the shortest distance between 2 points

apparently goes a little something like this:












if you're someone, or perhaps something of importance from new york state and you're on your way to me in cleveland, ohio, you should first stop in new jersey to see how those guys are doing. clearly.

once you're satisfied that they're just fine, head down to west virginia because it's probably been ages since you engaged in some of whatever they happen to be doing there now... i don't know what that means.

then, instead of crossing the border directly into my state, i recommend you first go to pennsylvania. you were really close to the state of ohio, but it would probably make more sense to divert and ensure that you saw just as many states as you possibly could before finally setting foot in good old o-h.

yeah, this sounds good. this is exactly how i would do it. i think the drive from somewhere in west virginia to somewhere in pennsylvania is probably a little more interesting than what it would be like to drive from the bottom of ohio to the top. that's not the greatest road trip trail you could blaze. trust me.

my brain hurts

ok so sarah's blog made me do this. i guess steph sent it to her and then she posted it on oks and now i'm here with my track listing for the soundtrack of my life. not an easy task, my friends. not an easy task. and since i always do what i do, i added a few because i felt that they were imperative in a listing of songs that describe the story of one's life.

opening credits: mother mary - foxboro hottubs
while this song has nothing to do with me or my life, it's catchy and i think its meaning would confuse - which is always on my agenda, so, it works.

waking up: i understand what you want but i just don't agree - the sleepy jackson

average day: a million ways - ok go
these lyrics are just confusing. there's also something to do with being cruel.

first date: crush - jennifer paige
i must have listened to this song 300,000 times when it first came out. or, yesterday. i can't remember which it was because i'm so busy.

falling in love: closer to you - young love

love scene: #1 crush - garbage
when i hear this song, i almost feel like i shouldn't be listening to it because it just sounds really dirty. and i'm not talkin lyrics. i mean, who can even focus on the lyrics. well, i mean, you should. because they're edgy. and scary.

fight scene: head like a hole - nine inch nails
i'd rather die than give you control.

breaking up: say it right - nelly furtado

getting back together: walking after you - foo fighters

secret love: take my breath away - berlin
i'm not sure if this is about secret love or not but let's go with it.

life's okay: lovin each day - ronan keating

mental breakdown: seether - veruca salt
well she is not born like other girls, but i know how to conceive her...

driving: say you love me - fleetwood mac

learning a lesson: light in your eyes - sheryl crow

deep thought: destination vertical - masha qrella
i constantly get lost in this one.

flashback: you're a friend of mine - clarence clemons ft. jackson browne

partying: mixed bizness - beck

scene where we do coke in a big old house at night: dead and bloated - stone temple pilots
now, not that this necessarily describes my life, per se, it's just usually a scene in 90s movies where teen girls start experimenting with older, dangerous boys.

happy dance: dancing in heaven - q-feel
just so we're clear, this IS the song from the dtv finals in one of SJP's earlier showpieces with helen hunt and shannen d, girls just want to have fun.

regretting: heart of stone - erasure

(de?)motivational montage: fallen angel - poison
this was not on the original listing, but it needed to be.

frolicking in the park: like the weather - 10,000 maniacs
obviously this one needed to be added. hello.

sailing: better together - jack johnson
i bet you thought this was going to be sailing by christopher cross. well, you can't listen to sailing while sailing. you listen to it when you're not to remind you to get to the boat asap so you can sail and listen to jack johnson and drink beer in cans.

long night alone: nowhere and everywhere - michelle lewis

death scene: i miss you - blink 182

going home again: wonderful - adam ant
because whoever didn't die above is going to want to go home and visit some old friends and family due to the recent loss they've suffered that has caused them to go into a highly reflective and nostalgic phase...

closing credits: waiting for love - alias
this is just *so* closing credits.

i feel as though i'll need to make another movie. judging by this, i think i'm really good at making movies.

pool me

since i don't think of these things when i'm in the presence of people, this will be a public service announcement for those i either went to college with, lived with for one glorious year, worked alongside, dated as a married couple, married on the island of pib for a weekend where firefall's 'you are the woman' was our wedding song, told you that you should bang marty party first chance you get, witnessed you go from zero to relationship in 4 seconds at the wine fest with whats her name, drank "acceptable" quantities of wine with recently, drank "acceptable" quantities of wine with a long time ago, drank "acceptable" quantities of wine with tomorrow, or next saturday. whatever. what i'm trying to say here is that whenever you'd like to enjoy the gate's tremendous pool, just give me a ring. i'm always up for a trip to the clubhouse where the annoying americans drag their kids a plenty with unsafe pool habits to be loud and obnoxious. bring an ipod and/or "water" in a plastic water bottle that you'll never figure out how to recycle. talk to you soon.

what else...

i have random thoughts that need to be dropped somewhere so i can move on with my other random thoughts. you're like me so you know how it is.

• if you/your community recycle in weekly trash removal, something to note with regard to bottles, etc. if you drink a bottle of water and then toss the plastic remains into your recycle bin when done, it won't get recycled unless you remove the cap and discard with the regular trash. there you were thinking you were doing a tiny bit of good. not so much. remove those caps.
  

• another thing with regard to recycling and the environment - if you take your car through a laserwash or other type of organized carwash, the water gets reclaimed so you aren't completely and totally wasting resources. if you wash it in your driveway where the water surely just dries up or eventually drains to the sewer, you are slowly helping to deplete the strength of our ecosystem. thanks so much.

• 'my boyfriend's back' is a really unsettling and sort of terrifying comedy from 1993. the dude comes back from the grave, goes right back to school, and then tries to eat his friends because apparently that's what zombies do.
  
  
• i'm kind of newly obsessed with dragon sailboats. i mean, would you look at how sleek and beautiful? and what's more, they usually have a furling jib. sigh.
  
  
• three extremely new and popular songs are stuck in my head: 'i'll be your shelter' - miss taylor dayne, 'blame it on the rain' - those crazy little milli vanilli's, 'amie' - peter's prairie party... or something
  

• it's awkward when someone you hardly know/barely just met for real tells you it's all or nothing, now or never and then kind of storms off sort of mad when you stick to your guns on being the boss of you. what? maybe work on your delivery.
  

• pretty much everyone i know hates grapefruit and all that pertains to it. so... i thought i'd mention that finlandia makes an excellent grapefruit vodka (better than ruby red absolut) that you can mix with your secret ingredients when making a fun little batch of my special july surprise.

• i have a fever and the only cure is more creamy horseradish sauce on literally everything i can find.

ok. that should do it. good talk.

effing a

i was again seriously interested in telling you about angel hair pilot tonight and his, well, angel hair, but tim russert died so i must now dive into that. he was probably just living his life, and then an hour later, he just wasn't. i don't have to tell you about my life changing caribbean sailing experience from last month. it's two posts down and changed my life forever. this is another life altering situation in very close proximity to the other. it sucks, but that's what happens. so, you better live like you mean it. and i mean that, sister.

so tim russert died. how does that relate to me and you. it all comes down to one minute you're living and the next, you're not. you're just not. tim had a special place in my heart. may he rest in peace.

tim's news knocked the wind out of me. my sunday mornings have been spent with tim for as along as i can remember. now what. now it all changes because life stepped in and did something it does all the time. it deals you the craziest cards when you're in a place where it's highly unlikely that you're ready for them. and from experience, most of the time, you weren't ready and there's no way you would've ever asked for them.

ok, so life stepped in on 6/13/2008. it made us uncomfortable - not only the russert family, but i would have to imagine, most of the world. but you know what? we all have a say in it.

when you die, it won't matter to you anymore. you'll be dead. however, your passing will rock the cores of many a people and for some, their lives will never be the same when you go. if nothing else in your years, this is one of the greatest realizations you should ever make. you may or may not know it, but you are touching lives. you may be doing good or you may be doing evil. you're the one who knows and either way, it's fine with me. but one day, those lives will be without you. and, hopefully you left a lasting mark on the world. if you didn't, it's unfortunate because your time on earth was relatively short-lived and it won't matter to anyone if it was for not (probably not even you while you were here).

if that doesn't make you uncomfortable, you're all set. ignore me. ignore a lot of things. if it does affect you, get off your pot and start doing what you think you need to do in life. do it for you. know that when you do it for you, the world will somehow become more rich and powerful because you made it that way while you were you living in it.

life's too short. make your footprint count. i can't believe tim russert's gone.

basement racquetball tennis pong

it might have been interesting to tell you about the angel hair pilot this evening, but i think i'll save him for another night. tonight, i will tell you about basement racquetball tennis pong. it's sweeping the nation. and i mean that literally. well no. i mean, it's only really happening in my basement as far as i know.

here's what happens in brtp: you get a tennis racquet and a little rubber racquetball ball and an unfinished basement. and bourbon. and perhaps loud music from the kitchen at the top of the stairs. then, you hit the ball against the wall with a tennis racquet but with that initial racquetball bounce so that the ball doesn't go like 100 yards and end up getting lodged underneath like, the metal wolf spider basement shelving. those crazy guys like to hide under that thing. i don't actually know that this is true though because in three years, i've only seen one wolf spider by this metal shelving. anything's possible. but back to the game, you want the ball to bounce before it hits the wall and then you just keep the volley going while you think and drink and jam to your favorite 70s, 70s, and 70s tunes.

what else.. as far as rules go, the only rule is that you just constantly make up rules to account for whatever just happened in the "game". like, if you're lucky and the ball bounces back to you after arching through/over the red metal beam, you totally win. conversely, if the ball hits the red beam on the way back and goes back into the wall instead of coming back to you, that's it. you lose. if you let the ball bounce like 3 times before hitting it back to the wall, nice. 5 points. if you switch to being a lefty (or righty if you're a lefty) you get 2 extra points. and really, so on and so forth. like i said, you just keep making up rules so that if you're ever playing with someone else, which is never, no one can win. similarly, if you're playing against yourself, you will probably win. i've actually lost to myself before so it's really hard to say what you can expect here.

so, brtp. my gift to you. stay inside this 2008 summer and enjoy your cold, cold basement.

i'm doing it wrong

i'm certainly not doing it right - that's for sure. thanks much, anonymous commenter, for kindly reminding me how blogs work. you are supposed to add posts one by one. you are not a-sposed to remove them, one by one. i'll try to remember this going forward. i just get confused sometimes. wait. no. i don't. i took that last post down because it had become meaningless. truthfully, it was meaningless when i posted it. however, i have now basically done something to counter it in my life so i took it down because i wanted to post something regarding a similar topic that has far more meaning at this point. get. ex. cited.

so guess what. i rule. i've said it before, and i'm sayin' it again. i rule. and, i'm more than happy to esplain why in this very post. but first, i would like to say a few words about some other things because i think it's important to veer off topic from time to time because then i can ensure that people have no idea what i'm talking about or why or if i'm even still talking about the same thing or something different or what. i think it's important to create a spaghetti tangle in whatever you do in life. this applies to conversation, relationships, cables behind your giant hd tv, corporate america, etc. just whatever you do, make sure it's confusing enough that no one person can come in and figure it all out and cause everything to be easily understood and clear. i mean, that would just be ridiculous. so next time you find yourself in life, try to tangle it all up and cause peoples' brains to fart. do it for me. haha. i just wrote fart. i bet you're thinking about farts now. you're weird.

ok, why do i rule so much. well, it all comes down to me being 30. and awesome. i pretty much decided to take myself sailing in the caribbean this past week. because i could. i just got back and to be more honest than i've ever been in life, it was the greatest thing i've ever done. at first, i was a little anxious about going to a tropical island by myself, but i forged ahead because some crazy strong unknown force was pulling me down there. all i knew was that i had to go. i had to go if i ever wanted to live my life effectively again. and you know what? i've been talking about either moving to a tropical island or sailing in the caribbean since high school. and, you wanna know what else? i realized that i hadn't really sailed in the caribbean and obviously didn't live on a tropical island. so, sort of last minute, i booked a flight, hotel, and sailing. it was a short holiday week so it worked out sort of perfectly.

well guess what. i figured it all out while i was down there. i literally mean everything. i've never been more sure of anything. this is why it was the greatest thing i've ever done. i guess the sailing in the caribbean part might have helped me to relax and be able to think more clearly... if you've never been, please promise yourself to go eventually. i can't think of anything else like it - you in your shorts and bikini top, sunscreen, shades, ice-cold presidente in hand, cutting through the indigo blue water with the wind in your hair, a smile on your face. and if you use that sunscreen appropriately, look forward to the best tan you've ever had in your life.

now, clearly that can't be the end of the greatest week of my entire life. while i was there sailing by myself with a totally amazing crew, i met 'vacation friends'. believe it or not, i wasn't the only lone 30-something in the tropics who was escaping from life. there were two others and we found each other on this magical sailboat. it was there that i met dr. 'a' and ms. 'e'. we bonded almost instantly and then within hours, had decided to become travel friends. so, not only did i figure out my entire life while sailing in one of the most beautiful places on earth, i had also met at least one ridiculously awesome person every single day. ridiculous.

so that's why i removed the old post. looking back, it was really just a placeholder for the greatness to come. the previous trip was with family and wasn't the greatest thing ever. while i was there though, i did find the islands to be very much to my liking. i normally dislike other cities/towns/etc, but even amid the travel and family, i had decided that i was pretty sure i loved this place. and, this newfound love affair i have with islands is definitely a topic for another deep (and lengthy) discussion.