"'Cause someday, believe it or not, you'll go 15 rounds over who's gonna get this coffee table. This stupid, wagon wheel, Roy Rogers, garage sale COFFEE TABLE."

I've been apartment hunting! 

My lease isn't up until the end of December, but I absolutely hate being rushed so I started looking for a new place about a month ago.  I have a roommate now, and she's moving with her boyfriend, which means it's time for me to live on my own, really on my own, for the first time.  My mom didn't live on her own until after her marriage ended.  20-something seems like a good time to be self sufficient. 
I think I did find an apartment.  It's cheap enough that I can afford it by myself without giving up luxuries like new pants and take-out pizza.  It's clean, has an old building feel but a redone interior, and the guy who owns it is really nice.  But it's super small.  One room with a kitchen offshoot and a bathroom kind of small. In apartment terms that is a "studio" but in Sarah terms that's called "post-college but still-a-dorm room." 
At some point I want to be an adult.  Someone who owns a washer and dryer and gets super excited about the ice cube maker in the fridge.  I'll become overly excited about tomato plants and overly sad about chipmunks. You know the usual.

For now, all I really want is a place to call my own that has four walls, high speed internet, and feels safe.  Check, sort of check, and probably check.

You might be thinking, "Sarah, as an avid reader of your blog, I know all about your love life.  Why aren't you moving in with Boyfriend?" Stop thinking that.  Stop thinking that right now before the thought exits your brain, enters your keyboard, and becomes my first ever blog comment.  It would be really sad if my first ever blog comment resulted in me reaching through my computer to punch someone in the face. 

I love Boyfriend, but he thinks, and rightly so, that a couple should be together for a few years before living together.  I can't really put a number on how long I think a couple should test run a relationship for before embarking on lease signage, but I can tell you that we aren't there yet.

To be honest, as a child of divorce, I am hesitant to live with someone I'm dating.  I've seen how long it takes to untangle your lives once there's more than emotional interweaving.  I'm also concerned because a study indicated that those who live with more than one partner before marriage have a higher divorce rate.  With that bit of information looming overhead, I want to be reasonably sure my partner is "the one" before living together.  I think I have less trepidation about engagement.  After all, it's easy to give back a ring; it is very hard to break a lease. 

If you don't know where the title of this post comes from, you can watch this.

I'm Super Awkward Turtle about The Oatmeal

Last night I met Matt Inman. 

Actually, I don't really think I met him.  Meeting someone involves a back and forth communication wherein you learn about one another: I say, "Hello, my name is Sarah." And Matt says, "Hello, my name is Mr. Oats." And then we talk for a bit about real things like the epic choice between the toothbrush that's on sale or  the kind that comes in your favorite color.  Real things that you can't find our from a dating profile or two blogs worth of stalking. 

What did happen was this:  Boyfriend bought us tickets to a TEDx Talk in Princeton.  (The x stands for independently organized... When the librarian told us that, I wasn't sure if she was incredibly dumb or the whole TED site was.  Possibly both are true.)  We sat in a room of 100+ guests and watched a hodgepodge of short TED talks and two live guests.  Sarah, who spelled her name the correct way and had lovely pink hair, embodied everything I try to be when I put on my fake leather jacket and dance around my room singing loudly.  She was an unknown entity to me but I hope that in the future she makes it big and kicks Jack Johnson in the pants, resulting in his retiring from music and her being played in coffee shops that I frequent.  Then Matt went up to talk. 

The theme of the evening was humor, but to be honest, it was sort of like how TBS thinks they are "very funny" but show things like Jurassic Park, which is not all that funny.  Velociraptors are anything but hilarious.  Our live and our video presenters were all comedians to some extent, but the focus of each presentation didn't seem to be about humor as much as a presentation that uses humor. I'm blaming librarian lady, but she made Mr. Oats available to me so I can't really be mad at her.

Back to Matt.  His talk was sort of fantastic.  I knew most of his presentation and Q&A answers already, because I am a good stalker, but seeing him up their in a button down and tie was epic.  I really enjoyed the comedic strategies he showed us, like limiting the detail in your characters, or why dogs aren't as funny as cats.  I also loved the little things, like his fohawk hair or how he had to step in when librarian couldn't figure out how to find/show videos in IE. (I'm sorry to keep picking on this woman.  I'm sure she's very sweet.)

Everyone got a free CD from Sarah, and library bag (yay grocery bag!) and a copy of Matt's book.  Like a normal person, I had Sarah sign my cd.  Like a crazy person, I had Matt sign a picture of Wil Wheaton collating.  I thought up this idea a few days ago while high on coffee.  The Bloggess, who is almost as awesome as The Oatmeal (but falls slightly short because of her lack of fohawk) has a whole bit about high res photos and blog marketing gimmicks that has resulted in Wil Wheton collating being a minor internet  phenomenon.  I had vaguely hoped that Mr. Oats would immediately recognize where the picture came from and we'd be best friends, but I knew that was a lofty dream and so my secondary goal was to amuse myself and at least set myself apart from the crowed a little.  Sure, I didn't say anything witty to The Oatmeal, but I have a signed something that no one else does, and he probably remembers me a little, even if it's as "that crazy girl who made me sign SOMEONE ELSE'S PICTURE."

Matt lost zero coolness points for not knowing about The Bloggess, but he did loose two coolness points for not recognizing Wil Wheaton.  I don't know how you can call yourself a geek without being able to recognize him.  Even if you're not a Trekkie, he's been on BBT and he's all over the inter-webs.  When I told him who the picture was of, he muttered something about recognizing him from the blogosphere, which knocks of another half a point of coolness because seriously, WESLEY CRUSHER.  I know I just pretended like his work since then matters, but no.  No it does not. Star Trek. 

Now, when I move, and I need to put up my two Oatmeal posters, I will need to put them on a different wall than my Star Trek collage because obviously Matt Inman doesn't know about Star Trek. 

I'm being all snippy about Matt now, which is unfair, especially since I'm already going to hell over librarian lady.  But it is a good follow up to exactly how awkward turtle I was about having Matt sign my picture.  I mean, I didn't even tell him my name.  And when he asked if he should just sign it or if he should draw something, I couldn't really talk so I just mumbled something while shrugging in a way that probably seemed like a seizure to the untrained eye.  Oh, and I turned BRIGHT RED. 

I'm doing a bad job explaining it, but basically, I have a giant crush on The Oatmeal and Boyfriend took me to meet him anyway because Boyfriend isn't the jealous kind.  I am the jealous kind.  Don't touch boyfriend.  Or Mr. Oats for that matter.  Go get your own boy collection.

This is What it Sounds Like

I told myself I was going to be really really smart and blog about things with amazing key words that are totally things people Google but totally not things that get a lot of results, that way I'd show up in the first page or two of results and people would click on this and my stats would improve and I'd feel like my life was validated.  However, I wrote half of a blog post like that and then I stopped writing and actually did work or something and now I don't feel like going back and finishing it. 

Yeah, my idiot ex might have been onto something that time he said I had no follow through.  There's probably a sexual joke I could make right now but I've got nothing. 

Anyway.  Instead of writing something brilliant and tricky that would result in page views, I thought I'd just write about something that's been on my mind lately and hope for the best.

Topic of Interest: People are really messed up and yet they seem to have functional marriages.

People warned me that you'd reach a certain age and figure out that your parents are separate people and their fallible, but I knew that crap when I was 6.  People also told me that as you get older you will realize that you don't feel like an adult but you totally are.  This one is completely true but I hated being a teen so at lest 80% of the time I’m just relived to be in an age group where I can relate to my peers again.  But no one warned me that all adults are totally immature and that it never gets better.

Examples: I know a 40-something frat boy.  My mother dumped her boyfriend for coming over drunk.  My grandmother dumped her boyfriend for being too clingy.  My boss's boss talked about keg stands after I'd known her a month.  People are moving in together and buying houses and having babies and they can't even do simple things.  Why do you own property if you can't remember to buy toilet paper?  How can you have created another human being when you can't spell or when you don't know the difference between tights and pants?  How are you moving in with your boyfriend when you're still afraid of the dark? 

And you know what?  In part I can chock these things up to being someone else's malfunction and that these things are normal but not ideal and maybe they will make mistakes, learn from them, and move on.  But the truth is that most of that stuff is just life.  Sometimes it even works out okay. 

I worry about boyfriend and me not being right for each other for all sorts of reasons.  I'm seriously concerned that if we end up married that at some point I'm going to take his DS-Whatever or his smart phone and I'm going to chuck that shit out of the window because all of his games beep.  Then I go read a blog or flip on TLC and there are real women with real issues and these men totally love them.  These men totally do not want to throw anything out a window even when their wives do the most obnoxious things. 

The whole thing just makes me think that I'm like the Prince song "When the Doves Cry" and I'm totally like his mother and his father because I'm bold, if by bold we mean I blurt a lot and I am never satisfied.  Mostly I was thinking of the second part.  Maybe I'm Prince's sister. 

Page Views - They're Just Like Romance

Like most of the great bloggers, I fell into this trap where I didn't really have a blog "mission" so my posts ended up being about these five-really-great-ideas-I-had-all-at-once and there were all lot of those great ideas and some of them were even cohesive enough to travel out of my brain and into the keyboard so I could share them with all of you. 

And then the honeymoon period ended.  Blogging wasn't this shiny new thing I was trying out that could be a relic of my 20-something years like my MySpace posts were for my teens, and it also didn't seem to be something that was going to show the world how I was super cool and awesome like Yo Mamma or Allie Brosh.  I was on the lookout for my relationship with Boyfriend to get all un-honeymoon-ish like that (it hasn't, by the way) but I wasn't ready for the shine to wear off of Blogger. 

Sorry, Blogger.  It isn't your fault. 

But like most great bloggers I'll power on and through and up and forward and possibly at least four other prepositions. And in the mean time, people have actually come across my blog!  I don't even think all of them are the two people I told about my blog because I checked the stats and it looks like people have stumbled across my blog from Google searches and have done so from the far reaches of the world.  Awesome. 

I also noticed that they're coming across it when googling what a pseudo problem actually is.  I guess that means maybe they didn't actually want to read a blog.  On the plus side, it makes me think that presenting quasi-philosophical facts in a humorous manner might actually get me more page views.  Page views bring the romance back into my blogging relationship. 

Now, actual followers, commenters, internet friends...that will have to wait.  I'm ambitious but not stupid.

Why I call Boyfriend "Boyfriend"

I'm not going to give you the nitty gritty details of my personal life. I don't even post my location as part of my aim away status or use foursquare.

So instead of telling you how I'm a button pusher at Buttons for Buttons Inc. or whatever I'm going to talk about "job" and what I do at "job." Likewise I'm going to tell you how I live in Suburbia which is only 15 minutes to a half hour outside of The City. I live with Roommate and I'm dating Boyfriend. We might even get into Best Friend later.

Interestingly though, in real life I call Boyfriend "Boyfriend." I have noticed that Allie does this too, but I am not doing it to be like her. I actually wonder if she's doing it for the same reason I am: Gilmore Girls. On Gilmore Girls Rory had these two friends near the end of college. They were artsy and eccentric and when one of them started dating Marty she just called him Boyfriend to her friends and to his face which actually caused great issue because Rory didn't know Boyfriend was Marty and it was awkward when they met because they used to be friends and he liked her.

Why I've adopted a custom that lead to tv drama I couldn't tell you except to say that I'm not such a fan of normal terms of endearment. I'm not going to call Boyfriend honey, babe, dear, shnookums, or any of that. I might actually call him something like peanut, pumpkin, or love but mostly I just call him boyfriend or his real name.