Tee hee. "Ample" is my second favorite way to say "a lot of." My first is "an abundance."

For the keen of eye and the none of life, you probably noticed that I haven't updated this blog in almost exactly two months. This is for the following reasons:

1. I'm in denial that there aren't actually Inspiration Fairies giving writers who behave themselves inspiration dust for writing blog entries.
2. I magically gained three followers without doing diddly squat. If I actually write something, I fear I may lose those followers.
3. Since about a week after my last entry, I've been in Texas. I've been here all spring with my sister and two-year old niece.

Lately, I've been trying to avoid dying. It's harder than it sounds.

Texas has been extremely enjoyable, but these past two weeks have been absolutely ridiculous. You know how everyone has an unfortunate bout of threat to their health? A fall here or a flu there? It seems like the Sheer Forces At Will have been attacking me at all sides with throwing ninja stars and fury. They're after me. I'm convinced. And I'm not even exaggerating (like I normally do.)

As of a little less than a week ago, this was the state of my body. I now present you the Diagram of Pain:



Some injuries are not to scale (or to appearance) due to my extreme lack of artistic ability. Besides all of that, this was what my body was like. All at the same time. Oh, me.

Now for the fun part: Telling you how it all occurred.

Let's go through it chronologically. The last time I was a normal person, we were leaving the Post Office. For me, tripping and falling is commonplace. Give me a flat field with no hills or holes, and I will find something to trip over. If I were a seeing eye dog, blind people would use me to avoid dangerous situations due to me constantly approaching them. However, I always seemed to luck out when I was carrying precious cargo (i.e., my niece.) Until that day.

All it took was an uneven area of sidewalk, thus beginning an intense battle between myself and gravity. I would normally have just accepted my fate and let myself fall, but I was carrying my niece. Those were the closest I have probably ever come to those fancy and protective "maternal instincts." At the time it was intense, but looking back on it, I'm sure it was kind of hilarious. The top of my body was teetering forward, then lurched quickly back as if to say, "Oh no you didn't, GRAVITY." I looked like a weeble wobble.

The only difference is that weebles wobble, but they don't fall down. I did.

The whole process was in slow motion, slow enough to encase my arm around my niece and accept defeat. Because I wasn't able to catch myself, the dead weight falling to the ground amplified every blow. That explains half (yes, only half) of the bruises on my knee, and every single scrape in the diagram. The arms and elbow got the worst of it. During one account, my sister proclaimed that she could see bone through the elbow. (I can't confirm or deny that statement considering I could hardly bring myself to look at it.) The most astonishing thing about it is that, even though my injuries shined threateningly red, I didn't bleed.

Luckily, my niece didn't have a scratch on her. I could feel ripped off, but I was relieved.

A little less than a week later, I took a nap during (and exceeded) my niece's because I felt tired for no reason. I also had a chilly fever, if that made any sense whatsoever. In 80 degree weather, I was wearing a jacket because I had goosebumps on my arms. I went to bed early with a jacket and slippers due to more cold oddness.

I woke up at 7:30 that morning (extremely out of character for me), feeling like a swarm of tiny men attacked my muscles with little jackhammers. I eventually lulled myself back to slumber and stayed that way until my normal time. Upon waking, I stumbled to the bathroom. In a life that I've known one thing above all else (and it's that sleep cures everything,) I was astonished to discover that I actually felt even worse. It was sometime during that realization that I...woke up.

My first thought was, 'Odd. I must have dreamed that whole thing.' That thought shut itself up when I put my hand down to help myself up and it was cold and hard. There I was, on the bathroom floor, and I didn't even have excessive drugs and alcohol use to blame. I went through a period of denial when I believed, 'I couldn't have fainted. Maybe the bathroom floor felt cool and nice and pretty and I curled up on it and slept for a little while.' That was until Knee Bruises: The Sequel came out. Even then I wasn't entirely convinced because the idea of fainting is frustratingly inconvenient. Welcome to my brain.

The only symptoms unexplained are the coughing and sore throat. That doesn't have as elaborate of a tale as the others. They were just there. For a long time. From the fall at the Post Office to the swooning in the lavatory almost a week after both incidences, there it was. The symptoms refused to subside. It's like my throat was starting to mock me and my existence. I think everyone has had an illness that they have begun to get irrationally angry at. It's an awkward feeling to wake up every morning and want to shout at your own throat.

I wasn't sure if it was allergies or weather changes, so I went on a "kissing my niece" boycott during that time. That was the last straw. I started to go a bit insane at that point. I was bitter towards the world. I would mention poverty and war in the same breath and seriousness as this sore throat. I became a soldier for health, putting myself through every obstacle, every sacrifice, and every old wife's tale to get rid of the cough once and for all.

I would also have conversations like this:

Me: I'm so sick of being sick! I'm going to beat this thing!
My sister: Geez, you're talking about it like you have cancer or something!

For the record a combination of honey, gargling salt water, and cough drops did the trick.

I wrote this entry because...well, first, because I actually think all of this is hilarious (which means I have the weirdest sense of humor ever.) Also, I want to remind you all that everything is temporary. Even the wounds from when the Post Office sidewalk beats you up, or the results of your boycotting throat. Now I can celebrate my wellness, and the fact that I don't feel like a shell of a healthy human being anymore. Hooray!

This was only a couple of weeks after the couple of months that I haven't been blogging, however. I don't know why I used these as excuses.

Today I engaged myself in such a horrible, unsavory, torturous activity that I can barely even say the word without shuddering in horror. Cleaning.

I wouldn't say that I'm a messy person, but I'm only selectively organized. My closet is organized by color, yet my bed is always unmade. My music collection is immaculate, yet there is a Smurf village among the clutter on my computer desk. This is the oxymoron that is my life.

I don't even hate cleaning, per se. My sense of accomplishment in extreme cleaning lasts me for months at a time, which is ultimately my downfall. The process is like this:

Immediately after cleaning: My room is beautiful! I'm going to keep it looking this way forever and have a world record for cleanest, most awesome room.
A couple months later: There are a few things thrown on chairs and misplaced. No biggie. My room just looks "lived in."
A few months after that: The denial period. A black hole must have eaten the remote control to my iHome because I just barely cleaned it.
Then eventually: This is getting ridiculous. I unravel myself from my cozy blanket of denial.

My previously disastrous room was brought to you by busy-ness, laziness, and lack of motivation. I have a procrastinator attitude as well: Doing little bits of work at a time is just too easy. If you load an unrealistic amount of work on yourself and manage to do it all, you are the most sensational accomplish-er of things in the entire history of the world. You are Oprah.

Not to mention whenever I clean my room, my parents act like I've won the Nobel Prize. While they usually claim that it looks like a cyclone tore up the place, my mom proudly paraded my dad around my newly polished room. If I had kept my room clean, it wouldn't have been such a big deal. The tactic is that I make my parents disappointed and lower their expectations of me to ground zero. Every once in a while I'll do these insignificant things that make me seem like Daughter of the Year. "Whitney, you're outside!" or "Whitney, you woke up before noon!" It's worked so far.

The whole process was a little intimidating, honestly. There was one moment when I found a long lost item under my bed and I was sure that a monster would grab me forcefully by the arm and drag me into the abyss. However, it was pretty neat finding things I'd long forgotten about.

My favorite of the day: Old school assignments. I never seemed to take school seriously. However, my teachers mistook my snark for actual writing talent and gave me A's.

Exhibit A, actual excerpts from a script for Little Red Riding Hood: the Musical that I wrote for Music 1010:

WOLF: You are brilliant, you devilishly wolfy self! Dressing in drag is the perfect way to get a meal. Although I suppose I could've just gone to McDonald's. But I'd better practice a little bit so as to get into character... (Clears throat.) (Old lady voice) Oh, my heavenly ginger snaps! What a mess the young folk have become! I remember when I was a little girl, we had to walk fifteen miles barefoot in the snow to the drugstore just to get a packet of spearmint gum and a yo-yo.

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD: Hello, Grandmother!
WOLF: Hello, young (realizes he never knew her name) um...I'm sorry. I'm getting a bad case of the grandmotherly forgetfulness! (chuckles) Um...
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD: Little Red Riding Hood?
WOLF: Oh, yes! I never would've picked out that name. You look more like a Sarah...or a Penelope...

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD: You saved me, Axeman! Thank you! But how did you know that I was in trouble?
AXEMAN: I have no idea, actually. I guess I heard some screaming and wanted to investigate the ruckus. Not to mention my axeman senses were tingling.

NARRATOR: The three of them spent the rest of the afternoon happily munching on Little Red Riding Hood's delicious basket of goodies. The moral of the story is this: If you want dinner, go to McDonald's. Don't dress in drag.

Then there was the bill I wrote for Government. While others chose serious subjects like medicine and abortion, I wrote a bill about how the letter "W" should be recognized as the best letter of the alphabet. I made bulletproof points such as "since 'W' is the beginning letter of 'water,' we would dehydrate and die without it" and "E is the most used letter in the alphabet, and it looks kind of like a 'W' when you tilt your head to the right." Regardless, this bill was immediately rejected in fake Congress. One of my more outspoken classmates even said it was pointless. I just like to believe that I'm one of those misunderstood, offbeat, artist-y types. At least that's been my excuse since I was thirteen.

Besides, if Bert believes it, it must be true.



Bert from Sesame Street would smile upon (or at least his unibrow would smile upon) my room cleaning and W loving ways.

I immediately took my title as perverted, but I'm keeping it anyway.

My old iPod, Bubbah (yes, I'm one of those crazy people that names their possessions), died dramatically of old age a couple of weeks ago. With many scratches on his bodice and the pixels on his screen losing their luster, Bubbah passed at the age of four. (One year in iPod years is the equivalent to twenty human years. I'm going to make this a legitimate thing.)

However, this gave me the opportunity to buy a new iPod. His name is Louis.

Since Louis is not an iPhone, the non-removable "Contacts" section on the home screen looked very empty and lonely. I took it upon myself to back up all of my phone contacts. I was going to have such a detailed collection of friends' birthdays, phone numbers, and addresses, it would make the 2010 Census feel jealous. I also thought, 'I'm the most awkwardly antisocial person on Earth. This shouldn't take long at all.'

It took over two hours. It turns out I actually have a pretty decent sized collection of contacts. I'll leave "decent sized" to your interpretation to more than likely make myself seem more popular than I actually am.
I'm no social butterfly, but I wouldn't say my social life is lacking either. I have friends that like me and stuff. Why all the contacts, though? Why haven't I been compelled to talk to some of these people?

I made a graph to try to broaden my understanding.



It didn't work.

You're probably thinking, 'Oh, Whitney! Why don't you give someone in that 75% of your graph a call? They probably subconsciously want to hear from you! Spread smiles to every heart in the world, blah blah blah.' Well, Hypothetical Person, I think you underestimate my social anxiety. In my very limited experience I've gotten two types of responses from the 75% in my graph.

First, the indifferent. You'll send a text to them along the lines of, "Hey, I haven't talked to you in ages! How's your life? How's your job? How's your weather? How's your dog?" You put your phone down and move on with your life and realize -- maybe in a day, maybe in a week -- they never texted you back. Even if it takes a while, I eventually respond to every initial "Hey, it's been a while" text I receive (granted they're from people I like.) I'm just awesome. I never really got that whole "I'm going to give you my number and I'm never going to talk to you even if you try to talk to me" thing. Maybe it was actually their evil twin with a twisted sense of humor that agreed to "keep in touch" with me? That's my current theory.

Then there is the other type of person, who decides I'm their long lost best friend. It's like a trickle turning into a flood. They'll give me hourly updates on every irrelevant facet of their lives. It's like Twitter without the Twitter. In a frustrated huff you think, 'I just wanted to check and see if you were alive and still work at that one job you had. It's nice to know that your cat, Sprinkles, is going in for a neutering I guess.'

As much as my inner socialite likes to come out and try to embrace 100% of my contact book, I'm ultimately fine with my 15%. They're my friends that like me and stuff.

'Why not just delete the rest of them?' I ask myself in a schizophrenic-like fashion at nearly 1:00 in the morning. I seem to tend to save deletion for either "I hate your face and never want to talk to it again" or "Seriously, it's been five years." Whichever comes first. I think it's safe to say that everyone has that bulk of acquaintances they haven't quite trimmed off yet, those numbers they're afraid to delete for one reason or another. If this person texts me their own "Hey, it's been a while" message, I'm the horrible person that didn't give our uncultivated friendship a chance. This would lead me to either sending the "Who is this?" text that doesn't intend to hurt but always does, or I play a rousing game of "Guess who this old friend is?" Neither are very fun.

Also, what if I need their number later? What if a man walks into WalMart with a bomb strapped to his chest and shouts, "I am going to blow this place sky high unless someone has Bobby from high school's phone number!" Do you expect me to have that blood on my hands, the innocent lives that just wanted to save money and live better? I don't think so.

Or maybe this is all just my way of making myself seem more popular than I actually am. This idea is sound, considering I name my electronics.

Before I get started with the matter at hand, I'm baffled as to why my brain chooses to give me blogging inspiration at the inhuman hours in the morning. I was just about to wrap up the day when I started scribbling things down frantically in my cerebral notepad. There are quite a few uneventful minutes in my day, Brain. Why do you always so urgently have to cut into my sleeping time?

Someone may suggest jotting down ideas when I'm a little more, you know, awake. I can assure you that this does not work. See, for example, an old notepad document that I titled "blog ideas":

Reasons Why I Want a VW Beetle
Utah!
Hiccup Cures
My Brain is a Burden
How Dating Can Kill You

Do I have any idea what I'm going on about with any of these potential subjects? No. Not even a little bit. Case made.

The topic that sealed my late writing fate is Facebook, which I decided to check before going to bed. If the day involves me spending a lot of time on the internet (which, unfortunately, is every day since my job heavily involves internet usage) I end up checking this website more times than I can admit while having my dignity intact. However, checking Facebook to me is like smoking cigarettes; you get a little joy out of it in the moment and a craving is satisfied, but it's very hazardous in the long run.

I've been wondering lately why I have such an aversion to the popular social networking site known as Bookface regardless of how often I check it. This can be summed up in a basic mathematical (but this doesn't really use any numbers, so it's more like a wordmatical) formula:

social inadequacy + social anxiety (squared) x anti-social tendencies = aversion 2 FB (hardcore *)
* Maybe I would have been better at math if "hardcore" was normally used in formulas?

Explanation: I don't do well around people, people intimidate me, and that's okay because I prefer my alone time anyway. Ultimately Facebook involves people and social networking, two things I fail miserably at, which means that it baffles me to no end. I could probably share plenty of mini stories with you, but today let me tell you the tale of when I was a friend count slut.

Remember back in the days of yore of MySpace, when your friend count was tied into your value as a human being? I must have forgotten that MySpace is on its way out, now only used by people who try to make a world record of how many words they can misspell in a lifetime, and I carried this determining factor of worth to my Facebook for a minute. Maybe it's because I am a nice person under all of the layers of being so standoffish, but I add and accept anyone I ever knew by name, talked to, and who didn't annoy me completely. However, being so casual about how you befriend on Facebook only means that someone can also be casual in removing you. Easy come, easy go.

Instead of realizing that the ex Facebook friend probably thought they had an impersonal connection to their chain of friends and figured it would be fine to remove me (since neither of us talked to each other anyway), my mind ball jumped to the (not at all dramatic) conclusion of, "BAWL someone in this world hates me." I would panic a little on the inside. I would even look at other people's friend counts and compare myself to them. For someone who has such anti-social tendencies, I sometimes surprise myself how much I crave the approval of nameless and faceless people. I guess, since I am one of those people things that baffle me, I have to baffle myself as well. This bafflement (oh, hey "bafflement" is a word) includes the fact that even though friend counts don't mean near as much to me anymore, I can still tell you exactly how many Facebook friends I have. Checking the number is a habit I'm trying to break.

What probably astounded me the most is not that I lost a Facebook friend, or not that I even cared so much about it, but that I could never tell who the person was that removed me. I would pour over my friends list, wracking my brain to see who was missing, but to no avail. I gave myself cranial aneurysms over people that I didn't even notice were gone. This was a person I put little to no effort cultivating a friendship with. If I were more selective about who my Facebook friends were myself, I would probably have deleted them. One day I thought, 'Why should I care so much about a person that I really wasn't that close with to begin with?' Answer: I shouldn't. And that is when I stepped foot on the road to recovery.

The awkward factor still remains, however. Since I rarely realize who exactly deleted me, I will see their name come up somewhere and forget that that ship has sailed. When I send a request, I don't realize that I'm coming off as flailing and desperate to someone who had already deleted me. Just like a horrible image that cannot be unseen, the Facebook friend request cannot be undone. (Unless you do this. This has saved my ass from Awkwardtown on several occasions.) This more than likely leads to the person adding you again out of what they think is politeness (and is really just a beating around the bush and, ultimately, obnoxious), and then trying to sneakily re-delete you a month later. They try, and they fail, because this person is under your radar now. Your "I know you're a Facebook friend deleter" radar. I see very little point in befriending someone that you subconsciously know, whether it's in a month or in six, you are not comfortable with updating on your life and will delete anyways. I'd rather be rejected upfront.

Facebook does not alert you about deleted friends and rejected requests, even though it would prevent awkward encounters like these. The truth is that Facebook can be so impersonal that you forget that there are real people with real feelings on the other end. Before technology, the severing of a friendship involved a lot more respect. Arguably the Facebook friend deletion can be seen as a visual representation of two acquaintances that simply drifted apart, but even something as big as a break up can be done via Facebook. (Yes, that has happened to me. Twice. I have more in my arsenal as far as Facebook rants go, instead of just friend counts.)

The point is that I have an idea. Facebook should alert you of these severed ties, but in a gentle almost motherly way. Such as:

Dear Stacy,

Facebook regrets to inform you that Veronica has removed you as a Facebook friend. Don't feel too bad about it, though. You had one class with her in your junior year of high school, and you just added her to be a nice and awesome person anyway. On the bright side, this is one less person that you could run into at the supermarket and feel obligated to struggle to say things to.

Sincerely,

Mark Zuckerberg

Yes, I think Mark Zuckerberg should personally write these. What else does a 26 year-old billionaire have to do with their time?

Also, an apology letter of those hours we will never get back from checking Facebook would be appreciated.

This entry is about a month premature, but I figured I would get my cynicism out of the way so I could spend this February 14th reveling in my single awesomeness.

As a single woman, it's practically my job to mock people who are in relationships. I have all this free time that I would otherwise be using by arguing with my boyfriend. When I have my own beau, I fully expect to be ridiculed. It's the Circle of Life.

Anyone that has been single for the majority of their life can more than likely come up with more than four obnoxious couples. These just came to me at random. Now, I bestow upon you...four types of obnoxious couples!

4. Conveniently Named Couples
Pretty much names that sound too perfect together. This includes couples that you don't have to force a celebrity couples name for (i.e. "Brangelina" and "Bennifer"), alliterations, names that rhyme and, God forbid, having the same name. These couples aren't inherently obnoxious. It's the way they're presented. They're like twins, or a circus sideshow act or something. It's unnatural.

I'm sure when the people involved in the couple think about it, it's like:
"My name is Zoey. His name is Zac. Kinda cool, huh?"

Whereas in my head, I picture this:
"I'm Zoey and he's Zac, and we searched the world in all of its E's and J's and R's to find each other. We're both also unconventionally spelled, which only adds to our soul mate factor. Stare at us in wonder and bow to us in our perfectly named glory!"

This is like Nicolas Sparks is planning out and writing their lives, and it's gross. Couples with quirks appeal to me more than the seemingly perfect ones. I am much more likely to swoon over a couple named Harry and Voldemorta. They beat the odds.

3. Teenagers
I try not to be ageist, but I'm not a fan of teenagers. I didn't like being around teenagers even when I actually was one, and that includes myself. Teens are irrational creatures and preoccupy themselves with several silly things. Put a few hundred of them together, add hormones and the opposite sex, and they're just hilarious.

You're probably thinking, 'C'mon, Whitney. Don't act like you had it all figured out at 16 years old." I didn't. I was stupid. Teenagers just should not date! Arguably this time in life does have a lot to do with learning, but it's like teaching someone how to swim. You could spend weeks watching them barely hold themselves above water, or you could throw them off of a pier while shouting, "Learn or die!"

That's cruel. However, we have student drivers at sixteen. We should start making student daters, as well. They could wear a t-shirt that says "Student Dater," and a dating instructor could bark instructions at them. "No, Sarah, you are only with this guy because you think he's hot. There is no lasting potential here beyond a few weeks tops." "Robert, stop making out with her! Talk to her about Nicki Minaj or something!" "Janet, just because you have the same favorite color doesn't mean you're in love with him!"

2. The Obsessed
This happens to everyone. You have a new boyfriend, and it's awesome. You can call him multiple times a day, and he won't place a restraining order on you. You can finally change your relationship status, and you're squeeing inside. He's your favorite topic of conversation. When you go out to lunch, you want to stand on your table with a megaphone and shout, "You see that guy?! That is my boyfriend!"

For most, within a few months, this wears off. You're still happy, but the feeling has transferred from a drug induced hyperactivity to a warm comforting glow worm in your tummy. Those that never progress to this next stage only worsen to the point of being unbearable over time.

I've been both the person with the boyfriend and the single one hearing about my friend's boyfriend. As someone who has had to deal with girls who I'm sure keep locks of their guy's hair in a bottle around their neck and make dolls out of his chewing gum, I have one mission and one mission only: Don't be obnoxious. Allow myself to talk about my boyfriend, but integrate that topic with your family and work and movies and all that other stuff that actually matters in my life.

It just doesn't seem worth it when you get into a conversation like this:
Friend: My boyfriend is so cute!
Me: Awww, that's awesome! Speaking of cute, today my niece...
Friend: Last Saturday we went on a date, and when he picked me up he was wearing a green shirt. He looks so good in green!
Me: ...He must be an autumn, then. So...
Friend: Then he took me to get pizza, and it's like, how does he know I love pizza? It's like he read my mind!
Me: I think that's a safe bet. Well...
Friend: And he held my hand! But he didn't interlace his fingers with mine, so I don't know what to make of that...
Me: I have cancer!
Friend: And than after that we went to see that new Jennifer Lopez movie...
Me: You realize there's a war going on, right?

Then you go onto Facebook to talk to people without having to actually talk to people, and it's a couples frenzy. Statuses dedicated to each other. Multiple posts on each other's wall. Five profile picture changes, all of the two of you together. We get it. You're in a relationship. That's great. When you rub it into the rest of the world's faces, though? That's a little less great.

1. The Drama Llamas
This one is the doozy. Instead of thinking, 'Hey, this relationship sucks. I should get out of it,' they seem to thrive off of each other. They're constantly fighting. They're broken up and gotten back together multiple times. They hate how much they love each other and love how much they HATE each other! It's not real love unless it's difficult and passionate. Give me a break.

It's like the experiment with rats. One door electrocutes you when you touch it, while the other has cheese. Some only need to be electrocuted once to think, 'Hey. That hurt. I should go for the other door. It has cheese.' It seems to me that some want the electrocuting door to be the cheese door so badly that they're willing to zap themselves into a charred mess of defeat.

That may not sound very logical to you. That's because it's not logical. Neither is trying to talk to someone in a relationship like this:

"This is just a hunch, but your relationship with this girl isn't exactly healthy."
"But I love her! I love her!"
"Right, yeah, that many splendored thing. But do you remember that time she cheated on you with your brother? That doesn't sound very splendored to me."
"She just needed to be with that guy to show her that we're meant to be together."
"Um. Okay?"
"I'm accepting my constant heartache like a champ. If I am obsessed with her and in denial for long enough, she'll see how unshakable my love is and want to marry me. It's passionate."
"Or you could put all of that passion into something else? Like maybe a hobby? Or finding a therapist?"


Unfortunately it seems like more couples fit into the obnoxious category than the not-obnoxious category. That is what makes that one find so special. To the singles, we'll party it up in our singletude. To the healthy relationships, claps for you! And to the rest of you...go find your cheese.