formerly a fearless temp

While I was in California visiting the fantastic foxyfrau, we had many adventures, one of which ended with a group of us waiting outside for an hour and a half one night for Triple A (keys got locked in the trunk). During that wait, we found many ways to pass the time - embarrassing revelations (such as Anna's mastery of early-nineties R&B), trips down memory lane, and finally a riddle put forth by one of Anna's California friends.

California Friend said, "Marine is a six-letter word where every two letters is the abbreviation of a state - what is the seven-letter word that follows the same pattern? It also starts with M."

We stood around for a while trying to solve it out loud, and then decided we needed paper to use. One of us pulled out a book from his/her bag and said, "There's blank pages at the back we could use here! Who's got a pen?"

Now it's poll time! About this and a couple tangential issues.

[Poll #1020360]

I am totally poll-tastic here tonight, which of course means that there are lots of things I should be doing but would rather avoid. Also, sinsense told me to do this one!

You see, sinsense and I have been talking about setting up a shared LJ to do reviews of romance novels. We are both indecisive and have decided to poll some journal-setting-up/review-formatty things!

And now, we poll!

[Poll #857753]

I am sure I am forgetting something, but I must now go accomplish some of the things I set out to do tonight. Will be a whirlwind of productivity, making it irrelevant that I did little tonight but eat Halloween candy, gab with my mother, and indulge in my LJ addiction!

.i. friday night lights!

Tomorrow at 10PM, NBC will be airing Friday Night Lights instead of a repeat of Studio 60. I love Friday Night Lights the way I love popcorn, chocolate, and Diet Pepsi: even though I know that I could theoretically live without them, I would hate a reality in which I was forced to do so. To make a FNL-less reality less likely, more people need to watch!

It's an awesome show. All the critics are blabbering about it, which is great, but also makes me a little nervous because I think sometimes people think critical darling = medicinal TV (good for you, but boring/blah/bossy). FNL is SO NOT THAT. It is just plain awesome. It is both high-quality and tremendously satisfying. I mean, people have dramatic arguments and make out in the rain! And there are rousing fourth-quarter comebacks! And Kyle Chandler looking ridiculously good! And there are several attractive male football players whose portrayers are totally in their twenties so it's not that skeevy!

Check it out!

.ii. public speaking phobia

I recently reconnected with a woman I met through Literacy Volunteers, who had a recurance of cancer in the time since I last saw her, and understandably hasn't been feeling well. When we went out to lunch a couple of weeks ago, I told her to let me know if there was anything, anything I could do.

LiteracyBuddy: Well, actually . . .

FearlessTemp: Name it. Whatever you need - company, someone to pick up groceries, fun novels. Just let me know.

LB: Okay. I was supposed to speak at the Literacy Volunteers event in November, and I'm really not feeling up to it. Would you be willing to fill in?

Outer FT: Of course! No problem!

Inner FT: Dammit.

Which brings us to this weekend, three days before the event, and how is the speech coming? I loathe it! Has my paralyzing fear of public speaking gone away, even after a year of teaching? Not at all! Can I stop thinking about poor LB and how paltry my concerns are in comparison to hers? Of course not! Does this lead to increased self-loathing? Naturally! Will I stop this Q&A pattern? Immediately!

All I want to do is watch TV and eat fudgesicles! Why can't doing that produce a heartfelt, witty speech?

And even if the speech is witty and heartfelt, will anyone notice if I look like I took a can of shoe polish and combed it through my hair? I dyed my hair on Thursday for the first time ever, and had the hair stylist color match it, and I don't doubt that she did, but. It's dark. It's probably no darker than it was last week, and just looks different to me because the gray is gone, but I have this worry, now, that it looks obviously dyed, and I've always heard that dyeing your hair darker is a bad choice (I always think of Elizabeth Taylor in her perfume commercials before she went white), but maybe that's just for the over-sixty set? I don't think I look over sixty. In fact, the person in the next chair at the salon thought I was 18 or 19. That's what happens when you never leave the house! No sun damage.

(In all honesty, it's more that I've worn SPF 15 moisturizer or makeup on my face for the last five years, and also that my face is chubby - chubby faces show fewer wrinkles. It's one of the few benefits we get.)

.iii. pollage

[Poll #856164]

.iv. it

Over the weekend, I gave up three hours of my life I'll never get back to an ABC Family re-airing of the mini-series It, based on the Stephen King novel,which totally scarred me when it first came out. I mean, there was a killer clown with razor-sharp teeth! And a kid getting sucked into a pipe! And Richard Thomas a.k.a. John Boy from the Waltons wearing a ponytail! It was extremely scarring. And I totally screamed a few times when watching it this past Saturday (I'm a pretty big scaredy cat).

Watching it now, I was blown away by how much TV has improved in the last sixteen years. The special effects, sure, but everything else - the dialogue, the pacing, the characterization was just so cheesy and badly done, in my opinion. John Ritter was solid, as was Annette O'Toole - I was totally invested in ( spoiler for the ending! )

I bet the book is good, but am too much of a scaredy cat to try it.

.v. boots!

Boots, my Nana's missing cat, has returned! Unfortunately, he's in bad shape and his chances of recovery from his time in the wild are iffy (he was severely dehydrated and had gone into kidney failure by the time he was found). If anyone can spare some good thoughts for Mr. Boots, they would be v. much appreciated.

I have so much work to do, which, of course, means that I need lots of time-wasting distractions. Another person had this poll in her LJ, and I figured I'd give it a shot.

[Poll #705047]