I’m tired and grumpy. The knowledge that my Purdue crew is drinking it up to old times at the Cactus while I have to get up early and go to work tomorrow doesn’t help. Luckily this video (which I’m sure many have already seen) never fails to cheer me up. 
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
The Apartment Therapy site had an article on one of my favorite places in St. Louis. Found here
I actually used to live in the University City area right next to the Loop. It’s sorta like the Broadripple area in Indianapolis except instead of all white people there is a diverse mix of races. There are alot of college kids around there due to WashU (Washington University) being right next to it, but even so there is a large mix of ages hanging around there too. It’s a very busy area with tons of people around (even late at night) and music playing from somewhere, be it on the street or from one of the bars or restaurants. A good evening is eating dinner at Blueberry Hill, walking over and perusing StarClipper (the uterus friendly comic book store), and then catching a movie at the Tivoli. There are also a lot of fun stores to check out and of course ice cream to go eat. There is even a St. Louis walk of fame where stars are imbedded into the sidewalk in honor of famous St. Louisans. My Grandma Easley (who I love with all my heart) made a point of stamping on Ulysses S. Grant’s star. Even though she was born and raised in Pennsylvania she has declared that she has lived in the South long enough to be considered a Southerner and hates all Yankees. She actually has called my sister and I damn Yankees when we were particularly annoying her. They have some pictures of the area on the link above.
I finally bought a patio table. Ever since I have moved into my new place I’ve wanted one. The porch is my favorite part of the apartment, I just really like sitting and eating outside for some reason. Heck my sister’s patio is my favorite part of her house too! The weather in St. Louis has been unusually nice recently. Normally it is unthinkable to be sitting outside for any length of time in August. Just stepping outside you usually have to wade thru a huge wall of humidity and your lucky if you don’t melt before getting into the car. Recently it’s been nice cool breezes on warm summer days, basically perfect. So for these reasons and more I’ve been patio table hunting recently. My original goal was to get some cheap crappy plastic one that I wouldn’t mind if it got beat up and would actually match my cheap plastic white chairs. Who knew these would be so hard to find? Apparently I started my search at the end of the season. So instead of a crappy one, I actually got a nice pretty one from World Market for a very good deal. Once I saw the box it came in I was nervous about getting it into my car. Luckily the two strong guys (one of which I married in my head btw, he had dreamy poet eyes and a very nice smile ) who carried it to my car were able to load it in. Now a normal person would realize that if two strong guys had trouble carrying the box and getting it into the car, then perhaps the fat weak single woman was probably going to need help getting it out. Not so for Miss Independent I want to do it now can’t wait for Wes me! To top it all off I did this with Freya attached to my arm via her leash. I managed somehow to get the box unwedged from my car and shimmied out. Then I stared at it for a bit as I processed the following facts:
a) I’m retarded
b) I am not strong enough to lift the box by myself
c) not only that I have steps and a corner to maneuver around to get it on my porch
d) I now HAD to find a way to get it on my porch b/c there was no way I could get it back into my car now.
e) Why the hell did I do this with Freya tied to me?!?
f) I’m retarded
I managed to drag the box to my steps and eventually rocked it up my steps and around the corner. I’ll find out today when I open the box if I broke anything. It was dark when I did all this so I couldn’t put it together right then. All in all it took my around 20 minutes to do all this, when it would have taken less than five minutes if I had waited for help. Today my back and neck is only a little sore for my stupidity last night. Next up is to buy some flowers so I can kill them! I know this is next because that is what is on my list, but that is a post for another day.
Monday night I went over to my sister and brother-in-law’s house to mooch some dinner enjoy their company. After we consumed a hearty feast, Wes casually mentioned that perhaps I’d like to go to the mall. I immediately asked what game he wanted now. No no, he just really felt I wanted to go out shopping…of course while we were there he might as well pre-order Rockband 2…blah, blah, blah. Most of what Wes says turns into the Peanuts teachers blahs, it’s a rather mysterious disease that mainly occurs whenever he talks about videogames (so basically all the time). Sometimes he can trick my mind by starting out not talking about videogames then somehow sneaking the topic in while I’m distracted. Of course once my brain figures out he’s talking about videogames it immediately starts converting all his speech to blahs. Our relationship is such that I’m past being polite to him, mainly due to his disturbing bodily function comfortableness around me, so I start singing don’t care to him as he talks. Apparently my rule is if you feel comfortable enough to pick your nose and fart around me then I can openly treat you with the disdain I feel for most humanity. I do actually have a fondness for the goon so every so often, when I’m in a generous mood, I will just stare bored at him and let him talk while I daydream about horses. Once in a blue moon he’ll actually bring up a videogame that I have a passing interest in and I’ll even pay attention, perhaps even converse about the topic. This is really bad of me I know since it just gives him hope that I may actually care about what little nugget of videogame knowledge he’s going to impart on me later on.
In a totally unrelated note I bought two cute shirts at the mall! Also for a status on the Transformer Infiltration, Optimus Prime is camping out incognito in the living room. Perhaps Christina can’t recognize him in his truck form?
One of my New Year’s Resolutions was to get down to a size 12. All year I have actually done nothing to achieve this goal, but once I moved into my new place, which has a fitness center I can use for free, I started making myself exercise. Unlike some of my friends who try to convince me that after awhile it becomes fun and something you need, I loath exercising. I can make myself do it but I never enjoy it or want to do it. Luckily I have not had TV for the past two years. Actually I don’t mind it all but the sad fact is that when I get to be around TV I tend to be enthralled, and since there are TVs in the fitness room I actually get a bit of a treat for exercising. I hadn’t figured out you could change the channels until last night so I’ve always just watched whatever was on. Of course because of this the Saturday before last I ended up watching the Food Network as I exercised. There is nothing sadder than watching a fat girl exercising to the Food Network, which is what I’m sure the passing apartment tour group was thinking as they watched me peddling toward that chocolate cake! Dignity is over-rated anyway. This month I’ve bumped up from exercising once a week to twice a week and have picked Tuesday night to be that second day. I had called Christina earlier in a valiant effort to become too busy to exercise and implied that I would be willing to meet her for dinner. She took too long getting back to me so by the time she called me back I was already at the fitness center and had just stepped onto the elliptical and put my program in. This is when I actually showed some willpower in my life for she called not to go just anywhere, but to go the Cheesecake Factory. I said no and continued to exercise, no to the Cheesecake Factory! How can I ever forgive myself?