When I was tooling around Wikipedia earlier, I made a very sad discovery: In 2008, Knotts Berry Farm closed the Peanuts Playhouse.

Well, okay. Sad for me.

Well, okay. Not really sad for me.

( Cut because it got long )

Less than cool event of the day: It turns out that my sonogram and echocardiogram were done by an out of network diagnostics company. My doctor did not tell me this. Guess who gets to pay $750+ out of pocket!

You get one guess.

So now I have an ex-doctor and a lot of extra worries. I guess this is fate's way of telling me I don't need that new iPod after all.

Here is something I will never understand -- tourists' unrelenting propensity toward taking photos of their daughters essentially pole-dancing on the subway. I mean, granted, sometimes the girl's too young to be aware of stripper dance moves, but even still, those are going to be some mock-worthy photos when her friends/other family members/significant others see them during the teenage years.

Wait, not all families will mercilessly tease someone for an unintentional faux pas committed as a small child? Even with photographic evidence?

My family's full of jerks.

Apparently, the movie filming was today, considering that the makeup trailer was parked directly in front of our building when I got home from work and I passed Kevin Smith in the crosswalk. I'm also pretty sure I saw Tracy Morgan, but it was from across the street, so I can't be 100% on that one.

And now I'm mad because I had zero interest in seeing this movie, and now I have to so I can see all the neighborhood sights in it. Boo-urns.

Fact: I only own one pair of shorts.

Fact: They're bright red semi-booty shorts that refer to my butt's hotness across the seat.

Fact: My butt is not actually as hot as the shorts would have you believe.

Therefore: I only wear them when it's really hot, at night, when my roommate is not at home.

But I also don't have any curtains, so I'm sure my neighbors all really appreciate the ensemble.

ETA: Oh, and apparently they're filming part of a Kevin Smith movie somewhere nearby this evening? Or tomorrow; I don't know. I'm too lazy to put on pants, go outside, and check it out.

In honor of Independence Day, poisonivory and I went to Coney Island. Here are some things that happened:

1. Before we even left, a guy tried to solicit me for sex because I happened to be standing alone on a street corner at 10 in the morning. Score! I could use some extra cash for skeeball!

2. Once at Coney Island, we watched Joey Chestnut beat the world record in the hot dog eating contest -- 68 in 10 minutes -- all to the fevered chanting of "USA! USA!" from thousands upon thousands of people. HE IS AN AMERICAN HERO. Kobayashi came in close with 64.5 hot dogs. HE IS A JAPANESE HERO.

3. After standing in line for an hour and getting our own hot dogs, fries and giant lemonades, we saw Joey, Kobayashi and the other eaters as they were escorted away from the crazy crowd. We, being part of the crazy crowd, gawked and applauded.

4. Back at the boardwalk, we played skeeball and pooled our tickets for a weird troll doll/koosh hybrid and a harmonica. Between the two of us, we probably spent $10 on these awesome items.

5. Then we went on the Wonder Wheel and poisonivory was very nice as I had a nervous breakdown. THE CARS SWING, OKAY. IT'S DISCONCERTING.

6. Then we were tired and sunburned, so we went back to non-Coney Island Brooklyn and watched The Great Mouse Detective, The Little Mermaid and some Darkwing Duck episodes, and also ate pizza and ice cream.

In conclusion, God bless America.

I didn't do half bad this month. Some of them are even non-BSC!

( Books read in June )

Apparently our stove has had a hazardous gas leak the whole seven months we've been here and we just didn't realize it! Ha ha ha! Good thing we're not dead!

Unrelated, but I also want to hit everyone in the face. (But not you! ♥)

Plus, it occurs to me that my mom did drugs while she was pregnant with me, along with (doctor-ordered) steroids, so why was I not born with super-strength and mind-altering powers? I wish I lived in a comic book, except I'd probably be one of the ones killed by space starfish.

For the past week or so, I'd been planning to have Shake Shack for dinner. Since it's summer, the lines have been obnoxiously long, killing any hope for lunchtime visits, but dinner is another thing. The line would still be long, but I'd have time to wait it out, enjoy the park, then head out for an appointment. I was looking forward to it.

Fifteen minutes before work let out, it started to rain. No, pour.

The only good thing about that was that there was practically no line at Shake Shack. Because no, I was not going to give up on my dream. Even though it was pouring. Even through Shake Shack is an outdoor restaurant without any shelter. I wanted some fries.

With my umbrella and uncomfy rain boots, clutching a plastic bag carrying my shoes, I breezed through the line and got my order in less than ten minutes -- possibly a new record. Then I took it to the subway and hurriedly ate it next to some smelly bums! Ha ha! Victory! Take that, weather! I win!

I wonder if those fries tasted good.

Tonight I saw this guy and I couldn't stop staring at him because he reminded me of someone, but I didn't know who. So I stared and stared, and I probably made him very uncomfortable, until finally it hit me:

He looked like an exact melding of Remus and Sirius. I mean, their movie versions, not just some random idea in my head. Sirius' skinny build and curlyish hair and nose and notverycleanlookingness with Remus' coloring and eyes and perv-stache. He even had a few scars. A perfect mix.

It was unsettling, but probably moreso for the poor guy who got stared at forever by weirdo over here.

Before tonight, the last time I got stuck in the hail was with scalderwood and some of our friends as we were traveling to northern Indiana for an Indiana Collegiate Press Association awards ceremony. That night, it was hailing so hard that we had to stop at a gas station to wait it out because the chunks of hail were bigger than jelly beans and could've damaged the car.

Tonight, they were smaller, but I only had my umbrella to cover me up. And it was pouring buckets, thunder rumbling so loud you could feel it. I finally had to stop and wait under an awning so I could count the time between thunder and lightning, because I don't think I've ever felt so unsafe out in a storm. It was exciting and scary and humbling, to be stuck in the middle of something like that.

Still, next time, I'm not risking it.

My mom has bizarrely excellent timing when it comes to phone calls sometimes, because this afternoon she managed to catch me right as I was going over the bridge on the way home -- the only time I get phone reception during my commute -- to tell me Michael Jackson died. Somewhat gleefully, I might add. Not that she's happy he died, of course, my family just really like giving bad news (at least when it pertains to other people).

Which naturally means I was thrilled to break the news to two people later on in the day.

But now, seriously, I really want to find my Jackson 5 CD. To me, that's Michael. Before things got totally out of control.

Okay, so when I was in junior high, I was obsessed with vampires. Read all the vampire novels I could find, poured through all the non-fiction stuff in all the local libraries, et cetera. Had no problem whatsoever.

Today: I notice I have a papercut and get lightheaded at the sight of a faint sliver of my own blood.

I've been this way for almost as long as I can remember. Hypothetically, blood is no big deal, but I fall apart at the sight of it most of the time. Seeing it for real (like the photos of Neda's death, one of which I saw on accident) makes me dizzy. Heck, sometimes I leave the room if people say the word blood aloud too many times.

That being said, I can also watch surgery shows on TV with no issues at all. I don't get it.

Tonight my older brother drunk dialed me because he couldn't remember Oscar Wilde's name. It was kind of hilarious.

At least when my family gets drunk, they become involved with intellectual discussion about 19th century poetry. I'd say that's impressive.

Hear this, weather: start being nice.

Because out here, it's been about two weeks of cloudiness and rain, and it looks like we may be in for another week of gloomy weather. As someone from the desert, I never thought it'd be possible for me to get sick of rain, but yes! I am so sick of it! It makes me sad and keeps me from taking walks and gets the hem of my jeans wet! This is unacceptable.

Seriously, I'm thinking of drawing up plans for an ark. Except the only animal I have access to is my cat, who's fixed anyway, so that might be a problem, long-run.

I'm in the midst of reading The Complete Peanuts Volume 1, and there's a lot of points that I find rather interesting. Not that the art is different -- this is not the shaky line Peanuts that's now the hallmark of the strip; early on, Schulz utilized very careful, precise lines -- but just the tone in general. It's still much deeper than most kiddie strips of its time (I think it's hard to grasp how much different it was in the context of today, when most kid-focussed strips are directly influenced by Peanuts), but it's not as dark and melancholy.

Which I like. This might be heresy, but I prefer the first ten years of the strip to the ones I read as a kid, the ones that were new at the time, or even almost anything post-Woodstock, I think. I don't know, maybe the strip went over my head when I was little. Maybe I like seeing Charlie Brown getting the best of someone occasionally, and definitely do prefer the original art -- this icon is from a 1952 strip, I think. Maybe I just don't find Snoopy as interesting when he's walking on two legs (originally, he was a spirited, but more generic dog).

But the things I love about every era of Peanuts are visible from the beginning. I love the strong female characters. I love Charlie Brown's determination. I love seeing the honest, casual cruelty of children and their fickle natures. I love how adorable Schroeder is. (For some reason, he's my favorite. I'm not even sure why -- it should be Linus, logically. It might be the awesome purple striped shirt.)

I love it because it's Peanuts, and it's so simple and complex all at once that I'm not at all surprised that it's the comic strip, the one more than any other that really made the world sit up and pay attention.

Even though I realize this LJ has been very Debbie Downer for a while and I was planning on writing about something a little more lighthearted tonight, I will now say this instead: if lab tests cost this much money, maybe I'll just live in pain. Seeing my bill for just two rounds of blood work is kind of an eye-opener.

I guess I can appeal? But I don't know how or even if I have a case to -- I got the second round hoping something would pop up to explain my joint pain when the first failed to. The doctor mentioned something about waiting to do the second round because sometimes insurance companies refuse to pay unless more mundane reasons are explored first. Well, I think they didn't want to pay anyway. Fair enough?

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I watched an extraordinary (for me, since I have the attention span of a gnat) number of movies in the past two days.

Saturday: Up in 3D at the theatre, Cinderella III: A Twist in Time (believe it or not, pretty decent for a straight to DVD sequel), Peter Pan and Hook at poisonivory's house.

Sunday: Edge of Seventeen (I've had this movie from Netflix for over a month now), and then from Netflix's Instant Watch, Born Into Brothels (really sad) and the first disc of the first season of Avatar, which isn't a movie, per se, but certainly awesome.

I think I was going to write more, but now I feel unaccountably nauseous.