As Promised: The Greatest Preamble to a Letter Written From Cousin to Cousin Ever Written

This is a letter
A letter for Sarah
I said this is a letter, yeah
A letter for Sarah

In my head that sounds like a pop punk song. Pop punk. Your Green Day or Angels and Airwaves. No Ramones or Sex Pistols here, nosiree.

Pop Punk is what you call your father if he has a lot of piercings and a devil-may-care attitude.

“Pop punk” is the sound your tires make when you hit a pothole and they blow out. PopPUNK, fast like that.

I could keep going forever. Except that I can’t think of any more. And I’m probably not immortal. But were it not for those limitations rest assured I would spiral into eternity on an ever-cresting wave of mediocre musical genre jokes.

Want to know a cool word? “Defenestrate.” Say it. “Defenestrate.” Know what it means?

(Play the Jeopardy theme song here in the event that you desire time to guess.)

“To throw (a person or thing) out of a window.” I love how the dictionary puts “person or thing” in parentheses like that, like it really doesn’t matter which it is. Matters to the person going out the window I bet. “Curse that implicitly diminishing parenthetical housed within the context of the dictionary definition of the word that is used to describe the action that has just been taken against me mere moments ago!” they would shout on the way down. Look, it’s a long fall.

Did you know there’s also a word to describe the act of being thrown out of a window and miraculously surviving the would-be lethal fall through some random chance or fortuitous circumstance? It’s true. That word is “fortunate."

Eh, I thought that would be funnier. But damn the torpedoes, it’s staying in.

Anyway.

The topic in question is: what have I been doing lately? Not too much. I graduated from Columbia College at the end of 2009 and moved back home with parents to save up money so I could subsequently move to Los Angeles, home of the film industry and small rodents on pogo sticks. Who put said rodents on said pogo sticks? What was their aim? Whither doth they wander and what do they bring with them? The rodents, I mean. The rodents are the subject of that latter question. I suspect the answer is disease.

Speaking of rodents I’ve been hearing reports lately of wrathful squirrels wreaking vengeance upon the human race. Supposedly a group of them in Russia or somewhere ganged up on a dog, killed it, and partially ate it before being chased away. Reminds me of the opening line to a story I never bothered to continue:

“I think that squirrels are coming back from the dead and feasting on the flesh of the living,” said Jimmy.

“Aw, nuts,” said Mike.

I too have felt squirrely retribution in mine own time. Once when I was a kid I was chasing a squirrel across the front yard and it scattered up a tree and a moment later an acorn fell on my head. Conk. Then the Skipper slapped me with his hat and the Professor made a radio out of coconuts. The first part of the story is true.

When I was living in Chicago there was a homeless man in front of one of the campus buildings who spoke in a Cockney accent (possibly affected, nobody really knew for sure) and because of this was called Shakespeare by the faculty and student body. He was something of a local legend, having occupied the area for God only knows how long and never breaking character, if a character it was. I don’t recall him ever asking for change. Maybe he wasn’t really a homeless man but a Columbia art student who became so enmeshed in his performance-art senior thesis project that he just never came out of it. Or he had the world’s strictest acting teacher. “I won’t pass you in this course until you make me believe in the truth of the character, son.” Twenty years later and he’s still at it.

There was also a street preacher on State, by the Marshall Field’s, with a microphone and amplification technology that rivaled the average fast food drive-thru for all its clarity and electronic distinctness. Once his words were filtered through that aluminum foil speaker it became a garbled code so thoroughly undecipherable a Navajo Windtalker couldn’t break it. These are the characters that give a city personality.

Time-Waster Thursday!

Boy (or girl) am I ready to waste some time.

ANIMALS!

Well this is just the cutest.



Or is this one in fact the cutest?



Sorry guys, this one is, without a doubt, THE CUTEST.



PEOPLE!

I didn't understand a word you just said, but I don't care.



Gotta train 'em early these days if you want to whore them out for millions of dollars.



ANIMALS AND PEOPLE!

Yeah, that reaction seems about right.



Great job and all, but do you realize how this could have ended?



WEBSITES YOU SHOULD LOOK AT!

Damn You, Auto Correct!

The 20 Funniest Moments in Michael Scott History

HARRY POTTER GETS HIS OWN SECTION!



Stay tuned tomorrow for the unveiling of The Greatest Preamble to a Letter Written From Cousin to Cousin Ever Written.

Five Semi-Unconnected Thoughts I've Been Thinking

1. I have a growing fear that since getting a second dog, I've become my own worst enemy: an annoying Facebook mom who is incapable of talking about anything besides her child, or in my case, puppy.* (For some great examples, please check out this hilarious/totally inappropriate for work website Leah Armstrong showed me.) When I begged Sarah to say it ain't so, she assured me that my fears were ill-founded and that everything I do is awesome. So I guess what I'm trying to say is if you're getting tired of all the dog posts, you can blame Sarah, my enabler.

2. Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred is cool. I love it and hate it, because regardless of how effective it is, it's still working out. It. It. It it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it it. But it only takes 22 minutes a day and I'm a pound away from having lost 10% of my body weight. INCLUDING MY BONES.

3. Eric Houge is my cousin. That's all.

Just kidding! This morning I read a private letter he wrote to Sarah without permission (and by this I mean I didn't have permission to read it; he had Sarah's consent/violent command to write her a letter) and, after recovering from an hour-long fit of such uncontrollable laughter it was on the verge of painful, decided I'd really like to post some excerpts for all of you to read, but this time with permission. While I'm waiting for his response, it might be a good idea for you to do some brain push-ups so your skull doesn't collapse under the weight of the mind-blowing smartlarity that's about to get dropped. Hopefully.**

4. I listen to the new Beastie Boys album, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, at all times because it is currently streaming online FO FREE right here (Parental Advisory: Explicit Awesomeness as well as Lyrics). It's off the heezy fo sheezy the most fun and enjoyable album I've heard in some time.

5. All I wanna do is eat pesto.

*Don't worry, I'm not talking about you. Probably.
**If he says no, it's not like the push-ups will have been wasted. I've been waiting for the right moment to tell you that your brain's been looking a little on the flabby side lately.

History Mystery

Let's play a game! It's called What the %$^& is My New Dog?

We're pretty sure he's part Border Collie. As for the rest, who knows?! I was sure he was mixed with pit, but after doing a little internet research I remembered I'm rarely right.

I found this picture of a Collie/Pit mix, which looks exactly like my dog.

But THEN, I found THIS picture of a Collie/Great Dane mix, which ALSO looks exactly like my dog.

Thoughts?

Dogs Are My Life Now.

WE GOT ANOTHER DOG!!! I so desperately wanted to tell you sooner but Gary and I decided it would be best to wait so as to avoid another heartbreakfest like the last time we thought we were getting a dog.

We've been wanting another dog for a while now, but the urgency has really picked up since the break-in. Gary felt that if there were two dogs in the backyard, they might have a better chance at devouring any bad guys before they had a chance to pry open our back window and steal our belongings.

There were several parameters on which we refused to compromise, which definitely contributed to the length of our search. It had to be:

• A boy, 'cause they're cuddlier than girls
• Less than 6 months old
• Less than $300, because as you may have heard, we broke, broke
• Preferably a Border Collie mix, since that's what Peaches (Gary's beloved childhood dog) was

We've been scouring websites for local shelters for weeks, but we never found a perfect match. For whatever reason, Gary and I decided to stop by the humane society after work on Wednesday to have a look around, and there he was, all cute and squishy and spotted and PERFECT -- except for one thing: He wasn't up for adoption. Since he had come in as a stray, we had to wait until Sunday to give the owners a chance to come claim him if he was just lost. Luckily for us, the Pikes Peak Humane Society accepts bribes. A $20 "donation" under the table for first dibs the second he became available.* Ever since then we've just been hoping that whoever owned him was a total idiot, and whaddya know? Obviously they are, because they never came back to claim him.

We brought him home yesterday, and he and Brutus immediately hit it off. I can't tell you how relieved I was. Well, I can try: I WAS SO RELIEVED. I couldn't believe how smoothly it all went, which I'm sure Sarah and Gary are nice and sick of hearing after I short-circuited and became incapable of saying anything but that phrase over and over.

I'm having a little trouble containing my glee, but I'll do my best to sum it up in one word...and one video:

HAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

*Just kidding, it was totally legit. I sometimes like to pretend I'm persuasive enough to get people to break the law.

Time-Waster Thursday!

Time for some videos featuring my two favorite things!

ANIMALS!







and CHILDREN!





I know there weren't that many this week, but I've been working. No, really. I'm serious.

Please stop laughing.

It hurts my feelings.

Bummed Out

I had a dream.

I was eating a baguette when I saw a homeless man. I had about half of it left and I decided to give it to him because he looked hungry. I tried to toss it to him but it fell in the dirt because I have terrible aim. He thought I did it on purpose so he tackled me to the ground and started beating the crap out of me.

Just goes to show that even in my wildest dreams, I can't eat bread without being severely punished.

Book 'em, Danno.

Since my blog gets about a hundred million new hits a day, I've decided to give the people what they want and write a book.

Just kidding. But I have been kicking around the idea of writing a short story or something. On the car ride home from Texas I had a lot of time to think about what I'd like to write, and I did manage to come up with a few ideas.

So what's it about? Love? Happiness? A handsome young hero who overcomes all odds to get the girl? Nah. It's about death of course!

Idea #1: Girl has been good her whole life; develops theory that she could get away with murder; decides to test the theory by killing someone.

Idea #2: Girl has a crush on boy; boy is killed in a car accident. Girl becomes obsessed and convinced that he was the love of her life even though they barely knew each other.

Idea #3: Twin sisters. One dies; the other is left to deal.

Did anyone see any of those coming? I swear I'm not usually this morbid...I'm just...morbi-curious.

I think my brain might be broken.

Statuses? Statii? Stat-stop-anonymous?

I'm back!

Instead of writing a big long catch up, I'll fill you in on my last few days through a series of Facebook status updates and/or tweets I would have posted if I'd had the time and/or didn't think twitter was the dumbest thing ever.

Wednesday, April 13th

6:00am Aaaaand we're off!

11:24am I didn't realize Jerry Jeff Walker would be joining us on this road trip...it's gonna be a long day.

3:15pm And the award for Gas Station Bathroom Most Likely to Appear in a Horror Movie goes to...

8:06pm Which do I care about more - losing weight or cheddar bay biscuits? Judging by the buttery crumbs on my shirt, I'm gonna have to go with the latter.

10:30pm I wanna be Carly Geiger when I grow up. Dat girl makes BANK.

Thursday, April 14th

6:45am Gary, when describing Theresa's dog: "Cute as the dickens"

2:23pm Two words Three words Two words One hyphenated and one regular word: Air-conditioned nap.

7:38pm In one fell swoop, Love & War in Texas has managed to simultaneously ruin my diet and complete my life.

Friday, April 15th

9:13am Alcohol at 9am? Why not. This is Texas.

1:14pm Said goodbye to a good man this afternoon.

2:05pm How does the American Legion end a memorial service? The way everyone should - with fried chicken and more alcohol.

Saturday, April 16th

8:46am One of my old youth kids works at the coffee shop where I had my first job. Paige, if you're reading this, just remember: The discounted lattes may be delicious, but they'll never fill the void your boss has chomped out of your soul. Go work at Taco D. You'll smell like Mexican food when you get home, but you'll be so! much! happier!

11:32am I'm gonna make a quilt! Look at this faaaaabriiiiiiiiiic! (Oh hey mom...hope you're prepared for me to call you every hour on the hour for instructions.)

3:53pm Perhaps this little trip to the SPCA was not the best idea I've ever had. All these puppies wanna come home with me!

Sunday, April 17th

7:28am Nobody makes french toast like Tim Howrey makes french toast.

8:04am Just found $200 in my sunglasses case as I was driving away from my parents' house. This kind of thing tends to happen when you have as much cash as we do your parents are sneaky slash awesome (or snawesome for all you hip young word mashers out there).

4:16pm I have a great idea for a new show! It's Always Cloudy in New Mexico. Meat processing plants and road construction 'til the cows come home - to the meat processing plants! Reality TV at its finest.

8:39pm Well whaddya know? We went to Texas and nobody stole any of our belongings while we were gone!

10:40pm This moving away business has some strange effects. No matter where I am, I perpetually feel both homesick and at home.

Peace Out

We're heading down to Wylie tomorrow. See you guys in about a week.

If you get lonely while I'm gone, you should read one or all of these blogs here on the sidebar, 'cause they're all written by people I like...especially this one. She's pretty much my fave.

The Thing About Goodbye

The knowledge that it's coming doesn't make it any easier.

Gary's grandpa went to be with the Lord on Saturday. He will be missed by so many people.

I'm almost at a loss for words, but one phrase keeps running through my mind: Billy Gene Gray lived.

Please keep Gary's family in your prayers.

It's Friday and I Don't Feel Like Writing

So here are my favorite videos of all time.

Some of the language (not much) is PG13, so if you're under 13, WHY ARE YOU READING THIS? be sure to ask your parents' permission.

Time-Waster Thursday!

Let's do this!

First up: Dogs vs. Toddlers.



You want more dog videos, you say? Wish: granted.



Yeah, this seems totally safe.




Think this guy likes Kobe Bryant?



I can't close my mouth.



Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to have a little chat with each of your supervisors regarding your work ethic.

A Whole New Level of Fail

I guess this was just the weekend that wouldn't quit, because I have yet ANOTHER weekend story to tell! I don't know if you're aware of how unusual that is, but allow me to enlighten you: My weekends usually consist of a series of meals and naps on Saturday followed by a hellacious grocery trip to Walmart on Sunday, after which I like to shoot myself with a low-dose tranquilizer dart and then wonder where all my free time went.

After getting a TV on Saturday, I felt like I should balance things out with a new bookshelf so I could keep pretending to be smarter than everyone. (Never mind that we're going to use the bookshelf as a shoe rack.) I bought one for fifteen bucks at Walmart, which is pretty awesome considering the ugly metal shoe racks were closer to twenty. This version would be far classier, and all it needed was a little assembly.

When I bought it, the assembly part didn't even phase me since I have an incredibly handy man living in my house. But Sunday morning he was working on a car with a friend, so I decided to tackle the project myself. How hard could it be?

How hard indeed. Time for a little unsolicited advice: If you find yourself asking that question, chances are it's too hard.

I can't tell you how proud I was of myself. I've never tried to put anything like this together, but I was following the ambiguously wordless instructions after only having read over them twenty seven times; using a Phillips head screwdriver AND a hammer (and knowing the difference, thankyouverymuch); and all this without permanently fastening any part of my clothing and/or body to the bookshelf.

I hammered twenty tiny nails into the back of the shelf, and then all that was left to do was stand it upright and install the shelves, which I knew would be the easiest part since you just use those little...what are they called? Oh yes, "metal sticky-out things" that just slide into the pre-drilled holes.

I flipped it right side up, took a step back to admire my handiwork, and...

"SHbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!"

Boob Tube? That's Offensive.

I didn't get a chance to tell you guys about the addition we made to our family over the weekend on account of all the crime fighting yesterday. But yes, the rumors are true: We are no longer stuck in the Dark Ages.

It all started on Wednesday when I came home to find a PlayStation 2 on my dining room table. Where did it come from? Was this some kind of reverse-robbery where as a cruel joke they leave stuff in your house that you don't have the equipment to hook up or enjoy? Yeah, robbers (or...un...robbers?), we get it. We don't have a TV. This is very funny and also painful.

Surprisingly enough, my guess was incorrect. Gary's friend from work had brought it over because, after hearing about the no TV situation, he was convinced we were Amish. Unfortunately this brought us no closer to the 21st century since the adapter we would have needed to hook it up to our ghettotainment center runs around fifty bucks, which (SURPRISE!) we didn't have. I was confused as to why Gary hadn't just given the system back until I spotted the games sitting next to it. Then everything made sense. Ace Combat 4 and 5 were sitting there, quietly biding their time until the inevitable moment they could strike and begin sucking my husband's life away, several consecutive hours at a time.

Which brings me back to Saturday morning. Gary found a 32-inch TV on Craigslist for twenty bucks, so we decided to go for it. We rearranged our living room furniture to accommodate our new baby and posted an ad so we could sell the old one.*

I don't know when we got to this point, but now whenever we realize we haven't used something in a couple weeks, our eyeballs turn into giant dollars signs and we both turn to each other and exclaim in unison, "LET'S SELL IT!!!" That snowboard Gary bought when we moved here 'cause he mistakenly thought he'd be able to afford a ski pass ever? SELL IT! The china we got for our wedding? SELL IT! Naming rights to our first born child? ALREADY SOLD to some dude we met at the Tillamook cheese factory in Oregon. I know Stinky McCheese Gray is a little out there, but what can I say? The price was right. Plus I can almost guarantee there won't be any other kids in her class named Stinky. (Juuust kidding. We'd never force a girl to go through life with a name like Stinky. If it's a girl, her first name will be Curdy. We felt McCheese was androgynous enough to work as a middle name either way.)

I swear we're not on crack. But the guy we bought the TV from TOTALLY was. When we pulled up to the house to pick it up, Gary locked both doors, put on his dad voice and told me to stay in the truck.

And that is the story of why I never saw Gary again.

THE END

*We're asking $150 OBO for our 22 inch LG Flatron monitor. We'd really like it if the BO was around a hundred bucks if anyone's interested. Mention the blog and we'll throw in a free color printer!





















We're throwing in the printer anyway; I just really like it when people mention the blog.

Taking a Bite Outta Crime

First of all, if you haven't heard, Friday's post was a joke. I think most of you caught on, but if you didn't, there's no reason to feel stupid as long as you don't tell anyone! That's the beauty of the internet! And to those of you who are concerned that I'm making a mistake by denying my emotions the free reign they deserve: You needn't worry your adorably sensitive little heads. Rest assured that I have a husband, a mom, two sisters and a whole bunch of close friends to keep me from needing to process my every thought on the internet.

On to today's breaking news: Gary got someone arrested this morning!

When he left for work at about 4:30 this morning, he noticed a Jeep parked in front of the old crackhouse next door. He thought it was weird since no one lives there, but it didn't really trouble him until he noticed a man inside the car, asleep in the driver's seat. Normally this wouldn't seem like that big of a deal, but in light of the fact that we got robbed two weeks ago, we're now extra paranoid. He called the non-emergency line and they said they'd have an officer drive by and make sure everything was okay.

He came back inside and woke me up to tell me all this so that I'd feel safe knowing there was a policeman on the way. Oddly enough, the knowledge that there was a strange man outside our house -- no doubt waiting for Gary to leave so he could come into my house and murder me and my dog -- made me feel a whole lot less safe than I had a few minutes earlier when I was dreaming about donuts and cheesy bread.

A few minutes after Gary had made the phone call, the man (presumably) woke up and (definitely) drove away. Again, I was somehow not comforted by this news. Gary left for work and then I promptly barricaded Brutus and myself in my bedroom. About a minute later, my phone vibrated on my nighstand became a machine gun and I died of a heart attack.

THE END

Just kidding! (You'll have to forgive my residual April Fools' Day smartacity.*) It was Gary calling to inform me that the man from the Jeep was being detained. Apparently when the guy drove away, he had only gone about half a block before parking again, and when Gary drove by he was being handcuffed. I doubt they would arrest someone just for sleeping in a car, which can only mean one thing: WE CAUGHT A REAL LIVE BAD GUY!

The moral of the story? Be a narc. You might just save your wife from being chopped into little pieces.

*Spellcheck didn't correct this word, so it must be real.

New Beginnings

I had a really good conversation with a few close friends last night and it really changed something in me. They helped me realize how much I use humor to cover up all my true feelings, so starting today I won't be doing that anymore. I know you guys are used to me cracking jokes and being silly on here, but I'd like to think you all care enough about me to stick around for the chance to get to know the real me.

So here it is. The real me. My real feelings. All out there for the world to see, love me or hate me. Free of the burden of trying to please everyone all the time. It's time to bust out of this glass case I'm in; the glass case I've built by masking my true feelings and emotions.

I invite you all to join me on this new journey I'm on to discover who I really am.

That begins by telling everybody what I really think. But how can I do that when I'm not even sure what I think? I just have all these thoughts whirling around in my head and sometimes it's hard to make sense of them. I wanna figure out where I really stand on the important issues, like, for example, is my favorite color really green like I've always claimed? Or have I just been too scared to admit that I might actually like purple more? These are the things I'd like to get to the bottom of.

GOSH it is so nice already to have this new online diary. I feel so much freedom. It's like this blog has suddenly become a beautiful green meadow with little baby bunnies hopping around and smelling flowers. Butterflies everywhere and not a cloud in the sky. So everybody, grab a blanket that you're not worried about getting dirty and let's have an internet picnic. I'm having a happiness sandwich with a nice cold glass of inner peace. What are YOU having?