swoon (verb): to be deeply affected by passion for (someone)

Ben informed me tonight of his dislike for the word ‘swoon’. When I asked him to explain he said it’s because other than the fact that the word just sucks, I am not a “swooner”, I don’t swoon.

What?! I SWOON! I think I’m just different than most girls and I don’t like to ANNOUNCE the fact that I’ve just turned into a bucket of emotional goo because I’ve taken great care for a long time not to let people see me weak or emotional. I’ve never wanted to be one of “those” girls.

Example:
The other night when I was right in the middle of reading New Moon Ben wanted to go to dinner. I would have gladly skipped dinner to sit and read and pine and hope that Edward would FINALLY make his way back to Bella so I could stop wanting to hate her for leading Jacob on and, SERIOUSLY, FOOD!? I was being difficult, no doubt. I wanted Mexican, he wanted the Irish Pub and finally I agreed and said FINE, LETS JUST GO THE DAMN PUB SO I CAN GET HOME AND CONTINUE BEING AN EMO VAMPIRE WORSHIPER. He asked me if I was sure the pub was okay and I yelled back calmly answered I’LL GO WHEREVER YOU WANT!

When we turned into the parking lot where the Mexican place was I asked him, “What are you doing?” And he just responded, “Going where I want to eat.”

*swoon*

He really didn’t want to go eat there but he did. And the only reason he did it was to make me happy. The car was dark and I looked the other way when the blood hit my cheeks, but trust me, it happened.

Another Example:
This is the conversation that happened tonight. To say I’ve had a few rough days would be a drastic understatement and I can’t tell you how supportive and wonderful Ben has been to me. I’ll explain all this later when I’m not feeling so ‘raw’ but he’s kept my head just above the water and I’ve never loved him more than I do right now.

And I might have taken a bit of advantage of his unwavering support when I asked him this question…

Me: So, will you go see Twilight with me this weekend?
Ben: Sure!
Me: *blink* *blink* What?
Ben: Yes.
Me: …seriously?!
Ben: Yeah.
Me: *stunned*
(a bit more unrelated conversation about Bon-Bons)
Me: So you’ll really go see it with me?
Ben: Yeah, I think could be good, I watched the trailer*.
Me: Did you swoon?
Ben: NO. And I hate that word, every time I hear it I want to throw up.

*I don’t actually believe that he thinks it’s “good”. Or even “not bad” which I think might have been the words he actually used. Either way, Twilight is NOT the kind of movie that he would choose to go to. As a matter of fact, I know, without a doubt, that Ben’s really wanting to see Quantum of Solace.

Ben, you’re choosing to partake in my idiotic 13 year old vampire on mortal love obsession because… I don’t know, I really need you right now? You love me? You know that it just means a lot to me to make a ‘sacrifice’? Because you are scared to let me loose on the general public right now? For whatever reason, I know that it’s not because you are excited to see this movie IN THE LEAST.

And I swooned.

I just turned around and stirred the food on the stove so my back would be to you when I blushed. As much as I love it when you tease me when that happens, when you see my cheeks turn red and you smile and point out to me that it’s not just cold green acid flowing through my veins, I was scared that the sudden adrenaline flow that usually follows would probably be crippling enough for me to fall to the floor and cry for three hours straight.

I do swoon and to prove it to you I’m going to make it a point to be more like those silly girls and when I swoon I’ll find a way to gracefully flaunt it in your face.

I love you.

Powerful.

I know I said it would be the end of the political blog posts for awhile but I think this is somebody every single person in the country should have to watch. If you support gay marriage, if you aren’t sure how you feel about it, and especially if you don’t, you need to watch this.

I know that I’ve completely failed the whole NaBloPoMo thing and I will touch on it in another post soon. Until then, watch the video, email it to a friend, post it on your own blog, spread the word because it’s important.

Day 6 (plus 8 hours): In which I embrace my slacktitude.

OH HEY! LOOK AT THAT! There was no post make yesterday. OOPS!

Actually, I totally sat down to post at one point but accidentally ended up playing WOW for 20 minutes then decided to “lay down to watch the rest of CSI” and then suddenly it was 2:00AM and Ben was waking me up to get into bed. At that point it was already today so I figured I’d just shoot this off first thing in the morning.

TECHNICALLY I failed but I choose to say that yesterday was called on account of stress and sleep. So, it was really just a minor delay. *nods to self* I’ll get back on track with a post this evening! Until then I leave you with the best news since… Well, since Tuesday night!

GAS DROPPED OVER $.25 IN THREE DAYS! I think this is the firt time in over a year we’ve paid under $3.00 for gas. A few months ago it was knocking on $5.00’s door.

Down $.25 in three days!

PS – I wanted to point out that Caitlin did a Me Today and I TOTALLY SLACKED! DAMN THE SLEEP! Anyway, go give her some love for being so badass!

Day 5: Declaring the winner.

I’m glad that Obama won. I was elated. I teared up during his speech. It was moving, and hopeful and exactly what I think the entire nation needed to hear. I am so looking forward to this amazing person who will be leading our nation into the future.

All that said, I’m somewhat disheartened by the reaction that I’m seeing online. Republicans saying DELUSIONAL things like “Obama is a Muslim! He can’t be Christian! He didn’t thank GOD in his speech!” Then Democrats saying “You are prejudice because you didn’t vote for Obama!”

Republicans attacking republicans for not being pissed off enough and Democrats attacking Democrats for saying that John McCain gave an amazing concession speech.

AND OH MY FUCKING GOD PEOPLE CHILL THE FUCK OUT!

What happened yesterday was AMAZING. People from BOTH sides turned out in record numbers. You fought for what you believed in, you took the time to make your voice heard, you stood in line, you made a difference! Even if your guy didn’t win, even if you voted for the opposite side as me, I’m SO PROUD of every single person that went out and voted. I’m thankful for every single person that understood the importance of this election. I’m so proud that we ALL, TOGETHER, made history yesterday.

Please, I beg you, let this be a time to heal. Lets allow ourselves to band together and use the passion we felt yesterday to work together and make the changes we all know need to be made. WE will ALL play a major part in how the next four years play out and right now, today, this very second, you can decide what kind of future you want it to be.

AND!

I promise, this is the last of my political blog posts for awhile. I want to post some about Prop 8 but I think I made it clear Monday exactly what my feelings are and, like I said above, right now I need to look forward and have faith that we will work together as a state to figure this out.

SO HAPPY BLOGGING TOMORROW! HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY!

And I might possibly do a Me Today video because I feel like shakin’ things up a bit. Have a topic you want me to talk about or a question you want me to answer? Leave a comment or use the form on the contact page to send me an email and you’ll get the answer LIVE AND IN VIDEO.

Ethics 101: Don’t Profit from an idea you oppose. It doesn’t make (ad)sense.

*deep cleansing breath*

The following is a transcript of a google chat Ben and I had this morning. Bimmerforums is a HUGE BMW community visited by thousands of people day.

9:18 AM Benjamin: there are fucking prop8 ads on bimmerforums!
9:19 AM me: For YES?
Benjamin: They’re flash, so can’t link ’em, buf if you sign in, you can probably see ’em
yes
me: Yes on 8?
WTF?!
9:20 AM WOW, I can’t believe that people are not raising hell.
9:23 AM Benjamin: you should logon, and look at the footer graphics
9:24 AM what really gets me going…
is that most of their footer graphics are tiny
like 120×60
and the prop8 images are huge
like 500×100
even taller?
strange
9:27 AM me: I can’t believe there isn’t a thread started abuot that.
9:28 AM Or that a forum would actually support for OR against such a heavily debated topic.
They should stay neutral.
Always.

Having worked for or owned forums in the past I know that as an admin (and this is ESPECIALLY true of you have advertisers, of which Bimmerforums has MANY) that you have to stay neutral in debates as heated as Prop 8. For OR against. Period. And since BF has a pretty ‘healthy’ debate forum I was surprised not to see a thread started about the ad but I was busy and didn’t have a lot of time to research so figured I’d put it off till later. Then as I was browsing my google reader feeds I came across a TechCrunch article talking about the mass spam of Yes on 8 all across the internet.

11:41 AM me: That’s a google adsense ad on Bimmerforums.
11:42 AM They didn’t put it there, Google did, but STILL. They have the ability to remove that BS
12:47 PM Benjamin: on the footer?
these are static ads
12:48 PM me: the bottom ones are. The prop 8 one is a google ad
Generaged by an ad script
Benjamin: it doesn’t change
me: I know that.
Benjamin: does that mean that google supports yes on 8?
me: Because right now, Prop 8 is paying them a butt ton of money to have it there
12:49 PM No, it means that google is giving the ad more play because they gave google more money
12:50 PM Saw this article: link
Then checked bimmerforums code and that ad is being generated by the google javascript ad software.
12:51 PM Look at my site right now!
YES ON 8! from the google ad!
@(#%(@&&(@$&(@#$@
That’s the end of google ads on my site forever.
12:52 PM Benjamin: so,…. is it google?
me: yeah, that’s what I was saying
12:56 PM I thought google ads were supposed to be relevent to what was ON THE SITE.
It was Yes on 8 on sylaa.net too and that has NEVER have a SINGLE political post. eVER
12:57 PM Fuck google.

I immediately pulled google ads off all three of the sites I was currently running them on. And the thing is, I never actually thought I’d make any money off those ads. Who ACTUALLY clicks google ads anymore anyway? I had them as more of a wink and a nod to google. I use a lot of their software. Search, gmail, Google Reader, Goolge chat, Google calendar, Google maps, Google Analytics, Google Docs to share documents with Ben… Holy shit I just realized that I’m Google’s BITCH!

Ummm, where was I?

So as kind of a show of support, I had the google ads there. Like, HEY LOOK! I like Google enough to allow them to SPAM all of you! But not anymore. When I changed my facebook status in protest Kris pointed out:

Prop 8 is about equality. Google accepted the Yes on 8 ads indiscriminately. Sergey Brin & Larry Page have donated $140,000 to the No on 8 campaign.

I kind of glossed over the “Prop 8 is about equality” because; NO! And I do understand that Google will say they were acting without prejudice to EITHER side when they agreed to allow the ad, but the last statement is what got me. My answer was:

And Eric Schmidt publicly stated he’s against prop 8, I get it. But *I*, as a site owner, don’t have to be equal. Also, I’ve never, in all my geekly web scouring, been shown the SAME ad on EVERY SINGLE site I go to with adsense enabled. EVER. It’s great they’ve donated all that money to No on 8… Wonder how much google MADE by spamming the ad all over the internet?

I’d be really interested in knowing just how much Google made off an ad that was on EVERY SINGLE SITE I VISITED WITH ADSENSE ENABLED. I have a feeling it’s somewhere North of $140,000 which I understand is money to the COMPANY, not the PEOPLE, but still! To me, the fact that you allowed yourself to PROFIT from the Yes campaign while being so AGAINST it is weak. WEAK. Stand up and take a stance! MAKE a difference! If you believe something so strongly that you are willing to shell out $140,000 towards the campaign, go the extra mile and actually BE A PART OF THE CHANGE. Don’t PROFIT from the opposing view!

I know it’s very easy for me to sit here on my glass pedestal (and isn’t it pretty?!) but after watching exhausting coverage of this election year, donating my money, sporting the t-shirts, blogging my views, I’d just like to see SOMEBODY stand up and make a REALLY bold move.

In conclusion: VOTE TOMORROW IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY! Vote for whoever you think is the best candidate for YOU and the way YOU believe gay marriage should go (if that applies to your state), JUST MAKE SURE YOU VOTE! PLEASE!

Day 2: Sleep with one eye open.

I’ve out a LOT of effort into being as lazy as possible this weekend. It was rainy and overcast and cloudy the couch was REALLY comfy and warm and inviting. Therefore rather than type up that dream I will leave you with pictures of the cat cuteness.

This picture says: “Sleep with one eye open.”
Sleep with one eye open.

This one says: “Actually, take this, this is my good side.”
Actaully, this is my good side.

We’ve recently had to kick the cats out of the bedroom at night because they (and by they I mean Hans because KC is far to fat and lazy) have been jumping onto Ben’s dresser and scratching it. Hans likes to sit there by the window and lord over the back yard from high on his Perch of Greatness.

They both have ended up sleeping with Cassidy at night which she thinks is great! But about 4:45AM EVERY SINGLE DAY, they start to get a little antsy and pace the floor in front of our door yelling GET UP AND LET ME OUTSIDE, JERKS! By about 5:00AM Hans is doing backflips against the door in protest and when Ben opens it he’s like OMG I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD LET ME OUTSIDE HURRY I HAVE THINGS TO DO AND PLACES TO PEE AND WATER TO DRINK AND WHAT THE HELL TOOK YOU DO LONG HURRY HURRY HURRY THIS WAY I’LL SHOW YOU THIS DOOR OPEN IT OPEN IT OPEN IT HURRY HURRY!

And KC is like, thank GOD you got up to let that spaz out. Now, stop what you’re doing this instant and shower me with the love I deserve for being this amazingly cute.

I have to admit that sometimes it’s the part of the morning I look forward to the most and I get a little grin at how cute and different that cats can be. On Saturdays though, on Saturdays I start to wonder what exactly is involved in the making of cat stew…

Day 1: Only 29 more chances to fail!

Today is day 1 of NaBloPoMo and I’m blogging which means I haven’t failed yet! Day 1 has been lovingly sponsored by the bullet list, the Internets way to get away with run on sentences.

  • Thank you all so much for the comments and emails after I made the previous post. All the little reminders that I was doing the right thing and to stick to it really meant a lot. You all rock.
  • It has been really rainy and crappy all day which means we spent the day napping and playing geeky games and eating chocolate ice cream. Basically, the BEST kind of day!
  • I started on this scarf last night using some hand dyed, hand spun yarn I bought off this fabulous Etsy shop. It came from Uruguay which somehow makes it seem cooler to me. This is my first cable knit scarf and so far I’m rockin’ the cables, yo.
  • Speaking of, I’ve been thinking more about highlighting some of my knitting aventures on the site. Is that something you would be interested in seeing or would it kind of mar my awesome f-bomb dropping hardass personality? You know, I have a reputation to uphold here.
  • I like pie.
  • I have some pictures to upload tomorrow. One of them involved the fat cranky cat and a witches hat with orange ringlet hair attached to it. She hasn’t talked to me in two days… which isn’t necessarily something I’m complaining about.
  • Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post which is probably going to contain a rather funny dream I had the other night about Ben getting pissed off that I bought him a Ferrari and when I woke up I was like, well yeah! Ben would totally be upset if I bought him a Ferrari, what the hell was I thinking?! Don’t worry, it will make sense to you too once I explain.