Some Facts

Fact: I am totally snowed in. Like I can't leave the house. At all.
Fact: My only resources are the internet, and season two of The Office.
Fact: My grandparentals are the only people left on Earth who still have DIAL-UP, which equals negative-percent effective. I did the math.
Fact: This leaves me with 20+ episodes of The Office.

Question: Where will this lead?
Answer: Only time will tell...

P.S. Don't hold your breath waiting for an update. It took me FORTY-FIVE minutes to get this to post.

she pulled the covers over her head...

...and buried herself beneath a mountain of various and sundry items:

1 quilt
2 down comforters
3 blankets (wooly mammoth, Mexican, and fleece)
4 loads of laundry
5 bags of Japanese food
6 sweaters
7 sudoku books
8 tubes of chapstick
9 dollars in change
10 library books
11 unfinished to-do lists
12 homemade coupons
13 half-sticks of gum
14 straws from Wendys
15 Halls Blackcurrant Soothers
16 Star Wars action figures
17 Magazine (2004 Prom Edition)
18 hours worth of Jane Austen books-on-tape
1999 yearbook
2007 calendar
21 years worth of life experience

yet even that could not smother

the cry

wrenched from the very center of her being:

WHY MUST I BE SO VERY, VERY

AWKWARD?!?!?!?!?

You heard it here first. Or not.

So I was at the gym last night, watching a lot of TVs (plural) because:

a) I'm totally ADD and there are a LOT of TVs to look at.
b) The flashy colors distract me from the pain.
c) Closed captioning makes it possible to watch all nine shows at once.

So as my eyes bounced from screen to screen like twin pinballs, they were snagged by the action on one station that featured a man cowering in fear under the bathroom sink while a woman tried to pull him out. Now who wouldn't want to watch that?

The closed captioning went as follows:

-"You have to come out!"
-"No, the blue man will get me!"
-"Come on, Tracy. Get out from under there!"
-(Tracy makes sounds like Chewbacca.)

Chewbaccaish sounds. Right. Like that's helpful to a DEAF audience.

But who knows, maybe the old man on the treadmill next to me went deaf on May TWENTY-SIXTH 1977 and knew exactly what was going on...

So I know I look like your cousin, but...

You know when you see someone that looks so familiar that you swear you know them from somewhere? Well, I'm that person to a lot of people. A lot, a lot, a lot. It's kind of weird. (In fact, I have a bit of a complex from people staring at me in confusion.)

Usually, however, after an initial contact, they realize that they really don't know me, and depart with a semi-awkward, "Oh, you really look like my relative/friend/acquaintance/ex/(other)." (It's especially awkward if you've already hugged me/smacked my butt/ran to catch up with me.) And I continue on my merry, if somewhat disturbed, way.

But what REALLY gets me are the times when I tell them that they are mistaken and they DON'T BELIEVE ME. I mean, seriously, like I would LIE about who I am. (And since I am NOT your relative/friend/acquaintance/ex/(other), you REALLY should not be touching me, At all.)

Luckily, such an event has only happened to me face-to-face a couple times. (One of them was semi-humorous and involved a C-List celebrity.)

But, I was a third party to it ALL THE TIME:
There is a teacher in my high school that I never had. Never. (She taught physics for crying out loud.) I never went into her classroom, never talked to her, never came within 40 feet of her my entire high school experience. Yet, for THREE YEARS, my sister would come home about every other week and tell me that this teacher said "Hi" to me and wanted to know how I was doing. And even when my sister TOLD her that I never had a class from her, she STILL continued to question my welfare on a BI-MONTHLY BASIS! (It only stopped when my sister graduated.)

And then, just yesterday, It has progressed to EMAIL:
(I had mass-emailed all the professors teaching ENGL 495 for the next year to get an idea of their topics so I could pick one to take, and this was one reply.)

Hi Meagan,

What a treat to have you back in class! I don't remember what I agreed to do with that Summer 495. I am at home on leave and away from my files. Go ask Trish what it is going to be and DO tell me. Bring your friends with you. Is everything going well for you? Talk to me!

Very Best,

XXXXXX

Yeah. Wouldn't know her from Eve.

(psycho.)