Crimes Against Suspension of Disbelief

Forgive me, Twitter followers, for I have sinned. I have become utterly and completely obsessed with the #hemyneumantrial, and have subjected you to weeks of endless prattling on about it, though the vast majority of you probably didn't give a crap. But now the trial is over, which means that you won't have to hear about it anymore. Unless there's an appeal. Or unless more information comes out. Or unless you keep reading this post, because I'm about to give you...

My Review of "EVERYBODY Has to Stand Up: the #hemyneumantrial" brought to you by Nyquil: the trial time sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so you can snooze right through relevant testimony before deciding a man's fate medicine!

by Kimberly Welsh, Exaggeratress in Chief

February 2012 saw the beginning of one of the most gripping dramatic web series murder trials in recent memory. Hemy Neuman was being tried for the November 18, 2010 murder of Rusty Sneiderman, a shooting which took place in the parking lot of Dunwoody Day Care just after Rusty had dropped his son off for the day. In the intervening year and a half, the community at large had learned that Neuman was Sneiderman's wife's boss (draw a diagram if you need to), and that he and Mrs. Sneiderman were potentially having an affair. Now that you're caught up on the background, let's look at the trial itself...

Leaving aside necessarily poor production values and disappointingly conservative camera work, the biggest obstacle between this trial and greatness was its inconsistency. Indeed, I believe this will be held up for generations to come as an example of what happens when two conflicting production teams are left to bicker over the same project, though we must give credit where credit is due - Judge Gregory Adams' direction was a valiant attempt at fluidity and effective pacing. District Attorney James and Assistant DA Geary handled Act I ("State's Evidence") and Act III, Scene 1 ("Prosecution's Rebuttal: the Revenge") with dignity and aplomb, giving them the feel of an expertly edited documentary. I attribute this to the fact that, by and large, they took the courageous risk of using real people who were telling the truth to tell their story. The notable exception here is, of course, Andrea Sneiderman (née Greenberg and hereafter referred to as such because it irritates me to use the same name for her and the innocent victim) with her scenery-chewing Bobble-Headed Unsympathetic Confrontational Sarcasm™ approach to her role, but the DA made even this dramatic abomination fit, through a graceful and seamless mise-en-abîme, by which the very fact that she was acting paradoxically added to the realism of the other testimony. Honestly, the only other fault I find with this portion was the ham-handed advertisement for Coldwell Banker on the witness stand - highly incongruous, in an otherwise very serious scene.

But in Act II ("Defense Evidence"), viewers were subjected to a jarring shift in tone, from the world of the sober, truthful documentary to a parade of spinning pyrotechnics and flashing lasers, framing a tale of passion, 12-foot demons in the guise of 80s pop culture icons, domestic violence, globe-trotting, and the sordid story of two people who made the perverse decision to watch "The Goodbye Girl" voluntarily! At times, I wondered if this was indeed the same mini-series murder trial! At best it was confusing, and for most viewers it proved downright disorienting. In addition to the lack of continuity, a remarkably inept casting made this portion all but unwatchable! I must've heard acting teachers say it a hundred times: if you cannot actually make tears come out of your eyes, DO NOT ATTEMPT A FAKE CRY ON STAGE! And if I ever doubted the wisdom in that, there was no shortage of poorly-acted defense witness testimony to drive home its point. Meanwhile, the majority of the witnesses called to testify on behalf of the defense came across as confrontational, indignant, arrogant, and (in some applicable cases) utterly biased and unprofessional. Overall, it was a disappointing mishmash that meandered aimlessly, though I would be remiss if I failed to acknowledge Dr. Marx's brilliant comic turn in Scene Two ("Cross Examination"). Well done, Dr. Marx!

What we saw in Act III was largely more of the same - gritty, believable reality from the Prosecution and an imaginatively written but poorly acted psychological thriller from the Defense. Act IV brought significantly more drama as the action mounted to its climax. The monologue of Attorney Doug Peters was difficult to watch, owing to the frustration of seeing a clearly accomplished performer with great potential so harshly constrained by the gaping holes in the plot he must advance. Thus it was ultimately District Attorney Robert James who stole what was left of the show after Andrea Greenberg's jaw-dropping performance. His speech, and his visual aids, were set to reveal the surprise ending: this was not a psychological thriller or a true-crime reality show, but an honest-to-God murder trial.

A man is dead. And all the belligerent witnesses, fanciful demons, and friendly Coldwell Banker agents in the world can't change that fact. I honestly think most of the people who watched this trial so obsessively (like me) did so because we were so appalled that anyone would expect Neuman's story to be taken seriously - that's what was funny. The death of Rusty Sneiderman wasn't funny. At all.

In his statement at sentencing, Hemy Neuman began by saying that no one had won; "everybody lost". I can certainly see where he was going with that, and there's no doubt he was standing in a room full of sad people, all of whom had lost something. But Rusty had lost more than anyone else, and there was only one thing anyone could still offer him: justice. And his family, with the help of the DA and his team, got that for him. It's a hollow victory, to be sure. But actually, Hemy: Rusty won.

So rest in peace, Rusty. And rest in peace, #hemyneumantrial hashtag. And rest in peace, this horrible, horrible story.

Unless...

Not Very Nice Quiz: Are You a Brick Wall?

It's the not-at-all eagerly awaited return of the Not Very Nice Quiz! Today, we will be conducting an in-depth psychological test to determine whether or not you (yes, YOU!) are a brick wall. Enjoy!

1. You've decided to raise money for herpes awareness by swimming through shark-infested waters in a replica of Lady Gaga's meat dress! You tell 3 different friends, and each of them has the same reaction: "That is in the top 1 worst ideas I've ever heard." How do you respond?
a) My life coach said I'd face naysayers like you. Dream killer!
b) Wow, you guys are so jealous. Seriously, it's pathetic.
c) You really think so? Can you maybe explain why you think it's a bad idea?
d) I'm so glad you agree about what a great idea it is! Thanks for supporting me.

2. You met the GREATEST GUY on vacation in South America! He's cute, young, foreign, and rich! You mass-email your friends to tell them all about it, and one of them writes back suggesting you Google him IMMEDIATELY. Something about a girl who disappeared in Aruba or whatever. What's your next step?
a) Roll your eyes. She's so bitter about relationships; she's probably got him confused with a different Joran Van der Sloot.
b) Google him! Your friend has your best interests at heart and...OMG! He looks so hot in these pics!
c) Google him, freak out, thank your friend, call the cops, and GO HOME immediately.
d) Terminate the friendship. If she can't be happy for you, then she's not a real friend anyway.

3. It's Christmas vacation time!!! Hooray! As you go to board your flight home, the gate agent informs you that your carry-on bag is far too large and will have to be checked. Whose fault is this?
a) the gate agent! What a bitch! Why can't she just be cool and let you get on the freakin' plane?
b) the ticketing agent. You were standing right in front of her with that bag! If it's so far outside the acceptable size range, why didn't she say something then and save you this hassle at the gate?
c) you hate to say it, but...it's yours. You had plenty of chances to check the size of the bag. You could've asked any number of people at the airport.
d) who cares? This bag WILL be coming on the plane with you. It's not about assigning blame, it's about finding the right person to scream at to get your way.

4. Is anthropocentric climate change real?
a) No. I haven't really looked into it, but Glenn Beck says it's fake, which is good enough for me!
b) Um, I think you'll find that climate change, like Santa Claus, is a theory, not a fact! Duh.
c) Probably. Modern science requires a HUGE quantity of data to say anything for certain, but most scientists who aren't on retainer with Exxon agree that it's real. And even if we aren't 100% sure, we should take the steps to curb it anyway. Surely nothing but good can come of diversifying our energy sources and doing what we can to keep our air and water clean, right?
d) No because it snowed in Alaska last week. SO MUCH FOR SO-CALLED "CLIMATE CHANGE"!

5. Oh noes! Your job is being eliminated due to outsourcing! Whose fault is this?
a) Your stupid dumb boss who didn't fight hard enough to save your job. What a jerk!
b) Damn foreigners.
c) It's a complex issue which reaches far beyond your own company and into the most basic laws regarding corporate behavior in the United States, including but not limited to the very concept of the fiduciary duty to shareholders. Bottom line: no one is going to reverse any of this in time for you to keep your job, so best to just get on with the search for a new position!
d) OBAMA (if you're a Republican) or BUSH (if you're a Democrat)

SCORING:
Mostly A: Yeeeeaaah. You need to work on looking beyond what you want something to mean and seek out some objective reality.
Mostly B: You're not really a brick wall, but you tend to only get halfway to the truth of the matter. Just try to ask a few more questions and dig a little deeper.
Mostly C: You aren't a brick wall, but you already knew that, since you have at least some superficial contact with the real world.
Mostly D: Yes you are. No really, you ARE. ARE YOU READING THIS? DON'T STOP READING JUST BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT! HELLO? ARE YOU STILL THERE? Crap.

Hello? Is It Me You're Looking For?

I bet you thought I forgot my password, didn't you? Well I didn't. And you probably weren't thinking that, either. You were probably thinking something more like "What a lazy slob! She writes 300 crappy pages of sketch comedy we don't even get to read and make fun of, and then we never hear from her again! The nerve!" And what if I HAD forgotten my password? I could've spent the last week running around tearing my home - and myself - apart searching for it, frantic at the thought that my loyal readership (BOTH of them) were being denied my razor-sharp wit! Then you'd feel pret-ty bad for being so mean to me.

But like I say, I wasn't. Still, my absence was still perfectly justified and you shouldn't judge me. Because I have

10 Perfectly Good Reasons Why I Haven't Blogged In Nearly A Week

1. This whole Facebook redesign thing has been very difficult for me. And yes, thank you, I did anticipate it by 5 days.
2. I had the Ebola for a while there. Or wait - maybe it was hay fever. Which one do you take Zyrtec for? That one.
3. Every time I tried to write a blog post, I thought about the "DANG MY CAPS WAS LOCKED" guy and laughed so hard I couldn't type.
4. I've been devoting all of my time to my personal campaign against the so-called "Buffet Rule". Keep your paws off my 7-figure income, Uncle Sam!!! I need that money to power the economy! It trickles down every time I tip the guy who dusts my polo ponies!
5. I had to camp out for Weird Al tickets.
6. I started reading He's Just Not That Into You and got completely sucked in by its nauseating, condescending tone! I couldn't put it down, so ultimately I just doused it in gasoline and set it on fire instead.
7. I lost a Twitter follower and spent the entire week trying to figure out who it was. (Answer: a bikini-clad spambot selling vitamin pills)
8. I was up past 10pm last Saturday night, and have been catching up on my sleep ever since.
9. 2 words: Angry Birds.
10. It's taken a week to get the head-to-toe full-body tattoo I'll be sporting for college football season!

Sketch Challenge, 4th Set: I Don't Even Know, You Guys.

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." - Douglas Adams


Remember last weekend, when I said I'd only written 5 pages of the 4th set? Well, Saturday was the deadline and I've still written 5 pages of the 4th set. No more. WHY? I'll answer that to the tune of "Tropical Heatwave":

I'm having a breakdooooowwwwn
A writer's block breakdoooooown
My blood pressure's rising
It isn't surprising
I certainly can't.


Can't. Can't. 

I mean, I can, obviously. But I'm not, obviously. I essentially ran out of ideas. And when I tried to force an idea, all I got was really, really bad stuff. Just total crap. I appreciate that this is an exercise and a learning experience, so there will be some crap written. In fact, a great deal of crap has already been written. But there's crap, and then there's crap. And this was CRAP. I also spent more time at the theatre than usual last week, which meant I had spent a lot of creative energy before I even got to my writing desk.

Anyway, I figure that's probably enough excuses for right now. I have 2 weeks until THE Deadline for the whole project, so maybe I'll see if I can churn out the remaining 120 pages in that time. The good news is that I find I'm slowly getting some decent ideas again, after a week off, so maybe all hope is not lost.

Sketch Challenge, What 4th Set?

*punches computer in the face*

5 pages done so far.

Sketch Challenge, 3rd Set: Not Now But Soon

I am so tired.

I finished the last 13 pages of Set 3 this morning, about 10 hours late. I won't make any excuses; I just didn't get it done on time. This week's sketches got markedly more political. I had previously avoided that sort of thing, and was still hesitant to do so this week. But in the end I decided that's where my head was, so that's what I'd write. It's not like these will ever see the light of day anyway.

I still feel very disorganized and unstable, though I've made substantial progress in getting things together. This morning I was fondly remembering the first week of Kimberly Welsh's Sketch Challenge and Proof of Insanity, Now No Longer Giving A Shit What The Sketch Is About, Or Indeed Whether It's Funny, So Long As The Page Count Goes Up. Ah, those halcyon days when I was so full of optimism and wonder. I remember how excited I was to carry my little pocket notebook around, seeing the world through the eyes of a kid on an Easter egg hunt, searching for the little nugget of humor in everything. Everything was so shiny and new! Now my house is a disaster area, I scrounge for food, I barely look presentable half the time...

I'm hurtin', y'all.

BUT! This was the whole point of the Sketch Challenge and Gauntlet and Rite of Passage! Because I read that John Finnemore was going to write 5 sketch shows in 10 weeks, and we all know that while that sounds fun, it's probably not as much fun as we might think. And I wanted to know what it would really be like, suspecting all along that it would probably come with one or two major low points. Well at least now I know I was definitely right! And that's not even the thing I'm most proud of! My biggest accomplishment, as assessed by my very own impartial self, is that I haven't quit yet, and I'm NOT GOING TO. I'm sure I've already mentioned my unfinished EP, the two screenplays I half-finished, the various short stories that got outlined but never written... I have a bad habit of not finishing what I start. But NOT. THIS. TIME.

All my deluded expectations of being pleasantly surprised to find that I am a natural-born sketch-writing genius are dead, as are my fantasies of sitting at my spotless writing desk, sipping a cup of tea and laughing pleasantly to myself as I read joke after hilarious joke pouring out of my fingertips during daylight hours. I know now that I might have potential as a sketch writer, but I also have a really long way to go. And that getting there involves my writing desk getting very messy indeed, and me sitting there at 2 in the morning in food-stained pajamas and no makeup, having epiphanies about why people smoke cigarettes and/or do meth.

The really twisted part is: I kinda love it.

So there you have the final assessment of Set 3. Not as funny as the first two sets, a little behind schedule, not the work of genius I'd hoped for, but DONE. Which is all that matters right now.

The little bar is turning a sort of orange instead of red! I may live to see green!

Of course, quality is still a concern, and I don't like thinking I might...well...suck. It's downright depressing, actually. Which is why I was so happy when a friend of mine posted this on the social media, after snagging it from Wil Wheaton's social media, and who knows where WW got it from, but ANYWAY!

I'm getting this tattooed on the inside of my eyelids.

I've always felt I'd rather write something and know it sucks than be the oblivious egomaniac who writes sludge and thinks it's comedy gold. And literally everything I'm doing at this point is pretty much 100% an act of faith, so I just have to keep thinking that eventually I will learn something and I will get better at this...provided, of course, that I don't quit. WHICH I WON'T. Reading this occasionally helps keep me reassured and calm. I need more of that.

And now for the weekly expression of gratitude to someone who said something nice which helped keep me from drinking a whole bottle of Nyquil:
John Brett of the Week! (not like that)
This week's John of the Week is...my friend Brett! I had a late-night mainstage show at the improv theatre last night, which is always a pretty sizable challenge. Holding my own amongst the mainstagers at an hour when I would ordinarily be sound asleep is no small feat for an old lady like me! But the challenge part is offset by the awesome part, which is that I get to perform AND I get to see/work with a ton of awesome people, including my aforementioned friend Brett. In the end, I had a great time with a great cast and a great emcee, which was all I could've asked for. Then I checked my Twitter timeline this afternoon and saw this:

Awwwwww!

And that made my whole weekend a billion times better. Thanks Brett! Brett also once made me an amazing origami penguin, but I am a terrible photographer and could never hope to capture its incredibleness for you here. But it lives by my TV, so you KNOW I love to look at it ;)

Sketch Challenge, 3rd Set: Sometimes the Wheels Fall Off

As you may recall, last week represented the single largest FAIL of Kimberly Welsh's Sketch Challenge and Very Public Nervous Breakdown, With No Sketches Whatsoever to date. I decided to ease back into writing last weekend by writing a submission for another website! You may have noticed that I never promoted it, and that's because it was rejected. And then I also didn't put it on my own blog, because frankly I wasn't that impressed with it myself. But I had spent most of the weekend writing/editing it, so the thought that I had burned up 48 hours for nothing was pretty...disheartening.

 I resolved to start fresh this week, then singularly failed to do so, choosing instead to play with Google+ (gplus.to/kwerkygirl, if you're into that sort of thing), and Spotify, and an ill-advised quantity of alcohol. All of this avoidance was part of a vicious cycle that made me feel a little like the great Ernest Hemingway: I drank when I couldn't write, and then I couldn't write because I was drinking too much! Fun fact: It must've been fucking miserable being Ernest Hemingway. [Just as a point of fact, I am a total lightweight. So when I say "I drank too much", that means as much as 3 glasses of wine in one night. It's not like I woke up in the morning and drank a bottle of vodka before I got in the shower.]

And really, I could write; I was just too scared to, in case I couldn't write anything good. So I woke up Friday morning with the apocalyptic hangover from hell and said, "Right! That two weeks was interesting. Now might be a good time to get my shit together." So I have. I haven't gone out or done anything classically "fun" in the last 3 days, but I have written. And then I wrote, then I wrote a little more, and now I'm writing. And that feels very good, in a very geeky sort of way. WAY WAY WAY more fun than being inebriated, trust me. Yesterday, I got 30 pages of sketches written, which puts the total count at 150 pages - the halfway mark!

In the interest of full disclosure, I feel compelled to tell you that if we were to actually perform all the sketch shows I've written, this one would be the weakest BY FAR. I am singularly unimpressed. But! I don't have many good ideas to work with from the last few weeks (I blame the booze and sleep-deprivation), and this is only the first draft. If anything good came out of last weekend's mostly wasted effort, it's that I did more editing that weekend than I have ever done on any of my previous "comedic" work. And even though I didn't think the final draft was worthy of posting, I firmly believe it was about a thousand times better than the first draft. So I have a lot more faith in editing (and my ability to do it effectively) than I did before. And I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that I had the benefit of a really fantastic editrix, in the form of my BFF, who critiqued the first draft and sent back some really fantastic and perfectly-worded guidance.

(Boy is she ever going to regret THAT!)

So I'm optimistic that even these horrible first drafts may yet be saved. Well, some of them, anyway.

I've just realized that I have inadvertently continued the unofficial tradition of naming the Sketch Challenge posts using song lyrics. That one up there is from Neil Halstead's "Sometimes the Wheels", which has recently become an anchor in my daily writing playlist, and which I find very comforting whenever I feel another nervous breakdown coming on. Because "Sometimes the wheels fall off, and sometimes you can't get up...and Sometimes the world moves fast, and sometimes you can't keep up, and sometimes I just sit and think, and I don't think much". BONUS: It contains a brilliant 2-line indictment of skinny jeans! Recommended.

Sketch Challenge, 3rd Set: "Ack"

I'm applying the "Accountability" label here, even though it doesn't really fit. Because I am completely letting myself off scot-free.

According the various and constant warning alarms on my iPhone, iPod, and laptop, tomorrow is the deadline for the 3rd set of sketches. And John Finnemore blogged about having a show at the Albany tomorrow night, which is basically like a backup alarm for same. So what's my progress looking like?

Nothing. Not a single sketch. Please don't steal my terrible ideas, but this is what the current set looks like, compared with the last set:

Oops.

Wha' Ha' Happen' Was...

*Clears throat* I spent a day visiting my brother in Augusta and when I came back I found a stray dog and he kept me up all night and I didn't get rid of him until the next day and then I was supposed to leave town but my cat sitter went AWOL 12 hours before departure and I had to take an extra day off work to hunt her down or find a new one and I drove all over Buckhead to drop off a key and then I went to Florida with my family so there was no way I could concentrate and when I came back I was too sunburned to move and then I had to go back to work and apparently we're being bought so I had to go to a bunch of special meetings and I was going to write after rehearsal on Wednesday but it was the Summer of Fun so we had a surprise party and I stayed out til 11 and came home too drunk to focus and then I got cast in a show last night and now I have less than 24 hours to write 60 pages of sketches!!!!
(end of excuses)

I barely even scribbled down any ideas for sketches in my trusty notebook. It's been a real setback. And my initial intention when I got up this morning was to power through and try to finish on time, but I've had a realization, and it is as follows: The major problem was being out of town for 4 days. The other things were largely out of my control (with the exception of the sunburn and the drinking) and genuinely prevented me from writing. The perfectionist voice in my head feels very strongly that I have to adhere to the original schedule because the whole point was to write on exactly the same schedule as John Finnemore's Sketch Night. But just between you and me, I rather suspect that JF had some warning about this whole thing and could move his travel plans accordingly. Whereas I literally just woke up one morning and said, "Hey! I know what would be a good idea!" So the 3rd set is hereby postponed, and an additional fortnight of sketch-writing is hereby tacked onto the tail end of Kimberly Welsh's Agonizingly Slow Sketch Suicide, Currently With No Sketches About Coffee, Screaming Children, Or Anything Else For That Matter.

The focus for the next two days will now be internet writing (since I've only written one pitiful little blog post this week, and that was interrupted FIVE TIMES by lengthy phone calls). But it might interest you to know about the one thing I did manage to accomplish: I updated the photos and captions on the home page slideshow AND stashed 4 "pages" (which are not the same thing as "posts") around the blog. Secretly. Like Easter Eggs. Happy hunting!

Sketch Challenge, Second Set: This is My Brain in a Blender.

So I'm about 2 days behind on updating you about the PsychoSketchual Challenge, and that is because I feel like my brain has been beaten with a meat tenderizer. There are a number of reasons for that - it's not entirely the fault of the Incredibly Mundane Sketch Challenge and Cry For Help, Now With Practically NO Sketches About Ordering Coffee. For one thing, I wrote a little breakup letter template for Funny not Slutty. That was super fun and I hope you'll read and enjoy it, but wasn't a sketch. And this is also one of the busiest times of the year for my day job [PUKE], which is seriously cutting into my writing time. AND I had an improv show Thursday. But enough with the jibber jabber and excuses! Current page count for this second set of sketches stands at 44. As a reminder, there are to be 60 pages, all edited to the best of my ability, by this coming Saturday.

Yikes.

So I'm cutting it a little closer this time around, but I'm also going about it a little differently (as part of the trial and error to establish my own optimal process), such that the first drafts aren't *quite* as rough and raw as the last set of first drafts were. Hopefully(?) this means I'll require slightly less editing time. Ta. Da.

And now for a new and almost certainly not regular feature...
John of the Week! (not like that)
You may recall that last week's John was Finnemore, who made my week by commenting on the Viagra post. This week's John is Raffa, who is one of my good friends and fellow improv actors! He didn't comment on anything, but he did specifically request that I write him a part in the Sketch Challenge. His exact words were: "If you're writing it, I want to be in it." Awwwww. And that made my week, which makes him...John of the Week! Congratulations, Raffa! Don't let it go to your head.

If Anybody Ax You Who I Am...

Today marks the first deadline in "Kimberly Welsh's Beyond Redonkulous Sketch Challenge That Only A Complete Nutjob Would Attempt, Now With a Slight Reduction in the Number of Sketches About Ordering Coffee". If you're new to the group, background on this can be found here. As you may recall, I managed to write the requisite first 60 pages with a full week to spare, which I used for tweaking/editing/rewriting. In theory, I needed to end today with 60 pages of sketch material, edited and organized such that I would be perfectly happy to hand it to a bunch of my actor friends and say "GO!"

I am 20% "pleased" and 80% "in total disbelief" to tell you that I HAVE ACHIEVED THIS. There were definitely times when I felt like I was being put through a wringer, and I've noticed that I've taken to saying "Wow. I look really tired." out loud every night after I take my makeup off, but I DID IT. I'm not saying it's all comedy gold, but then again the thing I'm most hoping for (and most excited about) is that I just might be able to see discernible improvement from Part 1 to Part 5.

Now, before you look at the title of this post and recognize it as a line from the R. Kelly song (brilliantly covered by Bonnie "Prince" Billy) entitled "World's Greatest", I must remind you that this is only the beginning. John Finnemore's Sketch Night plays on 5 dates, which means that in order to complete the Challenge, I have to do this 5 times. This is just #1. So we aren't at the "Hey I made it / I'm the world's greatest" part of the song yet. Far from it. We're more at the "I'm that little piece of hope / With my back against the ropes" part right now. The good news is that I stockpiled some more ideas during editing week, so hopefully I'll have something strong to work with when the clock starts on part 2. Which will be bright and early tomorrow morning!

PS - I'm trying to seem all cool and chilled out about it, but I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the fact that John Finnemore himself commented on one of my blog posts yesterday, and he said it made him laugh. If you'd like to know how I feel about that, ask literally anyone who spoke to me for any reason at any point since it happened, including the tollbooth attendant on Georgia 400. It *might* have made my week ;)