Another pointless list post -- now with gifs!

(reposted from Jen Unexpected)

It’s 9:50 pm on a Wednesday night. I’m sitting in a Denny’s with a Coke and a plate that held apple pie 10 minutes ago listening to the elderly couple behind me bicker good-naturedly about whether or not their pancake puppies contain white chocolate chips. I left my house so that I could write this article about the current state of same-sex marriage in this country without distractions. Hah.

Instead I am scrolling through my tumblr dash looking for paralympics gifs and posts, flipping over to Ctwitter every four minutes, and coming up with stuff I want to do instead of what I am doing about every seconds. 

What I NEED to be doing:

Things I want to do instead of write this article, in no particular order, for my own reference next time I am sitting around wasting time on the internet and should be doing something freaking productive already:

• Make a post compiling the best tweets of the past week or two from my twitter stream, because my twitter friends are hella funny. 
• Similarly compile and post the hysterical things my children have said lately, because they are also very very funny. 
• Work on the landing page for my new website. 
• Make some new CABD posts. 
• Work on any of the photobooks for the past several years that I am half-assedly trying to put together before my Picaboo groupon expires (I’ve got like four more months, but still).
• Fume about the RNC, the GOP, and the blatant use of transparent falsehoods in the presidential campaign.
• Watch the Paralympics opening ceremony. 
• Go home and settle in to crochet some more geeky amigurumi to sell at Kerrytown Bookfest on September 9. 
• Sleep. 

This will be me tomorrow at work:

Linkapalooza (imported post)

No time to post. None. And if there was, I would be posting about how I have no time, what with work and then the writing (work) and then the Mimi & Boo stuff (still work, although enjoyable) and then the dealing with the kids and summer and insanity and my lingering case of the blahs. And then the best puppy dog ever, Sophie, died last week after a very short battle with a malignant tumor in her mouth. And that has been awful. She was 13, but we weren't ready to let her go.

Really just not much else going on right now. So instead, some links.

If you want to read about how I flew out to NYC the other weekend and helped my good friend Moxie drive her stuff to Toledo, go here. You won't be sorry. Monkeys, Burt Reynolds, Amish kids with cell phones, and a big yellow truck.

If you want to see how I spend what little spare time I have (read, what I do when I get bored at my actual job), check out my Pinterest boards. But beware: Pinterest is highly, highly addictive. I can't even describe why, it just is. Go look.

If you think one shouldn't make fun of people who can't spell, are potential serial killers, are obnoxious, or in general just mock-worthy, then don't, whatever you do, check out my tumblr about online dating: Not OK, Cupid. When one has spend enough time on the online dating circuit, one must have an outlet, I've discovered, or one might lose one's mind. Also, it's fun.

A couple more fun links. The holidays are coming up faster than you think, people.

My friend Kate makes awesome things. I am particularly in love with the library-card notepads and the incredible variety of gorgeous quote magnets. (Kate also took the pics for my recent Mimi & Boo listings.)

Another friend makes these nifty ornaments using classic literature quotes.

Aaand, I should probably get back to work.

a little blatant self-promotion

I'm doing some hack writing for a couple of internet sites, including eHow and Naked Law. I love doing this sort of writing. Random topics, internet research, down-to-earth writing, and getting paid for it. I am quite geeked about the whole thing, to be honest. I'd do this all day every day instead of my actual official job, if I could. Not practical, unfortunately. But for the moment it helps fulfill the creative urges and also helps pay the bills, so it's all good.

I also get to find out about things I would never have otherwise known. Granted, perch fishing isn't a subject I am dying to know more about, but I did find out some interesting stuff about the history of not-well-known area of my state. I also have discovered:

• The word "avocado" comes from the Aztcean word ahuacatl meaning "testicle." Think about THAT next time you're craving guacamole.
• Men's shirts during the early 19th century had super long shirttails because underwear wasn't really commonplace yet. So they wrapped the tails around their legs to keep their bits from pants-related abrasion.
• Saffron costs like fifty bucks an ounce because someone has to strip out the stigma of a crocus by hand and it takes 75,000 of the damn crocuses to make one pound of the stuff. So seriously, people, show some love to the saffron-pickers. 
• The official protocol of the Olympic opening ceremonies calls for a symbolic release of pigeons (why not doves, I have no idea). The pigeon-release used to come directly before the lighting of the Olympic cauldron until 1988 when, and I quote, "following the unfortunate demise of several pigeons sitting on the edge of the Olympic cauldron at the Opening Ceremony of the Games in Seoul, this part of the protocol was moved, but not eliminated." So now, the pigeons are released AFTER the cauldron is lit. Good call.

See? Isn't your life more complete for knowing these things? I thought so.