Can't Sleep? The Silver Lining

I woke up around 2:30am this morning (last night?) and have not been able to go back to sleep. It's now 5:40am and my alarm goes off in 20 minutes. These types of nights/mornings are the worst. BUT in most situations—including this one—there is a silver lining. So I spent the past 30 minutes trying to figure out the silver lining in this situation (other than spending some QT chatting and hanging out with my kitties Salvador and Cher) and I think I've got it: the random TV shows that come on between the hours of 3am and 6am.

Lately, these are my favorite insomniac TV shows that get me through these miserable sleepless nights (in no particular order):

Any uncensored stand-up on Comedy Central (it's uncensored during the wee hours of the morning...the raunchier, the better)
 







Looney Tunes only comes on for like an hour which bums me out. I could watch WAY more Bugs Bunny than that.

Which got me thinking about my favorite cartoons growing up (Looney Tunes has probably always been #1). I think that's what my next post will be about. It's going to be tough ranking them though.

Ah! My alarm just went off...time to get ready for work I suppose.

"Can I help you???"

I feel like no matter how or when I get the attention of my cats, the look on their face always seems to say: "Um, can I help you?"

Am I wrong???

My poor cats. I'm the most annoying pet-owner ever. They are so over me and I don't blame them.

You Had it Comin', Sal

My dream last night made me wake up laughing this morning.

I dreamed that I was performing in a play with some of my college friends' sorority. I was really only friends with one girl at Phi Mu and her name is Laura Le (we were roommates freshman year, this part is just fact, not part of the dream). Laura invited me to be in a play that their sorority was performing and I was so nervous. After my last scene, I was supposed to turn the light off and pick up my gift bag in the closet. I forgot to do BOTH of those things and the director had to remind me and the whole audience saw. So embarrassing.

My mom was in the audience too. After the performance ended, the bleachers (the seats weren't really theater seats but more high school gym style bleachers) cleared out and my mom, Sally, was sitting there with another parent. I was sitting in a circle across the room with Laura and two of her sorority sisters (whom I've never cared for) and I didn't want to be there. I looked at my mom and made the face and head motions that unmistakably mean "come on let's go, let's get out of here, I'm READY!". She looked back at me and was saying with her eyes and head motions "no, we aren't leaving. You need to stay and make friends with these girls." So I did.

Then I saw Sal get up to use the bathroom, which almost looked like an outhouse, but not in a gross way. It was more the kind of bathroom you would see at a beach resort by the pool and there was no ceiling to it. While she was in there, some fraternity boy went by it and dumped a bucket of water down into the stall (apparently he had been pranking everyone by doing this all day).

Sal came out, soaking wet and angry. All I could say was: "Told you we should have left when I was ready to leave."

The End.

French and Gloria Estefan?

I woke up the other morning singing this song:

"Alouette, gentille Alouette
Alouette, gentille plumerai....."

It made me laugh and also confused me, because I don't remember knowing as many lyrics to that song as I  woke up singing.

I think I've solved the mystery though. I fell asleep with the television on and I think Target is to blame for my French singing:




The next day I woke up singing a Gloria Estefan song:

"One, two, three, four...come baby say you love me
five, six, seven times"

I have no idea where that came from. But I think Ellen Degeneres would have my back:

Dear Left Hand:

Dear Left Hand,

I'm so, so, so sorry! I know that I have put you through so much pain with my decision to learn to play the guitar. If it's any consolation, the worst is over.

So about a month ago, I decided that I would buy a guitar (or geeeetar, which is how I say it in my head) and learn to play it. If anyone reading this has ever tried to play the geeeetar, they know that it's a painful instrument. Holding down those steel strings really does a number on one's fingers.

During my first week'ish of playing, I almost quit because my fingertips on my left hand were in so much freaking pain! I didn't think I could do it but THEN God's (or someone's) brilliant design of the human body kicked in. My fingers were all: "HEY! JEN! You're KILLING us; so we have decided that we are going to man-up and grow callouses so that we can handle this abuse."  And that they did!

I don't even recognize my left hand anymore. I have these crazy looking, permanent guitar string impressions on them and they feel like sandpaper!

I have lost all sensation in the fingertips of my pointer, middle and ring finger on my left hand. What's funny to me as I write about this, is that it sounds way worse than it looks. Callouses are thoughtful, generous and considerate. By that I mean that they showed up when I needed them most and they are protecting my hands, but at the same time, they don't make my hands look as gnarly as I'm making it sound. SO...good job on the smart and well designed callous-thingy Mr. or Miss Human Body Designer (whoever you are).

Writing this blog post was perfect because I was reminded today that I haven't written in ages AND I got to give my left hand a break from guitar practice to write a post. WIN/WIN for sure.