July 2007

Don't fear the Reaper...

It's the end of the month and you know what that means!  Time for another episode of Mer's Ten Happy Things!  Please please try to contain your excitement.

10.  I know this one is starting to sound broken record-ish but it's not old for me.  Yet another Ten Happy Things list where I can report that both the Mets and the Red Sox are in first place in their respective divisions.  All things considered, with as horribly as the Mets have been playing lately, the fact that they've remained in first place is a true testament of how much the Braves suck.  I love when the Braves suck.  I love it even better when they swallow. 

9.  Staying with baseball, the Mets are in town this upcoming weekend.  I'll be attending, of course.  Keep your fingers crossed that I don't get beat up again.  I'd hate to repeat that performance...although I do admit that I'm not as easy a target as I was when I was 19.  Equally enjoyable is the fact that Boston will be in town toward the end of August.  I've got tickets for that too.  Baseball freak, I am...

8.  It was recently announced at the San Diego Comicon that one of my most favorite shows, Heroes, is doing a six-part spinoff called Origins that will devote an entire episode apiece to the backgrounds of certain characters.  What characters will be included, I'm not sure.  However, it has been announced that Kevin Smith is going to direct the first episode.  As I firmly believe that just about everything in life is better with a nice, steaming dose of Kevin Smith, this is rather good news. 

7.  I've been in complete Harry Potter overload and it's been great!  The movie was great, the book release party in Naperville was great, the book was incredibly great.  I've never read a 760 page book in one sitting before (took me 16 hours) but it was so worth it.  I simply could not put the damn thing down.  I'm sad that it's over but what a way to end it!  *Sigh*  I love geek stuff.

6.   I got my plane tickets today for my trip to the US Open over Labor Day weekend.  Getting the airfare makes the fact that I'm going to the US Open that much more real, which in turn makes me positively giddy with excitement.  US OPEN!  BETTER THAN FUCKING A!  IT'S FUCKING Z!

5.  For those who don't know this already, I do wheel throwing.  No, that doesn't mean I chuck tires around.  It's pottery on the wheel...like in Ghost, but, you know, not Swayze gay.  It's really much harder than it looks.  I've been doing it a little over two years.  I was pleased to discover that I am finally getting good enough at it that other people in my studio come to me for help.  This is a novel idea to me considering that I kind of suck at wheel throwing.  I guess I don't suck nearly as much as I thought I did.  Plus, some of my latest pieces have come out really nice.  Please don't ask me to make you an ashtray.  Aside from the fact that we're not allowed to do ashtrays because my instructor considers ashtrays to be grammar school stuff, I don't support smoking.  I'll make any smoker an ashtray as long as I'm permitted to break it over thier head while they're taking a nice, deep inhalation of lung cancer.

4.  This one is a happy thing born of an unhappy thing.  A dear friend of mine and his wife recently lost a child.  She was born with a rare bone disease, lived for five days, and then passed peacefully.  This news is in no way a happy thing.  It hit me rather hard, actually, considering that I'm rather close friends with the daddy.  What is a happy thing, though, is the incredible strength I saw coming from these grieving parents.  Not only were they totally there for each other (the way it should be but so often is not) but they both displayed a level of peace, strength, and faith that was nothing short of inspiring.  I was totally blown away by them.  I'm glad that God could give them that peace and strength...

3.  I finally learned how to grill chicken without ruining it.  Chicken on the grill (sans bbq sauce because bbq sauce is just plain gross) is one of my most favorite eats.  I think I'd rather have chicken on the grill than most other edible things.  However, I am not a grill master and have managed to ruin many a batch of chickens.  After painstaking trial and error, I have finally figured out how to grill the almighty drumstick without turning it into a torch bright enough to light the pitch black nights of Frankfort, Illinois.  Now I can grill and nosh to my chickeny content.

2.  I spoke to my little Emmie today.  Any day that I talk to Emmie is a happy day.  She had plenty of Britishy news about her horse and her ability to ride said horse.  Every time I talk to her and hear how pronounced her British accent is becoming, I have to chuckle to myself knowing full well that her mother is roaring in hysterical laughter up in heaven at how utterly proper her daughter sounds.  If you all had known Joeie, you'd totally understand why a proper sounding child born of her loins is about as oxymoronic as me birthing a tall, leggy blonde with perfect eyesight and a total disdain for Star Wars.

1.  My little electronic leash has been much more quiet than usual lately.  Mercifully so, actually.  While this phenomenon was initially rather unnerving, I have found that its silence is considerably more fantabulous than most wonderful things.

There you have it.  You may now return to your daily grind.  Until next month, eat, drink, and be fat and drunk.