Mar. 4: I bring you peace

I had my pupils dilated today. Y’know, for kicks. Because walking around with dilated pupils is so NOT dangerous for someone as clumsy as me.



For reals, the medication I take for my weird autoimmune-disease-that’s-not-quite-lupus-and-not-quite-rheumatoid-arthritis requires me to have my eyes examined annually by an ophthalmologist. A few years ago he did a baseline exam; it took a couple hours to get through all the tests and they put a million different kinds of drops in my eyes. I wasn’t anticipating all that and didn’t arrange for someone to drive me home. If you’ve ever tried to drive in an unfamiliar area with dilated pupils, you understand why this would have been good to know in advance.

The next year I figured they wouldn’t do all those same things since they assured me it wasn’t going to be such a thorough exam, so I went to the appointment by myself again because I’m an idiot. But just like the first time, they did all the drops and made me all semi-blind again and I had to drive home again like Mrs. Magoo.

This year I knew how to plan. My mom is visiting right now, so she picked me up from the appointment. Yay, Mom! And to everyone who made it home from work alive tonight, instead of being sideswiped or run over by a big-eyed freak like me, you’re welcome.

Katie and Jack think I look freaky. And I have to admit, they’re right. I look very much like Mr. Burns in one of my favorite-r episodes of The Simpsons. “Don’t be afraid! I bring you peace. I bring you looooove.”

Feb. 22: This is 200 calories

Here's a site with pictures of 200 calories' worth of individual foods. Of course, there's a lot of celery, apples, etc. Peanut butter? Not so much. It looks like about a spoonful of peanut butter comes to 200 calories. That makes me cry a little.

Some questions:

• "Blackberry pie," about 2/3 of the way down the page, is obviously a Hostess fruit pie. Do Hostess fruit pies really qualify as pie? Aren't they just sugar cookies stuffed with fruit-flavored goo? I mean, if we're going to call Hostess pies "pie," then we can call Velveeta "cheese," right?
  
• The Bailey's Irish Cream. That isn't enough to get my buzz on! How can I be expected to stick to my diet if I'm not drunk?
  
• Yeah, like I'm gonna snack on two red onions. (I know that's not a question. I don't care.)
  
• Mmmmmm... fried bacon... it's actually not such a sad amount. I'm OK with it. (That is also not a question.)
  
• The pic of butter, another one of my favorite foods (I put it in my coffee), looks funny, doesn't it? That's, like, one of those whole-pound cubes and someone resized the image, thereby distorting it. I'm pretty sure.

This site is soooo not what I'll be referring to as I make our weekend meals plan.

I'll leave you with a quote from one of my favorite episodes of The Simpsons, in which Homer intentionally gains weight so he can go on disability:

Dr. Nick: "Hi, everybody!"
Homer and Bart: "Hi, Dr. Nick!"
Dr. Nick: "Now, there are many options available for dangerously underweighted individuals like yourself. I recommend a slow steady gorging process combined with assal horizontology."
Homer: "Of course."
Dr. Nick: "You'll want to focus on the neglected food groups such as the whipped group, the congealed group and the chocotastic!"
Homer: "What can I do to speed the whole thing up, Doctor?"
Dr. Nick: "Well... be creative. Instead of making sandwiches with bread, use Pop-tarts. Instead of chewing gum, chew bacon ..."
Bart: "You could brush your teeth with milkshakes!"
Dr. Nick: "Hey, did you go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College too? And remember, if you're not sure about something, rub it against a piece of paper. If the paper turns clear, it's your window to weight gain! Bye-bye, everybody!"

Feb. 15: Best. Birthday. Ever.

Television (and life) would be far less entertaining if not for the birth of Matt Groening 54 years ago today. I bow in awed reverence to this brilliant man, creator of The Simpsons. He is one of very few Oregon celebrities of which we are proud to claim.

Nineteen seasons and nobody does it better. Need proof? Read some quotes from The Simpsons.

Feb. 6: Insularity breeds dorkiness

Linky linky! Here's a fun article from The Onion's AV Club: The knights who say "nerd": 20 pop-cultural obsessions even geekier than Monty Python.

I'm proud to say there are only two of these 20 obsessions to which I can relate. Some of them I've never even heard of--game show tape trading? Cosplay?

The Simpsons is #1 on our TiVo season passes list, and we watch the evening syndicated episodes too. However, I've never been even one bit suspect that the world the Simpsons live in is preferable to ours. In fact, I'm pretty sure if I was drawn into The Simpsons they'd make me look like Lunch Lady Doris and I don't think I could handle that. I'll stay in my own little imaginary world, thankyouverymuch.

The other obsession is Wikipedia, but I'm not sure it counts because I've never edited a Wikipedia entry. I've wanted to, but I never have. So the fact that I consult the site often doesn't really count as geeky according to this article.

Might I conclude that I'm not as big a geek as I'm often accused of being?