then they'd stay outta my way.

Who thinks I should do this to my Neon? Yeah? Yeeaaah?

longest post ev-ah!

In my last post, I said that John and I had plans to go to the DMV on Monday and get our California plates and licenses, right? Well, it didn’t go quite like that.

First, I spent most of Sunday evening—and into Monday morning…way into Monday morning, actually—trying to get all our documents in order. I couldn’t find the registration to John’s car (called that because it’s the one he usually drives, even though they're both ours) or the proof of insurance for either of the cars. Which totally depressed me. Because I really thought I’d been more responsible than that. As in, I thought these were items that I’d find safely waiting in the glove compartments of our cars for just such an occasion.

We found the registration, because I couldn’t sleep without knowing where it was, in the trunk of John’s car at about 4:30 Monday morning. The Trunk!? I have no idea. Anyway, the insurance cards finally turned up…after I went through every piece of paper in our entire apartment…including birthday and Christmas cards from two years back. It took forever. Because I keep everything.

We slept late on Monday and decided to wait until Tuesday to go to the DMV. I spent Monday organizing, in the (more than likely vain) hope that it would make things easier to find. So now I have files in the filing cabinet, properly labeled boxes of sorted-out papers and ephemera, and a hall full of stuff waiting to be put back in the closet…because of course I didn’t actually finish the job.

We also went to the bank and changed our address and ordered checks, because as far as the bank knew we still lived in TN. And we only had four checks…three in one book and one in another. Because apparently we can’t even use checks properly.

Yesterday. The DMV experience is really not as bad as TV shows portray it. Of course, we were in Glendale. Not downtown.

What’s weird about it is how much different the California Department of Motor Vehicles is from the Tennessee Department of Safety. For example, we registered to vote. And they asked for a political party affiliation. John looked at our TN voter registration cards and asked, “Did they ask us for a political party in Tennessee?” No, because that’s rude. The laws are different here. Not dramatically, really, but just enough that it can cause problems. Like how in California you’re required to have plates in the front and back of your car. And I no longer have the bracket that holds the front plate for my Neon, because I never had anything to put in it.

We both passed the test. But they didn’t give us our actual licenses…instead they punched holes in our old ones and gave us these wimpy little sheets of paper that said we were waiting for our real licenses to show up in the mail. So we don’t actually have real licenses.

We got home and put on the plates, then went to find a auto parts store for a plate holder for the Neon. The Autozone guys said I had to go to a dealer…that is, after saying “Welcome to California” with the sarcasm of a sitcom side character when I explained that this “front plate law” was new to me. So cheery!

On the way to the closest Dodge dealer, which required a trip back to Glendale, I was driving down the 134 and proceeded to wreck John’s car in such a way that the bumper came off. So neither of us have front plates.

The details are tedious. And annoying. They include: a driver in the lane I needed to merge into speeding entirely too fast and preventing me from leaving my lane…which, in turn, stopped directly. One last ditch attempt at an evasive maneuver (what my dad would call an “escape plan,” only it didn’t fully work) later, and BANG! Of course, if I hadn’t steered like I did, it could’ve been much worse. I mean, the airbags didn’t come out. And we were able to drive it home…with the front bumper in the back seat.

So there I am, on the side of the freeway, with my silly little temporary papers, staring at a Lexus with a banged up bumper in front of me.

No one was hurt. But I’ve been pretty depressed ever since. I just keep seeing it happen over and over. Just when I start thinking about something else, BANG!

I slept poorly, fitfully, waking up frequently all night.

At some point, I complained to John about how I left the “weight” question blank and the lady asked me my weight anyway. And of course, because I feel the need to constantly compare and contrast one state to the other, I’ve never had my weight on my license. Because it’s rude.

And my car has a California plate now. They’re all white, with blue numbers, and the word “California” scrawled across the top in really ugly cursive. My car has lost color. It looks like something has been stripped away. Like it’s lost its identity…and will now blend in with every other car on the street.

Funny. John's car really has had something stripped away. And it stands out.

Take that how you will.

"be cool, honey bunny..."

It's really late. Or. Really early.

Pulp Fiction is on. Again. And I just remembered this customer that came in the store a couple of days ago that sort of reminded me of Ving Rhames (no, it wasn't him) in a black tracksuit with a yellow headband and yellow sneakers with flames who wanted a bible. He then proceeded to tell this girl I work with all about how the antichrist is coming with the next pope. He took about a half an hour debating between two big bibles flipping through pages of Revelations and saying "this is deep, man, deep" over and over, the kind with space for the owners' geneological information at the front, then picked...and realized he'd "left his wallet" at home. Or on the bus. Or something. And he left.

I'm still awake because John and I are cramming for the written test we hope to take tomorrow at the DMV. Because the time has come for us to finally become legal in the state of California. It's frightening from almost every angle...not the least of which being that we'll probably have to pay a small fortune for said legalization.

If you're in the mood for browsing products with hypercolor and gratituitous flowers, you might be interested to know that there are new items in the store.

caught this yesterday...

...and it was just too beautiful not to keep forever.

it may be the coolest thing we own.

In lieu of actual money for all the typing I did for him, my boss let me have a print that's been hanging in the store since before I started working there.

Oh yeah...the store where I work, which sells new and used books, also sells art (prints, originals, posters, some sculpture, etc.).

The print is a reproduction of the Horizons Pavilion mural from the now-defunct Horizons attraction at Disneyworld. Sadly, Horizons was my favorite attraction in all of WDW...and now it's gone. What's cool about this particular print though is that it's signed by the artist, Bob McCall, and used to belong to imagineer and all-around cool guy John Hench. It's super fancy-pants pretty. And since John and I went to Disneyworld for our honeymoon and some of my favorite family vacations when I was a kid were when we went there, it's like we hung happy memories on the wall over our TV. And now all I want to do is look at our honeymoon photo album.

i will now name ever russian writer i can think of...umm...ummm...

Tonight I started reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. I didn't know what it was about, didn't even read the back of the book, but it's been selling like crazy...and I'm a little sick of seeing it around, poking out of displays, and not knowing what's so special about it. Because everyone I talk to says it's fantastic.

I'm only bringing it up because I had just recently decided that (after finishing all the books I have in my house I haven't read yet, which could take months...or years) I want to start reading some Russian novels, like Dostoevsky or Nabokov, because the closest I've come to reading anything Russian was Ibsen...who happens to not be Russian at all, but Norwegian. Oh yes, and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, that I read in tenth grade, which was I'm amused and shocked seven years ago. And realistically, that's probably how long it will take me to read The Brothers Karamazov, which is roughly two gazillion pages long. And I'm a wimp.

So, I'd just made this decision, the decision to acquaint myself with Russian literature, right before I start reading, tonight, The Namesake, in which (according to the back of the book, because I've only reached page 11) a young Indian couple living in Boston names their baby boy Gogol. Because the dad's grandfather taught Russian literature and got him to love it. Or something. Don't know really, haven't read it yet. Anyway, it surprised me.

feeling a little amphibious myself, actually.

I just put up a quick review of Who Will Run the Frog Hospital, which I finished yesterday. So. Good. (And the first review I've written in months, I realize.)


small world.

John and I have purchased some new shelves for our living room. I completely adore them. Tinkerbell and Ariel (yes, the mermaid) now have space to breathe...that is, they would have space to breathe, if they weren't made out of resin.

We went to Disneyland today. (I am so in love with this man who suggests we spend an entire day in the one place in the world where I act like more of a child than he does.) And we took oooodles of pictures. But I'm not putting them up until I can figure out a way to make their file sizes reasonable. My laptop's resolution is 1600 x 1200. All pictures look amazing to me. I get all sad and whiny when I have to make them look all pixelated to get the file size down. I'll get over it.

rubbing elbows with the stars.

So. I met Brett Butler today. And she's super nice. I wish I had more to say, but I'm actually feeling pretty fancy-pants cool about that...and I guess that's enough for one day.

the philosophy of reading. or something.

I've been reading Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore. And I really like it. And I really don't like it, because it's making me remember things that I think I forgot for a specific reason. Maybe not a reason I ever accepted formally, but something my subconscious came up with, like self-preservation. I keep remembering people and places and smells, things that were once incredibly important to me...but are now just memories being shuffled around beside phone numbers and birthdays inside my rolodex of thought. Sils, the main character's best friend, has long dark hair to my mind's eye...and looks just like Chris, the main character's best friend in The Ghost in the Third Row (which I read when I was, like, 10, I guess) did when I pictured her. Do I only have so many stock faces in my head to fill the parts of all the books I'm reading? Like actors and actresses who'll show up again later, when I read books that haven't yet been written?

hope you weren't expecting anything cohesive...

I spent my night typing old love letters my boss got in the 60's from a girl he didn't end up marrying...and watching The Muppets Take Manhattan. I just noticed, while looking for the best site to link, it was nominated for an Oscar for best original score in 1984. I had no idea. I felt sort of sad...what with this being a movie from my childhood and all...and there being a lot in it about friends splitting up and writing to each other and plotting out plans that might never happen.



The letters I was typing were pretty rough. Not poorly written or anything, just, well...I think I probably wrote letters sort of like that to guys I didn't marry either...and I can't imagine someone, someday, forty years from now getting paid to retype them.



The 80's weren't good for Miss Piggy. Huge teased hair just doesn't work for pigs. Have you seen her in that shampoo commercial? Disney has fully owned the muppets for, what? A couple of months? And they've already done ads for Pizza Hut and some shampoo.

And the quote of the day:
"Because you share a love so big, I now pronounce you frog and pig."

that's a lot of hymns, even if i hadn't been wearing heels.

So, yesterday Neil Patrick Harris was at the store where I work. That's right, Doogie Howser, M.D.

I'm watching Sister Act. Just watched the first scene with the choir, before Whoopi works her magic, and they still sound horrible.

Which reminds me... This morning John and I tried out another church. And this one had nine, yes, nine, hymns during the service today. During the part of the service where everyone is supposed to go around and talk to each other, this old guy wearing jeans pulled up to his armpits by navy blue suspenders and a raggedy t-shirt that said "Thank God I'm a Methodist" came up to John (who was wearing an orange polo shirt with a single, thick, blue stripe across the chest) and said, "I hope you didn't wear that shirt on Saint Patrick's Day. The Irish Republican Army would've shot you."

After the service, this friendly guy who'd talked to us before everything started, told us the minister was leaving in July and the organist was a backup. Was he trying to convince us to come back? Not that the organist did a bad job, really, but she's one of those people that lets her mouth hang open when she's confused. She looked like she might start drooling, so long was her mouth open.

Trying new churches is a really strange experience. It's both comforting and terrifying. It's like seeing a family member you haven't seen since you were a child, only now they're taller and have their own opinions--opinions that aren't quite the same as yours. We're talking about differences like:
"Oh, you like Jewel?"
"Yeah, didn't you just love 'Spirit'?"
"Umm, yeah, kinda. But I thought 'Pieces of You' was better."
"Oh."
"Yeah."

playing "mr. darcy" in two different stories. bloody obvious.

My evenings are slowly deteriorating more and more as I slip into being the personal typist for my boss for about two hours a night now. My conscience has finally won. I can't keep putting it off. So, I'm typing about my boss riding trains and hitching rides all over Europe back in 1960. And he doesn't seem to be having much fun.

I dug out the journals I wrote during my month in London...journals I terribly hope I would've tried to keep anyway, but that ultimately fit into a class requirement for both of the classes I was taking at the time. Anyway, they're so boring even I don't want to read them. And I wrote them. The most interesting thing was when I complained about the Jane Austen Center in Bath and about how the first thing I saw when I walked in was a huge picture of Colin Firth. You know. The guy from Bridget Jones who is supposed to be (I can't think of a British way to say this...so...imagine Keira Knightley saying it) sooo dreamy, but who only has about three lines in the whole movie. If you're bored, check out the archives for the Nov. 16, 2004 entry, where I talk about how much I'm "not keen" (Eh? See how British I am? Brilliant!) on Ms. Jones.

Bloody 'ell. Posh and Becks. Buggar off!

deep thoughts with laura.

I'm going to clarify, before anyone starts to think I'm some sort of weird fangirl, that I was led to this thought because of a stupid ad banner. That said...

Is it just me, or is Mariah Carey desperately trying to look like Beyonce now? It's so sad, too, that she learned nothing from her own music. After all, "there's a hero, if you look inside your heart. You don't have to be afraid of what you are." Mariah, we're here for you. It's okay to be what you are: 35.

Okay, I'm done now. No more People-esque banter. Just feelin' like a dork today.

the truth is, i'd probably be in ravenclaw.

John and I started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on Sunday. We rented all the movies yesterday and we're in the middle of the third one now. I think the new one is supposed to come out this Christmas? Maybe? Dunno.

Nothing is happening lately. Oh, except that John saw (and subsequently I saw through the bathroom window) Tim Daly at the Starbucks across the street. Not that that is news, particularly. But still, that's all I can come up with.