If you talk books with me, I might love you forever

Every month or so, I seem to get a request from a friend for a book recommendation. I think they all know I’m an obsessive reader (perhaps the gigantic color-coordinated bookshelf was an indication). I always try to rattle a few off with very animated, circular arm motions of HOW.much.I.LOVE.this.book, or direct them to my Facebook weRead page. So, I decided I’d share some books on my blog and just direct people here, but after sitting down to write out an uber long list of reviews, I discovered I could link my entire weRead list now in my blog’s sidebar. This is quite good news because I have approximately 100 books in there that I’ve rated, reviewed and kept updated, and I’m a big fan of “not reinventing the wheel.” So feel free to peruse via the “View All” button.

And – in perfect timing for book reading news. I just received an email from someone at Harper Collins via my old dating blog over at the Seattle Post Intelligencer. She wanted me to review a book, and offered five copies to give away on the blog. I told her that while I don’t write on the that blog anymore, I’d be happy to transfer over the review and giveaway to this blog – so VOILA! You have a book giveaway coming your way, blog friends. I think the book sounds super funny – it’s a memoir from a girl who wakes up at 26 and realizes after multiple sex partners that she has never had an orgasm…so goes on a no-holds-barred hunt. You know you want to read it! Stay tuned… and in the meantime, tell me:

Currently Feeling: A little sleepy and groggy from the wine jug the BF and I split last night. Whoopsie. We just got so into Paranormal State – my new FAV!
Currently Anticipating: $2 pizzas and $3 glasses of wine at Sazerac tonight for a double date with Bestie Amanda and her boy.
Currently Needing: A quiet weekend before the rush of next week’s craziness before I leave – crazy business at work, a meet-up on Monday at Tini Bigs, a meet-up with the new roomie on Tuesday at Solo, a hair cut, pedicure, packing… AHHHCKKK.

OMFG – Instant Celebrity Gossip!

Ah, Twitter.

It’s the latest CRAAAAZE ya’ll! (I can’t believe I just used ya’ll), Who knows; seemed kinda fitting. Twitter makes me loco!* I LOVE it. It’s strangely fun to tell others what I’m up to (in fact, I’m kinda addicted to it and drive the BF crazy when I’m on my phone all the time), and strangely fun to read what others are doing. But – I tend to be slightly picky about who I’m following. I like to follow my friends because I actually care about what they’re doing every minute of the day, and I like to follow some of my favorite bloggers because I read what they have to say every day. I’m also following a few recommendations from others – @Amazon MP3 because they alert you to $0.99 CDs, @condensedmovies because they’re funny, 140-character reviews of movies…

But recently I’ve discovered something really weird – there are CELEBRITIES on Twitter. Celebrities that regularly update their account with what they’re doing – and it’s legitimately them. (Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Rumer Willis, Punky Brewster, Ashley and Pete Wentz, The Shaq, Fred Durst, MC Hammer, John Mayer, Tina Fay… those are the participating “celebrities” I’ve found so far.) I recently started following Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher. Can I tell you how weird that is?! I read through my Twitter timeline like 50x a day – oh look, Demi and Ashton are celebrating Talulah’s birthday right now! Oh look! Demi and Ashton are in San Fran and they posted a romantic pic together on the Golden Gate Bridge! And now they are on the airplane ride home!

You know I’ve really lost it when I saw that pic and nearly texted one of my good friends who was in San Fran that weekend – “Keep an eye out for the Kutchers! They’re both in San Fran too!” Then I stopped myself – who the $#@* cares you GD loon. I think I might be *this close* (pinching fingers together at the computer screen) to being totally crazy.

Ok, I’m going to go check Twitter now.

*For those of you who poo poo Twitter, it is HUGE in the PR and Mar/Comm world – you should be reading about it and learning how to use it professionally if you’re in these industries, IMO.

Currently Feeling: More than a little behind.
Currently Anticipating: Chic chat tonight!
Currently Reading: Save Karyn by Karyn Boznak, author of Pretty in the City. It’s been awhile since I’ve read chic lit, but this one is HILARIOUS! I can’t put it down.

Keeping up with lovin’ in the late 21st Century

They say us Americans are crazy busy people who don’t know how to slow down and “enjoy the good life.” We all work too much, eat too much and watch too much TV – too much, too much, too much.

I try to curb the overeating, I occasionally overwork and my TV-watching is limited to what I deem worthy of not catching later on DVR when I have the time. But, one of the big overflowing, excessive cups in my life is my calendar. I love, love, love being a social butterfly. I love planning dinners to catch up with old roommates, old coworkers, friends and family. I love happy hours to gossip. I love TV and wine nights with my girls. I love walking Greenlake and rollerblading in the spring and summer with whomever will join me. I love events – like Seattle’s 20-Something Wine event or all Seattle festivals (Folk Life, Bite of Seattle, and of course, Summer Solstice Festival – my FAVORITE). I love day trips, ferry boats, camping. I love to throw parties at my house – Wine tasting, Sex toys and Pumpkin carving. I’m sure you get the point – I love, love, love, love to DO.

When I was little, I would visit my dad during school vacations. Just sitting around at his house and doing nothing would drive.me.crazy. “Can we go see a movie, Dad? Can we go fishing, Dad? Can I go to Aunt Carol’s, Dad?” I’d beg and plead. “Can’t you ever just relax and SIT STILL?” I remember he said to me once.

No, I can’t. I can’t sit still. I don’t have adult ADHD, but I just feel that you get more out of life when you’re living it to the fullest. And my idea of living to the fullest is doing everything I can to have fun, and making the most out of my personal relationships.

I exhausted my dad. And I know I exhaust my boyfriend too.

With all the hustle and bustle of life in general – working, exercising, traveling and keeping up with extensive social calendars, how do you balance a relationship in there too without giving up any of the stuff you liked to do while single? Let me tell you, if there was one thing I wasn’t going to do when I first met my boyfriend was let my personal relationships suffer just because I was in a new relationship. But keeping my boyfriend happy, and making myself and my friends happy, sometimes proves challenging.

So recently, Baby Daddy and I enlisted the help of Google. We started updating our Google calendars, “shared” it with each other, and it works like a charm. We can both update via our phones or computers and it shows up in the side panel in our Gmail accounts. I don’t forget to tell him things; he doesn’t feel like he has no idea how to plan things with me. We keep track of each other, and we’re both happy peas.

And now, thanks to Google, we can still “see” each other even when we’re not spending the night together with the little help of Google’s recently added video chat feature, which we discovered last night. (No, this isn’t an infoblog for Google, I just enjoy any product that makes my life a bit easier).

I got home from work late last night and opened my email to see if I had anything from my “Currently In: Montana” boyfriend. Sure enough; there sat an email. I opened it and read: “You should download the Gmail chat web cam thing so we can get naked over the Internet.”

Naked we did not get, but we did chat with each other via our nerdy Web cams. (I’m not sure that I’m ready for naked webcamming just yet). Perhaps I’m a little behind the times on this one – but video chatting was totally strange yet totally awesome. At first, all I could do was laugh. It was WEIRD. I could physically see him sitting in his hotel room and hear him talking. And even weirder because I could also see what I looked like. It was like staring in the mirror at yourself while talking to someone face-to-face. Super bizarre. I feel like it might have been the most awkward conversation we’d ever had with each other. But after I got the hang of things, it was totally awesome. Beats telephone conversations any day – and now I can’t wait to go home tonight and “see” my boyfriend tonight after happy hour with a friend.

It’s nice to feel like we can continue to maintain a balanced relationship between friends, work and each other with a little planning and a little webcamming – I’ll just have to figure out how to defer his suggestions to do naked webcamming. If I know anything about the male mind, this will be a hard one to avoid too long…

Currently Feeling: Like I’ll probably get coerced into happy hour tonight instead of heading to the gym – oh wait. I already did.
Currently Anticipating: Next Friday’s triple whammy – payday, my tax return check and my 2008 bonus! Cha ching!
Currently Thinking: I’ll start a fun reoccurring series here. Stay tuned for Bacon Saturdays! (I’m not joking)