Saturday, April 18, 2009

Tweeeeter

Dear Blog,

You may have heard of the latest internet phenomenon sweeping the nation; Twitter. If not, let me enlighten you. You get 140 characters (a character includes a letter AND a space) to tell the world what you are doing at any given point in time. Last year Crist was hounding me for months and months to join Twitter because she thought it would be a good way for me to keep up with my peeps back home when I moved to Seattle. At first, I was all "What in the sam hill is Twitter? I already joined the facebooks, isn't that enough?" But, I finally gave in, like I always do. I also decided that Twitter is kind of fun! It's one of those that takes a while. The interface isn't that user friendly so you kind of have to play around with it and then find some friends and then start tweeting away. Sadly, I only have about 12 people on Twitter who care enough to follow my updates. If you are on Twitter, come follow me at Bellafrench! It's always a party over there! My ego is hurting with only 12 peeps. Ron has more twitter friends than I do and we can't have that!

Since I'm on twitter and I have a blog and a facebook account and I read other people's blogs, everyone I know out here in Seattle of all places think I'm all hooked up in technology. Seriously. Let's all have a good laugh about that one. I have had several people call me in the past couple of days to ask me an internet question because somehow or another I've earned the reputation as being well versed in all things internet. Hi-lario.

But, I do read blogs that are good and relatively short. I can't be reading like 19 paragraphs, I'm usually done after about 300 words. I digress. One of the blogs I read, like every other woman in the entire galaxy reads is Dooce. If you haven't heard of Dooce, here's a brief bio. She was a graphic designer in L.A, she started a blog, she talked shit about the people she worked with, she got found out, she got fired, she kept blogging, she became famous, she had a baby, she had post partum depression, she entered a mental hospital for a couple of weeks, she got even more famous, she kept blogging, her husband quit his job, she kept blogging, she started taking anti depression meds, she kept blogging, she's happy now, they make enough money to live off of her blog, she wrote a book. So basically, her blog makes her famous. I am so jealous. I wish this blog made me a penny. And no, I'm not putting those ridiculous google ads on my blog. Gag. Anyway, back to Dooce. So she wrote a book and like most authors she went on a book tour. And, she came to Seattle!! To a bookstore only two miles away from my house! I was so pumped!! I dragged Aaron with me to go meet Dooce and listen to her read some excerpts from her new book, we had a grand time. She's as hilarious and honest and self deprecating in person as she comes across in her blog. She also has quite the southern accent even though she has lived in Utah for a long time. And you know Aaron took a picture of me with Dooce, and you also know that I couldn't just smile like a normal person. I was all up in her grill.



I think I got a little too close for comfort. Her bodyguards started creeping closer and closer to her as I was posing for the picture. I was all, "Whatever, I got my bodyguard here too and his name is Ron." As soon as the picture was taken we were politely asked to leave the premises.

Anyway, the moral of the story is I love the internet.

xoxo,
Alison

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Gimme a break


Dear Blog,

Sometimes it just feels good to break up the routine, to shake it up a little bit and throw things in the air and see where they land. I feel like January, February and March are three of the hardest months of the year. There's a little blip of fun on the radar with Valentine's Day but if you don't have a fabulous partner who gets you a cheeseburger, Raisinettes and watches "He's just not that into You" on this loviest of lovey days, then that holiday is prolly not that great, am I right or am I right? Lately, in typical Aaron and Alison fashion we were craving to break up our routine. We just needed to go. Somewhere. We needed to get out of town and have no plans, drink too much and eat too much and spend a little money. Well, we didn't NEED to spend any money but that is a frequent craving of mine, much to Ron's chagrin.

Since Aaron is the only 28 year old I know who still gets a spring break we thought that would be a great time to take a mini vacay. Since Aaron is a hound dog in human form, he was all over the innernets sniffing out the best deals. (As I write this, he is searching for tickets for our "mini-moon", i.e two year anniversary trip) Since Aaron is an incessant, deal searching, hound dog in human form we got down to 5 days before "GO TIME" with still no plans in sight. I was getting a little clammy in the hands because I had taken myself off the schedule for Friday and Saturday and I was afraid it was Aaron's grand master plan to have me do house chores like painting and potting plants and pretend we were on vacay by putting umbrellas in fruity drinks for me. I was getting nightmares about petunias and azaleas and reminding Aaron that we needed to book tickets like asap. Feeling the pressure from a naggy wife Aaron found us tickets to NYC for a Thursday night to Monday, perfect!!

There's something about New York that's so exciting. It's not the grimy subway, the dirty streets, the crazy horn honking but the energy of the city is contagious. I feel like I can shop all day and stay up all night drinking wine with my friends who I only get to see once or twice a year and be perfectly content. Whereas, I am fatigued by even thought of Vegas, where you are supposed to stay up all night, no thanks.
All of this is to say that I had a great time in NYC with our fave peeps, P, K, S & G*. In my perfect world all of our friends would live in the same city and life would be grand.

*Only initials are given to protect the innocent

xoxo,
Al