Paid to Laugh

Do you ever think about your dream job?  The thing you'd do if you could do anything in this world you wanted to do?
I think about mine all the time, which probably doesn't come as a shock to many of you.  If talent, time, opportunity, and money were no barrier, I don't think I'd have any troublesettling down to a job I adore.  I have several that come to mind pretty quickly, actually.
Photographer.
Florist.
Novelist.
Host of a travel show.
Stand-up comic.
Bookshop owner.
Food critic.
Movie critic.
Book critic.
Writer for late night talk show.
Writer for SNL.
Singer on Broadway.
Costume Designer.
However, as wonderful as I think these would all be, there is one that stands out in the forefront as, in my opinion, the world's perfect job.  Here's a few hints:

Roseanne

The Wonder Years

The Office

Murphy Brown

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

All in the Family

Growing Pains

The Facts of Life

Saved by the Bell

The Cosby Show

Will & Grace

The Golden Girls

Seinfeld

Friends

Have some of my all time favorite sitcoms given it away?  So, here's the scoop.  If I could do annnnnnnnyyyything in this world, there's no doubt what I'd do:
Sitcom Actor.  I would probably even settle for sitcom writer, but actor would certainly be my first choice.
Let me explain why.
Top 10 Reasons to be a Sitcom Actor:
10.  If your sitcom is a success (and my dream one would be, of course), you would get paid loads of royalties.
9.  You meet amazing guest stars all the time.
8.  You get to bring laughter and happiness to the entire world weekly and in syndication for years to come.
7.  Even when sitcom families are disfunctional, everybody laughs and things are still funny.
6.  No matter what they are or how big, your problems are almost always totally solved in thirty minutes or less.
5.  You go to work everyday with some of the funniest people you've ever met.
4.  You work with some of the most talented writers in the world, and you get to be real life friends with them.
3.  You can watch your own gag reel and laugh all over again. As funny as gag reels are to the viewers, imagine how funny they are to the people who know how funny it was in the moment. Did that make sense?
2.  Your job would be hilarious.  Every day.  You're being paid to be funny, and the harder you laugh (and make other people laugh) the more you get paid.  Everybody wins.
1.  You get to go to weekly table reads, which look like the most amazingly fun things on the planet.
So, what's your dream job?  If there were no barriers and worlds of opportunity, what would you be doing??  I'm dying to know!

Flash in the Dark

lightning in the night sky
illuminating things unknown
sometimes life flashes with lightning, too
and brings to light the answers that have been there all along
sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same
heard that in a song once, and it just ran through my brain
i think it's probably true
but that doesn't make things any easier to swallow
the breeze blows and the lightning flashes again
can you smell change?  or taste it?
i suppose it's going to come charging in whether i'm ready for it or not
so i should just shut my mouth and go with the flow
tomorrow a chapter will come to a virtual end
the unknown is with me always it seems
i'm not looking for answers today
though who knows what the next flash might reveal?

Down to the Dirt

So, last night... just five literal minutes after I posted a blog, I got a phone call from my mom.  Already this was unusual, as it was 9:56 PM, and my fourth-grade-teacher-mother is usually snug as a bug in a rug by that time.  I knew we were in for an adventure when her first words were, "I need your advice."
When my mother says words like "I need your advice" or "I'm not sure what to do," they are almost always followed by some outlandish predicament my mother has found herself in and is, in turn, calling me to get her out of.  It could be anything from not being able to make the television remote work to water pouring out of the hot water heater and flooding the kitchen floor.  (The remote I can usually handle; what does she think I can do about the cascade of water?  Seriously, call a plumber.)
Last night was no exception.
The next words after "I need your advice" were legendary.  They went something like this:  "I think I have a tick in my eye."  Not like a nervous twitch or a muscle spasm, mind you, an actual insect.
The first thing I did was ask if she was sure it was a tick.  (Remember this; it will be important later.)  She said she was certain it was, and that she had tried to pull it off with her finger and a pair of tweezer, and it wouldn't budge.
Wonderful.  It's 10:00 at night, and my mother has a disease-carrying bug in her eye.
So, we debated what she should do.  Go to sleep?  Call her eye doctor?  Go the emergency room?  She was determined she needed to go to the emergency room, and that I needed to drive home and meet her there.  I don't live but about 30 minutes from my hometown, so I really didn't mind going to meet her, but I really wanted her to call her eye doctor and see what he said instead of rushing down to the local circus known as the ER.  
We decided she would call her eye doctor and call me back.
I went ahead and changed out of my pajamas, for I felt it inevitable that I would be making a hometown journey.  Within minutes she called me back and said that she was going to her eye doctor's office to meet him (oh, the charms of small-town living) and that she wanted me to meet her there.  In actuality she had me, her eye doctor, and her best friend all headed into town to meet her to remove the alleged tic.  What a diva.
So, I'm on my way to Columbus to meet my mom and see the tic in person.  Or so I thought.  I don't even make it to the airport exit before she calls me and tells me to turn around, for the whole fiasco is over.  Done.  Finished.  
The tic has been removed, and the doctor has sent her on her way.  
Oh, wait.  It wasn't even a tic.  It was a piece of dirt.
That's right... a piece. of. dirt.
Therefore all the questions I didn't ask in the first place (like, Did you not feel something crawl into your eye? or, How come it just showed up there out of nowhere?) because they appeared invalid all became glaringly... valid.
In the meantime, her friend is waiting at our house, confused as she can be because she thought she was supposed to come to the house and pick up my mom to take her to the doctor's office.
In essence, my mother had everyone driving around creation in the middle of the night, moving heaven and earth to salvage her eye from lyme disease... when all that was really there was a harmless piece of topsoil.
How undeniably typical. 

Have a Nice Weekend

This past weekend was Super Bulldog Weekend, a spring tradition in Starkville/at Mississippi State that I truly adore.  There's baseball games, the spring football game, the Cotton District Arts Festival, great music, tons of crawfish and cold beer, and, best of all, tons of friends in town.  Add in some gorgeous weather like we had this year, and you've got the makings of a truly super weekend.
I started off Friday morning by getting my apartment all cleaned up for my company, who would start arriving that afternoon.  The finishing touch was, of course, some beautiful flowers, for y'all know I always think fresh flowers do wonders for any occasion.  I also watered my flowers I've been taking so much care of outside, for I wanted them to look their best for our company, too.

Megan got into town early afternoon, and we headed for the Cotton District to enjoy the beautiful afternoon.  We hung out for awhile, Becca and Wex came and met up with us, and before long Meg, Wex, and I headed home to get ready for an amazing dinner at Anthony's.  And an amazing dinner, it was.  After dinner we went out downtown, where all the bars were packed with SBW merriment.  I will go ahead and say now that I took no pictures from the weekend.  I know you're disappointed; I'm disappointed in myself, as well.

Saturday dawned bright and beautiful, and Wex and I started off the morning with breakfast at City Bagel.  We met up with Meg after breakfast and headed for the Cotton District Arts Festival, one of my favorite springtime events.

After walking around the festival for awhile, we met up with Becca, Paige and Lauren for lunch at the new Grill, which, aside from the miserable service, was wonderful.  After lunch we headed back to the Cotton District, where the remainder of the afternoon was spent hanging out people-watching at the Bin.  The night was again spent downtown, although this fossil drank ice water at the bar and called it a night relatively early.  I was sooooo exhausted.  As I said, I took no pics, but I managed to steal a couple that Becca snapped Saturday.

Sunday we did something I've been wanting to do since football season, but for some reason never could manage to pull together--brunch at Restaurant Tyler.  It was seriously worth it, and we were all glad we finally got ourselves together.  That afternoon, I went to see Death at a Funeral and spent the rest of the day lounging on my couch watching movies.  Well, honestly, I only made it through about a movie and a half before I was snoozing the day away.  Seriously, I am old and cannot hang like I used to.  How pitiful.

Today it was back to the grind.  Carrot sticks and turkey sandwiches, school work and class.  If you can believe it, the semster will be over this time next week.  Isn't that insane?  April 26 is my last final, and then I'm done for the semester.  Whoop whoop for that!!

Finally, I have to leave you with a few pictures of one the cutest kids on this planet.  My little cousin Frances is the most precious little doll-baby ever.  And J. Caraway is a seriously amazing photographer.  Put the two together and you have these gorgeous pictures.

Are these not seriously beautiful?  I am so jealous of J. Caraway's work.  Seriously, if I had half the talent that she has in her pinky finger, you wouldn't be able to wrench my camera from my hand.

Anyway, hope your week is off to a great start, and I hope you're finding some little way to enjoy this amazing weather.  Seriously, is God unbelievably great, or what?!

True Life: This is Me Now

First off, I feel like a better name for this post at the moment would be 'True Life:  I Don't Know How to Use Hot Rollers.'  Seriously... what's so hard about them?  I don't know.  They continue to frustrate and madden me, yet I continue to attempt to make them work to my benefit.  (Perhaps it's just as much that I have no more idea what to do with this mane of hair I've found myself with than I have for what to do with the rollers.  I'm hopeless.)
Anyway, for both your interest and my sanity, I won't subject you to a diatribe on hot rollers.
Moving on.
I want to start by saying a huge thank you to all of you for your comments, emails, facebook messages, phone calls, texts, and personal conversations to let me know that you were thinking about and praying for me and my ongoing struggle with losing weight.  Y'all have no idea how much those words meant to me, and I thank you all so much for your love and support.  I am truly joyous to report that I've had eight successful days and lost four pounds.  It's a tiny chink in my target number but a chink nonetheless.  I'm taking things one day at a time, trying to pray through all of my shortcomings, and talking to God like crazy.  Keep those thoughts and prayers coming; y'all are such a blessing in my life!!
That provides the perfect segue for the next thing I wanted to say.  True friendship is seriously one of the greatest blessings in this life.  Growing up, friendship is relatively easy.  It usually consists of things shared--common interests.  Who likes to play the same games at recess, who likes to see the same movies or play the same sports, who likes to go to the same places and do the same things.  The older you grow, however, the more difficult it becomes to find people who align with the things that are important to you.  Just enjoying doing the same things isn't enough any more.
True friendship in adulthood (whether I feel like it or not, I am, in fact, an adult...) is about unconditional love, acceptance, loyalty, fellowship, history, respect, appreciation, support, and sincerity.  True friends are difficult to find and, due to distance, families, jobs, and the demands of everyday life, even more difficult to hold onto.  More often than I'd like to admit, life just gets in the way.
I have had several reminders lately, though, of the fact that true friendship lasts a lifetime.  A weekend at home including time spent with friends I've known since junior high (and before); a marathon dinner with a friend I've had since I was five; a wedding reunion with some of my most favorite friends from college.  These are not all people I talk to everyday; some of these are not people I talk to every week or even every month.  That does not change the fact, however, that they mean the world to me, and I can count on them for anything.  I love them with my whole heart, and I cannot imagine my life without them.
I look around my life sometimes, and the blessings truly overwhelm me.  I have abundant gifts, and God has showered my life with love and joy.  I have family that are my friends and friends that feel like family.  One true friend is more than any one person can ask for, having a group of them is more than the mind can conceive. 
I know that each of you have people in your lives who are your true friends.  Treasure them, and tell them how much they mean to you.  
To my true friends, you know who you are.  Thank you for all the gifts you bring to my life, and thank you for the constant love and support you provide me.  Thank you for laughing with me and challenging me and encouraging me and putting up with me.  Thank you for listening to me rant and rave and enduring my shadiness.  Thank you for building me up when I'm so quick to tear myself down.  Just, well, thank you.
I love all of you to the moon and back.