While working from home last week, I decided to turn on the TV for a little background noise. I got sucked in to about five minutes of an infomercial on the Urban Rebounder. The dude was talking excitedly about his new exercise program and how it helped him rehabilitate his knee after he injured it.

That's when it hit me.

For the rest of the day, I had one thought in my mind: I NEED A TRAMPOLINE. It seemed imperative. It was, if I might say so myself, a stroke of genius.

Saturday, I went and bought a trampoline. I brought it home, set it up, and put The Rentals on the CD player. While they sang, "Ooh woo hoo hoo!" I jumped and jumped. I did ski-swooshy jumps and jogged in place, hanging on to the handlebar that is there for clutzy girls like me. I jumped exuberantly, pretending I was in a Toyota commericial circa 1984.

Trampolines are the BEST EVER. I mean, assuming your goal is to do some sort of exercise indoors in the winter and not bore yourself to tears. I could only manage about seven minutes of jumping because of the dumb ankle, but I figure it's much better to build up ankle strength on a bouncy surface than, for instance, on a gym floor.

12 comments | link

Daily, for the past two weeks, I have woken up with a single thought in my mind: "Today, it will be better." Daily, I have been disappointed to find that The Thing in My Throat thrives still. It has taken me over. I am weak, powerless against it.

It's stronger than me.

I have been through one bag of cough drops and am starting on the second. Rarely, over the course of my life, have I ever finished a bag of cough drops. Normally, when I think of cough drops, I think of the various times I've packed up my bathroom while moving from one place or another to discover a few melty former cough drops, slightly unwrapped and looking disheveled, stuck to the bottom of the drawer, or to something else equally unused. I think of the contents of the small outside pocket of my backpack where, were there any cough drops there, they'd be covered with inexplicable grit and possibly some hair. Usually, when I need cough drops, I need five or six total, not two bags.

Let me reiterate: TWO BAGS OF COUGH DROPS.

And three gallons of orange juice.

A vat of chicken soup.

And dozens upon dozens of cups of tea.

In short, I'm ready to be done with this. Alas, it's not yet done with me. I'd say it's getting better, but I've thought that before.

On another topic entirely, I think we've all been wondering from whence sprung the phrase, "to wit?"

4 comments | link

I miss cereal (with milk).

I miss cheese.

I miss kissing.

I miss talking.

I miss singing in my car.

I miss sinking down into the pillow and falling blissfully asleep.

I miss going places and seeing my friends.

I miss talking on the phone to my friends who don't live here.

Seriously, if I'm up coughing until 1:00am again tonight, I'm jumping off the Hawthorne.

10 comments | link

Of all the nefarious plots in the world, none is so diabolical, so unabashedly evil as the infinite Hasselhoff.

8 comments | link

It's been an eventful weekend. My car is stuck over at Ransom's because of the ice, his sister had the triplets (all coming in just under 3 lbs, so they're wee little things), and I almost watched a samauri/fighting/ninja movie with Kenna (but the subtitles were mostly missing and what was there seemed to be intended to confuse and distract).

Also, I figured out to hose my email by getting a setting slightly wrong in the console where I manage it. So, if you emailed me over the weekend and it bounced back saying that I don't exist, it was a liar. Well, sort of. I mean, I told it to do that, but that's not actually what I meant. Anyhow, I'm fairly close to having it all sorted out, so you should be able to email me now with no problems.

6 comments | link

The one thing I was looking forward to about having a broken ankle was the ability to predict the weather. A friend of mine once posited that all weather forecasting really is, is a network of old people with achy bones.

Early on, I figured my ankle was just predicting colder weather. It would hurt; the next day would be noticeably colder. Then, out of the blue, it predicted rain (I had thought it was predicting cold again, but it actually warmed up because of the cloud cover and then it rained). Last night, it was predicting *something* like crazy, so I said, "It's going to rain tomorrow." But it's not raining. It is really cold, though, so maybe that was it.

I guess what I'm saying is that the ankle as a weather prediction device has a terrible user interface and is only slightly more reliable than a local TV weatherman.

6 comments | link

There was a moment last month when I realized that I did it. I'm where I wanted to be.

I drove down to Hawthorne to do some Christmas shopping. It wasn't even the last-minute variety; I wanted to stop by regular Powell's and cook book Powell's, and maybe duck into a few of the boutiques and look for gifts there.

My parking spot was of the rock star variety. I stepped out onto the street, unhurriedly, and walked toward my destination with long, confident strides -- the kind that stretch your legs and feel good. The sidewalk was busy, but not crowded. Reflections of light gleamed off the wet street, and tires made shhhshing sounds as cars drove by. The Bagdad's marquis was lit up with the latest movie offerings. A bus thundered by. Nothing seemed new or exciting; it just seemed right. It made sense.

Suddenly, I was struck by the realization that this is what I'd dreamed of when I moved here more than nine years ago. The towns I grew up in weren't ridiculously small, but they weren't cities, even small ones like Portland. They never gave me the sense that there were enough interesting things going on. I fear it's impossible to capture for you in words, in this electronic medium, what I felt at that moment. The important thing, for me, is to not get caught up in the mundane of the every day and forget that this is what I wanted.

7 comments | link

The good news is, Ransom is going to live. The bad news is, food poisoning sucks. We're still not sure whether it was food poisoning, but I'm really, really hoping it was (because if it's a contagious virus, I'm screwed). More than that, though, I hope he can eat today.

In other news, there are two men with a shopping cart outside my window. They are discussing a bottle full of red liquid, which they presumably pulled out of the garbage can through which they were rooting a few moments ago. To drink, or not to drink... I'm guessing that is the question.

5 comments | link

Yesterday, I was forced to write a note to put on someone's windshield. The note said, "When parking, it is generally considered polite to avoid touching the car in front of you. Especially when you have so much room behind."

I was forced into such an action because someone in a Subaru pulled up behind me, and did not stop in his or her parking efforts until our bumpers were right up against one another. There was about 1/2 car length behind the Subaru, and no chance of anybody else parking there, which made it even more confounding. It was totally unnecessary car touching (TUCT). I didn't like it.

Today, I am mildly aggrieved that I used a sentence fragment in a complaint note.

6 comments | link

Woo hoo! When I become Imperial Potentate of the Earth, I will make sure that all of Chris' wishes for his fellow bloggers come true. Also, there are a few people I might have to get rid of, but nobody you'd miss all that much.

3 comments | link

Particleman and cherz came up with the idea to start a CafePress.com store and donate the proceeds to the tsunami victims. Semaphoria and I are also participating. I think it's a good idea, and will keep it around as an ongoing donate to charity project, assuming anybody buys anything. Plus, now I can actually do something with all those "that would make a really good t-shirt" ideas.

So, I present to you, Ye Olde Nerdygirl Shoppe.

There's no pressure to buy (the lack of black as a color option will leave quite a few of you out, I'm sure). I will try to get some more interesting things up on the site soon. Also, other bloggers/web site owners who are interested in setting up your own shop should use one of us as a referral because then we'd get a portion of your proceeds for charity, as well. My shop ID is "nerdygirl" (sans quotes).

Oh, and if you think of any good ideas for items that should be out there, let me know!

6 comments | link

It's strange how sometimes I have about eight hundred things to say, and at other times I can't think of one word to put to paper (or keyboard, as the case may be). There are times when all minute details seem interesting. The slant of the sun is noteworthy; it seems necessary to comment on the noise the bus makes when it stops and leans over to pick up passengers. And then there are the days when I would be hard pressed to make an interesting story of the time I was kidnapped by pirates, held for ransom, and eventually escaped with a bit of treasure in my pockets. If, you know, such a thing actually happened.

7 comments | link

Having a week off which doesn't involve major travel (I did drive to Washington on Christmas and returned the following day) is completely rad. I feel like a total lump in that I didn't get to all the things I thought I would get to. Then again, part of what I wanted to do was take naps, sit on my couch, and read books. I totally accomplished those things. I even managed to finish knitting the scarf I started about six years ago, so that was pretty excellent.

Now I need to work out how to get more time off and relaxation in my future. Or at least one of those things. It's nice to start off a new year with relatively little to stress me out. Now I just need to convince myself that not being stressed out doesn't mean that I need to take on sixteen new projects and undo all the beautiful relaxing I've just done.

If anybody's taking bets, I give myself three weeks.

3 comments | link