Taking the Plunge!

So this blog thing...

First of all, I have to thank Jay and Cicely for inspiring me to start this (they have the funniest blogs, you should check them out). For the past few days I've been like a freakin' crack addict reading blogs all day long (in my spare time I mean, as I would never think to do such a thing during work hours). I've been thinking about starting a blog for the longest time. When I was a kid, I used to keep a journal..religiously. Then when I hit high school it became much more sporadic, and once college hit the only time I really kept any record of my life was when I traveled. Um, do I know where those journals are now? Not really.

So now I'm just going to lay all my thoughts online for the world to see for all of eternity. Or maybe just my 10 friends to see for as long as they find it interesting - two weeks, a month tops. In any case, I think the main thing that's been holding me back is this paranoia I have that someone someday is going to read something I write here and use it against me. Yeah, that's the sick way my mind works! Like one day I'm going to walk into work and they're going to say, "I'm sorry Cheryl, you're fired because we read on your blog entry on 4/12/06 that you have been wasting time at work looking up random blogs." Because we all know that nobody ever surfs the internet at work. By the way, is there some new term for "surfing the internet" that I should know about? Because that just seems like a pretty antiquated term, and I feel like I'm pretty much out of it when it comes to the latest slang. I still think "the bomb" is cool to say.

I had the hardest time coming up with a title to this blog. I think "I'm laughing at myself" is a pretty appropriate one. I try really hard most of the time to not think about myself - not to make it sound like I think I'm the most selfless person in the world, it's just that I'm pretty much uncomfortable with thinking or talking about me, and thus not too introspective. I guess it's pretty ironic that I started a blog. But I digress. I would say 75% of the time when I do think about myself, it's to laugh at something I did, thought, or said. Today it would be when I took a trip down to the shady 7-11 down the street from my work just to get a straw and then felt obligated to buy some candy in order to get it for free. I stood there and stared at those damn slurpee straws for a good five minutes, debating whether or not I should just try to take one and run. Finally I decided to do the honorable thing and I grabbed a pack of Twizzlers (to be used as whiskers for an Easter Bunny cake I'm planning to make). By the time I got to the cash register, a nice line had formed and more people were filing up behind me. My mind started racing - would I hold up the line with my request for a free straw, thus inciting a riot with Corn Nuts and Ciabatta sandwiches being thrown around? Palms sweating, I approached the cashier, held out the straw and said, "I just need this straw - and I'm buying Twizzlers too, is it okay?". She took one look at me and the hardcore thug standing behind me, gave me a smirk and said, "Well yeah, that's easy."

Crisis avoided.