Phone it in Friday: Halloween

At this point, we're now just assuming that tomorrow night, everyone will magically morph into whatever they are dressed as. So let's here it: what are YOU gonna be?

We all have a hero in our heart.

I thought long and hard (heh) about this week's topic and have been waffling between two different ideas the whole time. My initial thought was similar to Heather Anne's idea: if there are going to be scary things running around on Halloween (and, let's face it, THERE WILL BE), then I want to be well-equipped to deal with them. Because, according to the episode of classic television on which this week's topic is based, if I have been magically turned into my costume then so has everyone else. Provided they all bought their costumes at Ethan's shop. BUT I DIGRESS. Let's just go ahead and assume that EVERYONE has turned into their costumes.

Heather Anne has all the vampires taken care of, thank goodness, but what of the other monsters? The werewolves, the goblins, the Sarah Palins? WHAT OF THEM, I ASK YOU. It is too much for one Slayer alone. So how can I help? Easy.

SUPERHERO. BOOM, the world is saved.

The only problem is, I'm not sure which superhero would be best. I would definitely want to be able to fly (Supergirl!). And have super strength (Supergirl?). And super speed (...Supergirl?). Can I just have all the superpowers? Or at least a lasso of truth? Plus I don't really know what kind of costume I would need in order to have ALL the superpowers. Maybe a fake resume? With all of my powers listed? Like this:

Jennie the Magnificent, One Day Superhero
Objective: To be awesome and save the world from everything.
Education: Sky High (Did you guys see this movie? It's sort of awesome.)
Powers: All of them.

Would that be enough? I NEED MORE DETAILS!

My other idea was to dress like the thing I am most afraid of: A ZOMBIE. Because then I could just blend right in with all the other scary things. No one would be after me, trying to drink my blood or eat my brains. And if a zombie came up to me with all of his zombie friends and tried to pick a fight with me, I'd be all, "Look at me, YOU FOOL, I'm a zombie, too!" except since I was a zombie, it would sound like this: ARRRAAARRAUUUUURRRRRG!

The only problem with that plan is that I might accidentally eat someone's brains during the time I was a zombie and I don't think I could live with myself if that happened, plus there's that awful brain aftertaste, so I guess I'll just be a superhero.

Or a Jedi. HOW AWESOME WOULD IT BE TO HAVE A REAL LIGHTSABER?

When you move I move with you.

So the heck, I'm not where you think I am and chances are I'm not exactly where I think I think I am, so here's what's what.

I will be spending Halloween in New Orleans. Some of you know what happened last time I was in New Orleans. I will not be repeating that, because I am not ridiculous, nor am I spending the weekend with those who are ridiculous. NEVERTHELESS.

I do not know what is less than never. AWKWARD.

I am listening to Metric and I expect you to do the same.

Also, if you see me walking down Magazine dressed like this I expect you to bjuy me a drink.

This Collective post is blah blah b;klaj I'm drink in Dallad/

She's the rootinest, tootinest, shootinest, hootinest cowgirl around

I love Toy Story. And so, it is without hesitation that I would dress up as Cowgirl Jessie in hopes of remaining her forever.



I mean, first of all, AWESOME: she is a real COWGIRL. She has cowgirl boots and she wrangles horses and drinks coffee and probably makes really good camping food. Second of all, she was ON TV. Woody's Roundup was very popular from the years 1949-1957 and spawned a whole franchise. Which also means Jessie was rich. Score.

THEN she went on to live with Andy and Woody and Buzz. Which: most fun ever.

I can't wait for Toy Story 3!
(RSSers: click through for TS3 trailer.)

Oh, I'm sorry, did I sully our good name? We're vampires.

My fight-or-flight response is weighted heavily toward flight and I blame the vampires.

It started in kindergarten, when my teacher forced my class to go to a haunted house put on by the 5th grade. I didn't want to go. I begged not to go. I tried to sneak out of line and hide in the bathroom so I did not have to go. Oh, but Mrs. Johnson made me go, dragged me by my hand into the cafeteria and cooed about this isn't so bad, is it? Just a bunch of screaming and blood and smoke — not so bad at all, right? And I'll bet she would have kept on thinking it wasn't so bad, but a vampire popped out of a coffin and I wet my pants and she had to clean it up.

Wetting your pants is not cool. If you're already the kid who's missed school to get her lazy eye straightened, the kid who wears an eye patch, wetting your pants is social suicide.

We moved out of that school district after first grade, but the vampires followed me.

On Halloween morning a few years later, I knew something sinister was afoot when the school bus opened its doors to let my sister and I board. Hanging from the door frame were orange and black streamers — lots of them — so we couldn't see the driver. Jenn got on first, then I pulled back the streamers, and to my absolute horror, a vampire was driving our bus. A fully-cloaked vampire with evil vampire teeth and a white face covered in blood.

I jumped right back off the bus, crossed the street without looking, and ran as fast as my knobby knees would carry me, screaming for my sister to get off the bus: "It's a trick! It's a trick! JENNIFER, GET OFF THE BUS! IT'S A TRICK!"

I busted through the front door of my house, still screaming, and when my parents came running, I explained through my wretched sobs that Jenn was lost to us forever.

Unfortunately, my house was the last house on the route, so the bus was full of my classmates, watching with their noses pressed to the window, as made I made my escape from the clutches of evil.

Again, we changed school districts (though now I wonder: were my parents constantly forced to move because of how I made an ass of myself with the vampires?), and again the vampires came after me. In the Halloweens that followed, a vampire with a chainsaw leapt from behind some bushes at a house I was trick-or-treating and threatened my life; a vampire bolted down the stairs of his home and wrenched open the door roaring at another house I was trick-or-treating; and three vampires in middle school stole my clothes during gym class.

To this very day, I make Amy open the door for trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

This week at the Collective, my friend Jeanne asks: If you knew you were going to turn into your costume, for just one night, what would you dress up as for Halloween?

You're probably thinking I'd go as Hermione Granger or Batwoman or Super Girl or even the villainous Catwoman. And on any other day, you'd be right. But this is Halloween. If I could turn into anyone, I'd choose this girl:



How many vampires can I slay in a single night?

Show us your farms!

And what about those FV upgrades last night, huh? Who's excited? These girls!

WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!

I tried my best to stay away from FarmVille, even though Heather Anne and Abigail were trying their best to peer pressure Kat and I into joining. And since it's impossible to say no to either Abigail or Heather Anne, join I did. When I started, I was all, "I do not understand this," and Twittered away my days with question upon question about planting and harvesting and ribbons, OH MY! Soon I caught on, and began to insist that I was a real farmer because, um, look at my FARM. It has cows and pigs and goats and CROPS and a barn and also a cat in a jack-o-lantern and I'm pretty sure you can't be a real farm without a cat in a jack-o-lantern. (I have two, so I am a double farmer.)



I reached a certain point, and I don't know when exactly it was, but I reached a certain point where I began to seriously doubt my sanity. Which, let's face it, is an everyday occurrence for me but this time was a bit different. You see, I was driving down the road and while I was sitting at a red light, I glanced to the house on my right and saw that they had a well in their front yard. Huh, I thought. That looks like the well on my farm.



And sometimes, I'd see a group of trees and think, That's silly, they should totally line those trees up real close on the edge of that field to utilize their space.



And then later, Joe and I were driving out in the country and I saw a farm and said, "My farm is way better than that," and he said, "You mean your fake Internet farm?" and I said, "YOU SHUT UP, I'M A FARMER!" and then I saw some cows and got distracted mooing at them.

AND THEN LATER, the baby elephants showed up. I had just written about how I would really like to have a pet baby elephant to ride to work and share my whiskey with and I thought the FarmVille baby elephants were too good to be true. It was at this point that I began to wonder if I was hallucinating FarmVille. I noticed that the pond on my FarmVille farm, with all its swans and ducks, looked very similar to the pond in our apartment complex. The pond with all the swans and ducks. The pond that Joe hates to go to with me because I will stand there for an hour repeating some variation of, "OMG, look at that cute duck!"



Am I stuck in the Matrix, I wondered. And then I decided no, I am DEFINITELY not, because there is a surprising lack of kung-fu in my life if I am, in fact, stuck in the Matrix. Plus, I don't even own a long, black trenchcoat. Once I decided this, I was quite relieved to see I wasn't going nutso bananas.

Now there's some Mystery Box nonsense going on that might REALLY drive me crazypants, but since I didn't get the memo on not spending my FarmVille dollars, I only have like seven of them and can't afford to buy the Mystery Box. So far, no one I know has gotten one, either, so I don't know what's in it and IT'S DRIVING ME BATTY. I just keep walking around like Brad Pitt at the end of Seven, all, "WHAT'S IN THE BOX?!" but the difference is I'd totally be OK if it was Gwenyth Paltrow's head. Um, spoiler, sorry.

On Farmville.

With all my mighty might I had to resist the urge to run my fingers through your hair so grey it's gotten, so today I must apologize for my awkwardness. No matter how I believe in private how cool I'll act in public, with you it's as though today were the first take. Gosh, you.

I still remember the day we met, how you spent the day and into the evening avoiding me, and it's no wonder now you wish you had kept on keeping your distance. I remember what you said, in your quiet accent, and it's no wonder now I wish you'd never said it. What a series of events we set off that night, it's a wonder the world didn't come crashing down.

You give me far too much credit, little girl.

No, my darling boy, I give you exactly enough.



I remember the night you chased me through the field behind my parents' house, the grasses tall and swaying about our knees, the katydids leaping jubilantly in the air as we rushed by. The night was warm and golden, as are my memories of you, as is my favorite memory of you, when you finally caught up with me behind that ramshackle barn, its green paint peeling so badly it struggled with the grey wood beneath to stay green. You caught me by the elbow and spun me around, wrapped your arms around my waist as we danced beneath the stars. That was the first time and the last time we ever danced, each step in time with each heavy breath in the warm and golden air.

That was a long time ago, little girl.

No, my darling boy, it was just yesterday.

My FarmVille Farm: A Peek Inside

Since Farmville came along, my daydreams have a gone a new direction.



There are two things I love about my Farm:

1) Looking at it and dreaming about living there.

2) Choosing my goals, achieving them, and thus, WINNING.

At first my goal was to catch up to all my neighbors--people who had been farming weeks before me. Thanks to guidance from Heather, I did this almost immediately.

Then I wanted to get all the ribbons so I bought a billion hay bales to do so. It looked like I was getting ready to torch my farm.

Then I wanted to have a pretty farm. So I got a house, and a hot air balloon, and a bike.



One day the circus came to town and I got some elephants. Too many elephants in fact. By the time the circus had left, I had 14 elephants. Sadly, they couldn't all stay on my farm.



My cute pink cottage wasn't cutting it SO I bought a ginormous farm house and opened the vineyards.



THEN they added mastery. Something new to achieve!



And that's what I'm working on right now. I've scaled back on non-crop stuff (no more elephants or hot-air balloon or animals that produce slowly) so I can get mastery on ALL the crops (even artichokes, but I'm saving those for last).



This game is awesome. Why don't you come visit my farm? Pick a pumpkin from my patch or visit the petting zoo...

Farmville: A Short History

"From breakfast, or noon at the latest, to dinner, I am mostly on horseback, attending to My Farm or other concerns, which I find healthful to my body, mind, and affairs." — Thomas Jefferson


Day 1 — We are sitting around my grandmother's kitchen table when my Aunt Andi begins talking about a new Facebook app called Farmville. She has a melodic, mesmerizing sort of voice, the kind that teachers use when they read books to children, so every story she tells — even if it's about a trip to the mailbox — feels promising, whimsical. She calls it her "little farm" and explains about plowing and planting and harvesting for coins. She says you can give gifts, like pigs, to your Farmville neighbors.

It occurs to me as she's talking that my grandparents grew up on actual little farms. They plowed and planted and harvested for real money. Well, not my grandma. She would get headaches from the sun and my great-grandma would send her into the house to rest.

I go home. I start a farm.

Day 2 — I planted strawberries last night. They wilted.

I G-Chat Andi: My strawberries died in the night!

She replies: Silly, you can't plant strawberries before you go to bed!



Day 4 — I have started a Farmville spreadsheet: cost, harvest time, profit, profit margin, potential profit per day. I email my friend Jeanne to tell her about Farmville. She emails back: "I cannot play Farmville. I am already better than you at Mario Kart, Wii Tennis and Speedminton. I don't want to give you an inferiority complex." I tell her that Farmville is not a competition. She insists, rightly, that I would make it a competition. Besides, she notes, shouldn't I be boning up for my Jane Lynch conference call the next day?

Day 5 — I have the choice of taking a shower before my Jane Lynch interview or playing Farmville for 30 more minutes. I choose Farmville.

Day 6 — I panic because I forgot to factor plowing overhead into my Farmville Cost Accounting spreadsheet. Jennie says I shouldn't run over myself with a tractor or anything because of my mistake. As if I have enough money to buy a tractor!

Day 7 — Abigail joins Farmville. Everything changes.

Day 9 — Kat and Jennie join Farmville. My life is complete.



Day 14 — Standing outside of Taco Bell, waiting for my Fourth Meal, Abigail and I have a Farmville strategy planning session by phone. She's on her way to LAX. She explains about Ribbons, which I had been completely ignoring. She asks, again, if we should really be holding onto our Farmville Dollars so tightly. I tell her we should spend the hell out of our coins, but there's no way to replenish our Farmville dollars once they're gone. I ask her to trust me. She says she will. She tells me what to order at Taco Bell. I trust her too.

Day 16 — I call my sister before sunrise. I tell her I need more Farmville neighbors so I can upgrade to a bigger farm. She tells me she will sign up for Farmville. I tell her that's weaksauce. She updates her Facebook status, asking her friends to friend me and become my Farmville neighbors. They do. I upgrade. Three times.

Day 19 — The Collective is on a Farmville evangelical tour. Our bullying works. We should start a religion.

Day 20 — Abigail and I spend our G-Chat strategy session feeling superior to farmers who plant artichokes: four days, two experience points, 119 coin profit. Worst investment ever.

Day 22 — People keep asking Kat, Jennie, Abigail and I how we adopt ugly ducklings and black sheep so quickly. We demure. The answer: Before any of us post a wayward animal, we Collective Twit it to one another. We are a family of sly overachievers.

Day 23 — My internet goes down ten minutes before I am meant to harvest hundreds of blueberries. It is 11:30 on a Saturday night. I call AT&T. The customer service lady is, as always, polite and apologetic, but it is an area outage and my internet will not be back up until the following day at 9:00 p.m. There are people drowning in actual floods in my state. I slam my fist down on my desk: "My blueberries will wilt!" She says, "Thank you for calling AT&T."



Day 29 — Sometimes I forget to turn off the sound on Farmville. The cows' mooing drives Scout into an absolute frenzy.

Day 30 — "Knock knock," Abigail messages first thing in the morning.

"Who's there?" I respond.

"A whole field of artichokes!" she writes back.

We laugh and laugh.

Day 32 — Abigail emails: "Are these Sweet Seeds sweet potatoes what we've been waiting for?"

I email back: "Oh, so very yes."

We use our coveted Farmville dollars to buy them. Over the next seven days, we rocket four levels each.

Day 33 — During a ridiculous movie in which Jennifer Aniston falls in love with a hotel clerk, Amy looks scornfully down to the end of the couch where I'm sitting with my laptop and says, "Are you harvesting?" I tell her I am. She says, "That clicking is going to get you killed. By me."

Day 35 — We are sitting around my grandmother's kitchen table when I begin talking about Farmville. "So, you start off with a small plot of land, and you plow however you like, and plant seeds according to how much money you have/want, how many experience points you hope to gain, what time you'll be around to harvest. Plus you can buy and adopt animals or gift them to your neighbors. You can purchase different houses and cottages and decorations based on your experience level and how much money you have. There are endless strategical possibilities! I want to live on my farm!"

Amy stands up from the table, under the pretense of getting more dessert, and out of the corner of her mouth sings: "You sound like a kook!"

My dad rolls his eyes at me and says, "So the person with no life is the person with the highest Farmville score?"

My grandma places a comforting hand on my arm, so I don't snap at him for his condescension. I smile at her and she smiles back. She has a Farmville Farm, too. Plowing doesn't give her headaches anymore.

Phone it in Friday: Dear Current Love

Happy Friday! Loooooooove Friday. Um, yeah, I don't know. Anyway. Last week, you told us about your old loves but NOW let's talk about your current loves. And future loves. You know, if you're like psychic or something. If you're psychic, though, what are you doing reading the internet? YOU COULD OWN THE WORLD. True story.

Dear Current Love Obsession,

A couple of months ago, I abandoned the poop jokes and the profanity and wrote a very serious post about how much I love Joe and how perfect everything is and blah blah blah ain't love grand. I only have about one of those in me a year, I'm afraid, and so today I won't be making the Internet barf over how FREAKING adorable we are.

But we are, right? At least in our own minds, which is what's really important. Also important: we laugh at the same stupid things. FOR INSTANCE. Lately, we've been imitating the way Joe's friend's baby says, "milk." When she says it, it sounds something like this: meeeee-alk! and it's so adorable, your face might melt off. And this is why we walk around going, "meeeeeeeealk!" and then dissolving into a puddle of giggles for five minutes, until one of says, "MEEEEEE-AAAAALK!" and thus continues the cycle. It's ridiculous.

But that's not what this is about. No. Today I want to tell you about my inappropriate obsession with Danny DeVito.

Yes, THAT Danny DeVito.

I've always liked Danny DeVito (he and Emma Thompson are the reasons I enjoy Junior as much as I do WHAT SHUT UP) but lately I think that "like" is bordering on obsession. It's all his fault, really. If he wasn't so stinking funny on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, this never would have happened. And then he joined Twitter! YOU GUYS. He twits things like this:

I just joined Twitter! I don't really get this site or how it works. My nuts are on fire.

Evil Mutants? Holy Shit balls? The fix: hot cup fresh mint tea with two shots of Danny DeVito's Premium Limoncello mixed in. Sweet Dreams!

The time has come the walrus said to speak of many things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of Hot balls! The nightman cometh! Bitch

Hungry need crabs

Lost in Ohio! On foot. Looking for our cottage! No sign! Oh shit!! Geese attack! Loudest honking I ever heard coming toward us! Darkness...

And he sends twits to people like Danny Glover and Arnold Schwartzenegger (cause that's his twin) and also, you know, I think Danny Glover might be as crazy as Danny DeVito. Is it the name? I'm not really sure Danny Glover's Twitter is real, but Danny DeVito must think it is so that's good enough for me.

And he takes pictures of his foot in front of things and says, like, "Troll foot on wet balcony." HE IS INSANE. And I love him. Platonically, of course. I just want to pick him up and carry him around in my pocket. But not if he's trippin' balls. I don't want him to poop in there.

My point is, you should follow Danny DeVito on Twitter because he is made of awesome.

Dear Current Love

I really like the way you wear your clothes.

Dear Current (or Future) Love

I'm tempted to say that I wish you existed. But knowing what I know about unrequited love, I'm probably better off.



P.S. If we get married, let's totally get our wedding decorations at Michael's.

Dear Current Love(s),

I remember how we came together — [It was good.] — and oh, I'm glad. But I don't remember how it was, exactly, we found our beginning. One day we were our own dot blogspots, and the next day, suddenly, we were us.

We were us before The Collective, us before Google Reader, us even before Twitter.

Oh, Twitter! Remember the day it launched? One of us sent an email: Are we going to try this Twitter thing? And we signed up, just the four of us, to use it as a group instant/text message service. Remember how there was no such thing as hash tags or Fail Whale and we could have our Tweets delivered to Gchat? Remember how we called them Twits?

Lots of people mock Twitter for the inanity of it all, but I love being connected to the three of you: sharing about our grocery shopping and our asshole coworkers and our real life relationships and our favorite TV shows and our heartbreaking sports moments and all the big and little stuff that sweeps us up in its tide and calls itself life.

It was you who sang me into bravery. And now I am. And here we are.

Sometimes people ask me to explain who you are, exactly, and I try to do it in a way they'll understand: They're a lawyer and a business boss and a college boss. They're girlfriends and students and athletes and daughters. They love music and books. They love puppies and kittens. They love pickles, potato salad, mittens, and Sorry. You know: the game, SORRY!

Yes, people ask, but do you know them?

I know that their souls are stitched together with magic.

I know that we're stitched together with magic too.

I love that about us: the magic parts.

I love that, with us, it's all magic parts.

Bonsoir Canards,

Heather! Anne!

Phone in in Friday: Dear Old Love

Hi, Internets. Did you watch the JAM lovefest last night? It was dreamy.

If you can pull yourself out of your post-Office-haze (I'm having a hard time, twss), please tell us about your dear, or not so dear, old loves today.

Happy Friday!

dear old love: ASSPUNCH!

Dear Old Love,

I guess I'm OK with you getting married, but only because it's to Pam.

and for realsies:

Dear Old Love,

I wasted too many hours waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass. I think you were just killing time. Butthead.

Dear Old Love

I have never loved anyone more than I loved you in my dreams.

Dear Old Love

I would have tried harder, but you were only three-quarters my soulmate.

Dear Old Love

I keep denying your Facebook friend request because I still feel exactly zero remorse for standing beside you at your wedding after relearning you in biblical proportions the night before.

a dream* is a wish your heart makes

I have only one pet, TECHNICALLY, although I still consider my parents' dog Ripley my pet, if only because SHE TOTALLY LIKES ME BEST. We are simpatico. This is Ripley:

She was born on Halloween, making her automatically AWESOME, plus also she has an impressive array of bandanas:

Other awesome things:

1. She will chase a laser pointer, much like a cat does, only it's way better because cats are tiny and she is ginormous.

2. I somehow trained her to go all crazy and head-tilty-barky by saying, "Bueller...Bueller...Bueller." It is amazing.

3. If you talk really slowly to her (like this: "Riiiiiiiiiipley...aaaaaaare...yoooooouuuuu...goiiiiiiing toooooooo...the...maaaaaaaaaall...laaaaaaater?" sort of like how Dory speaks whale), she tilts her head like those pugs in that one Youtube video that I can't look up right now because I'm at work and they hate me and won't let me look at the Youtubes, wow, good story, Jennie, tell it again.

Ripley is perfect, really, just like Maddie and that is the magic of Labs. Not really, though, I know some crazy-as-shit Labs who I would not want to hang out with on a regular basis. Ripley, though, Ripley is so good and sometimes she will come up and rest her head on your leg and look up at you with sad puppy eyes until your heart breaks and you pet her and give her treats and apologize for being such an imperfect human person. But those are my issues. Let's move on.

I don't want you to think that I don't love my real pet, Phoebe Princess Consuela Banana Hammock Buffay, the pet who lives with me, because I totally do, even though I think she merely tolerates my existence because I clean up her poo and vomit and feed her and give her kitty drugs. This is Phoebe:

Look at her. She's all, "Why are you waking me up with that camera flash, you silly girl? I fart in your general di-rection," only do cats fart? I'm not sure. I know that Joe went on and on about what an asshole she is, and OH is she, but she does cute things, too. Mostly when she's hopped up on kitty drugs, but not always. FOR INSTANCE:

1. I don't think she knows her real name, probably because I call her "Kitty" all the time. Also one time Heidi and I tried to rename her, "Murray." Anyway. Sometimes we play this game and it's so lame that it's awesome and this is what it is: I say, "kitty?" and then she goes, "meow," and then I say, "kitty?" and she says, "meow," and this goes on until one of us gets bored with it. Usually she gets bored first.

2. If my pajamas have a drawstring on them, and I'm lying in bed or on the sofa or whatever and she sees the string, she'll start swatting at it and it's pretty goddamn adorable. She won't play with any of the real toys I buy her, though, unless they have catnip in them.

3. She takes naps in laundry baskets full of clean clothes, which is kind of asshole but mostly cute.

4. She's good at beer pong.

5. She burrows under the covers when it's cold.

Anyway, Ripley and Phoebe are awesome and all, but that doesn't stop me from dreaming about my future pets. Future pets I have wished for include but are not limited to:

1. potbelly pig (I might have researched where to get one online, but that's as far as I got)
2. duck
3. tiny monkey
4. penguin
5. baby elephant

6. baby bunnies

7. chipmunk

8. squirrel

SOME MIGHT SAY that these pets are not realistic but I would tell them to BITE ME. And whatever, I totally have like ten baby elephants right now on FarmVille:

so I'm on my way. Who says dreams don't come true?

*for baby elephants