Stuff I Like

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/full-list-of-stuff-white-people-like/

http://www.stuffjournalistslike.com/

They are funny because they are true.

Musings DeJour

I never felt quite as poor as I did yesterday when I noticed the hole in my tennis shoe on the way to mail my food stamp application to D.C. Health and Human Services.

Someone very clearly just faxed a printed out e-mail to a friend here. Why on earth would you fax a printed e-mail instead of simply forwarding it?

2009: Time to get this bedazzled, tulle-covered monkey off my back

I can't believe I'm back to the grind already. I had such an amazing time in Minnesota, despite completely flaking on many, many people who I hope can find it in their infinite compassion to forgive a weary traveler...

Whether real or imagined one feeling persisted while I was "home": I'm engaged. I have been for some time now, but nobody here in D.C. seems to care. Not so in Cold Spring. Turns out, loved ones want to love the idea of a wedding. Also, it would seem that being uncomfortable with the bowling moniker "Mrs. Cruze," is a bad idea.

So I ran myself through an emotional wringer. I'm really comfortable (in fact, I'm excited to spend the rest of my life hanking it) with the notion of being married. Less so with the notion of a wedding. I guess I've never enjoyed the limelight and it seems like an entire day dedicated to paying attention to me.

Moreover it is a day full of what I (ignorantly or not) see as often-arcane and wasteful traditions. I'm not just talking about the tens of thousands of dollars spent on one day (2005 survey says somewhere in the neighborhood of $30,000) but I'm also talking about the paper, flowers, dresses and tuxedos made from god only knows what chemicals. I'm not a greenie, I'm just sensible. Why should it take another person to help me get dressed (and use the bathroom) on my wedding day? That doesn't make a lick of sense.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to declare my independence from the evil, taffeta-clad, body-glittered, tacky-ribbon tied to every available surface wedding industrial complex.

I will keep the traditions I can find meaning in -- my father (hopefully with a few more pounds on his frame) walking me down the aisle, some music, some vows, the people who matter most nearby -- and dispense of the rest. I will avoid things that I am not comfortable with or can't understand, things that make the single, or non-religious, or anti-Macarena types in my life uncomfortable.

I will not get hung up on invitations, lighting or fingernail polish. I will not bemoan having to invite relatives I don't like. I will not mind if I don't get a KitchenAid mixer.

I will use the event as a chance to spend time with the people I care about most. I will give up control of details, ask for help and go with the flow. As long as Andrew is there, I will be fine.

I will make it a day to celebrate what matters: my best friend, my love for him, the people who helped us get to where we are and the people who will be with us as we grow together.

I'm not ultra new-agey but I know words have power. I would like to thank the Internet for letting me write that down and get it off my brain.

I can hang with Ira Glass

I'm pretty sure history will show that I am the voice of this generation of this decade. That said, I think my message will most effectively be communicated through the genuis of that show where "hipster know-it-alls talk about how fascinating real life is," This American Life.

I've been mulling over some great topics for essays and I figure if I put them in the ether, I'm somehow committed to one day writing them:

Windblown weave clumps and dunk: How a white girl from Minnesota fared in northeast D.C.
Everything I need to know about life, I learned from the WWF
An unwitting crusader: My life as an all-season bicyclist in Alaska.

Another Song in C

I've kinda been in love with this song for the last three weeks. Makes me cry nearly every time. Please enjoy.

Why I Heart Professional Wrestling

Andrew and I went to see WWE Raw/ECW live last night at the Verizon Center. It was amazingly fun. Pyrotechnics, bad acting, sparkly costumes, funny bits, the very real threat of injury. C'mon that's America people.

I love online shoe shopping, baking and The Hills (I'm owning up to a lot of guilty pleasures here). But I also really, really like professional wrestling. Here are a few reasons why:

• It is the kind of place where "Behind Enemy Lines 3: Columbia," featuring Mr. Kennedy is honestly produced. Someone in that company seriously puts up money to make that film that sounds so terrible it should be a punchline.
  
  
• Titantron videos. They are hilariously bad in real life. You don't seem to get the full effect on TV. It's a lot like a dating service video crossed with a Rick Astley music video. I especially love the ones where they let the wrestlers rap their own entrance music.
  


• Nertz to Sarah Palin and the "real America" issue. The WWE's fans are real America. From the mother of four next to us last night who had no idea what she was even watching and just "booed when everyone else did," to the group home a few rows behind us, to the people dressed in their business casual clothes at the area last night, real people worked hard and paid real money to see these grown men ham it up for four hours.
  
  
• Cheesy though it may be, I really like that Andrew is in to it too. I'm glad we can share an enjoyment for meaty men throwing each other around, midgets in leprechaun costumes and a world where you must stop speaking the moment you hear another person's entrance music.
  
  Plus I must give him credit for letting me to spend a few hours a week watching men with cartoon-character muscles throw each other around in their underpants. I must say there was a good while where I thought the "muscle-is-going-to-tear-through-my-skin" look was icky but I'm really coming around to it. (*seductive eyebrow raise)
  
  
• Dave Batista. No, CM Punk ... no Batista .... nono, Punk ... SANTINO MARELLA.

My life is strange

wn1. I now say "Tiffany from the front desk" when I speak with people as though I live at the front desk or was born here.

2. I have seriously considered bringing Tupperware to work to take home leftover banquet food. I think if I planned ahead properly I could go for a month without grocery shopping.

3. I regularily see piles, braids and clumps of hair on the street in my neighborhood. I can't ever tell if it was forcibly removed from a head or if it fell out. Fortunately there seems to be a store next to the Safeway that frequently has human hair on sale. Bonus.

4. Someone called me Lance Armstrong when I was biking the other day. I was wearing all pink and a helmet that made me look like a kid with Down syndrome.