does a bear shit in the woods?

ahhh we have our bimonthly meeting at ten so writing this is A RACE AGAINST THE CLOCK !!!!

christina came home yesterday !!!!! it was pretty hilarious cause she was so wiped out from traveling and was acting so ridiculous. at some point she decided to start doing a donald trump impression and kept firing pizza. in 2010. pretty sure she's never actually seen that show?



i made vegetarian meatballs with noodles and gravy (sort of like lazy swedish meatballs) for dinner, but like.. it was totally gross? like, the gravy was good because i make good gravy


thank you, it's just brown and water

but the meatballs tasted weird and smoky- they're nate's meatless meatballs- and i overcooked the noodles cause i was horsing off with christina so it was kind of like a big bowl of mush with gross meatballs and delicious gravy.

after i ate, i finally finished the explosionist. this book came highly recommended to me and like... it was kind of a stinker?



it's an alternate history book about what the world would have been like in 1930s scotland if napoleon had won at waterloo. i will cop to the fact that maybe i don't really know enough about european history to be riveted or amazed by some of the stuff in the book, i guess, but i also assume that most 11-17 year old girls know even less than i do, so that can't be the problem.

- first and foremost, the book is set up to have a sequel, or else it's glaringly incomplete with about 200 loose ends. i don't appreciate a book in a series that can't stand alone, and this definitely can't. they wrapped up maybe two of like 40 plot lines and plot twists introduced
- the author includes tons and tons of extraneous details that are written in a way that make you assume they'll come back later or be a part of the story, and they don't?
- i guess this is expected in alternate history but all of the stuff like, "aleksandr tolstoy bell" inventing the telephone and "famed irish obstetrician oscar wilde" inventing the incubator zzzzzz
- the book relies entirely on coincidence to move the plot forward. want to take pictures of dead peoples' memories? well, the guy at the camera shop happens to be a guy who BUILT A CAMERA THAT CAN DO THAT and he desperately wants to help you for free. bad guy is going to kill everyone? a random person comes in and like, stops him.
- main character is clearly special in some way (and the author keeps telling you that !) even though nothing she thinks, says, or does is particularly compelling or interesting.
- good guys are identified as good and bad guys as bad immediately so it's like a matter of time before things get worked out.

overall i really wanted to like it, but it couldn't even keep me interested. it wasn't as big a chore as tender morsels, and a few of the plot points were genuinely interesting, but every time i was excited to see where something went, it just didn't go anywhere. poorly written, poorly paced, poorly edited, but i will not stop you from trying to read it if you want to !

after that, i took a shower because my hair smelled like meatballs and shaved my legs and painted my nails and toenails. i've been like obsessed with painting my nails since middle school and it's probably the only like, stereotypically feminine thing i do besides... shaving my legs (but my legs get dry and get gross pus-y ingrowns if i don't !). i don't care about painting my toenails but i have toenail fungus and it covers it up ! haha. the treatment for it takes a year or more and destroys your liver so i'd rather just paint my toenails a beautiful color. full disclosure !

speaking of not toenail fungus anymore, christina and i watched up in the air, finally. i've had it from netflix for like one month, but was worried that it was like a stupid grownuppy midlife crisis movie like sideways. not that i've SEEN sideways, but i have an aversion to lowell from wings because i think he played a law & order rapist or something. ANYWAY



i didn't know much about the plot of the movie before seeing it- it's about a lone wolf type dude whose job is to fly around the country and fire people and offer them a severance package that includes career counseling through his company. i was reticent at first because like, i don't really care about lone wolf dudes being afraid of commitment and blah blah blah, but i totally loved it.

good
- george clooney. i don't even understand. i think he's a great actor, but like... how is one dude so handsome and charming and funny and hot and handsome and endearing and hot and ugalsddjlkg? every time he'd smile and his eyes would crease christina and i would start cursing at the television.
- vera farmiga was excellent as well and like, her butt. i mean, her acting, but also, her butt. she made the role seem effortless, like she was this real amazing woman who accidentally wandered onto the set. aside from the fact that she is stunningly beautiful, she was just such a huge presence and almost upstaged clooney even though i want to do stuff to him that he has never heard of cause he probably hasn't seen urban dictionary cause he's old.
- every single interaction in the movie was believable
- the heartbreaking reveal was so perfect and jolting (i hadn't read anything about the movie beforehand) that it made my heart hurt a little.
- i loved his interactions with his sisters and his attempts to prove to the people around him that he isn't a ghost or a stranger while sort of still acting like one.
- random sam elliott !

bad
- i'm not really sold on anna kendrick, who plays a recent college grad whose strategy to cut costs at clooney's company fucks up his life. her acting was very high school play.
- i found clooney's interactions with her a little paternalistic and it was hard to take, though i get the point.
- everyone in the movie was "on" all the time and witty and quick and it was a little hard to take, but uh... the director also directed juno, so maybe he's still working some of that bile out of his system.

overall i highly recommend it, even if you are a creepy adult child who hates hearing about adult problems and a dour feminist who doesn't care about men's midlife crises.


it really takes talent to look so unreal in that totally whack shirt

i have a meeting now, so i have to go. i'm going to be kind of busy at work today and tomorrow cause we have an event tomorrow ! tonight i'm supposed to go to jeanne's after work and i'm psyched ! diana is going to be there and we'll get to hang out and i think i'll get a cool haircut.

p.s. the only thing more annoying than knitting a sock with tiny needles is unknitting a sock with tiny needles