Once upon a time, there lived a young woman who grew up in the Fireworks Capital of America and went to the City of Champions for college. In 2006, she moved with her boyfriend to Washington, DC, where she, a bright-eyed bushy-tailed college graduate, began working at a small nonprofit as a program assistant. Our heroine quickly learned that “program assistant” was code for “do endless mail merges using information from a database still running on Microsoft Access 1997 while your supervisor watches soccer games online all day” and that life in the nation’s capital was not nearly as exciting as The West Wing had made it out to be.

Undeterred, she found a new job and moved to a nicer neighborhood. The job was good. The neighborhood was charming. But she never quite warmed to her new city. She found that many of the people she met enjoyed talking only about how important they were working as interns in obscure House members’ offices, drafting legislation on horse slaughtering or mailing flags to constituents, and weren’t interested in talking to her once they realized they had nothing career-wise to gain from her. The hourlong commute got to her. The one hundred degree temperatures coupled with one hundred percent humidity every single August day wilted her. The studio condominiums selling at over three hundred thousand dollars shocked her. The general “just as soon spit on you as look at you” attitude of her fellow citizens dismayed her.

In short, she was unhappy. And her boyfriend was, too.

So they began looking for ways to get back to the fair city in which they met. They planned and schemed for several months, squirreling away savings, looking for jobs, thinking about the future. Soon, her boyfriend had a job offer in hand and they moved back to Pittsburgh during its most beautiful month: February. Amidst the slush and ice and blackened snow, they settled with their two cats into an apartment where the rent was less than half their rent in DC and they were happy.

Soon after this, they decided to get married. And soon after that, they applied for a mortgage and began seriously looking for a house. Three days ago, they made an offer on a lovely house in Greenfield that seemed as though it was built for them: great backyard, plenty of space, large kitchen, creative vibe. Two days ago, they learned that their offer was accepted. They laughed and hugged and talked about new paint colors for the bedrooms and generally felt very happy but also very strange at the idea of owning a house. Because that is something grown-ups do.

Nevertheless, they will hopefully soon be homeowners and spouses in the city that they love very dearly. Because sometimes dreams do come true. If you know what your dream is and you work very, very hard at achieving it, that is.

I’m up for a new phone through my Verizon new every two deal and honestly I’m underwhelmed. Currently I have your slightly-more-than-basic phone – it makes calls, has a camera and videorecorder, it’s always worked well for me. I don’t need VCast (I don’t even know what that means) and I’m not going to pay $100 a month just to get email on my phone. I am not that popular or important, Verizon Wireless. Thanks for reminding me. Nor am I loaded enough to drop over a thousand bucks a year, not counting the price of the phone, just so I can wade through all the action alert emails I get everyday urging me to call my senators. (And on that note – please. I signed up for email alerts because I dislike contacting my elected officials via the phone. If you want people to actually dial a number, have them sign up for a phone list or something. Just give me a freaking online form to fill out, mmkay?)

But is it too much to ask for the phones to be at least marginally exciting? I scroll through my list of available phones and basically I’m seeing the same design in either black or silver over and over again. I want something kind of quirky, not the basic phone I have now. Otherwise, why am I getting a new phone at all? I’m leaning toward the Samsung Juke, because it plays music and has a cool design and comes in teal, but I’ve read some bad reviews of it. Although I’m not usually very rough on my phone, so it might not be so bad for me…

Man, these first world problems suck, don’t they? UGH.

How did I not post a 90s VOTW last week? GAWD. Sorry, folks.

Anyway, this video features Juliette Lewis as a mental patient. Pretty big stretch for her, I know. Ha! I’m totally joshing! Well, only like 80% joshing. I love Juliette Lewis.

Loving Mel’s denim button-up shirt with the sleeves cut off. Larry the Cable Guy totally stole his style from the fabulous Ms. E. And, yes, I’m duly ashamed that I know the kind of shirt that Larry the Cable Guy wears.

One thing I always loved about this song was the sheer intensity that Melissa sings with. I’ve sort of rediscoverd Melissa Etheridge in the past year or so, after my boyfriend and I watched “An Inconvenient Truth” at a free screening at the National Archives in DC and walked back to the Metro scream-singing this song and “I Want to Come Over” and “I’m the Only One.” I’m pretty sure that’s the lesson we were supposed to take from that movie – that Melissa Etheridge rocks pretty hard. Right?

Loving Juliette dancing with herself at the end of the vid. I dance with myself all the time. I also walk down the street, composing conversations in my brain entirely in French. Occasionally I’ll slip and say something out loud and people who are nearby give me somewhat concerned looks. Maybe I belong in the hospital, not Juliette… oh well. If it means I can color all over my room and jam to Melissa Etheridge all day, I’m totally in.

I’m beginning to wonder if dementors are breeding in Pittsburgh. I can hardly complain, since I moved back here at the end of February, when the ground begins to thaw and the slush somewhat subsides, from the mild winters of Washington, DC. (Seriously, if the air guessers even predict three inches of snow in the DC metro area, there’s a run on milk, bread and rock salt at every grocery store.)

But there’s something disconcerting about heading out for the day on May 19 and pulling on your winter wool coat, buttoning it up to the top button. By this time of the year, I feel like I shouldn’t be worried about making sure I have clean work socks, but I do. I’ve never been a big fan of spring, mostly due to the overabundant mud and the nauseating smell of freshly cut grass and the ricocheting temperatures (forty in the morning, seventy at noon makes me a cranky blogger), but I am so ready for this coldness to be done.

Andy Warhol’s over it, too.

Or could

(Jordan Staal)

and

Martha Plimpton (you know, that one girl from The Goonies)

TOTALLY be brother and sister?

Write this post, that is, since I agreed to this NaBloPoMo nonsense.

This weekend: beaucoup parties + a German-American couple and their one-year-old son = FUN TIMES.

See yinz later!

Why are you so disgusting? Seriously. Also – why do you exist? You taste so bad, and your texture is so stringy, and you are a droopy shade of green. No one likes you. People pretend to like you but really they just eat you after they’ve drenched you in ranch dressing or blue cheese or because their mouths are on fire after eating wings and they’ll shove anything down their throats to stop the crying and screaming.

And why do you pop up in the most unexpected places, like the pasta salad I was eating as part of my lunch today? I was lucky enough to score a free lunch, and then you had to appear in my mouth with your gross taste and completely ruin those ten seconds of my life it took me to swig some Diet Pepsi and forget you had slipped past me in an attempt to – what? Make me like you? It’s been 24 years, Celery. I’m beyond a simple dislike or a “she’ll grow out of it” phase. I outright hate you. So if you don’t mind, quit appearing in my food and I’ll quit remembering that you exist.

XO,
Christina

Things I did today:

• had a very insane and hectic day at the office
• went to happy hour with a dear old friend from high school
• came home and wrote a chapter of my book

Therefore, I am tired.

But here’s a picture of one of my cats!

He’s cute, look at him! Don’t mind me, curled up in the corner here … with the comfy bed … and the pillows … and …

I just had a “need help conceiving?” ad in my sidebar on Facebook. Guess they think this is gonna be a white wedding.

I believe Amy called it, just a few weeks ago. Although she thought (and I did too) that the pregnancy/kids stuff would start after my status changed to “married.”

Hey, isn’t it ironic how all the lines in this song aren’t really ironies, they’re just bummers? Ha ha! A little 90s humor for yinz…

Another Pop-Up video fav! From what I can recall from those informative little bubbles, the four Alanises are supposed to represent different parts of her personality – red sweater Alanis is the crazy one, yellow sweater Alanis is the childlike one, green sweater Alanis is the weird one (? am I remembering this correctly?), and driver Alanis is the supposedly shy, subdued one.

Let’s pause to simply appreciate Alanis Morissette for a second, can we? I mean, how awesome was she? I love that her hair was always kind of a mess and she looked like she didn’t wear much make-up and she just didn’t care. I love that her most popular song was a big, powerful “fuck you” to a man who had crossed her. (Cousin Joey from Full House! Maybe.) I love that she gave smart interviews and didn’t hide her intelligence and generally just rocked. Alanis, I love you.

This video was pretty cool, in a very low-key way. I like the idea of the different Alanises, I like the total beater car, and I like that fact that it looks like it takes place on some Canadian highway. Overall, thumbs up.

So … if you were cruising down the highway and three of your clones appeared in the car, what song would you sing? What parts of your personality would they represent?