Despite the fact that I’m not really in the market these days, I’m often told I need to get out more and that a guy isn’t going to come crashing through my ceiling, or just knock on my front door.

Well, get this: one did.

(Knock on my front door, that is.)

This last Monday night, I got home from work, rolled my trash barrels out to the curb in preparation for trash day, stopped inside for my grocery list then headed to the store. When I came home, I was busy unloading my trunk but paused for a few moments to take one final bag of trash out.

As I walked down the driveway, I noticed someone standing on my front porch.

It was a dude. And a hot dude, at that.

For any ladies who need a visual, I’m pretty sure he was Ryan Reynolds’ twin. And while I’ve never really been that into Ryan Reynolds, if his twin is standing on my property, I’m completely into it.

Turns out he was going door to door for AT&T or something about the U-verse package dealio thingy (clearly I’m tuned in to technology). He started asking me how many TVs I have, what I use my computer for, if I have a land line, etc.

The fact of the matter is, as I’ve said before, I’m a single girl with a cat who rents her parents’ house from them. It’s a simple life, a quiet life. I have but one TV.

Singular.

Mono.

Uni.

It’s old, and probably could stand to be replaced. Sometimes the picture will go from color to black and white, but it always goes back to color. Eventually. Anyway, at the moment it’s fine, and I’m alright with its quirks. (I find them complementary to my own, natch.)

No, I don’t have a DVR. The Golden Girls are all I really need, plus my weekly fix of Bitchin’ Kitchen on Wednesdays, with wedding shows on TLC rounding out my week on Fridays.

He seemed shocked that I didn’t have a DVR.

He asked what cable package I had, and I honestly didn’t know. He asked if it had movie channels, and I knew that it didn’t.

He asked what I did when I wanted to watch a movie, and I told him I use Netflix. His reply?

“Oh, I stream videos on my computer, too.”

No, hot guy, you’re wrong. I’m old school. I get their DVDs in the mail.

Somehow we got on the topic of pets, and it turns out he has three cats. I called him the crazy cat man, and he agreed. Points for him.

He asked what I did for a living, and I said I was in advertising — although it’s sometimes hard to define for people beyond that. He said, “Yeah, I can see you doing that as a career.”

(…because you know me so well?)

We continued chatting, and somehow we started talking about the motorsports-centric past life I used to live. He said he didn’t follow NASCAR, but was a big F1 fan and also liked motorcycles. He said he used to have a Yamaha R6.

“Used to? Until you wised up?” I asked.

Then he explained he’d crashed on it.

Sorry, buddy — my bad. I mentioned I used to date someone who had one, as well — until it was stolen. He continued on, rambling about the finer points of the bike.

I told him to stop because I was getting emotional.

“About your ex?” he asked.

“Oh, absolutely not…about the bike,” I replied.

At some point I realized my back door and my trunk were still both open and I was being [willingly] detained in front of my house.

I asked him if he was supposed to be the distraction while someone robbed my house.

“Rob you? No, you don’t even have a DVR. I’m pretty sure you don’t have anything that anyone would need.”

Fair enough. Well played, hot guy.

Then he motioned to his work badge, and said that I could inspect it if I doubted his affiliation with AT&T.

“You know,” I said, eyeing his crotch (because that’s where the badge was, um, dangling), “I would, but I don’t really know you and I’d rather not stare down there for any extended period of time.”

He laughed, then said it happens a lot.

(It does?)

After about 10 minutes of chatting, it was beyond obvious that I wasn’t going to buy his services since a) I’m technologically handicapped, b) the casa isn’t mine and c) I still have a fondness for DVDs. We chatted a little bit longer about the neighborhood, I wished him well on the rest of his journey, and we shook hands as he offered, “It was nice to meet you. I’m Stephen.”

And that was that. Probably one of the more anticlimactic stories ever, but a good one all the same.

Tonight I am thankful for the witty, articulate and shockingly hot door-to-door guy who happened to find his way through the neighborhoods of Anaheim and onto my street just as I returned home. If nothing else, he has provided fodder for the blog, and has given me hope that — yes, a hot guy just might knock on my door someday afterall.

I look forward to the next one in another 35 years.

I would’ve been almost four when she was born.

Maybe we played on the same playgrounds when we were little.

Maybe we’d been at Disneyland at the same time when we were growing up.

Perhaps we’d gone to the beach and splashed in the same surf back in the 80s.

Maybe when I was in my Brownie troop, she spotted us and wanted to be a Brownie — then someday a Girl Scout.

Maybe she was at Cal State Fullerton during one of my many piano competitions; maybe she was someone I was competing against.

If she had any siblings, maybe my brother knew them.

Maybe I knew them.

Maybe we’d passed each other in the same neighborhood when trick-or-treating on Halloween.

I thought about her turning 17 and imagined her parents being excited for her high school graduation.

I wondered if she had a boyfriend, or if she had gotten her driver’s license yet.

I wondered what kind of student she was, if she was a musician, an actress, an artist, what color of hair she had.

I wondered if she went to prom, if she had a big circle of friends or mostly kept to herself.

I thought back to December of 1997 and remembered that I was at a crossroads at the time. I’d met a guy earlier that year who I tried to stay in California for, but it wasn’t in the cards (thanks to Cal State Long Beach losing my Michigan State transcripts six — yes, six — times).

In December of 1997, I was getting ready to say goodbye to guy, goodbye to parents, and hello to another long, cold Michigan winter. I was flying back to snow and ice, ready to start another semester.

Somewhere, however, a family was getting ready to bury their 17 year-old daughter, sister and friend.

We don’t know so many people who gently pass by our lives, but that’s not to say we didn’t — or can’t — have an effect on theirs.

I see so many license plate frames, rear-window stickers and roadside memorials with wilted flowers and faded ribbons that I personally can’t help but wonder about each one I notice.

Do you ever wonder who they are?

Tonight when I was driving home, I saw a license plate frame that read, “In memory of Tiffany. October 11, 1980 – December 15, 1997.” It didn’t have a last name, but it broke my heard to think of the sister that never had a chance to grow up, the daughter that her parents never had a chance to see walk down the aisle and the friend that so many wouldn’t be able to lean on.

I wondered if the 14.5 years between her passing and now have gotten any easier on those she left behind.

I doubt they have.

Tonight I am thankful for those people I am still surrounded by, and I am thankful for the effect that her life had on mine. Because even if I never knew her, the “in memory of” license plate frame was enough to make me feel honored to be among all the people that I love so dearly in my own life, and I pray that I have many more decades with them all.

I’ve been working on a couple of plays for a while now, and I’ve had some issues finishing them. I don’t know if it’s so much writer’s block as much as it is the strange fear that if I sit down to complete them, I can see them going in so many different directions — and that once I pick one, it’s done.

Complete.

Over.

It’s not to say that I can’t rewrite them a bunch of times, nor is it to say that I can’t take one of those many directions and start riffing on a new idea. But there’s something weird about seeing a project you’ve spent so much time on come to an end.

One night last December when I went to see a collection of one-act plays put on in Fullerton, I met a man who is the father of someone who used to be a client of mine.

(Confused yet?)

I’ve written about him once or twice before, and he couldn’t be nicer and more helpful along this journey of creativity.

We’ve exchanged a handful of emails and he’s invited me to the playwriting group’s monthly meetings a few times. The last email we exchanged seemed to put us in the same boat.

He was working on a new project that was taking a while because of writer’s block, and I’m still working on two that I need to submit for membership to the group — and that’s taking a bit of my time.

He ended his most recent email with, “Break a leg on your submissions.” It was a simple statement that meant so much to me.

I know that once I finish them, I’ll look back and wonder what took me so long.

Then again, there’s always the possibility that I’ll finish them, submit them and they won’t be good enough. And if they’re not, then there’s no membership to the group. Perhaps that’s what’s holding me up.

I tend to think not — I think I really just need to get after it already. Time to veg less, take a weekend off from gardening and crank ’em out.

After all, “break a leg” can me so much more than a wish for me to write two plays that the board finds good enough for membership. I’ve learned in life that as long as I’m happy with them (and while I’m hoping that membership is the outcome), “break a leg” is a very personal thing, as well.

Tonight I am thankful for, once again, his kind words — and for the reminder that if these two aren’t the ones that pave the way to membership, then at least I’ll know I can actually finish two plays…and then I’ll promptly write two more which will (someday) result in membership.

For some reason I found myself reading an older article in National Geographic from April 2002 about the Afghan girl with the green eyes. Remember the cover photo from the mid-1980s? The article I was reading was about how they found her again (at that time, it was 17 years later). It was called “A Life Revealed,” and the woman with the green eyes finally had a name: Sharbat Gula.

I won’t try to retell the story as the magazine’s writing is impeccable, but if you have a moment, look it up.

It seems unfathomable to have any will to live after having both parents killed during the Soviet invasion. It seems unfathomable that they would walk to another country over the course of a week, all the while trekking through snow and begging for blankets to stay warm. It seems unfathomable to picture a brother, four sisters and a grandmother hiding in caves as the planes flew over.

In the article it talked about how Sharbat left the refugee camp and went to her home village during a lull in the fighting back in the 1990s. The next sentence I read made my heart ache; it was suddenly heavy with selfishness. The article read, “To live in this earthen-colored village at the end of a thread of path means to scratch out an existence, nothing more.”

“Scratch out an existence.” Can you imagine? I can’t.

It continued, saying that corn, wheat and rice were planted there, along with some walnut trees. Sometimes there’s a stream (when there isn’t a drought), but no school, clinic, roads or running water.

It seems unfathomable to imagine living her life, to know nothing about other countries’ existence, and to know very little about happiness.

As the story ends, it ponders how she could have survived in the face of bitterness and with a spirit that had begun to atrophy.

Her answer came immediately and with certainty. “It was the will of God.”

After reading Sharbat’s follow-up story a decade after it was written, much seems unfathomable about her life. But it also seems unfathomable that any one of us could ever really, truly have a bad day.

Tonight I am thankful. Period.

On any given weekend, my goal is to get as much sleep as possible. You’d think I was trying to store it up for use whenever I run low during the week, but that’s clearly not the case. Still, however, whenever the weekend rolls around, catching up on my Z’s is pretty high on my to-do list.

Getting four hours of sleep last night before going into a 19+ hour day today isn’t exactly what I thought would end up happening, but — alas — it did. I think I made it through fairly well, save for the stiff, tight knee and lower back pain from walking and standing most of the day. (And that’s with my orthotic inserts in my shoes; they were pretty much used for only the third or fourth time today. I don’t doubt that I would’ve been face-down far earlier in the day had I not worn them.)

By the way, how old do I sound right now? Awesome. High five.

Today was Gumball Rally day at Disneyland, and I filled in for someone who wasn’t able to be on a team with my brother, his girlfriend and girlfriend’s daughter. I knew I’d be in for a long day, and despite my burning red eyes and aching body, I had a great time.

This evening after we turned in our rally form, brother and girlfriend went to renew their annual passes. I decided to take a load off and find a comfy concrete bench to lay my weary self across. Surprisingly, I think the hard surface was just what my back needed.

I was flat on my back, staring up at the evening sky. The color was in that in-between stage where it’s not a true blue, and it’s not quite a vibrant turquoise that it might’ve been 30 minutes earlier. It was dusk, the twinkle lights were starting to take center stage and Disneyland palm and Indian laurel fig trees gently swayed in the breeze. It was even a bit quiet which, after a long day of crowds and noise, was somewhat surreal.

Because there was still a bit of light in the sky and because we were in the middle of a city, it was difficult to make out any stars in the sky. Every now and again, however, I thought that I saw one. A few times, it really was a star. Other times I think my eyes were playing tricks on me because they wanted something to be there.

Interestingly, it likely was. I wondered how many stars I was looking at without realizing it. Even if you pointed a telescope at the seemingly darkest area of space, galaxies — not just stars — would likely come into focus. I could think about it for hours and never get bored. How remarkable life can be sometimes.

I was able to rest there for a good 30 minutes, and in that time the sky darkened and the stars were giving the Disney twinkle lights a run for their money. The park was open till midnight today, but many people were leaving early — and quietly doing so. It felt like the warmth of the day and the excitement had drained everyone; a mass exodus was slowly occurring, but there was a quiet all around.

I finally had to get up and be on my way with the group, but it was one of the most interesting things I’ve ever done at Disneyland. We’re so inundated with pictures and characters and colors that are at eye-level, by the sounds that fill our ears and by scents that find their way to our noses that it’s easy to forget to look around. To look up. To take note of the different plants, trees, types of fencing and all the details that make Disneyland the place that we love.

Tonight I am thankful for my quiet half-hour that came at the end of an amazing day, and for the centering it provided. I was beyond exhausted and a little in pain, but when you find something that can turn your exhaustion into something that more closely resembles a zen-like state, it’s a pretty awesome thing.

I consider myself a homebody for the most part.

Sometimes I think it’s because I exhausted my lifetime supply of energy when I was younger. If it wasn’t ballet lessons, it was baton. If it wasn’t baton, it was clarinet. If it wasn’t clarinet, it was watercolor painting. If it wasn’t painting, it was gymnastics. Or voice lessons. Or guitar lessons. And through it all, there were years of classical piano lessons.

There were piano lessons followed by lectures followed by books of music theory followed by music theory quizzes followed by competitions that took place at Cal State Fullerton. Rows and rows of beautifully dressed children with their proper bows on the backs of their proper dresses and tiny boys in tuxes adorned the halls; many girls wore gloves on their hands to keep them warm and limber so that whenever it was their turn to perform, they were ready. I suspect they wondered why I fidgeted with nothing at all in my hands and why I didn’t wear gloves. It was the one year I decided to rebel against it all and wear jeans and tennis shoes.

I stopped caring, or rather, “worrying,” about what everyone else thought, and I played for myself.

And I won.

I thought that being in a lecture hall among hundreds of parents and accepting an award on stage for a perfectly played piece — all while wearing denim — was a riot.

I think to this day, this is where my desire for tattoos and/or a nose piercing and/or a secret life as a musician or bartender comes from. It stems from rebellion. Or maybe just the desire to rebel a tiny bit.

In a way, while regimented, I look back at all of the lessons I took when I was younger and it points to someone who does what they want, when they want. It’s why I am who I am today.

I have a cat so that I can come and go as I please; they’re low-maintenance, and great for those rare nights when I get home around 2am. As of late, I’m happy not to date. I think that when I was young and hopping from lesson to lesson is when I was happiest; as I grew older, I hopped from boyfriend to boyfriend (not quite so literally, but you get the point). And when I hopped from dude to dude, the hobbies and lessons were shelved. And the dudes got me nowhere — or so I thought. At the end of the day, they got me closer to and more intune with myself.

And that’s always a good thing.

Tonight I am thankful for parents who were able to provide lessons during my younger years, for their patience while I hopped from one thing to the next, and for their continued patience during my adult years as I let a not-quite-healed heart move from guy to another. I think they knew I’d come full-circle at some point, and that I’d find my way back home. I’m thankful for their patience as I played my own tune, and found the melody that’s just right to me. Occasionally it’s out there tearing it up, but these days, it’s at home where I’m doing whatever I want.

Home to me is an environment where I’m happy, with or without a partner in crime. Where I’m learning, where I’m creating, where I’m arts-ing. It’s where I’m dreaming, imagining, writing, tall-tale-ing, melody-crafting and composing.

It’s where I am, plain and simple. And when you simply “are” — when you can simply “be” — the best parts of you come out.

Since I’m on a storytelling kick lately, I’ll continue with one from 3rd or 4th grade.

My best friend Erin and I were at the Buena Park Mall back in the day. We’d been dropped off by a parental unit and spent the afternoon window shopping and snacking on cookies from Mrs. Fields. As we wandered around, she said something to me that made me shriek with confusion.

“What did you say?!” I asked.

Erin paused for a few seconds then asked cautiously, “What do you think I said?” I think she knew my brain went haywire.

I hesitated answering, since what I “heard” made absolutely no sense in my head.

But then I replied.

“It sounded like you said that lady is using shays as a razor.”

Erin looked at me with an unamused expression on her face.

“No,” she said. “I said that lady over there is using crutches for no reason.”

Sure enough, there was a woman walking around the mall holding a crutch under each arm, but walking freely.

I can’t remember if we laughed hysterically at that moment or if we sparred for a while about what a shay might possibly be…and then, if we even knew what it was, why would it be used as a razor?!

All I know is that from then on when I’d go on family vacations and send postcards, when I was in college and would write letters to her or when I would give her birthday cards, I would more often than not address them to Erin, a.k.a. Shay.

Lame, yes. But good for a lifetime of laughs? Absolutely.

I’ve retold that story numerous times, and while we tend to laugh so hard our stomachs hurt (or maybe that’s just me), I’m often met with blank stares from those who are subjected to such an odd tale.

When I was on crutches for most of January after my knee surgery, I would often find myself snickering at them after waking. I’d see them propped up against my bedroom wall and couldn’t help but laugh at my shays.

In the last few weeks, I think I’ve posted a random, crutch-tastic picture or two on her Facebook wall; one was of a man silhouetted by a brilliant orange sunset, victoriously raising his crutches over his head in triumph.

I don’t post these things because they make any sense. In fact, I post them because they make absolutely none. And I think that’s awesome.

Tonight I am simply thankful for best friends with whom we can share silly moments, nonsensical phrases, ridiculous photos on Facebook and still crack up over them decades later. They may not mean much to people who hear the stories after the fact, but they mean the world to me — and I love that they always will.

I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever written about tonight’s subject, or if I’ve just told the story numerous times as of late. Either way, the story I’m about to tell is one of my favorites.

When I was a freshman in high school, I remember having trouble sleeping one night. My brother was away at flight school and no longer living at home, so I’d inherited his water bed, some of his cassette tapes and a pink tropical fish known as a kissing gourami. I named the fish Floyd.

On the night that I was tossing and turning, I decided to turn on Pirate Radio (anyone remember it?) and consume some tasty tunes. I loved that station — and even though they’re off the air, I’ll always remember them fondly.

As an aside, the only thing they ever did to rub me the wrong way was play Vince Neil’s debut single post-Crüe, “You’re Invited (But Your Friend Can’t Come),” over and over and over again one afternoon.

And over.

And over.

And over.

Just when the song ended, they’d all crack up and talk about how great it was, and launch into another round of, “Oh, c’mon – let’s hear it again!”

They got a big kick out of Neil’s album, and while I liked the song the first time they played it, I don’t know that I needed to hear it ten times in a row. It might’ve even been more. I’m pretty sure I’ve not bothered to listen to that song in full since that day.

Anywho, back on track: my sleepless night.

I turned on Pirate Radio and, in the darkness of my room with my quietly sloshing, undulating water bed under me, I heard bizarre yet beautiful music coming from my bedside clock radio.

I wondered what I was hearing. The music was unlike anything I’d heard before. It lulled me into a trance-like state and I ended up falling asleep for the rest of the wee hours until my alarm went off.

The next morning, I called the radio station and asked what they were playing “around 2:15am.” The guy I talked to told me it was a song called “Ghost Beside My Bed” by a band called Altered State.

Altered state, indeed! My brain was still in bed and reliving those glorious sounds. Since I couldn’t drive yet, I talked my mom into driving me around to each Tower Records location in the area until I found their album (a tape, natch). I purchased it, brought it home, and proceeded to play it as often as I could: in my bedroom, in the car on the way to school, on my way home from school…I even wrote to the management at the label since the address was printed on the cassette sleeve.

I gushed about how great the music was, how talented they were as musicians and lyricists and how unique their sound was.

I was 14.

And I got a letter back. Not one, but three, in fact.

I think the first was a reply from the band’s manager. Not knowing how old I really was (but probably able to figure it out based on my trendy bubble letters written in turquoise ink on college-ruled paper), this person invited me (and therefore also my mom/driver/chaperone) to the band’s appearance in Huntington Beach, which I believe was in the bar area of the Red Onion restaurant on PCH.

Sadly, I think the restaurant has since closed. Ah, memories.

I had short hair for most of my younger years. To this day, I can’t stand to grow it out because it bothers me. I think I got dressed up as Annie each Halloween between the ages of 5 and 8 because not only was my hair short, it was also permed.

Thus, when I was 14 and invited to a bar that I didn’t belong in to see a band that didn’t know how old I was, my mom, my short, permed hair and I all showed up.

And they couldn’t have been cooler.

They spent time talking to me and my mom as groupies tried to get their attention. I vaguely remember the night, but I do remember feeling like a fish out of water. And I loved it. I left with t-shirt that they gave me, as well as an invitation to see them play up at the Roxy on Sunset.

Total score.

I somehow managed to swap letters with the lead singer twice after that night. Nothing creepy, of course, just a guy in a band doing his best to cultivate a fan base (although I’m sure he wished he wasn’t drawing the 14 year-old crowd).

For the Roxy gig, I invited my best friend, Erin. My mom had planned to make an evening out of it and we were all supposed to eat at Hamburger Hamlet just down the street from the club. That didn’t happen (I assume because of traffic), so we chilled at McDonald’s.

I spent hours agonizing over what I’d wear. In the end, I settled on the same t-shirt and pair of plaid shorts that I’m wearing in most pictures from the late 80s and early 90s. I even busted out some radical blue mascara, shimmery pink lipstick and turquoise eyeliner for the occasion, because I was under the impression that would make my gnarly hair a bit more palatable.

And it did. We looked fantastic.

The show was tremendous, if only because the band had reserved a table for us all. Truth be told, I don’t remember much of the music itself — though I imagine it was everything from their album. At the end of the set, I heard the singer singing but there was no singer on stage — just a plush, thick black curtain that hung from the ceiling and pooled at the floor. I’d brought my camera along, but realized after arriving that if I took pictures there, I’d be the only one taking pictures. So not cool. I refrained, but the camera sat front and center on the table.

The final song continued, and I saw the curtain move a little bit. Ah! The singer was coming out.

When he did, my mouth fell open. Erin’s mouth fell open. I think my mom put one hand over my eyes, and one hand over Erin’s.

The man was wearing no clothes. All he had on was body paint, and everything was visible.

Everything.

I don’t know that I’d ever seen anything like that before in my life. If I had, it was confined to a scene in a movie that I might’ve been exposed (get it?) to on accident, after which I was likely rushed out of the room in a flurry of activity.

But there was no escaping the scene before me. It was all out in the open. Erin covertly tapped the camera as if to say, “Dude, if you’re ever going to take a picture, now’s the time!” My mom spotted our sign language, grabbed the camera and shoved it into her purse.

Aside from the invitation we’d gotten to come up to the Roxy, we’d also gotten an invitation to meet the band backstage.

Backstage!

That never happened, as mom was so mortified that we high-tailed it out of Hollywood faster than you’ve ever seen a forest green ’79 station wagon go in its life.

Ever seen a Ford LTD burn rubber? I think my mom made it happen that night. As my friend Jeff would say, she “drove the t*ts” off that car and sped back to quiet suburbia — as much as one can safely speed with two girls in the car, that is.

I was in tears, because I wanted to see the band. I don’t know what Erin was doing, but my mom probably wasn’t amused at how heartbroken I was.

That was the last time I saw Altered State play. It will be burned into my memory forever — along with other things (parts?). One of the best nights of my life, I tell you.

I don’t know how I got to thinking about that awesome evening, but tonight I am thankful for my amazing mom who has put up with me and my shenanigans over the years. Some have been easier to take than others, but had it not been for her amazing spirit and what I like to think is genuine interest on her part to experience it, as well, I wouldn’t have half of the amazing memories I have today.

I have two serious weaknesses when it comes to food:

Cake (which includes cupcakes) and Del Taco. Makes for some good drama with the waistline, lemme tell ya.

The agency where I currently work is [deliciously] blessed to receive many a treat from media reps and the like. It’s not uncommon for a box of cupcakes to be delivered midday, especially during upfront season when the networks come in and tell you about the upcoming year’s program lineup.

Some of you may know that while I love a good hunk of cake, I’m not the biggest fan of Sprinkles. I find their cake to taste more like flour than anything else, and their frosting leaves a weird aftertaste. It very well could just be me, but based on those I’ve spoken to, I think otherwise.

Anywho, not the point.

There comes a time that when the going gets tough, the tough eat whatever cupcake that’s around — even if it’s from Sprinkles.

Yesterday I was cranking on a PowerPoint deck that needed to be sent to our client prior to our weekly conference call. I got it done, sent it, we discussed it, and everything was all good in the ‘hood.

On my drive home, I was thinking about said conference call. I was rehashing details, next steps, things I needed to follow up on, and as I was thinking about our client’s media plan, something felt funny to me.

Hm…what could it be?

OMG. I think the thing that isn’t sitting right is the fact that I might’ve done some math wrong.

Oh dear.

It was never my best subject in school, but really…? Now it’s haunting me at my job?

All I really wanted to do last night when I got home was water the flowerbeds and fertilize some roses. But my garden hose sprayer went haywire, and to top it off, the math issues had me all spun up. Two thumbs down.

I’m someone who balances her checkbook digitally. Meaning I don’t balance one that’s tangible at all. Everything’s online, and everything is rounded. I used to be that girl who, if you told me that I spent $173 at one store and $246 at another, would hear, “One-something and two-fifty,” then in my mind something like $350 would stick, when in reality I just spent over $400.

This job doesn’t have such wiggle room.

But that’s not what happened. Without going into too much detail, we’ll just leave it at, “My math was wrong.” I needed to fix it, and after I raised my hand and called attention to the possible (probable?) error, I did.

So where does the cupcake come in?

After worrying myself most of last night, even while trying to water the garden, and after crunching numbers all morning and working with our media team, things got sorted out.

But, dude: I was ravenous. And all that was around was…

…a leftover Sprinkles cupcake from yesterday.

Now, let’s be real: a cupcake takes a good while to go bad. It might get a little crumbly, but between the cupcake paper it was baked in and the giant mess of frosting that could double as a miniature toupee on top, that cake is pretty well-protected.

At least it tasted well-protected. (Please note the comment is solely pertaining to the freshness of the cake, and not necessarily the flavor, the texture or the aftertaste.)

But now it’s time for the payoff:

I figure last night’s watering (which I did to release some stress) burned about 100 calories. This morning, after running back and forth to my media gal’s office numerous times, I burned another 150 calories. Walking back and forth to the printer to pick up spreadsheets so that I could cross-reference other documents burned approximately 73 calories, and the combination of walking to and from the coffee maker so that I could ingest multiple cups of coffee (needed to fully wake up after a poor night of sleep caused by said fretting) as well as the combination of walking to the ladies’ room a few times burned another 146 calories.

After completing the fix and resending a document to my clients, I was starving. Not just “I feel hungry” starving, but stomach-growling-during-Excel-spreadsheet-creation-in-a-quiet-office starving. I headed to the kitchen to fetch a cup of hot tea, and ended up leaving with none other than the leftover Sprinkles cupcake.

I didn’t care that it was about to bestow its aftertaste upon me. I didn’t care that the cake was more the consistency of a corn muffin, and I certainly didn’t care about its nutritional information.

All I cared about was scarfing. It. Quickly. And voraciously.

After looking it up as best I could online (don’t ever do this, regardless of whether you like Sprinkles or not), and they generally range anywhere from 450 to 500 calories per cupcake.

Evil, evil things.

That said, my math worries burned 469 calories, and my Googling of nutritional information burned another 37, I’d say…so, really, all of my stress made the cupcake not only zero calories, but also negative calories. Right?

At least that’s how I’ll choose to think about it. (Go with me on this.)

Tonight I am thankful for access to sweets — however delicious (or not) — and for the comfort that they provided to me in my time of need. If I was someone who made a point of venturing out during lunchtime, my nerves would likely have been calmed by a bean and cheese burrito or Chicken Soft taco from the Del, but a resourceful girl makes use of that which is nearest to her.

One of the things I dislike most in life is when I get into a music rut.

Meh.

When I get ready in the morning, I’m listening to it. When I’m driving to work, I’m listening to more of it. I can’t listen to it when I work, because then I won’t focus. But I listen to it when I’m back in my car heading home, and I listen to it on those glorious DirecTV music channels.

A lot.

I’m a big fan of the 80s station when I’m cleaning, doing laundry or cooking, and I love opening the French doors to the patio and blasting it when I’m doing some gardening.

I may be one of the lone users of CDs left on the planet, but I don’t care. With CDs — particularly the store-bought ones — come album artwork and printed matter and gloriously inky images with lyrics spanning folds that invite you to keep reading, to keep singing and to have a tiny peek inside the musicians’ lives. When I used to buy cassettes in my younger years, I loved to smell the printing, and each album smelled differently to me.

I place so much importance on music that when I’m in a music rut it puts a big damper on things. It affects my motivation.

My outlook.

My mood.

Sometimes I’ll take my car to the car wash and remove a few books of CDs. The likes of Cinderella, Poison, LA Guns, Sarah Brightman, Yanni, Marc Cohn, Bon Jovi, Robert Plant and Tom Petty hang out in my trunk. I suspect it’s the only time they’ll ever be together. I don’t know why I refuse to use the MP3 port in my car, but I do. I’m just a creature of habit, I suppose. I like my CDs, and I like my good ol’ radio, complete with ads.

Yesterday I went to the car wash and stuffed everyone into the trunk; I have a habit of forgetting to take them out so that they can return to climate-controlled comfort with me when I leave. I was feeling their absence today.

While I didn’t have anything new in the books anyway, my current batch of six CDs had been in rotation for quite sometime. Yawn. I needed something new, but what?

I made due with the same ol’ tunes and headed home, uninspired.

I watered, and continued feeling uninspired.

I fertilized the roses until my Miracle-Gro Liquafeed feeder malfunctioned, and then I felt really uninspired.

I watered the back parkway and endured a couple of nibbles from hungry mosquitoes, then came inside and watched a few uninspiring episodes of Family Feud. The contestants’ answers told me I should’ve stuck with my usual Monday night routine of watching The Golden Girls reruns.

But then, behold, the power of Facebook! With a swift login and quick scroll through the wall, my eyes fell upon a new offering from one of my favorite bands — Keane — courtesy of KCRW’s Jason Bentley.

And as I watched the video I felt inspired again — just like that.

Tonight I am thankful for the power of music, the magic of lyrics, the inspiration in a melody and for the tasty Bentley offering that delivered all of these things in one, beautiful song which he described as “impossibly infectious.”

I agree. But its timing magnified everything that much more.