Pee-ved

Yesterday I went to a training session for work. Whenever there was a break, all the ladies flocked to the restroom as you might expect. One of my pet peeves is when people (I suppose when I say "people" I mean women. I don't go in the men's room much.) don't follow a few basic (and, I think, obvious) public restroom guidelines. So, here is my Potty Rant:

Dear Women of the World,

Ok, people. I know bathrooms are not the cleanest places. But guess what, Hoverers? YOU'RE the reason the bathroom is a mess in the first place! Just sit your ass on the pot, mmmmmk? That way, it all goes where it's supposed to. And yes, I know toilet seats can be kinda icky. But so is your butt. Just wipe the seat off a little and sit. Simple. There's a reason the toilets have SEATS, and I don't think you'll catch any diseases, you OCD mess-makers!

If you know one stall is occupied, don't use the one RIGHT. NEXT. TO. IT.  if there are other ones available. Seriously, it does not make my day to hear your noises. Also, it does not make my day to inspect your shoes, and I'd rather you didn't inspect mine. I've heard that men always adhere to this logical guideline in their bathrooms, so why can't you, good ladies? Are you lonely? Are you trying to make a new friend? Sorry, I don't associate with stall-right-next-to-mine types.

I realize you feel it is necessary to fix your makeup every single time you enter a bathroom, but if you're blocking a sink and I need to wash my hands, I am not amused. Yes, you got there first, but you're not even using the sink! And I'm trying to get-in-and-get-out. Maybe get yourself a hand mirror? Or perhaps just get the heck out of my way. Yeah, I'd prefer that I think.

Come on, ladies. Take pride in yourselves. Take pride in your restroom etiquette. If you feel the need to be disgusting, do it at your house. Oh yeah, and don't invite me over.

Much love,
Ryan the Girl

Beachy Keen!

Back from the beach and back to reality. Damn that's depressing. So I had this brilliant idea to write a blog post while I was away... by hand. So here it is (and yes, I'm acutely aware that my handwriting sucks):

So, an added note: Chris's van's window did eventually decide to go up, and before it started raining on our drive back on Sunday! I don't think I've ever seen Chris so relieved. The few hundred dollars it would have cost to get that fixed simply wasn't welcome, especially after non-insured doctor's visits and a weekend away.

We headed to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel also on Saturday afternoon, and stopped at the restaurant/gift shop/pier in the middle. Three miles offshore, and you can just hang out. Very awesome.

On Sunday, we went to Fort Story near VA Beach (which is a military base and an historic site). We climbed the old lighthouse (after which my thighs seized up completely. Dehydrated much?), checked out the site where the Jamestown colonists originally landed (hence "First Landing"), and saw dolphins off the coast. T'was brilliant.

Some pictures of our trip for your viewing pleasure:

The walk to the Chesapeake from our campground.

Chris checking out the boats. He likes boats.

A tanker in the Chesapeake.

Posing.

The pier off of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

Chris and I on the Bridge-Tunnel.

Old Cape Henry Light= conquered.

The view off Cape Henry.

Assembly of Japanese tent require peace-of-mind...

Oh wait, that's a bunny!

Just another quick note: I've finally updated the Ryan's Recommendations section (which now permanently resides to the right of the posts). I'm trying to update this weekly. Some of the electronics on there now are things I'm in the market for and am on the verge of purchasing. I'm in need of YOUR recommendations there!

"Secret Single Behavior"

Things have been pretty much the same here at The Palace. Chris is still getting over what was diagnosed as Pneumonia, Coltrane is back to his happy, playful self, and I'm fighting off a little something. There has been more TV watching than usual, which is probably a bad thing. One of my favorite shows is Sex and the City (I used to be ashamed of this "guilty" pleasure of mine. Not anymore. The show features 4 strong, confident, sexy women, and the main character makes her living as a writer. What's not to love?). I have slowly been collecting the DVDs, and it's a great "me-time" thing to do to relax a little.

One of the recent episodes I watched featured a conversation between the 4 main women about what they dubbed "SSB," or "Secret Single Behavior." The main character, Carrie, was talking about the things she can't do after moving in with her boyfriend. SSB includes all of the behavior you take part in when you're totally alone, and often goes by the wayside when living with someone else. Charlotte mentioned inspecting her pores every night before bed, Miranda mentioned putting vaseline on her hands and putting them in gloves while watching TV. Since Chris and I have recently become roomies, this got me thinking about my own SSB.

Confession time! What are the things I can't/won't do now that I live with my boyfriend? More like, what are the things I can't/won't do when he's home (I think I revert to my SSB if he's away)? For one thing, when I lived by myself, I never really felt too guilty about splurging on myself every once-in-awhile. Here's the typical Ryan-is-by-herself-and-wants-to-splurge purchase: Pack of salmon roll sushi ($6.00), fresh strawberries ($3.00), bottle of red wine ($7.00), and lovely 72% cocoa fine dark chocolate bar ($3.00), fine evening to myself (priceless). No one around= no one to judge me for spending almost $20 on myself for one evening. Chris doesn't splurge on food. Like, ever. And he would certainly give me a look if I did that around him, so, I don't (which is probably good for my wallet anyways). Let's see, I also leave the bathroom door open when nobody is around. Not sure why. It may have been something that developed in my apartment when Coltrane was running around (and I was afraid he would start chewing on my baseboards if I took my eye off of him for one second). But also, growing up, our family was a bathroom-door-open family (hi mom!). Another thing I do when I'm by myself (grooming-wise) is pop any zits I may have. I'm a picker. All the way. And I get ingrown hairs from shaving my legs all the time. For me, ingrown hairs clog my pores and lead to little zits, which must go immediately. I realize this grosses people (including Chris) out, so it's an SSB. Then there are the normal things: I pluck my eyebrows (last time I was doing this the bathroom door was open and Chris walked by and said something like "aw, man, I don't want to see that." Mainly referring to how painful it looked), I take long-ass showers, I eat junk, and I watch Sex and the City!

None of this makes me regret the decision to move in with Chris. Besides, he won't be in the house every single second (At least, after this sick week at home he won't!).

What are your SSBs? Confess! Men, do you have SSBs too? You surely must!

Just a reminder that R's Rs are now a permanent feature to the right of the posts!

I will also keep you all updated on my search for a new laptop now that my current one broke. Anyone have and like a Netbook?

Pneu-MOAN-ia

Just as my bunny boy started to get healthy, my human boy started to get sicker and sicker. Chris has had a nasty cough for awhile now, which has sort-of come and gone. And he's been wheezing. He sounds like a set of pan pipes when he sleeps. I swear he wheezed the opening melody line to Ode to Joy the other night in his sleep (he is ever the optimist!). Anyways, things got much worse starting on Thursday/Friday, and on Saturday he finally decided to get himself to a doctor. I drove him there and ran a couple errands while he was at the Urgent Care place, then sat in the waiting room with my book. And boy, did I sit! The visit ended up taking over 2 hours! I saw people come and go who had gotten there before us, which worried me. When he came out and announced to me that he was diagnosed with Pneumonia, I was shocked. Seriously? I don't think I have ever met anyone who has had Pneumonia (until now, I suppose!). The first thing that came to my mind was the Oregon Trail game, because, to me, Pneumonia seems like one of those things only people back in the day got. Like a pre- modern medicine thing. You know, "You have died of Dysentery" and all that.  But, apparently, it's more common than I thought.

The type of Pneumonia Chris has is Walking Pneumonia, which is an infection of the lungs like regular Pneumonia, but it is from a bacteria and does not make the sufferer bedridden. They perscribed antibiotics and a couple other things, so hopefully he will be on the mend soon! He's one of those types who hasn't gotten sick too many times in his life, so he doesn't handle it all that well. And he doesn't like to let me take care of him, which is just too damn bad. (:

The other thing that sucks is that it is contagious, and I had been kissing on that boy until the diagnosis (let that be a lesson to all you young girls. Kissing boys is dangerous!). I had a really nasty sore throat yesterday and developed a stuffed-up nose last night, which continues into today. It's possible these things are unrelated, but at this point I'm convinced it is unlikely, mainly due to my paranoid stalking of sites that have any information regarding Walking Pneumonia in adults. Most of the things I've read say the symptoms start off like a cold or the flu, and it could take up to a week for the chest-cough part to kick-in. So, I think it's time to call my Doc and see what she has to say.

I want this stupid Pneumonia thing to walk its sorry ass out of our house!

Another bummer thing that happened this weekend is that my laptop screen blacked out. The computer still works, but you can't see anything on the screen! Not good. So, if posts are farther apart than usual, it is due to my lack of access to my compy. Frowny Face! Vet bills, broken laptops... I'm never going to be able to get myself a new camera! Double Frowny Face!

Anyhow, send some healing vibes our way if you are so inclined. We could use them!

Just a reminder that I've made the Ryan's Recommendations section a permanent fixture on this site, which is to your right (no, your other right!). ---------------------------------------------------------------------->

Another thing I wanted to say is that I'm sorry how spacey my last post was. I was running on too little sleep, let me tell ya!

Also check out my new "About," "FAQs," and "Links" tabs. Again, only if you are so inclined.

The Bun Who Lived!

No, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did not scar my rabbit with his killing curse. I had a scare with Coltrane that started last night when I got home after work and a meeting. He didn't want a treat (first sign of real trouble... Coltrane is usually quite the treat whore), he didn't want his greens, he didn't want his hay, he wasn't pooping, and he didn't want to move. These are all signs of GI Stasis, which is when a rabbit's digestive systems sort-of backs up. This is pretty dangerous, actually, and can quickly kill a rabbit if not taken care of. It is sometimes referred to as the "Silent Killer."

Send him some positive vibes! When he sits like this, my sister calls him The Blob Bunny!

So, Chris and I rushed Coltrane to the 24-hour emergency vet. They gave Coltrane an IV (does that just look like "4" to you? No? Just me? Okey dokey...) with some pain medication, some hydrating fluids, and something to try to get his gut moving again. They also sent me home with Critical Care, which is ground-up hay. You mix it with water and syringe feed it to the rabbit because it is pure fiber. Coltrane is not ok with being syringe-fed. He's a pretty stubborn little bun. Anyways, I was directed to give him the Critical Care every 4 hours until he started eating on his own. So I got to bed around 1 and then had to get up at 5 to squirt more hay mixture down his gullet. Also, still no poops at this point, which was quite worrisome. To rabbit owners, poop is like gold; it is priceless, and a tell-all in terms of health. I can't believe how much energy I've spent the past two days wishing for poop. Ok, so, after the 5:00 feeding (hoo boy, now I sound like a mom) it took me awhile to fall back asleep. Then the alarm went off at 7:50 as per usual. Got up, bunny still miserable, no poops, no food gone from the bowl.

SO, I called Coltrane's regular vet and took him in (of course, after I called work to tell them I had no clue when I was going to be able to get to the office). They kept the bun all day, and put him under to take an X-ray (this scared me. I don't like the idea of my little bunny boy being knocked out!), and did some of the same things the emergency vet had done. I picked Coltrane up after work and took him home. He seemed incredibly miserable still, and I was really worried. He finally started nibbling on some lettuce, then some hay, and then. there. were POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPS! Hallelujah! More like Poooopalujah!Poooooooopalujah! pooooooopalujah! pooopalujah! poopalujah! Mmmmmk, I'm gonna stop now. But, it means we're out of the woods, so-to-speak. And a sigh of relief is long overdue.

I was such a zombie at work all day too. I think I scared the interns.

In other news, I did end up chickening out at band practice the other day. No on-purpose bad singing. I'm such a chicken shit.

In other other news, Chris is not feeling well at all. He has this really bad cough. He coughed so hard he threw up. So, I have two boys to take care of.

There's no need to fear! Nurse Ryan is here!

In other other other news, I've figured out a way to make Ryan's Recommendations a permanent fixture so that my posts can just be posts. See the right side of the page---------------------------------------------->

Feedback welcome!

Ok, I need sleep pronto.

BP

Muahaha, I bet you thought this post was going to be about oil spills. NOPE. TRICKED YA! You should have seen the look on your face. "BP" is what we often call band practice for short (and by "we," I mainly mean Chris and I). In case you didn't know, Chris and I are in a band together. We are the Guitar Players Two. Anyways, tonight, we can't even start BP until 9:00 PM, which is late. This essentially means I will not be able to try to go to sleep until midnight. A least I hope I'll be in bed by then, because, if I stay up any longer than that, I will turn into a pumpkin.

Band practice (BP!) can be fun, but it can also be frustrating and exhausting. Sometimes we get a lot done. Other times it seems like we do nothing. We practice in my friend/bandmate's basement (how very original of us). We usually practice three times a week, but lately it as been less, mainly because we've had so many shows. Today we'll probably focus on the set we'll play at a party next weekend. I'm really excited about this show in particular because it's in Deltaville. Our drummer's parents have a house there, so we'll get to stay the night and hang out on the Chesapeake Bay on Saturday-day and Sunday-day. I was thinking about making the boys breakfast on Sunday morning, but we'll see how nice I feel like being. Sorry, I digress.

I was thinking it would be funny if, today at practice, I sang everything completely out of key and pretended like I couldn't tell the difference. Or maybe I could play all the guitar chords incorrectly and pretend like I think I'm playing them correctly. What would the band do? Would they confront me? If I were to manage a straight face and be like "uh, what?" would they believe that I really thought I sounded good (now, the straight face thing is a big IF because I'm never capable of keeping a straight face in the line of humor. When something's funny, I laugh. I've been yelled at more than once for ruining a practical joke by laughing too early)? Whatever, straight faces are boring.

Anyhow, I shall report back on whether or not I had the guts to screw up on purpose. Perfectionists like me are bad at these things.

R's Rs:

Listening: The Once soundtrack. "Falling Slowly" came on the radio on my way home from work and I was so excited! Somehow it's better when you hear a song you love on the radio than when you put on the CD. It's somehow special; like the DJ knew you'd be listening.

Reading: Chesapeake. I'm hanging out on the Chesapeake this weekend!

Watching: Still on Season 2 of Bones. It really is a great show.

Working Out: Yoga! Yoga! Yoga! You know, like Toga! Toga! Toga! (Animal House, duh!)

Stress-Free Zone

Just as the stress from my day-to-day life has been toying with the idea of giving me a complete nervous breakdown, my dad sends me an email that just says this:

Subject: Save the Date! Beach 2011! 
Body: Stress-Free Zone at Crown Point, Corolla

"Stree-Free Zone" refers to the name of the house. All the houses at The Outer Banks in NC have names (like boats or guitars. If I ever have a house in the OBX, I am going to name it "Bahahaha, I'm Rich!" or "Go Ahead, Hate Me" or "Bob"). Now, we've stayed at this house before, so I wasn't surprised when I saw the name, but the timing on my dad's email and my current state made kinda go "whoa." And, the fact that I received the email when I was all wound up made me all misty-eyed to think of being in one of my favorite places with no obligations. And the name of the house is just too perfect. It practically orders you to relax. I envision this bubble surrounding the house (for those of you who play too many video games, we'll go with "force field") that strips away your stress when you pass through it. This is what I need at my own house. Oh yeah, and everywhere else I ever go. Oh, and a beach would be nice to have. The beach is pretty much my favorite thing in the world.

I haven't actually gotten to go the beach in a couple years now. Perhaps this has something to do with me being stressed... haven't gotten my relaxation fix! So, Chris and I are taking a weekend away to go camping at First Landing State Park near VA Beach in a couple weeks. We're going to bring the canoe. It's going to be awesome. Can't wait to get me some-a dat BEACH.

R's Rs:

Listening: Gillian Welch, Time the Revelator. Great album.

Watching: Bones, Season 2

Reading: Chesapeake

Workout: Bob Harper's Weight Loss Yoga. The cool down is RELAXING...

1812 Overture

Man, TGIF times a zillion! What a week. I've been super-stressed. Super-dee-duper-stressed, actually.

So, the night-before-last, Chris and I watched a particularly tense episode of Bones. It wasn't exactly scary per se, but it was one of those edge-of-your-seat, holy-shit-what's-going-to-happen-next types. So, after the episode, I went to the bathroom (It feels weird to announce this fact on the Internet. I WENT TO THE BATHROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!! Ok, I think I can get into announcing weird things like that). When I finished washing my hands, I opened the door, my head full of the types of musings that can only occur when worshipping the porcelain goddess, and there was Chris squatting on the right of the door, making a crazy face, waiting in eager anticipation of my eventual F-(*&%#&%-in' FREAK OUT.

After watching the very tense episode, I was, well, quite tense. So, essentially, when I exited the half-bath, Chris successfully scared the shit out of me, just as he had planned. I jumped out of my skin, left it on the ugly lineoleum, heard myself shriek, and ran my skinless self up the steps. My heart was doing the 1812 Overture. An up-tempo version.

Now, Chris used to do this to me on a regular basis. I got so used to the fact that he was going to try to scare the shit out of me, that I would look around every corner. He used to wait behind a closed door with his $60 fiddle and drag the bow across the strings when I opened it. Shudder. Now that's scary. For serious. However, when you expect to be scared, scare tactics fail. The element of surprise is gone. Well, since it had been so long since Chris had tried to terrify me, I was ill-prepared. Plus, as this was the night of the stressed out Julie and Julia watching, I was already a little on edge. Ok, maybe a lot on edge.

The other thing is, I'm a naturally wound-up person. I'm the girl who jumps and hangs on the chandelier when a kid's balloon pops. I gasp! alot.

I was pissed that Chris decided to scare me when he knew I was already so wound up, but he thought it was hil-ar-i-ous. He eventually started feeling bad though (as. he. should!) and let me order him around for a bit: GET ME A GLASS OF WATER! (:

Sigh. I guess I have to keep my guard up again. Or, I suppose I could go on the offensive. That's the ticket!

On a separate note, I have two (2) gigs this weekend, both of which will be taking up a LOT of time. So, the next post may be a few days away. In the meantime, have a great weekend!

R's Rs:

Listening: The Waterboys. 80's Pop meets Irish Traditional. Sweetness.

Watching: Valentine's Day (from Red Box, which is a dolla!)

Reading: Chesapeake

Working Out: Weight Loss Yoga

Ryan & Ryania

Well, I had more than a slightly stressful day. Girl-On-Verge-of-Tears-at-Office no do stress well! I think I may be giving myself an ulcer for my 25th birthday. I seriously need to learn to chill out. The problem with me is that chilling out does not come naturally at all. I actually do need to LEARN to chill.  I need to take "Chilling 101" or something. Although, I may very well fail a class like that (by being too concerned with doing well).

Anyways, to unwind after my day-from-hell, I scoured the Netflix Instant choices for the girliest, chickiest chick-flick I could find to get my mind off of things (and since Chris works late today, I could totally get away with it; no moans or groans or exaggerated sighs or anything). The thing about Netflix Instant is that it mostly has crappy movies to watch; the good stuff is mostly saved for the discs. So, when I found Julie and Julia on there, I was quite excited. Not only do I LOVE food, but I also LOVE blogging! And Meryl Streep! And French things! And love stories! And...well, you get the picture.

I love that Julie (Who is Julie Powell, the woman who actually wrote the Julie/Julia Project blog) ends up being able to use her blog as a springboard to a career as a writer (why would I love that? Just cuz.....). The thing is, Julie Powell had a thing. I don't want to say a "gimmick," but rather something that made her stand out while simultaneously appealing to a mass audience (my mom told me that everyone saw Julia Child's TV show when she was young). But, she also had all of Julia Child's work (her cookbook, which represents 8 years of work) to use as material. That's why the movie/book is is Julie AND Julia. Here it's just Ryan and... well, that's it.

Sometimes I wonder if I should focus on one particular theme as the subject for this blog, but I wonder if I wouldn't exhaust the possibilities too quickly. I tried writing a blog for small-breasted women for awhile, but I did end up running out of ideas. Plus, part of the fun of a personal blog is getting to write about whatever whenever. The scary part is wondering if anyone is enjoying it, or even reading it at all.

So, thank you to everyone who has read this even once. This site got up to 2,500 hits today, which is awesome (though I'm sure about half of that number is related to me!). I'm really enjoying writing about my life, and I love having the freedom to be goofy when I'm feeling goofy, and serious when I'm feeling serious.

Ok, gotta run. There are so many things I have yet to stress about today, and I wouldn't them to feel left out.

RYAN'S RECOMMENDATIONS:

Listening: Chris Thile Pandora station. Relaxing. Ish. This morning a DJ mispronounced "Thile." (He called him Chris "Tee-lay." I shuddered. It's "Theelee" for those of you aren't familiar. You're allowed to mispronounce it. DJs ARE NOT.

Reading: Chesapeake by James Michener.

Watching: Julie & Julia!

Working Out: 30-Day Shred, Jillian Michaels.

Chris in Pictures

Chris sent me a really sweet text message today (if I told you what it said, he'd probably get mad. He doesn't want private things discussed in too much detail on my blog, so I shall respect his boundaries. And then I shall push the envelope as far as I can until he gets pissed.... muahahahahah!). Anyways, it made me smile at work (sometimes hard to do), which has inspired this next bit. This is "Chris in Pictures:"

Chris said he didn't really want pictures of his face on my blog. Oops. Pushing that envelope...

Just a small look at something only I will probably ever really get. Ha, sucks to be you! (: Anyways, Chris can't get mad at me for posting about him, because I cooked dinner tonight. That gives me leverage. At least until the end of the day... Living with your boyfriend is FUN!

RYAN'S RECOMMENDATIONS:

Listening: Chris just went out to band practice with our friend Galen Curry, who recently put out an album called Some Perspective. Chris plays the electric guitar parts on most of the songs. Check it out!

Reading: Chesapeake. This really is a great book. I wish I had more to read in general. This book makes me want to drop everything, spend my savings on a sailboat, and hit the horizon with my man (don't worry  mom, not gonna just yet)!

Watching: Bones, Season 2. This show is awesome. There are icky parts though, and I'm the kind of person who has to turn away from the TV screen! Anyways, I'm not usually huge on murder dramas, but the characters are fantastic, and I'm a sucker for clever characterization.

Working Out: I'm sore from soccer! Today I'm stretching a lot. But, I recently heard from a friend who just did my beloved 30-Day Shred DVD for the first time, and she's a hurtin' pup! It's way intense, but works so well. Check it out if you're interested!

Today I....

Played soccer! For the first time in YEARS. I joined a new local women's league and went to a pickup game today. I think real games start next week. Anyways, it was so much fun! And, holy crap, it was a lot of running. My workout DVDs are great, but they are a mix of strength and cardio and are quite short. Running for 90 minutes is not something I've tried to do in like 6 years. I now also have a HUGE blood blister on my big toe. Yummy. I didn't think about the fact that the huge calluses I used to have on feet are long gone. I also didn't realize how much I really missed playing.

When I was in high school, soccer was my life. In fact, when I was a freshman, I wanted to play college ball and eventually play professionally (though, at the time, the only way to do that was to make the national team). I worked really hard and happened to luck out with some amazing teammates and coaches. In fact, the travel team I played on later in my high school career was one of the best things in my life at the time. Things on that team just clicked. We all had an amazing chemistry on the field and off the field. It's hard to describe to someone who has never played before. I was not the fastest, or the best at any one thing, but I think I had an intuition thing going on. I was a smart player, and I was decent at distributing the ball. We had some great times, traveled to a few places for tournaments, went whitewater rafting, and just really enjoyed each other's company. Ah, I'm getting misty-eyed (I do that a lot)!

High school soccer was fun for a little bit, but there was a lot of pressure and my love for the game was slowly replaced with stress and frustration. Plus, I had a nasty ankle injury sophomore year. I was completely ignored at that point, because I was, for all intents and purposes, useless. That was a pretty hard thing to deal with.

Also, as I started getting on towards the end of high school, I started getting interested in things besides soccer. I realized that there were so many things I didn't get to do because I was spending every second doing sports. I started getting into music, and eventually started playing guitar. I also wanted to spend some more time building a social life. I was working a part-time job and getting really into the academic part of school. I wanted to have time to join the History Club, etc.

But, after all this time, I do really miss playing soccer. It was such a huge part of my life and is a big part of who I am now. I miss being on a team. I miss having a 12-18 girlfriends without even having to think about it. I miss having that outlet for stress. Today, I even realized I miss the small ritual of sitting in the grass and putting shinguards, socks, and shoes on; it was always a time of contemplation for me. It's great that my town has started a women's league, and I'm happy I'll get to play a few games.

Sigh. I'm gonna be sore tomorrow!

RYAN'S RECOMMENDATIONS:

Listening: I've been listening to the CD my dad made me for high school graduation. One of the songs on it is "Wouldn't it Be Nice" by the Beach Boys. I was obsessed with the Beach Boys when I was young. I remember listening to them on cassettes with my Walkman.

Reading: Chesapeake

Watching: Bones, Season 2. Some crazy forensics shit. And, perhaps a budding romance.

Working Out: Played soccer today (as I may have mentioned before...). Sports are so wonderful. You get a workout while you're having fun and not even paying attention to the fact that you're exercising. Yeah.

Flannelynn

I'm getting ready to head out to the local pub to play a show with my band. Getting ready for a gig invovles a lot more attention-to-wardrobe-type-detail than I'm used to. Today I'm wearing my brand new boots and dress from Old Navy (everyone who knew me in high school and college is most likely gasping. Gasp! Ryan in something other than her Birkenstocks and red flannel? No! Surely not!). That's right. Birkenstocks and a red flannel (If this were a movie, the last part of that sentence would be echoing to emphasize the horror that the watcher is supposed to feel: "and a red flannel... and a red flannel... and a red flannel... and a red flannel... and a red flannel... and a red flannel... and a red fla-"). Stop judging! I LOVE my Birkies and my red flannel. In fact, I love my red flannel so much that I named it "Flannelynn."

Flannelynn and I found each other my freshman year of college. My good friend and I went to a thrift store, and there, right on the rack of $1.50 shirts, hung my dear, sweet Flannelynn. From then on, we were inseparable. I literally took her (yes, "her.") everywhere. It was the perfect shirt for me; I often found myself cold when others weren't, and I would just put Flannelyn on. My uniform was a band T-shirt (often a Beatles shirt), flared jeans, my Birkenstocks, and Flannelyn. I got so much crap for my red flannel. The whole reason I even wanted a flannel was that I tried on my friend Jared's flannel shirt once. It was so comfortable! Flannelyn eventually became my security blanket. I felt strange if I went somewhere without her. I've had her for like 6 years now, and she has ripped, lost buttons, stretched, and faded.

Nowadays, I'm trying to branch out a little in terms of what I wear. This is partially due to the fact that I play a lot of gigs and am hyper-conscious of the fact that people are looking at me. But, at the same time, I'm also a little sick of my old "uniform." Not that I am discarding it or anything. I just want to explore other options.

I haven't worn Flannelyn in awhile, but maybe I will tomorrow after work. That sounds nice!

Another funny thing: I went through my facebook pictures and counted 17 pictures that include Flannelynn. Maybe I should tag her.

Here is a "Visual Ode to Flannelynn:"

RYAN'S RECOMMENDATIONS:

Listening: Galen Curry, Some Perspective. It's totally sweet.

Reading: Chesapeake.

Watching: Bones, Season 1 and Sex and the City, Season 4

Working Out: 30-Day Shred. Hardcore.