All weekend long, while I was away from my computer having a life, I was thinking that for Monday I should do a really spectacular blog post. So here you go, fresh from my brain.  


In case you ever need to know, and because it is very important, here are my top ten things, and my ten least favorite things, all in descending order:


FAVORITES


10. Ponies
-I realize number ten is pretty low on the list, but I like a lot of stuff and there's no way I was going to be able to move them up any further on my list. They have to be there, though. Come on, they're ponies.


9. Mythology (all sorts)
-I liked this stuff way before Hollywood made really expensive action movies with incredible effects about it. Oh, and that doesn't mean that I don't like the movies. I just really like reading about it and making up the way the people and gods look for myself. I always thought Zeus should look younger and meaner to reflect all the crap stuff he did.


8. Games (again, all sorts)
-If it's not a real game, I'll turn it into one. I don't care about winning, I just like to learn things and see how people play. Not Spoons so much, though, because last time there were injuries. Bridge is also way more fun than I thought it would be, but it makes me feel stupid because I forget the rules half of the time. It's okay because I get to throw that back on other people when we play trivia games. Ha.


7. Murder Mysteries (TV/Movie)
-I don't like graphic ones, where there's a lot of blood, and they show the violence. I like the old ones, where there's a super smart detective that figures it out with just his/her smartness, like in Columbo or Ellery Queen or my favorite: Murder, She Wrote. I know someone who's just like Jessica Fletcher and it makes me giggle. Midsomer Murders is also good, even though it's a little bloody.I think the cheesy synthesizer music helps tone it down enough for me. Of course, I like Monk, too. He makes me feel like I need to wash my hands even more than I do now.


6. Cleaning my house
-Sometimes I'm a little slow to start, but I flipping love cleaning my house. I have a day scheduled for it on my calendar, and we don't really deviate from the schedule unless it's pretty important. I'm guessing this one may be a little hard to understand, but I like my house and my stuff so much that I like taking care of it and keeping it clean. If I had a bunch of stuff I was ambivalent about, I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't want to dust it all, either. Or maybe the OCD would just kick in. I'm not sure.


5. Murder Mysteries (Books)
-If I had to choose between the TV ones and the book ones, it'd be books every time. Why? Books are way creepier to me: I like the way the words look on the paper, and the way the old books from the library smell and have weird stains on the pages (which grosses me out, too, but I can always go wash my hands if I need to). Books are just the best. Again, this is not including books by people like Stephen King or anyone recent. I love old books, especially from the 1930s and 40s, where they use weird slang terms and they're incredibly sexist and non-PC. Or the Inspector Maigret books, because they have a mystery and then Maigret feels sad about the case sometimes, which is cute. Plus, they drink so much beer and eat all kinds of sandwiches, and I am also a fan of those things.


4. Baking
-Pretty self-explanatory there. I'm pretty good at it, so I have to limit myself to certain things that I can fit into my diet, like cookies. For instance, a couple of weeks ago, I made homemade Danish pastries, which was a disaster. They were so good, we couldn't stop eating them and then we didn't have anything else for two days, using all of our allotted calories on pastries. You may not gain weight that way, but your stomach will rebel at some point. Worth it, though? Heck yes.


3. Music
-All kinds, really, listening and singing and playing. Anything to do with music. That's about all there is to it, except that I hope to one day convince everybody that Mozart wasn't all he's cracked up to be, and that things that sound less perfect can be more interesting.  Listen to someone else, like Debussy or Prokofiev, and you can hear what I'm talking about.


2. My family
-Where else can you have a farting contest, eat nothing but cake and posole for three days and make videos of yourself and/or chin puppets lip-synching Christmas songs? Nowhere except my parents' house, because my family is awesome.


1. My husband
-Okay, it was a tie between cake and my husband on this one. I'm sure he understands, because he knows the depth of my feelings towards cake. He won, though, because cake never takes out the trash, and my husband knows how to fix way more stuff than cake does. Plus, he's super cute.


LEAST FAVORITES


10. Reality shows
-Seriously, can we get some more shows that are not real?  I get enough reality in my own reality without wanting to watch other people's reality that looks suspiciously unreal.  There you go.


9. People that make out in public
-That is just gross.


8. Exercise thong lady
-Okay, so I don't know if everybody does this, but my husband and I have nicknames for people we don't know that we see frequently, and this is the one that I'm pretty sure annoys us both the most.  She's always right after me at some appointment and she's always wearing a really short shirt and a super-tight pair of spandex bike shorts, under which is a very obvious pair of thong underwear.  MSN had an article about people who wear thongs during exercise getting fecal matter traveling up the thong to the other side (you know what I mean), so now we can't stop laughing every time we see her.  Plus, she's always doing stretches or jogging in place while she's waiting for me to be done, which is also annoying/hilarious. It also leads me to:


7. Women in their 40s/50s and above who dress like they're 16
-I don't mean stylish women who wear things that are fashionable. I mean the ones who are wearing skinny jeans and short, tight tank tops. That stuff even looks like crap on most of the teenagers who wear it. Come on. Please. Step away from the junior's section. I don't mean you need to wear a sack, but it's embarrassing for the rest of us, and I can't even imagine how your kids must feel. When your boobs are threatening to peek out from the hem of your shirt, it's time.


6. People who bad-mouth their spouses
-This doesn't refer to complaining to a girlfriend that your husband is being a poo. Everyone needs to vent. This is people who say that they hate their spouse, or that their spouse is stupid or that their spouse has some sort of flaw as a human being, in front of a group of people that they aren't particularly close with or even in front of the spouse. That is craptastic. If you wouldn't talk about your kid that way, why would you talk about the person who is your partner that way? Geez. Stop and think about it: Maybe you're not so perfect, yourself, and maybe he or she talks about you that way too. Doesn't feel so great, does it?


5. No familiar tense used in English
-I realize thee and thou sound old-fashioned, but I love the usage of the familiar. Especially in the Bible, as it makes it sound like God's familiar enough with us to use that tense, and it's also pretty great in poetry. I think it's sad that we don't use it anymore. Then I could say, "Thou art lame," without sounding like a freak.


4. Beets
-Beets are disgusting. That is all.


3. People being mean in the name of God
-Wait, aren't we supposed to love everybody? Doesn't that mean all people, not just the people you think are living the right way? Yeah, that's what I thought. No good reasons, just people being mean. I think you all just need to calm down. God loves everyone, you should too (note that this doesn't keep you from laughing at people; I'm pretty sure that God does that too, because we are hilarious).


2. People who are mean to old people
-I see a lot of old people in the course of my day, and I see a lot of grumpy caretakers.  I know it's a hard job, and I applaud you for taking it on, but I will take my stapler and cram it up somewhere it's going to be hard for you to remove if you keep talking to that old man like that.  Seriously. Give him a minute; he's old and confused, probably freezing his butt off, and he can't remember why he is where he is. Just talk a little nicer to him and remember that someday you'll need someone to care for you, and you'd better hope that someone isn't me, because I will force you to watch reruns of Murder, She Wrote all day long, and then we will discuss each episode in great detail.


1. People who take everything very seriously
-If you can't laugh about anything (or everything), your life is just going to get more and more painful:  Everyone's life is hard, everyone's kids are ungrateful, everyone's parents are aging, and everyone's job is stressful. However, you should also keep in mind that:  Everyone farts, burps, poops, pees and has diarrhea. That means all of those things are fair game for making fun. Also, most people say stupid things at some point or another, and wear stupid clothes at some point or another. There you go. You can also play the radio in your car, and look out for people who are walking to the beat of your song. That is pretty fun. There's always drinking beer and eating nachos. That'll brighten up any one's day, plus later, you'll probably have some bodily functions stemming from the beer and nachos, which will also be funny. Try to find things to laugh about, as it's just as easy as finding things to be stressed or worried about but you'll be a much more pleasant person to be around, and it will definitely lower the odds of me making fun of you in my car on my way home.




Ta da! There you go. I realize I left off big things, like starving children and that kind of thing, but I just wasn't feeling up to solving all of the Earth's problems in one post. Maybe later.