Let's start celebrity gossip!

Do you ever have those dreams where it seems really real, and then you wake up and it takes you a minute to realize where you are, and then sometimes you fall back asleep and end up in exactly the same place in the dream and so the second time you wake up it's even harder to put all your brain cells back in the right place? Last night I had one in which Seth Rogan and I were good friends and he was having a really hard time with his wife and couldn't talk to anyone else about it, and I was being very helpful.

It's fading now, but when I woke up I was really worried about him.

Anyone out there want to go check in? Make sure he's doing all right? Or maybe just let The Star know that he might be getting divorced?

Thanks!

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

A moment of silence

Let's all bow our heads and pray to whatever gods it is computers worship, probably ones somehow related to the Matrix, for the safe passage and final rest of my Very First Brand New Desktop Computer, which got upset when I tried to download new software and went to sleep never to wake up again. Turns out that six years is more than the average lifespan for a computer these days, so the people at Best Buy will condescend to you if you even ask about whether it can be fixed and just hand you a piece of paper to write down where you think you left your iTunes. Though, to be fair to the Geek Squad, apparently they are a little distracted what with Black Friday coming up and also looking for auditions for operas in Nashville, which apparently is a cut-throat town in all music areas, and finally learning German and Italian, and yes this is how long it took to fill out the paperwork, that I know the entire back story of my Geek. I'm surprised we didn't talk about his sixth birthday and how it was ruined because there was no clown.

Ok, that's all I've got for you today, except also for the Scalpicin commercials, in which ladies ask their lady friend to stop scratching her head at the table, and don't even mention how it's disgusting and they're not going to be friends with her anymore if she doesn't learn basic manners. More commercials should go there.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Earwigs are the final straw, people

This morning, I went to the bathroom (I know, right? Fascinating) and saw a little squirmy bug on the floor. So I came out and did what anyone would do, I told my husband I saw an unidentified crawling object in the corner, and he asked me what I did about it, and I told him I left it there because it was crawling around in circles in the corner and didn't come near me. So, he went into the bathroom, rustled around for a little bit, came back out and informed me that it was an earwig, and we kill earwigs because if they want to harm us, it's self defense, so man up next time. I promised to do so, since just the word "earwig" makes me itch deep down into my brain.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

But what this reminds me is that the south SUCKS because there should not be any cold-blooded animals still wandering about looking for ears to live in at this point, and for crying out loud WHEN CAN I UNPACK MY SWEATERS? And also, pop is not any stupider a word than soda or certainly than calling everything, no matter it's brand or flavor "Coke," and also, what's so funny about referring to the East coast as "out East"? And finally, I do not talk too fast, you need to listen faster, people*.

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* Copyright 2009, Hedgehog

http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Ballroom dancing and other pretentious things

Here is your Movie of the Week/ Every few months or so when I have time: Strictly Ballroom.

This has been on our Netflix queue for about three years because our list is like 400 movies long or so, and it's not getting any shorter (as I discovered when we were ready to send this one back and I went online to find out what was coming up and saw that we also have had the same movies in our house for about three months). This is how they make money, in case you people who get 6 movies a week ever wondered.

Anyway, I was also preparing a final presentation on the political and historical contexts of graduation tests while watching this, so mostly what I got from it is:

1. It's in Australia. Did you know it's in Australia? Did you also know that their accent can be 90% approximated by replacing every vowel sound with the hard EEEE (as long as you say it with your bottom chin jutting out)?
2. Baz Luhrman is a weird, weird dude. I like that.
3. There are Hispanics, or at least folks who live in a barrio and speak Spanish, in Australia. Did you know that? Turns out, I know very little about Australia.
4. Ballroom dancing is fun and edgy if they're allowed to dance whatever steps they want. Or, as they say in Australia, steeeps.
5. How do I not have cable and also go through Netflix movies at a rate of 1 every quarter year? Because I'm smart and I don't watch television because it's bourgeois. Or else because The Price Is Right is just that addictive.

So, there you go. Check out this movie if you like flamboyant costumes and the Australians. Or, if you like that massive closeup shot from above that Baz Luhrman favors, which makes everyone look like a shiny, bloated wax statue. In other words, A-plus!

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

References to 80's dramas that I was too young to watch at the time

So, on my walk home from school there's this building, which of course is there on my walk to school also, it's not like some kind of Brigadoon outpost or something, but the point is that there's this little statue of a black owl on the top of it in the corner and the first time I saw it I thought it was a cat and I was like "Oh no little kitty! Don't jump!" And it looked at me in disdain and did not jump and I looked closer and realized it was a statue and not even a cat, but it was cat-sized. And now every time I pass it I think it's a real bird, some kind of bird of prey or scavenger or something because it's large, and then I remember that it's an owl and I think "The owls are not what they seem"* and I giggle a little to myself. So, the point is that everyone should have a confusing, misleading and a little disturbing owl statue on their walk to and from wherever it is they go to and from every day, because a good giggle can totally fix anything.

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* Yes, this is a Twin Peaks reference.

http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

No crazier than usual

Things I uttered while working on a thirty page paper, studying for an exam and watching television tonight (yes, I'm good at multitasking):

I don't like waffle fries. They're too complicated.

I wish something magical would happen on Facebook right now.

Oh man, it's Thursday? That explains a lot.

Why are you peeling onions instead of making me banana muffins? Are the onions going in my banana muffins? Because that's not o.k.

No, because it's a HAMSTER. On a PIANO. Look at him, look at how dumb he is!

That was like a year ago, so I can't really remember.

[Houseboy: That was several years ago, when swing dancing was popular.]

I still want those jeans, so I can dance good.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

I denounce them

Words I Don't Like:

Slippery

Discourse

Panties

Empire*

Romantic

Words I Do Like:

Polyp

Lunch

Salacious

Mug

Irradiated

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* Like the waist, which would be fine, but it's pronounced stupid.

http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

I don't have any pictures of this one

So, once upon a time I was a Hamster Person. (Ever since I accidentally had two cats that find rodents delicious, the hamster thing has kind of gone by the wayside). But anyway, I got my first hamster when I was in first grade, and what I remember about him is that I named him Brian after my two boyfriends and that I stuck my finger in the little holes in the cardboard box on the way home and he bit me and I bled a lot, but I didn't want to tell my mom because I was afraid she'd take him back. As I recall, I was watching the blood drip down to my elbow when my mom was like "Um... what's up with that?" and I was like "Um.... I don't know...." After that I had a hamster named Sarah, named after my best friend, and this hamster was an Escape Artist. She lived to be about 1,058 in hamster years, which is to say more than three years, and she figured out how to take the top off her plastic cage and used to go galavanting around the house eating crackers out of the pantry cupboard and forcing us to un-trapify all the mousetraps for a few weeks until she'd suddenly decide she missed pooping in cedar chips and then she'd just come back. By the time she passed away, she was missing clumps of hair and one of her eyes had exploded. I also had a hamster I shared with my college roommate, who we named Xena and let run around in her ball up and down the dorm hallways until one time we kind of forgot to pay attention to her and she went bumping down the stairs and when we reached her she looked all dazed and accusatory. She was also probably responsible for the mouse that lived in our couch and chewed a hole in Xena's food bag and then one day just up and died inside something which led to a week of sleeping in the common room because our college's response to that was to just spray some air freshener and let him rot. Which also reminds me of another hamster I had during my Greek mythology phase, who I named Hercules, which was sadly inappropriate as he escaped just like Sarah, but got trapped in the air ducts in our house somewhere and never made it back, and we found him or at least where he was mostly by the smell. Speaking of the ways things die, I had a dwarf hamster that my dog stepped on, and she felt real bad about it, but she didn't know how to do spinal surgery and neither did I and thus we both learned a life lesson about letting dogs and hamsters play together. I also had two other hamsters, named Alf and Taffy, and they both lived regular hamster lives and died regular hamster deaths and then I had another one named Nicholas who had some kind of baby hamster disease so I guess that's a regular hamster death too.

Aren't you glad I cheered up your day with this story? Maybe this will help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfqNXADl3kU&feature=player_embedded#

Now do you see why they're worth it in the end?

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Go Kid from Naperville

So, being a poor student and all I don't have cable, as I may have mentioned, and I also don't have to be anywhere 45 minutes from my house at 8 o'clock in the morning, so in addition to The Price Is Right, which I may have mentioned once or twice this summer, what I have discovered is the Today Show. Back when I was an employed person, I'd turn this on in the early morning when all they really did was cut back and forth between national and local weather and it was a safe way to find out the temperature without hearing about the out of control apartment fire on the south side or the vegetable that was going to kill me or whatever.

But, as it turns out, they have this whole other part of the show where pleasant folks discuss mostly pleasant things or at least unpleasant things that are probably happening nowhere near my house and also, when Ann Curry says it, it can't really be unpleasant because even if it is you can just ignore what she's saying and check out her awesome sweater coat or something. Anyway, I also don't watch reality tv ever since I watched that one about the pretty girl who had to date nerds and she ended up choosing the not-nerd guy and I got really upset about it and then realized that I was investing far too much emotion into the love life of a person who probably would have made fun of me behind my back in junior high. So now my reality tv investment is in Today's Kid Reporter, and I don't really even care that much about who wins because they're all those extremely outgoing kind of kids that terrify me in real life and also I'd rather that a tiny loud person didn't take too much time away from Ann Curry's hair, personally, but anyway if one of them has to win, I vote for the kid from Naperville. Not just because Naperville is in Illinois and Illinois is in the upper Midwest, where all the best people in the world live or at least wish they lived, but also because he seems the least wide-eyed insane of any of those children, and he even occasionally speaks in a voice below 7,000 decibels (is that a lot of decibels? I mean to say that the kids are loud).

So, if I were the kind of person to vote for a television show contest, Kid From Naperville (yes, that's his real name) would totally get my vote.

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Totally Normal Wednesday

Sometimes when I am sad I do this kind of meditation I made up myself where I Google images of giant dogs and pretend that I'm them and they're me instead, and so this guy has to do the coding of principal summary forms and I get to be all shaggy and smell like wet metal:

Doesn't everyone?

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

We are too adorable, deal with it

So, it has been well established I think that Houseboy and I are adorable and lovable and you wish you were us, but don't you ALSO wish you knew how we met and fell in love and got married and moved to Australia, all except for that last part? Well, you're welcome.

The year was 1997. The time was 8:30 in the morning on a Tuesday, the second day of freshman year. The place was a poetry classroom in the basement of the English building. Me: aspiring English major. Him: totally asleep because he had morning practice and also was only there to pick up chicks, which by the way, he was doing a stellar job of by being asleep while the only other two guys in the class were NOT asleep.

So, yeah, I thought he was cute but mostly was really digging on the guy with the earring who wasn't asleep in class.

Then, the year was 1998. The time was afternoon-ish or something. The place was the common room in the weird Sophomore dorm housed under the football stadium. Me: totally going to cut my hair really short and dye it blue. Him: watering a plant he called Kate because he thought that would appeal to the chicks, which it totally would have except that he never ever talked to any of them, including me.

UNTIL. The year: 1999. The time: 2 am or so. The place: common room again. Me: deep in the throes of a serious caffeine addiction and trying to come down by watching Lambada: The Forbidden Dance. Him: finally figuring out that the way to a girl's heart is by sarcastically mocking a really obscure movie in the middle of the night, especially if you follow that up with nightly viewings of public access programs and Adult Swim before it was Adult Swim and when it was just weird. Follow up by asking her out on the day before Valentine's Day because it's the first Friday you've had off from practice and meets all year.

Then, do all the dately things like going to an Italian restaurant and sitting in the window making fun of how people park. Open the door for her and all that. When she offers to pay, do not let her. However, and this is key, DO NOT tell her that "My mom told me I should take someone out." That might seem like it's a good reason for you to pay, it might seem like it will satisfy the 20 year old feminist's desire to be an equal partner, but in fact it will just make her wonder if all your other friends were busy and this has been the biggest and most embarrassing misunderstanding OF ALL TIME.

Also, since you live in the same dorm, literally about 300 feet from each other, make sure that there is an awkward pause at the door, but no kiss and then you go back and sit in the same common room and watch a John Cusack movie, joined half an hour in by your R.A., who sits in between you and your date. All that is very romantic.

It worked pretty well on me since about a month later I asked him if he was bored and maybe wanted to go see a movie or something and then about a month after that he asked if he was allowed to tell people I was his girlfriend and then about 5 years after that we got married. Whirlwind romance!

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com

Is it November already?

For all you living in normal climates with "seasons" and everything, this may come as no surprise, but it seems as though fall/winter has snuck up on me, probably owing to the fact that it's still 70 degrees outside and I think I saw tulips on my way in this morning, but we went ahead and ended Daylight Savings Time anyway, so on the first of November we can wear shorts and t-shirts as we sit out on the back porch in the dark at 5 o'clock.

Not that either the warmth or the darkness affected me much this weekend, since I had my first multi-day migraine in a while, so I was mostly hiding out under the covers with a heating pad, which is also warm and dark I guess so come to think of it there's a theme here of some kind. The theme is actually that just because you think the migraine is gone and you're so very proud of your drug regimen and all doesn't mean you can sit around eating Snickers for dinner because it turns out that WILL catch up with you. This time last year I was in the middle of that elimination diet to find any food triggers and had to track down candy without high fructose corn syrup or dairy or nuts or wheat, which I assure you was delicious in a really boring fruit-flavored kind of way.

Anyway, what that means is that I'm now in that post-migraine fugue state where I sometimes can't remember my fingers and if you are harsh with me I might burst into tears or just stare at you with that dead-eyed Paris Hilton look until you question the very foundation of reality.

Paris Hilton is still the hot gossip right?

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http://irregulargiggling.blogspot.com