SOME people have st. patrick's day and their alma mater playing Duke this weekend

So, SOME people were going to guestblog for me today, but SOME people got way too busy with their brackets and alcohol consumption (right, like I'm actually going to believe you were working today). I apologize for SOME people, and hope that you weren't waiting with bated breath for SOME people to tell a really disturbing yet hysterical story involving a Chinese massage parlor.

Since I don't plan to be sober for the next 58 hours, I'll instead leave you with last year's account of St. Patrick's Day. It's a little more terse than accurately reflecting the fun I had, but I wrote it before I met this brutally hot Irish construction worker on O'Connell Street. Ladies, if you're ever talking with a guy and ask him "so how many tattoos do you have?" and he has to pause to tally... go home with him. Seriously. Don't say I never taught you anything.

promises, promises

I am such a bad blogger. It's not my fault! They actually make me work at the new job! I almost didn't finish my bracket in time, much less have time for the navel-gazing you all come here for every day (although I DID finish my bracket and I'm now tied with B for #1 in our pool which is so unexpected and awesome and never going to be repeated that I'm going to totally brag about it way past the point of obnoxiousness). And I tried to write last night, but the Most Insane Game of College Basketball Ever kept making me jump off my couch, both startling Sadie into hiding under my shoe rack and repeatedly knocking my laptop over.

Today will be more of the same, but you all can expect a fun surprise later on today. Trust me, we're going into this weekend with a bang.

And Kathryn and I-66, many (belated) thanks for another great happy hour. I had fun seeing faces old and new, but especially want to say hey RoarSavage and Kris. It was fantastic to finally meet both of you! One of my favorite things about this blogging shiz is seeing how other people write when they're (mostly) completely uncensored-- what their styles are, their subjects, their intended audience, the quirks and phrases that make each writer unique no matter how much we all "borrow" from one another. I really enjoy the writing of these two in particular, and it was great to see that they were just as fabulous off the page.

So seriously. Check back later today. It'll be good.

apparently you can't say "douchebag" in the washington post

Thank you, Metro Express! You have no idea how it brightens my morning when I flip past actual news to the Blog Log and my own words are peeping up at me (especially on 40 degree mornings when I left my heels at the office and have to wear flipflops for the commute). I (and the Intern Hata) really appreciate the mention.

But what really blows my mind is when there are two pre-8 AM suprises relating to the Metro. Linda Cropp was doing a meet and greet outside the Eastern Market Metro this morning. Now, normally I care enough about DC politics as I do soap operas... mildly diverting if I have a severe fever and a lot of time on my hands, but otherwise way too messy to follow. And at least on soap operas, the people involved are fun to look at.

But I've done Metro meet and greets with candidates before and I know they suck. Most GOTV efforts suck, but anything involving the candidate herself is extra high pressure on the poor staffers. And GOTV especially sucks when it's unexpectedly cold and you're surrounded by crabby commuters occupied with envy of their New York compatriots who get to bring coffee on the subway. So I smiled and shook her hand, and even deigned to take a flier. It could have been a lot worse, after all. If Lyndon LaRouche ever tries to ask for my vote before I have Starbucks in my system (or for that matter, if he just ever tries to ask for my vote) I am not responsible for any damage that may occur.

Hope to see you all tonight at Happy Hour!

and you think your interns are dumb

Ever have an intern who had to be taught how to open a spreadsheet? Or maybe he told the chief of staff "watch out, I plan to have your job in a year?" Or maybe a whole herd of them were hogging the bartender's attention ordering Smirnoff Ice and loudly complaining about having to work 20 hour weeks? Ever been waiting for the Metro with a 19-year-old sporting a security badge and smothered the urge to inform him that, as you are standing at the platform at BALLSTON and are therefore nowhere near the United States Capitol, he should remove said badge IMMEDIATELY lest he look like a total douchebag?

Have I got the site for you. No, I do not run it. Yes, I know who does. Vent away, friends. Vent away:

myinternsaredumb.blogspot.com

my name is ej and i'm a target-holic

So how gorgeous was it this weekend? What'd you all do to enjoy the sunshine? Me, I spent money I don't have on stuff I don't need!

The advent of spring means tank top season, and so I ran to Target yesterday to pick up a package of wifebeaters. I left eighty minutes later and $127 poorer. Target is lethal like that. I should not be allowed in there unsupervised and in possession of a working credit card. Among the unplanned items I purchased:

* DVD of Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle
* 26 plastic hangers
* Purple gaucho pants
* 1-inch barrel curling iron (please note I already own both a 3/4 inch and a 1.5 inch model)
* Men's XL flannel "Vote for Pedro" pajama pants
* Stuf by Hillary Duff washcloths

I think you get the point.

Seriously, is there a support group for people who have no self-control at Target? If there isn't, I'd gladly start it. We'd only go there at preassigned times, as to resist the bored whimsy that often strikes when there's nothing good on TV and we think to ourselves "I really need a Wet-Dry Vac and some new mascara." We'd go in groups and unplanned purchases would have to be defended by the shopper and voted on by the assembled party:

"I need this Bocce ball set because it's marked down from $89 to $73."
"But you live on the eleventh floor of a city building. There's no grass within five blocks of your home."
"... Did I mention it was on sale?"

There would be no visit to the DVD section. No good could come of it. We would decide what we wanted to own and order it on Amazon. And upon checkout, we would be required to give a final inspection of the contents of one another's carts, harshly determining the necessity of proposed purchases.

I really feel that there's a market for this.

memoirs of a functioning junkie

I have a little game I've played with myself for the last month. It's called "Where Were You In Europe One Year Ago Today?" It's a fetching little way to escape the mundane details of day-to-day existence. If faced with some unpleasantry, such as paying bills or mounting work deadlines or absolutely no one worth eyefucking, much less actual fucking, I escape to the dock at Nyhavn or the Viktualienmarkt or even the world's most insane train ride through central Italy, just because it was novel and scary and exhilarating.

What's been surprising me is that I don't play this game more often. As recently as September I was in serious backpacking withdrawl, practically having the shakes from being stuck in the same job, with the same people under the same roof every single day for the foreseeable future.

Travel addicts, especially solo travel addicts, are like all other addicts. We're thrillseekers who crave the fix of the exotic. We're impulsive and selfish. We remove ourselves from old support systems until we hit rock bottom. We travel because we want to forget our lives, sometimes permanently. We leech off others by absorbing their unfamiliar conversations, cuisines and cultures.

The kind of travel I love isn't always pretty. It's often messy and terrifying, and always scrappy. Scrappy. Perfect word for what I love. Improvisational and free, being responsible for no one and nothing but your own survival and comfort.

The kind of travel I love tests the people I love. When you cut ties and set off own your own, others don't always want to do the extra work to maintain that love. Looking back, I can't say I blame them. Who wants to rely on a blog and the occasional email for friendship? Who wants to put forth the extra effort to be a companion to someone thousands of miles away? From a purely practical standpoint, I completely understand the impulse to put me on a shelf until I got back.

For the most part they took me back when I returned. So now I'm here, firmly entrenched in a pattern of daily life. There are people I owe things to, be it money or time or an open mind. There is a cat that will be more than happy to remind me if I forget to feed her. For the first time in almost a decade, there are no big shifts on my horizon. No move, no new job, no relationship upheaval, no shows, no big change. I'm the picture of steadiness (or will be when I use my tax refund to pay off the good people at AmEx).

On March 8, 2006 I had a staff meeting. Then I drafted a whole bunch of reports and color-coded my filing system.

On March 8, 2005 I decided I was bored with Roman statuary and bratwurst and went to Amsterdam for a week of the sort of debauchery I will not mention on the Internet. Except that I will and he had a HOT accent and there was much Heinekin and THC involved. And Arcade Fire was there, too.

But today I'm also going to the DC Independent Film Festival with some friends and then trying a new restaurant. Exhilarating? Not really. Safe? Well, it's not exactly rappelling down a sheer cliff face. But it's new to me. And it's certain to be lovely, because my friends are lovely people.

I met a lot of travel junkies while I was backpacking. People my age who wander the world with a knapsack and a passport, tending bar or picking fruit to keep them in hostel payments and clove cigarettes. They all had battle scars and glorious stories, and all but one of two of them would someday go home, wherever that might be, and pick up where they left off. Because that kind of life, no matter how brutally pure and intoxicating it is, can't be maintained. People aren't meant to live without strings. I don't meander through Irish bowers in my head all day because doing so keeps me from living. Like it or not, I'm acknowledging all the tedium (but a lot of really pleasant stuff, too) that fills the days. Dare I say... maturing? Accepting being an adult?

Junkies usually either crash and burn or sober up and acquire that glassy-eyed, be-rehabed look. I'm hoping I can be like the mythical alcoholic who functionally has a glass of wine. Maybe even one who sometimes gets plastered and does regrettable but entertaining things she fuzzily remembers, but still thrives.

planning my mother's easter weekend visit to DC

Mom: So what would Jesus do at Drag Brunch?

EJ: Well, I'm guessing he'd knock back the sacramental wine and stick a twenty in the tranny's panties.

Mom: *speechless and horrified*

EJ: And maybe after we do the Spy Museum you can shotgun while I drive the short bus to Hell.

it's hard out here for a girl who wanted brokeback mountain to sweep the oscars

Dear Members of the Academy,

Seriously? CRASH? I know it's set in LA and you guys love watching your town onscreen, but didn't you find it just a touch... oh, I don't know, condescending, overbearing, pedantic, unrealistic and simplistic and not to mention TOTALLY INSULTING to have a film about comtemporary racism be made entirely by white people?

Although, well-played on Best Song. You guys always award actresses for playing hookers, but then they disappoint us by showing up in clothes that (well, sometimes) cover their goodies. Just put the hoes onstage! Way to cut out the middleman!

I enjoyed the tasteful tributes to film noir and what I think was musical films... I happened to miss that intro because us girls were hollering really loudly upon finding out that one of our ranks doesn't get the appeal of George Clooney. Side note: do you guys also think that if George Clooney and Oprah ever teamed up, they could conquer and run the entire planet? Can we appoint an Academy committee to explore the logistics of such a campaign?

And thanks for choosing Jon Stewart. He can come back next year and that'd be just fine with me.

Your friend,

EJ

PS: Giuliana DePandi, what the hell was up with your nipples? Were you icing them every time the camera panned to Isaac Mizrahi, knowing that he wouldn't be allowed to fondle anyone during this awards show and therefore E! would have to find some other way to have really tasteless breast action in their red carpet coverage? Or was it really just a chilly spring afternoon in Los Angeles?

it's the people that you meet when you're walking down the street, it's the people that you meet each day!

Mention gentrification in DC and you're likely to be greeted with either angry tirades or guilty feet-shuffling. I'm somewhere in between. Do I like that long-time residents are being pushed out to PG County by skyrocketing rent in my neighborhood, or the blatant current of racial conflict that runs through what we politely call "transitioning neighborhoods?" No. But nor do I care for the dulcet ring of gunshots echoing down the street. If I did, I would still be living in Detroit, thankyouverymuch. No, I go for the neighborhoods that are a good five years past gentrification; the ideal combination of urban reality and being able to walk down the street without having a knife plunged into my ribcage.

I love my neighborhood to the point of obnoxiousness, but gritty it ain't. Where visitors used to troll for crack, they now troll for organic vegetables. I like that my block is sunshiney and full of young families with impossibly cute cubby-cheeked children bouncing in expensive slings on their daddies' chests. I like that I have enough friends in a five block radius that I can, at any time of the day, pad over to someone's house in my sweatpants for some guilty pleasure television. And, because I am a total geek, I really love that we have conversations like:

"Do you wanna stop by the liquor store after work?"
"Which one?"
"The one by Mary Landreiu's house."
"Do they sell the hard stuff?"

But frequently I feel a pang for the Eastern Market of yore. The Eastern Market of my freshman year of college, when we were warned by overearnest orientation leaders that it was Not A Good Idea to go there alone or after dark. The Eastern Market that held the now-defunct shady Las Placitas franchise, makers of the world's strongest margaritas and willing to give them to anyone old enough to order them. The Eastern Market, where, stumbling back from yet another night doing our part to keep up morale in the armed forces at the Dirty Pigeon, we'd pass people smoking blunts out on their front stoops in the same manner my Grammy used to sip a cup of coffee on her patio.

I was on the phone with my mother yesterday walking home from work, telling her about my new job when, lo and behold, I noticed a gentleman relieving himself on a tree across the street. A tree in a churchyard. At 5:30 in the afternoon. Mid-stream, he caught me looking at him and shifted slightly as to better conceal his junk. But, unlike every other guy I've ever accidentally locked eyes with while he was urinating in public, this one didn't start ranting and raving. And hey, if you're going to live in a city then people are gonna pee on the street, and if people are gonna pee on the street then quiet and unobtrusive peeing on the street is the best way to go.

And this morning, I was stopped from crossing Penn because of a motorcade. I was prepared to be all internally huffy, because in college we'd forever get stuck behind a stream of nineteen towncars because Clinton wanted a burger or a Bush daughter had to pick up her forgotten credit card from Smith Point, and we'd whine and be all "Ugh! Motorcades are so annoying!" but secretly feel incredibly cool because hey, college sophomores everywhere are late to class but WE were late to class because the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WAS DRIVING BY US. WE WERE SO MUCH COOLER THAN YOU.

So I'm waiting for the familiar whine of sirens to pass, thinking how weird that a motorcade would be driving into the city from Southeast at 7:45 in the morning, when I suddenly realized: not even a diplomat would travel in a white caged-in school bus.

Organic vegetables, public urination AND early morning prison transports. I really do love my neighborhood.

the roosevelt wants to be YOUR band

What are you doing on Friday night? Why, you're going to come hear my friend R's band, The Roosevelt.

WHEN: Friday, March 3 at 8:45.
WHERE: Grog and Tankard
COST: $7 at the door (yeah, I know, but a chunk of it goes to supporting local bands and is therefore money well spent)

In encouraging me to spread the word, R suggested I use some GOTV strategies from campaigns past. Even though I'm pretty sure Ron Wood would never utter that particular combination of words, their music is damn good and R is a damn good friend who sat through three hours of show tunes to see me make out with a gay man. For this reason alone, I wouldn't miss his set. Check them out!

The Roosevelt: "American Drunk"
The Roosevelt: "When I'm Good"

let's be honest

What I say I'm going to give up for Lent:

- Drinking two pitchers of Miller Lite the night before I start my new job.

- Self-indulgent, navel-gazing blog posts.

- Making lists of things I know I'll never check off.

- Buying albums on iTunes just because I read about them on Stereogum.

- Watching reruns of Law and Order: SVU (because I live alone and always wake up in the middle of the night petrified that I forgot to deadbolt my front door but too scared to go and check).

- Softbatch chocolate chip cookies.



What I'm actually going to give up for Lent:

- ...

SO MUCH BETTER THAN ER

If I still believed in the Judeo-Christian God, I would pray to Him that I never, EVER have sex as bad as Meredith and George did tonight on Grey's Anatomy. The horror! The HORROR! I have not the words to describe how INCREDIBLY AWFUL AND PAINFUL IT WAS TO WATCH, THOUGH TYPING IN ALL CAPS MIGHT SOMEWHAT CONVEY THE AWFULNESS. I could try to describe it but I would fail, because nothing in English can capture how TERRIBLE it was. Maybe there's a phrase in another language for "nonviolent yet still awful sex that should never, ever happen." German is really good for those kind of phrases.

The irony is, before we watched the episode, we were talking about how much we miss sex. Apparently, we needed to be more specific. We miss GOOD sex. At very least, the kind that does not make you sob while your partner goes down on you.

But Kim let me borrow Season One on DVD, which I'm watching as I type this. Mmmm... Patrick Dempsey... elevator...

That's more like it.


Oh, and Ellen Pompeo: young lady, get your hair out of your pretty face and eat a pizza. Your stringy bangs and scalpel-like collarbone are turning me into my mother. AND STAND UP STRAIGHT, MISSY.

hold onto that feelin'

Do you ever have those really random nights where you look around you and think, "how the hell did I wind up here?" Like, just to pick an example at random, when you decide to go rollerskating in Odenton, Maryland and find yourself singing "Don't Stop Believin'" for your turn at karaoke at a really lame birthday consisting entirely of NSA employees, none of whom you know?

Yeah, me neither. No seriously, my ankles hurt a little this morning.

And on an even more serious note, readers of the lovely and talented Sharkbait know that she's been going through a very sad time after the death of her aunt. Well, her aunt left behind a husband and their seven children, whom she home-schooled. Sharkbait's uncle, now a widower, works two jobs and rarely sees his children. Since his wife passed away, he would like to quit one of those jobs and spend more time with the kids. However, they have medical bills to pay, school bills to come (the kids can no longer be home-schooled), no insurance... it's an untenable and unimaginable situation. She and his family could use our help, and I encourage you to email Sharkbait, known in the real world as Jessica, at findingsharkbait at gmail dot com for details.

the long-awaited but heavily censored bar mitzvah pictures

From the Bat Mitzvah. And yes, those are bubble Star of David necklaces everyone is wearing. Let the hate mail commence.



Early in the night, when The Birthday Kids still look relatively human.




My college friends had my mother secretly email them pictures of 13 year old EJ, which they turned into T-shirts...


... and posters. You guys are ASSES. And I love you.


It's not a Bat Mitzvah without the Electric Slide.

Oh PLEASE let Adam's future law firm stumble across this picture!

"Hark! Let's away to the tequila shots!"

"Um, Libs, you have a little... nevermind."

I think my favorite moment of the night was when some people drunkenly cornered other cast members from Company and held them captive for ten minutes, talking about how much they looooved them and how they were sooooo much better than the actress in the making-of DVD of the show.

I would rarely post so unflattering a photo of me, but it's the only one including Geoff that doesn't look like it was taken at a gay rave.



Um, I don't recall that dance from bat mitzvahs I attended in middle school.










So yeah, the Bar/Bat Mitzvah was awesome. And just for fun, here's a photo of a patriotic chicken:

make 'em throw stone at virgins

Okay. So let's see here.

Drunk in the Woods was awesome. We did indeed, get drunk in the woods. We also got Drunk in the Hot Tub in 17-Degree Weather (Coors Lite, playing Fuck Chuck or Marry? while our hair froze), Drunk in the Central Southern Virginia Vineyards (Cabernet Franc, asking directions to what Dan the Wine Guy termed an Italian restaurant and which actually was a Pizza Hut) and Drunk in the Extremely Accusatory and Recrimination-Filled Five-Hour Game of Risk (pretty much every beverage in the house, no further explanation of activity necessary).

Since getting back from Drunk in the Woods, I have been offered a new job, accepted said new job and am giving notice at current job as soon as I work up the nerve to tell my boss that not only am I leaving but that TODAY is my last day. Things are that toxic around here, friends. I already have my bags packed. Literally. My ActorFest New York 2003 canvas tote is stuffed full of collected business cards, hand lotion and a steak knife I once brought in when I brought lox and a quarter-baguette for lunch. My boss is very, very lucky that in the following months I forgot that I'd left that knife in a drawer.

I'm so nervous I'm practically scratching at my face just to have a distraction. I couldn't be happier about leaving, but things are so nasty right now that I dread any further comments from my boss, even though I rationally know that I'm moving on to bigger and better things and that he can't hurt me or my career anymore. That all said, I'm not the hugest fan of confrontation and I'm really not the hugest fan of dealing with people who behave irrationally.

After Lord knows how many bottles of wine and sleeping for fifteen straight hours on Sunday night, I think I need another vacation. Deep breaths, EJ, deep breaths.

There, that's slightly better. It's like my Daddy used to tell me: "Make 'em throw stones at virgins." To this day, it's the best professional advice I've ever gotten. You can't control how other people are determined to treat you, but you can control your response to it. If you're in a lousy situation, the best way to get the upper hand is by keeping your cool and letting the other person be the bad guy. Make 'em throw stones at virgins. I'm telling ya, east Tennesseans really have a way with the euphamism.

decoding the universe, part the second

My friend R called me last night on his way to Valentine's dinner in an existential tizzy. I love R because he's the ideal combination of caveman guy and overanalytical girl. Neither of us would ever hook up with one another in a million years, and so we get to be as messy and neurotic around each other as we damn well please. Our friendship is a great sounding board on which we can try out ideas for our relationships before actually attempting them in a space with consequences. Plus he gives great IM and has helped me move in the summertime, and therefore has my undying loyalty.

But I digress. R was curious about my theory that the universe is full of signs and sends us signals about our behavior. More specifically, he wanted to know why the universe was suddenly throwing ex-girlfriends in his path left, right and center. He ran into one old girlfriend out and about, and only to see her quoted in a Post article the next week. An article on Valentine's Day and relationships. A quote in which she paraphrased something he told her when they dated. And did I mention he ran into her while going to see his new girlfriend? And that the quote of hers was about a movie that I had just purchased on DVD A MERE FIVE DAYS AGO?

If you couldn't sense my sarcasm towards the end of the previous paragraph, my point is: if you take this "sign" thing too seriously, especially in a company town where everyone under 35 is a member of at least one online friendship network, you're going to make yourself insane. After a certain point, it's not the universe speaking to you; it's just that everyone yuppie twentysomething has occasion to ride the Red Line a few times a week.

Now I find this turn of events intriguing, but not as interesting as their wildly disparate views of the occasion on which they ran into each other. They wound up on the same Metro train one day during rush hour and said a brief hello.

Man response: (thought that went through head when he saw her) "There's [Old Girlfriend]. Oh, she's talking with someone. Don't want to interrupt."

Woman response: To email him the next day (I'm paraphrasing here): "How is it that you're still not civil to me three years after we stopped dating? THREE YEARS! Can't we at least acknowledge each other? This isn't a big town!"

Man response to woman response: "Uhhhh... huh? Sure. OK."

Hearing R describe this scenario last night, and reading the written summary of it in my work AND personal inboxes this morning, I was reminded of the Dave Barry book my mother gave me for Christmas.** It's such a classic example of how men and women are capable of looking at the exact same situation and seeing two completely different things. One woman's rude snub is one man's polite deference.

Who knows why this is? Who knows why men and women can be raised in the same environments and yet view common experiences through completely different lenses? It's a grand question, one that no one, certainly me, will ever be able to fully answer.

But why is the universe throwing ex-girlfriends in your path, R? It's telling you: "Look at who you had to wade through to get where you are! Don't fuck it up with New Girlfriend! It's scary out there!"

Easy as pie, baby. Throw me a challenge next time.




**True Story: My mom met Dave Barry on one of her business trips last year and asked him to autograph a copy of his book Dave Barry's Guide to Guys for her daughter EJ. While signing, he asked her how old her daughter was. "Twenty-three," my mom replied. "Ooooooh," said Dave Barry, handing the signed book back to her, "she needs to lower her standards."

patience, child

Forgive my lack of updates. My laptop battery died on Saturday. Plus, I was busy becoming a woman.

Oh, you'll see.

a collection of things that would once have been lame away messages, but no longer are used as such because i haven't been in college for two years

So who else thinks that Nick and Santino totally hooked up during filming for Project Runway?

I am so not listening to you when you tell me I should never write because you are not only a hideous writer yourself, but a severely self-absorbed jackass.

I might have to go see Final Destination 3 because it features both my favorite Canadian teen soap opera star AND someone named "Texas Battle."

AWWWW, G-DUB!

Two days until we put the "Bar" in "Bar Mitzvah."

Ten days until Drunk-in-the-Woods.

maybe because my party clothes are so binding

Alicia Silverstone spoke the stone-cold gospel truth when she said "I know it sounds mental, but sometimes I have more fun vegging out than when I go partying."

Because if I were out then I would have missed out on my mother, who yes, is in fact a member of Facebook, telling the story of how she was inadvertently invited to a toga party at State. More specifically, I would have missed the immortal and completely serious quote:

"The invitation said togas mandatory, but because it's winter in Michigan that pants are allowed. I find that quite considerate."

And I also would have missed out on spending an hour watching TV starring my favorite newly engaged couple. I love Mandy Moore. Just adore her. I feel like she would be really excellent to go to Anthropologie with, and I'd try on a $78 t-shirt and feel all sorts of yuppie guilt about wanting to purchase something so silly but she'd not only talk me into it by telling me how awesome I look and how much I'll wear it but will be so convincing that I will somehow feel right with humanity about buying something so incredibly self-indulgent.

Okay, I'm leaving my apartment now.

the thing about jenny

The thing about Jenny is that everyone else calls her Jen, right down to the campus newspaper that quoted her extensively in an article about dormcest and floorcest and is now one of the first things to come up when you Google her, which just delights me to no end, but I get to still call her Jenny because that's mah prerogative.

The thing about Jenny is that she's so incredibly self-possessed and carries herself so well, I can't believe she's only nineteen today. She has the poise and dignity of someone ten years older, someone who has already been elected head of state and can pull of signing an executive order to bomb a rogue nation while wearing a ball gown.

The thing about Jenny is that she drop dead freaking gorgeous. It is very clear who got the best pick of the genes in our family.

The thing about Jenny is that she's drop dead freaking brilliant. This girl got a 5 on the AP BC Calculus test when she was 16. I know. I KNOW.

The thing about Jenny is that even though she's so smart and pretty and kind and good, she still has a lot of little kid in her. Every so often (like twice a day), she'll just kind of space out and not quite BE in the moment, even though she still participates in coversation and appears to be processing oxygen. We call it Going Off to Jennyland. I imagine that Jennyland is a lovely place, filled with rainbows and unicorns and fluffy pink cotton candy clouds.

The thing about Jenny is that she is the WORST dancer in the world. She's gotten significantly better, but is still known to injure those around her (and herself; the girl bruises like a peach) whilst completely ignoring the pesky details of rhythm and beat. She's also once got into a car accident in the parking lot of a Starbucks, but these flaws, nay, quirks, just serve to make her more endearing.

The thing about Jenny is that she's also a great listener, possesses the world's driest sense of humor, starred in a cable access dramadey that still has a cult following at Michigan State, is capable of eating seventeen pounds of macaroni and cheese in one sitting without it having any effect on her ass, takes great pictures and, most amazingly of all, has no ego about any of it. She has no idea how fantastic she is, and that makes her all the more fantastic. Frankly I kind of hope she never gets it, because the ego that girl should by all rights have would be roughly the size of Lichtenstein.

The thing about Jenny is she rocks, and I couldn't be luckier to have her as my sister and my friend. Happy bithday, Jennnnaaay.**


(**This would have been published yesterday, on your ACTUAL birthday, but Blogger was down for maintenance.)