1. Do not play tennis and then drink margaritas unless your goal is to experience multicolored vomit.
2. Do not order anything at a bar called a Trucker Plate and then proceed to wash it down with lots of whiskey. Especially if you are not a trucker. Doubly especially if the Trucker Plate includes fried deviled eggs.
3. It's okay to refuse that third drink. Even if it's free. Maybe especially if it's free.
4. Remember that thing called peer pressure? It exists in places outside of high school, and most of those places are bars.
5. Just because a drink is cool does NOT mean it tastes good. Actually, most drinks that taste good are very uncool.
6. It's okay to order a drink that is uncool.

What are some of the lessons you've learned?

Courtney, I haven't forgotten that you've tagged me! I've just had a difficult time coming up with six random things. :) I'll keep thinking, though.

For dramatic flair, I'm counting down. Also, if you look closely, you might find some themes.

10. The Graduate
9. (Baz Luhrman's) Romeo+Juliet
8. The Virgin Suicides
7. Pleasantville
6. The Darjeeling Limited
5. Little Miss Sunshine
4. i heart huckabees
3. Lost in Translation
2. The Royal Tenenbaums
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Chad: You know what that means, don't you?

Me: It means it's made from trash.

Chad: No, it means it's made from poop.

Me: No, it doesn't! It's made from recycled materials! (Pausing, and laughing.) Wait, I don't know why I'm arguing with you. Clearly, this bag isn't made from poop.

Chad: But it could be.

Me: You know what? It could be.

When I was in the second grade struggling to learn my multiplication tables (which, by the way, didn't stick), I was required to participate daily in a terrible, terrible thing called Mad Minute. We basically had one minute to complete as many math problems as possible. And the irony of it all is that that minute did, in fact, drive me mad. I was so worried about doing well in such a short amount of time that I'd actually end up sitting there staring at the clock for the full minute, pencil in hand, unable to complete a single problem. Even the easy ones, like 1 times 0.

I was so afraid of failing that I failed.

I guess since this experience was almost twenty years ago, it's about time I learn something from it. So I'm doing my best to keep my head down and solve these impossible problems one at a time without letting that goddamn ticking clock get to me. I may end up failing anyway, but hell, this is the best I can do.

And maybe in twenty years I'll learn something from this experience too.

But, oh, how you make my heart ache.

Fondly,
S.

If I could be anywhere in the world right now, it'd be at MGMT's 2008 performance of "Kids" at SXSW. Right next to that dude with the energy drink. He's probably spilling it everywhere, but who the hell cares? There is music happening! Glorious, original music playing on a boombox while the band jumps around to the beat with a lot of strangers!

Clearly, this is my version of heaven.

MGMT is my husband's new favorite band, and I'm totally there with him. He shared this video with me several weeks ago, and just the thought that he would do such a kind and wonderful thing melts my wicked, hardened heart, and I'm suddenly filled with the urge to ride the elevator down five floors, take his face in my hands, and cover it with kisses. In front of all his coworkers.

Let 'em stare. This is love.

And I do try to avoid obtaining these plastic bags at all costs. More often than not, you'll find me leaving a grocery store attempting to juggle several items in my arms. The sane thing to do would be to invest in a canvas grocery bag, but meh. No bag at all? Even better, right?

I've got my pet issues, but we don't even have a recycle bin at our house. However, through a series of twists and turns, a series that mostly involved my making a big stink about how unacceptable it is for a large advertising agency to have Styrofoam cups in its kitchens (did you know that Styrofoam never biodegrades, EVER?!), I've somehow ended up the head of the Green Committee at TracyLocke. So now I'm in charge of finding a cost-effective solution for the Styrofoam cups. Among other things. And by "other things," I mean it's now my job to collect plastic and glass bottles from four floors, rinse them out, separate them, load them into my car, and drive them to a recycling center.

All this, and I caught myself drying my hands with a paper towel this morning instead of the perfectly good dishtowel we keep beside the kitchen sink for that very purpose. And let's ignore the 200 milk jugs I've thrown away in the past year, yeah?

I suppose it's about time I contact the city of Dallas and let them know that I guess those blue thingies? I'll be needing one. Ideally before my hypocrisy is exposed. Like, say, on the internet.

• Bought a guitar.

• Subsequently lost all feeling in the fingertips on my left hand from playing said guitar. And poked myself in the eye at least twice because of that lost feeling.
• Got a new camera (that I really, really love).

• Said goodbye to the old camera.

• Got bit by a spider! On my back! Ew!
• Got stung by a caterpillar! On my wrist! Ew!
• Dealt with a bee infestation in our 85-year-old duplex. (Bees! Ew!)
• Got a second copywriting gig for my agency (the middle piece that reads "Epson or Kodak").

• Went to the dentist for the first time in over a year.
• Found out that I probably have acid reflux disease because it seems my saliva is systematically eating my teeth, and thus I have eleventy billion cavities. Or five, which, to a girl who never, ever had cavities when she was growing up, is the same thing.
• Went to a Feist concert.

• Went to a New Frontiers concert.

• Read The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, a birthday present from my boss.
• Got a tattoo. (That's ink on my foot, not dirt, I promise.)

• Found wild honeysuckle growing in my backyard.

• Exercised enormous willpower to keep from blogging. Things got pretty dicey last Friday when I found this quote in The Writing Life: "Writing sentences is difficult whatever the subject. It is no less difficult to write sentences in a recipe than sentences in Moby-Dick. So you might as well write Moby-Dick." I wanted desperately to write it down somewhere, or at least blog it. I was afraid I'd forget it forever if I didn't.

The only writing I did for myself during the entire two and a half weeks was on the back of an envelope while waiting an hour (AN HOUR!) for the dentist. This is what it said:
"Man with cane speaking Spanish into a cell phone--was he waiting on someone? What would he do if his name were called? His eyes were hard to find. Was waiting on his daughter."

Ever since I was young, I've had this crazy impulse to document my life so that I won't forget it. Or so that no one will forget it; I'm not sure which. When I was eight, I asked for a trunk for Christmas to begin amassing my collection of THINGS I WILL DEFINITELY WANT TO HAVE WHEN I AM OLD. And old, to me then, was 25. I went through that trunk and brought it to Dallas with me last November, and some things I did keep, such as my scrapbook from fourth grade and my baby blanket and a few favorite stuffed animals, but other things (such as my extensive rubber stamp collection) I tossed. But the impulse to preserve, you know, my life is still with me. It lasted well through my teen years, which should explain the fact that I still have the wrapper from the piece of gum I was chewing when I got my first kiss, as well as pretty much every piece of Union Redskins memorabilia that was generated between, oh, I don't know, 1995 and 2001. Go 'Skins.

I used bulletin boards in college, one for every year, to keep track of VERY IMPORTANT THINGS, such as pictures and concert tickets and magazine articles I liked and that piece of fake ivy that was placed onto my head as I was inducted into Sigma Tau Delta, the English honors society and the scoresheet from that time I bowled a 160 (complete with turkey!) and no one was there to see it. Last November I packed everything from each bulletin board into gallon-sized Ziploc bags marked with the corresponding academic year and placed each bag into my trunk.

Once I graduated college, my blog took the place of the bulletin boards and the trunk. There, I could link to articles I liked, write stories, and keep a log of my activities. My mom gave me my first digital camera the day I graduated (pictured above), and I began posting pictures of my daily adventures. Suddenly, I was able to document my life in a way I never could before.

I used to do a lot more writing and used have a lot more adventures, but, whatever my blog has become, it is still a repository for all of these things, and I can't imagine not having a space for that. I spent two weeks going frantic without it. Living an undocumented, anonymous life, I found, is not for me.

And so I will continue on. Maybe the writing'll come back to me. Maybe not. But I realized that what I'm doing here is completely for me, and if people happen to read it and happen to enjoy what goes on here, and some even happen to comment and say so, then all the better.

Today you are two years old. Or, 16 years old in big-dog years. And you are, indeed, a big dog.

This morning I dropped you off at doggie daycare as a birthday present to you, because who wants to spend their birthday trapped in a tiny cage? You pulled at the leash frantically as we were walking in, and once we got inside, you couldn't wait to get into the main room. This, my love, is a miracle. I never thought I'd see the day when you actually enjoyed doggie daycare. Until recently, you had a reluctant doggie daycare routine, and this routine consisted of you sitting down and refusing to budge while the kindly workers pushed your unwilling ass through the door, where you would proceed to cower in the corner until various dogs forced you out with their noses, and then you'd haul out to the lawn and spend most of the day there alone. I know this because, yes, I do watch the webcams occasionally. But when I left you today, it seemed you were the one doing the forcing out. And I was one proud mama.

I announced to the workers at doggie daycare that today is your birthday, and they all declared "happy birthday!" to you loudly, even though you have no idea what the hell a birthday is, not to mention what a year is, or even time. But as I left doggie daycare, a man who had been at the check-in desk with me asked me if I'm doing anything special for you for your birthday. I hemmed and hawed for a while, and then I said, um, I'm writing you a post on my blog. The man laughed, and then walked very quickly to his car. This is your post, and even if you can't read it, and even if I've begun to feel slight shame at the idea of writing letters to my dog online, I know that you're fully aware of the sentiment behind it. And that that sentiment is precisely what you live for. That, and sticks.

It's been about a year since I've written one of these letters to you, Rufus, and I have to admit that I'm out of practice. How do I describe my love for you and your love for me, both of which have grown incomprehensibly over the past year? Is it in the way you stand beside me when I'm sitting on the couch, and then lift your paw and put it on my chest? Is it the way you lie on the bathmat, your back pressed against the tub, when I'm taking a shower? Or the way you greet me every morning by jumping up on my side of the bed, stretching your legs across my thighs, and laying your head on my stomach?

But I know that it's all of those things, and so many more.

In addition to coming out of your shell a little, you have also become a pretty hilarious dog. Most of the time you're cracking me up, just by being you. By grabbing your "squirrely" and throwing it into the air, playing catch with yourself. By prancing around the house. By your ridiculous, toothy grin. But my favorite has got to be your insistence on cocking your head when I'm talking to you, making me feel as though every word coming out of my mouth is direct prophecy from God.

I vacillate between thinking you're the smartest dog in the whole world and calling you Rufus the Doofus. I have to admit, whatever street smarts you seem to be lacking, your vocabulary is pretty impressive. You understand most everything I say to you, including "Go potty," "Wanna go outside?," "Get your squirrely," "Eat your dinner," and "Wanna go on a walk?" But the holy grail of all of the phrases you understand is definitely "Want a bone?" Some evenings you simply sit and stare at me, silently pleading with my mouth to form these words. And most of the time it works.

Here we are at two years, and the separation anxiety battle is still going on. We've figured out how to manage it somewhat, and by "manage it," I mean that your crazy pills are an absolute necessity. It's shocking sometimes how different you become on those (rare) days I forget to give them to you, how clearly unbalanced you are. It's still an issue of constant trial and error, though. For a while I started feeling really bad about making you spend eight hours in a crate every day, so we took to clearing the entire bathroom out and letting you stay in there with your bed while we were at work. All the spaces within your reach are completely covered in tile, so we figured you didn't have many options for destruction. But no. After a couple weeks, you found the only wood in the whole bathroom and dug a hole in it. And we're still trying to figure out how we're going to repair it.

My nicknames for you have also continued to flourish. At some point I began calling you "Sugar," which spawned the subsequent "Sugar Boo," as well as the inexplicable "Soobles." Every once in a while Chad has the terrible misfortune of hearing such a grotesque display of babytalk, but I think what repulses him even more than the words coming out of my mouth is the fact that you sit there and just eat them up. You look at me like you have absolutely no idea what is going on, but you know that it's very, very good. And whatever it is, you want to be a part of it.

Last August you almost died when your stomach decided to flip over itself. We had to pay $4,000 to save your life, and that expense hurt. A lot. Not only because we lost half of our savings, but also because, well, apparently most people wouldn't pay that kind of money to save a dog's life. But you recovered your health quickly, and we recovered financially eventually. And every morning when the alarm goes off and you jump up to greet me again, reminding me that a new day has begun and that is a thing to be grateful for, I know that not only did we make the right decision, but that it was also worth every single penny.

Happy birthday, bubby. It's an honor to help you greet your second year.

The plan was to leave it up for a while, watch some people freak out, and then post a comment exclaiming "April Fool's!"

But after a few minutes I realized that 1. It was a super lame idea, by no means original and 2. It's likely no one would freak out. Which led me to realize that 3. It's what I really want to do, no fooling. So I took down the silly post and thought for a while.

My one-year blogiversary passed by last week without any celebration. I was faintly aware of it, but only in the form of realizing that I'm in a very different place than I was last year. The main topics I used to rely on don't look anything like they used to. I've stopped writing about marriage because it's continued to get harder and harder, and I lack the courage to write honestly about that. I've found a church I want to dedicate my whole life to, and I feel as though I can quit searching for now. Rufus, well, I love the little bugger, but every month no longer brings new surprises, which is a very good thing. And my job. My job is the best surprise of all. I love it. I can actually envision my career unfolding in front of me. And that has filled a hole much bigger than I was even aware of.

So I'm going to try out a hiatus. For just a couple of weeks. I intend to be back on April 22 with a post celebrating Rufus' 2nd (16th) birthday. My sweet (read: neurotic) puppy is officially an adolescent.

And in the meantime, I'm going to try to do a little writing for just myself. I'm aching to write about what's actually going on in my life, and this, sadly, isn't the place for it.

Thank you all so much for reading and for your support. I'll see you back here on the 22nd.

Cases in point:

"We hear pretty pretty music
Coming from the street down below
And the melody carries
Won't you sing with me, sweetie?"

Also,

"And I wonder
When I sing along with you
If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I'll ever ask of you
You gotta promise not to stop when I say when
She sang"

What's your favorite love song?

And then we tried to vote on the Credentials Committee's reports on various rogue delegates, but utter chaos ensued. Verbal votes (imagine the VAST DIFFERENCE between AYE! coming from 3,200 people versus 2,800 people) weren't working, so we took to doing visual votes by standing, and then people got frustrated and went down to the floor and fought with the people in charge for a while in a supposedly very organized and respectful manner (uh, no), and then we decided to just pass all the damn majority reports of the damn committee, because, my God, democracy is great and all, but it sure takes up a lot of time. Also, were hungry.

I got hit on; I got made fun of for reading Madame Bovary during down times; I ate a hot dog. I voted on things I didn't understand; I learned about patience. But I also made a couple friends in my precinct (e.g. just down the street from me), and I even got a few pictures before my camera died. All in the name of democracy. Hallelujah.

Oh, and also, Obama is the official delegate winner of Texas.

This is the crowd outside Moody Coliseum. I'm not sure why I expected the county convention to be more organized than the caucus on March 4 was, but I did. And I was wrong.

These are the columns of Moody Coliseum. My precinct was there at 8 a.m. and didn't make it inside the building until about 11 a.m. Oh, and that arm sticking up, holding the piece of yellow legal paper? That's Ryan, holding the makeshift sign for his Hillary precinct pals.

And that's what a real precinct sign looks like. Same precinct, very different voters. And by "different," I mean OBAMA VOTERS.

This guy scared me a little bit, but all the higher-up volunteers wore these silly hats. And once he began leading a cheer of "O-BA-MA!" I, of course, liked him immediately.

This is what the floor looked like before all the action. Of course, I didn't get a shot of it during the action, because my camera sucks. But you're all good readers. Use your imaginations. Yeah?

My precinct, ready to get this show on the road. Also, bored. (The green alligator bag in the chair is mine, woot.)

Ben, Gillian, and me. Ben and Gillian are our precinct delegates going to state. And there's a good chance that at least one of them will get to go to the national convention. My nametag reads "Spring Hussein Weaver." Gillian and Ben made them for all of us. We each had a little bit of Barack in us that day.

And that's his job. Because he is awesome. Me, I read Aquafina print ads all day. But he makes virtual bobbleheads. And then asks me to post them on my blog.

And because I'm married to him, I did.

Anyway. Enjoy. And congrats, hubby.

4/1 Update: And hubby is famous!

New Flowy Spring Dress

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A WIND ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 9 PM CDT THIS EVENING. WIND SPEEDS SUSTAINED AT 15 TO 25 MPH WITH OCCASIONAL GUSTS TO 30 MPH CAN BE EXPECTED TODAY DUE TO A STRONG PRESSURE GRADIENT OVER THE REGION. EXPECT THESE STRONG WINDS TO CONTINUE INTO THE EVENING HOURS.

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My Underwear of Choice

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Showing My Ass to a Bunch of Strangers While Walking Downtown

And then having to share an elevator with those strangers just moments after. Awesome.

It's easy to forgive spring, though, since she makes my whole backyard smell like wisteria.

Ru likes it too.