THIS AMERICAN LIFE IS GOING TO BE A TV SHOW?

At first I didn't know what to think about this because taking the radio out of This American Life seems like taking the red out of ketchup, but then I thought, "more TAL? Bring it!" And indeed, they shall.

Couldn't we all do with a little more of this fella?

Two of many conversations had at a party on Saturday that make eye contact for all involved difficult on Monday.

1.
Devin: Hiya.
You know I met Sean like 7 minutes ago and there are few people I've liked more immediately.

Me: Yeah, a lot of people say that. Sometimes I catch him rehearsing for first impressions in the mirror. That's why.

Devin: Nooooo. I read his email you forwarded for the party and he's so funny and wordy. I like his wordiness, he uses big words and he's so FUNny! Like it almost makes me think, "is Jess really funny or is she just around Sean a lot?"

Me: Thanks, Devin.

Devin: And, well, he was telling me he's trying to get you to marry him. SO DO IT! Jess. Do it. I'm not kidding, Jess. Seriously. Marry Sean. ASAP! I just totally know you should do it.

Me: Yeah, I'm thinking about it. Just like I've been thinking about the same tatoo for the past 4 years. If I married him, he'd be around for a long time. Like a tatoo. Or Herpes. All chronic things, really. But he does make me laugh every day. Meg (his wife) was saying the same thing about you.

Devin: I know. Did you see Meg has a tatoo? I never thought I'd marry a girl with a tattoo. I don't know why. Anyway...

pause.

pause.

ok, pausing still because that was kind of a serious heart-to-heart.

Me: Ok, thanks Devin.

Devin: No prob. Later.

2.
Jeremy: Never have I ever (insert wildly raunchy act illegal in 12 states and possibly only documented in German porn...not that I've seen it, but I'm sure it's "wonderbar").

Me: (drinks absent mindedly while everyone hoots and points. I try to explain) No! I was just thirsty right then! I wasn't thinking! No!

Everyone else at the Kings card table: Suuuuuure.

How to keep things from getting old versus how to indisputably suck.

How to keep things from getting old:

just enough mystery
sunscreen and/or wide brimmed hats
truthiness Colbert ice cream


How to indisputably suck:

kill Mr. Eko
get Kate out of her shirt for longer than usual
add lots of guns
and cages
bash skulls and bloody noses



What is happening to my world? Lost is serving it up piping suck with a side of boring. Thank God for Heroes.

Dooce and champagne!

About three years ago, this friend of mine introduced me to this website. Since then, and mostly on company time, I've systematically worked my way through every post on Dooce.

Why? Because Heather's funny like Tina Fey is funny, she's in love with things, painfully self-questioning and very pretty. Some posts grab me and some posts maybe grab other people...who knows how these things work. This one grabbed me today and, as per usual, made me love Heather and her life in a way not too far from totes weird. I'm not used to knowing so much about a person who's not my friend, and sometimes I don't know what to do with the antsy impulses I get from reading her blog and feeling like her peer--the impulse to embrace her, react to her, try to find her phone number to tell her a few jokes and ask nagging questions about her awesome hair, the impulse to propose to Sean and buy property...as I said, totes weird. Maybe head over to the site if you're bored and see what you think. Is she as awesome as I think she is? Does she make you want a tire swing and a dog?



P.S. Sean and I got drunk on champagne at 3:30 in the P.M. to celebrate 4 years. 4 years? 4 years. And in apt Irish fashion we were then too lazy to do anything but lay around and snicker and giggle, which we did for a few perfect hours before he left me for his own single bed. 4 years!

Valentimes part II.

If you go here you can download awesome love songs for free. I found out via newsletter from the weepies who made a new cute video you can find on myspace or here.

Happy ValentiMes!

I love this show.

And this guy.


















.

Hello, my name's Jess and I'm a...well...I'm a...I'm a hypochondriac, okay?

Once I was driving on a dark night. I felt the pain pitchforks (also commonly known as headlights) of oncoming traffic in my temples even though I'd taken Advil. I was trying to sooth my temples with public radio and it almost worked, but then, right as a pretty song of love requited finished, BAM came Belle and Sebastian singing, "He had a stroke at the age of 24." Please find and judge a snippet of my internal dialogue below.

How old am I?
Check.
Headache?
Check.
Despite the Advil?
Check.
Does Advil enlarge the veins or thin the blood?
Blast! I'm done for.

I don't know why this happens so often. When it does, I ask Sean what I think are a line of logical questions, I check Web MD and then I become convinced- I never feel like I'm convincing myself- that several serious illnesses find me too attractive not to share and eat my organs.

Beyond how exhausting it is to use Purell after touching anything that's not Purell, and beyond how much it must suck to be my boyfriend sometimes, beyond all that, I am realizing that the worst part of this constant worrying is the preoccupation with myself that it demands. I read a Real Simple article a while ago that sort of brought this up. The author listed a bunch of "ridiculous" things she does that I do too (of course I stop breathing when I pass someone who just coughed...sorry I'm intelligent). Then she said she was tired of looking inwards instead of outwards. I thought, well, I'm on board. 100%. I don't want to be self-involved! I don't like that idea, even though I have a blog, at all. No way. No how.

But then I see this and my fear of brain tumors/aneurysms lands in the brain like a tumor or aneurysm. This is one of the reasons I will always fear brain tumors/aneurysms. Because this is what happens...when you're LUCKY.

Stacie and miscelena

I've had a hard time describing my time with Stacie to wondering classmates. I want to say, "you know when I make a hilarious joke in front of 30 Irish people and one of them maybe, sometimes, cracks a slanting smile? Well Stacie was opposite; she was opposite of that crap." *










I think my favorite part of our time together was talking loudly before bed and then exhaustedly exhaling and turning out the light. Oh and the time the cracked-tooth Brit hit on her so hard we had to run away while he was in the bathroom blowing his runny nose.

Really, I've had a hard time describing lots of things lately, which might explain the sparse updates. It's weird what disappears from my personality when I get so busy, namely, my ability to really judge how I'm feeling about things instead of just putting my head down and "powering through" as an old cube-mate used to say. My head is so down right now.

I try to bring it back up with these things every so sometimes...
Things I'm eating/looking at/ listening to/doing against my better judgment:

olives and hazelnuts
snow on the Wicklow mountains
Whitman reading "America"
jenny owen youngs
my neighbor killing birds?
Bulmers with classmates.
Yes, I said Bulmers.
I know I said it smelled like pee.
Um-hmm. It still does. Yes.
Well, I look past it in the light of camaraderie.
So what if I do only have one yellow tooth now?

*Pictures of her being opposite are up at flickr. If you go there, please note the offense of the third child in the eighth photo. This page came from a book aiming to highlight the atrocity of placing a child in jail for minor misdemeanors.