Well, GOOD!

-I bought three pairs of shoes at Target today for only $30.00! Partially that's because my mom paid for one pair, but it's also because the two pairs I bought myself were on clearance. I needed a pair of black knee high boots since I'd been wearing the same pair of Target boots since my sophomore year of college and they were literally becoming hazardous to my health since the heels had started wearing away at a weird angle and detach from the boot. I was pretty damn impressed that my original Target boots had lasted five years, so I was on a mission to find more or less the same pair. Luckily, I found a pair of black boots that's pretty close to what I had before. But in the process I also found a chocolate brown pair of suede knee high boots, and a pair of black and gray striped flats, and about six other pairs of shoes that I needed desperately. Freakin' Target. I was able to talk myself out of everything but the two pairs I already mentioned. The only brown boots I have are camel colored, so I'm sure you agree that I need a darker brown pair. And I'm always moaning to myself about how none of my casual shoes are dark colored, hence the need for the flats. On the bright side, I can no longer think of a type of shoe that I actually NEED, so I think I'm done for a while.

-Do guys' pajama pants always have pockets? I've dated guys that sometimes slept in pajama pants, but I guess I never paid attention. Anyway, I got a pair of men's pajama pants from J. Crew for Christmas since they have basset hounds on them, and they're super comfortable. And they have pockets! This means that I might never get dressed until 3:00 in the afternoon again since I can now carry my cell phone in my pajamas.

-There's a guy playing football on TV right now, and his last name is Cheeseman. I don't even care who he is or what he looks like, I'm going to marry him just so I can someday be Dr. Cheeseman. That's pretty much the worst--and therefore the best--last name ever.

-I was checking out my tuition bill today, and I shouldn't have even looked at it because according to this bill, I owe them way too much money. I don't even really understand what's going on. All I can think is that right now they're charging me for the three classes I'm actually registered for and also for the one I dropped (I registered for two a couple of months ago because I didn't know which one I wanted to take but I didn't want them to fill up before I could decide), hence the higher cost than I was expecting. All of my tuition is supposed to be paid anyway, so I know it will be. It's just that I want it to happen without having to do a bunch of paperwork and make a bunch of phone calls. My plan is to just ignore the whole thing for a couple of weeks and hope they figure it out before I actually get a bill and have to go argue with them. However, I discovered that apparently we have to pay student fees again in the spring. Sigh. There goes another few hundred bucks that I could have spent on shoes from Target.
Oh, and then this morning I also discovered that the place where I ordered my Christmas card pictures was trying to charge me some $15.00 monthly fee claiming I'd subscribed to some sort of rewards club, which of course I hadn't. So I had to spend a long time on the phone trying to figure out how to get unsubscribed to something I'd never subscribed to in the first place, and getting my money back.
I really hate money. I wish I just never had to think about it at all. I mean, I guess I COULD just stop thinking about it altogether, but that doesn't seem very prudent.

-One of the funniest stories of my Christmas vacation, that will never translate in writing:
When we were flying home from California, I was laughing with my brother about this weird habit he has had since childhood where he'll get obsessed with a phrase and repeat it over and over again for a few months: as an answer to questions, to announce that he's home, just randomly while he's sitting in his room playing video games. For instance, when he was about 9 years old he went through a phase of saying, "My butt!" constantly. For example:
Me: Brother, pick up your socks.
My brother: My butt!
Then there was the really, really annoying "Respect my authority!" phase (in the Cartman voice, of course):
Mom: What time are you going to be home this afternoon?
My brother: Respect my authority!
For a while last year, it was "Giddy!", like Kramer on Seinfeld:
Me: Is Brother home?
My brother, from the other room: GIDDY!

Clearly, it makes no difference to him whether or not these words/phrases make sense in context. Also, I'm pretty sure this weird trait is not just something my brother does, because most of the guys I've dated have done this to a certain extent as well, getting obsessed with a particular word or phrase, using it to death and in nonsensical ways for a few months, and then moving on to something else entirely. Women, it seems, do not do this nearly as much. [P.S.-Please tell me that the guys you know do this too, and that I'm not just creepily dating guys similar to my brother...]

Anyway. We were checking in our bags for the flight , and I reminded my brother of how he used to say, "Well, GOOD!" all the time in high school. I wish I could fully express, "Well, GOOD!" in writing. Imagine a sort of southern, extremely loud voice, and drag the "good" out a bit, and you'll sort of have it. Sort of.
I asked him where he got, "Well, GOOD!" from in the first place, since I never recognized it from any TV shows or movies (his usual sources), and he sort of furrowed his eyebrows in thought and then said, "You know, I don't remember why I used to say that. Me and my friends used to say it all the time on the golf course when we were on the golf team, but I don't remember who started it."
And so we changed the subject and caught our plane, and that was that. Six hours later, I was having dinner with my family at our favorite dive Mexican restaurant when we saw the girls' golf coach from our old high school sitting across the dining room. My brother played on the boys' golf team in high school, and both teams used to practice at the same time, so he knows this coach somewhat. My dad knows him as well, since my dad sees him at the golf course fairly often. Anyway, my dad said, "Oh, there's Coach Smith," and my brother said, "Oh god, I don't want to talk to him. He's really annoying." Dad said, "What's annoying about him?" and my brother said, "He used to make the girls do the stupidest drills. I can't even remember what they were, exactly, I just remember they were pointless. And he has the loudest voice ever."
So of course no sooner does my brother finish muttering this than Coach Smith turns around and says, "Hey, look who's here!" In the loudest voice ever. Then he got up and came over to our table and began chatting with my dad. As they were chatting, I noticed my brother make a sort of startled face and then smile to himself, so I whispered, "What's so funny?" and my brother whispered back, "As soon as I heard his voice I remembered: he's why we used to say, "Well, GOOD!"
And not two seconds later the coach bellowed, "You were at that bowl game? Well, GOOD!"
And I laughed so hard I choked on my soda and had to spit a whole mouthful of it back into my cup, and probably the entire restaurant was already staring at us since the coach's voice is so damn loud.
The end.

-Speaking of my brother, I think he gave me tuberculosis. Punk.

-I fly back to New Jersey on Saturday. Where did the past two weeks go?!