More Bite Than Bark

I'm Jennifer and I'm the brand-spankin'-new copy editor here at AP. When you're ready to come to terms with your serial abuse of the Oxford comma, call me. We can cry together. I also fully expect that you will point out the typos in my blogs just because you are that adorable.

Continuing with the spirit of introductions, here is an abridged history of my musical life. I would make a montage, complete with era-appropriate music, but that would take a lot of time, effort, skill and tragic pop-punk (I have two of those four things in my pockets, you can guess which ones). So here goes...

In my illustrious musical career, I have attempted (and failed) to play: the piano, the flute, the guitar, the bassoon, the xylophone, the marimba, the chimes, and the guitar again (and again).

Musical fortitude (or lack thereof) aside, I had a great albeit sheltered childhood. Growing up, my best friend's dad owned a club that always seemed to be playing host to our favorite or flavor-of-the-week bands. Awesome, right? So did I meet Weezer? Did Our Lady Peace sign my forehead? No. They did however sign a poster that said, "To Jennifer--Wish you were here." It was one of many.

In my pre-CDR middle school years, I spent many evenings on my bedroom floor with my finger above the "record" button on my tape player, ready to pounce as soon as a good song started to play on the radio ("C'mon, Better Than Ezra...").

The best set I've ever seen was Flogging Molly on the 2004 Vans Warped Tour. The fact that I was nearly hallucinating from heat exhaustion and sunburned to the point that I was unrecognizable only made it that much better.

In the too-trendy-for-my-own-good little boys' T-shirt that cost me all of 25 cents at the second-hand store, I was not too proud to be one of about three people watching Hit The Lights play the parking lot at my college's homecoming picnic (in 2003, 2004 maybe? Something like that.). And so my love affair with HTL began. It was--and to the best of my knowledge, still is--a largely one-sided affair, but those always make for the best songs anyway.

It is also very important that I take this time to introduce you to my little monster, Jack. Though his dashing good looks deceive you, he is a Chihuahua.

I found Jack (or Jack found me) about a year ago, when my fiance and I were about to go eat lunch at this Mexican restaurant (seriously) only to find the restaurant wasn't open yet. Since we had time to kill, we went over to this puppy store nearby. Now let me clarify something before we go any further: I do not in any circumstances condone buying animals at shops as if they were cereal or sparkplugs. It is a cruel, inhumane practice and I still feel guilty for supporting it. My rationale with buying Jack was this this particular shop only bought their puppies from local breeders and they only sold puppies and puppy supplies.

So there he was with those big, brown eyes and I was helpless to resist. I took him home the next day...