As Long As Charlie Brown Lives In My Head I'm Not Alone,
But Seriously, Is It Just Me, Or

1. Does everyone imagine their Top 5 Most Played Songs on their iPods duking it out with each other for the coveted #1 spot in a style that can only be described as reminiscent of MTV's Celebrity Death Match? In my head Marvin Gaye is all "Let's Get It On, b#tch!" while Yoshimi battles not the Pink Robots, but The Rolling Stones, which, let's face it, wouldn't take long since they are, as my good friends Guns N Roses (ok, they're not really my good friends, but don't tell them that) might say, knocking on heaven's door, and Bob Dylan crouches in the corner weeping and franticly trying to call the Karma Police on his cell phone for back up before Yoshimi drop kicks him and in a surprise twist (!) The Walkmen leap into the ring as Bob's bloody corpse rolls out and start kicking ass like it's "New Year's Eve". Yeah. So, you do this too, right? Right?


2. Does everyone have a hard time spelling "reminiscent"? But then again. I've been known to misspell three letter words and also to e-mail people asking questions like "Say I was throwing you a party and you didn't know I was throwing you a party...what kind of party is that?" in an effort to avoid looking up "surprise" in the dictionary. So maybe it is just me. Nah.


3. Is Pyramid really The Greatest Game Show On The Face Of The Planet? Hello, Donny Osmond? I think you've found your true calling. Despite expecting to see Marie lurking in the shadows or with her hand up Donny's backside in a freakish puppet reveal (it didn't happen, at least not on the 521 episodes I've watched since I've been stricken with a potentially fatal case of Monkey Pox Insomnia), this show never disappoints. And! Thanks to Donny Osmond and his crack infused game show I've had an(other) epiphany. Are you ready for this? Everything relates to Jerry Maguire. Forget Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon; it's Six Degrees of Jerry Maguire, my friends. You see, it was "Sweethearts Week" or something saccharine like that, maybe it was "We Are Two Bodies, But One Soul Week", I can't really say for sure, but anyway, Jerry O'Connell was a guest (with his girlfriend, who I must say took the game a little too seriously and if I had a heart I probably would have been afraid for Jerry's life when he failed to guess the correct answer, but since I don't, it was sorta, kinda, hysterical). And we all know Jerry O'Connell played "Cushman" in Jerry Maguire, don't we? Add this to Jay Mohr, who played "Bob Sugar" in the movie, being on The West Wing last week, and what does it spell? You can run, but you can't hide from a Sports Agent With A Mission Statement and his Gang Of Misfit Island Rejects.


4. Does everyone's dad leave "Don't call me, I'll call you" messages on their answering machines? Maybe I'm not paying him enough? With my luck he's downsizing me because, in another Jerry Maguire slant, he wants fewer clients daughters, less money grief. Damn it. I knew Jerry Maguire would come back to haunt me in one way or another. I just always assumed it would be in the form of Renee Zellweger's bastard child. Wrong again, Tell her what she's won, Donny!


5. Does now seem like a good time to play with my Glow Worm collection go to sleep?


Well? Yeah. I thought so.

Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Straightjacket
Goodnight Man Standing Over My Bed With A Hatchet

I couldn't sleep last night. Pretty Normal, right? I tried and tried. I counted sheep, I counted monkeys, I counted the number of people whose bare feet I've seen, but, alas (Enter abnormality), one thing and one thing only kept popping into my head and making me giggle like An Insomniac On Crack, the phrase "There are no strangers...Only friends we haven't met." What the hell? I suppose it's better than that time I couldn't sleep because Donna and David from Beverly Hills, 90210 were having sex in my head. But still. I'm a teensy bit afraid because I did watch part of Girl Interrupted one of the fifty billion times it was on TV last night (Did Winona Ryder die, or what?) before I went to bed, and what if I caught Brittany Murphy's schizophrenia through the TV and that's why I was up half the night in a fit of maniacal laughter? Just in case, I did check under my bed this morning, and you can breathe easy now, there was no chicken there. I'm not positive "lack of chicken carcasses under the bed" is in the medical definition of sane, but it works for me.
I'm determined to sleep tonight so that I don't wake up with another axe stuck in my head (ok, it only felt like that), even if it kills me. Well, not really. But I will try harder. Even if it involves reading passages of Anna Karenina by flashlight and solving algebraic equations where X=The number of sheep that jumped over the fence in my head before I started thinking sheep are not as cute as they are made out to be and Y=The number of bare feet I have seen in person multiplied by The number of monkeys in the San Diego Zoo. Yeah. I'm so sleeping tonight.
And in the morning I will fight evil! Because guess what?! I'm Superhero material! I have a Superhero cape (so what if it's a sheet, Jonnie tells me it's ok as long as it doesn't have pee on it), I have Superhero boots, and I have a unique Superhero ability to Sense Kylie Minogue songs before they even come on the radio (this is helpful in Saving The World From Unnecessary Pain) Retain an unbelievably high tolerance for really bad television (this is helpful so that I am not Weakened when face to face with an enemy such as Whoopi Goldberg) Leap tall, sensible buildings in a single, non-sensible blog! Woo Hoo! Being a Superhero is so much better than being a Lifetime Movie of The Week. Unless it's that new one about syphilis. Or that old one with Meredith Baxter-Whoever in which she binges and purges like no one I've ever seen, except maybe my friend that one time I told her she had just eaten testicles. But anyway. Goodnight.

True Friends Don't Just Say 'Goodnight,'
They Say 'Goodnight, Try Not To Get A Concussion
On Your Way To Bed'

Was that a dream or did Stephanie Tanner really call Kimmy Gibbler a whore last night On A Very Special Full House? Somebody pinch me. I think this is what happens when you fall asleep to the Weather Channel after eating the other half of the bag of Twizzlers in a panic over whether everyone you know is trying to Reverse Psychologize (it's a word now, damn it) you. When I'm famous remind me to write a song about The Weather Channel. Oh wait, Sheryl Crow already did. Oh dear, dear Sheryl. Like there wasn't already enough reasons to have you taken out back and shot, you had to go and add this to your list of crimes?


Reason #671 Why I Won't Ever Rule The World - I was never on The Mickey Mouse Club.


I think I'll live dangerously today in honor of the Holiday and all. Yep, holiday. Yep, dangerously. Didn't Michelle Pfeiffer make a movie about living dangerously? We have that in common, Michelle and I. Minus the movie part anyway. Minus the movie part, but Plus the love of David E. Kelley, what does that equal?


How To Live Dangerously,
But Not In The Michelle Pfeiffer Kinda Way

1. Drink water out of the wrong side of the glass when you don't even have the hiccups. And if you want to live really dangerously, drink vodka out of the wrong side of the glass when you don't even have hiccups. And if you want to live really, really dangerously, drink rum out of a the wrong side of a bowl when you don't even have the hiccups. And if you want to live really, really, really dangerously, don't drink anything any way out of any thing when you have the hiccups. Just sit there in your hiccupiness and hiccup.


2. Don't yield. Just go. Yielding is for wimps. Whenever I am leaving my brother's house and about to drive home, instead of the usual "Drive safely" he says "Drive fast, take chances". He says this because he loves me. Yeah, he does. So I'm passing his homicidal big brother wisdom on to you. If you want to live really dangerously, close your eyes before not yielding. And if you want to live really, really dangerously, close your eyes and take your hands off the steering wheel before not yielding. And if you want to live really, really, really dangerously, just drive off a cliff. Or have dinner with my brother. Your choice.


3. Go swimming right after you eat. Don't wait 30 minutes for fear of getting a cramp and drowning. If you want to live really dangerously, go swimming in the ocean right after you eat. The Indian Ocean. If you want to live really, really dangerously, go swimming in the Indian Ocean with a hippopotamus tied to your back after you eat. If you want to live really, really, really dangerously, eat a hippopotamus while swimming in my bath tub.


Go forth and be brave, Pound Puppies.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Delusional Beautiful

But you should definitely hate me. And in case you're having trouble thinking of reasons, let me make it easy for you.


5 Reasons To Hate Me
From The Depths Of Your Soul To The Hairs In Your Nose

1. I sorta, kinda like the new Janet Jackson song. I know, I know, it's sick and you should lock me up and throw away the key. I talked it over with my lawyer though and we're going to go with the whole "Brainwashing Via Boob At The Superbowl" defense. So I'm confident I can be out in say, 50-60 years with early release for good behavior, as long as I can manage to avoid getting into any brawls or knife fights over whose turn it is to do "special favors" for Bertha the prison guard and/or who peed in whose pee hole (which really isn't how it sounds. At all).


2. I watched The New Kids On The Block E! True Hollywood Story tonight. All of it. I can't explain it with out further incriminating myself, so that's all I'm going to say. Except seriously, was that really 13+ years ago? And wasn't that Jordan Knight dreamy? For a robot with a rat-tail, I mean.


3. In a "What the hell am I doing, Everyone hates me, I suck worse than this Janet Jackson song" panic attack I ate half a bag of strawberry Twizzlers and even then only stopped because I felt like a.)It might not be a good idea to be vomiting red licorice all over my new carpet, and b.)This could be another brainwashing tactic and what if tomorrow I wake up liking Justin F#cking Timberlake who for all I know has a song titled "Gonna Have You Naked By The End Of This Package Of Twizzlers"?!


4. I put the ice cube trays back in the freezer empty. I'm still hoping that there is an Ice Cube Fairy that will flutter in and fill them for me, probably with special Fairy Water out of some remote Fairy Spring like something you might see in Rainbow Land (home of your heroine and mine, Rainbow Brite), and then leave a trail of sparkle Fairy Dust and maybe an Eddie Cahill clone on her way out. Am I expecting too much again?


5. I have been dodging your calls. By "your" I mean yours, and yours, and well, everyone else's. I know I no longer have the locked cell phone excuse, but unless you are calling to tell me that I won the lottery OR I am your baby's mommy OR I am your long lost twin sister (unless your name is Hayley Mills, and especially if you are Hayley Mills and you are dead, because if so all I have to say is sorry you're dead, hope it wasn't too tragic, but Get Over It, you have no twin, it was just a movie) OR your name is Martin Sheen and you're calling to ask if I will become your First Lady OR you know why Dale Earnhardt appears to have joined forces with Dim Sum The Thoughtful Upstairs Neighbor Who Is Also Coincidentally A Panda and together they are racing over my head even at this very moment, well then I don't really see what you could have to say to me that I would want to hear. No offense (again, unless you're Hayley Mills, in which case, Yes, Offense! Offense!).


It's ok, don't fight it. I hate me, too.

You Tell Me To Eat Lima Beans, I'll Eat Lima Beans
(Because Friends Can Tell Each Other Anything
If They Have Their 'Friends' Hats On)

Valentine's Day is over. And I had a good day. A good weekend. I was able to get away, I didn't break any bones or internal organs, I ate two kinds of snowballs and one of them just because it was pink, I finally figured out the elusive password that would unlock Michael Vartan's heart my cell phone, I saw my future 3rd husband's movie, Miracle, I had breakfast in bed, I had crazy hot hockey sex with Eddie Cahill on an ice rink underneath the American flag and I didn't let him take off his skates (ok, I might have made this one up), I didn't worry about anyone's health or happiness or hatefulness or hacky sacks or hamburgers or any other words beginning with "H", and I only quoted Jerry Maguire once (it doesn't count if I was sleeping, does it? Because then it might be twice. I might have mumbled something about not "shoplifting the pootie" in my sleep, but who can really say, other than the SandMan, and how creepy is that name anyway, The SandMan, it's like he was a reject for Candyman so he goes around putting things in our eyes at night, and wow, I really hope I'm not the only one who knows about the SandMan or else you're probably all thinking I've totally lost my marbles, aren't you?).


And why should the good times stop now that Monday is looming on the horizon? Why, damn it, why? It shouldn't, exactly, I couldn't agree more, you are so intelligent, this is why I keep you around, I love you. Umm. Wait, what just happened? Where was I? Oh yeah, tomorrow, in honor of President's Day (see, Bravo thinks Martin Sheen is President, too, I'm not alone! I've got my friends at Bravo! Unless they're not really my friends, but instead are robots like the robots at Amazon.com, but just thinking about that makes my non-robot head almost explode, so let's not), Bravo will be airing 13 hours of The West Wing. 13 glorious hours filled with Martin Sheen asking such thought provoking questions as "There are 14 punctuation marks in standard English grammar. Can anyone name them, please?" and reminding us that "Decisions are made by those who show up." Sigh. I'll show up, Martin! I'll show up and I'll even bring the American flag Eddie Cahill and I made little Eddie Cahill hockey playing babies on, so don't say I never did anything for my country.

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown,
Or I Will Put On A Hockey Mask And Kill You




Hi.
I'm incapable of washing my hair with out getting shampoo in my eyes and I just learned that Beethoven's favorite meal was macaroni and cheese (It must be true, I read it on my paper towels!).
That is all.


Oh, and Happy Friday the 13th. May none of you get chopped up into tiny pieces by Jason Voorhees, or Jason Voorhees' mother, or Jason Voorhees' mother's cousin's sister's friend, or Jessica Capshaw wearing a Cupid mask.
I'm running away for the weekend, hopefully I won't get chopped up by any fake serial killers or bad actresses either. I am also hopeful that when I get back my soul will be waiting for me and I can get back to normal. Well, as normal as I get anyway.

Hope you enjoy your VD. Hearts and flowers and chocolates and Blushing Bears for everyone.

The Day A House Fell On Betty Crocker
And Idaho Rejoiced, As Told By Me

Did I ever tell you about the time I was driving down a dark, twisting stretch of highway with my friends Freddie Prinze Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Ryan Phillippe after partying on the beach, hit a man and presumably killed him only to have him actually live (!) and come back to stalk us all a year later, killing off my pals Sarah Michelle and Ryan before the love of my life Freddie and I could figure out what was going on and barely manage to avoid his death grip? Wait. F*ck. That wasn't me, that was Jennifer Love Hewitt in I Know What You Did Last Summer. I am always confusing us. Well. We are both, uhh, ex-girlfriends of Carson Daly humans. I think.


I Know What You Did Last Night
(9 Things I May Or May Not Have Done,
Minus Anything That Might Get My Medical License* Revoked)

1. I may have realized that if you drink a whole lot of Diet Cherry Coke combined with taking just the right sinus medication you will suddenly become the Energizer Bunny, gain the ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound, beat a drum until your neighbors' ears bleed, memorize the periodic table just for fun, and realize that "Idaho" is a registered trademark of the Idaho Potato Commission (it has to be true! I read it on the back of my Potato Buds box! And Potato Buds are made by Betty Crocker so I guess what this really means is Hello, Idaho, Betty Crocker OWNS you. What I want to know is how do I register my state as a trademark of the Goldfish Commission? And how do I get a job on the Potato Commission, because I can so see myself saying "Oh yes, I'm President of the Potato Commission, what do you do?").


2. I may have been insulted by my three year old nephew (just like a typical male, he calls me and then after a minute whines "I don't wan tawk him any-mowa, I tawk to him morrow" as he hands the phone to his mom. Yeah, that's right. He called me a him. So what. He has issues, clearly. I mean we're talking about a boy who drinks out of a "sippy" cup and is afraid of Curious George).


3. I may have been inappropriate and sent someone inappropriate a Valentine, despite some appropriate advice telling me it would be a Bad Idea. And it may have read something like "Dear Mr. Mailman, Please be my baby's daddy. I don't need chocolates or flowers, just you (in full mailman uniform of course), me, your mail truck, and maybe those Blushing Bears. Be Mine. Love, Me".


4. I may have talked a little too much about Benson, Mr. Belvedere, the mechanic from Wings, the four women I'd have sex with, and how all those things were related.


5. I may have locked myself out of my new cell phone, after losing my previous cell phone to The Margarita Incident (hey, if you are psychic and/or work for Sprint and know the goddamn password that I never set, leave it in the comments, thanks).


6. I may have wondered if Kirk Cameron was still alive (apparently he is. And he's probably reading this. Hi, Kirk! How are things? How is your sister DJ Tanner? Hugs and kisses!).


7. I may have wondered if a lot of people were still alive, because I tend to think everyone I don't talk to on a daily basis is dead, and yeah, that includes myself.


8. I may have called someone to ask if I had already called, because yes, Kirk Cameron is still alive, and yes, I'm slowly losing my mind, and yes, there's probably also a connection there.


9. I may have forgotten anything else I might have done because of the aforementioned losing of my mind.


*By "Medical License" I meant "Monkey". They both begin with the letter "M", see the confusion?


So, no, I didn't kill anyone last night, and now if you'll excuse me it's Wednesday and Wednesday means I Serve At The Pleasure Of President Martin Sheen so I really must go do that, whatever that means, although I like to think it means I feed him m&m's while we watch Never Before Seen episodes of The West Wing together and on commercial breaks he says things like "The 82nd Airborne works for me" and "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc". Hey, it's my dream.

Do You Like Bears,
And Do You Really Want To Make Me Cry?
(I'll Take 'Questions I Might Ask February
If February Came For Tea' For $500, Alex)



I've decided that in order to overcome this February From Hell, one of the following must occur:


1. I must demolish all buildings in my neighborhood and build a baseball field. Because if I build it, they will come. And by they I mean The Angels of Mercy, yes, that's right, The Hallmark Blushing Bears. They will come and they will play little Hallmark Blushing Bear baseball and I will watch while eating popcorn with Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones, and all will be right with the world. At least until they lose the Hallmark Blushing Bear World Series to two masked bears and I have to kill them go back to crying myself to sleep at night.


2. I must learn to accept that when it is February and someone says "You look like you've been rolling around on your carpet, your eyelashes are all sparkly...Seriously, is that carpet lint?" that it is a compliment. I know it's not the normal everyday compliment you might receive such as "Yes, you are definitely my baby's mommy" or "I like your Cabbage Patch Kid socks," but it is February, and you can't expect too much from February or you are destined to end up curled up in the fetal position under your desk wearing nothing but those Cabbage Patch Kid socks, singing "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" through tears while Dim Sum, your Pet Shop Boy Loving Panda neighbor taunts you with a bag of peanut butter cups and a $100 rebate off a Hoover SteamVac. Not that this has happened to me or anything.


3. I must change my name to Charlotte, marry that boy that played Juliette Lewis' mentally challenged husband in that movie The Retarded Other Sister, go with him to Japan so he can make rock videos, feel lost, meet Bill Murray, who will also be feeling lost, receive notes slipped under my door reading "Are you awake?" from Bill Murray, sing karaoke with Bill Murray, eat sushi with Bill Murray, and watch late night Japanese TV with Bill Murray. Yeah. It's become clear that watching Lost In Translation 56,213 times in a row alone will not be enough to get me through the month, but living it just might, and anyway I think there is no way Bill could have left me if I was Charlotte.


And you know, if say, for some reason I wasn't able to accomplish any of the above three, I've given this some serious thought and the only thing that makes sense other than going on a killing spree is jumping in the sewer to get super powers, isn't that how The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did it, I'd be like The Twenty-Something Mutant Ninja Belle, Saturday morning cartoons would rise again, and I would kick February's ass into next year.
And yeah, I've totally lost all touch with my old friend REALITY, in case you were wondering.

Never Trust A Naked Bus Driver,
Even If He's Your Baby's Daddy

I'm in a funk. A February Funk. Wil Wheaton won't acknowledge that he's my baby's daddy, my monkey is sick, I have a feeling there were tiny shards of glass in my orange juice that are probably cutting up my vital organs right this very instant, last night I dreamt that I had been chosen to head up NASA's mission to Pluto, but just as I was about to board the space shuttle I got arrested for stealing a Jimmy Neutron watch, did I mention my monkey is sick, I may have given myself a concussion last night, and my soul never came home from the bar the other night, so really I have no reason to go on.
Except for the faint glimmer of hope that someone, somewhere will set the Hallmark Blushing Bears free from their little Hallmark Blushing Bear Labor Camps and they will all be on my doorstep in the morning. There's always that. And this...
Tag, you're it.