I’m not sure why this popped into my head the other day, but I remembered that when I was a little kid I would try to calm myself down after having a nightmare by envisioning watermelon.
I’m totally serious. For whatever reason, I found thoughts of watermelon to be soothing. I have always had incredibly (horrible) vivid nightmares, and I’d wake up completely freaked out of my mind. I learned early on that I couldn’t just run into my parents’ room every time I had a nightmare, so I figured out how to trick my brain into thinking happy thoughts so I could fall back to sleep. I said this phrase to myself, over and over:
“Think of watermelon, lollipops and good daytime things.”
What a food-oriented little chubbette I was, huh?
Anyway, I figured if anyone could appreciate my safe-watermelon-place, it would be you people, so, um…there it is.
I have had a lot of work to do this week. And then I have come home and either gone out somewhere or sat around watching the Pineapple Express DVD. On Wednesday night, I watched the movie itself. Yesterday after work, I watched the blooper reel and the extended/ deleted scenes. And then tonight as I ate dinner, I put the movie on with the commentary. Why the obsession? It really made me laugh like an idiot, that’s why. And it inspired me AGAIN to write the movie with my sister about the two stupid girls. (She told me it would remind me of our movie idea, and she was right!) But tomorrow I have to mail it back to Netflix. Poop. I’ll just have to buy it.
I feel totally BLAH these days when it comes to doing anything. I don’t have any motivation to drive over to the mountain to hike, and I certainly can’t drag my ass out of bed early enough to ride my bike to work. Plus it’s COLD OUTSIDE in the morning and what do I look like, some jerk who enjoys riding her bike in the cold?! Sheesh. I don’t think so. So, what this all means is, my body is storing its fat at an alarming rate and I am moving ever more like a dying slug as I go about my day. I’m hoping that after I get this last pain in the ass article completed for work, my mood will improve because the cloud will be lifted. We’ll see. If it’s not the article causing my funk, don’t worry… I will find another scapegoat right quick.
In other news, my name is officially changed. It’s messing with my head a little bit, though.
I got my new SS card in the mail today, and I’ve been carrying my new license for over a week now… and the new checks and debit card arrived in the mail yesterday. All the proof of my “new” name is suddenly everywhere and damned if it doesn’t make me feel crappy. There are a lot of reasons for it: the primary one being, of course, that it’s a HUGE reminder of the fact that yes, I really did go through a divorce. I was married, and now I am NOT married. Ehhh. It’s a weird feeling; kind of a FAIL feeling, you know?
The other main reason I am sad about the name change is simply that I HATE my maiden name so much. It’s ugly sounding, and no one can ever frickin’ pronounce it or spell it right. I seriously appreciated being able to just say my last name and people could get it on the first try. Now I am back to where I was before, with a name that sounds like I am a Nordic/Jewish pirate or something. Grumble, grumble.
But I had to do it. It didn’t feel right keeping the married name, especially since we were married for such a short period of time. My mom kept her married name when they were divorced, but she’d had that name for 21 years. It had kind of become her identity, and changing it back would have been odd. As for me, the only people who knew me with the new last name only are the people at my current job, and the people I deal with for my job. While I dread the inevitable questions surrounding the sudden name change, I think it will be like pulling a bandaid off and everyone will quickly forget I was ever that “other” person with the easy last name.
For now, I have procrastinated changing my work email, business cards and name plate, and I am still identifying myself by my married name when I’m interviewing people. I only just started signing my name with the maiden name, because now it is showing up on the debit card and everything. It feels so strange! I know I keep talking about this, but it really is bugging me. It’ll go away. And it will likely go away very soon. Just for now, though? I am half married-name-me, half maiden-name-me. I just never experienced the in-between part of all this, I guess, and it’s freaky.
Or maybe I just think too much.
Hmm. Maybe I should shut this down for the night, and go to bed early with happy images of watermelon, lollipops and daytime things dancing in my head.
Look, this could be me! Someday!
Speaking of lollipops, and in keeping with my previous post (sorta), here is an exchange from Pineapple Express that’s gross but keeps making me crack up in its creativity:
Saul: It’s probably from that time when you wanted to eat that lollipop out of that stripper’s snatch! You wanted to DO it, man!
Red: Out of her vagina. I know. But what about you? What did you do?
Saul: Nothing!
Red: You ate a box of Nerds out of a *butthole*!
LOVELY!! What a gentle-lady I turned out to be. (“Maiden” name my ass.)
I CAN HAS DIARY 
It IS a funny movie! I didn’t get to see the deleted scenes/blooper reel, etc… because we went the “download it from the internet” route,but still…
and what an interesting photo!
I think that’s cute that you used watermelon as a way to combat nightmares. I wish I had thought up something like that. Alas.
That photo is weird. Like, who cuts a watermelon like that?
Ah, I was debating whether to watch that movie, but now I’ll have to add it to my Netflix queue.
And for what it’s worth (about 2 quid), I LOVE your original name. Now I’m wondering who these people are who can’t pronounce it…
Shades- I’m glad you liked it, too! I don’t understand why I find pot humor so hilarious, when in reality I don’t get high or hell, even drunk. But it does make me laugh every single time. Right now, my computer’s wallpaper is the poster from Harold & Kumar 2, with NPH sitting on the unicorn and it says, “What would NPH do?”
SA- Watermelon just seems so random. And you’d think I ate it all the time, that it was one of my favorite foods…but it wasn’t. I only had it in the summer, and while I always have liked it a whole lot, I wonder why I didn’t tell myself to think of strawberries or apples, because I know I loved them a whole lot more. Anyway, it’s never too late to develop a nightmare-combatting strategy, so I urge you to go ahead and imagine your own ‘watermelon and lollipops’ scenario, if you will.
And yes, that picture IS odd. I have to say, though, that now I kinda want to try cutting a watermelon that way. After I get paid, maybe I’ll give it a try. I’d need to document it with photos… anyway, I’m getting carried away. For that “art” up there, I did an image search on watermelon and everything was a Flickr photo that I couldn’t upload. Finally I did a search on “woman eating watermelon” and this came up. Just odd enough to illustrate my point. 🙂
Fraulein- HA! Two quid!! That’s positively killing me. I don’t know why, it’s just…two quid! Well played, m’lady. Well played. Oh, and thanks for giving my name some love. I appreciate that. I mean, it is unique and I know I’ll never run into another person with my name, so that’s always kinda cool. I think people have a hard time pronouncing it because there are a lot of consonants all in a row with few vowels. Everyone goes all stupid/dyslexic when they see our name. Which is dumb because it’s pronounced exactly as it is spelled. If they’d just relax their eyes, they’d be fine!
I think we had the discussion about our maiden names and how stupid people butcher them when they really have no reason to. I can’t understand why people do that? I think they try to make things more difficult on purpose to stand out or something…
Now I want some watermelon. 🙂
I wasn’t going to watch Pineapple Express because I don’t care for that team of movie makers particular brand of humor. but now I may have to check it out.
Ooh, I forgot to comment on this blog. I hate when I do that. And not like I have to comment on everyone but well, I guess I think I do. 🙂
Anyway, I wanted to see Pineapple Express. That is on my list. Glad you liked it.
Sorry to hear the name change got you down. It makes it more final, I guess. 😦
I missed you on my blog and on here so I am glad you’re back. Although you have been back, it is just me who is late on commenting.