I'm always amazed by people who have daily blogs, because that means they have something of significance to say every single day. Even if it's not something crazy or shocking, they still have a compelling story to tell. I've gone through my day and come up with nothing that's really blog-worthy.

I could write about how I made it to work on time by forgoing a shower, using the reasoning that I showered yesterday and didn't do anything even close to strenuous. Or about how amused I was when I saw (repeatedly) online that someone threw a water bottle at Justin Bieber's head. Or about how frustrating the ice cream aisle is at the grocery store. (Why is it that I can find no sugar added and s'mores, but not together?) But seriously, none of those things are really attention grabbing, are they?

I read earlier about a female soldier in Afghanistan who was shot at for the first time over the weekend. Despite being terrified, it's made her decide to re-enlist, because she was with a group of children at the time, and that means an insurgent was shooting towards the kids, too.

Then there was a mommy blog (yes, I'm a non-mom and I read mommy blogs) about some of the things single moms have to do to make it through the day. Things some people would say aren't safe, but are necessary when you're going it alone.

Suddenly, my mundane life is sounding pretty fabulous. I should enjoy the peacefulness of it, because someday, kids will enter the picture, or tragedy will strike. In the meantime, boring puppy cuddles and watching TV with my boyfriend, while not blog-worthy, will do just fine.

Why I'll hyphenate.

I just watched Christina Applegate on Jimmy Kimmel Live. I don't have much interest in Christina, the movie she was promoting (3D kiddie flick), or Jimmy. But I was hoping I could get a story out of it, and I did. (I can make anywhere from $1 to $60 on one celebrity fluff story. I'll watch a little Jimmy Kimmel for the possibility of making $60.)

Christina is pregnant with her first child, and Jimmy asked what she'd be doing with the baby's last name. Would she give the kid her name, hyphenate, etc.?

The look on her face when he asked that question was absolutely priceless. It reminded me of the look on Foster's face when Gretchen, our Boxer, passes gas ... pure disgust. Christina said "no", then stuttered a bit, before finally getting out that she doesn't believe in "that". Ok, fair enough. Everyone has the right to their beliefs, even if their beliefs are antiquated and misogynistic.

The last name conundrum was always a huge source of contention between my ex and I. We would get in heated arguments when I told him that I didn't plan on ever taking a man's last name. Because I, believing myself to be as important and significant as the man in my life, don't plan on changing my last name just because I've become legally bound to another person. And don't think it doesn't irk me from time to time that my last name comes only from my father, because it does. But, it's the name I was given and what I've known for all my 29 years, so I'm keeping it. (Unless I decide to change it to something badass like Von D or something.)

When I have kids, I want them to take on a part of me in their name. I love the idea of my child, my little mini-me, being a hyphenate. Their name will refer to not just their father, but their mother, too. Is a little recognition too much to ask?

Yes, this will lead to a few pain in the ass situations later in their life. What happens when my kid gets married, or has a kid of their own? They'll have some decisions to make. And I'm okay with that. But they'll grow up knowing they have two last names because they have two parents who are equals.

Marketing

I suck at marketing myself. My blog, my articles, etc. You'd think I'd be good at it, since what I officially do at work is called "branding". I can build a recognizable brand. I just can't get the word out about it. It's definitely something I need to work on.

That said, here are links to my Facebook and Twitter page. I have no idea how many people nose around here on my little blog. If you do, let me know. I'm curious. Very.

And if you've got any great marketing ideas (that don't involve Digg.com), leave 'em in the comments.

My Twitter

Find me on Facebook

The Big Apple

That's me on the Brooklyn Bridge. Although you can't see my entire face, you can tell that I'm smiling. I was the happiest girl in the world that day, even though it was hot, my jeans were chafing, my feet had blisters, and my back hurt. I didn't care. I was in New York. I was on the Brooklyn Bridge! Everything was right in the world.

A friend said to me once that when you're in New York, it just feels right. That's the only way I can describe it. It felt like home. The week my boyfriend and I spent there was amazing. As much as I missed my own bed and my dogs, I cried when the plane took off from La Guardia. I felt like I was leaving home instead of going to it.

I'm not sure when my long distance love affair with the city began. It's been there for as long as I can remember... a longing for a place I had never been. When I was in 5th grade, one of my teachers had us start researching colleges. This was before the internet was everywhere, so if you wanted information, you had to write a letter. The first school I wrote to was New York University. For years and years they sent me info. Because I was all of 11-year-old, I had no concept of money. I remember taking one of the pamphlets to my parents and saying, "But it only costs $30,000 a year!" My dad gave me what my family has coined as "the idiot look". I was brushed off and sent back to my room, gripping the pamphlet with my wishful little hands.

I went through tons of phases in school about what I wanted to be when I grew up. An actress! A doctor! An MTV VJ! All of them resulted in me living in New York. It's always been the dream.

Cue me going to a mid-sized, conservative state university in Texas and ending up in a 7+ year long relationship that was destined to fail. New York was obviously nowhere in sight. But even after college I would tell people that one day I would live in New York City, as if (hello!) there was any other goal. Laughter has ensued more than once after making the announcement.

Years later, I'm still in Texas. In the city whose suburbs I lived as a kid. With a boyfriend, a house (rental!), 2 dogs, 2 cats, debt out the ass, and a sinking feeling that my NY dreams will never come true.

When I confessed that to my boyfriend recently, he questioned me. "Why? Why would you think it's never going to happen?" Honestly? I'm terrified. Of failure. Of having to slink home to a quiet (fine, from my family it probably wouldn't be so quiet) chorus of "told ya so". I'm afraid of the guilt that would haunt me from asking my boyfriend, who is perfectly content where we are, to give up the life he's built for himself and move thousands of miles away, just so I could fulfill some silly childhood dream.

Then my boyfriend said something to me that I didn't expect at all.

"You know, I'm envious of you."

"What are you talking about?"

"That you have this huge dream, this big goal. Something that you've always wanted to do and you aren't giving up on. I don't have anything like that."

Well, I suppose that's one way of looking at it. I do still have big dreams of living in New York. I remember the feeling of stepping out of the subway in Manhattan for the first time and wondering what the hell took me so long to get there? (I was 28 before I finally made a visit.) I can't help but feel the chances of the dream coming to fruition fade as I get older. But I'm still not letting go quite yet... I still want to call New York home one day.

Tick, tock...

Where does my day go? I'd swear that I'm awake for 17 or 18 hours of the day, and I get next to nothing done with it.

8:00 AM - Alarm clock starts going off. Hit snooze. Repeatedly.

9:20 AM - Realize that I have no choice but to get my ass out of bed. Shower (maybe), put on clean clothes, take the dogs out, make sure the remote controls and anything else I think is valuable is out of their reach.

10:00 AM - Get to work and run to the deli to grab a bagel.

10:15 AM - Start on the first project of the day, editing down a morning show.

11:00 AM - Finish editing the morning show. The process might be faster had I not been checking e-mail (work and personal), checking Jezebel.com, checking various sites I write for, etc., between editing segments. Start working on voicetracking project.

11:20 AM - Refocus on voicetracking project. It's easy to get distracted when browsing gossip sites is necessary for the show prep process.

11:45 AM - Finish work projects and focus on the important stuff: the internet.

12:15 AM - Realize I'm hungry. Grunt about how early it is. Back to the 'net, but with a purpose. I have to find stories to write about, music clips to post on my station blog, etc.

1:00 PM - E-mail a few people to inquire about going to lunch. No one is available. Decide to hit up McDonald's or Taco Cabana. Get food, bring it back to work and eat while watching TV or reading.

2:30 PM - Back to the studio. Write copy, send someone songs, or do some other random little something.

3:00 PM - Someone on the internet is wrong. Must correct them.

3:30 PM - Contemplate working on voicetracking for tomorrow. Decide against it. Go through work e-mail. Then more internet.

5:00 PM - Voicetrack. It must be done.

5:30 PM - One last pass through Jezebel and Facebook before leaving.

6:15 PM - Hit up grocery store for soda.

6:30 PM - Home! Take dogs out. Pick up poop.

7:00 PM - Turn on TV to see if there's anything waiting for me on the DVR that isn't boyfriend friendly. As much as I try, he refuses to watch Vampire Diaries or Grey's Anatomy.

8:00 PM - Feed dogs, feed self.

12:00 PM - Bed. But not to sleep. There's usually at least an hour of reading some delish book about vampires or some other supernatural being before turning off the lights.

So on and so forth... the whole thing just seems to keep going. It's an endless cycle of me checking Facebook, checking Jezebel, reading some book (I read about a book a week, so clearly there's reading time in there somewhere), watching TV, etc.

But I feel like I get nothing done. There's nothing to show for it. Unless a few Facebook updates or comments on Jezebel count.

This is definitely something I should work on...

Sometimes you feel like a nut...

I wrote this little opinion sort of thing about what it means to be Jewish. I've always said that as a convert, I feel like a fake. I'm waiting for the day when I'm turned down at the synagogue doors in front of all of the born Jews. They'll point and laugh and call me a silly shiksa. It's truly the stuff of nightmares.

I'm not going to post my piece here... because it's published somewhere that I'll be get paid for the page views. So if you'd like, and I hope you would like, you can read it over at Associated Content.

I tried to make him watch Twilight...

My poor boyfriend, the Star Wars obsessed one, nearly jumped out of my car the other night because of Twilight.

After a long day of work (for him) and napping (for me), I dragged him to one of the inner layers of hell, otherwise known as suburbia. I had a work engagement at a bar late that night, and my usual security blanket (the promotions crew) wasn't going to be there to hold my hand. So I begged and made promises of free beer, and he agreed.

On a side note, living in a city that has banned most indoor smoking, I had forgotten what it was like to leave a bar smelling like a stale pack of Camels and having that lovely, thick cigarette muck coating my airway for a good 24 hours. Thankfully I've now been reminded why I've never taken up smoking. Score 1 for the suburbs.

We made the uneventful drive past numerous malls, restaurants, and a good dozen or so sexually oriented businesses (not much to do in the suburbs, eh?) and braced ourselves for two hours of anxiety (for me) and beers (for him).

It turned out that my presence there was completely unnecessary. I was meant to be filling in for a co-worker, and the weekly event turned out to be a well-tuned machine. So he and I primarily hung out in the bar area, sipping our drinks, chatting with a few people we knew, and occasionally handing out t-shirts and koozies.

So, two hours, and we're out. Two hours, four beers and two cocktails, and we're headed home. That's when I decided I was hungry, and we both knew that we should have slowed down long enough to use the restrooms back in the suburbs. The misery!

We ended up in the longest and slowest drive-thru line imaginable, delaying any chance to use the restroom. At this point, no taquitos really could have been worth it, no matter how cheesy. But since we were in the line, we stayed. And stayed, and stayed.

I was getting irritable, as needing to use the restroom while not having access to a restroom can tend to make a person. I had flipped through most of the slow music on my iPod (because that will ease the pain of a full bladder?) and played a bit of solitaire. Then I had an epiphany... I could get lost in a world where vampires sparkle!

Meaning, I have Twilight on my iPod and watching a bit of it might take my mind off my mounting irritability and my bladder. The second I turned it on, sound coming through the car speakers, he looked at me as if I had just told him there was no Luke Skywalker. Seriously, deer in headlights doesn't even cover it.

He reached for the door handle, as if he was really going to bail. The man was sitting with his knees held together so tightly I thought they were going to bruise, refusing to walk into the fast food joint to use the restroom out of sheer laziness, yet the very sound of Edward Cullen's voice had him ready to say "Screw it!" and walk the two miles home.

I have no idea how he's going to survive a midnight screening of Eclipse. No idea...

Yum.

There's a total disconnect between my head and my stomach. You see, my stomach? It wants the good stuff. I went to the grocery store last night and came home with a box of Cap'n Crunch, a small bag of sour cream and onion Ruffles, a pint of cookies and cream ice cream, and a bottle of wine. See? The good stuff.

Not healthy, not full of vitamins, not good for me in any way. The wine wasn't even heart-healthy red.

My head is very aware of the many benefits of eating healthy. And of being healthy in general. But carrot sticks and hummus just isn't as good as sour cream and onion Ruffles, no matter what anyone says.

Will someone please come clean my house?

I'm not good at cleaning. I never have been. My idea of "cleaning" is more like "rearranging". Let's take this pile of crap and move it over here for a while. Voila! Clean!

The one and only cleaning activity I do faithfully every week is sweeping my house from top to bottom. And if I didn't live in a 1200 sq. ft. home with 4 pets and all hardwood floors? That wouldn't happen, either.

I really either need to beg, bribe, or pay someone to come clean my house though. It's getting ridiculous. I was getting ready for work this morning and bent down to get my shoe when I noticed the piles and piles of hair that have accumulated under the bed. (Enough that I could make a voodoo hair doll if I wanted.) When I was getting out of the shower, I first noticed that the little ledge of the stand up shower is getting icky. And then I saw that the bathroom door has dust on it. My door. Is dusty. Did you know doors needed to be dusted? I didn't.

It's not like I have some deep seeded desire to live in filth. I really don't. I constantly chastise my boyfriend for not keeping his "man cave" clean enough. The rest of the house is pristine in comparison. But still, my place is a mess.

I need a maid.

Seven cavities?

I'm all about the numbers lately. I bitched about losing 2 pounds, now I'm bitching about having 7 cavities. That's right. SEVEN. Technically, 3 of them are between teeth, so they should only count as 3. But if you want to count by teeth (which is how the dentist is charging me), it's 7.

When the dentist told me to stay away from full sugar soda and hard candy, it was hard to not laugh. I don't touch regular sodas, and haven't since high school. For those not keeping track, that was over 10 years ago. And hard candy? Meh. I'm a chocolate kind of girl. (I may or may not have indulged in a Diet Coke and Caramelo after the dentist.)

Seven freakin' cavities. Two freakin' pounds. Good lord, 2010, you aren't making the best impression so far.

Can someone hand me a cookie?

I was somehow talked into doing this "Biggest Loser" kind of challenge at work. We all throw in $25, and whoever loses the most weight by the end of the challenge (a little over 2 months) gets to keep the loot. I'm a sucker for money, so I said what the hell.

What the hell, indeed! I haven't been a saint when it comes to eating, but I've totally changed my ways. I'm not longer a regular drive-thru customer (I miss you, McDonald's #2), and I stay away from the candy machine at work. I haven't been writing down all of my calories, but I'm very conscious of what I eat and how healthy it is.

And the gym! I've been going to the gym! Like, on a regular basis. Three to four times a week, taking a nice mix of cardio/weight classes, with the occasional pilates and yoga thrown in.

And do you know what I've lost? About 2 pounds. After 5 weeks. TWO POUNDS. I'm ready to start stealing candy from babies to eat while I lounge on the couch watching trashy reality TV. Two pounds. Are you freakin' kidding me?

I know that I'm fighting my own DNA. This body (mine, over here) was not designed to be a size 2. Not a size 2 from 1950, not a size 2 from today. I'm thick and curvy and stout and lift heavier weights than a girl my size should be able to lift. But dammit, I wanna be skinny. (Yeah, that was meant to sound whiney.)

I want to walk into a store and grab the nearest size 2 and have it slip on smooth like buttah. Without hearing any seems rip or buttons pop. I want to be svelte. And truly petite.

I also want to be able to eat Ben & Jerry's, or to have a shake at lunch, along with my actual food. Alas, that's not meant to happen. And it makes me bitter. So damn bitter. I find myself glaring at skinny girls who eat food that's got more calories than mine. "How dare she have a full sugar soda?! That skinny bitch!" Yes, it's a great attitude, I know.

No one ever said life was going to be fair, but seriously, this is just cruel. I want a cookie like nobody's business. Instead, I'm going to finish my Coke Zero, have my 90 calorie South Beach Bar snack, and go workout. Where I'll get red-faced and sweaty and out of breath, trying to beat the chubby gene. Good luck to me on that one.

Turning 29

I'm 29 today. I can no longer kid myself that I'm deeply entrenched in my 20s, because at this point, I'm so close to 30 I can smell it. And ya know what? It smells like mothballs.

Fine, I'm being dramatic. But turning 29 hasn't been full of joy. If anything, I feel like I'm already mourning my 20's and the lost opportunities. (Yes, more dramatics.) And sadly, I don't even know why.

Could be because when you're young, 29 sounds SO OLD. So far away. People who are 29 go to bed early and never eat ice cream or cereal for dinner, because they've got their middle-management job and 2.5 kids to think about. In reality, I still stay up too late every single night. Even though I'm trying to be healthier and shed a few pounds, it's not uncommon for me to have something ridiculous like ice cream (Sugar free! Low fat!) for dinner. And I'm still at the bottom of the totem pole at work, in a manner of speaking. I worked my ass off to get here, and it's a dream come true, but I still have so much farther to go. And the kids! Ha! I've got 2 dogs, 2 cats, and a Beta fish. Oh, and a boyfriend. Can't forget about him. ;)

Worse even still? I don't *really* want kids yet. Yes, I've got the baby fever. But when I start to think about what having kids means and what you have to give up (hi, everything?), I know I'm just not ready to be that unselfish. And aren't 29-year-olds supposed to be unselfish? And aren't they supposed to have a mortgage?

I'm still longingly eying pictures of New York City, wondering when and how I'll manage to move there, what kind of job I can find, how I can support myself. I feel like I've got so many goals and aspirations, and I had planned to take care of so many of those things while I was in my 20's. Granted, I did scratch quite a bit off my list. Degree? Check. Live in the city? Check. Buy own car? Check. See, it wasn't a total loss.

It just went by so fast. Some of the times I had were shittastic, so that might have been for the best, though. Here's hoping 29 turns out to be the superior year of my decade.

Me vs. The World

I've had one of those days! The kind where you wake up feeling like, OK, I can do this. And at some point, your day tells you that your shoe is untied and taps you under the chin, then giggles. Next thing you know, you're getting backhanded across the face. Before it's all said and done, you're laying on the floor tapping three times, hoping to make it all stop.

On the up side, at least it didn't try to bite my ear off, a la Mike Tyson.

To Do in 2010

I've got a short list of things I want to do in 2010. Not resolutions, just things to do. I don't know if naming them something other than resolutions will make a difference, but I'm hoping it will, because something like 80+% of all resolutions fail. By February. That's just sad.

1. Get a passport. I've been out of the country, to Canada, Mexico, and the Bahamas. At the time, no passport was required. I want to eventually travel to Europe, and having a passport would be a good first step.

2. (This one was all Foster's idea.) Find a book on how to worry less/have less anxiety. Or just take more Xanax.

3. Read more adult books. (No, not that kind.) (Well, maybe ... ) Seriously though, I tend to read a ton of YA books because I like the covers. I'm going to try to delve more into books that are about people who are no longer in high school and who no longer have a curfew. I'm sure it can be done.

4. I'm not officially putting "lose weight" on the list, because I don't want any failure to be, like, an official failure. If I never said I was going to try to lose weight, then it won't matter if it doesn't happen, right? Right. So I'll just say that in 2010, I plan to work on cutting sugar (my blessed sugar) out of my diet once again. Perhaps I'll throw in more vegetables. Or even work out more. (I could very well be the only person alive who joined a gym and proceeded to gain 20 pounds. And no, it's not muscle.)

5. I'd like to be more like Julia Sugarbaker. More outspoken and less passive. (See clip below.)



"And that, Marjorie, is the night the lights went out in Georgia!" I love it.