I apologize for this

blah blah blah blah blah
i half ass everything, 'kay?
poohead buttshits bye

Phoebe wrote one, too. It goes like this:

meow meow meow meow meow
don't look at me in the eye
meow meow meow SUCK IT

Game seven tonight.
If the Caps lose the season
is over. Sad face.

draco dormiens nunquam titillandus

Welsh words will not make
an acceptable haiku
but they have dragons!

Coffee ice cream is
The bestest ice cream of course
Bring me some now, bitch

Phone it in Friday: Earth Day

Alright, people. Did you save the Earth yesterday? Did you feel smug because you save the Earth every day? Tell us why you love the Earth and what you're doing to help it! :)

Petrie, do not feel sad. It is alright. Many things cannot fly. Rocks, trees, sticks, Spike...

I was an insufferable child, I imagine. Bossy, a know-it-all, really, Hermione Granger with pigtails and a bigger mouth. I've always been opinionated and usually ran my mouth about whatever inequality I spied with my little eye, which is why I yelled at the daycare director for always making the girls ride in the crappy white van with no air-conditioning and why I complained to the gym teacher that it wasn't fair that he always picked BOYS to help set up the mats for kickball and why I lectured Mr. Counts in the 3rd grade about how women were just as strong as men because did he know they carry babies for nine months IN THEIR STOMACHS? I'm guessing he did, although I think I'd just learned all about it from The Talk my mom gave me after I read Are You There, God, It's Me Margaret and asked her why all those girls in the book were talking about periods because what's so fascinating about punctuation, you guys, REALLY.

So when we started a recycling program at school and I learned about THE ENVIRONMENT and how humans were all up in THE ENVIRONMENT'S business, ruining oceans and blasting down trees and breaking the ozone with COW FARTS, why, I didn't let any opportunity to lecture someone about saving the world pass me by.

Nowadays, I'm glad Kat's got saving the world covered because, frankly, I have gotten lazy. I wish little Jennie would climb in her rocketship(duh)/time machine with Figment and come smack some sense into me. Maybe it's because I'm getting old, but I'm forever forgetting my reusable bags when I go to the grocery, so I have to get plastic ones and then I bring them home and feel guilty but then I use them to clean litter boxes and stuff and I feel LESS guilty but still...no guilt is good guilt. Or something.

Kermit had it right, it's not easy being green (yeah, I went there), but I'm trying. Like, did you know wedding flowers are stupid expensive? Like, some guy quoted me something like $750 WITH A STRAIGHT FACE (I'm assuming, since it was all through email) and I was like, um, sorry, guy, but I'll just go pick some dandelions and make myself a dandelion tiara or something the morning of the wedding. And it turns out, wedding flowers can be horribly bad for the environment unless you get them locally grown from people who don't throw pesticides all over like they're sprinkling sprinkles on cupcakes because lord knows you can never have enough cupcake sprinkles. No, I don't know what I'm talking about either. Anyway, my point is, I'm doing no flowers or fake flowers or local flowers and I'm trying to go to all local businesses for everything else so I don't stomp Mother Nature in the face with my giant carbon footprint.

Because, bipolar or not, I totally love Mother Nature and you want to know why? Ducks. And penguins. And otters and elephants and potbellied pigs and every single other animal I've ever threatened to get as a pet, especially the baby ones.

Mercy me, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

Somewhere beyond my misanthropy there are vistas clear, and wide, and like Heather Anne's world, full of color.





Sometimes I get lost in the daily grind of my life, ridiculous considering the place I work but it's true. I open my office door and see mountains of binders brimming with technical specs and employee training manuals and grant applications, stacks of wastewater permits tumbling to the floor in an avalanche of effluent limitations, and all I can think is Oh God, not again.





So consciously I constantly remind myself to sit. Be still. Watch for spring's first bloom, winter's first snow.





And then there's this:

"You have children," I told him; "would you rather leave them a world consumed with fighting apocryphal weapons of mass destruction, or would you rather leave them clean air to breathe, and clean water to drink, and safe food to eat?" (I can repeat these things to you now that The Collective is just between us.)







And I figure, What the heck. I'll fight another day.

above the fruited plain

Hello? Helllloooo? Can you guys hear me?

(echo)

((echo))

(((echo)))

Wow. Making echos happen is oddly satisfying.

The echoing is happening for two reasons.

The first reason is that The Collective is now an invite-only blog. This is for various top secret reasons that unfortunately have nothing to do with me becoming a spy. Sadly. If you're reading this, then you're already on the list, but if you forgot how you got here or you have a friend of a friend who is so upset that they can't lurk around and read our chatter, you can get on the list by emailing canardcollective@gmail.com. The bad news is that there isn't an RSS feed anymore. The good news is that I can now talk about the love of my life as much as I want. Mwa haha. Just kidding.

No, the actual good news is that we promise to post something every day Monday through Friday so your visit to us in not in vain. We feel terrible about the RSS thing (you know how much we love our Google Readers) and are looking for alternatives, but in the mean time there will always be something new here. Promise.

THe OTHER reason that the echo is happening is because we're in nature! Did you know? Look around you. Hear the birds chirping? Hear the sand move across the desert?

In my particular imagination, we are at the Grand Canyon. We've walked some distance away from the bustle of the Rim and out here we're testing the echos.

(echo)

((echo))

(((echo)))

It's fun, huh?

We're out here because Earth Day is coming up on April 22 and all too often we forget about taking time to appreciate the Earth.

Oh no! My flight is boarding! I gotta go. So quick, some final thoughts: I feel guilty about flying on account of the emissions and I'm not sure that carbon replacement idea has all the kinks worked out yet, so I cringe a little when I board a plane. Sorry, Earth.

And here is a quick list of some things I love about the Earth:

tree shade
coffee beans
freshwater lakes
lettuce
mountains
when grass gets really really long and falls over

Privatized Collective

Hopefully this post makes it into your Google Reader (we TOLD you to use Google Reader!). We need to make The Collective private, so please email us if you want to be added to the reader list: canardcollective@gmail.com.

Phone it in Friday: Hold me close, young Tony Danza*

Hey guys, have we told you recently that you all are our favorite people on this great, big, ridiculous Internet? Cause you are.

Could you do us a solid? Tell us what song makes you do a little dance. You know, make a little love. Pretty much get down tonight**.

*we'll love you even more if you get that
** and that

get bent, TAX MAN

Allow me to blow your minds for a moment, internets. Did you know that planning a wedding, for the most part, is a giant pain in the ass? Oh, wait, you probably already knew that. Oh well. You probably appreciate having unblownapart minds, so you're welcome. It's probably hard to think with an blownapart mind. Most days, I have a hard enough time thinking with an unblownapart mind.

But I digress. My point is, wedding planning = ass pain. That's what I'm saying. There are very few things I care about outside of, you know, Joe being there. Flowers make me yawn. Centerpieces bore me. I can't be bothered with placecards or premarital counseling or table numbers or zzzzzzzzz sorry I fell asleep.

Now before you're all, "But Jennie, why don't you just elope?" I will tell you that if we did that, as soon as we got back we'd be viciously axe murdered by most of our relatives, not to mention, I don't know, I like my family and I obviously like my friends so why wouldn't I want to get them all together and have a big party? THERE IS NO RAISIN NOT TO. We will eat, drink, and be merry, dammit, and also maybe people will tell me I'm pretty and who doesn't like that?

The eating and drinking and being merry, now, that I am all about planning and I will tell you why:

I like food
I like booze
I like dancing (provided there is booze)

Which brings me to one of the more pleasant planning experiences: picking songs. You know why that's pleasant? Because it gives me an excuse to mindlessly scroll through my iPod, screeching, "I LOVE THIS SONG," every five minutes but like, DUH, of course I love this song IT'S MY IPOD.

So far we've picked out the song to our first dance and I've picked out several options for a father/daughter dance, none of which are so sappy that they make me want to gouge out my eyes and stuff them in my ears so I can't hear the butterfly kisses, GO AWAY BUTTERFLY KISSES, and do you know how hard it was to find a father/daughter dance song that wasn't either super sappy or COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE? OK, it wasn't really that hard but it was sort of hard because I don't like country music haha ZING I don't know. I wanted my dad and I to learn the Thriller dance but when I suggested it, he looked at me like I had three heads, which isn't unusual but I've learned to take that as, "Jennie, that idea is crazy and/or impossible so it's time to stop talking." Anyway. I can't share what either of those songs are, though, because some people don't like spoilers. I am not one of those people, unless they are LOST spoilers, in which case if you tell me, I kill you, got it? Good.

Since I can't share the first dance song, which might be my favorite song EVER but really that depends on my mood so I JUST DON'T KNOW, but since I can't share that song, I will share with you my favorite song to run to. Or to kill zombies to. Here it is:

Don't make me choose.

The rain fell hard on the roofs that day
You telephone from far away
I see the ocean from my room
All I could say was "Are you coming home soon?"

He would call late night, to wake me up so he could sing me to sleep again.

I always liked him better from another time zone.

The static whisper in my ear
But in a moment your voice was clear
"I need some time," you said to me
That's when I knew you were gonna make me lonely.

"Kathy, I love you."

The words came as a surprise, enough to make me pause at the apartment's entrance but not turn around. I took an impatient breath, and without a word, walked out the door.

You're gonna make me wish for the time right before I was born
When every living breath was another new dawn
Like the time I was 5 at the top of Peak Hill
And the wind almost took me away.

The wind whipped my hair into knots as it swirled about the pier, one hand in his and the other trying in vain to tame the tangling strands. We barely spoke a word to each other that afternoon, and never before had the silence said so much.

I walk awhile before I sleep, count the secrets that I keep
I hope for more, I know for sure I fall apart before I weep
I disconnect the telephone, 'cause I can choose to be alone
I'll get more done, I'll have some fun, pretend you're not the only one.

"What do you want from me?"

"I just want you in my life."

And I'm never gonna wish for the time right before I was born
When every living breath was another new dawn
Like the time I was 5 at the top of Peak Hill
And the wind almost took me away.

I am in love with "On Peak Hill" by a band called Stars.

anything to make you smile

Hi everyone. Sorry we fell off the the earth last week (and the week before that). We've all been very busy what with trips to Vegas and cute puppies and Jennie! and Joe! moved in together. Plus also you guys hurt our feelings a little bit when you didn't ask for advice. Wah wah.

To get our spirits back up and get back into the grooove of things, we're talking about music. Cause music is a really big deal around here.



Choosing a favorite song is difficult for me because, unlike Kat, music is more something I listen to and less part of who I am. (Conversely, I'd say TV is part of who I am and something that she watches. Isn't it interesting the way we're all different? Snowflakes, every one.) I've previously mentioned the haunting songs of my epic feelings and every song mentioned there would still qualify for "favorite song" status especially Youth Group's cover of Forever Young which still remains the number one played song on my iTunes despite the fact that I've listened to The National's Boxer every day since the beginning of time. (Friday, before I had thought to turn on my music, my office mate coworker with whom I've shared an office with five years and has never once mentioned my music or my OCD way of playing the same album every day, asked me to turn on Boxer. I was like, seriously, you know the name of this album? You like it? I thought you were sitting in silent torture all these years.)

Since those songs had their epic moments of my life, I've had few epic moments of my own. That's mostly due to aging; I am, after all, much less dramatic then I was in my early 20s. But Band of Horses' No One's Gonna Love You feels just as epic and I can't place why. I can't put my finger on the epic Abigail life moment it should align with.



I've been in love with someone since January. And it's a sort of pathetic, unrequited love. Something I try not to talk much about on the internet because if he sees it, well, I don't want to look like a crazy stalker. But I think the song is somehow linked. You know me. I don't love someone unless it's epic. Unless it's looking like a limb torn off.



Plus, you know, I ship Chuck and Sarah hard.



But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do

And anything to make you smile
It is my better side of you to admire
But they should never take so long
Just to be over then back to another one

But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do

But someone,
They could have warned you
When things start splitting at the seams and now
The whole thing's tumbling down
Things start splitting at the seams and now
If things start splitting at the seams and now,
It's tumbling down
Hard.

Anything to make you smile
You are the ever-living ghost of what once was
I never want to hear you say
That you'd be better off
Or you liked it that way

But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do

But someone
They should have warned you
When things start splitting at the seams and now
The whole thing's tumbling down
Things start splitting at the seams and now
If things start splitting at the seams and now,
It's tumbling down
Hard.