Knock Knock!

Who's there?

Cool hipster stationary and hilarious products!

Cool hipster stationary and hilarious products who?

At Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Stop. Stop right now. Just go to the site and look at the witty, snarky products you can buy that crack me up. The "How To Find True Love" poster is beyond words.

Birthday Shout Out

Once again it's time to give a special birthday shout out to my co-hort at KSIS-radio, who celebrated her 32nd birthday today. Ma-nah-ma-nuh!

Here's hoping you put on your fancy Christmas dress, slick on some Dr. Pepper lipgloss and dance around like a rockstar. Have a fabulous day, old friend.

Best. Quote. Ever.

I got together with a friend for a poetry reading last night who I had not seen since waaaaay back during the summer. As we sat sipping coffee and catching up on our adventures, I found myself babbling in that nervous way I do where I do nothing but mock and make fun of myself in an attempt to set the other party at ease. It's self-deprication in its most extreme form. I think I'm trying to be funny? Maybe? Sort of?

So anyway, my friend kept listening to me rambling on about how many classes I should be taking and how much more I should be travelling and all of the things I wanted to be doing this year but hadn't gotten around to, and she interrupted me and said, gently, "Stop. You're should-ing all over yourself."

What a wonderful thing to say. I felt instantly at ease, like I could exhale and relax all of my muscles. It was a nice reminder for me to be a little more forgiving and kind with myself. Nice lesson learned. Stop should-ing.

Thanks.

Beth's OTHER new boyfriend, Dell

Move over, iPod mini....it's time to meet the newest addition to Beth's technology roster, Mr. Brand New Dell Laptop. Sigh. It's true. I'm in love. He's dreamy and shiny and fast and really, really smart.

Although he has yet to find his way into my apartment, my Shiny New Smart Laptop should be arriving in a week or so and I could not be more excited. My current laptop is from 1998 (yes, that's eight years ago), which essentially makes it a 20-pound rock powered by an elderly gerbil and a ball of twine. This laptop has been with me since my receptionist days -- before public relations, before Y2K, before the dot-com bubble both ballooned and then burst, before Mrs. Puff, before the dawn of time itself, apparently. Now the thing gets cranky if I want to have more than one application open at a time.

Imagine -- a world of multiple applications. I shudder at the thought of it. CD and DVD burning have nothing on the concept of my being able to surf AND work on a Word document at the same time. I need to tread cautiously with the new power I will soon possess....it boggles my low-tech brain.

STEVE-worthy reading

Third consecutive entry about reading and books. Perhaps 2006 will be the year of reading and not-so-much with the mythical activity/fitness/social interaction scene I keep hearing so much about?

After a year of sitting on my IKEA Billy bookshelf, I’ve finally started reading The Know It All, a great read for those members of STEVE, which is (duh) the Smarter Than Everybody Else Club. A guy reads his way through the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. The whole thing. A-Z. He’s unabashedly proud of being smarter than everyone else. Godspeed, A.J. Jacobs, Godspeed.

I especially enjoy the fact that one of Jacobs’ main motivators for this project came from the fact that he felt himself getting progressively dumber the longer he was away from school, a topic I can relate to all-too well. He’s got a great essay on Powell’s site here.

Two weekends into 2006 and I am still not entirely transformed

So last year at this time I was all gung-ho into fitness and exercise and transformation and becoming the Newer, Fitter Beth. Apparently that’s not happening in 2006 because for the second weekend in a row I have spent WAY too much time napping, reading or on my couch watching "Scrubs" on DVD. I may heart Zach Braff (Zach, call me!), but this does not make for a Fitter Beth.

In a new low, I overdosed today on Sudafed thanks for an allergy attack and spent the majority of the day literally staring at the ceiling which my mouth open. I felt like I was re-enacting the scene in "Sid & Nancy" where they set the apartment on fire during an overdose and just have to stare slack-jawed as the flames engulf the place because they’re too stoned to move. Yup. Not my finest moment.

Here’s hoping the third weekend’s going to be a more active charmer. Unless I find myself sprawled on my bathroom floor in a Nyquil-induced haze, I’m not sure how it couldn’t be an improvement.

2006: The Year of Domestic Beth?

Hmm. As I read that subject line, I think it’s probably a little unlikely that I’ll become super-domestic this year, but that certainly won’t stop me from tryin’. Thanks to a Christmas gift card to Borders, I’ve purchased not one, not two, but THREE massive cookbooks as well as a McSweeney’s anthology of snarky hipster lit. The Puffster’s kitchen will hopefully soon smell of homemade soups, a la the Williams-Sonoma Soup edition; healthier traditional food a la A New Way to Cook; and shi-shi schmancy food a la the Dean and Deluca Cookbook.

Did I mention Mark Bittman also has a new cookbook out? A girl could go culinarily out of her goard if she wasn't careful.

This could be all motivated by another gift I received recently, a book called Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell. The woman gets it in her head to cook every single one of the recipes in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It’s hilarious. It has reignited my love for Julia Child. There’s something very endearing to me about a six-foot-two former spy with a passion for life and a foul mouth and a love of brie and butter. Her kitchen was custom-built for her frame, two inches higher than a “normal” kitchen so that she wouldn’t have to stoop her gigantic self over the sink and counters. I mean, how does that fact not make you smile? Did I mention you can get DVDs of Julia Child’s old shows? How does THAT fact not make you smile?

What's Up With Beth, You Might Ask?

Realizing it had been almost a month since last Beth blogged, she stumbled out of her stupor, brushed the sleep crusties out of her eyes and sat down to inform the world about her activities. Since you last heard from me, I’ve been:

Reuniting With Old Friends. After a 13-year gap, I had a lovely day in Seattle with my old friend David Bede. Yes, we met at a summer creative writing camp in high school. Yes, we really WERE that cool. You got a problem with that? The important thing to focus on here is that we’ve managed to keep in touch all of these years after going through the experience of writing and sharing angst-ridden, overly serious, really, really deep short stories written by our 15-year-old selves.

Meeting The Mythical Lurpy Lurperson. Okay, so I haven’t written about Lurpy just yet. Here’s the scoopage. The house behind my mom’s house in Denver has this dog that we’ve been obsessed with for years. It’s a cross between a Pooh bear and a Shar-pei. Yup. Seriously. It never barks and its snugglier than snuggly. We LOVE this dog. Thanks for a winter wind storm, my mom’s back fence caved in allowing – you guessed it – Lurpy the Wonder Dog to wander into our yard and snuggle with us. Think Diane Fossey was excited when she got to meet the mountain gorillas for the first time? She ain’t got nothing on how amped I was to meet the Lurpy dog for the first time.

Reveling in Holiday Merriment. Holidays happened. My family’s still crazy. Santa was very good to me this year. High Five, Santa!

Ringing in The Year of the Buck. We have christened 2006 “The Year of the Buck” since it’s going to “buck the trend” of crappy years that have been taking place recently. Did you hear that? 2006 is going to ROCK THE HOUSE. It’s going to be awesome. Seriously. Really. It will. We are all going to be thin and rich and fabulous and successful. Beth toasted in the New Year in Portland, while starting a new tradition of shopping tax free, eating 12 grapes and eating long noodles at midnight.