Thursday, December 30, 2010

Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Program of...Whatever it is I Normally Do Here

Y'all I got a Kindle for Christmas. I have not been that excited on Christmas morning since the year I got Teddy Ruxpin and all you can hear on the Christmas video for that year is what sounds like a hog being slaughtered. For two hours. (I clearly recall being way more adorable than that; unfortunately, my family video taped everything and it's very clear that I was not at all adorable. Also see that one year at Easter where I pitched a fit and fake cried loudly (and with a real tear even!) and everyone ignored me because I fake cried all the time to get my way. Even though it didn't work because everyone ignored me. Because I was not only not adorable I was also apparently mildly retarded).

The day after Christmas might go down as one of the nerdiest ever. I spent all day reading on my Kindle while my husband was determined to conquer Uncharted 2 on the PS3 (which he did, by the way). It could possibly have been nerdier had one of us written a blog post in elvish while the other spoke Klingon all day, dressed as our favorite Star Wars/Star Trek/Lord of the Rings and/or Harry Potter* characters (yes, we have one of each. Favorite characters, I mean, not costumes. I swear on whatever is holy to you that I do not own character costumes from any of those things) but just barely.

Other gifts of great excitement included hand milled vegetarian soap that has my bathroom smelling quite lovely, a pair of shoes I have been wanting for some time, a cover for the Kindle (now the precious can stay warm and protected), and money to buy things to put on the Kindle. Which I spent in about 10 minutes. But I have a bajillion things to read now plus a couple of cookbooks, one of which resulted in the best homemade macaroni in cheese ever created. And THAT is the gift that keeps on giving. Also, a lovely necklace I requested from the World of Hunger site, which funds a donation of about 25 cups of food, a few bracelets, and a sweater I will never wear except when I visit my great aunt.

I also bought myself a Christmas present. I did not actually want to do this, but I had to. I killed my cell phone with a bottle of Febreeze (they were battling to the death in my purse) and had to replace it on Christmas Eve.

So I'm at Verizon, explaining to the guy that my Febreeze and my cell phone were locked in epic battle the night before and the Febreeze was the definite victor ("No, really, smell the battery! It smells like Tropical Gain Febreeze!") And I should mention that the Kindle is something of an anomaly for me, because I am, relatively speaking, incredibly low tech. My cell phone made phone calls. That's all it did. Technically, I could text with it, but it was the kind where you hit the number button a jillion times to make letters. It could also take pictures, if one wanted an incredibly low resolution picture of something that you would be unable to identify later. I had forgotten how long lived that cell phone was until the sales guy reminded me.

The man spent a good minute looking from me to the phone in my hand back to me, with an expression of horror on his face before he finally gasped, "What...what IS that? I have not ever even SEEN a phone like that before. How...how long have you had that?"

Which hurt my feelings. That phone had longevity. And character. If I wasn't a complete moron it would have lived for who knows how long? Other people's phones break every 6 months and my phone was alive for at least 3 years. That phone totally earned some respect, and it was barely even cold in its grave before he started trash talking it).

"Uh...a few years, I guess? It's an LG flip phone."

This caused him several moments of heart palpitations. Which, okay, I get it. It's not a new phone. But it's not like it was the 20 pound Zach Morris Special, complete with 18 inch antenna or something (also, if you don't understand that reference we clearly cannot be friends anymore).

Finally he tells me I'm eligible for an upgrade and starts showing me phones, asking what I need.

"I need...to make and receive phone calls? Maybe a few texts here and there?"

"You...you don't do anything else with your phone? But you can get e-mail on your phone now and take pictures and get on the internet and..."

"Calls. Texts. The end."

So he very reluctantly sold me a phone that will be free once I get the rebate back. And the sales guy thinks I live under a rock and do not make full use of my opposable thumbs. He tried to talk me into a smartphone for a while, but I was like, "Dude. I've seen an iPhone. My husband has one growing out of his head. I use his for any emergency look-uppie things." I do have a keyboard now, which is kind of awesome and makes texting seem a lot more logical.

And that's how I bought myself a cell phone on Christmas Eve while reggae music played overhead.




*Yoda, Spock, Gandolf, and Hagrid, if you're interested.**
**Mine, I mean. His mileage may vary.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Exactly Like the Waltons, but with More Punching and Animal Carcasses

I got a Christmas card from my dad's family and he wants me to call him. I have not spoken to him in over 5 years, and I haven't found it particularly challenging not to do so. Moreover, I can't figure out why he suddenly sends a card saying he's been trying to get in touch with me at my office to no avail. Without ever once leaving a message, apparently. I don't for a minute believe he is feeling any real sorrow over our lost "relationship" either.

I guess it's just that I don't feel like he's my father. He didn't want to take the time to call me, or pick me up for his visitation rights. He didn't teach me to ride a bike, or catch a fish, or throw a ball, or shoot a rifle, or swim. He didn't teach me to drive a car or change a tire. I know how to do all those things, but not because of him. As a small child, he was the big scary man who hit my mother and locked us in various closets and put his fist through the car window. While we were in it. Because we were going to get a happy meal and he didn't get a chance to say goodbye. He was the guy who dragged me to deer camp and illustrated the finer points of field dressing a deer for the child who cried when anyone smashed a freaking spider. (He thinks I'm a vegetarian just to piss him off. I'm a vegetarian because of that fucking skinned deer you made me look at, Old Man).

As a teenager, he was that strange guy who always told me, "I hope you ain't dating any colored boys," when he remembered to call, but who mostly seemed to forget my existence. He's the person who made me cry on my birthday because he called to tell me he had forgotten my birthday and it was my fault. The last visitation I had with him as a child, he threatened to beat me if I didn't go to sleep and when I woke up he was screwing some strange woman. Because his booty call was more important than whether or not his daughter would ever be able to think about sex at all.

The only thing he said to me when I told him I was getting married was, "Well it will have to be a small wedding. We don't have a lot of money, so don't go ordering anything too expensive." I paid for my own wedding. Which he did not attend.

On the other hand, he's an old man now. I think he's in his 70s. He's been married to my step mother for at least 20 years. He quit drinking and he quit smoking and he has had some heart problems. Maybe I should give him another chance (not that he thinks he needs another chance...he still won't admit he ever did anything wrong).

Sorry about all that. Happy Holidays?

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

New Restaurant in Town



I just...I just NEEDED to share this.
God bless this fuxing state.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Kelly, stop it. Seriously it's making my head hurt. I wasn't intended to do this much thinking.

Ya'll make Kelly stop being all thought provoking and shit. I mean it.

I've always been something of a loner. I need quiet and time alone fairly frequently. But Kelly got me to thinking a little deeper about my issues, and the truth is, I'm afraid of disappointing you. I don't really worry that other people are going to disappoint me. I tend to assume the best of other people. I don't worry that they will hurt me or that they will leave me. But I worry about hurting them.

Christmas is an excellent example. I was thinking last night of the Family Guy episode where Lois hulks out because everyone takes all the Christmas preparations for granted. I was thinking about that episode because so far, I have decorated the house, planned a menu, purchased and wrapped ALL of the gifts including the gifts from other people to other people (meaning, all my husband's gifts to his family, also my mother's gifts to my husband and his family), I've purchased all the stocking stuffers, I've mailed all the Christmas cards, and I'm getting ready to make salt dough ornaments. I was also thinking about it while I scrubbed the kitchen floor on my hands and knees with a sponge because the mop is a huge failure at actually cleaning the floor. It isn't that I have that much Christmas spirit (or really any at all) as that I want everyone to be happy and have a wonderful Christmas and if I have to KILL MYSELF to accomplish this, I will do it SO HELP ME GOD. And that's how I am. If I care about you too much, I want to do everything in the world for you, and there's only so much time in the day. And I fear that if I CAN'T or DON'T do these things people will be disappointed and unhappy and it will be all my fault because I didn't make the twice baked potatoes from scratch.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE! (Of course there's more).

The thing is, I start to resent doing all of this and I get pretty angry on the inside. And just when I'm getting ready to totally Hulk Out, someone says how wonderful, you are just the nicest person ever, I could never do all that. So people think I'm sweet and awesome, and then I hate to disillusion them by letting the angry resentment out and re-double my efforts in an attempt to be what they think I am, but I can't be the person they think I am because she's not real and it's really going to disappoint them/hurt their feelings if they find out. P.S. this also makes me a doormat. Which starts the resentfulness all over again.

So it's easier to be alone.

I understand all of this, where it comes from and why I do what I do, but the part where a therapist might come in handy is in telling me how the hell to stop it. And I can't afford a therapist, so right after Christmas I'm totally turning back into a misanthropic hermit with a hygiene problem (just to make sure no comes to see me).

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Weird or obnoxious, those are your only choices.

A while back Kelly posted a question about whether or not love was an emotion or a decision and Lilly posted something about how we all eventually settle, and those two things seeped slowly into my brain and have been bothering me ever since, and then my brain cells accidentally bumped into one another and this was born. I'm not sure what it is yet. I have either produced the blog equivalent of the funny smelling kid who eats paste and boogers and can't spell his own name, or I have produced that obnoxious little girl with the perfect hair and the clean dress who can't do anything fun because she might get dirty. Neither of these is really what you want to have, but those seem to be my choices.

So. Diving in.

Firstly, the idea that love is a decision we make rather than an emotion we have no control over reminds me of church. I think it's true in a general way. Love is something of an action. If I sit around waiting to spontaneously "love my neighbor" I will probably never actually get around to it. However, if I get off my ass and help my neighbor rake her yard...get it? It's a concrete love. A love that can apply to the little kindnesses we do for strangers and family alike. But romantic love? I think this can apply to romantic love, in the sense that we need to practice this kind of love in order to keep marriages or relationships strong. But I have never been able to "decide" to feel romantic love. If we could do that, none of us would be alone if we didn't want to be. If that makes sense. Because you could just decide to be in love with the next person that decided they were in love with you, and there would be a lot less heartbreak. But you can't force that to happen. Maybe because physical attraction is such an important component of being in love. If you could just decide to be attracted to someone...well, how many people have fought homosexual urges for years because they believed it was wrong? (ps - I don't happen to believe it's wrong; I think it's a decent example because I know at least 2 people in my own family who would be attracted to the opposite sex if they had a choice just because their lives would be easier because we still live in the south and people still like Jerry Falwell). I think that we can be more open minded than we are about love (dating out of type, giving someone a chance that you would normally reject) and sometimes you end up having sex with someone you never considered before, and sometimes it turns out that you still aren't attracted to that person.

If we were able to make those kinds of decisions I probably never would have ended up with my husband. He wasn't my "type" and he claims I wasn't his (although, I would love to show you a picture of his last serious girlfriend before me - we could be TWINS and not the Danny DeVito Arnold Schwartzeneggar type twins; also see every girl he ever dated, they all look a lot like me). Granted, my type was generally all over the map physically and mentally. But this was different. This was...a REPUBLICAN, for God's sake (he's actually more of a vote for who he thinks is best kind of guy, not a straight ticket voter, but he quoted Reagan and was so Alex P. Keaton I actually DECIDED he was a republican before we ever actually discussed politics). But I was open minded and went out with him anyway. The trick there is that I was attracted to things I never thought about before. The way he actually talked to me about real things, how smart he was, how he was completely not threatened if I knew more than him about a topic or if I could do something better than he could (by the way, this only happens when the planets align exactly and Halley's comet is passing the earth and a solar eclipse happens at exactly the same moment...which is to say, not very often at all).

Which leads me to the idea of settling. The idea is not so much that you just finally give up, as that you realize no one is perfect and start to look for as perfect as possible. I mean, he's a cocky asshole who is annoying by virtue of being good at EVERY FUCKING THING EVER. He's not predictably thoughtful (never remembers to help me bring in the groceries, never cleans his facial hair out of the sink) but he does things that are so weirdly thoughtful I can't stand it. He doesn't send flowers often because he knows I don't really like them, even though the women in his office give him a hard time. He could pick out clothes or jewelry for me without my input because he pays attention to what I wear and what I like. He tells me I'm beautiful at random moments on a regular basis. He cleans the shower drain because it gives me the wig (even though its mostly my hair).

If I was able to decide who to fall in love with, and perfect people existed, I'd probably be married to an independently wealthy doctor who did lots of charitable works and never farted in the living room or described the weird crap he'd taken that day. I'd have total control of the remote control. He'd help clean and cook and love small children and babies and give me whatever I wanted, and I would be so fucking bored I'd probably lose my mind and do something completely insane (rather than the moderately insane things I do now).

This is all kind of stream of consciousness. I don't know if it makes sense or not. But I'm kind of glad I didn't decide who to fall in love with, and I'm glad I settled.

Hey Mister: Love you and Happy 30th. (Jesus. You're all old now and shit. I'm gonna have to start shopping for a new one. As God is my witness, my next husband is going to be an automechanic).

Monday, November 29, 2010

DAMMIT

So I'm going to be a little whiny because I just spent several days with family of both the mine and the in-law varieties, and I love them very much but they make me regress several years. If you don't like it...whatever, I do what I want. So there.

Ya'll make no mistake. I love my mother. I have no doubt she loves me. Mother-daughter relationships always seem to be complicated. Please consider that my disclaimer.

My mother is one of THOSE. You know, one of the critical ones. She doesn't view herself as critical; she sees herself as CONCERNED. Sometimes I can accept her version of things, like when there is something that might actually be an issue to be concerned about.

My mother's pet "concern" since I was 12 has been my complexion. I don't have acne, but I have a tendency to stress breakouts (ahem, MOTHER) and this apparently worries her. Look, I don't love having zits (especially at 28; I was promised I would outgrow this. Lying liars seated upon thrones of lies!)but...of all the things I myself have a tendency to get anxious about, my face is not really one of them. I need time to worry that a meteor will crush me or my husband will die if the house isn't spotless or my car will spontaneously crash if it isn't completely clean inside and out or that other drivers will swerve into me at high speeds for no reason or that there is a serial killer in the closet in the guest bedroom. This doesn't leave me time for "concern" about my face. I'm clean, I'm eating right, I'm not touching my face, I'm doing my best. The rest is in God's hands as far as I'm concerned, and He's probably a little busy with more important things.

So of course I'm broken out over Thanksgiving, and of course this is the END of the WORLD as we know it.

"Are you drinking plenty of water? You aren't touching your face are you? You don't put the phone against your face do you? Are you cleaning your phone? You should clean your phone. (Through this portion, I am sitting there stoically, nodding and shaking my head where appropriate, hoping that if I ignore this it will go away) Are you washing your face?"

Clearly, the bad thing did not go away. Also that last one makes me feel about 7 years old and I can't bite my tongue anymore.

"No, Mom, do you think that could be the problem?"

And then she STARES at me. With this...face. It is wholly indescribable. Imagine that you have just told your mom you have cancer. The look of horror and shock and worry and near tears you would see in her face is the closest I can get to describing this expression. Also, if this is the face I get over PIMPLES I hope to high heaven I never have to tell her I have cancer.

"Mom, why are you WORRIED about this? It's unattractive, it's not fatal. I already snagged me a man, you know. He's not going to leave me over it. I'm not going to get demoted at work. My friends will still be my friends."

"Alright, Ms. Smart Alec, what if you get (whisper) scarred?"

"Then...I will be scarred? Are you afraid the villagers will come after me with their pitchforks and their torches?"

Now she is wringing her hands in worry and also shooting me the death glare because of my smart mouth. But she takes my point. FOR THE TIME BEING.

An hour later I am presented with a cucumber and instructed to slice it up and rub it on my face. I do it because it's not worth fighting over and I figure if she sees me doing something maybe it will make her leave me alone for the rest of my visit.

And I will be damned if it didn't work. My mother was right, I was forced to admit it, and now I will never hear the end of anything again, world without end, amen.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Random Things For Which to be Thankful (HA! I managed NOT to end a sentence in a preposition for once in my everloving life! Am Awesome).

Well, I had my car transformed from a 2000 Fiery Death Trap back into a 2000 Volvo: the car that Twilight ruined. So that's good. And it cost about half what the dealership quoted me, and they gave me a loaner car which made me love my OWN car so very much more. It was a giant red 96 Volvo. And when I say red, I mean it was the reddest red to ever red. I generally have no car vanity. I'm not defined by my car, therefore I've never been embarrassed of one before. Other people have been embarrassed of my cars, but I never have been. Until I had to put gas in that red monstrosity. I tried very hard to hide while fueling up that abomination to machinery everywhere. Seriously, I think it should probably be destroyed with fire before it has a chance to propagate more of its kind.

So now that my car is fixed and its Daylight Saving Time, I've started doing my run at the river trail on my lunch break. More specifically, at the Big Dam Bridge (longest pedestrian bridge across a river ever or something that I don't really care about). I like running there at this time of year because I generally have the area to myself. In the spring and summer you have about a million other people, 999,999 of them on bicycles. You may have never noticed this, but cyclists are assholes. There is no need to ride 5 across the path, and yet they continually force me into the weeds and mud because they are assholes in stupid pants. But at this time of year it is just me. And the deer. There were two in the middle of the path today, and I got so close to them I could have pet them if I had not learned my lesson about deer several years ago when I let one into our house (okay, it was a doublewide trailer. Whatever, I let a deer in is the point). Also the Big Dam Bridge gave me the opportunity to have the following conversation:

"So, where do you run?"

"When the day lasts longer, I like to run in my neighborhood. But at this time of year, I usually run at the Big Dam Bridge."

"Why do they call it that? I think that name is just horrible!"

"Because it is big? And it runs across the dam? And it is a bridge?"

"OH! I thought they were calling it the Big DAMN Bridge just to be hicks or something."

"Okay, then!"

Interesting thing about running in my neighborhood is that while I don't really know anyone, I am constantly recognized at the corner store or even while running. Because I am the only person who does it on a regular basis, and I guess I'm memorable. I like the opportunity to have conversations with people I might not normally talk to. I also like to feel like a celebrity. The best way to feel like a celebrity is to be recognized by complete strangers. Speaking of, my corner store is awesome. The people who work there are all competent and they remember customers and generally what we purchase (Before the great fixening of my car: Wow, girl, you sure buy a lot of oil! Yeah, I've gotta get my car fixed. That sucks!)But also if you go after a certain time of night you can meet the crackheads, who all tend to be very interesting and kind people, for some reason. Just, you know, in a crazy cracked out way.

Speaking of crackheads, I am on a definite energy upswing right now which is always awesome. One of the reasons I go on and off medication so often is because I tend to miss the manic energy that comes with being overly anxious. But, I'm having energy upswing without being unmedicated, and that rocks. Yesterday I managed to clean the kitchen, vacuum the floors, sweep, mop, clean the carpet, steam clean the bedspread, repair the rips in the bedspread, wash all the laundry, put the laundry away, make chocolate chip pancakes for dinner, clean even the darkest corners, clean the French door, sweep the back porch, do the dishes, clean the leaves out of the carport, wash the car, and vacuum the car. And then do a hot oil treatment on my hair before watching Boardwalk Empire and Walking Dead. For which I am also grateful, Amen.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Loose change

Back a few months ago, I was bitching about having to pay $900 in car repairs. I had no idea how good I had it. Those were the good old days. $900? Psh. No problem.

Because now I need about $1,900 worth of repairs on my car.

On my $4,000 car.

I am no mathalete, or anything, but my calculations are indicating that purple flying pigs will ice skate on a lake of frozen gold in hell before I pay that much for this car.

Seriously, the guy at Volvo called me on the phone and as soon as the words "nineteen hundred dollars" left his mouth I said, "Holy shit." And that's all I said for several minutes. Then I laughed at the very nice, clearly delusional gentleman when he asked me if I wanted them to get started on that. He was super nice about it, actually, but he did warn me that I'm likely to die a horrible fiery death at an indeterminate time and place. Which...eh. That's kind of always been a possibility hasn't it? It's not like it's more likely now that I know about it.

****

Halloween consisted of Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, a lot of Ghost Hunters, A Haunting in Connecticut, and Paranormal Activity. I LAUGHED all the way through Paranormal Activity. Until I went to bed. Where I suddenly became terrified of the demon and sweated all night with 13,000 blankets pulled up over my face. Because if I can't see it, it's not there, and also everyone knows that blankets are the ultimate in protection against demon possessions, axe murders, and serial killer clowns.

****

I have always been jealous of people in big cities with reliable public transportation who have hilarious and shocking stories about their fellow commuters (just for context: my office is 14 miles from my house. In order to take the bus to my office, I have to walk 1/2 mile, change buses 5 times, and walk another 1/2 mile. Cars are kind of a necessity here). Anyway, I always wanted to be able to tell stories about fellow commuters and the receptionist at the office generously supplied me with one.

As she was driving in to work the other day, she was cruising along in the middle lane to avoid one particularly horrible set up where two exits are about 1/4 mile from each other and the first one backs up the interstate for about 2 miles in the morning. She and I both need the second exit. This is usually no big thing. You stay in the middle lane, get over immediately after the first exit, and take the second exit. Except THAT morning, when she was trying to get over, the car next to her was staying right beside her. She slowed down. The other car slowed down. She sped up. The other car sped up. This continued as she turned to give the guy "What the fuck?" face. At which point she realized he was staring directly at her while driving and jacking off.

And really? Dude? In the car? While driving? Part of me respects his ability to multi-task and part of me wonders things like was he planning to masturbate in the car that morning or was it spur of the moment? What exactly was his long range plan? I mean, did he bring something (like a sock? a...condom? a jizz rag?) along to contain the ejaculate? Was he planning to improvise? Is his steering wheel covered in crusty old spunk? (What? Inquiring minds).

****

And to get the bad taste out of your mouth, I bring you: Unparalleled cuteness I should probably feel bad about including in a post about Happy Highway Masturbator.









Tuesday, November 2, 2010

In completely unrelated news

Slightly related to my last post, I realize that I was a little angry and might have sounded a smidgen...bitchier...than intended. I would like to say here and now that the point of the post wasn't actually about her weight, but more about her complaining about something that she does absolutely nothing to change. Just to be clear:

I don't think you're fat. I don't think anything about your weight. You can weigh whatever the hell you want and still be completely sexy (minor anecdote: my cousin, who is like my sister, has struggled her whole life with her weight. She once managed to drop down to a size 8 - the smallest she's ever been- and...she...really didn't look that great. She needs her curves. She's incredibly beautiful and I love her). I don't hate fat people. I don't even think you ARE fat, remember? I apologize if I was not as clear as I should have been.

In completely unrelated news:

It's election day, and I am voting even though I am not convinced it really matters. But I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about the awesomest campaign commercial of the season.

Basically, it goes like this:

[Imagine you are listening to James Earl Jones, Kevin Spacey, some Shakespearean actor, and that guy who does the movie previews combined. Only...MORE]: Chad Causey is from WASHINGTON D.C. He is NOT FROM HERE. Chad Causey has FRIENDS in WASHINGTON, D.C. (please imagine Washington, D.C. being stated in the same way you might say THE LANDFILL or HELL). Chad Causey's ad people are only separated from Nancy Pelosi by 3 degrees. NANCY PELOSI (I think there might be subliminal text here that I'm missing about Nancy Pelosi being a minion of hell, out to do the work of the evil one - in this instance I believe Barack Obama is playing the part of the evil one). Chad Causey...BARACK O'BAMA (see? Told you). Don't vote for Chad Causey.

And then I die of giggle. I don't know why the ad people don't want me to vote for Causey (liberal cooties, maybe? He has brushed up against Pelosi and O'Bama, and after all, we all know liberalism is contagious. Like communism) but they say his name so many times that it will be the one I recognize on the ballot, even if I don't know anything else about him.

In other unrelated news: someone just brought me a free muffin. It was delicious. It ALMOST was worth getting out of bed this morning for that muffin. Almost.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Stop Eating Pork Rinds by the POUND and maybe you too could lose a little weight.

So, I'm sitting in the break room eating my salad and my low fat yogurt, and trying to pretend that this is an actual meal, and not one of the things I do in the name of my vanity and the size of my ass.

This is going pretty well, actually, because I am very good at lying to myself. I do it all the time. Coconut cream pie low fat yogurt is totally the same as coconut cream pie! Lettuce is yummy! I hate Ranch dressing! No one will notice that pimple in the middle of my face!So, I am lying to myself and feeling almost happy about my lunch.

And then.

Someone else came into the break room. This is okay. This is fine. Okay, she talks a lot. Like, people routinely walk away from her while she's in the middle of a sentence and she keeps talking a lot. Like she has phone conversations in her cubicle, and hangs up the phone, and repeats the entire conversation out loud to herself a lot. And she's kind of passive aggressive and sometimes extremely condescending. It is okay. I have flaws, too. I can be nice. I can choose to be happy in any situation! (Told you, I'm really good at lying to myself). And okay, fine, she has a double bacon cheeseburger and some french fries from Wendy's and the fries smell like I imagine heaven probably smells, but I have WILLPOWER (*cough*) and they aren't my fries anyway.

So now I'm eating a salad and yogurt while pretending to like it while smelling french fries, which are in my top 10 favorite foods. And I'm talking to someone who can irritate me without even breaking sweat (which, by the way, is actually really unusual for me. I'm almost never annoyed by people, because they think I'm sweet, but what I really am is exceptionally skilled at ignoring people to their faces; so, she's talented, is what I'm saying).

I am trying very hard to ignore her sweetly to her face, but then a sentence out of the vortex of words proceeding from her mouth catches my attention.

"It is just so unfair that you are so thin and you don't even have to try."

Bitch are you kidding me? One of us at the table is clearly trying, and it ain't you. I froze with my last forkful of fucking LETTUCE halfway to my mouth and stare at her as she shoves another bite of DOUBLE BACON CHEESEBURGER into her mouth.

"Well," I tell her, "I DO run every day. And do yoga. And frankly, I fucking hate salad."

"Oh, I can't run. I can't exercise because I had surgery on my knee and I just can't do any exercises at all ."

I mention that the 80-year old woman my mom works for recently had a similar surgery and is now exercising regularly. Which she ignores.

Also she tells me this while eating food that has enough calories to be all the calories anyone would need for an entire day. But she will go back to her cube and eat mother-fucking PORK RINDS out of a gallon size container for the rest of the afternoon.

And then she says it again! "Its so unfair you don't even have to try!"

Which makes me wonder if this actually happened at all. Maybe I had some sort of starvation induced hallucination and I did not really tell her about the various ways in which I do, in fact, try very hard to stay the weight I am.

Monday, October 25, 2010

I'm sorry, non-football people, but even you have to admit this is a little amusing.




One of these is Vanilla Ice. One of these is Ryan Mallet, quarterback for the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Secretly, I'm pretty sure they are BOTH Vanilla Ice.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Try not to get any sex on you

I am supposed to tell you the story about the worst guy I ever dated, and I will. As soon as I figure out how to write it so that you can see his awfulness truly, in all its splendor.

Until then, I leave you with some of my husband's words of wisdom from Saturday night. My husband shared this little tidbit with the entire bar:

"Dude. You should never carry cash. You should never touch a one dollar bill. Something like 80% of them have cocaine on them and I'm pretty sure like 100% of them have been in contact with a hooker's asshole. Seriously, when you touch one dollar bills you get drugs and sex on you."

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Pants on Fire

Because so many of you (whatever, 1 of you totally qualifies as "many") seemed excited about the prospect of more stories of me dating the mentally ill...I give you the story of my very first real boyfriend who I was allowed to go on "car dates" with and who was, indeed, mentally ill. In fact, he was a pathological liar. Not in that "all boys are liars" way (which I totally hate, by the way, most people lie) but in that "telling lies for no discernible purpose pretty much every time he opened his mouth" way.

On our first date, he wanted to take me somewhere fancy (Red Lobster). On the way to the restaurant he kept telling me how pretty I looked and how it made him think of this song that he really wanted me to hear. He kept scanning the classic rock stations trying to find it, but no one was playing the particular song he wanted. He turned off the radio and sang it to me himself.

I will just give you a moment here to absorb that, and compose yourselves.

I sat there as he sang "Wonderful Tonight", trying to look impressed, but mostly wondering when he would be done so we could get to the part of the evening where I could pretend that never happened. We finally arrived at the restaurant where he opened my car door, opened the restaurant door, and practically knocked the waitress over trying to seat me. And he talked. And talked. And talked. And by "talked" I mean "lied." He talked about the time he and his friend saw these 2 naked women driving a Jeep, and the women really wanted to jump their bones but he and his friend turned them down. He talked about how he had a ton of cars. He talked about his skills in the martial arts.

On the way home I mostly pretended to be asleep so the talking would stop, but as we pulled up to my house he looked over at me, and he smiled, and he said, "I really love you. I love you so much." Oh. Kay.

Sadly, I continued to date him for a few more months. Even more sadly, the guy who came after him was worse.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Sadly, he was not the only boy I dated that got arrested. Because I was kind of stupid in high school, apparently.

A little while back I made a joke about all the "bunny boilers" my husband dated before he met me. In the interest of fairness, I should probably talk about some of the borderline psychopaths I chose to date. Even though I'm afraid of what it says about me that I chose these people.

First up: Kody (P.S. is this a generational thing? With the name spelling? Because I later dated a guy named Korey, and I'm wondering...what up with the K names?)

Kody was...so completely a baby psycho. I was 16. He was...17? 18? I don't know, but he was still in my grade. To be fair to Kody, I knew from the instant I started talking to him that he didn't want a girlfriend. He wanted to get laid. And was perhaps interested in me because I had a reputation for not sleeping with guys (true: I did not once ever have sex in high school, and many, many boys wanted to get in my pants for the sole reason that they wanted bragging rights about being the one that got in my pants first). But anyway. I was in that very, very short lived period of my life where I thought the "bad boy" thing was sexy and that the "love of a good girl" would save him and it would all be very romantic, and a lovely story to tell our children one day. (It is okay to laugh. I am laughing at myself).

So Kody and I hung out a few times (in fact, he was the star of the story about the first time a boy touched my girly parts and how that contributed to my continuing virginness for...quite a long time, actually). Kody was horrible to me in public. He either ignored me or went out of his way to mock and humiliate me. But then he would call me on the phone every day as soon as I got home and be really, really sweet to me.

Did you catch the important part there? He called me EVERY DAY AS SOON AS I GOT HOME. He had it timed. If I was a few minutes late he would badger me about where I had been and what I had been doing and who I had been with. These "conversations" lasted for HOURS. Even though after the first 20 minutes it generally ended up being me, struggling in vain to get off the phone while he played video games or smoked weed or ate mushrooms. And listen, all of those activities are fun, don't get me wrong. But they are only fun if you are actually participating. It is not fun to listen to someone else play a game or get high (okay, the day he tripped on the mushrooms was a little amusing..."Damn. Nothing's happening, I'm not feeling anything...holy shit, there's a cartoon rabbit in here!")

So, after two weeks of putting up with his split personality disorder, his stalker-y behavior, and what is still the worst sexual experience of my life...he got arrested for shoplifting and started screwing some other chick. Because she came to bail him out of jail. Except...I think she just picked him up, because I'm pretty sure teenagers can't bail other teenagers out of jail? Whatever, it was all very Melrose Place.

And yet, I continued to date losers who wound up arrested for one thing or another. I don't know what was wrong with me, but I'm pretty sure I'm responsible for all of my mother's gray hair and God will punish me by gifting me with a daughter EXACTLY LIKE ME.

God help us all.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Just so you know what we're dealing with here...

I did not work on Friday. This was the biggest mistake of my career so far.

Ya'll. YA'll.

While I was gone they hung a deer head over my work space. It is huge. And dead. And yet STILL STARING AT ME.

I am frightened.

I mean okay, there have always been dead ducks hiding in corners all over the place here, but...the deer, man. The deer gives me the willies. I don't think it's happy to be dead. I'm pretty sure it's going to get together with the ducks and they are going to rise up as one body and smite us or something.

I would just like to go on the record as saying I think the ritual of killing and stuffing and preserving something so that it looks like it might still be alive is primitive and barbaric and senseless and please don't eat my soul because I had nothing to do with this.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Rorschach Burn

I spent all of yesterday afternoon in a kayak in the middle of a rock quarry, trying to pull water samples from various depths. And apparently lost my fool mind sometime before we got there, because once we got started I pretty promptly spilled nitric acid preservative on my bare skin. Did you know that when you burn yourself with nitric acid the burn is actually yellow? Because I didn't. For a few moments of intense burning pain, I thought I was watching my skin and fat literally melt and that the yellow was the layer of fat under the skin seeping through (you're welcome).


Rest assured, it was not. Have I mentioned my tendency to be a drama queen? Well, a really stoic drama queen. Because you can't let the guys who are out sampling with you know that that hurt like a bitch and what you really want to do is cry and then go home and put on your pink jammies and your bunny slippers and watch something on the Lifetime channel that practically drips estrogen while eating ice cream. Uh, you are eating ice cream, not the Lifetime channel. Which is, in fact, exactly what I wanted to do (after the ice cream and the Lifetime maybe I'll clean the house in high heels and pearls! What? I do enjoy being a girl, you know). I knew that I was going to be in the field with these guys for a few more hours and they needed to not be babying me the entire time (seriously, other girls have to deal with sexual harrassment in the field with the guys. What do I have to deal with? The fact that they all, to a one, want to TAKE CARE of me and treat me like I'm a pretty, pretty princess. It's insulting in its own way, okay?).


When I finally limped into my house (I did have to leave my pants rolled up because I couldn't stand anything on the burn) my husband took one look at me and was all, "Holy shit what did you do and do I need to take you to the ER?" Because he knows me. (The answer was no, by the way, he did not).


It really does look like a rorschach inkblot test on my lower leg. I'm only burned where it touched me so you can actually see where it splashed and then rolled down my leg.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

See, people like me don't even need drugs. We are our own trip.

I cannot resist telling you that this morning began with me and my husband deciding on divorce, me getting re-married to a friend of his about 12 minutes later, and the new husband buying a disabled child on a leash for a thousand dollars. I took really good care of him, even though he basically walked like that thing in The Ring, meaning crawled around in a weird manner. He was surprisingly well spoken. But then his mother found out the husband had sold the kid and was really pissed and wanted him back. So we gave him back. But it was okay because my new friend/husband's wife had left him about 6 minutes before our wedding and she left her newborn baby behind on the boat we were living on which we needed to wear HazMat suits on because husband/friend is a really, really messy slobby guy (true fact). And my original flavor husband and I decided to continue dating. Which was fine because husband friend and I were really uncomfortable with the thought of sharing a bed (which was a mattress on the floor).

(Side note: There is a reason I am not a morning person you guys, and that I get tired so easily. I have to do this kind of crap all night every night, and I just need some frigging rest.)

So I woke up and had to tell Original Flavor about this dream. And I guess he's really used to me by now because all he said was, "You weren't even sad that I wanted a divorce?"

Because the dream was so realistic in every other way.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Uh. Maybe if I say enough words some of them will accidentally be funny. Or...not.

So you fall off the earth for a couple weeks because things just. got. real. Or whatever. And you realize the longer you stay away the less you have to say. And then you come back and post something just to try to get the juices flowing again, and you start to type about how you fell out of bed because you were locked in combat with a giant cobra, but you realize people think other people's dreams are boring (I, actually, love to hear about people's dreams, but from what I can tell...I'm really alone in this). So then you start to tell the story about when you had your wisdom teeth out and you were desperately trying to convince your mother you could TOTALLY go out on a date with that cute guy who will LOSE INTEREST if you cancel, and you realize there was a really, really similar post (only...better) at Hyperbole and a Half, and you don't want to be a copy cat. Then you start thinking about how awesome it would be to go back to high school as you are now, and how you would totally date the cute German boy and the band geek instead of the losers you DID date, and how you wouldn't care about the stuff that seemed like such a big deal, but then you realize you are ripping off a Matthew Perry movie, and damn, that's embarrassing.

So then you go back to reading the archives at Occupation Girl and you get even more discouraged because you are never going to be as funny as Cleo. And then you get over yourself and come type some stream of consciousness gibberish just to try to get past the block because you aren't a person who can talk about going to work and falling in to bed and make that funny, and that's all you've been doing.

You could talk about the Beauty Queen they just hired at your office (she put it on her resume! Yes, I am judging her, I'm sorry) and then you hear her talking to some of the people in the office and realize you aren't going to click with this girl because a.) anyone who says, "I need your muscles - giggle" when asking for help with boxes is...way, way different than you and also b) you overhear her turning down homemade bananas foster french toast because she had a bran muffin and she "doesn't eat that." I cannot trust anyone who can turn down bananas foster french toast (if you are such a person...maybe we can still be friends, but we aren't going to be braiding each other's hair anytime soon). But all of that sounds really judgy and you don't know this girl at all and you seem kind of catty (except the french toast thing. I very sincerely mean that).

And then you wind up with this.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

A Billion Words Explaining Why I Have Nothing to Say

So an entire month without a day off of any kind has broken me. I have nothing of interest or even mild interest to say. To anyone.

I thought that I was tough, but I really, really hate this. I always forget that being tired makes me sort of fall apart. I cannot deal with sleep deprivation. I feel like other people sleep less on a regular basis and still function normally, but I cannot (and never have been able) to do this.

I start to be anxious about nothing (prepackaged with your anxiety about nothing also comes the feeling that your skin is trying crawl off your body, surges of adrenaline that prepare you for fighting badgers with your bare hands but there are no badgers, sleeplessness, headache, raggedy nails, and a special bonus inability to bear the thought of anything even thinking about touching you! Especially awesome for married people who would like to stay married and NOT contract chlamydia from some skank your husband turns to in desperation!) So I basically sit around like Jello, quivering with excess nervous energy but too exhausted to actually harness and use that nervous energy for any interesting or useful purpose.

I start dreaming about things that I'm not dealing with, but rather am shoving down into a little ball somewhere in the pit of my brain, where I can pretend the issue doesn't exist and doesn't bother me at all. As all well adjusted, mentally well, normal people do, of course. This time around it is dreams about my dad. I should probably write a real post about him someday, and why he is A Thing I Probably Should Deal With, But I'd Really Rather Not Because Look! A 4-Hour Special About the Reproductive Habits of Earthworms is On! Let's Do That Instead. Frankly, I haven't been able to come up with a way to discuss my daddy issues without sounding either whiny (okay, I know this post is also whiny, but...its different. Or something), blame-y, or some other variant of dwarf that didn't make the final cut of Snow White.

I haven't been reading anything more challenging than the occasional trashy romance novel or trashy mystery novel or basically anything that requires me to actual think about the words and what they might mean.

I went to visit one friend and her premature baby in the hospital, but haven't been able to drag my ass to visit my other friend and HER premature baby in the hospital. Yes, 2 of my friends had premature babies approximately 6 days apart. And that makes me feel like a bad friend. I also feel like a bad wife, a bad employee, a bad daughter, and a bad person in general because all of this? Is so incredibly selfish I can barely stand myself. I mean, I'm not being marched to the gas chamber. No one is in any imminent danger. I'm just tired and I have nothing to say.

Is this post irony? It might be irony. It's not "10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife" or anything...but it might be ironic?

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

If I Have to Be Thinking About It, You Have To Be Thinking About It

I could have happily lived out my day in bliss without anyone saying, "I don't trust anything that bleeds for 7 days and doesn't die." I really, really wish I HAD gone all day without hearing it.

My respect for one of my co-workers just hit rock bottom and started digging for China.

***
In other things I wish I could un-know, someone (you know who you are...I'll be kind and not name names this time...KELLY) passed on a tidbit of information that makes self-immolation seem like a reasonable way to pass the time.

Did you know there is a Twilight themed vibrator? That you are supposed to put in the freezer? So the experience is very much like actually doing a dead guy?

On the one hand, I really want to know WHO and WHY. On the other hand, please let me never have to know who OR why.

***

Someone out there has the job of determining how much your body parts are worth. They determine how much money you get if you lose a finger (depends on how much of the finger you lose), a hand, an arm, a leg, or any combination thereof.

Friday, August 20, 2010

This Week in Things That Are Annoying Me...

Its that time when things are starting to piss me off for no good reason. Just to vent a little (so I don't explode at the wrong time), here is a list of things that are annoying me this week.

1. Can we all agree that its really time to stop promoting Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, and just about anything by Nicholas Sparks as "romance"?

Romeo and Juliet: Why its Not a Romance

Romeo and Juliet are 13. 5 minutes before seeing Juliet for the first time Romeo is desperately, madly, hopelessly, unendingly in love with Rosaline. After Romeo sees Juliet this girl's name is never mentioned again. Which should give you a clue how Shakespeare intended us to view ol' Romeo. He is clearly, CLEARLY, incredibly fickle. Romeo and Juliet spend approximately 10 minutes in each other's company before deciding they would rather die than live without each other. Then they kill themselves. What about any of that strikes people as romantic? I am pretty sure that if I dug up a ouija board and attempted to contact the spirit of Shakespeare and asked him, "Is Romeo and Juliet a romance?" His response would be, "What are you, fucking nuts?"

It's a tragedy people. Please stop sighing over how romantic it is.

Wuthering Heights

Evil, controlling psychopath meets the most selfish twat ever to be committed to paper and then published. If the two of them had actually ended up together (which, they could have, if Catherine didn't love money and status more than she loved Heathcliff) it wouldn't have ended in happily ever after. It would have ended with one of them taking a butcher knife to the other. I do not see what is so awesomely romantic about this book. I hate this book.

The Entire "Ouevre" of Nicholas Sparks

Okay, I'll admit, I haven't read all of them. But the gist seems to be: 2 bland characters I never feel any connection to or understanding of meet each other, eventually fall in love, have about 5 minutes of happiness, and then one of them dies horrifically at a relatively young age (I realize the Notebook is exempt from this. But Nights in Rodanthe, I am glaring at you). Most of the Nicholas Sparks that I have read, I read as a teenager. And the moral I took away from these stories was: dear Lord, whatever you do, DO NOT fall in love. One of you will DIE way before your time.

2. Personalized license plates. We can all agree they are annoying. Generally, I'm pretty live and let live. But I think we need more rules for the personalized plates.

Rule #1: It must be decipherable so the OCD among us don't lose our freaking minds. RETAHP1 I am looking specifically at you. What the hell does that mean?

Rule #2: It should not be completely retarded. NoMoSno, now I'm looking at you. I was seriously tempted, in fact, to flag down NoMoSno and explain to them - YOU LIVE IN CENTRAL ARKANSAS. WE DON'T GET MORE THAN 4 INCHES OF SNOW TOTAL PER WINTER, IF THAT. If you want there to be even less snow than that, perhaps you need to be living in the tropics. MORON.

Rule #3: Someone should explain to them beforehand that things like "GINASBBY" and "BOYTOY" make them look narcissistic and also douche-y. Like, Marie Antoinette douche-y. The masses are going to rise up against you at some point. And frankly, a mob doesn't care if you're misunderstood or not.

3. This one is a little specific, and I need to try to be a little vague because I'm not trying to hurt feelings or open cans of worms that can't be closed or burn bridges or anything. So it needs a little prefacing: I am, easily, 25 pounds (at least) lighter than any other woman in my office. I eat pretty healthy, I run at least 5 times a week, and I basically WORK AT IT. So it pisses me off when people feel they have the right to say things to me like, "Enjoy it while you can!" like its some kind of genetic miracle and not hard work. There is actually more to this story, but it involves a specific person and I kind of don't know if I can tell it without being outright mean. So I guess I'll keep it to myself, but even that is pissing me off.

EDIT:

4. An Open Letter to the Receptionist at the State Environmental Agency:

Listen, heifer. I so did not need your attitude today. I'm sorry that I sprinted in the door 4 minutes before close and made you stamp my cover letters. Bitch, please. You work from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and you get an hour for lunch plus 15 minute breaks. I worked from 7:30 this morning without a break, and I tried to get to your office by 4:15. It's a 10 minute drive unless you unexpectedly have to battle the traffic from hell because your office is located on the same road as an elementary school where apparently every precious little darling in attendance must be picked up by two separate cars. And I still managed to be pleasant to you because my bad day and the horrible traffic were not your fault. I even apologized for coming in at the last minute. As if you actually having to keep your ass in that seat until 4:30 and do your fucking job is some kind of trial.

P.S. You wouldn't HAVE to stamp my cover letters if you didn't lose half the reports my company submits to you, and then claim we never brought them in.

The odds that anything I almost killed myself to turn in today mysteriously disappears are probably about like the odds of the sun rising in the east tomorrow.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Brace Yourself Bridget, Its a Long One

When I was 16 the local library offered me a job. I was in there so often that all of the check out people knew me by name and when they needed a stack slave, er, paige, they came to find me in the fiction section. I took the job, and it was, frankly, kind of awesome. It was the one job I've had dealing with the public that did not seem designed to turn me into a shriveled misanthrope without a morsel of love or kindness in my pruney little heart for others of my species. Which I think is weird because the library? That's where the crazy people hang. Also the homeless people and the generally unwashed masses. But I learned a lot of things in the 2 years I worked there that made me more accepting of people in general.

As I was helping my mom start packing her metric ton of crap this weekend, I decided to take a little break and cruise by the library. I still like to go in sometimes because they have what may be the closest thing to heaven on earth I've ever encountered. They have the Book Sale Room. You can find all kinds of wonderfulness in paperback form for less than $2.00. Being there reminded me that I wanted to blog about the three people/groups I have the most vivid memory of.

The Homeschool Kids

Being 16, I had a very negative attitude about kids who were homeschooled. They were strange and weird and definitely uncool. There was one particular homeschool family that actually changed my mind a little bit.

The first time I saw them I seriously thought that somewhere my life had gone seriously awry and I had wandered into some type of Children of the Damned situation. Imagine that a blonde man with fair skin and relatively archaic, Biblical ideas of gender roles met a similarly blonde fair skinned woman with the same views. Imagine that they are ultrareligious and they set forth to procreate and populate the world with tiny little pale blonde versions of themselves. The children are supersmart and well-behaved in that way that always makes me start surreptitiously checking for signs of demon possession or my imminent death. Their mother makes all of their clothes and all of them match. Including the mother. Tell me that doesn't terrify you to the marrow of your bones.

And yet...they were seriously impressive. They were, indeed, supersmart. I had always thought homeschool kids were poorly socialized. They weren't. It was just that the majority of their socialization was with ADULTS. And not just adults, but their PARENTS. This made me sympathize with them. I shudder to think about 99% of my time being spent with my mother even now. Also, they were so eager to be around someone other than each other and their parents that they were the least judgmental people I've ever met in my life. They were genuinely interested in other people and other people's experiences. I hope I learned to be like that.

Creepy Guy

This guy was not initially creepy like the Children of the Corn. I mean, the Homeschool Kids. This guy looked almost exactly like Johnny Galicki, except maybe a little gothier. He didn't read, he always came in to use the internet. He was in his twenties and he lived with his mother. He always wanted to use the computer in the very back corner. When his hour was up he would come back and furtively sign up again, preferrably on the same computer. Do you see where this is going yet?

Look, I figured the guy was looking at porn. He was relatively young, he lived with his mother, they didn't appear to have much money and he certainly appeared to have very little privacy. I'm not sure why the library computer seemed a better option privacy wise, but I was a teenager, and a relatively sheltered one. I didn't spend a whole lot of time thinking about it. Until I actually saw what he was looking at.

This guy was into some seriously, seriously disturbing shit. I don't even like to think about what I saw on that computer screen that day. It wasn't long before the head honchos caught on (I believe he was caught, literally, with his hand in his pants and some truly atrocious crime against sex on the screen) and there was a new rule: The girls were not, under any circumstances, to deal with this dude. Part of me felt like this was ridiculous. The guy never seemed angry or tried to hurt anyone. He could barely make eye contact with the girls. Plus, there were no serial killers where we were. Nothing bad was ever going to happen to any of us anyway. On the other hand, I abided by that rule like my life depended on it. Because it didn't take a psychology degree to realize that this guy, no matter how mild mannered, MUST have some pretty deep seated psychotic rage against women. I later learned that he did have some pretty serious anger issues. That he lived with his mother because he couldn't live alone, and that she insured he took some pretty serious medication. And that if he DID go off that medication he had a tendency toward violence. I think this taught me that its never a bad idea to be cautious. Maybe nothing bad ever would have happened if I'd had more contact with this guy. But...it didn't seem worth the risk to prove people wrong (for once).

Schizophrenic Guy

This guy mostly taught me that mental illness is not contagious, not necessarily dangerous, and the state funded mental hospital in my town had a pretty faulty system. The guy was homeless, when he wasn't at the hospital. And being homeless, he couldn't afford or didn't care to continue the medication he was provided at the hospital. He would enter the program dirty and muttering constantly to himself. Over the course of a few weeks he would be cleaner and more coherent. Then he would be discharged and he would begin slowly showing signs of life on the street and he would mumble to himself more and more. Generally, he was a nice man with a mental illness. After a long enough time out of the hospital he would do something...disruptive. Not necessarily violent or dangerous, but something that would cause someone to notice and call the hospital. He was kind of a nice balance to creepy guy, really. Except that time he smeared poop on the chair and I had to clean it up. I was not wild about that (on the other hand, I also worked in a movie theater at the same time, and completely sane people would WRITE on the STALL with their own FESCES. So...there's that.)

Monday, August 9, 2010

So I Found This...

In honor of my new love affair with 30 is the new 13, I dug up what appears to be the beginning of a story that I wrote. I have no idea what age I was at the time, but judging by the handwriting and the fact that it is in cursive, I'm going with 4th or 5th grade.

She was as lovely a woman as there ever was. Scotti, yes, Scotti was her name (If you can't tell, I'm at the pretentious, pseudo-literary stage of my writing. This is what I believed real "literature" sounded like, having not actually read any actual "literature" at the time). Her mother, Cassandra, was known as Cassandra the Tyrant.

Scotti loved her mother but her heart yearned for freedom (as one's heart does, yes). Now as she was ready to take herself and her mother to the charity ball (She's as lovely a woman as there ever was, but she can't get a friggin' date?) she wanted freedom even more (I can't imagine why. At least she isn't yearning for it at this point, I guess).

Her beautiful soft brown locks pulled into a loose knot on top of her head with only one delicate ringlet left by her ear, and her soft creamy throat slipping from the emerald green silk (this seems like something she should have the doctor check for her. One's neck probably shouldn't ever slip), she was especially beautiful (Did I mention she was beautiful? Because Scotti? Beautiful. In case I didn't make that clear).

That is all there is to the story. I have no idea where I was going to go with it, but I'm putting my money on the idea that I wanted to audition to ghostwrite for Danielle Steele. I feel confident when I say there was a good chance Fabio was going to appear at some point, and something was probably going to throb.

*I would like to point out, as the one compliment I can lend my writing here, that I had some mad spelling skills. I was not the Garland County Spelling Bee Champion for naught, ya'll. Let us not examine too closely the atrocious grammar and weird punctuation.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

This is Why I Never Take Naps

I have absolutely nothing of interest to say (Creative Writing 101: hook 'em with the first line. Done and done). But I took a nap this afternoon, which means I will probably NEVER SLEEP AGAIN. I've cleaned the entire house, been for a run, played with the dogs, and read for hours. And now, blogging. Maybe if I type for long enough I'll come up with something, anything, to say.

*cue Jeopardy theme song*

*crickets*

Yeah. Nothing.

I have a non-injury to my foot. I have no idea what happened. It just started hurting at work yesterday for no discernible reason. But its not swollen or discolored and I have run several miles since then. So, it just sort of randomly hurts.

My next four weekends are going to be spent helping my mother move, so maybe I'm just wishing for an injury that would get me out of that without having to actually, you know, tell my mother I'd rather be hung naked by my toes in the middle of town than actually help her move. Which is mostly a reflection on how much I hate moving and only a little bit of a reflection on my mother. I love her. I do. But she makes me crazier faster than any other person on earth. I can tell you exactly how this is going to go:

1. She's going to ask my opinion on how to do things and then not listen to me. Repeatedly.
2. She's going to, at some point, ask me when I'm going to give her grandbabies.
3. She's going to criticize because she loves me.

Lather, rinse, repeat for an entire weekend.

My mother just sent me a picture of herself with a drunk, shirtless man at a concert. I...don't know what to make of that.

I'm going to go try to knock myself out with Benadryl and pretend I didn't just see that.

I apologize for this post.

Monday, July 26, 2010

I feel compelled to point out that I'm aware I'm nuts, but its not all bad nuts.

It occurs to me that after some of my posts outlining exactly how crazy I am, that people may find themselves wondering how in the hell I manage to stay married. Or how my husband hasn't already chosen self-immolation over continued life with the fruitcake he married. There are two answers to this question.

Reason the first: Compared to the bunny boilers and suicidal lunatics he was with before me, I actually appear cutely quirky in a totally adorable way. My crazy does not extend into the realm of stalking, demanding he give up any of his friends (regardless of whether or not I like them), demanding 1,000% of his attention at all times, or needing to be told that I'm pretty and he loves me and no, he was not looking at that other girl - okay, he looked at her, but she's the waitress, how was he supposed to not look at her a thousand times a day. Also, I've never thrown a screaming fit in public or thrown anything heavy at his head. In fact, straight from the horse's mouth, "You're crazy, but you're the least crazy woman I've ever met so I figured what the hell. Let's get married."

Reason the second: As often as I'm sure my mental illness causes him to pause with his face in his hands to contemplate his life choices, it works for him.

1. Part of my particular crazy requires that things be fair and balanced. And not like Fox News fair and balanced, but like really. (I apologize; I could not resist one last flog of a dead horse). Anyway, this translates into a thousand little things that are good. He makes twice as much money as me, so to be fair and balanced I attempt to compensate by doing all of the cooking and almost all of the cleaning. If he takes the garbage out, I bring the can back in. If he brought the can in last time, I take the garbage out this time. I leave the toilet seat down, so I never bitch when he leaves the seat up (this is also related to a little life rule I have had since childhood which is this: At no time should one place one's ass upon a surface that has not been thoroughly examined. Which sprang from an obsession with sitting on sharp things, but whatever. Its a good rule). Also, if I don't want to have to ask permission to do minor social things with my friends, and I don't, I don't make him ask me for permission. And on and on like that.

2. You may have noticed that I said I do all of the cooking. Make good food happen and you will be forgiven a multitude of sins.

3. I can find anything. Which is really convenient because he loses everything. The gratitude a man feels when presented with the iPhone he was convinced was lost or stolen forever will cause him to totally forget that you kept him awake for 2 hours last week while you endlessly circled the house in search of serial killers (you always have to go back because what if they slid into a hiding place after you already looked there? This cycle can go on for awhile because that's always the case). Anyway, I can find anything is often related to my OCD because things have places and they must live in those places. If a thing is in its place I can find it. And if a thing is not in its place I often know where it is because its driving me crazy that its not in its place. However, I also have the ability to think of where he might have set a thing down and can generally go right to it.

4. As a corollary to I find everything, I find things that aren't lost, but that he wants and just can't find. My husband is incapable of finding things ever at all. A good example of this would be the following:

Him: I would like some feta cheese.
Me: There is feta in the fridge.

5 minutes later I walk by the fridge. He is standing in front of it with his eyes apparently open. I realize he is having difficulty, but don't want to be hover-y and enabler-y, so I let him keep looking without comment.

10 minutes later he is back on the couch with no feta.

Me: I thought you wanted feta?
Him: I think we're out. I couldn't find.

30 seconds later I present him with the brand new container of feta cheese. The look on his face is always so...awesome. Its like I am a unicorn that shits gold nuggets or some other sort of magical creature that is made up of magic and has the ability to make food appear, where before there was no food. And he's damn glad he had the foresight to marry such a magical creature because life is awesome when there is feta and you thought there was no feta.

5. Still related to the finding/losing theme is the fact that I help him to not lose things and to find things on his own. Before when we were living in sin, but not yet married so I didn't feel compelled to do his laundry we would have some variation of this conversation every single day:

Him: Have you seen my blue shirt?
Me: No.

And then I would have to find it, because I find things.

Now I have taken over the majority of the laundry duties (not ironing, because I hate ironing. If he wants to be wrinkle free, he does it himself. Also, if I want to be wrinkle free either I talk him into doing it or I wear something else. Mostly I've taught myself not to care about wrinkles. Because caring means ironing, and that is never going to happen). Um...yes, I do most of the laundry. And that means that I have now been able to organize the closet so that all of his long sleeve blue shirts hang together, all of his white shirts hang together, etc. etc. And he now knows that if he wants his blue shirt, he should first look with the 15 other blue shirts in the closet. If its not there he should check the laundry. And only after he has checked these two places should he ask me where the shirt is. Since this system has been implemented I have only had to answer that question twice.

6. He doesn't have to plan anything or keep up with anything. I make plans, inform him of plans, and get him where he needs to go when he needs to go there and he can save that valuable mental energy for whatever he is saving that energy for. He's pretty freaking smart. It could be anything.

7. 90% of the time I talk to his mother so he doesn't have to. Whatever finding iPhones, and making food happen, and not being bitchy doesn't make up for, this totally covers it.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Things That Keep Me Awake at Night

1. When did people start paying more for USED ITEMS on e-Bay when those items are available brand new for less money? Are these people unsure of how numbers work? Maybe they don't know that numbers mean things? What? I cannot fathom why anyone would pay $40 for a used shirt that's available new for $20. Why are people doing this?

2. Did I shut the drawer straight? Yes. Did I shut the drawer straight? Yes. Did I shut the drawer straight? I have to get up to check every time. Which makes for a great work out, but not great sleepy times.

3. Why do the neighbors come in at 2 a.m. every morning and talk loudly in their driveway? They have like eleventy billion children. Is this payback because my dogs are obnoxious bastards? It seems counterproductive.

4. I like to lay on my back, but every time I fall asleep in that position, I have nightmares. But I stubbornly want to stay on my back as long as possible, so I make myself stay awake. Then I either roll over at a ridiculous hour and let myself go to sleep, or I dream that I'm playing a board game that sucks me down into hell. Or giant snakes are trying to eat me. Or I'm covered in roaches. Or something that doesn't sound scary when I try to describe it (like the time the South Park characters were eating me) but is terrifying as it happens.

5. I can't lay down because I will go to sleep. I have to stay awake. I have no idea why, I just have to stay awake. So I...stay awake. I have had this problem since childhood when I was convinced my mom was waiting until I was asleep to do all of the interesting things. Turns out, she was watching Dallas or Dynasty and going to bed herself. But I'm still convinced I'm missing out on something when I'm asleep.

6. What will I do if my mom dies? Or my husband? What if we have a baby and he dies and I'm all by myself with a baby? Oh God. My mom will move in with me and I won't be able to stop her and she'll take over my baby and I love my mom but I never want to LIVE with her again. I'm a horrible person for not wanting to let my mom live with me. Maybe I don't love my mom. Maybe I don't love anyone and I'm totally a sociopath and I don't even know it.

7. I've been way too happy lately. Something horrible is going to happen any minute now because its not fair for one person to be happy all the time.

8. My teeth are going to fall out. My grandmother had to have all of her teeth pulled when she was my age. What if that happens to me? I can't live with dentures. I'm too vain and too lazy. So my husband would see me without my teeth and he'd never want to have sex again and if we can't have sex he'll probably leave me. And then I'll be toothless and broke. I'll be an Arkansas cliche. I have to brush and floss again.

9. Why is berry a flavor? Or a color? Not all berries taste the same and they're not all the same color.

Monday, July 19, 2010

PSA

Just a little tip: After a large strawberry daiquiri and a Sam Adams, Jaws 3-D will seem like an awesome idea. But it is not. Jaws 3-D is never a good idea.

You might think that a shark popping out of the screen in 3-D will look really cool. No. The only thing that is actually 3-D is a yellow submarine. Then you will start singing "We all live in a yellow submarine" and you won't be able to stop and your friends will decide they hate you. And you can't really blame them because at that moment, you kind of hate yourself.

You might think, "Well at least this was when Dennis Quaid was hot." Unfortunately, Dennis Quaid was never hot enough to make this movie worth watching.

Also, you won't realize until later, but you basically just spent all night looking like Groucho Marx, and your husband will have totally posted the picture on Facebook. Which, why did you think he was taking that picture with his iPhone, moron?


In conclusion, say no to Jaws 3-D. Its not worth the emotional trauma of alienating your friends, never being able to think of Dennis Quaid in a sexy way again, and public embarrassment via Facebook. Also you will never get the line "Overman was killed inside the park. The baby was found inside the park. The mother is inside the park." out of your head.

Friday, July 16, 2010

That Girl is Poi-i-sonnn

I was trudging determinedly up the last hill of my run last night. I only had about half a mile to go before I was done. The heat index was 107 and the humidity was approximately 1,000%. I looked like I'd stood in the shower in my clothes, and I was contemplating how awesome it would be if I could have gills like Kevin Costner's. Courtney Love was grating in my ear about a skinny little bitch and I was doing my best impression of the little engine that could. And then...

Poison truck.

I got doused by the mosquito fogger.

On the plus side, no mosquitoes will breed on me for at least the next month, so I've got that going for me.

****

My husband told me I looked Pentecostal again this morning. Which was not as well received as the last time. He has been married just long enough that he doesn't always realize he is ABOUT to put his foot in it, but he always knows immediately afterwards exactly what he shouldn't have said. So he backpedaled and said I looked like a SEXY Pentecostal chick. Oddly, that didn't make me feel any better about it.

****

And now my work computer just tried to commit ritual suicide by flinging itself to the floor and smashing into my ankle. Awesome. I have no proof that these two incidents are related, except of course for the fact that they TOTALLY ARE.

I think maybe I won't be driving anywhere for lunch today. Just as a precaution.

Monday, July 12, 2010

This is Why I'm Hot

Friday nights used to look a lot different. There is no photographic evidence of that, because, well, I'm not stupid. But there was definitely more people, more booze, and a lot less pajamas.

Behold: Friday nights now that I'm old and married:

Pajamas (post 7:00 shower, so you know this is prime time people. I should not be wearing pajamas yet), mac n cheese, and the world's weirdest dog. She sits like that all the time, unless she's doing the drunken redneck lean. Also, she would like me to insert food into her mouth now.


If I do the damn trick, then will she put the food in my mouth?


She's in the middle of a trick seizure. That happens when she does an ever more frantic cycle through all the tricks she knows without being asked to do them. It gets faster and bigger and more desperate.


Grizzly Bear. Yes, I taught my dog to imitate a bear on command. She's fucking fierce, dude. No bears will mess with us now.


This is how we entertain ourselves now. Happy Embracing the Geekness Day, or whatever it is.





I'm Not Sure How Someone Hypnotizes Another Person and That Makes Their Boobies Grow.

So...this woman at work was hypnotized the other day to help her stop smoking. I think that's great as she's tried a bunch of other stuff and she has to walk around with oxygen all day because of a lung disease from smoking.

The woman brought in the card for the hypnotist today, and all of her services are listed on the back. And included in the list was...breast enhancement. Its not that I want to actually let her hypnotize me into bigger breasts. Its that I'm fascinated at the possibility. I mean, if it means what it SOUNDS like it means its like 1/10 of the price of actual surgery with no scars or loss of sensation or ability to breast feed.

So...I e-mailed her. Mostly as a joke, I guess, which makes me a little shithead, but also because I REALLY need to know how this works.

EDIT:

*ahem*

Apparently, the subconcious controls EVERYTHING in our bodies, even bust size. They can increase your bust size by at least one cup size. The fee is a bargain price of $1200.00 (I guess because she claims it takes 4-6 sessions).

$1200 so I can go from training bras to an A cup? Bitch please.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Wow. You like me, you really like me!

Or at least, Erin at I'm Staying Young Forever does. Which works out well, because I like her too! On a completely unrelated note, she gave me the shiny new award you can see over in the sidebar over there. Thank you, Erin!

Now there are rules. And since I'm OCD WE MUST FOLLOW THE RULES or we're all gonna die. I'm not going to have mass genocide on my conscience, thankyouverymuch. The rules are these:

1. Say thank you. This rule is awesome. Also, check. Please see above.

2. Share 7 things about yourself (awesome).

3. Nominate 15 bloggers (uh, whoa).

4. Tell the people you nominated that you nominated them (this...is going to take awhile. Don't worry. We are FOLLOWING THE RULES. No one will die. Not on my watch).

Seven Things I Know that You are Dying (DYING!) to Know About Me:

1. I have Fred Flintstone feet. They are flat, they are square, and I suspect they are ideal for propelling the motorless/engineless car. They aren't ugly or pretty. They are cartoon character feet. Bonus fact: You people who take such pride in your "pretty feet" frighten me a little. Feet are never pretty. Please don't show me yours. I won't think they are pretty. No, really, I won't.

2. I run and do a little light yoga every day.

3. I buy bras in the training bra section of Target. Its frightening to me that there are training bras that are too big for me. It means there are 8 year olds with larger rib cages and bigger boobies. And I'm a regular sized adult. With a regular adult sized ribcage, if not regular adult sized breasts.

4. I once had a haircut that made me look eerily like John Lennon circa early Beatles. Currently, I am seeing more of a resemblance to Groucho Marx.

5. I think nerds are sexy. Although maybe I should specify. I think smart nerds or nerds who can make me laugh or sensitive nerds are sexy. Notable examples include Paul from the Wonder Years, Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future, and Michael Cera in pretty much everything. I do not think nerds who live in their mother's basements and talk constantly about Dungeons and Dragons even though they are almost 30 are sexy. Your mileage may vary.

6. If I like a book or movie or television show I will read/watch it over and over and over. And over. And over. I have read some of John Irving's books at least 10 times. I have read Flannery O'Connor's short stories even more than that. I will watch Silence of the Lambs 3 times in one day. Like that.

7. One of my compulsions is the compulsion to make words out of the letters on license plates. I do this constantly and unconsciously at this point.



(Rule 2: Check and check!)

Nominate 15 bloggers (actually, I think it says nominate 15 bloggers you have recently discovered...but I don't discover that many that frequently. Let's say just nominate 15 bloggers okay?)

1. Amber at Nostomanic - read it! Read the archives! Its all completely awesome and hilarious and nostalgic for those of us who are children of the 90s.

2. Ashley the Accidental Olympian - who is awesome.

3. Ells at Run Bitches Run who both runs AND bitches, and also has an awesome dog, which makes her like my twin or something. I don't know. She's cool and I like her and you should too.

4. Tina K at Vomit Popsicle because how can you not read something like a name like that and because she IS really versatile. Sometimes there's poems and sometimes there's stories and sometimes there's other stuff.

5. Erin at Blogging is for Dorks who I really did just kind of discover recently. Well, rediscover. Anyway, she's hilarious and her children make me not entirely opposed to the idea of procreation. Which is a way better compliment than it sounds like.

EDITED TO ADD THE REST OF THE LINKS:

6. Kandace at One Red Wall
7. Maria at No One Reads the Copy
8. Tristachio at Tristachio: Not a Peanut
9. Sadako at Dibbly Fresh
10. Manda at the Secret Life of Manda Kay
11. Man Shopping in Paris
12. Not That Kind of Girl
13. Annabelle at I'll Tell You Anyway
14. Kelly at [insert clever title here]
15. Cleolinda Jones at Occupation: Girl
I need a freaking drink.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Uh. This is Pretty Gross. And Humiliating. I Kind of Can't Believe I Hit Publish, Actually. Shit.

So I googled "what do you do when your dog has a cold?" the other day. And I just happened to notice the Google suggestions. I got through what do you do...and Google supplied what I guess are common searches starting with the same phrase? I don't know.

Top 2:

What do you do when a guy fingers you?
What do you do when a guy goes down on you?

What do you do? Well, you knit a sweater and sing a song and then maybe you make a grocery list. What exactly do you mean, what do you do? If you have to wonder, then my guess would be you tell him he's doing it wrong.

Which reminds me of a horribly embarrassing, way too much information story from high school. The first guy who ever, uh, made sweet love to me with his finger, set the scene with Marilyn Manson's Beautiful People in the basement of his parents' house. Nothing gets me hotter than R. Lee Ermy screaming, "You are nothing but bombastic pieces of amphibious shit!" 2 feet from head. Mrowr. But hell, what did I know? I'd never done more than tongue kiss a guy at this point.

So, Beautiful People is screaming and moaning throughout the room. And my chosen stud very matter of factly unbuttons my pants and commences with the evenings activities. No, I did not leave out any details. I mean he started the song, unbuttoned my pants, and got to work. He did this for 15 minutes, with me trying to delicately squirm away from him while saying "Ow. Ouch. Fucking ow" because that shit HURT. It was like Freddie Kreuger was stabbing me in the vagina. It was so bad I was honest-to-God RELIEVED when his father walked in and caught us. Because then I had an excuse to run screaming into the night and never speak to the guy again. Okay, I didn't run screaming into the night. But I did re-fasten my pants in a manner intended to indicate the evening was over. And the guy looked at me, in my dewy, frightened virgin's eyes, and said, "Sorry we had to get interrupted, Babe. I could tell how much you were enjoying that."

I went home, checked to make sure I wasn't bleeding (because, really, ouch - I have no idea what he was doing but he clearly shouldn't have been doing it. I'm not even convinced to this day he was in the right spot. I think he might have just been randomly stabbing around down there) and never, ever spoke to the guy again.