From Bad Penguin, as per her request:

1. Song that sounds like happy feels: The Lion Sleeps Tonight. I don't know why, I just have lots of happy memories associated with that song.

2. Earliest memory: These children's records I had called In Harmony and In Harmony 2

3. Last CD you bought: Alison Krauss and Union Station, Lonely Runs Both Ways

4. Reminds you of school:

Elementary School: New Kids on the Block, Peter, Paul and Mary (on my parents' record player), all the songs we sang in choir

Junior High: Ace of Base

High School: Tori Amos, Indigo Girls, the musical Rent, Paula Cole, Joan Osborne, Smash Mouth

College: Bon Jovi, Madonna, Ani DiFranco, the Dixie Chicks

5. Total music files on your PC: 930

6. Song for listening to repeatedly when depressed: Here Without You (3 Doors Down), It Happens Every Day (Dar Williams), Hurt (Johnny Cash covering Nine Inch Nails), Not A Day Goes By (Lonestar), Breathe (Michelle Branch), The Promise (Tracy Chapman), anything by Evanescence

7. Song that sounds British, but isn't: I don't really know what this means. What does a British song sound like?

8. Song you love, band you hate: Not really a band, but I love the song Life Goes On, and I don't usually much care for LeAnn Rimes

9. A favorite song from the past that took ages to track down: Hmm, I don't know. I can find all my favorite songs from the past on iTunes pretty easily.

10. Bought the album for one good song: Lucy Kaplansky's Ten Year Night for the song End of the Day

11. Worst song to get stuck in your head: Uncle Kracker's Follow Me

12. Best song to dump a beer on someone's head to, then storm out of the bar? I give up. I have no idea.

13. Who should do this next? Crazy Single Mom, Sheilah, Sheri

American Idol!

It's in full swing for the year,and I've been watching as much as I can. Tonight, I got to sneak and watch a lot ofit on the TV at work. I like the horrible-auditions episodes we've had in the past few weeks, even though the bad auditions are slightly cringe-inducing. But it's even more fun now that the group is narrowed down to the pretty good people, everyone gathered in Hollywood together, and we're just going through and narrowing it down to the final 12 or 24 or however many are going to be in the finals.

The part I like the most isn't the singing, although I enjoy that too. I like watching how happy everyone is to have made it this far, and to see the contestants' excitement to visit the sights of Hollywood. There was this one guy, kind of a tough-looking guy from Brooklyn, who got all emotonal when he visited the beach. He talked about how he never dreamed he'd get to do something like this, to see everything that he was seeing, and about how he only wished his large family back home could also have all the wonderful and new experiences that he was having. Then he cried, and I felt myself tear up too. He ended up getting eliminated, but he was still so grateful to have been a part of it all.

I love stuff like that. It must just be the coolest feeling to have dreamed of becoming a star, and to get as far as the American Idol semifinals. It's so great to feel the contestants' excitement along with them.

This is such a great show.

A really good weekend!

For part of the weekend, my best friend from childhood, Rebecca, who now lives in Boston, came down for a visit. We had a wonderful time, eating dinners out, taking walks, and talking about all kinds of things. She was here Friday-Saturday. Sometimes I can't believe we've really been friends for seventeen years. That sounds like such a long time!

Then, Saturday night, I had the Mardi Gras event at work that I blogged about late Saturday night. Yeah, Mardi Gras! I need to figure out something fun to do on the actual day of Mardi Gras. I'm giving up pork for Lent, so I think whatever I do will have to involve mounds of bacon.

Yesterday, tg and I got out and enjoyed the beautiful weather, taking a long walk. Then we came home, had dinner, and watched a little bit of the Super Bowl. I don't know much about football, but a co-worker is a very enthusiastic Eagles fan, and I'd been talking to him about it at the Mardi Gras thing and his desire for the team to win was sort of infectious. Besides, I always root for the underdog, and it looked like the Patriots had already won this a bunch of times. I turned on the TV when the Eagles were winning in the first half, but by the time I turned it off, soon after the halftime show, they were losing. I yelled and cheered a lot for them while I was watching, but I guess it didn't help. The commercials are my favorite part of the Super Bowl anyway. Especially ones with cute animals. There was a car commercial with a great little triceratops. He was adorable!

In other news, yesterday at church, the priest talked about five things that will characterize a life in which we let our lights shine and live in line with the teachings of Jesus. The list of five included peace, gratitude, love, one I forget, and enthusiasm! I thought it was great to see it up there with peace and love!

In which others comment on me and my enthusiasm.

Tonight (well, now it's morning, but I mean Saturday night), the bar had our big annual Mardi Gras party. I handed out the free beads and drink tickets at the front door, and directed people where to go, since we open up some additional rooms for big events. At one point, I was telling some people to head to the second dance floor, because it wasn't yet crowded, and the manager, walking by, said to me, "Could you sound any less excited about the second dance floor?"

Any less excited? Did that mean that I sounded insufficiently enthusiastic? No! Not possible!

So, the rest of the night, I approached my task with passion never before seen--by me at any job or by anyone who works there. I greeted each guest by literally shrieking "Happy Mardi Gras! Free beads! Freeeee beeeeads!" I actually embraced many of them to put the beads on. I frequently yelled, apropos of nothing, "Welcome to the best night of the year!" My co-workers actually sort of got into it and joined in my manic Mardi Gras act.

Then, at the end of the night, we were finishing the night, and people were reviewing highlights of the evening--weird customers, that kind of thing, and one of the assistant managers said, "I think those of you working the bar may have missed the moment when Claire's enthusiasm reached such levels that she sounded like a Muppet on crack."

A Muppet on crack? But enthusiasm is a good thing! Oh dear.

What's left of my Mardi Gras outfit

Why do you all hate me?

Okay, last night, I had my most vivid blog related dream ever. I went all the way to another far-away state to meet some of my favorite bloggers, who were all hanging out in a group. You were all excited to meet me, but then, as we spent more time together, it was clear that you were just not warming up to me. You all liked each other, but as our night together progressed and you tried harder to get to know me, it just wasn't working. We were doing an assortment of odd things together, mostly walking around an abandoned parking lot, then suddenly we were in a hospital, and at one point, some of us were in the small town in Amish country I visited this summer for a wedding. I think. That part's sort of foggy. I mostly remember the parking lot stuff. What's not foggy is that you all did not like me.

And then, all day today, I've been even more paranoid about others' opinions than usual. At work tonight, whenever guys would come in and walk right past me without much looking at me (which of course happens all the time, because I, you know, work at the entrance to a bar), I would immediately wonder why all guys hate me, and why I got stuck being the ugliest, most socially awkward person on the planet, despised by all. I kept comparing myself to all my friends and acquaintances, and thinking of how much better they are with people than I am. Which might be true, but my main evidence for this point was that all my favorite bloggers hated me when they met me in person. Which, I had to keep reminding myself, did not actually happen.

Come on everyone! I'm nice! I'm fun! Give me another chance!

New activity!

Today at lunchtime, I started volunteering at my church's soup kitchen. The church has always done a regular Wednesday lunch soup kitchen, and while I've always wanted to try helping out there on a regular basis, I've always found myself too busy or too lazy or something. But I kept telling myself, one of these days, I'll take the hour at lunchtime to do this, and finally, I did.

I was a little nervous at first, just because I didn't really know what I would be asked to do, or how it all worked. I mean, I knew it couldn't be anything too difficult, but still, there's something kind of scary about the first time doing anything. For example, when I arrived, there was already a line of soup kitchen clients waiting outside the locked church doors. I felt uncomfortable bypassing the entire line to knock on the door--that seemed as if I thought I was better than all the clients or something--but I was pretty sure I wasn't just supposed to stand in the line with all the patrons. Totally unsure what to do, I took a walk around the block, and by the time I returned, the kitchen had opened and all the patrons had gone inside, so I felt better approaching the doors. It was only then when I got close I saw that the usually-locked side door had a sign on it saying SOUP KITCHEN VOLUNTEERS ENTER HERE. Oh well.

Anyway, when I finally got inside, the soup kitchen coordinator assigned me a task right away, which was to serve the vegetables. At first, I only spooned from a big pot of green vegetables (peas, string beans, broccoli, cauliflower, all mixed together), but as the lunch hour progressed, the cooking volunteers (luckily that wasn't my job!) gave me big pots of corn and vegetable stew to spoon out as well. The clients could have as much as they wanted of any of the vegetables and I tried to make that clear by telling everyone who reached me in line "We have three kinds of vegetables!" But most people only wanted one kind.

I also tried to show enthusiasm about the vegetables, even though none of them looked very good to me. They didn't look great to the clients either--most of them did in fact want some, but people were much more excited about the pasta salad the woman next to me was giving out. I was curious to see if the preferences of the soup kitchen's clients would match my own, and they did, since the corn was by far the most popular choice, and I thought that one looked the best. I felt badly, since the stew wasn't popular at all, and the old woman who had cooked it had brought it to me with lots of enthusiasm, explaining to me in great detail how she had prepared it.

In general, the clients were polite and friendly, and I tried to make small talk with them as they passed by, but there wasn't much time for conversation. I was curious about a lot of them, and about their stories. Some of them were people I've seen panhandling downtown here, but I don't think all of them were homeless. A few of the guests looked stereotypically "homeless," in a million layers of old clothes, but a bunch of people were in work clothes--from the parking grarage a block away, from the construction site across the street. But then again, I know that I can't tell much about people from just looking at them. One couple brought an adorable little baby, and it would have been fun to play with him.

Anyway, overall, I had a good experience, and I'm definitely planning to go back every week. I have to make sure I keep going, and don't get lazy about it! If you, tiny readership, see me posting on a Wednesday and I don't mention it, yell at me, okay?

Back from the funeral.

I still don't know what to say, really. My grandpa was a great man, and there's nothing I could write that would convey that in the right way.

And I know how to write about Dunkin Donuts, but I don't know how to write about things as big as the things that a funeral brings up.

But mainly, thanks to all of you for your kind comments. They all meant a lot to me. Whenever I'd get back to the hotel room, I'd hog my mom's computer for a few minutes and read what you all had to say. It was just so incredible to see you all out there.