Answer

My biggest fear/hope would be that I would ask you all for questions, and then have this super-exciting weekend to report on, thus keeping the questions for later. But, alas…no. In fact, it was another ridiculously relaxed weekend (though we did knock out some Christmas shopping), unless you count five minutes ago when Sunny ate a hotel bottle of shampoo and came running at me with a foaming mouth and a panicked look in her eyes. Foam is an instantly panicky thing for me to see, since the last time her mouth foamed like that, she’d just eaten a deadly hallucinogenic toad and we half expected her to trip her face off for the next 12 hours, provided she didn’t die first. I guess you could say I was terrified until the moment I found the half-chewed “Ocean Breeze Quali-T” shampoo bottle we got at some high-class establishment or another and kept on hand in a basket in the guest bathroom. I am not, however, looking forward to the “potentially explosive” diarrhea the emergency vet warned me about.

I’ve opted to take the easy questions first, as some of them (H’s, Lawyerish‘s, Andrea‘s, Alexa‘s, and many others) require a standalone post, because my God, I could go on for days and days on those topics, but for now, let’s go with easy! Peasy! And in paragraph form!

Dee Dee, sans blog, asked why I name every post after a song title. The truth is, I don’t have a good reason, other than I’m too lazy to come up with my own title. The first time was an accident, back when I got a really bad haircut and couldn’t think of anything other than “Bang and Blame” by REM, because this total bitch gave me gigantic bangs and a Joan Jett mullet, and hell yes, there was blame. Bangs and blame, and the song played on repeat throughout the entire time I grew out that damn haircut. And from there, it just turned out to be the way my mind worked. Sometimes I choose a song based on a theme of the post, which will only be obvious if you know the song’s lyrics (Bring on the Dancing Horses, Little Plastic Castle), and sometimes, like today, I’ll choose it simply because the title fits. I own every single song I use, though, which is perhaps the only requirement I have, and if I want to use it and don’t have it, I buy it, although I think that’s happened maybe once. The only exception is Barney’s “Do Your Ears Hang Low?” because I do have limits, even though they don’t seem to extend to New Kids on the Block or Celine Dion, both of which I had well before I used them as titles. Personally, however, I’ve had a lot of fun with it, because it makes me think of music every day, and it reminds me to search through my catalog for something I might not have remembered I had, or to take a closer at the lyrics I’ve been listening to for years without really hearing.

Moving on to even more random things, Sans-Blog Sadie asked a few bits of strange trivia, not the least of which was how much arm hair I have. This is actually a tough question to answer, which is such a scary statement. The truth is, I have copious amounts of arm hair, and it pains me to admit it. I’m told it’s not that bad, for while there is quite a bit of it, it’s blond and each hair is rather longish, so it’s more in length than amount, I guess, which sounds even worse, like I could braid it or pet it like a dog during meetings or something. I suppose it goes without saying that I hate it. The boyfriend I had before Ad actually admitted that he saw my arms and was (oh my God) frightened that the amount of hair was portentous for what was to come, uh, everywhere. And I’m happy to say that it is not, for I do not have hair in any inappropriate places, and the little hair that I do have is easily managed and quickly whisked away. In fact, and I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, I am a freak about body hair, and hair in general. I don’t like it, I don’t like having it, and I wish – with the exception of heads, eyebrows and eyelashes – that all hair everywhere could be completely eradicated on both men and women. I hate it that much. And so, with trimming, shaving and waxing I am a generally well-groomed, relatively hairless person, except for my damn arms. And because the hair is already blond, short of waxing them – which I am completely unwilling to do because of the stubble/ingrown hair factor on my ARMS, not to mention the cost, PLUS, I did it once and lo, it was very bad, and it did actually include ingrown hairs, which was the grossest thing ever – I’m stuck with Neanderthal Arms, which I hate.

My thoughts, by the way, on spray salad dressing, since you asked, Sadie, are that I am firmly FOR spray salad dressing, and use it quite a bit at the office. I actually loathe all bottled salad dressings, and only eat oil and vinegar with a truckload of salt and pepper on my salads, and spray dressings are, in my limited experience, almost pure vinegar and water. And since I’m not about to bring a cruet set to the office, the spray dressing rocks my world. And, completely unrelated, but also since you asked, Sunny only licks my legs when I’ve just put lotion on them, and I do not find McSteamy attractive at all. McDreamy, however is, well, pretty dreamy.

Claire asked what I was getting my parents for Christmas, and also if, where and when we’re moving, not to mention where I got my degree, and in what. Since the latter are bigger questions, and today is light stuff, as my weekend was taxing and full of movie-watching, and not move-thinking, I will say that my dad is getting something from Williams Sonoma, though I have no idea what, my stepmom is getting an exotic collection of teas of the world, along with a fancypants teapot (she’s a tea freak), and the other set of parents are getting a night out at their favorite restaurant, followed by a movie (all via the magic of gift certificates). And so help me God, don’t let this be the day they find out I have a blog, because Christmas would be a little ruined. Having divorced parents comes with an entire set of wonderful perks, not the least of which is twice as many parents as other people have, and I am so very lucky. It sucked for a very, very long time, and I didn’t always get along with both sets of parents (I lived with my mom and stepdad mostly, and visits with the other set were sporadic at best), in recent years, we’ve all become extremely close, which has been better than I ever expected. However, I could do without the double shopping and staggering amount of siblings (five brothers and a sister, not to mention a seemingly-endless string of nephews) to manage every holiday season.

And finally, I’ll knock out a few food-related questions, not the least of which are my thoughts on Pizza Hut personal pan pizzas (for Heather) which: love, and also, a big hell yes to the stuffed crust, as I don’t eat the crusts otherwise. I am actually not a huge fan of bread unless it’s filled/covered with something, and I don’t even like sandwiches that much, so the crust part of the pizza is completely unappealing to me. I also don’t like the crusts of sandwiches and would gladly cut them off if it was remotely socially acceptable. I am actually only 7 years-old in terms of bread consumption. And herein ends the most boring paragraph ever, and one that I actually can’t believe I just typed, because: my thoughts on BREAD? Seriously? Did I just write that?

And with that, more answers tomorrow, hopefully of the deeper variety, and maybe a little less random and snore-inducing. It’s just that gah, I’m so RELAXED and have zero interest in stringing together a coherent sentence, and it shows. I hope y’all had a great weekend, and thanks for asking.

*Sarah McLachlan

8 comments December 17th, 2006