grrgoyl

Ryan has a new roommate, a girl named Megan.

We love Ryan to death. He's like our gay little brother. So it's understandable if we're a bit protective and possessive of him.

Megan materialized suddenly a few weekends ago. She was all moved in before we'd ever heard of her. All signs point to a drunken contract made over a game of darts at Monaghan's. We met her over a last minute brunch at TGIFriday's.

Megan looks a lot like Jennifer Jason Leigh. Her voice is low and roughened by a combination of cigarettes and yelling at sporting events. She's ebullient and talkative, but as we shall see, sometimes knowing when to shut up is every bit as important as knowing when to speak.

She started talking about living in a great condo, with unusually considerate neighbors above and below her. When asked why she moved, her answer was "Well, they found a meth lab..."

"Get out! We had a meth lab next door to us!" we responded. It turned out to be no coincidence; she lived at the back of our building. Small world, eh?

If she had shut up there, it might have been fine. But she didn't. She claimed she shared laundry ducts with Tracey. Hazmat scrubbed her cat down in the parking lot out of fear of contamination. She was forced to live in a hotel for a year during the cleanup. It's a great story. But as we left the restaurant, we realized it was riddled with holes.

How did she share ducts on the second floor with Tracey on the third floor? (plus Tery has been inside a gutted building in our complex after a fire and she knows no one shares ducts with anyone) Tery was at the scene the entire time and never saw any animals being scrubbed down. Our animals never were and we share walls with her. And we had a big old hole in our attic between us and her for weeks, and no one was the slightest bit concerned about us leaving the building, never mind moving out.

Alright. So she's told the tale so many times that maybe she's started to believe it, never dreaming she'd meet someone else with firsthand knowledge. But after it was revealed that we knew all about it, she wasn't at all fazed, in the manner of a practiced liar. And we don't like liars.

But that's only half of it. She has an opinion about everything, she knows everything, and she doesn't hesitate to interject her thoughts. Loudly.

For instance: I started to tell Ryan about the new show, Confessions of a Matchmaker on A&E, and the 41-year-old virgin that it turns out "OH MY GOD I SAW THAT!" Megan butt in at top volume, "SHE TELLS HIM HE'S GAY AND SETS HIM UP WITH A DUDE!!!!" Thank you, Megan. I couldn't possibly have told it that well on my own. But I still would have liked the chance.

Watching Hot Fuzz with her was more of the same. A drunk falls off a barstool and she starts braying, "THAT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME! I can't tell you how many times I've been in a bar and seen someone do that! Or try to sit down and totally miss the stool" and at this point she actually got up to demonstrate, "That's so funny!!!" Then later when Danny and Nick are firing guns in a high-speed chase, she volunteered "It's actually really hard to fire a gun while driving, did you know that?" No, I didn't, and didn't particularly want to know how she did.

Who doesn't love a know-it-all?

After Heroes ended, we all jumped immediately into Dexter and have seen almost all of season 1 together. When we went over Ryan's a few weekends ago, Megan joined us despite never having seen a single episode. It was right about now we began wondering if we had to include Megan in everything we did with Ryan. Anyway, it wasn't a hardship to bring her up to speed with the show so far. But then she started shouting out at random intervals, "He's the Ice Truck Killer! No, HE'S the Ice Truck..." Stop, will you please stop? Even if you had any idea what you're talking about, that's very, very annoying.

Ryan has a chihuahua mix dog, Ren, who has grown very attached to us. Megan's thing is to call Ren a cat to try to trick him into meowing instead of barking. She brings this joke up every time Ren comes anywhere near her. Here's a hint: If no one laughs at a joke the first time, the answer is not repeated attempts. It's just embarrassing and awkward for all involved.

Personal shortcomings aside, we hoped having a roommate might solve Ryan's perpetual financial problems. Not only does he not seem any farther from the poverty line (probably because he has someone to go to bars with), but Megan has also pulled him back from the brink of quitting smoking and he's lighting up more than ever.

Ryan says she's the best roommate he's ever had. Tery and I aren't so sure.

Lately I've felt kind of ho-hum about LJ. Like what's the point, like no one is interested anymore, like I have nothing to say anymore. Which isn't to suggest that this entry is going to change all that, however I DID just come from seeing Hot Fuzz with my new movie friend, dopshoppe, and I'm here to tell you she's every bit as awesome as you've heard.

Let's get that out of the way first. ( ::spoilers for sure:: )

To summarize: Simon + Nick + Edgar = TLA

~*~

I'm sorely disappointed in the snarry_games this time around. I haven't read a single story so far that I feel is worth saving, and we're over halfway done. The ones that aren't painfully OOC end so abruptly just as they're becoming promising they feel like essay exams where "pencils down" has been called unexpectedly. One story had a plot twist so unlikely and nonsensical that when a reader asked the author for their rationale, they smugly responded, "I prefer to let you decide for yourself why (the character) did that." I've got news for you, love: that's not cleverness, that's laziness. Ugh. I've left so many low ratings I'm afraid of being banned from the community as a troll. And have asked myself more than once why I continue reading so determinedly. I think the interactive nature appeals to me.

The reason I mention Snarry is to mention Harry in general. Tery very thoughtfully got me a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. My first issue arrived last weekend just as I was heading into work. It had Jack Sparrow on the cover and, more importantly, a fairly interesting-looking article on Spiderman 3 (I'm one of exactly two people in the world (the other being Tery) who truly don't give a rat's ass about Pirates of the Caribbean). Which is all I can tell you about the issue because I was so tired by the end of my shift Saturday that I left it at the hospital. By Monday it had gone completely missing. SO not cool, stealing a sistah's Spidey mag.

After I pestered Tery no less than 10 times to go looking for it, she thought she'd assuage my loss by picking up a different magazine that cost $10, is all she would tell me. It turned out to be Movie Magic, predominantly Harry Potter but with smaller articles on Spidey and PotC. This, it turns out, is the film equivalent of Tiger Beat: big, glossy photos, 14pt font type, and such titillating quotes on the cover as "Daniel talks about The Kiss: 'People will come to the film to see it!'" I was appreciative, but gently explained that I haven't been enthralled by pictures alone since age 5. The last straw came when I read the caption on a picture discussing fan art that said, "One fan's version of Sirius and his brother Remus." (emphasis mine) !!!!! Apparently even $10 a pop isn't enough to keep a fact checker on staff. But I certainly don't hold Tery responsible for the shortcomings of the magazine, and she did subsequently get me another copy of EW, this one even better with Black Spidey on the cover.

~*~

Life stll plods on at the hospital. Last weekend I had a postop Golden Retriever that absolutely refused to use her legs, Sarah. It's times like these when it's damn inconvenient that the exercise yard is only accessible up a set of stairs. I gave it a miss on my first round, but Dr. K insisted I had to get her out so she didn't get urine on her surgical wound. So I was more determined come morning. "I promise you Sarah, as god is my witness, I WILL get you up those stairs," I said to the dog. Well, easier said than done. Sarah weighed 75 pounds so I tried "towel walking" her; you sling a towel around the belly and lift like a wheelbarrow. This technique only works if the dog can at least maneuver their front legs, which Sarah apparently could not. We got halfway up the steps before she just collapsed and refused to move another inch. Since hanging out on the steps simply wasn't an option, I tried hoisting her by the towel more aggressively. "Get up!! Get up damn you!! You've never given up on anything in your life!!" (I don't know why it amuses me to talk to the dogs in old movie clichés, it just does) I got her to the top of the stairs by lifting her hind legs up completely with the towel sling, and lifting her front legs with one of my feet -- something that wouldn't have been possible before the awesome power of the Bowflex, and I'm fairly sure would have been even less possible for the severely deconditioned full-time overnight woman even before her ankle surgery.

I shouldn't have bothered. She ended up not doing a damn thing in the yard except hunker down and become immobile again. It was just as strenuous getting her back down the stairs, where she suddenly leaped to her feet and took a few jaunty trots around the ward -- only to suddenly collapse and become unbudeagable again when I tried to get her back into her cage. I fucking hate dogs.

This weekend I had a 4-month-old chihuahua puppy. Awwww, so cute! you say. Except every time I left the room, and even sometimes when I was standing directly in front of her, she emitted this unearthly yowl that sounded alternately like a 6-year-old boy throwing a temper tantrum and a dying yeti. It was so unbelievable sounding that most of the time I couldn't help laughing, from the opposite end of the ward. Eventually however the iPod had to be employed in the interest of maintaining sanity.

And, like those awful snarry_games entries, I have no idea how to end this. Pencils down.