56 days til Christmas…

Halloween is probably my least favorite holiday (Valetine’s Day for some reason has always ranked #1) but this year I am inexplicably already a CHRISTMAS nutcase.

Example one: I have been listening to holiday music on Pandora for the past week.  My co-workers are quite concerned for my already questionable mental health.

Example two: I really, really wish it were possible to get all my work done in the next month and spend the entire month of December at my grandmother’s house, the most decked-out Christmas wonderland of a place that you cannot even wrap your mind around.  She’s got the tunes pumping through the house 24/7, soooo many presents, I LOVE WRAPPING PRESENTS, baking cookies, checking my stocking on the hour.  She has a tree in every room of the house (every.room.  Bathrooms, hallways, etc.)

Example three: It is currently raining.  I actually wished it were snow today.  WHAT?!  I hate the cold.  Every year I swear it gets colder and I turn into an 80-year-old curmudgeon and check on condo prices in Florida.  Bestie is often perplexed by my constant state of freezing, “You’ve lived in Iowa your entire life.  Get over it.”  My freshman year here we had TWO snow days (I still made it to work and was rewarded with fresh-baked cookies and getting off early since if there’s one thing psych patients don’t put up with– which is actually quite a long list– it’s blizzard-like conditions.)

Example four:  I am kicking myself for not stealing the giant bag of Christmas cookie cutters my mother has stored away in the basement.  I saw them when digging for possible Halloween costumes (WHERE were the pumpkin cookie cutters, mother? ARE YOU HOLDING OUT ON ME!??!)  Thankfully, Roomie is more than supportive of my holiday frenzy and I’m having grand visions of us dancing about in the kitchen, a cloud of powdered sugar rising as we dance to Bing Crosby.  Seriously, I may need a CAT scan.

I have a few theories as to why I’ve been bitten by the jolly holiday bug so early, besides my obvious love of getting gifts and eating food.

1.  Christmas last year, no offense to anyone I spent it with, sucked the big one.  Mid-November through New Year’s Eve was just one giant shitstorm of suck.  These were due to personal circumstances and my inability to maturely deal with grown-up situations, so I mostly pouted a lot and was a giant bitch to everyone.  Christmas Maniac Brittney of ‘09 promises to sing a different tune.

2.  For some reason, being off at college and all, sometimes I like… miss my family.  Que horror!  I’m getting all nostalgic about Christmas (laaaaame sauce, Brittney) and superflippinexcited to be thrust in the whirlwind of crazies-on-crazies (I say this now, but know that when there I will have sporadic urges to hurl myself off the roof.  Ahhh, family.)  Also, with my trip to ze fatherland looming two months away, I’ll have to milk my time with these people for all it’s worth.

3.  CMT has been playing Christmas Vacation, the absolute best Christmas movie of all time– no discussion, please, I am right– for no reason at all.  I don’t know that I have ever watched CMT in my life, but it was on a couple weeks ago and thankfully Bestie also has a health Clark Griswold appreciation so we WATCHED IT and it was AMAZING and he was not at all freaked out that I can do every single line from the movie VERBATIM.  And they’ve kept playing it. I even looked up CMT.com *shudder* and there was nothing on their Web site to acknowledge that playing Christmas movies in the October was anything out of the ordinary.  At least somebody there knows what’s up.

In closing… I am now going to class even though it’s pouring and even though I don’t want to go, don’t try and talk me out of it.  Boo.  BOO.  <– ooooh see, I’m still kinda in the Halloween spirit.

Costume shopping was a success and I am going as…

Daphne from Scooby-Doo! 

It was between her, Velma, or one of the wives from the Flintstones (character costumes were way cheaper at Second Act and I had no motivation or ideas to making something from scratch.)  Bestie was the ultimate decider with his much-appreciated input: “You’d get to have cool hair with Daphne.  You will get hot in Velma’s sweater.”   Betty and Wilma had weird foam hairpieces anyway, not that the giant BRIGHT ORANGE monstrosity that looks nothing like the above picture is much better, but I have til Friday to tame it.  He is going as Mr. Rogers, or as he put it “Me but with a sweater vest.”  Ahh, also so much more practical and economical that one.

I kind of want to see the Michael Jackson documentary. 

I’m making Halloween themed cupcakes and sugar cookies for Saturday morning tailgating and am so excited.

Friday will be a busy day of touring Eastern Iowa companies, learning about PR and marketing and networking and eating free lunch and taking notes and asking compelling questions and lots of smiling and awkward introductions and being really uncomfortable in dress clothes.

Roomie just came out to show me her Twister board costume.  She looks very cute in it (p.s. I HATE, hate, hate, loathe when people call me “cute”, but it’s okay for girls to say it of their peers.) 

In conclusion, I have stayed up too late yet again, have failed to do laundry yet again (I have officially run out of towels, at this point it’s now become a necessity) but helped in the once-every-three-months trash overhaul at 713 and watched a documentary on morbidly obese pregnant women with Bestie.  Chalk today up as a W.

I’ve been bitching a lot lately, so today is dedicated to something I love.

Avoid the Stork is a campaign of sheer genius.  The Iowa Initiative deserves some kind of marketing award for Avoid the Stork, a collaboration of efforts to “help Iowans between 18 and 30 plan the right time for a delivery.”  UI is one of their partners (along with the University of Northern Iowa, among others).

Here’s the Stork.  It walks around campus occasionally; some people are freaked out by it, but that’s kind of the point!

They have TV commercials, radio ads, all frank and hilarious and actually, at least in my opinion, effective.  Avoid the Stork isn’t preaching abstinence, it’s being quite real about HEY, USE A CONDOM OR YOU’LL HAVE A BABY!!!  It’s about time.

The stork was hanging out on campus today next to a booth they had set up with tons of free stuff!  I wish I had a camera (AHEM, a-hole thief who stole mine this summer…) to show you a picture of the cup of stuff I got.  The big plastic cup says “Don’t like the stork crash your party: until you’re ready.”  I am beyond excited to carry my bloody marys around in this at my six am Kegs & Eggs Halloween tailgate this Saturday.  It was filled with Avoid the Stork lip balm, a fortune cookie that when opened said “You will see the Stork in your future if you don’t use protection,” and and naturally, free condoms.  The condoms are in these things that look like matchbooks (comeplete with a picture of my favorite stork!) on the front, but when you open it, there’s a condom inside instead of matches.  Genius.

They’ll be handing out free t-shirts at the game on Saturday, make sure to stop  by and say hey.  Make sure you also visit their Web site– quite cleverly put together, all stork/delivery service related.  I appreciate how they’re not just targeting teen pregnancy or unwed mothers– one of their radio ads is about a married couple who hadn’t planned on having another baby so soon after their first (also quite relevant given our current economic situation.)

So, WAY TO GO, Avoid the Stork.  That fortune cookie was actually quite delicious, I’ll be sure and pass out these free condoms when downtown Friday night.  And remember everyone, in the words of my mother: wrap it before you tap it.

First off, why my mother is better than yours: for breakfast I had toast made with homemade multigrain bread she made and topped with homemade grape jelly she canned.  For dinner I toasted up two slices of that bread again & made bruschetta with some of the homemade sundried tomatoes she gave me.  Those babies tasted like a restaurant dish– lots of garlic and… other stuff that you put in sundried tomatoes.  Way to go, T-Bone!

I did a bit of Halloween costume browsing today– luckily my friends calmly explained that $60 for a German beer girl costume was one of the more ridiculous ideas I’ve had in a while, so I checked out The Second Act and HOLY SMOKES am I glad I did.  SOOOOO many costumes, you could never imagine them all.  A bunch for rent, too– bestie and I are going after class on Wednesday because browsing those racks requires a bit of a time commitment.  We. Will. Look. Awesome. come Friday & Saturday nights.

And now, for an interesting op-ed featured in today’s DI: http://www.dailyiowan.com/2009/10/26/Opinions/13877.html.  This professor proposes that if a UI student is charged with an alcohol-related offense, that student should be forced to leave the university.  OH OKAY.  I will now try to calmly and rationally explain why I think this man is a moron in the wrong…

Mr. Poe is complaining that the university can’t do anything about our illegal off-campus activities because of the code of conduct.  Oh wait, what was that?  Off-campus, you say?  I guess that was the whole point

He acknowledges that the “UI already has a bad national reputation” because of its lax stance on underage drinking.  I’m sure that’s the only reason anyone would be hesitant to send their child here– it certainly couldn’ t be because of the current budget clusterfuck and the piss-poor leadership for which the students will have to pay out-of-pocket.

“They — and I specifically mean students who violate the law while under the influence — are not hard to identify. The DI gets a list of them from the police every day. You’d think the university could do the same. Once identified, they could be dropped from the roles and told to go away until they are mature enough to be members of our community.”

Why should the university give two shits about what we’re doing in our free time?  It’s not their job to haul someone from the police blotter into an office Monday morning and say, “Well, Timmy, I see you used your brother’s i.d. at Brother’s Friday night.  You are clearly an alcoholic asshole who has no redeeming value, so we’re gonna have to ask you to pack your bags.”  What sort of gross stereotypes is this guy implying?!  Yes, people who get drunk and commit crimes should be punished– by the proper channels of the law, not by the dean of their college. 

The proximity of downtown and campus is usually seen as a good thing, but people need to remember that they are separate.  Not everyone downtown goes to the university, many UI students have never set foot in a bar downtown.  This guy is living in such a warped reality if he believes that one drunken mistake  is grounds for expulsion.  Never mind that this student could, for example, be a straight A student, on student government, scholarship recipient (fill in the blanks, really) and was out celebrating her 21st birthday– heck, this scenario could even be the first time she ever got drunk.  She stumbles on the walk home, police notice and give her a public intox ticket.  THROW HER OUT!!  GOD FORBID Mr. Poe was ever a young adult or ever had a lapse in judgment.  While that hypothetical situation is few and far between, it illustrates the absurdity of his grand idea.

It is not the university’s business what I do outside of my time on campus.  As long as they are receiving my tuition checks, they do not care if I attend class, take notes, turn in assignments, study for finals, or was dancing topless on a bar last night.   Just because I happened to be a stone’s throw away from the Pentacrest, my actions downtown are not at all correlated with my job as a student.  I realize many people let their weekend (and more often than not, weeknight) activites get in the way of their academic success, and that is 100% their choice.  The whole point of “going to college” and “becoming an adult” is that one day you’re going to wake up with a pounding headache, having skipped a really important class and have that “Holy shit, I need to get my act toether” moment.  It’s part of growing up and it sucks, but the university nor any of it’s crack-pot professors can force that moment on us.  If we were to be expelled everytime we made a mistake, not only would people really, really resent this place, but it wouldn’t have any students.

He’s targeting alcohol because yes, Iowa City = drunk students, if we had to put it simply.  And yes, being drunk makes people do some dumb, regrettable things.  According to the opinion piece, however, alcohol is the only thing that keeps us from acting as “fortunate students.”  Nevermind drugs, then– if there’s something in the police blotter for possession or intention to sell, I guess those kids can stay.  Driving with a suspended license?  Ehh that’s fine.  Assault, abuse, jaywalking?!  All petty crimes compared to that drunk kid taking a leak in the alley!  You realize I’m exaggerating, but come on, Sir– what did you really hope to gain by writing this piece???

In conclusion, I’m hoppin’ mad from re-reading all of it.   His opinion forces such gross generalizations on a very wide population of people and when it comes down to it, makes no sense.  Don’t spend your time in class trying to find the kids cheating on tests, become a slave to the police blotter and kick my Dean’s List ass out of your institution for having a little too much fun with my friends Saturday night OFF CAMPUS. You’re an idiot.

Pita chips for dinner= totally acceptable and completely awesome.

I am beyond exhausted– the wedding was beautiful, the raspberry/almond cake was outta this world, my waffle at Waffle House this morning was one of the best I’ve ever had.  I also had two scrambled eggs which were beyond yum– scrambled eggs are one of my top five favorite foods, did you know that?!?!

Also, I’ve officially decided that when that day comes for myself, I will be married in Vegas.  Not necessarily in some blacked out state at 3 am by an Elvis impersonator, but definitely in Vegas, definitely In-n-Out Burger as the reception food.  Feed each other french fries and a shake instead of cake, that kinda thing.

I just KNOW you’re wondering “But how was the rehearsal dinner barbecue, Brittney?!”  so I’ll TELL YOU.  Amazing.  Holy ribs and BBQ sauce.  My uncle can smoke some meeeeean ribs.  Also, Jack Stack’s  in KC makes some of the best baked beans I’ve ever had the privilege of inhaling– there’s pieces of brisket in the beans. 

The dryer was broken at home so the two baskets of dirty laundry I lugged home got lugged back untouched.  Thanks for the quarters though, Ma– now I just have to find the motivation to actually get ‘em in the washer. 

My friend finally got a headstone after only, oh.. eleven months– it’s really nice and its got a picture of him and says “Boner” on it and it made me very sad. 

Goodwill and Second Act were both closed by the time I got back, so I stopped at the specialty Halloween shop just to see what I could find.  SIXTY DOLLARS for a Halloween costume?!  No, thank you– I have booze groceries to buy.  Bestie and I are going to scrounge around for something to wear, anything… anything at all.  I brought home some dress-up clothes from home, but I’m not sure what we can make out of two pairs of suspenders, five pairs of ladies’ gloves and a can of temporary blonde hair color.

Oh, and in case you hadn’t heard… 8-0, FIRST TIME IN SCHOOL HISTORY.  Me being the Negative Nancy I am, thought we had zero chance at winning, and we barely did, but WAYTOGO Stanzi for those final two seconds.  I was getting minute-by-minute texts updating me on the score during the reception, and we’d all written us off until I got the “hawks win” text and I went be-serk.  The home game this weekend should be beyond insane.

I have now come to a crossroads in my life: 1.) take a nap, possibly (ohmygoodnes it’d be so amazing) just sleep til class tomorrow or 2.) do homework.  This homework will not be hard, I am in no way going to put in even what could remotely be mistaken for effort, yet it needs to get done.  I was following someone today with an license plate frame that said Alumni and I actually had a thought along the lines of “they did their time…” and then realized I was equating college to prison.  College is no way a prison– well, the classes are, they are absolutely mind-numbingly not awesome at all, so in some ways I absolutely do feel like I’m just biding my time til my four years are up.  The extracurriculars though (and not so much the leadership experience one puts on their resume) make me never, never wanna leave.

Hi,

My name’s Brittney,

(“Hi, Brittney!”)

And I am a social media addict.  (Shame on you for thinking it was anything else…)

I was reading this article this morning: http://www.retrevo.com/content/blog/facebooktwitternewcigarette that basically acknowledges my generation being a bunch of TwitteringFacebooking freaks– and I’d have to agree, especially seeing that over 1/3 of people surveyed tweet, text, or check their Facebook after sex.

The thing is, though, I am one of these freaks! (Note: I am not acknowledging that I am one of these 36% because that would be acknowledging that I have, in fact, kissed a boy which means that no, I am not in fact entering a convent after college.  That is just a road this blog does not need to travel down today, or ever.)  Friends and I have actually had the discussion “What would we do without the Internet?  How did college students do research papers before Google?” 

I realize this makes us sound like complete dolts, and in many respects we are.  If the World Wide Web were to suddenly disappear, therapists would see a lot more clients because 1.) the withdrawal would be a bitch; and 2.) we would feel completely disconnected.  God forbid we pick up the phone or have lunch with an old friend– log on to Facebook chat, talk about yourself for five or ten minutes, and it’s like no time passed at all!

The big number seemed to be “these kids are checking their Facebooks more than TEN TIMES a day!!”  Yep.  I believe it.  Mostly because the ol’ Fbook is my homepage when I pull up the Internet (it would be either that or Perezhilton.com people, I never claimed to be refined.)  Apparently the iPhone is quite a large enabler when it comes to this– thankfully I don’t have one because 1.) I would break it/ lose it/ drop it in a pitcher of beer/ use it as a bartering chip in a drinking game and lose/ leave it on the bus/ etc. ; 2.) I hate, hate, hate that touch screen; 3.) I would be on the Internet EVEN MORE than I currently am, which is a shameful, embarrassing amount of time.

I am not proud of my time on the Internet– I’m sure I’d be much more worldly if I logged off and picked up a book.  I’d be at least ten pounds thinner if I put down the tweets and laced up my running shoes.  But it’s what I’m supposed to do, how I talk to my friends, it’s even helped for journalism assignments when I have to find interviews/sources/creep on people I don’t know just for the sake of my grade.

And hooooo doggy, do I creep.  I can find anyone, and we’re talking anyone, who has a Facebook.  It’s not that hard– a couple of search terms, their general area of residence (it’s an immense help if you know what school they go to…)  It once took me about half a day to find someone from Australia given only a first name and their continent of residence, but by golly I did it.  (Having said that outloud, wow, Brittney– WOW… pathetic.)

I have been Facebook-less and phone-less (never at the same time, what are you, CRAZY?!?!) and not gonna lie, it felt awesome.  When you’re off of Facebook for say, 48 hours, and you log back on, you realize…. nothing has changed.  Barring no natural disasters or sudden deaths you haven’t been informed of, Suzie Q from down the hall is still complaining about how she just can’t study for her bio test, and that guy you hooked up with and awkwardly friended the next day still has not sent you a message about how he just can’t stop thinking about you because let’s face it, he hasn’t once thought about you.

My big question for this sickos social media-ing after sex survey (a hint of alliteration– did you get it?  I thought it was nice…) is what are they saying?  I’ve never seen a Twitter update “Just did the horizontal no-pants dance with @brittneyw, hope she leaves my bed soon!”  I’ve seen a few racier Facebook statuses, but those generally come with the territory when you’re friends with a large portion of the hormone-driven campus of really any college.  I guess the survey didn’t say that they’re updating the world on their behind-closed-door goings-on, they’re simply checking to see what POSSIBLY could have happened in the (let’s face it) 15 minutes that they were disconnected.  Oh, and texting at least one of their friends– those gems are the reason Texts from Last Night is so popular (looooove it!!)

In conclusion, I have been up way too early for being “on vacation.”  A few good things have come of this, however:

1. Shout out to Hampton Inn for a pretty decent continental breakfast.

2. I have discovered  yet another networking site (mwah-ha-ha) but this one has, so far, proven to  be more helpful than most I’m shamelessly registered for.  Live Mocha http://www.livemocha.com is a site that helps you learn a language by using others who speak that language.  For example, I am registered as a person who’s native language is English and is beginning to learn German (Ich bin eine Frau.)  People who actually speak German can review my pronunciations, give me feedback & in return I can do the same (I just reviewed someone’s written exercise– he only messed up by saying “I am is tall and young” and I was all “Yo, homeskillet– you can take out the is.”)

We have arrived in Kansas City for the weekend wedding festivities.  This town is ugly and drab.  It is also way more freezing, even though we traveled quite far south.

We had some shit-tastic Wendy’s for lunch.  I have not eaten actual fast food in a very long time, and today I was reminded of why.  If eating on the road, I will pick up a Nature Valley granola bar at a gas station, wait until I arrive at my destination, or hit up a deeelicious Subway, Jimmy John’s, etc.

I miss the bestie.  A nap is much needed, but not going to happen.  Did you know that in the book Where the Wild Things Are, horses were originally used instead of monsters?  Lame.  I don’t like horses.  Or really any animals.  Or children or elderly people or most of my peers.  I’m kind of an elitist bitch.

Driving alone in my car is my favorite thing to do of all time.  Yes, there is a lot of singing involved.  Also some talking to myself.  A lot of yelling obscenities at other drivers.

The universe knows that I’d take a loaf of bread or batch of muffins over chocolate any day, but how awesome are Twix bars? 

Did you know that the University of Michigan doesn’t have to make any budget cuts this year because of their methods of savings over the past six years?  Must be nice.

If marijuana is legalized (is this why you don’t want Grandma reading my blog, Mom?) at least when we one day get universal healthcare, the way the world should be, all the insurance workers can find employment in the multi-billion dollar pot industry.

You need to be reading this series in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/world/asia/18hostage.html. 

If Lil Wayne actually has to go to prison for a year in February, I am quite concerned for my mental health.  I love him.  He is hilarious.  If you have not yet watched VH1’s Behind the Music: Lil Wayne get on it.  His interview with Katie Couric before the Grammy’s?  Pure entertainment.  “I’m a gangsta, Ms. Katie.” 

And finally, a video that makes me laugh everytime (I also have a friend who does a spot-on impression of this)



You can probably figure out from the title that this post will be heavy on the sauce… kind of like the two places I’ve found that I dripped BBQ sauce on my shirt at dinner…

Bestie picked me up in the middle of the road after class and we made our way to HAIGHT’S HAWKEYE MEAT MARKET *sounds of angels singing.  Luckily we had called ahead so knew that the apple brats were fresh in the case today, as opposed to frozen like we’ve bought them before.  We walked in and the guy was like “Ahh so you were the one who called earlier.”  Duh, sir.  I think it’s a safe bet to say you don’t have that many phone calls per day and certainly not ones asking “Do you have apple brats today??!?!”

And do you know what else they had??  A new kind of barbecue sauce we’ve never had.  Yes, in case you wondering, Haight’s will toats-mcgoats be catering my wedding reception.  This particular brand was called SuckleBusters Original BBQ and as Bestie pointed out, you know it’s gotta be good when it has a seal that says “No Bad Stuff” on it.  Quality.  He and I both agree that this one has broken our top five.  Now, we shall rank them for you:

Best friend’s top 3 favorite sauces

1. Stubb’s http://www.stubbsbbq.com/

2. Big Daddy’s http://www.bigdaddybarbeque.com/

3. SuckleBuster’s http://www.sucklebusters.com/

My top favorites

1. Big Daddy’s

2. Sweet Baby Ray’s http://www.sweetbabyrays.com/

Bestie likes his with more spice, I like mine sweeter.  Stubb’s is awesome if you like spicy (but not too hot) kick, SuckleBuster’s as well provided a nice spice in constrast to the sweetness of the apple brat.

In other news, I got to pet a sugar glider today.  Two members of 713 got new comforter sets for their beds– really classin’ the place up AND the light in the living room works again.  My stye has gotten worse and there is a small mountain of a blemish on my chin because apparently my skin thinks I am a 14-year-old boy.  It is essentially the weekend– bring on more barbecue!  And six hours in a car with my family…

Hate: the dishwasher.  Dear dishwasher, you are supposed to clean the dishes.  Not leave weird pieces of food congealed on said dishes.  I tried to unload you today, but physically had to remove myself from the situation lest I kick you and something bad happens (i.e. I have to do my dishes by hand pff).  <– that is one of the many numeous reasons I will never have children.  I will either a.) punt kick them in moments of frustration or b.) walk off in order to calm myself from said frustration only to come back and find they’re gone.  I feel this is generally frowned upon, especially in large public places.

Love: paper towels (apparently another hate: the environment?)

Hate: I quit my job (the one I adore) yesterday due to me only working weekends and needing basically every weekend from now til study abroad off.  While I am deeply saddened, they said they’d probably take me back upon my return.  And yes, most of the “hate” about this one is the void free sandwiches will be leaving in my life.

Love: Pumpkin Spice lotion from Bath & Body Works. 

Hate: there were MUSHROOMS in my bag of frozen stir-fry veggies yesterday.  G.R.O.S.S.  Luckily I was able to pick out the vile poison before I choked to death and died.

Love: how FREAKIN AWESOMELY CLEAN our kitchen is.  Way to go, Roomie!!  Paired with my room which I cleaned yesterday, my living situation is for the first time in a while, actually liveable!

Hate: my left knee hurts.  Pretty much only when I go up or down stairs which is, you know, the majority of my day.  Also, I’m getting a stye in my eye.  Not like I’m going to a wedding this weekend where I’ll be a bunch of photos… oh wait a minute, yes, yes I am.

Love: bestie and I are going to find Halloween costumes at Goodwill tomorrow and have apple brats from Haight’s Hawkeye Meat Market.   I’ve missed him and that house of hooligans after a week of separation– how I long to live there one day (and by “one day” I mean next year– whaddya think, Pops??)

Hate: the ladies in my office apparently think that because it comes in limited edition Halloween colors, they need to buy ALL OF THE CANDY IN THE STORE and bring it to work.  If you haven’t realized by now, self-control isn’t one of my strong suits.  Thankfully I only work a few hours a day or I wouldn’t be able to fit through the door by Christmas.

In conclusion: the first half of my week is over.  It’s not all downhill from here, but whether I bomb my presentation tomorrow or if I only have one source for my article due Thursday or if I just stay in bed til Friday morning (that’s my pick, but hey, apparently my grades are dependent on “going to class”) I WILL be chowin’ on BBQ in KC come Friday night.  Be jealous.