I AM A FUCKING CRAZY PERSON.

Tonight, as I was going through my nightly ritual of blog reading (aka fulfilling my voyeuristic tendencies) while mentally reviewing my day (aka obsessing), it occurred to me that I’ve crossed over from delightful eccentric to FUCKING CRAZY PERSON.

What clued me in to this transformation, you ask?  Well let me paint a picture for you:

I am sitting on my couch, going through my Google reader, eating a 100 calorie pack of popcorn.  It suddenly occurs to me that I have never eaten this particular brand of popcorn before.  Though this would not alarm those of you who still have your strangle hold on sanity, I am alarmed.  I think of the statistical odds of a sudden adult onset allergy to whatever synthetic butter product is on the popcorn.  I start to panic, so I do the logical thing and go outside, figuring if I pass out I have a better chance of being noticed and thereby saved if I’m out in the open as opposed to alone in my apartment.

After a few minutes outside I start to laugh at my own craziness and go back inside.  Where I continue laughing.  Alone.  Causing my dog distress and confusion.

I stop laughing and return to my blog reading.  As I’m reading, I start to think of the millions of things I have to get done this week.  I take out my voice recorder and start to record my to-do list (this is a story in and off itself, the whole voice recorder thing.  we’ll table that for another day).

Imagine now, my surprise, when I go to listen to my to-do list before going to bed (also part of my OCD nightly ritual) and it sounds like this:

1.  Get paper towels

2.  Drop off laundry

3.  Boring work stuff

4.  Jesus fucking Christ Coco, why do these people tan so much?  They look ridiculous.  (yells at the tv) You look ridiculous!  Its like the strangest sub-culture ever, like I understand cannibals more than I understand these people.  And why are all the men hairless?  How do you wake up one day and think, “I really need to be hairless.  And more orange.  And I should see how many times I can say vibin’ in the next 5 minute period.”

5.  Book physical therapy appointment.

And so it occurred to me that in one single evening I had:

A) Imagined a fictious, but deadly allergy

B)  Taken steps to ensure my lifeless body was quickly discovered when I died from said allergy

C)  Frightened my dog with hysterical laughter

D)  Accidentally tape recorded myself talking to my dog about reality tv

Just wanted to share.

Anywho, its a new year and all that good stuff, so I feel as though I should share my resolutions with you.  I assume you’re terribly interested.  Its an exciting one.  Are you ready?  This year I resolve to… something or other.  I’m struggling to come up with a resolution.  Or at least the kind of resolution you can share in polite company when asked by some stupid acquaintance, “What’s your New Year’s resolution?”  I’m think my REAL resolution, which is to catch a wild moose then castrate it then watch it develop devil antlers, would confuse and horrify some of my more uptight friends.  So, I feel like I need another resolution, one that is more pc.  But I still want this resolution to be something I can accomplish.  Here are some ideas I’ve been bandying about:

• Play tambourine in a garage band comprised exclusively of 14 year old boys.
• Conquer my fear of throwing up (this one may require me becoming bulimic, but I’m open)
• Mail Stone Philips one love letter a day for 365 days
• Teach Coco Spanish so that she and I can have secret conversations in front of Ben

That’s all I’ve come up with so far, so I was thinking it would be awesome if you could share your resolution and if any of them are any good I’ll just do that.  We’ll be resolution buddies!  Our bond shall be unbreakable.

Next topic.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation New Year’s Eve

I am old and like to go to bed early, lets just start with that.

When discussing what we would do for New Year’s, Ben and I agreed that we wanted to keep it fairly low key.  Something fun, but not too raucous.  We decided on the Boston Pops Orchestra.  I love classical music, I love Symphony Hall, done and done.  I bought tickets for New Year’s Eve without looking too closely at the program for the evening.

Fast forward to last night.  Ben and I arrive at Symphony Hall, we look like this:

Almost everyone else looked like this:

Clearly something was amiss.  See, what I had failed to notice when I bought our tickets was that Amanda Palmer, from The Dresden Dolls, was going to be accompanying the Pops.  And as such, the audience was full of teenagers dressed as homeless people from the 20s?  Or something.  I’m not hip, so I could be getting it wrong.  Mixed in with the Amanda Palmer fans were some frightened elderly, who also thought they were just going to a nice classical concert, but were in fact walking into something entirely different.  Something that involved performance art.  And a silent film where some old guy has a baby, then feeds his baby a watch, and then the baby explodes into light, and then the old guy drinks vodka.  That shit totally happened.  I saw this silent film IN REAL LIFE and was unable to stop laughing.  The people sitting next to me did not appreciate my lack of appreciation.

There was a variety of openning acts, some confusing (see above) and some awesome.  April Smith and The Great Picture Show played one of the smaller lounges in Symphony Hall and they were awesome.  So awesome that I wanted to have my picture taken with them, but I chickened out and just took a picture in front of their equipment while they were on break:

Side Note: Please excuse all the blurry photos.  We weren’t supposed to use our flash and neither Ben nor I could figure out how to take a non-blurry photo without a flash.  We finally broke the rules and took this photo from our seats:

This was also not appreciated.

I will say that the evening was wonderful.  Great music, great people watching, and I got to kiss a hot piece of ass at midnight:

The end.

Unrelated note: I am a finalist in the 20sb Bootlegger Awards for Funniest Blogger.  BLOWS MY MIND!  For anyone who nominated me, I really appreciate it.  You guys are awesome, and it makes my day to see my name in the same category as Lilu, Maxie, Nicole, Matt and Cheryl.  Its an honor just being nominated, etc., etc.

Monday morning, I take Coco out for a walk before I leave for the office.  The stairs are icy and I slip and fall.  On my brick stairs.  It is very graceful and looks something like this:

Upon reaching the bottom of my stairs I realize something is very wrong.  The first indication is my inability to get up.  Second red flag is the uncontrolled crying.  Unfortunately Ben is on a trip, so I am alone.  Well, not alone, Coco is there.  But my misfortune continues since Coco doesn’t know how to drive or call a hospital.

After what seems like hours of being curled up in the fetal position on the ice, crying, I am finally able to get up.  I’m all, “Jill, walk it off.  You’re fine.”  And I take my own advice, finish walking Coco, continue crying, bring her back inside, more crying, and leave for work, while crying.

Note: In retrospect, its now clear to me that I was seriously injured.  At the time, I think the pain had made me irrational.

Now, I am driving to work.  And the pain is unbearable.  In 20 degree weather, I am driving with all of my windows down because I am feeling like I am about to pass out and/or throw up.  At this point, I have decided that I need to get to the hospital.  I am on a mission.  A simple, yet important mission.  Remain conscious long enough to get to the hospital.  Well, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED BITCHES!

I walk into the ER, or rather hobble into the ER.  Lots of crying.  And swearing.  At Jesus.  The homeless gentleman in the waiting room is looking at me nervously, clearly afraid of what the crazy lady is about to do next.  Needless to say, I am promptly brought to an exam room, if for no other reason than to put the other patients in the waiting room more at ease.  Crying, crying, crying.  X-rays.  Broken sacrum diagnosis.

Here’s the thing, you may not know this, but I’m pretty hardcore.  A couple of years ago, I broke my ankle and walked on it for a week before finally going to the hospital.  My doctor at the time told me that there was no way it was broken because I had been walking on it.  In heels.  Four inch heels.  Quick x-ray later, totally broken.

Being a total hardcore badass, I not only turned down the shot of morphine offered at the hospital, I also refused a prescription for narcotic pain killers.  Mostly because they make me feel nauseous and I hate throwing up.  Like I will gladly take the pain of a broken sacrum over the soul-killing experience that is vomiting.  So, for the last week, I’ve been popping a combo of Tylenol and Motrin.  All while trying to avoid dying.

While at mass this weekend, please remember to tell Jesus about how happy it would make you if my back was better.  And now a photo essay explaining how I currently feel.

1.)    I do not like events that require “family time.”  I feel this is self-explanatory, but in case its not, I’ll elaborate:  My family is crazy and holidays generally descend into arguing about topics ranging from income taxes to various family member’s alcohol problems.  In my family, being festive is a euphemism for screaming obscenities.

2.)    I am cheap.  I plan to die with my money buried around me.  Like a fortress.  To protect me from grave robbers.  And also to bribe Jesus into reincarnating me as a dog.  Who can talk.  None of these dreams can come true if I’m spending all of my money on Christmas presents.

3.)    I actually think I covered everything.  But it seems weird to stop at two, so pretend I have a third reason.  Like maybe I find candy canes obscene, as they remind me of stripper poles.  For underage elves.

Keeping these things in mind, the way I spent my weekend was fairly strange.  Yesterday, Ben and I, along with some friends (adorable couple previously pictured here) went to a tree lighting/Christmas concert in Portsmouth.  And it was actually not totally hateful.  Here’s a picture of Ben and me being filled with the Christmas spirit.

Notice how that picture is both very attractive and not at all blurry?  That’s because I took your collective advice and got a Cannon Elph.  Here’s another awesome photo I took with aforementioned camera.

Pretty fucking impressive, right?!  I thought so too.  Big improvement.  And yes, that is snow you see!  We got our first real snow last night.  And it totally freaked Coco out.  For your enjoyment, a short video of Coco Muffin Pilgrim’s first outing in the snow (brief cameo by Jill Pilgrim).  Enjoy.

P.S.  Yes, that is a shitload (technical term) of hay that you see in the video.  I live in the middle of nowhere.  Also, is it sad that I get so excited about my dog finally going to the bathroom?  I didn’t think so.