So I bought a Ped Egg yesterday at Rite Aid after being slightly emotionally scarred by the infomercials but completely intrigued. At a minimum, I walk three miles a day, so my feet are pretty disgusting, especially my heels – I’ll spare you a graphic description, but . . . they’re gross.

I opted not to buy it online because I read horror stories of people being charged $30 for shipping, having their credit card numbers run several times and never actually getting the product, etc., etc., etc. This is why I bought it in stores.

(omg, you can also buy a Shamwow there. I thought about buying one, but I don’t spill enough stuff to merit purchasing any sort of choppable polymer cleanup thingy.)

Anyway, I got it home, read the directions and went to town on my feet. It takes a while to get the motion down – you have to go left to right instead of up and down, and for a while, it doesn’t feel like it’s doing anything, so it did take a couple of minutes.

This is also kind of disgusting, but I kept checking the scrapings to see how much it picked up. It got a lot off of my foot, but I was a little underwhelmed. I think I was expecting to see large chunks of pure foot in there and that wasn’t the case.

It’s easy to clean – warm, soapy water, let it dry, store it somewhere – and is small/inconspicuous enough that you can stick it on your shelf and not have someone say “OH MY GOD IS THAT THAT GRATER THING? I CAN USE IT ON MY FEET, YES?”

So anyway, now my heels are all pretty (not sparkling like they are on the package, but I threw out my body glitter from seventh grade a while ago) and I think it was $9.99 well spent.

A+!

My college roommate is in Germany on a Fulbright, but his Cleveland pride is something even a hop across the pond can’t change. He sent me this video and I’ve watched it about 347 times over the past day and a half (caution, one quick f-word, so wear headphones if it’s not kosher):

BRILLIANT. My favorite video of the city where I live now is this one (it sums up a lot):

ha! what have you been watching on YouTube lately? (if you say Susan Boyle…well…don’t)

Here are various Xanga anecdotes:

I started my first Xanga on August 1, 2003 at the insistence of my darling sister Kat. I had a blog on another site but it was mostly for ranting about my junior year Brit Lit teacher and posting surveys that asked about your shoe size and your propensity for using certain adjectives to describe your group of friends. Xanga was something I had to ease into (my first twenty posts or so are one-liners, inside jokes long forgotten) but once I did, I was addicted.

(kat: “i told you that you would fall in love with xanga. i knew it.”)

I had, like, one sub but liked looking at my other friends’ sites because this was before footprints started – I remember one of the girls I went to school with subbed to Dan and I was, like, whoaaaaaaa, she knows him? also, why does theology necessitate a café?! Little did I realize she just liked replying to his posts. I WAS YOUNG; I DIDN’T KNOW.

Unrelated, but one time I was at Borders and I heard these two girls talking about “zonga” and I laughed really hard. I’ve heard “ex-anga” and “zango,” too.

Anyway, since (note: not “because” because of temporality!) I said peace out to Ohio after college, moved to NYC, started working here September 5, 2007 and have met about a bajillion Xangans, mostly online but some offline, too. One introduced me to a pretty dashing gentleman; one sent me cookies when I was having a crappy day; one sent me a picture of his truck and told me about what he did before he retired; one helped me keep my Misto addiction alive after killing spammers on Valentine’s Day; one sent me a postcard from Croatia! I have scary dreams about some users. I’ve been out to lunch with two Xangans. I haven’t married a fellow blogger like John has, but maybe someday. Time will tell, I ‘spose.

I guess the bottom line is that you never think that a website you take part in can become such a big part of your life. I went from blogging sentence long blogs here to checking Datingish at 3 a.m. and pouring my heart out when things got crazy. To know you have a big support system like that is pretty incredible, you guys.

I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

uh, so I had a dream that a Xangan somehow procured the drafts of three of my Nanowrimo novels (not good ones, mind you) and was threatening to post them on the site. When I asked this particular user where he/she had gotten these drafts, he/she informed me that they came from Cloris Leachman.

WHAT

what was your most vivid xanga dream? my other one was when a certain Evil Xanga Klique opponent was stalking me and my sister in a hotel and was somehow managing to break through the door locks and yell at me. that one was actually really scary…

oh happy easter and whatnot, too. the bunny brought me a bunch of chocolate – I’m sure my dentist will be thrilled

He picks me up but lets me drive. We go to 7/11, procure Slurpees and compare brain freezes*; following cranial defrosting, we go to an olden-timey arcade and play Skee-Ball until my arm is sore*. We trade in the tickets we have accrued from said ball throwing for some sort of plasticky delight (preferably a guy with a parachute that we can throw) and leave.

We go back to his place and bake cupcakes* (not a metaphor) and eat them until we either run out or feel like we may explode, take a post-baking power nap, wake up feeling too lazy to do anything else and spend the rest of the afternoon hanging out, talking, whatever.

END

I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

* = I have actually done this on a date and it was splendid

also, random, but if you remember my ranting about not liking “best” as an email signoff (see fourish entries ago), I was hoist with my own petard the other day – I had to email someone I didn’t really know and I was, like, what do I use?! Cheers? It stressed me out so I just wrote -Natalia. That works, right?

Zach just sent me this link – people whining about the Mr. Softee jingle being played all the livelong day around New York. If you are calling to complain because of an ice cream truck, I . . . don’t know what to say to you.

To me, hearing that song means knowing summer is imminent and that you can get crunchies or sprinkles whenever you want (read: whenever you can find a truck hiding on a street corner or chase one down). Delish.

Back home, our ice cream truck played The Entertainer and every single kid on the street was, like,
 
and if your mom was cool and already had $3 on the top of the fridge for just such occasions like my mom did (for three kids – our ice cream wasn’t that expensive), you would run out your front door, screaming, “I’M COMING! STOP THE TRUCK! HOLD ON! I HAVE A DOLLAR!” and you would get your ice cream delight with bubblegum eyes.

Some people did not have such cool moms. This is probably why they feel animosity toward an ice cream truck.