I should be filing my taxes...

...but instead, I'm procrastinating per usual.

Tonight's procrastination fascination? A mission to find some use for the spare bedroom and bathroom which currently sit empty and abandoned.

The best idea yet - and by far - is to use it to house and breed otters. I mean think about it. All I'll need is a small swimming pool and some wood, maybe a few snails...

As you may or may not have guessed by my newfound love for and desire to breed random mammals, Katie and I took a trip to the Virginia Living Museum today. A visit which led me to proclaim the otter as my new favorite animal.

And because if there's anything better than a bunch of river otters goofing off, it's a bunch of river otters goofing off to the magical musical stylings of Jack Johnson... observe:





I also fell in love with the bobcat, but it would probably be more likely to bolt from a life of apartment captivity. Or, you know... claw my face off.

P.S. But in all seriousness, it's looking more and more like I won't be getting a new roommate until May. Any ideas for the spare room?

P.P.S. Know any Virginians in need of a roommate? Must be okay with sharing a bathroom with an otter.

Diseases I hope get discovered in my lifetime.

(1) Stand-up Comedy Tourette's.

That's all I've got so far.

Picture of success

More and more, I'm finding myself absolutely bored with the mundanity of my life.

I see all my friends starting to settle into their own lives - getting engaged and then married off, having babies and buying houses, throwing dinner parties after coming home from their nine to five jobs - and it terrifies me, because I'm nowhere near that place. As a result, I launch into this sort of pre-midlife crisis at the ripe old age of twenty-five, succumbing to a peer pressure induced panic that I might never be in that place. Or, worse still, perhaps I'm simply not cut out (or deserving?) for(of) it. Possibly even happiness in general.

I spend a lot of my time pretending. Maybe pretend isn't quite the right word I'm going for, but it sounds a bit less cruel than fake. I pretend to like my job - or so I have been up until recent history - when in reality, I get slightly sick to my stomach each morning with the thought of having to go through another day of it. I pretend to be content with all my current situations, when I'll probably never get past them. I think I probably even pretend to be a better person, a nicer person, than I actually am. Certainly a great deal less bitter, at the very least.

I do try to keep a good sense of humor about life, and myself, because really it's one of the only things I've got. I've accepted that I will always be the least attractive - and probably also the least interesting, to be completely honest - female within my circle of friends... but at least I have the ability to entertain the masses while in that spot. Yet somehow that doesn't stop me from lying awake all night when I'm told my purpose in life might be to serve as "the other girl" who makes guys realize how happy they'd be with "the right girl."

There's a line in the movie "Girl, Interrupted" - and by the way, terrible film - which really resonated with me. If I could remember exactly what that line was, I'm sure this paragraph would be a lot more poignant... but for a pop culture buff, I have a surprisingly terrible memory for detail when it comes to quotes and key scenes. But back to the point at hand. The gist is a realization Wynona Ryder's character had about the self-inflicted burn victim. (Polly?) She ponders if perhaps the girl's sweetness is genuine or an act intended to hook in people who wouldn't otherwise give her the time of day. The line - which again, I paraphrased... and possibly to a generous degree - always jolts me, and makes me question my own personality. Am I genuine, or do I just suffer from some sort of immense desperation to be liked by everybody? If there's even any difference of the two.

I often find myself trying to beat the boredom out with stupid little missions and projects... the majority of which I never follow through with. I have to believe that's why I'm so fascinated with Danny Wallace's novels... he was able to take a stupid little side project and turn it into something that changed thousands of lives. I want that. (Yes, I'm aware of what a horrible transition that was, as it happens.) Granted my mission to get a contact picture for everyone in my phone book will probably never lead to the accidental creation of a cult (not a cult, a collective), but still. I want and need something like that in my life for my own sanity.

This really isn't the direction I was planning on taking in this blog - yet another stupid little side project to keep me entertained or (and) prevent me from thinking too much. I guess I was just feeling a bit morose for reasons I have no real explanation of.

I'm guessing I'll be back to your regularly scheduled puns and pop culture drivel in the next entry. If I can manage to follow through on this project.

Maybe tomorrow.