Once upon a time there was a man named Ishmael, and he sold vitamins to Catholic nuns. Every day he would go up to the nunnery with his wares, knock on the door, and be admitted by kind sister Maria, who secretly harboured a penchance for well priced health products. Each time, the quiet nun would greet Ishmael with a secretive smile, and purchase whatever variety of helpful supplement he had to offer. Soon, Ishmael and Sister Maria fell in love. But they knew that their love could never come to fruition. Maria was married to her God, Ishmael to his wares. So day after day they continued to meet, neither telling the other how they felt, nor truly acknowledging his or her own feelings, until one day on his way to the convent, his heart weary from carrying the weight of his secret admiration and his body tired from the arduous task of carrying a large shipment of ginkgo biloba crammed into his large and battered suitcase, Ishmael wandered into the road and was hit by a passing donkey cart. The screams of the farmer driving the cart could be heard all the way up to the convent. There, they reached the ears of Sister Maria as she sat in her customary place by the convent's gate, waiting silently for the quiet sound of her love's dulcet footsteps. Terrified, Maria threw wide the gates and ran toward the accident. She stopped at the sight of Ishmael lying unconcious on the cobbled drive, his humble body broken and bleeding, his quiet eyes sealed tight. She knelt beside him, gathering her habit around her and using its hem to wipe the blood from Ishmael's mouth. Abandoning her dignity, she threw herself prostrate on Ishmael's chest, tears falling thick and fast for the love that she hadn't tried to hold, and that she now feared that she had lost. But no amount of tears could stop the aching, or fill the terrible pain that was her heart ripping in two as Ishmael continued to lie still, expiring in the hot sun with the quiet sound of the woman's weeping and the not so quiet sound of the braying donkey. Suddenly...

So now your thinking "Okay- what the heck on a plexiglass pogo stick? What in the name of Beelzebub and all his sub poltergeists does this story have to do with this girl? Is she a nun? Does she drive a donkey cart? Does she have an unhealthy vitamin obsession?"
Well,
Call me Ishmael.

Okay-, maybe not. People call me Jamie mostly, which is unfortunate, because Ishmael is a much cooler name, albeit ever so slightly more masculine than I would prefer. No. This story relates to me in this:

My story ends well. Things don't look so good for Ishmael and Maria right now, do they? Ishmael's hurt, Maria is crying, and even if Ishmael survives, how will his insurance ever be able to cover the cost of a replacement donkey cart, which, though the story does not mention it, was made of alabaster and butterfly wings and is therefore almose priceless. I don't care. I believe in happily ever after. In my story, Ishmael wakes up, Maria stops crying and confesses her love then and there, and he tells her he loves her right back. The donkey shuts up and, stooping, the cart driver realizes that amidst the ruins of the priceless cart there is an ancient treasure map leading to unimaginable riches, and would Maria and Ishmael like to come hunting with him, because he doesn't want to go it alone and he needs somebody to carry his Donkey. So they all go off together and find the riches which they donate to social programs in their village. Maria quits the convent and becomes a qualified aromatherapist, and Ishmael gives up the vitamins to become an organic potatoe farmer and they live happily ever after and have four beautiful children named Ruby, Natasha, Bernadette and Eeyore (After the donkey). That's how my story ends. So now you know that about me, and I know nothing about you. So how is it that your story ends?

In case you didn't guess from that story, I am a hopeless romantic. I spend most of the time in dreaming, which is unfortunate because it means that I run into things a lot and have a lot of bruising about my shins. I cry in every movie, sigh over every story, and you'd be hard pressed to find a softer heart than mine. Feel free to look. I'm not bragging- it's not a good thing. I'm a hypersensitive, irrational, impulsive, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants daydreaming monster child with a great love of dancing, Disney movies, and all things chocolate. So now you're warned. Don't tell me sad or touching stories if you don't want to see me cry, and keep me away from the Aero bars.

Don't worry, though. I'm not a complete airhead, despite what it sounds like. I am quite certain of this, because when I shake my head around really fast, it makes a swish-thump-swish-thump kind of sound which makes me suspect that my head is not full of air so much as it might be full of yo-yo's suspended in lime Jell-o.

Swish- thump- swish- thump.
Yeah- it's definately lime.
Can you imagine what the doctors would day if I went for a CT? "I'm so sorry, ma'am, I just don't know how to put this... the best I can say is that you may wish to take some time to get your affairs in order. What? No- it's not that. No, not that either. Well it's... it's a yo-yo. No, I'm sorry. There is simply nothing that I can do."
Poor Doctor.

I'll spare him the grief and not go in for testing.

That's another thing about me- I like self diagnosing. Well, like is not the proper word. I just do it a lot. Luckily, I am really bad at it. Thanks to this, I have been saved from leukemia, brain amoebas, West Nile Virus, AIDS, conjestive heart failure, and a Hydatidiform Mole.
Hurray for me.

I have to go pack now. There's another thing about me. I go places sometimes.

Dancing in the rain
Dancing full stop

Life! I mean, really, how awesome life is. I love almost everything about it- even the bad things, because they make the good things better. I don't like mine all the time, but love it always. While being super enjoyable, it occurs to me that this might make people hate me, or EVEN want to kill me so as to fulfill some sort of Satan-worshipping cult duty of making the world greyscale or something like that. SO, If you are some kind of life-hating sociopath that feels that vibrant people should be killed, thus eliminating areas of concentrated joie-de-vivre, be warned. If you try and off me, I will have no choice but to open up a can of... chili pepper on you, and I am pretty sure that that is not the kind of thing that you want to get in your eye, particularly when a really smiley tall chick is kicking the tar out of you whilst singing cheerful Irish pub songs. So behave yourself.

People who fill out charts properly- I was working as a medical researcher last summer, and as such, one would imagine that I come in contact daily with well filled out charts, but you would be WRONG! Doctors are actually not organized healers, but rather fiendish muffin heads who don't think that all the vital information about people's health is WORTH writing down and so I have to read through TEN THOUSAND PAGES OF ILLEGIBLE WRITING to get a single number. Gah! Honestly, the world would be a better place if people took the time to fill out charts. And if they would write in a way that does not look like someone strapped a ballpoint to a chicken and then hot boxed the hen house.
If I ever get married, it will be to a nice man with good handwriting who always fillls out his paperwork completely.

Wild nights are my glory- I'm like Mrs. Whatsit, only I am not a horse beast singy-man thing that used to be a star. I just really love stormy nights, with lightning and thunder and winds. It's nice to rage once in a while, don't you think?

Apricot baby food- don't diss it for the texture, 'cause it's heaven in a jar.

Cuddles and snuggles and holding hands- affection is so marvellous.

Saying Goodbye

Shoes- life is so much better barefoot. Why would you ever want to miss the feeling of the ground against your feet? If it weren't for snow and a small fear of stepping on needle drugs, I would own no shoes whatsoever.

When people do not fill out charts properly

David Schwimmer

People with dirty ears. Now, I know that there is the whole thing about never sticking something smaller than your elbow in your ear, but that dates back to pre- Q-Tip times. Those things exist for a reason. Just because your hair covers them sometimes doesn't mean that your ears should not be exemplary points of personal hygeine. If your ears are so dirty that you can cultivate pineapples in them should you so choose, then something is not right.