Not that I won't eat half a Donato's pizza. I'm just saying.

Oh my word, The Office was funny last night. I love shows that actually make me laugh out loud like that. When Jim was interrogating Dwight in the conference room, I just lost it. Ahhh, comic gold. When Jim and Pam were talking about buying a Coke, I noticed he gave her a dollar for the 12-ounce can. Wow. We're paying a dollar (or close to it) for a can of pop now. I remember when cans out of a machine were 45 cents. Of course, that was back in the day before we got the individual-sized plastic bottles that I REFUSE to pay $1.25 for. Think about it: you can get a 2-liter of pop for a dollar. Why are we paying $1.25 for one 20-ounce bottle?!? Don't give in, people!

This is further proof of my theory that the reason Americans are getting so much fatter is mainly due to larger serving sizes. Listen, when we were kids, you went to McDonald's and the biggest thing you could get was a Big Mac, a large drink (which is a medium now) and a large fries (which, again, is a medium now). There was no super size. There was no 36-ounce bucket of Coke. And, for the love of Pete, there was no double quarter pounder. Why don't they just call that a half pounder??? It makes no sense!

Anyway, I remember this one study I learned about in college where psychologists gave students a bowl of soup to eat. Half the students had just a normal bowl of soup, but the other half had a bowl that was connected to a tube that kept feeding soup into the bowl. And those kids just kept eating and eating. Their eyes tricked their stomach. And I think that's the problem now. Americans think a XL pizza is normal, a 2-pound steak is typical and a Coke the size of my thigh is usual. We need to try to get back to eating normal portions again. Fight the power!

Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

This is precisely what I would rather be doing right now. It's another month until our vacation, and I have the feeling it's going to be a long month, my friends. Actually, I shouldn't complain. It's just funny working at a college sometimes because when the students and teachers leave to go on summer break, we staff members don't get to, but that doesn't mean we don't want to. We get a nice break over Christmas, but one day I would be so happy if our boss came in and said "Hey, dudes. It's June 3rd. Take the week off." That would be sa-weet.

And if I have to see another picture of Angelina Jolie, I am going to barf.

April mittens always bring me down

I had a dream last night that J's niece stole my silver sequin shoes. HEADS WOULD ROLL.

It is curious how when I went to bed last night it was April 25th, and when I woke up this morning it was December 8th. So cold! It seriously got down to something like 38 last night. I had to haul out the space heater and huddle in front of it to eat my cereal this morning. The Wubby was sitting next to me on the floor and looking at me as if to say "You wussy, wussy woman. You make me sick." Easy for him to say with his expensive fur coat.

And what is this I hear about Britney Spears being pregnant again? Is she mad? Can somebody, anybody please explain to me why a woman would have two babies with a man she can only tolerate when she's high? Cause you can't smoke the dope your entire life. Eventually you're going to want to remember something.

Go Buckeyes!

My friend whom I refer to as Poppy is getting married and moving to Connecticut this summer. I was talking to her on the phone last night and she was saying she's thinking about starting up a blog to detail her observations about country life vs. city life. I think that's a marvelous idea. Not just because I love blogs with a theme (sure, my blog sort of has a theme but I don't think "thoughts about donuts" really counts), but because Poppy is a great writer and I think she'd come up with some very witty comments about Connecticut. I told her last night that I picture her wearing knee socks, plaid skirts and turtlenecks with ducks on them by August. And I just assume she'll have a dozen pairs of loafers by then, as well.

Even though I've lived in a few different states during my college years, it's hard to imagine living anywhere but here right now. I'm too ensconced in my football, shopping mall and Steak'n'Shake existence. In fact, just the other day I was startled to find myself saying "Well, maybe some New Yorker would spend $500 on a purse, but not me!" Great. Let's just hook up the mashed potato IV drip and get this over with.

Blowing chunks

The Ann tummy has had a rough few days. I still don't feel completely recovered from eating at the Chinese buffet on Saturday night. Wow. Next time I go mini-golfing, I'm just going to have crackers and ginger ale beforehand because it's really embarrassing to be lying on the ground, doubled over in pain beside the 9th hole.

I've always had such a sensitive digestive system though. I'll throw up at the drop of a hat, I promise you. Motion sickness, hormone-induced nausea, general queasiness, these are all my friends. In 8th grade, I threw up in the middle of a basketball game for no good reason. And I've had many periods in my life where I'll just wake up in the morning and feel really sick for days at a time, and then it just goes away eventually. Curious. I think I got this digestive trouble from my Dad. He was one of those fathers that would be in the bathroom for half an hour at a time, and when I was a kid, I could never figure out what he was doing in there. When we got older (our teenage years), he started joking around about it, and when he was in the bathroom, he'd start moaning really loud and trying to get us to laugh. Such a card.

I got a Benz that I ain't even drove yet

It's Saturday afternoon and I'm at work. As usual, it's not exactly a hotbed of activity. I've been here an hour and a half and I think ten students have been in. We're on fire!

My afternoon off yesterday was nice. I got a lot of errands done. And, let me tell you something, Target had Easter candy on sale 75% off. I got J a bag of Robin's eggs for 42 cents. 42 cents, people! That's diabetes on a dime.

So now I'm just waiting for closing time so we can go get some Quizno's for dinner and do some mini-golfing. I'm disproportionately excited about the mini-golfing. You'd think I'd have something against it after the purse-falling-in-the-lake incident of last summer, but I haven't let it scare me off.

Have a Hot Pocket...they're breathtaking

Whoever invented sleeping pills was a genius. Thanks to the wonder of diphenhydramine, I got over 7 hours of sleep last night. Score. I'm also in a good mood this morning because I have the afternoon off since I'm working tomorrow. I don't have plans to do anything particularly fun this afternoon, but I always appreciate the opportunity to get some errands done during the day. Makes me feel like I'm in college again.

I went on glamour.com yesterday and did this virtual model of myself to try on virtual bathing suits. Unfortunately, my virtual self did not look good in any of their virtual bikinis. Damn. Maybe I was being overly critical, just staring at it on the monitor like that...I guess the lesson here is that I should always be moving when I'm in a bathing suit so nobody has time to look at me too closely. When we're on vacation, I'll run to the pool, swim the entire time then run away from it. That's good cardio.

Bring out your dead

I've been up since 1:45 this morning. I don't even know what to say about my insomnia anymore. It's just sick and wrong. All night I kept thinking "I'll definitely fall back asleep soon" and it just never happened. Son of a triscuit. And since I watched House the other night and the featured patient started out with a sleeping disorder and ended up having bubonic plague, any second now I'm expecting buboes to appear on my neck. And I wore a v-neck shirt today. Son of a triscuit.

Wiggity wiggity whack

I was walking into the kitchen last night carrying a big ol' pile of clothes to be washed, and as I passed J in the computer room, I let out a strangled-sounding cough for some reason. So J asked me "What are you choking on?" and I replied "Indignity!"

Ahhh, I just had my first sip of coffee for the day. I put in some extra sugar just for the heck of it. Well, actually, I'm using Splenda, not sugar. It takes away some of the guilt because I generally don't like coffee unless it's got about 5 sugar packets in it, so the diet stuff eases my conscience. But anybody who says Splenda tastes just like sugar is on crack. My email spam keeps trying to tell me Splenda is the sweetener of the devil, and I don't buy that at all, but it's not the same as sugar.

I am unable to drive 55

Gas is up to $2.70 a gallon here. I have never been so happy that I drive a small car with a moped engine in it. I think to fill it up now, it would cost about $35, so when I drive up to a pump after an SUV has been there and see that they had to spend $70 to fill up their car, I at least feel a little bit better about things. I wish I lived in a city that had good public transportation or in a neighborhood where I wasn't afraid to ride a bike around for fear that I'll get mugged. Ideally, I could afford to buy a scooter. Sure, it's not very safe in an accident, but I think it would be fast enough to outrun a crackhead since they don't have very good lung capacity. I think these are cute:

Honestly, isn't that adorable? Can't you picture me riding that with the wind in my hair and the Wubby J. in a basket on the front?

In the ghettoooooo

As if the Wubby J. wasn't having a bad enough weekend, he threw up in our bedroom in the middle of the night last night. J got up and cleaned it up, and as he was walking out of the room to get the paper towels, he yelled at me "Don't get up! There's stuff on the floor! Just stay where you are!" I was thinking "Dude, it's 2 a.m. There's really no danger of me going anywhere...zzzzz."

The funniest thing happened on the street yesterday. We were outside on the porch talking to a neighbor when we heard a ruckus a block up. There was a young guy on the sidewalk punching a car that was driving next to him. So, of course, we started listening to what was going on, and the guy was screaming at the girl who was driving, yelling things like "You fat &^%#@! It's over! I can't believe you talked about my dead mama like that on Easter! Get the *@%" out of here! It's over! I will @%#* you up!" And that went on the entire length of the street. In fact, I watched him yell at her from the sidewalk and her follow him in the car for a good 5 minutes. That's what Easter's like on the west side.

The Easter Wubbiss

We took the Wubby J. to the vet's yesterday for a couple shots. He was such a good boy! Yes, he was! He didn't hiss, scratch or bite anybody. He was shaking in the waiting room, and he tried to hide behind J during his checkup, but other than that, he was a real trouper. The poor little guy must be sore from his shots today though, because he's not his usual, attack-every-ankle-that-goes-by self. But I am fully confident he'll be back in fighting form in no time.

We've had a good Easter so far. We had breakfast with my in-laws this morning, and that was much fun. It makes my heart hurt a little to not see my nephews hunt for eggs, but I'm trying to keep the ol' chin up. At least this way I'm not tempted to steal their jelly beans from them. Because I'm not above that emotion, believe me.

Suck it, Old Navy

I don't know if it's national or not, but there's this Old Navy commercial that's been on tv a lot around here that is driving me crazy. It's the one where a group of young people are dancing on a rooftop to a "She's my summertime girlfriend song" and wearing tan and brown clothes. It is just painful to watch. I feel bad for everyone involved: me for having to watch it, the actors for dancing like a bunch of suburban parents, the one black actor for having to pretend like that's how he normally dances, and for the company that thought this would look cool. Ugh. It's embarrassing and shameful for everybody involved. I cringe just thinking about it.

In happier news, however, it is Friday and I'm wearing silver sequined shoes! Yay! Our big Easter brunch has now been reduced to a smaller family gathering because so many people bailed on it to work. Isn't that sad to think that people have to work on Easter? No jelly beans? No Cadbury cream eggs? No ham? The Easter Bunny is rolling over in his nest of shredded pink plastic.

Mmm...peanut buster parfait

Lost was not at its most exciting last night. I was surprised that Rose turned out to be so high-strung. Sure, she was dying and all, but I don't know if that's cause to be so snotty to your husband when he's just trying to help. Geesh. Where's the love, Rose? Where's the love? I was happy to see Michael at the end there, and I liked when Bernard told Mr. Eko that he liked him better when he was hitting people with his stick and Charlie said "I like you just the way you are." Hee.

The high today is around 76, and I've got a doctor's appointment this afternoon. I fear it will be hard to come back to work. I may have to take the long way back...you know, the one that takes me past Dairy Queen and my living room couch. I kid, I kid. I have to come back so J's not stranded at work. But I don't think it would hurt anybody if I brought him a Buster Bar.

I'm not internationally known, but I'm known to rock a microphone

It was another interesting night on our street yesterday. Around 10:30, one of J's cousins knocked at the front door to ask for money to get his car out of the impound lot. He wanted $20, but J told him he didn't have any cash on him. So then the cousin and his wife went across the street to my in-laws' house, but they didn't answer the door, as J had already called and warned them what was coming. Apparently, this cousin has had some trouble in the past, which was why J wasn't too keen on handing him money. Although the cousin did offer to let us hold some of his gold chains as collateral. Well, if they're gold chains, this must be on the up-and-up!

I had a dream last night that we went to a wedding and the guy who plays Grissom on C.S.I. was there, and I was asking him what it's like to be famous. And he told me there's a rumor going around in Hollywood that he's on "uppers." Then I went upstairs, wet my hair, and got my driver's license picture taken. I don't get it either.

I wish my desk came with a freezer

I am thrilled to report that we went to Giant Eagle after work last night and SCORED SOME PUDDING POPS!!! Yay! People, they're delicious. They're even better than I remember. Surprisingly, I was even more enamored with the vanilla pop than the chocolate pop I had. Which is odd considering I once considered naming my firstborn Coco (didn't even matter if it was a boy or girl). Maybe my taste buds are maturing and becoming more sophisticated...ha! Good one, Ann. Anyway, I want to thank Arisa for all her blood, sweat and tears in tracking down the pudding pops for me. You, my friend, are the best.

And the hamster I'm rodentsitting was alive when I got in the office this morning. Phew. She is running like a maniac in her wheel right now and making high-pitched grunting noises. Reminds me of those dudes at the gym who put way too much weight on the lifting machines and then grunt and groan for each and every one of their reps. Need I say how annoying that is? I much prefer hanging out with the other slackers by the stationary bikes. We just sit there, read magazines, talk on the phone and give ourselves pedicures while exercising. That's the way to do it.

my humble opinion

I highly recommend the new Dr. Pepper berries and cream pop. It's scrumptious!

Everybody around here has gone so outer limits

There is nothing I appreciate more than a new, creative way to tell somebody to shut it, so when we were watching The Simpsons last night and Mr. Burns said "Smithers, 'I told you so' has a brother. His name is 'Shut the hell up'," I just lost it. Ahh, good stuff.

I don't think I mentioned it earlier, but I'm ratsitting my coworker's hamster while she's on vacation this week. Fortunately, the creature survived the weekend. Hopefully she'll remain among the living for the next week, or I'm going to feel really bad when her owner returns. And, really, the hamster is cute and friendly. I just wish men were this easy to take care of.

Somebody I know made a joking suggestion over the weekend that I have insomnia in order to "get attention." I realize this wasn't a serious statement, but the more I think about it, the less that makes sense. Who am I trying to get attention from? Owls? Possums? The idea that I would deprive myself of sleep on purpose in order to get sympathy from people just kills me. Normally, the day after I can't sleep, I try not to talk to people at all because I'm so cranky the sound of footsteps sends me into a fit. I feel so misunderstood.

God is bowling above Ohio

I did it. I cut my bangs last night so they're now like actual bangs. J said I look like my pictures from high school. This will be interesting to see if people on campus start asking me if I'm a student instead of staff again (when I first started here I had bangs, and people often asked what my major was). The experiment begins!

I also went to the store last night to pick up a few essentials: milk, cheese, Diet Vernor's, the usual. I also had a hankering for some pudding pops, but it turns out nobody makes pudding pops anymore. Waaaah! I loved those things. Why did they stop making them? It's a travesty! I guess I could try to make my own by whipping up some pudding and freezing it in the very cute popsicle maker Ashrey and Mark gave us last year, but I fear it just won't be the same. Ahhh, pudding pops. Another fave snack food bites the dust.

Jabba no wonga

Lost was not as much fun to watch last night because it occurred to me early on that Dave was probably a hallucination. In fact, the minute they threw the basketball past him, I figured he was just in Hurley's head. And, really, the only interesting thing about that back story was seeing Libby there at the end, but, again, I already knew that was going to happen because of a clue I read on the internet. But I did think it was neat how the writers addressed that theory a lot of viewers had that the whole island was just a figment of Hurley's imagination in the mental institution. That show is getting very meta. It's freaking me out! Oh, and did anybody else love Sun and Jin's faces while they watched Hurley beating up Sawyer? Heh. Nice.

Scalpicin

It's finally starting to sink in that Katie Couric is not going to be on the Today show anymore. I've been watching her in the mornings since I was 16. Sure, I went through a brief, unfortunate period watching Good Morning, America, but it was a mistake! I was young! I just hope that my nemesis, Campbell Brown, does not get the job. One day she and I are going to have a serious disagreement. Oooh, you know where that line is from? That scene in Last of the Mohicans where Nathaniel and the British major get in the fight about letting colonials leave, and after Nathaniel says that thing about the disagreement, the major yells "I will have you beaten from this fort!" I love that movie!

Wubby had a hairball this morning. It was pretty nasty stuff. So, being the girl that I am, I covered it with a paper towel and asked J if he was going to clean it up. Hey, I clean the bathroom every week. I'm not doing all the dirty work.

Fingernails that shine like justice

I feel soooo much better today. I slept really well last night. In fact, I fell asleep on the couch around 8:30 and never did find out what happened to "Archie, the 84-pound baby."

J cracked me up last night. Apparently around 12:30 a couple kids were sitting in a car on the street in front of our next-door neighbor's house and honking their horn. I heard it a couple times in my sleeping pill slumber, but I was groggy enough that I didn't even mind that much. But it woke J up out of a deep sleep, which ticked him off, so he marched over to the bedroom window, threw it open and yelled "I will shove that *#&%^@ horn right up your @%#!" Needless to say, the honking stopped and the kids drove away. You know how many times I've wanted to yell something like that to somebody who woke me up? That J, he's got moxie.

You're Joan Wilder??

I did get my hair cut yesterday, and I am now sporting some jaunty bangs. They're actually pretty long; they go down to almost my chin, but it's nice to have something going on in my hair instead of it just laying there like a defeated mule.

It's been quite a morning so far. I've been up since 2:30 this morning. I have no explanation. I tried everything I could think of to make myself go back to sleep, but nothing worked. I even tried reading a boring book at 5 this morning and just got a headache. Son of a! I don't know how I'm going to last all day. I'll just put in the caffeine drip and hope for the best.

I also got one of those fraudulent emails this morning saying I paid almost $400 out of paypal, and if I disagreed with that charge, there was a "dispute transaction" link at the bottom. Now, I totally disagreed with the charge, but I'm married to an IT guy, so I know better than to go through a link like that. Turns out they were just phishing, but that really was scary for a second there.

Zzzzzz

I know this post will show up that I wrote it at 7:35 in the morning, but it sure doesn't feel like 7:35. Ugh. The spring time change is a cruel beast.

I'm thinking about going and getting bangs cut into my hair today. I hope I don't regret this tomorrow. Because I have slow-growing hair. I was always jealous of girls whose hair grew out of bad haircuts quickly. Mine are there for a good 6 months.