Grow Up, SHOW UP!

Hi guys. I kind of suck; it's been five days since I updated. CRAZY BUSY. Finals week is two weeks away at work, which means THIS week is my busiest since all the exams are rolling in and it's go-time. Also, this upcoming weekend, Vee, Kiddokabiddo, & I are cranking back up to MSP. TO SEE LEONARD COHEN! Vee and I are losing our minds--LEONARD COHEN! This is like seeing New Kids on the Block (which I DID do, thank you very much)--WE NEVER THOUGHT WE WOULD GET THE CHANCE!

Leonard Cohen was a high school FAVORITE of Vee's, and when we first started dating back in fall 2001, Ten New Songs had just came out. IT WAS THE FIRST CD WE EVER MADE OUT TO! (Sorry Kiddo; in eighteen years when you are allowed on the internet without my supervision and you find this blog, you will probably be embarassed. WE WERE YOUNG ONCE TOO!)

Wow. EARLY DATING YEARS ASIDE, Vee and I truly have an abiding love for Leonard Cohen (even forgiving "Dear Heather"...uhh, no. Sorry, buddy.) and are really excited about going.

But this blog shouldn't be about what we WILL be doing--I've got to catch you up on what I've DONE!

(swirly lines indicating that we are going "back in time")

Last Monday, I saw Gone With the Wind in the theater, which was basically one of the pinnacles of my LIFE, since I cannot even come close to approximately how deep my love is for Gone With the Wind, and how I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SEE IT IN A THEATER. Geez, upon reflection, maybe I have had low standards for my life or something, because with the NKOTB concert, the Leonard Cohen concert, and GWTW in the theater, my "never thought this would happen"s seem to be, well, happening.

Anyway! IT WAS AWESOME, and luckily I had already begun my routine and was several chapters into Scarlett, so it is easing the pain of the end of the movie.

My routine? Every time I try to guess at this number, I feel like people think I am exaggerating for comic effect. I'm not. So let me be conservative here. I have been reading Gone With the Wind and following it up with the sequel Scarlett at least three times a year since I was 12. That makes 42 reads. So we'll go with "I've read GWTW 42 times," even though I've read it more than that, I'm pretty sure.

IT'S A SICKNESS! And I DON'T EVEN CARE whatever shit you want to talk about Scarlett and how "it's not as good as GWTW" because I READ IT FIRST, and it colored my reading of GWTW, and TO ME, it is as necessary as milk with fresh chocolate chip cookies. NECESSARY BECAUSE I CAN'T STAND THE END OF GWTW! SO FRUSTRATING!

Every time I read GWTW and Scarlett, I catch something new. It's like the Bible, y'all. Watching GWTW this time, though, I realized something that was probably obvious to everyone I know, yet didn't click out of my subconscious until last Monday: I RELATE TO SCARLETT BECAUSE SHE IS ONE OF THE FEW CATHOLIC HEROINES I HAVE EVER SEEN IN A POPULAR NOVEL WHO IS NOT "RENOUNCING IT"!

I'll save my damnation of "Rhett Butler's People" (notice how I am putting it in quotes like it is not a real novel? BECAUSE IT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN!) for another post, but I am deep in Scarlett's adventures in Ireland right now and so the end of GWTW wasn't as bad.

Except, well, I had brought my Klean Kanteen full of water (it's a 3.5 hr movie, y'all) and inadvertently spilled it. Inside my purse. ON MY CELL PHONE. Which DIED, and which, when I brought it to the Sprint Store, the dude told me it would be $100 to fix.

A HUNDRED DOLLARS!

Fortunately, I was prepared for this trickery, and whipped out my ancient cell phone from '04 and made the dude transfer my number to it.

So now I am casually sporting a hilariously Zach-Morris-style cell phone until Nov '09 when our contract comes back up and I am due for a new cell.

CATCH UP ON WED-FRI OF LAST WEEK TOMORROW, if I get the chance to break from frantic HTMLing and my daughter's other front tooth comes in (this is her sixth tooth, and the one she is SCREAMING at the most).