Rabbit Style News

“America’s Next Top Model” just blew my mind a little bit. AJ was the one who didn’t make the cut! After she was totally rocking it in previous episodes! I was so sure that she was really good and was going to make it to the end that when tonight’s final two were AJ and Jaeda I ran into the other room to tell Boyfriend that it wasn’t even fair that they would put them together in the bottom two because where’s the suspense? Obviously they wouldn’t send AJ home… would they? Doubt started to niggle at my mind and then when Tyra Banks showed that she was holding Jaeda’s picture I said out loud “Oh my god! I can’t believe it! But Jaeda is so bad!” I guess this week’s photo shoot was pretty good, but does that make up for her previous pictures, her lack of charisma, her pathetic insecurities and self-doubt? I mean, come on! It is true that AJ’s heart wasn’t in it and that she didn’t want to do any of those glamourous, cheesy, modelish things that would come from being a real model so I guess maybe they were right to cut her. But still. She was totally my favorite.

My new favorite: CariDee, although I think Brooke is doing really well and could go places. Melrose was fabulous this week which irritates me because she’s abrasive, as AJ said. Good-bye AJ, we’ll miss you.

That’s what I’d say if it were 10:00 a.m., anyway. During the week when I get up at 7 o’clock to get ready for work, I experience a great feeling of energy, motivation, and enthusiasm between 10 and 11 in the morning. I’m not sure if it’s because that’s when the caffeine has fully integrated itself into my system, or if that’s just a high point in my circadian rhythms. Another peak comes roughly 12 hours later, or right about now, when I should be relaxing and getting ready to go to bed. About a year ago, before I realized the regularity of this energy phenomenon that would fade to fatigue and apathy before I even made it home in the afternoon, I would send emails to friends explaining my brilliant plans to get a second job to save up more money, to start taking several classes at either ASU or Mesa Community College, to join various social clubs and philanthropic organizations, to start writing a novel or blog or maybe even a screenplay to set in motion my great life plan to write, produce, and maybe direct an amazing movie that’s quirky and true and well-written with lots of witty dialogue that definitely does not have a happy ending but doesn’t exactly have an unhappy ending either and wins several major awards including but not limited to a Golden Globe, an Oscar, and something at a small film festival in some large Midwestern city.

The past week throughout that day I’ve been thinking about things I will say in my blog when I get home after work, and by that time I’m just tired and hungry and want to read magazines on the couch before taking out the dog yet again (grow some opposable thumbs already!) and going to bed. Maybe if I stop reading so many magazines I will be able to channel that time into something more productive and meaningful. I just got three more free subscriptions through a frequent flyer program so I will soon receive all of the following:

Weekly:
- Time
- Newsweek
- People (for the gym, see previous entry)
- Rolling Stone (This one comes sporadically and is addressed to my brother who once lived in this same apartment. He states he never subscribed and has no idea why it suddenly started arriving.)

Monthly:
- O: The Oprah Magazine
- Lucky (“The Magazine About Shopping” – yes, it seems there is a magazine specifically devoted to the subject)
- Maxim
- Wired
- Readers Digest
- Ladies’ Home Journal (A different brother got this one free when booking tickets through a travel website and drops it off at my place instead. He used to get Woman’s Day, allegedly for the same reason.)

O is my favorite. It’s a really good magazine that inspires me to Live My Best Life – that’s one of their taglines. A very good friend of mine mocks me whenever I mention it, and I respond by simply affirming my view that it is an excellent periodical and suggest that she read it for herself before making such harsh judgments. She politely declines – I think she’s afraid she will like it as well, and then how will she be able to face herself in the mirror? The new one just arrived today so I think that’s how I am going to relax tonight while I wind myself down for bed. I’ve also started listening to Delilah on the lite radio station in the evenings (“Love someone tonight” Delilah’s website here). I’m afraid of what I will do next… early-bird water aerobics, anyone?

I went to the gym after work this evening as usual. I read about celebrities in People magazine while putting in my time on the elliptical. I only read such magazines at the gym (ok, you got me, sometimes I take home a magazine if I didn’t finish it at the gym the first time and it doesn’t seem like enough to save for the next time), as a way of encouraging myself to work out while discouraging rampant reading of such magazines. I enjoyed my stretching routine in the large quiet room, the one with mirrors that seem suspiciously slimming, where there were maybe eight people stretching or doing various workout routines before the yoga class would occupy the room at 7:00. Just before I was heading out a woman who appeared to be her in 60s came in with her personal trainer. They passed by an older man, who might have been her husband, listening to an ipod with the volume loud enough to hear from a few feet away and the woman said, “Turn it down! You need to turn it down, or you’re going to get aids!” Heads swiveled as people wanted to see what she was talking about, and her personal trainer said sheepishly, “Hearing aids, folks. He’s going to get hearing aids.”

I read some of the posts on John Mayer’s blog. It’s weird to me to think that he’s a real person who is actually sitting somewhere at a computer typing away when he’s writing. He’s a celebrity - they don’t really exist in real life, do they? I remember the first time I heard one of his songs on the radio. I was at my college job filing in the Alumni Records Office and the radio person mentioned the song title and artist and I thought that John Mayer was some older man who had been big in the 80s and just released a new album with popular songs again, something along the lines of like John Mellencamp or Bruce Springsteen. I was really surprised when I found out that John Mayer was in fact just a few years older than I, not at all that middle-aged man I was envisioning.

http://johnmayer.com/blog#161

I especially like the Identity Crisis entry.

So that’s one thing I’ve done with my day: read the last couple weeks of posts on John Mayer’s blog. Maybe he spent some time this afternoon reading posts on my blog! OMG! I also did my usual Sunday routine of going to the gym and then the grocery store, although I didn’t follow-up on that with cooking something delicious to use all week as leftovers. Maybe tomorrow.

I went to Jason’s Deli for dinner to use my gift card I won in a drawing at work as part of our office’s annual United Way Campaign. One dollar for a raffle ticket won me $65 for Jason’s Deli. It was supposed to be $40 - that’s what the envelope said - and when I used it today I still had $53 left after buying two dinners. I am win-nar!

I slept for over twelve hours last night, getting up at 12:30 p.m.  It was great.  And now it’s time for sleeping again.