Did anyone else in the ‘Noke catch the WSLS Channel 10 Totally Ghetto 11:00 News last night?

I guess they had an underground electrical fire in downtown Roanoke last night and AEP had to shut off the power over a multi-block area of the grid. This left many businesses without power at an extremely inopportune time of night – including the news station and the newspaper offices.

So 11:00 News Anchors John and Karen were standing outside the station doing the newscast live and broadcasting from a van with a generator. It was great. They kept messing up, and every time they’d go to a video feed the sound would be all out of whack or the wrong clip would come up, and you could hear engineers and cameraman chatting over the commercial breaks, and people kept driving by and honking and waving and stuff so they could be on TV, because they’re freaks. Oh, and you could totally tell that Karen’s jacket didn’t match her pants. John actually made a funny comment for once in his life, though, when he said “This segment has been brought to you by our friends at Harley-Davidson” right after some super-loud motorcycle went screaming by.

Then Local Meteorologist Jamey gave us the weather forecast. Karen held up a clipboard with a printed-out weather map on it, and Jamey’s big hand showed us the fronts and such, and then he had this little tool that told us the current temperature and humidity, and then came the best part – the forecast. Karen flipped to a second page on the clipboard. Written in blue Sharpie:

Tonight’s Low: 54

Tomorrow: Partly sunny, chance of rain

High 73

Later Sportscaster Justin did the sports report. Which means he read the scores off a clipboard of his own. And then John made him repeat the basketball scores, because it’s all about John, yanno.

The funniest part, maybe, is that even with all the engineering problems and the power outage and the standing-outside-with-a-clipboard newscasting, they were STILL more professional than WSET’s newscast is on a good night.

Two things to report on from the newscast this morning:

1. They are expecting 19,000 people for the Franklin Graham “Come to Jebus” Festival this weekend, at which Stinky is volunteering and the rest of my family is planning to attend. The population of Salem is only 28,000 anyway, and they’re expecting 19,000 more this weekend. Note to self: avoid Salem at all costs.

2. I heard on the radio that a certain Baptist youth group leader was convicted of having sex with a 13-year-old girl. He’ll have to spend time in jail and will have to register as a convicted sex offender. The part that makes this worthy of a mention here? That guy is someone I was friends with in high school, and I totally freaked out when I heard about the charges a few months ago. Ew. Ick. And, ew. Honestly, though, we never had any idea that he would turn out this way – he always seemed like such a nice, respectful, non-threatening guy. Looking back, though, he’s a big guy – over 6 feet and just BIG – and all the girlfriends he had were teeny-tiny skinny petite young-looking girls.

I repeat: Ew. Ick. And also, fucking EW.

BUT – to end on a good note – today is my last work day of the week! WHEE! I’m taking tomorrow and Friday off because I’ve been working 6 days a week for like a million months. Yay! It’s like Friday! Except not! AND I GOT PAID TODAY, FINALLY! (Getting paid once a month sucks, yo.)

On my way back from lunch today I was sitting at a light, windows down, sunroof open, looking totally sexy and windswept, with Kelly Clarkso–er, something really cool playing on the stereo, when I heard this weird noise outside the car.

taptaptap

taptaptap

I finally realize that the people in the car next to me are tapping on the window, presumably to get my attention about something. But I’m like why would they possibly need to be tapping on the window to get my attention? So I ignore it.

But it continues.

taptaptap

And I figure well, maybe it’s someone I know, or there’s a bomb on my car. So I orchestrate a carefully nonchalant toss of my hair in which I will be able to glance sideways and see who it is. And I see them.

The two ugliest young men in L’burg.

The driver has a giant shiteating grin on his face and is waving spastically all HEY, baby. The other? Has his face pressed against the window glass and is making horrible faces. Like he’s ten. Not to mention the fact that he was also heinously ugly before he started making the faces.

So I make a bitchy eyebrows-raised face like whatever, Becky and turn back to face the front.

But I can feel them beside me, watching me. Staring at me.

Let me tell you, people, there is nothing more excruciating than sitting at a long red light with two random ugly dudes making faces at you and generally staring at your every move from the car beside you.

It was awful. I’m about to trauma-block it, in fact, so I had to get it down on record before it disappeared forever.

Why couldn’t it have been a hot guy? Why couldn’t I have heard the taptaptap and done the carefully nonchalant hair toss to find an adorable, intelligent, single, het model type waving shyly at me?

WHY?

And when the light finally turned green, I totally peeled out to try to get away – but they peeled faster, and as they passed me, they did the same thing again.

Shiteating grin and wave, monkey faces against the glass.

I am scarred.

I had this random-ass odd, odd dream that Tommy Lee Jones wanted to marry me and he bought me a ring, but he didn’t want to actually propose to me. He wanted me to win the ring from him in a poker game and that’s how I’d know he wanted to get married.

Side note- it’s key to know that I don’t have a crush on TLJ or anything, and hadn’t seen him in any movies recently, so it’s utterly random for him to show up in a dream wanting to marry me.

So we’re playing poker in one of those roller-coaster simulator things that they have at fairs and stuff, that looks like a big old van, and there’s TLJ (whose name, incidentally, I can’t remember until I wake up) and his partner and me. Where’s my partner? Asleep in a gymnasium somewhere. So we play and then I fall asleep in the dream and when I wake up, I walk straight out of the simulator into my parents’ kitchen, where I see my dad and say hi. Then I walk into my room, which is now magically in a different building, and I realize that I don’t want to marry TLJ because he’s a WWII veteran and therefore too old for me, SO I call my parents over to ask them what to do.

They want to see the ring. I call Sammi and Jamie and tell them to look in my (other) room for the ring. They find one, but it’s the wrong one, then they find the one in the blue plastic box and bring it to the room I’m in, and I look at it and see that it has a Wal-Mart price tag on the bottom. For $100.

So I show the ring to my parents and my mom is like “oh, I get it. I know what he wants.” And I’m like “you think he wants to marry me for my money?” and she’s like “yeah, because you just got that $50 raise for the year.” And she’s totally serious. So we decide that TLJ wants me for my money and I’ll have to send the ring back.

Other parts of this bizarre dream involved snow, a tiger, a weird wormy-bug with wings, and marching band music.

Maybe the snow in the dream was reminiscent of the drugs I need to stop taking before I go to sleep.
Edited to add: I think that the ring part of the dream came from watching The Ring this weekend. But it was still weird.

I am SUCH an idiot.

Last night when I got home from work I was walking across the living room to get something out of the kitchen, when BOOM! I tripped over the rocker on the rocking chair (that’s only been in that spot for, like, months) and kind of went airborne into the kitchen.

I cursed and hopped around clutching my ankle, and then I looked into the living room, where tallgirlsam was sitting, with her face doing those contortions that mean I really hope you aren’t hurt but holy shit that was funny, I wish I could laugh. So I was like “go ahead. laugh.” and she cracked up for like ten minutes.

Then we examined the large and growing scrapy-bumpy thing on my left ankle.

So now it’s all messed up. Ow.

I’m such a clumsy freak. I swear I could probably give stumblebee a run for her money.

Last year my Injury of the Summer occurred when I got up from the computer desk too fast and caught my thigh on the exposed metal keyboard track. So then I was limping around for a couple of weeks with a huge bandage on my thigh, and I kept having to explain the jackass way in which I acquired that particular injury. I finally made up a story about how I dove into a quarry to save a drowning child and her kitten, and bumped my leg on some rock on the way down.

I’m pretty sure they believed me. That’s a perfectly plausible story, right?

Right?

Okay. Fine.

In the past, my major injuries have all come about due to completely ridiculous circumstances.

Exhibit A: Sophomore year, college.

I slipped on the porch stairs in flip-flops on a rainy night and bruised the living hell out of my hip. Remember in the movie A League of Their Own, when that one chick got this massive bruise sliding into a base? Yeah, my hip looked a bit like that. And there’s actually still an indentation in my hip from hitting the stair.

Exhibit B: Freshman year, college.

I sprained my back and had to go to the emergency room once. How? Running to work.

Yeah, I don’t know either.

Exhibit C: Elementary school.

The first time I ever had to get stitches. What did I do, you ask?

I ran face-first into a spring-mounted tennis gate and cut my head open. First of all, I didn’t know it was spring-mounted. Second, we were playing tag and I was It, so I was in hot pursuit of everyone else. They ran through the gate, I was so intent on catching them that I didn’t bother to stick my hands out as I headed for the gate.

Exhibit D: Primary school.

Now I blame barybabe somewhat for this one. We were doing flips off the back of the couch, one at a time. One time, Barybabe and I were going over at the same time and flipped the couch over.

Onto my face.

Pinning my lip to the ground.

OW.

I was really pissed about this one, because I had to eat through a straw for a while, and also because I missed the Girl Scout party and there was supposed to be birthday cake because it was some kind of Girl Scout Anniversary.

I’m still pretty bitter about the cake.

So yeah, I’m a klutz. My current injury is only the latest in a long string of dumbass incidents.

Okay, I’m fairly certain I have a bladder infection. It hurts like a bitch (how, exactly, does a bitch hurt, anyway?). I know you’re all so glad I shared that extremely pertinent piece of information with you. You will all have better and more fulfilling Fridays knowing about my issues.

But seriously, I feel like crap.

tallgirlsam called me a hypocrite last night for writing about how much I hate the Greek system and failing to mention that I was a part of it. I don’t think that makes me a hypocrite, though. For the record, I hated almost every minute of my time in the Greek system, which is precisely why I dislike it so much today. I was in the lamest, least Greek house of all – the “international music fraternity for women,” for crying out loud – the house that, on my campus, was MOST concerned with community service and musical performance and LEAST concerned with things like date parties. I pledged as a senior, and was already friends with many of the people in the house, and guess what?

I still hated it.

Some (not all) of those girls made me feel like a worthless piece of shit. They made it very clear to me that passing my pledge test should be more important than passing my classes. One of them hounded me, in public, in the dressing room at a recital, in front of several other people, about money I hadn’t paid them yet, nevermind the fact that I’d discussed in private with this person that I didn’t have the money for reasons x, y, and z and would get it to her as soon as I possibly could. Comments were made about the fact that I wasn’t a music major, as if that somehow made me less of a “sister” than the other girls were.

I didn’t pay my lifetime membership dues, and I’m not planning to, because I regret almost every moment I spent as a “member” of that organization.

So no, I wouldn’t call myself a hypocrite. It’s more like I’ve developed an informed opinion.

Witchy has a little witchy friend coming over tonight, so Tallgirl and I have a date this weekend. I think I’m going to scrape a few dollars together and rent The Rules of Attraction, since it seems to be such a big hit with our parallel people, Cookie and B.Do. And then we’ll watch it in my room. Whee.

Who decided that an oven mitt was a good mascot for a fast food restaurant?

And my last thought of the day: I hate Heidi and Jenna from Survivor. Bitches.