This past weekend, James Bond and I celebrated our two year anniversary by driving down to San Diego, getting up at 5:45am, and running a 15K race.

Well, actually, our real anniversary is on Tuesday and I’m the only one who ran the 15K race, but I did manage to convince him to a) come with me, b) wake up in the pitch black dark, c) run the 5K race that was happening that same morning, and d) do it all in the name of an “anniversary celebration.”

I WIN. Or, wait, maybe he wins because he’s the one doing the nice-y nice things for me while I’m the asshole who’s all, “LET’S DRIVE 120 MILES TO PAY SOMEONE TO TIME US WHILE WE RUN AROUND AT THE CRACK OF DAWN WITH A BUNCH OF PEOPLE WE DON’T EVEN KNOW. YEAH!!! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, BABY!”

The race was fucking awesome though. I mean, the race itself wasn’t anything special, but I had this crazy out-of-body moment around mile 8 where I was all, “holy shit, LOOK WHAT MY BODY CAN DO” and it made me remember what Gretchen brilliantly dubbed the “Nicki Minaj moment,” which is basically any real life version of that line in Nicki Minaj’s song that goes “Yes I did, yes I did, somebody please tell him who the eff I is” that in my mind loosely translates to, “YOU BEST BELIEVE I’M DOING THIS CRAZY ASS THING. BAM!” Which is why you’ll see Gretchen and I occasionally yelling “NICKI MINAJ” at each other on Facebook and Twitter as a new go-to mantra for things we maybe don’t think we can do but are totally going to do anyway because bitch please.

So yeah, I ran 9.3 miles (NICKI MINAJ!!) and am now desperately in need of a Thai massage – even though I’m pretty sure getting a massage when I’m this sore could KILL ME DEAD. God, will you listen to me and my first world problems? “How soon is too soon to pay someone to rub my sore muscles after finishing my expensive and equally first world recreational activity?”

Yeah. THAT.

So, no massage for me. Instead, I got to come home from San Diego and have one of my biggest and most irrational fears realized, and honestly, I almost don’t want to tell you about it because there’s absolutely no way you can say that you’re not judging me and also that you’re not a liar in the same sentence and have both of those things be accurate. Seriously, even I judge me for this one.

Here’s the deal. I’m scared of alarm clocks. Actually, no, that’s not quite right. I’m not scared of alarm clocks, what I’m scared of is the possibility that something horribly annoying, like an alarm going off, will start and then just never stop. It’s why I hate when people say the same thing over and over again, like “Nicole, Nicole, Nicole, Nicole” if they’re trying to get my attention, or why I freak out when people repeatedly tap me on the shoulder or something, because WHAT IF IT NEVER STOPS? Think about it. What if your alarm went off in the morning and then it just NEVER STOPPED. EVER. EVERRRRR!!!

I’ve always known that this is an irrational fear, which is the only thing that’s kept it in check. I mean, of course the car alarm and the radio static and the blinking lights are going to stop, right? WRONG. Last night, James Bond put a pizza in the oven and set a timer on his iPhone for when to take it out. Then, just before the timer went off, the screen froze – we couldn’t click anywhere, couldn’t turn it off, couldn’t do anything – and then, of course, the timer went off. Loud, incessant, beeping, vibrating, with NO WAY TO TURN IT OFF. It just kept going off and going off and going off and I thought, “Oh my god, this is it. I’m going to have to listen to this sound FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE,” because that’s totally how I feel when repetitive noises get started. That’s where the fear comes from, the brain-eating belief that, no matter what, I’ll be subjected to whatever the thing is from now until the end of time forever and ever amen.

So there we were, trying to turn the phone off, trying to unfreeze it, plugging it into the wall, plugging it into the computer, pushing every button, smacking the screen, EVERYTHING, but it wouldn’t stop. Cue mild hysteria that ended with me burying the phone under a pillow to muffle the sound, closing the bedroom door, and hiding in the living room until it died or faded or gave up or did whatever the hell iPhone alarms do when they realize you’re not paying attention to them anymore because you’re LOSING YOUR MOTHER EFFING MIND OVER HERE, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Damn it. Why am I telling you about this?! It’s bad enough that James Bond has had to put up with me and my quirky shenanigans for the past two years (HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, BABY!), but now I’m voluntarily sharing it with everyone on the entire internet? SMOOTH, WOMAN.

Although, really, I don’t think the alarm clock thing is my point here. I think my point is that even though I’m out of my mind at least 96% of the time, James Bond still loves me and never even threatens to abandon me in a warehouse filled with blaring car alarms and smoke detectors, even though I’m sure that sometimes I totally deserve it.

That’s what love is, I think. Finding someone who looks at you when you’re at your craziest and says, “Fuck it, I’m in.”

(HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, BABY!!)

The best thing about working from home is the part where you get to, you know, work from home. The worst thing about working from home is the part where all of the sudden you realize that spending so much time alone has made you really fucking weird.

Maybe it’s a “chicken or the egg” thing. Maybe it’s not that working from home makes you weird, maybe it’s that people who are already weird are drawn to working from home. Either way, we’ve reached the point where I have to confess that I’ve started eating vegetables in the bathtub in the middle of the day.

This is when I’d love to be able to interject and tell you that it’s not what it sounds like, but really? It’s exactly what it sounds like.

It started as an exercise in time management and efficiency. I was really cold (HOW IS IT ALWAYS SO COLD IN THIS APARTMENT? AREN’T WE IN LOS ANGELES?), and all morning while working I kept thinking that the best way for me to finally get warm would be to take a bath. A few hours passed, and no matter what additional clothes I put on, I couldn’t get warm. I started to feel like the only way I’d ever be warm again EVER would be to submerge my entire body in super hot water, so I gave in and started running a bath. While running the bath, I realized that in addition to being The Coldest, I was also The Hungriest. “Okay,” I thought. “Maybe I can eat first, and then take a bath.” But my crazybrain was like, “YOU’RE TOO COLD FOR THAT.” And then I was all, “Well, maybe I can take a bath first and then have a snack.” But my crazybrain was like, “YOU’RE TOO HUNGRY FOR THAT.” Which is when I decided that that only possible solution was to eat a plate of baby carrots in the bathtub.

As I was doing it, I knew it was totally fucking weird. I kept thinking, “IT’S 3PM. YOU’RE EATING CARROTS IN THE BATHTUB. YOU’RE THE ONLY PERSON IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD TO DO THIS.” But I mean, hey, I got out of the bathtub about twenty minutes later and I was both warm and not-starving, so overall I’d have to say it was a win.

That afternoon, I figured the Bathtub-Vegetable Situation would be a one time thing. But then, a few days later when I was putting on socks and a sweatshirt and wrapping myself up in a blanket at my desk, I remembered how warm it felt to be in the bath. “Oh, what the hell,” I thought. “I’ll just take one more bath.” As the water was running, I found myself absentmindedly cutting up some cucumbers to take in there with me. “GOD, YOU’RE SO FUCKING WEIRD,” I thought. “THIS ISN’T ANY LESS WEIRD THE SECOND TIME AROUND.” But, whatever man, I was hungry and cold.

And so it went, different combinations of bath + vegetables, until one weekend afternoon when I realized that the only thing missing from my warm, wet, relaxing snack time was TV. Which is how I wound up laying in the bathtub, eating truffle oil green beans, and watching Friday Night Lights on a laptop perched on top of the toilet. Do you hear that, Mom? Your adult daughter’s new hobby is preparing fancy green beans and eating them in the mother effing BATHTUB while watching high school kids play football on Netflix Instant. Also, while we’re on the subject, how did I just start watching Friday Night Lights?! I’m only about halfway through season 2* but I’m already obsessed. I mean, THIS SHOW! Honestly, I’m legitimately proud of the fact that, since starting the show, I’ve still managed to complete my work, go outside, interact with three dimensional people, and do other seemingly normal activities, because ALL I WANT TO DO IS WATCH TIM RIGGINS PUSH HIS HAIR OUT OF HIS EYES FOREVER AND EVER, AMEN.

*NO SPOILERS. IF YOU TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENS I’LL COMPLETELY LOSE MY MIND AND HAVE TO PROGRESS TO EATING CHICKEN PARM IN THE BATHTUB FOR COMFORT. DO YOU WANT TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR A TRAGEDY LIKE THAT?!

Over the past two weeks, I read the entire Harry Potter series for the first time. I’m now recovering from the severe eye strain caused by reading so many books so quickly – and in particular, from reading the 759 pages of the final book in just under 10 hours straight.

(Pro tip: 10 hours is too many hours to read without stopping unless your goal is to never be able to open your eyes again ever.)

For those of you who have long since finished the Harry Potter books: I know, I’m extremely late to this party. For those of you who haven’t read them yet: Ha, I win! But also, what are you waiting for?

You’re probably waiting because there are so many books, and some of them are so long, and it’s such a big commitment to read a series that’s guaranteed to be a giant time-suck. But I finger crossie promise you, it’s worth it.

If you’re like me, though, you aren’t so great with the moderation. This means that once you read the first sentence of the first book, you won’t have much of a life outside of Harry Potter until you finish the last sentence of the last book, because you’ll have to know what happens next and next and next. The upside of this is that Harry Potter makes your heart feel good. The downside is that you’ll quickly realize how boring your stupid ordinary life is, and you’ll be very sad when the books are over and no one around you is making cars fly or spontaneously morphing into a dog. See also: cooking dinner by bewitching knives to chop the ingredients, disappearing from one place and immediately appearing in another, regrowing broken bones, and fighting dragons. Nothing gives you street cred like fighting a fucking dragon.

In the hours after finishing the final book, I did a lot of crying – both about the overall emotional impact of the story and about the sadness of not having any more Harry Potter books to read.

(Yes, I’m very, very cool.)

I then proceeded to obsessively watch JK Rowling interviews online and cry even harder at the thought that she spent 17 years writing these books because a) how is it possible for someone to be that committed to anything? and b) how is it possible for someone to be that insanely talented??

Clearly, I have realistic aspirations and goals for my life if I’m overcome with crippling amounts of jealousy toward THE MOST SUCCESSFUL WRITER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

I just, I can’t imagine what it would feel like to spend 17 full years working on something incredible enough to touch the lives and hearts of millions and millions of people. Not that my life’s work (or your life’s work) should be judged on a scale from one to JK Rowling, but the reality that there are people like her out there who can create something so astronomically stunning gives me a wicked case of the crazy eye.

And I guess that’s the takeaway for me in all of this; my experience of reading the Harry Potter books isn’t just about the passion and the whimsy and the fun of the story, it’s about being in awe of the person who created it. And really, it’s about being in awe of the creative process itself, and of the fact that we – each and every one of us – has the potential to create something that can change other people’s lives.

(Cue the uplifting and motivational soundtrack!)

Clearly I’m still having a lot of feelings about all of this, and I don’t really know what to do about it. The only thing I do know is that everyone should get the chance to experience the magical Harry Potter-ness for themselves, so I’m doing my part by giving away the complete series of books this week.

If you haven’t read the books and would like to win so you can commiserate with me over fantasy fiction induced eye pain and billionaire writer career envy, let me know in the comments. If you’ve already read the books and would like to win for someone else and do a double pay-it-forward, that’s totally okay too. I’ll pick a winner on Friday, and in the meantime I shall try very hard to resume a normal life in which I don’t randomly chant spells under my breath while feeling around the room for people covered in invisibility cloaks. Ahem.

{And the winner is… @KatharineS84!}

Let’s take a poll. Do you think it’s racist to make declarative statements about a certain group of people even if the statement you’re making is a nice thing?

If your answer is yes, you should definitely stop reading this post because it’s racist as shit. If your answer is no, then OH MY GOD WHY ARE ASIAN BABIES SO MUCH CUTER THAN ALL THE OTHER BABIES?*

Whenever we see a baby like this out in public, I always tell James Bond that I’m going to put it in my purse. He thinks I’m kidding, but the truth is that at any given moment in my life I’m approximately 7 seconds away from going all Angelina Jolie on these super cute Asian babies, taking them home with me, and tattooing their birth coordinates all over my body.

(Don’t look at me like that. Of course I know that stealing other people’s babies on the 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica isn’t the same thing as adopting needy children from other countries. BUT STILL.)

Anyway, the other night when Drea was over I started a Pinterest board dedicated solely to pinning photos of cute Asian babies, an activity that has now replaced “sleep” and “water” and “real life three-dimensional friends” on my list of important things to do.

When I first showed Drea the big-glasses-small-Asian-child photo, I made her close her eyes. I’m all, “No seriously, close your eyes, I have to show you something SO AMAZING.” So she closes her eyes but then she’s like, “Dude, this is really weird. Don’t put anything near my face. What’s near my face?!” because I have the computer screen really close to her so that as soon as she opens her eyes it’s all CUTE ASIAN BABY, right fucking there, but I’m laughing so hard at being the kind of creepy motherfucker who makes her friend CLOSE HER EYES prior to being shown a close-up photo of someone else’s child from the internet that I’m basically wetting my pants. So she opens her eyes and looks from the photo of the baby to the tears streaming down my face to me crossing my legs so the pee won’t come out and then she starts laughing hysterically and we’re both collapsing on the couch in our almost-pee laughter tears and James Bond is looking at us and shaking his head like, “WHAT IS MY LIFE” and then we clicked over to the page that shows you all of the photos that have been added to Pinterest from the same website as the photo you’re looking at, but instead of finding a collection of photos that included our cute Asian baby photo, we found page after page of people who had all pinned THIS EXACT SAME PHOTO, which made me realize that, overall, the world is a very good place.

Except wait, actually, a little later that night we also found an online shop that sells “life-like baby replicas” and hey, guess what, on a scale from one to that super cute baby with the glasses, these dolls are like a negative eleventy billion.

SEE?!

Like, what the fuck? WHO’S BUYING THOSE? Especially because they’re priced at like two thousand dollars on Ebay.

TWO THOUSAND DOLLARS.

FOR A SCARY FAKE BABY.

FROM FUCKING EBAY.

I mean, if people are seriously spending that much money on dolls from the internet, we’re all in the wrong business. Especially because they don’t have any cute Asian ones, which would clearly be worth so much more.

*Non-Asian mothers of the internet, please don’t yell at me. I’m not saying that your baby isn’t cute. I mean, I guess I might be saying that because not all babies are cute (WHAT? THEY’RE NOT), but yours probably is. It’s just not as cute as this baby. Or this baby. Unless, of course, the baby in either of those two photos actually is your child, in which case, CAN I PLEASE COME OVER AND FUCKING BABYSIT FOREVER?!?

If you’ve never had a Thai massage and are curious about how it feels, you can probably just hire someone on Craigslist to beat the shit out of you instead. It’s basically the same thing.

It all started when I wanted to do something nice for James Bond after our move. He handled so much of the heavy lifting, and I thought going to get massages together would be the perfect way to unwind. (Thai Massage Tip #1: do not expect to feel at all relaxed at any point during your massage.)

The place I picked had wonderful Yelp reviews and was right around the corner from our new apartment, so I made the appointment and off we went. When we got there, they brought us straight into our two little rooms, each filled wall-to-wall with a platform bed and separated from the other rooms by curtains. We were given a pair of very baggy pants and told to “take all things off, put on pants, and lay face in mattress.” So I did. (Thai Massage Tip #2: The pants will be way too big for you. Yes, you. No matter what. So you should probably keep your underwear on if you want to avoid showing a strange Thai lady your genitals.)

When my masseuse came in, she wasn’t fucking around. There was no soft and sensitive chit chat to make sure I was comfortable, warm enough, feeling good, etc. She just asked me if I like the massage strong and then climbed onto my body on her knees and started jumping around. What? Yeah. (Thai Massage Tip #3: Research the type of massage you’re getting before you go, so you’re not terribly freaked out when a woman you don’t know at all is crawling all over your body and digging her knees and elbows into your ass muscles.)

But here’s the thing about the hour-long massage: it worked. I was sore the next day, but overall it was the only massage I’ve ever gotten that did its job of seriously releasing tension for days and days afterward. Usually, I’m relaxed during the massage and it’s a nice, enjoyable experience, but I don’t feel any real benefit. With Thai Massage, you feel the benefit. The problem with feeling the benefit, though, is that you have to get through the part where some chick is walking on your back with her full weight and you can’t really breathe and you’re thinking, “If this goes on for more than 10 seconds, I’m going to black out,” and you’re having a full-on debate with yourself, thinking, “Just say something. Tell her it’s too much pressure. Ask for less pressure.” but the other part of you is all, “What the fuck, you’re such a baby. Just take it. Breathe through it. YOU’RE FINE. Just a little more. You can take it. You like it hard. Come on!” (Thai Massage Tip #4: You’re basically going to talk dirty to yourself in your head the whole time. That’s okay, it’s the only way to get through it.)

The final few minutes of the massage were the best though, if “best” means “most awkward ever,” because you’re sitting up and she’s doing all these weird stretching things to your arms and neck, but since you’re topless, sitting up also means that your boobs are flying everywhere because even though she tried to tie a tiny little towel around your chest it obviously didn’t stay tied because you don’t have the same ridiculously small Thai bone structure that the makers of these towels were envisioning when they decided to use them as cover ups when beating unsuspecting women into “relaxation.”

And yet, despite paying to flash someone my boobs during a massage in which I mostly thought I was going to die, I really did feel so much looser for the next week. Not “looser” in the slutty way where I showed my tits to a stranger, although come to think of it, I suppose that applies as well.

Oh, and Thai Massage Tip #5: If you’re going to pay someone $45 to beat the shit out of you while they stare at your nipples, make sure you choose a place with an adjoining restaurant so that you can take advantage of the punchcard that lets repeat experiences of naked suffering earn you some free Thai noodles.

The best part about moving to a new city with your boyfriend is that he takes on the responsibility of loading and unloading all of the really heavy shit and therefore winds up too exhausted to protest when you order this decal for the bathtub:

Right now, I’d like to say that the thing I’m most excited about is that my birthday is a week from today, but no, the thing I’m most excited about is Bathtub Decal Arrives In The Mail Day. And then after that, the thing I’m most excited about is having people over to our new apartment who will eventually have to use said bathroom so that I can yell loudly at them while they’re in there and demand that they tell me if they’re naked or not.*

(God, how excited are you to come over to my apartment!!)

We’ve been here for six days now, and the bad parts of moving (where you want to kill yourselves and each other and everyone on the roads and everyone at Target and basically just anyone ever) are behind us. We’ve unpacked all the things, assembled all the new furniture, and are now working on the fun part of actually decorating, which is really just a lot of James Bond being worried that I’m going to throw his things out and me assuring him that I won’t even though he’s basically a hoarder.

(This is where he insists that I clarify that a) he only hoards cool shit but b) he’s not even a real hoarder at all because he couldn’t qualify for that Hoarders show on A&E and if you don’t meet the criteria for the reality TV show that’s related to your particular issue, it *totally* doesn’t count.)

Ahem.

Anyway, here’s the weird thing about moving: The place is unfamiliar, and you’re not in a routine yet, so it’s basically like you’re on vacation, only it’s a vacation in which you’re surrounded by everything you owned in the old place as well as a bunch of Swedish shit from IKEA with labels you can’t pronounce because the Swedish apparently think it’s awesome to have no vowels and eleventy thousand combinations of “sjk” in every single one of their words.

So it feels like we live here, but not really. I mean, I know that this is “home,” but it’s not home yet, you know? We’re in the in-between. Tomorrow though, we’re fulfilling my decorating wet dream of painting the entire wall above my desk with chalkboard paint, and we’re also using a magnetic primer which means that in addition to now being adult enough to purchase primer, I’ll soon have an entire wall that’s not just a wall but also a fucking ninja-ass MAGNETIC CHALKBOARD.

A magnetic chalkboard wall and a bathtub decal that demands immediate nudity; if that’s not the recipe for home sweet home, I have no idea what is.

*NOT YOU, GRANDPA. THAT DECAL ISN’T FOR YOU.

Listen, I’m a low maintenance girl. I don’t need a lot of specific shit to be happy, and I only have two rules for the people in my life: no jail, and no hospital. That’s it. Do whatever you want, be whoever you are, just don’t wind up in jail and don’t wind up in the hospital. Unless you’re like giving birth or some shit, then by all means go to the hospital. Or, if you’re anything like some of the girls I went to high school with, just have your baby at home in an inflatable pool and post graphic pictures of your placenta on Facebook.

(Thanks for making that available to me, Mark Zuckerberg. Thanks a lot.)

Other than pushing a human being out of your vagina, though, there will be absolutely no hospital. And definitely no jail. Easy, right? YOU’D THINK. And yet, there I was yesterday, only a few slight degrees of separation away from both jail and the hospital. I also met Hugh Jackman, but that’s an entirely different story.

Wait, let’s back up for a second. Have you ever been to Bay to Breakers? If not, and if you haven’t heard of it, it’s basically an all-out crazy fest that happens in San Francisco every May under the guise of a 12K race. I mean, the 12K race actually does happen, but the serious runners are overshadowed by the thousands of costume-wearing drunk people who wander along the race route in a substance-induced parade. I don’t know how you go from one of the healthiest activities (running) to such a shitshow (THIS) during the same event, but yesterday was the 100th anniversary of said event so apparently people in this madhouse city are all about making it happen.

This was my second year at Bay to Breakers, but it was my first year doing it sober, and as a result my biggest piece of advice to you is that if you ever have the opportunity to soberly attend an event where people are a) completely naked, b) falling down drunk in the streets, c) dressed in full head-to-toe costume, or d) all of the above, take it. You have no idea the things you miss when you’re part of the drunken masses.

I mean, if Amber and I weren’t sober, how would we have managed to keep track of the number of naked old man penises we saw? (15) Also, while we’re on the subject, how is it possible that cops were stopping people to pour out their open beers, yet it was entirely fine for FULL GROWN MEN to wander the streets wearing nothing but a pink sparkly cowboy hat and furry boots? Isn’t it illegal to run around naked in public once you’re over the age of, like, 3? James Bond says it’s legal in San Francisco as long as you’re not obstructing traffic, but I’m not entirely sure his opinion counts since he drunkenly somersaulted over a fence yesterday and cut his effing face open. And also, do I even want to question why my boyfriend knows the rules about what naked adult men are allowed to do in public in the city of San Francisco?

Probably best to just leave that one alone.

Anyway, after he almost broke the “no hospital” rule by destroying his face, and after Amber almost broke the “no jail” rule by getting her car impounded for being parked too close to the parade route, I met Hugh Jackman. He was signing autographs outside a theatre a few blocks from my apartment, and apparently he’s been performing there for the past few weeks. To be honest, I have absolutely no idea what Hugh Jackman does in a solo show involving him and a seventeen piece orchestra, but I’m going to pretend it involves his delicious Australian accent, the Wolverine claws, some soothing classical music, and a lot of gyrating in the general direction of my apartment.

So, to recap: James Bond is missing a part of his nose and a lot of his forehead, it costs $400 to get your car out of the impound if you do it the same day, men can walk naked through the streets of San Francisco as long as they properly adhere to traffic signals, and all of this is probably just a preview of what I’ll witness in Vegas later this week.

Huzzah!

My mother has started doing this new thing lately where she calls me and just starts talking as if we’re already an hour into our conversation. There’s no context at all, and she often just starts at some bizarre point in the middle of a sentence and expects me to have a clue what in the hell she’s talking about.

A few Fridays ago, I pick up the phone and she’s all, “Did you see the nipples?!” and I’m all, “What??” and she’s like, “The nipples!” and I’m all, “I seriously can’t talk right now” and she’s like, “Oh my God, what is that SOUND? Are you on fire?” and I tried to explain that our apartment building was testing the fire alarm (again) and that I was rushing to leave the building before my ear drums fell out of my head. She’s all, “I can’t hear you! Can you hear me? Did you hear what I said about the nipples? Are you sure you’re not on fire?!” and I’m like, “PLEASE JUST LET ME CALL YOU BACK.”

Five minutes later, outside of the building and back on the phone with her, she’s still asking me about nipples. I’m all, “What are you saying?” and she’s like, “The royal wedding! Did you watch it? Did you see Kate Middleton? She’s a very beautiful young woman, but that dress was just not flattering in the nippular area.”

I then explained to my mother, for the eleventy thousandth time, that I don’t have cable and can’t watch things on TV, so she made me promise that the first thing I’d do once I got to the coffee shop (“The very first thing, Nicole!) was look up a photo of Kate’s dress online and text her to share my feelings on the British nipple show. Which is how I wound up seated next to an old lady at Sugar Cafe with zoomed-in photos of the Duchess of Cambridge’s tits on my screen, wondering if other people’s mothers put them in equally awkward situations on such a daily basis.

And that’s her new thing, texting me, and while she’s so proud that she now knows how to do it, she’s also completely unaware that what she really knows how to do is text the same way she talks on the phone – starting in the middle of a conversation that I’m not at all a part of.

Yesterday, I get this text that says, “Are you having trouble buffering?” and of course I have no idea what she’s going on about and don’t have the hundred hours to wait for her to explain it by text, so I call her and she’s laughing hysterically and I’m like, “Um, what?!” and she can’t stop laughing and I’m all, “Seriously, woman, NO ONE ELSE KNOWS WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT” and she’s all, “I learned the word ‘buffering’ today and I couldn’t wait to use it! From the commercial I just saw, I think it has something to do with men who are very upset when their music doesn’t play fast enough on their laptops” and I’m like, “Yes, mother, that overly specific description is exactly what buffering means” and she’s all, “Aren’t you excited that I know such a technical term?” and I’m all, “Seriously? I’m working” and she’s all, “Working? OR BUFFERING?” and exploded into another round of hysterical laughter while yelling to my father, “Don’t worry, Alvin! She’s not buffering!”

At this point, I feel like all that’s left to do is set her up with her own Twitter account and accept that the rest of my life will be spent trying to explain what a hashtag is and reassure her that when someone wants to DM her, it isn’t code for some new dirty thing that all the kids are doing these days. Probably.

I don’t understand how the human brain works. Granted, I don’t understand how a lot of things work (AIRPLANES ARE TOO HEAVY TO FLY), but the human brain? Complete mystery. How can the same organ (is the brain an organ?) that’s capable of learning the specifics of quantum physics be simultaneously incapable of remembering the name of that famous person from that movie I saw with that guy that one time during that thing.

WHERE DO DETAILS LIKE THIS GO?!

Take French music, for example. I’ve started to listen to French music pretty regularly because a) I’m convinced that the French know something we don’t know and 2) Since I don’t understand a fucking word of what French people are singing about*, their songs don’t distract me during the work day.

Recently, my French phase has lead me to download a lot of songs by Edith Piaf, and my favorite song of hers is called Milord. I can’t really explain why it’s my favorite, other than the fact that every single time it comes on I feel as though I’m supposed to be dancing naked at a cabaret somewhere, surrounded by buttery croissants and very thick accents.

(Hey look! Even though I’ve been to France, I still seem to think that it’s just one big giant accent-filled sex bakery!)

But wait, here’s the thing with Edith Piaf, or at least, here’s the thing with her song Milord: I know it from somewhere. I know I’ve heard this song before, in some other context, and yet I can’t place it.  In a movie, maybe? Or a play? Or a TV show? Or like, fuck, I don’t know exactly, but I’ve definitely heard it. Has that ever happened to you? A song comes on and you know you’re familiar with it, but your impossibly complicated, never-works-the-way-you-need-it-work brain won’t make the connection for you?

IT’S INFURIATING.

At first though, not knowing where I’d heard the song wasn’t too bad. I was all, “Oh, it’ll come to me!” Then, a few hours later I was like, “Wow, that’s weird, I still can’t figure it out.” Then, a few hours after that, I was all, “COME ON, BRAIN. YOU KNOW THIS SONG.” Then, by day three, I was an inch away from having a hot mess breakdown over why in the hell I could remember all of the words to every Christmas song ever, but I couldn’t shake my brain into summoning forth the one tiny little piece of information that was keeping me awake at night, humming Milord incessantly to myself while small fragments of my soul hardened and chipped away with despair.

Finally, I sat down to Google it. “Okay,” I thought, “this is it, Google will have the answer” and I started typing every possible combination of “Edith Piaf” and “Milord” and “soundtrack” and “where the effing eff eff eff do I know that eff eff song from?!?” which didn’t bring me any closer to solving my torturous mystery but did bring me to a Tumblr called Eff This Diet where some girl in Southern California who has a severe foot phobia writes about how she’s trying to lose 120 lbs.

NOT HELPFUL.

Also, just so you know, this is the part of the story where I lie and tell you that I didn’t actually spend multiple hours over the course of an entire week trying to Google myself to brain-lock freedom. Nope. DIDN’T DO IT.

Also also, guess what? It turns out that finding where I’ve heard that Edith Piaf song is the one thing that Google can’t do. Do you know what that means? It either means that I’ve never actually heard the song Milord before and that something deep inside my brain (AGAIN, WHAT IS THE HUMAN BRAIN!!!) is tormenting me until I slowly go insane, or my brain is so large and complicated that even Google can’t handle it.

Which is to say, in all seriousness, that if anyone can figure out where the belligerent fuck I’ve heard this song before, I’ll send you $20 worth of whatever you want -  bubble gum, condoms, hair elastics, salt, whatever you want.

JUST. HELP. ME.

*Actually, that’s a lie. I know three French words: poissons, which means fish, merde, which means shit, and merci, which means thank you. But unless someone is singing “thank you shit fish” over and over again, French music is a pretty distraction-free experience for me. UNLESS I HAPPEN TO KNOW SAID FRENCH SONG FROM SOME LONG-LOST MYSTERIOUS FORMER LIFE THAT NOT EVEN GOOGLE CAN FIND.

::cries::

When I called my mother this morning, it took her about a 1/4 of a phone ring to pick up and yell, “HAPPY SPRING!!!!!!”

I’m all, “Today’s the first day of spring?” and she’s like, “Well no, it was yesterday, but I forgot to call! I forgot! I’m sorry! I’M SO SORRY!” and I’m all, “You’re sorry? When did we start celebrating the beginning of seasons via phone in this family?” and she’s like, “Well, it was 90 degrees here last week but now we’re getting a rain storm and it’s going to cool down to 60!” and I’m all, “Is this the same conversation we were just having?” and she’s like, “Today is my pastor’s birthday!” and I’m all, “You don’t even need me on the other end of the phone, do you?”

A few minutes later, once we’d regained some sense of conversational normalcy, she asked me what’s been going on. I was all, “What do you mean?” and she was like, “You know, what’s up! What’s new! What’s happening!” and I was all, “Huh, well… nothing.” That’s the thing, the past few weeks have been the kind of weeks where time passes, and it’s good time, but nothing really happens. Do you know what I mean? It’s like somehow, in the absence of Big Things going on, you just settle into the details of your life and hours and days and weeks go by without your attention being pulled toward any one particular or noteworthy thing.

After I got off the phone with my mother, I decided that that was impossible. I couldn’t have spent the past few weeks doing nothing, so I sat down to make a list of everything that has happened lately to prepare for our next phone call in which I’d be able to give her a better answer. I spent about five minutes thinking back over the past few weeks, and this is what I came up with:

1. I made myself learn how to spell vinaigrette
2. I scratched the hell out of my car by getting it wedged up against a pole in our garage
3. I baked whole wheat bread from scratch
4. I had my teeth cleaned by an exceptionally hot dentist
5. I debated dying my hair red
6. I ate a lot of mustard
7. I obsessively Googled photos of people who have dyed their hair red
8. I listened to my mother brag about how much more often she wears a bra these days
9. I watched an inappropriate amount of The West Wing

That’s it. That’s what I’ve done over the past few weeks. I feel like I’m living in a little bit of a soft lull right now, with lots of upcoming plans but nothing pressing in the immediate future. Once March and April turn to May, though, I’ll be manic levels of busy. May is when James Bond’s parents visit from Washington and when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Bay to Breakers by wandering the city in costume and drinking liquor at 7am (luckily, these two things don’t fall on the same weekend). May is also when I’ll head to Vegas for the third annual Bloggers in Sin City, the social meetup I founded to make it easier for all of us who love each other on the internet to love each other in person (while jumping in fountains and drinking ginger vodka out of penis straws). Which reminds me: if you’re a blogger, or a Tumblr-er, or even just a Twitter-er, and if you like meeting incredibly warm and wonderful people, and if you like being surrounded by the absurdity that is Las Vegas, you should sign up for BiSC. I’d love to meet you.

Meeting people is what Bloggers in Sin City is all about, it’s a chance to turn our online lives into our offline lives, and in truth this event is the sole reason I’ve continued blogging during many of the times when I’ve thought, “THE INTERNET IS TOO MUCH PRESSURE! I WANT TO DISAPPEAR AND LIVE IN A YURT!” Do you ever feel like that? Like social media and Life 2.0 or 3.0 or 9.0 or whatever point-0 we’re on now are overwhelming? Sometimes, I want to crawl into a hole and never hear the words “status update” ever again. I think, “No more internet! Bye bye forever!” but then I remind myself that I am who I am because of the people I love, and that the people I love have almost all come my way because of this ridiculous pink blog. The internet can be overwhelming, sure, but we’re all real people, with real lives and real feelings, and isn’t it all so much better when we can experience that first hand?

So yeah, come to Bloggers in Sin City. I’ll be there, possibly as a red head. And all of these amazing-ass people will be there too, with whatever color hair they decide to have. Unfortunately, my mom won’t be there, but maybe I’ll call her on speaker phone or bring my favorite photo of her with me, the one that was taken a few years ago by the Arizona police camera when she ran a red light and made the best, guiltiest facial expression in the history of the world.