Snow Day

If I hear one more person talk about how pretty the snow is, I will punch them in the face. Yes, snow is preferable to ice, but on top of ice, it just makes for a bigger cluster-fuck.

I'm TRYING to recall some of the snowday magic of my youth, and the best thing I can remember is that my Dad and Uncles were in charge of grocery shopping during any snow emergency. And they could be conned into anything.

My brother and I duly penned our lists for them in great detail:

• Tiger Red Pop. 16 oz glass bottles.
• HubbaBubba: Watermelon.
• BubbleYum: Grape.
• Doritos: Family size. Taco Flavor.
• Assorted cereals: Fruit Brute. BooBerry. FrankenBerry. Count Chocula.

Today I slogged over to Disco Kroger to try to re-capture the magic. Fruity Pebbles was the best I could do.

Flashback 03

Right now, two days into Ice '09, I still have power, but I'm not getting cocky.

In '03, I didn't lose power 'til two days after the storm... and then it was out for five days... And then my dog died...And then I wrote a country song...

It goes a little something like this...
(just kidding).

Amy & Amy

Obviously, I am livin' life wrong in '09, because I'm being punished by the tech gods. Woke up yesterday: couldn't make calls; couldn't get calls.

I don't talk on the phone much, so it took me a few angry emails to realize that it wasn't even working. Oddly, I still had text, email, and online. But then, apparently, I sprained those -- because today, right after AT&T managed to get the phone part working (they had to re-boot the phone, and some device number didn't match something else), the pearl on the blackberry stopped scrolling. Again. And again, it will go right, and left, but not up or down (so, no rolodex, no texting, no emailing, and definitely no blogging).

I'm typing this out at an actual desktop (yeah, yeah, like an animal).

This is my second replacement BlackBerry since FEBRUARY, so I suggested to AT&T that they have a DESIGN FLAW on their hands.

But once they transferred me to Amy, in "warranties," I relaxed. Amy has the voice of an angel, and she speaks SOUTHERN.

I have no problems with the good people of Bangelor (I saw the "30 Days" installment on outsourcing), but I did lose a LOT of hearing from my early days as a music critic, and I can't always decipher accents -- as my Boston friend Sandy will attest. Amy soothed me with reassurances like, "don't you worry, we're fixin' to be done here in just a minute..."

After she assured me a replacement model would be winging its way to me as soon as we hung up, I asked her to spell her name, and asked if I could speak with her supervisor. Without even asking why, she assured me, "why yes ma'am, I surely can, if you don't mind holdin' for just one l'il minute."

Once the boss came on the line (improbably named Amy as well), I told her I just wanted to take a second to compliment (the other) Amy on how helpful she'd been, and how much I appreciated her speaking Southern to me.

The Boss-Amy responded, without missing a beat, "why, sure 'nuff." And she sounded sincere.

I still don't have a phone, but I feel a little better after talking to the Two Amys. Surprisingly, I very rarely take the time to complain. At least not in person. I do it later, in print.

But I picked up on the idea of complimenting people from my Dad. He always does it, and he always reminds me to ask for a supervisor -- that it isn't enough to say Thanks to the person who helped you; you have to tell their boss.

If the phone actually shows up on time, I might even write a letter.

Slumber Parties

Probably everyone says they prefer to sleep in their own bed, but I'm pretty pathological about it. I kinda can't sleep anywhere else.

So I put it on my to-do list for 09.

Last night was a trial run. Movies + a sleepover, in another town.

I love movies. I especially love Death Race - the night's feature attraction. Plus the house I was going to has all the comforts of home (HBO, TiVo, Ambien) but better -a nicer kitchen with all the top chef tools (where he heats up the Stouffers), a home theater with a 60+ inch screen, and a nice master bedroom flatscreen with 42 inches (I asked).

Popcorn and my boy Jason Statham made for a pretty good evening (yes, I do realize he doesn't meet my height requirement, as was pointed out to me all night long). Bedtime was accompanied by Orangina, Ambien, comforting re-runs of Family Guy, and the compulsory Ambien-chatter that (as always) I can barely remember: Kate Hudson's putting a lot of weight on in her face; maybe she's pregnant; no way Diane Lane is younger than I am; do you think she's younger than I am?

That kinda thing.

Followed by repeated assurances from the host that he had indeed hidden all the birthday pastries I'd brought him from Fresh Market. That tulip full of mousse coulda spelled death - unfamiliar stairs + a kitchen under construction + ambien-snacking.

At some point, I must've stopped talking and dozed off on a Tempur-Pedic mattress much nicer than mine, on sheets with even higher thread count than I have at home.

I woke up to a 60 degree January day and what sounded like Spring Rain on the roof.

I was considering the experiment successful even BEFORE he said those three little words every girl longs to wake up to everyday: "You want bacon?"

Yes Man

When Tex called for date movie advice last night, he had narrowed it to two choices: Marley and Me, or Yes Man.

I hadn't seen either, but still had to explain to him that in the history of cinema, Jim Carrey has never, ever gotten anybody laid.

I asked if she was a hot girl or a smart girl. Smart girls want to be told they're hot; hot girls want to hear how smart they are (and frankly, they'll believe anything).

After he described her in more detail (ok, actually he just told me her occupation -- and I'm not printing it here, because everytime I say something disparaging about this particular profession, I get a LOT of hate mail), I sent them to Slumdog Millionaire.

I haven't seen it either, but I knew it was the kind of movie you'd pick for a hot girl who THINKS she's a smart girl.

It worked.

Me? I stayed home and read Revolutionary Road so I'd be ready for the smart-girl movie adaptation that hits town later this month. (The book is very Mad Men, but WAY more distressing.)

I plan to see it with a Hot Guy.

I'm the smart-but-shallow girl.

Tex says he would just sum me up to unwitting victims as "a handful." I think that's fair.

Early Adopters

It would be safe to say, I'm not an early adopter.

I admit this, because there are witnesses... witnesses who will be more than happy to confirm that I am the person who said, "this email thing will never catch on," and whined loudly from my 1980's Edit Desk when the writers stopped bringing me disks I could read.

So 2008 was a big year for me.

In February, I ditched my seven-year-old Nokia for a BlackBerry, under protest, and only because I'd finally worn the number eight off that phone.

By summer, my friends Elle and Kimmy dragged me kicking and screaming onto Facebook and MySpace.

A little after that, my banker sent me so many WSJ articles about Twitter that I felt compelled to sign on for fear he might stop cashing my checks.

And by Thanksgiving, my friend Tex had talked me into manning not one, but two blogs. (When I say "talked me into it," I mean: we sat down with some beignets and he mashed a lot of buttons on his laptop, and suddenly, I was a blogger. A blogger lightly dusted from head to toe in powdered sugar.)

When I told him I didn't adapt easily to new technology, he said I reminded him of what his Little League baseball coaches had said once of him -- that it's like watching me run the bases with a piano strapped to my back.

Sounds about right.

Sometime in 2009, I will have an entirely new website at work. By way of direction, I only told the guys renovating it that it must be idiot-proof -- that they should be picturing Lenny in Of Mice and Men when they're thinking of the person who'll be updating it at 3 a.m.

Sometime in January, I'll have a new laptop.

These are not baby-steps, for me.

My friend Ian doesn't even have a cell phone, and over Christmas Eve dinner, he had the same facebook complaints I did -- i.e., we don't know HOW to put your seahorse back in the ocean, or clean your garden, or catch the Duke Sucks wave. Pleeeease stop asking us.

But 2009 will be different.

I have told Wes at TAO and Dave at Elevation that I'd like for them to team up and build me an iCar this year, and then install a thought portal into my head so that I can just communicate directly, without the bother of a keyboard (otherwise, Dr. Nick is going to have to treat me for carpal tunnel).

I'll show YOU an early adopter.