blogcabin

about meg and blogcabin

early cabin

one for the books

the world according to chuck

beauty dish

bread crumbs

perils of caffeine in the evening

sweet juniper

lizardek

get rich long

sweptover

now you listen here

everybody thinks i'm working

nothing but bonfires

i can't reach this

dick jones

montana mUsings

fgaq

chew toys

peeling wallpaper

small ponderings

wandering willow

dr.omed

paper napkin

i can quit anytime.

I have a list fetish. Can you tell? Favourites lists, to-do lists, goal lists, reasons why I love someone lists, pet peeve lists...and the list goes on. See? I can't stop. The irony is that I generally get really irritated at certain other kinds of lists. I can't stand the snotty little 'best of' or 'most influential' movie or music lists that hip intellectual/indie/cultural magazines put out (even if, ironically, I do secretly rejoice if I even recognize one of their picks). Another classic example would be the way my mother tends to list chores that need to be accomplished out loud -- ad infinitum -- before she and I start a cooking or catering project together. Of course, the woman has every right to explain what we need to get done. That's just smart planning. And most people would be thankful for the head's up, I know. But for some reason, I get incredibly overwhelmed at the level of detail she brings to the table. I now force her to give me access to her own written list if I want to know the nitty gritty, but otherwise I ask her just to order me around, one task at a time. She slips up every now and again, standing with hand on hip, itemizing every step as though we're about to invade a small country. I mean, I bet my mom could invade a small country. She would lull them into a carb stupour with her homemade biscuits, and they'd cave in a second. But it is at that point that I look at her and blink with as much blankness as I can muster, as though to indicate that my neural pathways are being boldly, dangerously overridden. To her eternal credit, she senses my vacancy (as she has many times before), and tells me to go make a fruit platter. Easy!

I am really enamoured of muffins lately, mostly because I'm not supposed to be eating them. I didn't even like muffins for years. And there are many, many muffins I still don't like, such as the odd, oily confections that they package in flats at Costco. I picture pieces of those muffins lodged in my arteries as soon as I pass them in a store or coffee shop. I feel zero compulsion to grab one on my break. If you must dab at your food with translucent powder to reduce the shine before you can eat it, you know it's probably not something you should eat. No, I know a good muffin when I see one. And it just so happens that the two coffee shops within a couple blocks of where I live make great ones, right on site. As much as I am supposed to be letting go of my need for sugary, carby goodness, I crave them like you'd crave a glass of water after eating a bowl of sand. Not that I have ever eaten a bowl of sand. But now I'm wondering what would happen to my system if I did eat a bowl of sand. Why am I not in control of my mind?

I make this salad dressing -- olive oil, lime juice, a dash of shallot vinegar, a dash of balsamic vinegar, minced garlic, tarragon, sea salt, and fresh cracked pepper -- and I swear, I could drink the stuff. Considering that I make a salad every single day, I probably am drinking the stuff. But oy! It's the perfect balance of pungency and acidity and bite for my palate. If I put other dressings on my salad now, I feel this strange undercurrent of disappointment as I munch away. Is that weird?

I do this fidgety-foot thing while I am falling asleep that I am pretty sure is going to cause my future spouse to duct tape my foot to the bed post. I have no idea why I do it -- it's like my excess energy is trying to escape through my toes as I'm nodding off. Apparently, I don't do it while I'm actually sleeping. But on the way there? Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. It's not a large motion -- not like mini karate kicks or anything along those lines -- but it's probably annoying, and I need to stop. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

IMDB -- the Internet Movie Database -- is becoming a bit of an issue for me. It has facts, figures, cast lists, continuity gaffes, trivia, and reviews for about a gazillion films and television shows. And the celebrity profiles? Oh my. It's one of my favourite Firefox search extensions. I now know everything that John Cusack has ever been in, along with... well, every other actor I can think of. My friends were flummoxed before at the level of trivial knowledge that I exhibit on a daily basis, and now it's ever so much worse. It's gotten to the point where I look up continuity issues for any movie we rent or I happen to come across on TV and spend the vast majority of the movie waiting to "AHA!" at the mistake. This is clearly not what the filmmaker had in mind.

I need to stop checking Salon's Recently Updated list. I really, really do. Okay, once more.

Earrings. No more earrings. I cannot buy any more. Heck, I'm no J. Lo -- I don't have the kind of income that enables me to really be addicted to any kind of purchasing -- but why do I keep wanting to own cute earrings? Dangly ones, sparkly ones, architectural-looking ones, simple ones, giant hoopy ones... you name it. And I'm not known for my cool earrings -- it's not like I'm working on a trademark here. I'm too afraid of looking like a fifty-something avant-garde gallery owner who wears capes in colours not seen in nature and hangs 'objets' from her lobes. Or like a wind-chime shop in a tourist trap town. I don't think it's that bad yet, though. Maybe.

I have a few lingual tics that would probably be more aptly described as habits, but I'm perfectly aware that I do them, so I'm about ready to classify them as addictions. For example, I can't stop ending sentences with "You know?" Actually, I don't even just end sentences with those words -- I pepper them throughout. I picked this habit off a friend who feels very guilty for it now, but I can't seem to delete "you know?" from my mental cache. It's a bit of a stalling mechanism -- looking for affirmation while you search for the right words -- but I generally know what I want to say and don't care who agrees, so it makes absolutely no sense coming from me. Or from him, for that matter. But neither of us can stop.

When I am excited about something at work, I clap my hands like one of those wind-up monkeys with the cymbals that Stephen King likes to put in his books. It's a nearly involuntary response. I also twirl in my office chair when I am trying to form a complex sentence. The motion functions almost like a Salad Spinner for my mind, ridding me of excess thoughts so I can get to the heart of what I am really trying to say. It works. And I'm going to keep doing it until I accidentally kick someone or unscrew the chair from the chair base and fall to my peril. I mean, if I do that again. Because it didn't hurt me the first time.

iPod playlists. I have some for walking to the bus, some for riding the bus, some for standing in line for my coffee, some for the morning, some for the afternoon, some for exercising, and -- I'm not even kidding -- one for grocery shopping. And if you've ever chosen ripe tomatoes to Franz Ferdinand or done a victory lap around the track to AC/DC, I'm pretty sure you feel me. But I have no idea why I want to listen to Dean Martin sing "Mama Loves Mambo" while I find the right lid for my java.

never