The Day the Metabolism Died

“We're women. There is nothing above bottoms on the crisis scale. Bottoms are our natural enemy.”

-Sally Harper, Coupling

Today is Gorgeous Grandma Day, and you know how I love me some random holidays. Today I want to start by talking about my grandmother on my mother’s side. She was totally a dish back in the day. Obviously I didn’t know her back then, but I’ll say that she looks like quite a bit of a vixen too. I’d bet you $5 she would have had you wrapped around her finger and begging to carry out her every wish. Of course she probably was also a bit of a tease, as she’ll tell anyone sitting with her no matter what age range that she hates sex. Does not like it. No thank you, sir.

Anyway, so not only was my grandma super sexy back in the day, she aged really well. I would never dare to say her actual age (I want to live!) but she has always looked much younger. And this despite a totally unhealthy diet avoiding all the essential things doctors think you need. Go, Grandma!

Of course, as much as I wish for this genetic legacy, I’m pretty sure it’s going to skip me and go to my brother. The lucky duck. But he has far more of the other traits from that side of the family than I do. Including the butt. Yes, the butt.

My mother’s side of the family tends more towards voluptuousness. These are all hot, curvy, sexalicious women. Now for some of us it’s more bust. For some, like my mother, it’s all in the rear. My mother has quite a butt on her. And when she was a young, sexy thang, she showed it off. Short shorts, boots, and dresses that are ridiculously short. This is why over the years she’s earned nicknames like Buns and Mrs. Lumpy Bottom.

My father loves to tease her about her butt. Being impressionable children at one point and then turning to habit, my brother and I totally picked it up too. My dad sometimes hinted that I might expect the same thing to happen when I got older, but genetics loved me for once, and while I got a little butt at some point, I never got a rear quite like my mother’s. But to my endless delight, MY BROTHER DID!!

Yes, it’s as funny as it sounds. Sadly, I can’t find a really super awesome photo to demonstrate, but here is one example. My brother is to the left. Even in this picture you can see the curvature. Notice the huge difference from the random person on the right with saggy jeans, the guy norm. My brother’s got some junk in the trunk. Baby got back. And it is GROWING. This is an older picture. I’m fairly certain his butt is larger now.

I spent years cackling over this fact of life and telling almost anyone I knew about my brother’s butt. Unfortunately, I think karma caught up to me.

You see, in the past month or so I’ve become convinced that my butt is starting to get bigger.

Love this show.

Seriously, it's awesome.

Just to clarify, I am NOT one of those girls that constantly obsesses over their behind, like Sally from Coupling. My butt isn’t too big, or too small. It’s just there, so I ignored it. I didn’t dress to show it off, I didn’t worry about it looking too large.

All of a sudden though my clothes started fitting differently. I pulled out pants that used to fit fine, and now they’re unduly tight in the derriere region. I throw on skirts I used to love, and the hem’s a little too close to my unmentionables for comfort. Even my underwear is fitting differently.

But it’s a subtle change. That’s the problem. I’m not entirely sure if my butt is really larger, or if it’s all in my mind. After all, I hardly look at the thing. I don’t have it memorized. Maybe it was always that size. Maybe my dryer went rogue and shrunk all my clothes. I keep asking people I know if they’ve looked at my butt before and can verify, but they just think I’m crazy (story of my life).

There’s a legitimate reason for why I need to know if it’s getting bigger. I need to identify the cause.

See, I jazzercise now. Someday I might do a whole jazzercise post, but let me just say it’s amazing, and I love it. My tummy is firmer, my thighs are becoming bricks, and I have arm muscles for the first time in my entire life. So my cute lil bum should NOT be getting larger. Unless it’s muscle, which is what people have suggested. I think it might be perkier, but is it muscle?? I can't tell.

In which case, is this a sign that my metabolism has finally started to die!?!

This is what I need to know – the state of my metabolism. This is crucially important to my continued existence.

I’m not saying I have the best metabolism in the world. It wouldn’t win gold medals. However, my metabolism is totally a beast. I’ve never been super skinny, but on the plus side I’ve never been plus size, which I completely owe to my metabolism. Until jazzercise this year, I didn’t work out regularly. I disdained physical activity.

Not to mention the things I eat fairly often would probably cause someone with a normal metabolism to gain 5 pounds in 5 seconds.

Don’t believe me? Ok well, let’s give some concrete examples. I will eat cheese sticks (the fried kind, not that stupid string cheese stuff) several days in a row. I once ate enough icecream in a single sitting to give my tongue (mild) frostbite. Now that I’m older and trying to be slightly healthy, I limit myself to only a half pound of bacon at once. Yeah.

So if this is a sign of the times, and my metabolism is starting to die off, I need to know STAT. Then I might have to do crazy things like limiting how much I eat and believing in calories. Oh the horror… I’m not ready for this. I’m too young! I have too much to live for!!

For Love of the Game

Ever since I said the magic words “Oregon Trail” I have been absolutely dying to play the game. Then, while driving I passed a sign that said “Settlers,” and as that was a game I played around the same time I’ve since been craving the chance to play it. This threw me into full out game nostalgia mode. Thus I have decided to do the neek thing and dedicate a post to some of my favorite games over the years.

Some you may recognize, some are obscure, and some are rather mock-worthy.

Let’s start with the classic! The Oregon Trail is quite frankly a fabulous game. It’s based on some for realz history, which means it’s totally acceptable to play in school, without being a stupid math game. Score! People also tend to die, which makes it far more fun. My favorite part was naming my fellow passengers after a mix of people I loved and hated, and seeing which ones survived. And while I normally cannot deal with any kind of animal violence (even in video games) it was actually really fun to shoot all the animals when you were running low on supplies. It taught you not to be greedy too! If you shot too many you’d end up still only carrying half the meat home.

Now thinking about the Oregon Trail inevitably makes me think of Settlers. I played both games around the same time. Settlers was on one of those discs we got monthly (ish) with free previews of games. This meant you could play only to a certain point. Settlers is a bit similar to Civilization. You start by settling on this new land, and you have to spread out your settlement, creating things like pig farms, mints, and mines. The little people were adorable. You could see the supplies traveling between points on the road to make it to where the supplies were needed, so that was pretty fun too. Sadly I was just reminiscing about this game with my brother, and he said he tried to find it recently and it would require something-something-terms-I-don’t-understand-but-the-word-“bit”-might-have-been-involved to run on computers nowadays. Jerkfaces haven’t made a new version. Someday I may write them a letter.

Another computer game I started playing around that age was Catz. My parents thought this would help keep me from constantly bugging them for more animals. It kinda worked. The virtual pets were fun. Of course the part I most enjoyed was breeding them to get new adorable kittens. That way I could mix the breeds up to get interesting new types. Plus it would chart the family history, which for some reason amused me. Granted, in retrospect that’s kind of a weird aspect of a game designed for kids. When you wanted kittens you’d get a male and female cat out at the same time, and then you had to make sure they liked each other. You could help set the mood with some heart-shaped pillows, perfume, and candy. Weird, right?

Moving away from computer games momentarily, let’s look at some multiplayer games. There were few games that my brother and I could actually play together without devolving into outright war. One was called Herc’s Adventures, and it was AMAZING. I loved Greek mythology, and this game was a weird mix of ancient Greek gods & heroes, and aliens. Yes, aliens. Initially we didn’t even own it. We rented it for our Playstation and played endlessly. Of course eventually we’d hit the same point where I’d die a lot and give up. My brother was actually the only one to finish the game. It had many aspects that appealed to me though. For one thing, there was actually a FEMALE character I could play. I don’t know about other girls, but it drives me batty when I have to play a guy. I find this intriguing. Did you know that when taking tests, statistically girls respond the same whether the test uses girl or guy names in the examples, but guys respond better to same gender names? On the other hand, in my personal experience guys seem more than happy to run around as girls in video games. At least they seem to do it a lot in WoW. Someday I must poll the larger world to see how other girls feel about playing games as male characters.

 Since we’re discussing both Playstation games and games I could play with my brother (without wanting to kill him in the real world), let’s also talk about Twisted Metal. We actually initially started playing Twisted Metal II, which was my favorite. I believe at some point we did end up with the original Twisted Metal, but I still prefer II. We could play against each other, or as a team. It’s one of the few games that I don’t horrible suck at. Outlaw was my preferred character (which also might explain my preference for II over I; in I Outlaw is a guy named Carl, in II it’s his sister, Jamie). Sometimes I’d switch it up though and play Minion, because it was easier to squish the other contestants. I’ve recently been trying to find TM II again because I really loved the game (Mom made us go through some game purges over the years, and at some point it got sacrificed) but I can’t find it. I did get Twisted Metal: Heads On, but it’s kinda meh. Of course when I say I’m trying to “find” the game, I mean I look for it when I’m in a store. I have this really weird thing where I’ll only buy stuff I really want if I happen to run across it, I won’t search online or anything (which is why I also don’t own things like the Drive Me Crazy movie I’ve been wanting to re-watch for forever).

We’ll finish with my absolute favorite game ever. That would be Mario Party. I LOVE Mario Party. How can you not? I mean it’s a combination of every possible good thing from video and board games. You move around an interesting, themed (cuz I love me some fun themes) board. There is some strategy required. There is also some dumb luck. Then there is some skill necessary when you do the mini-games. You can do everything right and lose. You can do everything wrong and win. Normally, you do a mix and get really angry. Mario Party is the reason in high school we frequently said “medieval.” As in, “You dummy, why the heck did you just go medieval on me!?!” after the dummy in question shoots you during a mini-game. This also became the game in college where we most frequently used the phrase “cheating whore.” It actually originated for us playing Skip-Bo, but quickly became a Mario Party catch phrase when we’d play 50 game rounds and near the end everyone started screaming “YOU CHEATING WHORE YOU STOLE MY STAR.” True story – sophomore year of college our worst housemate fights were 100% started by Mario Party games.

Sadly I do not own any of the Mario Party games. My brother briefly owned them, but due to some shenanigans with an evil ex-girlfriend they are lost forever. My college roomie had them, but she felt it necessary to grow up and get married and all that good stuff, so I lost access. I’ve been debating for a while whether I want to go out and buy a GameCube. All my favorite versions were on the GameCube. I don’t particularly want a Wii, because while the new ones are on Wii I’m not in love with the stupid controllers.

Mario Party actually caused me one of my saddest moments this year. The sequence went like this:

I was over at a friend’s house

saw a Mario Party game box

knew this friend would be cool with me basically taking over their house to play

got super excited

opened the box

discovered the game was missing

turned to the friend

found out THEY LOST IT YEARS AGO.

Way to crush my fragile moment of pure happiness. I have secretly knocked points off their mental brownie score because of this instance.

Don't Mess with the Bull, Young Man

This week was the birthday for one of my other good friends from college. I almost missed it, because they don’t have it listed on Facebook. Seriously, that’s like 67% of the reason I use Facebook- to track birthdays.

I can honestly say that there are only 4 birthdays that I have completely memorized. If somebody threatened my life unless I could give them 5 birthdays immediately, I’d be doomed.

One is my brother’s. This is probably in large part due to the fact that my grandparents used to give me presents on his birthday too. Another is my mother’s. The only reason I know this one, is because the day is the same as mine, and I know the month. Don’t even try to get me to tell you the year. I’m sure whatever answer I come up with will mortally offend my mother should she ever hear.

You would think my daddy would be another one, but actually, no. I know it to a few days (again, ignoring the whole year thing). I can normally figure it out, but it takes a few minutes. I second guess myself. Initially I think it’s the 20^th, then the 21^st, then I’m like no it’s the 19^th, because I would remember if it’s the 21^st and it’s not the 20^th, and I keep going through this process until I make a final decision.

The other two birthdays are my friend Cortney’s, and my godson’s. The only reason I remember Cortney’s is because it coincides with one of my bad luck days. My godson’s birthday, I just know. Sadly I DO NOT have the birthdates for my goddaughters memorized… but nobody needs to tell them that. I know the general range of time. Plus my godson was born first. He gets priority (but again, nobody needs to tell my goddaughters).

Really, it is mildly cruel to expect a mildly dyslexic person to remember anything involving a string of numbers. Don’t even get me started on the issues I’ve had with my new cell number (and by new, I mean from last August…) or with switching my address.

It vexes me though because I LOVE celebrating other people’s birthdays. It’s one of my favorite things. I also like celebrating them ON THE ACTUAL BIRTHDAY.

The good news is I have a trick for remembering birthdays. The bad news is it only really helps me get within a week or two.

Love me some Raj

See, I happen to like astrology. Not to be confused with astronomy, the actually scientific field of studying space-things like Raj does in Big Bang Theory. No, I’m talking horoscopes. I love ‘em. I always have at least one horoscope app for daily ones, I have multiple books about the general signs, and at the end of the day that’s one of the things I’m going to remember about you. What’s your star sign, baby <insert suggestive leer>.

Each sign is broken up over 2 different months. So if you’re born between April 21 and May 21 you’re a Taurus, like me. Because of this, I can typically remember someone’s sign and birth month, to get to the general range of their birthday.

I sense that at this moment, some of you might be judging me. That’s okay. It’s a pretty typical reaction.

I’m not saying I super follow horoscopes. I don’t check necessarily every day. I don’t exactly base my life decisions off them. I’m not saying they’re true for everyone. It just so happens that I agree with mine, and I know several of my friends fit their zodiac sign perfectly.

One of my coworkers Krystal argues that the descriptions for each sign are vague, so that you could match any of them.

Well okay, let’s discuss this.

Some of the general traits for Sagittarius are:

-Positive, happy-go-lucky

-Impatient

-Impulsive

-Nature/animal lover

-Super ambitious

-Candid (kinda tactless)

That IS NOT me. I mean maybe you could argue that I’m a pretty positive person as well, but I am definitely not who I first think of when I read that description.

On the other hand, that’s almost a perfect description of my brother. Guess what my brother’s sign is? Yeah that’s right, Sagittarius.

Now you might not match every single trait for your sign. This is partly due to the fact that most people just look for their Sun sign, and ignore their Moon sign, which can play a part. I match my Sun sign so well that I feel comfortable ignoring anything else.

And while whenever the topic of horoscopes come up, people tend to laugh at me, within SECONDS they are asking me what their sign is and what it means about them. This has happened to me with women, men, old people, youngins, and serious skeptics. It’s like they have to deny it first, but then the curiosity is too much. And since they already denied it, if they don’t like what I say they can laugh it off again.

Not that I have every sign memorized at this point. Most of my friends have always been the same few signs, so those are the ones I really know.

And, of course, I know my Taurus traits, because I am such a Taurus.

Just a few common Taurus traits, both good & bad:

Physically, Taurus people are stocky (or for women, busty), have hair that is naturally curly or wavy, and have very large eyes.

There are very few Taurus traits I don’t have, but one is such a prominent trait that it saddens me. Taurus individuals generally have very distinctive voices, because that is the area ruled by our sign. They are often wonderful singers or speakers. As I’ve mentioned before, my voice sucks. It’s far too childish. Really, the only good thing you can say about it is that it’s incredibly expressive.

Ah well, none of us can be perfect.

(Not Quite) Falling Off the Wagon

The word “wagon” inevitably makes me thing of the Oregon Trail. This is mostly due to the game, Oregon Trail. Spectacular game. I used to play it for hours. It kept you on your toes, that’s for sure. One minute everything is fine and dandy, and the next your axle cracked, an oxen died, you’re almost out of food, and oh by the way Jim-Bob got dysentery. Fabulous.

So when I think of the phrase “falling off the wagon” my mental image is always a little cartoon person hanging on to the wagons from the Oregon Trail (and if you played the game, specifically it’s the image that came up while fording the river) as they slowly slip off. This week, that little cartoon person was me.

Now you’re probably wondering at this point what I could possibly be addicted to. I seem so normal, right? But as I have actually mentioned before I’m currently recovering from a serious diet pepsi addiction. And for whatever reason, this past week the universe decided to tempt me at every possible opportunity.

I know, I know, it’s diet pepsi. It’s not like I’m addicted to something super harmful. I am fully aware that there are far worse addictions out there. But are you fully aware how much I CRAVE just a sip of diet pepsi?

Since I gave up the stuff last summer, I have had it all of 3 times. Every time I considered my options before having any, deciding that it was acceptable due to the circumstances (things like there were no other drinks available). It might seem then like it was no big deal if I slipped up and had one this week as well. But it is my friend. Oh, how it is.

Let’s start by explaining why I was craving it so much. I was traveling for work last week, and we were out in a classically HOT state. Of course these days which states haven’t been feeling the heat… but where we were it was about 108 degrees or hotter every day. Which meant that obviously, I would prefer to drink something cold. Drinks were provided, but the options were limited. It was coke products, tea, or coffee.

I was drinking tea, because I needed the caffeine. We were quite busy running amuck all week, and I was tired. Plus I don’t sleep well when I know I need to wake up early, I don’t sleep well when someone is in the room with me (I secretly fear someday assaulting someone in my sleep), and both of those circumstances applied to the whole week.

So while I was drinking tea, I really wanted to drink something cold. Typically when I want a cold caffeinated beverage these days I turn to iced tea. Well, they had none. Ok, I’m flexible, next option would be a Mountain Dew. As I said, they were serving COKE products. No Mountain Dew available. I mean I drink Sprite sometimes, but not when I need my caffeine fix! There was allegedly a coffee cart somewhere selling iced coffee, which would be acceptable, but note the word “selling” as opposed to the free drink options. I’m a bit of a Scrooge. I find it almost impossible to convince myself to buy things when I have a free option, so this really wasn’t an option at all.

Which meant I was stuck with hot tea all week.

This probably wouldn’t have been so bad, but I swear every person that walked up to me was drinking a diet coke. Sometimes they would pour it into a glass of ice in front of me. Oh, how the sight of the glorious dark liquid swirling around those ice cubes stirred my blood. Sometimes they would actually open the can right in front of me. Little known fact: on a job interview they once asked me for my favorite sound in the world. I said the “pop” sound of a pepsi can being opened. You can guess then the effect when everyone is opening their cans around me.

I struggled on. Granted, I complained about it a lot to others. They mostly ignored me. It’s not easy when no one takes your addiction seriously.

I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been pepsi products available. Except then I would have had mountain dew. And even if I didn’t, my resolve would have been stronger.

That sounds odd, doesn’t it? My resolve would have been stronger for the drink I PREFER. Well honestly of those 3 times I’ve had diet pop since last June, only 1 was diet pepsi. And that was actually caffeine free diet pepsi. The other times I had coke, because frankly I don’t think it’s as good, so I didn’t think there was as much of an opportunity for me to go crazy and suck up every sip of diet coke on the premises.

Which means that last week I was constantly justifying it to myself. “Oh, it’s just diet coke. No big deal. I don’t want it as much, so I’ll be able to stop.” “Everyone else is drinking it and they’re fine, surely I can just have one.” “Who cares if I have a diet coke, it’s not hurting anybody…”

And this my friends, is why I held onto that mental wagon and did not end up having a single diet coke (or regular coke, or coke of any form) last week. Because listening to myself, I still sound like an addict. Because I know while having just one really isn’t a big deal, for me, it’s very possible that it will be a gateway to having one next week, then the week after, then next thing you know I’m back to 10 a day or worse.

Btw, addictions suck. Even the ones to "harmless" things like pop.

Getting to Know You

My friend (/coworker/mentor/secret twin) Erin commented recently with her own version of the Relatively Short Questionnaire. We discussed it in more depth, as I actually was unfamiliar with the Traveling Wilburys. I had to google it, and then I was like “why didn’t I know this??” (story of my life).

And this brought up a discussion about other get-to-know-you type questions. Erin’s questions involve a lot of music. I can totally see this. Erin is very music-chic. One of her superpowers is being able to make you the perfect mixed tape/CD. She demonstrated this by making me country mixes when I decided to move to Texas. I HATED country music. It was the only type of music I was passionately against. That is, until I listened to Erin’s CDs!

I, however, go to great lengths to avoid music questions. Both asking them, and answering.

It’s not that I don’t like music. I do! In fact one of the reasons I don’t mind long drives is that I can plug in my iPod and jam out for hours.

But as I've said before, I’m weird about music. First of all, in general I cannot correctly identify artists or songs to save my life. I recognize the music. In fact, I’m good at recognizing even things played really low that other people can’t hear. But ask me to name a song or artist and I’ll just stare at you blankly before spouting random answers. This doesn’t just apply to things playing on the radio. I do the same with stuff on my iPod.

Additionally, my taste in music is just weird, as is the way I prefer to listen to it. I couldn’t deal with the radio for years, so I would make CDs for myself. As my brother often says, if the artists on my CDs heard the whole thing and specifically the songs before/after their song, they might kill me. I like variety. So a CD might start with a pop song, then go rock, rap, random Japanese song… you get the picture.

This is why I can’t function listening to just one radio station. Even the ones that pride themselves on “variety” aren’t varied enough for my tastes. It took me awhile to get into Pandora for the same reason. The only way I could get Pandora to work for me was to create 6 different stations (Blackest Eyes, Stitches, Untouched, Undisclosed Desires, Volbeat, E.T.) which I play on shuffle. Oh and did I mention that I also added random songs to those stations? So for example my “Undisclosed Desires” station (great track by Muse!) also has seed songs like “Dirty Dancer” and “Still Alive.” This is the only way I can get a proper mix, and I still find myself frequently disliking songs (no matter how many times you try Pandora, I will still HATE “Wonderwall”).

For years I couldn’t even answer the most common music questions, like “what’s your favorite band?” I didn’t have one! There are very few bands/artists where I enjoy the majority of their work. Typically I pick and choose which songs I like. This is one reason why I love the advent of the Apple music store. Thank goodness I no longer have to buy a whole CD, I can just buy a song or two.  And let’s not even talk about how now that I finally have a favorite band, they disbanded and there have been all sorts of legal battles over who will continue, who can use the name… ugh.

You have no idea how many times I've watched this

So what kind of get-to-know-you questions do I like to ask? Well about my other favorite neek interests – movies and tv. Who’s your favorite Mighty Morphin Power Ranger? What was your favorite cartoon growing up?  Star Trek or Star Wars? Ya know, the common ones.

The problem I’ve found is what to do with those answers. Shared interests do not mean compatibility. I have found this over and over again. I’m not just talking about dating either. It’s the same for friends.

I’ve tried opposites, I’ve tried same-to-the-point-of-being-clones. I think there needs to be a balance, but I’m not sure what the perfect formula is, if there is one. Something like

28% same favorite movies

15 % different music tastes

7 % food arguments

34 % same sense of humor

11 % dissimilar upbringings

= <3?

Sure doesn’t equal 100%

But regardless I think I like get-to-know-you questions because I can judge people based on their answers. Not that the answers are right or wrong, but I can still judge. You like the original BLUE RANGER?? Really?! Your favorite cartoon was Ren & Stimpy?? Over wonderful 90s classics like Doug and Hey Arnold! Yes, I’m judging you now.

For the record, the green/white ranger was my favorite, and while it’s a tough pick, overall I think The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest was my favorite cartoon. After all, it’s the only one I woke up at freaking 7 AM to watch before school.

The Relatively Short Questionnaire (Relative to the SATs)

 This past week I was lucky enough to get to hang with a bunch of my college friends. I almost said “old college friends” but we are not old, nor do we want to be referred to that way. I know a lot of people lose touch after college so I was super glad to get a chance to see them. We ate a lot (something we’ve always enjoyed doing together), had a True Blood Fest, and reminisced. It was while reminiscing that the Relatively Short Questionnaire was brought up.

Honestly, I had forgotten about it. Of course I seem to forget most of our college hijinks, despite the fact that 9 times out of 10 I’m the one blamed (responsible) for them. Originally it was just me and my friend Jenn in the car remembering it fondly. And by that, I mean laughing hysterically while trying not to drive off the road. We then had to share it with everyone else, because it’s just that good.

The Relatively Short Questionnaire started as an effort to help out some of our housemates. A few of them had some man trouble. They picked awful people to start relationships with, and then were shocked when they failed. While consoling them, we started saying that maybe we should get to help them decide whether or not a boy was worth dating.

I don’t think anyone expected me to retire to my room for the night, and the next day proudly start promoting the Relatively Short Questionnaire as the solution. I’m fairly sure I actually wrote all of it myself. Which is scary. If you read through the questions, you might start questioning my mental state. But there was a point to it! The idea was to get some basic important information, and at the same time, see how the man would respond to the fact that it’s long, politically incorrect, and completely random.

Because of course when you first meet a guy they’re on their best behavior (which I just spelled the British way before autocorrect yelled at me… weird. I’ve been reading too much Wuthering Heights). To know if they’re actually a good guy for the long term, you need to really push them past their comfort zone. Thus the beauty of the Relatively Short Questionnaire!

Now technically, the name of the quiz is Important Questionnaire Which Ascertains the Honorability of the Man Creature.  We started calling it the Relatively Short Questionnaire as it’s easier to say. Plus, it ties in with the basic call & response when you give a man the questionnaire. You say “don’t you want to take this quiz? It’s relatively short?” They grunt and nod, and then after getting a third of the way start swearing about how it’s not short at all. That’s when you say “It IS relatively short! Relative to the SATs!”

After creating the Relatively Short Questionnaire, we figured out how it would work. Men would take it, and we would grade their answers on a point scale, and then calculate the total number of points and create an average or some such thing. I’m fuzzy on those details. Jenn was the math major, and the one responsible for that aspect.

Of course a score wouldn’t do us any good without something to compare it to, so we rounded up some friends/boyfriends/brothers/acquaintances to take the new questionnaire.

Most of the guys that took it were some how familiar and tied to at least one of us housemates, so it’s not a huge surprise we could make them take it. But at one point our housemate Ann found some guy she knew from class outside playing basketball, and she talked him into taking it too. I don’t even remember his name. It wasn’t like they were actually even friends! But this is how dedicated we were to the questionnaire. We needed a large response set.

Sadly, we don’t still have the majority of these responses. We printed the quiz out on paper and never scanned the answers. They must have been tossed when we moved out.

Also sadly, the idea of the questionnaire never exactly played out. See, the thing was, as much as we liked reading the responses, we never wanted to sit down and grade one all the way through.

The other issue was that the grades were subjective. We gave points on a 5 point scale I believe. Each housemate gave a grade for each question. But past that, it was totally up to them what they wanted to do. For instance, there’s a question about Tom Brady on the questionnaire. I hate Tom Brady. So any kind of favorable Tom Brady mention got 0 or 1 points from me automatically. However, no one else hated Tom Brady. So they scored on things like loquaciousness, spelling, etc. Same thing with the question about sticking gum under the table. Big deal to me and Jenn, not an issue for anyone else.

Sometimes we got into arguments. Especially if we were grading somebody we wanted to have a decent score, and then someone gave a low grade for something stupid. Sometimes we debated over the interpretation of an answer, as that could change the score. All in all it became very time consuming, and although we faithfully read all of the answers, I don’t think we ever fully graded a single questionnaire.

The thing is, talking with my friends about the Relatively Short Questionnaire raised a point that was really hammered home when I came back and found it on my computer. Because, Honest And True Time, I am apparently a douchebag.

Yes, friends, it’s true. I knew that in college we did some pretty jerkface stuff, but I always assumed it was just want happened when we were all together. Now I’m starting to suspect it’s really my influence. I mean it’s funny to reminiscence, it’s funny to reread the Relatively Short Questionnaire, but really? I wrote that??

I feel like I need a douchebag jar just like Schmidt on New Girl. No wonder he’s my favorite character.

In closing, I’ll leave you with the link to the Relatively Short Questionnaire in case you want to check it out. I warn you though, the faint of heart need not click. Additionally, I’m also linking you to one of our favorite answer sets, the responses of housemate Jenna’s boyfriend, who we’ll call Fitzwilliam. I have removed his name & birthdate, but it otherwise is unchanged. Keep in mind, Fitzwilliam liked to believe he was evil, badass, and violent. 

Meanwhile despite my Honest And True Time realization, I feel compelled to have all new people take the Relatively Short Questionnaire, so I might start bugging all my males friends. 

Now for a Commercial Break

Today I feel like the kid with all the cool toys. Since I’m finally in an office surrounded by real people (as opposed to Cat and teddy bears) I’ve been frolicking amongst the group showing off all my cool things. This is only slightly different from when I realized at the beginning of the week I’m starting to get arm muscles, and had to show those off.

That’s the thing about having cool toys. It’s fine and dandy to appreciate them yourself, but it’s extra awesome when you can hear people exclaim over them. I personally don’t view it as trying to rub my funness in people’s faces. I’m not trying to make them jealous of my wondrous gadgets.

It’s really the same idea of why I don’t like watching new movies by myself. I’ll watch movies over and over again all the time. But movies I haven’t seen before I prefer to watch with people. I want to share in on their reactions. I want the experience of sharing an experience.

So that was me today with my new favorite gizmos.

Awesome Item #1 is nail polish. I randomly found it on Monday, while my friends and I took a break from our vacation fest to go to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We had legitimate reasons to be there, but of course then we ended up just wandering around browsing all the cool gadgets. I found they also had Awesome Item #2 in stock which everyone decided to buy (more on that later), and while leaving the area I spotted this nail polish out of the corner of my eye.

It’s magnetic nail polish. Not magnetic in the sense that you become Magneto and can easily steal pocket change while walking past strangers. You put on a layer, let it dry, then put on another layer, and using a magnet make these incredibly cool waves appear on your nails.

I didn’t try it out until last night, and it’s FREAKIN AWESOME. My nails look so nifty. You have no idea. 

Ok well you do, because I’m including a picture. I want to buy every other color available. All day I have been distracting myself with my incredibly shiny nails. It’s fantastic.

Maybe it even distracts away from my tiny hands??

Awesome Item #2 is lip gloss.

So to appreciate this, we must start with explaining a few key details about my lifestyle choices. I don’t really wear makeup. I have a tinted lotion I wear sometimes, and that’s about it. When I want to step it up, I put on eyeliner, and maybe some sort of lip color.

Now I actually used to wear a lot of lip stick/gloss/stain but that was because of my blue issue. I get cold very easily, and because my circulation is full of fail, my lips spend a lot of time either blue or purple. It looks unhealthy, so during the winter I am more likely to wear some kind of color so I look like a real person and not a (well preserved) zombie. However I’ve gotten lazier and lazier about makeup as time goes on, so even this has fallen by the wayside.

This lip gloss caught my eye though because it’s supposed to match to your perfect color, and I was intrigued. I didn’t think it would actually match by ph levels like it says, but then what was it going on? The base color of your lips? Temperature? I love to test things out, so I knew I had to buy it and play around.

Having no self restraint, I tried it on myself that first night. It was pretty. Not a color I’d ever buy, although it looked good on me. But this was inconclusive. I had to wait until I was visiting friends to run my true experiments.

So sure enough on Saturday three of us tried it out. Within minutes, we had three very different lip colors going on. And they all looked great! Not only did we have different colors, my color was different from the first time I wore it. The first time it was a very bright pink. This time it was more reddish. We were astounded!

This still wasn’t enough data for conclusive results, so we tried again Sunday. With completely new shades! This time, we also switched locations while wearing the lip gloss. And believe it or not, the shade adjusts when based on the light to become darker/lighter as needed.

This is why everyone had to buy some on Monday. Because it’s the coolest thing ever.

(Bad) pic of the color today. Tried not to smile so you could really see the color.

Now I’m not sure it’s really your “perfect” shade. I just had about 5 girls at work try it today, and it became a little too bright for them (although so far it is consistently brightest on me. I don’t know why it always gives me bright, bold colors). Not everyone is sold on it, but I’m rather in love. Not only is there the cool color changing aspect, it also isn’t as sticky as typical lip gloss, which is a big selling point to me.

I super want a guy to try it. I’m just curious to see if it reacts differently. This is my new goal in life, to convince a guy to try it out. Please don’t hesitate to contact me and volunteer!