I recently discovered I get BBC America! Delight!

There's a good chance you'll be charmed and delighted by the clip below:

If you're not, you have absolutely no sense of humor.

two lists

Ten things I find outrageously irritating:
1. the people at Grand Central who INSIST on coming down the fully loaded staircase when there's a perfectly good empty one right behind them.
2. when the lobby of my building smells like chicken. It's on an erratic schedule so I can't even be prepared for it.
3. my office computer, which is refusing to behave
4. the new shampoo I bought that smells great but makes my hair look like deflated spaghetti
5. just enough post-nasal drip to make my tummy feel funny
6. the fact that I don't know what to be when I grow up
7. did I mention the people at Grand Central?
8. constantly increasing postage prices
9. people who make out in public places as if they don't know that it hurts my feelings
10. whistling.

Ten blissful, non-stressful things:
1. four day weekends (thanks, Judiasm!)
2. warm coffee that's not too sweet or too bitter
3. festive, new, purple running sneakers
4. yoga in the morning
5. upcoming vacations to Greece (see one of our hotels here)
6. the qi-gong tui na ladies who operate a cash-only business in my neighborhood
7. a bathtub full of warm pudding (I imagine)
8. breezy sunsets
9. being 95% of the way through the most recent New Yorker magazine (before week's end!)
10. my couch

invaluable insights after a day of dain bramage

First: How cool is this? Who knew the space station took that much planning?

Second: I'm disturbed by this. (And the fact that I can't seem to embed anything today.)

Third: Why is it that yogurt, no matter how little of it I get on my blouse, permeates the fabric so thoroughly that it's almost impossible to avoid a stain?

Fourth: As awesome people, we rock. Why don't we roll? Poor old roll got the short end of the deal on that one, if you ask me.

Fifth: My brain hurts.

the things I can't say

Sadly, the beau and I broke up recently. And one of the hardest parts of breaking up, for me, is figuring out what to do with all the little winks I've gotten from the universe since then that he would find apt or funny or cute. Things I want to tell him, but can't.

So I'm telling you instead. Because, well, they're apt and funny and cute and that's what you don't pay me for.

Thing 1:
A little over a week ago, the beau and I walked into an American Apparel store and I saw this adorable turquoise checked shirt (that would really only look good on a Super-Hipster -- or perhaps my extremely metrosexual boyfriend from five years ago), and pointed it out to him. He scowled (rightfully) and said, "only a Super-Hipster would wear that."

Now, secretly, if the shirt had been cut for a woman, I might have bought it for myself. Except that I look corpse-like in turquoise, and really don't need another blouse.

That foray into American Apparel sparked an argument (which I won't go into here) that essentially culminated in the unraveling of our relationship. The funny part is that this morning, on the subway, I sat next to a woman wearing the female version of that shirt.

Thing 2:
Eddie Izzard has been on my radar a lot lately. A friend emailed me today to say that a friend of hers had never seen Dress to Kill (arguably the funniest thing since sliced bread) and so my friend reported remedying that situation immediately. Then, my coach emailed me and prescribed a viewing of Dress to Kill so that I could get out of my head and into my belly(laughs). And THEN, my boss sent me a link (which neatly wraps this whole thing up in a bow) to an article about Eddie Izzard running 43 marathons in 52 days.

Did I mention the beau is a marathoner?

Yeah. Winking. I'm telling you. The whole universe is just winking at me. Like it's got galactic Tourette's or something.

a random story from my childhood

I can't be more than 13 when Darwin starts working for us. "Darwin" isn't her real name -- I mean, it is, legally, but it's not the one she was born with. At some point in her not so distant past, she tossed off something nice like Sheryl or Diane or Amy and adopted the mantle of Ye Olde Evolutionist(e). We're not sure why, but she seems normal (kind of), and my parents are in a bit of a desperate situation (what with Geraldine The Stupid Nanny having driven the Ford without oil all summer, effectively ruining the car my sister was supposed to learn to drive on, and thereby getting her ass shipped back to Glasgow post post haste) and so they hire her.

I've had a hundred nannies before, and I'll have a hundred more before I'm through, but none will be as awe-some (or perhaps awe-ful) as Darwin.

She stands a full five foot three. Now, I'm 13, so I haven't reached my stilty five eight yet, but I'm not far from it. But whereas I'm about, I don't know, 110 pounds, Darwin's got me beat by easily fifty pounds. She's kind of like a caramel apple, but weirder.

She's got eczema, which is fine, but she wears these ratty-tatty gloves to cover it up, which are not so fine. They're dirtier than the pair of socks I wore into the garage last week (because I'm 13 and the thought of getting a pair of slippers from upstairs was tooooo exhausting). They look like my dad's old underwear -- grayish, stretched out, and pathetic. She wears them all the time -- driving, cleaning, reading, and, worst of all, cooking. I'd almost prefer chunks of leprotic skin falling into my dinner than the shaky-flaky variety I'm getting from those gloves. (I could eat around large chunks of hand.) And she's not that great a cook, so it's not as if I'm being transported by delectable dinners to distract me from this likelihood.

Darwin does lots of things wrong -- she T boned the car the first week she was driving it and she vacuums in the nude (I have this on my sister's good authority, as she used to skip school and take her boyfriends to the house to make out until she discovered this disturbing phenomenon, which probably put her off making out for a whole month -- which is a long time for a high school sophomore), but for me, where she is about to go terribly wrong is in having a discussion with a 13 year old about Satan.

See, Darwin's wiccan, and, surprisingly, I don't hold that against wiccans. But she's strangely proselytizey, and decides (one dark and rainy (and I might add, super-spooky) night) to accompany me downstairs to the basement and talk to me about Satan.

"You know," she says, ironically brushing off the sofa with her dusty-yucky gloves before plopping down on it, "you should never tempt Satan."

A cricket chirps in the corner, and the cat slinks off to stalk it.

"Because Satan might feel moved to prove himself to you."

"Really?" I ask, casually. "Hmmmm."

I swallow the lump in my throat and change the subject, all the while thinking what the hell does it take to tempt Satan? Am I tempting Satan just by thinking about him? What's he going to do to prove himself to me? I'M GOING TO DIE OR, WORSE, END UP LIKE DARWIN!

That night, I can't sleep. Because, you know, I'm tempting Satan. Just by trying not to think about him. I don't pray to god (because, well, we're not close, and that feels like cheating) but I think horrible thoughts about serial killers (who probably tempted Satan) and the creepy axe-wielding man who lives under my bed and will hack my ankles to bits if I try to get out of bed. I sweat. I panic. I cry.

Finally, with the grace of a gazelle escaping the jaws of the impending cheetah, I leap from my bed and hustle my 13 year old butt down the stairs. I burst into my parents' room with the silence of a freight train and touch my mom on the shoulder.

"Mom!?!? I can't sleep! I'm afraid I'm tempting Sataaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!"

I believe it was shortly thereafter that Darwin discovered the Galapagos.

yay! bug!

It has not been terribly happy in k8's nyc, so to compensate, I give you this:

I blame summer

My brain is turning somewhat to mush. I blame summer.

But that's neither here nor there. Look at what you can do on Facebook!

Hooray! I love to poke fanny!

And now that you know what you CAN do, here are some things you can't do in the state of New Jersey:

1. Throw a bad pickle in the streets of Trenton
2. Be a cat and not wear a bell to alert the birds of your whereabouts in Cresskill
3. Frown in Bernards Township

Who knew?

And you probably CAN eat this, but why would you, ever??
Caffeinated Beef Jerky! (Run!!!!)

And, as Fernando said this afternoon, "I think I've caused enough dumb for one day."