer. Hard to do when he’s a FUNERAL DIRECTOR. It’s almost the same! Anyway, this show is awesome, and if you haven’t watched it, you should. Trust me on this.

(My Netflix DVD was broken and wouldn’t play (probably since it is 10 years old) and since I’m impatient and have cleared out most of my DVR, I needed to watch the episodes online rightthissecond. I seriously couldn’t imagine waiting 2 days for the replacement DVD.)

And now I’m off to see if I can keep watching.

I’m not sure when it happened. I mean, I grew up recycling, for the most part. We always separated trash and recycling, for as long as I can remember. I am thankful I had a mom who made us do it, or otherwise I probably never would have.

But my adult years have taken this to a new level. I recycle. I conserve. I take public transit. I use natural cleansers. I worry about my carbon footprint. I am green!

I came to this realization while my sister was living with me. See, for a 22 year old, she is not green. I realized this when I noticed many things in the trash that were recyclable. So I would then go through the trash and pull out anything that was recyclable. (Oh, yes. Yes I did.) (I mean, the girl uses more toilet paper than I’ve ever seen! That’s a lot of empty cardboard rolls!)

I had no shame in picking out empty rolls of toilet paper or empty plastic bottles of the trash and putting them in the recycling bin. My trash and recyclables are all in the same place anyway, so it isn’t like it’s more effort.

And then on Monday I went to the grocery store after work. And I didn’t have any of my reusable grocery bags in the car. I figured it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to use plastic this one time. It won’t kill the Earth. I re-use those bags to empty the catbox.

But as I approached the check out, I was overcome with this guilt about using plastic. It irritated me! Especially since I know that there were plenty of bags in my house!

So what did I do? I bought 2 new reusable bags at the checkout. And that was enough for my groceries, to show you just how little I bought.

I began to think of other things:

I use one of these at work and it hurts every time I have to buy a bottle of water. (I used to get hives when I went to visit Ali in Atlanta and there were so many bottles and they didn’t recycle!)

This is my lunch bag. Before I bought this, it was a reusable grocery bag.

I used to bring my lunch in Tupperware containers instead of plastic baggies.

Now I have reusable plastic baggies that I use for lunch.

I’ve tried to switch to mostly natural cleansers.

I feel like such a grown up! I know for a fact, 23 year old me did not care this much about conserving the planet. She just drank beer from the bottle and only worried about where the next beer was coming from, not how she was going to recycle said bottle. (In all honesty, I still probably think this way when I’m drinking.)

Do you notice any of these kinds of things that you do now that your younger self wouldn’t even think twice about?

Because that is not a woman, right? That is a young boy. RIGHT?

I had to rewind it a few times and I still and not entirely convinced that it is a woman.

And that just makes it even creepier. Like is he going to go all Misery on that kid? And take him to a cabin and make him drink his own pee?

WHY WOULD THIS MAKE ME WANT TO BUY DIAMONDS, ZALES? This makes me want to buy MACE.

#creepy

I also have things to say about the Penn State thing. Things about the culture of sports, especially football. But I’m afraid of writing about it for fear of looking like an asshole. Because as horrible and disgusting as this all is, I’m not really surprised. But I want to give myself time to logically write a post about that because I have lots of thoughts.

So instead, I’ll show you photos of how I spent part of my day. Hanging out with the Chicago Bulls mascot, Benny the Bull, as he handed out free rides on the train. AND! I even got to meet Benny outside his costume, even if he didn’t blow his own cover and talked about himself in the third person.

Happy Friday!