Kelly likes to...

Have y'all heard about this Google game? You type "YerName likes to" in Google, then you laugh at the results. Here are mine:

Kelly likes to wear green unitards.

Kelly likes to super size everything she orders.

Kelly likes to steal bikes from random kids.

Kelly likes to be needed, as well as to cherish and protect her loved ones, of whom she is somewhat possessive.

Kelly likes to ride naked shotgun. (huh?)

Kelly likes to mix pleasure with business.

and my personal favorite:

Kelly likes to open the book of Proverbs and share its practical advice with others.

ps - check out the new Top Five!

Look out!

Just looking at a large body of water is relaxing, isn't it? I like to pretend Lake Michigan is the ocean sometimes. You can see the other side, and yesterday a lone surfer added to my illusion. This morning the lake was so beautiful. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, I couldn't tell where the earth ended and the sky began.

Riding my bike along the lake path is a great beginning and end to my work day, but sometimes it does get a bit stressful because I have to be careful not to, you know, get killed. Why oh why do people not use their turn signals? I'm sure the gentle Agoraphobia reader would never dream of not using their turn signals, but I have to wonder, just who are these reckless A-holes that threaten nearly every day to actually murder me?

I also spend a lot of time thinking about what kind of person pees on the toilet seat - another daily threat for which I must remain ever vigilant. I have to figure it's some kind of lunatic woman who crouches above the seat, peeing in a semi-circular fashion so as to cover the enter horse-shoe of the toilet seat in urine. She avoids germs, and yet, ironically, thinks nothing of leaving her own human waste for others to deal with.

We're all doomed.

High Street

M and I spent a romantic weekend in Galena - it's the only place outside of Chicago that seems to be worth going to in Illinois. It's a very unusual town for this area - it's built on a hill - the only hill in Ill., and there are old flood gates to guard the town from floods (or maybe drown them all, I'm not sure) and President Grant is from there, and some other president too, apparently, and there are tons of little touristy shops and ice cream parlors and whatnot.

We stayed at a faux Irish pub/hotel, but the drinks were fine...
Here we are on "High" Street - the top of the hill. Imagine you walk all the way up to your street and then you have to climb the stairs up to your house? Right? Oh, and we laughed for 10 years at the address 420 High Street. No kidding.

What's going on? (and I say ahey-a-a-a-a)

It's been a while since I rapped at ya, I know you've missed it, and I don't like it either. After a long day computering, I really don't want to spend all night on my laptop (or the phone, for that matter, if you have an outstanding unreturned phone call), but I'm missing out on some valuable online companionship. I finally broke down and got a Facebook account, and it turns out the whole world's over there on Facebook, doing God knows what. Half of my friends were like, Good lord, where have you been? And the other half said, Ha ha! Join us in the total destruction of mankind! Made me feel kind of ookie.

I did immediately find the old adage of Facebook being more "white collar" than the "blue" MySpace to be true, if judging only by the decreased number of former graduates from my high school who describe themselves as nothing more than "momma" and "Nascar fan" and claim to be "living it up in Florida" and post quizzes like What Kind of Chevy Should You be Rollin' in?

Anyway, I sort of hate MySpace and Friendster and Facebook because, for one thing, there's just going to be another one in a year or so, and then I'll have to sign up for that and remember a new username and password and put a new picture up and locate all my friends again and it's a major P.i.t.A. I relish the those days of yore when we just emailed each other, and were happy about it.

10,000 years!

Ha! Ha! I just saw this article that reads McCain Believes Iraq War can be Won by 2013! Hilarious! This is coming from McCain - Mr. "I don't think Americans are concerned if we're there for a hundred years or a thousand years or 10,000 years." Oh yeah? Well, I believe it can be won by the year 2015, why not vote for me as your next Republican president? Huh?

On Pants

Ever since low-rise pants became a la mode, I've had a heck of a time finding pants that fit. It's simple physics, really: If pants are designed to fit at the widest part of your body, then how are they meant to stay up? They can't, and that's physics. The problem got worse since I've returned to the work-a-day world and find it necessary to wear non-jammie pants. No longer cradled by draw-strings and elastic, I was left with little to hold up my pants but worthless zippers and buttons, because I don't like to wear a belt.

The problem is not just restricted to pants, but also low-rise underwear. Theoretically (I'm not saying this happened to ME) a pair of low-rise undies with loose elastic (technical term, "Quitters") grasping to the widest part of the body could slip down and be held up by nothing but the crotch of one's pants.* Like this:Imagine how uncomfortable that might be.

I don't like wearing a belt because it makes me feel like I'm being strangled and my internal organs are going to get all messed up, like Victorian ladies that had to wear corsets.

But, anywho, I started wearing a belt the last few days because the problem was getting way out of hand, and, while I feel strangled about the mid-section, I haven't had to hike my pants up at all. Who knew?

Anyone know where I can get some high-waisted pants?

*I just like saying "crotch".

Boneyard Prayer

Last night we saw Boneyard Prayer at Redmoon Theater with our friends J&R. The show had all of the elements that make Redmoon great - it was created in a collaborative process of artists, the set was beautiful and sparse, they used puppets, projected animation, amazing, original music, little/no dialogue, and their cool mechanics. The story was really depressing, which is why I wouldn't otherwise give it a glowing review.

Boneyard Prayer is about a hobo who returns to his wife after a long absence. They've lost a child, among other things. The set looks like the top of couple of railroad cars filled with dirt, which the hobos shovel all over the place during the show. It must be so uncomfortable to perform covered in dirt - dirt in your hair and socks all through a performance - can you imagine? Redmoon calls it a "folk opera" - and the music is stunning, very folks-y/ragtime-y kind of stuff. I don't know music very well, but I think everything was in minor key. Maybe? The lead actresses voice was gorgeous - beautiful tone.

Too bad it was such a downer - I mean, not a single laugh. Previous shows there have done a great job of mixing quite serious themes with a little levity, which I think would have been a nice balance. In the end, even though it was beautiful and artful and mournful, it didn't really give me any new insight, which I've really come to expect from that theatre group. At slightly over an hour it's plenty long enough - any more and we'd all be hitting the bottle, just like that puppet.

!Ole!

Snap! A certain husband just made his special 3-2-1 Margaritas! Now we're in Heaven. Listen, if you didn't know I was The Best Wife Ev-ah, I just bought a certain husband a Certain Video game on the way home. Now he'll be playing the latest Grand Theft Auto for hour upon hour, whilst I sit blissfully and wife-fully nearby, reading Misquoting Jesus and a new comic book, Last Man (or something), which is occupying most of my time these days.

Three-Two-ONE!
3 parts ta'kill'ya
2 parts triple sec or cointreau
1 part lime (freshly squeezed)

Know what else? This is my view from work - nice, huh? See that? That's The Lake. See that? That's the Sears' Tower, beeaaaatch!32132132131231231233212312321231232132212321!

Iron Man

Last night we saw Iron Man. M liked it, but I thought it was pretty stupid. But, I like Robert Downey Jr so much that I still had a lot of fun. That and I had a cocktail before the movie. Seems like a lot of people were questioning his super-hero-starring ability, but, despite being over-manscaped, he looked hot. I really liked the beginning, because I don't know from Iron Man, and his character was (to me) just some sort of rock star character in Afghanistan, joking around with soldiers. Then he has to wear some kind of dope-ass heart charger, and that's when things started getting stupid. The heart battery is apparently a major part of the conceit of the 1963 comic by Stan Lee, but I didn't think the translation to today was very elegant.

I lovelovelove Gweneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love and The Royal Tenenbaums, but after reviewing her filmography in imdb, I'm forced to admit that she's not the great actress I like to think she is. At the very least, she's made some really bad choices. Sad to report, she has zero chemistry with Downey Jr in this movie, and it ain't RDj's fault.

Ooo - just got Fur from Netflix with RDj and Nicole Kidman - more on that after I watch it!

Conveyances

I've started riding my bike to work, which has been both exhilarating and mildly terrifying, just on accounta I broke my arm a few years ago after I wandered into some bad karma and I'm desperate not to do that again. Did you know that the invention of the bicycle played an important part in the role of women's liberation? I think that's very interesting. Anywho, I feel quite liberated on my bike.
Lately I've seen this bizarre kind of skateboarding, only the skater in question has no board, just wheels under the shoes somehow. Like they sawed a skateboard in half. Has anyone else seen this? I've been trying to explain this phenomenon, but no one seems to believe me. But! I just looked up (online) proof (is that any kind of proof at all?) - turns out they're called freeline skates. To me it appears that the skater has neither increased speed nor increased coolness, so I can't really figure out what the advantage is. But, perhaps freeline skates will play an important role in something, who knows?