Arrested Development. I want to learn how to do three variations on a chicken noise and to audition with Tobias Funke.

But, guys, how great was The Office last night? I squealed.    

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Oh yeahhhh. It’s the seven minute version of I’ve Seen All Good People with the earth-shattering organ solo. Thanks, last.fm!

Mumsy and Dad raised me to have good manners. Please, thank you, holding doors open, smiling and being polite in general . . . so it’s sort of funny that I have to make a conscious effort to be nice when I’m emailing people for help.

I had to email several people at OU (alma mater, O-hiiii-ooooooooo) to
work through some headache inducing issues, and I had to make a
conscious effort to be both coherent and reasonable. Going through
thousands of messages in a day makes you cognizant of what you like and
what you don’t like to have to read. Suffice it to say that I wrote my
message, erased it once and rewrote it before it had the tone I wanted
to convey.

Answering lots of messages has made me realize that the tone people take in e-mails is usually very similar to their spoken tone – either very casual or not as polite as I’d hope to be in a message. It’s also made me realize that most every angry “rargh, something is wrong and I’m furious” email I send is going to be read by somebody whose job it is to sort through my wrath.

So, to sum things up, I promise to be nice to you if you email me asking for help. I might even put “xoxo” at the end, but that’s not terribly professional.

What up.

So, although it seems relatively far away, November is rapidly approaching, and for me – and many others – that means it’s time to write a book.

National Novel Writing Month, or Nanowrimo for short, is a non-profit movement to make you write a 50,000 word novel over the course of a month. The aim is not to turn out the Great American Novel, but rather to take the “oh, I’ll get to it someday” approach to achieving goals and smash it.

In my case, the end result is nothing special in total – it’s a hastily written, autobiographical mess for the three I’ve done and two I’ve finished – but seeing “reading page 5/175″ in Microsoft Word is pretty striking.

So, in conclusion, help me think of novel plots.

here are some questions I’ve answered either during Office Hours or just to other Xangans . . . here’s hoping this can clear up any questions you may have, but if I’ve missed something, let me know!

How old are you? 23

What’s your job? Since September 2007, I’ve been working for Xanga (and I love every minute of it) . . . and I’m a champion babysitter for a bunch of 9-year-olds across Manhattan’s Upper West Side on the weekends.

How did you get your job? I am incredibly lucky and had an awesome internship in 2006 that helped.

Do you have another Xanga site other than this one? Yes.

Do you go on the site even when you’re not at work? All the time.

Where do you live? I’m originally from a suburb of Columbus, Ohio – now living in Hoboken, New Jersey (across the river from NYC) until I can save enough to buy a penthouse on Fifth Avenue

Where did you go to school? What did you study? Ohio University (graduated in 2007 with a degree in French and telecommunications . . . cum laude!)

What instrument did you play in marching band? Trumpet. Badly.

Do you have siblings? Three younger sisters and a younger brother, aged 21-12

Who’s Ellie? An 85-pound boxer we got from the Humane Society (the name’s short for Eleanor Rigby) who doesn’t get along with our cats.

Who are Matt and Andy? My BFFs . . . both live in Columbus now and we talk almost every day. I met Matt while studying abroad in France our sophomore year at OU – his roommate back at school was Andy. We will take over the world someday.

What do you get at Starbucks every day? grande skim Misto. A++++++

What kind of music do you like? Check my last.fm! I like a lot of teen pop garbage, ’60s music and fun indieish music. and Pavement.

YIKES. This gave me a reason to check my online banking and it wasn’t pretty. I’ve been pretty responsible so far about my money – eating really cheap, not going out very often, if at all – and it goes too quickly. Let’s hope my loans don’t kick in too soon and that my security deposit comes my way in the next week.

Anyway. As of right now, rent . . . then probably food, coffee and books.

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To sum myself up in 25 words or less, I am sarcastic; commitment-phobic; addicted to coffee; indecisive; wordy; silly; a reader; a writer; often a loner; sentimental; left-handed; red-headed; ditzy; a pop culture fiend.

Word.

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In case you were wondering, I saw CrocGirl again today – she was
wearing a brown pair that (sort of but not really) matched her outfit.
I would love to see her closet.

In other news, Garrison Keillor is doing a reading tonight twenty
blocks from the Xanga offices! I’m so there. Prairie Home Companion was
my favorite movie of last year and I have warm fuzzy feelings for GK.
He’s one of those people who could read the phone book for me and I would probably never recover from the event.

 . . . off to answer emails.

Click to enlarge.

One of the things I always have trouble with is finding featured content that is

• interesting
• original content
• appealing to the masses
• appropriate for everyone

This is harder than you’d think.

I usually end up picking out photos and videos that feature fuzzy animals because they tend to fit the above four caveats. Other good standbys are sunsets, clouds, vacation spots . . . you get the idea. Every once in a while, you’ll find hilaaaaarious things like the Fleet of Segways that’s up today, but for the most part, it’s a lot of scouring for specific content.

I’d asked for three random words yesterday, and Matt recommended fluctuation, lawsuit and donut. Fluctuation brought up issues of weight/water from the ana girls; lawsuit was a bunch of articles from Reuters and donuts came back to thinspo/”omfg i ate four peas today” but also yielded some delicious looking photos that made my mouth water.

So today I was searching for a video and found one of an adorable dog who serves as a living puppet to someone off-camera. Said dog is dancing and parroting noises . . . and elicited an “awwwwwwwww” from Eugy, which I took as instant approval.

I hereby elect today and any future Fridays Fuzzy Animal Friday. Anything that makes me go, “PUPPY!” is excellent.

Bring ‘em on.

Okay, so there are a lot of you visiting my page . . . I feel like an internet celebrity. HOWEV, not too many of you are inclined to comment - which is fine! people are shy! – and I need your help. So come out of your hidey-holes for a second and please explain the following:

I was walking to work today and was stuck behind a woman laboriously lugging a briefcase (did it have rocks in it? maybe she is a rock doctor) while tripping over her Croc Mary Janes and I couldn’t stop giggling.

No, I know; they’re an easy target. But really?

Croc wearers, I implore you – fill out this quiz and explain yourselves.

1. My favorite color of Crocs to wear is _______ because _________.

2. True/false – Crocs are the most comfortable things I could possibly think of putting on my feet.
2b. Please use a simile to describe this experience (“it’s like walking on a cloud of pudding while wearing a funny hat”)

3. True/false – I realize that these are not particularly good looking shoes but I wear them anyway simply to spite people.

4. I originally bought Crocs because I thought _____________ but now I know that ______________.

5. True/false – Natalia should just get a pair for $1 across the street and see for herself.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE. Now get back to lurking.

Let me preface this by saying that I am a miserable cook. My specialty is PB&J and one minor pasta-chicken-vegetable-alfredo sauce dish with darling Andy.

My aunt and uncle, upon hearing that I have lost weight since moving out and depending on myself to design my own food schedules (duh, because cereal is an appropriate breakfast, lunch or dinner and I consider pretzels to be effective hors d’oeuvres,) sent me food! Yay! After writing a thank-you note – absolutely essential if you were raised in our family – I started ravaging through my package of snacks gleefully.

I’ve been nursing a nasty addiction to microwave popcorn for a while now. When the whole popcorn lung thing got started, I got a little worried – that was a staple in my diet for the better part of college. Whoooooooops. Anyway, my aunt and uncle are well apprised of my favorite foods, ’cause they sent me five bags of Orville Redenbacher’s finest, worst-for-you-but-best-tasting microwaveable buttery goodness.

But I don’t have a microwave. Snap.

So, being the hungry go-getter that I am, yours truly did some Googling and found out that it is apparently possible to make popcorn using the stove – and none of this Jiffy Pop nonsense – using scissors, a spoon and sheer grit. I was a little wary . . . everyone knows everything you see online is true!

This was originally a video that I recorded, but W. Movie Maker hates saving files when I’m involved. Screencaps are just as fun. Without much further ado, here’s a recipe for magic:

1. Cut open a bag of microwave popcorn and empty the contents into a saucepan big enough to hold a theoretical bag of popcorn. I hope you all know that I had to Google Image Search “saucepan” because I wasn’t sure that was the correct term. I’m hopeless.

2. Heat stove – I used a medium setting. I have gas burners, which is unfortunate and usually means I have to throw away at least three matches, lest I come close to burning my fingers. Cover saucepan (I’m learning!).

3. Once things have heated a little bit, uncover it and mix around your . . . mixture. The bottom should have plenty of the good yellow stuff covering it.

4. Wait. Apparently two minutes is the optimum time for gas stoves like mine – it takes about three for you electric-types. My apartment started to smell like a movie theater after about a minute of popping.

5. Eat.

Thank yous are also due to the internet, Al Gore for allegedly inventing said internet, Orville Redenbacher and UPS.