i have back fat

Gross, right? But guess what. I also have stomach fat. And arm fat. And chin fat. Fat fat fat all around.

I mean, I get it-- I am not a Fat Girl. I know this. I know that people don't look at me and think, Geez, look at that fatty. I've recently arrived at the conclusion that, even though I may have to buy a Large cardigan at Forever 21, it is because Forever 21 is made for 13-year olds and a Large cardigan does not make me a Large person.

That said, I'm a little round here and there, let's just be honest. While I'm not a fatty, I'm also not a skinny little thing with skinny pants and skinny shirts and skinny skinny. The reality is that I do have to buy Large cardigans at Forever 21. It's a truth. And, having been thinner in my past, I know it's a reality to be thinner in my present. No amount of layering and distracting the eye with interesting headbands will change the fact that I could stand to lose a few, if for no other reason than to make myself feel better about myself.

So. LET IT BE KNOWN. I am resolved to lose 15 lbs by the end of March, after which I will reevaluate and, depending on how we feel about things, proceed for another 5 lbs by the end of April. By then, I'll be healthy, hydrated, less jiggly, and maybe a little more on my way to looking like this:

Because I think she is about the epitome of femininity and elegance and being perfectly healthy and not stick thin. Also, if I look more like this, I bet I'm also one step closer to winning an Oscar. Win win win.

day 4: favorite tv show

You know those people who are always like, "I don't watch TV"? And you read their facebook profiles and under "Favorite TV Shows" they actually write "TV is a waste of time." And those people who are like "TV is crap, I watch movies snoot snoot snoot." Or people are even just kind of indifferent about television, which is fine, but still makes you feel kind of like maybe you're 8 years old again, stressing over whether to use your 1 hour of allotted television time a day for Doug and Step-by-Step or Clarissa Explains It All and Pete and Pete. I was a child of Nickelodeon. What about it.

But about a year ago, as I was frantically catching up on weeks of The Office, Ugly Betty, Gray's Anatomy, America's Next Top Model, The Tudors, etc., I stumbled upon the realization that I like TV. I like it. I do. A lot. TV is not always the crap people chalk it up to be. I mean, sometimes it is crap. There's lots of crap. But there are also a lot of crap movies, making film no better than TV, frankly. Good TV is good, and I like it, and I do not apologize for it.

And because I like TV, I don't think I can choose a cut-and-dry "favorite." I just bought Doug season 1 on DVD because I think it's just about the greatest cartoon series of all time. I follow a lot of shows. I'm really fond of Ugly Betty, even though I haven't watched any of season 6 because we haven't had cable and didn't have the internet for 9 weeks (a story for a rainy day). Since this blog is supposed to be about favorites, however, I'll mention a few.

Okay I admit it. I'm one of the Arrested Development posers who came onto the scene after the show was canceled. In fact, it had been canceled for YEARS. In fact, I only ever saw the credits of the first season while it was actually on TV because I recall it airing around the same time as Seinfeld reruns, which is what I was actually watching. Having that confession out of the way, Arrested Development is absolutely up there on the top of the Favorite TV Show list. C'est hilarious in every single way. I think Gob and Buster are my favorite characters, but the beauty is, you can never really choose a solid favorite because they're all memorable. Highly quotable, this show. I still need to get my parents into it, now that I think about it.

This is how Ames and I spent our Christmas vacation. Praise the heavens for Netflix, you guys. We watched all five seasons in about three weeks, and you'd better believe we'll have cable before the final season starts in February. LOST is the kind of show I knew I wouldn't be able to handle watching week-to-week, simply because I know I would have been frustrated having to wait every week for the next episode. And what would have happened during the writer's strike?!?!?!?!?! Watching it rapid succession has lead to many interesting conversations and will benefit us watching season six because we know everything that has just happened. It's really very engaging. But then-- everybody knows that. And hopefully season six will answer the question that is killing me at this point: why the hell doesn't Richard ever age?

You had better believe that I would own every season of Wishbone if it were available on DVD. And I'm not just posting this for nostalgia's sake (though I'm sure that has something to do with it). The fact is, Wishbone is the primary reason I was an English major. I actually read most of the books featured in each episode. And if I didn't as a child, then I read them in high school and even college (I used Wishbone in a paper about Victorian crime literature, no joke). I am living proof that this television show did exactly what it intended to do. And I had the biggest crush evar on Joe, you guys. David bugged the snot out of me, but I wanted to BE Sam. Oh Sam and her allergy to peanuts.

So basically what it comes down to is this: I have a college degree because I watch TV. Take that.

day 3: favorite movie

Now in reality, this is the most boring post ever because day 3: favorite movie is...


...exactly the same as day 2: favorite book.

Wah wah waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

But for real. I have seen this movie 1209892857123 times. I used to play Little Women with my sister (who's name is Elizabeth, so she was always forced to be Beth) and my friend Katelyn (who was usually Amy because she had blondeish hair, and I was always Jo so that was off the table for Katelyn plzkthnx) the way other girls played House. I mean, I played House too, and I probably didn't even play Little Women that much, I just think I did. Though I do have vivid memories of it.

Anyway, Little Women the movie. Perfection. I have an enormous, movie-sized poster of it that used to hang above my bed before I got married and I decided maybe it was time to redecorate (it's still in the back room-- it will probably be hung eventually. I'll let Ames pick out a movie poster too and then we'll be even). This is my favorite movie soundtrack EVAR, by Thomas Newman the Brilliant.

I've fallen in love with it more and more through the years, too. I didn't like young Amy when I was little as much as I liked old Amy because old Amy was sooooooo sophisticated-- not so. Samantha Mathis is kind of as interesting as paint, truth to be told. And I didn't really love Beth, maybe because she died and I just didn't want to think about it. But Claire Danes really is just lovely, even if she is like a foot taller than Winona Ryder, who is so perfect I could die. And BALE and Eric Stoltz (my boyfriend) and Gabriel Byrne who is actually Irish not German. Faint faint faint. There couldn't be a better adaptation. I really honestly believe that to be the truth.

Also the 1947 Elizabeth Taylor version is good too, with June Allyson the 37-year old woman playing Jo.

This intrigues me, but I haven't seen it, so can't offer my opinion on The Partridge Family's Susan Dey and WILLIAM SHATNER as Jo and Professor Bhaer.

day 2: favorite book

It's quite possible this is the most boring answer to any "what's your favorite book" question ever asked because the answer is so completely predictable if you have spent any length of time with me at all.

My favorite book is:
Yep. Kind of a stock answer. I get it. It is true, nevertheless. My mom got me a copy of all three books (did you know the March family has three stories? I bet you didn't. Well then.) when I was eight, right after the movie came out (which is a post for another day) and I read them all. Frankly I never stopped reading them. Which is why Little Women is my favorite. Duh.

Of any character written in literature, I always thought I related to Jo most of all. In a lot of ways I think I still do, but being in the musical version in 2008 changed it so I just love each character differently. They're all my favorite. Even sad little Beth who wasn't my favorite at all (sad confession, I know).

A close second on the Favorite Book list is:

A family friend got my parents a stack of "Emily things" when I was born, including this book, which is also a set of three. It's by the same author as Anne of Green Gables, but more interesting, shorter, and starring a heroine who is far more interesting/less dramatic. It became a Canadian tv show (just found season 1 at Walmart recently what the what!) which isn't really very good and doesn't stick to the story very well, but the books are great, and Teddy Kent was my first literary boyfriend.




I'm a boring blogger.

Day 1: Favorite Song

If I hadn't already committed to doing this 30 Days of Blogging thing, I'd just turn around and give up right now. Or maybe that magical list is just getting the hard stuff out of the way and it'll get easier from here? Let's hope, because I just sat here for the last ten minutes, trying to decide on my favorite song.

Favorite.

Not semi-favorite. Not probably favorite. Not one that you just listen to a lot.

Favorite. Clear and cut. Pick one and that's all you're allowed to blog about.

According to iTunes, I've most listened to "The Beauty Is" from Light in the Piazza, but that's because I basically had it on repeat when I was wandering 546876585 art museums in Europe.

Swinging the pendulum in the complete opposite direction, I've got dozens of listens to every 30 Seconds to Mars song on my iPod. This is because Jared Leto has the most perfect rock star voice in existence.

"Almost Lover" by Fine Frenzy is on about 80 of my various playlists, so it pops up a lot. Favorite, though?

"Love Me Like the World is Ending" by Ben Lee. "The Hand of Fate Part 2" from Signs, which isn't so much a song as it is a brilliant orchestral piece. "Valley of the Shadow" from Little Women. "My Skin" by Natalie Merchant. The entire "Do You Feel" album by The Rocket Summer.

Well I'm breaking the rules because I just can't pick. Do not make me. Okay? It's too difficult. I'll just make you a mix instead and you can pick a favorite for me, yeah? Go to.

30 days

I used to blog a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like, sometimes I would purposefully not blog because I felt like I had been blogging too much (as if there's any such thing). That's how I am with Twitter lately. Sometimes I save tweets to tweet later because I feel like I've been tweeting too much.

But blogging.

I think it's because I used to be stimulated ALL THE TIME during college about all things. It's easier to observe and write when you bounce around from class to class to work to rehearsal to homework to your friends to late nights with a bottle of Diet Coke AND an energy drink you shouldn't have. But then I graduated, and all I had to think about was payroll at Seven Peaks and planning a wedding-- both topics not so interesting to the general public (or anyone, in the case of payroll) for months on end. And then that end job, so I was kind of bumming around working part time and not really doing anything with my life, which is boring. No stimuli = no blogging.

In an effort to start making this blog more hoppin' (I hate myself for saying things like "hoppin'"), I begin this 30 Days thing so I'll be forced-- downright FORCED-- to blog every day for a whole month. Maybe then I'll be more inspired again.

Day 01 → Your favorite song
Day 02 → Your favorite movie
Day 03 → Your favorite book
Day 04 → Your favorite television show
Day 05 → Your favorite quote
Day 06 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 07 → A photo that makes you happy
Day 08 → A photo that makes you angry/sad
Day 09 → A photo you took
Day 10 → A photo of you taken over ten years ago
Day 11 → A photo of you taken recently
Day 12 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 13 → A fictional book
Day 14 → A non-fictional book
Day 15 → A fanfic
Day 16 → A song that makes you cry (or nearly)
Day 17 → An art piece (painting, drawing, sculpture, etc.)
Day 18 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 19 → A talent of yours
Day 20 → A hobby of yours
Day 21 → A recipe
Day 22 → A website
Day 23 → A YouTube video
Day 24 → Whatever tickles your fancy
Day 25 → Your day, in great detail
Day 26 → Your week, in great detail
Day 27 → This month, in great detail
Day 28 → This year, in great detail
Day 29 → Hopes, dreams and plans for the next 365 days
Day 30 → Whatever tickles your fancy