potpourri

So your girlfriend rolls a Honda, playing work-out tapes by Fonda.

My Honda's acting up. It's cold. It's consistently parked on the street. Not to mention it's just plan getting old. (My brother reminded the other day that if my car were a person it would have it's own learner's permit by now.) So I suppose this should be expected. But, as any car owner knows, car troubles always seem like the absolute worst kind of troubles. Unexpected. Expensive. And, overall, a real wrench in your routine.

While I was home at Christmas, my car behaved perfectly. No sounds. No creaks. No weird spinning noises under the hood. Nothing that I had been so carefully trying to replicate to my father over the phone for the past month or so. Nada. That is until I was backing out of the driveway, ready to head back to Chicago. Thanks, Accord.

Turns out there was a problem causing one of my power steering belts to wear. But, ultimately, the crank shaft was worn down and spurring on this problem to begin with. (Do I sound like I even slightly understand this jargon?) So what started as just replacing the belt turned into a wild goose chase around the city of Fort Wayne (and then the broader state of Indiana) to find a crank shaft that would be compatible with my 1996 Accord.

Luckily, a couple days and $550 later, my car was good as (almost) new. Supposedly.

Not two days after I got it back into the city and made a couple treks out for client meetings in the suburbs did a new little sound begin to resonate through the streets (and even more loudly through the parking garage). Now, I'm driving around with a car that consistently sounds like it's auditioning to be the squeaky bed-spring sound effects at the beginning of Trillville's 2004 hit Some Cut.

Don't pretend like you don't remember the jam.

Identity theft.

Alternative working title: Rachel Nichols is a poor man's Erin Andrews.

I'm increasingly convinced that Rachel Nichols has stolen my identity. Or what was meant to be my identity anyway. Each and every time I watch (or even overhear) her reporting live from some big NFL game, I'm left somewhat stunned at just how much better I think I'd be at that job if I ever got the chance.

Confession time: I have, on occasion or two, practiced my would-be sign-off: Reporting live from outside the Colts hotel in Miami, Florida, this is Liz Brune. ESPN. Practiced the different scenarios. Mastered the inflection (and the ever so slight of a pause between the first and last two syllables) in "ESPN". Made myself as ready as possible for the one-in-a-million chance that I just so happen to be sitting mid-field when Rachel goes down and someone (ohhh, pick me!) needs to step in so the broadcast can go on.

Yes, I realize this makes me sound incredibly ungrounded in reality. But it also proves I'm more than ready.

And I promise I will deliver whatever "breaking" news needs to be delivered with more heart, more interest and more entertainment value than Rachel could ever muster. Plus, my hair may be a mousy color that can't decide if it's brown or blonde, but it will never, ever be that badly dyed (and fried) red.

Editors note: If ever, in a million years, I'm actually being considered for some sort of journalism job at ESPN and this blog, for whatever reason, is being used as an example of my writing, I reserve the right to take back this prior paragraph and all my nasty, bitter, possibly exaggerated and clearly envious accusations regarding a certain employee thereof. After all, no need to ruffle feathers in Bristol before my first day on the job, right?

Actually, on second thought, if this blog is being used as an example of my writing. Of my potential as a writer. Of my ability to report on anything. Or of my ability to form complete and competent sentences. Use correct grammar. Or legitimate English words. Then I doubt I have to worry about a first day anyway.

You win again, Rachel.

Now, back to you Boomer.

Pete and Repeat were in a boat...

In the same way I was obsessed with my new apartment a couple months ago, I'm now fixated on P90X. Which may be understandable when you realized that for nearly 3 weeks now, I've been hanging out with Tony Horton for at least an hour a day. Sadly enough, this could qualify as the longest "relationship" I've ever been committed to. Lord help me when I make it all the way to 90 days. I think I could end up being in love for the first time.

The real point here though is that Tony has a couple catch phrases that he seems to pepper in through-out the various videos. And since I do each video once a week, I inevitably hear them over and over again. There's one especially that always stands out to me: This makes me happy. Which he says in at least one (although I swear it's more) of the videos in my current weekly phase. I realize that, especially after having watched the video(s) now a number of times, that this should be incredibly annoying and infuriating. Especially at 5:30am. But quite the contrary. I've found that it actually does, indeed, make me happy.

Finding things that should be annoying actually rather endearing? Shoot, I think this means it's definitely love.

Banana Peppers changed my life.

I am a creature of habit. And nowhere is this more true than at Subway. I, without fail, (except for a few visits this past summer during the short-lived era of the Orchard Chicken Salad), order the exact same thing. 6 inch Veggie on Honey Oat wheat bread with Provolone cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, extra pickles and black olives, topped off with Honey Mustard sauce. That is, until I discovered something that would change my Subway experience forever: the banana pepper. I know, I know. This is by no means a new vegetable. It's not even new to the Subway condiment row. But, for whatever reason, I never noticed or thought about it until about 2 months ago. My life - and my sub - will never be the same.

Can you use it in a sentence?

I cannot spell convenience for the life of me.

Scratch that. My family and every teacher I've ever had would argue that the more accurate sentence would be: I cannot spell for the life of me.

It's true.

Up until about 4th grade I couldn't even spell the name of my own hometown.

Seriously.

I consistently spelled it out as Fort Wanye. (Which, to this day, my family uses against me at any and every chance they get. It's like the comeback that trumps any Brune family argument. Sis can't spell Fort Wayne. KO. Fight's over. We have a winner.) In fact, I'm not sure I ever really learned to spell it. I just learned a clever little way to remember where the letters go: the "y" clearly needs to be in the exact middle of the 5-letter word to balance it out. Fort Wanye. Fort Wayne.

So this "convenience" revelation of mine likely does not come as much of a shock. The shock may actually be that I feel the need to limit my spelling troubles to one specific word. When, clearly, it's more of an epidemic. But this word in particular trips me up every. single. time. And, what's worse, the way I always attempt to spell it (convience) isn't even close enough for spell check to provide "convenience" as a suggested alternative.

Not very convient, er, convenient if you ask me.

Tennis lesson of the day: How to return a backhanded serve.

It must be something in the water. But I've been receiving all sorts of backhanded complements recently. The two best ones within the last 24 hours?

1. After sending out an extremely detailed and (albeit a biased opinion) incredibly well thought-out 923-word email, (yes, in research for this entry, I most definitely copy-and-pasted it into Word so that I could check the actual word count. I mean I had college assignments shorter than that!), one of my clients replied with this: Hahahaha... have not read a thing, but just wanted to acknowledge that you are great .. and I thought I was the only crazy one on this brand. Thanks for being awesome!! Yeah, Arthur, I'm right there in the padded cell next to you. Thanks for the, um, complement. I think.

2. While waiting in line at Subway (see banana peppers above for additional context), I realized I was just a person away from a woman (from a partner marketing agency) that I had worked with recently on a client assignment. Well, we got into talking about a couple things and soon I realized that instead of knowing that I was an account person, she actually thought I worked in consumer insights/planning. Which lead her to exclaim: You mean you're an account person? (Hope her almost palpable disgust is coming through here.) I could have sworn you were a planner. You seem too smart to be an account person. Thank you, I suppose, for thinking I'm smart. But thank you, also, for belittling my career path, position and what I spend 12+ hours a day doing.

Geesh.