In the beginning of 2009 When I had just graduated, moved back home, only worked part time and had an almost nonexistent social life, I had pulled the first version of the Sims out to pass some time. I haven't touched the game since. Tonight I started reading Chuck Klosterman's " Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs" and he talks about the Sims in one of his short stories, so about 3 hours ago I found myself wrapped in my new blue snuggie digging for it again.

When I logged back on I saw that "Meej and Puhtay Bowenessy" were already living in a two story mansion, complete with teleporter, indoor pool and GINORMOUS balconies off each of their master bedroom suites. I decided they needed neighbors.

"WesBob Merrymick" now lives next door. He has a goatee and wears a white dress shirt and tie everyday, which I figured would be proper OfficeMax attire. I think he looks particularly dashing his his tux, but he almost always refuses to change into his formal wear when asked and will often disobey by changing into his swimsuit and swimming in his house's moat. Which I can't really blame him for. I mean, I built the guy a swimming pool moat. He is also fond of dancing in his stripper's cage.

I was particularly please when Meej and Puhtay came over and, after exchanging a few pleasanties with WesBob, helped themselves to his pool and food, as would probably be the case in real life.

"Marquis New-hof" literally lives in a maze. Marquis and his guests must make their way through the narrow, dark, confusing hallways in order to find the bedroom, the bathroom and the kitchen. Their survival depends on their sense of direction.

No matter how hard I try, Marquis and Puhtay just don't seem to hit it off. They loving talking about money symbols and sailboats, but whenever Marquis throws in a bit of tickling or flirting into the mix, it doesn't end well. Neither of them is going to get any action anytime soon. Which is odd, since they're so comfortable with each other. I mean, they don't mind pissing in front of each other for Christ's sakes, which according to Klosterman is "an experience that's light-years more intimate than most kinds of oral sex."

"Lah-Say Pooper", Marquis's other next-door neighbor, lives without any walls. All of her possessions, which are all bright neon colors, lay upon a square piece of bright purple carpet that's decorated with rugs shaped like daisies. One corner of her property has a fir tree forest. Another has a cherry tree forest. A third has a forest made of helium balloons. A romantic stone bench overlooks her giant pond where ducks, frogs and other creatures live.

Lah-Say decided that she wanted to throw a party and invited all of her neighbors over. It was a rip-roaring good time. They all blew bubbles, danced to Lay-Say's stereo, and talked. I took pictures captioned "Lah-Say's first party" and "Who invited this mime?! Seriously, nobody's paying attention to him at all."

Lah-Say had a lot to clean up after all of her friend left. She was just cleaning up the last of the deflated helium balloon forest when her stove caught on fire! She tragically died instantly, and because she did not have any family members living with her, and she didn't have a fire alarm because there was no wall to mount it on, the fire department never came. Everything except the toilet burnt to the ground.

The last picture in Lah-Say's album is of her catching on fire and is captioned "FUCK."

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

I'm a little more than 100 pages into this book, and it's already one of my favorites. Some of my favorite parts:

"I stood on the bed, pointed my fingers at the fake stars, and screamed: 'I changed the course of human history!' 'That's right.' 'I changed the universe!' 'You did.' 'I'm God!' 'You're an atheist.' 'I don't exist!' I feel back onto the bed, into his arms, and we cracked up together."

"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."

Normally I never read for fun during the school year, but for some reason I've already gone through two books this semester despite the fact that I have more than 400 textbook pages to read a week. This is one of the quotes I liked from "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society", which I just finished.

"That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive- all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment."

You've Got Mail

I may have already quoted this, but:

Joe Fox: Do you ever feel you've become the worst version of yourself? That a Pandora's box of all the secret, hateful parts - your arrogance, your spite, your condescension - has sprung open? Someone upsets you and instead of smiling and walking away, you zing them? "Hello, it's Mr Nasty." I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about.
Kathleen Kelly: No, I know exactly what you mean, and I'm completely jealous. What happens to me when I'm provoked is that I get tongue-tied and my mind goes blank. Then I spend all night tossing and turning trying to figure out what I should have said. What should I have said, for example, to a bottom dweller who recently belittled my existence?
[stops and thinks]
Kathleen Kelly: Nothing. Even now, days later, I can't figure it out.
Joe Fox: Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could pass all my zingers to you? And then I would never behave badly and you could behave badly all the time, and we'd both be happy. But then, on the other hand, I must warn you that when you finally have the pleasure of saying the thing you mean to say at the moment you mean to say it, remorse inevitably follows.

...I'm never going to be able to find a balance between the two, am I?

3 most commonly used phrases said during Caitlin and Megan's Europe trip, 2009:

• Pretty sweet actually. (Said in a high pitched voice with a lisp)
• I'm sorry, I only speak English.
• Is this real life?!

Our trip was beautiful, hilarious and oftentimes incredibly strange and surreal. It was one hell of an adventure. Right now I'm drinking sparkling mineral water and wondering how my friends on the other side of the pond are doing; I feel odd thinking this way, but I miss them and their voices already. Since we finished our 26 hours of traveling on Monday (our flight from Chicago to Detroit was cancelled and we spent a solid 7 or 8 hours in O'Hare exhausted and unshowered; I tried to sleep on a bench and I'm sure I sort of looked and smelled like a hobo) I feel slightly narcoleptic, and therefore completely unmotivated to do anything at all. My family, Darrin and I moved all my furniture and heavy things to school on Tuesday but other than that and trying to sort utilities and my health insurance out, I haven't really done anything on my "get ready for school to-do list" or even called any of my good friends to seriously catch up. I'm too tired to make the effort.

Hopefully I feel more energized and motivated tomorrow. Also, I need to start watching my health habits closer. I gained an impressive amount of weight for only being in Europe for 3 weeks...not that I regret it at all though. I ate and drank to my heart's content over there, as one should when they are having the time of their life. Moose meat, caviar, flat bread, sjokade, chocolates, coffees, kebob, sour cream porridge, a shit ton of different kinds of beers, ciders and liquors...sheep's head (including the tongue and eyes!). You can't hold back when you have any opportunity to try something new.

It's also really weird that I haven't even gotten over the jet-lag and I'm watching Anthony Bourdian's new Thailand episode with a feeling of jealousy and travel lust that is just as strong as it was before I left.

Europe Itinerary

I fly to London on Monday morning, the 27th and I'm going to be staying with Olivia and her family about 20 min from downtown. I'm sure our days are going to consist of Olivia asking us what we want to do that day and trying to come up with a plan the night before or the day of and basically flying by the seat of our pants in normal Olivia style. I'm so excited.

We're flying on RyanAir to Ireland on the 28th to visit Sophie. In her words, we're going to:

28th June
arrive dublin 22.55pm
depart dublin 23.20pm
arrive derry 02.45am - picked up by the soph
arrive mullach dubh approx 4am!! SLEEP!!!

29th June
TBA by the soph - wont make it hectic, probably go beaches and what not,little bit of a drinky poo and dinner in sophs pub!

depart mullach dubh 12.30am
arrive letterkenny 1.30am
depart letterkenny 1.45am
arrive dublin 5.10am
depart dublin 8.00am

My boss, who's from Ireland, tells me that Derry is pronounced so it ryhmes with John Kerry.


Then we'll be in London until the morning of the 2nd and then we fly to Oslo to visit Morten, Sindre, Invilgd and Merethe. And we'll see Ann too! We're also going to make day-trips to Sweden and Denmark! This is Morten's schedule for "Megan and Caitlins awesome scandalnavia trip 2009":

Søndag 02: Arrival, hugging, meeting people, gettin settled in our flat, eating (morten cooking/BBQ), maybe a walk in oslo, beers

Mandag 03: Oslo: Soccer match, museums and stuff

Tirsdag 04: Long ass drive to Molde, with many pitstops where the view is awesome

Overnight stay and in a fine ass hotel in Molde
little less than 40 bucks per head.

website: http://www.alexandra.no/

Onsdag 05: Long ass drive to Stanghelle (my home town) with many pitstops where the view is awesome

Torsdag 06: Beeeeergen

Fredag 07: Boattrip in stanghelle/ soccer cup

Lørdag 08: VOSS and soccercup. BEEEERS and crazy norwegian (hillbilly) party

Søndag 09: Long ass drive to oslo

Mandag 10: Cruise to Copenhagen

Tirsdag 11: Random shit in Copenhagen

Onsdag 12: Cruise to Oslo

Torsdag 13: Short ass drive to Strømstad (sweden) or whatever you want..

Fredag 14: Øya Festival?

Lørdag 15: Whatever M&C want

Søndag 16: Sad goodbye


Morten had me laughing out loud reading this. Especially since it's making me more and more excited to go. This is going to be beyond awesome.

EXCITED!

I've been in an odd mood lately. Not necessarily in a bad mood, but because of the absolutely ridiculous drama that's been going on at work, I haven't had much to laugh or smile about lately.

Usually when it's been a while since I last laughed, Puhtay and I pick up and got as far the fuck away from Jackson as we can during my day off. And although our mini-adventures only take us as far as Ann Arbor or Detroit, each trip lifts my spirit like a vacation would, and I'm able to face whatever is going on at work with a renewed sense of optimism (or bemusement, depending on the seriousness of the situation).

Puhtay and I haven't run away in a while and I was missing it. And I know that she would like to run away sometime soon too.

Today she met Mom and I in Jackson while we ran errands: new bedsheets, a father's day gift...that kind of thing. I also got to go shopping for clothes for a little bit, because I would really like some fashionable attire for when I go to Europe in 38 days (not that I'm counting or anything ;-)

As Mom and I drove away from Puhtay, she said, "Puhtay is a true friend, isn't she?"

Yep. And even though we only spent an hour or two together today, just the knowledge that I have someone like that in my life lifted my spirits again.

Another thing that cheered me up: spending time with my Mom. She would work until 4, and I would have to leave for work at 3:30 everyday, so even though we live in the same house, our paths barely crossed. It was nice to tell her about all that's been going on and I'm pumped that she's finished working at the school for the summer.

ALSO, today was Lizzy's 21st birthday, so I got to hang out with her, Justin, Brad, Caitlin and Darrin. I especially haven't seen Brad since December, and I was so pumped to hang with everybody and experience the old dynamic that we used to have.

"Laughter is the best medicine" is such a horrible sounding cliche, but it's true. Just laughing (and drinking) a lot tonight has made me excited about life again...my future career, moving to Grand Rapids in the fall, seeing London and Norway and my old friends that live there...I got to put all the frustrating stuff in perspective and realize that I have so much to look forward to.

This is a video I took of Brad and Justin two or three years ago. It may be only funny to us. But we think it's hilarious.

Bread eating contest