I have misplaced my Hello Kitty pencil case that I use for my daily-wear lipsticks. THIS IS A NATIONAL CRISIS. Please seek shelter and await further instructions.

I’ve been noodling this idea for a while now, to blog about the shows I MUST NOT MISS on TV, but it’s kind of a walk of shame, because there are so many. But the truth is the truth, and I also admit to being the TechnoGadgetFreak of the house, as evidenced by my non-stop lobbying for a large-screen TV. This campaign was not helped when my father supported me, saying, “Do you watch TV?” (I replied, “Yes.) “Well then you should watch it on the best TV possible.” Daddy, this is what got me into financial trouble all those years ago, thinking I should have the best of everything, or at least just everything. So there will be no plasma-screens at our house, but I still drool openly every time I go into CostCo and my heart beats a little faster at the idea of a widescreen digital TV.

JWo & I finally struck a deal that if I clean out the garage (which is filled to the rafters with all MY CRAP that was in storage, the aforementioned “everything”), we can get a big TV. And now that the door is open (and I have done nothing yet to clean out the garage), somebody has decided he needs an X-box 360, which means we’ll have yet another thing to fight over: gaming or television-viewing.

So, I give you the shows I love, with commentary. My excuse at the end of the day? It’s my business, I need to know what’s on TV, and it’s an integral part of conversations with clients and vendors. Plus this is the week all the networks are unveiling their Fall lineups and so it’s really top-of-mind for me!

“The Shield”. Holy crap. This is thug city and I get really stressed and nervous watching it. I’m blown away by the risks they take, by the gut-wrenching ethical dilemnas they put before you, and the acting is awesome. I LOVE THIS SHOW.

“24”. Kiefer is having yet another very bad, no-good, rotten day. I get nervous sometimes. Kiefer is a great action-hero. LIKE, bordering on LOVE.

“Law & Order”, “Law & Order SVU”. I’m a tried-and-true loyal L&O fan. SVU is the better show, if not grittier to boot. I’ve skipped on the other two – they don’t trip my trigger and besides, there is a limit. LIKE: L&O, LOVE: SVU.

“CSI”, “CSI Miami” (or CSI My Jammies, as I like to call it.) JWo prefers Miami, I prefer Vegas. Miami is a little more cheeseball to me, and this is one where the original still sets the standard. I tried to get into CSI: NY – finally had to give it up. It was too dark (from a film standpoint) and the characters too wooden. Again with the only so many hours in a day. LOVE: CSI. LIKE: CSI Miami.

“Without A Trace” – The character development has been great, and it’s still a well-crafted, unique show. LIKE, bordering on LOVE.

“Lost” – am behind on this show. It’s confusing. Great concept, can’t imagine how it’s going to play out for more than a couple of seasons, I want the mysteries resolved. LIKE.

“Desperate Housewives” – hey, it’s a nighttime soap. I enjoy it, and I like all the characters they’ve developed. ABC’s crown jewel, and it’s fluffy fun. LOVE like a friend.

“Alias” – this show has slipped on the Jen Love-O-Meter. I used to really get into it, and now it seems a bit lackluster. I’m taping all the episodes and transferring to VHS to (eventually) watch on the treadmill. If I actually get my butt moving I may have to revise my label, but for now, it’s LIKE from afar much like a friend from high school.

“Survivor”, “Amazing Race” – I lump these together because I love ’em both, I think Amazing Race is one of the best reality shows because it’s great TV, it’s all around the world, and you still get the interpersonal stuff that makes you like (or hate) people. Survivor is still the bomb, though I did dislike the “total tribe domination” that left this season with a lot more “hanger-ons” that didn’t work or do much of anything and would have gotten sent home a lot sooner had both tribes been booting people out regularly. Despite that, still giving them both LOVE.

“As The World Turns” OK, OK ok. I watch a soap. I’ve watched it since college. It’s great knitting TV, I don’t get nervous, and I once quit it (cold turkey) when the writer change resulted in a horrid show. But I’m back and it’s a guilty pleasure. LOVE like a longtime friend.

Now, lest you think my brain has gone to mush, let me follow that one up with the statement that just about everything on HBO is worth watching, even if I don’t watch it regularly. I’m flat-out addicted to “The Sopranos”, “Six Feet Under” and “The Wire”. Greatest shows on TV. LOVE LOVE LOVE like I loved Rick Springfield when I was 16. I hate that “SFU” is going into it’s final season, and the wait until 2006 for both “Sopranos” and “Wire” episodes is gonna kill me.

That’s it for what gets DVR’d in the house; of course, I enjoy the train wreck that is “The Surreal Life”, catching an episode on Saturday of “Best Week Ever” on VH1, even watching the tail end of “American Idol”‘s season this year has been fun. “Simpsons” is still brilliantly written television, and I adore Jon Stewart and his crew on Comedy Central. “South Park” still amuses and reviles, pushing the envelope almost more than any other cable show I’ve seen. This is a lot of television to consume, but I enjoy it – and I knit cool stuff through all of it. As we head into Summer, and all the replacement shows shuffle in next to the re-runs, my tv-viewing will decline a bit, but once duck season returns and JWo is away on the weekends, I sure hope I’ll be curled up on the couch with my remote & knitting projects, clicking away at a BIG SCREEN TV.

So last night, I dreamt I was walking around the Plaza area, which is not an unrealistic concept, but then I saw a raccoon riding a tricycle. And I thought, “Huh. That’s interesting. Wish I had my camera.” The raccoon even looked up at me and made eye contact, and then kept on pedaling.

But then, half an hour later? (in dreamtime) I saw a SKUNK riding a tricycle and it had a piglet on a leash running alongside.

And in my dream, I thought: “I have to blog about this! There are animals that can ride tricycles!”

Happy Tuesday. Would you like the blue pills or the red pills today?

Two years ago today, we stood in that gazebo and said, “I Do.” 

I had a first date with the man I would marry.

I thought relationships were like a puzzle, and didn’t realize the pieces change and grow and I laugh now about just how much I had to learn.

Our first date lasted eight hours.

I had no idea we’d get married, but I knew I liked him and he was cute.

We had dinner at a restaurant that no longer exists.

Four years later we stood on blindingly bright Jamaican beach and then in a gazebo as the wind whipped around us and Barry White played on the CD player and we promised to love and support each other for the rest of our lives.

We had no family, friends or guests at the ceremony, and our witnesses were another couple staying at the resort.

Two years later, we’re living in a house and have two dogs and a bountiful garden and wonderful friends in our lives.

It hasn’t always been sunshine and roses, but we’ve worked hard and pushed ourselves to grow up a little bit more each time.

It’s a good life.

I love you, JWo.

Married for One Day. 

Not too long ago, this title was bestowed upon me, by my dear friend Kristin, who now gets to carry the title at my former place of employment. The title was her spin on the label, but the real bestower of the title was my former boss, who’s a nutjob, can I just say how nice it is to say that out loud finally?

Anyway, I feel for Miss K, because we’re very close, and we also have a lot of the same fiber content in the proverbial fabric of our lives, one item being, we can’t pretend everything’s ok. (Like Green Day’s singing about right now.) That character “flaw” is what earned me the label of being responsible for all the bad morale in my department. Because, dear blogosphere, I am JUST. THAT. POWERFUL.

In a conversation this week with my new boss, he said, “I just think it would be impossible for someone NOT to like you.” And I said, “Oh, don’t kid yourself, they’re out there.”

I spent most of my youth basically begging for the world to like me. All those silly kids at school, my teachers, various boys, my parents – I defined everything in my life as others defined it for me, and their approval was necessary for me to function, as much as one can when you’re expending all that energy into attaining everyone’s approval. As you may know from your own experience, or can even imagine, by the time you hit your teen years, this sort of behavior hits a manic level – and suffering from depression and a deep desire to end it all, the only solution I could find was to pretend. I pretended everything was ok, and (I think this is the part that means the most) I pretended I didn’t CARE. Maybe it was my own version of fake-it-til-ya-make-it, and then the weirdest thing happened: I became more popular. Now, you’d think that would teach me to not care, or perfect the art of going through life with blinders on. But the flip side was that I’d come home from a passable day and spend my evening trying to determine just how much damage I could do to myself if I flung myself out of my bedroom window. So, I’ve concluded that denial isn’t really a good coping tool.

In order to preserve some semblance of peace at my last job, I did live in a pretend world. I hunkered down and collected my check and did a shitload of mind-numbing work. I could have hunkered down and done it for ten years, except my hair started falling out, and eventually, the real person inside me, who shouts for a living and would have no problem singing loudly in a restaurant if it made you laugh, couldn’t take it anymore. It was like I was getting suffocated in the layers of crap and lies and the same daily gruel that we were supposed to fawn over and declare tasty. As I said many times in my last months there, “It sucks if the only thing you have to look forward to is lunch.” So I started letting my voice speak again, because there are more of the unhappy than the soma-pill eaters, and I always think that perhaps just once, the little people can rise up and tear down the ivory towers. My swan song was at a goodbye lunch, where I bellowed about the Machine and Their Stupidity and traced the history back to when everything went south, and how I’d been telling them this for over a year, and in their slothlike managerial style, they’d rather shout “Off with her head!” than get up off the raised daias and do something.

And the very next week is when I got called in and was accused of contributing to the low morale. Damn! We had a mole at that lunch! Ahhh, Sidney Bristow would have spotted that spy and taken her out with a swift chop to the jugular.

But the next Monday after that, I quit. And I love my new job. I’m still working to shed the shreds of mummification I feel I had on me from the last job. And there’s crazy stuff at the new job, sure, and there’s loads to get straightened out and loads of plain ol’ work to do, but nobody’s telling me to silence my voice. The thing is, I don’t speak from a place of making it all about me. I joke about it being all about me, all the time, but I can’t shake off twenty-plus years of wanting to make other people happy. I am really good at making things better, and seeing things from multiple perspectives. I’m a problem solver and a general peace-maker, but bitch, if you wanna go toe-to-toe, bring it on, I’m not afraid to fight. But I’d rather make you laugh. As I was told at the last place, I have tremendous influence, and can have a great impact on how people react and respond to things. (Then why wouldn’t you want me, the Great Influencer, to be happy? AH GRASSHOPPAH, still so much to learn.)

My joke a year ago was that I was in the Gift Shop of Vietnam. I wasn’t going to get fired, and I wasn’t on the front lines anymore, but I was stuck in the gift shop, would you like to buy a postcard while I waste my talents? I can give you updates on the front line action, it’s horrible, but I can’t do anything, I’m stuck in the fuckin’ gift shop. And then I got airlifted out, and I have survivor’s guilt. I love my friends and when you share a common experience, you can’t turn it off and pretend it doesn’t still exist, even though it’s not happening to you anymore. (Well, some people can. Not me.)

And so, when I popped in on (another) goodbye lunch yesterday, I felt guilty.
Because I’m really happy. I want everyone to be happy, and I know, I can’t make it so. But I’ll never, EVER, stop trying. The leopard can only change so many spots, and those are stuck on me for good.

Well, I do love the CostCo. I love saying “THE CostCo”, because I feel like I’m already moving right into being the amusing, yet grouchy, eighty-year-old woman with large black plastic shades over my regular eyewear that I am destined to become. I already have the cane from my gymnastics accident last fall, I just need to shake it at people.

So, last night, as Miss Kristin & I breezed through all the foodstuffs, stopping to devour a sample or three, I discovered one of my favorite things to do: Lie to people, specifically, people I’ll never be accountable to, ever again. One of the sample-server people admired the enormous cake we had in the cart, and believe you me, CostCo cake is one of the greatest sugar delivery methods on the face of the planet. You can get cheesecake-flavored filling, and icing made with real Philadelphia cream cheese. And you can have them decorate it with a princess, and I’m here to tell you right now that Subway got all the artists in the food industry, because the representation of princesses on CostCo cakes is a little lacking when it comes to the beauty department. They’re actually ok, until it comes to features, and then you just get the standard two black dots and a smile. It looks funny as hell to me. Anyway, we were getting the admiration from the worker, and I breezily replied, “Thank you! It’s for our niece’s birthday. She’s six.” Like Kristin and I are sisters, or lesbanese, and it was for OUR six-year-old niece, NOT for our fellow knitter, Kim, who is at least 29.

As we wheeled away, Kristin started laughing at me – “What the hell was that?”
And I said, “It’s fun to lie freely to people I’ll never have to answer to, ever again.” It feels fun, it’s not hurting anyone, and it’s in the same category as JWo at a restaurant, always putting us in under his alternative name, “Kowalski”. It also feels a little like that kid we were & we all outgrow and forget about, so long ago, who makes up stuff and adventures and friends or pets, and can convincingly talk to you about Snuffles the Magic Turtle, or the invisible friend Ethel who only shows up to chat when you have to pee. (I had a friend who had one of those, for real!)

Our little niece, Kim Kowalski. I hope she has fun on her big birthday today. ;)

JWo and I went to a party last night thrown by one of the outdoor vendors in town – it was really fun: great decorations, including elaborate ice sculptures, martinis and loads of food. Fabulous weather, too. They even gave away prizes, like iPod shuffles and a playstation, and did we win? NO. Oh well. We still got dinner for free, and we’re simple folk, that’s good enough. On the drive back, I was behind the wheel & I commented on the driver in front of me (of course! I am the best driver in the WORLD!), and muttered, “WHY does this guy keep hitting his brakes?!?”

JWo (being a smartass): “He’s gittin’ a handjob.”

And we were laughing & then, one second later, the passenger in the truck scooted closer to the driver and then THE OUTLINE OF SAID PASSENGER DISAPPEARED as she dove face-first into the driver’s lap! OH MAH GAWD. JWo was only joking about the handjob but it was actually true, and apparently the distracting situation had – shall we say – escalated!

Let me say, despite JWo’s hootin’ and hollerin’ and thumbs-uppin’ as we passed the dude: not only did Mr.(presumably) Happy’s driving skills continue to deteriorate? His driving SUCKED!

There’s something odd and funny when you go to a concert and you’re bridging that gap between “older fan” and “potential chaperone”. As someone who never got to go to concerts as a teen, I came late to the sport. Living in Minneapolis was awesome, and I saw loads of concerts, many at First Avenue (where Prince played in Purple Rain!), and would get sauced up and dance and have a grand old time and then, if necessary, go to work the next morning.

Now I schedule half-days off the following morning.

And I drank just enough Smirnoff Twists to feel perky, and kept yelling at Roger to keep drinking, as he was starting to melt into the couch and fall asleep before we left for the concert! We watched American Idol, and then the first hour of the Amazing Race finale, and his boyfriend chauffeurred us to the concert. We timed it perfectly, missing the opening act, and got there maybe twenty minutes before the Killers were to take the stage. So we spent it having a couple more drinks, hanging out in the lobby area (where it was only 250 degrees, as opposed to in the concert area, where it was hot enough to bake a pot roast in thirty minutes: that translates to convection-oven heat at approximately 500′.) We ended up hanging out with Afentra, the morning show host for the station sponsoring the concert – talking about people we all knew, her upcoming wedding, how we normally communicate – she sometimes reads my blog, I call in and rant about politics and stupid people and email her at the station, frothing at the mouth, it’s all good. Then the music started. We stuck it out for maybe 30-40 minutes, until the played all the songs we wanted to hear (they only have one album, though they’re crankin’ on new stuff), and then we called David to come back and get us! Did I mention it was HOT? Even the BAND commented that they were from Las Vegas, and they weren’t used to heat that was so – so – “moist”. Uh-huh. Welcome to Misery, kids.

David gets us, accompanied by li’l Emily-loo-who, one of the cutest dogs on the planet, and we head back home. Suddenly, David veered into Wendy’s. Good call. Junior cheeseburgers and frostys, soaked up all the sugar and alcohol, and we went back to their house & watched the taped last hour of the Amazing Race finale. Peeps, there is a God. Roger & I cried, as we watched Uchenna & Joyce race in to the finish line. My need for fairness and justice in the world was quenched, at least for one night. I hit the sheets at midnight, and snored soundly until this morning, where I had a leisurely time getting ready & then met a magazine rep for lunch. Now I’m at work and should probably get some work done, because that’s what this whole grown-up life is centered around.

Ah, Youth. Like the flip-flop I totally (and accidentally!) ripped off some idiot girl last night because she was walking too slowly and being indecisive – it’s gone so fast.