It’s back!

Three years ago when I was a lonely Twitter novice trying to get followers using every devious means I could figure out, I posted anything I could think of under the trending hashtags (a strategy that still has yet to reel in any followers) in an attempt to charm strangers across this flat earth of ours with my weirdness.

To wit: #igot7selcaday. Your guess is as good as mine what the hashtag means, but that doesn’t matter when you’re desperate for Twitter validation. I had to ask a LOT of tweeters-in-the-know to explain this to me, but it turns out—and I swear on the Gospel of Sondheim that I am not making any of this up—that selca day is a weekly thing for Korean teens—stay with me here—where they Photoshop themselves—I'm still not lying—into pictures of a designated-for-that-week Korean boy band—which in the case of the above hashtag is Got7—and post them online for endless fun and meaningful enjoyment.

DO NOT DOUBT ME ON THIS.

Surprisingly, I was not able to figure any of this out on my own from the #igot7selcaday hashtag or from the millions of pictures people were posting under it. Still not wanting to be left out of the party though, I posted a photo of ... me and Bitch Kitty.

Then I turned off my phone and went to a four-hour Follies rehearsal. And when I turned it on as I walked back to my car it all but exploded with the multiple thousands of likes and retweets and comments praising me for my brilliant parody and my clever thinking and my apparent dominance over the entire Internet. I still didn’t know what the hell was going on, but attention is attention and little red “like” hearts are little red “like” hearts and I WANTED ALL OF IT.

As with all drunken power orgies though—so I hear—the frenzy came to an end within 24 hours and I unceremoniously toppled from my Internet-celebrity throne and rejoined the world of all you common people. But be assured, you common people, that my legend lives on and it still sparks random flare-ups of eternal praise ... like this comment I got out of the blue this morning. Which I think is eternal praise. Or just seben praises. Whatever. It’s still praise. So shut up.

Anyway, the key takeaway here is that I’m huge in Korea. And Bitch Kitty is in a boy band. And though this experience garnered me zero new Twitter followers, IT STILL GOT OVER 10,000 LIKES. And that’s way more than seben.

You may all now bow and exalt.

When you’re shopping for fresh produce and your band name finally reveals itself to you, YOU JUST KNOW

Remember how I said my knee was sore and it would probably become a problem and I would bitch about it on here when it did?

I AM NOW BITCHING.

We ran about a quarter of a mile this morning before I decided my knee hurt too much for me to push it and maybe make it worse. So thank goodness Scott ran three miles without us yesterday and Rob had car troubles and couldn’t join us this morning so I don’t feel like I wasted anyone’s time and effort.

Well, not thank goodness about Rob’s car troubles; car troubles suck. But thank goodness he wasn’t here; he’s a tedious bore and all he ever talks about is grapes and owls. I mean I’m glad I didn’t cause him an unnecessary drive to join us for what ended up being a two-and-three-quarters-mile walk. That first part was a typo.

Also: I forgot to wear my awesome-o running watch this morning, which undoubtedly contributed to my knee pain. Stupid watch.

Anyway, we took our didn’t-running selfie in front of this cracked, brittle old stick wreath, which is the perfect metaphor for the circle of our friendship. Plus it’s round, so if you squint really hard it kinda looks like a human head, which in turn kinda looks like a semi-plausible maybe-ish stand-in for Rob. Plus if you squint really hard you could also strain your optic nerve, and I’ve always thought Strain Your Optic Nerve would make a great band name. Or not.

Plus ignore that CD that’s tucked in the wreath. It’s filled with high-definition scanned photos for a book I’m editing. Apparently nobody was home when my scanning guy dropped it off. And apparently I forgot to check for it when I knew he was dropping it off. TWO DAYS AGO. I blame my knee.

Stupid knee.

It's all a matter of perspective

Apparently I made too big a deal last time about who stands in front in our post-run selfies because now we’re doing that whole Renaissance vanishing-point thing with Rob and Scott shrinking into the Florentine distance, albeit with an anachronistic scattering of focal points. ART!

Or ALBUM COVER!

In need of a BAND NAME!

POSSIBILITIES:

The HIPAA Violations
The Moist Selfies
Holy Shit It’s Early
Running Shoes Are Expensive
Jake and the Not Jakes
Does This Stink?
Two Guys Who Do Lots Of Theater And Who Is That Guy Who’s Always Hiding In The Background?
Scott And Two Guys Who Do Lots Of Theater
Three Guys Who’ve Never Done Follies Together

I'll keep working on it ...

My. Skin. Hurts.

While Productive Cough and the Why Does My Skin Hurt When I Move Pestilence would be a catchy name for an Eastern European boy band, it’s an even catchier description for how I woke up this morning. But I’m too miserable to go on a boy-band tour right now. 

I did just go on an emergency-clinic-to-pharmacy tour though. The clinic was only taking walk-ins and I was told I’d have a 35-50 minute wait when I got there but I was called right in and after the nurse took my vitals and left the room, the doctor came in and OH MY GOD HE WAS HANDSOME and he looked in my ears and throat and did other things that I’m sure in some cultures count as pitching woo but WHY DOES HE ALSO HAVE TO HAVE A SHY SMILE AND A SELF-EFFACING DEMEANOR he had on a jet-black wedding ring THAT MADE HIM EVEN SEXIER IF THAT’S EVEN POSSIBLE which I took to mean he piloted jets or something because that makes sense right AND HE WAS WEARING KICK-ASS RED RUNNING SHOES BUT HE KIND OF IGNORED ME WHEN I COMPLIMENTED HIM ON THEM BUT I’M SURE IT WAS BECAUSE HE WAS HUMMING “TRUMPET VOLUNTARY” IN HIS HEAD BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT HE WANTED FOR OUR WEDDING PROCESSIONAL and anyway STOP IT WITH THESE INSANELY HOT DOCTORSCEDAR RAPIDS BECAUSE I’M RUNNING OUT OF CAPITAL LETTERS TO SWOON OVER THEM.

His verdict, unfortunately, was the flu.

You might say I opened the window and influenza.

But you shouldn’t say that. Nobody should say that. Ever.

So anyway, this week brought us Mom’s aggressive UTI and Dad’s COPD exacerbation plus pneumonia plus staph plus MRSA plus five days and counting in the hospital and the only thing our family was missing on our sickening scourge scavenger hunt was the flu so now our punch card is full and we all win a chalupa.

Speaking of chalupas, the pharmacist told me I needed to eat before I took my Tamiflu and it’s almost like we were having a cosmic mind meld because I’d picked up a package of Chips Ahoy! on my way to the pharmacy counter partly because I like using exclamation points in the middle of sentences and partly because pestilent people deserve partially hydrogenated pastries but mostly because I was stocking up on food items to be a responsible Tamiflu taker and WHY ARE YOUR DAMN BLISTER PACKS SO DAMN HARD TO OPEN, TAMIFLU?

So now I’m home eating cookies and drinking Gatorade and listening to Sunday morning 88.3 kcck jazz, which is the balm that cures all ills, but I’m still coughing up hearty chunks of lung and I’m still so feverish that I’m unsteady on my feet and I’m modeling the latest trend in face masks which makes me catnip to the ladies but can you really blame them and MY SKIN HURTS WHEN I MOVE WHY THE HELL DOES MY SKIN HURT WHEN I MOVE?

Internet! Legend!

It’s back!

Two years ago when I was a lonely Twitter novice trying to get followers using every devious means I could figure out, I posted anything I could think of under the trending hashtags (a strategy that still has yet to reel in any followers) in an attempt to charm strangers across this flat earth of ours with my weirdness.

To wit: #igot7selcaday. Your guess is as good as mine what the hashtag means, but that doesn’t matter when you’re desperate for Twitter validation. It turns out—and I swear on the Gospel of Sondheim that I am not making any of this up—that selca day is a weekly thing for Korean teens—stay with me here—where they photoshop themselves into pictures of a designated Korean boy band—which in the case of the above hashtag is Got7—and post them online for endless fun and meaningful enjoyment.

DO NOT DOUBT ME ON THIS.

Surprisingly, I was not able to figure any of this out from the #igot7selcaday hashtag or from the millions of pictures people were posting under it. Still not wanting to be left out of the party though, I posted a photo of ... me and Bitch Kitty.

Then I turned off my phone and went to a four-hour Follies rehearsal. And when I turned it on as I walked back to my car it all but exploded with the multiple thousands of likes and retweets and comments praising me for my brilliant parody and my clever thinking and my apparent dominance over the entire Internet. I still didn’t know what the hell was going on, but attention is attention and little red “like” hearts are little red “like” hearts and I WANTED ALL OF IT.

As with all drunken power orgies though—so I hear—the frenzy came to an end within 24 hours and I stepped down from my Internet-celebrity throne and rejoined the world of all you common people. But be assured, you common people, that my legend lives on and it still sparks random flare-ups of eternal praise ... like this comment I got out of the blue this morning. Which I think is eternal praise. Or just seben praises. Whatever. It’s still praise. So shut up.

Anyway, the key takeaway here is that I’m huge in Korea. And Bitch Kitty is in a boy band. And though this experience garnered me zero Twitter followers, IT STILL GOT OVER 10,000 LIKES. And that’s way more than seben.

You may all now bow and exalt.