Yep, I'm Special

One of the things I love about my husband is his random sense of fun. While most couples get to know each other by going out to dinner and a movie, we spent our dating days garbage bagging at Churchill Junior High or getting lost in various canyons. So when Mike suggested rollerblading as one of his birthday activities I was not in the least bit surprised. Mind you, I hadn’t rollerbladed since sixth or seventh grade, but who am I to deny a birthday request?

So yesterday I strapped on an old pair of fruit boots that Mike found in his parents’ garage. After cruising up and down our street a few times I felt pretty comfortable in them, and we decided to go explore the rest of the neighborhood.

The next part of this story is kind of a blur. A blur that involves me rounding a completely harmless (i.e., barely sloped) street corner and somehow performing a spectacular imitation of a baseball player sliding into home plate:

Only in this instance home plate was a gravelly stretch of pavement. Did I mention I was wearing shorts? I will spare you the photo of what my leg looked like afterward. Not a pretty sight.

The best part was that all this occurred right in front of a school bus full of children whose driver stopped and waited as I (with the help of my chivalrous husband) gathered my mangled body and what was left of my dignity.

But perhaps that was the silver lining of this situation. Maybe after the bus driver stopped laughing his head off (okay maybe he didn’t laugh, not everyone is as horrible of a person as I am), he could have used this little incident to teach the kids a valuable lesson:

“See that, boys and girls? That’s why you should always wear a helmet when you rollerblade. And be nice to people like that girl, who probably rides the shorter bus to school and has to wear a helmet all the time.”

24

Happy Birthday to my favorite:

Happy 24th, Butch. You are the greatest.

Schadenfreude-licious

Schadenfreude: A German word meaning pleasure derived from the misfortune of others. Or, in other words, the feeling I get when I watch this clip of Donny Osmond from Monday's episode of Dancing With the Stars (please take particular note of the instructor's reaction):


I don't know why, but I found this part of the show so hilarious that I made my friends rewind it 5 times on the DVR. And I have to admit that I am still laughing while watching it in my cubicle. Maybe I am just weird. Or kind of a horrible person.

In related news, I think my brief love affair with DWTS has officially come to an end. I blame it on the fact that Tom Delay looks like a total perv of an old man and if I keep watching him prance around with his sweatpants pulled up to his armpits I might start having some seriously disturbing nightmares. Also, Donny Osmond gives me a headache, Macy Gray kind of frightens me, and the cast selection in general just kinda blows. Except for these two, who are so freaking adorable:I guess ultimately there is only room in my life for one guilty pleasure of the reality TV variety, and now that Project Runway is back on after last year's hiatus I no longer need to spend hours indulging in the mind-numbing spectacle that is Dancing With the Stars. Heaven knows I will miss looking at the sparkly dresses, but I'm hoping that the brain cells I conserve by not listening to Aaron Carter practice awkward pickup lines on his partner will make my resolution worthwhile.

Has anyone ever told you...

So remember how a while back I wrote about awkward things people say? And how I never know how to respond to these kind of statements? Well, I have another one to add to the list. I never know what to say when people tell me that I look so much like so-and-so (so-and-so being a celebrity, a mutual friend, or someone that I have never even heard of).

I’m sure all of you have experienced the same thing, and I really cannot come up with an appropriate response to it. “Thank you” doesn’t seem quite right, cause it’s not like they are really paying you a compliment (unless they explicitly state that they think so-and-so is good looking), and half the time people tell me that I look like their great-niece or something random so I don’t even get what the devil they are talking about.

Here are a few of the random comparisons I seem to get over and over again:

Christina Ricci:
Ew. To me she looks like an emaciated crack whore. But luckily most of the time when people compare us they refer to her as “that girl from Casper.” So apparently I look like Christina Ricci circa 1995, which I am slightly more OK with:

Betty Boop:

Seriously people? A cartoon character? And a deformed, slutty one at that?

Amanda Seyfried:

I’ve heard this one a few times since Mama Mia came out and I don’t see it at all but whatever. At least she’s pretty.

Cabbage Patch Doll:

I’m not even going to dignify this one with a response. Mostly because if I think about it too long it makes me want to cry.

The one time that I’ve been glad of people’s tendency to play the look-alike game was on my wedding day. Mike and I were standing in the receiving line at our reception and my mom’s friend took one glance at my new husband before telling him that he looked exactly like this man:

And suddenly the reason that my dad took such an instant liking to Mike became abundantly clear. I think I will start calling him "Crocodile Butch" from now on.

I ain't sayin he's a gold digger

Our country is currently fighting two foreign wars, Congress is debating changes in health care legislation that could impact our lives forever, and yet all I seem to hear about lately is Kanye West. Oh, and how npr needs my money. Because apparently it’s that time of year again.

Now don’t worry, I’m not going to pretend to be one of those people that only read the meaty sections of the newspaper- I love my celebrity gossip as much as the next person- but can we all just admit that this has gotten a tad out of control? Even our president has started in on the Kanye-bashing (although if dismissing Kanye West as a jackass isn’t showing good presidential judgement I don’t know what is).

What I do want to point out here, though, is that by talking about him all the time we are most likely just feeding into Kanye’s little scheme to get more fame, attention, etc. You know that phrase “any publicity is good publicity”? Definitely seems to apply in this case. I mean, homeboy had already established his reputation as an arrogant douchebag with a serious case of verbal diarrhea and a God complex before the VMAs-why not push the envelope a little further? Especially if it gets your name googled a bazillion times the day before you are scheduled to appear on Jay Leno’s new show. Think the timing of that little outburst was a coincidence? Not so much. Well played, Mr. West (or your publicists). And thank you for being the narcissistic fool you are, because it just makes watching The Colbert Report even more enjoyable :

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Kanye West Interrupts Taylor Swift at the VMAs
http://www.colbertnation.com/
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

Future's so bright, I gotta wear shades

If you choose to schedule a long-needed eye exam during your lunch break, remind the doctor not to dilate your eyes. Otherwise you may end up spending the rest of your day like this:

As much as I adore the 5-dollar sunglasses I got at the state fair this weekend, sporting them in my cubicle with my face 6 inches away from the computer screen basically solidifies my status as the office loon.

Things-I-Love Thursday

My mom has a crush. It has been common knowledge for over 30 years and my dad is fully aware of her feelings, so I don't think she will mind me making this announcement. You see, like many women of her generation, my mom is madly in love with Paul McCartney.

I don’t quite know how this obsession got started, seeing as my parents grew up in a country that banned Western music, but apparently Beatlemania did not recognize the limits of the Iron Curtain. My mom also dabbled in other bands that were part of the Brit-rock invasion (ask her about the time she and a friend were nearly arrested for having a Led Zeppelin album in their possession), but her heart always belonged to Paul, and, by extension, The Beatles.

Moving to the U.S. did nothing to decrease my mom’s love of the Lads from Liverpool, so naturally our family listened to Beatles music quite a bit while I was growing up. And when I say "quite a bit" I mean that I knew the words to every song on Rubber Soul by the time I was eight years old. The Beatles were what we listened to on road trips, while cleaning the house, etc. In fact, I associated their music so much with my childhood and adolescence that, like many vestiges of that era, I ended up more or less outgrowing it.

Moving out of my parent’s house didn’t mean that I stopped listening to The Beatles altogether- I just didn’t do it intentionally. I saw the abomination that was Across the Universe, and you can’t go to a wedding these days without hearing “All You Need is Love” or “In My Life” blaring on the photo slideshow. Surprisingly though, I don’t have a single Beatles song on my ipod and I haven’t really been troubled by that fact. Until this week that is.

You have probably heard that yesterday marked the release of The Beatles digitally remastered catalog and The Beatles Rock Band game. Pretty much the Second Coming as far as Beatlemaniacs are concerned. I have heard about this event every morning this week on my way to work. The news stories are always accompanied by clips of the remastered songs, which means that I find myself singing “she loves you yeah, yeah, yeah” at the top of my lungs while I’m driving. I look like a complete fool but I don’t even care. Hearing The Beatles, as trite as this may sound, suddenly feels like being reunited with a dear old friend. I’m excited to get to know them again. So if anyone gets their mitts on The Beatles Rock Band, please invite me over to play. You may have heard that I suffer from some serious developmental delays as far as video games are concerned, and this claim is not unfounded, but I think I could handle the singing part. After all, I already know the words. My mom has taught me well.

Friday is a good day for a PSA

To all the men out there wearing those ridiculous v-neck shirts that show your nasty chest hair and make you look like a girl:

Please, please stop. It’s scaring the children.

Thank you for your cooperation,
Dasha

One Smile

Yesterday I came across this quote by Maya Angelou:

“If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning Good Morning at total strangers.”

I know it’s not exactly the most catchy or profound quote out there- you can’t really put it on one of those wooden plaques to hang above your fireplace- but it really resonated with me. I feel like there are days when I literally only have only one smile inside me- days when I am grouchy and irritable and a veritable mess of emotions, and I do everything I can to hold my sh*t together everyplace except for where it matters most.

Yeah, I get that if you are going to have a full-fledged nervous breakdown it’s definitely better to do it in front of your husband or your parents than an unsuspecting co-worker, but I just wonder if maybe sometimes the relationships we claim as most important are the ones that end up in last place on our list of priorities. Like maybe if I put the same amount of effort into being cheerful around my husband or siblings when I am having a bad day as I do when I encounter a grocery store clerk or waitress, I might actually be putting my money where my mouth is.

This might all sound like a lot of rambling but the point is this: well said, Miss Angelou. Well said.