Thanks for noticing:

Dear Unsavory Middle-Aged Man in the Rusty White Cavalier Convertible Parked Outside the Post Office,

Yes, as a matter of fact, my legs do go all the way up. But thank you for your concern.

Best,
Sarah

The taste, it’s going to move you:

I like to carry a pack of Juicy Fruit gum in my purse just so I can offer it to people by saying, “Get your skis shined up?”

Bliss:

When it’s a late spring night and you’re sitting on your red porch swing while Bob Dylan sings “Lay Lady Lay,” can anything honestly be wrong in the whole world?

The best that’s ever been:

There comes a time while you’re watching Urban Cowboy when you realize you’re not just flipping through, you’re in it for the long haul.

For me, this time usually comes sometime during “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Gilding the lily:

If I were to design my own cosmetics line, I’d call it “Cocktease,” because come on ladies, who do you think you’re kidding?

A lady never tells:

Things that may or may not have actually happened this weekend (only two are fakes):

• witnessing a rip in the space/time continuum
• watching some girl get whipped by a belt up against the refrigerator of her own volition
• attending a party that was crashed by hesher dudes in Megadeth t-shirts with their own personal sketch comedy tapes
• being hit on by a guy brandishing a butterfly knife
• seeing this movie
• seeing this movie
• cleaning my entire apartment
• wearing two jelly bracelets twisted a la Ricky Schroeder circa 1985
• meeting the cutest boy ever in the history of the world
• not getting out of the bed until 3:30 on Saturday
• discovering something new to write on my knuckles in Sharpie instead of MARY / KATE: READ / WEEP
• having that dream about Christian Bale and me in the killer whale tank again

I have a T-shirt that says one of them:

Had I an album to name, I would name it “Fiction and Friction,” because those are two of my very favorite things.

Maybe if it was 1996 and I was feeling all alternative, I’d name it “Fiction/Friction” and put that all lowercase in a Courier New typeface. YOU NEVER KNOW WITH ME.

Things that make me giddy:

• my new red skirt
• tornado weather
• Friday night party
• that part of the song “Beautiful” where Snoop Dogg says, “Hurry up and finish so we can watch Clueless”
• email from other people’s brothers (!)

Bartleby:

Whenever I write myself a little reminder or note on a Post-it, and then affix that Post-it to my computer monitor at work, it’s like a little part of my soul dies.

Love:

I have these friends, these wonderful wonderful friends, named Tony and Emily. I’ve known Tony since the third grade and Emily since college, and they were both already on my short list of all-time favorite people, and then they met through me and fell in love and last weekend they got married, and I could not be happier, because now I get this lifetime two-for-one friend deal. They are both fantastic people, fun people, terribly clever and talented people, but more than anything, good people. They are kind and sweet and steadfast and strong, and they never let you down, and only surprise you in happy ways.

They are the type of friends who will buy you a tube of this lipgloss on their honeymoon because they know you will love the glittery red and moreover, they know how excited you will be that the name matches your license plate. They will make you mix tapes and funny things out of construction paper for no reason whatsoever. They will throw you fantastic birthday parties and remember the names of all of your cousins and the people you’ve kissed. They will drive on road trips, and sing along with you when you put in your CD of guilty pleasure music, and play filthy dirty road trip games that require shredding of all evidence upon arrival. They will let you cry and get their shirt all snotty and not care, and then feed you pasta and ice cream sandwiches and loan you pajamas and tuck you into the guest bedroom for the night, AND wake you up in time for work the next morning.

Friends like this put everything in perspective. I am so lucky.

Everyone draws their own line:

I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I think the one physical thing that would keep me from marrying an otherwise amazing man would not be amputated limbs or genital shortcomings, but a buttchin.

Thanks in advance!

Last night I had this dream where I was psyching myself up for something and I said, “Come on, little tiger, you can do this!” and then I woke up and realized that is the coolest nickname ever, so if you all could start calling me that from now, I’d appreciate it.

My weekend, in a series of poorly-constructed sentences:

So Saturday morning Brian said, “I think I want to go to the mall.” And I said, “You want to go to the mall?” and he said, “I really think I do.” So we Went To The Mall, in every sense of the phrase. We ate at the food court and counted the girls with prom hair and then he said, “You know, I’ve never been inside a Hot Topic.” So we went to Hot Topic and witnessed some sort of Hello Kitty doll wearing a bear costume while holding a tiny stuffed puppy, which seemed to me to be like the turducken of plush toys, but what do I know? Then we went to the Thomas Kinkade gallery and it was completely and predictably horrifying, but while we were standing in front of a print that depicted the Statue of Liberty and an American flag and an eagle and like lightning or something, Brian all of the sudden just licked the canvas, and it was the most horrible awesome thing ever in the history of the world, and then he said, “The scariest part was that it didn’t taste like anything,” and I’m pretty sure that he’s my favorite person on the planet just for that.

Then we drove home in this weird pouring rain/blinding sunshine that Brian described as “end times weather” and got wet-jeans-wet-hair soaked to the bone just while running from the car to the house, where we made lots of T-shirts, and that night there was much red wine during movie night at the mansion and I saw Super Troopers and Roger Dodger and oh my god did I mention all the red wine?

I spent most of today lying on a blanket at the park and now I have the skin to show for it. Then there was Easter with my family, and evidently it’s just not Easter unless someone wets his pants. However, this seven year old I know told me I was the most beautiful person he knows not counting Wonder Woman, and this three year old I know is totally setting me up on a blind date with his friend Marky to “go eat casserole and waffles,” so I’m pretty psyched. What to wear? I hear the kids are way into Hello Kitty.

I’m not tryin to hear that see:

I love Steve, because if you’re having a shitty day, he’ll say, “Hey shower-cryer, want to go get a drink?” and then he’ll totally buy your drinks, and never forget the limes, and bring you a CD of funny songs, and he’ll sing “I got a man, what’s your man got to do with me?” and never ask you about your rotten day that you’d rather not discuss, but instead tell stories that start with, “So we were really drunk, and there was this hammer…”

I love my life:

Crying at work rules!

So does crying in the shower first thing in the morning!

I can’t wait to see what else happens today!

Cold hard dis:

My ex-boyfriend’s mom won’t even go see 50 Cent and Clipse with me this Thursday. I know this because I called her and asked.

To the person who reached my site by searching for “wedding invitations with Camaros on them”:

I love you.

Someone who’ll make me laugh/someone to be my better half/keep me warm under the sack/share with me my midnight snack:

Sometimes I find myself playing this game in my head called “the man I marry will ____.”

This is not some fucked up, impossible-expectation Ally McBeal game where I say, oh, he’ll drive this kind of car and always bring me flowers, or some sort of physical attraction tally where I say, man, I love brown eyes and English accents. It’s also not some game where I try to predict or choose cute or sweet little things I want to happen to me someday—I prefer to be surprised. It’s just things I realize are inevitable, and I end up adding them to this mental list.

I don’t use the list as any sort of stupid checklist when I meet someone, but every once in awhile, when I’m with someone who does one of those things on it, I feel all fluttery. Sometimes I meet new people and they do things that I didn’t even realize were on the list until that minute. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has touched the list more than three or four times. I’m young yet.

I can’t tell you everything that’s on the list, because that would be cheating, but I can share a few of the less personal ones:

The man I marry will let me fall asleep first.
The man I marry will be tall.
The man I marry will be smarter than I am.
The man I marry will love children as much as I do.
The man I marry will stroke my hair a lot.
The man I marry will make me laugh so hard I can’t breathe.
The man I marry will not be adverse to sing alongs.
The man I marry will like that I talk a lot.
The man I marry will read.
The man I marry will read in bed.
The man I marry will read with me in bed.
The man I marry will read to me in bed.

There are many things that the man I will marry will not do, like wear baseball caps backwards, or wear baseball caps period, but that list isn’t nearly as much fun. It’s also a lot longer and tends to veer towards bitterness. This list makes me happy and excited every single time I remember it, or add to it.

I added one to it this weekend.

(Just so you know, it was really hard not to end this with “the man I marry will bring it between the sheets.” It’s implied. Like ustedes.)

Feelings:

What makes me feel like a dork: when I reach up to adjust my glasses and then realize they’re sitting on the desk in front of me.
What makes me feel like a badass: when that trench-coated businessman on the corner downtown does a double-take when I pass him with my Lola license plate, blasting “Bulldog Skin.”
What makes me feel like a mess: when I wake up at 5:30 am on top of my covers and my unfolded clean laundry, all the lights on, the phone dead on the pillow next to me.
What makes me feel breathless: when you say “Sarah baby,” and I can feel it in the small of my back.

Bonus: What makes me feel inexplicably excited about my future: when the guy from the Proclaimers says “hither.”

Compulsion:

Everytime I see people rollerblading, I have to suppress the urge to run up to them, high-five, and yell, “Hey, Sunny D!”