Car Things

Things I have in my car:

1. An umbrella. And yet I still always forget to take it with me when it rains while I'm walking around (or conversely, it never rains during the times I remember to grab it). I guess what I'm saying is that I've been wet a lot this week.
2. Bath and Body Work's "Autumn" car freshener. Sometimes when I'm smelling the crisp, sweet, earthiness that it bastes my car in, I take the time to contemplate how God has blessed us through this store. Nothing smells bad in there. Nothing. I could go into the store looking for a present for someone, close my eyes and grab anything, and the person would love it because it smells amazing.
3. A bunch of clothes more suitable for summer. I know I should get those tank tops and shorts out of there and replace them with jeans and sweatshirts, but the chances are high that as soon as I do that the weather will shoot to 87 degrees on a day where I decided to wear my long-sleeved polo and ugly pants to work in the morning, thus leaving me with nothing suitable to change into. Thus my hesitation.
4. A pair of earrings. Maybe someday I'll be sitting in my car looking at what I'm wearing and say, "Shoot, I forgot earrings!" and then look down and there they'll be, all perfect and convenient. These are my dreams.
5. Car charger and auxiliary input cable. The only team you need for listening to music in your car. Well I mean you need a stereo that has an auxiliary input plug. And an mp3 player of some kind (like a Zune...just kidding, who doesn't have an iPod?). Anyway.

Things I need to put in [or on] my car:

1. My string dolls. Shut up, one's an outlaw and one's a pirate with a thumbtack peg leg and they'll be magical protective talismans (talismen?) once I hang them on my mirror. You're jealous.
2. Stickers. Lots and lots of dorky, clever, bumper stickers. Right now all I have is the Covenant Fellowship 25th anniversary magnet, which isn't even a sticker it's a magnet. But it is awesome.
3. Cold weather clothes. I think it would be wise for me to keep at least one full outfit in my car for emergencies, and it would probably be helpful if the outfit wasn't a tank-top, shorts, and flip-flops like it is right now. The wisdom in this is pretty much proved to be vast by point #1 in my first list.
4. A towel. Because of the rain. And my ineptitude surrounding that particular life situation.
5. A blanket. This is an extremely useful thing to have lying around your car. It's like a Swiss Army knife, only bigger. You can use it to cover the ground if you spontaneously have a picnic; you can use it as a curtain or something if you desperately need to change in your car (like, if you for some reason got soaking wet walking to your car and had a towel and a nice, dry, warm set of clothes beckoning you from the back seat...theoretically); and I can personally attest to the fact that when you are a passenger driving with someone on a cold autumn's/winter's morning/day/night having a blanket is literally the best thing ever. 
6. A snuggie. So I can drive and still experience some of the wonder of the last point made in #4.
7. A first-aid kit. I'm thinking I want to make one myself. That way the band-aids will be Batman band-aids, and it will include essentials that most manufacturers are remiss in omitting, like stickers and lollipops (but not butterscotch ones, those are gross).
8. Snacks. As the semester progresses I'm falling into this habit of not eating. I don't know how or why this is happening.
9. I dunno, like, survival stuff I guess. Like...water. And road flares, or something. Dehydrated food?

If I plan right I should be able to live semi-comfortably out of my car should some disaster strike. Like, I dunno, the zombie apocalypse. I can drive through the desolate country-side, keeping my Bath and Body Work's car freshener close to my nose to obscure the scent of rotting corpses and stagnating society; I'll comfort myself with songs I used to listen to in highschool--when life was simple and unterrifying--and old PDI worship songs using my car charger and AI cable; at nights I will curl into a ball in the back seat, wrapping my blanket around my body like a protective shell, using my snuggie as both a pillow and to drown out the distant moans of hunting zombies; when I come across survivors I shall do what I can for them, sharing water and dehydrated food, and aiding the wounded with my Batman band-aids. I'll even have at least one extra outfit to change into! I'll probably last like a whole two weeks like that. Maybe three. After that I'll probably starve, or get beaten to death by looters when they break into my car to steal my magical string doll talismen.

Of course since a Facebook quiz assures me I'll only survive at most the first five months after the original cataclysm, I think that's okay.

Things Meagan Recommends

1. Tea without sugar. It's very refreshing. And you get the benefit of the pure taste of delicious tea with the added bonus of feeling like a European demi-god or something similar.
2. Andrew Bird. Specifically his albums Armchair Apocrypha and Noble Beasts/Useless Creatures--perfect summer music.
3. Not thinking a lot of yourself. Specifically this is important when you're trying to hold a funny face your making at someone. If you think a lot of yourself, you'll probably start thinking about how funny the face is, and then you'll laugh at your own hilariousness and consequently ruin the face--probably before the person you're making said face at sees it. And then the whole thing is just ruined. Humility is key in many things, and one of them is pulling off a good funny.
4. Walking around in bare feet. For two reasons: the first is that if you do this frequently you'll never have to experience the shame of going for a walk around the neighborhood and getting debilitating blisters on the pads of your feet because your delicate kid glove princess feet can't handle the abrasive friction of asphalt for longer than ten yards; the second is, obviously, that you'll become a hobbit.
5. Diana Wynne Jones. One of my favorite authors; she's creative, clever, hilarious, and prolific, which is an excellent combination of traits. If you like reading fantasy remotely, you'll like her. If you like fairy tales, you'll like her. If you like witticism, you'll like her.
6. Keeping up with your devotions--even in the summer. I'm dry as bones right now. Le sigh.
7. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. If you like mysteries, writing that makes you want to dog-ear every page, drama, Jane Eyre, reading, reading about reading, or reading books that are good, your mind will be blown by this book.

On an unrelated note, I actually set up that creative blog I've been ruminating about for about a year and a half. It's right here. At this point you get semi-recent things I've already written, nothing new. I've been thinking about using the 100 themes challenge as a catalyst for subject material, but I'd also really benefit from any suggestions you have, dear readers, and hearing what you'd like to see. If you stop by I'd love feedback.

Harry Potter 7.2 Thursday at midnight. I wonder if this will be anything like the first time I saw The Return of the King (that would be embarrassing).

I'm Back--Sort of

You know what I don't understand? The letter G. It's all silly looking and weird; and it for some reason feels like being the only letter in the English alphabet that can make the sound it does isn't enough and therefore it must mug J for its sound every once in a while. G is all, "Hm, 'garage'...oh man, I got so exhausted making the 'guh' sound at the beginning of that word. Plus I always end up sounding like someone punched me in the stomach. I think I'll make the 'juh' sound for the next one--that's not weird or confusing, right? It's cool, it's not gonna make first-graders cry from frustration as they struggle to grasp the purpose of it, right? Right!" Meanwhile J is like, "Come on, this is all I have! So I can act like a Y or even an H in foreign countries--WE'RE SPEAKING AMERICAN HERE, G. For flips sake!"

Conversely, you know what the most awesome letter is? Q. No matter what font it's wearing it looks like an ancient rune or a military insignia from Star Trek, and is always all, "Hey, man, I'm pretty much whatever you want me to be...check this out, I can make 'queue' just say my name! How awesome is that, it's like six letters, but still only one syllable. Booyah."

Also the vowels are the elitist clique of the alphabet world, and the IPA are the gods of all the alphabets.

Yes, I'm Still Alive

The first fifteen minutes of Gladiator, an entire recent conversation with (the glorious and beautiful) Olivia Stout, and three school assignments in as many days have all been completely wiped from my memory.

(Well, to be fair, the memory-wipage of the school assignments wasn't complete so much as it was utter-until-my-professors-brought-it-up. And boy did that damage my calm.)

The other week, I was sitting next to my friend in the computer lab. She sneezed, and I didn't say "Bless you." A few minutes later, I sneezed and she didn't say "Bless you" (although the girl behind me did). I felt a lot less guilty and a pleasant sense of balance was restored to our friendship.

That's basically the story of my life this semester.

Thank God He's controlling my life; what said life would look like if it were solely up to me inspires the utmost of horror.