My friend Ellen likes to be busy — uber busy. This is the woman who worked full-time with a job that required travel, had two kids in elementary school, and was going to college on the accelerated program where she had study groups on every Saturday. It overwhelmed me to just ‘think’ about her schedule. Once she graduated, with honors , she had ‘too much time on her hands’ and signed up to be a Girl Scout leader.

Me? When I look at the calendar, I’ve got commitments from now until the end of the year. I feel as if I’m drowning — please, someone toss a floatie to me to keep my head above water. Some of it’s fun stuff but it’s still stressing me out. I’ve realized I need lots of blank space on my calendar.
Someone could offer me a free trip to the beach and it would just stress me out more because I’d have to pack and prepare for it and that’s just sad because the beach out of season is one of my fave places to be.

What about you? Are you an Ellen or a Jen? Do you like your calendar full or do you like lots of empty spaces on there?

I’m all a-blog blabbing over at the Soapbox Queens about the lie I recently told. C’mon over. We’ve saved you a spot.

This is just weird. I can’t figure it out. I am not a fashionista. In fact, I’m the one that always looks slightly askew. I don’t particularly like to watch television. Why, then do I LOVE to watch America’s Next Top Model? I dunno. But I do.

Yes, the one that would’ve been voted the least likely to tune into ANTM, can and does spend hours in front of the tube watching episode after episode. It’s not even the sexiness of Nigel Barker that keeps me there for hours because we just don’t see that much of him. I love the behind the scenes interplay between the girls, the modeling challenges, the clothes, the makeup, even the feedback the judges give them. It makes me wish I weren’t too old, too short, too heavy and too average because I think it would kick to do the high-fashion couture work.

Alas, I am too old, too short, too heavy and lack exquisite bone structure (although I did take a relativley great driver’s license pic despite the fact the dvm wasn’t offering glamour shots or photo retouching — bastards), therefore I will continue to .

And are there any other Nigel Barker fans out there? (If my fickin;-frackin’ image manager was working I’d treat us all to a pic of the lovely Brit.)

So what show is surprisingly appealling to you? C’mon now, it’s time to air our dirty t.v.-viewing laundry.

There is the nicest little old lady that’s the door greeter at Wal-Mart…and she drives me crazy…and then I feel quilty cause she drives me crazy. On the incoming she says hello and thanks me for shopping at Wal-Mart. I’m cool with that.

It’s the “out” message that’s the problem. I walk fast. I usually have places to go, things to do. Even if I don’t, I still walk fast. It’s just sorta the way I transport. I’m not a stroller. I’ve got to downshift heavy-duty to hit a stroll. I’ve cleared the security sensors, I’m heading for the double doors.

“Thank you for shopping at Wal-Mart. Have a nice day,” says the greeter who reminds me of my mother.

“Thank you. You too.”

“Come back to see us soon.”

“Er, okay.”

“Travel safe and enjoy your day.”

“Thank you.”

“We’ll see you when you come back.”

STOP!! She had me at thanking me for shopping and wishing me a nice day. Can you see my quandry? I’ve either got to blow past her and cut her off in the plethora of well-wishing or I wind up stopping and damn near having a conversation on my way out.

I want to pull her aside and beg her to just leave it at the thanks and bye. I feel terrible if I don’t hang around for the whole spiel but then it irritates me and I feel guilty over my irritation cause she’s so nice. See…too nice. And what kind of horrible person does that make me?

I’ve taken to exiting through the other door…all the way at the other end of the Super Wal-Mart cause I just can’t take the inner turmoil anymore.

Honestly, sometimes my mouth just runs before my brain has time to process. Therefore, I sometimes come across as rather tactless. Shocking, I know.

So, I’m doing some grocery shopping on Friday evening and I think the woman coming toward me is a former neighbor but I don’t have my glasses on. She gets closer and pulls her shopping cart up next to mine.

“Hey!”

“Oh, my God. Are you sick? What’s wrong with you?”

Probably not the best way to greet someone. But she just didn’t look healthy. Her face was drawn and her clothes were hanging on her. She went on to say she’d gotten braces a month ago and could only eat/drink soup and Boost. Hated to tell her, but that Boost wasn’t doing the job.

All those times my heroines blurt something stupid in a book…well, I write what I know. (and not that this emoticon actually goes here, it is but I’ve wanted to use it since I got it.)

Today I have some truly amazing news — I, the queen of always having something to say , was recently rendered speechless! Mais non? Mais oui.

Click over to the Soapbox Queens to find out what precipitated this amazing, seldom-occurring event.

I am so happy, happy, happy! Outside…it’s cool…crisp…absolutely lovely. Hope wherever you are you’re enjoying a bit of Fall in the air.

So, I log onto Mozilla and color me the easily entertained but a lot of times I scroll down to check out the top ten searches for the day on Yahoo. Numero ten on Sunday evening is…David Cassidy. David Cassidy?

3 Questions:

1. How many searches does it take to rank in the top 10? Like maybe 3? This makes me want to conduct a very unscientific, uncontrolled study by asking everyone who reads this blog to bop over to Yahoo and do a search on me to see if I could show up in the top 10. THAT would be cool…me and David Cassidy. Oh, yeah.

2. Who? Who is out searching for David Cassidy? This is just sad.

3. Why? Why are these people yahooing him? Like did I miss some big Partridge Family reunion? A QVC extravaganza of David or Partridge Family memorabilia? What gives?

Okay, I’m rallying the troops here for answers. If you have the remotest, foggiest…please, do tell! Share. And uh…don’t forget to Yahoo search me.