A Million Dollar Idea

http://www.mymilliondollaryear.com

Awesome.

If anyone wants to give me money, I'd be okay with that too.

New Camera

Holiday

This is where I come from:

"Oh. I guess we'll be getting you some Crest white strips for Christmas." -my grandmother's first words to my brother after not seeing him for four months

"Teri Hatcher." -my father's answer when asked his favorite Disney character

"Lindsay Lohan, tattoos, dark chocolate, the color black." -my 6-year-old cousin's list of dislikes on her "All About Me" poster for her first grade class

The Soulja Boy Dance - what my 9-year-old cousin taught me this evening

"I guess my favorite thing about myself is that...I'm hot." -a direct quote from the Soulja Boy-dancing 9-year-old

Four - the number of times I was asked if I have a boyfriend in a two-hour timespan

A typical exchange:

"Do you taste the Cointreau in those cranberries?"

"The potatoes?"

"No, the cranberries."

"I don't taste any cilantro in those cranberries."

"Nooo Mom, Cointreau."

"What's Cointreau?"

"It's orange-flavored liqueur."

"Ooooh give me some more cranberries, then."

You can't make this stuff up, folks. May the wine flow freely and may your family be as entertaining as mine.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

This kid named Chase Peake in my eighth grade French class used to say that all the time, and it drove me up a wall. Now I use it sparingly. Thank you, Chase.

It's glaringly obvious, though, that I am on hiatus. I'm taking a few "me" months, and by that I mean months in which I figure out how to do my mountains of work, get into law school, fix my digital camera, eradicate my perpetual debt (in fact, just find some, ANY money), understand men, run a sorority, be twenty-two, write a senior capstone, eat things other than crap, destroy the flub that has attached itself to my body over the past few months, and maintain a level of sanity similar to that New York chick on VH1 - probably insane from a legal standpoint, but still able to function in society. That's all I'm asking.

I will be back, renewed like a bodice-ripper library book, in late December. By then, I will have handed over things like law school applications and responsibility to other people and will be free to cook and write and live a happy existence. One can only imagine.

So stay tuned, dear reader, stay tuned. If not for the food, then for the pure schadenfreude of watching someone else navigate the messes of life.

And yes, I used the word schadenfreude.