I’m just a busy beaver these days, folks.  And I’m afraid I’ve all but abandoned this little blog…for now.

In the meantime, keep up with my food writing here: she eats.

And keep up with my Houston sports/news/arts/entertainment writing here:  Houstonist.

Reason #48 Why You Shouldn’t Walk Around Barefoot In Your Office, Even If It’s Intolerably Hot And Your Shoes Are Making Your Feet Simultaneously Sweat And Hurt:

You will most likely get a thumbtack imbedded in the ball of your foot, causing you to fall unglamorously to the ground, wailing and shrieking and cursing the Lord with very unladylike language.  You will then have to hobble around for the rest of the afternoon while people ask you, “What happened to your foot?” and your only reply will be to blush furiously and claim, “Nothing!”  And then those people will ask, “Was that you we heard yelling earlier?  Are you sure something didn’t happen?”  And you’ll have to shamefully admit that, yes, you stepped directly onto a thumbtack while barefoot and sheepishly dart away before they can ask you any more questions.

I have about had it with expensive bags (or purses or whatever you want to call them).  It’s one thing to own a nice, well-constructed, chic bag that makes you feel happy and goes with all of your outfits.  It’s another thing to spend four times your mortgage payment on a bag.

For example:  The Legacy Ostrich Coach Bag, for only $4800.

Ack!  What?  $4800?  This is a COACH BAG, Y’ALL.  A COACH BAG.  You know, the same brand that every spoiled thirteen-year-old with a Sidekick, every babymama on food stamps who’s spending her pocket money on LV and Coach instead of her kids, every clubhopping slag who wears shirts from Glam, every annoying person at the mall who runs you over while horking down their Chai bubble tea carries.  It’s PLAYED OUT.  It’s PAST played out.  It’s just over.

And now we’ve got a $4800 Ostrich-skin Coach bag hitting the streets?  Who the hell is going to spend almost five grand on that ugly, bright-blue tribute to chavdom?  Because they need to be slapped, sharp and hard.

Owning a tacky, blue, Ostrich-skin bag that you were suckered into paying five grand for isn’t going to make you feel any better about yourselves, ladies.  I promise.  You’re only helping us reach new nadirs as a society…

Things not to say to the accounting manager at your company:

Hmm. Your department usually smells like Cheerios, but today it just smells like rubber doll heads.

As if I was expecting her to gesture broadly to a box in the corner of her office, filled with rubber doll heads, and say, “Thanks! I just got rid of my box full of Cheerios last week and it’s taken a while for the smell to clear out.”

What the hell, mouth? Do you not have internal conversations with the random-shit-filter in my brain before you start moving?

I mean, seriously. I hear a lot of stupid things at work, but — sadly — the stupidest things seem to come from me.

You may remember my strange infatuation with men who three, maybe four, other people in this world also find attractive. One of those men, who I forgot to mention, is dear Tom Hulce.

Tom is probably best known for his eponymous role in Amadeus. The first time I saw Amadeus, I was four years old. My mother took me, a four-year-old, to see it when it was first released. I’m sure the other patrons were none-too-pleased to see a very young child in the theatre with them, but they had no reason to worry. I was utterly infatuated with the movie, my mother recalls, and stood on my seat in the back of the theatre the entire time, my little eyes fixated on the screen.

I obviously didn’t develop a crush on Tom Hulce until much later on in life, around 13 years old. His portrayal of Mozart is what did it for me: a brilliant, misunderstood, ridiculous imp of a man. Perfect for a similarly-misunderstood 13-year-old who also likes to tell fart jokes and play classical pieces on her viola at the school bus stop while getting teased by all the other middle schoolers. I also adored his antics in Animal House, but it was Amadeus that truly endeared him to me.

While I still harbor the same great and undying love for Amadeus that was born in 1984, my crush on Tom Hulce faded somewhere around the end of middle school and I hadn’t given him any thought at all until today. I was browsing my typical, classless gossip sites and stumbled upon…

What is this???

What has become of you, Tom Hulce, you great wooly mammoth of a man?  Where is my young imp?

This must be where youthful crushes go to die…

Overheard in the elevator after work…

Corporate Attorney:  Wow, Missy!  You don’t look like you’ve gained any weight at all during your pregnancy, except in your belly!

Pregnant Missy:  Are you kidding?  I’ve gained 23 pounds so far.

Corporate Attorney:  You’re gonna have a 23 pound baby?!?!

Some time soon, I will sit down and do this amazing trip more justice.  But for today, I am exhausted and so I offer only this photo gallery (with comments!) and a few random videos I uploaded to YouTube.

Enjoy.

Pictures Of England

Driving Through Bollington

White Nancy

Snow

Oy…

So, I’m back.  And busy.  So I’ll cut straight to the chase here.

Absolute favorite April Fool’s Day joke so far?  Belongs to Seeqpod.  No matter what song or artist you search for today, the first song that will come up is Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”  Brilliant.

Go give it a try.  You know you want to.

I assume the fine folks at Seeqpod are familiar with the time-honored tradition of Rickrolling, and I applaud them for it.  Well done, sirs.

This is the meadow by my house
I can’t pass by and not think of you

Nothing happened there to remind me of you
Of any of you
Your home wasn’t nearby
We never sat there together, brushing mosquitoes away in the summer
We never had dinner at the cafe across the street
We never drove the ribbon of road past its tall grasses
But it always takes me back to you

You are always with me

You exist as part of me, inextricable
No matter how far away I run, who I turn to
Where I go or what I do
How many stones I turn

You are always with me

–The Gospel of St. Thomas, author unknown

I started reading the Harry Potter books when I was in college.  It was only slightly mortifying at the time to be caught with what were seen — at the time — as children’s books.  But I noticed that other people were also reading them on the sly, and that this whole “Harry Potter thing” really seemed to be catching fire, so my embarassment was mostly tempered by these occurrences.

By the time the last Harry Potter book came out, I was on a downhill slide — not the big fan I once was — from when the books really hit their stride with The Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix.  Half-Blood Prince had been a mild disappointment for me and I was really only anticipating the last book because I felt that I needed closure for characters in which I’d been invested for almost seven years.

So, it was with a deep sense of irony and self-effacing humor that my friends and I went down to the West Alabama Bookstop (& Theatre!) for the midnight release party of The Deathly Hallows.  Even the release party itself was deflated and tired and smaller than the riotous release party had been for Half-Blood Prince.  Clearly, I was not the only one hanging on by a thread, ready to end this marathon.

After reading The Deathly Hallows, I managed to come away even more disappointed.  And not just with the book, but with the way that the entire series ended.  And also a little disappointed in myself for getting so interested in what eventually turned out to be mostly sound and fury.

But what struck me this morning as I perused the gossip websites was the news that the final book will be released as two movies — and will be released when I am 31 years old.

I am not comfortable contemplating the idea that I will eventually turn 30 years old, much less 31.  That’s one step closer to 40 and then 50 and then 60 and then diapers, bedpans and death.  Say what you will.  Mock me.  But I’m not ready to get any older than I already am, especially since I’ve accomplished about three out of one hundred things that I had hoped to accomplish at this point in my life.

Also…there’s the nagging feeling that perhaps 31 is too old to see a Harry Potter movie without the benefit of Netflix.  Someone please tell me that I’m wrong and being foolish.  And that it’s normal for a 27 year old to be having an overly-early-midlife, Harry Potter-induced crisis.

I always knew that Harry Potter would turn out to be evil in some way…