a lil' something i hijacked:

a blog i ran across while reading t-dawg's had a nice little meme on it. i stole it. props, urbandude.

Four jobs i've had:

1. Paginator
2. Editor
3. Office Manager
4. Dairy Queen Whore


Four movies i can watch over and over: (only four?...christ, i can think of 10.)

1. Annie Hall ("we all just need the eggs")
2. When Harry Met Sally ("baby fishmouth! baby fishmouth!")
3. Fight Club ("the first rule of fight club is...")
4. Halloween ("he really is the boogeyman!")

Four places i've lived:

1. Minot, ND
2. Moorhead, MN
3. Minneapolis, MN
4. St. Paul, MN

Four TV shows i love: (some no longer on tv)

1. X Files (pre season 9, especially)
2. Daily Show
3. Scrubs
4. Fawlty Towers

Four places i've vacationed:

1. Canada
2. Cancun
3. Texas
4. Boston

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Sushi - mmmmmm, sushi
2. Pad Thai
3. Eggrolls (so much that amycita and i wrote a song about it)
4. Any form of Italian food

Four sites i visit daily: (just list four? crap...)

1. Gmail
2. silentmouth (even though he NEVER freaking updates it)
3. sublimely mundane
4. bram's site

disappointment defined

i enjoy frosted shredded wheat.

i was pouring a bowl of the aforementioned cereal and something about it looked ... off.



do you see what is wrong with this?

it lacks. it lacks FROSTING!

i was both shocked and awed. i checked the box and discovered the culprit... it was regular shredded wheat. not frosted shredded wheat.

no amount of sugar on top can make this right.

there truly is no god.

ahh... one of those days.

one of those days where the medicine you take faithfully every single morning doesn't seem to work. all the nasty, horrible, ugly feelings you have pop right up and nothing you say or do can squelch them. the kiddo has been having some trouble in some school stuff -- math, specifically. and while that is quite normal, i can't help but feel utterly and completely responsible for it. she is my first and foremost reason for existing, and if i'm not good at that, what purpose do i have?

a day of many posts

i get to start the new job THURSDAY instead of feb. 13! hurrah! no need for whoring around town!

now i'm going to be self-centered...

(what...i'm just starting NOW?)

so as many of you know, i've been cutting out the soda since november. finally things are paying off in my mind, b/c i can SEE in photos that i've lost some poundage. first here is a picture from the holidays (NOT CHRISTMAS, B/C I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT CHRISTIANS FEEL PERSECUTED):



now here is a picture of me from today.



WHEW!
all my hard work of.... not drinking soda ... is finally paying off.

misery

misery
Originally uploaded by kllnin.

this should answer everything

a list! a damn list!

so a lovely girl, sonja, sent me the "get to know your friends" list, and i will now post my responses. why? b/c i'm at home and i have NOTHING BETTER TO DO.

1. What is your full name? Kari Leigh Larson
2. What is the color of the pants you're wearing?
blue jeans
3. What are you listening to right now?
nine inch nails
4. What was the last thing you ate? a few junior mints
5. Do you wish on stars? not anymore
6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? grey
7. How is the weather right now?
chilly
8. who is the last person you spoke to on the phone?
telemarketer
9. Do you like the person who sent you this? Yes.
10. How old are you today? 30
11. Favorite drink? crystal light (but not crystal meth)
12. Favorite sport? come now....that's no question to ask me. okay. jacks. i like jacks.
13.The Color of your hair? medium brown
14. Siblings? bobbi, amy and meaghan
16 What was the last movie you watched? MST3K: The beginning of the end
17. Favorite day of the year? halloween.
18. What was your favorite toy as a child?
monchichi. (monchichi monchichi, so soft and cuddley!)



19. Summer or winter? neither.
20. Hugs or kisses? lots of each
21. Chocolate or Vanilla? chocolate
22.Living arrangements? i own a 98-year-old house with dustin
23. When was the last time you cried? yesterday
24 Who is the friend you have had the longest? amycita
29. What did you do last night? tinkered with sound clips of george w. bush.
30. Favorite smell: sleep.
31. Favorite TV show? ummmm.... daily show.
32. Happy In life? on occasion.
33. What are you afraid of? myself
34. Plain, buttered or salted popcorn? Salted and
buttered
35. How many years at your current job? ummmm.......
36. Favorite day of the week? saturday
38. How many cities have you lived in? three

so....

yeah. it's the 28th. hmm.

i effing love the gamecube!

so we have received a gamecube from a lovely friend and it pretty much rocks. it makes up for all those years of atari that i could never afford to buy. oh, and kiddo thinks it rocks, too. she's even playing right now. what is great is that she really likes galaga, that old arcade game that i used to play at sammy's pizza. yep, it has stood the test of time.
we cleaned the house like crazy yesterday, as dustin has relatives coming to town this weekend -- folks who already had plane tickets for the wedding weekend. should be fun and i'm sure ever so slightly uncomfortable to a certain extent. i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little bit nervous, but it'll be okay. i'm a tough cookie.
tomorrow might be a little... shaky. but with company here it'll force me to not be mopey and wallowing in the juices of my own self-pity, so that's good.
i'm still mourning the loss of the laptop... it's as though i've lost an appendage, actually. i know it can be repaired for a surprisingly low cost, but that'll just take some time.
'tis the second night in a row where the insomnia has crept back into my life. nuts. time for a bottle of nyquil and a straw.
i wish this post were more clever. then again it's only 8 a.m., so maybe it needs to be at least 8:45 before i can be clever. and when clever gets started, WATCH OUT! i can't be stopped.
my weight loss is still moving full speed ahead, having shed a good 30 pounds since november. i'm on the road to being a full-time hottie once again.
holy fuck... i hate how boring this post is. i can't stop typing and the dull just keeps flowing out of my fingertips.

here's a thought that keeps me from being dull:
whilst driving yesterday i could hear the clammer of a casserole dish in the back window area of my car. a dish i've had there since mid-december for our company cmas party (don't worry, it's clean). i'm just too lazy to move it, no matter how many times i exit my car.
so the dish. i hear it clammer and while i'm driving i wonder if i happened to stop suddenly, if the dish would slam into me, shattering into pieces. then i wonder if i have a large piece of glass lodged into my shoulder, should i remove it and deal with spurting blood from whatever vein i've severed before getting to the ER, or do i leave it it for them to remove?
thoughts, anyone?
and that thought led me to a memory of my mom telling me to move a kleenex box out of the back window of the car when i was a teenager. i asked her why, and she explained that the a kleenex box, if moving toward a head at 40mph, could KILL. (this woman also convinced me that all squirrels have rabies, so bear with me.)
is that true? cause if so, then i should get that casserole dish out of my car STAT.

what do i think of GameCube?

I'm the same weather as my sister!

You Are Sunshine

Soothing and calm You are often held up by others as the ideal But too much of you, and they'll get burned You are best known for: your warmth Your dominant state: connecting

What Type of Weather Are You?

good thing i have a job lined up....

... because i was just let go from mine today. woooo hoooo. apparently i've had too many distractions going on to be of any use to them. oh well, now i guess i can get some housework done. in addition to whoring around for grocery money, that is.

a nice lil' link

i posted onto to the silentmouth blog for a little goodie of the "perfect man." now i'm going to vomit.

on the clock bloggin'

with my lack of laptop i am not blogging at my usual pace. so in lieu of dental insurance, my current employer is giving me blog time. sure, my teeth will still rot away, but i can blog, for fuck's sake!

i find it to be a fair trade.

it's a lovely four-day work week, as i already had this friday off for the, you know, that cancelled thing. so i'm taking the day and hanging out with my kiddo, and preparing for the feeling of my eyes glazing over from the amount of gamecube games we'll be watching, thanks to my sublimely mundane friend.

and we'll be eating ice cream. maybe some bubblegum ice cream. who knows.

anyone have any thoughts on bubblegum ice cream? i used to find it incredibly confusing --- what if i swallowed that gum and it stayed in my stomach for seven years???

but i'm a grown up now, and i think giving bubblegum ice cream another chance might be okay.

laptop....needs....help.....

so i think we're needing a new logic board for the laptop -- my lifeline, i think of it. poor, poor computer. but i guess that is what tax returns are for, huh? (or paying bills...or putting in that long-needed fuel pump...whatever.)

it's been quite a weekend. thought about some stuff i didn't want to be thinking about and am just trying deal with that (hence my previous post).

now that the laptop is not in a happy place currently, i guess i'll have to do what kids used to do before computers: watch tv.

today's thought

"we may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

oh, the agony!

the laptop, my sweet, sweet laptop that is near my side at all times, is suffering from what we suspect is a dying logic board.

my laptop. the piece of equipment that is my link to the outside world. it makes finding out movie times easier. i use it when i blog to sleep during times of insomnia (which may explain the topics i choose sometimes). my heart .... my heart aches.

sigh.......

i must fight for this laptop to LIVE! LIVE, I SAY! LIVE!

marge piercy is fiesty

A just anger

Anger shines through me.
Anger shines through me.
I am a burning bush.
My rage is a cloud of flame.
My rage is a cloud of flame
in which I walk
seeking justice
like a precipice.
How the streets
of the iron city
flicker, flicker,
and the dirty air
fumes.
Anger storms between me and things,
transfiguring,
transfiguring.
A good anger acted upon
is beautiful as lightning
and swift with power.
A good anger swallowed,
a good anger swallowed
clots the blood
to slime.

my new series with a request from b. elliot

this one's for you, bram.

mmm...green eggs and SPAM

it's time to highlight the crap that has filled my spambox. the two that caught my eye apparently believe me to be a man low on, um, YOU KNOW....

from Rosanna:
Up to 500% more volume! (500% more is a lot of, you know, that...)

from Chasalowlyons:
Cover her in it if you want! (see above comment)

and while watching nickelodeon tonight with abbey, i found music that might just be worse than gwen stefani and nickelback....

KIDZ BOP 9! SONGS BY GWEN STEFANI AND NICKELBACK SUNG BY KIDS! AHHHHHHHH!

soooo glad my kid is out of that kidz bop phase that lasted approximately sixteen minutes.

came home from work today after doing my best impression of linda blair. ahhh, good fun. fingers crossed on not vomiting in the workplace tomorrow.

and until a moment or two ago i didn't know my kiddo liked clam chowder. i have officially learned something new today.

i've also begun a new series. but don't get too excited yet, i'm still negotiating with my agent on a show in NYC.

i fucking knew it.

the things we do

it's funny to think about what we do for the people we love. i have the most amazing friends and family, i would do anything for any one of them. i don't think this makes me extraordinary or anything, because i like to think that other people are the same way.

i like to give people the benefit of the doubt. i like to think that no one will intentionally fuck someone else over.

but i'm not naive, i'm not stupid, i'm aware that shitty things happen all the time in this world. people are getting screwed on a constant basis in life and it makes no sense and it's certainly not fair.

so what can be done to prevent it? not a thing, i don't think. as nervewracking as it seems and as much as it makes me want to have a panic attack, there is nothing to be done. if i were independently wealthy, i'd hand out dollar bills to people i see do nice things. people who let you merge on the freeway even in thick traffic, people who let pedestrians cross the street, people who help change a flat tire. i would reward these people with money.

i've thought about rewarding them with ribbons -- little blue ribbons that say "decent human" on them -- but money talks, doesn't it?



then i'd be known as that "money lady," where if you do a good deed and she sees, you are rewarded. then everyone would be working extra hard to NOT be assholes.

this radio station is a mixed bag.

jack 107 is on the radio in our department. generally it's music that i can tune out, and they do play a good amount by the clash. their schtick is that they don't take requests; the play only what they want to play.

well lately they've been playing much of the following:

gwen stefani (MAKE THIS WOMAN GO AWAY. SHE IS A HUMAN BRATZ DOLL.)
nickleback (ACK! NO END TO THE SUCK!)
creed (DOES ANYONE ACTUALLY LIKE THIS BAND?)
maroon 5 (STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!)

and i'm not a music snob. i prove that by tolerating liz phair's new albums. but holy fuck, this station will be my undoing today.

i want to take the plastic fork i've just used on some pizza and jab it directly into my eye, piercing through the pupil, all the way into the optic nerve.

but i won't, because i would like to keep a skill like that all to myself for right now. jabbing out the eye? save that trick for the last day on the job.

'brokeback mountain'

holy crap.

what a beautiful, breathtaking, groundbreaking movie.
an amazing love story. and passionate. and it broke my heart. and made me smile. and choked me up. after we left the theater, i kept thinking more and more about it, what it means that this movie has not only been made, but made so well and has been received so well, and how important that really is. really important.

a nice lil' sunday

just a little something the boy and i made.

this weekend

a favorite restaurant where we ate today.



a movie we'll see today that, from what i hear, will reduce me to tears.

cramps? sign me up!

i'd like my uterus removed until further notice, thank you very much.

also, if you've not eaten in a couple of days and you suddenly crave pizza that is a few days old, i'd steer clear. yeah. i'll be feeling this for the better part of today.

i've been thinking a lot on the topic of self-destructive behavior. being BPD, i feel as though i am a professional self-saboteur. i have fucked up some of the best things in my life due to those charming destructive tendencies. oh, the stories is could tell... i think the one that sticks out in my head most is one boy telling me he loved me one night, and i went home with someone else. why? b/c i was scared, b/c i knew that i loved him and for fuck's sake, did i deserve to be happy? HELL NO.

what is YOUR favorite self-sabotage story? don't hold back, sharing it good!

ahh, sweet insomnia...

i fell asleep whilst chatting on msn this evening. not only do i feel extraordinarily rude about it, but it has left me with a nagging case of "holy fuck, i can't sleep and am therefore questioning my every move."

awesome.

good movie on a friday night

friday night at home

hanging out with the tot.

ooh! tomorrow girl scout cookies go on sale! who's in?

i feel like playing guitar.

friday. friday. friday. friday. friday.

what does this mean for lil' ol me? no alarm clock (besides abbey). a fresh box of count chocula, maybe with a hint of cookie crisp added to mix it up a bit.

tonight's agenda: girl scout art exhibit.

i'm imagining little girls arguing over how to correctly prounounce "van gogh."

possibly the funniest thing i've seen

I HOPE THIS LINK WORKS BECAUSE THIS HAS TO BE READ.

post written in anger deleted after much thought

i wrote an angry post a little while ago. i have since deleted it. why? b/c it's not fair. no matter how upset i feel about anything, there is no excuse for my behavior. i'm not a mean person, i'm not a hateful person. there are few people i genuinely hate. and the person i blogged about is not one of them.

maybe this is self-censorship, that's fine. maybe my thoughts ought to be censored at times.

on a different topic entirely, i stapled (accidentally) my sweater sleeve to some paperwork i was filing today. it's as though i saw it happen in slow motion.....

me thinking: hmm...that cuff is really close to the ...DOH!

i was hoping no one would notice, but i began giggling so hysterically at what i had "accomplished," my desk mate noticed.

"Did you staple yourself to that?"

i reply with a hearty belly laugh and then proceed to banging my head onto my desk.

i was able to free the staple with little or no damage to my favorite sweater.

small accomplishments are important to recognize, you know.

(accomplishment? the stapling part of the freeing of the staple part?)

the nice thing about working at a newspaper after the holidays is that most businesses that advertise have very little budget left after the chaos of cmas, so i had very little to do today. in fact, i finished everything so early that i am now home, awaiting the arrival of dust and kid, who he kindly picked up from school today.

i think the six-hour work day is completely ideal for working stiffs like me.
(unless you live paycheck-to-paycheck, in which case it is not so good.)

and does anyone know why a cat drools? (sounds like the beginning of a joke, but no, i'm serious.)

i don't mean froth like cujo, i mean drool, as in 'WATER POURING FROM MOUTH DIRECTLY ONTO ME."

it's not horribly horribly gross, but sometimes you prefer to not have that happen. like right now, as i just removed the small mouth-leaking cat from my chest.

i mentioned to dust earlier that i've been clever in blogland lately. and i usually don't like much of what i do, but i think i have been clever. show of hands: have i been clever?

my sister and i want jobs where we are paid to be clever.

and how i WISH i could have been the bored graphic designer who dreamed up this litle goodie:



absolutely perfect.

the story of her

i was putting kiddo to be tonight and i was thinking so much of my life before and my life after. i was 20 when i got pregnant. seven months prior to pregnancy, i was in the "hospital" -- you know, the hospital where they keep things like lip balm and sharp objects away from you, and you get to paint ceramic penguins (but who doesn't like a penguin?) and hang cmas decorations. you take tests, you look at pictures of clip art and describe what happening right before the picture you see.

example:
man and woman sitting across from table, woman crying. what happened?

i would be a smartass and say something like "she was just wondering where the rabbit was, and she looked into the crock pot a moment AFTER taking a bite of her stew."

you fill out questionaires, for example:
do you agree, strongly disagree, etc. to the following... aliens exist; you want to be a florist; you like yourself; you find it difficult to get along with others...

so these are the things i did a mere seven months prior to growing a human.

i went back to college after a brief hiatus (as i usually do) and in march i met kiddo's dad. and by mid-june i was pregnant. which, if you've ever been 20 and pregnant (and HIGHLY medicated), is a little bit shocking.

i bring all this up because i've been thinking a lot about my kid, esp. in light of the last few days. and when really tough things come about, i think about something an amazing friend said to me: no one is dying, no one is dead. and it's true. no matter how hard this situation feels to me, i'm alive. my child is the most wonderful creature EVER and she not only keeps me going, day-in and day-out, she is the reason why i am still on this earth.

for those of you who remember me pre-baby, i was a bit of a lunatic/monster/drunk/hussy. i mean let's be honest about it... i was the QUEEN of total self-destructive tendencies. i not only had vices, i had vices without moderation. everything to excess. then suddenly, i'm in a situation where that is not possible, where it's no longer all about me and my instant gratification. i am responsible for the well being of another human. i can no longer blow off eating for a day or three because if i starve myself, i starve someone else. cigarettes no longer appeal to me, the THOUGHT of a drink makes me queasy. the body is funny that way: when it needs to (at least in my case), it rejects harmful substances. (except for big macs: those it CRAVES.)

so this wonderful, amazing little thing comes from me. this body of self-abuse, excess, hopelessness, desperation... i never, in my wildest imagination, thought that anything this good could come from me, could come from my body.

and i'm so, so excited to see her grow up and continue to be so cool, so funny, so clever, so insightful, and so loving.

what is your porn star name?

Your Porn Star Name Is...

Glory Hole

What's Your Porn Star Name?

things are...

a little bit shaky on my insides. one can never prepare for this sort of stuff. you can spend years thinking you are prepared, waiting for that other shoe to drop, hoping it never does. then the shoe is not a shoe, but a BOOT. a steel-toed boot that falls from a really high building. and as it picks up speed, it knocks pieces of concrete and steel off of the side of the building and those fall along with it. and then when you are nursing your headwounds, you develop gangrene. and maggots. the only relief? pouring acid on your scalp to rid the maggots.

but i'm working on working through it.

my friends are un-fucking believable. amazing. i am so, SO lucky.

everything and nothing

i have, without a doubt, the most AMAZING, FANTASTIC, WONDERFUL friends in this universe. i would be lost without all of you. you know who you are.

so yeah.

wedding not going to happen. long story and i don't have energy to get into it. am now at my sister's, watching mtv cribs. michael madsen is on now. i'm down with seeing the house of mr. blonde.

holy fuck. life is messy.

best line from an anne sexton poem EVER

from "You, Doctor Martin"

"Once I was beautiful. Now I am myself"

more from anne sexton

Noon Walk on the Asylum Lawn

The summer sun ray
shifts through a suspicious tree.
though I walk through the valley of the shadow
It sucks the air
and looks around for me.
The grass speaks.
I hear green chanting all day.
I will fear no evil, fear no evil
The blades extend
and reach my way.
The sky breaks.
It sags and breathes upon my face.
In the presence of mine enemies, mine enemies
The world is full of enemies.
There is no safe place.

the movie of the day:

holy crap.

i've not quite processed this movie yet. however it is safe to say that for as gory as it was, i expected it to be worse. maybe no gory movie will be as gory or as disturbing as i imagine it to be.

review forthcoming.

dumb utah!

COWARDS.

warning: cleavage discussion

just watched woody allen's "melinda and melinda" and i'll tell you what -- none too shabby. will ferrell is always a favorite of mine. i'm never crazy about amanada peet, but she was good for her role.

and i have heartburn from tonight's dinner. ugh. i'm old.

so there is a problem with the wedding dress. i mean, the dress is fine and in one piece and everything, but i'll tell you what, i think i take issue with the amount of cleavage that is going to happen with it.

it's not as though people will see it and say "hey! i never knew kari had breasts before!"

but there is something weird about sort of putting myself out there...like that.

so does this mean that it's three weeks away and i have to find something to wear?

it might.

who's up for shopping?

who loves photoshop?

my kid...

...she likes improv!

"willy wonka" was on tv and after "whose line is it anyway" began.

"i like 'whose line is it anyway.' i'll go to bed when it's done."

watching her giggle incessantly as adults act like fools is FANTASTIC. must take her to an improv show sometime.

we had spaghetti for dinner. nothing fancy, just some angel hair pasta with some jar sauce. i love italian food. i bring this up because i just saw a commercial for olive garden. and i'm fully aware that olive garden is like the mcdonald's of italian food, but compared to the "italian" that i make, the olive garden may as well be italy.

why am i not surprised...

...that this sicko made another comment like this?

for the record...

i really, really like him.

PROPS TO MEAGHAN!

The below link REALLY RULES!!!

http://www.thesurrealist.co.uk/slogan.cgi?word=Kari

and you just enter more words, you get more slogans, such as:

"I'd Like to Buy the World a Dustin."

"When You've Got Meaghan, Flaunt It."

"Beware of Expensive Monkey."

and

"The Joe Mammy of a New Generation."

my blog value has skyrocketed!

My blog is worth $6,209.94.
How much is your blog worth?

and the verdict is in!

I GOT THE JOB! I START FEB. 13, AND BY THEN THEY'LL HAVE MY NEW COMPUTER, ETC. YAY!!!!!

more journal entry fun!

(now playing: left of center by suzanne vega)

let's jump ahead in time, shall we, to the spring of 2000:

"... it's quite difficult to function without medication. i hope this doesn't pass onto abbey. is that even possible? i'm so tired, and, at the same time, my mind is fully alert. i want to feel something else for a while. not pain, not numb, just something..nice. i really want to just feel something. no, it's not that i'm numb. i just want to feel whole again. i'm so segmented. so in little pieces, scared of losing those pieces, scared of holding on too tightly. need middle ground. can't find it
need meds soon..."


so i've got my outfit ready for tomorrow. i'm showered, listening to music (now playing: bizarre love triangle by new order) and reclined in my bed. there is a cat next to me, and he goes by the name of "little brother." but he's larger now. so just "brother." "big brother" is way too creepy.

watched "the exorcism of emily rose" this evening. not horrible but not what i was hoping for.
hoped for:
scary movie
actually saw:
courtroom drama

feh.

this is post 827

so tomorrow is, i think, the final sort of interview situation....the hopefully i'll know for sure because YAY! it's time to leave newspapers, folks.

who here can muster up enough strength to keep crossing fingers? if you don't, the terrorists will win.

my third birthday, from Mattell (TM)

so below you will see my third birthday party. seated at the table it is julie clark me, and my darling lovely friend amycita of leingirlz3.

below that, you will see the same three girls on the couch, however i am holding ellermee of leingirlz3 in my lap.

god, i love these pictures, and i thought for sure i had lost them. yay for teensy levels of organization!

me: hmm...maybe this bin? maybe this box? or is it....the closet!





(i even recall the present i received from the lovely leingirlz -- the soundtrack album to the movie "pete's dragon." [he has, the head of a camel, the neck of a crocodile...])

a stroll down memory lane at a frantic pace

since i did my friend t. the honor of sharing our 10th grade homecoming photo with, well, the world, i thought it only right to show the rest of my high school formal events.

behold: sophomore homecoming, junior prom and senior prom.

like the renaissance festival, with cheaper food

so the riverview theater is showing the lord of the rings trilogy today. abbey has been nagging me to see the first one, so we ventured out this morning. well....

upon arrival to the theater we saw cars lining the streets and i thought, "huh, that's a lotta cars for just a movie." then upon parking we see someone emerge from an SUV who appeared to be robin hood.

"holy crap. there are cosutmes involved."

we plod through the slush a block and a half to be greeted by, you guessed it, MORE COSTUMED PEOPLE... handing us ballot to vote for the best costume. "don't make eye contact, don't put out your hand," i warn abbey.

they ask us if we want to buy an ALL DAY ticket.

i should tell you this -- i love movies. LOVE 'EM. and i probably could spend all day in a theater. however i don't know if i could say that about the LOTR trilogy, much less making my child do the same. we opted not to buy the day pass and go with the one ticket for one show deal.

abbey loves getting nachos and cheese at a movie, so we did that and felt good about the amount of salt we were taking in.

we walk into the theater. PACKED. totally packed. 500 plus people. many of them in full garb. children, even... oh, the humanity.

the movie starts. abbey is enthralled by the cinematography, the costumes, the nacho chips.

then the movie got kicked in and i think i forgot that the movie was really just one battle scene after another, b/c DAMN, did abs get nervous. holy crap! so right after the scary horse-riding, black cape wearing, screeching things stormed the Prancing Pony, we fled.

poor kid! i tried to talk to her in the theater foyer about how she knows so much about movies, there are ways to avoid being scared, but she would not be swayed.

so in the car home we talked about how music and sound effects did a good job of making a scene scary. her words:"it did a good job...of kicking me out of the theater!"

i love the movies.

one down, 364 to go

it is the first day of the new year and i have played with kids, eaten kick-ass cereal (count chocula!) and napped for a couple of hours. not a bad way to spend the first day of 2006.

of course, when i was my kiddo's age, i thought by the year 2006 i'd be flying around in a hovercraft or a space car, so maybe i should consider 2006 a let-down? nah. 2006 has been pretty good to me thus far. and i hope it has started out nice for all of you, too.

Mona Lisa: happy yet disgusted?

"The result showed the painting's famous subject was 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful and 2 percent angry. She was less than 1 percent neutral, and not at all surprised."

isn't that just like a dame?