Temerity Jane

It’s not November yet.

TJ: Just so you have time to mentally prepare yourself
I am letting you know now
that after today you will not see me in the office until Tuesday.
Dan: oh no
what will i do?
TJ: so if you need to take some time today to plan out some coping strategies, you can feel free to run those by me.

The same goes for you, Internet.

Anyway, I’m feeling better, finally. The nurse who works next door who often smokes outside with Dan and I told me today that she knew when she was walking up that I must be feeling better because my head is back to it’s former brightness. I was so wiped out for a couple of weeks there that everything had faded to a sort of dishwater purple color meets badly bleached vintage Kelly Bundy blonde. I’m not going to lie to you people, it was pretty ugly there for a while.

But now I am back, back to a shade of purple that makes me go “Whoa that is some serious fucking purple right there” every time I pass a mirror, and it’s not yet November. I had a dream the other night, see, that it was already November and I was already behind on NaBloPoMo and was suffering crushing guilt about failing so early due to my inability to read a calendar. I figure I’ve got some serious blogging issues if I’m suffering blog-related guilt in dreams. Normally I just dream about bears and sweet n low packets and mile long to-do lists.

But it is not in fact November yet, I have a couple more days of buffer, which is excellent for me because I am off to a conference tomorrow (Boardsource, if you’re… into that kind of thing. Boards. Not like, wooden ones. The ones made of people. Not made of people like Soylent Green kind of made of people, but comprised of people. You know, boards… boards? Anyone?), I’ll be in the office on my own for a few hours on Friday, I believe I have a lunch meeting of some sort on Saturday (hey, you read this blog, I swear, I’ll set up the lunch plans as soon as I… wait, you guys got the board thing, right? It’s for board MEMBERS. Boardsource is, I mean. Why didn’t I just say that in the first place?) and a meeting in DC on Monday that will have me out of the office, so I won’t be starting NaBloPoMo under the most auspicious of circumstances, but I totally can handle this. I did it last year. I don’t know if you could call it successful last year though. I mean, I did write every single day for an entire month, which is way more than I’m doing now, but last November was also just about the lowest traffic month in the history of this site, so not successful in the entertainment factor, I suppose. Of course, we all know that blogging is just about personal accomplishment and of course we all write for ourSELVES and not our audience and really don’t care if not a single other people ever reads it, right?

Ha!

OK ANYWAY. So guess WHAT? I’ve talked a bit on this site over the past few months about the Vlogbrothers and John & Hank Green. I definitely think you should be checking out the Vlogbrothers and John’s books if you ever get a chance. I very much enjoyed Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines. I think I liked the latter a bit better, but did greatly like both, so I was very excited to get my hands on John Green’s newest book, Paper Towns, which came out on October 16th. John and Hank are both travelling around the country right now, the first half of the tour being an actual Paper Towns book tour and the secon half being the great Tour de Nerdfighting. None of the locations that they were stopping were reasonably close enough for me to be able to attend, and I was very bummed about that, especially since Julia Nunes was at one of the events! But there have been lots of videos posted of the events, and John Green even sets up a laptop and live broadcasts on BlogTV during his signing events. They’re really great to watch, especially if you’ve been following the whole Nerdfighter thing.

Right, so, as I said I was very excited to get my hands on a copy of Paper Towns, but I haven’t been able to, because Phil went ahead and bought two. One for me and one for him. And then? He went to the Paper Towns signing event in Phoenix, and I was so jealous. He was kind enough to get my book signed, and even though John Green spelled my name wrong (he has placed an “i” in a location that is mostly reserved for creative stripper spelling), he also wrote “DFTBA!” just like my tattoo, so all is forgiven, but seriously, my first name is five letters, done in the most common spelling, and who the hell defaults to spelling it with an “i?” He was in a hurry, though, so again, all forgiven, especially because of… THIS!

John Green & Phil!!

Yeah, that’s right. That’s my blurry boyfriend with blurry John Green holding a blurry “HI TJ” sign. So now I’ve got Julia Nunes and I’ve got Sariah with the chicken nuggets and a whole bunch of other awesome pictures and John Green.

Hank Green, you are on my list, sir!

Posted in daily BS, NaBloPoMo, the blogging thing | 2 Comments »

Possibly more than you wanted to know.

But what can I say, Internet?

I like to share my joy with you.

All Nerdfighters may commence happy dances… now.

Are you feeling overshared yet, Internet? Or are you enjoying the blog of a person born without the shame gene?

The Redhead: Nice!
you should buy yourself a “it’s a girl/it’s a boy” cake to celebrate.
TJ: I bought pregnancy tests, a box of tampons and a pack of cigarettes.
I am ALL CLASS.
The Redhead: Well the tampons were optimistic.
TJ: I was hoping to influence destiny.

For the record, Internet, everything would have been just fine either way and it really would have only taken me a week or two to get over the “Oh, crap” phase and into the “shop for tiny things!” phase. But being the selfish type that I am, I am quite thrilled to be able to keep Phil to myself, hopefully for a good few years more.

Now that a large portion of the overhanging stress in my life has been eliminated, guess what! It is time to gear up for NaBloPoMo again!

Here are last year’s results. Who is playing this year, you know you want to!

Posted in daily BS, NaBloPoMo, the blogging thing, the redhead | 13 Comments »

An Afternoon with TJ & BRK – Act II

Act II

BRK: it is freaking gorgeous today – 77
i have the door opened, the pool is running, wow i chose a great day to play hooky

TJ: it’s freezing and gray here

5 minutes…

TJ: LIKE MY PRETTY SITE

BRK: where is it?

TJ: /huff
it’s nice

BRK: it isn’t

TJ: IS

BRK: isn’t

TJ: you’re dumb

BRK: you’re height-challenged

TJ: I have a height

BRK: you have a lack of height

TJ: you have a lack of awesome

BRK: i have an excess of awesome
i keep my excess awesome in a jar
but you can’t reach it, it’s too high on the nightstand

TJ: I hope you trip and fall.

Snack Break

Posted in daily BS, NaBloPoMo | 8 Comments »

November: OVER

So, the little NaBloPoMo experiment ends today. 30 days, with a post at least once a day. I don’t know what you all thought of it, both the people who participated and the people who read it all, but personally I feel like I started out well, had a big spot of icky in the middle of the month, and the end has been picking back up. I don’t know if I can keep posting every day. Posting on the weekends was pretty tough.

Out of 17 of us, 6 of us made it, provided they don’t have a seizure and miss today, which would be heartbreaking.

Ratshag – An orcly post, every day, for an entire month. He entertained gnomes, dealt with major guild drama, risked life and limb so you don’t have to, and took a nice, relaxing vacation to someplace warm.

Bremm – 30 straight days and he ain’t gonna do it no more. He’s given out tons of info this month, such s a raiding checklist, a list of what you can do to your head and where, and the cranberry salad recipe which I think must be a rare drop ’cause I haven’t found it.

Renoobed – Managed to make 30 days of content out of harassing me and Arms&Fury, blew off friends for AV, gave plenty of descriptions of the… interesting people he spends his time with, and seems to think I’ve cursed him. Oh psh. Put some Windex on it.

Big Bear Butt – Seemed to find 30 days to be no challenge at all. I’ve continued to enjoy his raid songs,

Posted in links, NaBloPoMo | 9 Comments »

Memo

Those of you have known me for a while may know about the Great Jumping On The Bed Disaster of 2002. If you don’t know about it, there’s not much to tell. I was jumping on the bed, there was an accident, there was pain, and many days, there continues to be.

(Oh, as an aside, one of the most awesome things that happened over Thanksgiving was that when I asked my dad for a hammer because the hinges on my brace were stuck again, and I was gonna bend over at the waist and start hammering around the knee area with vigor and reckless abandon, as I do (they really like that one at work), he rolled his eyes, took my brace and pulled out this little tube of I think graphite or something? And fixed them right up for me. Who has stuff like that just… around? I’ll tell you who. Dads. I kept tripping at first because I was flinging my leg forward with way more force than is now needed, but I got the hang of it and now I’m walking like I’ve been doing it my whole life!)

Anyway, right. So today, my leg hurts, my hip hurts and my back hurts. So I’ve written this memo, for the people I work with.

Attn: Co-workers

Subject: Office attire

Co-workers, you may notice something a bit off today. Let me lay out the new procedures for you, applicable Friday, November 30th.

Things I will do:

Wear sneakers.

Things you will do:

1. Get over it.

2. Live.

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.

TJ.

Posted in daily BS, NaBloPoMo | 4 Comments »

Re: My new design and you great big babies.

/sulk

That is all.

Posted in NaBloPoMo, the blogging thing | 18 Comments »

I have you guys SO fooled.

This kind of made my day.

But it’s only 9am, so we’ll see if the warm fuzzies… ok, ok, in my case, more like the tepid less-pricklies… last throughout the day.

You go on ahead and write some more, preferably about how awesome I am, double preferably about how BRK is noticeably less awesome.

ANYway, speaking of blogs, and blogging, and whatnots (I was, sort of, you know), how many of you people who read are just blog readers, and how many are blog writers? I know the status of most of the regular commenters and make an effort to stop by all those blogs, but I think The Great Mofo Delurk proved there’s a lot more of you out there.

If you’re just a reader, do you read a lot of blogs, or just a couple? And why don’t you blog yourself? Time? Nothing to say? Can’t live up to my awesomeness so you don’t see the point in even trying?

Yeah, that last one, it’s an epidemic sweeping the internet.

And also, if you’ve got a blog I don’t read yet, your own or someone else’s, let me know. I mean, you know, good ones. I can find crap really easily. But what’s the point of have a readership if you’re not going to do some legwork for me? You think I spout off all this brilliance for the pats on the back?

Up yours.

Posted in NaBloPoMo, the blogging thing | 13 Comments »