megfowler.com

“Hi, I’m Meg, and I’m a Facebookaholic.”

“Hi Meg!”

“I honestly thought I could handle it on my own, but now it seems like I update my status multiple times a day (even though I’ve just been sitting at my desk drinking coffee), and I can’t seem to go an hour without trying to search for some guy I had a crush on when I was seven. Or thirty. Or whatever.

I realized I had a problem today when I got an error message and started to tremble.

I don’t think it was the two pots of coffee.

But that’s a different addiction altogether.

What was I saying?”

This is how you know it’s Web 2.0… it starts with “Hey.”

Well, hey yourself, Facebook.

LET ME IN.

I’ve never been one for magicians.

I’m not quite sure why.

I do love sleight-of-hand — the kind of thing David Blaine used to do before he went absolutely insane — and I love watching little kids go wide-eyed at a good trick, but I would never go out of my way to see a big magic show with people being cut in half and scarves being pulled out of ears and a girl in a sparkly bathing suit doing her best Vanna White.

I used to think it was because I hated illusion and the feeling seeing something that you know isn’t really happening… but then I discovered plumping lip gloss and that was that. Bring the illusion, I say!

I use the word magic all the time, though.

I love calling people magic when they do something amazing or lovely or utterly true.

I love calling a song magic if it thrills me to the core and forces me to dance and listen to it 10,000 times.

I love calling the weather magic if a thunderstorm is brewing, or the sky is cloudless or lit up with fire red and violet at the end of a summer day.

I love calling my laptop magic because, lo, it doth not crash.

I love calling pregnant women magic, because there is definitely a rabbit in THAT hat.

I love calling boys magic when they wear non-white socks.

I love calling the ocean magic because it does what it does and I never get sick of watching.

I love calling coffee magic… well, no, coffee is actually magic.

I love calling myself magic when I manage to make the perfect bernaise or find a new type of flip flop that is extra happy for my feet or actually get through a whole day without saying anything regrettable or injuring some part of my body.

I know my definition of magic is at odds with the true definition because all my “magics” are pretty attainable.

But then again, I figure that’s the best way to see it, after all.

Pieces, pieces, pieces of me.

(putting the cute in subcutaneous since 1974)

I didn’t look in the mirror this morning.

Let me tell you, fair readers — a lack of vanity is not always rewarded.

I was late for work for the first time ever (really…the first time ever!), and blew into my office without a dab of makeup, and some pretty sketchy hair.

And when I say sketchy, I mean nightmarish. You know that awful, unsettled feeling you have when you wake up from a bad dream? Yeah.

That was my hair.

I have weird locks — they tend to be both flat and frizzy. If you try and add body to combat the flatness, the frizz feels free to explode my ‘do into something akin to a Brillo pad. But if you try and combat the frizz, well… I end up looking like I was cleaning the ducks from the Exxon Valdez spill with my ebony strands.

In short, it takes some effort to make me resemble something other than a Tim Burton movie.

Three different people today, including the driver of my commuter bus, mentioned that I looked a bit ‘off’. This probably had more to do with stress than my actual appearance, but I was firmly weirded out by a middle aged guy in a uniform (I think his name is Ted, although I think of all bus drivers as being named ‘Otto’ — a joke from French class in ninth grade) telling me that I looked a bit ‘hectic’.

I guess I could take it as a compliment… maybe I look unusually composed the rest of the time. I am a smiler, for sure, and a ‘please-and-thank-you’ kind of girl, so perhaps I wasn’t grinning today. Hard to say. But he looked concerned, as did the man who sat across from me.

And by concerned, I mean ‘totally disturbed’.

When I finally got to my desk, I took out my hand mirror to inspect the damage, and was somewhat horrified by what I witnessed in the tiny reflection.

Remember that sunburn from a few days back?

Today I was peeling.

And when I say peeling, I mean that I appeared to be the victim of a drive-by decoupaging. Entire chunks of my visage were flapping with gossamer glee in the blast of the air conditioning above, and I couldn’t help but let out a gasp of horror.

I think someone affirmed my horror from another desk nearby.

“Sunburn finally peeling?”

I didn’t even have words.

I ran to the restroom to remove the slipcover from my nose, and was met in there by a girl that I often see around my office. She looked a little startled by the sight of me, and I think perhaps she might have washed her hands a little more quickly at my approach.

I wish I’d thought to remember/ask for her name, but instead, I was ripping at the strips of skin hanging from my forehead. That’s not something, in case you didn’t know, that really draws people in. Rather, it makes them crave immediate distance from your scaly, hideous mug. She left without a word.

And I… well, I peeled on, eyes wide, jaw set. Once I’d gotten rid of most of the offendingly tenuous layer of epidermis, I headed back to my desk to grab my wallet.

I needed a coffee, stat.

At the coffee shop, the lovely counter girl took my order, and asked me to repeat the kind of muffin I wanted. I couldn’t actually remember what I’d asked for, so I scratched my head… you know, the “Hmmm” scratch. Except that part of my face came off when I did it.

All the businessmen in line behind me, who were waiting with barely disguised impatience for me to choose Cranberry Oat or Apple Cinnamon, cringed. The girl cringed. I cringed. I chose Cranberry Oat.

The rest of the day went okay from there. I didn’t touch my face at all anymore, unless I was looking in a mirror (which I examined myself in frequently — that is, as often as I could without looking nutso).

I managed to cease spontaneously exfoliating by around 2 pm. I also stopped doing spot checks. This was unwise.

I really thought I was completely home-free as far as embarrassment went (for today, at least), until I went to test out a new lipstick shade in the mirror at the MAC counter.

Ack.

My nose was bleeding, which it does very infrequently during high allergy season. My face was splotched with AB positive.

I wondered why none of the panhandlers had been approaching me today.

Suffice it to say, I went hunting wildly for tissues, and eventually (in the midst of my harried clean up) caught the eye of the same makeup guy who had talked me into green eyeshadow a few weeks previous. It was awkward. He stared, I bled. It appeared that he had no idea what to say, so I broke the silence (while wildly attacking my nose for the second time that day) and held up the lipstick:

“Do you have anything else in red?”

“Yes, ” he said, smirking. “Apparently, so do you.”

This guy is very sweet when he speaks of my blog on the radio.

Then he puts me on the air.

Uh oh.

To tell the muffin joke. And a peanut joke.

(Which Johanna says I told wrong but OH, WELL.)

Don’t worry. No one understood it anyway.

You can Google “muffin joke” and find the very one. I don’t know why it makes me laugh so hard.

I mean, I’ve told it completely deadpan a million times, after we heard it on THE BACHELOR. That’s right, on The Bachelor.

AND IT’S NOT EVEN THAT FUNNY.

For some reason, though, I could barely get it out yesterday. By the end of the night, I could tell it without losing it, and when I would laugh, Catherine would abuse me and tell me I was just being silly by that point.

But I AM silly.

I’m just not telling you the joke.

(Because someone told me to “look for the light.”)

1. Trying to tell the Muffin Joke. I cannot make it through the Muffin Joke. Honestly. There is no hope for me with the Muffin Joke. All I do is laugh and laugh and laugh. It’s the best joke on earth.

2. A cold can of gingerale and a very skinny straw.

3. All my plants are getting too big for their green plastic pots.

4. Scrubby lemon soap in the shower this morning.

5. I got to work before it really rained.

6. Black ballet flats with white polka dots.

7. My sweet roommate making dinner plans for us.

8. The fact that our bottle of Lysol at work has a “cozy.”

9. “Damn, Girl” on my iPod when I was running to catch the bus. I was all Mary Tyler Moore.

10. Three words: Peanut. Butter. Cup.

No, no.

I’m alive.

And no, being on the radio to flail at my 15 seconds (plus!) of fame didn’t ruin me for writing forever. Don’t worry.

It was a very fun blip in my life, though, getting to babble to an audience many times larger than the sweet, sweet people that find their way to this site (and the guy searching for “ways to find hot girlfriend”, too, i guess.)

But you guys know me best.

So. Yes. Two days of non-blogging (almost), but I’m okay. My mind has been racing in a million different directions, though, which usually either results in a massive flood of posting (followed up by a massive flood of deletions) or complete silence.

I’m working on achieving a balance there, but for now… I’m just opting for coffee.

What?

Anyway.

Hi!

How are you?

Hope everyone is doing well. I’ll be back at it tomorrow in all my prattling glory, but for now, I leave you with camera phone pictures (which are the only kind you will get until I can afford my Nikon D80… see you in 2009!) of the pink things that brought me delight today.

Now THAT’S fine blogging.

The pink peonies I bought at Whole Foods. Not organic, nor infused with flax, nor suitable for consumption with Stilton.

Ah, my lip gloss. How you have glossed me. Note the yoga ball sitting in the corner because it was BAD! BAD! HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME FEEL GUILTY FOR NOT DOING YOGA!

My thumbnail in Opi Pompeii Purple, which is not really purple at all. But very glossy and fun nonetheless, especially on my ridiculous little stub nails. Blech.

Ready For Bed ™ Meg and the pink hippo. My mom bought me this pink hippo. She went to San Diego with us for no good reason (the hippo, not my mom.) She’s never felt satisfied with life away from the road since then.

People ask me why I can’t sleep at night, and I say, “YOU FRICKIN’ TRY AND SLEEP WITH A CRYING PINK HIPPO IN YOUR ROOM, LAMENTING THAT SHE NEVER GOT TO TRAVEL THE WORLD.”

And they never ask again.

Okay, try this!

Meg.

On the radio today.

Just for a bit. Nothing special.

You can listen to it on the web at 95Crave.com at 3pm (ish) PST. Just click on “listen live.”

Or if you live in Vancouver, it’s on your FM dial at 95.3.

Come listen to me make an ass of myself! Out loud! And I can’t even delete it after I’m done!

My voice sounds like a chicken on quaaludes. With bad allergies. And a tic.

Imagine!

Update: Complete with a goat impression.

I do not have a broad skill set.

Well, I am a broad. And my ass is rather broad. I actually enjoy broad beans, though they taste a little… papery? Pasty? Do you know what I mean? That kind of “meh bleh bleh” tongue-tutting sensation?

Right, right… skill set.

I’m good at a FEW things, but not a lot of things. And I’m actually HORRIBLE at things I can’t do. And when I say horrible, I mean disastrous on a level where people might be in danger and small animals WILL explode.

These are my primary skills:

Writing: I am a fairly proficient writer, though I tend to bend grammatical rules and have a somewhat “precious” sort of structure in my personal work.

In other words? Yeah. That. Exactly.

Cooking: I am a fairly decent cook, though I have not really tackled complex tasks like the baking of bread or dramatic sauces which threaten to erupt into flames if you leave them anywhere near the stove after the butter clarifies.

What?

I also like salt too much, and tend to add lemon where lemon should not go.

(Like my eye. That HURTS.)

Singing: I am a fairly decent singer, though mostly when I am singing quietly along with the radio or iTunes. Then I can blend in to the studio production and somehow convince myself that I hit that note right along with Stevie Wonder, thank you very much.

When I sing on my own, I can generally carry a tune and stay on key, though my actual tone might be described as… unremarkable. That said, I will never offend anyone with my singing voice. My speaking voice has that covered juuuuust fine.

Boyfixing: I am a fairly decent consultant on all things fashion and cosmetic for men, partly because I was raised by a man who takes such things seriously, and partly because I used to comb the pages of GQ looking for Ralph Lauren ads to put up in my high school locker.

(Is it odd that Ralph Lauren models look 17 to me now? Did they always look 17, and I didn’t notice because I was 17?)

I’ve picked out skin care regimens for the boys in my life, stolen drawerfuls of white socks, counseled on the length of pants, and demonstrated that ironing need not be the most arduous and horrible task on earth. And the objects of my counsel? Dudes get MARRIED and EVERYTHING.

(Not to me, yet, mind you… but I kinda have this fantasy of falling in love with a guy who arrives in my life with his own bottle of moisturizer and tanned feet. Purrrrr.)

Cleaning: I’m a REALLY good cleaner. I REALLY like cleaning. Cleaning may be the thing I am best at in the whole world, but I’m radically inconsistent about organization. That’s why my room swirls into chaos a good portion of the time (which just seems ironic, don’t you think? Not like rain on your wedding day, though.)

And I only clean what I want to clean. But man, it’s clean when I clean it.

Googling: I’m a very proficient Googler. I can find you anything you want, if it actually exists on the Web. Is this a gift? I’m not sure. But it comes in handy when you want to look informed on really obscure topics. Which brings us to…

Trivia…ing: Ohhh, trivia. How I love you, Trivia. And remember you. And win at games that require extensive knowledge of you. My brain is like a steel trap for information that can only be used in competition. I have dreams of going on Jeopardy. But they’d likely just ask something about famous mathematicians, and I’d be hooped (see “Math” later in this post.)

Kidding: I’m pretty damn good with children, too. But that’s as much due to years of experience as any natural ability. Though I am the… Baby Whisperer.

Finally: fairly okay dancer; helpful with wedding details; killer at remembering song lyrics; possessed of fine penmanship; shows some talent for doodling; and yes… is quite the confident public speaker.

But that’s where things become somewhat tragic.

I kinda suck at everything else.

What is everything else, you ask?

Everything else:

Putting together Ikea furniture: It’s almost as though I lose about 100 IQ points when someone hands me an Allan key. The diagrams are just as obscure to me as the product names. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a shelf you screw into a wall, really.

IT’S NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

I have been mocked about this more than almost any other deficiency in my life (except for the following one), mostly because I literally begin to drool when I see that my new Glinglefarb has NOT come pre-assembled.

Driving: Okay. I’m outing myself here and now, and you can freak out about it in the comments and ask all sorts of awkward questions like DO YOU HAVE ARMS and ARE YOU A FREAK and WHY FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY and MAN, I’D HAVE KILLED MYSELF IN HIGH SCHOOL IF I WAS LIKE YOU.

I don’t have a driver’s license.

Don’t say I don’t open up to you on my blog.

NO, it was not taken away, YES, I have had my learner’s several times, NO, I have no emotional or physical difficulties that prevent me from driving, and YES, I have driven many times (Standard, no less!) … I just never got around to sealing the deal.

Now I don’t really have anyone to teach me, or the time or money for lessons, so it’s getting a bit ridiculous. Before, I could justify it by saying I was either too poor to have a car and pay for parking, or that I was being all environmentally responsible by opting out. I just look dorky at this point, though.

I don’t beg for rides or skip chipping in for gas money or mooch off people, either. NEVER!

But I do acknowledge my tragic mutant status. Let’s move on.

Math: Wow, am I bad at math. If I were any worse at math, I’d be the Universal Enemy of All Numbers and Formulae. Calculators would combust in my presence. Pocket protectors would melt and fuse to nerdish skin.

I can do all the basics in my head rather quickly, but once you get past what we covered in the eighth grade, I turn bright red and wish for my own demise.

I literally wrote an essay to pass Math 12. I don’t even want to talk about it.

Line Dancing: IT MAKES NO DAMN SENSE.

Discipline: Ayyyiieeee, do I lack discipline. This is an unusual state for someone as obsessive and self-critical as I am, but HEY! I like to be different and unpredictable, just like the weather in Vancouver (see previous post.)

Granted, I can force myself to do any number of things when I put my mind to them, and I am a hard worker. Really. I work my ass off.

But when it comes to things like exercising? Yeah. See you over there at the couch, yo. Sigh. Can you bring me my yoga ball? I LIKE TO PUT MY FEET UP ON IT.

Microsoft Excel: I used to think I was proficient. Now I know I’m just indolent.

Relationships: Yep, I suck at these. The romantic kind, that is. And it’s not because I like to change men (I really only steal the socks of my platonic friends), but mostly because I’m so physically insecure that I don’t believe they’re interested in me.

Which works, because they’re generally interested in my best friend, or someone slightly to my left.

I have a good personality, I swear. And I don’t smell bad. But I am also built like a dreidel. A dreidel with odd teeth and flipper arms.

Spin me!

What?

Okay, okay, it’s not just how I look. I’m also fairly blunt-force when it comes to having opinions and expecting common decency out of people. And I hate it when people don’t tip enough or are rude to service workers or make statements about how “girls are” or how “women are”, especially if said statements relate to instability or emotionalism or materialism.

Ahem.

Ass kicker? Is that the right term for a girl like me?

I’m also one of the most loving and devoted and ridiculously accepting girlfriends you’ll ever come across, but meh.

As Gloria Estefan once said, “Woooords get in the waaaaaaaay…”

And that’s what we call a Blog Entry You Can’t Ever Truly Come Back From.

Let’s hear it for disclosure (something I am both really good at, and REALLY bad at.)

(Just SUPER good today. Thank you, non-drowsy antihistamines!)