MFTF: My Sister Joins the Facebook Chronicles

I went on to Gmail the other day, unsuspectingly, and was greeted by a new email informing me my father had sent me a Facebook message. Fabulous. He told me that he couldn't remember which of my phones was working and he thought this was best way to contact me. Um... hello Daddy. Ever heard of a little thing called email? At this point I think he's just messing with me.

I was retelling the story to my sister, who apparently was sick of being the only sibling not friends with our father. She informed me that not only had she friended him, she had written on his wall: "I really can't believe you're on facebook". Couldn't have said it better myself.

In response to her post, continuing in his love of FB msgs he said:

"Hey I didn't know if it would be OK to write on your wall so I'm sending you a message. I'm glad they didn't have this when I was in college...there would be too many incriminating pictures out there.

Be good!

Love daddy"

So many amazing things in this message. The fact that he know it wouldn't be okay for him to post on her wall. Plus 5. His comment about incriminating pictures. Ew, Minus 5. Be good! Totally expected, and probably necessary. Plus 5.

I, of course, focused in on the fact he could even write on her wall. I instantly wrote her an email to clear things up:

"Can he see your wall???"

"He could but then I changed it."

"Ha, awkward!"

"Yeah well, I didn't realize. Plus a girl had just written on my wall about me baby oil wrestling."

Classic.

[Insert Fabulous Blog Post Here]

I decided to give up laziness for Lent, but I've been too lazy to write about it. I know, I know, it's almost too easy of an opening sentence. But it's true. I sat down a few days ago to write a blog post, and to be quite honest, it was a bad post. I've been reading Bird by Bird, and part of it talks about how writers often hang on to something that they've written, even if it's crappy, just because letting go of something you've worked on is like killing your baby. Dramatic, yes. But it's totally true. The writer was talking about a book she had worked on for years, I'm talking about a blog post that took me 15 minutes. Tomato, tomato. Anyways, this post is starting to sound like a huge digression and going down the wrong path already. 

Basically, you didn't miss much. In my other post I mean. I told a story about how I tried to sign up for a trial gym membership but only went once, because I was in so much pain following my boxing class I couldn't fathom standing, let alone voluntarily returning to hell. I wrote about how the sales manager at the gym was a Buckeye fan and he signed me up for an Ohio State email listserv, just for fun, since I wore a Gator shirt on that one visit to the gym. (That's what I get for trying to work out.) I made some self-deprecating jokes about how I kept my aspirations low in terms of defining what is a non-lazy activity because, let's be honest, getting out of the house once a day counts for me. But although my aspirations for Lent were low, my aspirations for this blog post were high. It was going to be hilarious, witty, and all things wonderful. But when I read it over I realized that it might have been about eradicating laziness, but it was also just long, boring, and something I was trying to cross off my list of things to do — so that I wouldn't be the ironic epitome of laziness. 

The post is like trying to make fetch happen. It's just not going to happen.

Un Autre Moi

I received this email a few days ago. It was actually written fully in French, which was the first hint that it might have been sent to the incorrect address. I had the BF translate it (he's fluent) and this is what the letter said:

"Hi, as I have no news from you I decided to write. I learned from Jean Charles that Lionel “packed his boxes”!!! You have thus decided to separate…. I am sad for you two. I dare not tell the children, they would not understand, especially Laureline.

You will pass through very painful moments and I am so sad to be far from you. The distance makes it hard to communicate, yet I think about you often without doing anything which makes it true that I have been selfish.

I finally resumed work on March 9, but I am still not calm. I live with the sword of Damocles over my head. The end will probably be when I have my MRI before the summer and they will say that all is gone, that I have nothing more.

I had not heard any news of Lionel since my birthday and it feels so distant, it’s no longer the same!!! I do not know if your separation will be final, but if one thing is sure it’s that I cannot imagine one of you without the other!

I hope to have some news from you soon. I hug you very strong. Big kiss to Jessica and Chris."

Seriously? Why don't people write like this anymore? Or, I guess this is current, but write like this in English? I feel like I've stepped into a Jane Austen novel. Or maybe Sartre, although if that was the case the whole MRI thing would probably have been more extended.

This email reminds me of when I went to Rome and traveled by myself. I asked for directions from a nice man in his forties, Francesco, who proceeded to show me around to different places in the city on his lunch break. I didn't realize how creepy it was at the time, I can be quite naive, and I gave him my email address so he could send me more places to see. For months after, or actually until my Penn email account was erased, he sent me love sonnets he wrote himself. Some in Italian, some in Spanish, some in broken English. Usually on major Italian holidays that I'd never heard of, and especially, always, on Easter. I never replied to any of them, but I suppose it was romantic in its own, thank-goodness-you-are-on-another-continent kind of way.

 A very sick, inner dramatic side of me almost wishes this French email was meant for me. Since my inbox is mainly full of "hey, u drinking tonight?" or "LOL I have the funniest story for you", or "omg his new gf is so ugly, facebook her and confirm." Not nearly as literary. But then I would have a dying friend who has "the sword of Damocles" over his head, a lover whose left me, and two children. Merde!

A Friendly Reminder with a Dash of Catholic Guilt

Good old Daylight Savings Time. So freaking confusing. I never know whether its EDT or EST and whenever anyone tries to explain it to me I just end up forgetting until the next person feels the need to clear away my confusion. Parts of Indiana don't even observe DST.  Or actually, now the entire state doesn't. Or maybe it does, but it didn't used to. I just remember my dad telling me that at Notre Dame they didn't change their clocks. Okay, according to Wikipedia, Indiana became the 48th state to observe DST in 2006. But, apparently, it's a very controversial topic to people from Indiana. See? Confusing! I'm digressing. My point is, before the times of cell phones, it was easy to forget changing your clocks. 

When I was little, we went to church every other Sunday. Our family was like the child of divorced parents, the church only got custody on alternate weekends. We had to go enough so that my mother didn't feel like a fairweather Catholic that only went on Christmas and Easter. I grew up honestly thinking I was more Christian than my friends who only went on holidays. And then I'd be more likely to go to heaven, obviously. As for my Jewish friends, I didn't think they were any less likely to go to heaven. I thought they would go to heaven, but their heaven would be like a big fun Bat Mitzvah with everyone dancing and singing and getting lifted up on chairs. The song "Sunrise, Sunset" would be playing on constant repeat in the background, a soundtrack to the Yiddish afterlife. I loved that song growing up. I think I always secretly wanted to go to Jewish heaven.

One Sunday, we got dressed and went to church and when we arrived everyone was leaving. We pulled up to the front and my dad dropped off my mother so she could ask what was going on. She came back to the car and started explaining to my dad, in angry Spanish, that we forgot to change the clocks. We were an hour late to mass, and it was already over. It was always a production to get all of us dressed and to church on time so my parents were kind of annoyed at themselves for having messed up the timing. My siblings and I though — we couldn't be happier. For years afterwards, I would think of DST fondly, because it got me out of going to mass that one Sunday. I say this with a twinge of Catholic guilt, because I've become that person that only goes to mass on Christmas and Easter. Well, actually, just Christmas. I aim for Easter once in a while, if I can sucker someone else into going with me. One Easter in college a friend of mine had a costume party. I dressed up as a Catholic schoolgirl and my atheist boyfriend at the time dressed up as a priest. Every time we kissed that night, I felt like a sinner. To this day, I look at pictures of that Easter where I chose to get wasted and mock the church instead of going to mass, and I feel overwhelmed with guilt. It's not like I can blame that on any random confusing time change.

Oh well. There's always Jewish heaven. I'll just have to make sure I keep all rabbi and Moses costumes out of my Halloween options.

What do Ashley Tisdale and Ashlee Simpson have in common?

(Besides bad music and the same first name)

A friend of mine had her nose done this week and before she went in she expressed her concern about the surgery.

"I'm not anxious about this for the reasons you would think. It's just that... to be honest, I feel screwed by God and I think its annoying I have to do this. It's like, I'm excited but I'm as excited as you can be to fix something that was already supposed to be right to begin with."

I found that hilarious, but told her that as long as she didn't look like Miss Piggy after it was all over, I'd still be her friend. There were probably more reassuring things I could have said, but oh well.

After she got out of surgery she said: "The doctor suggested I go all the way under because I seemed like the type where it would be easier if I was all the way knocked out and not talking".

He sure nose what he's doing. (I couldn't resist).

[Cue a Jaws and Care Bears Theme Song Remix]

Did the room around you just get a whole lot sunnier? Did you get a warm, fuzzy feeling inside you and have an urge to cuddle up to all of your old stuffed animals? Because this, my friends, is a pink dolphin. He (or she, but I would like to think of him as a fabulously gay male dolphin) was found in a lake in Louisiana. He's an albino dolphin, which is why he is pink. I have a soft spot for albinos — my band director in high school was an African American albino and he was hilarious. Well, not really, but I'm a band nerd and you have to love your director. It's band nerd law.

Regardless, I should probably hate this dolphin just on principle. I mean, he's pink! C'mon! And not like a cool hot, magenta pink. But a Pretty, Pretty Princess pink. He kind of looks like Pepto Bismol. And he's a bottlenose dolphin. Maybe Pepto Bismol can use him in their ads. Bottle...pink.. there's gotta be some joke there. Or not.

I feel bad for his family members. He definitely steals all the attention away. Like the other dolphin in that picture, maybe its a sibling. And the sibling is just that regular dolphin that hangs around and hopes to get some attention from the paparazzi. It's not like the sibling could take a cue from Jamie Lynn Spears and get knocked up as a teenager to gain the spotlight for a little bit because, who cares if a dolphin gets pregnant young? Maybe if it gets jealous enough it'll turn green! That'll show everyone. Okay, corny I know. And I would delete that but it's a tribute to a history of corniness that my family has passed down through the generations.

This dolphin kind of makes me want to bake cupcakes with multi-colored icing, and paint rainbows on my walls, and surround myself with puppies and kittens while singing Kumbaya. He could totally bring on world peace, and cure cancer. But only breast cancer, because... you know.. he's pink. 

Anyways, I thought you guys might enjoy him. If you start to get suicidal from all of the happiness and light in the air, I apologize. It's not easy being pink.

Creepy McCreeperson

I was sitting in my bed, minding my own business, working, and all of  a sudden I turn around and this old lady is staring at me from across the window. I usually keep the shades drawn but I wanted to check out the snowstorm outside, so they happened to be open. Luckily, since it is so freezing, I had a sweatshirt on and wasn't in my usual state of undress. I've never noticed this woman before and it looks like she has an apron on, so I'm hoping she's a housekeeper and isn't permanently setting up shop. Although, now she's on the portable phone so if she's a housekeeper that is kind of scandalous right? Or not at all, I'm just making drama up in my head which wouldn't be the first time. I was really creeped out until I realized that I'm the sketchy one, staring at her, blogging, posting her picture — albeit a fuzzy one to protect her privacy. Ok, that's a lie... I'm too lazy to go downstairs and get my real camera. Is this what the movie Disturbia was like?